Jenny rushed to be ready in fifteen minutes with combed hair, brushed teeth, clothes on. She stepped out of her room to a David she’d never seen before. A dark, angry scowl twisted the charm from his features.
“What took so long?” he spat.
“Long? I was only in there fifteen minutes from the time you woke me.”
“Jenny, you’ve been in there all day. You haven’t moved. You’re killing me. I have things to do. People waiting on me.” His cell chirped out a tune, his tune, and he glanced at it.
“Just go on then. You don’t need to hang around here. I don’t need that.”
“Quit being so bitchy. Katy said not to leave you.”
“I’m fine.” She watched him consider her proposal for a second, and then he shook his head.
“No, come on.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her out the door. “I’ll feed you then I’m out of here. You look like you need to eat.”
• • •
They spoke little until they arrived at the restaurant, a quaint but speedy sandwich shop minutes away from her apartment. They ate in silence while David pecked away at texting someone on his phone. Jenny pulled her hair down over the forehead bump with her fingers. She scanned the restaurant while waiting for their food. Pictures of various city locations, taken in black and white, graced the walls. Where no pictures hung, the walls were covered in rustic brick with a brown lumber support beam threaded in periodically. The lights hanging over each table glowed through the thick glass of wine bottles that had the bottoms cropped off and a light bulb inserted. An open brick oven graced a corner behind the counter where a man in a white chef’s coat rolled and kneaded mounds of dough into rounds. A task he’d obviously mastered over time. He then slid them into the oven on long handled boards. The scent of yeast and flour baking into bread made Jenny’s mouth water. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Heaven.
A blast of cool air hit her face when the door opened. She glanced toward it to see a crowd of people enter the restaurant, cheerily talking and laughing. As the group moved in to accommodate the ones behind, Grant emerged from the back along with Hodge, who shepherded another person through with them. He was an early twenties, blonde youth with long bangs that hung into his eyes like sticks. Grant held her gaze briefly before Hodge recognized Jenny and called out.
“Oh my God! Look who’s here!” Hodge said. He clapped as if to applaud her arrival and strode to their table. Jutting out a hand to clasp hers, he smiled broadly.
“I just asked Grant about you this morning and what do you know — here you are.” He pulled Jenny into a short hug, crushing her face into his shoulder. While her cheek smashed against him, she looked warily into David’s eyes.
“Yes, here I am. How are you, gentlemen? Car fixed, dog still drooling, and life is good?”
Hodge laughed and nodded. “Yes. Yes. All is great.”
David interrupted his texting to take in the men that approached. His mouth dropped briefly then he composed himself and flashed a bright smile. “Hello. I’m David Keith.” He held out a hand to Hodge, who was so busy talking to Jenny that he didn’t notice. Grant took the hand and introduced himself.
Jenny turned, “I’m sorry. Hodge, Grant — this is David.” She swept a hand toward him. “I don’t believe you’ve met but you might just have a lot in common.”
David stood, scraping his chair loudly over the wood floor. “Yes, I — ”
Grant interrupted. “David Keith, local musician and lead singer of Blind Optimism. Yes, we’ve seen a lot about you lately. Sounds like your band’s doing pretty well.” He darted a glance from David to Jenny then cleared his throat. “Our party’s leaving us so we’d better let you get back to your lunch.”
Hodge registered the trail of people headed toward a booth in the back and squeezed Jenny’s hand. “So great to see you, Jenny. You look terrific, as always.”
He started away then turned. He swished a finger in the air as if he’d had an epiphany. “Hey, I have this thing on Friday night at my house — sort of a social for our new client. Oh my God, I forgot. Jenny, this is Clyde Hill, he’s going to light up the charts — an amazing young talent.” Hodge grabbed the young man’s arm and pulled him forward. Close up, she realized he was younger than she first thought. A teen still battling the effects of acne and shyness around adults. The young man nodded with his hands fisted in his pockets.
Jenny smiled and waved. “Hi.”
“Anyway,” Hodge continued, “we have this party on Friday and I’d love for you to come if you’re free. It’s sort of a pre-holiday get-together and of course, a celebration of our new talent here.” He patted Clyde on the back. “I know Grant would love for you to be there. Wouldn’t you, Grant?”
