Oh crap.
I felt all eyes on me but it was Martha who spoke next.
"All right, Tess, I backed off because you know I did not like that Jake but that look on your face, I'm done backing off."
Oh crap.
At this point Martha looked to the beauty parade of women around the table and shared, "She got hooked up with this guy... hot and when I say hot I mean," she licked her finger then sliced it through the air making a sizzle noise and went on, "smokin' hot. But bad news."
It was safe to say I didn't want to talk about this at all but it was safer to say that I didn't want to talk about this drinking clandestine cosmos on Ada's picture perfect back deck with a bunch of women I didn't know during a very badly hosted baby shower I didn't want to be at but instead I wanted to be home preparing for nine o'clock when Brock would be back and we would be talking.
Therefore, I started, "Martha "
"No, girl," Martha cut me off, lifting a hand in my face to which Elvira muttered, "Oh shit, this is serious. She's givin' the hand."
Martha continued, dropping her hand and looking back at the bevy of beauties. "This guy had it all, the walk, the voice, the hair, the ass, kid you not, I'd sell my soul just to run my fingers along his forearms," she leaned in and semi-whispered, "he's got these veins that pop out on his hands and forearms, freaking delicious. "
Oh jeez.
Totally paid attention.
"Mm hmm, I hear you," Elvira and Tracy muttered in unison, their eyes rapt on Martha's face as were Gwen's but Camille was looking at me.
Martha went on. "But did he take her to his pad? No. Did she know where he worked? No.
Did she meet any of his friends? No. Family? Unh-unh. Always her place or some dive.
Never a nice meal. Never got dressed up and took my girl on the town. He met her friends.
He showed up at her bakery. But for all she knows, he's a lone wolf livin' off his family's inheritance and, from what I could tell, it wasn't a generous one. If he called, she answered.
She couldn't and he left a message, she called straight back. He wanted to meet, she asked where and what time and then she was there."
"Oh boy," Gwen muttered, clearly disappointed I'd let down our side.
"You got that right. Oh boy, " Martha agreed . "Did she listen to me when I told her to play it cool? No. Did she listen to me when I said in four months you should see your man's pad, at the very least meet a friend, just one? No. I get it. She was into this dude. Hell, Melissa Etheridge would be into this dude. He's the walking, talking, breathing definition of a dude you... would... be... into. But a girl's gotta play it cool and not put herself out there."
I tried again. "Martha "
She turned her bright blue eyes to me. "Unh-unh, Tess. You put yourself out there and I know, seein' as for the last three months there's been no talk, no sightings, Jake Knox all of a sudden fell off the face of the earth." She leaned into me. "I know." Then she leaned back.
"It's ended. Because off you go, hell bent on whatever you're hell bent on." She turned back to the girls. "Suddenly, after twenty-five years of me talking to her about it, she gets contacts.
Suddenly, she's at kick-boxing classes three days a week. Suddenly, she's looking at places to open a new bakery and expand her business at the same time she's put the house she loves on the market and is waxin' on about movin' to Kentucky. Suddenly, she's off to a new hairdresser, spends three hundred friggin' dollars for a new friggin' look. Suddenly, she's not shopping at Nordstrom's but scrounging through the racks of Biker Babes 'R' Us. Now, we all know, a girl gets dumped by a serious hot guy she's got two options. She deposits her ass at the nearest LaMar's and steadily eats her way through the inventory until she's gained fifty pounds and gives up on men until she finds herself a beer bellied loser who worships the ground she walks on. Or she gets herself a new look, kick-boxes her way to a new ass and throws herself into her job, that means she's living and breathing for that moment when she sees him again and she can say, 'Look what you gave up, asshole.'" Martha's eyes came back to me. "And that's what you've been doin'."
That wasn't what I was doing.
Or, not exactly.
"Honey " I began again only to get cut off again.
"But today, I see it in your eyes. Something is up and my guess is that something is that guy's back. You're in your head again, livin' the dream that he's going to be all you want him to be when everything about him screams he... is... not. "
"Tell it like it is, sister," Elvira encouraged.
"Um... not to be rude or anything, but..." I looked at the girl gang. "I don't really know you all and maybe "
Elvira cut me off. "Nope, you don't know us, that's the damned truth but I'll tell you, from what I hear your girl sayin', it's intervention time and we all got tits and ass, except Camille, she's just got ass but lucky for her, God gave her plenty 'a that, so we're in the club and anytime a member gets herself in a situation where she needs an intervention, it's our duty to kick in even if we don't know the sister," Elvira stated then her eyes scanned the table and she asked, "Am I right?"
I stared at Elvira not happy to admit that what she was saying was sheer lunacy but it was also right as most anything that had to do with women was. And this included her observation that Camille was light up top but she made up for it by being generous on the bottom.
"You're right, Elvira," Tracy chimed in.
"I think " Camille started but Elvira talked over her.
"Spill," she ordered me. "This Jake back?"
"Kind of," I found my mouth saying and Elvira's eyebrows shot together in a scary way.
"Kind of? How can a boy kind of be back?"
"Um..." I muttered, avoiding Martha's eyes since she was right, I didn't share anything about what happened with Brock, Damian and being investigated by a multi-agency task force that came together to dismantle my ex-husband's drug operation and I was seeing, just then, this was probably something girlfriends shared.
