by Roz Bailey
“And you’ve got Zack,” Tara said. “And Elle is in love with Ricardo, and Darcy is with Kevin . . . some of the time.” Darcy was less than enchanted with Kevin’s position as a New York City firefighter, a job he’d embraced wholeheartedly, loving the excitement, the hero potential, the camaraderie of the firehouse. I suspected it was probably a very good thing for Kevin to be far from his father and his Hamptons crowd, but all Darcy could see was that he was working in a civil service job, living in an apartment on Staten Island. “Staten Island . . . didn’t they secede from the rest of New York City? Aren’t they part of Bayonne or Jersey or something?” Although Darcy focused on criticizing his choices, I suspected the real issue was that he kept pushing her to marry him, and she wasn’t comfortable with that idea.
I wasn’t sure if Darcy and Kevin belonged together, but for now, it was kind of fun to see my friends paired off with guys. “Finally, a summer when we’re all dating someone,” I said. “And professional guys. Lawyer, actor, stockbroker, and firefighter. I feel so grown-up.”
Although I had planned to stay behind and help Ma clean up while my friends went ahead to Elle’s house, my mother pushed me out, insisting that she had plenty of help from her neighbor Nancy and two other friends who’d seemed happy for an excuse to get together. “You just scoot and let the old crones handle this,” Ma said. “Besides, your boyfriend doesn’t seem to know anyone in the group.”
“Zack isn’t shy,” I assured her. We’d met at a Hamptons party a few weeks ago, where Zack was impressed that I actually stripped down to my bikini and jumped in the pool when temperatures soared to triple digits (as opposed to the other women, who sat around wilting but didn’t dare ruin their makeup and hair). He’d challenged me to a race, and I’d almost beat him in the backstroke heat. “You’re good,” he’d told me that afternoon. I’d smiled and, surprising even myself, zinged him with, “You have no idea how good I can be . . .” And we were off and racing into a relationship.
Back at Elle’s, everyone had settled in around the pool, recuperating from too much food as Prince’s “1999” played over the pool speakers. “Whoever thought we’d be hearing this song in 1999?” I said as Zack and I crossed the patio. “When it came out, it seemed the year would never arrive.”
Zack squinted at me. “What were you, like two?”
Darcy sat at the edge of the pool, swirling her feet in the water while Kevin paced behind her. Obviously, they were arguing again, but no one dared get into that. Elle and Ricardo sat under an umbrella table with earphones hooked into her laptop, picking songs from CDs to make a party mix of music. Tara and Sharkey looked every inch the Ebony couple in their straw hats and dark sunglasses, reading quietly and sipping Sharkey’s favorite apple martinis.
One look at the complacent pool scene was all it took to send Zack into a twitch. “We need to do something. All this sitting around is getting to me. How about a jog on the beach? Or a round of tennis? Your friend was just saying that no one uses her tennis court.”
I agreed to a set of tennis, though I knew he’d win handily. Zack was extremely aggressive and competitive—assets when it came to trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, annoyances during a friendly game of tennis.
“Is that the best you can come back at me with? I’m closing you out,” he cried.
“I thought we were playing for fun.” I ran backward, jumping to return his serve.
He swiped at it as if the game were effortless. “Fun doesn’t mean you stop trying.”
Annoyed, I whacked at the ball and sent it driving right for Zack’s head. He returned the shot, but I let it bounce past my feet.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Listen to yourself. You’re goading me.”
He retrieved a ball, shaking his head. “No, I don’t goad. You’re just overly sensitive. You know . . .” He stuffed his pockets with balls. “I’ve been watching and I’ve got a word of advice. It’s your backhand. You’re twisting the racket, angling up. You need to control the ball by controlling your racket. Doesn’t that make sense?”
How about I backhand your ass, I thought as a ball sailed past my racket.
“Lindsay?” He adjusted his visor on his dark brush cut. “Are you with me?”
“How about a run on the beach?” I suggested. I know a towering cliff where I can give you a little push.
He jumped the net and slung an arm around me. “What? Are you pissed at me?”
