Guardian Girl (The Chronicles of Staffordshire) Read online

  Lena clutched the back of Lenore’s head, petting it. She kissed Lenore’s cheek. Lenore’s smooth, silken hair felt weird. Lumpy. Gnarly.

  “Look, Lenore… Let me turn on a light, okay? Please? We need to talk and I just want a little light in the room, okay? Please?”

  “Well… Okay… But… Please… Do not laugh at me.”

  Lenore released Lena, letting her turn on the light over Lenore’s bed. “C’mon, Freaky. Why would I…”

  The light popped to life.

  “…Laugh…”

  “Ohhhhhh brother.”

  Thick, runny mascara was smeared everywhere on Lenore’s face and pillow. Lenore’s luxurious hair had become knotted and tangled. A long, messy squiggle of bright, red lipstick ran past her lips and halfway to each ear. An overabundance of bright, red blush was caked atop a thick layer of foundation. Lenore somehow managed to plaster her eyelids with a hideous shade of navy blue shadow.

  Lena pressed her palms to Lenore’s sticky cheeks. She smiled a sad, sweet smile at her roommate and embraced the supermodel’s fear of abandonment. Lena’s worst nightmare hinged on public humiliation. Lenore’s hinged on losing the only love of her life.

  “Lenore… Sweetie… What happened? What did you do?”

  The freaky supermodel sobbed, throwing herself into Lena’s chest. “Lena! I was so afraid! After you left me at the dining hall, I… I could not eat dinner… So I… I came to our room… But… You were not here! So I… I wanted to look beautiful for you when you came home… And… And… I tried… I tried to… To… Look beautiful for you… And… I… I messed up! I got… So shaky… And so… So afraid… And then… One thing led to another… And I could not control my hands… And then my comb… And then… I started crying and… I could not fix my… My mascara and… Nobody was here to… To… To make me look beautiful for you… And… I kept making it worse, and worse, and worse! And I knew… You would be back and… I was so ugly! And I thought you hated me! And I could not… I could not fix myself!”

  Lena stroked Lenore’s hair, taking care not to run her fingers through knots and tangles. Just petting Lenore’s head seemed to ease her anxiety.

  “Lenore… Sweetie… Easy, Freaky Baby… Take it easy. I’m not leaving you. And I’m not laughing at you. It’s all okay… I’m here now. Look, Freaky… You’re still beautiful to me. No matter how you look right now… You’ll always be beautiful to me. Inside, Lenore. Where it really counts. You’re always beautiful and you always take good care of me. I never wanted you to think you don’t take good care of me. All I wanted was a little alone time, Lenore. Just some time to be on my own and focus on my game. I didn’t want you to think I was leaving you or that I didn’t love you or that I didn’t think you were beautiful. You’re the most beautiful girl I know, Lenore. You’re the most precious person I know. And you take such good care of me. Every day. And every night when we get in bed. I can’t sleep unless I’m in your arms, Lenore. You know that, right? You know I can’t even sleep if I’m not in your arms?”

  Lenore nodded and wept into Lena’s hoodie. A huge, blackish wet spot spread breast to breast on Lena’s chest.

  “Do you really need me, Lena? Do you really need me to be able to sleep each night?”

  “Absolutely, Lenore. When I get in bed… When you hug me… I feel safe. Never forget that, okay Freaky? That’s not just… It’s not just convenient, Lenore. That’s like… It’s like life to me. Being with you is like… It’s like living and breathing. I really can’t live without you, Lenore.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And… You know what…?” Lena pulled Lenore back from her chest and lifted her chin. “I’m going to help you be beautiful again. I’m going to help you fix yourself up and get you ready for bed. Okay? WWould you like it if I helped you be beautiful again so you can put your arms around me and we can both feel beautiful together?”

  A smiling, sniffling nod gave Lena her cue.

  “Come on, Lenore. Come over to the desk. Where’s your makeup kit, eh Freaky? Let’s get all this makeup off, let me fix your hair, and let’s get the real you shining through again, okay?”

  Lenore let Lena take her by the hand to the desk.

  “Which drawer do you keep the makeup stuff in, Freaky?”

