“That was incredibly embarrassing. I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to her. I hope you are all satisfied.”
“Satisfied? Not really,” muttered AJ, looking at the floor.
Nick brazened it through. “Well, you know what! Tough! This is my girl, at least I hope she still is after this. We’re just starting out. It’s hard enough to figure shit out when you’re in the same city. It’s a lot harder when you’re not. And if you can’t be supportive, then fuck it. Let’s just not talk about it.”
Kevin stepped in. “We’re not going down this road, fellas. We’re just not. We’ve come together so well here and we’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve only got a couple of weeks to go on this and then we’re done here. We can go our separate ways for awhile before we start touring.”
“Yeah,” said Brian. “We know the pitfalls already. We’re too old now to live in each other’s pockets like we had to before. We don’t have to do that any more. We all have our own lives now. This…” he waved his hand around the studio, “…this is our job. This is not our life.”
“C’mon, guys,” said Howie.
“Sorry, Nick,” said AJ, looking up at him.
“Me too,” said Nick.
And he looked at AJ. Right at him. Right into his eyes. And AJ knew he’d been right. And he knew that Nick knew that AJ knew. And AJ decided to just let it go for now. The girl was real, sort of. There was more here than met the eye, but what the hell…whatever nonsense Nick was into, let him be in it. AJ had enough trouble concentrating on his own life. Just let it go and everyone will be happy. Why make trouble when there wasn’t any? Who would ever want to do that?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ronni was bored. Bored, bored, bored! So bored she had even let her mother drag her to this stodgy luncheon.
The euphoria of the wedding had worn off quickly. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time…and of course, all the parties in their honor when they’d come back to Chicago had been fun, but lately…she’d just been bored, bored, bored.
Ronni was the first to admit that she was an instant gratification sorta gal. She wasn’t patient. She wanted her strokes and she wanted them now. She’d been happy enough in L.A., even though the whole acting thing was turning out to be a non-starter. But Nick had taken her in, as it were, and that was a pretty exciting life, at least in the beginning, when it was all new, and he was completely enamored of her. But then he got all into the business end of his business, and all he wanted to talk about were financial things. Boring, boring, boring!
The spark was re-ignited when he sprang the secret vacation on her. She got excited about that, but then he went away to New York for a week. That gave Ronni time to wander around his big house and think about re-decorating…what she would do to this room and that one, once she had moved in and even, if her luck held, married Nick. Because she’d decided, that was what she was going to do next. She had played hard-to-get long enough. Now it was time to let him win her. Then she could start changing the house…and him.
And then James came to town. Blast-from-the-past James. Ronni loved the name that Nick had given him. Because James was a blast. He had always known how to push all the right buttons with her. Whenever she was with someone else and fantasizing, it was always James she fantasized about and that one summer night out on his father’s boat, when he…
And suddenly, there he was. She got the relay from her roommate, Sandra, living on her own in suburbia, enjoying the house all by herself, even though Ronni was paying half the rent…well, Ronni’s parents were paying half the rent. Sandra relayed the message. James Somebody called. From high school, maybe. Sandra had been half asleep. He’s at the Beverly Wiltshire.
James! Ronni’s reaction was half-sigh and half-squeal. She called him immediately. It was too late for lunch and he had business meetings all afternoon, so they arranged to meet for dinner.
She spent the afternoon preparing carefully for the date. No, not a date, she corrected herself. I’m with Nick. I don’t date other people. This is just a dinner out with an old friend. An old friend who… Ronni closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips.
Snap out of it, she told herself. You can’t have sex with James. Even though sex with Nick lately…it was good and all, he was very athletic and very accommodating, but he was…’shy’ was a good word, she guessed. He didn’t like to experiment. She remembered the day she had done something to annoy him. She had apologized all over him and suggested that she had been a bad girl and maybe needed a spanking. His reply had been, “No, I’m sure you didn’t mean it.” She had rubbed her body up against his and put his hands on her butt. “Are you sure, Baby? Are you sure you don’t want to punish me a little?” She had lifted one of his hands and smacked it against her bottom. He had just looked shocked, so she had dropped the idea.
