True North Read online

  Perhaps it’s only some kind of fascinating and wild sexual attraction. The kind I’ve never felt or believed in before. While James and I had great sex, I never threw myself at him in the way I seem to be compelled to do now. Certainly not on the second date, for cripe’s sake.

  James was a good man, in every single way. Loyal, gorgeous, kind, funny, passionate, and he loved me in a way I never truly appreciated. His love, the part I actually understood when he was alive, made me whole. He was sensual in everything, from the way he touched me to the way he worked the current of a river. That intimacy was what made me safe with him, safe enough to ask for everything I wanted when we were together.

  Trevor, on the other hand, makes me want everything right now. Without any need for comfort or security. Not later, not in a while, not in a month. Absolutely right freaking now.

  There has to be more to it than lust. I’m not hardwired to triumph over people and then leave them behind. I’m a measured, logical, thoughtful person. Now, there’s a real positive daily affirmation for you. Perhaps they’re pumping some kind of feel-good aromatherapy thing through the ductwork around here.

  Buried in all of it, there’s the real riddle. Clearly, I’m capable of desire, but in the end, that doesn’t mean I can be anything more than a woman who wants him to get naked. There is probably a long list of other women who feel the same. The problem is there’s brokenness under the surface of his bravado, something raw that could be both angry and ragged. To take all that too lightly would probably be a mistake for both of us.

  I leave the pretaping in the late afternoon and take a taxi back to the hotel. Trevor mentioned he would be stuck in the studio most of the night, and I’m somewhat relieved. Maybe the obnoxious stench of self-help lingering in Evelyn Summers’s studio is clouding my head, but I spent so much of the day analyzing everything, I decide it might be best to go home and leave him in the past as a fleeting dalliance.

  The next day, I keep my alluring persona on deck for the Evelyn Summers taping. Doing my best to be a charming type of woman, I dress in a demurely sexy fit-and-flare dress that lands midthigh, covered in the cutest navy-and-white swiss dots. This is the woman Stephen said all the soccer moms want to be like. The shoes alone might be enough to make me an object of envy, perversely expensive sling-back stilettos in a dark blue patent leather, festooned with delicate white bows at the toe and the heel.

  Evelyn asks thoughtful questions and I’m shocked, because it never occurred to me that the former soap star had actually read my book. I figured a staff member read it and just typed out key ideas on organized cue cards. Maybe they did, but if so, Evelyn should win a ton of Emmys, because she is certainly convincing.

  There are the inevitable questions about James. This audience, after all, is the kind that eats tragedy up with a spoon and then licks the bowl clean. I had debated how to handle the questions, knowing they were coming but unsure if people really want the unfettered truth. Even if they aren’t entitled to it.

  It makes for great television, obviously. When Evelyn asks about losing my husband, I answer with a detached description of his death and the moment I realized he was gone. As I speak, my response is so cold and canned that it’s like I’m watching myself give the interview.

  Then a middle-aged woman in the audience, wearing a red cardigan decorated with appliquéd cardinals, stands and speaks clearly into the microphone, enunciating every syllable more than necessary.

  “Do you ever feel guilty?”

  I stop breathing for a moment, presented with the question no one in my hometown has dared ask, that my family has the decency to avoid. Now a perfect stranger is asking me if I experience the single emotion that has plagued my nightmares and kept me awake at night for three years. I’m sure the entire town of Crowell has stopped breathing with me, waiting to hear my answer, knowing they’d tuned in for a reason.

  I clear my throat and regain my voice, staring straight ahead at the woman, piercing her with a fixed look.

  “I think the idea of guilt implies intent. I had an accident. Do I replay the entire thing in my head all the time, considering how I could have changed things? Yes. I’ve done it a million times. No matter how many times I do that though, nothing ever changes. ‘Guilt’ isn’t the right word for that feeling. Frankly, I still don’t have the right word yet.”

  The woman smiles at me, apparently satisfied with my answer. She nods with contrived sympathy, like she’s taking a little bit of my soul and grasping it in her pudgy hand, relishing her bloodthirsty possession of it.