I sighed, feeling his muscled body beside me, his hand fingering my ponytail. Give Zack a little time, he knows not what he does, I thought. “I’m sick of competing with you,” I said. “How about a little indoor exercise?” I went up on my toes and nibbled at the lobe of his ear. “This time, I want you on my team.”
58
The Love Mansion
“Tell me, Elle.” Hands clasped behind him, Ricardo surveyed the gallery of small postcards from around the world that Elle had framed and mounted on one of her bedroom walls. “Why do your friends call your home the Love Mansion?”
Elle laughed. “Well, it used to belong to Buford and Melanie Love, Darcy’s parents, but she’s always said that there was no love under this roof. So . . . after I bought it, I made the joke that it would really become the love mansion, now that my friends and I were going to live here.” As she spoke she popped in the new CD, found the track for “Pink” by Aerosmith, and cranked up the volume.
Ricardo started moving in time to the music, subtly at first, but even the smallest movement of his tall, lean body seemed so expressive. Perhaps it was because of his theatrical training, or because he’d spent the past two years inhabiting an oversized Beaver costume and performing physical humor, but Ricardo possessed total control of his body. He knew how to move to elicit various reactions on the dance floor, and this gift, Elle had discovered, much to her delight, translated well in the bedroom. She snuck up behind him, moving in synch until the song ended.
“I can’t believe this is all yours,” he said, gesturing to the house. “What I mean to say is, I’m very happy for you, but why would someone with this extent of wealth want to be a line producer for Woodchuck Village? Why would you want to listen to those inane songs all day and put up with Isabel’s vile temper on the set? Why would you want to toil for a single summer day in the oven of Manhattan when you can live here as a princess?”
She rose on her toes, reaching up to hang from his shoulders. “Sometimes princesses like to escape their castles,” she said, thinking how the job on Woodchuck Village had given her something she could sink her teeth in, a demanding job that consumed her time and her focus whenever they were taping, which was usually four days a week. “I get bored easily, and that job keeps me out of trouble. Besides, I like some of your songs.”
“Please . . . they’re not my songs, I only sing them.” He rolled his dark eyes. “Preschool drivel.”
“Who’s the beaver with the pudgy brown nose?” Elle sang as she worked Ricardo’s T-shirt up over his lean abdomen.
“And another thing I’ve been meaning to ask you, Elle.” His voice wasn’t accented, but it held that Latino lilt that always made Elle smile. “Must you always introduce me as Brownie Beaver?”
“Who’s the beaver who is losing his clothes?”
“Hey . . .” He raised his arms so she could pull the shirt over his head. “Those are not the words to my theme song.”
“It’s . . . Brownie Beaver, every girl’s best friend, Brownie Beaver, watch his paddle spank your tail end—”
He pulled his lips away from kissing her neck to end her song with a kiss. “Enough of the bastardized song,” he said, plunging his slender fingers into her bikini bottoms. “Let us locate the real beaver among us.”
Lindsay
The first time I had sex with Zack reminded me of my first session with a personal trainer at the gym. He was patient, but he pushed me hard, wanting the best for me, encouraging me to try new positions. I was just getting used to his habit of stopping
the momentum to call a switch, barking, “Get on top!” or “Let me get you from behind!” or “Raise your hips!”
Zack was truly a workout, but he also drove himself hard, and just running my fingers over his rippling muscles or leaning into his six-pack abs was a supreme aphrodisiac for me. Tight butt, flat stomach, muscles like stone—Zack had the body, all right, and I felt sexy just cuddling against him. Inside the bathroom I could hear the shower still running. “Hurry it up in there!” I called, kicking off my sneakers.
Standing in front of the oval mirror in the attic room, now my official summer abode, I slipped out of my white tennis skirt and pale pink tie-dyed shirt and stretched to the ceiling. My shoulders were a little pink, but the rest of my skin already had the warm golden tan of summer, stark against my white sports bra and bikini underwear. It was such a relief to have normal-sized breasts and a body that responded to a low-fat diet and regular workouts. Zack would never had been attracted to my former fat self, and the chubby Lindsay would never had stripped down and jumped into the pool the day we met.
