Primary Termination Page 7

  My stomach drops to somewhere around my ankles. I also feel the pangs of real anger poking at my stomach lining. If the asshole is in a relationship, then why is he so desperate to see me? Or wait just a minute. Maybe he’s not all that desperate to see me. Maybe he truly just wants to get together to catch up and reminisce about old times. I guess I should go over his Everest Facebook page again on my own. But I absolutely hate Facebook now that it’s turned into a surrogate advertising platform for the Everest Corp.

  My phone chimes and vibrates. Taking hold of it, I glance at the screen. It’s a new text from Tony. I open it.

  Just arrived, he texts.

  Glance at my watch. Holy crap, it’s three minutes till ten already. I forgot how punctual Tony Smart is, and how pathologically late I always am.

  On the way, I text back. Running ten min late.

  Then I add a frown faced emoji to it.

  “Crap, crap, crap,” I whisper.

  Tony responds. No worries. I brought my laptop. I can write while I wait.

  Cool, the daily word count . . . something to keep him occupied . . .

  Pulling off my towel, I slip into my new underwear. The bra feels great and I must admit, it does wonders for my boobs. The thong is a little snug and it feels like there’s something caught inside my ass, precisely because there is. So, why am I going through all this if Tony is in a relationship? What the hell, I promised to meet him for coffee and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  Throwing on my dress, I then slip some silver bracelets on my left wrist and a matching bird pendant over my neck. A small splash of Chanel No. 5 and I’m ready to go. Racing down the stairs, Mom is already waiting for me with the keys to her three-year-old black Volkswagen convertible in her hand.

  “Don’t speed and please make sure to take care of my car,” she says. “It’s all paid for, finally, now that I joined Everest Primary.”

  I grab the keys with one hand, open the front door with the other.

  “Don’t be late,” Dad says, from the kitchen, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. He adds a “Ha ha” after he says it.

  “Actually, darling,” Mom says, “you have the car all day and all night if you wish.”

  I can’t help but laugh.

  “Jesus, Dad,” I say, “was Mom this pushy with you when you were young?”

  He smiles. “You have no idea,” he says. “She had her diamond picked out after the first date.”

  “Second date,” she says. “And hey, life is short. Why waste precious time?”

  “Well I’m not married,” I say, just to be difficult. “And I like not being married.”

  Closing the door behind me, I head down the steps to the street and Mom’s parked car.

  Even though I’m desperately late, I steal two more minutes to put the top down on the Volkswagen. It’s a beautiful day, and so what if Tony has to wait a little longer. He’s in a relationship. What difference does it make if I’m not quite on time? Pulling away from the curb, it suddenly dawns on me that I haven’t driven a car in a while. I’ve only been home for a couple of days and thus far, I haven’t had a reason to take the car out. In New York City, you just don’t drive. Not with tens of millions of people vying for every square inch of space on both the sidewalk and the road.

  The morning sun feels good on my face while the cool breeze whips through my hair. The air smells sweet. The smell is not success necessarily, but it is freedom. Maybe I’m still experiencing the high from having run three miles, but I haven’t felt this good in a long time.

  “Thanks, Everest dot com!” I say aloud, as if it helps me to believe it.

  Tony and I haven’t been in a relationship in over twenty years. One entire generation has been born and raised since then. No reason why I can’t be a mature adult, enjoy a coffee with him, a couple of laughs and then politely and confidently be on my way. All it will take is a little strength on my part to pull it off. Like I said, I still love Tony, even if I have gotten over him. Or mostly gotten over him, anyway. After we broke up, we went on to live very separate lives in the same industry. But separate all the same.

  I went on to writing school, as did Tony, and became a writer myself, and then a powerhouse editor. Tony, in turn, become a New York Times bestselling author, never mind my rejections. He was also famous for something else. He was one of the first authors to refuse a major contract from a major New York City publishing house in order to publish with Everest’s Cradle Direct Publishing Program.

