Unforgettable (7 page)

From far away, through the dizzying desire and the roar of her pulse, Rett heard herself say, “There are a couple of motels just down Santa Monica Boulevard.”

Angel caught her breath. “Yes, that would work.”

Rett just stared at Angel, unable to say that she needed Angel to make the decisions right now. “Let’s go,” Angel whispered.

They were in Angel’s car heading quickly toward the motels when Angel said, “I’m not like this all the time.”

The vacancy signs swam into Rett’s vision. “You decide, I can’t.”

She watched Angel walk into the lobby of the motel they’d come to first. It was all she could do to breathe. Angel was back with a key in a few minutes and she drove them toward the back of the building. After she turned the engine off they sat there in silence.

Angel took a deep breath. ” I think I might like to get to know you. I mean, I don’t know very much about you, really.” Her voice was raw. “But not tonight.”

Rett looked at her in confusion.

“Tonight I just want to …” Angel gazed at her in the dim light. “I just want to…”

“It’s okay,” Rett repeated. She managed to open her door, but her steps toward the door Angel was unlocking were unsteady.

Rett’s only awareness was Angel inside of her. At some point she had taken off her clothes and found her way to the bed, but she didn’t remembering doing so. Angel had her wrists pinned over her head with one hand while the other satisfied Rett’s need. Angel’s tongue and teeth were making her breasts burn with desire for more.

More, more — Rett was aching with raw want, feeling alive and hungry and wanton and consumed. Her climax left the sheets and Angel’s hand drenched, then Angel was straddling her, pinning her wrists with both hands while she hungrily kissed Rett’s mouth. Rett was still trembling as Angel trailed feather-light kisses along her jaw and neck. She felt completely exposed.

“I knew,” Angel whispered as she sat up. “I knew it would be like this.”

“How did you know?” Rett pulled her wrists free and raised herself on her elbows so she could kiss Angel’s shoulders. The wet heat on her stomach brought her trembling hunger back and she sat up all the way.

Angel tipped her hips to welcome Rett’s fingers and with a luxuriant sigh drew Rett’s mouth to her breasts. They were still for a moment. Rett almost didn’t want to move — the sensation of holding this woman tight to her, the whisper of her hair and brush of her skin was like the pause between notes of a song. The rest of the world was in its place. Everything else was perfect. Her entire being was focused on the next inevitable note, the next sensation.

Angel broke their fierce stillness with a barely audible “Rett.”

It was slower than when Angel had been in her. Her fingers stroked inside and out, learning every receptive place, knowing what pleasured because her fingers told her so and because her sensitive ear heard the rise and fall of Angel’s breath as a melody of need.

Faster now, faster because Angel was breathing more loudly, her hips moving more frantically. Like that, yes, but harder.

From touch to taste, to more exploration with fingers tangled in hair and shoulders bruised with kisses. Finally an exhausted completeness overwhelmed Rett and made her beg for a rest.

Angel settled beside her in the dark. Rett liked the smell of her skin. It was enough for a while to just breathe it in. She was going to fall asleep, she realized.

She managed to mumble, “How did you know it would be like this?”

She had to be asleep when Angel answered because what she thought she heard made no sense. “I’ve always known. You never did.”

Rett woke up alone. Brilliant sunlight was trying to creep past the closed motel curtains — she’d slept late into the morning. Little wonder, she thought. All that exertion on top of some serious mental stress.

She wished Angel had woken her, though. It was Saturday, after all. They could have had breakfast, made plans to see each other again. Surely Angel would want to see her again.

Rett put her head on her knees, not wanting to look for a note in case there wasn’t one. She wasn’t that bad a judge of character. Angel hadn’t just been putting on a line. There was nothing smooth about her, not the way Trish was smooth.

But what if she had been an experiment? What if last night had just been Angel trying to escape her own code? They’d certainly escaped Rett’s. She buried her head in the pillows, wondering how pathetic it was to be going-on-forty and experiencing what could be her very first one-night stand.

She knew what Trish would say. What Trish would say no longer mattered to her. Hiding in bed in case there wasn’t a note was pretty pathetic, she decided.

