The Inspiration (30 page)

“Fuck Sean, he can watch. I don’t care about anything but fucking you right now.” His eyes burn.

The music that’s been surging, moving toward a crescendo hits a sour note, and I freeze.

Fucking you right now…
up against a wall…in a fucking hallway…in front of Sean.

Fucking art slut.

Reverence shifts on a dime to tawdriness. Making love morphs into a quick fuck. We’re slipping down a slope and can’t seem to stop.

“What about Adam’s office?” There’s an edge of desperation to his voice.

“Glass walls.” My voice is losing its tone and inflection.

“Isn’t there a storeroom with a door, a bathroom?” he asks frantically.

It’s as if a yellow-green fluorescent light has snapped on revealing this for what it is, and I push him off me and step away.

“The bathroom?” I ask, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice.

“What? What!” he barks.

I don’t back down—instead I pull away even more as the passion falls away from me like a discarded cloak.

His anger blossoms like a high-speed shot of a flower opening in a science film.

“Really? Now you’re going to be precious and self-righteous? I don’t get you! I can never tell what you want. Is this a game to you? Your whole body was begging to be fucked a minute ago!” He steps back and yanks his shirt down.

“You’re wrong…I didn’t want to fuck, I wa—”

His face burns to a hot red. “I didn’t want this to happen, either!”

“What do you mean
you
didn’t want this to happen?”

His fury builds. “I! Did! Not! Want! This!” he barks staccato, grimacing. “I knew it would ruin everything, and I was fucking right. Fuck it all!” He pivots and storms into the gallery, leaving me and my naked breasts in the darkened hallway.

“You didn’t want me?” I whisper, horrified as I push my breasts back into my bra and pull my shirt down.

“You didn’t want me.” I repeat to myself with a mix of anger and confusion. As I say it a third time, I realize how true it rings. It’s the only idea that’s made sense the whole evening.

He didn’t want me for anything but a fuck. And he’d never want
me.
Not the way I’ve wanted him to. The emotional tremors start in my hands and move across my body.

During an earthquake, it’d been recommended that you perch in a doorway or crawl under a table until the shaking stops. Later it was revised to say you should crouch next to the table, not under it, to create a little pocket to survive if the walls come down around you. But when the world is shaking, and one’s mind is not sound, there’s a natural instinct to run out the door…run to an open space so that when the glass explodes and your ceiling crumbles, you can sink to the earth with nothing but the sky and air holding you.

But there’s danger, even in the open air.

I discover this as I grab my bag, shoot out the back door of the studio and into the open air of the parking lot. For as I lean forward, my hands frantically gripping my knees while desperately trying to take air into my lungs, I realize there are no safe pockets for me.

As I fall into my car and tear out of the lot, the sinking realization hits me that the damage from fireworks and earthquakes is often too catastrophic to comprehend.

I
turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard, hell-bent on getting home, when the traffic comes to a complete standstill. This isn’t unusual for this time of day in this part of the city, but in my current state of mind, it’s tantamount to having needles stuck in my eyes. I slam the steering wheel with my fists.

My phone rings, and even though I’m sitting with nothing but time on my hands, the president could call and I wouldn’t answer at this point.

I glance down—Sean.
Fuck!
He’s probably discovered the scene of the crime and is wondering why I abandoned him. The last thing I wanted to do was screw things up for him too. I resolve to call him after I get home and calm down enough to speak coherently.

Traffic barely inches forward as the light goes from red to green to yellow and to red again. The blare of sirens confirms an accident ahead, which only makes the nasty traffic worse. My voice mail pings. I sigh and press the button to listen while I’m waiting. At least I won’t have to talk.

“Ava, it’s Sean.” He sounds pissed, his voice tight and his words clipped. “I just brought the screen up and you guys aren’t here. If you were going to go out, couldn’t you at least have left me a note or something? That’s messed up.”

There’s a pause.

“You didn’t print very much, and—What the fuck?…
Why
didn’t you wash off the screen before you left? This one’s probably trashed now too!” His long-suffering sigh is loud and clear. “Call me right back and let me know what’s going on.”

The damage is done. Calling him back now or later isn’t going to change that. At least Max was gone before Sean returned to the studio.

Max.

The thought of him makes my stomach sink. I’m still stunned by his blast of rage, and I feel completely raw. Part of me wishes I could turn the clock back and make sure our encounter never happened. We’d still be friends who could go bowling or get burgers at The Apple Pan. But the other part of me is steaming angry for how he treated me. Now there’s nothing but the ashy charred remains of a friendship that meant a lot to me.

To top it off, I’m not even sure what happened. How did everything go so horribly wrong? I went from such a high with the way I felt in his arms as he kissed me with an intensity I’ve only read about in romance novels to the lowest low where we yelled hateful things at each other like a couple going through a bitter divorce.

A wave of sorrow and frustration washes over me, and I angrily wipe the tears away from my face. I’m mad at myself for missing the asshole so much already. But I continue to cry and watch the lights change—green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red.

Life is cruel.

Sitting there in a traffic jam, I watch the beautiful boys saunter down the street, fresh from the gym, handsomely buff. They don’t call West Hollywood “Boys Town” for nothing.

