The Sugar Queen

  She sighed and walked over to Della Lee. She sat on the floor in front of the closet and opened the bag. “I talked with Chloe today. She remembered you, not by name, but that you always ordered this.” She unwrapped the sandwich. “She said you were always coming from court. Domestic disturbance and solicitation.” She took a bite, not looking at Della Lee. It was always easier after that first bite. No turning back. She had to eat the whole thing now.

  “And I’m sure that rankled your prim sensibilities.”

  “I don’t have prim sensibilities.” She finally looked up from the sandwich. “Were you really a prostitute?”

  “I did it to make Julian jealous. Well, sometimes I would do it for the money too. At one point it was even easy. You’d be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you’d do, when you take self-respect out of the equation.” Della Lee smiled and waved her hand dismissively when she saw the look on Josey’s face. “Never mind. So, Chloe remembered me? That’s nice. I wasn’t sure she would.”

  “She asked me to go to the Bald Is Beautiful festival tonight.”

  “That’s great! I knew the two of you would hit it off.”

  Josey shook her head and took another bite of the sandwich. “I can’t go.”

  “Why not? Wear that sweater you like so much, the one you just took off. It looks good on you. Go and see what happens.”

  Josey lowered the sandwich. “You think the sweater looks good on me?”

  “You know you want to go,” she said seductively, leaning forward so that her hair fell over her shoulder, stirring the air with the scent of river water. “Go, then come tell me everything. I’m forming a plan for you.”

  “Della Lee, you’re living in my closet, you’re blackmailing me over candy, and you are currently wearing sixteen articles of clothing. It’s amazing to me that you think I have problems. You need to form a plan for yourself.”

  Della Lee shook her head. “I gave up on me a long time ago. There’s still some hope for you, though.”

  Josey approached the stage. She was too late for the baldhead contest, and a band was now setting up. There were lots of college-aged kids milling around in groups, laughing, holding plastic cups of beer, waiting for the music. She spotted Chloe by her hair, a blaze of red shining in the stage lights, like spun cinnamon sugar. She stood near the Bald Slope Ski Resort booth to the right of the stage. The people in the booth were handing out free lift tickets, free CD cases and free skullcaps with the resort’s logo on them.

  Josey made a beeline for her. She knew people weren’t really looking at her. It only felt that way because Della Lee had insisted she wear her hair down, and she was wearing some of Della Lee’s makeup.

  Makeup. She couldn’t believe it.

  She used to experiment in her room with tubes of lipstick and bottles of rosewater blush she’d sneak out of her mother’s vanity when she was a child, trying to imitate her mother’s beauty. But she’d never worn makeup in public before. Her mother always said that, with Josey’s coloring, it would only make her look cheap. And Cirrinis were in no way cheap.

  That’s why Josey had decided not to tell her mother she was going out tonight. It’s why she’d waited until her mother had taken her pill and was fast asleep. It wasn’t really such a big deal. Her mother might not have even minded Josey going. But more than likely it would have involved a lot of guilt and a lot of criticism, and Josey just didn’t want to deal with it.

  She was twenty-seven years old. There was something profoundly wrong with sneaking out of the house at her age.

  Yet, here she was.

  When Josey finally walked up to Chloe’s side, Chloe looked relieved to see her. “Josey! I was about to give up on you.” She stepped back. “You look great. Wow.”

  With her gloved hand, Josey touched her cheek self-consciously. “I don’t usually wear makeup.”

  “You should. The hair, the makeup. It looks like you.”

  Josey hesitated, then pushed her curly hair behind her ears, feeling better. “So, what do we do?” she asked.

  “Want to get a beer?”

  “A beer.” Josey smiled slightly. “Okay.”

  “Why are you smiling?” Chloe asked.

  “I know someone who is going to love when I tell her this.”

  Once they got their cups, Chloe said, “Want to get something to eat?”

