Waiting for a Girl Like You (18 page)

Instead of calling the resident director, Marc called Helen.

“Hello, lover boy. How goes the search for the perfect woman? I hear you’re at her university.”

Marc turned back toward the flowerbed. “You all need lives.”

“Now, now, that’s not nice, Marc. We’re concerned.”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Are you still angry because I didn’t tell you about Dez? I don’t understand why this is coming up now.”

“It’s not about fucking Dez. I need you to do something.” They all needed hobbies. He just wanted to do a nice thing for Alex, who dumped him.

“I don’t think I want to talk to you right now.”

“Well, you don’t have a choice because you work for me.”

“Wow, good-bye.”

“Helen? Helen?”

Nothing. Damn it.

He found her number again.

“If you aren’t planning to be civil, I’m not speaking to you. You boys do not get to act like trumped up divas in this office.” Helen sounded like she wanted to take him over her knee. Wouldn’t put it past her. He probably deserved it. Scratch that. He did deserve it.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t understand this unhealthy fascination everyone has with my love life.”

“What do you need?” Arctic. Positively arctic. Next phone call needed to be the florist for a nice big sorry-I’m-a-jackass bouquet.

“Would you please find out if Alex has any school loans and pay them off? And contact the university about paying her tuition for this year?”

“No.”

“No?”

Nothing, but he could still hear her breathing.

“Helen?”

“I will not be party to another one of you boys trying to buy a woman.”

“I’m not trying—Helen? Helen?” Marc looked at the phone. Dead. Unbelievable. He pulled up Tessa’s number and called her.

“Too late. Helen already told me, and I have to tell you I am horrified,” Tessa said when she picked up.

“I’m not trying to buy her. Why would you think I would be trying to buy her?”

“Because my brother tried to do it not too long ago. But if you’re doing a good deed, let me put you on speaker so you can plead your case.”

“No don’t—” The phone chirped in his ear as she switched over. “Every one of you is into this public humiliation thing, aren’t you?”

“Son, we only have your best interests at heart,” Sandy said.

Wonderful. From the sound of things, everyone in the office today was clustered around Tessa’s phone. Might as well get it over with. “I want to have Alex’s debt cleared and next year’s tuition paid so she doesn’t have to worry about money so much. Is that acceptable?”

“Why?” Tessa asked.

“Because she worries about money, and I want to make her life better.”

“Aww!” Jody squealed. “Tessa, you should do it.”

“Shh!”

“Is that the only reason, Marc?” Sandy asked.

“Why would it not be the only reason? Why do I have to have an ulterior motive?”

“Because in general, you do?” Tessa asked.

“Shh! Marc?” Helen this time.

Yeah, everyone in the office to witness his humiliation. “Yes?”

“I’ll take care of it. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“You’ll what?” Sandy shouted. “Wait just a minute.”

“No.” Helen again.

The sound of the voices retreated down the hall. “Congratulations, Marc, you’ve caused a rift in the office.”

“Thanks. That’s what I was shooting for. And could you do one more thing for me? Call whoever is road managing Savitar this tour and tell him to get rid of Gillian.”

“Ruby Case is with them and Gillian who?” Tessa asked.

“Beats me. Suzi keeps asking me about a Gillian.”

“No problem. Good luck, Marc.”

Marc hung up on the sound of raised voices. Sandy had been pulling out his dreaded teacher bellow to drown out Helen’s mother scold while Jody had been trying to break in and was being ignored. He called the florist and arranged for flowers all around, and then added boxes of chocolate.

Before he could shove the phone in his pocket and get on with his little quest, it rang again. The ringtone he’d assigned to every member of SendDown. “Hello?”

“What the fuck are telling Suzi?” Logan. Damn it, just what he needed right now.

“At the moment, it’s Suzi telling me.” Marc fumbled through his pockets looking for a cigarette. Nothing. Damn it. He hadn’t brought any with him because Alex didn’t like them.

“She’s in tears, screamin’ at me on the fucking phone about how she wants to come tour with us. I don’t want her around these assholes.”

“Your bandmates?”

