Chapter Nine
LUCY
Present
Lucy woke up in a Nicky Broome–induced haze.
She had somehow managed to keep functioning, but had to battle past Nicky-shaped thoughts and memories at every turn.
She found herself starting a task, and then slipping into deep contemplation over the possible subtext embedded in ‘I want to take my time with you,’ only to snap out of it and find that twenty minutes had passed.
Her plan had been to get some work done before the day’s wedding madness began, so she’d grabbed her laptop and a mug of steaming coffee and built a nest of pillows on her king-sized island of a bed.
She then spent at least thirty minutes staring at the weirdly compelling hotel room art across the room, and exactly zero minutes working on the requests for external review she’d intended to finish.
The upcoming twelve-to-fifteen-month marathon of tenure review required slow, steady progress. Deadlines loomed just all over the damn place. Personal deadlines, committee deadlines, tentative deadlines that depended on other deadlines.
While Lucy had been allowed a lighter teaching courseload for the fall semester so that she could focus on tenure, it was hardly a break.
She was to be inspected, reviewed, assessed, and judged by no less than three different committees and four different administrative bosses.
There were external reviews, internal reviews, and probably a cavity search at some point – the notification of which was likely buried in the fine print of one of the thousands of forms she’d filled out both online and on ancient onionskin in triplicate.
Tenure review was the culmination of six years of work at the small liberal-arts college where Lucy was an associate professor. It was also the final leg of a journey that had begun at eighteen when she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with life on a college campus.
There’d been some detours that delayed her trajectory.
When she married Brandon and then when Chloe was born, she’d taken years away.
But then she’d gotten back on track. She’d earned her PhD and begun work as an assistant professor.
Turned that post into an associate professorship on a tenure track.
She’d stuck through the hard times, like the time she thought another university somewhere, maybe out west, might offer her more freedom.
But Lucy had made the best of it so that Chloe could get all four years of high school in the same place.
Later, she’d muddled through other professional bullshit when Chloe decided to stay in town to go to college.
Something about the allure of free tuition, with Brandon waiting in the wings to drop a hundred grand a year, had almost made Lucy feel like the balances with her ex were even.
Now, the finish line was finally in sight.
She’d done her time. Put in all the effort humanly possible.
She would finally become a fully tenured professor.
Tenure would mean a raise and job security.
She might be able to buy a hybrid or something, or finally travel somewhere other than conferences.
She could study what she wanted, come up with inventive new classes, write when she felt compelled to and not because she needed to pad her review package to impress her colleagues.
It was all she’d worked toward for decades.
The only thing that worried Lucy just a little was that she wasn’t the least bit excited about it. But surely that was normal? The excitement would come after, when the goal had been achieved. She was sure of it.
Lucy’s phone buzzed from somewhere, the sound muffled by the thick bedding all around her.
She dug the thing out of its fluffy tomb.
KimmyR: Landed. Should be at hotel in 15.
Great, she’d gotten nothing done, and she was late.
Lucy rode the special dedicated elevator to get to the special dedicated lobby, because naturally the Lusso Resort had two lobbies.
The entrance for regular folks was spitting distance from the gaming tables and slot machines, and glitzy in an obvious ‘as seen on TV’ way.
The other lobby, exclusively for penthouse guests, was hard to find and out of the way.
In Las Vegas, hard to find and out of the way were privileges one paid handsomely for, apparently.
The Penthouse Tower lobby was bathed in rich, comforting earth tones, from the plentiful soft seating to the lush carpets.
It had high ceilings, wood paneling, and in keeping with the Las Vegas custom of never letting humans see daylight ever, it perpetually felt like ten p.m. in a very exclusive gentleman’s club.
It was impressive, but Lucy couldn’t escape the uneasy feeling that she’d somehow been transported inside her ex-husband’s brain.
Lucy spotted Kim the moment she glided through the revolving doors.
‘Oh my God! It’s so good to see you!’ Lucy cheered as they swept each other into a big bear hug.
‘It has been too damn long,’ Kim said sincerely in Lucy’s ear. ‘Holy shit, where are we right now?’ Kim added, looking around the space.
‘I fear that we’re inside Brandon’s id,’ Lucy replied.
‘God, I hope not,’ Kim grumbled, with her eyes on a massive chandelier.
‘Wait, is this cashmere?’ Lucy exclaimed, holding out her friend’s arms to take in the finely knitted cream halter top and lounge pants set her friend was wearing.
‘When traveling first class to Las Vegas,’ Kim preened.
Only Kim Rusike could wear cream-colored cashmere on an airplane and come out the other side looking like she stepped from the pages of a magazine.
‘You’re damn gorgeous. I would have ketchup down my front and a suspicious brown stain on my ass, for sure.’ Lucy laughed.
‘You’re right,’ Kim teased. ‘You would.’
‘Thank God you’re here.’ Lucy beamed.
‘Uh-oh, that sounds ominous.’ Kim tugged on her rolling suitcase. ‘Let me get checked in, then tell me everything.’
By the time the two friends were marching down the fortieth-floor hallway, Lucy had spilled all the dirt on her encounter with Nicky Broome.