  Josey didn’t answer, because that wasn’t something she normally admitted in public, but Chloe was already heading to the food booths, so she followed. The area was encompassed in a bubble of warm, fragrant steam from the funnel cake deep-fryers. It smelled like sweet vanilla cake batter you licked off a spoon.

  She never went to the food booths when she was young. She would sit at the judges’ table with her father during the baldhead contest, then the chauffeur would take her home. Margaret always met her at the door with questions. Did he introduce her to anyone? Did everyone see them together? She was obsessed with Marco showing pride in his only child, even though it was something Margaret herself could not do.

  Chloe and Josey ate caramel apples and pecan sandies made by tiny old women from madly competitive church groups. Slowly, she began to relax. No one was watching. She was eating in public and it didn’t feel bad. It felt good, in fact. Wonderful. Maybe it was the food itself. Maybe it was the normalcy of it all.

  As she became more bold in looking around, she saw some people she recognized, but no one seemed to recognize her. Chloe was the exact opposite. People constantly stopped her to talk. There was Brittany, a girl she’d gone to high school with. June, whom she used to babysit. And then a woman named Flippa invited them both to a Tupperware party. Being here felt strangely empowering, like she now had a secret identity, a super power. She could go out looking like this, and no one knew her as Josey Cirrini. She was now just Josey, Chloe’s friend. She could eat and no one would say anything about it, look at her like it was wrong.

  She bought a plume of blue cotton candy before they left the food booths, and she picked at it while they headed down the row of booths occupied by residents of Bald Slope who had spent all summer making walnut salad bowls and jars of pickled watermelon rind to sell at the festival. Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people’s legs like house cats. It was magical, this snowglobe world.

  They were at the end of the craft booths, ready to turn toward the stage because Chloe wanted to listen to the band, when they suddenly turned at the sound of someone calling Chloe’s name.

  Jake Yardley was standing under the colorful lights strung above the walkway formed by the booths. People were walking around him, giving him curious glances. He was a mesmerizing man, intense and smart, with those strange green eyes all Yardley men had. People used to say that Yardley eyes could see right through you. The Cirrinis knew the Yardleys socially, both families having money and large real estate holdings in town. But Jake was a few years older than Josey, and he’d gone to boarding schools and Josey had been home-schooled by a long string of tutors, so they’d rarely crossed paths as children. When they had, at the odd social function or holiday party, Josey had been absolutely fascinated by him, by his eyes, by how polite he was, how quick he was to obey his parents. She’d never seen anything like it. She’d never socialized much with kids her own age, so she’d thought it was perfectly acceptable to pinch him to get his attention, to make him look at her. When he was younger, he would cry. As he got older he began to look at her with such sincere pity that it made her run away.

  “Clo, please,” he called, his voice desperate, a little slurred.

  “Crap. I didn’t think he’d be here. And I think he’s been drinking,” Chloe said tightly as she led Josey away, looking over her shoulder as they walked. “Oh, good, at least Adam is with him.”

  Like a hypnotist’s command, that made Josey stop and turn, as if not of her own will. Adam was trying to talk to Jake, standing in front of him and pushing him back. Jake gestured in Chloe’s direction and Adam
turned his head. He froze, his mouth open as if in mid-sentence. His eyes had fallen on Josey. Did he recognize her? What was that look? Men didn’t look at her that way. He’d never looked at her that way. Long looks from head to toe were for women like Della Lee and Chloe, not Josey. She looked down at herself to try to see what he saw. She saw her red sweater, but most of her seemed to be completely obliterated by the huge cloud of cotton candy she was holding. She quickly hid the cotton candy behind her back. But it was too late. Adam had already turned away and was pulling Jake with him.

  “How long?” Chloe asked.

  Josey turned to find Chloe looking at her thoughtfully. “Excuse me?”

  “How long have you been in love with Adam?”

  She brought the cotton candy from behind her back. “Is it written on my forehead?”

  Chloe smiled.

