47 - Ruby Tuesday

That day, Petey did something she’d never done in her life.  She called off sick.

Always before, she’d dragged her dying body into work regardless of how much she ached, sniffled, or sneezed.  She threw up between classes and went back to educate the minds of America.  Even after the collegiate stint, she’d been freakishly diligent about going to work.

Today, however, she didn’t feel like dealing with her life.  She wanted nothing more than to forget about Bon Jovi and everything related to it for a little while.

[6:08 AM]PT: Tony- I’m not feeling well and can’t make it to work today.  Will try to get ideas together from home.  Call if you need me.  –Petey

Hitting the send button, she looked up to find that the car had arrived at her building.  She opened the back door, towing her backpack across the seat and giving the driver a sincere smile.  “Thanks, Jimmy.  You make the walk of shame a little classier.”

The Latino man, who was about her own age, returned the smile with a chuckle.  “My pleasure, Miss Petey.  See you tonight?”

“I suppose you will.  Have a good day, Jimmy.”  The car door slammed shut and she embarked upon the climb to her fourth floor apartment.

Right now, she didn’t know if he would or not.  Right now, she felt the inexplicable need to hide from the world, and a night of kinky sex didn’t really seem like a good enough reason to forsake that.

She pushed in her front door, dropping her bag and keys and heading straight for the bedroom, stripping as she went.

It was stupid not to take ‘morning after’ clothes, she thought as the leather skirt and see-through blouse hit the floor.  Talk about your walk of shame.  Stockings and hooker shoes screamed ‘screwing around in someone else's bed’.

Pushing the voice away, she grabbed a t-shirt and crawled between the soft cotton sheets of her bed, wearing only it and her panties.  She buried her head under the fluffy, pink comforter and closed her eyes, willing sleep to claim her and her turbulent thoughts.

Thirty minutes later, all she had done nothing but successfully frustrate herself by analyzing and over-analyzing the scene at Jon’s this morning.  And it was a useless exercise, because she still didn’t understand why it had happened.  It shouldn't have come as a big surprise since she had never figured out how 'they’ had happened to begin with. 

Sighing, she threw back the blankets and went to get her phone from the living room.  Burrowing back into her fluffy pink nest, she fired it up to see that there were a couple of text messages waiting for her. 

[6:20 AM]TONY:  Let me know if there’s anything you need.

She shook her head sadly.  He really was a nice guy.  Pushing aside the pesky little fact that he was her boss, she briefly wished she could have been attracted to him.  He was all guy, but he wasn’t a prick.

Like his brother.

Jon just didn’t deal with frustration well, she justified.  The problem was that he spoke before he thought.   He let his anger get the best of him and that, unfortunately, took casualties with it.  Most often her, it seemed.

Her finger flicked down to the other waiting text.

[6:27 AM]JON: I forgot to say I'm sorry.  I am.  C U tonite Sugar.

Fuck.

Petey didn’t do tears, and she sure as hell wasn’t starting over some egomaniacal rock star.  Impulsively, she sought to remove the source of the problem.

[6:40 AM]PT:  Won’t be able to make it tonight.  Something’s come up.

Firing off the text before she could change her mind, she flipped over to the telephone function and hit the first number under her Favorites.

“Honey?  What’s wrong?  Why are you calling me so early?”

An affectionate smile curled up the corners of Petey’s mouth and, suddenly, things seemed better.

“Hi, Mom.  Nothing’s wrong.  I was just getting ready for work," she told the little white lie.  "I knew you’d be up, so I called to do a final check on holiday plans.”

“Don’t scare an old woman that way,” her mother said on a loudly exhaled breath. 

Petey laughed.  “You’re anything but old.  So will everyone be there for Christmas Eve?”

Her mother was a detailed planner, and she began rattling off all of those details that surrounded their family Christmas.

“Your brothers and sisters-in-law will all be here, of course, but John’s Alexandra is stuck in LA, and  Vanessa and her husband won’t make it in until Christmas morning.”

It was confusing at times to have a sister-in-law and a step-sister both named Alexandra.  For the most part, they tried to call her step-sister Alex to minimize the confusion.