“My bandmates, those dicks in BroRide, the fucking roadies.”

“So every man on the planet.”

“You are such a dick. Wally is into her. He’s on her the second she gets here.”

“I thought Wally was her bodyguard.”

“He is, but he’s doing his job too good. I got to keep her safe.”

“My ex-wife cheated on me while I was on tour because I left her at home.” Marc started in the direction of Alex’s building. She wouldn’t be like Dez. Alex would be okay on her own with her nose buried in a book for weeks at a time while he toured. She probably wouldn’t end up stir crazy and neurotic like Suzi either. Having Alex in the loop would be good for Suzi, too. Alex could present Suzi with intelligent arguments for dumping Logan’s pathetic ass.

“Shit, you don’t think some asshole in Rochester is moving in on her while I’m here, do you? I moved her there to protect her.”

You moved her there to isolate her because you’re an insecure sack of shit, but that’s beside the point.
“She’s lonely in Rochester. I told her to go hang out with Brian.”

“Brian. Why didn’t I think of him? He’d protect her. Thanks, man, you’re a genius.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Dip wad. Afraid of other men stealing his girlfriend, so instead of keeping her close and sexing her up, he sent her off to another rock star. Who was the genius here?

Marc stared at the dormitory Alex lived in. Yeah, who was the genius here?

He should go home. Just return to his life and give up on this thing with Alex. Yes, she was great, but was she worth all the
sturm
und
drang
?

She liked to play board games instead of relationship games. She read huge, heavy books about dead people and could talk about them like they were friends. She would watch baseball and ask questions. She was low key, calm and sarcastic. Even when she was pissed, she was quiet about it. Hanging out in Jason’s living room with her, he’d been about as happy as he’d ever been without having a guitar in his hands. And she’d made that better! When he’d played Jason’s latest brilliant brain fart for her, she’d compared the rhythm to some dead guy’s poetry and found it on the Internet for him.

They were right. She was worth it. Even if it meant having to buy I’m-sorry jewelry gifts for everyone in the office.

He used the number Suzi sent him and listened to it ring three times before it picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Cheryl Washowski?”

“It is.”

“My name is Marc Wells and I’m—”

“I’m sorry, your name is what?”

“Marc Wells.”

“Marc Wells from Touchstone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God, really? Why are you calling me?”

If you had let me finish, I would have told you.
He needed a cigarette and a stiff drink. And Alex. “I’m looking for Alex Perkins.”

“Alex, why? Are you really looking for an English lit tutor?”

Oh, goodie, a Twitterer. “Something like that. Can you tell me where she is?”

“I don’t know. I suppose she’s with her advisor, prepping for her thesis defense.”

“She finished it? She told me she was planning on working on it this term and hoping to get it done by the end of the school year.” Why would she lie about something like that? That was why she couldn’t go to Italy. She’d have to take a semester off. Or had she not wanted to go to Italy with him? None of this made sense.

“She finished and handed it in not long before she got back. Got her defense committee all organized and everything. She defends Tuesday.”

“But you think she’s with her advisor now?” Marc fumbled the paper the clerk had given him out of his pocket. Address for the advisor’s office and home. “Do you think she’s more likely to be at his office or his house?”

“Why? Holy shit, are you here?”

“I’m right outside the building.”

The phone clattered. Why the hell had he said that? He jammed the paper back in his pocket half a second before the front door banged open and a middle-aged woman launched herself at him. When she hit, he staggered back a step, but caught his balance before they tumbled into a flowerbed. Arms still wrapped around his neck, the woman stared at him. “It is you.”

“It is me. Let go now, please.”

She released him, turning crimson. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been a fan of yours forever. I can’t believe you’re here. Can I get your autograph?”

Sure, now that you’ve got my damn DNA all over you.
“First things first. I’m looking for Alex. Do you think she’d be at her advisor’s office or his house?”

“Oh, my God. You’re the bad romance.”

Bad romance?

“Alex looked destroyed that first day when she got back, and she said it was a bad romance.” Cheryl clasped her hands together and pressed them to her lips. Her eyes were dilated, and her color had sunk to an unnatural pale. She was about to keel over.

