Feather Light (Knead Me)

by Lorenz Font

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve come sooner. I didn’t realize the paps were after you until I got a call from Webbie,” Arianne said, sounding contrite while she closed the door behind him.

  He flopped on the chair, shaken. “Does everyone know but me?” Parker fumbled for his cell but stopped when he caught a whiff of fragrance all around him. “What’s that scent? Flowers?”

  “Yes … I had to accept all of them. The delivery guy wouldn’t take no for an answer. He didn’t say who sent them—”

  Parker cut her off with impatience. “Ari, how many flowers are we talking about?” He followed his nose until he reached the row of file cabinets at the right side of the room.

  “There are three dozen arrangements in here. There are different flowers in each arrangement, but all of them have these tiny white roses sprinkled in each display. They’re stunning.”

  Tentative, Parker touched the arrangement closest to him. He felt the unusual textures, soft, velvety and silky, as he ran his fingers along each bouquet.

  “Does it say who sent them?”

  “There’s a note, but the envelope is sealed. Do you want me to read it to you?”

  He nodded, resenting the fact that he needed help to read the note. Another downside to his blindness was his inability to keep some level of privacy in his life.

  “ ‘No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s soul. I apologize.’ ” He didn’t miss the awe in Ari’s voice.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you need a moment alone?” Arianne was already moving toward the door.

  “Yes.” His voice sounded strangled, even to his own ears. “I have a ten thirty appointment with an agent. Please direct him to the conference room and tell him I’m running a few minutes late.”

  When Arianne closed the door behind her, Parker sank back into his chair and rubbed his face, trying his best to stay calm. Ann … Kelly, whoever she was, had steamrolled her way into his life, rattled his orderly existence, and shaken him to the core. The sad part was that he had no idea how to handle the situation.

  Why had she sent him flowers? Was she trying to massage his bruised ego? If she thought that would get him to call her, she was mistaken. Nothing would change the fact that she’d lied. Then a sudden thought came back to him. Before Kelly left, she wanted to talk about something. Could this be it? Regardless, she had deceived him, and a bunch of silly flowers wouldn’t flatter him.

  He went to the filing cabinet with the intention of destroying every single arrangement. His anger flared. He lifted his hand to swipe the vases on the floor but found that he couldn’t do it. Parker slumped back in the chair and cradled his head in frustration.

  When he was certain he’d gotten his emotions under control, he called Ari. “Can you and all the girls get these flowers out of here?”

  “Where do you want us to take them?”

  “I don’t care. Take them home, donate them to the hospital, do whatever you like. Just get them out of here.” Parker turned away, not wanting Ari to see how upset he was.

  Cork had been right, a distraction helped. As his meeting with the advertising rep stretched on past lunch, he found his troubles pushed to the back of his mind while he discussed the offer in earnest. At the end of the meeting, Parker felt a slight shift in his mood. Even though he was still seething about the photographers, the flowers, and Ann, at least something productive had come out of his day. The agent had made an offer, and all they needed was Parker’s signature. With the photographers still waiting outside, he was forced to order from the Thai restaurant around the corner, forgoing the pleasure of dining out in the city he’d grown to love.

  His phone vibrated and announced a voice mail from Ann. Instead of listening to her message, he deleted it. Parker had no idea what he was going to do yet, but talking wasn’t an option until he sorted out his scattered thoughts.

  Arianne peeked in the door. “Do you want me to clear your schedule for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Yeah, reschedule them for next week if they don’t mind being serviced by the other staff. I need a drink.”

  “If you give me fifteen minutes to make the calls, I’ll be happy to join you. Just don’t forget, Mrs. Crawford is coming tomorrow. She’s your first appointment.”

  “All right. She’d never forgive me if I cancelled on her.”

  “Better not cancel on your favorite client.” Arianne laughed. “Oh, let’s go to the pub close to Greenwich village. I recommend the place.”

  “That’ll be great.”

  After his meeting with the advertising agent, which had gone well, Parker sent a quick text to Cork, asking him to fly in right away. Hearing the details about the contract was one thing, but reading the fine print was another. He needed his brother’s help with the whole process. Cork promised to catch the red-eye and arrive in the morning. The agent wanted to get the deal done before Parker left the city.

  Although his spirits remained low, the alcohol and Ari’s company enabled him to get through the rest of the evening. Ari hadn’t mentioned anything about Kelly, the photographers, or even the flowers, much to his surprise. Instead, she provided nonstop chatter about their customers. She helped him catch up with the office gossip, giving him the latest trends in the city and keeping all thoughts of Ann from creeping back in.

  By the time he made it back in his hotel room, he was too drunk to care about anything except going straight to bed. Sleep would give him the reprieve he needed from all the haunting thoughts about Ann.

  Parker woke up the next day with a mean hangover. He dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom, dreading another brush with the photographers like the day before. He took three painkillers for his headache and settled for a quick shower. Parker added sunglasses to his usual outfit of dark jeans and black cotton T-shirt. Although he hated the thought of hiding behind the dark glasses and what they stood for, they were his best defense against feeling naked in front of everyone.

