Sliding (The Stone Series) Read online

  Sliding

  By Kitty Berry

  This is a work of fiction. Please forgive any similarities to actual people or literary characters. The characters and their actions were developed by the author and any resemblance to actual people or other literary characters is coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to the real Kitty Berry, my mom and friend. I miss you every day.

  Acknowledgments

  To Amalina, my fellow only, for suffering through the first write and not looking at me like I was crazy after reading it. I never asked for a sibling but if I did I would have asked for you. Thanks to all of you who had to sit through months of me talking about nothing but Sliding and still being my friends. Thank you to my husband who can never use the laptop because I am always monopolizing it. To my three boys, thank you for being the best part of my world.

  As I stand looking into the mirror in the master suite’s bathroom I am faced with my destiny and a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to California to be with my husband and save my marriage or …what? We’ve lived apart for six months now and we will not survive living apart another six. It’s the parallel tracking of two possible destinies, essentially the what-if scenario staring me right in the face. I could be entering into the center of two significantly different trajectories.

  As I am contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same time as the house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer the phone and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man I have ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure everyone has these little moments in time when they question which decision is right and which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down different avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible to go back and change. Well, I guess this is what awaits me behind…

  Door #1

  Chapter 1: The Beginning

  I take one last glance at myself in the mirror, not too bad. I have somehow managed to be a size two, so it’s not the size zero of my youth but I’m still firm and young looking. Botox, daily doses of yoga, Pilates, jogging, and weight training sessions with my trainer help. Being a seasoned borderline anorexic helps a little too. I am wearing Tate’s favorite dress. It’s short and black and it looks great on me, if I do say so myself. The highest heeled shoes that I own each with a little pink bow on them make the dress look even naughtier. I grab my shades and over sized bag to complete my look and head for the door taking one last look back at the phone ringing on the bedside table. Who the hell can that be and why aren’t they calling me on my cell? Assuming it’s a telemarketer I head out of my house.

  Mac has my luggage packed in the trunk of our silver Porsche Cayenne and he smiles when I step outside.

  “Hello Mrs. Taylor” I hear Mac call before he asks if I am going to answer the phone. I tell him I am not; I don’t want to miss my flight. Mac has worked for my husband and me since shortly before Tate left six months ago. In that short time he has been a very loyal employee. I think he got the short end of the stick being stuck here with me for the last six months while Tate has been in California with our other employee, Dominick trying to “repair” the music industry on the West Coast. Mac is an ex-Marine and now he’s in charge of our security amongst many other tasks like driving me to the airport today. Mac is well over six feet tall with quite a set of muscles on him. Mac has these piercing blue eyes that when he looks at you makes you feel like he can see into your soul. His Marine close cut brown hair matches cocoa colored skin. He seems like such a catch that at his age I can’t believe he would still be single.

  “Please Mac call me Brook, we have known each other for over six months now, this really has to end.” I reply. Mac looks at me and smiles. We have this exchange at least ten times a day and nothing ever changes.

  When I get into the back seat I find a brand new iPod with ear buds. They are from my husband and I am instructed to listen to the iPod throughout my trip. Back in the day Tate used to make me mixed tapes but he hasn’t done anything like that since…since there were tapes I guess.

  “Mr. Taylor asks that you wear those for the ride to JFK and then on your flight. He said he will send Dominick to pick you up at the airport when you arrive” Mac informs me.

  I wonder what intern’s job it was to make me this mixed playlist. I notice Mac sending a text before pulling away from the curb, probably texting Tate to tell him we are on our way, he’s always checking up on me.

  When I put in the ear buds and turn my new iPod on “Baby, Come to Me” the duet by Patti Austen and James Ingram is leading off the playlist, clearly from my husband not some twenty-something intern who wouldn’t know this song in a million years…interesting choice for the first song, good job Mr. Taylor. Yes, very interesting that this is the song my husband has picked to lead off this play list. I can only imagine what else he has included and the anticipation sends a tingle down my spine.

  As I settle in I start to feel like I am floating through time back to the early 1980s, I am instantly transported back to the beginning. Back to the time and place where it all began….

  I let myself remember the simpler times, the memories this song conjures up, the memories that make me feel like I am fourteen again and then I am standing in the high school gym with my best friend, Asia at the first dance of the school year wearing different variations of the same outfit. We are wearing acid washed jeans with half shirts, mine has neon colored hearts all over it with sayings in them like the hearts you get on Valentine’s Day but the sayings are things like “dance”, “love” and my favorite, “strut”. That’s my favorite because Tate Taylor walks with a kind of butt strut that is just so mesmerizing I could watch him walk all day.

  I spot Tate, the most gorgeous boy at school, the minute he walks in the gym. I don’t know if he notices me, if he’s ever noticed me but I notice him. He’s wearing all black; t-shirt, jacket with the sleeves rolled up his forearms and jeans. His long dark hair flops in his face and he constantly flips it out of his eyes.

