“You.” She pointed to Carter. “And you. My crib.”
I met Carter’s gaze. Had he sent the flowers? He was so good at the stone face, I couldn’t tell what he knew or what he thought.
Because she was using the entire floor for studio space, Darlene’s crib was the service hallway. She kicked empty boxes out of the way and wheeled a broken keyboard to the corner so hard it clattered when it hit the wall.
She handed Carter the little envelope.
He read it and didn’t make an expression one way or the other. He gave it back to Darlene, who handed it to me as if serving me papers.
Babe, you’re so sweet when you laugh.
Next time I’m going to see it.
I swear I changed.
Give me one chance to prove it to you.
I spit-laughed.
“You’re not thinking of giving him a chance, are you?” Darlene asked.
“No. God no. It’s funny he thinks I’ll fall for this.”
“He knows where you work,” Carter said. “If we weren’t sure yesterday, we know now.”
A year and change earlier, I would have considered talking to him. I’d believed in my ability to convince Vince I wanted him to go away, and he repeatedly came back, proposing to love me more than before. Promising he’d changed. He brought flowers once, chocolate another time. Darlene said he was one visit away from bringing me a hat made of my dead cat’s fur.
“There’s nothing to do.” I tossed the envelope and the note into the trash. Vince’s attention was cyclical. He’d be insistent for a few weeks, then he’d go away.
I glanced at Carter. I cared what he thought. I didn’t know why, but I wanted him to know I wasn’t going back to Vince. I needed him to know I might have been a poor judge of character, but I wasn’t stupid or weak. He wasn’t looking at me.
Darlene folded her hands together and put them over her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to make this about me.” When she brought her palms down, she slapped them against her thighs. “Yeah. True facts. The tour starts in two weeks, and we have Vegas in a few weeks.”
Darlene was doing a supersecret preshow at the MGM Grand that was about to go public. Tickets would sell out in minutes. It was a way to work out the kinks, make sure everything looked good, and bump excitement for the tour. It would be my last working day on this show.
She continued. “We’re not ready. The show’s not ready. You know what I got riding on this tour.”
“I know.”
Tours were money. Big money. A good 40 percent of her income, which meant my income. The dancers, the techs, the publicity people—everyone depended on her tours. Sexy Bitch had to do 30 percent better than Sexy Badass to make up for the 20 percent increase in expenses.
“And I need you. I need your head in the game. Don’t start, okay? Don’t tell me it is. Yeah, I know it is. I know you got this. But I don’t. I freak out every time I see a goatee.”
I’d never felt smothered by my friendship with Darlene until she scolded me with Carter watching.
“He’s not going to bother me,” I lied. He’d just fed me a pot brownie, texted me, and sent flowers. The falsehood was so easily provable I shrank to half my normal size. My credibility in the matter was shot anyway.
“I’m done.” Darlene cut the air with her hands. Was she firing me? “You’re done.” She couldn’t fire me. I had the entire show in my head. “All done. You.” She pointed to Carter. “You’re in charge of her.”
“Wait, wait . . .” He held up his hands as if anyone or anything had the power to ward off Darlene McKenna.
“No waiting. Now.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” I piped up as if I wanted him to be in charge of me. Which I didn’t. I was in charge of me.
“I just can’t.”
“As God is my witness, Carter Kincaid,” Darlene said, “I will call Carlos, and he will make this happen if you won’t.”
“Why not?” I hadn’t even heard Darlene. I was just mad and a little hurt.
Carter’s eyes went from me to Darlene and back. We’d cornered him good. Darlene with her demands and me with my questions.
“I have something to do this afternoon.”
“Fine,” Darlene said. “Start tonight at Club NV.” She wasn’t about to take no for an answer, even if I threw a tantrum.
“I’ll let Carlos know.” He didn’t seem happy about it.
“You do that.” I didn’t wait for anyone to ask me to leave. I just walked out. I had work to do.
I’d been away from Vince for almost two years. Before that, we were together eighteen months. Moved in together three months after meeting on Tinder. Nothing in his profile indicated he was crazy.
I’d been dating a lot when we met. I expected nothing. I showed up, met a guy, nine times out of ten we didn’t make it past the second date. Two times out of ten we became friends and said hello whenever we crossed at the usual first-date meet-up spots. Coffee shops. Parks. Sandwich stands.
Sex was a third-date thing. I usually didn’t get that far. But I tried to like the men I met. I tried to see the good in them before deciding if they were for me or not.
Nothing about my expectations or attitudes would have made me a target for a guy like Vince. I wasn’t easily sucked in by sweet words or shows of affection. I was looking for a guy who was good for me, not the other way around.
But something clicked. We met at a custard place on Sunset. The customers put the frozen custard in the cup and chose the toppings from a bar. The price was based on weight. I didn’t eat a lot of dairy because it wasn’t good for my voice. So even though the custard cup was huge, I didn’t fill it with more than a squirt of soy vanilla and a teaspoon of chocolate chips. That was plenty.
But Vince, a guy I didn’t even know, thought it would be funny to put more toppings in my cup while I wasn’t looking. I thought it was funny too. As many dates as I’d been on, none had done anything the least bit spontaneous or impulsive. They’d all sat down and told me their life’s accomplishments as if they were at a job interview.
But this guy was fun. Probably because he didn’t have any life accomplishments. He told me he was a caretaker/dealer and couched that in funny stories. Really funny. Piss-down-your-leg funny. Fuck-on-the-first-date funny.
I thought a lot about those first three months.
Was I insecure?
I didn’t think I was.
Was I lonely?
No. I’d had friends and a career. I spoke to my family often enough.
Did I want to slow down on dating?
Yes. That one was probably spot-on. I should have slowed down and dated a résumé guy for a few months.
Carter didn’t want to be my bodyguard. I took it personally. I felt the same way I had the first time Vince said my tits were too small.
Unimportant. Unwanted. Vulnerable.
Both feelings created emotional acrobatics. One was a full layout and the other was a full pike, but they both left me suspended in the air with more to do before I hit the floor.
I went through the routine a hundred more times that morning, and each time I forgot the feeling of being unwanted a little more. I sweated it out, kicked it away, worked it down.