Opening Act Page 16

  “I will.”

  “Or the Interweb. We do the YouTube, you know.”

  “It’s not the YouTube, Mom, it’s…fine, yes, I’ll let you know.”

  There was a pause. “You don’t sound very excited, honey. What’s wrong? You want to go, don’t you? I’d certainly think you’d want to go.”

  “Yes, of course, it’s…it’s just. Well. You remember last time we talked, and I mentioned that girl I met?”

  “Mm-hm,” she said, in a way he could tell meant she didn’t, not quite. But it wasn’t necessary.

  “Well, I’m kind of leaving with that whole thing in a bad place. My fault, really. And I don’t have time to make it up to her, and…and in the meantime, she’s moving out west, and it’s just a big freaking mess. That’s all.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m sure there will be other girls. Lots of them, from what I remember about the club scene.”

  He absolutely did not want to hear any more stories about his mom’s adventures in the club scene; they had already scarred his adolescence. “Yeah,” he said, “but there’s something about this girl. A thing I can’t really describe. Like, she intrigues me. She shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I…I think she may be, like, someone I’m meant to be with. Possibly. Sort of. Ish.”

  She laughed. “You men and your qualifiers! You know your dad never tells me he loves me? Not in those words. Whenever I ask him, he just grins and says, ‘You’ll do.’ ”

  “I know that, Mom.” He’d heard it often enough.

  “Well, fine, Shay, let me play devil’s advocate. You say this girl may be the one you’re meant to be with. You’re not sure, then.”

  “No. But I’d like to be. I have a feeling.”

  “Fine. Test it, then. Go to New York. Wade through all the girls that get thrown in your way. If you can make it through them and still be thinking of this one, then track her down and tell her so.”

  “Yeah, but…” He shifted in his chair and scratched his knee, a nervous gesture. He was hearing what he needed to hear, but it embarrassed him that he had to hear it from his mother. He felt like he was fifteen or something. “Here’s the thing. She’s moving west with another guy. To be with him.”

  She scoffed. “Oh, honey, you know that means exactly nothing. If this is a destiny thing, then who she’s with now means less than zero.”

  He smiled. “It’s crazy how you always make it sound so easy.”

  “Well, I’m a professional. Of course I make it sound easy. But it’s not. Like they say on TV, ‘Don’t try this at home.’ ”

  “Try what at home?”

  “Giving yourself advice. That’s what moms are for. What time is your plane, honey?”

  “Six thirty–ish. Pernita’s picking me up.”

  “This is the one who’s the daughter of your manager?”

  “Yep, that’s her.”

  “Well. That’s very nice of her.” Shay’s mom had a way of saying things about Pernita that sounded like the exact opposite of what the words meant. Like now, what she was really saying was, How deviously grasping of that little witch. It was amazing to Shay that she’d developed such a strong dislike for Pernita, despite Shay having said almost nothing about her, ever. Hell, maybe that was why. Mothers could read between the lines. It was kind of their superpower.

  Seated at the airport in the departure lounge, Shay felt restless and bored. Pernita was immersed in her iPad and exuded a kind of serene patience. It made him want to knock the thing right out of her hand. He readjusted himself in his seat, checked the flight number on his boarding pass for the eleventh time, and compared it to the one on the board over the check-in desk in case something had suddenly changed in the forty-six seconds since he’d last done this.

  Everything still seemed in order, so he shifted again, then turned to Pernita and said, “By the way, I forgot to ask, what hotel are we staying at?”

  She looked up at him with her usual didn’t-Shay-just-say-the-cutest-thing look.

  “In the city, I mean,” he said, thinking she didn’t understand him. “In New York.”

  “Idiot,” she said, grinning. “You’re not staying in a hotel.”

  Another layer of doom seemed to drop over him like a sheet. “I’m not?”

  “Of course not! There are going to be plenty of hotels when we’re on the road. This is our last chance to relax in the comfort of an actual home.”

