The Fling (25 page)

“You have two some odd weeks to enjoy spending time with her, so enjoy it,” Megan said.

“And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

“Probably Scooter. I have to go. David’s meeting is over.” Megan hung up before she could say good-bye. Annie paced across the four available feet in her office. Inside her chest the happiness and the peace she felt with Oksana was warring with fear of having to deal with her family. She thought of the way Oksana had giggled as Annie kissed her stomach the night before. The happiness and the peace took another round in this game, as with all the rounds before. Annie smiled to herself and sent Oksana another text, just to see how her day was going.

*

“What are you watching?” Annie asked.

Oksana stretched then settled her feet back under Annie’s thigh.

“It’s this show about the art the Nazis stole during the War. Stop talking to me. This is interesting,” Oksana said, waving her off without blinking. If makeup was Kat’s crack, PBS was hers. Despite what Annie claimed were the perks of Wikipedia, history had always been her favorite subject. She liked it in-depth and accurate.

“Would you date me if I was a history teacher?” she asked, half listening for an answer. A British professor was talking about the move to preserve Italy’s art during the bombing.

“Yes.” Annie laughed. “I’d date you no matter what you did. Do you want to be a history teacher?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Well, what do you like about training?”

Oksana paused the TV and settled back for a moment, thinking of her answer. “I have this client. Old Hollywood money. Hollywoodland money. He’s enjoying his fortune, writing sitcoms in the 80s just because he can, and then his partner dies.”

“When was this?”

“I think ninety-five, around there. Afterward, he becomes a complete shut-in. Quits the show, doesn’t leave his house for years. Literally. Has an assistant living his life for him, and while all this is happening, he puts on two hundred pounds.”

“Jesus!”

“Yeah. One day his assistant doesn’t show up because he’s sick, but Stewart doesn’t believe him. He gets so pissed that he drags himself to the garage just to drive down the hill to catch his assistant sunbathing or waiting in line at Disneyland, whatever he thought he was really doing. He walks outside and sees that his neighbors have added a tower to a wing of their house that is a total eyesore. He completely forgets about his assistant and starts off for his neighbors to curse them out. He made it like a hundred feet before he gave up, but he realized how bad things had gotten. I deal with a lot of difficult people, and Stewart is difficult, but he doesn’t see me so he can look good for some silly reason.”

“Like a wedding.”

Oksana nudged Annie’s leg. “A wedding is a perfectly good reason. I mean like true vanity or revenge. Stewart wants his life back and I love being a part of that.” Oksana smiled, thinking of how much Stewart had opened up to her and how much he would probably like Annie.

“What were you doing before?” Annie asked.

Oksana motioned for Annie’s laptop. She handed it over and Oksana pulled up the official website for InkLadies.com. Her profile was still up, but the videos were long gone to make room for the new girls. She found her pictures and handed the computer back to Annie.

“It was a glamorous way to make a living.”

Annie squinted at the monitor before her eyes sprang wide. “Holy shit! This is you. Oksie Cocktail?”

“I’d done some modeling during high school, but the agency wanted me to travel, and I didn’t want to leave home. A friend of Scooter’s ran this website, and Scooter would come to shoots with me.” She sat up and looked at which images Annie was clicking on. It was porn, not art, the way some of the girls claimed it to be. Porn for people who liked girls with tattoos and girls who liked other girls.

Annie clicked on a set of photos Oksie had taken with a girl who went by the name Lucy Boots. There were a couple dozen pictures of them stripping each other and eventually having sex in the backseat of a vintage Chevy.

Annie’s face was bright red. “What did Inna have to say about this nakedness?”

Oksana laughed. “She told me to enjoy my perky tits while they last. She didn’t care, and contrary to what you saw with her and Erica, Kat’s really shy about being in a bathing suit. She wouldn’t follow in those footsteps.”

Annie frowned and stared at one of the more porny photos.

“Do you think less of me now?” Oksana asked.

“Wha-what!” Annie did a double take. “No, not at all. I was just thinking about how different you look with hair. Jesus, Sana.” Annie squirmed a little. “These pictures are really hot. I would never have the guts to get naked like that.”

“It was pretty fun for a while.”

“What made you stop?”

“My ex.”

“Oh, you were dating while this was going on?”

“Yeah, but it’s not what you think. She was all for this type of modeling.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think…” Oksana didn’t want to tell Annie what Vivian had really been like, but hiding the truth was pointless. “I think I made her feel stronger, more independent.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked.

“You know how I said Stewart came from old Hollywood money? Well, Vivian came from old oil tycoon money.” Oksana saw the recognition on Annie’s face. She knew Annie understood the kind of legacy Oksana was talking about. “I don’t know how much of this is true, but from what Ronnie and I were able to piece together, Vivian had been lying about her life, her family, everything ever since she entered prep school.”

Annie laughed. “Like
The Prince and the Pauper
?”

“Exactly!” Oksana said. “I don’t know why, but I guess she didn’t want people to know how rich she was and exactly what her family name meant, so she came up with this elaborate scheme to be someone else. She gave all of us a fake last name, came up with this whole other life, and when Ronnie and Noelle decided to move out here after Princeton, she came with them.”

“Ah, I see. She was looking for an adventure and you were something very exotic and different to her.”

“I guess.” Oksana took a deep breath. She hadn’t actually talked about her breakup with Vivian in years. “The thing is I really don’t know why she did what she did. I don’t know if she was hiding or she was taking a break from the pressure or if she was just playing make believe. We were living together in Beverly Hills. I came home one night after a shoot and she was gone. Like completely gone. Her stuff, our furniture, even the TV. All of my things were piled in one corner of the living room with an eviction notice from Vivian’s father. He owned the house.”

