FIVE YEARS LATER
Chapter 1
“You’re so pathetic.”
I looked at Tracy and broke into uncontrollable laughter. “I’m pathetic? Hey, Kayla, between the two of us, who do you think is more pathetic?” I asked, in between spasms of laughter.
“Neither one of you is pathetic.”
“Observe these two situations, okay? Jordan is blindly in love with a straight woman who doesn’t give her the time of day and uses her like a rug,” Tracy said.
I, (Jordan Jenkins) cut in and explained the rest of the statement. “And Tracy here, is having an affair with a married man who, typically enough keeps promising to leave his wife for her and she keeps naively believing him as if she doesn’t know any better.”
“I got fired today,” Kayla said and Tracy and I went silent. “The company let me go,” she said, then started laughing as though it was the funniest thing.
“Didn’t you want to quit?” Tracy asked.
“I did. I mean, I wasn’t happy working there but I was going to quit once I was sure I knew what I was going to do with my life.”
“Tough luck, guess between the three of us, you take the prize,” I said and rose my beer bottle to toast against Kayla’s and Tracy’s, my two best friends.
“Let’s just get ourselves drunk stupid,” Tracy suggested.
“I can’t. I have to get up early tomorrow,” I said and got to my feet.
“Look who’s here,” Kayla said as she turned her attention towards the entrance of the night club.
“Well, well, well..., if it isn’t your blood sucking vermin,” Tracy said resentfully as Jenny Douglas, the woman they claimed I was in love with, walked over to our table.
“On second thought, maybe I’ll stay a while longer,” I said, directing the statement right at Tracy as Jenny made her way over to us and hugged me with open affection.
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Jenny said, then quickly air-kissed Kayla.
“Some of us were hoping you wouldn’t,” Tracy said and I punched her shoulder because of the rudeness.
“Ouch! That hurts,” she complained.
“What’s going on? Why do you all look so sulky?” Jenny asked, ignoring Tracy’s remark.
“Sometimes you forget that the only reason we stand you is because you’re Jordan’s friend, not ours,” Tracy clearly stated.
“Did someone put a bitter pill in your drink?” Jenny asked.
Kayla and I broke into laughter.
“Did she get dumped by that married guy?” Jenny asked and I bit the fleshy part of my lower lip, avoiding Tracy’s bitter gaze.
“I can’t believe you told her!” Tracy grumbled.
“She didn’t. I forced the information out of her,” Jenny defended me.
“Don’t look at me like that, she’s not lying,” I said defensively when Tracy continued to stare at me.
“Come on you guys, let’s get along.” Kayla, always the peacemaker, said calmly.
“You want a drink?” I asked Jenny who brightly smiled at me and nodded.
I went to the bar counter and ordered a round for everyone, then went back to our table and conversation casually resumed.
“So what were you guys talking about before I got here?” Jenny asked.
Tracy was about to open the nasty closed can of worms, when I interrupted and said, “It’s not important. Tell me how your day was.”
Tracy rolled her eyes and Kayla smiled.
I could tell Kayla was studying us as she silently watched the drama. She had always said we (Jenny and I) would make a cute couple if Jenny had been a lesbian. She pitied me for being so infatuated by the beautiful woman.
“He wants to take me to this lovely cabin in the woods but I’m not a nature person,” Jenny told me.
“She’s more pathetic than the both of us combined,” Tracy told Kayla, loudly enough for me to hear. Her strong distaste towards Jenny was always evident. She wasn’t the sort of person to hide her feelings.
“Give them a break.”
“Look at her,” Tracy said, pointing at me. “She is young, beautiful, confident and successful. She can have any woman in this place, straight or gay but she chooses this particular one. What is so special about her?”
Kayla watched me. We'd grown up together; just a couple of houses apart.
I had always loved women and had never hidden that fact about myself. At twenty five, I could say I had matured into a beautiful woman from the tomboy I had been in high school.
Long, curly, golden hair that even had straight women turning to get a second look, long beautiful slender legs, an ancient beauty with a mass of innocence, clear sky blue eyes and a stunning smile, or so I had been told. At twenty five, I was a successful interior designer working for one of the most prestigious firm's in the country.
Kayla had her own misgivings about Jenny and understood Tracy’s overprotective nature towards me, but she preferred to let me make my own mistakes.
“Jenny is the only woman she can’t have,” Kayla said and Tracy went silent.
They didn't know I was half listening to them while Jenny spoke.
Jenny was a little older than me. She was in her early thirties and worked for a local cable network as a day time talk show producer. She was beautiful with short dark hair, deep brown eyes and a gorgeous, sexy body.
I had met her at a party almost a year back and through out the entire time, Tracy had barely tolerated her presence in our lives.
“If I hadn’t been drunk and curious…” Tracy trailed off.