  He blinked. “Whose home?”

  She tweaked his arm. “Whose do you think? Daddy’s.”

  “He’s got a place there?” he asked, but he was thinking, Of course he does.

  “I’ve told you before, Daddy’s bicoastal. He’s got a beautiful apartment on the Upper East Side, overlooking Central Park. You’ll love it.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He sat back. He was feeling strangely sorry he’d asked. It was like she’d told him, We have the most beautiful cage for you to stay in. Everything you could ask for; you won’t even notice the bars. Testing this out, he said, “It sounds pretty convenient. I’m guessing I can just jump on the subway and head downtown. Kinda hoping to take in some of the clubs while I’m there.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. We can use one of Daddy’s cars for wherever we want to go. Also, he and I have put together a pretty tight schedule for you, parties and openings and things like that. We don’t want to waste a minute of your time there. It’s all about exposure, exposure, exposure.” She glanced at her watch. “Almost boarding time. I wonder what’s delaying my upgrade request…”

  She got up and went to harangue the gate agent. Shay stayed behind, alone in the crowd, and thought, This may be my last chance. If I get up now and leave, I can be out of here before she even notices I’m gone. I can grab a bus and go somewhere new and start over and no one will ever find me…

  But of course he didn’t move a muscle, except to restlessly shift in his seat, until the time came to board the plane.

  Loni shouldn’t have cared whether he was in town or not. She’d always known he was leaving anyway, so what did it matter when he left? But when she heard that he’d flown to New York the day after she’d made love with him—flown off with the woman he was apparently some kind of item with to shoot a magazine spread for some trendy magazine—she felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Maybe it was worse that a photographer had snapped a photo of them as they entered the airport and she got to see what this Pernita looked like. It was just as she’d feared. Pernita Hasque might’ve been sculpted out of soap and sprayed with sex. Women like that just weren’t natural. Not that men ever cared.

  She lay on her bed and just concentrated on breathing. In…out. In…out. It wasn’t difficult, but if she didn’t pay attention, she might…just…stop.

  She examined her mental state with characteristic ruthlessness and realized that deep down she’d been kind of hoping that Shay would make some dramatic reentry into her life—come back and explain himself and make everything all right. Ask for a second chance, and…well, get one.

  Schoolgirl, soap-opera stuff. The kind of stupidity she actually mocked in other people.

  And here she was, lying limp on her bed because…because her life was not a fairy tale. Because she was an adult who made mistakes and didn’t want to accept the consequences. Didn’t want to do the hard work of getting back on her feet and making her life what she wished it to be.

  But…that was the kicker. She’d thought with Shay she had been making those hard decisions. She had been in control. She hadn’t thrown herself at him; he’d pursued her. And even then, he’d had to earn her respect. She knew now that it was all an act—him pretending to listen to her as she went on about poetry, about art, about creativity. He was just a practiced, polished seducer who instantly sussed out the way into any woman’s heart. Or, rather, her pants. Better women than she had fallen prey to guys like that.

  And yet…and yet…even now she couldn’t let go of the idea that he hadn’t been pretending. Admittedly she was young, but
she wasn’t entirely inexperienced. And she’d been completely convinced by everything he’d said to her, by the look in his eyes, the look behind his eyes. They’d engaged each other, met each other on a higher level. They’d connected.

  Well, so what if they had? Tonight he’d gotten on a plane with a woman who had more invested in her hair than Loni spent on her entire education. That was the hard lesson of the world. Hearts don’t matter, minds don’t matter, money matters. Money and power.

  She rolled over on her back, and found herself once again staring at the crack in the ceiling. Reflexively, the lines she’d written about it came back to her:

  A hairsbreadth divide that does not divine—meaning

  gutters when division uncouples a nullity—

  Division had uncoupled a nullity with her and Shay, all right.

  This was ridiculous. She got to her feet and swept her hair away from her face. Then, with a big gulp of air to summon up all her courage, she went out to the kitchen and made dinner. Chicken cutlets from a bag and frozen carrots. It was that kind of world.

