by Ingrid Diaz
“Well, if you ever change your mind about that threesome . . .”
I kicked him under the table. “Jerk. What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“Well, all bisexual chicks are into that kind of thing, right?”
This time I threatened him with the remains of my cake. “Say one more thing, and this will be all over your beautiful tux.”
Mathew held up his hands. “All right. I give up.” He smiled. “Want to dance?”
“Yeah. Let’s go make Jessica and Dominique jealous.” He stood, took my hand, and led me to the dance floor. I don’t remember what song was playing. It was definitely not Aerosmith. “So where’s your wife?” I asked, as we joined the rest of the couples.
“I’m not sure. Maybe she ran off with someone else.”
I nodded solemnly. “That’s a definite possibility. You know how she is, always running off with the mailman, or the milkman, or the boogieman.”
Mathew started laughing. “The boogieman?”
“Yeah, sure. You’ll like the wedding gift I gave you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep. It’s a leash, so you can keep your eye on her at all times. It’s blue, too. Very manly color.”
“I’m glad you’re around to keep my masculinity intact.”
I nodded. “My pleasure.”
“So what did you get Jessica?”
“I got her an apron. Gotta keep those socially constructed gender roles in place.”
“Definitely. Wouldn’t want her getting any ideas.”
The song, whatever it was, ended, so I pulled away from him, and then gave him a big hug. “Treat her well, okay? I know you will, but it’s just one of those things you have to say anyway.”
Mathew hugged me back. “If I ever treat her badly, I give you full permission to kick my ass.”
We started walking back to the table.
Maurice appeared suddenly at my side. “I’m sorry, Miss Alix, but there is a young woman at the front door inquiring about you.”
I frowned. “What young woman?” Then it hit me. “Valerie?”
“I believe that’s her name, Miss.”
I excused myself from Mathew and walked as fast as I could in the shoes I was wearing toward the house.
I found Valerie looking around the foyer.
“Hi,” I said lamely, not knowing what else to say. She was clad in tight black jeans again, and a navy blue baby tee with the words “Save Ferris” printed in orange across her chest. Black boots completed the outfit. I suddenly realized what I was wearing and how stupid I must have looked. “You’re early,” I found myself adding.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
The tone of her voice made me flinch slightly, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong. “Please don’t.” I had the inexplicable feeling that if I let her walk out the door I’d never see her again, and for some reason I couldn’t bear the thought. “The reception is almost over. Just hang around a little longer and we can leave.”
Valerie looked uncertain. “I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion,” she said, her tone softer this time. “I didn’t realize you’d invited me to Jessica Heart’s wedding.”
I shrugged. Being best friends with someone famous sometimes made you forget that they were famous at all. “She’s my best friend.”
Valerie nodded at the dress. “Bridesmaid?”
“Maid of honor.” I waited for her response, afraid that the news would frighten her off. Most people would have been thrilled, but Valerie looked ready to bolt. “I didn’t know it would bother you.”
Valerie was silent for a moment, and I readied myself to chase after her if she did take off.
Before she had a chance to say or do anything however, Jessica appeared at the top of the stairs. Her wedding dress was gone, replaced with a pair of faded jeans and a black Tweety tee shirt. Her long black hair hung loose as usual, and I was momentarily afraid that after seeing Jessica, Valerie would forget all about me. The irony of the thought caused me to frown.
Jessica reached the bottom of the stairs and approached Valerie with a smile. She extended her hand. “I guess you must be Valerie.”
Valerie shook her hand hesitantly, glancing at me as though wondering how Jessica Heart knew her name. “Call me Val. Interesting wedding dress.”
Jessica laughed. “I was going for the modern look.” She turned her attention to me. “I guess you’re out of here?”
“When are you guys leaving?” I asked, torn between wanting to leave with Valerie and wanting to cling to Jessica and never let go.
“As soon as I find Mathew. Have you seen him?”
I nodded and pointed outside. “I was just dancing with him, but Dominique cut in so you might wanna go out there.”
“I’m sure he’s enjoying it.” Jessica turned back to Valerie. “Well, Val, you’re welcome to anything at the reception. There might be cake left if someone over here didn’t eat it all.” She glanced pointedly at me, and I glared at her.
Valerie grinned slightly. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to find Mathew and sneak out of here,” Jessica announced. “Think anyone will notice?”
“Not a chance,” I told her. “Have a great honeymoon.”
Jessica winked. “I will.” She gave me a hug, which felt so final in spite of the fact that I’d be seeing her again in a couple of weeks. “Have fun, girls. Nice meeting you, Val.”
I watched her walk away, then turned to find Valerie gazing at me with an unreadable expression. Could she tell how I felt? Was it that obvious? I managed a smile. “Let me get out of this thing and then we can go.” I headed for the stairs and motioned for her to follow me. I’d stopped by my dorm earlier that day to get a change of clothes. There was no way I was going out on a date wearing a dress. Was this a date?
“I like your hair,” Valerie commented.
