Love Deluxe

LOVE DELUXE

A novel

By Kimball Lee

Copyright 2014 Kimball Lee

Kindle Edition

This story is a work of fiction, any likeness to any persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

PART ONE: SAN ANTONIO

PART TWO: SEASIDE, FLORIDA

PART THREE: LAS VEGAS

PROLOGUE

J
ohn Foster had spoken the truth, Las Vegas was spectacular from above. The plane circled and descended and the lights from the city formed an iridescent bowl as the sun melted behind the shadowy mountains in the west. It was New Year’s Eve and I was grateful to have the business of real life behind and exuberant over the clean slate ahead. At the airport the chauffer collected our bags from the carousel and drove us to the
Bellagio
. We stepped out in front of the palatial hotel as fountains of water erupted and danced in time to lights and music. In the sumptuous lobby I marveled at the glass sculptures on the ceiling and was drawn to the hothouse smell of thousands of flowers in the massive conservatory.

John checked us in, and the clerk at the front desk was starry-eyed and swooning as was always the case. What woman could resist him? He was the very image of Thor, god of thunder and lightning— a tall, tanned, blue-eyed blond with a heartstoppingly gorgeous face, sculpted body and so much boyish charm that women were happy to slip out of their panties and into his bed. He’d been born with those gifts and he’d used them to his advantage for most of his life but even the mighty must fall, and he did— he fell in love with me.

He plucked the room keys from the desk-clerk’s hand and found me in the indoor gardens. It was clear that John was truly in his element in Las Vegas, his smile was wide and he radiated confidence. A few long strides across the marble floor and he was next to me, pulling me against him. He leaned down and his face nestled into my hair as he held me closer than close.

“There’s my sweetie,” he said and a thrill of anticipation shot through me as the heat from his body melded with my own. “I told you Vegas has changed and how about all these amazing flowers, pretty cool, huh? Can you smell the tuberoses? They’re my favorite.”

I wrapped my arms around him, raised up on the tips of my toes and pressed my lips to his neck, in love with the smell and feel of this man. “What do you know about tuberoses, you crazy thing?”

He smiled and his eyes shone shockingly blue in his beautiful face. “I know they grow wild in Hawaii and you smell like them when you come to bed at night and you’re exotic and wild and I’m so crazy in love with you that I’ll never recover.”

We laughed and he crushed me to his broad chest and I tangled my fingers in his white-blond hair. His lips covered mine and the kiss we shared was searing hot and deeply erotic. He groaned and his eyes changed from crystalline to smoky. Hotel guests were forced to walk around us as we stood in the midst of all that extravagant, fragrant beauty and they whispered and frowned at the spectacle we made of ourselves.

“Everyone’s watching us,” I breathed in his ear.

“I don’t care who’s watching, they’re all jealous. They want to be us, they want what we have.”

“And what do we have?” I asked, loving the feeling of pure joy, giddy with knowing that I was free of sorrow, that I could be any version of myself in a city devoted to greed and sin and simply walking away.

“We have each other,” he said, “and we’re in love. Not ‘
settle for
’ love, but ‘
change your life forever
’ love. We’re happier than any of these people know how to be and we’ll never be alone or sad or heartbroken as long as we’re together. Come on buddy, it’s nearly midnight on New Year’s Eve, we have to celebrate. I’m not kissing you again until next year, now look in your hand and it will change your life.”

I opened my hand slowly and three rose petals lay in my palm. One pink, one yellow, one white— each petal pristine and perfect….

“Ma’am, excuse me, I hate to wake you but we’re about to land,” The flight attendant’s pretty face swam into view as I opened my eyes. “You’ll have to raise your seat to an upright position and fasten your seatbelt. Please have your passport ready when you go through customs and enjoy your stay.”

“Oh… I was dreaming,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, my heart clenched for a moment as I held the envelope tightly in my hand and glanced at the seat next to me. I turned away from the empty seat, peered out the window and watched the snow-covered city rush past as the plane dropped beneath the clouds. It was an unfamiliar city, a place I’d never been before, but I was certain that I’d made the best choice— the only choice that was right for me. “I was dreaming of love and rose petals and John Foster,” I whispered, but no one was listening.

