by KB Winters
Told ya, a peach.
Most of my inspiration came from the city of New York and ninety percent of my pictures were taken inside Central Park, which had served as the retreat for my father and me when I was growing up, and the last place we’d gone to before he died from complications following heart surgery to clear a blockage.
It helped not to think about it too much, but when I was taking pictures and worked to bring them to life in the dark room, it was like being back in the park with him at my side. Even though he’d been gone for nearly ten years.
My goal was to get it published in time for my twenty-seventh birthday which was less than a year away. It was a long shot, to be sure, but if I could pull it off, it’d be a milestone in my life that would be attached to my father and serve as silent tribute to the universe or the great beyond, wherever my dad was, so he could see I remembered him and I loved him with every fiber of my being.
Which, is why, every time my agent called, I had a mini heart attack, thinking she’d finally have the word that it was accepted by a publishing house and give me a deadline to finish up the pictures. I was in the middle of Blue Zebra, a local coffee house, when my phone rang. I squealed when I saw the name flashing on the screen. “Hey, Grace!”
“Hello, Penny!” She sounded excited which only made my heart thump faster. “I have news!”
I sucked in a breath. “Tell me!”
“Have you ever heard of the art magazine called The Ruby Rose?”
“Duh! It’s one of my favorites.”
The Ruby Rose was a photography magazine that featured stories of photographers from all over the world. Each feature issue included exhaustive interviews about their lives, work, and inspiration, as well as showcased their favorite photos. It was a silent dream of mine to someday get the call that I’d been selected for a feature. As it was, it was way, way out of my league.
“Well, they want to feature you in an upcoming issue,” Grace continued, her smile audible in her tone.
I about fell out of my chair. I anchored myself to the bistro table and stared, slack-jawed out the window at the passersby, flailing wildly for words.
“Penny? You okay?”
I nodded and licked my lips. “Yeah, just momentarily in shock there. But I’m okay. No need to send the paramedics. Well…unless they’re hot.”
Grace laughed, her honey smooth voice bringing me down to earth again. “I’ll see what I can do on the paramedic front. But what about the magazine? Safe to say you’re interested?”
“Um, interested isn’t even the word for it! More like where do I have to go to sell my kidney to make this happen!”
Grace laughed again, harder this time. I’m serious. “No need for any organ donations, I can assure you. None of my contracts have required a literal pound of flesh up till this point and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I just don’t understand,” I said, raking my fine blonde locks away from my face. “They only feature really high-caliber people. Do they have me confused with someone else? Is there another Penelope Laken?”
“Nope! It’s you they want my dear. They’re doing a profile on up and comers and you’re one of three photographers they hand selected. So, you don’t get your own issue, but pretty damn close to it! But get ready! Once your feature hits, you’re going to have a herd of publishers chasing you down.”
“Holy cannoli.”
“This is the game changer, sweetheart.”
“I wish I was there to buy you a round and give you a big smackeroo on the cheek!”
Grace laughed. “Well I do need to get your signature on some contracts. Do you want to swing by the office? If not, I can email them over and you can print and mail them back.”
“No, I can stop by. Tomorrow?”
“Okay doll, see you then! And congrats!” Grace said before clicking off the call.
I stared at the phone in my hand for a solid minute after she was gone, still in a state of shock. “The Ruby Rose?” I whispered to myself. “It’s all happening, Papa,” I added, even quieter, as I rolled my eyes up to heaven.
* * * *
“Guess what! Guess what!” I barreled through the front door and shot into the living room like a pinball just released from the chamber. I flew around in a circle, holding a freshly purchased copy of The Ruby Rose over my head. After hanging up with Grace, I’d flown to the nearest book store and scooped the latest issue up, then raced back to the loft to spread my news in person.
Jasmine and Lo were in the living room, each poised in a complicated, pretzel like pose on their matching yoga mats. They both looked up, startled at my loud entrance, but I couldn’t dial it back.
“You got slipped another tab of E?” Jasmine ventured, arching her perfect brow at me as she unwound herself.
Lo laughed and pushed up into down dog with effortless, fluid motions that would make any yogi envious of her lithe figure. “You found sugar free chocolate that doesn’t taste like shit flavored cardboard?”
Jasmine and I burst out laughing and I stopped running to double over for breath.
“Hey, a girl can dream, right?” Lo said, lowering into cobra.
“Fair enough,” Jasmine agreed. “What’s the word?”
“Grace just called. The Ruby Rose wants to do an interview with me to feature my work and run a complete profile of me for their issue about up and coming photographers!”
Lo and Jasmine both jumped up from their mats and ran across the room to hug me. “That’s amazing!” Lo shouted, squeezing me and Jasmine even tighter.
“Thanks. Oh my gosh, I just can’t even imagine that this is really happening right now.” We all broke apart and I pushed my hair back again. “She said that once the article goes live, we’ll have a swarm of publishers begging for the rights to the book.”
“That’s incredible, Penny. You so deserve this!” Jasmine said, beaming with pride.
