A Clean Slate (22 page)

“Perhaps I'll stay single forever. The women that used to appeal to me simply don't anymore, and I don't make much of an effort to find any others. I did meet this woman once or twice—very briefly, you understand—but there seemed to be something special about her, a connection between us.”

“Well, there you go! Call her!”

“Kelly Kelly, enough about me. Since you're such the dating expert, tell me about your love life.”

 

Sitting there, elbow to elbow with Cole (a guy I couldn't stand a short while ago), I told him the whole story about Ben and me. I told him about the way we'd met at work and the fun of those first few years. About the town house and the wedding plans, the ones I'd made and thought Ben had wanted as well. I faltered a bit when I got to my birthday and the way Ben had broken up with me. Should I admit that I couldn't remember, or act as if I had no memory problems? Cole would never know the difference. I'd gotten the elongated version of the breakup from Laney, the one I'd told her myself, so I could have easily faked it.

But there was something about the earnestness in Cole's eyes, and the fact that he'd confided a major part of his own life, that was getting to me, particularly when he sputtered, “The bastard broke off with you on your birthday? I knew I hated that fucker!” I could see that he was honestly outraged, that he honestly felt sorry for me. The fact that he felt anything for me at all was touching. Cole and I seemed to have stumbled into some sort of unplanned, oddball friendship.

“What did you do?” he asked. “Did you punch the rat bastard?”

I laughed. “Well, since we're telling secrets…”

“You set his house on fire?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just listen.”

Cole pulled at an imaginary beard and crossed one leg over the other, looking like a talk show host.

“The thing is…” Cole hadn't cut me off this time, but I found it hard to find the right words, words that wouldn't make me sound crazy.

“What is it?”

“What it is…is that I can't remember Ben breaking up with me.”

“Oh. It's not problems like I had, is it? Coke, speed, maybe something harder, eh?”

“Nothing like that. I don't think so, anyway. The problem is I can't remember five whole months of my life.”

Cole's eyes grew wide, concerned again.

I told him
that
story then, from the episode with Beth Maninsky, to Laney's saving me, to getting the job with him, to Ben and me hanging out again, and finally the fight with Laney. Getting it out felt like releasing the steam from a pressure cooker. And Cole, for his part, didn't run screaming to phone a physician or intimate that I might be losing my mind.

In fact, when I'd finished my story, he leaned back, looked me up and down and said, “Well, it doesn't seem to have hurt you at all.”

“No injuries that I know of,” I said, although that wasn't entirely true. There were the headaches, the weird flashes of the two-freckled man, and that scary night in the bathtub when I couldn't move my legs. And I needed to do something more for those headaches than just attack them with Advil and alcohol. Since the day Laney had brought me back to my Lake Shore Drive apartment, I'd avoided that cabinet in my kitchen, the one that held the prescription bottles of antidepressants and pain relievers. But when I got home from this trip, I might have to give the pain relievers a try.

“I mean all around,” Cole continued. “Seems to me that you're in a better position now than before your birthday. This Ben chap certainly wasn't going to win any prizes, if you want my opinion. And that financial job wasn't for you, was it? You've got real talent with the camera. You're in the right field now.”

I felt a wave of satisfaction at his words, then remorse hit. I didn't know if I could afford this job much longer.

I made a noncommittal sound, then tried to deflect his attention from my assistantship with him. “But Laney still won't talk to me.”

“Yes.” Cole waved at the bartender and ordered another
round of drinks. “Speaking of Laney—your official friend—you'll patch things up, eh?”

I shrugged, afraid to say out loud that I truly didn't know the answer to that question.

“Well, say you do. Say everything is just fine. What would you think of me asking her out?”

A piece of mango from the punch lodged in my throat. I coughed until it went down, grabbing for my glass of water. “You want to take Laney on a date?”

“Possibly.” He looked like a kid caught stealing. “I mean, yes. But only if you think…I mean—”

“Was that the woman you were talking about? The one you met once or twice but thought she was something special?”

