by Bonnie Dee
“Here he is. My secret lover.” Graci showed a page packed full of photos of her one-time dream man. “Jayce Bright, star of only the best teen soap ever on TV, Secrets in Sands’ End.” She studied the brooding, never-smiling boy, who seemed so young now. “You know, I never realized he had a pretty serious overbite.”
“How about this cutie?” Tara kissed the magazine picture before displaying it to the others. “Garri-Tee, hottest hip-hop artist of the century. And still is. Have you seen this man lately? I believe I win this contest, because my guy is the only one who isn’t a has-been.”
“Yes, but did you marry him?” Corinne asked. “You don’t win until you do.”
Graci laughed and took another sip of her wine. “Kids today don’t know what they’re missing only having electronic magazines. You can’t rip out a photo and tack it on your wall. You can’t sleep with his picture under your pillow at night.”
“Uh, there is such a thing as a printer, and girls today can photoshop themselves with their make-believe boyfriend and tweet it,” Tara pointed out.
“Still not the same.” Graci wished Bree and Adya were there, completing their group. She suddenly loved and missed them with a heart-wrenching tug, which might be partly due to that third glass of wine.
“I can’t wait to see Bree again. I wonder if Adya will change her mind and make the wedding,” she said.
Corinne patted her issue of Tiger Beat with the photos of Michael Knox. “At least I know my fiancé is finally mine alone now that Bree’s getting married. As for Adya…” She grew serious. “That text didn’t at all convince me she’s okay. I’ll be flying to LA soon for an event, and I plan to take a side trip to Seattle to check in on Adya. God knows I have enough frequent flyer miles.”
“Good,” Tara said. “It’s hard to tell from one little text, but I feel like there’s something off too. She’s still our friend, and we made a lifetime pact to be there for each other.”
“No secret too dark, no judging ever,” Graci quoted tipsily. “I love you guys.”
“Aw, we love you too, honey.” Tara jumped up and gave her a hug, and Corinne smiled at her.
“You know what? I have a secret,” Graci confided. “It’s about Neal. I like him. I know I’m not supposed to. I read the book you gave me, Tara. But I do. I like him. I really like him.”
“Oh, Graci,” Corinne sighed. “He’s not a good match for you.”
Tara glared at Corinne. “Shut it. Graci has a right to feel what she feels.”
“She’s just drunk. She doesn’t really mean it. This…musician is not the right sort of man for Graci. Late hours. Gone every weekend. She wouldn’t be happy with that.”
“So what? Maybe he’s right for her for now. That’s all that matters. Besides, you don’t know Neal at all. He seems like a pretty good guy to me,” Tara said.
“He is! He is a good guy,” Graci chimed in. “And now he thinks I don’t want him.” Her lower lip began to tremble, and she stopped it by taking another sip of wine.
“You’ll be all right. There will be other men when the time is right,” Corinne soothed.
“I don’t want other men. I want N-Neal.” She stabbed a finger at Corinne. “And you keep judging me about the men I like. Do you think I’m too stupid to make my own decisions? Do you think I’m an idiot?” Graci gestured with her glass and spilled red wine on the white sofa.
“Oh Lord, there goes the temper. Graci, don’t be an angry drunk.” Corinne took her glass and set it safely aside. “I apologize. If you still want Neal, then you should go for him. Just maybe don’t call him until tomorrow.”
“She has a point there,” Tara agreed.
“Fine. Whatever,” Graci said. The song on the stereo changed to an up-tempo dance beat. Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to sit any longer. She jumped up. “You know what we should do right now? Go dancing.”
“There’s a club I know that’s not too far from here,” Tara volunteered.
Corinne tossed her Tiger Beat on the table. “Okay, guys. If that’s what you want to do. But if Graci passes out on the dance floor, remember I told you so.”
The next stretch of time was a blur, though Graci remembered stepping out into the cold night air and getting into the taxi. Next thing she knew, she was enveloped in the dark noise of the club, a heavy beat thudding into her head and moving her body. The place was busy, and they had to carve out a place for themselves on the dance floor.