All eyes turned to the dark-haired man in the gray pinstripe suit that shadowed Hodge.
“Yeah, that would be terrific,” he answered.
Jenny was sure she detected less than enthusiasm in his response as he met her gaze. Behind her, David placed an arm on her shoulder and responded, “Of course we’ll come. We’d love to.”
They quickly moved away through the tables to join the group in the back. Grant glanced back for a second and shrugged, then mouthed the word “sorry” at her.
“How do you know
them
?” David blurted. “Holy cow, I can’t believe it.” His cell buzzed and skated on the table trying to get his attention, but he ignored it and leaned toward her. “You never told me you had contacts like that, babe. Geez, you could have said something. That man’s like, one of the best entertainment guys around. I’d kill to get signed with him.”
Jenny stood there amazed that twice in one day she’d observed sides to David she didn’t even know existed — sides that punctuated how little she really knew him.
A wonderful waft of warm bread greeted their table as their food arrived. David was ecstatic. He pumped Jenny for information about Hodge. What was he like, what kind of hobbies did he have, what did he talk about? She thought it odd that he didn’t ask how she met him or any details about Grant either. Jenny frowned and glanced at the pictures on the wall, realizing David had accepted the invitation for her and intended to go even though she was certain it had been directed at her initially.
“I thought you were out of town this weekend.”
Grant reclined in the booth and draped an arm over the back to position himself so he could see the room. The conversation boomed around him and he smiled occasionally but remained detached.
So that was David.
He hadn’t expected Jenny to be involved with a vocalist. He watched her nervously surveying the room, picking at her food, casually listening to David talk. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t put a finger on it, yet. The man talked animatedly and she just sat. Her fingers played with her hair, twisting it around them as she waited on him to eat. She reached up and brushed the bangs back from her forehead and he saw a bump. It startled him, a nasty swollen protrusion with a slightly yellowed tone. She pulled the hair back down over it, said something, and then rose to go to the ladies room.
“Excuse me folks. I think I’ll wash my hands,” Grant said to the group, and then waited for them to move so he could get out of the booth. Grant observed that as soon as Jenny left the table, David picked up his phone and began texting someone.
The bathrooms at the restaurant resided down a short hall lined with the same red brick that covered the other walls. The noise of the people had drowned the background music in the open dining area. In this isolated hall, he absorbed the rich tones of opera vocalists belting out an Italian rendering of “Silent Night.” He twitched his lips. Christmas music before Thanksgiving, even in Italian, signaled a flurry of parties coming. He hated parties.
Grant rested his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the brick a few feet from the door. When the door opened, he pretended to step toward the men’s room positioned further along the corridor.
Jenny lunged straight into his chest, a heavy thud that charged against him. “Oh! I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching. Are you okay?”
“Sure.” He lightly grasped her forearms to steady her. “The question is are you?”
Her hair was strategically hiding the bruise. She fingered it, and then tilted her chin.
“Good. Peachy.”
“Liar.” He lifted a finger and pushed the bangs back to reveal the damage. “How’d you get the knot on your head?” Up close, there were grayish blue smudges of bruising surrounding the area that protruded. He frowned as he surveyed it.
“Car accident.”
He raised a brow and ran a finger over it. That better not be human-induced.
“I ran my brand new car into a telephone pole.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I thought something was in the road. I swerved so I wouldn’t hit it.”
He frowned a moment then lifted his lips into a grin. “It looks like you did. You hit it pretty hard by my guess. Did someone get in your way, or piss you off, Jen?”
She shoved against his chest and stepped back. “Very funny. I’m glad you find my little concussion humorous.”
“Not funny. When I first saw it, I thought he’d hit you. I guess I overreacted. It would have explained things better though.”
“What things?”
He was wrong. Her anger came from somewhere else. Why is it that every time a man sees a bruised woman, he immediately thinks she’s battered? Is that a protective instinct? Admittedly, he would have liked to deck David. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought appealed to him. Something about the guy just pissed him off. She averted her eyes to the doors at the end of the hall. Two circled windows fitted into swinging doors. Behind them, the kitchen crew bustled around preparing orders.
