Exposed: A Novel (5 page)

Chapter 8
Taylor

Marijuana became my best friend. Well, that is until Gianna walked into Andy’s house on a cool mid-June morning. June, you never know what to expect.

Andy escorted her to the living room where I sat, drowning myself in Jack Daniels. Yeah, the clock had yet to strike noon, but I needed to be Sadie without that stupid voice in my head jabbering at me to stop. Jabber, jabber, jabber—Sadie never stopped pouring oil on my squeaky fears.

“Have a seat,” he said to her, then looked at me. “Taylor, this is Gianna. She’s going to be in a few films with you and see how it goes.”

I held up the bottle and smiled. “Welcome.”

Andy left the room and Gianna sat down like she’d been through the porn thing five-thousand times. She didn’t even look at me, just dug in her purse for some kind of treasure.

I laughed. “You got something special in there?”

“You have no idea.”

And out she pulled it—there, in a tiny Ziploc bag, my new powdery-white best friend awaited me.

“Want some?” Gianna fought a smile. “This is how I do what I do. It’s my little secret.”

Anything, anything to take away the pain I would feel in my next video.

She placed a small chunk of white stuff on the glass coffee table and used a fifty-dollar bill to create a line out of the powder. Had to be cocaine, I thought, and took another gulp of Jack. Taylor clawed at the back of my mind, but I ignored her.

Gianna handed me a straw. My hands trembled as I stared at the trimmed white line.

“Snort it,” Gianna said, like it was no big deal.

I looked into her eyes. “Do you ever want to get out of this? Do you ever want to stop?”

“I don’t think about it. I’ve been doing this for five years. It’s the only thing I know, the only way I know how to make money,” she said, drizzled with expletives.

“Do you like doing this?”

“It’s not about what I like.” She looked away. “It’s about what I need.”

Andy entered the room again. We quieted our conversation and watched him sit down across from us.

“Enough for me?” he said.

“Probably.” Gianna eyed the shaky straw in my hand.

One, two, three, just do it.

And with one quick, deep sniff, I did it.

The dusty drug traveled up my nose like it was made to, easier than I thought. My head rushed, dizzying me. I stared at my feet while Gianna and Andy made another line. They laughed and talked while my throat numbed. I tried to swallow over and over, but it got harder. Thirsty and desperate to get my throat back to life, I got up to get some water. Shivering, I wondered how I could be so cold when I felt so warm inside.

I poured water into a cup. As the stream smoothed into liquid heaven, my life turned from dirt floors to marble in an instant. No more problems. At least while I soared above life in euphoria. I listened to Andy and Gianna talk as I looked through the glass of water to see their distant faces.

I could so get used to this, I thought.

I looked back at my water, suddenly irritated. Selfish jerk, I said, go get your friends a drink.

I poured two more glasses, dreaming about how thankful they’d be when I handed them a drink. They’d love me. Need me, even if only for a second of their life as they sipped from the water and quenched their dry mouths.

When I walked back into the living room, well, all I can say is that life felt like a Hollywood movie, all the bad parts hidden while the good scenes rolled together like Jazz notes. Everything felt good. Everything I once felt shameful about now allured me. My little companion I called “Cola” not only helped me forget reality, but also helped me love the ugly reality around me.

That night, I even enjoyed the bruises Andy created up and down my body when I laughed at him for using the word ignorant instead of rude.

I finally had an escape from the life I never wanted to live.

My friend, Cola.

Chapter 9
Ally

Jessie walked into my office as Mara stammered out. Funny, everyone thought I had a picture perfect marriage. If only they knew I never did. Lies, lies, lies. Our marriage foundation rested on a bed of lies.

I thought he was special, different.

“I have another appointment in fifteen minutes.” I looked at the clock, realizing I had forty minutes. “Or something like that.” I turned my back to him and walked to the window, trying to hold back tears. We married each other less than a decade ago, but I knew him so well that I could imagine his stance. Arms at his sides, rigid jaw, head slightly down, eyes looking up—typical when he’s upset. I peeked just to feel right. Right, oh right, I was. “Ally,” he said. “What can I do? I can’t work. I can’t focus on anything. I’m a mess. You’re everything to me. I don’t’ know what I’d do if you … you know.”

