In a Moon Smile (2 page)

How about non-existent?

As a herd, the women stared toward the podium like rabid dogs. Chesney’s stomach pinched. She bit her lip, wondering for a moment how to respond. Should she tell another big fat whopper of an untruth? She chose a mini lie. Not so true, but not exactly untrue.

“To be honest with you, my fiancé and I are experiencing a bit of a conflict right now,” Chesney said lightly. “He wants a big, elaborate wedding while I prefer something small and intimate.”

Yes, intimate, like the quiet room at the local mental health clinic.

That argument was not actually a lie. Chesney and Jack had definitely discussed and argued as well about their huge difference of opinion. Jack actually did want the big monster event. Chesney preferred a family-only, by candlelight type of ceremony.

So she wasn’t actually being dishonest when she said that she and Jack were in conflict. Chesney left off the part that was most true, the confession that there would never be a wedding. Thankfully, the audience accepted her answer. More than an hour later, Chesney left the book signing with a God awful headache. Her cheeks ached from all the fake smiling. A bad case of irritable bowel syndrome brewed in the middle of her gut and she sped home.

Once she was safely inside the quiet apartment, Chesney soaked in the tub and allowed her mind to unravel. She traveled backward, way back, as a matter of fact, to seventh grade. Her first love, Rico Roland, was the only boy in middle school who resided on weekends at the juvenile detention center. By her senior year of high school, Chesney had dabbled with love only three times. And each time had been a disaster. Boogie, the reefer head from junior year who played drums in a garage band and smelled like a walking pot party, had dumped her at a party. Jason White, the hothead who kicked her car tires and rammed his angry fist through the bathroom wall when she refused to have sex with him, told the entire student body that she was frigid. Her senior year love affair with Albert Bryant was cut short when he was arrested for grand theft then suddenly enlisted in the Army.

Chesney rolled her eyes and sighed. The truth was that she turned her nose in the air when nice guys nervously approached. If a boy actually attended school and applied himself, if he didn’t sneak alcohol into his gym locker or smoke pot under the bleachers before school, she had no interest. There was something deliciously dramatic about dabbling in the world of bad boys. She smiled, recalling a senior year phone call, collect, of course, from the county jail.

“Babe?”

“Yes?” Her heart skipped wildly. Yet another bad boy, this one named Dominic something, was on the line. He was the only boy who ever called her babe. He was the only boy she had ever allowed to lift her shirt and place his confident fingers all over her lacy, B cup breasts. Over the bra only, of course.

“Babe, I’m in jail,” Dominic said in a hoarse voice.

Tears sprang to Chesney’s eyes. That familiar connection to drama lit her chest. What had happened? How could she find enough money for his bail? She loved this boy. If she didn’t love him, she never would have allowed him to graze his fingers along the top of her bra, where she hoped one day to grow a cleavage. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the rest of the saga to unfold. No matter what, she would stand by her man. She would become a prison wife.

“I got caught breaking into the liquor store on the corner of Water and Main,” Dom said. “We had a couple of cases of beer and a bunch of vodka in the back of Mark’s pick-up truck. We were ready to leave, but the cops showed up.” He sighed and paused. “I guess the stupid store had a silent alarm.”

“Did the cops catch Mark, too?” Chesney asked, barely breathing.

“Yep,” Dom said in a low voice. “They got us both for burglary.”

“What will happen?” She could barely shove the question from trembling lips.

“Looks like we will do some time,” Dom said. “Maybe Mark won’t, but I know I will. They got me on possession and probation violation.”

She was so engrossed in the tales of the dark side that Chesney failed to notice her mother, hovering near the edge of her peripheral vision. Swift like a panther, Madelyn Blake swooped across her daughter’s shoulder, yanked the phone away and hung it up.

“We talked about this,” she said through clenched teeth. “Your father and I refuse to allow our daughter to date criminals. You will not date men who are on their way to prison, Chesney. You. Will. Not.”

