Perfect Timing (2 page)

“It was all over the tabloids a couple of months back.”

Isabel returned to her work and penciled in
Delilah
, thinking listeners might tune in to the syndicated melodrama.

“Triple crown or not, good luck to the woman who ends up with him. Married to a rock star, it’s glamorous but fatal.” Mary Louise poured herself coffee, smirking at the TV. “Seriously, when does that ever work out?”

“And don’t you mean
women
? Celebrity marriages are more disposable than mine,” Tanya said. “There’ll be three or four wives between stints in rehab.”

“Maybe he’ll do a reality-TV show,
Polygamy and the Rock God
. Heaven knows, I’d tune in,” she said. “It would draw huge ratings when two or three end up pregnant.”

On her words, the point to Isabel’s pencil snapped, piercing her paperwork.

“Some women are so blind,” Tanya lamented. “Clearly, he’s a womanizing scoundrel.”

Clearly, Tanya didn’t recognize her own lack of foresight when it came to this particular character trait. Shifting restlessly, Isabel admonished the unkind thought.

“You said it,” Mary Louise agreed, swirling Splenda and skim milk.

“I mean, just look at that tattoo on his neck. It only emphasizes his twisted boundaries.”

The comment drew Isabel’s attention, her gaze veering from Tanya’s squint onto Aidan Royce’s latest mug shot, his blond
GQ
looks forever marred by a coiled snake. It traveled from the base of his collarbone upward, its sharp tongue splitting at the edge of a Boeing-inspired jaw.

“Reminds me of a Japanese bondage rope,” Mary Louise said, tipping her head at the screen. “And not a very realistic one. He probably dabbles in the basics, thinks he knows something.”

“And if he was really into it?” Tanya queried.

Mary Louise sipped her coffee, shrugging. “Had he wanted to make a real S&M statement, he could have gone with a nipple clamp, combo riding crop—maybe a slave collar.”

There was a hum of wonder from Tanya, Isabel murmuring, “Please make it stop.” Abandoning Sunday night’s ratings she moved onto next month’s teasers, which led up to their big summer giveaway, Fruit of the Month Club for a year.

“Though I will say, whatever his motivation, a tattoo like that took nerve.” Popping on her glasses, she peered harder. “I bet his record label made him do it.”

“No way,” Tanya said. “Everybody knows the tattoo was a symbol of Aidan’s commitment to Fiona Free, the British blonde with the sitcom.”

“Oh, that’s right. How long were they together?”

“Until her show got canceled and she moved back to London. Two episodes in, I think.”

Instead of just snapping the point, Isabel snapped the pencil right in two. “That’s not true.”

“What’s not true?” Mary Louise said, her steaming coffee cup frozen midair.

“That’s not how he got the tattoo.”

She smiled, bemused. “And how would you know that?”

“I . . . I read it somewhere.”

“No you didn’t. You hate gossip magazines. More to the point, you don’t know the first thing about celebrity lifestyles, particularly someone like Aidan Royce.”

“I might know more than you think, Mary Louise.” She meant to end there, but found herself caught between two intent stares, her mouth moving ahead of her brain. “Maybe he wasn’t always what you see. Maybe
miscreant media blight
didn’t always define him. Maybe once, a lifetime ago, there was some substance to Aidan Royce.” She rose as she spoke, her co-workers looking as if, maybe, Isabel had lost her mind. “Anyway,” she said, sitting, grasping at self-possession and a defense theory that would have made his publicist proud. “I can’t speak for high-speed chases, drunk driving, or punching a cop. But you’re wrong about the tattoo.”

“Have you been watching
Access Hollywood
, maybe sneaking some after-hours
TMZ
? It’s okay to admit you’re susceptible, Isabel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t waste my time.”

“So how is it you know something like that?”

“I just do.”

“But how?” Mary Louise pressed, skepticism bearing down.

“It’s irrelevant. Can’t you just take my word for it?”

“Not really. Besides, you brought it up. So how do you know?”

“Because . . .”

“Because how? Just tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, but I think it does.”

“I know,” she said, swallowing hard, grabbing up the pieces of the broken pencil, “because I was there when he got it.”

CHAPTER TWO

Catswallow, Alabama

Seven Years Earlier

“A
IDAN
R
OYCROFT
, I
WAS
UNDER
THE
IMPRESSION
THIS
RELATIONSHIP
meant something to you!” Shanna O’Rourke’s gooey drawl dropped a decibel, but every patron seated outside Higher Grounds heard—including Otis Dibbs who washed dishes in the back and was deaf in one ear. “You’ve lived up to your god-awful reputation and then some!” Sitting with an iced coffee in one hand, an Austen novel in the other, Isabel pretended to be engrossed in a tragic love scene. Really, she was glued to this one.

“Shanna, it’s a date, not a lifetime commitment. Jesus, what’s the big deal? You leave for your stuck-up Sour Bush in a few weeks anyway,” Aidan said, leaning against a fiery-red convertible. It was a close match to the current color of Shanna’s burning cheeks.

“Sweet Briar . . . it’s Sweet Briar College,” she corrected, as though his error was less than intentional. “So is that your excuse? Are you saying if I were staying here, in Catswallow, you wouldn’t have cheated?”