  I shake my soul away from her grip. Detached from the intensity of it all, I see people in the audience crying, women wiping tears away from carefully made up faces. Evelyn Summers listens intently, her chin propped on her closed hand, fully engaged in the moment.

  I want to cry, puke, scream, and smile all at the same time.

  Later that afternoon, collapsing onto the hotel bed in complete exhaustion, I stare at the ceiling and promise myself I will never, ever do another interview or TV show. With the small exception of meeting Trevor on Hal Abrahms, nothing particularly good has ever come from any kind of publicity. The jury is still out on the Trevor deal, anyway.

  Who knows, I could look back on him and remember only a fiery crash-and-burn ending. Ah, the future is a bewitching little enigma. Do you open Pandora’s box and risk having your heart cut into little pieces that would feed a baby weasel? Maybe it’s better to crawl under this hotel’s cool and ridiculously high-thread-count sheets to sleep off the thoughts of his hands on your breasts, ass, and hips.

  I dig into my purse and make the one phone call that I must. After this, the sheets call my name. As does the minibar, perhaps.

  “Hello, my brunette Carrie Underwood. Wait, is she from Montana? I know she’s from somewhere country-like. I suppose you are calling me to express your undying gratitude for that kick-ass ensemble I sent over?”

  Kellan’s voice is loud, practically shouting and I can hear some kind of howling wind noise in the background.

  “I don’t look anything like Carrie Underwood. And she’s from Oklahoma. Where are you? It sounds like a tornado is coming. I hope you aren’t in a trailer park.”

  “Honey, I haven’t seen a trailer park since I loaded up my teal green Ford Festiva and drove it like I stole it out of Canton, Ohio. I’m on a photo shoot in Culver City; it’s a wind machine.”

  I love the idea of a very young Kellan, leaving everything he knew behind and becoming who he was supposed to be. He probably didn’t know it then, he only knew the potential, the great unknown, but he is so fully realized now that it’s utterly magnificent.

  “Yes, thank you for the outfit. Again, you have outdone yourself. I’d like to keep the dress and the shoes, just send me an invoice for them. The jewelry you can keep.”

  Kellan laughs boisterously. “I love that you love everything I put you in. You are too easy of a client. I’ll come by later and pick up the jewelry. Unless you’ll be out, getting naked with that delicious boy of yours.”

  Shutting my eyes tightly, I linger on the idea of Trevor naked and the way he felt under my hands.

  “Nope. I’m spent from the stupid show. I think I’ll just crawl under the sheets. It was hard. In an emotionally life-sucking kind of way.”

  “Oh, dear. I think that is a terrible idea. Let dainty David and I take you out on the town. In LA, you must erase a bad TV appearance from your mind by hitting an ultratrendy club and shaking your ass on the dance floor all night. It’s basically a state law.”

  “Oh, Kellan. Really?”

  “Yes, really. I am physically unable to take no for an answer. I’ll be there at eight to get you ready and drag you out. And, yes, there will be a beautiful sexy dress involved for you to wear.”

  I refuse to fight with him. It’s hopeless and deep down I know that pouting in my hotel room until my flight home won’t actually make me feel better anyway. I hang up the phone and take a nap, knowing I’ll need
all my strength to keep up with them tonight.

  Standing in the bathroom, I tug uselessly on the hem of the dress Kellan has brought over. No matter how hard I pull, it simply doesn’t get any longer. A vivid royal blue dress, it has a halter neckline that leaves my back bare to the small of my waist. The only thing modest about it is that the front drapes over my breasts instead of being skintight as it is over my legs and ass. The dress, coupled with the crazy chic rocker ponytail and dark smoky makeup that David styled, lends a hard edge to what would otherwise merely be, well . . . totally slutty.

  “Seriously? I can’t leave the hotel in this! I’ll get picked up by the vice squad. I can only hope they’ll think I’m a high-class escort instead of a twenty-bucks-in-the-alley kind of girl.” I call out through the door to where Kellan and David are waiting impatiently.

