The Leftover Club (7 page)

“You do, too,” I said before I could stop myself. He grinned and I stumbled all over myself. “I mean, usually.”

“Good to know,” he teased.

He stood between me and the door, so I wasn’t sure how to delicately disengage. I opened my mouth but he quickly interrupted.

“Oh hey, I have something for you.” He walked to his stereo and sorted through the scattered cassettes before he snagged one. It was a cassette he had recorded, with music from his vast album collection. He labeled it, ‘
The Education of Roni
.’ I laughed when I read it. “You laugh. But there will be a test,” he added, which made me laugh more. He shrugged. “Nah, I just figured since I probably won’t be driving you home anymore, that was no reason to slack on your music education. I even put some slow crap on there, since I know you like it the best.”

“Thanks,” I offered. “I should probably…,” I started, motioning for the door.

“Yeah, I should probably…,” he said, motioning to the closet.

I went back to my bedroom and put the tape into my tape deck. The first song was, indeed, a slow one, “
Still Loving You
” by the Scorpions. That was Dylan’s definition of slow – power ballads by his favorite rock bands. I suspected he had configured his stereo to scramble and eject anything by the pop icons I normally listened to, even as he pulled me ever so grudgingly toward the harder stuff. I still listened to Wham and Lionel Richie, but I had to admit, there was something raw and powerful about harder rock and even classic rock, like the forlorn ballad that now blasted from my stereo.

It spoke of unrequited love, and I certainly was an expert in that.

I sat in front of my vanity table to finish my look for the dance. I fastened a tiny gold heart around my neck and reached for large dangling earrings that brushed my shoulders. I touched up my makeup but it was useless. I knew no matter how heavily I plastered cosmetics onto my face, I’d never look like that image of myself in my head.

I sighed, rose from the chair, turned off my stereo and went into the living room to wait for Dylan.

We arrived about an hour early for the dance. Amber was already there, hard at work even in her mauve silk dress. It was strapless and fit her body perfectly. She didn’t even need to add any accessories, her beauty accentuated it enough, which made my carefully applied cosmetics appear like even more of a mask than normal. Before I could beat myself up about it, however, our eyes locked and her face brightened with a broad smile when she saw us approach.

“
Roni, I’m so glad you’re here.”

I had become Amber’s right-hand woman over the past few weeks, so much so that she even called me several times a week to brainstorm over her newest creative inspiration. Dylan was forgotten as she linked her arm with mine and we put all the finishing touches on our pet project, which transformed the otherwise torturous gym into a Winter Wonderland. We didn’t stop fine-tuning everything until other students starting filling the gymnasium at quarter to seven that evening.

A DJ played all the latest hits, with nary a hard rock tune in sight. I glanced at Dylan where he stood across the room and I offered an apologetic shrug. He playfully glared at me and I laughed.

“So what’s going on here?”
Bryan wanted to know as he snuck up behind me.

“He hates our music,” I said.
Bryan had been educating me on music as well, though his tastes leaned toward new wave and top 40. Because of him I knew the B-52s, the Talking Heads and Depeche Mode, though I had yet to fully commit to his Madonna fixation.

“Oh, he does?”
Bryan asked. Apparently it was a challenge he accepted. He walked to the DJ and the next thing I knew, Animotion was blasting from the speakers. Bryan grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor.

Other than an atomic blast,
Bryan Dixon was the only thing that could get me onto a dance floor. He had taught me all the latest moves with varying degrees of success. We mastered several famous dance routines, from
Grease
to
Footloose
, even the
Thriller
video. It should have given me confidence, but I already knew from gym that any time I moved my body was an invitation to evoke stares and laughter from my classmates.

Bryan didn’t seem to care and often questioned why I did.

It was hard to explain, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that one of those spectators happened to be my #1 boy crush. Dylan watched our spectacle with interest, which made me even more self-conscious than usual. Bryan must have seen it, too, because he threw himself into character of someone obsessed over his partner.

I took a deep breath of relief the minute the song ended. We walked over to the buffet table and grabbed some festive red punch.
Bryan downed his in one swallow before he decided that the other two Leftovers should get their turn on the dance floor. Thanks to his thoughtfulness and his ability to just not give a damn what other people thought or said, Olive, Charlie and I felt like the belles of the ball, even if Dylan only had eyes for Amber.

We were used to the fact we didn’t raise one blip on his radar.

When he joined me a little later, I was sure it was to ask me how he could get closer to Amber. This was, after all, his last great chance to make his move. Instead he seemed more curious about Bryan. “I didn’t realize you had gotten so close.”

“We’re all close,” I shrugged as I watched
Bryan dance with both Olive and Charlie.

“Who’s ‘all’?” he wanted to know.

My eyes widened as they shot to his. Like I could ever tell him about the Leftover Club. “Just. You know. Outcasts. No one wants us so we found each other.”

It was as honest as I could dare to be.

He nodded as if he understood, but I knew he didn’t. The song changed to a Foreigner power ballad, which seemingly met with Dylan’s approval. He grabbed my hand and, without asking, pulled me to the dance floor.

“Dylan, no,” I started to protest.

