Hush (2 page)

“Right,” I mumbled, spacing off.  “Um,” I knew I didn’t have any plans, unless you consider a bowl of steamed vegetables and a glass of merlot on the couch with Friends reruns a date?  “What time is it?”

“I think it starts tonight at 7pm at Staples Center.”

I shrugged.  “Will you be there?”

“Yes, he asked me to pick you up if you accepted.  Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know much about this guy, other than what I hear on the radio.  I guess I’m just paranoid more than anything.  It’s stupid,” I said, shaking off the idea.  “You know what, I accept.  I’ll go.  Why not?  You only live once and I don’t get out much.”

Callem nodded.  “Could you jot down your address and I’ll be by to pick you up, say eight?”

“I thought the concert started at seven?”  I said, jotting my address on a post-it.

“It does, but its all night. I think there are five or six performances tonight,” Callem said.

“Alright.  Eight it is.  Thank you.”  I smiled as he took the post-it from me.

“We’ll see you tonight, Doctor.”

“Oh, please, call me Olivia.”

A wide, valiant smile spread across his face as he took a few steps backward toward the door.  “We’ll see you tonight, Olivia.”

“Oh, Callem?”  I stopped him before he left the office.  “Why didn’t Damien come ask me himself?”

“I’m not sure, ma’am.”

I smiled.  “Olivia, please.”

The way he looked at me before he left my office made me wonder if I’d met Callem somewhere before.  He didn’t look familiar to me, but if he owned transportation and security services, he may very well have been at some of the benefits or fundraisers I’d been to, working for one of the other guests.  It was hard telling.

It took me a minute to get my mind back on the right track.  What had I just agreed to do?  Spend the night rubbing elbows with celebs and socialites.  I’d be in the direct company of a multi-platinum selling artist.  It was all very exciting.  Now all I had to do was figure out what to wear.

A single tear dripped onto the hard surface of my suitcase.  That’s the last one.  No more.  No more tears.  I wiped away the evidence that was trickling down my cheek and zipped up the last duffle bag.  There wasn’t much I wanted to take with me.  The clothes, jewels, shoes, handbags, they all stayed behind.  I gathered all the photos, all the souvenirs from our numerous travels, the trinkets, even the priceless artifacts we’d given to each other as tokens of our love were now neatly tucked away, each bearing a new meaning to me.

I didn’t want to be sentimental at a time like this, but I couldn’t stop myself.  Standing in the bedroom doorway, I couldn’t help but reminisce.  It’s just a room in your house, a place to hold things, a place to lay your head, but there was so much more to it.  It was the place we made love and made plans.  It’s the place we dreamt and held each other.  Like a blood stain on our crisp white down-comforter, all of that was tainted now.

I hurried down the stairs, fighting back the strong urge to cry.  I could smell his musk in the living room.  I maneuvered through the strategically placed high-end leather furniture to the wall-length windows, pulling aside the thin white curtains.  The cab was already here.  I hoped I hadn’t kept him waiting.

I walked into the breathtaking kitchen and nearly lost it.  I loved this kitchen.  I loved this house.  I loved the plans I had for it all that were now shattered on the tile floor beneath my feet.  It was all a lie.  It was all so much bigger than I ever imagined it to be.  I set my iPhone, my Mercedes keys, and the few credit cards I had on the granite countertop and turned my back, walking out.

I didn’t want any of it anymore, not now that I knew the awful truth.   That’s why I had to leave.  I scooped up the suitcase and duffle bag and strode out the door as easily as the first time I had walked in.  The driver stepped out of the taxi just as I appeared on the front step.  I had turned on the security system, though I had it in my right mind to leave the house unlocked in hopes he’d be robbed blind.  I couldn’t bring myself to be the cruel one.  That was his job.

“Where to?” the driver asked after the suitcases had been secured in the trunk and we were both in the taxi.

I gazed out the window at the beach front property.  I was bidding adieu.  Parting is such sweet sorrow.  I sighed heavily.  “The Omni please,” I replied quietly. 

We drove along the coast, headed for the city of Angels.  “Looks like there’s a storm coming in,” the driver noted.  The waves were striking the shoreline hard today and the water looked dark, almost possessed with an oncoming rage.  The wind whipped the palms and the top layer of sand.  The clouds rolled in menacingly and the scent of earth was in the air.