Aidan’s mouth opened and closed, his arms grazing through empty air before coming to rest on the car frame. “I didn’t cheat,” he said, his gaze darting toward the crowd. “You and me, we weren’t
a thing
. Look, not that it matters, but Ashley Warren was a family friend, nothing more. I showed her Catswallow. That’s it.”

“Showed her plenty more than that from what I heard,” she said, standing between Aidan and the open car door.

“Seriously, look around,” he said gesturing toward a downtown trimmed in old elms, vintage storefronts, and a palpable 1950s vibe. “Highlights include the old lynching post and the site of the 1936 molasses factory flood.”

“Does it also include a moonlight view of the lake? I understand there was serious horizontal stargazing.” Her knowledge of the likely fact caught Aidan off guard, long enough for Shanna to slam the car door, nearly catching his fingers in it. “Tell me, is it part of the standard Roycroft tour? Because if it is, we missed that stop on my excursion.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Actually, Shanna, you got the standard tour. The lake is part of the VIP package—reserved for a select few.”

Her finely boned jaw dropped, her delicate hands balling into tight fists. “I . . . I just can’t believe you’d humiliate me like this! I thought we had something special! After I . . . after we . . .”

Isabel sucked hard through a straw, down to the icy bottom of her drink. She rolled her eyes, catching Aidan doing the same thing. Since she’d arrived in Catswallow, middle school through high school this was the pattern: Girls saw any relationship
with Aidan as too real. And Aidan? Well, he didn’t see it at all. It amazed her how not one of them could figure this out. The debutante blonde, who a few generations prior would have arrived in crinoline with her mammy in tow, continued to lob accusations. Isabel suspected the busy location was a purposeful choice on Shanna’s part. Unlike crinoline and mammies, high drama had not gone out of style. Mutual friends sat mesmerized, abandoning lesser gossip and french fries as they turned to gawk. Higher Grounds waitstaff and strangers did the same. Shanna’s performance on a steamy Lovett Street escalated as Aidan calmly reiterated his point. They were each other’s date for the town’s time-honored gala, a stunning send-off for Catswallow High’s newest alumni. Anything more, Aidan insisted, was all in her head. Shanna was undeterred. When her voice hit a shrill that couldn’t strike a higher pitch, not without rupturing a vocal cord, the moment seemed to climax. Isabel assumed that was it. She guessed Aidan thought the same thing as he stood up straight and stepped onto the curb. It was an ill-fated error as Shanna made use of the target, Aidan taking the full brunt of her flailing hand across his face.

Everything stopped. Isabel stiffened harder than her wrought-iron chair. Her own hand gripped her cheek, feeling the sting twenty feet away. There was an echo of gasps, Jake Summerfield, a fellow Catswallow graduate, offering his input, “Damn, Roycroft, you sure can piss ’em off.” The commotion sputtered and rumbled, finally settling until it was only Aidan standing center stage. Isabel was sure that his face burned hotter than the August pavement, but his casual manner never faltered. Everyone, including Shanna, watched in arrested amazement. And because Aidan was at his best under pressure, in the limelight, he never missed a beat.

He looked back, smiling. It was such an electric smile; Birmingham could draw kilowatts off it. “Nice shot,” he said, his tone never vacillating. “Let’s consider that closure. Forget any plan we had for Catswallow’s grand finale.” The haughty look on Shanna’s face evaporated, realizing she’d taken the drama one step too far. Her arctic-blue eyes peeled wide, but it was too late. A week before one tiny town’s mega event, a tradition survived and celebrated by generations, she’d lost the most sought-after date in decades. Aidan didn’t look her way again as he reached into the backseat of her car and retrieved a guitar case. Salacious whispers stuck eagerly to humid air as onlookers pretended to go about their business. Isabel refocused, returning to Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. But as she half expected, Aidan hesitated near the edge of her table. It was just long enough to say, “The farmhouse, Isabel, okay?”

An “uh huh” rumbled from her throat. She didn’t look as he continued, alone, down Lovett Street.

IT WASN’T WHAT PEOPLE ASSUMED. NOT THAT PEOPLE ASSUMED ANYTHING
about Aidan and Isabel. Their relationship flew under the radar of Catswallow gossip, but it wasn’t the fare or
affair
the secluded setting of a dilapidated farmhouse might suggest. It was more like home base. The friendship meant everything to Isabel, a girl transplanted into a tin can container on a rural swatch of Alabama. Aidan lived in the next lot over, although most people assumed he lived in a McMansion near the country club. Aidan didn’t wear poor very well.

