Guardian Girl (The Chronicles of Staffordshire) (16 page)

“Before we met, Lenore, I used to have a horrible temper. I went through 12 rackets the year before I got to Paulson. But it doesn’t happen as much anymore. I think that’s because I have
you
in my life, Freaky. The way you love me… Every day… The way you hold me every night… It just takes away most of that anger I used to have.

“But when I lose it, I know I need to get away. I need to get away from people. I don’t want to hurt people when I get like that, and the last person in the world I ever want to hurt is you, Freaky.”

Lena’s tears dripped into Lenore’s hair. “Lenore… I was so angry tonight I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I was so angry with how that practice went… I wanted to take my racket and start hitting everything in sight. What happened with that door… That was just a warning.”

“You ran away from me… Because you love me? Because you were protecting me?”

“Yeah, Freaky. I ran away from you because I love you. And I ran away from you because I knew that if I just got some time away and got it out of my system I would be able to come home and show you how much I love you.”

“But Lena… When you came home… You were so happy. What happened while you were out? Was it just a cup of coffee? Or did something else happen?”

“Oh Christ. How do I do this? How can I tell her what happened without undermining everything I just told her?”

Lena bundled Lenore’s hair with a scrunchy and produced a long, thick ponytail of black coffee hair. Lenore loved the sensation of Lena stroking her ponytail and the Wild Child worked the love.

“Well… I think what happened was a miracle, Lenore! Something
really
miraculous! I was still so upset after I left you, I didn’t even know where I was going. I went 20 blocks. I ran for a while and then I just walked and talked to myself. But when I finally looked around I realized I was 20 blocks from the dorm. And I looked across the street and found this coffee shop. So I went in and this really nice guy took care of me. He treated me like a total queen, Lenore. And he made me the most amazing cup of coffee. I think it was like the greatest cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my entire life. And he talked to me the whole time, like a bartender or something. He could tell I had a bad day and he treated me like he really wanted it to be better.

“But that wasn’t the miraculous thing, Lenore. The miraculous thing was what he said when he handed me that cup. He said, ‘This is for the most beautiful tennis player in the world’.”

Lenore’s eyes saddened, her head dipped. “That is what I was afraid of, Lena. I was afraid someone else would make you feel better. That you needed to be away from me for someone else to make you feel better.”

Bending toward Lenore’s ear, Lena swept away all of Lenore’s fears with a brush of her hand to the back of the model’s head and a quiet whisper to her soul. “But Lenore…
I didn’t tell him a thing
. He kept asking me what was wrong and, I kept saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I can’t talk about secret stuff with
anyone
but you, Freaky Baby. You’re the
only
person I tell
all
my secrets to. When I’m having problem with my game, you’re the only person I ever let know it. You’re the
only
person I ever let hold me. You’re the only person I ever let kiss me and… You’re the only person in the world who owns my heart.

“That guy at the coffee shop was nice to me. And maybe God put him in my path to make me feel a lot better about myself than I did when I walked in the door. But
you,
Lenore… You
love
me. You know just how miserable a bitch I can be and you still love me. And when I really feel sad or afraid, you’re the
first
person I want to be with.

“But tonight, I wasn’t sad, Freaky. I was
furious
. I didn’t want to lay any of that anger on you, Lenore. You don’t deserve it.
Nobody
deserves it. So by the time I got to that coffee shop, I got most of the anger out of my system. And that guy behind the counter, he…”

Lena stumbled. She sucked on her lower lip. She grinned.

“Oh my God! He knew who I was! He served me like a queen! He knew who I was and he STILL didn’t out me! That boy has a crush on me! A big black guy named Bubba has a freaking crush on me! AWESOME!”

Before Lenore detected her roommate’s flattered side-trip, Lena shook off her ill-timed daydream and grabbed Lenore’s gaze.

“Look… Lenore…
You
are God’s gift to me every day. That guy behind the counter… He was God’s gift to me for tonight. But you, Lenore… You’re God’s gift to me every day of my miserable life. Does that make any sense?”

