Edge of Glory (Friendship, Texas Book 1) (24 page)

Lord, save me, for the thoughts that had skittered across my fried brain in the last seventy-plus hours. Many included murder, arson, and other felonies that came wrapped in a bow called “life without parole.”

It all started with a phone call from my boss.

“Please tell me you remembered to pack the scarves, you know Scarlett loves her scarves. I’m trusting you with this one Maisy, don’t let me down.” That was my boss, Marla Townsend screaming at me through my earbuds. Thank you California for hands-free cell phones. Marla’s voice sounded like a four year old with a huge vocabulary. Baby talk with a hint of bitch, and a lot of swearing. Worse through earbuds, and I got to hear way too much of her through earbuds.

“I told you, Marla, I’ve got this,” I said.

Fuck, I didn’t have this. Scarlett, an aging model, had issues with her turtleneck. I’m not talking sweaters here, I’m talking about neck skin. She wore scarves on even the hottest day in Los Angeles. I’d been only about five miles from her house when Marla called. The trunk show didn’t start for over an hour, and I could still get back to the agency, grab the selection and be back to Scarlett’s in time to set up for the show, and still have time to spare.

Marla didn’t want me driving my old Jetta to her client’s house, so I had her BMW. I could set up the clothes, get everything ready, and still go back for the scarves. But what if Scarlett wanted to sift through the clothes and accessories I’d brought, just to get a good look before her friends arrived?

I flipped a U-turn at the next light and floored it on the way back to Marla’s office. Marla would kill me for getting a ticket, but she’d filet me alive for forgetting the scarves. I’d been with her long enough to know what happens when her clients are disappointed. I’d moved into my current position as her first assistant because the last first assistant brought white shoes to a client who detested white.

I had to get from Calabasas, back to  Camden Drive in Beverly Hills, and then back to Cala-basas in less than an hour. It took 45 minutes one way on a good day. Having confidence, fueled by my desire to keep my job, I made it back to the office in 26 minutes. Thank you gods, for blessedly light traffic.

Pulling into the parking lot at Townsend Studio, my heart raced. My live-in boyfriend, Miles, was there, his car parked next to mine in the lot. He’d come to see me at work, and I wasn’t there. So sweet. How could I tell him I didn’t have time for him? Hell, if Marla saw me, I might. She’d flip if she saw me grab the box of scarves after I just told her I had everything under con-trol.

Still, I smiled, since Miles rarely visited me at the studio.

As I pulled the BMW into Marla’s parking space, I looked to see if Miles had been waiting in the car for me. I didn’t see him.

I stepped out of the car, careful not to scratch my newly tanned legs. I didn’t want the bronz-er to be uneven or scratched. Marla made sure we gave a fabulous first impression, and paid for regular bronzing sessions. After all, a girl looks better with a tan.

Marla, pencil thin and perfectly tan, needed something to stand out. She sported a little boy’s body, stick skinny, not a muscle to be seen. She used clothes to stand out, and so her fashion style and sense became the talk of Southern California. She now dressed the finest and richest in the land. Since going to work for her, I did too.

I considered how my dream job as a personal stylist might be hanging by a thread if I didn’t get in and out of the studio, fast. Maybe Miles wouldn’t see me, and I could pretend I never came back.

I pushed through the French doors into the office, and started toward the studio when I heard loud grunting. Oh, crap, had Marla hurt her back again? She detested lifting anything over five pounds, but she’d do it. Then let everyone know, if she had to do these things, why was she paying us?

My southern upbringing too ingrained, I tiptoed toward Marla’s office. If I didn’t see her writhing on the floor, I’d ignore it.

Oh, Marla writhed alright, but not on the floor. That bitch wriggled and writhed under Miles. She lay flat on her back on top of her desk, and my boyfriend stood at the edge, leaning over her. He pumped her with all he had, and I stood watching. I couldn’t move away from the horror show.

When Marla arched her back and said, “Oh, Baby, you’re so good,” I gasped. It must have been a loud gasp, because they both turned to look at me.