In amazement, Chesney watched her mother stomp out. How had her snoopy, goody-two-shoes kind of maternal figure known that Dom was in jail again? And that he had called the house? That evening at the dinner table, while Chesney’s father passively sat across from her with dropped eyes, Madelyn forbid Chesney from ever again talking to Dom. Knowing that she would blow out eighteen candles in a few months and gain freedom, Chesney only shrugged If she wanted to visit Dom in prison, she would do exactly that. As soon as her birthday came and went.

Smiling now about the stupidity of her youth, Chesney dunked her head underwater. With dripping hair, she leaned against the tile behind the tub and thought about the fact that she was somehow born with the self-esteem of cat shit. As a teenager, she attracted only the budding sociopaths in dirty jeans. That little talent, if she dared to call it that, quickly became a life pattern. A long stretch of dating and loving the wrong men defined her life. Other women might refuse to fall in love with men who are too shy, too controlling or too flirty.

But not Chesney.

Actually, she would love to love a guy who blushed every time he spoke. But she wasn’t lucky enough to date a guy with shyness as the red mark against him. Oh, no. She had to date the guys with big, billboard-sized issues. If they drank too much, lied incessantly, gambled and treated her like she had absolutely no worth Chesney stupidly gave away her heart. And that was how she came to refer to herself as an Ass Magnet.

She stepped out of the bath, wrapped the huge fuzzy towel around her body and padded down the hallway. Her eyes scanned the collection of Kodak moments on the mantel; snorkeling in Belize, snowboarding in Aspen, hiking in Costa Rica. She and Jack, radiating what Chesney thought was love. Arms encircling each other. Cheek to cheek. She wanted to gag. She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled. Damn men. They were nothing but trouble.

A knock at the door brought Chesney back to the moment, dripping on the Berber, she blinked at the front door. Was Jack here? She would not answer the door. Forget it. But then Chesney heard Becca’s muffled voice. Trying to smile, she gestured for her best friend to walk right in to her latest man crisis.

“Why aren’t you answering your cell?” Becca demanded. “I’ve been worried to death about you, Chez.”

“Sorry,” Chesney said glumly. “I turned my phone off when I went to the book signing. Guess I forgot to turn it back on.”

“Get some clothes on and tell me what happened,” Becca said in a softer voice. “I’ll meet you on the sofa.”

Becca made her way into the small galley kitchen, opened the fridge and helped herself to a diet soda from the second shelf of the fridge and a grape Popsicle from the freezer. She had been addicted since college to the icy treats and counted on Chesney to keep a supply at all times.

When Chesney reappeared, her wet hair was swept up in a clip and a faded college T-shirt and boxers had replaced the towel. Watching her long-time friend dab at her eyes, Becca thoughtfully bit a chunk from the Popsicle. Her tall, skinny body, folded in a chair reminded Chesney of a praying mantis. Becca combed her long, skinny fingers through her thick, dark tresses, a dead giveaway that she was anxious. Chesney wiped her nose again, tottering once again on the edge of that proverbial cliff of bad luck, bad decisions and bad karma, made her want to curl up in the fetal position.

“Honestly Chez, I told you from the beginning that Jack Mobley was an arrogant ass,” Bec said. “I begged you not to date him. Remember? In the very beginning, I tried to remind you that you wanted to date a nice guy for once. And Jack did not and still does
not
fit into that category.”

Awesome, Becca. This is a great time for you to start in with several thousand I-told-you-so moments. Really love your timing.

Chesney only nodded since she wanted Becca to shut the hell up. But she also nodded because Becca was right. She nodded because she could not find her own voice. She was too humiliated to say a single word. She could not imagine how she could navigate her way through the world after this shameful little drama.

“At the book signing, one of my readers asked about my wedding plans,” Chesney said in a near whisper. “Becca, how can I survive this? People will eventually find out how incredibly stupid I am.”

She hated the whiney edge wrapped around that question. Her best friend stared for a long moment. “Right now we aren’t worrying about your readers,” Becca said. “Right now, we are worrying only about what happened five hours before you went to the book signing. So tell me that story. Then we will figure out what to do about damage control with the public.”

