Betsy sucked in a whistle. “The red-eye. That’s brutal.”
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” Tracy offered. “It’s cheaper, and I slept this afternoon.” She smiled, adding, “Not like I have a job or anything.” She tried to play it off with a shrug, but even she heard the frustration in her tone.
As she listened, Betsy twisted her wineglass between her expertly manicured fingernails. She seemed to hesitate, almost saying something but then changing her mind at the last minute.
“What?” Tracy asked, picking up on Betsy’s subtle facial expressions.
Betsy shifted in her seat. “I know it’s none of my business, and if I’m over the line, just say so.” She tucked a long strand of silky gold hair behind her ear. “Can I ask, what are you doing for money?”
Tracy hung her head and laughed a little to herself. “It’s a fair question.” She rubbed the back of her neck where the edges of her short dark hair brushed the collar of her shirt. “Well, I’m making a little cash off my sublet,” she said with a single shoulder shrug. “And I have some savings, but my dad is helping me out here and there,” she added through a sheepish grin. “Meg is awesome, she won’t let me give her a dime for anything.” She gave Betsy a knowing look. “You know how she is.” She lifted her glass and took a sip of her wine. “So I’m getting by. Also over the weekend, I hung out with my friend Kristen, who works for ESPN. She’s from Queens, went to UConn on a basketball scholarship. Anyway, she has a lot of good contacts in this area. So she’s going to put out some feelers for me.” Tracy swirled the last of her wine before draining the glass. “And I have the Gala next month.” She cocked her head to the side, doing a quick calculation. “Well, December, so like a month and a half, but still, I’m thinking that will be a good place to get my name circulating.”
“What’s the Gala?” Betsy asked over her pasta.
“The charity I volunteer at”—she poked an errant green bean at the edge of her plate—“Every Youth Counts,” she added biting off the end. “They do an annual fund-raiser in New York. I’ve only been once before, but I’m going to hit it up again this year, mostly just to try and get my face out there. See if I can make some connections on my own.”
Betsy nodded, taking it in. “Who goes to it?”
Tracy looked up and thought about the answer. “All of the board members. A lot of athletes, but mostly ones either from New York or affiliated with local teams, now that I think about it. Some politicians. Rich people,” she continued to drone out the list. “Not my cup of tea really, but it will be a good place for me to at least get the word out I’m looking.”
“It doesn’t sound so bad.”
Tracy pushed the remains of her fish around on her plate and nodded as she thought out loud. “It could be fun.” She made eye contact with Betsy. “But I know Jezebel is going to be there, and even though I really don’t want to see her, I have to suck it up and go anyway.”
“How do you know she’ll be there?”
Tracy swallowed hard trying to mask her emotion. “I just know. She goes to the big events.” She looked away as she continued to explain. “She’ll know I’m going. The Gala is where we met two years ago.” She focused her attention on the waiter serving the couple a few tables away. “She’ll use that, believe me.”
“Use it for what?” Betsy asked in confusion.
“The thing is”—Tracy pulled at the back of her neck—“I haven’t talked to her since we broke up.” Tracy leaned back in her chair, looking defeated. “She knows I’m in New York. She’ll find out I’m going and she’ll corner me there. I know she will.”
Betsy took a minute to consider Tracy’s statement. “How did you leave it, when you broke up?”
Tracy looked at her blankly.
“I mean, what were the ground rules after your split?”
Tracy leaned in and looked at Betsy very seriously from under her lashes. “Betsy, I walked in on her with someone else. All the ground rules went out the window at that point.”
“I know.” Betsy leaned in also, and for a second Tracy thought she was going to reach for her hand. “I meant after.” She pushed her dinner plate to the side and rested both her arms on the table. “When you actually had a conversation, or a fight, whatever, how did you leave it?”
Tracy curled her lip and stretched back into her chair, shaking her head. “I never had a conversation with her. I just left.”
Betsy’s mouth hung open a little. “Wait a second.” She waved her hand in the air, halting the conversation. “I thought you were with her for like a year and a half.”
“A little more, but yeah.”
“And you never talked to her? At all?” She blinked slowly, allowing the shock to settle in. “You just left?”
Tracy could feel her anger coming to the surface. “I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to talk to her. I still don’t.”
“Hold on, you said she knows you’re in New York.” Betsy’s brow furrowed as she tried to figure it out. “How do you know that?”
Tracy reached for her wine but, seeing it was empty, she opted for her water glass and took a sip. “She calls me. Leaves me messages, texts.” In the silence she knew Betsy was waiting for more details, so she obliged, setting her drink down and studying the room as she spoke. “Usually once a week, sometimes more. She wants to see me.” Slightly embarrassed, Tracy lowered her gaze to her napkin on her lap. “She said she would come here to New York if I would agree to meet her.”
“Didn’t she get married recently?”
Tracy let out a small irritated sigh. “Yeah.”
Betsy shook her head in disbelief. “What did you say in response to meeting with her?”
“Nothing.” At Betsy’s look of confusion, Tracy spelled it out. “I don’t answer her. Ever.”
