Sliding (The Stone Series)

Sliding

By
Kitty Berry

This is a work of fiction. Please
forgive any similarities to actual people or literary characters. The
characters and their actions were developed by the author and any resemblance
to actual people or other literary characters is coincidental.

This book is dedicated to the real
Kitty Berry, my mom and friend. I miss you every day.

Acknowledgments

To Amalina, my fellow only, for
suffering through the first write and not looking at me like I was crazy after
reading it. I never asked for a sibling but if I did I would have asked for
you. Thanks to all of you who had to sit through months of me talking about
nothing but
Sliding
and still being
my friends. Thank you to my husband who can never use the laptop because I am
always monopolizing it. To my three boys, thank you for being the best part of
my world.

As I stand looking into the mirror in the master suite’s bathroom I am
faced with my destiny and a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to California
to be with my husband and save my marriage or …what? We’ve lived apart for six
months now and we will not survive living apart another six. It’s the parallel
tracking of two possible destinies, essentially the what-if scenario staring me
right in the face. I could be entering into the center of two significantly different
trajectories.

As I am
contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same time as the
house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer the phone
and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man I have
ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure everyone
has these little moments in time when they question which decision is right and
which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down different
avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible to go
back and change. Well, I guess this is what awaits me behind…

   
Door #1

Chapter 1: The Beginning

I take one last glance at myself in the mirror, not too bad. I have
somehow managed to be a size two, so it’s not the size zero of my youth but I’m
still firm and young looking. Botox, daily doses of yoga, Pilates, jogging, and
weight training sessions with my trainer help. Being a seasoned borderline
anorexic helps a little too. I am wearing Tate’s favorite dress. It’s short and
black and it looks great on me, if I do say so myself. The highest heeled shoes
that I own each with a little pink bow on them make the dress look even
naughtier. I grab my shades and over sized bag to complete my look and head for
the door taking one last look back at the phone ringing on the bedside table. Who
the hell can that be and why aren’t they calling me on my cell? Assuming it’s a
telemarketer I head out of my house.

Mac has my luggage packed in the trunk of our silver
Porsche Cayenne
and he smiles when I
step outside.

“Hello Mrs. Taylor” I hear Mac call before he asks if I am going to
answer the phone. I tell him I am not; I don’t want to miss my flight. Mac has
worked for my husband and me since shortly before Tate left six months ago. In
that short time he has been a very loyal employee. I think he got the short end
of the stick being stuck here with me for the last six months while Tate has
been in California with our other employee, Dominick trying to “repair” the
music industry on the West Coast. Mac is an ex-Marine and now he’s in charge of
our security amongst many other tasks like driving me to the airport today. Mac
is well over six feet tall with quite a set of muscles on him. Mac has these piercing
blue eyes that when he looks at you makes you feel like he can see into your
soul. His Marine close cut brown hair matches cocoa colored skin. He seems like
such a catch that at his age I can’t believe he would still be single.

“Please Mac call me Brook, we have known each other for over six months
now, this really has to end.” I reply. Mac looks at me and smiles. We have this
exchange at least ten times a day and nothing ever changes.

When I get into the back seat I find a brand new iPod with ear buds. They
are from my husband and I am instructed to listen to the iPod throughout my
trip. Back in the day Tate used to make me mixed tapes but he hasn’t done
anything like that since…since there were tapes I guess.

“Mr. Taylor asks that you wear those for the ride to JFK and then on your
flight. He said he will send Dominick to pick you up at the airport when you
arrive” Mac informs me.

I wonder what intern’s job it was to make me this mixed playlist. I
notice Mac sending a text before pulling away from the curb, probably texting
Tate to tell him we are on our way, he’s always checking up on me.

When I put in the ear buds and turn my new iPod on “Baby, Come to Me” the
duet by Patti Austen and James Ingram is leading off the playlist, clearly from
my husband not some twenty-something intern who wouldn’t know this song in a
million years…interesting choice for the first song, good job Mr. Taylor. Yes,
very interesting that this is the song my husband has picked to lead off this
play list. I can only imagine what else he has included and the anticipation
sends a tingle down my spine.