  That one very radical move shook the very core of the New York City publishing establishment, and to this day, I recall thinking that the days of the New York City publishers being king of the hill were most definitely over. Leave it up to the maverick, Tony Smart, to make it happen. I remember reading news of Tony’s decision in Publishers Weekly and smiled wryly to myself. I couldn’t help but wonder if Tony knew how much his decision would burn me up personally.

  In all my years (decades) as an editor, I never did run into him at a writer’s conference, or a reading, or an event. That’s probably because I always avoided him like the plague. If I knew we were both attending a festival, like ThrillerFest for instance, I would make sure I stayed away from the hotel bar and for God’s sakes, I would stay away from his panel discussions while he would avoid mine. Far as I know, we never once so much as passed by one another in the corridor or while trying to catch an elevator. Later on, when he stopped working with the publishers altogether, avoiding him was easy since he rarely attended the conferences anymore. Instead, he was home in Albany, writing his books exclusively for Everest.com and making a killing at it.

  I pull into the new Everest strip mall that houses the coffee shop. Oh Christ, there’s Tony seated at a table outside. Suddenly, Miss Free, Confident, and Strong feels a brick lodge in her stomach. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and my palms go cold and sweaty. I think I’m gonna throw up. Throw up and faint. Could I be any more of a mess?

  “Get your shit together, girl,” I whisper to myself. “It’s only Tony. You went to high school with Tony. You didn’t marry him and/or have his child. You can handle this. What the hell is this, a scene out of that old movie, Bridgette Jones’s Diary?”

  Parking the car, I get out. I steal a breath so deep I grow dizzy.

  Dear God do not allow me to pass out in the parking lot . . .

  I take a step forward . . . and another, and begin my very short, but what feels like a forever journey, toward my first love, Tony Smart.

  I enter the outdoor terrace at an Everest Starbucks that’s furnished with metal tables and chairs. Tony spots me and waves. The wave feels like a punch to the gut. He’s smiling, and even from a distance of twenty feet, I can see that he’s just as handsome and put together as ever.

  Fuck me . . .

  Planting the sweetest smile on my face I can possibly muster, I make my way to the table, hoping to God he can’t tell that I’m trembling. Like a gentleman, he stands. Not only does he stand, he comes around the little table, gives me a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. Damnit if he doesn’t feel good and smell good. Now, I’m not only trembling, I feel like my skin is about to melt off my bones.

  We both sit down.

  “You’re blushing, Tanya Not So Smart,” he says.

  “Go right for the jugular, why don’t you?” I say. “I haven’t spoken to you in more than twenty years, and you start right in.”

  He laughs. “You know me.”

  “I do?”

  Set before him is his laptop. Set beside that is his smartphone. Set beside that is a cup of coffee. He’s got his whole mobile desk set up. This morning he’s wearing a denim button-down that’s unbuttoned enough to show off a little chest hair and pecs that still don’t fail to impress. Obviously, he’s been hitting the gym per usual. His hair is admittedly receding, and it’s cut fairly short, but it somehow makes him look more distinguished and mature. He’s wears black, rectangular rimmed eyeglasses now. They only add to the air of maturi
ty that seems to surround him. He hasn’t shaved in a few days. Maybe a full week, and the scruff is sexy as hell.

  Ok, Everest.com and Jacquie, thanks for the new underwear delivery, because I’d like to ravage Tony right on the spot . . . How’s that for jumping right back in?

  He stands, comes around the table.

  “Let me guess,” he says. “Black, just a splash of milk.”

  “No milk,” I say. “I like mine black and don’t say it, Tony Smart ass.”

  Another laugh. He is truly happy to see me. Or so it seems.

  “Be right back,” he says. “And no peeking at what I’m writing. Not that you care, Ms. Acquisitions Editor.”

  “Former Ms. Acquisitions Editor.”