‘Which one is his?’ Kim whispered.
‘That one,’ Lucy whispered back as they passed room 4023.
Kim only hummed, and pressed on toward the end of the hall, right across from Lucy and Chloe’s.
As they crossed the threshold, Kim’s shoulders visibly relaxed.
‘Enough about me,’ Lucy said, suddenly feeling bad about the info dump she’d just laid on Kim. ‘What’s going on with you?’
Kim was a partner in a law firm that worked with lobbyists, politicians, and other unsavory types.
‘Just the usual,’ Kim griped, slumping into the sofa in the suite’s living room, mostly supine on its goose-downy depths. ‘Hate DC. Hate politics. Hate the hours. Hate the job. Just like you.’
‘Like me?’ Lucy asked, genuinely confused.
‘Lucy, you’ve whined to me about the department chief …’
‘Chair,’ Lucy corrected.
‘The Dean of the Candidates …’
‘College.’
‘The President Pro Tem …’
‘You mean the provost?’
‘Whatever. My point is, you’re worn out. Same as me.’
Was she? Sure, things had been a bit tougher lately. Her patience for the bureaucracy and office politics had become extremely thin. And okay, lately the balance between frustrations and achievements often tipped toward the negative. But worn out?
Lucy deflected, ‘Have a solution yet?’
‘Eh,’ Kim grunted. ‘I don’t want to get into all that. Right now, what I need is a week in Vegas.’
‘What a coincidence, you’re in Vegas.’
‘Am I? Because this feels like the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo. Where’s all the Elvis tat?’
Lucy looked around at the one-bedroom suite, which was at least as tastefully over the top as hers and Chloe’s.
‘I think you have to request that in advance,’ Lucy deadpanned. ‘But if you call the concierge, I bet you could have a rhinestone jumpsuit up here in ten minutes flat. You could probably have a hot, willing man inside the rhinestone jumpsuit if you gave them fifteen.’
‘I’ll keep that plan on standby,’ Kim said, sitting up and donning her full Lady Boss persona – spine stiff, those amber eyes piercing.
Lucy tamped down a feeling of dread. The Lady Boss pulled no punches, and she wasn’t sure she was sturdy enough to handle the blows.
‘Nicky Broome,’ Kim said sharply. ‘He was not great to you all those years ago. And, this may be a stereotype at work here, but surely decades in the rock-and-roll business haven’t improved his character.’
Lucy couldn’t say really, one way or another.
Nicky seemed funny and thoughtful. He had been interested in her, listened and teased.
It had felt … easy between them, at least once they’d gotten over the initial awkwardness.
Plus, Kim didn’t have the full picture. She didn’t know about the song, and what came after.
The pain and regret. It was probably the one and only secret Lucy had ever kept from her best friend of some forty years.
And it was a big one. Huge, really. But it was a lie by omission that was as fixed as bedrock.
The maelstrom of Nicky Broome was something Lucy had kept for herself.
If she was the only one who knew, no one could minimize it.
Nobody else could own even a little piece of it for themselves. No one knew.
‘This isn’t some big thing,’ said Lucy. ‘I just ran into an old friend.’
‘Flame,’ Kim corrected.
Lucy pushed back, ‘Friend.’ She took a deep breath, knowing just where Kim was headed with this topic.
‘Look, I know I’m absolute garbage when it comes to men.
I make bad choices. I made at least three pretty big ones.
I’ve come to terms with that. No more ex-husbands for me, thanks. My collection’s complete.’
‘I know this is a novel idea, but you can feel things for someone without marrying them. I have felt plenty of things and have exactly zero ex-husbands.’
‘I know what you’ve felt, Kim. And it’s mostly anatomy,’ Lucy said.
Kim shrugged, not the least bit bothered.
Lucy went on, ‘I have no intention of getting all wrapped up in anyone. I’m not doing that anymore. Not even for Nicky-rock-star-Broome. Even though he actually makes panties melt all the way off whenever he so much as walks by.’
‘That is a very niche superpower,’ Kim retorted. ‘And, by the way, I think you can do it. I believe in you. I know you can get all up in his anatomy and not come out with an ex-husband. Let him melt those panties repeatedly.’
‘That sounds really … unsanitary ,’ Lucy chided. ‘But yes. I think I will.’
‘Good, you need a break as much as I do. More. You’ve got the bride, the family bullshit, the goddamn dads convention.
’ God, the dads. She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell too much on that particular wedding gift.
Ex-husbands were truly the gift that kept on giving.
‘Take time this week to decompress. Enjoy a distraction.’
‘I’ll try,’ Lucy replied, mostly meaning it.
‘Decompress under Nicky Broome, over Nicky Broome—’
‘Yeah, I think I understand what you’re getting at.’
‘Good,’ Kim said, clapping her hands to her knees as though she’d really just done some damn business. ‘Now, if I’m not mistaken, we have some bridesmaids to endure.’
‘ Kim ,’ Lucy warned gently.
‘Sorry, I mean enjoy . Enjoy! Of course, I meant enjoy.’