The music was live tonight, but Graci couldn’t get a glimpse of the band through the throng. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t Neal’s band. The music wasn’t anything like what they played. She fell into the groove, aided by the tequila shots they’d drunk before starting to dance. Closing her eyes, she let her body go, heedless of how she might look to anyone else. New Graci was a much better dancer than Old Graci, if only in her own mind.
She waved her hands over her head and swayed to the beat. A synthesizer solo caught her attention, the melody reminding her of Neal for a moment, but she quickly dismissed the thought. For tonight, she must stop obsessing about him and be here in the moment with her friends, dancing.
The song ended, and the leader announced the band would be taking a break, but everyone should stick around, then recorded music cued up.
Corinne stared at the stage. “No way. Tara, you didn’t.”
Tara’s eyes opened wide. “I had no idea, swear to God. It’s a different band. How would I know?”
Even before she turned around, Graci knew who she’d see. “It’s fate,” she muttered. “This has got to be fate.”
The band members were filing off the stage, and Neal was one of them. He messed around with the controls on his keyboard before following the others to their table. A beam of light hit him and he practically glowed. Graci’s heart swelled like violins in a symphony. He was here. For her. Fate wanted them to come together. No more doubts or confusion or protests or second guessing. She was about to accept her destiny.
Graci didn’t even have to push her way through the crowd. People parted like the Red Sea before her. She floated along in a haze of joy and rapture. Everything was exactly as it was meant to be. God had brought her here tonight, right where Neal happened to be filling in with some other band. God wanted her to know true love at last.
Neal’s T-shirt clung damply to his body, and he wiped sweat from his face with a cloth as he talked to someone seated at the table. A dozen people were there, musicians and their friends or family members.
Graci moved a little faster now. Any second, Neal would turn and see her. He’d smile that gorgeous smile, and his beautiful eyes would light up. Then she would break into a run, covering the final few yards between them. He would sweep her into his arms and kiss her and tell her how glad he was she was here and—
A woman jumped up from her chair, came over to Neal, and threw her arms around his neck. She said something, then grabbed his face and pulled it down to hers for a kiss.
Graci stopped moving…and breathing.
Neal held the woman close while he kissed her back.
Graci felt sick. Literally. The shot of tequila wasn’t playing nice with the wine already in her stomach, and the sight of Neal with someone else—Already! He’d just left that message in which he’d claimed he wasn’t interested in anyone but me?—topped it off. Her happy buzz turned to queasiness. She lurched toward the ladies’ room.
A sea of people surrounded her. With her head spinning, the music deafening her, and the contents of her stomach roiling, it was like she was literally tossing on an ocean. Two thoughts chased round and round her brain—she couldn’t hold her liquor anymore, and who was that bitch with her skanky arms around Neal?
She barreled into the ladies’ room and into one of the stalls, where she crouched down, breathing hard. Nothing happened. The churning in her stomach subsided as she stared at the toilet and knelt on the disgusting floor of a public restroom.
Her guts continued to gurgle, but the impending th
reat had passed. Graci went to the sink, cupped her hands under the faucet and drank before splashing her face. A sloppy drunk with smudged eyeliner and hair clinging to her damp face stared at her from the mirror. She could illustrate pathetic in the dictionary.
Someone entered the restroom. One glance at the skintight, too-short skirt and the supersized hairdo chilled her blood. This was the very skank who’d been swarming all over Neal. Fate again. What else could have brought her straight to Graci?
“Hey!” Graci shouted, startling herself.
The woman stared at her with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“Not yet, but you will.” Logic fled the room, and an angry ghetto bitch took possession of Graci. “You’re here with Neal Murray?”
“Yes. He’s a friend of mine. Why?”
