Tethered (22 page)

I filled the glass and then held it close to my nose as I inhaled the scent. Then I put the glass to my lips and sipped. My shoulders relaxed as the sweet liquid drifted over my taste buds. Grateful for the smooth, delicious taste, I tipped the glass again and drank with more enthusiasm.

When I finally began to feel drunk from the wine, I welcomed it and the dreamless bliss it brought to me later in the night.

*~*~*

I woke up before dawn, wondering if Emmet had discovered the gifts I had buried in his suitcase. I had done it before the party. His suitcases were already mostly packed at the time. Chances were he wouldn’t discover the two jars until he was already at Cambridge. Yesterday when I knew that no one was home at the Grayne’s, I had been tempted to walk over there and take back the gifts, but after I thought about it, I knew that I wanted him to have them.

I had filled one large Mason jar with Hershey Kisses. Under the lid I had quoted John Keats:
Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.

The second jar was just as large, but contained only one item – a single candy heart. It was one of those candies with the cute little sayings on them that are hard to find outside of Valentine’s Day, but I found some in a specialty candy store in the mall. The single heart in the jar said one word:
Mine
. Under the lid for that jar, I wrote:
I only have one heart to give to you. Handle it with care.

I wanted Emmet to keep the jars. He was the only person I wanted to have my kisses and despite our sad circumstances, he still possessed my heart.

I stood in the living room window as the sun began to rise. I stood stock still for a long time until I felt the familiar tug. I put my palms flat against the glass as the line stretched, twisted, and resisted. It stretched and stretched and stretched and yanked on me until I was sure my insides would burst from my body and splatter, bloody and dead on the window. He was gone, and when I really understood that and
felt
his loss, I collapsed to the floor in mourning.

Chapter Eighteen

Oh, how naïve I had been.

I truly believed that after my meeting with Max, he would just start sending me to various clients for work. I didn’t imagine that I’d find work quickly, but I at least expected that by the time the end of October rolled around that I would have at least been on a freakin’ casting call or go-see. I was so wrong!

Max first gave me hell for taking too long to get back to him. By his estimate, I should have been clamoring to get into his office the week after he first met me. Then the jerk flipped through my portfolio with disgust and tossed the book back to me.

“I look good in those photographs,” I snapped at him as I caught the book.

My mother laid a gentle hand on my arm, implying that I be patient. I had been pretty snappy with people since the end of August.

“Yeah, you look very pretty,” Max said dismissively. “But pretty doesn’t sell – unless you want to advertise twenty dollar dresses for K-Mart.”

I frowned.

“I don’t want to do commercial modeling,” I said. “I want to do high fashion.”

He sighed and leaned back in his seat. “Stand up.”

“What?”

“Stand up. Up!” He raised his hands impatiently.

I passed my mom the portfolio and stood up.

“Stand over there,” he waved with his hand. I walked to the general place he waved to. “Spin around – slowly.”

Sucking in a breath so that I wouldn’t snap at him again, I spun in a slow circle.

“You’ve aged since I last saw you,” he said bitterly.

“What? That was only the beginning of summer!”

“You’re a
child
,” he said. “Children
grow
.”

Well, duh,
I thought, but remained silent and waited for him to speak again.

“Okay, sit down,” he said with a sigh.

“So, can you work with her, or not?” my mom asked as I took my seat beside her.

“She got old, but yeah. I can work with her.”

So, my
old
butt sat there, expecting him to give me clients to go see and what I got was an appointment with a test photographer. The test photographer basically did the same things Tori did, but I didn’t argue. I guess I passed the ‘test’ because Max was really happy with my new portfolio.

Again, I thought the phone would be ringing off of the hook, but after weeks of getting tutored at home for nothing and missing everything going on in school with my friends, I got pissed off enough to venture into New York by myself. I told Emmy where I was going, but I didn’t tell my mom or my other parents. I stormed into Max’s office – well…I tried to storm into Max’s office, but I was stopped first by security that had to call up to the agency to let them know I was there. Then I got stopped by the main receptionist, and again by Max’s secretary. Finally, when I was able to storm into his office, I was exhausted.