“Why can’t Alex come?  Is everything okay?” Petey asked, ignoring the buzz of an coming text message.  Alex had some legal issues a couple of years back, and the worry still lingered in the edges of Petey's mind.  She wanted to make sure it wasn’t anything like that preventing her step-sister’s return home.

“Work,” her mother huffed.  “She can barely break away from her schedule to eat, she says, much less fly East.  Your flight comes in Friday night, right?  Someone will pick you up at the airport.”

“Yes, I’m scheduled to land at 10:05, but I can catch a taxi.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Someone will be there to get you.”  Her mother’s tone left no room for argument, and Petey’s affectionate smile returned.  One did not screw with her mother’s plans.  One simply nodded and said, “Yes, Mother.”

“Oh, and I got you a dress for the party next month.  It’s simply beautiful.”

Petey stifled her groan.  “You feel the need to shop or appropriate clothing for me now?  Did you think I was going to show up in spikes and leather, Mom?  You know I would never embarrass you that way.  You've raised me better than that, and I’m well aware of how to look normal.”

“Of course you are,” she pooh-poohed.  “But when I was shopping for myself and saw it, I couldn’t resist.  It will be stunning on you.  You’re still coming, aren’t you?  We want all of you children in attendance.”

“Yes,” Petey sighed, ignoring another buzz from her phone.  “For you, I will be there, even though I know Henry won’t be coming.”  Her eldest brother had long ago eschewed any family events that had guest lists larger than immediate family. 

“Yes, well, Henry marches to the beat of his own drummer.  It’s what he does.”

“And what is it that I do, Mother?” she inquired with amusement.

“You’re too old to be going through a phase, and too young to be having a mid-life crisis.  Honestly, dear, I haven’t figured out exactly what it is that you do, but I still have hope that it’s only temporary.”

This was where she and her mother had agreed to disagree three years ago.  Occasionally, the subject still reared its head, and Petey berated herself for being the instigator this time.  To avoid the disagreement that was surely looming in the wings, she offered her love, told her mother that she would see her on Friday night and ended the call.

That had made her feel better for all of about two minutes. 

Remembering the text messages that had come through, she flipped over to the message center on her phone.

[6:42 AM]JON:  Don’t.  Just don’t.

That set her temper to simmering.  Who was he to berate her like an errant child, or an imbecile?  Tempted to completely ignore the second message, curiosity got the best of her and she scrolled down

[6:47]JON:  I said I was sorry and meant it.  Don’t let my prick-ness ruin your fantasy week.  Just sex.  I promise.

The wind deflated from her self-righteous sails.  He was giving her what he thought she wanted.  The trouble with that was that she no longer knew what she wanted.

So she ignored him.

Resigned to the fact that sleep wasn’t in the cards for her, Petey once again crawled out of bed, this time to find her running clothes.  An early morning jog through the city might clear her head or, at the very least, provide a nice distraction.  There was always some kind of distraction going on in New York City.

Two hours later, she was stepping out of the shower for the second time that day, feeling markedly better than she had the first time.  A good run always seemed to clear her head, and passing by her old building had brought Gavin to mind.  Granted, they hadn’t been friends friends, but each encounter with him had always left her smiling.

Blow drying her hair, she decided to pay him a visit this morning.

After a quick trip to Starbucks, and intentionally leaving her phone at home, Petey politely knocked at Gavin’s door.  She spared barely a glance at her former home across the hall as she juggled the two large cups of coffee and bag of doughnuts, waiting for him to answer.

“Dollface!  How in the world are ya?” His smile was warm, and she let that warmth seep into her bones, pleased that she'd submitted to the impulsive visit.  This was a much-needed escape from reality.

His platinum blonde hair was spiked, and he looked freshly showered, so she hadn’t woken him.  Considering the early hour, that was a worry off her mind. 

Offering up her own smile and one of the coffee cups, she asked, “Hey, Gavin.  Feel like having coffee and company?”

He shuddered lightly.  “It’s tempting to say no.  Those contacts are wigging me out girlfriend.”

She grinned.  Bright red with a watery black ring around the iris, the pupil in this particular pair was shaped into a lazy, elongated ‘S’ shape.  “They’re new.”

