by Julie Cannon
“The more time that passed, and the older I got, the more embarrassed I was. I’ve had a few fumbles, which usually ended up being humiliating experiences.”
“Are you waiting to fall in love and get married?”
“What? No. It’s not like that. I have no desire to get married. And end up like my parents? No, thank you.”
“Then what are you waiting for? You date, meet a lot of women…”
As if it were that easy. “So when am I supposed to tell them I’m a virgin? On the first date, maybe the second or third? Never? Do I just go with it and not let them know at all? Don’t you think they’ll figure it out real quick?” These were the same questions I’d asked myself dozens and dozens of times over the years, especially after I met someone I was interested in.
“I see your point.” Courtney nodded. “So what are you going to do?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I answered honestly. We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Have you thought of…maybe…using a…service?” she asked hesitantly.
“A what?” Was she suggesting I go to a prostitute?
“A service, you know. Where you don’t have to ever see the woman again so you have no need to be embarrassed. Better yet, she can show you what to do.” By the look on Courtney’s face she thought it was a plausible idea.
“I wouldn’t know the first place to look. It’s not like I can Google it, and I’m pretty sure that regardless of the reason, it’s still illegal.”
“I can ask around,” Courtney eagerly volunteered.
“No,” I said quickly.
“No, really, K. Rachel will know who to call.”
“I don’t even want to know how Rachel would know,” I said, picturing the short, stocky, fifty-year-old Target store manager.
“But I could help—”
“I don’t need any help, thank you. And certainly not the type that could land me on the next episode of Cops. No,” I said again when she started to say something else.
“Did you tell Tobin?”
“Are you crazy? If I hadn’t told you, I’m certainly not going to tell anyone else—especially someone like Tobin.”
“What do you mean, someone like Tobin.”
“Come on, Courtney. You know her reputation. A girl in every city. She’d laugh so hard she’d pee her pants.”
“But you wanted to sleep with her.”
“Yes.” There. I finally admitted I wanted to have sex with Tobin Parks. I’d thought about nothing but having sex with her. I’d stopped thinking about everybody else having sex, Tobin having my full attention. “So what do I do?” I finally asked.
“I have no fucking clue,” she answered, deadly serious.
“What good are you then? You aren’t holding up your end of the BFF contract.” Now that some of the tension was released, I started to relax.
“And what part is that?”
“The part that gives me sound, sage advice on what to do.”
“And if I did, what would I say?” She leaned back in the booth as if settling in for long words of wisdom.
“I have no fucking clue,” I said. I barely got the words out before we were both laughing hysterically, tears streaming down our cheeks.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Am I interrupting?”
The last thing I needed first thing this Monday morning was Tobin standing in my office doorway. I didn’t win the bet with Tobin, and I’d heard an earful from my mother, who obviously pulled out the sibling reinforcements. Harrison and Marcus bent my ear, and my sister Meredith had regaled me with a list of STDs that I could catch by dating Tobin. She repeatedly emphasized, along with a graphic description, those that would not go away with a shot of penicillin. I told my mother to mind her own business, my brothers to mind their own goddamn business, and reminded my sister I was a grown-ass adult, not one of her fifteen-year-old patients.
“If I said yes, would you leave?” I asked Tobin, looking over the top of my reading glasses to see her standing in my doorway.
“No. I was just being polite.”
“Then why bother to even ask?” My question was rhetorical, and I made a note to myself to make sure that if Bea ever left her desk, someone else was covering it. Like the times before, Tobin filled the room with her presence as she stepped through the open doorway, exuding an aura of something that made the room come alive. “What are you doing here? Don’t you need to be on a bus going someplace?”
“I came to collect,” she stated, coming into my office and closing the door behind her.
“How do you know you won?” I asked, bluffing. “Maybe I won.”
“Either way it’s good for me,” Tobin said, hooking one leg across the edge of my desk and sitting half on, half off.
Her thigh was within touching distance, and I flushed remembering how it had felt pressed against me on the dance floor—and how I’d ridden it to orgasm in my dream.
“Well?” she asked when I wasn’t forthcoming about the results.
I’d thought about lying, but other than doing so about my virginity, I wasn’t a good liar and somehow she’d know.
“Three hours and seventeen minutes,” I said, remembering the phone call at 4:10 yesterday morning. I hadn’t even had a chance to say hello when my mother started.
“Kiersten, have you no self-respect? Have your father or I not taught you anything about appearances? About how something that looks innocent can haunt you for a lifetime? Did you not think of that? Did you not think of your family? Harrison is on Wall Street and Marcus is a senior partner in the firm. And Meredith’s husband is a doctor,” she added, as if that was the next best thing to God. Thank God, Maxwell is out of the country,” she said with disgust.
