CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”
Stella is disgusted with me as we spread our yoga mats for the weirdest thing I’ve done in New York so far: a massive yoga-in in the middle of Times Square for the summer solstice. We’re here with thousands of other people and probably millions of dollars’ worth of Lululemon clothing. It seems like the furthest anyone can get from relaxation.
“Why are we doing this again?”
“Don’t overthink it,” Stella chides me. “And don’t change the subject. I can’t believe you got naked with Anthony and just left. Seriously. Who does that?”
“Apparently, I do.”
Stella snorts and takes a healthy glug from her water bottle. I follow her lead, half-listening to the yoga leader’s singsong voice through the amplifiers as she tells us that this is our opportunity to challenge ourselves to block out distractions and find our inner peace.
My inner peace is thoroughly distracted by Stella. She’s covering this event for a short piece in The Indie Voice and not liking it one bit.
“Well, get your head out of your ass and figure out what’s got you all tangled up. Sleeping with Anthony should have been simple. From what you said, he sounds like a great catch.”
“He is,” I confess, knowing it’s true. He’s gorgeous, sharp, and a perfect gentleman.
I can’t tell Stella that Gavin’s voice affected me. Hell, it did more than affect me—it strapped a chastity belt on me faster than you can say Tattoo Thief.
“So what’s the problem? Beryl, guys are for entertainment, not emotional satisfaction. Look at Jeff. He had the emotional range of a monster truck, but he was a pretty good date, right?” Stella winks and I know she means sex. “If he didn’t look like such a mama’s boy, I’d want a night with Anthony, just to get my hands on his ass.”
I stick out my tongue at her. “Stop your little fantasy right there. I swear, girl, you’ve got the one-track mind of a guy. All sex and no strings.”
“It works for me.” She shrugs and twists into a new pose but I don’t want to let this go yet. It doesn’t work for her—not with Blayde, not with the guy from the club last weekend, and not with any of the bad boys she dated in college.
In fact, I have never known her to go after the good guys, the clean-cut polite ones you’d want to bring home to Mom.
“Why are you so obsessed with bad boys?”
Stella pulls out of her stretch and looks at me square in the face, her wide-set eyes serious. “I’m not obsessed. I just like the fact that what you see is what you get with them. If they don’t call, who cares? What the fuck did you expect? Roses?”
I grimace, thinking of good-boy Anthony’s flowers. I’ll bet Gavin doesn’t do that.
“Bad boys can’t break your heart. But, Beryl, you deserve a good boy. You’re sweet and generous and you should be with someone who’s crazy about you. I just hope you find him and he doesn’t disappoint you.”
Disappoint? Her words remind me of my last conversation with Gavin. I’m well past disappointment, wallowing in what feels like total rejection since my last email brought no reply. It’s been six days since our last chat.
I want to reach out to him again, tell him what’s changed, how being with Anthony made my feelings so much clearer about him. I want someone who really gets me, who is broken enough to see me for my broken pieces, and beyond them.
I want Gavin.
I give Stella a noncommittal nod and try to banish Gavin from my brain. If I told him any of this, he’d probably shrug me off as a fangirl, and now that I realize how much I care about him, I don’t think I can take it.
Perhaps to snap me out of my introspective funk, Stella offers to take me shopping for slutty shoes after the yoga-in. She says the right pair of shoes might have me changing my mind about Anthony.
I doubt it, so I try to change the subject again. “So why are you so annoyed about covering this? I thought you liked yoga.”
“I like it fine—in a studio. Not on a street with two thousand people. But that’s not the point.” Stella stretches, arcing her shoulders to bend the way I’m sure my body never has. “The point is I’m a music journalist. I’m just stuck covering this because the events reporter is on vacation and they know I do yoga.”
“It seems like a pretty big event,” I offer, surveying the street lined with mats in dozens of hues, a patchwork quilt of om.
“But it doesn’t matter,” she says. “What I want to do is find the next big thing, the next superstar band or singer. Do you know how many crappy shows I go to just to find the few standouts?”
I shake my head, but imagine the number is huge. It’s rare that she isn’t out at a club or a show most nights, and I respect her dedication. Our journalism profs told us that careers would be hard, but they never said how much abject boredom we’d suffer through to get one good nugget, the one golden lead for a story.
“I’ve been to two hundred and eighty-five shows since I moved to New York,” Stella answers her own question. “I’ve kept track. And I’ve saved every ticket stub. But since I’m junior to the regular music writer, I get stuck with the scraps.”
“That sucks,” I offer her moral support as I go through the motions of my first sun salutation beneath stories-high animated billboards. Beyoncé smiles down at me in a ten-dollar H&M bikini.