“I figured I’d look a little more sophisticated for the occasion.” To be honest, I’d simply asked the hairdresser to get rid of the blue and make it black, but Roxanne and Jessica had insisted on her giving me a trim. The trim turned into a completely new do. Instead of black, it was now light brown with reddish highlights. Instead of shoulder-length, it was now cut short around my ears, falling forward into my eyes in a way that was becoming annoying. Jessica and Roxanne agreed that it brought out the green of my eyes, and made me look older and more mature. It only made me wonder what I’d looked like before.
“It looks nice.”
“Thanks.” We reached the top of the stairs where the staircase split in two. I turned to the left and headed up a new flight of stairs. Valerie followed closely, looking around in amazement. At the top, I went to the right, down a long corridor to the very last door at the end of the hallway. I threw open the double doors to Jessica’s bedroom and allowed Valerie to pass through first.
“Holy . . .” Valerie’s jaw fell open.
I couldn’t say I blamed her. The room had nearly given me a heart attack the first time I’d walked inside. I guess after all these years one took these things for granted, so I looked around again, trying to picture it as Valerie must see it.
The area to the left had once been half of a basketball court, complete with a hoop and everything, but had been recently turned into a small gym. The wall, which had once sported paintings of an outside basketball court, had been covered with a large mirror. The hardwood floors were now carpeted in a dark blue color, as was the rest of the room.
Jessica’s bed was directly in front, and the wall behind it had been painted to look like the bottom of the ocean. Jessica has a thing with the ocean. I don’t think she could ever live anywhere that wasn’t on the beach.
Her king-size waterbed rested on top of a wooden platform with a couple of wooden steps leading up to it. Nightstands on either side of it, along with a matching wall unit, completed the set. On either side of those, were two doors. One led to the bathroom, and the other to the walk-in closet, which was big enough to
house an entire family of four comfortably.
To the right were French double doors leading out to the balcony, and a living room-type area was to the side of that. A black-leather couch faced a Phillips flat screen TV and beanbag chairs of different colors were strewn about the carpeted floor. There were a couple of wall units at either side of the TV, both housing movies and stereo equipment.
At the other side of the double doors was Jessica’s desk. Her desktop computer and its many components rested on its surface. Next to that was another wall unit filled top to bottom with books. That particular wall was painted to simulate the ocean at sunset.
The wall behind me was a very dark blue, with a gorgeous, full moon glowing over the horizon, casting its reflection over the water.
“Makes your room at home feel like a shoebox, huh?” I said, after a moment.
Valerie laughed. “My entire apartment could fit inside this room about five times.”
I smiled and walked over to the bed, where I’d thrown my change of clothes. I’d been in a hurry that morning, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d selected, but I figured one couldn’t go wrong with jeans. I’d chosen a different pair of black Jncos this time. The ones I’d been wearing Thursday night had a picture of a kid on a skateboard above the left back pocket. These had a mad scientist with green hair embroidered on the right back pocket. I liked these better anyway because they were baggier. For a shirt, I’d opted for a black Garbage tee shirt with Shirley Manson on the front in black and white.
I grabbed the clothes and turned to Valerie. “If I can find my way out of this dress, I’ll be back in five minutes.” She smiled, but I wasn’t entirely sure I was kidding. I walked into Jessica’s closet and shut the door.
Once upon a time, it had been filled with clothes as far as the eye could see. A couple of years ago, Jessica had decided that one person did not need so many outfits in one lifetime and gave them all away to the Salvation Army. I did manage to steal a few of her black tee shirts, though.
Catching my reflection in the mirror, I flinched. I had to get out of that dress and pronto. For a second I actually thought I looked good.
That’s when dilemma number one presented itself: the zipper. “Shit,” I muttered, trying to get my arms around the back and failing miserably in the process. Dilemma number two was deciding what to do about it. I bit my lip, running a list of possibilities through my mind. Granted, it was a very short list. I looked around, as though expecting Jessica’s clothes to take life and help me out of the predicament.
Eventually, I gave up and walked back out.
Valerie was standing at the same spot I’d left her. She arched an eyebrow, then she grinned. “There are too many smartass comments running through my mind to pick just one.”
I pointed to the back of the dress. “Can you help me?”
Valerie coughed, to keep from laughing, I imagined, then walked over to me. “Isn’t it a little early in the date for me to be undressing you?”
Flirting. Definitely not one of my strong points. It occurred to me then that I was going out with this woman, whom I barely knew. What was she expecting from me? I’d never really done this before. Did she think we’d have sex that night?
Valerie reached for my dress, and I jerked back. She frowned. “I’m sorry, I was just teasing.”
I made a mental note to kick myself when she wasn’t looking. “My fault. You surprised me, and I’ve been known to be rather jumpy.” We were off to a good start. I turned around so she could unzip me, which she proceeded to do quite hesitantly. I was sure that she was having second thoughts about this entire thing, and I had to admit I wasn’t feeling entirely confident about the situation. But I was willing to give it a shot. “Okay, this time, I will come back out wearing something different. I hope.”