Chesney straightened her back, hoping some kind of bravery would swirl into her chest if she stomped slumping against the cushions. She needed strength to relive the heartbreak. She took in a deep breath, hoping not to drown in the pain and quickly reminded Becca that Jack had been away on business for the weekend. That she had happily stopped at the grocery to buy ingredients to whip up beef Burgundy, Jack’s favorite. Chesney also grabbed a bottle of wine and a fresh cheesecake.

On the way across town, she ducked into a dirty girl kind of store and purchased one pair of edible, cherry-flavored panties. Then she smiled all the way across town and all the way up the elevator. Her plan was to shove the groceries into the fridge, attend the book signing and return to prepare and serve all of his favorite treats the moment Jack returned from his business trip. Humming
You are the Wind Beneath my Wings
, Chesney carefully balanced the grocery bags on her hip and unlocked her guy’s apartment door. Soon after entering the apartment, however, she discovered that her future husband was not out of town, he had actually spent the weekend between Belinda Carlton’s legs.

Stunned, Chesney had walked smack-dab into a sexual gymnastics event. Jack was naked on the floor, handcuffed to the coffee table. His assistant, Belinda Carlton, in the throes of passion, was bouncing up and down on top of him. Her firm ass made a loud smack sound each time her skin met his.

Becca leaned toward her friend, chewing now on the Popsicle stick. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears. “What did you do, Chez? When you saw that, what did you do?”

“At first, my brain wouldn’t function,” Chesney dropped her eyes. “I stood there, puzzled. I couldn’t immediately identify who was riding Jack like he was a bronco. All I could see was her spray tanned ass in the air, which, by the way, might be firm but is also as big as a barn door. And it was the color of orange glaze.”

“Yeah,” Bec nodded. “Cheap ass, spray tan shit.”

Those first comments in Jack’s apartment were like those in a bad movie. “Oh Chesney, I didn’t expect you,” Jack said as Belinda and her mambo boobs jumped up and disappeared down the hall. Jack struggled to set himself free from the handcuffs. And he panted a lot, obviously exerted. More exerted than he had ever been when he had sex with his fiancé. It never occurred to Chesney to strip Jack naked and cuff him to the furniture. She studied him, wordless for a moment.

“Who knows why, Becca, but I stepped closer and looked down at Jack’s red, sweaty face. For some reason I walked right past the crime scene and put the groceries on the kitchen counter. Maybe I was in shock. I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened. I didn’t even notice when Belinda freed Jack from the coffee table.”

When Jack appeared in the kitchen wearing a pair of boxers- the black ones with red lips printed all over them, the ones Chesney gave him for Valentine’s Day, she still hadn’t spoken a word. Belinda was MIA, which was probably a good idea. Maybe she was resting on Jack’s king-sized bed. Maybe she was in the shower, washing Jack’s sperm from her jiggly thighs. Chesney thought there might be a fairly decent possibility that she would have at least pulled Belinda’s hair had she showed her face in the kitchen. But she couldn’t be sure.

“Our wedding invitations were mailed four days ago,” Chesney had said to Jack as if she needed to remind him that a three-karat number graced her left hand and a two thousand dollar wedding dress hung in her closet. “I thought Belinda was only your assistant at the firm,” Chesney sighed as she rearranged Coronas and stray limes to make space on the shelf for the beef tips. “Jack, I had no idea you were interested in anything but Belinda’s Power Point abilities.”

“I’m sorry…” Jack stammered and ran his hand over the cowlicks in his shiny black hair, the cowlicks stuck straight up anyway, like devil horns.

“We will make an emergency appointment to see Father Martin,” Chesney said as she wiped off the sticky kitchen counter and folded the wash cloth. “We really must…”

“What?” Jack blinked. His face and chest were still flushed from his sexual escapade. His pulse was probably still racing. A few love scratches were now fading on his chest. Chesney felt like grabbing Jack by his flaccid penis. Instead she turned to look at the clock. She had been inside Jack’s apartment for less than four minutes and her life had fallen apart in that short amount of time.