He gave a short nod, his eyes wary.

“It's fine with me.” I wished I could run to the phone right now. I'd call Laney and tell her that a boy she thought was cute liked her. Shades of high school, shades of a time when everything was perfect between us.

“Yeah?” He sat up straighter.

“Of course. You'd be a great date, I'm sure. And it really doesn't matter what I think anyway, because I honestly don't know what's going to happen with us—if she wants to be friends anymore or not. It would break my heart if that happened, but I have to be prepared, I suppose. It's just that life wouldn't be much fun without Laney around. I can't even imagine…”

In the middle of my rambling, Cole put a rough hand on my shoulder. I looked at him, surprised.

“It'll be okay, Kelly Kelly,” he said, his voice soft. And then he pulled me off the bar stool and gave me a hug.

W
e'd rented a car, and it was my duty to collect everyone from the airport. The rental was a tiny Honda with a barely breathing air conditioner. I opened the sunroof and found some island music on the radio, turning up the volume as I made my first run to the airport on dusty, winding roads along the water. Everyone else drove a hell of a lot faster than me, and I drew a number of bleating honks from other cars. It was then I realized that I was on the wrong side of the road.

“Left, left, left,” I chanted to myself but it seemed so wrong, so distracting, so dangerous.

After the drinks with Cole the night before, I'd gone back to my bungalow and sat out on my deck, staring at the moon, the sea as dark as the sky. I was buzzed from the rum, but instead of feeling drunk, I felt introspective. And so, after thinking about my talk with Cole and everything that had
happened since that day at the dry cleaners, I decided to view this trip as my last hurrah. I had to be an adult. I had to get my life back on track, financially and otherwise, and hopefully, I'd soon meet the perfect guy who wanted to have the perfect family with me. But since none of that was going to happen in the Caribbean, and God knew what would happen with Laney when I returned, I was going to treat this trip like spring break. It would be my last fling before I got serious again.

And so now I waved at the angry drivers, mouthing “Sorry” but refusing to rush. I turned the music up even louder, singing along when I could pick up some of the lyrics.

The airport was basically a landing strip with a squat little building beside it. The terminal was even stuffier inside than my car. The crew that Cole had hired from Chicago came through the doorway marked Customs. There was a Filipino hairstylist, Robbie, who wore a yellow rugby shirt over his broad shoulders and carried three large black cases of equipment. Francie, the makeup artist, was there, too, a petite woman whose tiny face was, of course, perfectly made up even after a six-hour journey from Chicago. Lastly, a stylist by the name of Chad came though the doorway, carrying duffel bags stuffed with what I assumed to be scarves and hats and beach balls and other props.

I greeted everyone, gave them the schedules I'd typed out on the hotel's computer and squeezed them all into the car, along with their luggage.

Chad complained the entire trip back to the hotel. “Jesus, couldn't they have hired us a limo?” he said from under the mound of duffel bags on his lap.

“It's a little island in the Caribbean, you idiot,” Francie said. “There are no limos here.”

They must have worked together in the past, because after a few pointed comments from Francie about his snobbery, Chad stopped his grumbling. A half hour later, I
dropped them off at the hotel with directions to call Cole, who would brief them on the shoot.

I was a little more nervous for my next airport run, because even though I was starting to get the hang of the left lane, I was picking up the models, including Mella, who my mother had been writing that piece on about her alleged weight gain. As a celebrity, Mella had achieved mythical status lately and could be seen on everything from Victoria's Secret spreads to the
David Letterman Show.

When she stepped through the doorway and into the main part of the terminal, everyone stopped to stare. It's possible that many people didn't even know who she was, but when a gorgeous, six-foot blonde dressed in gauzy white linen walks into a tiny room that smells like an armpit, people tend to stare. Behind her, another model who looked surprising similar to Mella—tall, blond, et cetera—came through the doorway. I remembered Cole's words about how
U Chic
liked to have models that resembled each other at some of these shoots.

I hurried toward them, having to crane my neck upward to shake hands and introduce myself.

