Chapter 4
He wore black leather pants and nothing else. The waves of his hair were sculpted with gel, not tousled as before. And was that eyeliner? Joy only realized she was staring when Melisande purred, “This must be your big fan, Tristan. Do you two know each other?”
“Yes, we ran into each other—” Joy began, but he gave her a barely perceptible shake of the head, and she trailed off.
“We crossed paths sometimes at Ash Grove when I was still a student there,” he said. “Joy was, what, two years behind me?”
“One,” she said. “I’m a junior now.” She didn’t understand why he wanted to cover up the other night, but she did her best to improvise. “It’s got to be at least a year since we talked.” She could feel Maddie staring at her, and silently willed her not to call her out on the lie.
“Feels like a lifetime ago,” said Tanner. “But then, everything from before I met Melisande feels like it happened to a different person.”
“I remember you now,” exclaimed Clark. He added with an admiring lift of his eyebrow, “You’ve filled out since then.”
“It’s Tanner, right?” added Tasha. “You were in the music track.”
“It’s Tristan now.” His tone didn’t encourage reminiscence, but Joy couldn’t help asking, “Do you still play?”
He gave her a vague look. His eyes looked drowsy, unfocused. “Ah, I haven’t touched a guitar in… probably over a year.”
“Tristan stays very busy,” explained Melisande, as if to a child. “He is very much in demand as a model. He hasn’t time for such childishness now.”
Joy knew she should let it pass, but she heard herself saying, “Music isn’t childishness, ma’am.” The green eyes narrowed at that. “Tan—Tristan was very talented. It would be a shame if that talent went to waste.” She directed those words to him as much as to her.
He shrugged. He had one hand resting on Melisande’s bare shoulder, and his fingers toyed with the thin strap of her dress. “I wasn’t going anywhere with music,” he said, his eyes drifting back to his mentor. “After I met Melisande, a lot of things that had seemed important didn’t really matter anymore.”
Melisande took that as a compliment. “Darling, how sweet.” She turned her face up to him for a kiss. It was a long kiss. Maddie caught Joy’s eye and made a “what the hell?” face. But Joy knew what was going on. Melisande was establishing that Tanner was her property, as clearly as if she were a dog that had lifted its leg and peed on him. Mine, she was signaling. Back off.
Before she had enrolled at Ash Grove, Joy had felt at peace with her looks. She knew she was never going to be tall or slender, or a classic Snow White like her mother, so she had resigned herself to being what she was: short, sturdily built, with generous curves. Her nose was smushed-in instead of being elfin, like Maddie’s, or elegant, like Tasha’s. She had an abundance of freckles and a lot of springy dirty-blonde hair that tended to frizz in humid weather. Overall, Joy was most often described—and oh, how she hated the word—as cute. That was a word for chihuahuas and Hello Kitty, not a (nearly) grown woman. Being called cute made her feel as if she was being patted on the head and told to run along and play.
Being surrounded by girls who embodied the tall, willow-slim feminine ideal showcased in all the magazines was rough. And now, confronted with the cool perfection of Melisande, seeing Tanner absorbed entirely in her, Joy had never felt quite so dumpy, awkward, and plain. She was suddenly aware that her nose was shiny and that a small but unmistakable muffin top pooched over the waistband of her jeans. She stood up straighter and tried to suck in her stomach.
Melisande seemed satisfied that she had made her point, and was generous in her victory. “Clark, Maddie, let me introduce you to a theatrical producer, and Saxon, be a good boy and take Tasha to meet our friend from LA. We’ll leave Tristan and—Joyce, was it?—to catch up with one another.”
Surrounded by her entourage she glided away, and Tanner’s eyes followed her until she was swallowed up by the crowd of fans. Then, as if an unseen puppeteer had cut his strings, he dropped onto a sofa and settled into a slouch. He and Joy were alone.
A white-coated caterer bustled up with a drink, but he waved it away. He looked almost as if he were about to go to sleep, but presently he said, in a low voice, “Thanks for not giving me away.”
“No problem.” Joy took a seat on the ottoman across from him. She couldn’t restrain her curiosity, though, and added, “Would you have gotten into trouble if she knew you went to the graveyard?”