“You still would have slept with her,” Kayla finished her statement.
“It’s not like you haven’t,” Tracy accused.
“I’m not saying I haven’t and I am not saying I regret it either.”
“Do you think she’ll ever sleep with Jenny?”
They continued talking about me. It wasn't news to either one of them that I had somehow managed to charm my way into both their pants, individually, of course and at different times of our lifetimes. It wasn't something I was ashamed of. I was an honest person. People hated that about me.
“Her interest in Jenny concerns me. It’s not just the woman she’s after. It’s her heart.”
I saw Tracy’s features harden at the words.
“How can she not see how big a hypocrite Jenny is?”
“Like you said, she’s blindly in love,” Kayla said.
Tracy groaned in frustration. I knew her one greatest wish would be to unmask Jenny to me, if only to get her out of our lives.
“I know that look and you know I don’t like it,” Kayla warned.
Tracy relaxed her features, obviously forcing herself to calm down. I knew that watching Jenny and I only made her upset. “What are you going to do now that you lost your job?” she asked, trying to change the topic.
Kayla exhaled. “I don’t know. Get another job and a smaller apartment. I don’t think I’ll be able to afford that place now that I’m unemployed.”
"That closet you call an apartment?"
“You could move into my loft,” I put in and the two women turned their attention to me. “I’ve got plenty of room that I don’t use and you wouldn’t have to feel rushed about getting a job,” I added.
Jenny had left the table and since I had been listening to them the whole time, I joined in on their conversation.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, come on, you’re my best friend. You know I’m always here for you,” I said.
“Thank you, Jordan.”
“Yeah, that’s very kind of you,” Tracy said, instantly forgetting she'd been upset me. She'd always said she could never quite tell what she'd always liked so much about me. But I was sure, it certainly wasn't my heart.
“You guys would do the same for me,” I said.
Tracy reached for my shoulder and gently massaged it. “Where did the crypt-keeper go?” she asked, referring to Jenny who was nowhere in sight and I pushed her hand away and punched her shoulder again.
“Ouch! Would you stop doing that?”
“Do I ever give Trevor a hard time?”
At Tracy's lover’s name, she raised her hands up in surrender.
“Kayla, you look tired,” Jenny said when she got back to the table and Tracy and I turned to study our friend.
Tracy had met Kayla in college, where they had been dorm mates. Through her, Tracy and I had met. We had never gotten along from the very beginning, but our stubbornness had somehow created a bond between us in a matter of time. Most of our conversations were filled with sarcastic remarks but we both deeply cared for one another.
As for Kayla, she was a gentle soul; kind, generous and humble. Having been raised as the last born of five children, she'd learned to take care of herself from a tender age. At twenty four, she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
Between the three of us, Kayla was the only one who changed jobs countless times but despite that, she was fiercely independent and hard working. Physically, she resembled a Malibu Barbie; tall, slender, elegant but with a dark mane of long hair and admirable grace.
“Do you want me to take you home?” I asked Kayla.
“Let Tracy do that. I still need to talk to you,” Jenny interjected.
I saw Tracy raise her eyebrows, ready to throw fireballs at Jenny but luckily, Kayla placed her hand over hers on the table to stop her.
I smiled at Jenny at the insistence.
"Look at that,” Tracy said bitterly immediately after, and I saw Kayla squeeze her hand.
“Just let it go,” Kayla said softly.
“She's trying to put her pitiful relationship with Jordan over a decade of friendship.”
Kayla could see the anger behind Tracy's words but she knew me enough to know that despite Jenny's tendencies, I would always put our friendship first.
“You would think a remark like that would be an eye opener ... and you call me naive,” Tracy continued.
“Sorry, did you say something?” Jenny asked her, playfully placing her arm over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” Tracy stated.
I could tell she was about to insult Jenny, but I silenced her with a cold stare.
“You need anger management,” Kayla told Tracy, silently implying to let the statement go.
“What I need is to get out of here. Come on, I'll take you home,” Tracy said.
“You guys leaving?” I asked when they reached for their trench coats.
“No, we're just changing tables,” Tracy carelessly put in, but Kayla nodded.
“Tracy needs anger management,” Jenny said as she watched them go.
“You need to be nicer to her,” I said.
“How much nicer can I get?” Jenny stared at me. "Come on, lets not let Tracy ruin our night. Tell me how it was at work today,” she said. Jenny knew how I felt about her and often times she used it against Kayla and Tracy.
“You know you're not interested in that,” I said, looking her straight in the eye because we'd spent enough time together to know what Jenny liked talking about and what she didn't. My job was the least of her interests.
“Are you mad at me? Did I do something?” she asked innocently.
“No.” It was hard to take anything Jenny said or did to heart.