Mother Nature wasn’t the only one stirring up a storm.

“I’m not kidding,” I spat into my phone, juggling a very full glass of wine with the other hand.  “I didn’t know what else to say.  How often do I get asked out on a date?”

“All the time,” my adoptive sister, Erin snapped in my ear.  “You get hit on by old pervs every day and don’t deny it.”

“But that doesn’t count because I would never actually take them up on the offer,” I replied.  “Damien is relatively my age and he’s a singer.  That doesn’t happen every day.”

“Out of all the things you could have called and told me about your day, this would not have been anything I would have imagined.  I didn’t even know things like this actually happened.  Do you think he expects you to sleep with him?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Erin gasped.  “What does that mean, you naughty little minx?  Where you thinking of giving it up to him?”

I chuckled.  “No, nothing like that.  I’m just a little paranoid.  I’m concerned he only invited me to try to get in my pants because that would just be awkward.  It’d feel like a booty call then.  It’d totally take the glamour out of the whole thing.  I don’t know.  I just have no intention of sleeping with him, what so ever.”

“Not at all?  What if he turns out to be a complete gentleman and serenades you over a bottle of wine in his hotel room?  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t drop your panties in an instant.”

“Call me a quick judge of character, but he doesn’t seem like the type to woo a woman in order to spend the night with her.  I think if he wants to get laid, it kind of just happens for him.”

“Well, what did you say to him to make him ask you out?”

I shrugged, though I know Erin couldn’t see it through the phone.  “I don’t know.  We didn’t say much to each other at all.  He just asked me why I’m such a young doctor, you know, like everyone else does and that was about it.  I didn’t get it either.  I was really surprised, as you can imagine.”

“Wow, I am so jealous.  If you decide to back out, let me know.  I can be your understudy.”  We both chuckled.  “What are you wearing?”

I grumbled as I stood in front of my closet, taking a sip from the rim of my glass.  “That, my friend, is the million dollar question.  I knew I should have stopped at a shop or two on the way home.  I’m going to let you go.  I’ve got some work to do and not much time left.”

“Alright, well call me tomorrow and let me know how it all went.  Have fun and be safe.”

“I will.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”  I hung up the phone and tossed it on my bed.

After a bit of a personal debate and a few failed attempts at coordinating, I finally decided on a loose black tank with some beading on the bottom partnered with some skinny jeans and knee-high black boots.  My next grumble was even longer when I looked in the mirror at the state of my hair.  The bushel of naturally thick and dark brown hair sprouting out of my head was completely uncooperative and I’ve never been able to do much more with it than flat iron the kinks out and pull it back into a sleek and professional pony tail.

I chugged two more glasses of wine and felt the first affects as I filled my clutch with perfume, lip gloss, and some cash, right next to my cell phone and house keys.  Before I could even apply one final layer of deodorant for good measure, there was a knock at my door.

I inhaled deeply before opening up the door.  Damien stood on the other side and I was surprised to see he looked a little nervous.  “Hi!” he said with a smile.

“Hello.”

“Wow, you look great,” he said, not being shy about looking me up and down.

I blushed slightly. “Thank you.  I wasn’t sure what someone would typically wear to this kind of an event.”

“That’s perfect.  It’s different from what I saw you in earlier.  It’s nice.  So are you ready?  Did I come at a good time?”  His smile was so charming I could feel my cheeks getting hot.

“No, yeah, you’re just in time.  I’m ready to go.”  I stepped out, locking the door behind me.

“This is a great place you have here,” Damien said as we walked down the front walkway.  A black car was parked on the curb.  “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve walked up to a woman’s door to pick her up.”

“I’m saddened to say, but I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve had a man come to my door to pick me up.”

Damien reached for the handle of the door, opening it for me.  “That’s a shame,” he mumbled as I ducked.

“Good evening, Dr. Reinbeck,” Callem said from the front seat after Damien closed the door.

I shook my head, scoffing playfully.  “Good evening, Mr. Tate,” I responded coyly.  “I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place.”

“None at all, thank you.”