As I settle in I start to feel like I am floating through time back to the
early 1980s, I am instantly transported back to the beginning. Back to the time
and place where it all began….

I let myself remember the simpler times, the memories this song conjures
up, the memories that make me feel like I am fourteen again and then I am
standing in the high school gym with my best friend, Asia at the first dance of
the school year wearing different variations of the same outfit. We are wearing
acid washed jeans with half shirts, mine has neon colored hearts all over it
with sayings in them like the hearts you get on Valentine’s Day but the sayings
are things like “dance”, “love” and my favorite, “strut”. That’s my favorite
because Tate Taylor walks with a kind of butt strut that is just so mesmerizing
I could watch him walk all day.

I spot Tate, the most gorgeous boy at school, the minute he walks in the
gym. I don’t know if he notices me, if he’s ever noticed me but I notice him. He’s
wearing all black; t-shirt, jacket with the sleeves rolled up his forearms and
jeans. His long dark hair flops in his face and he constantly flips it out of
his eyes.

Tate and I are finally in the same school this year and I have never had
better attendance…ever!
 
Kids at school
say that Tate is shy despite his good looks but I’m not sure if it’s shyness that
makes him aloof. Whatever it is drives the girls wild, the fact that he doesn’t
give them the time of day, me included makes us all want to be the first to
obtain his attention.
 
He doesn’t seem to
notice that girls are into him, maybe he just doesn’t care.

Tate is with his friends, they are all athletes and almost as cute as he
is. My friend Missy has it bad for Jeff; they’ve been going out since the first
week of school. Jeff is tall and lanky with long arms, perfect for the quarter
back on the football team. He looks like a surfer with his bleached blond hair.
Asia takes one look at Bobby, Tate’s best friend and starts smacking me, she
does this when she gets excited; it’s like an annoying tick but one that hurts
the parties in her presence. Bobby is built like the line backer that he is all
muscle and crazy curly brown hair. My friend Annie has her sights on David;
he’s handsome and tall with brown hair and blue eyes. Annie is trying her best
to play it cool and not let David know she’s looking at him but he catches her
eye and comes right up to us. Oh my God, with Tate right behind him!

“Little Red Corvette” starts playing and Tate asks me to dance, he
actually asks me to dance! I can barely make out the word; “Sure” I am so
shocked. I have no clue where this came from, he never even talks to me at
school. Maybe it’s some kind of bet he has with his friends or maybe it’s a prank.
Maybe he’s going to start dancing with me then leave me on the floor alone
looking stupid while everyone laughs and points at me. Why else would “the
perfect Tate Taylor” ask me to dance when he could have any girl in this gym if
not for a joke?

Tate just stands there swaying from side to side so I do the same all the
while waiting for the bomb to fall. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me but I
don’t know if that’s because every girl in this gym wants to be me right now or
if it’s because Tate is about to make me the laughing stock of the school. Then
as the music changes to “Never Gonna Let You Go”
, Tate puts his arms around my waist; I put my arms around his neck and
follow his lead and then I am actually slow dancing with Tate Taylor. No one is
laughing at me now!

Tate and I dance all night and I can
feel the daggers being thrown at me from all around the room. I thought it was
my friends at first, mad because I was blowing them off for Tate but they’re
dancing right alongside us, each with one of Tate’s friends. The night flies by
and by the time the final song comes on, “How Am I Supposed To Live Without
You?” I am in a trace enchanted by Tate. As the song comes to an end Tate
gently kisses me on the cheek and I swear I hear a groan spread over the crowd
coming from every girl there. Or maybe that sound came from me…I’m too dizzy
right now to know! And then he’s gone, walked right out the door. What the hell
does this mean? Am I his girlfriend? Does Tate like me? Oh, my God! I am never
washing that side of my face again!

