Rebound (21 page)

She was in the
elevator, weighing having her hair up or down, heading to the lobby
from the twenty-second floor, when two secretaries from the
twentieth floor got on the elevator. They were chattering away,
office gossip or some sort of foolishness. Susan had to really
concentrate to get back to her inner hairdo debate. And she heard
the words “opera house.”

This caught her
attention.

The next few words
whizzed by Susan without any comprehension, but she heard, “So the
board already made their decision?”

Susan’s heart thumped
hard against her chest. She shouldn’t be hearing this. It was
unethical, possibly illegal. But she couldn’t bring herself to do
anything but stand back and listen to the gossiping secretaries.
She recognized one of them from the city council meeting. The
blonde with the extremely long neck and even longer legs.

“Well, not
officially. They can’t say that until the bids have all gone
through accounting and logistical testing.” The blonde leaned in to
the other secretary and said in a confidential voice, “But the
Maestro is in love with the design from Costa Consortium.”

Susan’s heart
stopped beating, and her blood turned cold.
But Maestro Rossi doesn’t have the final
say!

“The old goat really
has that much clout?”

The blonde smiled
slyly. “You’d be surprised. The man gets whatever he wants, if you
get my meaning.”

The other secretary
blushed and both women started giggling. “You are a complete slut!
And he’s sooo old.”

Wistfully the city
council secretary fanned herself with her hand. “Yeah, but he’s
Italian, and what he can do with just his fingers...”

“You’re
disgusting.”

The elevator stopped.
The two secretaries moved like feral cats out the sliding doors and
through the lobby. Susan stood, still too stunned to move or to
think, or to even breathe. The door closed, and she fell back
against the chrome paneling of the elevator.

Might as well be a
pine box. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around
herself.

The elevator
stayed perfectly still for over a minute. The whole time Susan kept
telling herself,
No, no, no.

The doors slid open
again and the setting sun was shining off the highly polished floor
of the lobby. A woman in a tank top and shorts, with an iPod in her
ears, wrestled a large potted fern into the elevator, instantly
making the box feel like a claustrophobic jungle.

Susan slipped out
through the flora and staggered into the light. The world had never
looked so bright, or so cruel.

* * * *

Kevin stood
outside Leo and Kate’s Italian
Ristorante
a
half an hour, pacing, waiting for Susan. It had just rained, and
his shoes made strange scuffing sounds every time he had to turn
around. He was pacing because he was nervous, not because he was
waiting. He was nervous because Susan was going to try and seduce
him again. That was a given, after the vamp getup the night before,
and the lust he’d seen in her eyes before she’d gotten all
wasted.

He wasn’t up for
this. And if that was all she wanted from him, she could forget
it.

Yet he was there,
waiting exactly where she’d told him to wait, like an obedient dog.
Or maybe an obedient sex slave.

No, no. He would not
let that happen again. That part was over. Over. For good.

But the bulge in
Kevin’s breast pocket--the ring in its little box--reminded him
that part of him had hope. Had hope that Susan would look at him
differently. He remembered the way she’d looked at him in Cancun.
It hadn’t been just sex. It had been a whole lot more. It was
almost...

He shook the thought
out of his head. Thunder chorused in the distance. More rain...

Fifteen minutes later
Kevin had called both Susan’s home phone and her cell, and had
texted her. No answer to any of it. He caught a cab over to her
place, part of him worried that he couldn’t get a hold of her, part
of him pissed that she’d stood him up, but there was a part that
thought it was all some game. Susan had never seemed like the game
playing type, but who’s to say what effect having your groom stand
you up on your wedding day can have.

If it was a game, a
trick to get him alone in her apartment, to try to get him back in
her bed--what would it be like to have her in her own bed?--he
wouldn’t fall for it, he wouldn’t be her sex toy.

But again...

No. He would find
Susan, make sure she was okay, and he’d head back to his hotel
room, to a nice, long, cold shower.

