Mena didn’t know what to say about Grip. She’d done nothing productive over the last two days but wait for news from Caroline, think about Grip and flatten the battery of her favorite vibrator. Her date was a bust and that was her fault. She was too busy living in another moment. One where all her wild adolescent fantasies had come true. “Tell me about the shoot.”
Her oldest friend gave her a look that likely scared the pants off every model and photographer in the city. It was the same look she’d perfected when they were groupies and fresh meat tried to muscle in on their strategy to get backstage or onto a tour bus. It’d been effective then and it was devastating now. Likely the reason Vera now had her own groupies in the fashion industry, a harbor-front mansion, a devoted husband and a lover who liked each other, and the grudging respect of her parents who had prayed for their only daughter to stop being a slut and become a doctor like a good Chinese girl was supposed to.
“I’m not scared of you,” Mena tipped her chin to the bartender who’d backed up, “but he is.”
“You with the cute arse, get back over here and pour me another sidecar,” Vera muttered. “Just tell me what Grip’s like now. Assume he still has the superhero hands and the stop-a-heart smile. I could google him but that would make it like a work thing and I feel the need for a good story to go along with my reminiscing. Please tell me he’s still worth objectifying?”
“That’s my problem,” Mena said. She waved at the bartender. He pantomimed a who me, pointing at his chest, which made Mena roll her eyes. “Cute arse thinks he’s a comedian.”
“Ugh, try-hard men. If you tell me Grip is one of those I might cry into my next drink, if I ever get one.”
“He’s not. He stayed real and he’s funny and the whole reason he needs advice is because he’s conscious that he could blow it all.”
“Funny, how?” Vera gestured to the bartender who was flirting with two women further along the bar.
“Not like that. He might’ve looked down my top, but he wasn’t sleazy or self-aggrandizing or in any way demanding like a regular client. It was almost like he was nervous, until Caroline’s water broke and then he was all action. Beyond that I don’t know anything about him anymore other than that he makes my girl parts sit up and pay close attention.”
Vera spun on her stool to look Mena up and down. “What were you wearing that he could look down your top? Not this corporate frump thing you’re doing now?”
Mena ran a hand over the front of her suit. She wore a navy sheath dress and its matching coat. The neckline skimmed her collarbones. “I like this dress. It’s not frumpy.” It was classy, work appropriate. Just because Vera’s work was fashion didn’t mean everyone could wear a lime-green jumpsuit with leopard-print trim and look fabulous.
“It’s everywoman and unmemorable,” Vera pronounced, directing Mena’s attention to two other women in the bar wearing the same coat-dress style.
“I had a silk shirt on and we were under the meeting room table.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.” Vera thumped on the bar top. “I need a drink.”
They got their sidecars and Mena told Vera about how recognizing Grip had turning her into a stumbling inarticulate schoolgirl who was virtually panting when their eyes met under the table.
“I thought about not washing my hand because he touched it when he passed my phone.” That last bit was made up to make Vera laugh but it wasn’t far from wrong. “I was never as uncool as I was when I realized MG Holdings wasn’t some second-generation family business rich guy. In my head I know it’s impossible that Grip would remember me, let alone recognize me, but my head wasn’t the entity in control and my libido isn’t likely to make good investment decisions. All I could think about was what if he knows it’s me, what if he remembers and I’m the one who blows it.”
“Better make sure he can only look down your top and not down your back.”
Mena closed her eyes. On the last day she’d spent with Grip fifteen years ago, he’d drawn on her hip with a marker. Before she’d even properly sobered up, she’d borrowed money from Vera and had that drawing turned into a tattoo. She’d never regretted it until now.
“The real problem is that I’m obviously conflicted,” she said.
“About whether to fuck him again? How is that even a question if you’re hot for each other.”
Mena sighed. In their groupie life, she and Vera had been proud of not caring what other people thought of them. Vera hadn’t changed. She’d conquered the lead guitarists on her fuck list and the fashion industry. If you googled Vera Ellen Chan, you could find photos of her at seventeen wearing her underwear and hanging out with some of the world’s greatest guitarists. Her disreputable past only served to enhance her star quality and boost her career.
If someone called Vera a slut, it was a badge Vera would wear proudly. It was different for Mena. To get to play with other people’s money you had to have a squeaky-clean reputation. If anyone even suggested Mena was once a skanky groupie, it could end her career.
The double standard wasn’t fair, but she’d always known that’s the way it would be and had protected
