Avoiding Commitment (2 page)

Lexi recoiled at the mention of Jack’s
ex-girlfriend. “So by the way you say that, I’m guessing you
actually went through with this insane decision. You are letting
this girl pick and pry through your past just so that you don’t
have to commit to marrying her right now?” This was low…even for
him.

“It’s not like that,” he stated defensively.
“I let her talk to them, because I wanted to show her I had nothing
to hide. When Kate mentioned you and I didn’t, you can guess how
she reacted.

Lexi couldn’t help nodding even though she
knew that he couldn’t see her. She wouldn’t be happy. Any female
would be unhappy with the description Kate had likely bestowed upon
her. Knowing the way Kate felt about her, it probably went along
the lines of temptress, devious, manipulative, conniving, two-faced
whore with a few added expletives just for good measure. “So Kate
told her what happened which is how she got my name, but we were
never um…together,” she said not certain if that was the correct
word.

“She doesn’t seem to care. She thinks that
since I didn’t tell her about you, you somehow must hold all the
answers as to why I am the way I am. I tried to tell her that the
last I had seen or heard from you was before we’d even started
dating, but she is almost as persistent as I am. So, I guess what
I’m saying is that I need you, Lex,” he said affectionately using
her pet name. “I need you to meet Bekah and convince her I’m worth
keeping around.”

Lexi rolled her eyes to the ceiling in
exasperation. She didn’t even want to consider whether or not Jack
was
worth keeping around. Nonetheless, she mulled the idea
over. She was, in fact, overdue for an Atlanta trip to visit her
family. She had never intended to see Jack, especially if that
included parading around with his fiancé-to-be and explaining their
history. Pass on that. “You’ve failed to explain how any of this is
my
problem,” she stated as firmly as possible. “It’s not
like I can dash away from my busy schedule to take a wonderful
jaunt in the park with you and your girlfriend, or fiancé-to-be, or
whatever the hell she is. I have other things to do. I’m kind of
busy.”

She could practically feel him cringe through
the phone. “I know you’re busy, but I thought that maybe since
school wasn’t in session, you might be able to take some time to
get off work.”

“Actually, I’m interning. I’ve been working
my ass off all summer. I don’t even know if the firm would give me
the time off. No one takes time off, and I don’t particularly want
to be the only one,” she stated telling only a partial truth. The
other three interns had taken time off at the beginning of the
program, but it had been before the work had drastically increased.
Lately, the interns barely had time to breathe, let alone think of
taking a weekend rendezvous out of state. She may have had a quiet
Saturday planned, but that hardly kept her from being on call.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” he said
quietly. “I guess I’ll just have to tell her you weren’t able to
get off work. Please let me know if you happen to change your mind.
It really would help me out immensely.”

Jack had a talent for making her feel bad
about the decision she made, especially if it wasn’t directly in
his best interest. “I’d really like to help,” she said, lying
through her teeth. “There’s just no way that I can get the time
off, and anyway I couldn’t afford the flight,” she said
off-handedly.

“I wouldn’t make you buy your own ticket,” he
added hastily. “You would be doing me a huge favor. Of course, I
would take care of you…uh…it…the ticket.”

“Oh.” The last time she had seen him he was
just out of college, poor, and practically starving for a job. Of
course he would be doing significantly better financially two years
later. Unlike her, sitting in a hundred thousand dollars of student
loan debt with a year left in school.

“I guess I’ll let you get back to your
morning. Sorry for waking you up so early. You have my number now,”
he said as if that solved all the issues. “You can call me if you
want.”

“Right. Okay. Thanks,” she stated
dumbfounded. Why would she ever have to call Jack?

“Later.”

“Bye.”

She hung up the phone closing it with brutal
force. Somehow, she restrained herself from flinging the stupid
thing across the room. She was so angry and worked up and also
terrified he would never call again. Too many emotions were roiling
through her body right now so she did the first thing that came to
mind. She quickly added Jack’s name into her contacts despite the
nagging urge to erase his number, all recollection of the phone
call and him.