I move forward about twenty feet. Green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red. I turn on the radio and flip through the channels, but everything agitates me, so I shut it off. After a few minutes of silence, my phone rings. Again, I let it go to voice mail and wait for the ping before I listen to the message.

“Ava, pick up your goddamned phone. I need to talk to you and find out what in the hell is going on! Fuck!” Sean is breathing hard and his voice sounds angrier, bordering on rage, and it freaks me out.

“So, I’m wrapping things up, and I walk into the gallery to leave some paperwork for Adam, and your boy Max is sitting in the middle of the room with his head in his hands. I ask him what he’s doing and nothing…I mean he doesn’t even look at me. So I walk right up to him, and he ignores me so I shout his name, and all he does is moan like he’s been shot or something. What the fuck?

“Ava, I need to know, and I mean right now. What did this asshole do? You would never leave the studio like you did, and he’s in this freaky state. If he did anything, touched a single hair on your head, I’m going to beat the crap out of him. I don’t care who the motherfucker is. And if you don’t call me right back, I might just do it anyway because he’s freaking me the hell out. Call me now, Ava! NOW!”

The bile rises up my throat and I choke it down. The picture of Max broken down in the gallery is haunting, especially because since we’ve met, I’ve been the one to help him during his low times. I certainly won’t be helping him now.

I wipe my tears and clear my throat. As my fingers fumble across the screen of my phone, I figure out what I can say to Sean to minimize the damage.

He picks up during the first ring. “Ava, are you okay?” he shouts, his voice a mix of fury and concern.

“I’m sorry, Sean. I’m sorry I left things like I did. That was so not cool, but Max really pissed me off, and I was afraid I’d say something to ruin the project. I just needed to get out of there for a while.”

“You needed to get out of here for a while?” he repeats sarcastically. “What the fuck happened, Ava? The guy in the next room isn’t sitting there moaning because you had a
little
argument. What aren’t you telling me?”

“He’s a crazy-ass artist. You know how unstable they are. We had an argument about the book and he got mad, and then I got mad and left. That’s it, so don’t beat him up—as much as I know you’d enjoy it—just get him out of there.”

“And how do you propose I do that? He’s ignoring me. Should I hoist him onto a dolly and roll him out to his car?”

“Very nice, Sean. No, just push him out the door. This is how he acts when he’s really upset. He won’t fight you.” Although I’m not one hundred percent sure Max won’t fight if Sean pushes him out, I hedge my bets.

“Argh! Okay, I’ll try, but I’m calling you as soon as I’m done, and you better pick up the goddamned phone.”

“I promise I will.”

After I hang up, traffic starts to break up, and I actually make it down two streets in a row without hitting my brakes. I’m just a few blocks from home when the phone rings again and I answer.

“Ava, that dude is messed up. You should seriously stay away from him. I had to push him all the way to his car, and he looked like the world had ended. It was fucking creepy.”

“What happened after that?”

“I went inside and wrapped things up. When I went to leave, he and his car were gone. He must have gotten his shit together enough to drive.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” I sigh. “Look, Sean, I’m really sorry about all of this, and I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’m going to make sure you do. You’ll be taking me out for drinks, wherever I want to go…even if it’s a sports bar or strip club.”

“Okay, whatever you want,” I repeat numbly.

I don’t know when I’ve been so grateful to be home from work. Riley greets me cheerily, holding three small hangers with tulle-laced confections.

“Look, Ava. Our latest princess designs.” She beckons to me and holds up each of the miniature dresses, one at a time, for my viewing pleasure.

I dump my bags down on the living room couch and groan. “Riley, doesn’t it bother you that you’re shoving this princess propaganda down little girls’ throats and teaching them they don’t have to work hard and develop their intellects to grow up to be strong independent women? Instead, they should focus on dressing up pretty and waiting for their prince to come along and take care of them? I think companies like the one you work for are ruining an entire generation of young women.”

Her eyes widen and she frowns. “Rough day, Ava, or is there another reason I get to be the focus of your bitch-fest?”

She pivots around in her platform shoes and marches back to her bedroom.

Damn!
Riley didn’t deserve that. I’ll apologize later when I’m not so edgy.

I pick up the pink tiara from the table. The wires are strung with pink crystal beads and woven together in the shape of a crown. A medallion with the glowing portrait of a princess is glued to the front. I run my fingers over her printed face.

What’s she so damn happy about? If there’s anything I’ve learned today, it’s that there ain’t no Prince Charming… just crazy-ass artists who want to fuck you in hallways.

I sigh and walk slowly to my room, crawl onto my bed, pull my knees into my chest, and wrap my arms around them protectively. I wish I could believe that I’m better off without Max—that he’s trouble no matter what. But part of me doesn’t believe that. Part of me cares about him.

It reminds me of a universal truth. There’s no better way to realize how much something means to you than to lose it.

I show up to work the next day with my tail between my legs, prepared to kowtow to Sean to make up for yesterday’s transgressions. Luckily, he’s in a generous mood, and other than making me promise to take him to his favorite sports bar Saturday evening, he’s merciful and doesn’t make me grovel. I’m grateful it’s not a trip to his favorite strip club. To show my appreciation, I buy him his favorite drink, a venti blended mocha with extra whipped cream on my afternoon coffee run.