Untangling The Stars (25 page)

“Okay, okay, hi!” Andie said, opening the door. “Stop before the fire department shows up.”

Tandy looked Andy up and down and shook her head. “That’s what I thought.”

“What? I was napping. It
is
Saturday. A day for relaxing.”

“Right, and that is exactly what normal people do on Saturday—but not you. Dr. Foxglove spends her Saturdays grading papers, reading and reviewing journal articles, researching and writing the next best-seller. Hiking. Writing poetry. Bird watching. Basically anything other than napping.”

Andie shrugged, but she couldn’t help but smirk. Tandy was right. Saturday naps weren’t exactly her thing.

“Well, are you going to let me in?” Tandy asked, shifting her hand that was holding a bag to her hip.

“Why?” Andie let the word sound as rude as it felt and didn’t even try to hide the suspicion in her voice. This was weird.

“Okay, I deserve that…but…,” Tandy put down the bag and pulled out a DVD of
Thelma and Louise
, the best-friend classic. She held it up, grinning the old Tandy grin that had been a part of their friendship for years. She hadn’t always been a younger, prettier version of that pink hell beast, Dolores Umbridge, from the
Harry Potter
series. Andie chuckled to herself; she’d never actually made that association before, but it fit.

Andie wasn’t moved. “So you think bringing over some chick flick is going to mend and forget everything that happened?”

“Of course not, silly,” Tandy said, bending over again. “I brought wine, too.” She held up a bottle of her and Andie’s favorite Merlot. “Chilled.”

Andie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Friends didn’t have to go through lengthy apologies to admit they’d been wrong. In fact, sometimes they didn’t need to mention it at all—the best thing to do was to keep going. “All right. Now you can come in.”

“That’s what I thought.” Tandy said and grinned, walking past Andie through the open apartment door. She went straight to the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks. “You didn’t?” she called.

“Didn’t what?” Andie called from back at the couch. “Oh, and I already have a glass. Just grab yourself one.”

Tandy swiveled, eyebrows up, holding and swinging one of Templeton’s stuffed mouse toys by the tail.

“Okay, Sherlock, you got me. I got a cat.”

With a leap and a meow, Templeton appeared from nowhere on the back of the couch and jumped down beside Andie. She petted him and smiled smugly at Tandy.

“It’s even worse than I thought,” Tandy said, shaking her head. She turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Andie scratched Templeton’s ears while Tandy got the corkscrew and another wine glass.

“What’s worse? And don’t imply anything about me getting a cat,” Andie said when Tandy sat down in the wingback next to the couch.

“Oh right. Everything goes to hell for you, you’re in your jammies on Saturday afternoon,
and
you got a cat.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? Yes, I got a cat. One cat,
one
, Tandy—not eight, not twelve.”

“It’s just the beginning,” Tandy said, pouring herself some wine and refilling Andie’s empty glass.

Andie rolled her eyes.
Whatever
.

“Okay, Andie listen, seriously,” Tandy said, leaned back in her chair and sipping her wine. “I really came over to apologize. I let the stress of the gala, maybe jealousy about you and Guy and, maybe, who the hell knows what, just get in my head and run my mouth. You know I love you. You’re my best friend. I am truly sorry.”

Andie was silent for a minute. She listened to Templeton purr and thought about everything that had gone wrong in the past few days. Tandy was acting like a grown-up…now…and her friend. Truth be told, she needed one. And as great as Scott was, what Andie really needed was some girl time.

“I appreciate the apology. Really, I do. But it really hurt to be asked to step away from the gala. I put just as much into planning it as everyone else. It means just as much to me, too.”

“And that is exactly what we all want to talk to you about today.” Tandy nodded.

We?
“Excuse me?”

“Oh, the girls are on their way over. I just wanted to get here first.”

“Oh my god! Tandy! Why couldn’t you call and tell me?”

“Um, I did! Your phone was going straight to voicemail.”

“I shut it off. Oh my god, I need to get dressed.”

“Oh relax, I’ll call the girls and tell them to bring their jammies too, and I’ll borrow a pair of yours.” Tandy winked right as the doorbell rang. Andie groaned and burrowed her face in Templeton’s side, letting Tandy get up to answer. Andie heard the hushed voices at the door. “Come on in and get comfy. I’m hosting a party, shoes and bra not required. And there’s a cat.”

Andie couldn’t hear the next whispers, nor did she care.

Melody led the way with two large boxes of pizza. “So where is he? Oh my god, he’s soooo cute.” She dropped the boxes on the coffee table and wrapped her hands around a surprised Templeton’s face. “Hey there. Aren’t you the big, handsome boy?”

“Dear god, pull yourself together. You’re a lawyer, not a veterinarian,” Denise quipped, an unopened wine bottle in hand, in front of Elizabeth who had a copy of what looked like
Steel Magnolias
.

“Hey, there’s scientific evidence that pet owners suffer less depression and have lower blood pressure,” Andie chided playfully. “Shouldn’t you know that?’

Denise laughed back. “True…but you named him Templeton? Wasn’t he a rat?”

“Yes, but he helped Charlotte saved Wilbur, too, so he was a hero,” Melody defended, her voice sliding back to its practical courtroom quality. Before she’d gone into law school, Melody had been a literature major. “He’s great, Andie. I love him. If you ever need a cat-sitter, you got one.”

“Thanks, Melody. Well, let’s get the party started I guess. I’ll get some more glasses.”

***

Once everyone had settled in and had some wine, Andie couldn’t wait any longer. “Okay guys. What’s up?”

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked innocently. Her eyes darted to Tandy.

Some things never change. “Seriously. What is going on?”