He regarded her for a moment. His eyes were a luminous gray, she saw now, but from some angles they seemed darker because they were so deeply set. His sharply angled eyebrows gave him an intent expression that was at odds with his sleepy posture. “I told her I was out riding to shake off a mood. If she found out that I was really with you, she wouldn’t be happy.”
“But you didn’t go there intending to see me.”
“Doesn’t matter. And it would make it worse that you and I knew each other from before.”
“She’s that possessive?” Melisande was beginning to sound as creepy as the rumors painted her.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “You may not remember, but I used to have a pretty strong accent. That good ol’ boy drawl, right? She had that schooled out of me in the first month.” He sat up, trying to find the right words. “She likes the people around her to belong entirely to her. To not have any history outside of what she’s given us.”
“She thinks she’s Professor Henry Higgins and you’re Audrey Hepburn.”
“Sort of.” He almost smiled. “But don’t let her hear you compare her to Rex Harrison.”
“But that meant that you had to leave everything behind? Not just school, but your friends, your family—” She realized that she had no idea whether he even had a family. “Or did you not have much to leave behind?”
His eyes went dark again, and he seemed to withdraw. “I was dying to get out of here,” he said. “There was no reason to stay. When she came along, it was like a dream come true. Or that’s what it felt like at the time.”
That piqued her curiosity. “Aren’t you happy?”
“Why wouldn’t I be happy? More money than I know what to do with, traveling all over the world, hot babes throwing themselves at me all the time. And Melisande is the original cougar.”
She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
He shrugged, and his eyes drifted closed as he sank back against the sofa cushions. “I’ve got everything a guy could want. I’d have to be crazy to not be happy.”
She wondered if the scorn in his voice was directed at her or at himself. But before she could ask, she felt a chill watchfulness behind her. At the same time, Tanner’s posture tautened into awareness, and she realized that Melisande had returned.
“Joyce, I hope Tristan has been keeping you entertained,” she said sweetly.
Joy didn’t quite dare to correct her. “Yes, we’ve been having an interesting conversation,” she said.
Melisande raised her white-blonde eyebrows in a question at Tanner, which he answered with a droop of his eyelids that clearly signaled that he’d been bored to death.
“Yes, Joyce has been reminding me of old times—barn dances and hog-stickin’s,” he said in an exaggerated drawl. “I remember now why I was so glad to get away from this hick place.”
“Now, there’s no need to insult our guest’s home,” Melisande said mildly, but his words had mollified her; she laced her fingers through his and settled herself against him on the sofa. “Those who don’t have anything to compare it to probably think this is quite a special place.”
Joy gave her a bright false smile. “Building a million-dollar house here certainly suggests that you think it’s pretty special too, ma’am.”
She regretted her pertness when Melisande’s green eyes dwelled coldly on her face. A shiver ran down her back, and she suddenly foun
d herself thinking of all the stories that painted Melisande as a dangerous woman to cross.
“I find the climate ideal for growing my herbs,” Melisande said softly. “Not to mention that it’s marvelous for the complexion. It’s only the quality of the people one meets that’s a drawback.” She rose in one graceful movement, drawing Tanner to his feet as well. “Come, darling,” she said to him. “We must say goodnight to our guests before they have to leave.”
In other words, Go home. Tanner didn’t even look away from the blonde goddess beside him as he mumbled goodnight to Joy.
Joy watched the two of them moved away to make the rounds among the students and glitterati. They were constantly touching—her fingers trailing down his bare arm, his hand resting on the small of her back. Maddie joined her at that moment, saw the direction in which she was looking, and muttered, “God, why don’t they just get a room?”
Joy wished Maddie hadn’t put that image in her head. She wasn’t sure if it was the age difference that bothered her, or if—but no, she never would have stood a chance against the delectable Melisande, so how could she be jealous?
Tasha and Clark drifted over to them. “What did y’all think of our hostess?” Joy asked.
“She’s incredibly charismatic,” Tasha said. “I can see why she’s a star. But she’s not exactly someone who puts you at your ease.”
Maddie gave a derisive snort. “That’s the last thing she wants. She’s all about the power trip.”
“Maybe so,” said Clark, looking wistfully after Melisande and Tanner. “But she chooses some very scenic destinations.”