When the cab pulled
up to Susan’s apartment building the lights of her apartment were
dark. Kevin jumped out of the cab and jogged up the outside steps
to the building. He rang her buzzer, then a few seconds later rang
it again. Still no answer. He rang that stupid buzzer over and over
again.

He started to
think bad thoughts.
What if she’s hurt or sick?
There could’ve been a break in, or a leaky gas valve, or she
could’ve fallen trying to walk in another pair of those ridiculous
high heels.

Kevin started ringing
all the apartments, a trick he’d seen in a movie once. There were a
dozen voices squawking at him, cutting in and out like a radio.
Then he heard the click of the security door. He slid inside the
entry hall and bolted up the stairs. His heart was beating hard,
and his breathing was like he’d run a marathon. He was at Susan’s
door, beating on it, calling out her name, before he even realized
he was doing it. Still no answer.

He was just about to
take his shoulder to the door and break it down when he heard the
door across the hall open with some clicks, a whine, and some
metallic scratching. A woman who looked to be in her forties stood
there wearing a blood red silk robe, open wide to reveal a matching
lace negligee. She held a twenty dollar bill between her red
manicured fingers. When she saw Kevin, her ruby lips stiffened into
a hard line and she hastily pulled the robe around her, suddenly
modest.

“Jesus.” She tried to
laugh, but she was obviously too stunned to play the scene off. “I
thought you were the delivery man.”

Kevin shook his head.
He could already picture the scene, especially the extra tip she
would give the delivery guy.

“Pizza?” Kevin asked,
not really knowing what else to say.

“Chinese.” The woman
blushed as she looked down the hall and back to Kevin. “You looking
for Susan?”

“Yes!” Kevin sounded
too damn excited. The woman probably thought he was some demented
stalker. “I mean, we were supposed to meet about an hour ago.”

“Well, I saw her
lugging some suitcases down the stairs about two hours ago. Said
she had to get away.”

Luggage? Had to get
away? What the hell was happening?

Kevin thanked the
woman in red and trudged down the hall. How could Susan want to see
him one minute, then run away, with luggage, the next? It didn’t
make any sense. Of course, she’d stopped making sense to Kevin six
months ago.

But there was
someone who understood Susan perfectly, better than anyone else.
Kevin pulled out his cellphone and scrolled through his contacts
until he found her name. He hadn’t called since Cancun, and he’d
forgotten he’d put it under
Evil Bitch Monster of Death
instead of her name. Liz answered on the third
ring.

* * * *

Liz had just had
energetic, if not downright mind bending, sex with a hot bartender
she’d met a couple hours prior. He was twenty-three, Russian or
something close, and his accent had been so thick she could hardly
understand him. But his face had been handsome, not beautiful, the
face of a man, and his hands had been the hands of a man. Strong
and thick, and they’d know exactly what they were doing as he
pulled her clothing off without ripping or popping one of her seams
or buttons. And when he’d gotten naked, his body had been to die
for. His manhood had not only taken Liz’s breath away, but had
driven her to yelling out in orgasmic ecstasy for well over an
hour.

He’d written his
number on a McDonald’s receipt and handed it to her, with a deep,
delicious kiss and a few dirty sounding words. Liz hadn’t the
faintest idea what they meant. He stepped into his jeans and hopped
as he pulled them up; his firm young body jiggled, as did his still
huge, yet sated penis.

And that’s when
Liz’s cellphone rang.
Loser
by Beck shrieked
from the phone. She’d forgotten that she’d put that as Kevin’s
personal ring tone.

She rolled her eyes
and reached for the phone, watching the hot bartender walk out of
her apartment with his t-shirt draped over his shoulder. She licked
her lips, pushed away the warm, pulsing feeling the sight of him
evoked in her, then answered the phone.

“So do you need to be
talked down from a suicide attempt, or do you two need a
priest?”

She heard Kevin take
a few breaths. “What?”

