Wishing on a Dream

by Julie Cannon

  I reached for the stack of colored file folders Bea had laid on the corner of my desk. A red folder contained things I needed to do immediately, yellow was important but could wait a day or two, green signaled FYI, and blue was stuff to read. I worked my way through the red one, occasionally making notes of what I needed a member of my staff to do. The yellow contained several invitations for various social events, and Bea had indicated those she’d already given my RSVP.

  My heart jumped when the familiar seal of my high school peeked out from the bottom of the stack. My hands trembling, I pulled the yellow paper from the bottom of the pile. I quickly scanned the letter, the paper shaking so badly I had to lay it on my desk so I could read it. It was an invitation to my twentieth high-school reunion, urging me to join my fellow alumni to “reconnect and reminisce” four weeks from Saturday. On the docket was a formal dinner and dance to be held at the prestigious Kristoff Club, with cocktails and appetizers at six, dinner at seven, followed by dancing and a slide show of the highlights of our four awesome years at Alhambra High School.

  Flashbacks of my four years at AHS were anything but awesome. I was fat, a complete dweeb, and hated every minute of it. I didn’t have a best friend, join a club, or go to football games. Did I mention I was fat and had no friends? Every day felt like a prison sentence, and my parole was graduation. Why would I want to go back there and relive old times? I would need more than a few cocktails to get me through it. I wrote my response in big bold letters and tossed it into my outbox. Bea would send my regrets.

  “Tobin Parks is here,” Bea stated after knocking on my door and sticking her head in. She was obviously trying to be professional, but I could tell Tobin had the same effect on her as she did every other person on the planet. Okay, maybe that statement was a bit too broad.

  I suppressed a sigh. The last thing I needed was to be seen with Tobin again. But she was here, and surprisingly I wanted to see her. “Show her in. But if she’s not out of here in ten minutes, come get me.” That was the ploy used in hundreds of offices every day to get unwanted visitors out. I wasn’t above using it.

  Something about Tobin made me nervous and jittery. My insides skittered around and my stomach flip-flopped. I had a hard time thinking clearly. I didn’t need this with the likes of Tobin Parks. I had just enough time to take a deep breath before my office door opened farther and Tobin walked in.

  I don’t remember standing, but I must have, because all of a sudden I felt dizzy. I gripped the edge of my desk to keep from toppling over.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” Tobin said, stopping in front of my desk. “I know you’re busy so I won’t take more than a minute,” she said, her words coming out in a rush.

  For a moment I thought Tobin was as nervous as I was, then scoffed at my silliness. She had been in the company of kings and princes, presidents, and thousands of screaming women. Little ole me was barely a blip on her screen.

  “I have a few minutes.” I indicated she should sit in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I could have invited her to sit on the small couch in the casual seating area in the corner, but I needed something to deflect the sexual magnetism between us.

  “I just wanted to apologize again,” Tobin said sincerely.

  “How do you live like this?” I asked, still a bit frazzled by everything.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The paparazzi, the fishbowl, under the microscope, however you’d like to phrase it.” It was my turn for words to rush out. “I came in the next morning to one hundred and two messages on my desk, and that was after I had to maneuver my car through the hordes of photographers and microphones stuck in my face. I’m not sure I didn’t run over one particularly aggressive reporter who jumped on the hood of my car as I pulled into the garage.” I dropped my head in my hand, already exhausted, and it was only a little after nine. “My neighbors are going to hate me,” and my mother is going to kill me, I thought but didn’t add.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Kiersten.”

  “It goes with the territory,” Tobin answered.

  “Well, that’s a landscape I don’t want to be anywhere near. Oh, wait…I’m already there.” I couldn’t mask the sarcasm in my voice. It was my way of coping.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Stop saying that. You did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong, but we seem to be getting all the attention.”

  “What kind of fallout are you getting?”

  “You mean other than these?” I asked, picking up the pink phone-message papers and dropping them back onto my desk. I didn’t wait for her to answer. “Just my mother and her ‘we have appearances to keep up’ speech,” I said, remembering the scene last night. “And instead of my typical good-daughter, yes, Mother, I proceeded to go ballistic on her and kept going until I insulted my sister-in-law and probably alienated my brother. And I won’t even mention the look on my mother’s face,” I added. I’ll never forget it and felt vaguely proud I put it there.

  “I am so sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing!” I said, probably too loud. “You didn’t do anything. No, that’s not right. You provided me sanctuary from an impossible situation, and I should be apologizing to you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “You were trying to have a quiet meal, and as soon as I sat down, the flashbulbs started going off—so to speak.”

  “The cameras are always on me. Oh, wow, that sounded more than a little conceited, didn’t it?” Tobin asked sheepishly.

  “No, I get it.” I waved off her concern. “Nonetheless, I appreciate your concern. You didn’t need to come by. I’m fine,” I said, surprisingly so.

  “I wanted to see you again,” Tobin said quietly.

  The flip-flopping in my stomach ramped up into a full-blown butterfly attack.

  “No,” I said, suddenly not sure if I was answering her question about sponsorship or that something else that was reflecting in her eyes.

