The Leftover Club (18 page)

“Maybe that’s not who you are supposed to be either,” he suggested.

“Then who am I?” I demanded as I broke apart, to finish dressing and to hurry back to my daughter – the only person left on the planet I hadn’t yet disappointed.

“I’ve
been waiting twenty years for you to answer to that question,” he said. I stopped and stared at him for a moment. Finally he retrieved his pants. “I’ll drive you home.”

Home
, I thought. What a joke.

I had a nice house in an upper-class neighborhood, full of fine furnishing and a standard husband and kid to fill the rooms like a big dollhouse.

But it had never been a home.

We barely spoke on the way back down to Orange County. As late as it was, there was really no traffic to delay the trip, but it still took more than a half hour anyway. By the time he pulled back up into my mother’s
driveway, it was nearly eleven o’clock. Maybe my mom would let me bunk there for the night. I couldn’t see waking Meghan up at that late hour.

But Meghan wasn’t there.

Wade had changed his plans, showing up on my mom’s doorstep a half-hour after I had left with Dylan. “He waited for you until ten o’clock,” Mom said. “He decided to take Meghan home so she could sleep in her own bed.” Her watchful eyes scanned my face, taking in the smeared makeup and mussed hair. “Are you all right, Roni?”

I nodded and plastered a fake smile on my face. “We went to see a movie,” I lied, almost too easily. “It was sad.”

My voice choked off into a whisper. Mom took me in her arms for a hug. I felt dirty and unworthy as I disengaged. “I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.”

I made no such promise to Dylan. I passed him silently and went out to my car.

My heart raced all the way down to my house in Costa Mesa. My legs shook as I walked up to my door and let myself in with my key.

There was only one light on. It burned from the formal living room, which we never occupied unless we had company. I could see Wade’s silhouette as he sat in one of the wingback chairs, one leg crossed over the other and a tumbler of scotch in his hand.

The minute I filled the doorway he snapped on the light. I grimaced from its harshness. His jaw clenched as he surveyed my ravaged face and my rumpled clothes. He stood, placed his glass on the end table and walked over to where I stood. Those familiar eyes were hard and ruthless as he stooped to retrieve a suitcase.

“You don’t have to go,” I started, but he was quick to cut me off.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He shoved the suitcase into my hands before grabbing my shoulder to turn me around and march me right out the door.

“Don’t do this, Wade,” I begged. “I made a mistake, I know. But we can fix this.
Think of Meghan.”

“You should have thought about Meghan when you were out screwing around like a common whore,” he sneered. After he shoved me onto the porch, he grabbed my left hand and tore my diamond rings from my finger. “There. Now you’re free to fuck whomever you want. Maybe the next one can teach you something
about being a lady before you drive him away, too.”

He slammed the door in my face, locking every single lock
behind me, including the chain.

September 30, 2007

I was curled up in my favorite jammies, a bowl of popcorn in my lap and my remote pointed at the TV, when I heard the lock rattle on my front door. Meghan pushed the door open, spilling her bags on the hardwood of the entryway. There were at least six bags more than what she had taken with her, and I recognized the names of designer shops emblazoned on the sides.

“Need some help?” I offered as I put the popcorn on my coffee table.

She barely looked at me. “I got it,” she snapped before she slammed the door shut and gathered her new belongings, dropping at least two bags in the process.

I rose to my feet and went to help anyway. “Have a good trip?”

“Perfect,” she said, her tone harsher than normal.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, once we got to the doorway of her cluttered room.

“Yeah,” she said as she ripped the bags from my hands. “I had to come back here.”

She slammed the door in my face.

The next morning she was gone before I even got out of bed. Of course I wouldn’t know that. There was no note. Her bed was empty and her breakfast dishes sat stacked in the sink, the only evidence that she had been there at all.

I was quiet all the way to work, which didn’t change much after I closed my office door behind me. This was a clear signal to my assistant that I was not seeing anyone, and to disturb me at her own peril. I worked all the way through lunch, opting for an energy bar and a soda from the vending machine in the break room
instead of facing the public or going to a restaurant. I wouldn’t have seen anyone at all if my boss, Tony, hadn’t barged into my office like a charging rhino about three in the afternoon.

“The son of a bitch did it. He pulled it off.” He plopped a contract in front of me. “They want Dylan. Call and spread the good cheer and all that shit.”

Just seeing Dylan’s name across that manila folder stung with all the memories I had been reliving. When was I going to finally learn that nothing good came from associating with him? It was a bad idea. It had always been a really bad idea.