  Lenore opened the left drawer and revealed her secret stash. The Wild Child rarely used makeup – except when a professional put it on during a shoot - and never paid attention to the freaky supermodel’s trade secrets. An uncharted path lay ahead of the novice makeup artist.

  “Uhhh… Lead me through this, okay Freaky? You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. You just hand me things and I’ll do what you tell me to do.”

  Lena stood behind Lenore, receiving each tool and cream in turn. She gently sponged away mascara, blush and foundation, eye shadow, and what was left of the smeared lipstick.

  “Now, Freaky, hand me your comb and brush. Flip forward for me.”

  Standing over Lenore, Lena alternated between the brush and comb to work through the thicket of Lenore’s tangled hair. After freeing all the knots, Lena slowly stroked Lenore’s hair with the brush, each trip through her sexy mane bringing it a step closer to its usual, supermodel perfection.

  With Lenore’s makeover out of the way, the time seemed right to circle back and talk through the girls’ meltdowns. Lena cupped Lenore’s cheeks and rested her chin on the top of Lenore’s head.

  “My God, Freaky! Look at yourself now. You are SO beautiful, Lenore! Look in that mirror. What do you see?”

  Looking up, Lenore smiled widely and returned Lena’s volley. “I see my beautiful Wild Child!”

  Lena shook her head. “No silly. You, dear. I’m talking about you. What do you see when you look at you?”

  “I see… You taking care of me,” said Lenore with a hopeful smile.

  “Cut the crap, Lenore. Look at you, not me.”

  Devoid of makeup, Lenore’s photogenic mystique filled the mirror. Her eyes sparkled with love for Lena. Her full, seductive lips shone with anticipatory dew, awaiting Lena’s kiss. Her cheeks blushed with yearning for her roommate’s touch.

  “You made me beautiful again. You made me… I am me again.”

  “That’s right, Freaky Baby. You are you again. Now… How do you think that makes me feel right now, looking at you, knowing that my hands helped the most beautiful girl in the world become beautiful again?”

  “I… I do not know, Lena.”

  “Well… If you were me… And the tables were turned… And I was the girl sitting in that chair and you were the girl who just got done letting all that beauty come out again… How do you think you’d be feeling right now?”

  Lenore smiled and touched her cheek with her fingertips, slowly bringing her fingertips to her lips. “I would be… I would be in love with the girl in the chair.”

  “That’s right, Freaky. You’d be in love with the girl in the chair. Just like I’m in love with the girl in the chair. I’m totally in love with the beautiful, amazing girl in the chair.”

  “Lena…” Lenore began, taking tentative steps across a thin, crackling sheet of emotional ice. “Please tell me what happened. I will believe you. I will believe anything you say. I… I do not ever want to have this happen again. I must know.”

  “Lenore, you need to trust me when I tell you that I didn’t leave you alone tonight because I don’t love you. Do you believe me?”

  Reveling in Lena’s ongoing care of her hair, Lenore nodded. “Yes. I believe you.”

  “Good, Lenore… ‘Cause… This may not make much sense, but it’s the truth. Sometimes… Sometimes I just get so angry I feel like exploding. I mean… I love playing tennis… And I love competing… Most of all, I love winning. I mean… Who doesn’t love winning, right? You like winning? Right?”

  Lenore nodded and shrugged. “Yes… I really like winning.”

  “Well… Sometimes I get so angry because I screw up or I lose a match or - like lately
- I lose my serve and I know I’m about to face a really tough player. When I get like that I know I could really hurt someone if I’m not careful.

  “Before we met, Lenore, I used to have a horrible temper. I went through 12 rackets the year before I got to Paulson. But it doesn’t happen as much anymore. I think that’s because I have you in my life, Freaky. The way you love me… Every day… The way you hold me every night… It just takes away most of that anger I used to have.

  “But when I lose it, I know I need to get away. I need to get away from people. I don’t want to hurt people when I get like that, and the last person in the world I ever want to hurt is you, Freaky.”

  Lena’s tears dripped into Lenore’s hair. “Lenore… I was so angry tonight I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I was so angry with how that practice went… I wanted to take my racket and start hitting everything in sight. What happened with that door… That was just a warning.”

  “You ran away from me… Because you love me? Because you were protecting me?”

