The Other Side of Someday (5 page)

“Everyone,” Sophia said, bringing me back from my thoughts. I snapped my head up to see a group of men and women who were probably in their late twenties or early thirties. It was not what I had expected at all. I had assumed her friends would all be gorgeous, as if they just finished their latest shoot. Instead, it was quite the mix of all different walks of life.

“This is Baylee,” Sophia continued. “She just moved here. She’s the new owner of the penthouse condo.”

An impressed whistle sounded and I looked in its direction at a tall, thin black man with a shaved head who had impeccable style. “Nice, girlfriend,” he commented in an effeminate voice. “I’m Marcel, 10A, and I may just be a tad jealous knowing you get to share a hallway with Eddie.” Fanning himself, he swooned like a damsel in distress, which was met with eye rolls and polite chuckles.

“Eddie?” I asked.

“Your neighbor. I’ve been hounding Miss Sophia for years to set me up with him but, alas, he’s straight.” He pouted, winking at Sophia.

“Well, we all can’t be perfect, can we?” I joked.

Marcel laughed heartily and pulled out a chair next to him, patting it for me to sit down. “I like you, Miss Dixie.” I paused, reminded of Sebby. I thought it peculiar that in less than forty-eight hours, two people called me the same nickname. I shrugged it off, though. I supposed with an accent like mine, I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Smiling, I sat next to Marcel. He poured some wine into a glass that had miraculously appeared in front of me.
 

“And no,” he continued, “we certainly all can’t be perfect, but that neighbor of yours is damn near close. Isn’t he, ladies?” He looked around the table at the few females there.

“I’m staying out of this,” Sophia answered quickly. “He’s my boss.”

“Oh, please,” a tall woman said in a scratchy voice. She had wild, dark curly hair, bold glasses, bright red lips, and arms covered in tattoos. “Like you’ve never fantasized about him ordering you to strip down so he could have his way with you.” She rolled her eyes and turned to me. “Hi. I’m Lacey. Sophia’s roommate.”

“Hi, Lacey,” I responded. “Sounds like the start of a romance novel, although I’m pretty sure the whole boss seducing the employee trope is overused at this point.”

“You’ve got that right,” Marcel mumbled under his breath.

“That’s the thing about fantasies,” a man who appeared to be all muscles said. “They lose their appeal if it becomes real life. Most of the time, the fantasy in your head is probably nothing like the reality anyway. Plus, doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”

“Way to ruin
my
fantasy,” Marcel sneered playfully.

Listening to everyone talk about my new neighbor sparked my interest. I had yet to meet him, but the way my new group of acquaintances made him sound, I could only imagine he was devastatingly handsome. He was probably tall with dark hair and brooding eyes that seemed to change color with his mood. He always dressed remarkably well. Only the best designer suits for him. Men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him. I could have been way off in my fantasy, but my imagination was on overdrive. That was the thing about being a writer who had her voice suppressed for years. Now that I was free to do whatever I wanted, I couldn’t help but see a story in every situation I encountered.

“To finish the introductions so we can get game night underway,” Marcel added, “this hunk of muscle is Darren.” He squeezed the biceps of the blond man sitting next to him. I was pretty sure he had to have his t-shirts custom-made to fit his enormous arms and chest. “He lives in 8D, and this is Cora.” He gestured to a petite woman with soft features and pixie cut strawberry blond hair. She had emerald green eyes, milky-white skin, and a distinctively pointed nose that contrasted with the rest of her soft features.

“Hi,” I said.

She returned my smile. “I’m down in 4C.”

“I’m never going to remember this,” I joked.

“You’ll get there,” Marcel encouraged.

“Now that the introductions are over…” Sophia carried a few trays of hors d’oeuvres from her kitchen and set them on the table in front of us. “Let’s get the games started. Baylee, hope you like Pictionary.”

“Pictionary? I haven’t played that in a coon’s age.”

Marcel spit out his wine. “Coon’s age?” he choked, barely able to contain his laughter. “What exactly is a coon’s age?”

“It’s a unit of measure in the south,” I deadpanned.

The room grew quiet for a protracted moment as I waited for everyone’s reaction. Now that I heard it out loud, I hoped I hadn’t offended anyone. As if on cue, everyone burst out laughing, the raucous noise filling the space.