  “Why do you keep saying that? You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

  Tobin stood and walked toward the window. I glanced at the clock on the wall across the room. Eight minutes until rescue.

  “This is a beautiful view,” she commented, her back to me. She was silhouetted against the midday sun streaming through the windows. Thin with an almost boy-like figure, she had all the right girl curves in all the right places. Her jeans hung low on her hips and fit perfectly, outlining her butt and long legs. I wondered absently if they were off the rack or custom made to bring out her best features. Seven minutes until rescue.

  “I rarely get to see anything like this,” she said, more than a little melancholy in her voice. “I’m always either in my coach, driving in the middle of the night, or in a concert venue.” She raised her arms above her head and stretched. Her shirt lifted, exposing a few inches of bare skin above the waist of her jeans with just a hint of the band of her underwear showing. Under Armour? Calvin Klein? Jockey? At least it wasn’t a thong, but then again Tobin didn’t look like a thong girl.

  “I don’t remember the last time I spent the day outside.”

  I was still looking at her midriff when Tobin suddenly dropped her arms and turned around. My eyes shot to her face but not before catching a glimpse of her stomach. Oh, my goodness.

  Now my face was hot and clearly reflected that I had been caught peeking. It probably screamed that I liked what I saw as well. I was obviously busted so I forced myself to maintain eye contact and not look away. My heart started racing, and my blood skittered through my veins. When two women gaze directly at each other with more than politeness on their mind, it’s just downright sexy. It was the “I like what I see, interested?” look. I was about to open my mouth and say something that would probably be incredibly stupid and embarrassing, but Tobin broke eye contact first. I was glad I was sitting down because it was like I’d been released from a tractor beam on a Star Trek episode. She stepped toward the chair she’d vacated a few minutes ago but stopped and picked up
the white card from my inbox. She read it quickly.

  “Are you going?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “To your reunion,” Tobin clarified, wiggling the invitation dangling from two fingers of her right hand.

  I reached across my desk and snagged it from her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

  “Why not?”

  I wasn’t going to answer her.

  “Twenty years?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I hated admitting it. It made me feel old.

  “How old were you when you graduated?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “So why aren’t you going? Didn’t stay in touch with anyone? Busy schedule?”

  I didn’t answer because it was, after all, none of her business.

  “No date?”

  I chuckled. “I haven’t needed a date to do anything for years.”

  “Want one?”

  “A date?” This conversation had suddenly turned ridiculous.

  “You can take me.”

  “What?” I was dumbfounded.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t need a date, an escort, or to babysit,” I added, alluding to the difference in our ages.

  “Okay. I’ll go as your arm candy.”

  “My arm candy?” I asked, incredulous at the thought. God, I felt old.

  “Why not?”

  “I can think of many, many reasons.” Other than the obvious, I really couldn’t, but I was trying to make a point.

  “Come on, Kiersten. Why not go and show them who you’ve become?”

  “I’m pretty sure they know who I’ve become,” I replied. This assurance had been validated when the invitation had come addressed to me as CEO of JOLT with the address of our headquarters, not my home.

  “So let’s go and have a little fun?”

  “And how would you going as my date be fun?”

  “Ouch, that hurt,” she said, but I doubt she meant it. “Reunions are supposed to be all about going and showing off who you are, what you have, or, in this case, who you have.”

  “And you know this how? You’re not even old enough to have had a reunion.”

  “Everybody knows that’s what they’re for,” she answered, looking at me like I had no clue. “Come on. Have a little fun.”

  “I have fun.” God, I sounded pathetic. Tobin raised her eyebrows and confirmed my fear. “I thought you were here to apologize,” I said, trying to get this conversation back on track.

  “You kept telling me there was no need, so I moved on.”

  Was it really that simple? Had it ever been that simple? I suppose when you’re young, very rich, and have the world at your feet, it is.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Come for me.” The voice in my ear was coarse and sounded way too sure of herself. After all, she was fucking Tobin Parks. Her words were a little slurred, but I attributed that to post-orgasmic lethargy, not alcohol. Her breath had a faint scent of whiskey, but she wasn’t drunk. I didn’t do drunk, or even tipsy for that matter. That just isn’t right. A lot of things were wrong in my life, but that wasn’t one of them and never would be. If a woman was with me it was because she wanted to be, not that she’d lowered her inhibitions or wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “I gotta go,” I said, pulling her hands away from me. She was strong and was making a definite play to get her hands in my pants. Little did she know that nobody, and I mean nobody, put their hands on me. Tonight was no different. Even though I was still infuriated by the call I’d received earlier in the day, I hadn’t lost my mind.

  “But you didn’t come,” she said, as if just because she did I had to too.

  “I’ve really got to go.” It wasn’t a lie. I did need to get out of this backstage room, a carbon copy of dozens of others in cities that blurred together on the seemingly endless road to stardom. Everything was the same after a while. The same songs, same sets, same crowds, same venues, same expectations, same women. Most apparent was the fact that I had my pick of women and would invariably bring one backstage for an after-show performance. I’d always leave before it got personal. Like having sex wasn’t personal. What kept it impersonal was that it was clearly sex and occasionally fucking. The women I left could brag about the fact that they had been with Tobin Parks, the hottest singer in a decade. I, however, never asked anyone’s name.

