And this time his hand wasn't fast enough to stop them.
THE NEXT morning I awoke to the sound of my wake-up call. I was still wrapped in the Bellagio cotton robe I had put on after my twenty-minute cleansing shower the night before. A thorough attempt to remove Parker Colman from my mind and any part of my body. After all the standard post-assignment scrubbing, I doubted there were any skin cells left on my body that had come into contact with him; however, the washcloth hadn't seemed to do much to cleanse me of the memory. But then again, it never does.
I checked out of my room at the front desk, where I could pay my bill in cash. Most hotels require a credit card to secure the room, but a one-hundred-dollar-per-day cash deposit usually does the trick. This also allows me to check in under a different name. Credit cards can get you in trouble. Especially if someone like Parker Colman manages to find a male hotel employee with a sympathetic ear, and then suddenly my cover is blown.
Once seated in my American Airlines first-class window seat, I pulled my headphones out of my bag, slid them over my head, and closed my eyes. The Las Vegas assignments are always nice. It's just a short, forty-five-minute plane ride home. The New York assignments are the worst. Six torturous hours on a plane after a long night of dealing with corrupt businessmen (and I'm not talking about tax evasion).
I usually wear headphones on the plane. Whether or not I actually have music playing through them varies according to my mood. I hate airplane small talk. It's a waste of time. The plane rides are my time to relax, think about nothing, read my favorite gossip magazines. It's my down time. I've learned over the years that people on airplanes will still attempt to chitchat with you, even if you obviously appear to be reading something. But they'll pretty much leave you alone once they realize you can't hear them. Which is why I made sure to purchase those extra large, noise-canceling headphones. No chitchat from random strangers was getting through these suckers. In fact, they should be called "meaningless-small-talk -canceling" headphones.
It's not as though I'm not a sociable person. It's just that I have enough friends. I'm not looking for any more. And to a stranger, my life is always a big fat lie anyway, so what's the point in bringing another victim into my web of fabrication?
I used to enjoy talking to people on airplanes. Back when Jennifer Hunter was just Jennifer Hunter, and therefore I could be anyone I wanted to be. Ironic how I used to love to make up stories about who I was, where I was going, what I did, who I had just fallen in love with. But now that my life was just one big made-up story, it wasn't quite so amusing anymore.
I must have drifted off to sleep to the sound of Joss Stone playing in my ear, because when I awoke, we were in the air. I was somewhat surprised that the flight attendant hadn't woken me up to remind me to shut off my "portable electronic device." Maybe she could tell I had just been through a rough night and decided to cut me some slack.
I could feel the presence of someone in the seat next to me, but I didn't acknowledge them. It was easier to pretend that they weren't even there. I stared out the window as the large buildings that made up the Las Vegas Strip grew smaller and smaller in the distance, giant structures resembling the monuments of Paris, New York, ancient Egypt, and even medieval kingdoms.
The idea of Las Vegas always made me laugh. Can you imagine what archaeologists millions of years from now will think when they unexpectedly discover the city of Las Vegas? They'll be as confused as hell. Digging away, looking for any clues that might help them understand that ancient, mysterious species they call "human beings" who were wiped out by a devastating tragedy of their own making. And then suddenly... what's this? It looks like one of their cities. But wait a minute. Didn't we just see that same artifact when were digging in what was then referred to as the country of "France"? And what about this one? We found something remarkably similar in what was previously known as "New York."
And the human species would continue to remain a mystery for all of time, with a new underlying question to ponder: Why would a species choose to build identical monuments in two very different places? Talk about a world wonder.
I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I was jolted from my thoughts as I looked up to see the flight attendant taking drink orders.
I slid off my headphones long enough to order a Diet Coke, and just as I was about to slide them back on...
"So did you win?"
I turned to my neighbor, who I now noticed was a man in what appeared to be his mid-thirties, attractive, with gentle eyes that revealed a lifetime of experiences. Some good. Some bad.
"I'm sorry?"
"Did you win?" he repeated. "Or I guess, what I should ask first is... did you gamble?"
I dropped my headphones in my lap and stifled a groan. Here we go. Let the airplane small talk begin. You take your chitchat-canceling headphones off for two seconds and bam, you're cornered.
I smiled politely. "Yes, I played some poker."
"And...did you win?"
Initial reading: wealthy, single but not against marriage or family. In Vegas for business and, refreshingly enough, probably not the cheating type.
Meeting one of the few faithful ones left in the world is always a pleasant surprise. It's almost like spotting an endangered species while hiking in the wild. You immediately want to whip out your camera to document the sighting. Otherwise, how will people know to believe you?
I flashed a warm smile. "I won a few hands here and there."
The flight attendant placed our drinks in front of us. My good-looking, non-cheating neighbor had ordered a tomato juice. An honest drink. I'm always wary of airplane passengers who order hard alcohol at eleven in the morning.
"Good for you. A girl who plays poker... that's rare."
I guess we were two endangered species sitting right next to each other on the same flight leaving Las Vegas. What are the odds?
"Yeah, well, what can I say? I'm a fan of any method of making money that doesn't require you to report it to the IRS."
