Time Out (Foolish Games Series)

by Leah Spiegel

  “It’s cool. I’m here for you.”

  A text from Lizzie suddenly popped up on my smart phone, probably because she was sitting right there next to Riley on the tour bus.

  “Did you look at the email I sent you of the different ways to style your clothes yet? And what the hell is this shit on Yahoo’s website? You looked pasty white and scared.”

  “They ambushed us at dinner and I was scared for my mom!”

  “Do I sound like I care? If you want Hawkins not to move onto Gwyneth then you’ll fix it!”

  Grrrrr!

  “What do you expect me to do, get all dressed up just to go get the mail?”

  “That’s exactly what I expect for you to do, so chop, chop. But not before you check that email I sent you!”

  “Fine—bye,” I sent the text with a huff and glanced across the room at my laptop.

  I slid out of my bed and crossed the room to my desk. On my way there, I made a small detour over to my window that faced the front of the house. I peeked from behind the curtains to steal a glance at the paparazzi down below.

  I would have thought I was Angelina Jolie on the red carpet the day of the Oscars by the packed crowd of men below. As if they had been studying the house, waiting for this moment to finally present itself, someone noticed me through the high powered zoom lens of their camera and took a shot causing me to quickly slap the curtain shut. Going to get the mail suddenly felt like a much bigger deal than I had anticipated.

  But then I remembered what they had said about Gwyneth and Hawkins on TMZ, and even though the picture wasn’t current, it was enough for me to take Lizzie seriously.

  Minutes later, I found myself scrolling down the pictures on the email she had sent me. One picture had a girl dressed in a ‘summer scarf’ which never made sense to me because…well it was summer. I continued to scroll down, hoping Lizzie could give me something to work with, but another one was of a girl dressed in a tan jumpsuit and I thought, really? This was something every girl could find in her closet?

  “Come on now,” I mumbled, and noticed the next one was of a girl in a fedora hat dressed in a black tank top with dark washed jeans. This picture came with directions from Lizzie.

  “If you’ve gone this far, I want you to know that I picked this out as a last resort. I know you own at least one black thing of everything. I remember the horrible black phase you went through in high school. It embarrassed me just as much as it should have embarrassed you. Whatever you do, don’t repeat the look twice. If I see you out around town in this outfit then don’t be surprised when you get a dozen or so packages in the mail of the clothes up above in this email. P.S. I think you could really rock that jumpsuit.”

  The comment sent me collapsing back onto my bed again, so I could pull the covers up over my head. How did I find myself in this situation? I would have felt inclined to stay in my bed if wasn’t for the image of Gwyneth smiling a confident smile for the cameras as she walked into the hotel with Hawkins. Dressed in skinny jeans that complimented her tiny frame and rocking out a dark jacket like she was Kate Moss or something.

  It wasn’t hard to see what Hawkins had seen in her, especially when he looked just as handsome as she was pretty. His dark careless hair was the only thing to soften his chiseled eyebrows and strong jaw line. I knew it wasn’t intentional because I had seen the look before, but his blue eyes fixed the camera with an ‘I’m too hot to be bothered look, so f#@k off.’

  God—I missed him and wanted him to miss me too, so I finally pushed the sheets off me again and headed to the bathroom with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.

  I went to town scrubbing myself down in the shower with one of my mom’s loofa pads and then began to lather up those legs so I could shave them smooth again. Once out of the shower, I scavenged through my mom’s makeup bag for any mascara and lip gloss I could find. I then blew dry my dark hair and used a flatiron until it was poker straight. I knew this forty-five minute ritual was common for most girls, but I literally felt exhausted and had to take a break midway through.

  Thankfully, Lizzie was right; I owned one of everything in the color black. So it wasn’t hard for me to find the best looking V-neck tank top I owned and then matched it with a dark pair of jeans.

  Unfortunately for me, I did happen to own a beige fedora hat, and Lizzie would know because she had bought it for me. It took a minute to find the thing crammed in the back of my closet and another minute to straighten it out properly again. I felt silly the instant I put it on my head. I was quickly losing my confidence the longer I wore the hat down the stairs and to the front door. I took a minute to catch my breath, which had nothing to do with the exhaustion I felt from just getting ready.

  “I can do this,” I tried to convince myself as I braced a hand against the door. I knew the more I thought about it the more likely I was to wimp out, so without giving it another second, I tossed the fedora hat to the living room floor and pulled back the front door; thinking eat your heart out Hawkins.

  A few of the men did a double take in my direction like they had imagined seeing me standing there at the opening of my front door, but the instant I stepped out onto the porch they suddenly converged like a pack of hungry wolves.

  I tried to act like I was unaware of them, but that was hard to do when they were blocking off my path to the mailbox and shouting things at me.

  “Joie Hall, is it true? Did you and Hawkins and break up?”

  “Joie, over here! Joie look at me!” they growled.

  I did my best not to flinch, but they were bumping into me left and right.

  “Dude—you’re in my shot. Get out of the way!” another one hissed.