“What?” he teased with a half-grin. “Am I not good enough to be part of the club?”

I swallowed hard as he pulled me close to him
. I could barely form a thought. “You couldn’t belong to our club,” I finally said softly.

“Why not?”

“Because everybody wants you,” I muttered.

He scoffed. “Not everybody.”

I glanced at Amber, who was standing with one of the chaperones. She wasn’t even looking our way. With a sigh I placed my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Though I tried to concentrate on the song, all I could think about was the way his hand felt along the small of my back. His body was strong and lean; I could almost feel every curve of every muscle as we swayed slowly together.

When it dawned on me how much I could feel that I probably shouldn’t feel
, my eyes darted to his. They were dark and unreadable as he glanced down at my face. It seemed as though the rest of the world faded to a low hum and a dull blur as I allowed myself to meet that dark gaze. He absently brushed my bared skin with his thumb and I trembled in spite of myself. His eyes traveled down my face to my lips, which I liked nervously, as my mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara. I might have hallucinated it, but I could have sworn I saw his head tilt ever so slightly toward mine.

Clearly I was going insane. There was no way, even if I had fallen, smacked my head on the pavement and tripped through a portal in time to another
universe in another dimension that Dylan Fenn could ever want to kiss me. In public. In front of our entire school. So I did the only rational thing I could do. I pulled back against his arm and darted from the dance floor immediately.

I had done my part and I had earned my grade. It was time to find
Bryan to take me home.

December 31,
1999

I sat at my vanity table, staring at my reflection. This was a bad idea. This was a horrible, awful, really terrible idea. What was I thinking? Clearly the cheese finally slid entirely off my cracker. I was overcome with Y2K fever and, in the face of the impending apocalypse, had decided to throw all caution to the wind and behave in a manner heretofore unthinkable.

I was going to another party with Dylan Fenn.

Well, actually I was going with Bryan and Dylan would just happen to be there. But either way, it was a really bad, horrible idea.

Yet I kept brushing powder on my face. I still affixed the diamond hoop earrings on my ears. Even though I’d gained almost twenty pounds following my divorce, my fuller face was pimple, and wrinkle, free. Now that I was speeding toward the big 3-0 at an
accelerated pace, these were things of immediate concern.

I crapped out on that roll.
I finally got the peaches and cream complexion I had always wanted just in time to fend off crow’s feet and laugh lines.

Fortunately for me, my marriage to Wade Connor
had proved no laughing matter.

But I couldn’t think about that now. And I certainly couldn’t think about the reason I ended up divorcing more than a year and a half before, leaving me
some twenty-nine-year-old divorcee on the eve of a brand new century.

I glanced down at my
size-12 dress, which was long, black, and covered with not-so-festive black sequins. I looked like I was going to a funeral, and I supposed in part I was. I was finally burying that awkward teen from the 80s alongside that unhappy wife from the 90s. Who would take their place was the big question.

I still didn’t know.

It was a new century with new possibilities.

I
had a new job and that new job had certain perks, like holiday parties in Beverly Hills with an elite clientele of celebrities that landed on every ranking list you could imagine, from box office titans to voiceover actors. This eclectic list included Dylan, who was one of my boss’s newest acquisitions, thanks in no small part to my setting up a meeting with them six months before. After a few national commercials, he now had a bit part on brand new sitcom that everyone hoped would become the next
Friends
.

We all had a lot to celebrate.

So why didn’t I feel like celebrating?

I sighed as I picked up the jeweled frame with Meghan’s latest school photo. It was the first major h
oliday we had spent apart, and Wade had taken her all the way back east to visit his family.

I got Christmas, so he got New Year’s. That was the deal.

I still felt like I was missing a limb. I found myself craning an ear toward the empty hallway in my tiny apartment, listening for the calls for “Mom,” that would not come. I wanted to check on her, to tuck her in, to read a bedtime story to her like I always did.

But her cheerful purple bedding was undisturbed, leaving behind a host of stuffed animals that didn’t seem to care how many times I had gone into her room and sat on her bed and reconsidered – yet again – if I should have fought harder to save my marriage, shitty though it was.

I wondered if she called out for me when I wasn’t around as much as she had called out for Wade once we had moved out of our home in Costa Mesa. He never said, but he was fairly content to speak to me through lawyers. It had been that way ever since The Incident that had occurred five weeks after my ten-year high school reunion.

I
closed my eyes and dropped my head in my hands. I thought about bowing out of the festivities for the night, but the knocking on my door ruled out that possibility. Bryan was here, and I knew he would not be denied.

He had assigned himself as my personal cheerleader to help me through this confusing, painful transition, and was solely responsible for my finding a new job, a new apartment
and a whole new set of friends who accepted me unconditionally.

I wished we were heading back to
Eleete for their New Year’s Eve bash, but Bryan insisted that socializing was a big part of my new career in the entertainment industry. It was all based on relationships, he told me more than once. We had to make our appearances, schmooze and network.

Personally I’d rather be on my couch in my jammies watching Dick Clark and drinking cheap sparkling wine right from the bottle.

