It was perfect.
Chapter 30
“Oh my God, tell me everything.” Parvati plopped down at Rachel’s table. The apron in her lap signaled that it was her break time, and she was not going to let it go by until Rachel had clarified her texts from the past twenty-four hours. “Are you guys going out for real now?”
Rachel folded her hands before her face and pretended to be oh so totally bothered by her friend’s interruption. “Apparently. I told the fool that I love him and was okay with having him as my boyfriend. So… guess it’s official.”
Parvati shrieked in her seat, which startled both herself and the other diners in Opal’s café. After a quick apology to the old woman slowly hunting and pecking an email beside them, Parvati turned back to Rachel and squealed through her sealed lips. “Girl, you bagged yourself one of the hottest guys ever!”
“Don’t know about that…”
“Shut up! Have you seen your boyfriend lately? He’s rich and hot! Remember me when you’re married to a multimillionaire and I’m over here struggling to pay rent.”
“You live with your parents.”
“Whatever!”
Rachel allowed one smile to creep onto her face. “I’m trying not to jinx it, okay? It’s only been a day.” What a day, though! From waking up in Zack’s arms to having dinner with half his family – and enjoying it! When his mother wasn’t around, Rachel was actually somewhat fond of her boyfriend’s family. Isaiah was on another planet, but so was Uncle Roy and Aunt Lorelei. Watching the three of them interact like old siblings who had known each other since forever had put a smile on Zack’s face as well. They had been too exhausted to make love last night, but he had gone to bed saying he felt like the luckiest man in the world. Rachel couldn’t blame him.
“I want details, though. Give me all of them. The nastier, the better. I’m in a dry spell.”
“I highly doubt that... what about that guy you were dating a week ago?”
“You mean the guy my parents set me up with? Do I have to tell you how that went?”
“Point taken.” Parvati’s parents were anxious to get her married off now that her sister was set. The fact that Sita had married a nice Indian boy only emboldened their parents more. “But I’m not going to tell you every dirty detail…”
“C’mon!”
“…But I’ll tell you most of them.”
“Yesss!”
Rachel leaned forward. God only knew how the old woman typing her email would respond to what Rachel wanted to say next. “It was… ugh. I have no words. Amazing. There was no way I could have anticipated a night like that!”
“Going all the way, you mean?”
“Blah, blah, blah, wait ‘til I tell you about what happened yesterday.” Rachel gave the Cliff Notes version of the day out on the yacht and having dinner with the best parts of Zack’s family. Parvati didn’t really care about that. She cared about when everyone was getting married.
Rachel could only roll her eyes.
“One thing at a time, okay? We’re monogamous now, but that doesn’t mean we’re rushing down the aisle. I’d like to wait a couple of years and make sure it’s what I really want.”
“You are so unromantic. I’m going to help you pick out a dress, anyway.”
Rachel laughed, but something bugged her. I’m not in a hurry to get married. Even if I found the perfect man – and who knows, maybe I have – I don’t want to rush into anything that would take forever to undo. Marrying a man with that much money sounded like a lot of hassle. Sure, the alimony might be great, but at what cost to her emotional state?
Ah, there she went, already thinking about the divorce.
“Have you had any issues with the public or the press?”
Rachel stopped laughing. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, guess those tabloid journalists haven’t figure out who you are yet.”
Rachel couldn’t help but sit back in her seat, eyes wide.
“You haven’t been following the news these past few weeks?”
“No! What news!”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything. It’s nothing big, anyway.”
“No, no, I wanna know.”
Parvati pulled out her phone. “Like I said, it’s nothing serious. But some tabloid has been snagging shots of you and Zack all summer, trying to guess who you are and how involved you two really are. So far they don’t know who you are…”
“They got pictures from yesterday?”
“Yeah.” Parvati handed her phone over. “From that dinner you were talking about.”
