Sugar Daddy (Travises 1)

"In every way," he said emphatically. "Never complained when she got the short end of the stick. Unlike most people, she knew how to be happy."

I was tempted to point out that most people would be happy if they had a nice family and a big mansion and all the money they needed. I kept my mouth closed, however.

Even so, Churchill seemed to read my mind. "With all you hear at work," he said, "you should have figured out by now rich folks are just as miserable as poor ones. More, in fact."

"I'm trying to work up some sympathy," I said dryly. "But I think there's a difference between real problems and invented problems."

"That's where you're like Ava," he said. "She could tell the difference too."

CHAPTER 15

After four years, I had finally become a full-fledged stylist at Salon One. Most of my work was as a colorist—I had a talent for highlights and corrections. I loved mixing liquids and pastes in a multitude of small bowls like a mad scientist. I enjoyed the myriad small but critical calculations of heat, timing, and application, and the satisfaction of getting everything just right.

Churchill still went to Zenko for his cuts, but I did his neck and eyebrow trims, and I did his manicures whenever he wanted them. And there were the infrequent lunches when one of us had something to celebrate. When we were together, we talked about anything and everything. I knew a lot about Churchill's family, particularly his four children. There was Gage, the oldest at thirty, whom he'd had by his first wife, Joanna. The other three he'd had with Ava: Jack, who was twenty-five, Joe, who was two years younger, and the only daughter, Haven, who was still in college. I knew Gage had become reserved since he had

lost his mother at the age of three, and that he had a hard time trusting people, and one of his past girlfriends had said he had commitment phobia. Being unacquainted with psychospeak. Churchill didn't know what that meant.

"It means he won't talk about his feelings," I explained, "or allow himself to be vulnerable. And he's afraid of being tied down."

Churchill looked baffled. "That's not commitment phobia. That's being a man."

We discussed his other children too. Jack was an athlete and a ladies' man. Joe was an information junkie and an adventurer. The youngest, Haven, had insisted on going to college in New England, no matter how much Churchill begged her to consider Rice or UT. or even, God help him, A&M.

I told Churchill the latest news about Carrington, and sometimes about my love life. I had confided in him about Hardy and how he haunted me. Hardy was every loose-limbed cowboy in worn denim, every pair of blue eyes, every battered pickup, every hot cloudless day.

Maybe, Churchill had pointed out, I should stop trying so hard not to love Hardy, and accept that some part of me might always want him. "Some things," he said, "you just have to learn to live with."

"But you can't love someone new without getting over the last one."

"Why not11"

"Because then the new relationship is compromised."

Seeming amused, Churchill said that every relationship was compromised in one way or another, and you were better off not picking at the edges of it.

I disagreed. I felt I needed to let Hardy go completely. I just didn't know how. I hoped someday I might meet someone so compelling that I could take the risk of loving again. But I had serious doubts such a man existed.

And that man was certainly not Tom Hudson, whom I'd met while waiting for a parent-teacher conference in a hallway at Carrington's school. He was a divorced father of two. a big teddy bear of a man with brown hair and a neatly trimmed brown beard. I'd gone out with him for just over a year, enjoying the comfortable nature of our relationship.

Since Tom was the owner of a gourmet food shop, my refrigerator was constantly filled with delicacies. Carrington and I feasted on wedges of French and Belgian cheese, jars of tomato-pear chutney, Genovese pesto, and double Devon cream, coral-colored slabs of smoked Alaskan salmon, bottled cream of asparagus soup, jars of marinated peppers or Tunisian green olives.

I liked Tom a lot. I tried my best to fall in love with him. It was obvious he was a good father to his own children, and I felt sure he would be just as good to Carrington. There was so much that was right about Tom, so many reasons I should have loved him. It's one of the frustrations of dating that sometimes you can be with a nice person who is obviously worth loving, but there isn't enough heat between you to light a tea candle.