  I wasn’t sure if this was what Lizzie had in mind when she tried to coach me into being nonchalant, but I decided to chuck the idea of getting the mail half way across the lawn and quickly turned back around for the door. I almost tripped on my way back up the steps to my front porch and prayed for dear life that I would make it safely back inside before doing any more damage to my self-esteem.

  Once I was finally inside again, I slammed the door shut and locked it and then double checked that I had locked it for sure. I could still hear the pack of men shouting from outside as I turned to lean my back up against the door and took a haggard breath. My hands were literally shaking from the experience as I bent over to settle myself. What was I thinking? I didn’t belong in this world. This was Hawkins world and he had made it clear that I didn’t belong with him either.

  I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine how that horrific photo op’ would translate onto paper. It was bad enough to know that I had embarrassed myself, but the last thing I needed right now was to hear it from Lizzie.

  The unexpected upside to all the paparazzi practically banging down my front door was how quickly my mom and I were bonding over the experience. After she came through the door next; looking like a deer caught in the headlights, she murmured, “Oh Joie, I had no idea.”

  “Did you get a haircut?” I noticed she had a few inches trimmed off of her shoulder length wavy chestnut brown hair. She reached a hand up absentmindedly to touch it and if my mom was the blushing type, I was pretty sure her face would have turned a light pink.

  “It was getting too long,” she offered innocently enough.

  “Is that a new top?”

  “What, this old thing?” she glanced down at the navy blue top with different brightly colored buttons down the front of it. It looked like something she would buy from her favorite store Christopher and Banks.

  “Lizzie texted you, didn’t she?” I nodded knowingly.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how she got my number,” my mom confessed in one long sigh with a little drop of her head.

  “Mom, you’re beautiful. You don’t need to take tips from Lizzie.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re my daughter,” my mom fended off the compliment, but at least she smiled, which was enough for me. “Why don’t we do something we haven’
t done in a long time together, like watch a Jane Austin movie and eat a bowl of raspberry sherbet, how’s that sound?” she asked.

  “I’d like that.”

  It was amazing how spending some quality time with my mom could put me at ease, even with a bunch of voyeurs right outside our door. There was nothing like a little movie marathon and a bowl of sherbet in the family room, where eating food was normally not allowed, to make me feel like we were having a little adventure together. As if for a second, we had escaped to a safer place and time.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, I woke up to the sound of Dave Matthews singing to me via my ring tone on my cell. I went to check the time on my alarm clock but the power must have gone out sometime last night because it was off. Grabbing up my cell, I checked to see who had called me when I realized it was Lizzie.

  What was she doing up at this hour? Lizzie normally slept in until noon. Hell, we all did. My eyes widened when I checked the message, because she had practically written a paragraph.

  “Something is going on with that bitch. I bought her a one way ticket back to Vancouver, but Warren says she plans on staying. Priceline my ass, that ticket cost me five hundred dollars.”

  “You and Warren, huh?”

  “What are you talking about?” she pretended to be clueless.

  “One, you’re up at this hour. Two, you had five hundred dollars to pay for a ticket? Back on the payroll I see.”

  Lizzie replied with one symbol =)

  Slapping my cell down on the nightstand, I fell back into my bed, determined to sleep another couple of hours, but with the air conditioning being off, the heat of another hot summer day seeped into my room making it too hot and sticky to get comfortable again. Tossing the sheet off of me, I slid out of bed determined to get some cool air circulating throughout the room again. Now that I was officially up, I decided to check in with Riley for the day.

  “What’s new, Riri?”

  “Not much, Josephine. You know he played your song last night.”

  I smiled, but already knew that he played the song he wrote for me because I had been virtually stalking the band via their website that uploads each song that gets played that night in real time. It was pathetic really, but it made a piece of me feel like I was still connected to the tour.

  “How was the rest of the show?” I texted because I couldn’t actually here the songs just see the set list.

  “It was a sick show last night. They knocked it out of the ballpark.”

  “So Hawkins is doing better?” I couldn’t help but feel bummed by the news because Lord knows I didn’t feel any better.

  “No, not better—more like raw. It makes his sad songs hauntingly good and every other song even more passionate then I’ve heard it before.”

  “How’s he been doing? Is he still sleeping a lot?” I asked because I was worried.

  “I know he’s tried to call you like a million times. You could just pick up the phone and ask him yourself.”

  “And say what, I’m still pissed? Or I laid on my left side and watched TV for an hour and then laid on my right? Yeah—that’s really interesting.”

  “Ah, now that sounds like Hawkins when he’s not on the stage.”

  A piece of me felt good to hear that he was just as miserable as I was and a piece of me felt sad. Why did he have to push me away? I could have been there with him right now.

  “How’s Harlow?” I changed the subject because it just made me feel more depressed than I already was.

  “I swear I learn something new from him every night. I feel like I’m getting an invaluable experience and education. I mean the man’s a legend.”

  “I don’t doubt that you are, wink, wink.”

  “I’ll never kiss and tell. Still, it would be nice not to have to hide our relationship for once,” Riley texted back and I knew that he was referring to the fact that Rob wasn’t officially out of the closet yet. “I also understand it’s a personal decision, so what can I say? Ahh—men.”