“Do you need to sit down?”

Cheryl sat on the pavement exactly where she’d been standing, like his question had been an order. “It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?”

People were starting to stare. Why wouldn’t they? This could not be a standard scene. “Why don’t we step inside?” He hoisted her to her feet.

“I shouldn’t. You aren’t a resident, and the building isn’t open, but I suppose you are a guest. You could be my guest. Marc Wells, my guest.” She kept mumbling all the way to the building where she used her key to let them in. Straight ahead there was an elevator with its guts spilled out across the hall. She pulled left so he followed into a little lounge area with a television mounted high on the wall, a long cheap-looking table, and some square, very dirty aqua blue furniture. She dropped on a couch and cradled her face in her hands, now muttering about quiet ones and thesis and somebody named Gerald.

Marc paced the room. He should have bought a pack of cigarettes when he was quizzing the clerk in that store. They probably didn’t allow smoking in here. Through the window, university life carried on. A group of groundskeepers arrived to attack an empty flowerbed. One of them clutched a Taco Bell cup in his scrawny hand. Some kids rode skateboards along the sidewalks. He could live here while he waited for her to finish out her degree. Not like the band would be doing anything until after Cassie had the baby. He could even get into some real literature and prove the Twitterverse right.

Somebody was walking toward the building, head down, very fast. Not quite running, but absolutely fleeing from something. He knew those delicate arms and the echo of them wrapped around him. He stepped toward to the window to study her. She didn’t have anything in her arms. In one hand, she clutched some kind of little card carrier from which a key dangled, glinting in the sun. She was lovely. Even without seeing her face. Something in the way she moved exuded grace. For a moment, he lost sight of her when she got to the door so he bounded over hoping to catch her when she came through. When the door clanged open, Cheryl shot up from her seat, blocking his way out of the lounge.

“Oh, my God, it’s Alex,” she hissed.

“I know.” Marc fought the temptation to grab the woman by her shoulders and hoist her out of this way. The outside door started wheezing closed and another door clanked. “Can you get out of the way?”

Cheryl opened her mouth again in the distinctive
O
shape that warned him another plea to the heavens was on its way, and he lost his fight. He clasped her shoulders as gently as he could manage under the circumstances and maneuvered around her.

The pneumatic hinge on the stairwell door was easing closed. He pushed through and heard Alex’s footsteps running up.

“Alex!” Marc leaned into the gap between the railings. Based on the white fingers wrapped around the railing, she appeared to be on the third floor. “Alex, hold on.”

Nothing. No footsteps coming down, no footsteps going up. Marc watched her fingers as he climbed. When he came around the fourth flight of stairs to the third floor landing, she was standing as if frozen with one foot two steps higher than the other and her hand with a death grip on the railing.

“Alex?”

She stood, staring down at him, poker faced. “What are you doing here?”

Marc put one foot on the bottom step. Somehow, the energy to climb up to her wasn’t there, like she was putting out some kind of force field that wouldn’t allow him any closer. “You left so suddenly. I was worried that something was wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I submitted my thesis, and if I can get it approved in time, I might be able to have a teaching post here this fall. Everything’s great.” Her voice lacked all the music it had always had before. Now it was off key and toneless. If she’d been a guitar, he would have thought she needed work on her bridge.

“And yet you sound so happy.” With effort, Marc hauled himself up a step. “Ida wasn’t pleased.”

“It was important that I get back here as soon as possible. Far more important than some waitressing job.” She pursed her lips and then licked them. Nowhere near as sexy as usual. “I’m getting back together with my old boyfriend, too.”

The deep dark baggage. “Oh?”

“When I came back to school, I saw him and we talked.”

“And again, you sound so happy.” Her entire body looked like it was carved from one piece of hard wood.

“It’s none of your business.”

Marc braced himself to attempt another step. This was like walking into a blizzard. He picked up two risers this time, bringing him to what should have been arm’s reach and level with her shoulder. Up close, her face looked even more shuttered than it had before. He’d been mistaken about the hard wood. She was carved out of marble.