  The next morning Zee got her long-awaited job offer, and after the first rush of euphoria, she plummeted into a weird kind of nervous moodiness.

  “You should call Byron,” she told Loni. “I mean it.”

  Loni laughed. “You’re very sweet. But that bridge done be burned.”

  “No, I mean it,” she said, sitting on the side of Loni’s bed. She’d burst in to tell her the news and found Loni half awake, scrolling through e-mails on her phone. “It’s not too late. It’s never too late, not for anything.”

  “It’s too late for this,” Loni said, pushing herself up to sit propped against her pillows. “I told you the things he said to me. I can’t just ignore them.”

  “But, you’ve said before, he goes a little crazy every now and then, loses his mind, and then an hour later he’s all right again. What if that’s what happened this time? What if an hour after he walked out on you, he was all regretful and everything? And wishing he could apologize? I mean, he’s a poet, right? He’s allowed to rage out sometimes. It’s part of the whole artist thing.”

  “Then he could damn well have apologized. And he’s not a poet. He’s a poetry professor,” Loni replied, then muttered, “which is more than I can hope to be.”

  “Except…” Zee balled her fists and play-pounded Loni’s skull. “Come on, idiot. You can’t not know how incredibly into you he is. He’s probably killing himself over what he said and worried that if he tries to apologize and you shut it down, he’ll have to go and…I don’t know. Kill himself or something.”

  “Byron Pennington will never kill himself,” she scoffed. “He’d never deprive the world of so much literary genius. He’d consider it cruel.”

  Zee sighed. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

  “You’re not being serious. You’re just…look, a week ago, I had this big job lined up, my future was made. And you had nothing. Now, our situations are exactly reversed. You’ve got your hot new gig, and I’ve got a great big crater of zip, zilch, nil, nada. And you’re a very sweet and very empathic girl who remembers what that felt like, and you want me to join you back on the other side of the fence.” She stroked Zee’s forearm. “I love you for that, really. You’re a stand-up friend. But…it just ain’t happening.”

  A funny thing occurred while Loni was saying this. Zee’s face underwent a series of contortions, like she was in some kind of agony. Loni had no idea what was behind it. Could the girl not stand being complimented or something? Whatever the reason, she decided not to torment her any further with more comments on what a great friend she was.

  Instead, she said, “And anyway, Byron’s sure to have offered the job to the other woman he had lined up. He’d promised to let her know as soon as I made my decision, and I sure as hell made my decision. So that’s it. The job’s not even there for me to take anymore.” Loni still hadn’t found it necessary to tell Zee about Shay, and she felt a little bad hiding from her very compassionate friend that the true cause of her depression might actually be more from a one-afternoon-stand than the whole thing with Byron.

  Zee’s lower lip trembled. It looked to Loni like Zee felt personally responsible for her predicament, which was totally insane. Loni had made all her own decisions—every last lousy one of them.

  “Well, then, at least call him to smooth things over,” Zee said. “You say you’ve burned that bridge, but it can be rebuilt. I mean, you’re going to need him, aren’t you? He’s, like, your only reference. Wherever you go, for whatever kind of job you end up doing, there’s no one else you can have people call but him.”

  Loni was about to quip something back but stopped herself. In fact, Zee had a point. If she allowed Byron to remain banished from her life, she’d essentially be back to where she had been when she graduated high school. Everything that had happened since would be effectively erased, because the only human being on the planet who could testify to its value was someone she’d cut the cord to.

  She heaved a big, resigned sigh. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll call him. I will.”

  Zee leaned in and gave her a hug, then hopped up and said, “I’m making pancakes. Interested?”

  “Love some. Do we have any blueberries?”

  “Bought some on my way home,” Zee said, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her. “Because I knew you’d ask.”

  Left alone, Loni fondled her phone for a minute before opening her address book. She hovered her fingertip over Byron’s number.