  “Exactly. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  I smiled down at the message when I finally reached the bottom of the stairs since I had spent most of my time slowly drifting down them as we texted each other. The warm humid air that made my clothes cling to my body, reminded me of the reason I got out of bed in the first place.

  Still, I could afford to make one more detour I decided as I headed in the direction of the living room. Even though I didn’t like the paparazzi being on my front lawn, I stopped to take a peek outside from behind the curtain of the bay window anyway. I think a piece of me was waiting for the day when they finally figured it out that Hawkins had dumped me and wasn’t coming back anytime soon. How would I feel then? God—the thought was depressing for so many reasons.

  Rolling my eyes, I continued my way down the hallway and made sure the light switch to the basement was flipped on before heading down the steps in case it was just the breaker. With the power being out, I couldn’t see as well as I would have liked and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I imagined one of the paparazzi jumping out at me from somewhere in the darkness as I felt my way around. I must have swatted away a dozen or so cobwebs along my path over to the far wall where we kept the electrical box. As a kid my grandfather’s basement used to give me the creeps and I’d imagine that it was haunted with ghosts so - given the circumstances, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be stuck down there.

  When I finally found the metal box, I flung it open and looked to see if any of the breakers had blown, but they were all on so I turned them off and then back on again. I waited for the basement light to turn on above my head, but when it didn’t I went back over the first set of breakers again.

  It slowly started to dawn on me that if the power outage wasn’t caused from a rain storm or some other natural reason than that meant someone from the paparazzi must have done it. Quickly turning around, I stood there as if waiting to get attacked, but after a few seconds had passed and the shock had worn off, I bolted back up the basement stairs.

  With one hand armed with a bottle of mace, I did a thorough search of the house, but when I realized that I was alone, my face pinched in bewilderment. Retreating back up to my humid bedroom, I grabbed up my cell to call my mom at work. Once I explained who I was and that it was an emergency they put me through to my mom.

  “Joie?” my mom sounded scared, probably because I never called her at work.

  “Hey, sorry about the phone call, but I wanted to let you know that the power’s gone out. I switched the breakers on and off but nothing turned on. I think the paparazzi must have done it.”

  “It wasn’t the paparazzi,” my mom confessed in a small voice. “I’m behind on my payments.”

  “Oh—”

  I was surprised to hear that, because I knew my mom had to be months behind for them to actually turn off the power and my mom was if nothing else, responsible.

  “Don’t worry,” she began to say, but I cut her off before she could continue to feel

  embarrassed.

  “Mom, I have money left over from working for Hawkins’ website.”

  “No, that’s yours to spend,” she insisted.

  I knew she was too proud of a person to take help from her daughter, and too afraid to look like a failure, but I knew where she kept her statements and bills so I pretended to go along with her.

  “Okay, well I’ll see you later then,” I sighed, wishing that I didn’t have to go behind her back to help her. Making my way back down the steps, I headed for one of my grandfather’s old desks that my mom turned into her little office space. I felt guilty about going through all her paperwork and bills, but it didn’t take long until I realized that my mom wasn’t just behind in the electrical bill but she was behind in all of her bills.

  I realized there was one common theme that kept popping up with every statement. She was about three months behind in all of her payments, which was only a month after my father had
died. I knew he had always been diligent about paying my child support every month before he passed. I realized that she must have depended on that money now.

  And although she inherited the house from my grandfather, she was still paying mortgage on our home, or at least she was supposed to be. I had money, but I knew that I didn’t have that kind of money. Even if I had been dating a multimillionaire for most of the summer, I was my mother’s daughter and the idea of asking Hawkins to help us was unacceptable.

  Nevertheless, the thought of my mom and I being evicted from my grandfather’s house killed me. I would be okay with whatever we had to do - like get a smaller place or an apartment, but I wasn’t so sure my mom would be. She loved this house.

  Deciding to worry about one thing at a time, I grabbed up the electric bill and used my smart phone to pay for it on line. Once that was taken care of, I looked around the living room with a new set of eyes. No wonder my mom had never upgraded the rooms since my grandfather died. Now that I had come to think of it, we had been eating a lot of spaghetti, tuna fish sandwiches, and other inexpensive food for dinner too. The thought of my mom struggling all alone but keeping up a strong front for me made me sad; sad enough to make me want to venture out to get some groceries when my mom came home tired from work again.

  I picked out another black number to wear for the paparazzi, but this time I didn’t mind wearing the fedora hat because anything that hid part of my face from the pack of men was fine by me. Besides, it might make Lizzie happy to see that I had finally listened to her for once.

  I waited until late in the afternoon, when the crowd of photographers had dwindled down because even they had to eat dinner sometime, to make a clean break for my mom’s red Grand Am. I exited out the side door of the house that led to the driveway and was already around the front of the car before the rest of the men realized what hit them. They suddenly converged around my car as I got in behind the driver’s wheel. Flashes of light went off around me like I was freaking Brittany Spears. And just like her, I didn’t care who I had to hit if they didn’t have the wisdom to quickly get out of the way of my reversing car. I knew they were trespassing on our land and that’s exactly what I planned on telling the judge if anyone of them decided to sue me for medical damages as I floored the gas and sent them scattering out of the way.