Damien slid into the seat next to me and we were off.  “So I’m extremely interested in hearing about your, well, how you came to be a doctor at such a young age,” Damien started.

“Thinking of making a career out of it?” I joked.

He smirked.  “No.  It’s just I’ve never met someone like you before.  A whiz-kid, is that what you called it?”

“It’s really not as impressive as you’d think.  I’m not a genius by any means, which most people assume when they meet me and find out what I do for a living and find out how old I am.  I just have a capacity for storing and processing information at a more rapid pace.  When you boil it down, it’s an acceleration more than anything, which is why I was able to do all of my schooling so quickly.  It doesn’t mean my reasoning skills are more advanced than you or anyone else.  I just have a better mental filing system than most people do.  And I’m rambling now.”

Damien chuckled.  “No its fine.  It’s cute.”

“You say cute, I hear nerdy.”

“But why oncology?  I guess it’s kind of stereotypical to assume someone with your capabilities would gravitate towards engineering or astrophysics, something like that.”

I shrugged.  “Though I find criminology fascinating, I always thought it’d be kind of silly to go into law enforcement, you know, like it’s a waste of my talents, even though I’ve always had an interest in it; I’ve always wanted to help people.  This was the best way I knew how.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think it’s a little morbid?” he asked uneasily.

I shook my head.  “Not at all.  It’s actually the opposite.  I’ve helped Dr. Sladek put a number of patients into remission and that’s one of the most rewarding perks of my job.”

“Who’s Dr. Sladek?”

“He’s sort of my mentor.  I met him my first year of pre-med.  He was very taken by my spirit, he told me.  I have the wisdom of a scholar inside the mind of a child he’d say.  He is also in awe and sometimes quite surprise by me.  He’s retiring in a few months, which is one of the reasons I got the job I have now.  He’s been transitioning some of his patients over to me before his official retirement.”

Damien was nodding politely, focusing on nothing but me.  “I’m sorry, I talk and talk and talk when I’m nervous.  Feel free to derail me if I get too monotonous.”

“Really, it’s fine.  As often as I sit down with someone and talk about myself, it’s nice to be on the other side of the conversation, you know, and just be the listener.”

I nodded.  “Oh I can imagine.  That must be one of the biggest set-backs of your job, all the interviews and the schmoozing.”

“You have no idea.  It can be so bad that sometimes I feel like if I open my mouth to say something about my album, or my relationships, or my music video, or my latest tweet, I may produce vomit rather than an explanation.  Do you tweet?”

I shook my head.  “No.  I don’t think I’d know how.  I don’t even have Facebook.  I always thought it would be a distraction from my schooling so I never got into it.  Call me old fashioned.”

“Nah, it’s not old fashioned.  It’s more common than you think.  I meet a lot of people who don’t partake in that stuff.  They think it’s just as unhealthy as drugs, you know?  It can consume you.  I don’t tweet often.  I try to keep as low a profile as possible, but when you have fans, you kind of want to make them happy, and if that means saying a few words through social media every once in a while or snapping a picture, then I’m game.”

“Oh I’m sure they’re very demanding.”  I smiled.

“It’s not so much about giving them what they want.  To me it’s a small way to treat them, I suppose.  They’re the reason I have a job.  They’re the fuel that drives me and if surprising them with a candid puts a smile on their face, what’s stopping me from spoiling them a little?”

“So do you keep your nose out of the tabloids because I can tell you, there have been a great deal of them floating around our office.”

“Oh hell yes.  I avoid those things like the plague!” Damien said.  “I used to read them all the time but I’d get so worked up about it.  They’d take a picture of me walking out of someone’s house and they’ll write an article about how I stormed out after a fight with my producer or something and that’s not what happened at all.  They just want to sell papers.  It’s a headache I rid myself of a long time ago.  You don’t believe that shit, do you?”

I chuckled.  “No.  I never have, but they sure know how to sucker you in with those headlines.  You kind of peel back the cover just to read the outrageous claims these editors are ballsy enough to print.  It’s a wonder they don’t get sued more than they do.”

“People try all the time, but that first amendment thing is a bitch.  So what kind of music do you listen to?”