Rage thundered in Graci’s head, pounding with every beat of her heart. She moved a step closer, stabbing her finger at the chest of the skank’s butt-ugly sparkly halter top. “I suggest you keep away from him, Hairdo. End the night, and don’t go out with him again.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, you ’80s throwback ho-bag.” Normal Graci hovered at a distance and watched Crazy Graci go nuts, her voice growing shriller and louder with every vile thing she said.
“You’re insane.” The woman backed up and reached for the door handle, just as someone came through, slamming the door right into her.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry!” It was Tara, with Corinne right behind her.
“Jesus!” Neal’s date rubbed the side of her head where the door had hit her. “What the hell?”
While Tara tended to her, Corinne moved toward Graci. “Graci, Are you all right? I saw you run to the restroom. Did you get sick?”
“Your friend is drunk off her ass.” Neal’s date snapped. “You should take her home before she pisses off somebody who’s not as nice as I am.”
“And who are you?” Tara folded her arms and jutted a hip, ready to defend Graci.
“Neal’s girlfriend,” Graci whimpered as she slumped against Corinne who had put an arm around her.
The woman shook her big-haired head. “Girl, you’d better check yourself. You are one crazy bitch.” She walked out of the restroom.
Graci called after her, “I’m sorry.”
Tara offered her a tissue to wipe her leaking eyes and sniffling nose. “What did you say to her?”
“Terrible things. I saw her with Neal, and when she came in here, I just lost it. I went nuts and called her names and threatened her. I wanted to hit her!” Graci spoke in gasping bursts between sobs. “I am so messed up.”
“Yeah. I think we should’ve thought twice before those tequila shots,” Corinne said.
“I don’t mean drinking tonight. I mean everything. Ever since Joey left. I don’t know who I am any more. Old Graci? New Graci?” She hiccupped and sobbed into the disintegrating tissue some more.
“Aw, honey.” Tara pulled her into a big hug. “You kept saying you were okay, but I knew you weren’t. Tell us everything. No secrets.”
Graci drew back, blew her nose on a fresh tissue, and began. She told them about her vow to lose her virginity and her half-assed attempts to make it happen. She explained how she’d really met Neal and how she’d fought against liking him too much.
“And then tonight, I suddenly saw everything clearly. All that bullshit about rebound relationships and spending time alone to discover myself doesn’t mean anything. Love doesn’t work on a schedule. It comes when it comes. I love Neal, but it’s too late. He’s with that…that woman.”
“Just because they’re on one date doesn’t mean they’re together. You need to talk to him,” Tara said.
Corinne held up her hand. “Wait. Back up. What I don’t understand is why you decided you needed to screw somebody like you were getting a booster shot. I thought you were waiting for marriage. Isn’t that what you said?”
Graci rubbed her eyes. “When I said that, Joey and I were going to get married soon and I wanted to save that final act for our wedding night. Maybe I’m more Catholic than I wanted to admit. But now I think it was also about him. Somewhere deep inside, maybe I didn’t trust him.”
“Well, that I can understand,” Corinne said. “But what changed your mind about sex? Why did you think you were ready now?”
“I wanted to prove to myself I’m a fully sexual person,” Graci admitted. “I didn’t want to show up at Bree’s wedding the lone virgin. I wanted to be different, to be someone else.”
Tara stroked her hair. “But Graci, you’re fine just the way you are. We all love who you are. Trying new things like you’ve been doing is great, but you shouldn’t change just for the sake of change.”
Graci threw up her hands. “I see that now. I’ve been an idiot, and now I’ve lost the only guy I’d really like to go to bed with.”
There was a tap on the restroom door then it opened. Neal entered, frowning.
“Oh Lord,” Corinne muttered.
“Graci? I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. “My friend Wendy told me some woman verbally assaulted her in the john. She heard one of her friends call her Graci, but I couldn’t believe it was really you. What the fuck is going on?”
The fires of hell consumed her. She wished they’d burn her to ash just to make her disappear. Would this horrible, humiliating night never end? And would Neal ever speak to her again after witnessing her at her very worst—for the second time?
