Far Too Tempting (4 page)

Chapter Six

“You make me wait now that you’re a superstar?” Kelly pushes back from the chair and stands up to give me, as Ethan would say, a “ginormous” hug.

“I’ve always made you wait,” I say with a smile, because I am punctually challenged. “I had to volunteer at Ethan’s school. Read to the class, library duty, you know.”

Kelly shoos away my apology for being ten minutes late. “No rest for the famous.”

We’re at our regular sushi haunt, Harajuku Sushi, a five-table restaurant wedged into a space about ten feet wide on Second Avenue. It’s a short walk from Ethan’s school and my apartment, and it’s just three blocks away from Kelly’s nearby offices where she runs her fitness empire. She’s an exercise physiologist with a master’s degree in sports medicine. But more important, she possesses the agility of a snow leopard, the stamina of a Clydesdale, and the winning personality of a peppy beagle.

She parlayed all that into Kelly’s Kickin’ Workouts, a series of ten-minute quick-fix workouts that have sold millions of copies on DVD and digital download. She’s the reason my sister’s arms are so spectacular. Natalie is a Kickin’ Kelly devotee. I like to say I am one in spirit. Mostly because Kelly uses one of my early songs as an intro into her Kickin’ Buns series.

That’s how we met—when her company called for copyright permission for one of my dancy-poppy songs. Naturally I said “yes” and have collected a nice royalty check and also a wonderful friendship.

I sit down and unbutton my gray coat and unwind my scarf. “You’re a rock star!” Kelly boasts, smiling ear to ear, her bright blond hair falling neatly in a page boy cut that somehow looks modern on her. “I have always wanted to say that and mean it, you know? Do you ever get those atta-boy e-mails when you’ve done a good job and your boss is like, ‘You’re a rock star!’ Double exclamation points and smiley faces, too. And you just want to gag. But you really are a rock star!”

“Kelly, when did you ever get an atta-boy e-mail from a boss? You run your own business.”

She holds up a chopstick in the air for emphasis. “Exactly, my friend. Exactly why I run my own business, so I never have to get one of those e-mails.”

She positions herself closer to the table and leans in. “Tell me everything. Every single detail. Don’t leave anything out. I want to know if Christina Aguilera is your new best friend, if P!nk is as cool as we suspect, and if Adam Levine is smoking hot in person.”

We order the lunch special, brown rice, hamachi sashimi and miso soup for her, with the hamachi traded out for an avocado roll for me, since I’m a vegetarian. I give Kelly all the details and after my report, Kelly methodically tucks her blond hair behind her right ear, then shifts to the other side to be symmetrical. She takes a sip of miso soup and says, dragging it out, “But…”

She knows we’ve arrived at the time to discuss the reason this lunch meeting was called in the first place. And it wasn’t to discuss my win.

I take a long breath. “Aidan wants me to go to a meeting. His support group thing.”

Her jaw drops. “Seriously? As if you’re a figurehead?”

Sighing, I say, “I know. It sucks, because I’m obviously completely supportive of gay rights, gay marriages, and people should be free to love who they want. So there’s a part of me that feels as if I’m
supposed
to go. But then there’s this other side that wishes he’d be angry or bitter or catty. That he’d try to take advantage of me, and wheedle money out of me or something. Or try to claim a portion of my
Crushed
royalties. But nope, he has to be polite Aidan, gracious Aidan. And now he’s asking so nicely about this group and helping other women. Like telling me he was gay before he started dating Tom. Just a little courtesy heads-up.
Hi, honey. We’ve been married for five years and have a kid. But I prefer dick. Wanted to let you know before I date Tom.
Or Tooooom, I should say.”

But the truth is, Aidan
was
sensitive. He was thoughtful when he broke my heart, as weird as that may sound. He didn’t come home drunk and smelling of another guy. I didn’t stumble across gay porn on his iPad. And I didn’t catch him having an affair with a man at the gym. But the night he came out was the worst night of my life. I was dumbstruck and broken at the same time. I can still recall that sense of shock that my Aidan, my love, was no longer mine. It’s been a year now and the good thing is I don’t hurt like I did then. The glaring, gaping wound has closed.