“For God’s sake, Mother. It’s four o’clock in the morning,” I choked out, not that she would care. Her job as a mother, purveyor of all things appropriate, was a twenty-four-seven job. One that she took very seriously.
“I don’t care what time it is, young lady. You have some explaining to do.”
I knew I was in trouble when the “young lady” came out. Thankfully it had been years since I’d heard it. I turned on the light beside my bed and squinted until my eyes adjusted. I sat up and tossed a pillow behind my back against the headboard. What I needed was a strong cup of hot coffee, but that would have to wait. I was talking to my mother, after all. No, actually she was lecturing me.
“Good morning, Mother. How was your trip?” That response was guaranteed to make her go even more nuts than she was. I wasn’t disappointed.
“This isn’t a social call, Kiersten.” Her voice was almost shrill. “Imagine my shock when Brittney called to tell me you had gone to your high school reunion with that…woman. Your reunion, for heaven’s sake. Where everyone would see you!”
Why did it not surprise me that Brittney would be the one to spread the news like the bubonic plague? “That’s what reunions are, Mother, a party where you go and see everyone you haven’t seen in years—”
“And you go with her? That is how you wanted people to see you? On her arm?” My mother sure did know how to accentuate her point.
“Mother, it’s the middle of the night. Can we talk about this in the morning, like ten?”
“We will talk about it now.” Her words were clipped, and again, I felt like I was twelve.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Mother. Yes, Tobin went with me to my reunion last night. We ate rubber chicken and mushy green beans, talked to a few people, and had a good time. That’s it. No big deal. Nothing to talk about.”
“You two were practically having sex on the dance floor.”
That remark caught me off guard. “And Brittney would know that how?” I asked, not waiting for an answer. “There was nothing inappropriate about the evening, and that includes our time on the dance floor.”
“You danced with a woman, that woman, in public!” My mother practically gasped the last few words.
“It’s not the fi
rst time I’ve danced with a woman in public.” Not that she needed to know it was in a dark, smoky bar and lots of alcohol was involved.
“How can you say that? Everyone knows us, and you own a respectable business. She is infamous for her…her…”
My mother was so angry she couldn’t find the words to describe her complete disrespect for Tobin. “For her dozen-plus top-ten songs? Her sold-out concerts in every city around the world? The fact that she’s met the US President, The Queen of England and her grandson William, and the Chancellor of Germany? Is that what you’re referring to, Mother?” I was intentionally antagonizing her, but I refused to let her degrade Tobin.
“Kiersten—”
“We’ve had this discussion about Tobin, Mother. I am a grown woman, I am aware of the world around me, and I can and do make my own decisions. Now, I was out late last night and I’m tired. Good night, Mother.”
“That bad, huh?” Tobin asked, as if reading my mind. “Do you want me to do something? I can talk to her—”
“No! Don’t do anything. You’ll just draw more attention to it.” I thought about the line spoken by Queen Gertrude in Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much…” or something like that.
“I have to do something,” Tobin said. “It was a stupid idea.”
I took several deep breaths. I had to pull it together. I was a master at façade. “No, please don’t do anything,” I said a little more calmly. “Just leave it alone. Tonight when you’re seen with a new hot young thing, it’ll blow over.”
I heard Tobin take in a breath.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, but you have to admit you will.”
“Are you calling me a player?” Tobin’s tone was much cooler than before.
“Or whatever it’s called, I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “You have a different girl on your arm every night.”
“And that makes me a player?”
“What would you call it?” I expected her to say something like lucky or some other sexually charged euphemism.
“Again, goes with the territory.”
“Did you just say that?” I asked incredulously. “Are you that shallow? Or entitled?” I’d thought Tobin was an okay girl, but this change in attitude had my opinion changing right along with it.
“No, look, I’m sorry,” Tobin said, exasperation in her voice. “That’s not what I think, and it’s certainly not who I am.”
“Hard to imagine that,” I added, rolling my eyes.
“Look,” Tobin said forcefully. “That is not me. That’s image, something the media consultants drummed up years ago.”
“So you prostitute yourself for fame?” That was a bit harsh, but sometimes the truth hurts, and right now my head was killing me.
“No! Would you stop putting words in my mouth and just shut up for a minute so I can explain.”
“Did you just tell me to shut up?”
“Yes, and if you don’t, I’m going to say it again.”
“And this is coming from the woman who wants JOLT, i.e. me, the one you just told to shut up, to sponsor your next tour?”
“What difference does it make? You’ve already said no.”
My mouth snapped shut at that retort, and I hoped the sound wasn’t loud enough for Tobin to hear.
“Look,” Tobin said, her voice quieter. “Somehow this conversation got off track. I came over here because I—”
“What? Wanted to gloat?”
“Do you hate me that much?”