A smiling supermodel looked up into the tennis pro’s eyes. She grabbed Lena’s hands and held them against her shoulders. “Yes, my beautiful Wild Child. That makes perfect sense.”

Lenore pulled Lena down into a sideways kiss over her shoulder. Different from the body slam the Wild Child laid on her roommate at the gym, Lenore gave Lena a tender touch of love. Lena responded in kind, withholding the flaming tongue of the frustrated tennis pro.

“Lena… Please let me love you tonight the way you just loved me. Please. I must love you! I must love you or I will explode!”

“Okay, Freaky. It’s almost bedtime anyway. Do you feel better about how you look now? Do you think you can take care of my hair the way you always do at bedtime?”

“Yes, Lena. I must! I must be God’s gift to you again. Sit in my chair. Let me care for you the way you cared for me.”

Switching positions, Lena unscrunched her pony tail and flipped her head forward. Lenore dove into her labors joyfully, running her long, thin fingers through Lena’s thick hair. Each touch of Lenore’s fingertips to Lena’s scalp or neck sent shivers down The Wild Child’s spine. With her brush, Lenore stroked through Lena’s mane two dozen times, then re-scrunched Lena’s hair to prepare her for bed.

As Lenore completed her loving ministry, Lena offered an unexpected upgrade to their relationship. With her head down, Lena gave Lenore a hopeful glimpse of a future paradise. She fussed with her fingers in her lap.

“You know what, Lenore…?”

“What, my beautiful Wild Child…” Lenore replied, gripping and stroking Lena’s ponytail, absently playing with it.

“I was just thinking. I was wondering… Would you like to… You know… Maybe… Just sleep… In our… Our tops and panties tonight?”

Lenore froze. Her heart did somersaults. “What did you say?”

“If you promise me that… You know… We won’t go all the way… I just feel… Like it’s okay now. I feel like… You know… Just our legs. I’m not ready to do the tops. And NO sex! But… Just our legs.”

Barely containing her nuclear-fueled libido, Lenore fought to downplay her glee. “Why… Yes! Of course! I promise! I will not do anything to you! YES! Just the bottoms! But Lena… Are you certain? Are you really certain? I do not want to pressure you…”

Lena nodded. “As long as you promise, Lenore. Yeah. I’m sure. I don’t know why but... Tonight… I really need to… To feel you. I really need to feel like… Like we’re really something. You know?”

Fearful that she could change Lena’s mind with an ill-timed word, Lenore nodded frantically and silently went about preparations for bed. The girls changed into their tops – a loose-fitting T-shirt for Lena, a night-shirt for Lenore - and prepared Lenore’s bed for an early end to an emotionally draining day. The overeager freaky supermodel rushed through her labors and was done well before the Wild Child.

Lenore bounced into her bed and lay down first, flipping away the covers for the Wild Child. The sight of Lenore’s long, lean, tanned legs caused the Wild Child an unconscious lip lick. Lenore responded in conscious kind, taking longer to trace the outline of her lips.

Lena dove in playfully, snuggling up the way she always did, cuddling her head against Lenore’s chest and tucking her shoulder up under Lenore’s arm. She wrapped her left leg between and around Lenore’s. Lenore shivered at the touch of Lena’s flesh, but held herself back.

They pair lay side by side kissing, not making out as much as making up, gazing sleepily into each other’s eyes. Emotionally spent, irrepressible yawns interrupted healing. Drifting off to sleep, Lena renewed their eternal bond.

“Lenore…”

“Yes, my beautiful Wild Child…”

“Please don’t ever forget how much I love you.”

“I promise, Lena. I will never forget. Never, ever again.”

Part 4

A Very Personal Assistant

Twelve

Dramatic slopes and gently rolling plateaus made the last leg of the journey from Philly a little more palatable. The Jersey Turnpike was stop-and-go. the Garden State wasn’t much better. The air conditioning in the hand-me-down, baby blue beater walked off the job in ‘81, forcing the bob-cut brunette to mop her brow the entire way. The the only thing enjoyable about the three-and-a-half hour trip was the Hudson Valley vistas.

