Charlotte<\/em><\/p>\n I pull on the t-shirt Reece threw to me and ask, \u201cOkay, how do I look? Slutty bartender?\u201d Part Two Charlotte I pull on the t-shirt Reece threw to me and ask, \u201cOkay, how do I look? Slutty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-charlotte-chronicles","tag-charlotte-chronicles","charlotte-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenfrederick.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cNot really. More I slept too late and I\u2019m too lazy to do anything about it.\u201d
\n\u201cThanks. That\u2019s really nice, Reece.\u201d
\nHe shrugs one shoulder. \u201cThat\u2019s what girlfriends are for. Who was it on the phone?\u201d
\nI look.\u00a0Unknown caller.<\/em>
\n\u201cMust\u2019ve been a telemarketer.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat time do you have to be at Stack’s?\u201d Reese asks me, pushing up from the sofa where we\u2019d both fallen asleep. We\u2019d been up all night massaging the belly of his pregnant horse. My fingers felt stiff and sore.
\n\u201cI\u2019m opening it up. Lainey has her ultrasound at three. I\u2019m wondering whether I\u2019ll even be able to grip a glass.\u201d I raise my hands and flex my fingers wincing at the ache.
\n\u201cYou look like you\u2019re auditioning for cat woman,\u201d Reese jokes. \u201cMore jazz hands.\u201d His fingers waggle obscenely at me.
\n\u201cNo thanks.\u201d
\n\u201cYou should take that cool drink of water home with you tonight,\u201d he advises lying back on the sofa. Obviously he has no plans on getting up.
\n\u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d I ask absently checking to see that I have everything I need. Keys, credit card, ID. Bag full of notebooks. Phone.
\n\u201cThe head bartender. Martin? Maxwell? Mysterious Man?\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean Michael?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah him.\u201d Reese growls low in appreciation.
\n\u201cMichael is\u2026\u201d I pause because I\u2019ve never really noticed Michael. I have a vague memory of someone dark haired and tall.
\n\u201cTall, built, hot. Did I mention built? Did you not see him at the flag football game last week? We were sitting right next to each other!\u201d Reese is completely affronted.
\n\u201cThere were a lot of nice chests on display.\u201d I say weakly. I remember the flag football game or at least I remember going to the park with Reese and Lainey but I was making out my schedule for this week.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s all those professional athletes you know,\u201d he accuses. \u201cYou\u2019ve become numb to ripped bodies. You think everyone has them.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t,\u201d I protest but maybe he is right. There\u2019s no shortage of sculpted abs and amazing physiques in my circle. Maybe I\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0become desensitized to them.
\n\u201cGet out of my sight,\u201d he says throwing a pillow at my head. \u201cI can\u2019t be around someone who doesn\u2019t drool over a good man chest.\u201d
\n\u201cI promise to work on my drooling. I\u2019ll even try to sexually harass Michael during work. In the meantime,\u201d I throw the pillow back. \u201cWill you please double check my schedule and plane tickets? I\u2019ve got a million and ten things to do when I get to San Diego tomorrow.”
\n\u201cI liked you better when you were a romantic!\u201d Reese calls out after me. \u201cWhen you cried at soda commercials and tampon ads.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s not until after the door closes that I answer him. \u201cI didn\u2019t,\u201d I say to the empty stairwell.
\nWhen I was a girl I used to think writing letters, for example, was super romantic. But after years of writing and receiving almost no response, years of waiting only to be left alone time and again, I woke up finally and realized that romanticism is simply a cover used to conceal decay and sickness.
\nMen cheat on their girlfriends. Girlfriends cheat on their boyfriends. At least some guys know that they can\u2019t be in a relationship because they\u2019re too busy sampling every type of woman as if God created the female in a buffet form just for their pleasure.
\nIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t believe in love. I just don\u2019t believe it\u2019s for me. I had my one great chance at love but when it was exposed to a few harsh conditions, it collapsed like a shitty ass umbrella in the Windy City.
\nI believe in friendships like the one I have with Nick and Reese and Lainey. I believe in the love of my parents. God knows they\u2019d do anything for me. I believe in long walks in the park, the surprise pleasure of a warm summer rain, the rotation of the spiral pass, and the glory of the no hitter. I believe in a lot of things but I don\u2019t believe in love.
