“Oh no, I’ve already found my Prince Charming.” I laughed and hooked my arm through Dale’s.
“I assume everything’s ready?” Dale inquired, slipping his wallet into his suit jacket pocket and glancing at the desk clerk.
“Everything you asked for, Mr. Diamond. Have a glorious stay.”
“Oh we will,” I agreed as Dale led me toward the elevators.
Before I’d met Dale, my only experience of a hotel had actually been an old Howard Johnson’s down in Florida. The owners had converted and re-named it The Lookout Motel, although I hadn’t found the scenery—a set of railroad tracks complete with a train that went by at 4 a.m. next to a self-serve storage facility—much to look out at. I thought maybe they had meant something else, like “Lookout for cockroaches!” and, in the case of the shower, “Lookout for inconsistent water temperature!”
That had been before, when my mother was alive. It was the only family trip I remembered taking and, as usual, it had been spoiled by the stepbeast and his incessant drinking. They drove down from New Jersey to visit my mother’s family, although there weren’t many left. Her mother had been an only child, her father had just one brother, and my grandparents were both dead before I turned five. It was a cousin’s wedding, which I found boring at the age of thirteen, but I was unbelievably excited at the prospect of visiting Disney World. The stepbeast had promised we could go.
Of course, he broke that promise. The night after the wedding I went to bed nearly vibrating with excitement. The next day was Disney World! When my eyes finally closed, my body having reached its peak of exhaustion, I didn’t remember anything until early the next morning when I woke and found myself face to face with a mouse. It was sitting there cleaning itself right in front of my face.
Of course, I screamed. My hand jerked involuntarily, moving to shoo it away, and only succeeded in flattening it between my hand and the wall. The panicked mouse bit my thumb and tore off running along the side of the cot to the edge and then dropped down onto the television stand, disappearing behind the box.
My scream woke my mother and the stepbeast, who was very sluggish and hung-over and yelled obscenities as he tore the room apart looking for the elusive mouse. When he couldn’t find it, he called me a fucking liar and said my punishment for lying—he accused me of getting them up early so we could go to Disney World sooner—was a trip back home. Right then. He made my mother pack while he took a shower and then made us both load the car while he checked out of The Lookout Motel.
We drove away just as the sun was coming up over the horizon. I remembered my mother saying, “Pete, she could get rabies. I saw the bite on her hand.” The stepbeast had grunted and replied, “If she gets rabies, we’ll put her down. Dumb woman—there was no fucking mouse.” I cried silently in the back seat, letting the tears fall onto my jumper, forehead pressed to the window. I didn’t get rabies but I did get a nasty infection. And I never got to go to Disney World. That was the last Florida mouse I ever saw—and it definitely hadn’t been Mickey.
The Waldorf Astoria wasn’t just a step up from The Lookout Motel—it was more like a giant leap. Dale had begged and borrowed—although he probably hadn’t stolen anything—to get the room for us the first time. Tonight, he just pulled out his credit card and paid. We’d both come a long, long way since then.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Dale nuzzled my neck as we stood waiting at the elevators.
“You’d need more than that.” I half-smiled as the elevator opened. It was empty and we stepped inside.
“Inflation?” Dale smirked, pushing the button. It was forty-seven floors to the top.
“Deep well.” I put my arms around his neck. “You are the most amazing man in the whole world and I love you with all my heart, Dale Diamond.”
“Quit trying to get out of it.” He grinned and put his arms around my waist, pulling me close and nuzzling my curls. “What were you so lost in thought about?”
I sighed and told him, knowing he wouldn’t give up until I did. By the time I was finished, the elevator doors were opening.
“That bastard,” Dale breathed, his arms tightening protectively around me. “I hope he rots in jail for the rest of his life.”
“They reduced the sentence to aggravated assault, remember?” I reminded him with a little shiver. The thought of the stepbeast getting out of jail, after what he’d done, haunted me, mostly at night when Dale was asleep—or worse, out on the road. “Just five years.”
“You don’t have to remind me.” He lifted my chin, searching my eyes. “But by then we’ll be long gone, living in L.A. behind a fortress with an army of security guards. You’ll be as guarded as the Queen of England.”
“If Russell was any indication of the kind of security we’re going to have…” I joked. I didn’t like to think about the stepbeast and his inevitable release.
“Hey, he got us out of there, didn’t he?” Dale put his foot out to keep the elevator door from closing. He pulled me with him into the hallway, taking out the key card and opening the door. Dale flipped on a light and the room came to life. It was like Dorothy stepping into the Land of Oz for the first time. Except we’d been in this room before.
“Strawberries and roses and champagne.” I smiled., looking at the table where the goodies were all laid out. “You remembered.”
“Of course I remembered.” Dale took of his suit coat, loosening his tie. “I may forget appointments or my times tables—Mrs. Dunwitty would be ashamed of me—and sometimes I even forget my own song lyrics. But I don’t forget you.”
“You’re pretty unforgettable yourself, you know.” I put my satin pink high heel, dyed to match my dress, on the table with the flowers and champagne. I eyed the strawberries, remembering we’d left before I could even taste the wedding cake.
“I know.” He grinned, untying his dress shoes and sliding them off. Now he looked a little more like the Dale I knew, in black slacks and a white button-down shirt. The pink cummerbund was gone. I couldn’t remember where it was. The rental place was going to charge him for it—not that it mattered.
“It was a really beautiful wedding.” I sat in one of the chairs, picking up a strawberry and licking at the hardened chocolate.
“It was all right I guess.” He popped the top on the champagne and turned over the champagne flutes. “Ours will be better.”
“Ours?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
He knew I wanted to marry him—and he’d proposed to me, so the feeling was mutual. But everyone from his manager to his publicist to his hairdresser said we shouldn’t. Not yet. Greg, his manager, had been the most adamant, of course, followed by Jan, his publicist. They insisted on keeping me a secret. Dale’s band, Black Diamond, was going to make them a hell of a lot of money, and since Dale Diamond himself pretty much was the band, the other members utterly forgettable, they focused solely on their money maker.