“Phew! It's hot,” Mella said, giving me a smile. She was apparently oblivious of her audience.

The other woman introduced herself as Corrine and didn't say much else.

They were entirely too tall for the car. It was actually embarrassing to watch Corrine trying to fold herself into the back seat.

“Can I stop and get you anything before we get to the hotel?” I asked as I cruised along the sandy road, the waves crashing only a few feet from the car.

“I'd love a Reuben,” Mella said. “Do you think I can get one around here? Or maybe a cheeseburger?” She was leaning forward, swiveling her neck to check out the island. I'd heard that she was Swedish, but she sounded as American as I did.

I remembered my mother's story about her weight gain. She certainly didn't look overweight in the slightest. She was emaciated, if anything. “We can look for someplace,” I said. “What about you, Corrine? Are you hungry?”

She scoffed, then stayed silent.

“She's just pissed off because I can eat whatever I want,” Mella said.

“Is that true?” I asked. “You don't have to watch your weight?”

“You've heard those stories, right? About me pigging out and getting fat?”

I nodded, failing to mention that my mother had crafted one of them.

“Well, they're partly right. I do eat like a pig, as long as it's before four in the afternoon.” She glanced at a delicate platinum watch on her wrist. “If I eat before four, I can chow down on whatever the hell I want and not gain weight. Reporters like to write those stories after they see me load up on pasta or something.” She looked at her wrist again. “I've got one hour to go. Can we find a restaurant before then?”

And so that's how I found myself eating cheeseburgers with Mella, sitting at a red picnic table by the harbor, watching the boats bobbing against the wooden piers. Corrine sipped on a bottle of Evian and sighed heavily every few minutes, shaking her head in a disgusted fashion, as if she were waiting in line at the DMV rather than sitting in the sun on a tropical isle. Mella, on the other hand, was sunny and fun, joking with the counter boy and spilling splotches of yellow mustard on her shirtfront.

Both of them perked up when I said that Cole was waiting at the hotel for them.

“What's he like now?” Mella asked me. “Still good-looking?”

“Yeah, he's cute, I suppose.”

“But is he straight?” Corrine interjected.

“Yep.” I thought about Cole's crush on Laney. Once again I wished I could race to the phone and tell her that I was having cheeseburgers in paradise with a couple of supermodels. I could almost hear Laney's wisecracks:
Make sure you cut up their food for them. Don't let them go to the bathroom alone.

As soon as Mella and Corrine had been taken to their bungalows (the two largest on the property), I headed back to the airport one last time to pick up Sam Carraway, Cole's editor friend. His plane was late, so I sat in the airless waiting room, sipping tepid orange juice from a box and reading
People
magazine. When his plane finally arrived, I stepped forward every time a single guy came through the door. I wasn't sure what Sam looked like. In fact, I wasn't even sure how old he was. Every man I scooted toward smiled and looked at me strangely, probably trying to determine if I was hitting on him. I was just starting to wonder if Sam had missed his plane when I heard my name being called. Loudly.

“Kelly McGraw! Kelly McGraw!”

I turned around to the Customs door and saw a man standing there. He looked about thirty-nine and had dirty-blond hair turning a little gray, a scar running along his left jawline.

“Hey!” he said, when he saw me looking at him. “You must be Kelly. Give me a hand, will you?”

I stepped forward with my hand outstretched, but instead of shaking it, he placed a big Prada shopping bag in my hand. “Presents for the crew,” he said.

“Great.” I said a silent prayer that I was included on the gift list.

“God, great weather,” he said, as we walked across the gravel parking lot to the car, the sun beaming down on us. “How's Cole holding up?”

“Well, I think.”

“Not nervous, then?”

“I don't think so.” The thought of Cole being nervous struck me as odd, but then this guy had known Cole a lot longer than I had. As we stowed his bags in the tiny trunk I asked him exactly how long they'd been friends.

“Oh, a decade at least. We met when I was just starting in the magazine business and Cole was building up his book.”