I escaped into the closet and leaned my back against the door. There I was, twenty years old, and I’d never even kissed a girl. Unless you counted the two second act of desperation the night before with Jessica. So yes, I was freaking out. A lot. Especially since my safety blanket was on her way to Europe with her husband, and the girl on the other side of that door was really gorgeous and I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
Deep breaths, Morris.
I said that to myself a few times, then kicked off the dreaded shoes. Three minutes later, I was back in my normal attire. And I had to admit that the haircut did look kind of cool. I stood before the mirror, trying to imagine what Valerie saw when she looked at me. To this day I can honestly say that I have no idea.
Valerie was sitting on the last step leading up to the bed, and she rose as I walked in the room. “Feel better?” she asked.
“Yes, dresses aren’t my thing. Now, if I manage to find my shoes we can be on our way.” I started looking around the floor. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“I was kind of hoping you’d have some ideas.”
My Airwalks peered out at me from behind the black leather couch, and I sat down on it to put them on. “Wait a second, didn’t you ask me out?”
Valerie came around the couch and stared down at me. “Well, I tried to think of someplace but I don’t know you well enough to know where you’d want to go, so I figured I’d let you choose.”
I finished with the shoes, and my feet cried out in glee that they weren’t clad in fancy footwear. I wasn’t sure what to make of Valerie’s inability to make a decision as to where we should go. So I put myself in her position and decided she was right. How was I supposed to know what she liked to do on a Saturday night? I had enough trouble figuring out what I wanted to do on any given day.
“The whole dinner and a movie cliché seemed a bit overdone,” Valerie continued. “I thought we could be more creative than that.”
I smiled and stood up. “At this rate I don’t see us doing anything at all.” I looked around the room for a second, gathering my thoughts. “Would you like to take a walk down the beach?”
Valerie nodded. “Lead the way.”
We took a shortcut through the balcony. There were stairs leading down to the pool deck and then down to the beach. It was a private sector, but it connected with the public area about a mile down.
I took off my shoes and socks when we reached the last step. If I’d known this was what we’d be doing, I wouldn’t have bothered to put them on at all. Valerie hesitated, then took off her boots and placed them beside my Airwalks.
We started off down the shoreline. I didn’t get too close to the water’s edge because I didn’t want the bottom of my jeans to get wet, but Valerie didn’t seem to care. I was sure she’d jump right in the ocean with her clothes on if I dared her. And maybe I would have had it had been daylight, but it was dark and I wasn’t sure how cold the water was.
I was being quiet, which was generally unusual for me, especially when nervous. It’s amazing how much babbling a person can do in the right frame of mind. Astounding how quiet the same person can become when feeling out of sorts. This was a bad day for a first impression, or second impression or whatever it was. I needed to snap out of it and quickly before I blew something I still wasn’t sure was mine to blow.
“I’m usually more talkative than this,” I said suddenly, my voice rising over the crashing waves, which were relatively calm that night. There wasn’t much wind blowing to cause anything above a gentle roar as the water rolled in and out of the shore in a way that had become symbolic of my life.
“I have mixed feelings about this part,” Valerie responded, looking down at the water flooding her feet, and the sand giving under her weight.
Until that moment I had never truly listened to the sound of her voice. I’d heard the words she’d spoken, but the actual tone of her voice had fallen on deaf ears. It was soft and strong at the same time, feminine and powerful and sweet. The kind of voice I could listen to forever without growing sick of it. “What part is that?” I inquired, mentally shaking myself from my thoughts.
Sky blue eyes focused on me for a moment.
“The part where we know absolutely nothing about each other and don’t know where to start.”
I shrugged. “We could play truth or dare.”
Valerie’s eyebrows shot upward. “Seriously?”
Truthfully, I’d meant it as a joke, but I didn’t see why we couldn’t. “Sure.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Perhaps this was a bad idea.
Valerie stopped walking, took my hand, and pulled me down on the sand so that we were sitting side by side.
I liked that she was bold enough to touch me after I’d made a fool of myself earlier. I was also grateful she wasn’t as shy as I was when it came to that sort of thing. “So, who starts?”
“Well, since it was your idea, I think you should go for it.”
“All right. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
A question popped into my head, and I was happy that this didn’t seem as difficult as I had expected. “What made you give me your number?”
Blue eyes narrowed slightly at the question, and she grinned at me. “That should be pretty obvious.”
I shook my head. “I suck at obvious things.”
“Well, I gave you my number because I wanted you to call me.”
Score one for the smartass. “Touché. That’s not exactly what I was going for, though.”
She took a deep breath and then said, “I didn’t want you disappearing out of my life without getting a chance to know you better.”
“There. Now that wasn’t so hard was it?”
“Truth or dare?”
Frankly, I would’ve preferred a third choice, but then I figured that I could always fib my way out of the truth option. So, “Truth.”
“Okay . . .” Valerie leaned back on her elbows, stretching out beside me, and I did everything within my power to keep my gaze from wandering. “Why did you call me?”
It was a fair enough question, one that I nearly missed having been too busy not noticing her bellybutton ring. I wondered if she had a tattoo. “I called you for the same reason you gave me your number.”