Gardenia
> > The slamming door intruded on Angela's consciousness.
High-pitched voices began distinguishing themselves.
"Dino, sweetie, we missed you at the club last night!"
"Yeah, we had to drink and dance all by ourselves!"
"And now we're *horny*!"
Something shook the bed like a spasm. Like someone had jumped on it.
And then something grabbed Angela's ass.
"Aaaiiii!" Angela screamed, spinning and twisting in the sheets, suddenly *very* awake.
"Hey, you're not Dino!"
"Of course she's not."
Angela's bleary eyes were assaulted with two very-coiffed, very bright-colored young women.
And from the sound and smell of it, they were very drunk.
"Who the hell are you?" Angela shot, suddenly aware of how she was very naked. She spastically covered the essentials with the twisted bedsheet.
"Who the hell are *you*?" the tall one answered.
"Oh, I get it," the petite one said, tapping her friend. "She didn't know she'd have to share."
"Oh." The tall one seemed to sober up. "Oh, sorry. We didn't know Dino was having *company*." The word seemed some kind of code. For what?
For someone who didn't know he was a Player, apparently.
"No wonder the limo was out all night."
"No wonder he never showed at the club."
"No wonder the doorman tried to stop us."
As if these things had all happened before.
As if these girls had run into Dino's unwitting conquests before.
"We'll, um, we'll let you get back to sleep," the petite one apologized, backing off the bed toward the doorway, tugging at her friend.
"Yeah, sorry. Tell Dino we said Hi."
Shock quickly hardened to anger. Anger softened to disappointment.
Disappointment fell to shame.
Angela leaped out of the bed as if it had been electrified. She found her dress bunched up on the floor; it made her skin crawl to put it on now, knowing it had already served its purpose, but she wasn't about to search for more suitable attire, afraid she might actually find it.
Dino Sinclair was suddenly too familiar and too much a stranger, and she couldn't get out of his home fast enough.
Angela trudged up the stairs, her head bent down, eyes focused on the step directly in front of her. If she looked up, she'd see how much further she had to go, and she might not make it.
"Well, I see one of us had fun last night."
Angela was so startled she nearly fell down the stairs.
"Ricky! God, you *scared* me!"
"And you scared me. I thought something had happened to you. Now I see I was worried for nothing."
Angela's exhausted brain rifled through a rolodex of bad excuses before just giving up. "I'm tired, Ricky." Somehow, she'd reached the top of the stairs. She leaned back against her door. The message was clear: she wasn't letting him in.
"Yeah, I bet you are." He'd been picking leaves off the gardenia bush on the porch -- all night, apparently. Now he knuckleballed one out over the steps. It flipped and fluttered, coming to fall just four steps down, making a mockery of the young man's angry gesture.
The two stayed there a long time. Angela, leaning up against the door, still dressed in her yellow sequined gown, head hung low, her tousled mop leaving just slivers of daylight. Ricky, sitting on the top step, deck shoes two steps lower, forearms on knees, leather jacket draped over his shoulders.
Through her exhaustion Angela thought he was dressed a little nicer than usual. He'd probably come over to take her out. Like someone would do to cheer up a friend. Or like a love would do to reconcile.
The realization only made her feel worse.
Minutes ticked by. She knew she'd hurt his feelings. All other thoughts just fizzled before they finished forming.
Apartment doors closed. Little dribbles of morning TV and radio leaked out. Footsteps echoed through the serpentine courtyards. Cars drove off. The world was waking up.
Still they stayed put. Silent. Perched on the edge of disaster.
Something somewhere began to rattle softly.
Ricky spoke. Quiet. Monotone. "You're shaking."
It took Angela several long moments to understand. She took stock of herself and realized her hand was on the doorknob. Rattling it as she trembled.
She clenched the muscles in her arm and hand, drawing a tight fist around the doorknob. The silence only lasted a moment as her whole arm began to shiver with little spasms. Her other hand had taken to shaking too. She yanked her hand away from the doorknob.
"I'm going to go inside now."
She waited a long time before opening her clutch purse to fish out her key. It wasn't until she turned to the door that he spoke again.
"You should see somebody about that." Still monotone. As if he was tired.
No, in shock.
No. Defeated.
Angela couldn't deal with this now. She was shaking so bad she could hardly stand. She didn't need a lecture. She couldn't think. If she could, she'd have to acknowledge that the man who loved her spent the night on her porch while she fell into the bed of a crook and a liar. Just the threat of that thought made her throat hurt.
"Can we talk about this later?"
"There's nothing to talk about." He stood up. "I gotta go."
Without another moment of hesitation, he started off down the steps, slowly at first, but picking up the pace as he descended. By the time he'd reached the bottom, he jumped off and broke into a run.
Angela collapsed against the door, holding her breath to hear the fading patter of Ricky's flight.