“You told me I was exquisite!” I said, slamming my palms onto his desk. “You said I had potential!”

He looked up at me, not at all fazed by my tantrum.

“Yeah, you are and you do,” he said casually and looked back to his computer.

“Then why am I still sitting in Jersey staring at the walls?” I demanded.

He looked me up and down. He actually stood up, leaned in close to me and dropped his eyes to my feet on the floor. I was confused, but said nothing, nor did I back away from him.

“It looks like you’re standing in my office in New York City, Donya, not sitting in New Jersey.”

I wanted to punch him, but I kept my cool and met his eyes, only inches from mine.

“Max,” I said his name sweetly. “If you’re waiting for me to kiss your ass to get me some work, you will be waiting a very long time.”

“You have balls to come into my office and talk to me like that. I am the man who can make or break you.”

A corner of my mouth pulled up into a soft smirk. “Max, I am
shattered
inside. If you think you can break me anymore than that, I welcome you to try.”

His eyes narrowed and discriminated. Then he sighed and sat back down in his chair.

“I think I have the perfect client to send you to.”

*~*~*

“Did you brush your hair?” my mom asked me, as she got into her bed.

“One hundred strokes,” I murmured as I flipped through an issue of
Vogue
.

“Did you moisturize?”

“All greased up,” I answered.

“How do your nails look?”

I dropped the magazine on my lap and sighed as I looked over at her. I was glad she was with me. I was glad she wasn’t only with me, but truly trying to be a loving mother, but she was driving me bat-shit.

“Mom, my nails look as good as they’re going to get. I’m going to sleep in a few minutes so I won’t wake up with red eyes, okay? Everything will be fine.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She pulled back the blanket and bedspread and got into bed. I went back to reading my magazine even though I could feel her eyes on me.

“What?” I finally said, dropping the magazine again.

“I’m really proud of you,” she said softly.

I snorted. “Mom, I haven’t done anything yet,” I said bitterly.

I had been on several casting calls and had actually had a few call backs and landed some decent gigs. We had been at it for months now. My mother quit her job as a waitress to travel with me. It made way more sense than the Grayne’s hiring some stranger to chaperone me or having someone from Max’s company glued to my hip. I didn’t think my mom wanted the task, especially after the cruel things she had said to me the day I returned from Louisiana, but she surprised me – she surprised all of us. She drove me to Emmy’s one day and we all sat around the table discussing it. She didn’t want the Grayne’s to have to pay for everything, but they came to some kind of agreement I wasn’t privy to because I was sent out of the room. That made no sense to me since it was about me.

My relationship with my mom began to change that first day when I couldn’t get out of bed after my breakup with Emmet. When she came home from work and found me worse than how she left me, she stepped up to the plate. Fortunately, she didn’t ask me a lot of questions. She just made herself available for me. She hugged me, she smoothed my hair, and kissed my head – all of the things I always wanted from her and never got. All it took was my first real broken heart.

“You’re trying really hard,” she said to me in the hotel room, months after we started on this venture. “When someone tells you you’re too skinny, too fat, too short, too tall, too old or too young, or too dark, you shrug it off and move on to the next one.”

What I didn’t tell her, is that when someone called me too fat, I surreptitiously skipped meals. When someone said I was too skinny, I ate a candy bar. When I was looked at with disgust or boredom, I waited until I was in the shower that night to cry about it. I didn’t tell her any of that. I simply shrugged and said “Someone will eventually think I’m just right.”

*~*~*

Work was trickling in. Some of it was behind the scenes stuff, like being a human mannequin for designers. I had several photo shoots for various publications and a couple of them were with big designers for ads that ran in Vogue and Vanity Fair. I wasn’t what I’d call a model in demand, but I didn’t complain. I was gaining experience and learning about the business. I was also learning patience and restraint, because many of the girls I encountered in the industry were straight up bitches. I didn’t get into any physical altercations, but I quickly had to let a few of them know that this Jersey girl wasn’t really down for any catty shit.