He laughed. "And what do you do when you're not hustling people out of their paychecks?"
And here come the lies. "I'm an investment banker....What about you?"
"I work for the IRS," he said in an apologetic tone, lowering his head.
A slight wave of panic washed over me, along with an entire ocean of awkwardness. I took a sip of my Diet Coke. "Um ...I was just kidding about the..."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to arrest you for years of back taxes on unreported gambling earnings."
The smile on his face allowed me to release a loud gush of air and, of course, a laugh of relief. "Good one."
"Hmm, a poker player who can't see an obvious bluff. I'm not too confident in your abilities all of a sudden."
I stammered. "Well, to be fair, it wasn't exactly an obvious bluff."
"Please. I got a D-minus in eighth-grade drama class! I couldn't act my way out of a cardboard box."
"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think placing children in cardboard boxes might be bordering on child abuse." I pretended to ponder the thought.
"Yes, well, that was twenty-five years ago... back then, it was more of a gray area."
"And that would make you thirty-..."
"Ah, so she's also a human calculator."
"And you're a D student, it would seem," I shot back.
He shook his head as he took a sip of his juice. "I said I got a D in a drama class. It doesn't make me a D student, just a D actor."
As he set down his drink, I instinctively looked to his left hand. No ring. Just as I suspected. Single. My reading was, as usual, right on the money.
"So what do you do when you're not pretending to be an undercover IRS agent?"
If I were to guess, I would have said marketing or advertising. He was too clever to be an accountant. And not suave enough to be a salesman. So it came as no surprise when he said:
"I'm a marketing consultant. Harrah's Casinos is one of our clients."
Right again
. It was almost too easy.
Our conversation continued for another twenty minutes, and just as I was about to have second thoughts on my general aversion to airplane small talk, the pilot's voice came over the intercom. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I've just received word from the tower in LAX that there are some pretty bad thunderstorms hovering over the Los Angeles area. We're going to have to land in Palm Springs and wait for the storms to pass over. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, but we want to make sure it's safe to land before we bring you into L.A."
I looked over at my neighbor, and we groaned simultaneously.
"I thought it never rains in L.A.," I complained.
"It doesn't," he confirmed, "but I made some calls."
"So you're something of a miracle worker?"
He turned toward me and held out his hand. "I'm Jamie Richards."
I shook it. "Jennifer."
"Just Jennifer? Like Cher or Madonna?"
"I prefer to be compared to the likes of Michelangelo, if you don't mind."
Jamie laughed. It felt good to have someone genuinely laugh at one of my jokes. Someone who didn't have a wife at home. Someone whose laugh wasn't overflowing with ulterior motives.
And honestly, it felt good to laugh back... ulterior motive–free.
"All right. I'll play along with the first-name-only thing. But just a suggestion: You might want to pick something more unique than 'Jennifer' if you're going to walk around last name–less."
"You're right. Fine. It's Jennifer...H.," I said coyly.
He looked impressed. "Wow. First name, last initial. We're making progress. Do you feel okay? Is this conversation moving too fast for you? Do you want to take a short break and get back to me?"
I looked out the window at the approaching Palm Springs runway. "Well, it doesn't look like we'll be going anywhere anytime soon."
"So, you decided to reveal a letter? Do I get one every hour?"
I smirked. "If Jennifer H. was enough to distinguish me all the way through high school, it should get you through the next few hours...at least until we get back to L.A."
"Fair enough, Jennifer H."
"Hey, consider yourself lucky. That's one letter more than most strangers on airplanes get. Or any strangers, for that matter."
"Oh, I do."
I looked at him questioningly.
"Consider myself lucky," he clarified.
I blushed and turned my head toward the window, suddenly very interested in watching our landing.
AFTER A grueling forty-five-minute-turned-four-hour flight, I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles to the sound of my personal cell phone ringing.
"Sophie's very upset. You should call her." Zoë's breathless voice came roaring through my earpiece.
"What are you doing? You sound like you're running a marathon."
"I'm trying to turn left on San Vicente and there's no turn arrow. Apparently, the drivers in Santa Monica all got their licenses from a vending machine."
I exited the terminal, my rollaway suitcase in tow, and walked toward the valet parking attendant. "If Sophie's so upset, why doesn't she just call me?"
"Oh, c'mon! Get a clue, you selfish bitch!"
I stopped in my tracks. "Huh?"
Then I heard the infamous honking sounds and I continued walking.
"Sorry. This woman apparently needs a phone book so she can see over the steering wheel. You know how it goes. Look, it's been a week. Don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"
I handed my ticket to the valet. "I can't really talk about this right now. I'm just getting my car at LAX and I'm totally exhausted. Why don't I call you tomorrow?"
"Fine." Zoë gasped for air.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"I told you, I'm trying to turn left at an intersection with no arrow. Of course I'm not all right. Call me tomorrow!"
I hung up the phone and slid the Bluetooth out of my ear.
"Well, you certainly got off that plane fast."