“Next time, lock the fucking doors,” I said, then tried to turn gracefully and go, but the heel of my Jimmy Choo stiletto got caught in the carpet and I flew forward, grasping at the looming ficus to keep from eating Berber. Wrong move, I only succeeded in pulling the leafy tree down with me.

By the time I’d gotten out of the stupid shoes, and back to my feet, you’d think Miles would have been by my side to explain, or help me. Nope! When I looked up, that stick figure’s boney fingers grasped Miles’ ass like a lifeline and she screamed, “Not yet, I’m coming.”

Miles couldn’t disappoint her, he obliged. Barefooted, I walked out the door. The Jimmy Choo shoes didn’t belong to me anyway, and I hoped she tripped over them on her way out of her office. The clothes I wore didn’t belong to me either, but I figured since I wasn’t coming back to pick up my paycheck, the Donna Karan suit would be payment in kind.

I ran to the BMW, grabbed my handbag, a Henri Bendel gift from Marla, then sprinted to my Jetta.

As I drove out of the parking lot, I saw Miles in my rear view mirror. His skinny jeans still around his ankles and his shirt unbuttoned, he looked scrawny and pathetic. I willed the tears not to come.

The kicker, I’d just sold everything but the clothes on my back and a few necessities to move in with Miles. His apartment being the size of a shoebox, it couldn’t fit all of our stuff, and he had great taste, so I differed to him. Bad move.

The tires squealed on the Jetta as I turned into the parking lot of Miles’ apartment and my phone rang. Marla. I swiped my screen to ignore it. It rang again, and again. I put the phone on silent and raced inside. I hadn’t begun to think of the apartment as ours yet, but close. I thought I’d found my happily ever after. Now I wondered if there was such a thing.

Just in case Miles cared enough to chase after me, I moved quickly. It took every ounce of willpower not to trash his tidy little apartment as I screamed through it. I grabbed my suitcase and a stack of pillowcases and stuffed everything I owned in them. By the time I’d gotten to the last drawer of clothes, I looked down at myself. The Donna Karan pencil skirt and jacket rocked, and I looked hot, even with the extra ten to fifteen pounds Marla insisted I lose. But I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t wear it any longer. My skin itched to be rid of it. I stripped down to my bra and underwear, then pulled on yoga pants and a sweatshirt I hadn’t worn since I started dating Miles. He hated “leisure clothes” and insisted I burn them. Good thing I didn’t let any man insist I do anything.

I left Donna Karan laying on the floor in his bedroom. He could hump her when he got home, because that was the last of me he’d ever of see.

I shoved all of my belongings in the back seat of my car and pointed my little Volkswagen east.

My phone sat in the cradle on my dashboard and nearly vibrated off due to the nasty texts blowing it up.

You’d better be on your way back here to get these clothes to Scarlett’s house.

Where the fuck are you?

You thin-skinned little whiner, I should have known better than to hire you.

Yeah, that’s right, I have put up with her bullshit since my junior year at Academy of Art University in Los Angeles. I’d worked for her for five years. I’d earned my way to being her right hand woman, but I certainly hadn’t earn sharing my boyfriend.

I didn’t even bother to delete the messages, just let them scroll through the screen. Then a message from Miles.

Call me, now. Please call me.

Ha! Right, the only time he’d ever hear my voice again, it’d be my voicemail. And I planned to change my phone number as soon as I arrived home, so he wouldn’t be hearing it for long. If I wasn’t so afraid I’d wreck the car, I’d have blocked him and Marla right then and there.

I drove. I couldn’t even remember how to get to the I-10. My mind froze. I pulled over at the Mobile station and filled the tank, waited for the tears as I leaned on my dirty car, and looked off into the lights of the evening. I’d gone from thrilled to do my first trunk show alone, to exhausted from anger in less than an hour.

I thought about calling Miles, giving him a chance to explain, but my parents raised me with more integrity than that. I thought about calling Marla and telling her what I thought of her, but no need to throw gasoline in a burning bridge. She’d make sure I never worked in Los Angeles or So Cal again. She’d been my only reference in the stylist business, since I doubted her clients would vouch for me now.