Lexi ground her teeth in frustration. She
couldn’t believe that after all of this time,
this
was why
he was calling her. He called her because he was in love with
another woman. Well, he hadn’t come right out and said that, but it
didn’t matter. Jack would never contemplate marriage without due
cause. She shook her head hoping she could wake herself from the
nightmare of what she had just heard. When that didn’t work, she
pushed herself off the ground, careful not to put too much weight
on her sore toe, and stalked out of her bedroom into what only a
resident of New York City would consider a living room.

In all honesty, the living room, dining room,
and kitchen were all compacted into one puny space with two doors
leading into the bedrooms on either side. Grimy yellow paint
crusted the walls with navy smudges appearing more prominently in
some places where the top coat was peeling off. The crown molding
was cracked and grungy. Her roommate’s sofa, which luckily had a
maroon cover to hide the seventies-esque pattern, took up the
majority of the room. Two large bean bags, one brown and one
turquoise, sat to one side, and a black Ikea table donned the
other. A brown coffee table, left over from the previous owner, was
cluttered with old newspapers, coffee stains, and seemingly endless
dents from late night escapades. The only remotely spectacular item
in the living room was the flat screen television her parents had
given her as a move-in present.

Dusty wood floors creaked as she walked to
the kitchen to brew the pot of coffee she so desperately needed. An
off-white refrigerator hummed noisily along the far wall closest to
Lexi’s door. A window was etched into the wall above the
aluminum-plated sink revealing a glossy view of the street below.
After Lexi prepared the coffee, she leaned back against the cool
counter and ran her fingers through her brown matted waves.

Her laid back Saturday had gone from relaxing
to a spastic panic attack in the span of a fifteen minute phone
call. When the timer went off, she poured herself a mug and guzzled
the steaming coffee as quickly as she could muster before moseying
back into her room to take a shower. Even though she drank the
coffee black, the caffeine barely hit her. She knew by the time she
was out of the shower, any signs of consuming it would have all but
dissipated. She scrubbed her body vigorously with cranberry body
soap. After applying shampoo through her long tresses and rinsing,
she cut the shower off, dried her body, and slicked her hair back
into a high ponytail. She threw on a pair of red Nike track shorts,
a flimsy black tank, and a pair of running shoes. Making her way
back into the kitchen, she poured the remaining pot of coffee into
a travelers mug and scribbled a quick note for her roommate since
this was the one morning she had actually woken up before her.

Forgoing a cab, Lexi trekked on auto-pilot
across town, haphazardly knocking into eager tourists staring
skyward. She remembered being one of those clueless people when she
had first arrived in town. Now, she could navigate the city nearly
as well as any homegrown New Yorker, except for her best friend,
Chyna.

That was precisely who she was after as she
meandered down Park Avenue on the way to the Upper East Side. It
always baffled her that her best friend was more wealthy than she
would likely be in her lifetime. But they got along and Chyna
didn’t seem to mind the financial discrepancy.

Lexi and Chyna had met nearly two years ago
standing in line at a nightclub. Well, Lexi had been in line. Chyna
absolutely refused to be subjected to waiting outside, when there
was fun to be had on the inside. Lexi was next in line, wearing a
scandalous outfit more fit for her home in Georgia than fall in
York. She had been freezing her ass off for the past hour when
Chyna arrived at the front entrance of the same locale gliding out
of an onyx-colored town car, and directly through the rope.

Having seen one too many of these girls
flounce into the club in front of her, Lexi began throwing a fit
yelling about another skanky whore taking her place inside, not
even caring that the bouncer looked like he was itching to kick her
out of line. Surprisingly, Chyna stopped in her tracks, turned
towards her, and asked her directly what she had said. Lexi
repeated herself, smiling through chattering teeth the whole time.
The bouncer’s eyes had bulged at her comments and moved to remove
her from the line, but Chyna put her hand out stopping him in his
tracks. She then demanded he allow Lexi inside. Ever since that
night, they had been all but inseparable.

Lexi planted herself on the front steps of
Chyna’s apartment building, smiling at the doorman. “You’re here
early, Miss Lexi,” Bernard said opening the door for her and
signaling for her to enter.