His father, John Roycroft, abandoned his common-law wife before his son turned two. Rumor said he was an incredible musician, having missed his window by living in Catswallow. Aidan claimed no memory of him or his talent, but anyone who could hear saw the proof. His absence hadn’t made much difference. Aidan did all right by his mother, though the scene on Lovett Street wasn’t the best example of that. But Isabel also didn’t see it as entirely his fault. Popularity was a dubious honor that befell him like the demands of royal lineage. Isabel, on the other hand, was all commoner, if not carpetbagger, having moved to the tiny Southern town from New Jersey six years before. It was an awkward time for both, Aidan adjusting to being a singular object of interest while Isabel made a bumpy entry into adolescence. Aside from a Jersey drawl, vastly different from the soft twang of her new peers, it was clear that Isabel was no Southern belle. Nothing was right: her clothes, her attitude, her name, which this deep-rooted culture insisted on shortening to Bella. A week after arriving, Bella, alternately known as “
that Yankee girl,
” slipped getting off the bus and fell face-first into a red puddle of sludge. If being the new Northerner in a school full of grits-eating,
y’all
-dripping Southerners was bad, doing it covered in mud sealed her fate. Things went from bad to worse, Isabel teased to the point where she was ready to run away back to New Jersey and her father, who had incited the adventure south with their mother.

Most of that was your standard story of betrayal. Isabel’s father had an affair. She could say that now and without any therapy. Of course, who he had the affair with was the truly stunning part, and the part Isabel couldn’t forgive. Initially, Eric Lang and his new money made grand gestures and a lot of noise about joint custody. It was almost believable. Before his affair, life felt pretty perfect. He destroyed it. Years removed, any fatherly feelings had faded, though he still wrote letters, likely spurred by his analyst’s advice. They went unopened, Isabel taking them and a lighter to the farmhouse. Aidan would watch as envelopes and anger smoldered, Isabel reducing it all to a pile of glowing ash. The ritual drove him crazy, but he’d learned to keep his opinion to himself. Isabel was certain that if Aidan got a letter from his father, it would be an irresistible temptation.

Inadvertently, fatefully, Aidan diverted her from thoughts of her father and the Catswallow hell in which she was living. Isabel had discovered an abandoned farmhouse a few miles from the trailer park, often going there straight from the bus. While she was sitting on the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms, that day, a rock flew through the window. By then Isabel had her fill of Southern hospitality and decided to show them what a Jersey girl was all about. She hurled the rock back. It missed Aidan’s face by an inch. It turned out he wasn’t throwing the rock at her. He didn’t even know she was inside. Stella Roycroft, Aidan’s mother, was a sweet woman who had the world’s worst luck at keeping a job, or so Isabel learned as the years went on. Aidan was blowing off steam over her most recent trip to the unemployment line, winging the rock out of frustration. He returned the smooth but sizable stone to her, Isabel sure the incident would result in her exile from Folsom Middle School. Instead, he said he was sorry she’d missed. He liked the idea of an edgy scar marring his looks. It sparked something inside Isabel, a merger of gratitude and realization, a bond that felt as solid as the rock. Not everyone was what he or she appeared. Not even this beautiful boy who stood before her. There was a rift in his voice; a sincerity that said he was more than Catswallow’s matinee idol. In him, she saw the person everyone else had missed, capturing Isabel in a way that Aidan’s image never could.

The two commiserated for hours, not going home until after dark, when they were both promptly grounded. And because they were banished to the trailer park they ended up spending more time together. Isabel made Aidan Roycroft laugh, taught him how to play poker and how to cook something besides boxed macaroni-and-cheese. Over the years they did homework and took turns reading aloud novels for English class. Most important, Isabel took the time to listen. This quiet act was a basic necessity for Aidan, something like food, shelter, clothing, and a finely tuned ear—though, to this day, she wasn’t sure if that was the right order. He was not needy, but he did need her. Back then, Aidan’s acceptance of Isabel was all it took for the kids at school to leave her in peace. She did make friends, though neither she nor Aidan connected to outsiders the way they did to each other.

Initially, the relationship moved to the rhythm of any adolescent tryst, the unlikely swap of a watermelon Jolly Rancher leading to Isabel’s first kiss, though Aidan never admitted the same to her. It was sugary-sour, sticky-sweet, and the only kiss the two had ever shared. After the fact, after Aidan crunched down on his prize piece of candy, friendship slid into a tailspin. And because he was incapable, Isabel had to choose for him. Did she want Aidan to be her boyfriend or her friend? It didn’t take much to deduce that being Aidan’s girlfriend would only lead to being Aidan’s ex-girlfriend—even at thirteen. Subsequent years and a laundry list of girls like Shanna proved that theory like a surefire mathematical equation. And it wasn’t to say that she didn’t lose out by choosing not to be Aidan’s girlfriend. Isabel simply had more to gain by being his friend, their finger-slice, blood-swearing status wholly suiting Catswallow’s much sought-after prize.

It was the privacy that Isabel coveted most, an intimate friendship that crushed any physical moment Aidan might share with another girl. She also didn’t mind the boundaries that protected her from becoming
one of them
, an Aidan Roycroft casualty. He’d been there in more important ways. Aidan listened to Isabel worry about how she might pay for college and assisted with simpler matters, like memorizing the conjugations for the French verb
faire
. He was a whiz with foreign languages—even singing in Spanish if the mood struck him. While he finessed her through three years of Madame Lameroux’s French class, he couldn’t help much with college. That came down to hard finances, which landed Isabel at her fourth choice, a mediocre satellite campus to a larger university. Over the summer she’d tried to find the positives. It was still higher education, even if it wasn’t on the scale she’d envisioned.