There was only one thing left to do. I had to disentangle my life from Dylan Fenn once and for all. “Listen, Tony. I don’t think I am the best person to handle Dylan’s career.”

My gruff boss was not amused. “After you practically begged me to represent him? Yeah, I don’t think so. This is, and always has been, your baby. And I know you, Roni. You don’t walk away from your babies. So what gives?”

“It’s complicated,” I sidestepped.

“Of course it’s complicated. It’s Hollywood. Everybody and their Shih Tzu idle at complicated. So pull up your big girl panties and call him in. I want these contracts signed by five.”

With that, he slammed out of my office as loudly as he had arrived.

An hour after that, Dylan was sitting across from me, signing on the dotted line. “I can’t believe this,” he kept repeating. “A lead. A starring role.” He’d had other roles of course, but usually it was part of an ensemble cast. This was his vehicle, win or lose, and much of its success would depend on the strength of his performance.

For someone who had waited twenty years for his big break, it was equally exciting and terrifying.

He smiled at me. “I could not have done this without you. You know that, right?”

I shrugged. “Call Emma and thank her. She was the one who recommended you. We just brokered the deal.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re never going to take credit for anything you do, are you?”

“Credit.
Blame. Talk to me in three months, when you’re digging swamp bugs out of your teeth.”

He laughed. They started filming in early January, clear across the country in a small town in Florida. This was good news for me because it meant for six weeks solid, I wouldn’t have to have Dylan Fenn thrown into my face by my family, my friends and life in general.

But it wasn’t January yet.

“
We should do something to celebrate this auspicious occasion.”

I shook my head.
“Can’t. I have to get home to the kid.”

“So bring her.
I don’t think I’ve seen her since she was six. Remember?”

I rolled my eyes. Remembering was not my problem these days. I was reliving every painful experience from my past as that damnable twenty-year reunion loomed.
“I have a strict policy not to involve my daughter in my social life. My ex-husband does that enough for both of us,” I added bitterly.

He sighed before he leaned across my desk, linking his hands together as he cornered me in a direct gaze. “
Roni, I want to see you. I want to spend time with you. I want to fit in your life somewhere. It’s not a date. It’s not marriage. It’s just friends hanging out. I’m pretty sure she’s old enough to understand that. You should give her a little credit. Me, too, for that matter. And yourself most of all.” He paused before he added, “You deserve a life of your own. It’s okay to be happy.”

I mirrored his posture as I leaned across my desk. “Olive put you up to that?”

“Yep,” he answered without remorse. “What’s the worst that could happen? She runs off and tells Daddy you’ve been keeping company with another man? We already burned that bridge, remember? He’s not going to divorce you twice.”

“Would if he could,” I muttered. Finally I sighed.
There was a very good chance Meghan wouldn’t come home at all, given her sour mood from the day before. And maybe it would do her good to see that I did have a life outside of her, which is what she always claimed she wanted. That it could filter back to Wade was only an added bonus, especially after his pulling rank over the weekend. “Fine. Tonight is pasta night. Bring some garlic bread.”

Dylan brightened before springing to his feet. “I’ll be there with bells on.
Eight o’clock okay?”

“Seven is better,” I said. “We get to bed early in my house.”

I regretted the words the minute they slipped from my lips. He bit his lip to prevent laughing at the way a blush crawled up my neck toward my cheeks. “Duly noted.”

He was halfway to the door when I called out to him, “You might want to wear your asbestos underwear. Meghan isn’t that sweet little girl you met ten years ago. She hates anything and everything to do with me right now, and she takes no prisoners.”

He chuckled. “Sounds familiar,” he teased with a grin. “See you at seven.”

I debated the wisdom of my decision all the way home. With traffic in a gridlock, I would barely have time to make it to the
market, much less prepare Meghan for our guest.

Preparation seemed necessary.
We didn’t have guests outside of family as a rule, unless they were her friends. After everything Wade had put me through to get full custody, I couldn’t run the risk of his dragging me back into court because he didn’t approve of my friends.

I had become a friendless,
dateless, sexless, lifeless automaton devoted to taking care of my daughter’s needs, the perfect Madonna figure to overcome the whore label he had stuck me with after my regrettable one-night-stand.

The scarlet ‘A’ felt tattooed to my chest in permanent ink, however, so I walked the line ever since that fateful night so long ago. Meghan had been punished enough for my indiscretions.

And if she punished me now, it was warranted. I had blown her life apart because of a stupid, stupid mistake I had already known better than to make. This was my penance, a prison sentence with no parole. Until she finally left home for college, anyway.