We made love on the weekends when his ex-wife had the kids and I could get a

babysitter for Carrington. Unfortunately the sex was lukewarm. Since I could never come while Tom was inside me—all I felt was the mild inner pressure you feel from the speculum at the gynecologist's office—he would start out by using his fingers to rub me into a cl**ax. It didn't always work, but sometimes I achieved a few gratifying spasms, and when I couldn't and began to feel irritated and chafed. I faked it. Then he would either gently push my head down until I took him into my mouth, or he would lever himself over me and we would do it missionary style. The routine never changed.

I bought a couple of sex books and tried to figure out how to improve things. Tom was amused by my abashed requests to try a couple of positions I had read about, and he told me it was all still just a matter of putting tab A into slot B. But if I wanted to do something new. he said, he was all for it.

I was dismayed to find Tom was right. It felt awkward and silly, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't come while we were arranged in those yogalike tangles. The only new thing Tom wouldn't try was going down on me. I stammered and turned crimson when I asked him for it. I would say that was the most embarrassing moment of my entire life, except it was even worse when Tom replied apologetically he had never liked doing that. It was unhygienic, he said, and he didn't really enjoy how women tasted. If I didn't mind, he would rather not. I said no. of course I didn't mind. I didn't want him to do something he didn't like.

But every time we slept together after that and I felt his hands urging my head down, I started to feel a little resentful. And then I felt guilty, because Tom was generous in so many other ways. It didn't matter. I told myself. There were other things we could do in bed. But the situation bothered me enough—it seemed I was missing some essential understanding—that I told Angie one morning before the salon opened. After making certain everything was set up for the day, the carts well stocked, the styling tools cleaned, we all took a few minutes to primp.

I was spritzing some volumizer in my hair, while Angie reapplied her lip gloss. I can't remember exactly what I asked her, something like had she ever had a boyfriend who didn't want to do certain things in bed.

Angie's gaze met mine in the mirror. "He doesn't want you to blow him?" A few of the other stylists glanced in our direction.

"No, he likes that," I whispered. "It's.. .well, he doesn't want to do it to me."

Her smartly penciled brows twitched upward. "Doesn't like eating tortilla?"

"Nope. He says"—I could feel red flags of color forming on the crests of my cheeks—"it's unhygienic."

She looked outraged. "It's not any more unhygienic than a man's! What a loser. What a selfish—Liberty, most men love to do that to a woman."

"They do?"

"It's a turn-on for them."

"It is?" That was welcome news. It made me feel a little less mortified about having asked Tom for it.

"Oh. girl." Angie said, shaking her head. "You've got to dump him."

"But...but..." I wasn't certain I wanted to take such drastic measures. This was the longest I'd ever dated someone, and I liked the security of it. I remembered all the revolving-door relationships Mama had gone through. Now I understood why.

Dating is like trying to make a meal out of leftovers. Some leftovers, like meat loaf or banana pudding, actually get better when they've had a little time to mature. But others, like doughnuts or pizza, should be thrown out right away. No matter how you try to warm them up, they're never as good as when they were new. I had been hoping Tom would turn out to be a meat loaf instead of a pizza.

"Dump him, " Angie insisted.

Heather, a petite blonde from California, couldn't resist breaking in. Everything she said sounded like a question, even when it wasn't. "You having boyfriend problems, Liberty?"

Angie answered before I could. "She's going out with a sixty-eight."

There were a few sympathetic groans from the other stylists.

"What's a sixty-eight?" I asked.

"He wants you to go down on him," Heather replied, "but he won't return the favor. Like, it would be sixty-nine, but he owes you one."

Alan, who was smarter about men than the rest of us put together, pointed at me with a round brush as he spoke. "Get rid of him. Liberty. You can't ever change a sixty-eight."

"But he's nice in other ways/' I protested. "He's a good boyfriend."

"No he isn't." Alan said. "You just think he is. But sooner or later a sixty-eight will show his true colors outside the bedroom. Leaving you at home while he goes out with his buddies. Buying himself a new car while you get the used one. A sixty-eight always takes the biggest slice of cake, honey. Don't waste your time with him. Trust me, I know from experience."

"Alan's right," Heather said. "I dated a sixty-eight a couple years ago, and at first he was, like, a total hottie. But he turned out to be the biggest jerk ever. Major bummer."