She wondered if James would put a move on her. She would have to say ‘no’, of course, she was practically living with Nick, after all. Well, not officially, of course…officially, she still lived out in the boonies with Sandra. Hmmm…James would want to bring her home, naturally. He was a gentleman. She couldn’t see hauling it all the way out to Sandra’s, but she wasn’t sure how to bring him back here.
At least she didn’t have to worry about him running into Nick. He was safely in New York. She was just minding the house. Ahhh…minding the house. Good one, Ronni! She looked around and then sprang into action, unaware that she had definitely decided to be unfaithful to Nick and have sex with James. She moved some of her clothes from Nick’s closet into one of the guest bedrooms. She moved all of her toiletries into the adjoining bathroom. She went over Nick’s bedroom with a fine toothed comb, making sure she’d erased all evidence of herself from there. Then she artfully arranged the guest room to make it look lived in. She opened a book to the middle and turned it upside down on the night table. She got a glass and filled it half-full of water, setting it beside the book. She draped a t-shirt over the armchair in the corner and placed a pair of sneakers beside it.
When she was ready, she did a final walk-through of the house, looking for things out of place. She didn’t see any.
“The Beverly Wiltshire,” she said to the cabdriver and she crossed her fingers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~James Fenton paced the floor nervously. He was going to see Ronni again. Ronni Howell. He closed his eyes and sighed. Beautiful, elusive Ronni. James and Ronni were friends from way back…friends first, lovers second. In high school, they’d had a special affinity for each other. They didn’t go out on dates with each other, but they hung out together all the time at school. You could always find them, hunkered down in the cafeteria, heads together, laughing…usually at someone less fortunate than themselves in the looks and charm department.
James was almost as beautiful as Ronni. He had clear blue eyes and jet black hair. That combination, along with his chiseled cheekbones and his quarterback’s physique made many a girl at Oak Park Academy fall asleep with his name on her lips. No one could understand why James and Ronni didn’t go out with each other. They were perfectly suited. Yes, they both think they’re too good for anyone else, said their detractors.
James went off to college and they drifted apart. They wrote letters to each other for the first couple of months, but without their former schoolmates to tear apart, they didn’t have much to say to each other. They saw each other the first Christmas James was home, at a formal party. They danced together once and went their separate ways.
James came home that summer to work in his father’s law office, but Ronni spent the two months in Europe and they didn’t see each other.
It was the next summer when they found each other at last. It was total serendipity, one of those happy accidents that makes you believe there are other forces at work. Ronni had argued with her father about her lack of apparent ambition and stormed out of the house. She got in her car and drove around aimlessly. Without realizing it, she found herself in the deserted parking lot of Oak Park Academy, closed now for the summer. She meandered across the football field and sat down on the edge of the bleachers.
James found her there. He had wandered back to the scene of his glory days as well, after Miles Fenton had spent the afternoon mapping out the rest of his son’s life for him. James wasn’t sure he liked what he saw and went to revisit the spot where he had been king, where everything seemed possible.
They greeted each other warmly, with a hug. They had an awkward, desultory conversation, dredging up names of high school friends in a game of ‘Where are they now?’ The answer for most was either ‘away at school’ or ‘in Europe’. Then they sat in silence for a few minutes. Without knowing why, James picked up Ronni’s hand. They stared out at the field and remembered when they owned it, James throwing those long passes and marching his team up the field, Ronni standing on the sidelines in her cheerleader outfit, shouting encouragement.
“I guess I’d better get back,” said Ronni, finally. They stood up together and walked to the parking lot hand in hand. “It was nice to see you again, James,” she whispered, reaching up to kiss his cheek.
But he turned his face and kissed her on the lips. And then they were all over each other, drinking each other in, fighting off growing up with every inch of their being. They climbed into the back seat of James’ car and made out like sixteen year-olds, caressing and petting through clothing. Then James removed Ronni’s panties and pushed his own down to his ankles. It was awkward and uncomfortable and inherently dangerous, and it was the most exciting thing they had ever done.
