by Strong, Mimi
She blinked at me, her expression unreadable.
I continued, “You’ve obviously got some boundaries issues, and that’s okay. Let me help you. How about we get dinner tomorrow night?”
“I’m busy.”
“The next night?”
“Also busy. I have a job. Responsibilities.”
I flashed her my most charming smile. “How about breakfast? What’s your last name? What’s your phone number? What do you do when you’re not crashing Open Houses for free cheese cubes?”
She pointed to the pool. “I lost my earring. Can you get it for me? I can see it, right there.”
I walked over to the pool’s edge, holding one hand over the crack in my ass, hoping she would think it was funny.
“Where’s your earring?” I asked.
“Right in front of you. Just hop in and you’ll feel it with your foot.”
I jumped into the water and shuffled forward and back, then side to side, sweeping the bottom of the pool with my foot. “If you don’t want dinner or breakfast, how about a light snack?” I squinted down at something glinting, then took a breath so I could look underwater and cover the area more quickly with a visual. No earring.
I surfaced, wiping the water from my face. “Skye, this might sound crazy, but I don’t think you were wearing any earrings.”
I was talking to myself, though.
She was gone.
In the spot where she had been standing was one shoe. One sexy, crazy, spike-heeled shoe.
I didn’t have her last name, or her phone number, or anything at all, except the memory of her lips on mine, and of her legs wrapped around my waist, her sweet cries of ecstasy… and one shoe.
Chapter 8
Skye
APRIL
It was in March that I first went to The Cedars and met Charlie.
I thought I’d be able to put him out of my head, but even in mid-April, I was still thinking about him and the moment we’d shared.
Sitting in the cluttered office the instructors shared at the community center, I’d stare at the fitness calendar on the bulletin board and think about sex.
The poster boy for March was an underwear model named Keith Raven, and he made me have wicked thoughts. The April boy, a fireman, didn’t do as much for me. The fireman looked like he rescued people, and I didn’t fantasize about being rescued. Keith looked like a guy who knew when to shut up. And his triceps looked just like Charlie’s.
I slipped off my light cardigan, my body heat rising with too many thoughts about Charlie. I clasped one of my hands in the other, thinking of how I’d waltzed once around the pool with him—without music, to our own rhythm.
Then I’d wrapped my legs around him in the pool, let my panties “accidentally” slip to the side, and literally begged him to fuck me.
He’d said something about licking salt water off my skin until he was delirious and dehydrated.
“Charlie, shut up and fuck me before we both turn thirty,” I’d said.
A smile crept onto my face, and my body felt too hot and too cold at once.
I could call him. I could just pick up the phone and tap in the number for The Cedars. Even if they had a dozen guys named Charlie working there, it wouldn’t be tough to figure out which one was him.
But I wouldn’t call him, because he couldn’t be my Prince Charming.
I didn’t know anything about the guy, aside from the physical stuff. And I’d fucked him within an hour of meeting him. You just can’t recover from that.
With my students, I pay very close attention to how the first class runs. I lay down the rules, and enforce them without hesitation. No gum. No talking when I’m talking. And no giving the other girls side-eye. They’re allowed to be late, since they don’t have control over their parents who drive them in, but I do not tolerate side-eye.
I don’t have nearly as many rules for dating. In fact, I just have two: I insist on paying my own way, and there’s no touching below the navel for at least three dates. Apparently, that last rule goes out the window if I’ve had a couple glasses of champagne… and if the guy is Charlie.
Charlie.
I could call him. But I was broke, and couldn’t pay my way for the cheapest of dates. Plus he’d expect a blowjob, at the very least. Not that I didn’t like the idea of that, but we’d started off wrong, and a hookup was all I’d ever be to him.
Gloria walked into the office, a bundle of pink Gerbera daisies in her hand. I day-dreamed the flowers were from Charlie, and he’d somehow tracked me down and sent me flowers as a romantic gesture.
She took a green, hourglass-shaped vase down from the top of our overstuffed coat wardrobe, and poured her bottled water in before neatly arranging the flowers.
“When are you going to call that guy?” she asked.
“Never.”
Gloria put one graceful hand on her hip. Gloria has perfect hips—more round and feminine than mine, but not so big that she’d have to get alterations on her clothes, like our other co-worker, Teena.
“Mm-hmm.” Gloria arched one thin, dark eyebrow at me, her almond-shaped eyes flickering with amusement.
She’s two years younger than me, but sometimes I swear she’s twenty-seven going on seventy-two. She acts like she’s seen everything and done everything, just because she’s been married and divorced already. I adore Gloria, and she’s my closest friend, but she has a tendency to get into other people’s business.
“Who got you flowers?” I asked, trying to change the topic away from my non-existent love life.
“They’re from your guy, Charlie. I went on up to The Cedars and gave him all your numbers.”
I looked around for something to throw at her.
She dodged the yellow pad of Post-It notes.
Laughing, she said, “You know I didn’t, but I should have. These are from the grocery store. They were just going to throw them out, can you believe it?”
I leaned back in the swivel chair and fanned my face with my hand.