\nWhen I arrive at Stack\u2019s, the doors are propped open. The summer heat is baking into the concrete, loosening the odor of the Las Colinas streets. For a swanky neighborhood, sometimes the smell of all that progress stinks.
\n\u201cWhy do you have the doors open?\u201d I ask Filmore, the manager of Stack\u2019s.
\n\u201cSmelled like someone died in here last night,\u201d Filmore explains.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s awful out there.\u201d
\n\u201cWas worse in here.\u201d
\nSeeing that I wasn\u2019t going to win this battle, I stick my purse under the bar and tie my apron on. \u201cShould I cut the limes first?\u201d
\nHe nods. \u201cWhen\u2019s Lainey coming in?\u201d
\n\u201cAppointment is for three. She\u2019ll come after.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m going to be in back counting bottles. When Michael comes in tell him to record the opening bank and then he can come back and finish up inventory.\u201d
\n\u201cGot it.\u201d
\n\u201cGonna miss you,\u201d Filmore says reaching over the bar to pat me awkwardly on the shoulder. \u201cSeems like it was only yesterday, you plopped down here asking me about all the good places around the Mustang\u2019s training facility.\u201d
\n\u201cA good bar owner knows everything,\u201d I say affectionately.
\n\u201cYou should reconsider. You know you\u2019re going to be heartsick without all of us hassling you.\u201d
\n\u201cMaybe so, Filmore, but there are these things called high speed trains and airplanes. I can be here in a couple of hours.\u201d
\nHe cuffs me on the shoulder on more time and heads to the back whistling. Looking around I take in the wide oak paneled walls, circular wooden tables and cheap stage that has been my home away from home for three years and sigh. Maybe I\u2019m still a teensy bit romantic because this rundown joint looks beautiful to me. When I came here three years ago, I was heartsore and running away from home trying to find myself. Here I found Lainey, a bar waitress with one kid, a bad boyfriend, and a big heart. And Reese, a man child looking for love in every conceivable wrong place but still smiling no matter how many times the guy of his dreams turns out to be a cheating bastard.
\nI\u2019d started a business and found comfort in new friends and a good career. On most days, this is good enough. I\u2019m only feeling nostalgic because I\u2019m leaving. When Nick got drafted by the Mustangs, I came with him to ensure the transition from college to pros went as smoothly as possible. I bought groceries for him, made sure his clothes were cleaned, paid his bills, and generally made it so all he had to do was concentrate on football. Oh, and women. He had plenty of time for women. I was the buffer between him and everyone who wanted something from him. Every rookie he came into contact envied him.
\nWhen he won the Super Bowl his second year out, my little business expanded from one player to ten and then from ten players to twenty nine. \u00a0Now Forget Me Not, orF\u2019Me<\/em>\u00a0as my players like to call it, aids the transitions of professional athletes in nearly every major city and for every major sport as they are drafted or traded. Each athlete is handled by one person.
\nI find them places to live close to the training facility along with restaurants, grocery stores, schools, nannies, dry cleaning, and churches. And I take care of all the details back home\u2014getting a house sold, making sure all the bills were taken care of, finding that lucky pair of shoes that was left behind. All the player has to do is pick up his bag and leave. I, or one of my employees, takes care of all the details.
\nAnd because I am scattered brained I have to write things down. I have written lists, electronic lists. I keep a master list of my lists. I used to have my own players and I kept track of them by assigning them to a single notebook, color coded according to their new team colors. Because of the expansion, Lainey, Reese and I are the fallback people. If there\u2019s an emergency or something falls through the cracks one of the three of us take care of it.
\nAnd tomorrow I\u2019m flying out to San Diego to take patch one of those cracks. A baseball player, Christian Glass, has just been traded from the Royals to the San Diego Arrows. This is his second trade in two years and his family is going crazy. I promised Christian I\u2019d come out personally and help with the transition.
\nThis is a big deal for me, even though Christian doesn\u2019t know it, because I never, ever go to San Diego. That\u2019s where Nate is stationed, part of the West Coast SEAL teams. Despite San Diego being a huge city, I always worry about seeing him in some random place\u2014like a shopping center or a bar or a grocery store. In every scenario he has his arm draped around a woman and I know if I ever see that, whatever is left of my childhood will be crushed. As I told him in my last letter, I will always love him.
\nI just don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"