  He heads into the coffee shop and leaves me alone for a much-deserved breath of fresh air and the chance to compose myself. What the hell is it about true love that it refuses to go away? I’ve had plenty of boyfriends over the years. A couple were married at the time. Some were poor, some were rich, some were younger and a lot of them older. I even saw a girl for a while during my senior year in college. Nothing serious, but curiosity got the best of me, and it was some of the most fun I’d ever had in bed with another person. Okay, the wine, the pot, and the ecstasy helped.

  In all of these cases, I might have been merely in like with that person. In other cases, I might have been in love. But in none-of-the-above did I actually come to truly love that person. I merely fell in love. There’s a distinct difference. When you’re in love, it wears off, sometimes quickly, sometimes not so quickly. But in the end, it goes away and you’re no longer interested.

  But when you love somebody, the way I loved Tony—and still do—it never goes away. You can fight it, you can ignore it, you can pretend it doesn’t exist. Most of all, you can separate yourself from the source of that love by eradicating him or her from your life entirely. But then, all it takes is the mere mention of his name, or a quick glance at his photo on the internet, or like now, seeing him right up close and personal, and you’re right back in the shit. You’re no further away from the love than you were the day he walked out on you. That kind of love is an affliction, not a blessing. It is the worst luck any human being can have.

  I am a forty-something grown woman, and I have loved only once in my life. He is presently buying me a coffee and delivering it to the first table we have shared in more than twenty years. So, why do I feel like crying? If I need to explain it all again, you haven’t been paying attention.

  I need something to distract me from all the emotions that are swimming through my veins, or I’ll just lose it and fall apart before my coffee even arrives. Tony’s laptop. Glancing over both shoulders, I spin it around just enough to get a look at what he’s writing.

  I discovered the decapitated head under the floorboards of a newly installed, twenty-first century, modern appliance-equipped, eat-in kitchen. The floorboards—and they are expensive floorboards—belong to a vinyl-sided raised ranch nestled within a brand spanking new housing development that was once the home to a postcard perfect Christmas tree farm. The head belongs to a woman. A woman of maybe forty. Blonde hair (natural, as far as I can tell), blue eyes that gaze up at us, her pretty mouth slightly ajar, her pink tongue sticking out slightly from between two thick, if not sultry lips.

  Quickly turning the laptop back around, I consciously try to place it in the exact position it was in before Tony left to buy me a coffee. A decapitated head discovered under the floorboards of a kitchen, uncovered by his most famous private investigator, Dick Moonlight.

  I recall ten years ago when Tony sent me the first manuscript in the mystery series, and I rejected it outright without even reading it. It was eventually picked up by a major house in a mid-six-figures deal. It was the talk of the town, and I was called into the corporate office and asked why on earth I allowed such a talent to, and I quote, “slip through my fingers,” end quote. I guess I could have told the panel of four women and two young men the truth. That I had lost my virginity to said talent. But instead, I lied and told them the story didn’t speak to me. So there, bitches! Months later, I moved on to another house anyway, so no skin off my little behind.

  But Tony went on to publish more and more Moonlight novels (plus a bunch of psychological suspense stand-alones) until he shocked the entire publishing community by refusing a mega deal to strike out on his own, independent, Everest.com publishing crusade.

  “So, what did you think?” Tony asks.

  His sudden reappearance nearly scares the thong off of me.

  “Whatever are you talking about, Tony?” I say in a faux British accent. Something we used to do as kids.

  He sets my coffee in front of me and sits back down in front of his laptop.

  “Because you don’t tell a writer-slash-editor of your caliber to not look at a piece of writing and expect her to obey orders.”

  I gaze into his big brown puppy dog eyes.

  “Snagged,” I say. “So, you’re still writing about Detective Moonlight.”

  He cocks his head over his shoulder, purses his lips.

  “Gotta give the people what they want, Tan.”

  “Now, isn’t that pretty much the Everest Corp.’s mantra?”

  He laughs. I sip some of the still too hot coffee.

  “I guess you’re right,” he nods. “I’m officially part of the machine. The more content I write, the more my fans gobble it up. You gotta feed the beast, or else. When I first started in the publishing business, I wrote one book per year because that’s all the publishers could handle. Now, I find myself writing one book per month. It’s totally crazy.”