Sonia Nichols — newly-minted Wharton MBA and Summa Cum Laude Paulson girl — had a very important date. The headline-grabbing Prince of Madison Avenue and sole heir to the St. Cloud family fortune had invited her up to his estate for a tête-à-tête. Rory’s snoops and scouts foraged for months to find the
perfect
candidate for the boss’s most critical hire. The Salvage Yard’s Creative Director gushed over her Paulson sister. Ivy League Smart. Philly tough. Disarmingly funny. Aggressive. Understated sensuality. The bobbed-and-gelled girlfriend fit the position description to a “T;” a take-no-prisoners fireball in an eye-catching package.

It was time for the boss to examine the goods for himself and see if all the reports were true.

With five minutes to spare, Sonia pulled her sedan to a stop before an iron-gated entrance set into a fortress-like wall. The car sputtered and stalled as she shifted it into park. “No! No, no, no, NO, NO!” Sonia shouted, pounding the steering wheel. She pounded the wheel again. “God DAMN you miserable piece of shit! Would it be too much to ask you to just RUN for a change?”

Exhaling with a disgusted huff, Sonia took a moment to scan the property line to either side of the gate. A fourteen-foot-high concrete wall stretched for several hundred yards in both directions, dipping out of sight as the landscape rolled off to the north and south. At the top of the wall, colorful, jagged glass shards fended off interlopers.

“Hmmm…” she mused. “Looks like Holmesburg. All he needs is a couple of guard towers and some spotlights...”

A polished, bronze plaque on the right column caught her eye.
“#12 Hare’s Crossing.”
Sonia glanced up to the name emblazoned in iron script over the arch. “’Staffordshire…’ Well, Alice… Welcome to Wonderland.”

Exiting her car and stepping up to the gate, Sonia searched for some way to roust the Lord of the Shire. No buttons to be found. She tilted side-to-side atop knock-off black pumps in a cheap, off-the-racks gray suit, peering toward the horizon, seeking some sign of life. Several hundred feet inside the property, a dense tree line obscured the view beyond.

“So much for 40,000 square feet,” she said, shielding her eyes from the early afternoon sun.

“Hello.” A male voice startled Sonia, coming from a speaker blended into the left column. “Who are you and why are you here?”

Sonia stepped to the side and leaned toward the speaker. “Hello! My name is Sonia Nichols. I have a 2pm appointment with Mr. St. Cloud.”

“There is a family crest just above the speaker. Please hold your driver’s license approximately 6 inches in front of it.”

Sonia opened her purse, pulled out her Pennsylvania driver’s license, and held it before the seal. Through a security camera concealed behind the family crest, the disembodied voice verified her credentials.

“Back up a step, please. Thank you. Now, without looking at your license, please state the name and address on the card, including your zip code.”

“Really?”
Sonia thought.
‘Paranoia, the destroy-ah…’”

“Sonia Nichols, 3298 Stoney Hill Road, New Hope, PA, 18938.”

“Is that where you presently reside?”

Masking growing impatience, Sonia attempted a helpful tone. “No. That’s my parents’ house. I presently reside in an apartment in Manayunk with a girlfriend from Wharton. Do you need that address, too?”

“No, thank you. That is sufficient. Please return to your car and proceed through the gate. Follow the driveway to the clearing just beyond the forested area. The house is on the other side. Park your car in the circle and come to the main entrance.”

“Uhhh… Thank you… Sir!”

Sonia returned to her car and turned the key. The engine cranked, sputtered, and stalled. “God DAMN it! START, you motherfucking piece of shit!” Pounding the dash with her left hand, turning the key with her right, and trouncing the accelerator with her foot, the car felt the fear of Sonia and roared to life. “HA! That’ll show you who’s boss!” She gunned the engine, keeping it running while she waited for the gate to open. Metal ground against metal and Sonia wasted no time hustling through, beginning her journey down what appeared to be the world’s longest, widest “driveway.”