“Because if you’re on
top of a building or standing out on a ledge somewhere, I don’t do
heights.”

“I don’t know what
you’re talking about. I called because Susan was supposed to meet
me for dinner, she didn’t show, and now her neighbor told me she
left a few hours ago with suitcases in her hands.”

“Boy, Kev, you
should’ve been a homicide detective. You’re both fast and
efficient.” She chuckled. “You drive the girl away, then find out
the how, where and when before the night’s out.”

“Liz.”

“But do you know the
why?”

“The why?”

“Yeah, Sherlock, the
reason why she packed her bags and left.”

“No. I don’t know the
why.”

“Well, Kevin, I was
wrong. You’d make a lousy homicide detective. I’ll call around and
try to find her. You just take a cold shower and try not to think
about her naked too much, okay?”

Liz was sure Kevin
was about to tell her to fuck off, but she disconnected before he
could.

“A girl’s got a right
to be alone with her thoughts,” Liz told herself. “Susan’s got
exactly one week.”

Chapter 15

Two weeks
alone, out in the wilderness, back with nature, in a well-equipped
if not posh cabin, should be conducive to sorting things out and
making a decision. Should be. But for Susan, every day she spent
alone in the woods, made her feel more alone. Instead of sorting
out her thoughts, they started swirling out of control until by day
fourteen she was considering cutting off all her hair and trekking
into the forest to live the remainder of her days as a crazy
hermit, ala
Gorillas in the Mist
. Or
more appropriately,
Chipmunks in the Trees...in the bush, under the porch, in the
walls, knocking on the windows demanding saltine crackers and the
last of the unsalted cashews.

She’d been standing
on a small cliff overlooking a gorge, trying to imagine herself
jumping into it to her death. But the gorge was no more than ten
feet deep, maybe fifteen, so it would be her luck she’d just get a
broken leg. She’d have to watch out for wolves and mountain
lions...probably a herd of ravenous killer chipmunks.

As if she were having
a drug induced hallucination, she could see the view from the
Virgin Drop. Not just in her mind’s eye, but as if she were there.
She could even feel the tropical breeze. She could also feel Kevin
walking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her.

Just as the warmth of
his body enveloped her, the vivid daydream evaporated, leaving her
standing alone, overlooking a bramble infested gorge.

She started
back to the cabin, missed her turn, yet managed to correct her
course before doing a
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
thing. She was seriously tired by the time she reached the
cabin, and from the position of the sun she could tell it was only
a little after noon. It was going to be another long day and night
without TV. She never realized how much she really did watch TV,
even if she didn’t watch a lot of it. Not until its absence left
her bored and stir crazy. There weren’t even any good books or
magazines, just
Field and Stream, Good Housekeeping
and the complete works of Agatha Christie.

Susan pushed open the
large wooden door and trudged into the cabin, pulling the door shut
behind her to ward off the stealthy chipmunks, and turned around to
head for the kitchen. Instead she let out a scream and practically
jumped right out of her skin.

There on the
Naugahyde sofa in the front room sat Liz, a lit cigarette in one
hand, a chilled martini in the other. The smoke from her cigarette
swirled around her head like a venomous snake. The sight of her was
frightening--she looked like the devil.

Susan swallowed her
pounding heart and took a deep breath, hand over her chest, just
about to lay into Liz for scaring the shit out of her, when Liz
beat her to it.

“I’ve been looking
for you for a whole week! Do you know I had to call your goddamn
mother to find you?”

Susan felt very
guilty. She wouldn’t wish a phone call to her mother on even her
worst enemy. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry!” Liz sat up
and snuffed her cigarette out in a small ceramic bowl Susan’s
mother always set out mints in. She stood up and walked over to
Susan; at the halfway point Susan started to back up. Liz looked
dangerous. More so than usual. It wasn’t long before Liz had her
pinned against the front door. “I had to promise her I’d have you
married by the end of the year.”