Even kindhearted Tasha giggled, but Joy snapped, “He’s a person, Clark, not beachfront property. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, I’m dying for a cigarette,” said Maddie. “And I think our hostess will have me shot if I light up inside.”
The last glimpse Joy had of Tanner was of him standing among Melisande’s entourage, just another tall, physically perfect specimen, secure in the admiration directed their way. He blended in so well that she almost couldn’t find him in the crowd.
But she was remembering the question he hadn’t answered. If you were happy, she thought, you wouldn’t have been wandering around a graveyard spoiling for a fight.
“Well, Joy,” said Maddie on the drive back to campus, “I have to say I was disappointed in your Tanner. He just seems sleazy to me. The way he came on to you the other night, and then he’s all over Melisande tonight? I’ll bet he’s one of those guys who has to have every woman he meets panting after him.”
“Cheekbones came on to you?” demanded Clark. “When? Tell me everything!”
“It wasn’t like that.” She briefly filled him and Tasha in on their graveyard encounter. “He was different then, though. He even loaned me his flashlight.” Which was still in her purse; she had forgotten to return it to him.
“Maybe he’s on something,” was Clark’s thought. “That could explain why he was so different tonight.”
“I guess,” she said reluctantly. From the languid way he behaved, he definitely could have been doped up. Didn’t celebs usually go in for uppers like cocaine, though? “I think there’s something more going on with him,” she persisted. “It’s almost like he’s got two different personalities. I don’t believe he’s really that shallow.”
Clark shook his head at her. “Denial, honey. I hate to say it, but pretty Tristan looks about as deep as a reflecting pool.”
Joy appealed to Tasha as the least jaded of those present. “What did you think of him, Tash?”
Tasha resolutely kept her eyes on the road. “I’m sorry, Joy, but I didn’t like him,” she said. “Acting like he was too good for us, pretending he hadn’t even seen you the other night—”
“He explained that. Melisande would have been ticked off at him.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense. He and Saxon were like a couple of dogs with a bone, fighting over her.”
“Bone being the operative word,” drawled Clark.
Joy thought about how well Tanner fit in with all the beautiful people at the party, with their languor and vanity. He seemed, she had to admit it, very much in his element, and that disappointed her. She really wanted to believe there was more to him. But she probably wouldn’t ever get the chance to find out, especially since she had already made an enemy of Melisande.
“It’s just like I’m always saying,” proclaimed Maddie, lighting a cigarette. When Tasha gave her a look, she rolled down her window to let the smoke out. “All men are dogs when you get right down to it. You can’t trust any of them.”
“Hey,” said Clark mildly, and she flapped a hand at him in acknowledgment.
“I mean straight guys.”
“William’s not a jerk,” Tasha pointed out.
“Exception that proves the rule.”
“How about Blake?” asked Joy. “You can’t think so badly of him if you’re going out with him.”
Maddie’s laugh was bitter. “Like I said: gay guys don’t count.”
“Wait, what?” Joy sat up straighter. “Blake’s gay? When did that happen?”
“Born that way, so I’m told.”
“You know what I mean. Did you know that when you started dating?”
“Of course not. But he finally came clean today. I think I was an experiment. You know, testing to see if he was just confused or if he really does want to be with a guy.”
“I’ve always thought Blake was bicurious at the very least,” Clark seconded. When Maddie turned to glare at him, he added, “I didn’t want to spoil things for you if you were happy together. But if you’re really through, can I ask him out?”
“Very sensitive, Clark. Sure, whatever. I hope he treats you better than he did me.”
“You mean he’s just been using you like some kind of science project?” Joy exclaimed. “That’s so cold. I can’t believe he could do that.”
“Well, it did have its good side,” Maddie conceded. “He was kind of restful after my last couple of boyfriends. With them it was all sex, all the time… which brings me back to my original point, which is that this Tristan guy is a jerk, and you’re better off steering clear of him. And even if he wasn’t, his boss lady doesn’t look like the kind who deals well with competition.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Joy said, subdued. She turned her head to stare out the window once again, and sighed without realizing it. It wasn’t as if she could compete with Melisande, anyway. Tanner was where he belonged, with the beautiful people, and she’d probably never see him again.