Shy Town Girls (6 page)

“
You know, I’m beginning to regret
bringing you coffee,” he said rubbing his temples. “I mean, I know
I wasn’t as cool as Bobbi-snobby. Forgive me if I didn’t import all
my fabrics from Italy and make all my own clothes by hand. You
weird ass.”

“
You didn’t complain about the
jacket I made for you. On second thought, weren’t you wearing that
when you lost your virginity? Huh, weird. You’re welcome.” I patted
myself on the back.

“
Touche, I owe you my manhood.” He
pressed his palms together and bowed. “You are a goddess. I worship
you.”

“
Of course you do. And you know,
Olly, I really do appreciate the over-roasted coffee,” I said
sipping and cringing. “So, when’s your next shoot?”

“
I’ve got to go pick up my spiffy
new camera and shoot some French chicks at Trump Tower today.” He
clapped and rubbed his hands togther. I loved that he was more
excited about his new camera than being swarmed by European
models.

“
Ooh, French chicks, exciting,” I
mimicked his starry-eyed expression, clapping and rubbing my hands.
“That should make your day.”

“
No, my day was made when I walked
in and saw you.”

“
Ahh. . .”

The sincere look he flashed me sucked the air out of
me. Something mysterious was going on behind those deep green eyes.
It was an expression he’d turned on me before, but only rarely, a
secret weapon if you will. It always made me feel naked when he
looked at me like that, but I knew it would only be fleeting. To
cover my confusion, I made another wisecrack. He returned with one
of his own, and we both laughed.

A new voice, deep and resonant interrupted play time,
“Bobbie, can we talk? Alone?” My stomach flip-flopped at the sight
of Charlie’s face in the doorway. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been
standing there, eavesdropping. The mood in my office had deflated
like a dead balloon. The morning had just turned into an episode of
Days of Our Lives. Oliver threw me a glance, pushed up from the
chair, and stuck out his hand.

“
Charlie, how are ya?”

Charlie ignored Oliver’s hand, hardly deigning to
look at him.

“
Alrighty then, Booger,” Oliver
said, “I’ll catch you later.”

“
Have fun at the shoot today, Olly,”
I called after him. “Thanks for the coffee!”

Charlie took Olly’s seat, which was probably still
warm and infused with the scent of Old Spice.

“Bye Booger,” he mocked Oliver, “Really Bobbie?” he
asked condescendingly. “Are you going to trail that puppy around
forever?”

I wanted to slap him, “You’re an asshole,
Charlie.”

“That’s why you love me,” he replied, crossing his
legs.

“And disturbed.” I hated him right now. If he wasn’t
one of our top earners at the agency, I would have fired his ass a
long time ago.

“How’s the sorority house treating you?” he asked
not even pretending he cared. His ego was swallowing up the air in
the room. I took off my blazer.

“Everything is good. What do you need, Charles?” I
asked professionally. I crossed my hands, leaned back in my chair,
then sat back up to rest my elbows on the desk. Quit moving. He
stood up and sat on my desk, folding his arms and looking down on
me. I watched the steam rise out of the mouth of my coffee cup.
Keep it professional. Stop fidgeting. I was about ready to stand up
and walk out.

“I went to that hand-model casting call you sent me
to,” he said. “By god, there were some ugly people there! Anyway,
they turned me down.”

“
Oh? Well, thanks for informing
me.” I said trying to pretend I was disappointed he’d been
rejected.

“
I guess I don’t have pretty enough
hands,” he lifted his hands and examined them in the sunlight
blazing through my windows. I looked into his eyes for the first
time since he had walked into the room. They were ice blue. His
concrete stare caused the area from my lungs to my stomach to
quiver. He didn’t blink. He knew what he was doing, teasing my
emotions.

I stood slowly, lightheaded from skipping breakfast,
and made my way to the window to draw the blinds, blocking the sun
that caused his eyes to glow.

I tried to be professionally optimistic, “I’m sorry
to hear that Charlie, but you didn’t want to get into commercial
modeling anyway, remember? In my professional opinion, you should
just stick to the higher end, private sector gigs,.”