“Our marriage is a lie, Jessie. A lie. I mean, you probably went home and looked at other women after you proposed to me.”

He shook his head.

I sat down and twisted my chair back and forth. “You did, didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember. And don’t play counselor with me, I’m your husband.” Austerity thickened his voice.

I never heard anger in his voice, not toward me, not like that. He sat in front of me, in the chair Jed Fowler sat in before he walked out.

“What happened to best friends? To faithfulness?” I wondered aloud.

He slammed his palms on my desk. I jumped. Flashbacks of Step-Dad hitting Mom screamed tortuous thoughts about marriage.

Jessie shifted in his seat. “Sorry. But we’re still best friends. I don’t care what you say, we are.”

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t without questioning his words, all of them.

“Look, you teach people this stuff all the time. You’ve told me in the past you felt sorry for men because of all this. What happened to that?”

“Not you, Jess. Not you. I thought you were different.”

“I’m a man, Ally. I’m not God.”

Wow. His words felt like warm water to a frostbitten heart. “You lied. It’s not even those girls”—was it?—“it’s the fact that you lied. And you lied again after you promised not to lie. It doesn’t even make sense. I believed everything you said for years, Jess. Years. Now I can’t figure out if anything about us was real.”

“Everything was real.”

I bit my lip. “No. You were sneaking around obsessed with other women while we were dating, engaged, married.”

The word
married
echoed in the room as we stared at each other. I looked out the window. Tree branches waved their bright green leaves at me, against a cloudy backdrop. Maybe I overreacted, I thought. Maybe Verity had a point. They’re just dirty pictures, it’s not like he cheated.

But he did. He did and he lied.

Pressure swelled in my chest. Pictures of women congested my thoughts.

The springs in Jessie’s chair squeaked. His pants swooshed behind me until I saw his reflection in the window, beside mine.

I faced him, cheeks wet with broken dreams. He didn’t feel like much of a lover anymore, but he was right, he was still my best friend. And I needed him.

His arms opened. I curled into his chest and pressed my forehead into his body. He sighed. I pulled away, unable to go through with it.

Someone knocked on the door. Probably my next appointment. I didn’t move or speak. I couldn’t. There’s nothing I wanted more than to be comforted by my best friend, but I wanted nothing to do with my husband. It didn’t make sense.

Nothing made sense anymore.

My cell phone rang the second I got into my car. I ignored it and turned the keys in the ignition, wondering how I made it through the day without a breakdown. Thankfully my last few clients were new and more interested in spilling their stories than listening to me.

I pulled out of the parking lot onto Emmorton Road and saw her. Same woman as before. Blonde ponytail taunting me as it swung back and forth and out of view. I turned down a side street to follow her. Perched on my steering wheel, I drove by and analyzed her body. Jealous. So jealous and I hated it. I’d never felt so crazy in my life.

I passed her, turned around and drove by again.

“Wow. I’m losing it. I’m really, really losing it.”

I slouched into my seat. Then I saw her face. Only one word for that face: beautiful. She was beautiful—not me. Not in a million years did I think I’d care about this stuff. I’d always felt so secure with Jessie. But maybe my security was my naivety, I reasoned. But I’m not naïve. Maybe I’m just blind.

I stopped at a red light and thought of the first words Jessie’s dad said to me. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid. I should have believed him, but Jessie encouraged me, held my hand, told me he’d always stand beside me.

You know how the sky looks just after sunset? The colors fade to navy, almost grey, while the clouds float under the stars. That’s how the sky looked when Jessie took me to meet his father for the first time. Except just before we reached his house the edges of the clouds turned black.

Jessie knocked on his dad’s front door. No one answered. He knocked harder. Paint chips crackled and fell off the peeling door. A sparrow flapped out of view, leaving a silence so thick I couldn’t imagine breaking through it.

