Road to Casablanca (30 page)

“No, you don’t understand.
 
It wasn’t like that.
 
He was…he was…so…wonderful.”
 

Through her tears, Cindy saw
Victoria
furrow her brow, obviously straining to put the missing pieces together.

“So you…fell in love with him? That’s it, isn’t it?
 
You fell in love with him.”

Finally, Cindy nodded. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but her labored breathing began to slow down.
 

“Yes.”

“You’re coming over to my house today so we can talk about all of this and you can fill me in on exactly what happened out there, okay?”

Cindy nodded as the tears steadily streamed down her face.
Victoria
ripped out of the airport in a puff of smoke and steel.
 

She turned the radio on, which Cindy appreciated, and didn’t say a word about any of it again during the entire drive back to her house.

The car fit nicely under a carport and as soon as she parked,
Victoria
rushed around to grab Cindy’s bag and help her get out of the car.

“You hungry?
 
I’m going to make us some hot tea and get a snack put together and you can just sit here. Okay, hon?”

“Okay, thanks.”

Cindy looked around the small but luxurious home nestled in a wooded area on a lake.
 
The atmosphere was posh, yet cozy, and Cindy felt at ease there.
Victoria
was clearly making the money to be able to afford it, but she was a very capable lawyer and Cindy knew she earned every penny she made.

In all the time they’d been friends, she realized she had never been to
Victoria
’s house before, and from the looks of it, Cindy thought
Victoria
would have been completely in her element with the jet setters in
Morocco
.

She turned on the television and leaned back in a comfortable chair.

She began to change the channels and to her stunned amazement,
Entertainment Tonight
was on and, lo and behold, the story was all about the Marrakech International Film Festival.

Victoria
heard it from the kitchen and came out to see what was happening. “Look, that’s the festival you were at!
 
Isn’t that too cool?”

“We caught up with international beauty
Petra
with her new man,
Hollywood
bad boy Erick Redmund.

“
Petra
, are you two an item?”

Cindy watched as the stunning starlet kissed Erick passionately on the lips.

“I guess she just answered that question, folks!
 
Mary, back to you!”

Seeing the incident all over again nearly killed Cindy. She began sobbing uncontrollably and ran from the room.
Victoria
was right on her heels, but wasn’t quick enough to prevent Cindy from locking herself in the bathroom.

 
Victoria
pounded on the door. “Cindy?
 
What is it?
 
Tell me what’s wrong.”

As
Victoria
knocked at the door, Cindy sat on the edge of the tub, the scene between Erick and that woman replaying in her mind over and over again.

“Cindy?
 
Please come out and talk to me.
 
You’re worrying me and I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

Slowly, Cindy cracked the door open, looking at
Victoria
with sore, red eyes as she slowly hiccupped her response.

“That was him.
 
That was my Erick with that…woman…that
Petra
woman…that movie star.”

“No! You have to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.
 
Believe me, I wish I was.”

“You were with
that guy
?”

“Yes, that was him all right.
 
The man who until yesterday I thought was the love of my life.”

“But he was…”

“Yeah, I know.
 
I saw them in the bar together.
 
Who would have known?
 
Especially after we…”

Cindy’s mind instantly returned to the tender night of passion they shared only hours before that incident and she again began to feel sick about the entire episode.
 

The look on
Victoria
’s face told Cindy that her friend seemed to know exactly what was upsetting her.

“So you had sex and then found him with the bimbo?
 
Is that it?”

Cindy nodded and sobbed some more as
Victoria
reached a hand out to her.

“Come on out, sweetie. Let’s sit on the couch and talk about everything that happened while you were there.
 
I fixed some hot tea to keep us warm.
 
Come on.”

Cindy took her hand and they walked down the hall back to the living room, where the television had been turned off.

“So tell all, Cindy.
 
What happened?”

“He was a movie producer…or at least he wanted to be one. He was there trying to get investors.
 
He wanted me to pretend to be his wife.”

Cindy glanced down at her left hand, where the ring had been only hours before.
 
