Read Online Opening Belle by Maureen Sherry - Free Book Online

tat.”
    â€œJust try not talking,” he said. “You scared the hell out of me and I need a minute.”
    He pulled me up into his arms and carted me off to his rental car, putting me across the backseat. He got a jug of water from somewhere and moved from cut to cut, dabbing at my wounds.
    â€œDamn, you’re really not hurt too badly.”
    â€œIt must have looked so funny,” I said, slightly giggly. I hadn’t done anything dangerous in so long. I saw him grin.
    â€œYou are so competitive. What the hell was that about?”
    â€œI just thought I could nail it and, you know, impress you.”
    â€œDamn,” he said, looking at some bump on my forehead, just when I looked down and noticed I had no skirt.
    â€œWhere is my skirt?”
    â€œYou shredded it, you crazy shredder.” But he wasn’t laughing. “I think I should take you to the hospital.”
    â€œNo way. No hospital for me.” Having no skirt on seemed like the funniest thing I’d ever heard of. I had no skirt. I laughed and laughed until I stopped seeing Bruces and I was left with only one. “I liked it more when there were four versions of your torso,” I said, which made his face crinkle again.
    â€œDefinitely taking you to the hospital.”
    â€œNo hospital!” I shouted, and then laughed again with the sudden thought, Who doesn’t wear a skirt to the hospital?
    â€œIt tore right up the back. Those little kids will remember this as the happiest day of their lives, seeing a woman with your ass in a thong. Holy Mother of God. Good thing I’m gay.”
    I put my hands down around my bottom; everything was all covered up down there.
    My heightened clarity was making me blanch. “Did I really just moon those boys?” I asked tentatively, thinking that gay guys have the nicest manners and man, did I have Bruce Wayne pegged all wrong.
    â€œMy shirt makes a good skirt,” he said kindly. “Let’s go get you some ice.”
    The problem with pulling up to the Bellagio Hotel, where the guest rooms number exactly 3,933, is that swooping bellmen and valet parkers need to keep things moving. They don’t want to hear the story about how you lost your skirt. It was then that I saw that Bruce, a guy whose real last name was McElroy, didn’t care what anyone thought. He hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me through the casino, now conveniently filled with hundreds of fellow bankers and clients—a bare-chested Adonis carrying me in my bloody white blouse, a purple welt across my forehead, a shirt making do as a skirt, and no shoes. It was our oil and gas analyst who started applauding when he saw me, and soon the whole place looked up from their pursuit of money to join in the clapping. That’s how Bruce and I made our way to the elevators, to thunderous applause and whistles. These guys had never once seen me behave badly and here I was, after I finally went on a date, a one-hour date, and I returned bloodied and half-naked. They told that story for years.
    I remember thinking in my semi-woozy state that the blinging money machines in the background were telling me that this time I had really hit the jackpot, ’cause as the elevator doors closed, Bruce whispered into my ear, “Was only kidding about the gay thing.”

CHAPTER 8
Ex-Change
    I T IS THURSDAY . Thursday is the new Sunday in our house—as decreed by the higher power at our Park Avenue preschool. Thursday is the dreaded school chapel day.
    Chapel goes something like this: children arrive dressed for the Titanic crossing—bows, cashmere sweaters, itchy tights, even crinoline. They shuffle with one or both of their parents into the chapel room, where a very talented group of teachers play and sing their heart out to happy God music. The main storyteller relates a sugar-infused Bible story such as David just wrestling Goliath or Moses taking a boating vacation, or my