“Well, I’m playing the odds,” cheerfulness returns to her tone. “Breaking a new band could make my career, but hyping someone horrid would break it. So I’m going to keep writing honest reviews, and keep track of the bands I think are up-and-comers, and someday I want to turn in a ‘making of the band’ piece that actually makes a band.”
“I know you will.”
***
After yoga, Jasper and I have an awesome romp in Greenwich Village, where I buy some deliciously stinky truffled goat cheese at Murray’s Cheese Shop.
We check out a gelato shop called Grom, but alas, no passion fruit. I skip gelato and instead try my first tea-pop, a strong-brewed herbal infusion mixed with soda water at David’s Tea.
I love that there are a million new things to try in New York. My “try new things” mantra will never run out of opportunities to explore.
We get back to the apartment and I’m dripping with sweat from the humidity, so I shower while Jasper sprawls his red and white body in a patch of sun on the terrace lawn. When I ordered new houseplants, I also had a patch of grass installed on the terrace so Jasper can do his business in case Gavin’s away longer than expected.
Who am I kidding? That’s practically a guarantee.
Tonight I don’t have Stella to do my hair as I prepare for my night on the town: Dan’s going to a charity gala for children’s literacy and invited me as his plus one.
I throw on a shirt and shorts and head back downstairs, walking a few blocks to a blowout salon I’ve passed a few times. I’m in luck—no wait.
They do things with serums and hot air that leave my hair looking shiny and shampoo-commercial ready. I mentally tick another item off my “try new things” list—I don’t even think there is a blowout salon in Eugene.
Dan explained yesterday that the charity ball is really a client-prospecting opportunity.
“Of course, we’d never call it that,” he admitted. “But I need to be where the wealthiest residents are, and with your new role at Keystone, you should be there, too. They need to meet you to feel comfortable with you taking care of their homes.”
I think of Greta Carr and her pink-on-pink apartment, her zebra chaise in the ridiculous walk-in closet, and her instruments of torture in the bathroom. But most of all, I think of her sad stack of magazines. I’m taking care of her home, but I feel like she needs more than that—she needs someone to take care of her.
I search my closet for a cocktail dress that won’t mark me as a New York newbie. I feel bad about pillaging Lulu’s wardrobe, but since Gavin told me to throw out everything, I figure I’m just keeping beautiful clothes from going to waste. I choose a purplish-blue intricately beaded dress with an asymmetrical hemline that’s longer in the back. A wide scoop in front highlights my collarbones.
I need a necklace to make it a little more decent, but nothing I own is going to cut it among a bejeweled crowd, so I go bare.
Dan’s at my door right at eight. He looks dashing in a custom tux that makes his silver-white hair look even more dignified.
“You look … foxy,” I say, grinning as I wobble, balancing on one foot while I shove my shoe on the other.
“And you look just like your mother.” He takes my hand and twirls me. “I wish she could see you here in New York. You’re flying.”
“She will soon,” I tell him. “She actually bought a plane ticket. She’s coming out to visit next Saturday.”
The color drains from Dan’s face and I search his expression.
“What?”
“It’s just—” he trails off. “I’d really like to see her. When I came to your apartment that night, well, that’s not how I wanted things to happen. I don’t want her to hate me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” I reassure him. “You just got caught in the line of fire. Your timing couldn’t have been worse.”
“Story of my life,” Dan says and frowns. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try again. Does she need a hotel?”
“No, I figured she could stay here with me. There’s plenty of room and I don’t think Gavin will mind.”
Dan raises his eyebrow at the familiarity in my voice as I speak of Gavin. “You sure?”
“I’ll ask him for permission. OK?”
Dan still looks concerned but he doesn’t comment further. “The town car’s waiting downstairs. Are we ready?”
I pick up my clutch and take his arm, following him to the brass elevator doors. We slide into a black Lincoln and cruise to the venue. I’m feeling very grown up.
“Remember, this is a soft sell,” Dan coaches me as we ride. “They’ll ask you what you do, and you tell them about our business and hand them a card even if they don’t ask for one. But you don’t ask for the business.”
I pat my clutch, which holds dozens of newly printed, engraved business cards in cream with a shot of teal running through the center. They feel expensive.
“When you mingle, ask casually where they live. Tell them you love the neighborhood, and that you’re there on other jobs.”
“But I’ve only been in the city two weeks.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve been to the Upper East Side for a couple of clients. You live on the Upper West. That’s close enough.”
“What if they live somewhere else?”
Dan pats my hand. “Trust me. They probably won’t.”