Her question caught me off guard. “I don’t hate you. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Well, at the risk of flinging more mud, you called me a player, then jumped right into accusing me of being a whore.”
I grimaced because that’s exactly what I did. I wasn’t like this. I didn’t judge people like that. But I had, and I realized how much it could hurt.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know you well enough to even begin to say what kind of person you are.”
“Then come with me.”
“I beg your pardon?” Surely she couldn’t mean what I thought she meant. Even in the middle of an ugly argument, my mind heads toward sex.
“On tour. Come with me for the rest of this tour.”
“What?” What in the hell was she talking about?
“Come with me for the rest of this tour,” she repeated a little slower, like that was all it would take for me to understand. “You’re right, you don’t know me. This would be the perfect opportunity for you to see for yourself how I live.”
“And watch you have sex with Barbie and Skipper?” God, Kiersten, enough with the sex stuff.
“Who?”
“Never mind,” I said, forgetting for a minute Tobin was way younger than me. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” Was she really that clueless? “I run a multi-million-dollar company.” There, that should clear things up.
“So.”
Obviously I wasn’t clear enough. “So? You have no idea what that entails,” I said, looking around at the papers and folders on my desk, not to mention the unread emails that had come in during this ridiculous conversation.
“What? Meetings? Phone calls?” Tobin replied, as if it were that simple. “There’s a thing called technology, Kiersten. You can do that stuff anywhere.”
“It’s not that simple,” I argued ineffectively.
“Sure, it is. You do your thing during the day while I’m usually sleeping or we’re driving from one show to the other. You can work in my coach.”
“What?”
“You can work in my coach,” she repeated, as if I hadn’t heard her clearly. I had, but it wasn’t making sense.
“We’re rarely anywhere where we can’t get some kind of signal. You can Skype or use Go To Assist or Web-X or whatever JOLT uses for remote meetings and conference calls.”
If it were only that simple.
“Look, Kiersten. You don’t believe me when I say I’m not my image, and I’m willing to prove it to you. No one comes into my coach, never has—ever. You can ask anyone on my crew. They won’t lie to you. If I’m willing to let you move in for a month, then you’d better believe I’m serious. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. Are you?”
“You can’t be serious?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer to the question. My mind was whirling with details, logistics, images, and flashbacks of my dreams.
“Dead serious. What are you risking, Kiersten?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you risking?” she asked again. “Some inconvenience? I’m risking much more than that. I’m risking my reputation, not to mention my sanity being cooped up in a seventy-eight-foot coach for a month with you.”
“The answer is still no.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Tobin. You might not be used to people telling you no, but I did, and I haven’t changed my mind.”
“People tell me no all the time,” she said impishly.
“Oh, please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Why do I find that difficult to believe?”
“I don’t know, Kiersten. Why do you?”
“Because you’re young, famous, rich, and sexy. No one says no to that.”
“You think I’m sexy?”
God, did I ever, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “I read the papers. I’ve been to one of your concerts, seen your adoring fans falling all over themselves to get your attention.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you go to one of my shows?”
Shit, did I actually say that? “A few months ago. A friend of mine dragged me.”
“What did you think?”
That you were hot, had a bedroom voice, and I couldn’t take my eyes off you. “Don’t change the subject,” I said emphatically.
“All right, but give me one good reason why you can’t come with me.”
I named ei
ght, and when she left I was even more exhausted and keyed up than when she walked in.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“So are you going to do it?” Courtney and I were sharing appetizers and half-price beers at Kline’s, a pub not too far from her house. We were finishing our first basket of wings and our second beer.
“No.” I should have said, “No way in hell am I going to spend four weeks in a motor home traveling all over the country with Tobin Parks.”
“You need to loosen up, K. Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You know you’re wound pretty tight. When was the last time you did something just for the fun of it? And I don’t mean mowing your forty acres,” she added.
“It’s not forty. It’s four. And I happen to like mowing and puttering around the house. It’s my relaxation.”
“Fine. When was the last time you went out? And I don’t mean with me,” she said before I had a chance to.
“I went to Michelle’s party,” I said confidently.
“That was months ago.” Courtney seemed exasperated. “Kiersten, all you do is work and, what did you call it, putter around the house.”
“What’s wrong with that? You do your thing for relaxation and what you enjoy in life, and I can’t do the same?”
“Not when it’s not good for you,” Courtney stated.
I waited for the bartender to set down our beers and an order of fries before I asked, “And why is doing what I want to do and what makes me happy not good for me?”
“Are you? Happy, I mean?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” I was starting to get a little perturbed.
“Because I’m not sure you are.” She held her hand up to stop me from commenting. “Let me finish,” she said. “I’ve watched you over the years, K, and you don’t light up anymore. I mean, you do when you talk about JOLT and what’s going on there, but when it comes to anything else, you’re…well…flat.”