I crossed to the gazebo turret, the tall window that afforded a view of the dark blue ocean nipping away at sand, probably half a mile away. Folding one leg under me, I sat down and considered opening my laptop. When I’d moved my summer clothes out here last week, I’d spent a few hours writing at this desk, putting together notes that, I hoped, would string into an outline, then into a novel. This would be the summer of my inspiration, the summer I created a best-seller. About what, I wasn’t quite sure, but I’d begun by writing about a series of dates from hell, the last six guys I’d dated before I’d met Zack. Six losers. Some of the accounts were funny, others downright pathetic. Too offbeat to match up with my current job, working on manuscripts for Island Books’ new Windswept Island line of romance. Category romance. “It’s a huge market in book publishing, and Island Books needs to get in it,” Jorge had told me when he’d taken me off hardcover editorial and assigned me to assist the new editor, Allessandra Beckett. The idea had seemed so exciting until I spent a week watching Allessandra finger her toes as she read, photocopying manuscripts because everything was “Rush, rush!” according to our publisher Jorge Melendez, and ordering tuna sandwiches and turkey burgers to keep Allessandra from having low blood sugar. That was the extent of my last three months. (That and answering the phones for “Windswept Island Romances,” but since Allessandra apparently had no life beyond romance publishing, the only calls came from my mother and friends.)
I pulled my knees up to my chin and stared out at the foaming ocean, thinking of Allessandra, the romance editor with no romance in her life. Poor girl.
Just then Zack emerged from the shower, a towel draped over his shoulders as he raised his arms in victory. “Let the games begin!”
I sprang from the chair and jumped into his arms, loving the way he could catch me with one arm. Poor Allessandra the spinster could wait. Right now, I needed a workout.
“You ready to ride?” he asked.
I smacked my thigh with a decadent smile. “Giddy-up, cowboy!”
“While I’m out here, I’d like to check out some of the local establishments, see if they’re complying with hiring practices.” Sharkey sat up, the sheets bunched below his waist. The silvery sheen of perspiration on his chocolate brown skin gave Tara thoughts of running her tongue over his chest yet again. “Want to come along?”
“Maybe.” Tara stretched leisurely, her body still thrumming pleasantly from their lovemaking. The sheet fell down, revealing one tawny breast, but Sharkey didn’t notice anymore; he turned and slid his feet to the floor, calculating his next plan. “I’ll bet a lot of the restaurants out here hire illegal immigrants. Those people need to be apprised of their rights, though it’s going to be difficult to get to them without scaring them off.”
Tara reached for him but her arm fell on flat sheets as he was on his feet, pacing.
“I need to research the demographics of Suffolk County . . .”
She sat up in bed. “Can’t you ever turn it off?”
“There’s been a black community out here for years, but I’m not sure if—”
“Hello? Sharkey . . .”
“What? What is it?” he snapped.
“I sort of wanted to cuddle for a few minutes,” she said plaintively.
“Oh.” He lifted the sheets and slid back into bed. “How’s that?” he asked, stretching out beside her, still tense.
“Better. But I can see I’m gonna have to work you over to make you relax.” She pushed him onto his belly and straddled him. “Maybe a little massage? You need to work the kinks out.”
“Mmm. Feels fantastic. Girl, you just start pounding me if you hear me reciting labor law.”
“Are you sure it’s still okay?” Kevin asked as he slid off the bed to remove his shorts and Jockeys.
“I’m still a month from my due date and the nurse in my childbirth class says intercourse is fine.” Darcy lifted her hips to peel off her bikini underpants. When they’d fallen back into the marriage argument, Darcy never expected this day to end with a lovemaking session, especially when Kevin started with the ultimatums: “Marry me or else . . . I’ll never speak to you again . . . I’ll take off in that Jeep and never look back . . . I’ll go back to drinking.” She didn’t believe any of it, and in any case, she had to stick by her instincts, which strongly indicated this was not the time for marriage. “Give me one good reason not to get married right now . . . today?” he’d insisted, and she’d answered, “I’d look fat in my wedding dress.”