And it’s about to be reopened, in a new, fresh way.

“He says there are other women there going through the same thing. And that makes me wonder if I should go. To try to help or something,” I say with a help-me shrug, the words coming out all choppy, because I’m honestly not sure what to do. I’m a bleeding heart indie musician; I’m all about supporting causes.

But still…

Kelly sighs sympathetically. “That’s a tough one. On the one hand, you have no obligation whatsoever to go to a support group. You know that, right?”

I nod, and she continues. “But on the other hand, you have such a good heart, and you’re always trying to help people. So maybe you go and you wind up helping some other women who are going through the pain you went through.”

I shake my head, wishing I knew what to do. So much of my life is lived on stage that I want to find moments where I can just breathe and live quietly. But I also know that the way our marriage ended can cause a particular kind of doubt for a woman, can feed all sorts of insecurities. And I want to tell all the other women going through this—
It’s Not Your Fault.

But then, I was sure it was my fault.

“Seeing as I don’t have a clue what to do, what do I even say to Aidan next time I see him?”

Kelly tilts her head and furrows her brow, considering my question. Then her eyes brighten. “I got it! You need to give him a simple, but clear and completely diplomatic response. Same as you do when
Star
calls and you give them something harmless. Do the same with Aidan. Just say, ‘I have a lot on my plate, but I’m considering your request and will get back to you soon.’ Then, boom! Done!”

I point a finger at her triumphantly. “See! That is yet another reason why I need you. For those kind of perfectly phrased answers to basically buy myself time.”

“I’m sort of a wizard at this kind of thing. So now, let’s talk about something more pleasant. Like the delicious Brit,” Kelly says with a wink. Kelly makes it a priority to stay current on New York’s most eligible bachelors. The list includes Matthew Harrigan.

I flash back to our conversation last night, to the ease of the banter, and then to the Grammys when he said I looked stunning. But yet, I don’t know if any of the things he says are true. “He’s
only interested in a story,” I say, as much for Kelly as to remind myself not to entertain non-business thoughts of Matthew.

“Doubtful. But even if that is the case, make him interested in more!”

“I don’t think he’d be into me.”

Kelly huffs. “Of course not. You’re only hot, smart, and a rock star. What’s to like? Can’t think of anything.”

“He’s also married to his job. He’s completely career driven, so I’m sure he’s only being nice to me to get a story. Which is precisely why I can’t even let myself think about anything more than a story.”

“But why not? He’s delectable. Anyone who tracks hot single men in New York knows he’s near the top of the list. So why
can’t
you consider him?”

Because I’d get my heart broken again. Because he’d probably be harboring some secret too. Because the last seven years of my life turned out to be a lie.

I shrug. “Call it a gut feeling. The question is—should I do the story? From a professional point of view only.”

“It’s a chance to spend time with a baron. Of course,” Kelly says coyly, with a toss of her blond locks. She can’t resist royal possibilities.

I shake my head, because she is relentless. “You don’t know for sure he’s a baron.”

“He might not admit it publicly, but anyone who tracks these things knows he’s Baron Somerset.”

“And you track these things, naturally, my Anglophile friend.”

“Anglophile
and
peerage expert,” Kelly adds, referring to the system of titles in Britain. “My specialties are exercise, poker, and tracking royalty.”

“Ha. Royalty. Is it really royalty?”

“As close as we’ll ever come in America,” Kelly says. “So, do the story because it’ll be fun. Because maybe you can learn all sorts of juicy, yummy things about his lordship.”

I laugh because Kelly has a way of turning uncertain situations on their head. Finding the fun in things. Finding the opportunities. In this case, Matthew had never publicly admitted it, but he supposedly hailed from quite noble lineage in England. His family owned gobs of land, and he’d inherited the title, as well as the rights to it. It was said that he preferred New York though, and rock ’n’ roll, rather than the lifestyle of a lord back in his homeland. So he kept his baronship as secret as he possibly could.

But New York women have a way of finding out things that make men intriguing. And being a baron is one of those things.