Tandy set her glass on the table. “We’re your friends, Andie. I know it may not have seemed like it, but we
do
love you. And we’re sorry. Especially me.”

“She’s right.” Melody nodded. “We handled everything terribly. Then when we saw the news this morning…”

“Ugh,” Andie groaned, searching for the nearest pillow to smash her face into. “I already heard about it from Scott. I’m fine. I don’t know what’s going on with Guy, and we haven’t talked about it.”

“Fair enough,” Denise picked up, “but with
that,
and the dean talking to you, and what we did to you about the gala…well…” She shrugged and looked around for help.

“It seemed like a bit much for anyone, even you, Andie,” Elizabeth said. “And we wanted to fix our share of the mess, and at least be here to support you for the rest. That’s what friends do.”

“By getting me drunk, fat, and teary-eyed?” Andie asked.

“Is there any better way?” Tandy cooed, pouring more wine. They all laughed and raised their glasses together. Andie could toast to that. Templeton, however, decided he had enough of the commotion and jumped off the couch.

“So
Thelma and Louise
or
Steel Magnolias
first?” Melody asked, heading to the television set.

“First,” Andie interrupted. “I want to talk about the gala.” Terse silence fell across the room. Templeton could be heard crunching on some chow at the end of the room. “Making amends is one thing, but I want back in. It means as much to me as any of you. I don’t need a break.” She suddenly had an idea. A delicious idea that was either really good or really terrible. “And, we need a key-note speaker—I think, I hope, I can get Guy to do it.” It was a long shot and Andie knew it, but if they could reunite over a common cause, maybe they could find their way back to each other—and in a way that would help them both mend their soiled headline reputations, too. Either that or she had lost her damn mind.

Tandy and Denise almost choked at the same time. Melody stopped abruptly and turned around, staring at Andie.

“Andie, honey, did you
really
see the pictures of him this morning?” Elizabeth asked.

“I know he had a bad night. But the gala is still two weeks away,” Andie insisted. This could work.

“Why the sudden change?” Melody asked. “I mean you were pretty dead set on it being wrong to even consider asking him, and now you’re volunteering him.”

“Because I’ve had a chance to think about it. My first instinct is, it would be like using him. And it is, but what I’ve realized is, that doesn’t make it necessarily wrong.”

“I’m not following,” Tandy said.

“It’s like this,” Andie said. “Denise you’re a doctor. I mean, I know you do research, but you’re still a doctor, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“So if someone started choking or having a heart attack in a restaurant, it wouldn’t be wrong to expect you to help, as a doctor right?”

“Well, no of course not. Although the Heimlich is—”

“I see where you are going, Andie,” Melody broke in. “Guy is entitled to be a normal guy, but he is still a celebrity. There’s nothing wrong in using his fame and name recognition to do some good for the community. And a little bit of good goes a long way—it’s good for the soul.”

“Exactly. That’s where I have landed,” Andie said. “Sure, it’s gray. But so much of life is. And here’s the other thing. I met him by accident. I still don’t even know why he wandered into my classroom. So it’s not like I just went after him to be our keynote speaker at the gala, or like I would dump him after his speech rolled in the bank for us.”

“Hell no. Dump him the next morning,” Denise laughed.

“I’ll drink to that!” Tandy said, raising her wine glass.

The girls erupted in laughter and toasted together.

“So?” Andie asked. “Can I be back in and try to get our keynote speaker?”

All eyes met one another and nodded.

***

It was almost eleven p.m. when everyone left. Andie carried out pizza boxes and wine bottles to the dumpster, came back in, and flopped on the bed. She needed to shower, but Templeton was curled in a ball on her pillow, and she couldn’t resist taking a moment to snuggle with him. He cracked an eye at her touch, yawned, and turned on his little outboard motor. “How could anyone not want you?” she asked him affectionately.
Want him.
Guy was never more than a thought away. She remembered her phone and reluctantly got up and went back out to the living room. Powering it on, she set it on her nightstand, and went into the bathroom to shower.

The warm water felt glorious, and now that Guy was back on her mind, it was impossible not to let her thoughts wander to him. She remembered washing his scent from her skin after he’d left the morning after their night of lovemaking. How fantastically gorgeous he had been that night in the soft glow of streetlights seeping in through the windows, sculpted abs glistening, dark hair matted to his head. His hands, so sure and yet gentle and arousing. He knew just how to touch her, hold her. Had she really fallen for him or was she just lusting, like every other heterosexual woman who had watched and fantasized about Silas Dove bending a woman’s neck beneath his kiss on the silver screen? Andie liked to think she was more mature than that. She did have feelings for him, beyond what just thinking about him right now in the shower was making her feel. Toweling off, Andie decided tomorrow she would call him, and she would apologize—do her best to fix them if she could. If she and the girls could act like adults and work things out, then why couldn’t they? Plus, now she had promised to try to get him to come to their literacy gala. That must have been her subconscious’ way of forcing her to take the first step.

Almost immediately, Andie saw the mad blinking coming from her nightstand. Frowning, she went over to her phone. There were the expected missed calls and texts from her friends from earlier trying to reach her before they came over—at least eleven of which were Tandy—but there was also an unknown number and three voicemails. Putting the phone up to her ear, Andie gasped when she heard the voice. It was Madeline Mann, Guy’s manager, and she was calling Andie from the hospital.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Andie listened to the increasingly frantic voicemail messages from Madeline. First, there was a formal sounding request to connect regarding an urgent situation that Madeline wanted to discuss with Andie regarding Guy. The next was a plea to disregard their awkward meeting and please call her as soon as she got this message. Finally, Madeline’s last voicemail sounded on the edge of frantic and carried the explanation that Guy was in the hospital. There had been an incident, Guy was hurt, and Andie simply must contact her immediately.