Annie’s mouth hung open in shock. It was an appropriate reaction. “What did it say?”

“I had fifteen days to vacate, but what was I going to do? Sleep on the floor?”

“What
did
you do?”

“I called Ronnie to see if she had any idea what was going on and she and Noelle came over and helped me load up my things.”

“And what happened to Vivian?”

“Well, the Internet was able to tell us her real last name was Vonburn, but now that she’s married it’s Mainer.” Oksana let Annie process that information for a moment seeing another light bulb go off in her eyes.

“You mean Vonburn as in Vonburn Center?” Oksana nodded. “Holy shit. Her family
invented
money.”

“And they pioneered the railroad and the oil industry among other things.”

“What did she tell you they did?”

“She said her dad was a lawyer and her mom was a teacher and she’d gotten into Princeton on a scholarship. There’s a building at Princeton named after her grandfather.”

“Jesus. So—”

“So I never heard from her again. I called her and her phone was cut off. She never responded to my e-mails. After a while, the account started bouncing the e-mails back.” And like that, the woman she thought was the love of her life vanished and Oksana was left with years of wondering why she’d been a part of Vivian’s sick game.

“This”—Oksana pointed to the images of her naked body on the laptop—“was just another part of her escape, I think. She could never pose nude or even get a tattoo without serious repercussions. She lived that life through me.”

“Do you think it would have worked if she had told you the truth?”

“I don’t know. She gave me everything I wanted in our relationship. We never fought, she always said yes, but after she was gone I could see that she was going out of her way to make me too happy, as if she knew she wouldn’t stay and she wanted me to be as happy as possible when we were together. There were little things though. We all saw them, like she never had a bad day ever. No one is in a good mood all the time. Once, though, when I brought my toys for the first time, she hesitated.”

“Wasn’t a big fan of your monster dildos?”

“I don’t think so. She wouldn’t admit to it, but I could tell she didn’t want to use them with me in bed. She did anyway. I just wish she had told me something. Noelle comes from the same kind of money too, not as old, but just as blue and plenty of it. Her family hates Ronnie, but she doesn’t care. They made it work.”

“Oh, Sana.”

“It’s not like I want her back or anything, but you understand now why I was a little hesitant to get involved with a girl from Laguna who was already engaged. You see why I want you to be sure about us.”

“Yeah, sort of. So how did you end up at the gym?”

“Once I realized Vivian really wasn’t coming back, I had a bit of a breakdown. Okay, it was a full-on crazyfest. Noelle thought yoga might help me find my center or something. It didn’t. It just gave me more quiet time to think about killing Vivian, but I became really tight with the instructor. I told her I was looking to try something new and she told me about a gym that was doing fitness certifications. She’d started training after a breakup herself so I figured why not.”

“And it stuck.”

“Meeting new people helped me get my mind off Vivian and the exercise helped me focus on myself. After I finished my certification, Ronnie introduced me to Paulo. He hired me at Elite and the rest is…the present?”

“And now you’re stuck with me.”

“Anne?” Oksana asked cautiously. Annie was the honest sort, and a little voice told Oksana that the truth would be something she didn’t want to hear. “Are you going to leave him?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I can’t imagine being without you. Jeff…” Annie puffed out a sad breath. “He isn’t right for me. He and I, we’re friends. We’re not in love. He doesn’t give me the honey bear giggly butterflies. He doesn’t make me feel good about gaining five pounds in a week.”

“It all went to your tits. I’m sure of it.”

“No.” Annie grinned. “It went to my stomach and face, but whatever. I am counting down the days until Jeff gets back so I can end things once and for all. I compare the two of you. I compare your family and friends to mine. I think it’s natural when you see what you’re missing.”

Oksana moved Annie’s computer to the coffee table then slid to the floor between her legs. She felt Annie’s eyes on her as she spread her thighs and shuffled closer.

“Are you nervous about talking to him?” Oksana asked.

“No. I’m anxious. I want to get it over with and put it behind me so we can move on. What are you doing? We’re talking about our feelings.” Oksana had unzipped her jeans and was now in the process of taking off her own shirt and her bra.

“Keep talking.” She leaned forward and settled her chin on her crossed arms in Annie’s lap. “You were saying?”

“You play dirty.” Annie sighed before she stroked Oksana’s trimmed hair. “I used to ignore my feelings a lot, as recently as a few weeks ago. What I needed from friends. What I wanted in bed. I don’t have to do that with you. I was miserable planning the wedding, but how could I tell people that? Jeff is perfectly nice. He cares about me, and I mean, who else was there?”

“You didn’t want more?”

Annie hated that the question was even necessary, but it was.

“You know, I did. When I met you, I started smiling in a way I hadn’t before. I
wanted
to go to the gym. The most exciting part about getting married was seeing you twice a week. I wasn’t worried about being bi or gay. I’m not now. I’ve never cared about that sort of thing. If I did, I’d still be in Laguna with fake even bigger boobs. I would be a trophy wife, like—” Annie stopped, then frowned.

“Like who?”

“Like my mom. She has no sense of self-worth. What Noelle said about
those
people, my mom
is
one of those people. She used to be my dad’s mistress.” Annie closed her eyes and pictured Taum.

“His first wife died and she swooped in and nabbed that brass ring. I overheard her once bragging about snagging the wealthiest man in town under fifty. When I was Kat’s age, she told me that my boobs would be my ticket to a rich husband. The only reason she’s on board with Jeff is because he did this amazing spread for
Vogue
last year and she was able to brag about it to her faux-friends.” She’d never told anyone that before, not even Megan, who might have enjoyed that piece of information.