As I often did, I looked out the window, staring
into the office that occupied the skyscraper across the street. I
had become well-acquainted with that office, even though I’d never
set foot inside it. Every time I looked over there, I briefly
wondered what was going on . It was probably a financial group
housing analysts in their cubicles, praying the markets were having
a good day.

I felt Charlie’s breath on my neck.

I turned and put my hand on his chest. “Stop.”

“What? It’ll be like the old days,” he purred, his
voice soft, sweet and persuasive. “The good old days. . .” He
leaned in to kiss me.

“Charlie, stop,” I whispered. But it was
half-hearted, and he knew it.

He kissed my top lip, then my bottom lip. I closed
my eyes, feeling weak in my ankles, my stomach flipping, dizzy. I
should’ve eaten breakfast.

I had spent only one night away from him, and I felt
like I was kissing him for the first time. I pulled away quickly,
but it was too late. He knew he had me. I broke away.

I grabbed a binder from the shelf and slammed it down
on my desk.

“I’m going to make some calls,” I said in a very
businesslike voice. “I’ll let you know when your next shoot is. I
can’t do this right now, so please go.”

“
Good girl,” he slapped the desk. He
sauntered to the door and just before turning the handle he pulled
out an envelope from his coat pocket tossing it on my desk. “You
have yourself a wonderful day, Miss Bertucci,” he said, pointing at
me. The door slammed behind him causing me to jump. The chandelier
above my desk jangled. I touched my lips as they burned from his
kiss.

Chapter 6

I opened the envelope Charlie had dropped on my
desk. Inside was a note with a key taped to the back. The note
said, The door is always open, waiting for you to come back to
me.

Dammit! I ripped off the key and threw it across the
room. It pinged and panged against some ugly and useless decor
Wolfe’s designer had left in the corner.

My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up. It was a text
from Meryl. Lunch? I’m feeling Thai Food.

My response: Please, Star of Siam, Illinois Avenue,
12:30

I beat Meryl to the restaurant and sat alone,
waiting. My memories began to get the best of me as I sat and
sifted through moments Charlie and I had spent together the past
few years. Nervously, I drummed my fingers on the table. I felt as
sick as I did at the moment I had first learned what had happened.
Why the hell is it taking so long for her to bring me a glass of
water? My heart dropped to my stomach when I pictured Charlie and
me lying together on my suede couch, him asleep, his face angelic
and peaceful, so incredibly beautiful, as always. I remember I had
wanted to kiss him, but knew that I’d wake him if I did. He didn’t
like it when I did that.

While I was gazing down at him so adoringly, I saw
his phone light up on the coffee table. 3 a.m. Who could possibly
be texting him at this drunken hour of the night? Of course, his
psychotic ex-girlfriend! The one he’d dated when he was a freshman
in college and who hated me so strongly that I wouldn’t be
surprised if she spent her Saturday nights poking needles into a
voodoo doll she’d made of me.

“
Happy Belated Birthday Charlie”
read her pathetic text. Furtively, I began scrolling through his
messages. There were other texts from her, quite a lot of them. And
quite a lot of texts from other women as well. I scrolled and
scrolled and scrolled... It was like the numbers running down the
walls in the Matrix, only it was a never-ending list of stripper
names like Brandi, Alissa,Bambi, Natalia, Candy, Kaci, Stacey,
Bethany, Tiffany... followed by stripper-like conversations such as
“come on over” “Can I see your dorm room tonight?” “I rented us a
movie” and “What’s taking so long?”

Wait. Your girlfriend freshman year in college?
Really, Charlie? As if it wasn’t enough, competing with 5’10”
models, let’s add in a few eighteen-year-olds! Hopefully they’re at
least that old.

I felt my face getting hot and a sort of tunnel
vision activating. I could hear the blood pumping through my ears.
Disgusted at the sight of him, lying there with one lock of
dirty-gold hair curled down over his forehead, I disentangled
myself and slowly got up off the couch. I nearly lost my balance,
but without any hesitation, I cocked my arm back as far as it would
go, and harder than baseball hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan could throw a
pitch, I chucked Charlie’s stupid iPhone at his stupid face.