“Then let's have some fun.”
I had an important meeting very early the following morning and wasn't sure if being out so late at night was going to help, so I decided to call it an early night. “I'd love to, but I have to go.”
“But I just got here,” Jenny complained.
“Call one of your other countless friends to entertain you.”
“I don't want them.”
I got up, retrieved some dollar notes from my wallet and placed them on the table. Shortly after, I leaned over to Jenny, softly pecked her cheek and whispered sultrily against her ear. “You don't want me either.”
When I was about to pull away, Jenny grabbed my collar and whispered back. “If I give you the one thing that you want, you'll lose interest in me.”
I understood her fear. It was triggered by the belief that my interest in her was just sexual. Maybe it was, but there was something else. The games we played were intriguing. I knew Jenny loved my attention, especially when we were around Tracy and Kayla. She loved showing off how much control she had over me but in reality, it was the other way around.
I played along because I thrived in watching Jenny taunt her prowess. When it went too far, when it offended my friends, I cautioned Jenny and she humbly retreated. “I'll see you tomorrow,” I said, instead of justifying her statement.
**
“Are you sure I'm not imposing?” Kayla asked.
“I'm sure.”
“I dare say that rotten little insect would disagree,” Tracy said as she carried a bag of clothes into the guest bedroom.
“Tracy, you need to watch your mouth,” I warned, knowing she was talking about Jenny. “Ignore her, this is my house and now, it’s yours. You're welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“How come you never offered me when I was looking for a place to stay?” Tracy asked as she walked out of the bedroom.
“Because you and I can't live together; they would find two corpses.”
She laughed in agreement and sat down on the large couch in the middle of the sitting room. I had a unique sense of art and décor, which was openly displayed in the two bedroom loft. The large living room area had soft lighting and was decorated in a variety of style. The fabrics and materials used to make the loft a home worked wonders and with a few antiques and a little art, it gave the room an atmosphere of class.
The kitchen was a small area in the living room partitioned by a marble counter. Beside the counter was a wine cellar and kitchen appliances with the same soft colors as those used in the living room.
The floors were carpeted and the flat screen plasma television was built into a wall, but it was not the focal point of the living space. The most comfortable thing about the loft was the inexpensive items used to decorate the room that added flare and warmth instead of luxury and awareness.
“I've got only one rule,” I said.
“This I want to hear,” Tracy said.
“You're allowed to bring over men as long as they do not walk around the house exposing any part of their body that is supposed to stay covered.”
Kayla giggled. “I don't think we'll have a problem,” she said.
We finished helping Kayla move in but it was still early in the day and both Tracy and I had to go back to work. Tracy was a real estate developer and was the one who had gotten me the loft. She also helped me get a lot of customers once she sold or rented out homes and earned herself some commission from it. She was business-minded and worked for a renowned firm in the city.
“Do you guys know a guy named Rick Dolt?”
“He's the recently retired quarter back for the Sharks, why?” Tracy asked.
“He just opened a foundation for disabled kids who love sports and Jenny's cable network is hosting a party tonight to launch it.”
“I'm free tonight,” Kayla said.
Kayla had told me that she did not want to start drawing invisible maps in her head about where her life was leading. Being idle, just having a single moment alone led to that. Every member of her family was an over-achiever, the fact that she wasn't was a great disappointment to her parents.
“Great, what about you Tracy?”
“I've got plans.”
"Is he still leaving his wife for you?” I asked sardonically.
“Have you ever thought that maybe I don't want him to?” Tracy asked with a hint of irritation. Things were not as they always appeared on the surface. There was a reason why she was with Trevor and that reason wasn't because she was in love with him or because he was such a great lover. That part, we were unaware and unprepared for.
“Isn't that what every mistress wants?”
Tracy resented being called a mistress and showed her dislike for it. “Have you ever thought that maybe I'm with him because he's safe?”
“Safe?” Kayla asked in confusion.
“He doesn't rush me into anything like an unattached male would. He doesn't make promises he's bound to break, he doesn't cheat because he's already doing so with me and he's always there when I need him.” Tracy explained, quite sentimentally which made it hard for me to respond.
“That is messed up,” Kayla said.
“It is, but it's what I want.”
“What about his wife?”
Tracy went silent at the question.
“Okay, you know what? We've had this discussion way too many times. Kayla, the party is at eight so be ready by the time I get home. Tracy, I'll give you the address just in case your party ends early,” I said, putting an end to the discussion. “I have to get back to work,” I added, then reached for my car keys on my way out.
**
Author's NOTE:
I know the first part of the story does not coincide with this chapter, but be patient. I promise I am going somewhere with this..... I am trying something new so please bear with me. I might be inclined to use first and second person narration in the story, but I will try my best not to confuse my readers... This story is special to me.