  His car was waiting for him at the front entrance of the hotel. He slid into the back passenger seat and pulled out his cell to check his messages. One was from Ann. He deleted it. Another one was from Cork. He was at the airport and would be arriving in the next hour or so.

  Parker knew the minute he got out of the car that a horde of people were waiting for him again, just like the day before. However, thanks to Ari, he now had two massage therapists-slash-bodyguards to escort him inside the building, but not before he heard a question that got under his skin.

  “Does your blindness bother Kelly at all?”

  He glared in the direction of the speaker but said nothing. Get in line, dude. That’s the million-dollar question.

  Parker walked to his office, hoping to get a few minutes respite before having to face Mrs. Crawford. Ari delivered his steaming cup of coffee a few moments later and then left. He slowly took a sip, scalding or not, and thought about the photographer’s question. It still bothered him, because the truth was, he’d wondered the same thing all along.

  Callous as it sounded, he’d known the question would come up. A disability seemed to make many people uncomfortable. They often hid behind their ignorance and fear of someone different from them. Little did they know that many disabled people functioned independently and were productive citizens just like everyone else. There was nothing he could do to change people’s opinions, but he’d be damned if he would let their negativity pull him down.

  It was too bad he’d gotten involved with Kelly Storm, a woman who epitomized beauty and perfection. Wouldn’t that dampen her popularity a bit? If she had been thinking straight, she would have realized the last thing she needed was to get involved with a man who would never be able to see her beauty as the world saw it. He would never fit the idea of a perfect man, someone she could ever be proud of.

  How in the hell had he managed to get involved with a woman whose main selling point was her flawless good looks? The answer had been there all alon
g—he was blind, literally and figuratively. He’d let Ann—Kelly—walk into his life and take the one thing he’d not been ready to give but somehow had ended up giving anyway. Parker wasn’t ready to fall in love, and certainly not with someone who’d made a fool of him.

  He shook his head in disgust. Somehow, he needed to get over this stumbling block and move on with his life before this inadvertent mess affected everyone around him.

  “Parker?” Ari’s voice piped in from the speaker. “Mrs. Crawford just arrived. She’s one hell of a lady, I’m telling you. She cursed out all those people outside just a minute ago. Gotta love the woman.”

  “Take her to room 101, and I’ll be there in five.” He took a deep breath and then muttered to himself, “Show must go on, Parker. There’s no pity party allowed.”

  Mrs. Crawford took his hand the moment he walked in the room. “Parker, you have to do something about those vultures out there. Don’t let them run you out of our lovely city.” Her voice, though authoritative, lacked its usual spunk.

  “I’m working on it.” He laughed and led her to the chair. “You know the drill. Get comfortable, and I’ll be right back.”

  As he walked to the adjoining room to wait and get ready, he heard Mrs. Crawford snort. “I’m not surprised you landed yourself a beautiful woman.”

  He stopped and stared in the direction of the older lady’s voice. Since when had she been interested in his personal affairs? There was no answer to give, so he stayed quiet.

  “I hope she’s good to you.”

  Again, he had nothing to say about that subject. “Are you ready?”

  “Did you hear me say woo-rah?” she snapped, and Parker had to smile at the old woman’s candor.

  “Sorry. What would you like today?”

  “Just a light massage. I’m very tired, and I just want to talk.” She coughed. “Woo-rah!”

  He started the music and entered the dark room. Mrs. Crawford was already lying on her stomach, her hands tucked up against her body.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, laying a soothing hand on her head before massaging her pressure points.

  “I’ve had better days.”

  She sounded tired. Parker started with a light pressure on her neck, rubbing and kneading. He heard her sigh. Sensing her need to talk, he pushed his own troubled thoughts aside and concentrated on asking questions.

  “If someone was to ask for your advice about a relationship based on lies, what would you tell that person? Run or stay and listen?”

  She twisted around as if to look at him and stayed in that position for some time. He was almost certain she was scrutinizing him.

  “I believe in second chances. There are always two sides to every story.”

  Parker fell silent, wanting to believe there was hope for him. Shaking his head, he tried to push Ann—Kelly—out of his mind. He closed his eyes and concentrated on each gentle stroke while he worked his way down to her shoulders.

  “You’re like a son to me, Parker, the son I never had. And I’m going to give you some lasting advice. To love is to risk not being loved in return. If you dare hope, you’re opening yourself up to pain. You have to try and risk failure. Think of risk as a necessary evil in order to achieve what you want out of life. Not risking anything is the greatest folly, in my opinion. You have to give more than a hundred percent in everything you do, and not expect anything in return. If you can follow that, then you will find contentment in life, no matter if you end up with the person you love or not. The key is trying, hoping, and giving.”

  They both fell silent while he pondered Mrs. Crawford’s advice.

  “Parker, don’t press too much. I just want a light massage this time.”

  “I’m barely touching you.” Then he heard a strange wheezing sound. He inclined his head in curiosity. He laid his palm on her back just as a shudder racked her body. “Mrs. Crawford, are you all right?”