  “Yeah, Freaky. I ran away from you because I love you. And I ran away from you because I knew that if I just got some time away and got it out of my system I would be able to come home and show you how much I love you.”

  “But Lena… When you came home… You were so happy. What happened while you were out? Was it just a cup of coffee? Or did something else happen?”

  “Oh Christ. How do I do this? How can I tell her what happened without undermining everything I just told her?”

  Lena bundled Lenore’s hair with a scrunchy and produced a long, thick ponytail of black coffee hair. Lenore loved the sensation of Lena stroking her ponytail and the Wild Child worked the love.

  “Well… I think what happened was a miracle, Lenore! Something really miraculous! I was still so upset after I left you, I didn’t even know where I was going. I went 20 blocks. I ran for a while and then I just walked and talked to myself. But when I finally looked around I realized I was 20 blocks from the dorm. And I looked across the street and found this coffee shop. So I went in and this really nice guy took care of me. He treated me like a total queen, Lenore. And he made me the most amazing cup of coffee. I think it was like the greatest cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my entire life. And he talked to me the whole time, like a bartender or something. He could tell I had a bad day and he treated me like he really wanted it to be better.

  “But that wasn’t the miraculous thing, Lenore. The miraculous thing was what he said when he handed me that cup. He said, ‘This is for the most beautiful tennis player in the world’.”

  Lenore’s eyes saddened, her head dipped. “That is what I was afraid of, Lena. I was afraid someone else would make you feel better. That you needed to be away from me for someone else to make you feel better.”

  Bending toward Lenore’s ear, Lena swept away all of Lenore’s fears with a brush of her hand to the back of the model’s head and a quiet whisper to her soul. “But Lenore… I didn’t tell him a thing. He kept asking me what was wrong and, I kept saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I can’t talk about secret stuff with anyone but you, Freaky Baby. You’re the only person I tell all my secrets to. When I’m having problem with my game, you’re the only person I ever let know it. You’re the only person I ever let hold me. You’re the only person I ever let kiss me and… You’re the only person in the world who owns my heart.

  “That guy at the coffee shop was nice to me. And maybe God put him in my path to make me feel a lot better about myself than I did when I walked in the door. But you, Lenore… You love me. You know just how miserable a bitch I can be and you still love me. And when I really feel sad or afraid, you’re the first person I want to be with.

  “But tonight, I wasn’t sad, Freaky. I was furious. I didn’t want to lay any of that anger on you, Lenore. You don’t deserve it. Nobody deserves it. So by the time I got to that coffee shop, I got most of the anger out of my system. And that guy behind the counter, he…”

  Lena stumbled. She sucked on her lower lip. She grinned.

  “Oh my God! He knew who I was! He served me like a queen! He knew who I was and he STILL didn’t out me! That boy has a crush on me! A big black guy named Bubba has a freaking crush on me! AWESOME!”

  Before Lenore detected her roommate’s flattered side-trip, Lena shook off her ill-timed daydream and grabbed Lenore’s gaze.

  “Look… Lenore… You are God’s gift to me every day. That guy behind the counter… He was God’s gift to me for tonight. But you, Lenore… You’re God’s gift to me every day of my miserable life. Does that make any sense?”

  A smiling supermodel looked up into the tennis pro’s eyes. She grabbed Lena’s hands and held them against her shoulders. “Yes, my beautiful Wild Child. That makes perfect sense.”

  Lenore pulled Lena down into a sideways kiss over her shoulder. Different from the body slam the Wild Child laid on her roommate at the gym, Lenore gave Lena a tender touch of love. Lena responded in kind, withholding the flaming tongue of the frustrated tennis pro.

  “Lena… Please let me love you tonight the way you just loved me. Please. I must love you! I must love you or I will explode!”

  “Okay, Freaky. It’s almost bedtime anyway. Do you feel better about how you look now? Do you think you can take care of my hair the way you always do at bedtime?”

  “Yes, Lena. I must! I must be God’s gift to you again. Sit in my chair. Let me care for you the way you cared for me.”

  Switching positions, Lena unscrunched her pony tail and flipped her head forward. Lenore dove into her labors joyfully, running her long, thin fingers through Lena’s thick hair. Each touch of Lenore’s fingertips to Lena’s scalp or neck sent shivers down The Wild Child’s spine. With her brush, Lenore stroked through Lena’s mane two dozen times, then re-scrunched Lena’s hair to prepare her for bed.