PART ONE

San Antonio

Chapter One

About a year and a half before
…

Strange how the simplest things can trigger memories and flights of sentiment. I was out walking one morning as I did every morning; how I loved Alamo Heights, that venerable old part of San Antonio, streets shaded by older than old oak and magnolia; gaudy crepe myrtles reeking with color, the sorrowful coo of Mourning Doves echoing among the branches. The Texas mountain laurel was in bloom, later that year than usual and the scent of the heavy flowers was sickeningly sweet. I ended up at Emily’s house, which wasn’t surprising since I always seemed to find my way there in the mornings, comforted by the predictable presence of my lifelong friend. We sat on her funny, old fashioned sun porch. She sipped a cup of sweet, hot coffee and I drank my third Diet Coke.

“You’re up early,” she said, plucking a few wilted flowers from a potted bougainvillea. “What’s going on, was your barely-legal boyfriend throwing pebbles at your window at dawn?”

“Yeah, right. Jackson would only be up at this hour if he was still partying from the night before. My mother called, I don’t know if that’s better or worse. She’s got her eye on some geriatric Romeo at the country club she wants me to go out with. She tried to make him sound irresistible but just the mention of his wheelchair, oxygen tank and indeterminate age pretty much closed that door in my mind.”

“Oh, you’re exaggerating. Your mother doesn’t expect you to date a man old enough to be your grandfather, no matter how desperate she is to see a ring on your finger.”

I stirred my Diet Coke with a straw and drew my knees up as I sat in the porch swing, “That’s what you think. Let’s see, my mother is seventy and the guy’s wife was one of the
older ladies
in her bridge group who died in her sleep a few months ago. Call me crazy, but I’m remembering the last great catch she set me up with, a man so old he could have been Hugh Hefner’s college roommate. You remember him don’t you? The one who believed nice girls only wore dresses with a girdle and
hosiery
and whose political beliefs were whatever her man dictated.”

“God bless ya! You need a man closer to your own age now that you’re back in the dating game. Seriously sister, the high school and the retirement home are not your best bets for picking up suitable men.” She said, shaking her head, her fingers flitting over her lips as she tried to hide a smile. “So, how long did it take to get your mother out of match-making mode?”

“Not long. I told her I was going to most of the Fiesta events with Myles and I’m sure she started having visions of me riding off into the sunset with King Antonio, so I’m off the hook for now. And you can just shut up with the snide remarks, I don’t go looking for dates at all. What’s on your agenda for the day? It seems like an unusually quiet morning in the Van Sant household.”

“It is kind of peaceful isn’t it? The boys are all scattered as usual and Rob’s already gone to the office, but his coupon clipping mother was thoughtful enough to call at five a.m. and remind me that avocados are on sale. I can never tell if she’s being nice or if she’s really afraid I’m not feeding her son, I mean he’s only survived our marriage for twenty years now.”

“Five a.m.? Damn, that’s pretty early for avocados. What’s up with these bossy old women trying to fix our lives?” I asked, and we both laughed.

We settled into a comfortable silence then, with the early summer day coming to life around us. Geraniums and Mexican heather and ferns spilled from clay pots and hanging baskets, evidence of Emily’s green thumb.  A yellow streak of sunlight fell across our feet and her sweet old Yorkie, Bathsheba, hopped onto her lap.

From the porch I could see the hallway leading to her son’s bedrooms and there it was, the familiar stab of memory. I remembered Rob, the love of Emily’s life, leaning against the bathroom door talking to the eldest of their three sons. He was giving him instructions on the proper way to shave, how to avoid razor burn, nicks and the like, and I wondered, had Henry said those things to our boy? Had he explained it all in the way that fathers convey such secrets to their sons, things that a mother really cannot know? I hope he did. I hope Brooks learned some of the secrets of a man’s world before he left us to discover the secrets of the universe.

