Loved - A Novel (24 page)

              Liv, as I took to calling her immediately, was taller than me and her hair was cut in a blonde bob with side swept bangs. She was always in the highest and most amazing shoes. She brought with her an arsenal of hilarious phrases like “I miss your face!” and “I can’t even take it right now!” and the almost-overuse of the word “cute.” Everything she said was accompanied by a smile that said, “You know you love me,” and a train of proverbial exclamation points. 

I loved her immensely.

Before New Year’s, I dyed my long hair from blonde to brown, which is the color that I always go to when I want to take life more seriously. It went with my new wardrobe and my new attitude. I went out with more eligible guys that I met while I was sober but none of them stuck. Astrud, Ben and I hung out a lot, but I stopped letting Ben kiss me. Neither of us had been able to commit after my original “no,” and we seemed to be better as friends. I dated the other guys in part to make him jealous, but I honestly was just trying to move forward in life, and then, just like that, life began to move forward with me.

February, 2007.

One day in February, I was helping one of Nashville’s best wardrobe stylists pull some clothes for one of her clients. Liv and I were the only girls on the sales floor and there weren’t any other customers in the store so I had a chance to talk to the stylist more than usual as she browsed.

              “I’d actually really like to get into styling,” I told her.  “If you ever need help with anything, I’d love to get some experience.”  I said it casually, but I felt like I was going out on a limb. 

              The days of dressing my Barbies in the one-of-a-kind Barbie clothes that my grandmother’s friend had made had been flooding back to me lately, along with the living room fashion shows that I’d put on with Meredith.

              “Really!  That’s great! I don’t usually need much help but there are some jobs that I pass on because of scheduling or budget. Give me your number, I’d be happy to pass some of those calls along to you.” 

              It was a promise for more than I could have hoped. I was surprised when I got a call from her not even two weeks later.

              “I’m styling on
Nashville Star
and I could use an intern. I can’t pay you but it’s just two days a week. Are you interested?”

              Breathe.  Don’t scream. 

              “Yes!”

              “Can you start Wednesday?”

              “YES!”

              I didn’t want to lose my hours at the store so my manager scheduled me every day from Friday to Tuesday. I had Nashville Star dress rehearsals on Wednesdays and the live show was filmed on Thursdays. I helped her unpack the clothes, steam them, decide which outfit was right for each contestant and pack up everything again.

              When I had free time before or after a shift at the store, I met the contestants for fittings or helped by doing returns. Between both jobs, I had never worked so hard in all my life. I didn’t care one bit that I wasn’t being paid for the show.  This was my foot in the door.

              One week I had to miss the show because Liv and I were going to New York for fashion week. We didn’t actually go to the fashion shows, though we did walk by the big white tent in Bryant Park. They televised the shows in the city so we watched some of our favorites from our hotel room at the Chelsea Inn. 

Oh, that Reem Acra dress is incredible! 

Phillip Lim has such vision for fall!

              The hotel was a little piece of heaven, where the rooms looked like your grandma’s house and every morning we got a complimentary coffee and pastries from the café downstairs. I sat in the window seat and watched the morning sea of people that were below while Liv messed with her hair and tried to wake up. Liv, the doll, was so not a morning person.

              This was the first time I’d been to New York since my teenage years when we saw
Rent
and Times Square and FAO Schwartz. This trip was completely different. We saw Prada and Bloomingdales and went to Cafeteria and La Petite Abielle.

              The stylist that I was interning for made good use of my trip by having me stop by a designer’s studio to pick out handmade leather pieces to bring back on loan. The designer made stuff for Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz and designed the American flag corset and red leather pants that Britney Spears once wore on the cover of
Rolling Stone
.

              I lugged the heavy shopping bag of $8,000 worth of leather goods all the way back to Nashville, and I had a proud moment when one of the contestants wore a pair of pants that I had chosen on the show a few weeks later. I enjoyed playing an important role behind the scenes.

              The student intern on the show and I became the cool kids at lunch; our table filled up quickly with other members of the production team. I spent most of my time doing whatever was needed, even if it was running out to the mall last minute to get a contestant a thong because she showed up for the taping not wearing any underwear at all. By the end of the season, I was allowed on stage during commercial breaks to straighten one of the contestant’s top or lint roll a jacket.

              It was like summer camp—we were all so sad to see it end after the finale, but after that I started getting work on short films and music videos.  Also, I heard a rumor that one of the managers at the boutique where I had done much better in sales had put in his two weeks notice. I called Taryn right away and told her that I wanted the job. She was willing to interview me, but she wanted me to know that there was another employee up for it; my only concern was that the other candidate was still with the company and I wasn’t. I knew that I had her beat in skill, and in the end, I got the job.

I was so glad to leave the competitive sales atmosphere in which I was struggling. I would miss my new friends and the clothes, but I knew Liv and I would remain friends no matter what.

              The stylist that I’d been working with came in to the store often, and she asked me to assist her on a few projects that she had coming up. My professional life was falling gently into place while nothing in my romantic life had changed much. Ben had been in the audience at
Nashville Star
every single week, and I don’t think it’s because he liked the show that much.

             
May, 2007.