They paused the conversation as the waiter cleared away their plates and used his nifty tool to sweep the crumbs from the tablecloth. “Are you scared?” Betsy asked, her eyes heavy with concern as they met Tracy’s. “To see her?”
The flames danced at the back of the brick oven and Tracy stared at them as she selected her words carefully. “She is very manipulative,” she responded, twisting her thin lips into a half smile. “And charming.” She chose to leave out the part that she and Jezebel had fantastic chemistry and she hadn’t slept with anyone since their breakup, opting instead to sum up the entire situation with the simple truth. “I guess I don’t entirely trust myself around her,” she admitted.
Even though they were talking about Jezebel, Tracy couldn’t help but stare at Betsy as she analyzed this new information. She watched Betsy’s painted fingernails make small circles on the edge of her wineglass and her perfectly pink lips twist this way and that as she considered what to say next. Out of nowhere, without even thinking about it, Tracy shifted forward in her seat. “I have an idea,” she said, her confident energy returning.
Betsy sipped her wine and tipped her chin sideways as she waited to be filled in.
“Will you come with me, to the Gala?”
“Are you serious?” Betsy asked from under a raised brow.
“You can be my plus one.” She tapped the table with the top of her middle finger and gave a small shrug. “Honestly, I could use the moral support. There will be good food, amazing champagne,” she added, using everything she could to sell it.
When Betsy seemed to be considering it, Tracy pounced on the opening, employing her signature sexy grin. “Come on, say yes.”
Betsy looked right at her. “As long as we’re clear it’s not a date.”
“Fine. Not a date.” Tracy nodded in agreement. “It’ll be exactly like tonight.” She waved between them with two fingers and a huge grin. “Just two great-looking single lesbians sharing a meal. Definitely not a date.” She smiled again, knowing she had probably gone a little too far. But even though Betsy rolled her eyes, she couldn’t keep her smile from stretching ear to ear.
*
“Hey, Sas
h, can I ask you something?” Meg jumped right into the question that had been plaguing her more and more in the weeks that had passed since they’d first hooked up. The sex was still great, but something wasn’t right.
Sipping her wine, Sasha gave a yes with her eyes, so Meg continued. “How come this”—Meg motioned back and forth between them with one hand—“is a secret?”
Sasha looked surprised by the question, but only for a split second. She took her time responding, focusing her eyes first on the stem of her wineglass then looking around the small restaurant. Finally, she spoke. “I don’t know, really,” she said softly.
“I’m not mad or anything.” Meg subbed in a white lie. “I’m just confused, I guess.”
“No, I understand you.” Sasha blinked heavily as she nodded agreement. “I’m just…” She let a long breath out. “Honestly I’m not really sure how I feel about everything that’s happening, and I guess I’m just taking some time to process.”
Meg pulled a piece of bread from the basket between them. “What’s hard for me to get, I think, is before we were together you didn’t care if people thought we were a couple. You were fine with it.” She paused. “But now we are and you seem freaked out.” She shrugged. “What gives?”
“Freaked out?” Sasha’s voice held a little challenge. “I don’t know that I’d say that.”
Meg backpedaled. “Maybe that’s not the right word.” She reached for a packet of butter. “But you don’t seem entirely comfortable.” She cut her bread open and tried to sound chill. “The thing is, after that first night, you were totally cool about everything. It’s like it was no big deal.” Her voice stayed even. “But now it’s two months later, and we seem to have gone backward.”
Sasha nodded, clearly choosing her words carefully. “Let me see if I can explain it.” She took a sip of wine. “It’s like…you know how you’re always talking about sexuality being a spectrum?”
“Yeah.”
“I totally agree with you. You know that.” Sasha took a healthy sip of wine and wiped at her lips with her napkin. “It’s just…I’m not sure, I mean…I don’t one hundred percent know where I am on that scale.” She worried her bottom lip. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“I guess,” Meg lied.
“I feel like if I come out, or whatever, then I’m automatically labeled the gay girl, like, forever. And I’m not sure that’s entirely true.”
“That’s the point of the scale. You don’t have to be a hundred percent gay or straight. You do get that, right?” It came out harsher than she wanted.
Sasha flinched. “I know.” She looked right at Meg. “And I know you get that. Which is why you’re amazing. Because I can talk to you about this stuff and I know you get me. But, Meg, the rest of the world is not like you. They judge and label and gossip.” She huffed out a little laugh. “I mean can you imagine Jane-Anne trying to deal with this?”
In truth Meg thought Jane-Anne was completely capable of understanding the Kinsey scale and appreciating it, but she thought Sasha would fight her if she said that. So she went a different route. “But Jane is awesome to me. So are the rest of the girls. So…?”
“It’s true. They do like you,” Sasha said. “They love you, in fact. But they’re different with you than they are with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just we talk about different stuff when you’re not around. It’s a different vibe.”
Meg furrowed her brow in confusion.
“It’s just, look, you’re not one of the girls. I don’t mean that in a bad way. But it’s different and I can’t help feeling like if they find out about me, it won’t be the same anymore. They’ll put up that wall. Probably not even on purpose. But the boundaries will change. I know it.”
Meg nodded, trying to understand.