“I am so sorry,” Graci said. “I didn’t mean to insult your date. I just saw you two together and went ballistic.”
Neal stared at her like she was some mystifying substance on the sole of his shoe he couldn’t quite identify. “Are you serious? Wendy isn’t my date. She’s an old friend I used to share a place with along with some other friends. She’s back in town and…” He threw up his hands. “I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you. Even if it was a date, why should you care? You’re the one who wanted to keep it casual, remember?”
“I’m sorry. If I could take back the last few weeks, I would. The way I waffled back and forth, getting close to you and then fighting against it. I’m a mess. I told you I shouldn’t be with anyone right now.”
“Probably not.” His eyes flayed her like a whip, stripped her raw, and she deserved it. This was laid-back Neal in anger mode, something she hadn’t encountered before. She felt ashamed and sorry and wanted to throw herself at him and beg forgiveness.
The restroom door opened again, and several women came in, stopping short when they saw Neal.
“Um. I need to pee. Go fight with your boyfriend someplace else,” one of them said.
“I’m not normally unstable and I rarely drink this much.” Graci straightened up and tried to pull her whiny self together. “I want to make this right. Let me apologize to your friend, and then can we go someplace quiet and talk?”
“Not tonight.” Neal said curtly. “I don’t think Wendy is feeling particularly forgiving right now. Besides, I have to get back to work. We have another set.”
“Right. Of course.” She rubbed her eyes and took a step toward him. “Maybe after? I’d really like to explain myself better.”
His gaze chilled her like blue ice. “Not tonight,” he repeated. Then he turned and walked out of the restroom.
“Ouch!” one of the women exclaimed. “Somebody’s not gettin’ any loving tonight.”
“Quiet, bitch,” Tara snapped at the stranger.
Corinne tugged on Graci’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“I ruined it,” Graci muttered. “A chance to be truly happy, and I kicked it to the curb.”
“Shh. Calm down. It’s not that bad. You’ll call him tomorrow and fix this,” Tara soothed as she took Graci’s other arm. When one of the trio of women started to laugh, Tara wagged a finger at her. “Shut it!”
Chapter Eleven
The following day, Graci woke with a fuzzy mouth, a pounding head, and a belly full of g
uilt and remorse. Every time she remembered another thing she’d said to Big Hair, she cringed, and recalling Neal’s angry eyes and sharp tone made her want to curl up in bed and cry. But the scents of bacon and coffee and Tara’s and Corinne’s voices beckoned her to the kitchen. She dragged herself off the guest bed in Corinne’s apartment and staggered into the bathroom. By the time she’d washed her face and brushed her teeth, she felt a little more human.
“Hey,” Tara greeted her.
“Want some bacon?” Corinne asked.
Surprisingly enough, she was starving. “A whole plate full, please. I’m giving up drinking and taking up eating instead.”
She plopped down at the kitchen table, and in seconds, a plate full of eggs, toast, and bacon appeared in front of her. It was nice having friends to care for you after you’d humiliated yourself in a public place once again.
“What’s on your agenda today?” Tara asked. “Corinne and I thought maybe we could all go roller blading like we used to.”
“Damage control,” Graci answered. “I need to see Neal and apologize again, both to him and his friend.”
“You sure she’s just a friend? You did say she was macking on him.”
“No one says ‘macking’ anymore, Corinne,” Tara said, “And so what if he kissed her? It wasn’t as if he was cheating on Graci. They weren’t together.”
“It’s a big deal if he lied about it.” Corinne slapped another pair of loaded plates on the table and sat down.
Cheating and lying. God, she never wanted to suffer through that sort of betrayal again. Neal seemed to be completely transparent and trustworthy. Her instinct told her he was. But maybe she was a poor judge of character. She had been once before. How could she ever completely trust a man, or her own feelings again?
“I don’t believe Neal’s like that.” Tara said what she’d been thinking. “I don’t know him well, but I get nothing but good vibes from him.” She gestured toward Graci with her fork. “And you’re not helping her by putting doubts in her head.”