But I plastered a fake smile on my face, swung open the door to my lifelong best friend and allowed him to escort me to the rented limo.

I was overwhelmed as we entered the ballroom in a
n iconic Beverly Hills hotel. Crystal chandeliers hung over large round tables set in dramatic black, red and white for the festivities. Tabletop topiary centerpieces stood high on each table, along with buckets of expensive champagne. Colorful lights danced on the wall, along with a huge video screen that sampled all of the work done by our impressive clients over the past year. A live band played on stage, and I recognized them right away.

Bryan
leaned toward my ear. “Shades away from the White Dance of ’85, huh?”

I nodded and laughed.
Shades away, indeed.

He led me to our table, where I was relieved to find several people I already knew. This included Dylan, who was snuggling close
to his blonde costar from the new show. She giggled at something he said, and I watched as his eyes fell to her full lips. Oddly it made my stomach jump, as if I had been the recipient of such attention.

I suppose I had… once upon a time.

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Bryan declared as we approached the table. Dylan looked up and our eyes met, but I quickly looked away. He stood to shake Bryan’s hand and plant a friendly kiss in greeting on my cheek. He then pulled me down to the vacant chair to his left. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to come,” he said with a glint in his eyes.

“
Bryan threatened to use chloroform and duct tape if I didn’t,” I quipped.

“Don’t think I wouldn’t,”
Bryan growled playfully. “No one should miss the soiree of the season.”

“It’s the only way to ring in the 21
st
Century,” Dylan agreed. “With old friends, and new.” He grinned at the stunning blonde at his side. If Dylan was a D-list celebrity, Emma Sterling was a few notches ahead of him on the B-list. Her name wouldn’t draw people to the box office, but she remained one of the top ten Internet searches after an appearance on
The 100 Hottest to Watch
list for 1999. Though barely twenty-two, she was already a soap opera veteran. Her youthful appearance gave her ample opportunity to play characters much younger, which made her a driving force in the teen-centered storyline. Now she had her sights set on primetime TV. She had the lead role in
Hannah Next Door
, the show that could make both Emma and Dylan stars if the network picked it up mid-season.

“Speaking of which,”
Bryan announced as he hopped right back out of his chair, “time to make some new friends.” He dragged me by the hand toward the bar, where people milled around in tiny circles that Bryan was determined for us to infiltrate.

It was so much easier for him than it was for me. I stood a step behind him, nursing my colorful sugary cocktail, once again admiring how
Bryan could command a crowd. He had been so far ahead of his time in high school, which seemed silly in comparison.

I was refreshing my drink at the bar when Dylan sauntered up behind me. “Having fun?”

“Better than a root canal, but more painful than a stubbed toe,” I said as I reached for yet another drink.

“Can’t be as bad as all that,” he said as he leaned against the bar.

“I’ve never liked parties. You know that.”

His voice softened. “They weren’t all bad.”

I looked away.

“If it helps, you look fantastic.”

My eyes met his. “I look like Morticia.”

He laughed.
“So tell me. Does Morticia dance?”

“You already know the answer to that question.”

“You’re right,” he conceded as he grabbed my hand. “I do.” He pulled me toward the crowded dance floor right in front of the stage.

I spent the rest of the evening vaulting between
Bryan and Dylan, until all of us, including Emma, ended up dancing together as well-known bands took to the stage. The frivolity around us was contagious, and I even managed to forget how depressed I had been about my first real holiday away from my daughter. This was my life now, and it didn’t have to suck.

When the countdown struck, I was in high spirits.
Bryan planted a kiss on my lips on the stroke of midnight, before I was swung around into Dylan’s arms. I sucked in a breath as I saw the look in those dark eyes, framed by even darker lashes. I suddenly became very aware that his body was hard and supple beneath the suit he wore. His head tilted toward mine and his warm mouth covered mine for a split second that felt more like it stretched on for an eternity. I gasped when I felt the warm inside of his mouth cover my lips, which would have deepened the kiss had I not pulled away instantly. Our eyes locked for a split second before I glanced around for Emma, sure she would be shocked by the intimacy of the moment. But she and Bryan were spreading sugar all around with hugs and kisses to our new friends and acquaintances.

Their networking had been successful.

All I could think about was the look in Dylan’s eyes as he held me a beat longer than could ever be deemed proper. I started to pull away but this time he held me close. “Wanna get out of here?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” was my automatic, truthful
reply. But then I saw the glint in his eyes and immediately amended my response. “I mean no. What about your date?”

“What about yours?” he challenged.

I rolled my eyes. “Dylan.”

“If this is about what happened last time,” he started, but I pulled away and pushed my way through the crowd. He remained hot on my heels until we spilled out into the lobby, where the noisy crowd behind us began to dim. He grabbed my arm and swung me back around. “I already told you that I was sorry about that.”

I sighed. “And it didn’t change one damn thing, did it?”

Words hung unspoken between us for long moments. Finally he said, “Happy New Year,
Roni. I hope the new century is much kinder to you than the last one was.”

I gave a helpless shrug. “It can’t be much worse,” I said. Without another word I turned to summon a taxi to take me home.