“Seconded!” Lo added, smiling just as wide. “You’ve busted your tushie!”
I laughed. “Thanks guys.”
“Where should we go to celebrate?” Jasmine asked before glancing down at her and Lo who were decked out in their athletic wear. “We can change.”
“Why? I think y’all look hot,” I teased. “Don’t we have some of that pink champagne left? We could have a house party.”
“With three people?” Lo asked.
“Why not?”
“I’m game,” Jasmine said, shrugging. “I’ll see what I can root up. One of you call for some food. I’m feeling Mexican. I’m talking a truck load of chips and salsa!”
“Mmm. Muy bien!” I rubbed my stomach, forgetting when I’d last eaten. After our Christmas party a few days before, I’d been so bloated and sick that I’d gone on a cleanse which was mostly just not eating anything and drinking gallons of fresh juice.
Lo called the takeout place and ordered the whole left side of the to-go menu, rattling off dish after dish like we were preparing for the Apocalypse, or, a Super Bowl party.
I didn’t care. I’d worry about the extra calories later. I was celebrating.
Chapter Seven
Miles
Duke’s Bar was hopping for a Thursday night and Colton and I could barely hear each other across the small table we took in the corner. It was hard to catch up with the loud bass bumping and enough people crammed inside the bar that the fire department would probably get pissed off if they stopped by. Colton and I met up for a drink and a round of pool while Karena and Rose were at an evening swim lesson at the local aquatic center.
“What did you say?” I shouted over at Colton.
“I don’t even remember! I can’t hear myself think in here.” He grinned. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
I chuckled. “Patio?” I asked, jerking my head in the direction of the side doors. He nodded and we headed out. We barely got two steps away before a couple of vultures swept in to take over the table.
I got to the doors first and opened it to le
t Colton through. Spring had officially sprung, but the air still had a frosty chill once the sun set. We headed to a table near the electric heater and took our seats.
“Okay, so am I just turning into an old fart or was that miserable?” Colton asked. He poked at his ear like he was trying to clear up the ringing sound.
I grinned at him. “As much as I love reminding you of your rapid decline into old fogey territory with your eight o’clock bedtime, aversion to anything remotely dangerous, and the alarming amount of hemorrhoid cream y’all have in your bathroom, in this case, it’s not just you. That was stupid loud.”
Colton rolled his eyes. “It’s diaper rash cream. You know, for the little two-foot-tall blonde baby girl running around the house. You might have noticed her.”
I laughed at his sarcastic retort. It felt like the old days when he and Lucas and I would go out and shoot the shit, make trouble, and tease each other mercilessly.
The good old days.
“I can’t believe it’s been so long since we’ve been able to do this,” Colton said. “It feels like Christmas was just a couple weeks ago. But here we are heading into May. Time’s going way too fast for my taste.”
“Tell me about it.” I didn’t mean for my tone to sound bitter but there was a definite chill to it as I was constantly reminded of just how fast time was flying by. That’s what happens when you live your life with a countdown timer ticking in the back of your head twenty-four-seven.
Colton winced as he remembered my predicament. I’d filled him in on all the gory details upon returning from New York. “How are you doing with all that? You didn’t say much about it the last time we saw each other.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to say, really.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he replied flatly.
I chuckled. “I know, it sounds like a cop out, but honestly, I don’t really know how to answer that question. I’m officially out of the running for my promotion within the unit, I have a few more months until I have to decide whether to re-up my contract or not, and now this marriage thing hanging over my head. Everything is reaching the tipping point all at once it seems. I swear it’s like my parents have some kind of magic premonition power.”
“What do you mean?”
I took a long drink from my pint of dark brew ale. Colton and I had never talked about my family dynamics before. He and Lucas were my best friends but for whatever reason, Lucas and I had always been closer than Colton and me. However, Lucas was thousands of miles away and swamped with his own family. He didn’t have a lot of time to talk these days—let alone fly out to Georgia for a couple of days to go fishing or help me sort out my bullshit. “In a nutshell? The only reason I even joined the military was because when I was sixteen, I got into some legal trouble.”
Colton laughed. “Who, you?”
“Hardy har.” I grinned at him, shaking my head. My less than squeaky clean reputation was not a secret on base, and Colton and Lucas knew first hand just how much stupid shit I got into on a semi-regular basis. They both marveled that I’d made it as far in my career as I had without getting shipped off to Fort Leavenworth. Usually I just got smoked by some CO and ended up wasted for the following few days, but hey, what were a few extra miles in the pursuit of some good fun?
“I bailed out of school for the day and was running around with some of my buddies. We ended up getting a little hammered, a little stoned, and a little who knows what else. We hot-wired a car, took it on a joyride to Coney Island, and while we made it there in one piece by some small miracle, on our way out of town we smashed it into a fire hydrant and flooded a residential neighborhood.” Colton winced. “Yeah. Not pretty. Firefighters, a swarm of police, and a pack of news reporters who showed up to cover the story. As the sons of prominent families, it was apparently newsworthy that we’d gone on a bender.”