  “Feed the beast, or else, Tony,” I repeat for emphasis (it’s the editor in me).

  “The money is good,” he says, while gently closing the lid on his laptop. “Or the Everest credits I should say.”

  “And you’ve become an Everest Primary member?”

  “Like I said,” he says. “I’m a writer. Royalties are steady, but up and sometimes way too down at the same time. Primary Membership means I have a steady, guaranteed, stress free income.”

  He smiles like he’s super proud of himself and super stoked he can write what he wants, when he wants, and not have to worry about if it sells or not.

  “Seems tailor made for people like us,” I say.

  I attempt to smile, but for some reason I find it difficult.

  “And you, Tan?”

  “Last night,” I admit. “I’m now debt free and no longer have to worry about finding an editing job that doesn’t exist at a publishing house that also no longer exists in an industry that no longer exists.”

  I sip some more coffee. It’s cooler now and the caffeine is already packing a punch. Across the street from the strip mall is a huge plant that once housed the Albany Times Union Newspaper. It had a run of something like 150 years before it was finally put out of its misery by Everest.com’s Cradle News Service, and after the corporation bought out every major print news producer in the business, including Hearst Media. To add insult to injury, the former newspaper plant has now been transformed into an Everest Fulfillment Center.

  “Now you can be that great writer you always wanted to be, Tan,” he says. “You’ve got talent. I’ve seen it.”

  I nod, bite down on my bottom lip.

  “I just might do that, Tony. Finally get down to writing my novel. I think I’ll make it a rom com and call it, In a Relationship.”

  Silence. He scrunches his brow, shoots me a perplexed look.

  “I don’t get it,” he says guiltily. Or maybe what I perceive as guiltily.

  I can’t help but smile. “Isn’t that what your status is these days? In a relationship?”

  “Oh that,” he says. “You got me. Facebook, right?”

  “Yup,” I say.

  “I divorced a couple of years ago,” he says. “My wife, Lori, and I still get along fine, and we have a daughter together. She’s ten. They live in Boston with my ex’s new husban
d. I see Claudia on holidays and the occasional weekend, much to her dismay, because she’s not very thrilled with me, seeing as I spend all my emotional time on my writing.” He makes air quotes when says ‘my writing.’ “Lori’s husband, Bruce, is a wealthy Everest corporate lawyer and a total . . . fucking . . . dick, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He smiles broadly. “All is well with their world.”

  “And you’ve since found someone else,” I push.

  He shakes his head.

  “I’ve had the occasional girlfriend and fling since then.” Shaking his head. “But nothing that qualifies as a relationship, I’m afraid.” Then, wide eyed. “Wait, why should I say I’m afraid? Actually, I’ve enjoyed not being in a relationship. There’s something to be said about getting out of bed on any given morning, and not getting a dirty look or the cold shoulder from the wife because maybe she had a bad dream about you during the night.”

  Now I’m shaking my head.

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “Then why state your status as hooked up?”

  “Maybe I’m not ready for a relationship right now. Or put another way, maybe I haven’t been ready for the past couple years, but now I am. You could say I’m as fresh and virginal as the season’s first snowfall.”

  Suddenly, what seemed an impossible dream just moments ago, now looks entirely promising.

  Easy, Tanya, don’t go getting your hopes up. Have a nice chat with the old squeeze and leave it that . . .

  “The season’s first snow fall, Tony. Wow, this is a rom com.”

  Stealing a quick look around the parking lot, I gaze at the people coming and going from the many stores, especially the Everest brick and mortar bookstore. When I was a kid, the bookstore was an independently run shop called The Book Nook. Not anymore.

  “But what about you, Tan?” he asks. “Why haven’t you gotten married and had six kids by now?”

  I shrug my shoulders, gaze back out into the busy parking lot like it helps me to think.

  “I guess I never had time,” I say. “Plus, no one interested me that much, I guess.”