We got in the car, and I pulled away from the airport, on my now-familiar route back to the hotel.

“Don't get me wrong,” I said, “but you don't seem like you'd be friends.”

“Why do you say that?”

I sneaked a sidelong look at him while Sam took off his sweater, revealing a navy-blue T-shirt over an obviously in-shape chest. His forearms were tanned, an expensive-looking tank watch on his wrist. He had a rough-and-tumble look about him, and yet the Prada shopping bag, along with the obvious quality of his basic blue T-shirt and the tank watch spoke of money. “You just seem like the East Coast type, and Cole…”

“Cole what?”

“Well, Cole doesn't.”

Sam laughed, a big booming laugh that filled the little car. “You can say that again. How's it going for you, working with him? He can be an asshole when he's in a mood.”

“I've learned that, but I think we've reached an understanding.”

“You must have because he's been raving about you.”

I'd slowed for a stop sign, and I turned to look at Sam. “He has?”

Sam nodded. “He said you're the best assistant he's ever had.”

“Wow.” I stepped on the gas again and drove through the intersection, feeling a distinct pride, but again that burst of guilt hit. No matter how good an assistant I was, I would be quitting soon.

 

That night, Sam took the whole crew to dinner on Peter Island, a small private isle about forty minutes across the water from Tortola. As we neared the shore, I could see that the center was forested and mountainous, the perimeter a circle of sandy beach. The elegant restaurant-bar, just a short walk from the dock, was painted a warm ochre hue, with waves crashing just beyond the candlelit stone walls.

The eight of us were seated at a long rectangular table, Chad, the stylist, on my right, Mella on my left. During drinks and appetizers, Chad and I talked about his boyfriend back in Chicago, a “compulsive cheater,” as he called him. After listening to Chad's complaints and his self-portrait as a long-suffering companion, I finally asked him why he put up with such crap.

“Oh,” he said. “I've got someone on the side as well, so I can't really bitch too much.”

I was left pondering a response to that when Mella tapped me on the shoulder. She was wearing a beaded black shell over a teal miniskirt, her hair gorgeously tousled and wavy from the humidity.

“Check it out,” she said under her breath. Holding her hand under the table, she jabbed a finger toward Cole, who was seated at the end, Corrine to one side. Corrine was leaning across the corner of the table, practically in his lap; Cole wore the look of a trapped animal.

“She's going to be so mad if she can't score with him,” Mella said, a little laugh in her voice. “She's such a star-fucker.”

“But he's not really a star anymore, is he?”

“Actually, he's got this legendary status now that he's stayed out of New York for so long. Everyone's dying to figure out why, and all these people are forever claiming they just ran into him. You should hear the stories. Some people
say he was snared in a porn ring, others swear he was arrested for fraudulent billing.”

“Hmm,” I said noncommittally, happy to hear that none of the rumors sounded close to the truth. I decided to change the subject. “So, speaking of rumors, are you part Swedish? I could have sworn I heard that.”

Mella rolled her eyes and took a sip of her vodka drink. I noticed that she hadn't even nibbled on her food, probably because it was after four. “I have one Swedish ancestor but most of my family is Polish. The whole Swedish thing was made up by my first manager, along with my name.”

“Your name isn't Mella?”

She shook her head. “Mandy Schpitske.”

“Mandy Schpitske?” I coughed. If she knew what my mother would do with that information, she'd rue the day she'd told me.

“Uh-oh,” Mella said, her eyes directed across the table again.

Cole was pushing his chair back and shaking his head in Corrine's direction. He got up from the table, leaving her with an embarrassed, stern expression on her face.

“Rejected, the poor girl,” Mella said, and she did sound sorry for Corrine.

“Oh, he rejects everyone,” I said, thinking of the other beautiful models I had seen him turn down.

“Ten bucks says Corrine goes for Sam next.”

Sure enough, Corrine had her elbows on the table and was eyeing Sam a few chairs down, the way a hit man eyes his mark. I couldn't blame her.