“So your parents sent you to boot camp to avoid jail time? Damn. How’d they swing that?”
I gave a halfhearted grin. “The wonder of being rich. My parents keep a pack of ravenous lawyers on retainer and let’s just say they had to work pretty hard for the money during my teen years. That day with the car was definitely not my first run in with the cops. It was my most spectacular outing, if I do say so myself. But even my parents’ lawyers and money couldn’t keep it from going to court. The lawyers were able to sweet talk the judge into giving me probation and having the entire thing expunged from my record when I turned eighteen as long as I completed a quote, unquote rehabilitation program for troubled teens. A.k.a. the boot camp from hell. So for three months I spent my days trapped inside a military compound run by a bunch of vets with anger issues who used the old scared straight approach into whipping us into shape. It was the worst three months of my life but at the same time I kind of fell in love with it a little bit.”
“That’s messed up, dude,” Colton said, laughing.
“I know it sounds insane. I was so used to my life as a spoiled teenager with too much free time and even more money and there was something about being locked in such a tight structure that actually appealed to me. Not at first obviously, but eventually. At the end of the whole thing, one of the instructors approached me and told me I have the chops for the military life and encouraged me to enlist when I turned seventeen. I thought about it for a few months after returning home and when my old friends came calling, I knew I had to make a change. The temptation of going out and causing more trouble was too much and I knew I needed to get out or I’d end up behind bars.”
“All right. That’s actually pretty cool. Why haven’t you told me all this before?” He took a sip off the top of his beer and appeared to be turning over all of the information I’d given him.
I shrugged. “Never came up I guess. Plus, I don’t exactly want it broadcasted all over the place that I’m some spoiled rich kid. You know how people hate privilege.”
Colton nodded. “Yeah, man, I do. So because of that, your parents take credit for your military career? And now you think if you go ahead and fall into this new marriage thing they have going on, they’ll take credit for that too?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. The cycle of questions and scenarios ran through my head on repeat. It all sounded perfectly logical inside my head, but hearing Colton say it back to me revealed the true craziness of it all.
“It’s not that I think they’ll take credit for it. But I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of doing what they want me to do. And yes, I realize how Teen Spirit that smells but I don’t know what else to do. They’ve backed me into a pretty tight corner. Which, of course, is exactly what they wanted. I just want to live my life on my terms.”
“I feel ya. When Colonel Reeves told me I had to get married if I wanted my promotion, I felt the same way. I wasn’t in the mindset of finding a wife but once he told me it would give me the best shot at what I really wanted, I decided to go for it. And what I found, with Karina and now with baby Rose is a life well beyond my wildest dreams.”
“You’re not gonna get all pussy, cry-baby on me are you, Hawk?”
Colton laughed. “Nah. I’ll spare you the waterworks but seriously, Miles, I know right now it sounds insane but if you take that leap you don’t know where you’ll land. It might be something even more amazing than what you have planned out for yourself.”
“So, on a scale of one to ten, how much would you recommend creating an online profile that says I need a wife?” I asked, grinning wildly at him.
Colton chuckled. “A strong ten, believe it or not. But only if Lucas and I get to go through the profiles with you. Otherwise you’re going to end up with some chick that’s all tits and ass and no brains.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked, laughing.
“Nothing, at first. But I think that would wear off rather quickly.”
“Well, luckily for me there isn’t a time limit on this arrangement. My parents never said I have to be married for ten years. I figure get it, cash out
, pull the plug.”
“God, that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.” Colton laughed and shook his head as he polished off his beer.
“Come on, man. Can you really imagine me in love?”
Colton set down his glass. “I think that if you’re going to do this that not only does the girl need to be on board, but that you’re both going to have to be prepared to stick this out for at least a year so your parents can’t flip the script on you.”
I groaned and chugged back the rest of my beer. “Sounds like a blast.”
“I know, I know. Marriage, blech.”
* * * *
The next morning, with Colton’s advice still fresh on my mind, I set out for the local mall and made my way to the two-level bookstore at the end of the complex. The smell of freshly ground coffee and ink greeted me as I stepped inside. I’d never been much of a bookworm, having always found it hard to sit still for too long, but if I was going to open my own bike garage I would need a little more business savvy than what my mind currently had to offer. I didn’t have time—or patience—to take a bunch of business courses. I figured with Google, a couple of good books on the subject, my built in street smarts, and a hell of a good accountant I could make it work without a degree.
The bookstore was practically empty. The only people I saw were at the tables near the built-in café who appeared to be there more for the food and coffee than anything else. I made my way to the business section and took my time flipping through the stacks of books available and chatted with a pretty salesperson as she’d stopped by to check on me. An hour later, I was armed with three glossy covered books and made my way to the front registers. On the way, I passed a couple of rows of magazines and since I wasn’t in a hurry to get to the base, I stopped to take a peek. It had been a while since I’d bought a magazine. Everything I needed was on my phone or tablet and with the number of blogs and websites at my fingertips, I hadn’t needed them.