  As Lenore completed her loving ministry, Lena offered an unexpected upgrade to their relationship. With her head down, Lena gave Lenore a hopeful glimpse of a future paradise. She fussed with her fingers in her lap.

  “You know what, Lenore…?”

  “What, my beautiful Wild Child…” Lenore replied, gripping and stroking Lena’s ponytail, absently playing with it.

  “I was just thinking. I was wondering… Would you like to… You know… Maybe… Just sleep… In our… Our tops and panties tonight?”

  Lenore froze. Her heart did somersaults. “What did you say?”

  “If you promise me that… You know… We won’t go all the way… I just feel… Like it’s okay now. I feel like… You know… Just our legs. I’m not ready to do the tops. And NO sex! But… Just our legs.”

  Barely containing her nuclear-fueled libido, Lenore fought to downplay her glee. “Why… Yes! Of course! I promise! I will not do anything to you! YES! Just the bottoms! But Lena… Are you certain? Are you really certain? I do not want to pressure you…”

  Lena nodded. “As long as you promise, Lenore. Yeah. I’m sure. I don’t know why but... Tonight… I really need to… To feel you. I really need to feel like… Like we’re really something. You know?”

  Fearful that she could change Lena’s mind with an ill-timed word, Lenore nodded frantically and silently went about preparations for bed. The girls changed into their tops – a loose-fitting T-shirt for Lena, a night-shirt for Lenore - and prepared Lenore’s bed for an early end to an emotionally draining day. The overeager freaky supermodel rushed through her labors and was done well before the Wild Child.

  Lenore bounced into her bed and lay down first, flipping away the covers for the Wild Child. The sight of Lenore’s long, lean, tanned legs caused the Wild Child an unconscious lip lick. Lenore responded in conscious kind, taking longer to trace the outline of her lips.

  Lena dove in playfully, snuggling up the way she always did, cuddling her head against Lenore’s chest and tucking her shoulder up under Lenore’s arm. She wrapped her left leg between and around Lenore’s. Lenore shivered at the touch of Lena’s f
lesh, but held herself back.

  They pair lay side by side kissing, not making out as much as making up, gazing sleepily into each other’s eyes. Emotionally spent, irrepressible yawns interrupted healing. Drifting off to sleep, Lena renewed their eternal bond.

  “Lenore…”

  “Yes, my beautiful Wild Child…”

  “Please don’t ever forget how much I love you.”

  “I promise, Lena. I will never forget. Never, ever again.”

  Part 4

  A Very Personal Assistant

  Twelve

  Dramatic slopes and gently rolling plateaus made the last leg of the journey from Philly a little more palatable. The Jersey Turnpike was stop-and-go. the Garden State wasn’t much better. The air conditioning in the hand-me-down, baby blue beater walked off the job in ‘81, forcing the bob-cut brunette to mop her brow the entire way. The the only thing enjoyable about the three-and-a-half hour trip was the Hudson Valley vistas.

  Sonia Nichols — newly-minted Wharton MBA and Summa Cum Laude Paulson girl — had a very important date. The headline-grabbing Prince of Madison Avenue and sole heir to the St. Cloud family fortune had invited her up to his estate for a tête-à-tête. Rory’s snoops and scouts foraged for months to find the perfect candidate for the boss’s most critical hire. The Salvage Yard’s Creative Director gushed over her Paulson sister. Ivy League Smart. Philly tough. Disarmingly funny. Aggressive. Understated sensuality. The bobbed-and-gelled girlfriend fit the position description to a “T;” a take-no-prisoners fireball in an eye-catching package.

  It was time for the boss to examine the goods for himself and see if all the reports were true.

  With five minutes to spare, Sonia pulled her sedan to a stop before an iron-gated entrance set into a fortress-like wall. The car sputtered and stalled as she shifted it into park. “No! No, no, no, NO, NO!” Sonia shouted, pounding the steering wheel. She pounded the wheel again. “God DAMN you miserable piece of shit! Would it be too much to ask you to just RUN for a change?”