  “It’s a club dress. You’ll fit right in with all the socialites and the real high-dollar prostitutes at the club. Now get your cute keister out here so we can plow, baby!” Kellan yells back and then I can hear him just on the other side of the door. “I will pick the lock on this door if you don’t come out in ten seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  Swinging the door open, I walk out into the sitting area of my hotel suite. Perhaps “teeter out” is a better description, because with every outfit Kellan provides, the heels on the shoes seem to get taller and taller. I’m getting used to the routine, so I stand awkwardly with my hands on my hips and wait for one of them to give me the swirling motion with his finger, signaling that I should twirl for their inspection.

  “OK, you have to own it when you wear a dress like this. Shoulders back, no tugging, and no fidgeting. Your body was made for this dress. All you have to remember is that guys will be boldly eyeball-fucking you all night, and your job is to look like you want them to.”

  Kellan looks dead serious when he says this, as if he is preparing a champion boxer for the fight of a lifetime. “Now, final chance. Are you going to call that yummy little Trax to come join us tonight?”

  “You’ve asked me that three times. He’s probably still in the studio, and I don’t think it’s a very good idea anyway. This dress and Trevor shouldn’t mix.”

  My brain knows that this makes sense, yet my body reacts differently. Truthfully, the idea of him seeing me in this dress is terribly enticing. Despite that, after today and the emotional excavation my heart took on the show, I’m not sure how to handle Trevor. It’s probably better not to handle him at all. Even years later, I still have a lot of letting go to do when it comes to James. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to let go and grab on at the same time.

  Kellan shrugs and gives me a conciliatory look as we head out the door into the hallway. Then he takes my left hand and David takes my right hand as they start singing “Lady Marmalade” at the top of their lungs, for the millionth time in the last hour.

  11

  The club is every bit the Hollywood cliché, dark and loud, full of people who are so into their own bullshit they can barely string a three-sentence conversation together with one another. The bartenders look perpetually annoyed, the bouncers are so tan their eyes look like a raccoon’s caught on a night-vision camera, and if it weren’t for Kellan, I’m sure the girl working the door would have bluntly told me to find a Dave & Buster’s to enjoy the evening at.

  Instead, she gives Kellan and David the whole kiss-kiss routine, tells me she adores my dress, and then sends us to a VIP table in the back. At the table are a few other friends of Kellan’s, two chiseled boys with the gaunt, striking good looks of runway models plus a dowdy-looking woman in jodhpur pants and a gold sequined top, and carrying a wooden cane. Perhaps she is trying to be fashionably irreverent, but unfortunately, she just looks plain nuts. She’s “smoking” an electric cigarette and looking as apathetic as she possibly can. I’m sure when she writes about it on her blog tonight, she will have some overwrought observations about society, poseurs, lemmings, and the like.

  They introduce me all around and before I can sit down and stay there with my dress in place, Kellan yanks me toward the dance floor. I need a drink before I can dance and I make a gesture to him so he understands what I need. Instantly, he raises two fingers over his head and points at someone. Then a girl in a tiny plaid skirt, thigh-high black patent leather boots, and a miniscule white tank top is at my side.

  “Whad’ya need, honey?” She leans down to put her ear toward my face so she can hear me. All I can focus on are her outrageous breasts, in all their silicone glory, completely trussed up in a black bra that I can see through her shirt. It’s impossibly distracting for me, so I can only imagine the incoherent babbling she hears from men all night.

  “Vodka and tonic!” I shout. She nods and turns on her heel to sashay back to the bar. Drifting back to the table where our group is, I hope she comes back soon because I feel the overwhelming need to loosen up immediately. Thankfully, by the time I sit down, I can already see her heading back with my drink.

  Apparently, when Kellan said I had to “own it” in a dress like the one I’m wearing, the attitude of this cocktail girl is what he meant. She makes virtually no eye contact with anyone yet clearly knows how unbelievably hot she looks. It radiates from of every move she makes, from the swish of her hips to the way her shoulders are back almost defiantly. I take note and decide if there is ever a time to live a little, it’s tonight, in this dress, in this club, in this town. The combination of it all is sure to drown out what happened at the show today. Then tomorrow, I can click my heels and fly home to a place that knows the real me even better than I do sometimes.