There was a note. It wasn’t a one-night stand after all. In almost illegible script it read, “I had a Saturday Symposium I couldn’t miss. You were very asleep. Call me later.” At the bottom there was a scribble of such flair that it was probably her initials, but there was no telling where an A or anything else might begin or end.

Greatly relieved, she hummed “Isn’t She Lovely” as she showered and dressed. She went through the embarrassing process of asking if the bill needed to be settled. The clerk had a nasty smirk as he told her the “other party” had taken care of it. She would have to pay Angel back. She caught a cruising cab and headed for home.

As she turned out of the elevator toward her door she ran smack-dab into a fuming Trish.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“None the hell of your business,” Rett shot back. She felt the red flush start in her neck and spread upward.

“Still in last night’s clothes — don’t tell me you finally figured out how to get fucked?”

From down the hall she heard a snicker and took note of two burly guys and Toothpick Legs all outside her door.

“You’re as tasteful as always,” Rett said. She was still reeling from last night’s delectable passion and unprepared for Trish’s brand of cruelty. “If you wanted your stuff a phone call would have helped. I could have been here then.”

“How was I to know you changed the locks? And I hardly expected you to be just getting home from last night.”

“I know — that’s your usual style.” She brushed past Trish and headed for the door. “I put all your things in the spare room.”

Toothpick Legs favored her with a mock sympathetic glance. “I know this isn’t easy for you,” she said breathily.

“Watch how it’s done,” Rett said sweetly. “Because someday you’ll get to play my part.”

The men were strong and efficient and cleared the room in short order. There was a little ugliness over a wall hanging they had bought together. Reminding Trish that Rett had paid for all of it made Trish claim it had been a gift.

“Take it, then,” Rett said. “Whatever you think, this is not all about money.”

“Kiss my ass,” Trish snapped.

“I don’t like standing in lines.”

“Class act as always, Rett. Oh, and here’s the keys to that piece-of-shit car.” Trish tossed them on the couch, then turned her back.

“Naomi needs your address. If you want a check, that is.”

“I’ll give it to her myself.” Trish looked slyly over her shoulder. “Unless you’re interested.”

Rett managed a serene smile. “Not in the least.” She couldn’t help herself. She gestured at Toothpick Legs. “But I’m assuming her parents aren’t letting you stay at their house.”

Toothpick Legs stammered indignantly, “I have my own place now!”

“Shut up, Cheri, she’s just baiting you because you’re half her age.”

Rett gestured at the door. “All done? That’s the way out. Feel free to slam it if it makes you feel better.”

Apparently it did. After the thudding echo died, Rett locked the door and murmured, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Trish had no hold on her. Great sex had therapeutic value, apparently. Wouldn’t that make an interesting infomercial, she thought. Forget pills, forget therapy — lesbian sex is the cure to what ails you.

Angel. She wanted to call her now. She wanted to see her tonight.

She wrapped her arms around herself and grinned dopily in the mirror. What a night, she thought. The stuff that love songs are made of. She burst into “I Feel the Earth Move” and went to change her clothes.

She tossed the jeans in the hamper before realizing she hadn’t taken out the napkin with Angel’s number. She dumped out the hamper and put her fingers into the pocket.

She found her keys, billfold, the note Angel had written this morning, the remains of the twenty she’d paid the cabbie with, Camille’s business card and some prehistoric lint. No cocktail napkin. It was her only pocket. It had to be there.

She turned the pocket inside out, all the while cursing herself for not actually looking at the napkin. If she’d looked she wouldn’t need it — Angel’s number would be right there in her memory. What was the point of a photographic memory if she didn’t use it? She fumbled through the entire laundry pile, just in case. No note.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she chanted to herself. She quickly dressed and dashed down to the street to see if the napkin was at the curb where she’d paid the cab.

She found it half-smashed by a tire tread in the gutter. All she could make out was the last two digits.

She stood at the curb for a long time feeling like this bad universal joke was being played on someone else. What on earth had she done to deserve this?

If she didn’t call, Angel would surely consign her to the realm of cads and bounders. She could call UCLA’s science department and see if she could get a last name for a professor named Angel. Angel had said there was some sort of symposium today. Maybe the office was open.