I’d lost my son, Brooks, two years before. His father followed him six months and eleven days later. I imagine them together still; I hope they are at least, in heaven, maybe, or wherever eternity is, somewhere safe. For better or worse I survived, heartbreaking how simple that is for some and impossible for others. I had family and friends who cared for and supported me. I had faith in God and money to spend on hours and hours with a grief counselor, a difficult task— putting the pieces of
me
back together. There were medications, of course, Prozac and the like that numbed my brain and Xanax that took the edge off the sword of guilt and Ambien for blessed sleep. God or fate or destiny had betrayed me by taking my child and my husband, the greatest loves a woman will ever know. And as you can only vaguely imagine, I was a heartbroken wreck, a tragic disaster. I was thirty-seven years old and I retreated inside myself, comatose and consumed with pain and self-pity.

It had taken almost two years for me to decide to live again. I was worn down by so much sorrow and weary of the blasphemous voices that shouted in my head. Most of all, I was sick of my role as a pitiful creature and so I forced myself to take a chance, to go and see what might be possible, out in the wide world, for a woman like me.

My sister Laura had said to me just a few days before, “Do you know that you still can’t say the words, “Brooks died?” You always skirt around it. You say, “When he was gone,” or “When it happened.” I worry about that, Cate, are you
really
alright?”

She was right, I couldn’t say those words. It seems you can live with something, wrestle it night and day, and yet, like a witch’s spell, as long as the secret words are never spoken, it doesn’t become real.

In the days and months after Emily and I sat talking on her porch, a new episode began in my life. I think of it now as my metamorphosis, my newness of being, a wanton time when things were heady, and lush, and yes,
way
out of control
. I turned away from all that was familiar and buried the pain of the soul in the riotous pleasures of the body, and everything became about sex and adventure and eventually, crime. I was not yet forty when a man named John Foster saved me from the malignancy that had become my own heart. He awoke in me the desire to feel pleasure and then ecstasy, to live beyond all bounds. Ours is the story I’m able to tell, our tale of love, and if larger truths spill out, well, there they are. I heard somewhere there are three sides to every story— my side, your side, and the truth. This is my side because it’s really my story, but it’s also John Foster’s. Either way, it’s the truth, I swear, mostly.

***

John Foster was too tall. Too blond, too slick, too perfect, like something a scientist cooked up in a test tube. The first time I saw him, at one of the Fiesta parties that are the highlight of the endless San Antonio social season, I stayed as far away from him as possible.

“That’s John Foster; all the women are wild about him!” My friend Myles crowed in his sing-song voice, as he pointed him out on the far side of the room.

“Not interested,” I said, sipping my vodka tonic, “anyone who looks like that has to be conceited and shallow. His head’s probably as empty as a cadaver’s.”

“You’d think for sure he would be unbearably full of himself, but he’s a nice guy. Come on Cate, he’s new in town and I swear I’ve introduced him to every single lady I can think of. The thing is, he’s got a thing for strikingly beautiful women with dark hair, white skin and sinfully hot bodies. And sugar, that description fits you to a T.”

“Well that’s just great, I’m super excited to meet him now. The way I look is all that matters and screw it if I don’t have three brain cells to rub together, is that it? Forget it. Besides, I’m still with Jackson… sort of.”

Myles snorted and his eyebrow shot skyward. “Speaking of, how is Jackson’s little drinking problem?”

I sipped my cocktail and gave him a look. “You know, for once you’re right, I’m thinking about breaking up with him anyway. Honestly, I can’t even take him out in public with his drinking episodes and he’s grotesquely too young for anything to ever come of it.”

That damned eyebrow was doing acrobatics and Myles drained his rum and coke like it was the last alcoholic beverage on earth.

“You’re right about his age,” he said. “Although it doesn’t seem to bother him, but remind me, can he vote yet?”

“You’re hilarious,” I said and surveyed the crowd, not sure what I was hoping to find.