“Look at it this way. Your secrets are already out. You’re an open book. This can be a chance to find out his secrets. Potentially, very interesting secrets,” she says with a wink.

Secrets can be alluring. But secrets can be devastating too.

…

My phone chirps as I leave Harajuku, and button up my coat.

“It’s Jane,” I say, answering the call while heading across town to the Glass Slipper offices.

“Jane Black, it’s Jayden Trent,” the reporter barks. “
Star
Magazine.”

“Hi,” I say cautiously, wondering how Jayden managed to procure not only my home number, but now my cell. Bold little bastard. He’s persistent and, I must admit, I’m perversely impressed.

“First, let me just say I feel for ya. My sister was just dumped by her boyfriend. He left her for his personal trainer. A dude.”

I nearly stop in my tracks. I’d expected an attack given his tone and his relentlessness. But he’s strangely kind. “Sorry to hear that,” I say.

“Yeah, she had no idea. He was a local city councilman, too. Kept it quiet for a long time.”

“That’s rough. I hope she’s hanging in there,” I say, feeling kinship for his sister instantly as I walk down the street. Maybe I should go to Aidan’s meeting.

“Yeah,” Jayden says with a what-can-you-do
wistfulness in his rough voice. “Anyway, between her and you I figured it was time to do a short little piece. Did you have any clue? I gotta be direct here,” he says, but he doesn’t come across as abrasive. More like curious. “Did you just not know at all?”

It’s a question I have asked myself innumerable times, on countless occasions, when I’m awake, when I’m asleep, when I’m dreaming, when I’m breathing.

A few months ago, I read a magazine article called, “Is My Boyfriend Gay?”

Aidan had already come out, but I wanted to see if there were signs, things I had missed, markers that might have been useful. Besides the obvious stuff—he doesn’t like having sex with you, especially touching you between your legs—most of the signs were laughable. Gay men are more likely to have hair that whorls counterclockwise, to have an index finger longer than the ring finger, and to have older brothers, the article said. Aside from Aidan’s collection of older male siblings, I’m pretty sure that even if I had walked around our marriage inspecting his hair and measuring his finger length that I wouldn’t have put two and two together. Besides, another thing that’s common with married gay men is they often make great husbands because they try so hard to live a straight life, while denying their sexuality. For better or for worse, Aidan was a perfect husband. He was kind, he was supportive, he believed in me. He complimented me every day. He cooked for me. He always took care of Ethan when I had a gig and never once complained about the odd hours a musician keeps.

Kelly’s comments about being able to help other women going through this echo within me, and before I know it, I’m speaking from the heart, saying to Jayden, “Actually, I’ve asked myself that question a lot. Countless times. I felt pretty stupid. And I beat myself up a lot for not having known. But the fact is, I was pregnant with his child and I desperately wanted my marriage to work.”

We talk for another few minutes and then Jayden thanks me for my time.

After I hang up, I remember Matthew’s advice to be myself. I don’t know if he’s right or not, I don’t know if he fed me a handy line reporters use to get people to open up to them. But at the end of the day, I don’t want to be false; I don’t want to be phony. I spoke the simple truth to Jayden, and I think he appreciated it.

As I turn onto Jeremy’s block, I noodle on all these interactions with reporters. On trying to be myself. On answering honestly. Is there a song in there? Maybe it’s a stretch, but I
need something,
anything
, to get my creative engine rumbling along. So I hum a loose little melody—
just be yourself
,
be who you are, speak the truth.

But it sounds so treacly, it makes me want to yak up my sushi lunch. Clearly, there’s no song in answering a reporter’s question honestly. Then I lose my train of thought when I notice a pair of teenagers practically stumbling out of Starbucks, hanging onto each other, a boy and a girl, each with a hand in the other’s back pocket. He reaches across her with his free hand, pushing a strand of her blond hair behind her ear, then lays a quick, but not too quick, kiss on her lips. They gaze at each other—they
actually
gaze; who gazes anymore?—and then dash off toward the nearest subway, I imagine, to catch a train to a make-out hideaway somewhere.