I turn and see all of my friends with their
mouths hanging open and we wordlessly turn and walk out of the gym in search of
our ride home.
My friends come back to my house for a sleepover and we run
immediately up the stairs to my bedroom screaming.

************

 
“Mrs. Taylor, we’re at JFK” Mac says startling
me back to the here and now. Wow, I
have not
thought about that first night in so long I almost forgot how Tate and I
started. Was this his plan with this playlist? To make me remember what we used
to have? To make me remember how it all started? Well, it’s working, kudos to
you Mr. Taylor.

Mac helps me with my luggage and then
we say a quick good-bye. I worry about him. I want to set him up with someone
so he can be happy and have a life instead of always working. I wish my cousin,
Drea was a little older, I think they’d be perfect together. Of course, her
brother, Damian would not approve. I don’t know why the men in this family are
so controlling. And who am I to play match maker anyway? I have only been with
one man my whole life. What do I really know about love anyway? I fell in love
with my husband when I was thirteen years old, before I even knew what it meant
to be in love with someone. And until six months ago I never questioned it. Now
questioning that is all I can seem to do.

“Thanks for the ride, Mac. Hold down
the fort while I’m gone. See you” I say with a wave as I turn and go into the
airport.

I hear them call my flight; I board
the plane and get comfortable in my first class seat. After we are safely in
the air I remember I have my iPod with Tate’s playlist on it and I’m excited to
see what song comes next and what memories it will awaken. “Always Something
There to Remind Me”
starts playing as I put the ear buds back in. So I was right, Tate is
trying to remind me. I have a flight ahead of me for just that… remembering. And
that is just what I need to do. It might help me understand where we’re headed
if I can remember where we started from.

************

“Brooklynn, you have a phone call”, my
mom calls while my friends and I are having a spa day after the school dance.
We are giving each other facials and trying out new hairstyles while
“Flashdance” is blasting from my radio. I have to keep yelling to my mother to
get my little sister out of my room. She keeps trying to listen to our
conversations and I just know she’ll go and tell my mother everything we say. We
all start squealing and running to get the cordless phone.

“Hello”, I say sounding way too
excited.

“Hey Brook, it’s Bobby. What’s up?”

“Hi Bobby” I say as I look to my
friends for help but they are all just staring at me with their mouths wide
open again.

This is the first time a boy has ever
called my house and I’m not sure what to say to him. Asia begins her assault on
my arm not helping matters at all.

“Yeah, um Tate wants to go out with
you, so what do you say, should I tell him yes?”

After I am convinced that I have died
and gone to heaven I regain the use of my mouth and mumble, “Ok”, as the girls
all ask, “Ok what? What does he want?”

Asia whines, “Why is Bobby calling
you?”

I hang up the phone not yet processing
what just happened. I am Tate Taylor’s girlfriend.

I scream, “AHHHH!!”
 
loud enough to be heard in outer space.

Once I calm down enough to hear them,
my friends begin the onslaught of questions on me.

“What did Bobby want?”, “Did he ask
for me?”, “Did he say anything about Jeff?”, “What about David, did he say
anything about David and me?”

“ARGH!” I can barely hear them, they
are all yelling at me at the same time. “Shut up before my mom comes in here
asking questions” I yell at them, “And no, it was Bobby and he said Tate wants
to go out with me” I squeal.

All mouths are still hanging open
staring at me.

“Did you tell him yes, I hope?” asks
Missy.

“I don’t understand why Bobby didn’t
ask about me, see I knew it. He doesn’t like me; I’m going to kill myself” Asia
whines.

It hits us all at the same time and my
friends yell, “Oh my God, you are Tate Taylor’s girlfriend, his first
girlfriend!”

Oh my God, what does this mean? I
don’t know how to dress, talk or act as Tate Taylor’s girlfriend. Is there a
special dress code? A secret language? Maybe there’s a manual or something.