  I finish my drink quickly and hang back for a few more songs, making sure I can still stand. It’s a club, though, so the only thing about the drinks that packs a punch is the price. Kellan spies me from on the dance floor and points at me exaggeratedly with both hands, indicating that I am to come to him. With the drink, the dress, the music, and the inspiration of the cocktail girl, I strut out toward him with a smile on my face, raising my arms triumphantly. Kellan claps his hands and screams to me, “Dance! Dance, you hot thing!”

  Doing as I’m told, the music seems to get louder when I start to focus on it, finding the rhythm and letting the beat into every limb of my body. The entire thing, my hips swaying, arms in the air, ass shaking, it all feels so perfect and I can’t get enough. We dance and dance and dance, as the DJ feeds each song into the next in a perfect orchestration. My jaw hurts from grinning so much, laughing at Kellan every time he throws some oddball electric slide move or does a John Travolta Saturday Night Fever thing.

  Finally, the DJ dials the tempo back just a bit into an electronica song that gives us some relief from our rabid pace. The song is mostly a thrumming bass beat, deep and provocative, so concentrated that I feel it in my belly. I close my eyes and let it drown me, the heavy thumping drumming in my ears, and in my mind, it’s only Trevor. My body summons every touch, every kiss, and every moan from yesterday’s memories. When the songs ends and I reluctantly open my eyes, I’m left disappointedly aroused.

  Kellan has abandoned me on the dance floor, leaving me to the hungry wolves that have nestled in dancing next to me and eyeball-fucking me as he warned would happen. I search the crowd, trying to find him in the mass of bodies.

  My eyes still feel hooded with longing when they settle near our table. Then I see Trevor. He’s sitting on a low-slung couch with his arms stretched out over the back and his legs in a wide-open stance, and he’s watching me. Our eyes lock, and at first I think he’s a mirage or an electronica-induced hallucination. When he stands and walks toward me, I squint to make sure it isn’t a doppelgänger, because he doesn’t look like himself. Dressed in a pair of slim gray trousers and a perfectly tailored white dress shirt open at the collar, he’s every bit the metrosexual poster boy. No hoodie, no T-shirt, just fine bespoke fabrics draping over each amazing part of him. Without even thinking, I’ve drifted off the dance floor, meeting him halfway. I reach out and slide
my hands over his shirt, checking to make sure he’s real.

  He tugs at my waist and leans down to me. “Fuck, watching you dance is the sexiest thing I’ve seen a long time, Kate.”

  “I was thinking about you,” I murmur, but loud enough to be sure he can hear. He groans and lets one hand slide down from my waist to my ass, pulling me into him. “What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that?”

  He cranes back to face me with one side of his mouth quirked up into a sexy smile. “I got your text. There’s a dress code here, so I had to clean up for you.”

  I look at him befuddled. “I didn’t text you.”

  “Yes, you did.” He pulls out his phone and shows me a text. I see my name on the display and the simple fact he has me in his phone under “sweet sexy kate” threatens to make me drop to the floor.

  Hey tiger, my superstylist is taking me out tonight. Meet us at Bronze14. I’ll be the goddess in the blue halter dress.

  Laughing, I point to the phone. “I didn’t send that! When have I ever called you ‘tiger’? Or referred to myself as a ‘goddess’?”

  Trevor looks at the phone and then at me. “I thought it didn’t sound exactly like you. I figured you were being funny or something.” He furrows his brow. “Then who sent this?”

  I look over at the table and see Kellan, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He proceeds to curtsy theatrically and then takes a bow. Grinning, I point toward him and Trevor follows my gesture.

  “That guy over there. The one in the yellow pants and plaid shirt? That’s Kellan. He must have hijacked my phone earlier.”

  Trevor looks back at me with hurt and confusion awash on his face. “Hold the fuck up, you didn’t want me here? You didn’t ask me to come to you?”