Stay Tuned (16 page)

Rick attracted attention. All kinds of attention, from grandmothers to debutantes, businessmen to boyhood friends. He air-kissed and hugged a few hundred people, stopping each time to introduce me. After five minutes, my head whirled with snippets of conversation:

“Lovely to meet you…”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance…”

“So good to see a fresh face on WSGA…”

“You and Rick make a good team.”

“I hope to see more of you both…”

I shook a million hands and smiled until my jaw ached. My nose tickled from the mixture of men’s cologne, heavy perfume, and the scent of fresh cut flowers adorning every table.

Graceful lilies and delicate freesia dripped from thin glass vases. The tips of tapered candles glowed. Soft jazz music mingled with the gentle gurgling of the silver fountain placed in the center of the room.

A waiter breezed by, handing out champagne. On the giant tray he balanced, I watched the bubbles in each glass float to the top and disappear. Gone in an instant.

“Excuse me, Rick,” I whispered and nudged his sleeve. “I’ll be right back.”

Light-headed, I wove my way around ladies’ elbows, suit jackets, and between small tables piled high with plump shrimp and golden crab cakes. I paused to take a plate, but suddenly, I wasn’t hungry. In fact, the very thought of eating made my insides churn like a ship on rough ocean waters.

Is it nerves? Am I sick?

When I turned away from the table to glance back at Rick, the crowd had closed in. I lost sight of where I’d been standing.

Disoriented, I moved to the edge of the room, where the noise level lessened considerably. The center was a veritable beehive of activity. It was never still—people buzzed in tight circles, going from one group to another.

I watched and waited.
When are they going to get started? And how am I going to find Rick again?

We had been assigned seats, I remembered Rick saying. The WSGA corporate table was somewhere near the podium on the stage, if I remembered right.

A flash of a familiar figure near the doorway caught my eye. Chris? I stood on my toes and tried to get a better look. A moment later, he turned around.

 
Ah, yes! There he was, smashing, as usual, in a tuxedo. He smiled broadly and shook hands with a portly man, then nodded to the person on his right. I followed his gaze and stopped.

I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

A striking brunette with shiny, long hair and a tan flashed a smile at Chris and touched his arm. She spoke, giggled, and poked at Chris. Her flame-red dress clung to her body in all the right places.

Immediate jealousy tore through me.
How dare she? Who does she think she is?

A couple, arm in arm, strolled near me. The woman wrinkled her forehead at what must have been the awful look on my face. I wiped off the frown and flashed an apologetic smile.

“Shoes are killing me.” I sighed as they walked past.

The woman returned a warm look of understanding and murmured something to the man.

Okay, calm down.
No sense being upset if I didn’t know for sure what was going on. She was probably a co-worker, my conscience argued. Of course. Didn’t all financial planners look like that?

I peeked again, just in time to see the woman whisper in Chris’s ear. She might as well have jumped in his lap she was so close.

Enough was enough.

Chris was late, with a gorgeous woman clinging to him, hanging on every word. Like it or not, he had some explaining to do.

Tap. Tap.
The raspy echo of fingers hitting a microphone reverberated across the room.

“Would everyone please take their seats?” An anorexic woman dressed in bright pink from head to toe stood center stage, both nervous hands wrapped tight around the microphone.

She scanned the crowd, which ignored her at first. “Please take your seats,” she repeated, this time louder. “We’ll get started in just a few minutes.”

I’d take my seat if I knew where it was.
Forced to take baby steps in Candace’s slinky dress, I made a little progress to where I thought Chris was standing with the mystery woman.

“Excuse me.” A short, bald man elbowed me in the ribs and splattered his gin and tonic on my arm.

Wiping away the liquid, I fought my way through most of Macon’s upper crust population. If anyone ever wanted to do a Central Georgia version of,
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
, tonight would have been the night to film.

I brushed past several congressmen, one state senator, the mayor, and several up-and-coming businessmen from Atlanta. Chris knew many of them on a first-name basis and managed most of their financial affairs. I kept expecting to see him deep in conversation with at least one of them.

But no Chris.

At the skinny woman’s third urging, people began to take their seats. Over the tops of heads, from across the room, Rick caught my eye and motioned me to the WSGA table.

Screech! Crackle. Screech!
The speakers on either side of the stage boomed stereo sound of someone wrestling with the microphone stand.

I resisted the urge to cover my ears. Rick stared at the stage, frowned, and raised an eyebrow. His face clouded over and his jaw tightened.

Before I could get his attention, a thunderous crash silenced the room. Next to the uprooted wooden podium, the anorexic woman from the Boys and Girls Club began to argue with a girl wearing a low-cut purple dress and an enormous hat. Where had she come from?

The sound system picked up every word they were saying.

“You have to leave now. I am asking you politely.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Look, we’re trying to have a program here. You need to leave—”

A man in a tuxedo covered up the microphone on the podium. The woman in the hat finally left the stage in a huff.

Rick chatted with sponsors while the emcees regrouped. It would be another five minutes before they were ready to begin the formal program. I excused myself to check my makeup.

A few steps later, alone in the ladies room, the door swung shut behind me. I paused at the long row of sinks and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I let my shoulders relax. I closed my eyes, basking in the silence.

“Hello there, Melissa,” a voice echoed in the small room.

My skin prickled. I knew that tone. It was familiar. And angry. I whirled around. Alyssa, complete with hat and purple dress, leaned against the wall in the corner. I gasped.

“Melissa Moore,” Alyssa recited my name like she was sounding out words in elementary school. “You told Tim that I wasn’t good enough for him. And you told Drew Mazner to get rid of me.” Alyssa’s voice cranked up an octave and she made a fist. “All because you were jealous. Jealous of
me
.”