The voice startled me and I dropped my Bluetooth headset on the ground. As I reached down to pick it up, I turned around to see Jamie standing behind me, his own valet ticket in hand. I quickly popped back up to a standing position, nearly losing my balance in the process. I grabbed onto a nearby railing to steady myself.
I forced out a laugh. "Yeah. I guess I've just had my fill of airplanes for the day."
He eyed me with an amused smirk and I immediately felt self-conscious. I was used to getting smirks from men, just not ones qualified by "amused." And definitely not ones that came right after I just nearly did a face plant on the airport sidewalk. I tried to compensate by leaning casually against the rail and crossing one ankle over the other, convinced that this was a much more attractive side of me.
Not that I cared what this random guy thought.
"You didn't even say good-bye. I feel so used."
I laughed. "For what? Airplane small talk?"
"Yes, exactly. For a quick and easy distraction during a four-hour flight."
I lowered my head. "Guilty as charged. So you're a valet guy, too, huh?" I said, motioning toward his ticket.
He nodded. "So worth the extra few dollars. Plus, my company pays for it."
"Right," I stated. "Mine, too." And it was true. Somebody always paid for it.
"Well, I'm glad I bumped into you again, because I wanted to ask you a question. But you ran off so quickly and you didn't leave behind any glass slippers or something that might prove useful in finding you later."
"How realistic is a shoe that only fits one girl in an entire kingdom of people? I never understood that."
"Well, she had very tiny feet," he explained, looking down at mine. "Yeah, yours look pretty normal. I would have a hard time even with the slipper."
I laughed, and an awkward silence fell between us. Awkward because I usually know exactly what to say to people... especially men. But standing there with Jamie, I felt uncomfortable, almost tongue-tied. As if I didn't do this kind of thing for a living nearly every single night of my life. But right now all that Ashlyn confidence that had made me so successful at what I do was nowhere to be found. It was just me. And I had never been very good at this sort of thing. Plus, the fact that Jamie seemed to get better looking with every passing minute didn't help much either.
"So what I was going to ask you was if you'd like to have dinner with me tomorrow night."
The statement took me by surprise. I definitely hadn't seen it coming. Men like Jamie didn't ask out girls like Jen. He seemed so worldly, so mature, so far away from anything I was. Ashlyn attracted guys like Jamie all the time ...well, the married, unfaithful versions of him. But not me. Not like this. Not when there was no one around to pay me after I was done.
I shifted my weight anxiously, still unable to respond. Like suddenly the words were stuck in my mouth and refused to come out.
"Wow, I didn't realize it was that difficult a question. Maybe I should have phrased it more simply."
I let out a nervous giggle. "No, Jamie. It's not that. I just don't think that would be a very good idea."
He nodded understandingly. "As in, not a good idea because you have a boyfriend or not a good idea because you have an infectious disease?"
I saw the valet approaching in my car and I bit my bottom lip. "No. No boyfriend."
"Damn. Had to be the disease. What is it? Cholera? Ebola? The plague?"
I laughed and shook my head. "No. It's just kind of complicated."
"Well, that's good to hear. Because I love complication. Give me something simple and I'll just fall asleep."
I smiled. He was sweet. Almost too sweet. So much of me wanted to just accept the date. A real date. With no distrusting girlfriends waiting outside to break down the door. No scarlet letters. No page-long list of things to say, movies to like, karaoke songs to sing. But the other part of me screamed, No! Don't do it! Because I felt this overwhelming sensation that I knew where it would go. How it wou
ld turn out. Why read the book when you already know how it ends?
"I'm sorry," I said, stepping off the curb and making my way to the awaiting valet. "It was really nice meeting you, though."
And then suddenly a profound sadness fell over me. The kind of sadness that comes from already knowing how the book ends. From knowing that you'll never have that same rush of adventure and excitement and suspense that normal people feel when they pick up the latest bestselling, happy-ending, till-death-do-us-part novel and can't wait to start devouring its pages.
"Well, if you ever change your mind, or just feel the need to call someone up and confess the second letter of your last name..." Jamie reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. "I think it's my last one. I've been saving it for you." He flipped it over and examined the back. "Look, it's even got some of my random scribbles on the back from when I ran out of scratch paper."
He extended the card to me and I took it. I placed it in the back pocket of my jeans as I removed a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the valet. "Thanks," I said to both of them.
"Well, I guess we'll always have Palm Springs," Jamie said in a pathetic Humphrey Bogart imitation.
I rolled my eyes and said, "Now I understand why you got a D in drama."
He laughed, and then with a sincere voice and a smile that nearly made my heart melt, he said, "It was nice meeting you, Jennifer H."
But I wasn't quite sure if my heart was melting from adoration...or from fear.
The fear that I may have just made a mistake.
As I got into my car and drove away, my everyday world re-engulfed me like an old familiar blanket. The steering wheel, the radio, the navigation system. And most of all, Roger Ireland's client file just barely visible from the inside of my bag. Tomorrow morning I would tell him what had happened during my fateful trip to Vegas, then he would tell his daughter, and yet another wedding would be called off. Another happy, make-believe ending thwarted by the harsh reality of the real world.
Maybe I just wasn't meant to read books.