Gloria took a seat on the desk, right on top of my piles of papers. “Skye, you need to do something different. You can’t keep doing the same things and expecting more, you know? No man is gonna spread a little butter on your bread if you’re parked in this office day in and day out.”
“What? Butter on my bread? Gloria, you’re talking like a weird grandma again.”
She rolled her dark brown eyes. “At least I don’t say things like awesomesauce or amazeballs.”
I whispered, “Those are Teena’s favorite words.”
She whispered back, “Teena washes her private parts with salad dressing.”
I snorted. “She does not.”
Gloria held up one hand. “I swear on a stack of bibles. I was at her house and I saw the bottle on the edge of the tub, so I asked.”
“Shut up. No.” I grabbed a blue pen and nibbled on the cap. “What flavor?”
“Olive oil and balsamic vinegar. She told me she’s allergic to soap, but she likes to be fresh.”
“No!” I gasped.
She grinned and reached over to take the blue pen away from me. “Do I need to put that bitter spray on all of our pens and pencils? Can’t you control yourself?”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry. We dipped all the pens, but I got used to the taste, I guess. At least I’m not biting my nails anymore.”
She put the chewed-on pen into the chipped mug with the rest of the chewed-on pens and pencils. “No wonder we have budget problems. You’re eating all our stationery.”
“How bad?” I asked. Gloria taught kids’ art classes part-time, and also worked in the administration office at the other end of the building, in the accounting department.
She didn’t answer, but replied with another question. “Did you get anywhere with those grant applications?”
I wiggled a stack of papers to pull the corner out from under Gloria’s hip, then held it up for her to read the giant NO written on the front. I pulled away that s
tapled stack to reveal another NO, and then a NO WAY.
“We don’t qualify for anything,” I said. “First of all, you practically have to be a lawyer to understand the fucking terms, and then you get to the end of the application and find out you’re already disqualified, because you’re half a mile outside the catchment. Or worse, that it isn’t a grant after all, but a high-interest loan you have to repay in five years, or they come and repossess all the children and sell them to factories in some third world country, where they’ll be forced to make novelty birdhouses, and Christmas decorations, and all those penis-shaped things people give the bride at bachelorette parties. Honestly. Won’t someone think of the poor children?”
“So, you didn’t get anywhere with the grants?”
“No.”
“I heard you mention penis-shaped things, which reminds me, have you called that guy Charlie yet?”
I stared across the desk at Gloria’s smirk. I should have never told her about the hookup in the pool, because now she was fixated on this guy she’d never met.
“What about you?” I asked. “Did you give your mailman another nip-slip peep show, or was it just a one-time deal?”
“Very funny. The man must be fifty-something. Some of his leg hairs are white.” She looked around the office, scanning past shelves stuffed with boxes of archived paperwork and plastic tubs of Lost-n-Found items, stopping her scan when she reached the sexy calendar boy, Mr. April. “I gave notice on the apartment anyway,” she said. “Maybe my next mailman will look like that calendar guy. He’s cuter than a pocket on a shirt.”
“You’re moving? Again?”
She turned back to face me, her dark brown eyes twinkling with excitement. “I love moving. I love the pre-move purge, and the packing. Then the first days in your new neighborhood, and all the new sounds.”
I squeezed in my shoulders and made a gagging sound. “You’re describing my worst nightmare.”
“This is why you won’t call that guy. You’re afraid of change.”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things. Earthquakes. Flying ants. Having someone come up behind me in a movie theater and cut off my hair.”
She frowned. “People do that?”
I nodded. “It happened to my mother.”
She pursed her full lips briefly. “Speaking of things that make you chew writing implements like they’re licorice sticks, I brought you the flowers as an excuse to come by about something else.”
I looked down at the pencil in my hand—the pencil I’d picked up and started chewing on unconsciously.
She continued, “Instead of a pay increase in September, we’re all getting a pay cut. Everyone. Even the director. Only ten percent, but it’s either that, or layoffs.”
I bit all the way through the wood of the pencil, snapping the lead.
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s still five months away, so that’s some notice at least, right? Don’t tell anyone, because it’s not official yet.”
The shock washed over me like a sewer backup. I’d been counting on a raise, and now this? Change was coming into my life again, and it was bad, as usual.
Just then, Bianca came running into the office, her sneakers squeaking on the floor.
“Skye, I’m early!” she shouted. “Hi Gloria. Hi Skye. Hi, hi, hi, hi! I’m early. Do you know why?”
I put a smile on my face and fought down my worries about the future.
“Why are you early?” I asked. “You came to help me set up the room?”
“My mom won’t be late to bring me to class because she doesn’t have to go to her job anymore.”
Gloria and I exchanged a look. Bianca was ten years old, but she had some developmental delays. She was patient and resourceful, but not the type of kid who figured out that her mom losing her job was bad. Bianca’s whole world was about to get turned upside down and shaken until the coins fell out.
I tossed the mangled pencil into the garbage bin under the desk and got up from the chair. “That’s great,” I lied, a big cheerful grin on my face. “Let’s dance with the ribbons today.”
“My favorite!” she yelled, running ahead of me.
I paused for a moment, looking back at Gloria. Despite her enthusiasm for change, she looked as worried as I felt.