  But she didn’t press it.

  Later, she thought.

  After breakfast.

  But breakfast came and went, and still she procrastinated. Eventually she realized she was waiting to think up the perfect opening line. But of course there was no perfect opening line, because this whole situation was so completely imperfect. So in late afternoon, seated outside the apartment building on a rusty porch swing that made a sound like a tortured cat whenever it moved on its hinges, she called him. She’d just let the moment tell her what to say.

  He answered in a hushed voice: “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she said, sounding equally quailed.

  There was an awkward pause. Then she said, “I just called to say, you were right. Not about everything, but about the job. I should’ve taken it. I should’ve gone with you. I’m sorry I let it go.” She let a beat pass. “If it means anything to you.”

  He chuckled. “Well, there it is. You did it again.”

  “Did what again?” she asked, growing suddenly wary.

  “Beat me to the punch. Did the right thing before I did. With even less cause. I mean, it just goes to show, you’re a better man than I am.”

  “Oh, that,” she said, relaxing again.

  “Listen, you know me,” he went on with a sudden tinge of urgency in his voice. “You know the way I fly off the handle. I mean, that’s no excuse. But my point is, you know how little it really means. How afterward, when I get the demon out of me, it’s all over. Just a lot of hot air and screaming. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Like a really long fit of Tourette’s, or something.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. I do know that.”

  “Right, then. I’d like for us to be friends. I’d like for us to stay in each other’s lives.”

  “Me, too,” she said, and she felt a little constriction in her throat. She commanded herself not to cry. Grown women did not cry. Not in front of men, anyway.

  “Maybe we could meet for lunch or something. Before I head out west.”

  She was taken aback by the offer. She pushed the swing back a little, a nervous tic.

  “Ye gods,” he cried, “never mind! I’m sorry I asked!”

  “What?” she said. “I haven’t answered you yet!”

  “Didn’t you just scream bloody murder at the idea?”

  She laughed. “No, that’s the swing I’m sitting on. On the porch at my place. It’s really, really rusted.”

  “For Ch
rist’s sake! I think my hair actually turned white.”

  “It is pretty unnerving,” she said, moving the swing back to its resting position.

  “Stop it, Jesus,” he said. “It’s like hearing baby seals get clubbed!”

  She made an effort to keep the swing still. “That better?”

  “Much. Bloody hell. You should hear my heart pounding.” Another beat. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, lunch or something?”

  “Oh!” She laughed. “Yes. Sure. Love it.”

  “Wonderful,” he said, sunlight flooding back into his voice. “Now, do me a favor. Tell me, ‘Byron, you’re a contemptible asshole and I never want to see you again.’ ”

  She knit her brow. “You want me to say that?”

  “Yes. Because it’s what I deserve. I need to hear it. It’s my punishment. But I couldn’t bear to hear it if I knew you actually meant it.”

  She laughed. “Byron, you’re a contemptible asshole and I never want to see you again.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “You’re an angel.”

  Byron called again that night, as she and Zee were flopped on the couch, watching the last bit of TV they could manage before dropping off to sleep.

  “Hello?” Loni said, as she got up and shambled off to the quiet of her room, ignoring Zee, who was hugely mouthing the words, Is that him? Is that him?

  “Hey, it’s me,” he said, rather adorably—as if she wouldn’t know it was him from his picture smiling out from her phone. “I’m not waking you, am I?”

  “No, still up,” she said numbly. Though in fact she felt about two-thirds comatose.

  “I just want to tell you, the job’s still yours, if you want it.”

  Her eyes sprang suddenly open. “What?”

  “I fixed it with Tammi. It wasn’t easy, but I managed it.”

  “You didn’t!” she cried, now fully awake and horrified. She sat on her bed. “Oh, Byron, you shouldn’t have! That poor woman! What must she think of me?”

  “Don’t worry about that. It’s all smoothed over. She’s fine. We’re both fine.”