  There was no answer. Even before he trailed his hand along her shoulder toward her neck, he knew something was wrong. Parker pressed his fingers against her jugular, searching for a pulse. When he felt nothing, he leaned down and rested his ear against her back. He listened for breathing, but there was nothing. Turning and running toward the door, he caught his foot on the chair leg in the process. Parker stumbled forward but was able to brace his body against the wall to keep from falling. He felt for the knob and wrenched the door open.

  “Call 911! I need someone who knows CPR! We have a possible heart attack victim here!” Parker was moving forward in a daze, blindly reaching for something familiar to ground himself. He’d lost count of his steps and had no idea where he was.

  “I’m calling,” he heard someone yell. Then footsteps came rushing toward him.

  “Parker, hold on to me. Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m going to do CPR,” Joe, a part-time massage therapist, said as he squeezed past them in the hallway.

  Ari took his hand and looped it around her arm. They pivoted and headed in what he guessed was the direction of room 101.

  “She requested a light massage, and that’s what I gave her.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Then she complained that I was applying too much pressure, and then there was a wheezing sound and she went still.”

  They reached the room, and Parker started feeling his way around. “Tell me how she looks. Is she alive, Ari?”

  He heard her gasp before she answered. “I don’t know … she’s not moving, but Joe is working on her right now.” She choked back a sob.

  After what seemed like eternity, they heard the distant sound of sirens. Cork walked in the door just as Parker pulled Ari against him to comfort her.

  “What’s going on?”

  He looked in the direction of Cork’s voice. “I think Mrs. Crawford had a heart attack.”

  Parker heard more footsteps, and several people began speaking at the same time. Cork pulled him to the small adjoining room, with Ari sobbing against his chest. Orders were shouted from outside the room, and more people ran inside. Someone had turned the lights on, because he saw the blurred figures of several people huddled around the massage table.

  “What happened to her?” a male voice asked.

  “I was giving her a massage, and then she made a wheezing sound and stopped moving.”

  “Couldn’t you tell she was having a heart attack?” another one yelled.

  “No … he couldn’t,” Ari answered.

  “Why not?” the first man asked.

  “Because he can’t see, damn it!” Cork bellowed.

  A hush fell over the room. Parker gritted his teeth, hating his blindness for the very first time in his life.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Parker tried to move toward the people, but Cork held him back.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re not getting any response. Not even a pulse.”

  Then someone shouted, “Clear!”

  Medical terms were thrown about in hurried exchanges by the paramedics as they worked to revive Mrs. Crawford. The noise made his head ache and added to his confusion, which was something he’d never felt before. He wanted to turn off the sounds around him, even if it meant shutting himself off from the rest of the world.

  Parker closed his eyes and tightened his arms around Ari. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.

  “I’m worried about you.” She continued to sob against his shirt while she clung to him.

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Parker, are you okay, bro?” Cork asked from his left.

  “Yeah, just tell me what’s going on.”

  “They’re taking her out right now. A cop is standing outside. I’m sure he wants to get all the details of what happened. I’ll go and talk to him right now. Stay here. I’ll be back.”

  Parker heard the scraping of footsteps when the group moved toward the front entrance. The sharp wailing of the siren began, and in a matter of seconds, the sound faded away. He stayed where he was, afraid to move, not knowin
g where to go or what to do next. An inexplicable wave of sadness engulfed him while he waited for Cork to return. Ari stayed close, making sure she was touching him—a sign that he wasn’t alone.

  He endured an hour of questioning from the cop and another investigator who came to let them know Mrs. Crawford had been pronounced dead at the hospital. Parker shook at the announcement but fought to keep his calm.

  It was well after closing by the time he and Cork found themselves alone in his office. Ari and several other therapists had opted to stay since there was still a big group of photographers and curious onlookers waiting outside.

  “Are you okay?” Cork handed him a bottle of water.

  Parker took big gulps and realized he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d gotten up that morning. “I’m cool, but I need you to take me home. Call the agent tomorrow and apologize for our missed appointment.”

  “No problem.”

  While Cork was booking their flight back to LA, Parker went to the men’s room to get some time alone. He walked straight to the sink and splashed water on his face, trying to calm his nerves and conceal his weakness. He was perilously close to reaching his breaking point. Taking slow breaths, he fought the urge to bawl like a frightened child. All he wanted to do at that moment was to go home and hide, maybe for a long time.

  Chapter 14

  Kelly was having a bad day. Her meeting with the producer had been extended longer than she had hoped, and she’d almost missed her flight. She was hauling ass on the freeway and veering in and out of traffic. Jessica was a nervous wreck by the time they reached the airport. Dragging her wheeled carry-on behind her, Kelly snaked through the pockets of people who seemed to be in no hurry to get anywhere.

  With her dark glasses and baseball cap providing enough coverage to keep her from being recognized, she whispered hurried excuses while she negotiated the long walkway to get to the exit. When she passed by one sports bar, she glanced at the television hanging overhead and saw a familiar face on the evening news. Her heart took a nosedive. Parker was trying to get into his New York office, and the hounding photographers were blocking his way.