Alyssa’s lost it this time. If she thinks I had anything to do with Tim and his affairs or Drew letting her go, she’s dead wrong.

I stalled for time, inching away from her. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t play stupid.”

“I didn’t tell anyone anything, Alyssa. Why would I do that?” I asked, clutching a hand to my chest.

“You wanted my job. The whole time. You pretended to be nice. You pretended to help me. You acted like you cared about me.”

“I did—I do,” I defended myself.

Alyssa laughed. “And yet, there you sit.” She stomped her foot. “In
my
chair!”

She’d lost it. There was no reasoning with Alyssa. She truly believed I’d planned and schemed against her. I needed to get out of the ladies room, but I had to know one thing first.

“Did you send that package to my house? Those photos?”

Alyssa smiled.

“The note?”

“Oh, it was all in good fun. Poor baby, bless your heart. It didn’t upset you? Keep you up at night, worrying about your darling husband, did it?”

I refused to answer her.

Alyssa gave me a coy look. “Of course I sent it. It served you right. You needed to feel like I did. Like someone had betrayed you. Stabbed you in the back. Before I drove home that night, you told me, ‘Everything’s fine!’” Alyssa shouted. “Well, Melissa, everything is not fine.”

I inhaled sharply. Of course, ‘Everything’s fine,’
was
what I had said. Leave it to a newscaster to take a quote completely out of context and use it to her advantage. I took a tiny step toward her.

Alyssa whirled around and grabbed at her purse with one hand. She held up a manicured finger and pointed it at me. Her hand shook the slightest bit. “Not one step closer. Stop moving.” Alyssa fumbled for her purse. “I’ve got a gun!” she screeched. “Don’t touch me!”

Leave! Run!
I screamed inside my head. The air in my lungs turned to icy slush; my muscles froze in place.

Alyssa teetered back, but regained her balance and jerked the beaded edge away from her hands, breaking the clasp. The purse gaped open and swung wildly from her shoulder. I craned my neck to see, but couldn’t tell if the glimpse of silver in her bag was gunmetal or a lipstick case.

Alyssa tucked the purse beneath her arm, kicked off both shoes, and took a running jump at me. I dodged her, but like a caged animal set free, she scrambled up from the floor unscathed and clawed her back toward me.

She’s going to shoot me. Alyssa wants to kill me. She’s getting closer.

I braced for impact.

Alyssa body-slammed me with enough force to make any WWE wrestler think twice about taking her on in the ring. I fell back, Alyssa on top of me, fighting like she was trying to get out of a casket after being buried alive.

“You’re going to be sorry,” she screeched.

Candace’s gown tore in at least five places as I fought to keep my face from getting permanently scarred. Beads from our dresses flew in every direction.

“When I get done with you, WSGA is never going to want you,” she promised me.

I was choking and thrashed against her grip with all my might. In an effort to get a better angle squeezing my neck, Alyssa moved her hand. In that instant, I elbowed her jaw, rolled away, and jumped to my feet.

Alyssa came at me again. Out of desperation, I did what any self-respecting girl in a catfight would do. I wanted to survive, after all. And not land in the emergency room. This was my best chance.

I grabbed hold of a handful of curls and yanked with all my might. I pulled her head close to mine and put my lips next to her ear.

“Stay away from me and stay away from my family,” I whispered.

She reached for my neck again, scratching the skin until it bled. With a last ditch effort to get her to stop fighting, I kneed her in the stomach.

Direct hit!

Alyssa twisted away in pain, clutched her abdomen, moaned, and dropped to the floor. Her purse, which she had somehow managed to keep hold of during the whole struggle, fell next to her with a thud.

I clamped my eyes shut, expecting the gun to go off.

Nothing.

I peeled open one eye and clung to the table next to my hip in an effort to keep standing. A lone lipstick case rolled across the floor.

Where is the gun?
The floor rushed up at me. I snapped my eyes shut and tried to stop the room from spinning.

When I opened my eyes, Rick was hovering six inches from my face. He said something I couldn’t understand. I shook my head.

My mouth tasted like rubber cement. My tongue felt thick. “Wh-what are you doing, Rick?”

Someone patted my hair. A woman I didn’t know dabbed at my arm with a wet cloth.

“Give her some room,” Rick pleaded. “She’s in shock.”

No, I’m not,
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t tear my thoughts away from the sight of Alyssa’s purse hitting the ground. The scene played over in my head on automatic rewind.

I saw a police officer behind him.

Where’s Alyssa?
I tried to ask after he walked over and bent down to take a look at me. My words came out as a mumble.

Rick’s worried eyes darted over me. “The paramedics are on their way—”

I tried to smile at him, but it seemed to take all of my energy. My vision seemed a bit off. It was so blurry that I thought I saw Chris. Someone else stepped into my line of vision, then out. He was still there. I blinked several times to try and see him better. My eyelids were so heavy. I fought to keep them open.

Whoever it was had the same build as Chris, with the same short, blond hair. Of course, it didn’t help that every man in the ladies’ room was wearing a black tuxedo.

I tried to wave, but couldn’t lift my arm more than an inch or two.

It is hot in this room. Why is it so warm? It’s making me so tired.

A few ladies brought over a bucket of ice. One woman scooped out a few chunks into a cloth napkin, which she tied into a bow.

“Here, darlin’,” she cooed and patted my hand. “Better hold this on your cheek. If you don’t, you’re going to have one big shiner.”

She didn’t wait for me to take the ice. The room tilted as she brought the cloth to my face.

“There, there,” she said. “All better.”

The chill seared my hot skin, like a bullet tearing through my cheek.

“Can I go home now?”