I raised my eye brows.  “This kind of feels like a trap.  If I don’t say yours, are you going to turn this car around and take me back home?”

Damien smiled.  “No, not at all.  I know my music isn’t for everyone.  I know there are haters out there, not to say that you’re one of them.  There’s no way to please everyone in this industry.”

“I have heard your music and, don’t get me wrong,” I started, “but I’ve never been compelled so far as to go out and purchase your album.  I’m more of an oldies kind of girl.  Steve Miller Band, Jim Croce, Bob Seger, Tom Petty, that kind of stuff.”

“Alright.  I can dig it.” Damien nodded.  “There’s no crime in that.  You get that from your folks?  Your dad I’m guessing, I hear that a lot.  Dads are usually the figures that pass on their musical taste, from what I’ve gotten from other people.”

I shook my head.  “I lived with a foster family for a couple of months when I was younger.  It was a family of four, two girls and their parents and the woman’s father lived with them.  He was a character.” I smiled.  “He’d sit and talk and talk and talk, incoherently a lot of the time.  Nothing was ever connected or related.  He’d just ramble about Vietnam and growing up on a farm and his education and the women he’d been with, the things he and his friends had done.  He’d always have a record on, like an old school vinyl.  I love the sound of the needle against the vinyl, the small pops you’d hear every once in a while, adding another dimension to the song.  I think his name was Melvin.  Is that bad?  I don’t even remember his name.  Anyway, he is the one who taught me about music.”

Damien stared at me for a long moment, holding a perking little twist on the corner of his lip.  “Alright,” he whispered playfully.  “That’s pretty awesome.  It’s the little things, right?”

I shrugged.  “I suppose so.”

I could tell he wanted to ask me more.  I knew I shouldn’t have said so much.  It was too much to reveal to a stranger.  I really didn’t like talking about my childhood and it really wasn’t on the list of proper first date conversation topics, if this was even a first date.  I was getting ahead of myself.  And now I was rambling in my inner monologue.

Thankfully, the conversation was put on hold by our arrival.  Figueroa was a mess.  I was thankful for the tinted windows because there were a great deal of cameras on the sidewalk.  “Wow, I’ve never seen the paparazzi this up close and personal before,” I mumbled, staring out the heavily tinted window.

“They’re a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.  You’ve never been to something like this before?” Damien asked.

I shook my head.  “Not much time between patients.  I don’t get out much.”

“Well, then I’m glad I invited you.  Look at all you would’ve missed if I hadn’t,” Damien joked.

A long line of spectators crept down the sidewalk like ivy vines looking to take over the exterior of the large arena.  Cell phone lights popped out of the crowd like fireflies.  Big burly bouncers stood statuesque while anxious cameramen spied the passing vehicles, hoping to get a glimpse of the cargo behind the dark windows.

Callem urged the car through the ever-growing crowd until he was ushered into a small parking lot that was secured with metal barricades and more brawny bouncers.  He followed the event staff through the lot and down into a garage below the arena.  I didn’t watch sports nor had I ever been to Staples Center, but I was guessing this was a player’s and coach’s entrance for Lakers or Clippers games.  I was pretty proud of myself that I at least knew the names of the two teams who were housed in this facility.

After parking, Callem sprang from the front seat to open my door.  “Thank you,” I said as I exited the backseat.  He nodded.  Damien met me at the back of the car and offered me his arm.

“Hang on tight, things could get crazy,” he winked before escorting me through two large and heavy double doors.  Before us was a long hallway littered with people from wall to wall.  Damien wasn’t even two steps inside the threshold when hoards of people started rushing towards him.  Some were fans waving CDs, posters, and cameras in his direction.  His arm eventually fell from my grip as he tried to shake hands and scribble autographs and pose for pictures.  I stayed as close as the crowd would allow, but they were vicious.

The thud from the arena echoed through the concrete hallway, reverberating off the walls and off my ear drums.  I could feel the vibrations in my toes.  Damien looked over his shoulder and saw me fall behind.  He stopped, reached for my hand and pulled me towards him.  “I told you not to let go,” he said, leaning his mouth to my ear so I could hear over the roaring, indiscernible concert.  His warm breath on my flesh sent a shiver through me.