Until that moment I hadn't seriously considered breaking up with Tom. But the idea was an unexpected relief. I realized what was bothering me had nothing to do with blow jobs. The problem was, our emotional intimacy, like our sex life, had its limits. Tom had no interest in the secret places of my heart, nor I in his. We were more adventurous in our selection of gourmet foods than we were in the hazardous territory of a true relationship. It was beginning to dawn on me how rare it was for two people to find the kind of connection Hardy and I had shared. And Hardy had given it up, given me up, for the wrong reasons. I hoped to hell he wasn't finding it any easier than I was to build a relationship with someone.

"What's the best way to end it?" I asked.

Angie patted my back kindly. "Tell him the relationship isn't going where you hoped it would. Say it's no one's fault, but it's just not working for you."

"And don't drop the bomb at your place," Alan added, "because it's always harder to

make someone leave. Do it at his place and then you're out the door."

Soon after that I worked up the courage to break up with Tom at his apartment. I told him how much I had enjoyed our time together but it just wasn't working, and it wasn't him, it was me. Tom listened carefully, impassive except for the movement of tiny facial muscles anchored beneath his beard. He had no questions. He didn't offer a single protest. Maybe it was a relief for him too. I thought. Maybe he'd been bothered as I was by the something-missing between us.

Tom walked me to the door, where I stood clutching my purse. I was thankful there was no goodbye kiss. "I...I wish you well," I said. It was a quaint, old-fashioned phrase, but nothing else seemed to capture my feeling so exactly.

"Yes," he said. "You too, Liberty. I hope you take some time to work on yourself and your problem."

"My problem?"

"Your commitment phobia." he said with kind concern. "Fear of intimacy. You need to work on it. Good luck."

The door closed gently in my face.

I was late getting to work the next day, so I would have to wait until later to report on what had happened. One of the things you learn about working in a salon is that most stylists love to dissect relationships. Our coffee or smoke breaks often sounded like group therapy sessions.

I felt almost lighthearted about breaking up with Tom, except for that shot he'd taken at the end. I didn't blame him for saying it, since he'd just been dumped. What troubled me was the inner suspicion that he was right. Maybe I did have fear of intimacy. I had never loved any man but Hardy, who was secured in my heart with backward barbs. I still dreamed of him and woke with my blood clamoring, every inch of my skin damp and alive.

I was afraid I should have settled for Tom. Carrington would be ten soon. She had been deprived of so many years of fatherly influence. We needed a man in our life.

As I walked into the salon, which had just opened, Alan approached with the news that Zenko wanted to talk to me right away.

"I'm only a few minutes late—" I began.

"No, no, it's not about that. It's about Mr. Travis."

"Is he coming in today?"

Alan's expression was impossible to interpret. "I don't think so."

I went to the back of the salon, where Zenko stood with a china cup filled with hot tea.

He looked up from a leather-bound appointment book. "Liberty. I've checked your afternoon schedule." He pronounced it the British way, shedule. It was one of his favorite words. "It seems to be clear after three-thirty."

"Yes, sir," I said cautiously.

"Mr. Travis wants a trim at his home. Do you know the address?"

I shook my head in bewilderment. "You want me to do it? How come you're not going? You always do his trims."

Zenko explained that a well-known actress was flying in from New York, and he couldn't cancel on her. "Besides," he continued in a careful monotone, "Mr. Travis specifically asked for you. He's had a difficult time since the accident, and he indicated it might do him some good if—"

"What accident?" I felt a nasty sting of adrenaline all over, not unlike the feeling of saving yourself from a fall down the stairs. Even though you avoid the tumble, your body still gets ready for catastrophe.

"I thought you would already know," Zenko said. "Mr. Travis was thrown from a horse two weeks ago."

For a man Churchill's age, horse accidents were never minor. Bones were broken, dislocated, crushed, necks and spines were snapped. I felt my mouth gather in a soundless "oh." My hands shifted in a mosaic of movement, first going to my lips, then crossing over to the upper arms.

"How bad was it?" I managed.

"I'm not aware of the particulars, but I believe a leg was broken, and there was some surgery..." Zenko paused as he stared at me. "You look pale. Do you want to sit down?"