Then
I’d get a few cats. I’d take up knitting…I’d start wearing colorful, flowery muumuus and wait for grandchildren like any other dried up woman in her 40s. In the meantime I just had to pay the bills and dodge the epic teenage mood swings like any other single mom.

Juggling a social life on top of this was unthinkable.

It was foolishness.

I could only hope that, after a night dodging barbs and scathing adolescent hatred, Dylan would be quite content to crawl back into my memory banks where he belonged.

I stopped at the store on my way home. Whole wheat pasta, check. Garden fresh pasta sauce, check. Parmesan cheese and the makings for a light salad, check-check. I stopped short of the wine, simply because the last thing I needed around Dylan was an intoxicant that suppressed any inhibitions.

Inhibitions were good. They were my friend
s. I was the sexless, dateless, saintly Madonna, after all. And we all knew I could go to Whore in two seconds flat if alcohol or weed was involved. If Meghan was a no-show for the evening, this could prove problematic.

The
problem with the Madonna/Whore scenario? The whore part sounded way more fun.

I was flush
ed with excitement that a man was coming to my home. And not just any man, the man I had dreamed of and lusted after for three-quarters of my life. My tummy jumped with anticipation every time I thought about it. If I closed my eyes, I saw his face, which only got more handsome every damn year.

And maybe it was all because of the trips down memory lane I had taken recently. Everything that had happened between us years and years ago felt as recent to me as yesterday. The temptation loomed large in front of me, like giant red signs proclaiming DANGER! HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS AHEAD! TURN BACK NOW!

This only fueled the devilish excitement even more.

It was six-thirty by the time I got to the house. I dumped everything in the kitchen and raced to my room to
change and freshen up my makeup, which is to say I actually put some on.

Thankfully Meghan wasn’t at home or she would have likely looked for an alien pod to explain this new and puzzling behavior.

I was chopping vegetables for my salad when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and Dylan stood on the doorstep, holding yellow roses in one arm and a brown bag with fresh garlic bread and wine (!) in the other.

I smiled shyly at him as I took his generous offerings. “Th
is is sweet, thank you.”

“At last!” he exclaimed dramatically. “She learns how to simply accept a gift.
There’s hope for you yet, Ms. Lawless,” he winked.

I laughed and led him toward the kitchen. “I guess you can teach
an old dog new tricks.”

The sauce bubbled away while the rigatoni boiled. I preheated the oven for the bread before I pulled some glasses from the cupboard to pour the wine (!)
. He dipped a wooden spoon in the sauce for a taste. “It’s meatless,” I warned. “I hope that’s okay.”

“I’m the guest,” he grinned. “I’m in your hands.”

His eyes sparkled into mine and I had to look away.
“Yeah, do me a favor and don’t say things like that around the kid, okay?”

He chuckled.
“Scout’s honor. Will I need my wine before or after the introduction?”

“Both,” I quipped. “In fact,
I recommend an I.V. drip.”

“Next time,” he shr
ugged, as if it was a possibility.

My stomach leapt with stupid excitement
, as if I wanted it to be. “Well, you’re in luck tonight. She’s not home yet. Maybe if you’re lucky, she’ll stay out till curfew.”

He leaned against the counter. “You make parenthood seem like
a true joy, you know that?”

I laughed. “Parenthood is wonderful. Parenting, that’s a different story. That’s where the hard work comes in.
Thankless, grueling work where you really don’t see the fruits of your labor until years later. It’s like waiting for a tree to grow.”

He followed me as I set the table. I put out a place for Meghan, even though I had no guarantee she’d even show up. I could have texted her, but I decided not to. If she showed, she showed. We’d deal with it then.

“Wonder how our moms got through it.”

“They had each other,” I said. “Now I understand why.”

“Who do you have?” he asked softly.

“Me, myself and I,” I answered. He wore a compassionate smile, so I expounded. “It sounds like a pity party but it’s not. This is my life. These were my choices. It’s kind of easier this way, you know?
No one to answer to. No one to depend on.”

“No one to control you,” he filled in and I nodded.

“It’s just me. For better or worse.”

“Sounds lonely,” he said.

“No lonelier than a string of one-night-stands that never go anywhere,” I shot back.

“
Touché,” he conceded. “I guess we’re more alike than I knew.”

His sentiment was punctuated with a slamming door. I groaned inwardly. Now the fun was truly about to begin. I held up my hand to keep him silent as we listened to Meghan stomp down the hall and slam into her bedroom. I motioned for Dylan to wait in the living room while I went to prepare my daughter for this unprecedented turn of events.

From all the slamming, I could already tell she wasn’t in a particularly receptive mood. I knocked gently on her door. “What?” I heard her holler from the other side.