“Yeah, I had a pretty shitty morning to be
honest, Mr. B.”

“I’m sure it was nothing you can’t handle,”
he said with his ever enthusiastic smile.

“Thanks, but you give me too much credit,”
she said producing a smile of her own. “Chyna upstairs?” she asked
as she stepped through the entranceway.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Alone?” she threw the question over her
shoulder.

He smiled that all-knowing smile and winked
at her. Lexi laughed wondering if Chyna
ever
slept
alone.

Lexi took the elevator to the top floor,
listening absentmindedly to the classical ballad playing through
the speakers. After exiting, she located the door to Chyna’s
apartment, slid the gold key into the lock, and twisted it.
Swinging the door open, she smiled inwardly at the new renovations
Chyna had effectuated into her foyer.

Her taste was constantly changing, and with a
trust fund hovering somewhere around the nine digit range, why not
adjust your life, home, and wardrobe whichever way the wind blew.
At present, a crystal cut vase overflowed with seasonal flora on
top of a square, white, sculpted table in the middle of the
pristine entranceway. She prayed she hadn’t tracked in mud or
sidewalk grime on the freshly waxed marble floors as she strode
through the foyer and down a small flight of stairs into the sunken
living room. Lexi couldn’t imagine a space contrasting with her
apartment more than Chyna’s den. In square feet, the living room
along was larger than Lexi’s entire residence. The pure white
carpet was constantly steam cleaned to maintain its perfection. A
sofa, loveseat and recliner—all a matching set of soft black
leather—centered on an entertainment center rivaling a movie
theatre. Original oil paintings Chyna had collected while traveling
throughout Europe decorated several walls and black and white
photographs floated in a collage of frames against one another.

Advancing across the room and through the
arching hallway, Lexi made her way to Chyna’s bedroom. She cracked
the door open, and peered into the expansive room to see if Chyna
did, in fact, have a companion in her king-sized, four-poster bed.
“Chyna,” she whispered into the darkness. “Chyna. Wake up,
chica.”

A deliberate grunt sounded from the other end
of the room. “Go away.”

“Get your tiny ass out of bed! Is there
someone in there with you? I’m not afraid to do jumping jacks on
your five million thread count sheets,” she taunted with
surprisingly more enthusiasm then she thought she was capable of
that particular morning.

“You wouldn’t,” a muffled cry emanated from
the darkness.

“Come on. How well do you know me?” Lexi
questioned.

The covers flew to the foot of the bed and
Chyna sat up grudgingly. “All too well,” she grumbled swishing her
glossy black hair over one shoulder.

Lexi pursed her lips with envy as Chyna slung
her long olive-toned legs over the edge of the bed and hopped down.
With the genetics of an Italian supermodel, Chyna was enviable from
head to toe. Chyna felt more comfortable sauntering around in
skimpy lingerie than probably anyone else in existence. But why
not? She was rail thin with large perfectly perky breasts and a
petite ass that didn’t even look remotely fat in white, ultra
skinny jeans. Her flawless complexion had never seen a blemish. Her
large emerald eyes were almost always smoky and seductive. She was
one hundred percent her mother’s daughter in appearance and her
father in personality, which explained why she didn’t get along
with either.

Her parents had made a public mess of their
divorce when she was in high school, spreading their personal
affairs all over the tabloids. Chyna wasn’t sure why they had
gotten so angry with each other. She had known since she was ten
years old that both of her parents were having affairs. It had been
pretty obvious. She couldn’t understand why they hadn’t realized
that as well, but they hadn’t. Or at least they had pretended they
didn’t know, possibly for her sake, but more likely, they looked
the other way to hold on to some semblance of why they had gotten
married in the first place. Money. Love. Who knew? Now her father
couldn’t look at her, and her mother couldn’t be around her.

“What are you doing here so early?
Unbelievable, Alexa,” she chided, using Lexi’s full name as always.
“You know I need a minimum seven hours of beauty sleep or I look
like shit all day. Do I look like I went to bed at midnight?”