              Astrud and I had moved out of the house and into our own apartment, where we’d met some new neighbors we were hanging out with. Phil and Zane had just moved in to the building across from ours. Phil, a thin guy with very short hair and narrow eyes, was a keyboard player from Maryland.  Zane was a rocker from Manchester, England. He was not much taller than Ben with long, wild, curly dark hair and a constant 5 o’clock shadow; he wore
Guns-N-Roses
t-shirts with frayed vests and ripped jeans painted with American flag stripes.

              Phil and Zane were new to Nashville, having met each other while working on a cruise ship and decided to move together to pursue music individually. When we first met them, I thought Phil was cute, but as I got to know them, I became fascinated with Zane.  Maybe it was the accent or the deep and tangled conversations in which we would find ourselves. However, I didn’t necessarily think of either of them romantically.

              I found myself more hung up on Ben than ever. I was sleeping in his yellow t-shirt every night. I was sleeping at his house sometimes too, after staying up late watching TV with him. We still weren’t kissing, though I knew we both wanted to. If he couldn’t commit to me, then I wasn’t willing to give him that.

              I guess holding out worked. I went to visit my parents, and the night I got back, Ben asked me to come over. I told him that I’d told my mom that I had feelings for him. I said it kind of nonchalantly, assuming of course that I was just there to watch TV, which is what we were doing as usual.

              “I like you, too,” he said.

I didn’t take my eyes off
Entourage
.

              “Yes, as a good friend, of course,” I said. 

I was used to this.

              “While you were gone,” he said, “I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind being your boyfriend.”

              “What!?” Now I was paying attention.

              “Yeah, I mean like that would be okay with me.  If you were still interested or whatever.”

              “Seriously? Are you sure about this?” I asked.

              “Yes. I told Jimmy,” he replied.

             
Oh, well, if your best friend knows, it must be for real.

              “Wow. Okay. I mean, yes, I still want that.” I told him. “Yes!”

              Zane and I went out for Mexican food the next day. I talked of my new “boyfriend” and how I knew he would finally commit some day. Zane laughed at me; he didn’t really believe in monogamy, but he’d never been in love.

              The next night Sophie was singing background vocals at a bar we called Longshots. It was actually called “The Longshot,” but no one ever picked up on that. A girl that Sophie knew from school, Kellie, asked Sophie to sing with her band on Thursday nights. Ben, Astrud, and I went and sat at a high four top table. Longshots was a sports bar so there were flat screen TVs and sports team paraphernalia decorating the primary-blue walls.

              The band had already started by the time we arrived, and they were playing “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” I ordered a Jack-and-diet and the warmth of the liquor was no match for my heart. I was on cloud nine. Ben held my hand. We all laughed and shouted over the band or sang along until they had played every song that they knew, and by then the bar was closing anyway.

              Now that he was my boyfriend, Ben took me on real dates. He dressed up and I dressed up and he brought me a dozen hot pink roses. He drove us to a fancy restaurant that I’d never been to before. The only difference in our relationship since we made it official was that I actually felt that he was holding back. I wasn’t staying at his house at all. I saw him less often and he was less physically affectionate. This was so unlike us.

It must be because he wants to do this right
, I thought,
or maybe he’s scared. 

Always making excuses for a man’s shortcomings.

              Some days, Ben was proving to be a very good boyfriend. He would call to “check on me.” He was considerate, making sure that I knew when he had plans with the guys; he surprised me, but other times I felt like he was somewhere else completely—not holding my hand or showing up really late when we had plans to meet out somewhere.

              I tried to talk to him about it.

              “I know,” he said. “I’ll do better.”

              But he didn’t. It got worse. On the Fourth of July, my favorite holiday, he told me that he’d meet me at the bar downtown instead of riding there with me. He came in late; he was already drunk and he made it clear that he had no interest in being there or being there with me. 

              I didn’t complain at the karaoke bar later that week when he sat with the two friends that he’d brought and who I had never met before—somewhere else in the room. Zane sat on my lap and I pretended to be “squished” and made a comment about Ben being nearby.               

              “He won’t care, it’s me,” Zane said in his incredible English accent.

              “He wouldn’t care anyway,” I said. 

              I let him sit there and we shared each other’s drinks. I thought if I could make Ben jealous, he would snap out of it, but he didn’t.

              Then, one night, Zane and Phil came over. Phil left early while Zane and I sat on my bed talking. I loved talking with Zane; he was so smart and though his viewpoints on a lot of things were different from mine, we always respected the other, realizing that—in part—it was our differences that made our talks so interesting. As the talking wound down and we grew tired, we lay next to each other on top of the covers and whispered at a slower pace. Then, he kissed me.

              It didn’t surprise me that he did. It did surprise me how much I liked it. He kissed me again and I thought about Ben and I pushed him away and he left.

              But I thought about him all the next day and I knew that I wanted more of Zane. He sent me a text message that said he knew he should be sorry but he wasn’t. Sophie and I were shopping in Hillsboro Village and I hadn’t taken my sunglasses off. In and out of the shops, I didn’t take them off. I knew that if she took one glance into my eyes, they would scream, “I’m guilty!”

              He came over again after Sophie’s show at Longshots that Thursday.  He left me with teeth marks imprinted on my arm. 

              I knew this was not the way to fix things with Ben so I talked to him about how I was feeling unfulfilled in our relationship. He listened and texted me the next day, “I like you like a fat kid likes cake,” and then he took me to dinner with his parents.