Wham!
The door thrust open, porch boards creaked.

Jessie’s father stood in the doorway. His eyes hardly opened as they stared me down. “Who’s this?”

Jessie shifted his balance from one leg to the other and wrapped his arm around me. “Sir, this is my fiancée, Allyson.”

Veins covered his father’s black eyes like tree branches. My hands shook and I couldn’t stop blinking. For a few seconds I managed not to breathe, afraid of what might happen if I drew more attention to myself.

Jessie’s arm slipped from behind me and took my hand. “Sir, we are going to be married soon. I thought you should meet her first.”

“This isn’t the right one for you.” His father stood, hand twisting the doorknob.

“Actually, she is.”

Eyes of death ran up and down my body. “You’re not marrying her with my permission. You need a gorgeous wife.” He surveyed me again. “She’s okay, but not gorgeous.”

Jessie’s chest rose and fell like he’d been running for his life. I squeezed his hand. He looked at me. My eyes begged him to take us back to the car. And without a word, he consented.

Before we reached the steps the door slammed. I jumped.

Jessie stopped, held my face in his hands and said, “Listen to me, Ally, you are everything I ever wanted to marry. Don’t let him get to you. He doesn’t even like me and I’m his own son. We don’t have to talk to him for the rest of our lives if he wants to be like that, you hear me?”

I nodded.

Romance was enough. I didn’t need anything else. One look at Jessie and I didn’t care about the world. All I wanted was more of him. To wake up next to him every day for the rest of my life.

He was all I needed.

A car horn beeped. I came back to reality and accelerated, wondering how long the light shined green and how long I sat spaced out.

When I turned onto our street I wanted to turn around. I didn’t want to go home. Not yet. Too much to think about and process before I could face Jessie again.

I slowed down in front of our mocha-colored duplex and glanced at the cherry tree in our front yard.

A bouncy blonde hurried down the pathway—my pathway—clutching her purse as her sun-streaked hair shielded her face. I stopped, trying to make sense of what I saw.

The woman drove off and I wilted in my seat. I should’ve seen it coming. He liked blondes all along. His dad probably knew that. His dad probably knew our marriage would be ruined because I could never be gorgeous enough, too.

I got out of my car and walked to the house, not in a hurry to tell Jessie I saw his other woman leave our house. Our house.

I opened the door. Jessie looked at me from the dining room table, surrounded by folders and papers.

“We’re done,” I said, a single tear on my lip. “I can’t do this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What is wrong with me? How can you even ask that?” I sniffed. “So much for wanting to start over, right? So much for not being able to live without me. I’m sorry I’m not gorgeous.” I ran off, hoping Jessie wouldn’t follow. I’d never felt so ugly in my life. In every way. And I didn’t want Jessie’s eyes on my imperfections.

But he followed. “What did I do?”

Digging through the closet, I ignored him. The soundtrack of my life stopped playing. A deadly silence permeated the room. I piled shirts on the bed, then jeans, trousers, socks. Jessie grabbed my arm. I twisted away.

He swept my clothes into his arms and threw them back into the closet. “You’re not leaving.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” I stared up at his darkened eyes. “You did this. Not me.”

“Ally, we can work this out.”

“Work what out? What’s the point when you have Barbie? Why not just marry her? Oh, what? Barbie’s not intelligent enough for you? You just like the sex, isn’t that right?”

He exhaled. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw her, Jessie. I saw her leaving the house right before I pulled up. Are you really that stupid?”

He sighed. “She was my client’s wife. She just dropped off a file for her husband. Didn’t even step in the door.”

“I can’t believe you. She was prettier than me, wasn’t she? Gorgeous, wasn’t she? I’m sorry I can’t be that for you.” I knelt down in the closet and picked up my clothes. “I’m done.”

“Oh, Ally. Stop. You are beautiful to me, in every way. I didn’t have an affair with that woman. You have to believe me. I barely even said a word to her.”

I threw clothes on the bed.

Jessie stood in front of me and glided his hands down my arms, pleading with his eyes.

“How can I ever believe you? How?”