  Tate and I are finally in the same school this year and I have never had better attendance…ever! Kids at school say that Tate is shy despite his good looks but I’m not sure if it’s shyness that makes him aloof. Whatever it is drives the girls wild, the fact that he doesn’t give them the time of day, me included makes us all want to be the first to obtain his attention. He doesn’t seem to notice that girls are into him, maybe he just doesn’t care.

  Tate is with his friends, they are all athletes and almost as cute as he is. My friend Missy has it bad for Jeff; they’ve been going out since the first week of school. Jeff is tall and lanky with long arms, perfect for the quarter back on the football team. He looks like a surfer with his bleached blond hair. Asia takes one look at Bobby, Tate’s best friend and starts smacking me, she does this when she gets excited; it’s like an annoying tick but one that hurts the parties in her presence. Bobby is built like the line backer that he is all muscle and crazy curly brown hair. My friend Annie has her sights on David; he’s handsome and tall with brown hair and blue eyes. Annie is trying her best to play it cool and not let David know she’s looking at him but he catches her eye and comes right up to us. Oh my God, with Tate right behind him!

  “Little Red Corvette” starts playing and Tate asks me to dance, he actually asks me to dance! I can barely make out the word; “Sure” I am so shocked. I have no clue where this came from, he never even talks to me at school. Maybe it’s some kind of bet he has with his friends or maybe it’s a prank. Maybe he’s going to start dancing with me then leave me on the floor alone looking stupid while everyone laughs and points at me. Why else would “th
e perfect Tate Taylor” ask me to dance when he could have any girl in this gym if not for a joke?

  Tate just stands there swaying from side to side so I do the same all the while waiting for the bomb to fall. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me but I don’t know if that’s because every girl in this gym wants to be me right now or if it’s because Tate is about to make me the laughing stock of the school. Then as the music changes to “Never Gonna Let You Go”, Tate puts his arms around my waist; I put my arms around his neck and follow his lead and then I am actually slow dancing with Tate Taylor. No one is laughing at me now!

  Tate and I dance all night and I can feel the daggers being thrown at me from all around the room. I thought it was my friends at first, mad because I was blowing them off for Tate but they’re dancing right alongside us, each with one of Tate’s friends. The night flies by and by the time the final song comes on, “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?” I am in a trace enchanted by Tate. As the song comes to an end Tate gently kisses me on the cheek and I swear I hear a groan spread over the crowd coming from every girl there. Or maybe that sound came from me…I’m too dizzy right now to know! And then he’s gone, walked right out the door. What the hell does this mean? Am I his girlfriend? Does Tate like me? Oh, my God! I am never washing that side of my face again!

  I turn and see all of my friends with their mouths hanging open and we wordlessly turn and walk out of the gym in search of our ride home. My friends come back to my house for a sleepover and we run immediately up the stairs to my bedroom screaming.

  ************

  “Mrs. Taylor, we’re at JFK” Mac says startling me back to the here and now. Wow, I have not thought about that first night in so long I almost forgot how Tate and I started. Was this his plan with this playlist? To make me remember what we used to have? To make me remember how it all started? Well, it’s working, kudos to you Mr. Taylor.

  Mac helps me with my luggage and then we say a quick good-bye. I worry about him. I want to set him up with someone so he can be happy and have a life instead of always working. I wish my cousin, Drea was a little older, I think they’d be perfect together. Of course, her brother, Damian would not approve. I don’t know why the men in this family are so controlling. And who am I to play match maker anyway? I have only been with one man my whole life. What do I really know about love anyway? I fell in love with my husband when I was thirteen years old, before I even knew what it meant to be in love with someone. And until six months ago I never questioned it. Now questioning that is all I can seem to do.

  “Thanks for the ride, Mac. Hold down the fort while I’m gone. See you” I say with a wave as I turn and go into the airport.

  I hear them call my flight; I board the plane and get comfortable in my first class seat. After we are safely in the air I remember I have my iPod with Tate’s playlist on it and I’m excited to see what song comes next and what memories it will awaken. “Always Something There to Remind Me” starts playing as I put the ear buds back in. So I was right, Tate is trying to remind me. I have a flight ahead of me for just that… remembering. And that is just what I need to do. It might help me understand where we’re headed if I can remember where we started from.

  ************

  “Brooklynn, you have a phone call”, my mom calls while my friends and I are having a spa day after the school dance. We are giving each other facials and trying out new hairstyles while “Flashdance” is blasting from my radio. I have to keep yelling to my mother to get my little sister out of my room. She keeps trying to listen to our conversations and I just know she’ll go and tell my mother everything we say. We all start squealing and running to get the cordless phone.

  “Hello”, I say sounding way too excited.