  I didn’t want to be here. No, strike that. I don’t want to be here, doing this any longer. In the beginning it was great, just the typical after-hours party where I was expected to schmooze with the radio-station bigwigs, smile for the camera, and kiss the girls. But I was tired and just wanted to go back to my coach and go to bed—alone. I didn’t like the direction this party was headed and had been trying to make my escape for a while. The last thing I wanted or needed was another photo of me and my gal-pal or another innuendo-laced article of my wild and wicked personal life appearing on the cover of the latest rag magazine or blog. I did, however, fully expect a synopsis of an interview with Irene Brown.

  I’d still been angry and a little rattled after I hung up on Mommie Dearest. I barked orders, was short with my answers, and had been a general all-around bitch since then. The show tonight had been a little more raw and edgy than usual, and the crowd loved it. My band, being the professional musicians that they are, kept up with me and followed my lead. By the end of the show I was exhausted, yet hyped. I couldn’t wait to get back to my dressing room and release some steam. Unfortunately, after whatever her name was left, I was still as keyed up as I was right after Irene’s call.

  Back in my coach I popped the top off a cherry Coke and tried to relax. I picked up my guitar and began to strum a few of the chords to a song I’d been working on for the past few weeks. I closed my eyes, willing my brain to empty itself of recent memories of my childhood spent in a single-wide.

  I often thought of my life as before and after. Before consisted of everything I could remember before I left home. It contained monochrome images of a broken, dirty front window and sun-bleached fake flowers in a cracked pot on the patio. Outside, dead grass and plastic bags tumbled down the potholed street on hot summer afternoons. A faded red wagon with one wheel missing lay in a rusting heap along with three paint cans. Across the street a Ford Grand Torino, its hood missing and tires long gone, sat on gray cinder blocks. The trunk lid had been removed the day after Michael Flannigan died of heat stroke after he thought the old car was the perfect place to hide from his abusive father. Unfortunately he’d been trapped inside for an afternoon, and by the time anyone thought to look inside he was dead. Stale perfume and cheap beer clung to the threadbare carpet and flimsy curtains inside our humble abode. I could still smell the stink of the rotting garbage, filthy socks, and unwashed males. The welcome mat was never out at my childhood home.

  Freedom came when I finally had enough money to leave. Run away was probably the technical term, since I was only fifteen and not old enough to do anything on my own. I doubted my parents would call the cops and report me missing. Hell, it was probably a week before they even realized I was gone. One less mouth to feed, to clothe, and find shoes to wear. Not that any of it ever fit anyway. It was probably good-bye and good riddance, until they connected the dots between Carol Brown and Tobin Parks. Then it was hello, favorite daughter.

  Jimmy, the douchebag that was my brother, had called me three or four times. Each time the conversation was disjointed and ridiculous. He stuttered and could barely put three words together, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I also didn’t care. The only thing I was ever good for to Jimmy was as the recipient of his verbal insults and a punching bag for his fists.

  My sister, on the other hand, was a master manipulator and practiced on me until I was old enough to realize what she was doing. She was much more subtle than our mother and would either end up the wife of some rich bastard or in for ten to twenty years without parole. I had no idea what she was doing now. Irene never spoke of her, and I d
idn’t care enough to ask.

  I thought about Kiersten’s family and how we grew up on completely different sides of the street. Her family was probably just as fucked up as mine, but in more sophisticated ways, and I didn’t know which was worse. The Browns who lived at 15 Stewart Road, space 34 were exactly what you saw—poor-white trailer trash. Kiersten’s family probably lived in an affluent white suburb and was picture perfect. At least the part they let everyone see.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “Dance or drink?” Tobin asked expectantly.

  “Drink, definitely,” I answered. “But no more than two.”

  “Two, max, got it,” Tobin replied, and led us across the room to the nearest bar.

  Cocktail in one hand, Tobin’s arm in the other, I faced the crowd. Just the simple fact that Tobin was beside me confirmed that I must be out of my fucking mind to be here and with her.

  “I don’t think we need these, do you?” Tobin asked, looking at our name tags in her hand. “I think everyone knows who we are, or they will by the end of the evening.”

  I grabbed mine from her before she could look at it. It showed my senior portrait when I was at my heaviest. My mother had sent me to a hair and makeup stylist the morning the picture was taken, but the professional could do little to disguise the subject at hand. What was the saying, the camera never lies, and sometimes nothing was uglier than the truth. Thankfully Tobin didn’t protest and want to see it. I could do little to keep her from watching it during the slide show, but I could keep her from viewing it plastered on my chest.

  A lot of people looked familiar, but I remembered the names of only a few. There were at least two dozen round tables, each with perfectly arranged place settings for ten. Sweating glasses filled with melting ice ringed the inside of the large table. The centerpiece at each one was a stuffed animal of our school mascot.