“Meg.” Sasha waited for Meg to look at her before she continued. “I would understand if you didn’t want to do this anymore.” She chewed her lip and seemed a touch nervous. “I mean, I’d be sad, but I would understand.” She twisted her lips to the side. “But, Meg, try to understand where I’m coming from. You’ve known who you are since you were seventeen. That’s like ten years.” She looked down at the table. “I’m twenty-five and all of a sudden I’m not sure who I am, where I fit in. I know I’m into you, but I’m not sure I’m done with guys forever. I have no clue how to figure it all out.” She raked her hand through her hair and looked Meg right in the eye. “I’m not backing away from this. I just want to go slow and not do anything that doesn’t feel one hundred percent honest to me.”
Sasha sounded defensive and a little stressed and Meg felt guilty for needing more than she was ready to give. “I’m not trying to pressure you, Sash,” Meg said. “I just thought it might be nice to not be in hiding. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry. I realize it’s not entirely fair to you. Can I just have a little more time to try to wrap my head around it?” Sasha asked, just the slightest hint of desperation in her tone.
Meg nodded and gave a small smile, when a thought occurred to her. “What if you talked to your mom about it? She’s the voice of reason, right? Ever think about getting her take on things?” she offered optimistically. “She might have some good advice.”
“It’s funny you should say that,” Sasha said seriously. “That was actually my plan this past weekend when I was home for Thanksgiving.”
Meg looked up and waited for Sasha to explain, but she was quiet for a long second as she tilted her head up at the ceiling and wiped her eyes. “Meg, my mom is sick.” Her voice cracked. “Her cancer is back.”
“Is it bad?” It was a stupid question and Meg was immediately annoyed with herself for having asked it, but when Sasha didn’t answer, she followed with the equally inane, “It’ll be okay,” trying for positive but knowing it sounded trite.
Sasha met her eyes. “I don’t know, Meg.” She sounded lost as she looked off to the side. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Seventeen
Tracy smoothed down the front of her black shirt and adjusted the loose black necktie one more time, making sure it sat perfectly below the open collar button. She turned to the side and checked her profile in the mirror. Dabbing one last spot of hair product between her thumb and index finger, she doled it out sparingly on the longer tips of her short, trendy cut. She slid her arms through the sleeves of her black jacket and jerked it taut in the mirror, confident in her look and feel. Catching herself smiling in the reflection, she shook her head at what a dork she could really be. Finally she grabbed a red silk handkerchief, the only touch of color in her ensemble, and tucked it perfectly in her breast pocket before heading out the front door.
As Meg’s car warmed up in the driveway, Tracy surfed the radio for a good song. When her phone rang, she retrieved it from the inside pocket of her suit jacket and, seeing it was Betsy, she started talking without the formality of a greeting.
“Just leaving Meg’s now. I’ll be there in five minutes. You ready?”
There was a full beat of silence before a woman with a squeaky voice spoke. “Is this Tracy?”
“Yes,” she responded to the unfamiliar voice.
“Hi, Tracy. My name is Alecia, I’m one of Dr. Betsy’s nurses. Dr. Betsy asked that I call to tell you she’s very sorry, but she is still in surgery.” The woman paused for a second and Tracy thought she heard empathy in her tone as she continued. “She wanted me to tell you she is going to try to get there as soon as she can.”
Tracy leaned her head down on the top of the steering wheel in defeat. “Okay,” she breathed out halfheartedly. “Can I talk to her?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible at the moment,” the woman replied. “She did want me to tell you she is very, very sorry.”
Tracy swallowed her disappointment and shifted into drive, realizing that because she had focused all her energy on Betsy being her date-not-date for the Gala, she had forgotten to be nervous about seeing Jezebel Sto
ne. That is, until this very moment. She breathed out long and hard, willed herself to be both brave and resilient, and continued driving toward the Manhattan skyline.
The first hour of the event passed in a blur. Tracy knew many of the other athletes in attendance from previous events where they had crossed paths. She was also newly acquainted with many of the Every Youth Counts New York board members, now that she had been a presence on the East Coast for the last half of the year. She was doing a bang-up job of making her way around the room, talking to various charity big shots and also making time with some New York politicos in attendance at the request of the foundation chair. These large-scale events were parties, yes, but they were also a major source of revenue for the charity, and artists and athletes alike were expected to schmooze as much as possible.
Even though Tracy wasn’t a household name like many of the sports figures, musicians, and actors that supported the nonprofit, she was unmatched in a crowd. People loved to talk to her because she could talk about anything—sports, the arts, politics, current events. Probably her best quality was she listened, exercising a trait many of the Hollywood elite didn’t possess. It didn’t hurt that she was extremely easy on the eyes, and she worked that to her advantage as well.
The junior senator from New York had just dragged her over to meet a wealthy campaign financier he was attempting to woo for his own political ambitions when she spotted Jezebel staring at her expectantly from near the bar. Ignoring her completely, Tracy focused all her attention on the senator and the old-money retired Army colonel whose support he was trying to garner, but as she exited the dreadfully boring conversation, she turned around to find Jezebel in waiting, less than a foot and a half from her.
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