Elvira yanked off the top of the cocktail shaker then extended her arm across the table, offering it to me. "Suck some of that back, girlfriend, and let 'er rip."
That was when I found my hand reaching for the cocktail shaker. Then, as told by a somewhat scary Elvira, I took it and sucked some back.
She made good cosmos.
I handed it off to Tracy who was standing beside me so she could partake and then I pulled in breath and started.
"Okay, well, see, I didn't tell you..." I turned to Martha, "because I... well... it was messed up."
"Oh boy," Gwen muttered again.
"Keep talking," Martha said quietly, her eyes on my face, her body braced and I knew she was worried.
Damn.
"His name isn't Jake Knox. It's Brock Lucas," I whispered and felt something weird and tense coming from the table but since Martha was blinking at me and looking more worried, I hurried on. "He was... okay, here it is. Damian is a drug kingpin and he called me nine months ago lying to me that his dad was sick. I met him for lunch and he told me he wanted to reconcile."
I stopped talking mainly because Martha shrieked a very loud, "What? "
I put my hand on her arm and talked quickly, "Honey, it was... it was nothing."
"That jackass calls you, Tess, it's not nothing," she snapped, her bright blue eyes flashing.
She was right. She didn't know the worst of it with him but she never liked him either.
Said from the beginning he was a bad seed. Told me while she was trying on maid of honor dresses that she was performing her duties under protest. She always hated Damian.
Which was why I never told her he hit me and raped me. She'd lose it and I needed her breathing free air, not serving time for manslaughter.
"You're right," I agreed.
"Damn straight I am," she shot back.
I pulled in more breath. "Anyway, I told him, obviously, I wasn't interested. But you know Damian."
She shook her head then told the girl posse around the table. "Dick never gives up. Sinks his poisonous fangs in you and doesn't let go until he injects all the venom."
"Oo, lawdy, seems you don't got good radar when it comes to pickin' 'em," Elvira muttered.
"No, her radar is beyond not good. Her radar is also not malfunctioning. It's straight out broke," Martha agreed and I was wondering if perhaps Elvira and Martha were not such a good match. Denver was relatively peaceful. I'd never heard of riots or sieges or militant hostile takeovers of land and I was foreseeing this if these two got together and rallied the female population of the Denver Metropolitan Area as a protest to shelter all women against dickhead assholes.
"Go on, girl," Camille prompted quietly and I looked around to see her, Gwen and Tracy's eyes gentle on me.
I nodded and went on. "It gets worse."
"Oh boy," Gwen whispered.
"Shit," Martha muttered.
"You don't say," Elvira mumbled.
I kept talking. "Like I said, Damian is a drug kingpin who's in jail, or was. Now he's out on bail awaiting trial."
Martha glared at me. She knew this. Everyone did. It had been in the papers. She'd only broached it with me once, I told her he wasn't in my life so I didn't care and she'd backed off about that too.
I kept going. "But since he contacted me and kept contacting me, the task force investigating him thought maybe I was involved in his operation."
"Oh boy," Gwen whispered.
"Shit," Martha muttered.
"You don't say," Elvira mumbled.
I continued. "So, they um... well, they sent someone in undercover to get close to me and that someone they sent was Jake slash Brock."
"Holy fuck! " Martha shouted.
"Honey, keep it down," I whispered, my body getting tight and she leaned across the table, snatched the cocktail shaker out of Camille's hand and then downed a huge gulp like it was Kool-Aid before she dropped her hand and her eyes cut to me.
I took that as my cue to keep going.
"Well, um... that was it, really. They did their sweep; I was caught up in it. They searched my house, car, the bakery, did a forensic search of my computers and another of my finances, brought me into the Station to talk to me and then I found out who he was, we had a few words and I walked away."
Then I stopped talking which meant Martha started.
"I gotta tell you, Tess, I knew Damian was a bad seed. When I read that shit about him in the paper, it did not surprise me."
I held her eyes and settled in for the "I told you so's".
I was not disappointed.
"And I gotta tell you, I knew somethin' was not right with that Jake slash Brock slash whoever-the-fuck."
I pressed my lips together.
"And I gotta tell you, I cannot believe you did not share any of this shit with me."
I bit my lip.
"Now, what I wanna know is, how is he back?"
I released my lip only for both to slide to the side. Martha's eyes narrowed.
I decided, since I'd kept so much for her, and I really shouldn't have, that it was the right thing to do to answer.
"He stopped by today to explain," I said quietly.
"Yeah? And what'd he say?"
"Um... well, he was, uh... well..."
I petered out.
"Oh boy," Gwen whispered.
I started talking again when Martha got a look like her head was about to explode.
"He wants us to talk stuff out and see where we are."
"Where you are?" Martha whispered and I shrugged even though I knew that was not my best play. "Okay, where are you?" she asked.
"He's coming over tonight at nine," I informed her and she rolled her eyes to the heavens.
"Oh boy," Gwen and Camille said in unison.
I took in another breath.
Martha rolled her eyes back to me. "Don't do this," she said softly.
"Martha "
She shook her head. "I'm tellin' you, Tess. Do not do this."
"I "