“I will beat your ass and ground my Blahnik into your skull as I step on you to continue on to the next gig,” I had told Inga, one of the girls I repeatedly had to work with.

Between working, looking for work, and my schooling, my contact with Emmy and the family began to slip. For the most part, it couldn’t be helped, but admittedly, I avoided the holidays. I didn’t want to have to face Emmet, not yet. In the late winter, however, I wanted to spend some time with the family. Though I had been home several times over the months, I had never stayed more than a couple of days because I was sucking up every little bit of work I could get. But I needed some comforts of home. I needed Emmy and her undying friendship. I needed Sam and her craziness. I needed Fred and his warm fatherly ways. I needed to sleep in my room at the Grayne’s that used to be Lucy’s. The other things that I needed were sadly unattainable and several hours north of home.

I also thought my mom needed a rest. She had been traipsing all over New York with me and we had taken two trips to L.A. She was looking more and more worn down and tired. All of the activity was apparently draining her more than I would have expected. My mom wasn’t old, she was only in her late thirties, but she laughed about her aches and pains more than any older person I knew. She tried to joke about it and claim it was her old age kicking in, along with years of inactivity, but I suspected there was more, though I could not for the life of me figure out what that may have been.

But she kept chugging along without much complaint, and she was so different from the person she was a year before, I didn’t complain either.

Another reason I needed to be home was because Emmy needed me. There was a lot going on in her life. She admitted to me one night in the late fall that she had been getting high with Tack and Mayson on a regular basis. I chastised her and she promised it wasn’t a problem. By the time New Year’s had passed by, the three of them were doing heavier stuff than weed, though Emmy never clarified what. She was in essence, their supplier, because she had significantly more funds than her middle class cousins, but Emmy started to hate the way the drugs made her feel.

“I hate
needing
it,” she had cried on the phone. “Mayson and Tack are getting really bad. Tack’s failing all of his college courses and Mayson is making really, really bad decisions. She’s dating this guy…my god, he’s
awful
, Donya. He keeps her high and I think when she’s bothering to eat, she’s doing the finger throat thing, because
he
likes her thinner. He’s called her a fat pig in front of everyone and instead of punching him in the face like she should, she promises to do better. What the hell!” She screamed in frustration.

I wanted to ask so many questions, but I had to let her finish with her tearful rant and confessions.

“She’s getting violent. She hit her mom a few times recently and she slapped Tabby when she called her a junkie. Oh my god, everyone is unraveling. I don’t want to unravel. I don’t want to be a junkie. I did this shit because it was fun, but it’s not fun anymore.”

I turned down a few jobs to go home to my friend the following week.

As I made the familiar walk from my mother’s house to my other house, I considered how brave Emmy had been to go to her parents and tell them about her problem. I didn’t agree with her keeping Mayson’s and Tack’s problems a secret, but it took a lot of strength for her to go to her parents. Fred and Sam being the awesome parents they are immediately put her in an outpatient program. They didn’t yell at her, they didn’t tell her how disappointed they were – they just did what needed to be done.

I walked through the door at the Grayne’s and gave myself a moment to feel the rush of memories soar through my mind. I had so many, from jumping on the antique couch as a child and getting my ass handed to me by Sam, to the chaos of a house full of kids when all of the older siblings were still home. I thought about the scraped knees and elbows that were bandaged under that roof, the excellent meals Sam provided, and Fred’s kindness. I also thought about how the whole family stood in the foyer waiting for me when my dad died, Emmet’s arms around me comforting me, and Emmet’s arms around me in his bed, and the days that we spent without parental supervision.

Without meaning to, my eyes drifted to the top of the stairs in the direction of his bedroom. I hadn’t been in there since last summer. I hadn’t seen him since the night I uttered those cruel words to him about his unborn baby. There had been no phone calls, no letters, no postcards, smoke signals, courier pigeons or telegrams. There had been nothing, yet…I still felt him, moving on in the world, going on without me. I still felt that tug though it was very much dulled. I wondered if he felt it, too.