“Why you go from docile to pending explosion in seconds. Why you protect your personal space like a knight guards a castle? And it practically kills you to flash a smile, unless of course, there’s business involved. Then you can’t stop and it’s strange because I can’t tell which one is the real person, and which one is the fence.”
“I’m not like that.” She paused. “What do you mean by ‘the fence’?”
“You know — the wall that you put up on the outside, not the inside. So people can’t tell what’s going on inside there.” He tapped a finger to her forehead forgetting about the bump behind her bangs. She winced. “Oops, sorry. There’s something interesting about it though — especially because under all that crap, you’re obviously a decent person.”
The kitchen doors crashed open, a dish cart followed by a young woman shoved into the hall. The girl moved between them, offering muffled excuses. They flattened themselves against the wall to make room.
“Glad to know you think so highly of me. I need to get back, Grant. It was good talking to you.” She watched the cart rattle away from them. There was something else going on. She nearly leaped out of her shoes when the doors opened. Something told him there was more to the bump on her head than a fender bender. He grasped her wrist.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Fine.” She hesitated. “But, thanks for asking. I guess I’ll see you at Hodge’s party.” She pinched her face into a grimace. Ah, she doesn’t like parties either.
“It’s a semi-formal thing. Do you own a dress?”
“You think I don’t?”
“I didn’t say that, just … I haven’t seen you wear one.”
She eyed him with distaste. He apparently had just insulted her. He seemed to do that easily, without intention.
“You’ve seen me what — twice? Every girl owns a dress or two. Even ones like me. Grant, this whole entertainment agent business doesn’t really fit you. If someone asked me what you do for a living, I’d never have said this. An accountant maybe or a computer guy, sure, but not an entertainment agent. Or is that not what you do?”
“Technically, people call it an ‘entertainment executive,’ but yes, that’s what it is. I guess you thought me more boring?”
“Not boring, but not superficial either. Hodge and all those guys, they all seem obsessed with themselves. It’s all about being seen, isn’t it? Making sure your name is always in front of people so they don’t forget it.”
“Not
my name
… theirs.” He nodded toward the dining area. “And Hodge isn’t really like that. This is a calling for him. My name is irrelevant, though. I’m irrelevant.” He was hidden behind Hodge’s fame in the business, silently guiding the ship. He preferred it that way. It was easier to get things done without a cast of people trailing you all the time. Still, his name was beginning to carry weight. Not much recognition, just weight.
“You’re definitely not that.” She peered at him, a puzzled glance cast across her face.
“How’s the beast?”
“Bugsy? He’s good — goofy as always.” A shadow filled the hallway. He turned to see David approaching them. Grant realized his hand was still on her wrist and dropped it as the young rock star, on the brink of discovery, approached them.
“Hey, babe.” David kissed Jenny on the cheek. “I was getting worried. Everything okay here?” He smiled. Grant thought the man’s over-whitened smile a little cheesy. He kissed her on the cheek, not the lips? Hmmm. Interesting. Normally, a man doesn’t kiss his woman on the cheek when another guy is touching her. He goes straight for the lips, staking his claim. Unless the intruder’s no threat — married or gay. Grant narrowed his eyes and measured David. Or maybe he just doesn’t see a threat. Yes, interesting. He liked the idea of David’s underestimation.
Grant glanced toward the dining room, recognizing the table probably missed him by now. He backed away from the two. “I need to get back to my group. You guys have a nice lunch.” He saluted them both and walked out of the hallway. Even with a bump on her head and all that surliness, something about Jenny attracted him.
Jenny sat at a streetlight, took a sip of her morning coffee, which now was really an afternoon coffee, and thunked the travel mug back in the cup holder. Back in the old Mercedes, she adjusted the Sirius radio to the modern country station and the sweet sound of Lady Antebellum singing “We Own the Night” filled the car. She smiled. She tapped her fingers to the steering wheel in rhythm with the clippity-clip of the drums in the song.