“What the hell are they supposed to be other than freaky?” he asked, stepping back so that she could enter.

“They’re called Imp lenses.”

Of course that had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on why she’d chosen them.  They were just funky and different.

“That pretty much covers it,” he laughed, showing her to the kitchen.

She put her offerings on the bar with a shrug.  “So I’ve heard.”  Sliding one of the paper cups and the doughnuts toward him, she asked, “I see you’re already dressed for work. I’m not going to make you late, am I?”

He looked down at his tight gray slacks and form-fitting pink dress shirt.  “This old thing?” Gavin scoffed.  “These are my housekeeping clothes.  I was just getting ready to beat the rugs and dust the ceiling fan.”

She paused, coffee half-way to her lips.  He had to be kidding.  Didn’t he?

His delighted cackle confirmed it.  “Hey.  I had to at least try and weird you out.  Those contacts deserve some type of counterattack.”

“Cute,” she muttered, sipping her delightfully creamy and sweet morning brew.  “Where do you work, anyway?  I’ve never asked.”

“That’s because we’re usually talking about Tweedy Bird, your friendly neighborhood stalker,” he snorted before snapping a cruller in two with brilliant white teeth that rivaled Jon’s for perfection.  Swallowing the pastry, he chased it with a delicate sip of coffee before answering, “I own a salon in SoHo.  Corner of Crosby and Grand.”

“Laicale?”  She’d seen the up-scale salon on a couple of different treks through the city.  It had an excellent reputation, and had won several local awards, according to the signage out front.

“Yep,” he confirmed proudly.  “That’s my baby.  But my manager is opening today, so it’s no biggie if I’m a little late.  You should come in and let me do your hair sometime.”  He reached over to finger the fading pink streak dangling by her left ear and inspected the ragged ends of her wildly free hair.  “A touchup would not kill you, Dollface.”

Petey wrinkled her nose.  “I know, I know.  I’m just trying to get through the holidays and some family functions first.  Can’t have my mother withering from embarrassment when her grown daughter shows up with piercings and a wild pink streak.”

“Pfft,” he waved a hand at her, swallowing the remainder of his cruller.  “No bigger than that streak is, I could make it and five more like it completely disappear in an up-do.  And, no offense, but your eyebrows could use a little grooming too.”

She rolled her eyes, while fingering the brows in question.  “Gee, you’re great for a girl’s ego.”

“You obviously don’t have anyone else to tell you these things,” Gavin observed with a shrug.  “A woman as beautiful as you are shouldn’t let herself go.  It’s a friggin’ waste.”  He thunked his coffee cup on the counter.  “Oh don’t give me that look.  You know you’re beautiful under all that crap.  How could you not?”

He grabbed her hand and made her stand before the sun-drenched window in the kitchen.  Grabbing her chin firmly, he turned her head this way and that, inspecting every aspect of her face with a critical eye. 

“Good arch to your brow.  Porcelain skin without a damn wrinkle in sight.  Just the tiniest creasing around your eyes.”  He frowned and muttered a bland, “Bitch.”

Petey laughed and tried to pull away, but he held firm and resumed his clinical assessment.  “Gorgeous bone structure.  You’ve got pronounced cheekbones, but a delicate jawline.  And your lips?”  He released her chin with a cluck.  “If I were a straight man, that little bow mouth of yours would incite lustful thoughts.”

“Gavin, you’re nuts,” she chuckled at him, shaking her head.

“And, oh my God, you fucking blush!  Who the hell blushes anymore in this city?  That settles it,” he decreed airily.  “You’re coming in to the salon with me.  I’m treating you to the Gavin MacGregor deluxe spa service.”

“MacGregor?”  She lifted her pierced eyebrow, deflecting attention from her to him.  “You don't look Scottish.”

He kicked up one corner of his mouth in a naughty grin.  “I'm not, but doesn’t that name sound sexy as hell?  So much better than Gavin Dick.”

Petey’s jaw fell open and he wasted no time in preventing any wise-cracks by shooting poisonous daggers from his eyes.  “Yes, it’s real and I will kill you if you tell anyone.   Now let’s go.  I have fairy godmothering to do, woman!”