  “Since the moment I saw him,” Josey said quietly.

  “I don’t think he knows, Josey.”

  “Oh, I know he doesn’t.”

  Chloe looked again to where Adam and Jake had disappeared, then she locked her arm in Josey’s. “Come on.”

  As they made their way to the stage, Josey threw the stupid cotton candy away. What adult eats cotton candy, anyway? It was a stupid thing to buy.

  It was crowded in front of the stage as Josey followed Chloe into the warm and frantic hive of people. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, the movement and cohesion. It was like being enveloped by a warm wave of humanity. She felt anxious at first, like she was going to lose Chloe, or suffocate. But then she let herself move with the flow, like water.

  And she loved it.

  The band’s heavy bass boomed so loud she could feel it vibrate from the ground through her boots. For years Josey would lie in bed and hear the music from the festival, but she never dreamed she’d actually be here like this.

  About an hour later, Josey suddenly stopped moving with the crowd. She knew he was there before he spoke.

  “Chloe?”

  Chloe turned her head slightly. “Adam,” she said, looking back at the stage.

  “I took him home.” Adam leaned forward, talking loudly in order to be heard. “To my home. He was a little sauced. He’s trying to give you space, he really is. He feels horrible about what happened.”

  “Good.”

  Adam’s eyes fell on Josey, curious. “Well, hello, Josey.”

  “Hi, Adam.”

  He straightened and she turned back to the stage, but she was acutely aware of his presence. She knew when he moved slightly, jostled by the crowd. He was now standing behind her, directly behind her.

  She could feel the hair on her arms stand on end. It was like static. If she leaned back just slightly, she would actually touch him. She closed her eyes, wondering what it would feel like if he actually put his arms around her from behind. She felt an anxious pull, a longing she usually filled with food. She wanted the cotton candy back.

  She could feel him move a little closer. Was it her imagination, or was he leaning down, his nose close to her hair?

  She opened her eyes.

  He was smelling her.

  Oh, God, she thought. Her life had become so weird since Della Lee had shown up in her closet. Was this really real? Or was she making it up? What if she was going crazy?

  The fear was so real that she turned around quickly, just to make sure.

  And she bumped right into Adam’s chest.

  His hands went out to steady her and she looked up at him. His blue eyes had seen too much sun. Papery snow flurries were sticking to his curly blond hair. If his hair got too wet, the curls would tighten. She knew that from years of watching him walk up to her porch in the rain. He always seemed to like when it rained, and out here in the snow, he was in his element.

  She immediately turned back around and his hands slid off her arms.

  “I should be going,” she leaned over and said to Chloe.

  Chloe looked from Josey to Adam, then back again. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I just have to go.”

  “Okay. Adam, will you walk Josey to her car?”

  “No!” Josey said frantically. Then she tried to smile. They were both looking at her like she’d lost her marbles. “No, I’m fine. Really. To walk. To my car. Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, she said to herself as she walked away.

  Adam and Chloe watched Josey disappear into the crowd.

  “You know what that was all about, don’t you?” Chloe said.

  Adam shook his head. “That’s just Josey.”

  “She’s in love with you.”

  He paused. “Excuse me?”

  “Josey Cirrini is in love with you,” she said in a louder voice, as if he hadn’t heard her over the band the first time. Oh, he’d heard her. He just didn’t believe her.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “She told me. She said she’s been in love with you since the first day she saw you. Open your eyes for once, Adam. That mountain didn’t kill your libido. Don’t mess this up. Why do men have to mess things up?” Chloe turned and left him there.

  He watched her go, stunned.

  He’d always liked the way Josey smelled. He thought about how she was wearing her curly black hair down that night, how she was in that tight sweater he’d seen her in so many times, the red so striking against her pale skin. And he wasn’t the only man here who had noticed.

  And damn if she wasn’t wearing makeup.

  Was it for him?

  He suddenly felt uneasy, the way he felt about anything that involved chance.