After she’d convinced Kevin not to mess with a pregnant woman and her raging hormones, he’d apologized so sweetly and he’d started kissing her and touching her. And when she suggested that they do it, he didn’t seem at all repulsed. Just cautious.
He stretched out alongside her. “You’re sure I’m not going to, like, bonk the little guy?”
She laughed as she reached for him. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Okay, then . . .” He pressed her back into the pillows and they picked up where they’d left off kissing and caressing.
When Darcy thought she could wait no more, she slid down to the edge of the low bed, turning away from the mound of tummy looming before her. Kevin kneeled on the floor, positioned himself between her legs, and pushed in.
With a happy gasp, Darcy let her fingers close over the ruffled edge of the shams. She’d been wanting this, wanting to make love, and even if she and Kevin didn’t always see eye to eye, she did enjoy being with him.
“Everything okay?” Kevin asked, breaking the rhythm.
“Perfect,” she assured him. Her life was spinning out of her control, her belly expanding into a Wonder Ball, but at this moment, everything seemed just fine. Closing her eyes, she imagined she was back in time, suspended in a lazy, warm afternoon of last summer.
59
Lindsay
When I made the appointment to meet with Island Books publisher Jorge Melendez, the agenda had been career guidance, a move back to hardcover editorial and tips on how to break in as a writer. Elle’s “Uncle Jorge” had a reputation for mentoring people in publishing, pushing employees up from the ranks, bringing editors into sales and marketing meetings to give them a full picture of the industry. But when I stepped into his office, I made the key mistake of forgetting that the romance line, Windswept Island, was his pride and joy.
“So how goes it with Allessandra?” Jorge asked, gesturing for me to take a seat. “Are you learning all kinds of new things?”
Only that Allessandra liked to kick off her shoes and run her fingertips over her toenails while she read manuscripts. That and where to get the best tuna sandwiches in town.
“I’m trying,” I said enthusiastically as I perched on the edge of the love seat. As publisher, Jorge had a full suite of furniture in his office, while lowly assistants like me worked in a cubby with a two-drawer file cabinet, desk, and secretarial chair. “Allessandra is kind of quiet, though,
and it’s hard to learn from watching someone read.”
Jorge’s laugh was like a rumbling tuba. “I suspect that’s true. We’re very happy with Allessandra.”
So much for lodging my complaints, I thought, queasy at the thought of those tuna wrappers stinking up the office.
“She came on board, brought in some heavyweight romance writers—figuratively and literally, I hear—and she got those manuscripts in the pipeline right away.” As he spoke, Jorge pinged a small statue on his desk, making the hula girl dance. “We’ve gotten great feedback from the field. Orders higher than anticipated. Fingers crossed, but if this takes off the way I anticipate, you’ll have a nice future with Windswept Island books.”
“Great!” I forced a smile, though the romance line was the last place I wanted to be working. I’d read the first fifty pages of Allessandra’s acquisitions to write cover copy, and the books possessed a cookie-cutter sameness that drove me mad. That and the fact that the two protagonists—“the hero and heroine,” Allessandra continually corrected me—were just about perfect, their big flaws being a weakness for chocolate or their inability to say no when someone abandoned yet another lost kitten on their doorstep, or fear of falling in love again because they’d been hurt so much before. Big fucking deal.
“So . . .” Jorge glanced up from the hula girl statue. “You said you have a few questions?”
“Right.” Quickly reassessing, I knew it would be a mistake to beg him to get me away from Allessandra and the cookie-cutter romances. “Actually . . . I’m working on a book of my own,” I blurted out, surprising myself.
“Fabulous.” He was unfazed. “I’ve published two of my editors before, both successes. What genre are you writing in?”
Genre? “Well, right now it’s comedy. Comedy sprinkled with angst.”
“They say there’s always truth and pain in the best comedy,” Jorge said. “But comedy isn’t really a category of fiction.”