She tried every number for UCLA in the phone book and there were a lot of them. The only ones that answered had recordings telling her when she should call back to reach a live body. She heard the phrase, “If you know your party’s extension,” about fifty times.

The second to last number, “Public Affairs,” turned out to be an event listing. It was lengthy and at no time did the words “symposium,” “cancer” or “DNA” come into play. Of course she’d assumed that because Angel worked at UCLA that’s where the symposium was, but it could be at USC, or dozens of other campuses. It could even be at a hospital. Hell, the symposium could be about anything, not just Angel’s field of research. Damn. She would have to wait until Monday. Driving out to UCLA and walking up and down the science building halls hoping to stumble across an office door with Angel’s name on it was just too desperate. Out of the question.

She would try it this afternoon. She would also call Monica and ask if she’d ever met the mysterious Angel. That is, if Monica let her get a word in edgewise.

She put Camille’s business card next to the phone. That call she would do first thing Monday morning. She found herself humming “Calling All Angels.” She’d never been to the UCLA campus. It would be a … cultural outing. Nothing desperate about trying to better oneself.

The fax machine rang and whirred into action, then the phone rang.

As she said, “Rett Jamison,” her cell phone beeped. The cellular’s digital readout said Naomi was the caller.

“Thank God you’re there. It’s Tamla. Naomi’s been trying to get you all morning.” Tamla had been Naomi’s assistant for the last two years.

“Naomi is calling me on my cell phone.”

Tamla laughed. “Answer it, please.”

“Naomi, I’m talking to Tamla on the phone.”

“Tell Tamla to hang up — wait…”

Through the phone and the cellular lines she could hear Naomi in stereo. “Tamla, I got her. Call Jerry Orland back.”

” ‘Bye, Rett.” Tamla hung up and Rett walked out to the living room with the cell phone cradled on her shoulder.

 "Something urgent, Naomi?” The fax machine spat out a page and Rett flipped it over to read it. Huge block letters read, “Call Naomi!”

“Pack a bag. Fancy, big band stuff. Grab it and head for the airport, now. I’ll tell you more when you call back to say you’re in a cab.”

Rett hurried into the bedroom. “I can do that and talk at the same time. Cab? I’m going to be away a while? Who’s sick? Where am I going?”

“No one is sick, but someone is canned. You’re going to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Besides, you don’t have time to deal with parking a car or a shuttle schedule. Just take a cab — believe me, you can now afford it.”

“Who am I going to be traveling with?”

Naomi announced triumphantly, “The one and only Henry Connors Orchestra.”

“Lordy, lordy!” It was fabulous news. “What happened to Gilda Bransen?”

“Henry finally snapped — she had one missed rehearsal after another all the way from New York to here, three months of them. I told Jerry Orland they should have picked you from the beginning and he admitted that Gilda’s big name did not make up for the agony of working with her.”

Rett quickly chose four formal dresses. She’d sung with the Henry Connors Orchestra at a pop festival last summer and knew what would work. She’d been seriously bummed not to get the touring job. “Tell Jerry I’m sorry that being a lesbian is not as notorious as sleeping with a presidential candidate. I refuse to seduce any of them to get a gig.”

“You say that now, but what if Ellen DeGeneres was the candidate?”

“For those eyes, I’d consider it.” The phone slipped off her shoulder when she bent over to get her garment bag. “Sorry about that. When’s the first performance?”

“Tonight, of course! So get a move on. Call me from the cab and I’ll give you the info on your flight.”

“Moving on,” Rett said. She threw matching shoes, her always packed stage makeup case and some day clothes into a suitcase, then carefully arranged her dresses in the garment bag. Both pieces were small enough to carry on, which would save a lot of time on both ends of the flight.

The jeans and polo shirt she’d pulled on to look outside for Angel’s napkin would have to suffice. She shrugged into a Berber jacket and traded her flats for black Adidas. A few minutes later she slipped a note into Mrs. Bernstein’s mailbox saying she’d be gone for several weeks, put a forwarding notice in her own box for her mail to be sent to Naomi’s office, then headed around the corner toward the many Promenade eateries where cabs were always cruising.