Rachel scrolled through three fuzzy pictures of the casual outdoor dinner she shared with the Feldmans. Her face was barely visible in most of them, but Zack was definitely recognizable with his head of black hair and the stubble covering her face. Every picture showed him with his arm either wrapped around his “mysterious lady friend” or with Rachel leaning in toward him, giggles on her lips.
“Whoa.” Rachel glanced up at her friend. “I had no idea. Nobody had said anything to me until now.”
“Like I said, it’s not big news, per se.”
Sure. That’s what Parvati said. The article on her phone said otherwise.
“Who IS this woman we’ve been spotting with Zack Feldman all summer? Has the hardened playboy finally found his full-time match? We have to say, we’re not surprised he’s decided that this one is a keeper! Remember their tryst at the lake house? Wowza! Click HERE to see the pics again!”
Rachel did it. She clicked.
After all, she had no idea that there were pics of the lake house.
What was it? Her straddling Zack and making out with him on the dock?
Or…
Or….
“Oh my God.” Rachel clasped her hand over her heart. “They… they got a pick of me giving him head?”
Parvati pleaded the Fifth.
“Did you know about this? Parvati!”
“I thought you knew! What? It’s not a big deal! I only knew it was you because you told me about it!”
“Oh my God!” Now that Rachel had gone down the worst rabbit hole to ever smack her in the face, she kept scrolling until she found related articles. “A History of Regional Playboys: Zack Feldman.”
She clicked.
The article was as recent as a month ago, apparently inspired by Rachel’s constant reappearances in photos. The writer went into great detail highlighting the “best and prettiest” dates Zack had over the past few years.
It was a long article full of photos.
Zack was largely the same in every picture, whether he was caught on his yacht or walking down the street. T-shirt. Jeans. Sandals. Sunglasses that covered his tanned face.
But the women were vastly different. Beautiful, but so different in their beauty that Rachel couldn’t even compare herself to them.
Zack hadn’t been kidding when he said he had dated supermodels before. “Our personal favorite,” the writer said, “is it-girl plus-size supermodel Kalypso Pointe. Check out these luscious curves in a bikini crafted by God himself!”
Rachel saw Kalypso’s face everywhere. Saw her body everywhere, since she was the biggest lingerie model for plus-sized underwear. Her long brown hair was richer and fuller than Rachel’s thin and stringy strands. While the camera generously showed off Kalypso’s cellulite and stretch marks, there wasn’t a single unflattering photo of the woman sunbathing on the Priss & Moan.
Skinny blondes. Svelte redheads. Curvy blondes. Foreign brunettes. Foreign and curvy redheads. Rachel gasped when she saw one of the biggest Hollywood actresses to shake things up in recent years. The article writer went out of his way to cite the actress’s Nigerian roots.
There was no denying that Zack was sleeping with – or at least trying to sleep with – these women. They held hands, posed half naked, shared kisses, and hung all over each other whether they were dining outside in Italy or sitting on a private balcony in Australia. The article also included women who had openly modeled for his artwork. Most of them were semi-nude.
He told me he couldn’t hang out today because he really needed to work. So had Rachel. Now, she wondered what he was really up to.
“Rachel, I… I’ve gotta get back to work.”
She handed Parvati back her phone and stared at her work materials, none of them making sense anymore. Parvati patted her on the head and said she would only be a shout away. That didn’t make Rachel feel better.
Her own phone came out of her pocket. There were no messages from Zack, who had claimed to be working in his private studio all day.
“Where are you??? We need to talk.”
It was an excruciating ten minutes before he answered.
“What’s up?”
“WHERE are you? In your studio? I’m coming over.”
“Whoa what now? What’s going on? I’m not in my studio. I took a break for lunch.”
“Where the fuck are you???”
“Calm down! I’m in that bar on 3rd Street. The one we went to a few times.”
Rachel packed up her stuff. That didn’t stop Zack from texting her more questions, however. When they finally stopped, Rachel was out the door, marching the four blocks between Opal’s and 3rd Street.