Myles went in search of the bar and left me to wonder why I always let him drag me to such deadly-dull parties crawling with way too many eager, past their prime singles. I imagined sneaking away, going home to a nice hot bath and a good book, maybe curl up with a bowl of ice cream in bed. I could let Jackson come over just to feel a warm body next to mine, but I wasn’t that desperate. Besides, Myles always rode with me, then I had to drive him home and of course he was always the last to leave, so I was screwed.

***

I didn’t meet John Foster that night, or at the next party. But the third time, that night was the beginning. A group of us met at
Paesanos
, an Italian restaurant and gathering spot for the Alamo Heights
‘in crowd’
. There were eight in our group and I was half of a couple, having Jackson in tow. Jackson had yet to take a seat, preferring to cruise the other tables and chat with friends and strangers. Making the rounds, he threw back tequila shots and guzzled martinis without spilling a drop. As I watched him, concentrating on the precariously tilted martini glass in his hand, John Foster folded his long body into the chair next to me, picked up a fork and helped himself to a bite of pasta from my plate.

“Help yourself,” I said sarcastically and wondered if I should swoon immediately or wait for his irresistible charm to kick in.

“Your boyfriend must have a cast iron stomach, he’s into some serious drinking. Straight tequila and gin, bad news,” he said, leaning in close, his eyes were so startlingly blue it was impossible to look away.

“And you are?” I asked, and like it or not, a long-forgotten longing stirred inside me from the nearness of his body and the intensity of his gaze.

“I’m the guy who’s sorry you’re going home with young Jackson over there. Wanna bet he’ll have a bad case of whiskey dick tonight?” he said, nodding in Jackson’s direction with a quizzical smile as my mouth dropped open in surprise. He deftly lifted my hand to his lips and smiled again as I jerked it away. “Sorry about that remark, probably not a good pick up line. Not that I’m trying to pick you up, it’s pretty clear I’d have to get in line for that. It was a crude thing to say, I know, you make me nervous and women don’t make me nervous. Myles thought we should meet, and you know he
is
the self-appointed social director in Alamo Heights. You’re not like the rest of these snobs, are you? Every person I’ve met thinks this is the center of the universe.”

I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, he was just so…
strange
.

“Okay— well, nice to meet you Cate Stuart, finally.”

A young woman slid into the chair next to him, cleared her throat and looked ready to poke my eyes out with a fork. She peered at him expectantly and said she needed a ride to back to the bar were they’d met during happy hour. It was obvious that when she tagged along with John Foster to our little party at
Paesanos
she’d counted on the evening morphing into something like a date. But it hadn’t and now this too-sexy-to-be-anything-but-trouble Viking god was paying way too much attention to me.

“I don’t know why I bothered to come here with you, John Foster. Could you just take me back to my car so I can try and salvage the rest of this night?” she spat, leaning toward him as pissed off as a prostitute that had been cheated out of twenty bucks.

John Foster pushed his chair back reluctantly and slid one huge hand over mine on the table. “Please don’t leave,” he said, “wait for me, Cate. I’ll come right back.”

***

If he returned I was already gone, Jackson’s drinking caught up with him as usual. He stumbled into a table scattering wine and pasta and was told to leave under threat of arrest. I was unfazed; that being the norm for evenings spent with him. We left and I seized the opportunity to break it off once and for all. Jackson didn’t take kindly to the idea, but he was falling-down drunk so I don’t think he comprehended much. I dropped him off at his house, literally. I opened the car door, he fell out. He landed on his back in the grass and threw some pretty ugly words at me as I drove off. I hated that it had to be that way, we’d been together for seven months and I’d adored him from the moment I first saw him.

He was movie-star handsome with sandy hair that swept to his shoulders and deep-brown eyes you could easily drown in. His father was Rob’s law partner and we’d met at the firm’s Christmas party. He politely asked for my number and called later that same night. I was home in bed but I got up, dressed and met him for a drink. We talked and laughed for hours and when he kissed me goodnight and I was just drunk enough to really kiss him back. He looked at me with surprise and desire in those mesmerizing eyes and said, “I love the way you kiss me.” We’d been together ever since.