~
After I got the bad pay cut news from Gloria, I went over and over my personal budget for the next week.
No matter how I crunched the numbers, I had only two choices: give up every single one of my vices, including the gourmet dark-chocolate-covered pretzels I went through at a rate of one ten-dollar-bag a week, or get a roommate.
As much as I hated the idea of having someone else in my space, I didn’t hate it as much as giving up the car and taking the bus everywhere. Besides, I worked mostly evenings and weekends, so as long as I picked someone with an office job, we’d hardly see each other.
With half my rent and utilities paid by someone else, I’d have enough money for fancy chocolates, and I’d be able to cover the dance tuition for Bianca and a few of the other girls who needed it the most.
Gloria was my first choice for a roommate, but she’d already put a deposit on a studio apartment in a converted loft building.
I went through the list of my friends and co-workers, but it wasn’t a huge list, and most of them were living with boyfriends, or husbands, or a husband plus a baby on the way. Everyone was growing up. Except me.
“Let’s do this!” I told myself as I sat down with the laptop at the kitchen table, in the dark, alone at home on Friday night.
I decided to post the ad that same Friday night, thinking that anyone who replied that night or early Saturday morning wouldn’t be a partier.
It took me several hours and a half a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels to craft the perfect roommate ad. I approached the task in my usual fashion: I searched online for some templates and examples of good listings, then I researched my competition and took notes on what I felt those ads were lacking, such as dimensions of closets and disclosure of distance to a produce store.
After taking measurements of the second bedroom, which I’d been using for storage, I finally finished the ad. It was three pages long. It was detailed to the point of looking like a parody of a roommate ad, or like one of those things people send around to make fun of the anal-retentive person who was just trying to be courteous to her potential roommate.
I sat there that night, and I saw myself the way a stranger might.
Why is it that being neat and organized is viewed with suspicion by so many people? The first time Gloria saw my apartment, she asked if I’d just moved in that month. When I told her I’d been there for over a year, she said she’d only seen apartments that tidy in movies about serial killers.
I posted the three-page ad. The right roommate would understand.
I brushed my teeth and went to bed.
At two o’clock in the morning, I jumped out of bed, ran to the computer, and deleted the ad. I couldn’t live with some stranger.
However, strangers wanted to live with me. My email box held five responses already, and two more arrived as I stood there.
The one response that caught my eye was from a person named Charlie. Was Charlie short for Charlene? I’d requested a female in the ad. The person mentioned no details about her or himself, just that they would be in the neighborhood at noon on Saturday and would love to “take a gander.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my Charlie saying “take a gander.” He did have a formal way of speaking, but that phrase sounded more like Gloria.
Gloria.
She was playing a prank on me. She knew all about the ad because I’d tried to get her to proofread it for me—a request she had denied with a hearty LOLOLOLFUCKNO.
I wrote back to this “Charlie,” saying noon was great for me, and included the address. I had Saturday off, so lunch with Gloria seemed like as good a plan as any.
I went back to bed, slept soundly, and woke up to the sound
of the front door buzzer. It was noon already, and I’d overslept. I stumbled over to the intercom.
“Hey, Gloria,” I said.
“Hello?” came a male voice.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Skye? It’s me. Charlie.”
His voice crackled over the cheap intercom, but it sounded like the guy from The Cedars.
The guy I’d had sex with.
In a pool.
And liked it. Liked it very much.
Now he was here? At the common area door, two floors down?
Chapter 9
Charlie
The bite marks on my shoulder faded quickly, but the memory of the Girl in Red remained.
I would dream she was in bed with me, and when I woke up in the morning, I had the uncomfortable sensation that she’d really been there, but I’d just missed her by a few minutes.
On the first Saturday in April, I was the April fool, because I actually woke up and called out, “Skye?”
My empty bedroom mocked me with silence. The belt hanging on the back of the door seemed to move, as if to tell me Skye had been there, sneaking out quietly as soon as I stirred into wakefulness.
I hadn’t felt that way about a person since my mother died.
I didn’t like the feeling, and I didn’t appreciate my mind, for playing such a dickhead trick on me.
When did I become such a fucking pussy?
She was just some hot chick I banged. Once.
Plus she was my father’s mistress. Maybe.
Fuck. I had to know. There was only one way to find out, and it sure wasn’t asking the old man.
I sat up in bed and phoned the guy who does background checks for our security personnel.
“Cooper, I have a job for you. Starts right away, but this one’s a little different. Don’t charge it to the company. I’ll pay you myself, directly, and I need your word that you won’t breathe a thing to my father.”
The sound of rapid typing on a keyboard came through the line, then, “I wouldn’t be much of a PI if I went around talking about my jobs.”
I chuckled, thinking about the time Cooper and I brought a case of beer out to the golf course after hours, confessed to each other that neither of us liked golf that much anyway, and drank the rest of the beer sitting on the wooden bridge of the 13th hole water hazard. Cooper was in his mid-forties, a former computer hacker who’d been working as an investigator for the last decade. He had more great stories than the water hazard had golf balls. He never gave names, but he didn’t spare details.