  Oh, hell.

  His leg was hurting.

  It was time to go home.

  The next morning, Adam got up and went to the kitchen of his small home, which was around the corner from the high school. It had taken him months of searching to find just the right place, with just the right view. He wanted a place that would let him see Bald Slope Mountain, like he had to keep an eye on it.

  His brother Brett, thankful that Adam had at least stopped risking his life for sport, called him every week and said the same thing. “Why Bald Slope? You always have a place here. Get the hell out of that town and come home.”

  He groggily made coffee, strong, bitter coffee for a morning like this when his leg burned like a red-hot poker. He’d grown up in the California Sierras. He’d been a competitive skier in high school. He loved the cold and he especially loved the snow, but he was paying now for standing out in it last night. Enjoying snow was yet another thing the mountain had taken from him. Every day, he woke up humbled by that mountain, his aching leg a constant reminder of what you got when you teased fate to the point of payback. That was it for him. No more taking chances. He’d settled down in the place that had broken him. He was safe here. As long as he was here, he was away from all the temptation out there in the world, the cliffs to jump from, the oceans to swim.

  He knew he couldn’t go back to practicing law. His brother was ten years older than Adam and had an established law firm, so the job was waiting for Adam when he graduated. But he’d hated it. It had only been a way to make the kind of money he needed to do what he wanted on vacations.

  Now he didn’t know what else to do, so he just stayed still. Nothing could happen to him if he stayed still, right?

  He turned, startled, when he heard Jake stumble down the hall. It was hard to get used to having someone else in the house. But he liked Jake, ironic considering Jake’s profession. It was hard not to like him, and Adam had tried for a while. He didn’t want friends, he didn’t want any sort of connection after his accident. He just wanted to be alone. But he found that Jake and Chloe actually made staying here bearable.

  When Jake appeared in the kitchen doorway, Adam said, “You look like hell.”

  “That’s a relief. It’s not all in my head. Give it to me straight. How big of an ass did I make of myself last night?”

  “You don’t remember the
motorcycle gang? Doing the striptease in front of them at the bar? The iguana? Good God, man. Tell me you remember the iguana!”

  “Funny. You’re a funny guy. I remember seeing her. I was following her. Was she running from me?”

  “Walking.”

  “Who was she with?”

  Adam turned to get a bottle of Tylenol from the cabinet. “A woman named Josey Cirrini.”

  “Oh, yeah. She never said she knew her.” Adam waited, his back to him, for Jake to say more about Josey. But he didn’t. “So I didn’t talk to Chloe? I didn’t say anything stupid to her?”

  “No.” Adam downed three pills and turned back around.

  “I need to tell her I’m sorry.”

  “I went back to the festival last night. I explained it to her.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Adam leaned against the counter. “I have a question for you, Jake.”

  “Don’t make it a hard one.” Jake went to the coffeemaker and poured a cup. “My head might explode.”

  “Why in the hell did you tell her? It happened three months ago. She never even suspected.”

  “You sound like my father.” Jake took a gulp of the coffee and made a face. He set the cup down and then scratched his palms over the stubble on his cheeks. “I told her because she never suspected,” he finally said. “She trusted me, and I let her down. And I was just walking around like it didn’t happen. Like I got away with it. Then that morning she looked at me with those eyes and told me that she could never be with another man. She’s too good for me.”

  Adam crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me get this straight, you told her to punish yourself? Like there was no other way to do that except by hurting her?”

  “I’m not saying it was the smart thing to do. I love Chloe. I can’t believe I did this to her. I wish to God I could take it back. I wish I could take everything back. I wish none of this had ever happened.”

  Adam shook his head. If it had been up to Adam, he never would have told his brother about his accident. But he’d been touch and go there for a while, and the hospital had contacted Brett, his next of kin. Now he would never live it down. Sometimes you weren’t supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone. “Stupid, man. Stupid.”