The pump clicked. I pulled the receipt, threw it in the back seat with my things, and got in the car to drive home. My real home.

I’d been on the road for three days, which meant I’d heard every song on my iPod about a hundred times, and I had way too much time to think, cry, scream obscenities at the universe, and contemplate my future. And yet by the time I’d made it to merely blocks from my destina-tion, I still had no idea what the hell I was doing, or going to do next. 

Somehow driving to Los Angeles from Dallas had been much prettier. The sky bluer, the hills, well, let’s face it, just as brown, there’s a drought after all. The route from the City of An-gels back to the “Big D” lacked the same appeal.

It took me a full day to get the nerve to call my parents and tell them, “I’m coming home.”

“Great. Are you getting a hotel?” Mom asked.

“No, Mom, I’m coming home to stay.” The words caught in my throat and I cried.

“Oh,” she sounded terrified, not sympathetic.

“Can you tell dad?” I hiccuped through the sobbing. “But don't tell anyone else.”

She’d called my best friends, because suddenly my phone blew up. I ignored it as much as possible. I refused to respond to the calls, messages, and texts, figuring I’d tell everyone at the same time, so I didn’t have to relive the story over and over.

By the time I’d hit the Dallas city limits my back ached, my knees throbbed, and my eyes needed toothpicks to hold my lids open, but I had only a few miles left to get to my parents’ place. If I could take both hands off the wheel and still drive, I’d put my hands over my face and scream into them.

Stopped at a light, just a few miles from home, the reality sank in. I’d left my career over a stupid guy. Three days ago I’d been in the most fake place in the world, and I loved it. This was home, real home, where even though I knew they cringed and prayed I’d only be staying for a few weeks at the longest, my mom and dad would welcome me with open arms, and I dreaded it. I waited for the light to turn green, wondering for the gazillionth time what I was going to do next.

A horn blared behind me, and I resisted the urge to roll down my window and flip them the bird. I stepped on the gas, and my Jetta died. No problem, this had happened before. It groaned and almost caught life, then nothing.

Shit.

I tried again.

Nothing.

“No.” I slammed the heels of my hands against the steering wheel.

More horns blasted a symphony behind me. The urge to flip them off overwhelmed me, but I had a stronger urge to cry. I searched around the steering wheel and dashboard for the hazard light thingy. I’d never had to use it in the decade I’d owned the car. You’d think they put them in the same place on every car. I knew where it was on my mom’s Ford Edge. But no, stupid Volkswagen had to be different.

My hand trembled as I looked, because now I heard shouting as well as honking. Okay, stop, think. I tried to start it again. I heard a chug, chug, chug sound, but nothing actually happened. I grabbed my phone to call my dad, and as I picked it up, I saw the battery read one percent. By the time I got the number dialed, the phone would be dead. And with my car lifeless, I couldn’t charge my phone. Why the hell hadn’t I plugged it in when I’d started driving earlier that morn-ing?

Ah, the triangle doodad, that must be the…I pressed the button. Both blinker lights blinked. Good, now maybe everyone would stop honking and hollering. Besides, we’d sat through the green, to another red light. I took a deep breath, then looked out my driver’s side window.

I screamed, “Holy shit!”

I kid you not, a Duck Dynasty wannabe stood outside my car.  Full brown beard, matching hair falling over his shoulders, and surfer clothes, he may as well have had a sign that read “will work for food.” I shook my head. I needed some sleep. Real sleep, like three full days of uninter-rupted sleep.

Duck Man knocked on my window.

Being a single girl, alone in a car, I was reluctant to roll the window down. I then realized my power windows wouldn’t go down with the car off. Shit, I’d have to open the door. Get a grip. We were in traffic in a public place. People would see if he hauled me off. I cracked the door open.

“Can I help you?” A voice a smooth as Tennessee whisky asked.

He may not have been as homeless as I first suspected. He had beautiful white teeth. Perfect in fact. Like lots of dollars at the orthodontist perfect.