He yelped, leaping off the couch in a panic, grabbing
his forehead.

“
What the hell?”

“
Get out, Charlie,” I said. “Get out
now!”

He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. In a way, I
had.

“
Get out Charlie, I read your
texts.” I turned around, slowly walked up the spiral staircase and
locked myself in my bedroom. I heard him follow me slowly up the
stairs, one step at a time, open the front door, and SLAM! The
waitress dropped a cup on the table causing the water to splash
everywhere, “Water?” I snapped out of it and stared at the Asian
girl thinking she’d be much prettier if she smiled more. My phone
buzzed; it was Meryl:

“
Hey, where are you?” I
asked.

“
Bobbie, something came up, I can’t
make it I’m so sorry, explain later,” she offered in a
rush.

“
No problem, want me to drop
anything off for you?”

“
No, I’m okay. I have a surprise
lunch with an author that’s just in town for the day. Are you
okay?” she asked, sincerity in her voice.

“
Yes, I’m fine. Charlie made a
surprise visit to the office. I let him kiss me, like an
idiot.”

“
Oh no, you know what, I’m coming.
I’ll cancel.”

“
Meryl, no. I’ll be fine.” I
begged.

“
You sure?” her voice sounded
worried. We said our goodbyes. I did not mind a moment alone:
sometimes talking about my relationship made things worse. My
mother always told me the more attention you give to something the
more it grows, good or bad.

“
Excuse me, can I get the Pad Khee
Mao to go please?”

I walked out of the restaurant and decided to take my
time getting back to work. I made my way out onto the street and
took a left past the parking garage and the bus stop next to the
restaurant. I never walked down this way, but like the rest of the
city, the streets were neatly lined with young trees, and cars
zipped by, narrowly missing pedestrians crossing the street. A
crowd of tourists walked straight at me. I was about to get
swallowed in the little sea of foreigners. Unlike the city’s
residents, the foreigners looked terrified as vehicles careened
past them at the corner.

I looked up to see something flipping around in the
air. A flyer? Scrap paper? It hit the ground over my left shoulder;
it was a $20 dollar bill! I stopped immediately and looked behind
me to see from whose unlucky pocket this had fallen. I saw a woman
with a purse and a man with his hands in his pockets. The man was
crossing the street on a diagonal; the women kept walking forward.
Why was everyone walking so fast? Was it just city life? By now two
people had bumped into me since I’d stopped dead in my tracks
mid-sidewalk. I was confused: was it his or was it hers or was it
neither? All I know is that someone in a ten foot radius dropped
twenty bucks on the ground. I turned and walked away leaving the
twenty dollar bill on the ground for some other sweet soul to find.
I looked back to see if anyone had picked it up and saw a man on
his cell phone spot it. He actually went out of his way to walk
around it like it was some steaming pile of dog doo-doo. I laughed
and continued walking.

I came across an old used bookstore called After
Words. I decided to go in because Meryl was always talking about
books and authors. To be honest, I didn’t even really like to read
fiction. Most books were too long, with boring characters and
tedious story-lines. I always lost interest within the first thirty
pages.

A woman wearing a beret greeted me. She was carrying
on an impassioned conversation with the man behind the counter.
Apparently she thought Anna Karenina was way better than A Tale of
Two Cities.

“What’s your favorite book?” the woman turned and
asked me.

“The Great Gatsby,” I said impulsively.

“Really?” she looked at me without smiling.
“Why?”

“Because a) it’s a classic and b) it was the only
book assigned in high school that I actually read—because it was
the shortest. The rest of the books I looked up in SparkNotes.”

The woman rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Can I
help you with something?” she said.

“Yeah, where’s your legal section located?” I
asked.

“You looking for something like Contracts for
Dummies?” she studied me.

“No, more like books for law students,” I
affirmed.

“Aisle six,” she mumbled studying my wardrobe.

I walked over to the “Legal” section and skimmed
through a few case books. The only things I ever read for pleasure
were magazines, Calvin and Hobbs comic books, and majority,
dissenting, and concurring opinions from Supreme Court cases. I
spotted an old man behind the front desk. He looked like a scrawny
version of Santa Claus.