“Unit of measure in the south,” Marcel repeated, chuckling through his teeth. “I like your style, Miss Dixie.” He wiped his eyes and filled his glass with more wine.

“Fair warning for all of you…” I reached for my wine glass and took a sip, swirling the red liquid in my mouth. I half expected it to taste sweet with a hint of effervescence, like so many of the wines my friends back home drank. The top-shelf wines at our local Walmart in North Carolina left much to be desired. This was nothing like that. It had a spicy, smoky flavor, but wasn’t heavy. It was the kind of wine my uncle drank. Mature. Cultured. Sophisticated. Not some alcoholic liquid poured into a bottle with a wine label slapped on it. “Drawing is certainly not my strong suit, so I feel bad for anyone who is unlucky enough to be on my team.”

“After a few drinks, it’s
nobody’s
strong suit,” Sophia assured me. “And don’t worry about that. We don’t play to win. We just play for fun.”

“Boy, do we.” Marcel nudged me. The way he was grinning made me think there was more to this game of Pictionary than Sophia had originally let on.

“What does he mean by that?” I asked.

“Nothing, just that this isn’t your traditional game of Pictionary,” Sophia explained. “We play by different rules than what you’re used to.”

“This is Karaoke Pictionary,” Lacey announced.

I raised my eyebrows. “Karaoke Pictionary?” I had only gone to Karaoke once in my life and that was enough. I wasn’t sure I was ready to make an absolute fool out of myself in front of a room of people who were complete strangers just minutes ago.

“We came up with it a few years back after way too much alcohol,” Darren added. “Actually, it was mostly Cora’s idea.”

I turned my attention to her. She shrugged. “What can I say? I was a complete band geek in high school, and sang in a band in college. I’ve always loved music and I think these guys were sick of me ignoring them in favor of the microphone whenever we got together. Hence, Karaoke Pictionary was born. And it’s become a staple ever since.”

“It’s a nice release after a long week of work,” Lacey explained.

“Well then…” I swallowed a large gulp of my wine, the effects starting to take hold. It made me feel lightheaded, a subtle tingling running through me. A warmth began to spread from my ears to my cheeks and I relaxed into my chair. “Let’s play.”

“The rules are pretty simple, Baylee.” Sophia grabbed an easel from the hallway closet and propped a whiteboard on it. “We have six people, so we’ll split into two random teams. We don’t use the traditional Pictionary board or any of that. Over the years, we’ve written down items on notecards.” She pulled out a large keepsake box and flipped it open, revealing what had to be nearly five hundred notecards. “On the bottom of each card is the category and number of points. That’s the only thing you can tell your teammates when it’s your turn to draw. Mixed in are some notecards that are in the music category, along with the number of points awarded. It’s up to the person drawing whether to attempt to sketch the song title or to perform it. If you draw it, your team has to guess the song title correctly to be awarded the points. If you choose to perform, you’re automatically awarded the points.”

I looked around the table at the giddy expressions staring back at me. I had a feeling they all chose to sing instead of draw. Hell, it was a sure way of scoring points for your team.

“Don’t look so scared, Dixie,” Marcel said, getting up from his chair and heading toward the large television in the living area. “It’s all set up.” He grabbed the remote and flipped through what appeared to be a database of hundreds of songs. “Just find the song on the card and press play.” He stopped on “Like a Virgin” and, within seconds, the familiar strains of the Madonna song boomed through the condo.

I expected him to stop the music once he had shown me how it worked, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, he picked up a microphone that fed into the surround sound and belted out the lyrics to the Material Girl’s hit song, dancing around the living room as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Everyone else cheered him on, clapping and grooving along to the tune. I got lost in the mood, mouthing the words to the song as they appeared on the television screen, although Marcel didn’t seem to need them at all.

It seemed like such a mishmash of people. There was the jock (Darren), the gay one (Marcel), the beauty queen (Sophia), the eccentric (Lacey), and the band geek (Cora). I wasn’t sure where I fit in just yet, but it didn’t seem to matter. We were our own little
Breakfast Club
(cue “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds). However, in our case, it was more along the lines of being a Wine Drinking Karaoke Pictionary Playing Club.