  “Hey Brook, it’s Bobby. What’s up?”

  “Hi Bobby” I say as I look to my friends for help but they are all just staring at me with their mouths wide open again.

  This is the first time a boy has ever called my house and I’m not sure what to say to him. Asia begins her assault on my arm not helping matters at all.

  “Yeah, um Tate wants to go out with you, so what do you say, should I tell him yes?”

  After I am convinced that I have died and gone to heaven I regain the use of my mouth and mumble, “Ok”, as the girls all ask, “Ok what? What does he want?”

  Asia whines, “Why is Bobby calling you?”

  I hang up the phone not yet processing what just happened. I am Tate Taylor’s girlfriend.

  I scream, “AHHHH!!” loud enough to be heard in outer space.

  Once I calm down enough to hear them, my friends begin the onslaught of questions on me.

  “What did Bobby want?”, “Did he ask for me?”, “Did he say anything about Jeff?”, “What about David, did he say anything about David and me?”

  “ARGH!” I can barely hear them, they are all yelling at me at the same time. “Shut up before my mom comes in here asking questions” I yell at them, “And no, it was Bobby and he said Tate wants to go out with me” I squeal.

  All mouths are still hanging open staring at me.

  “Did you tell him yes, I hope?” asks Missy.

  “I don’t understand why Bobby didn’t ask about me, see I knew it. He doesn’t like me; I’m going to kill myself” Asia whines.

  It hits us all at the same time and my friends yell, “Oh my God, you are Tate Taylor’s girlfriend, his first girlfriend!”

  Oh my God, what does this mean? I don’t know how to dress, talk or act as Tate Taylor’s girlfriend. Is there a special dress code? A secret language? Maybe there’s a manual or something.

  Later that night while I am lying in bed listening to the radio like I do every night, “She Works Hard for the Money” is playing when my phone rings and I jump to answer it on the first ring.

  “Hello”, I whisper into the phone trying to be as quiet as possible.

  “Hey Brook, its Tate, were you sleeping?”

  Oh, my God, I no longer have the use of any form of functional communication. I have no words, I cannot speak. Oh God he’s going to hang up if I don’t say something soon.

  “Um…no I’m awake how about you?”

  Oh, real smooth. Yeah he’s asleep that’s why he’s calling me. Some people sleep walk but no, not Tate Taylor. Instead he sleep calls pathetic girls like me. I’m so stupid!

  Tate and I talk about school, what teachers we like, which ones we hate. Tate is really smart, he never misses a day of school and turns in every extra credit assignment he can. He tends to be a perfectionist; he says it’s because he’s an only child. Tate tells me about his football, basketball and baseball teams then the conversation turns to music and movies we like. I tell Tate that I hate being the oldest in my family. I am always expected to watch my younger brother and sister. My parents think that because I am a teenager they can just make plans and I’ll watch Katrina and Michael so they can go out. Tate tells me that being an only child puts way too much pressure on him. His parents expect him to always do well in school and in sports; he says the pressure is just too much sometimes.

  When “Tonight, I Celebrate my Love” ends Tate says we should hang up and get some sleep.

  “Ok, you first” I say not wanting to ever hang up.

  “No, you first” Tate responds and this goes back and forth until we decide to hang up at the same time.

  “Good night, Brooklynn” is the last thing I hear before the phone line goes dead and I know I will never be able to sleep.

  When I walk into the dance I see the girls standing in the middle of the school gym. They are all wearing the same outfit. I can’t figure out why girls do this. Missy is into sports and kind of cool but she’s not very girly. Asia is beautiful with this fire red hair that is really hot. Annie is a stick with no body at all but her face is amazing. Then there is Brooklynn Adams. She is tiny and has all these dark wild curls that make me want to twist my fingers around them. She is beautiful but seems shy about it, like she has no idea
how beautiful she is.

  The girls that used to be cool in elementary school all started losing it when we hit middle school and now they drive me nuts, even the ones who never used to bother me before. I can really care less about girls but they won’t leave me alone. Every day at school a different girl comes up to me, “My friend thinks you’re so cute.” or, “My friend wants to go out with you.” I hate it. I just want to play sports and hang out with my friends. And, okay, maybe look at the girls rapidly changing bodies from afar. So I am wearing all black tonight, I wear all black a lot; I just want to try to blend in.

  I got an idea the other day that it would be easier if I just said yes to one of them when they asked me to go out with them or I should ask someone out myself. That way if I had a girlfriend maybe the rest of them would leave me alone. That’s when Brooklynn Adams came to mind. She’s by far the prettiest girl in our class but she doesn’t seem to care. I think she’s probably like me, I know I’m good looking but I don’t care. What does it really mean anyway? I’m just glad I’m athletic, now that’s important. Brook and I have never been in school together until this year but I know she’s a cheerleader, I noticed her at one of my games so we have something in common.