She could almost still feel it on her finger; she could definitely feel it in her heart.

“Pretend to be his wife?
 
Why would he want something like that?”

Cindy shook her head as tears slowly fell into her lap and her stomach knotted up a little tighter.

“I don’t know.
 
He said it was a cultural thing.
 
That the people there might accept him more if he was married, but…it started to feel like….”

Head down now in the palm of her hands, Cindy roared in agony as her friend did her best to comfort her by putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Oh my, Cindy.
 
You started to think it was…what?
 
Real?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, Cindy.
 
That is so horrible.
 
It sounds like this guy is a real pro, a player of the worst kind.
 
I am so sorry for you.
 
So sorry you had to go through all this, sweetie.
 
I feel just terrible about it.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Cindy wiped her eyes on the napkin her tea was sitting on.

“Of course it’s my fault.
 
Here you are, a sweet, shy girl from the farm, and now I’ve introduced you to a womanizing maniac who crushed you like a tin can!”

“Listen, you told me about the service.
I
was the one who signed up, remember?
 
And besides…as painful as this is, there was a lot of good came from it.”

“Like what?”

Cindy began to describe the typical day of gourmet food, spa trips and handmade clothing.

“You mean a new gown every night?”

Cindy nodded as she smiled and thought back to how special the fittings made her feel.
 

“Yes.”

“Handmade?”

“Yes.
 
It was really something.”

“Well you should’ve at least made off with the dresses and the jewelry so you could have gotten something out of this whole mess.”

Cindy shot her a glance that told her friend exactly how disgusting that idea was to her since she truly didn’t care a bit about the things, only about the man.

“Sorry about that.
 
I was only saying….”

“I don’t care about that stuff, Vic.
 
Yes, it was an experience, but it was Erick I wanted in the end.
 
I was a real idiot to think he was for real; that’s the bottom line.
 
I was stupid, just plain stupid, and I don’t know how I’ll ever love anyone again, ever.”

Victoria
put a compassionate arm around her friend’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I know.
 
Love stinks, huh?”

“You’ve got that right.” Cindy actually managed the first laugh she’d had in a while.

“Well maybe we can just call
Entertainment Tonight
and you can give them your inside scoop for a big expose about how you and
Petra
were both seeing him at the same time.
 
Now that would be something else, and it might be worth something.
 
These shows pay for interviews, you know?”

“No way!
 
I would never even consider something like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because as much of a jerk as he may or may not be, I love him and to do something like that would diminish the whole thing, cheapen it.
 
I would never do that.”

“He didn’t seem to think about cheap when he ran off with Miss Priss, did he?”

Cindy felt her face flush with anger now.

“He’s not like that!”

 
“Oh he isn’t, is he?” Cindy watched
Victoria
’s brow suddenly furrow with concentration.
 
“Wait a minute. Do you really think he was
with
that woman?
 
I mean, it doesn’t make any sense if you think about it.
 
If he was really with her, then why invite you all the way over there and pretend to be his wife, no less, when he could have just been with her?”

 
“I don’t know.
 
It’s all a blur. All I know is the reporter you just saw on TV was there with them and that
Petra
woman said they were together, so it must be true.”

“Dear one, how is it that he is not like that, yet he must really be with this other woman?
 
The two conditions at once are completely illogical.”

“I don’t know, Vic. I saw them on the TV just now; I saw them in the hotel.
 
It must be true. Maybe I just don’t want to believe it yet, I don’t know!”

“Do you really believe everything you see on TV, my naïve little lamb?”

Cindy considered what her friend was saying, but jetlag was starting to set in now and the more she tried to go over it logically, the more illogical it all seemed.

“I know it seems a little off, but
I was there
, remember? I saw the two of them canoodling by the bar that afternoon as if they’d been an item for years.
 
I saw the look on her face,
and his too
!
 
I tell you, they are most definitely together.”

“Okay, if you say so, I promise not to bring it up again.
 
Let’s go get some food.
 
I know I’m hungry; you must be starving by now.”

They shared a simple dinner of sandwiches and hot tea.