“You know, Marcel,” Darren’s deep voice cut through when the music died down and Marcel returned to the table after taking a dramatic bow, “something makes me think that there is absolutely nothing virgin about you.”

“The song is ‘
Like
a Virgin’,” Marcel replied, winking. “And you’re right, sweetheart. There
is
nothing virgin about me. How about you?” he flirted, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Okay. Teams!” Sophia interrupted, anxious to start the game. She passed around a small bowl containing several pieces of folded up paper, a number one or two scratched on each of them. I drew a two, as did Marcel and Cora, leaving Sophia, Darren, and Lacey to form the other team. Taking the lead, Sophia decided to draw first, pulling a notecard out of the box. I watched with amusement as she sauntered up to the whiteboard and furrowed her brows, trying to figure out how to draw whatever was on the card.

Hours flew by, more wine was consumed, and a large amount of generally indecipherable masterpieces were sketched on the whiteboard as I got to know this unassuming group of people. I told them all about my recent divorce and Will’s infidelity that led to me packing up everything I owned and heading west until I hit the Pacific Ocean.
 

I discovered that Marcel was one hell of an interior designer. He even offered to work his magic on my place, speaking in an excited voice about a multitude of ideas he had for the enormous space I now lived in. With all the right touches, he was certain this job could land him in one of the top design magazines. I seriously considered taking him up on his offer. I had only been here two days, but I was more than aware that my new condo lacked any sense of personality. I wasn’t sure what my style was, but I was certain Marcel would do an amazing job redesigning my place into something that felt more like a home to me.

Darren, as I suspected, worked in the security field. He had gone into the Marines after high school and now worked in the private security business. Based on the fact he could afford a condo in this building, I assumed business was very good. Lacey was a Harvard graduate who was now a tax attorney, much to my surprise. I had trouble picturing her wearing a suit and going to court.

“That’s the good thing about being a tax attorney,” she explained once she saw the bewildered expression I had trouble hiding. “We don’t really go to court that much. Plus, I find my clients are much more comfortable with me when they see I’m wearing jeans, as opposed to some stuffy suit.”

Out of everyone there, Cora had the juiciest story to tell. She was left a large sum of money when her husband of seven years, Steven, was killed in a car accident. Now, she devoted all her time, and his money, to charity work. Apparently, Steven was speeding down Pacific Coast Highway…or as the Angelenos surrounding me lovingly referred to it as “PCH”…in his sports car, his mistress in the passenger seat. The truth was, Cora had just found out about the affair and was getting ready to serve him with divorce papers. While she was saddened to hear of his passing, she was still his wife and inherited his enormous fortune.

“Bless his heart,” I said, shaking my head.

Cora looked at me, her brows furrowed. To her, I was sure it sounded like I was sympathizing with her now deceased husband.

Smiling, I explained, “That’s another southern phrase. It’s a polite way of saying poor, sad fucker.”

Everyone at the table roared in response, a few repeating “Bless his heart”.

“I’ll drink to that.” Sophia raised her glass, and we all followed suit.

“And the kicker? His little slice on the side tried to contest his will on the grounds that Steven had set up a bank account in her name and was paying the mortgage on a house he bought for her in Beverly Hills,” Cora added. “Steven was about fifteen years older than I when we met. He had a great job and only grew more and more successful during our marriage, giving me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. You can understand what a shock it was when the lawyers went through his estate and I was told about all these properties he owned, of which I had no knowledge. But it didn’t matter. His will left everything to me. I evicted all his pieces of ass and sold the houses. Occasionally, I see one of them when I have an appointment with my money manager.”

“Why? Does she work there?” I asked, thinking how awkward that must be. Everyone chuckled.

“Not exactly. She works at the coffee stand in the lobby of the building. It’s tragic, really,” she mused sarcastically. “Having to go from living in a six thousand square foot luxury home in Beverly Hills, getting a manicure and pedicure nearly every day, and not having to work to barely making minimum wage and living God knows where. I’m usually not one to take pleasure in watching someone’s downfall, but like I’ve always said, karma’s a bitch. Yes, Steven cheated, but carrying on with a married man is just as bad in my eyes.”