They made love all over Chicago that summer. Ronni wasn’t bored once, but spent her days with a lazy smile on her face thinking up new and exciting places where they could have sex. Before James left for school that fall, he presented her with a ring and asked her to marry him. She accepted, thinking that planning the wedding would be exciting. Her hopes were dashed somewhat when James informed her that they would not be getting married until he had finished college and maybe even law school. Wedding plans could wait.
So before long, Ronni was bored again. And she found someone on hand who wasn’t boring and it was goodbye James.
James moved on to other women but he never forgot Ronni. And he never thought of her without a thrill going through him from head to toe. The one that got away. The one that dumped him. James wasn’t used to that. He liked to be a winner, on the field and off. He’d finished college now. He told his dad he didn’t want to be a lawyer and did a business degree instead. He was working for one of the big brokerage firms in Chicago and was a rising young star. His father’s friendship with John Fremont had allowed some of that corporation’s money to come his way for investment and if that went well, it guaranteed James a partnership in the firm in just a few years.
He was in Los Angeles on a fact-finding mission about a company Fremont Corp was thinking of acquiring. The day before he left, he had dinner with his parents. His mother mentioned Veronica and said he should give her a call. “I don’t know her number and L.A. is a big place, he said. His mother excused herself from the table and returned five minutes later with Ronni’s address and phone number.
James hesitated for quite awhile before calling, pacing up and down his hotel room. Then he plucked up his courage and got the roommate. She was either asleep or stoned, James couldn’t tell which. He left a message without much hope that Ronni would actually get it. But she had and returned his call, the sound of her voice sending a thrill through him.
It was obvious to James from the moment they saw each other, that he would have Ronni that night. She exuded sexuality, but there was a faint whiff of desperation there, as well. He knew that, for whatever reason, he had the upper hand. And so he used it. He made her wait for it, ignoring her subtle hints and moves, sliding his hand out from under hers to pick up his fork, when she caressed his fingers at the table, changing the subject when she brought up the summer they’d been together.
Dinner was wonderful even so, a snarky dissection of all their old friends, very reminiscent of their high-school cafeteria days. Then afterward, came James’ shy assertion that it was getting late and he’d better get her home. It was a long way out. He hoped the cabbie could find the way back. Ha! Ha! He was hoping to get her up to his hotel room. He got something much better.
No, no, insisted Ronni. We don’t have to go all the way out there. I’m housesitting for a friend who’s out of town. She gave the cabbie the address before James could respond. When they got there, she sent the cab on its way, saying that James really must come in for a nightcap and he could always get another cab…in this neighborhood, they would be delighted to come.
James paid off the cabbie and followed Ronni into the house. He looked around. “Kind of minimalist, isn’t it?”
Ronni opened her mouth to say that she was going to redecorate and then she remembered that it wasn’t her house. So instead she said, “I missed you, James.”
And that was all it took. The first time they barely made it out of the front hallway. For the rest of the week, they had sex, interrupted only by James’ business meetings, which he devoted his full attention to and then bolted at the first opportunity…back to Ronni.
During the occasional times that they came up for air and food, they talked about their lives. James gathered that Ronni wasn’t happy in California. James began extolling the virtues of Chicago, all those great restaurants, the wonderful night clubs. It was when he got Ronni to agree with him that the weather was better in Chicago that he knew he had her. And he proposed.
Ronni accepted first and then she thought of Nick. She explained hesitantly to James that she wasn’t just housesitting, she was almost kind of living there and that…the guy…was sort of expecting her to go on vacation with him the next week. She told him about the limo.
“How nice of him to provide transportation,” said James. “The driver can take us to Las Vegas.”
It was not to Ronni’s credit that she gave the matter the barest consideration before she agreed.
They went to Las Vegas, got married and gambled for the weekend. They came back to Los Angeles on Monday and flew to Chicago the next Friday. Ronni spent the week gathering up her things from Nick’s place and Sandra’s and shipping them home to Illinois.
The plane they were on, landed, refueled and then took Nick back to Los Angeles.
