“And this is the thanks I get,” he raged, poking her so hard she had to take a step backward to get away from him. She stumbled, and when she regained her footing, he was inches from her face.
“A bunch of jealous bullshit!” he screamed.
She ducked instinctively, but nothing happened.
“Christ!” he said, dropping his hands to his sides. He was winded, panting. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You know I’d never intentionally hurt you, Gina.”
She shook her head, wanting to clear the image of his towering over her, fists clenched.
“Gina…”
“I shouldn’t have come here tonight,” she said. She took a last look around the room, and then she walked out.
Chapter 5
Driving home, Gina tried to make her mind tackle practical matters. She still had four more days of shows to tape. With Scott. The memory of his face, twisted with anger, was still too fresh. No matter. She was a professional. She would get through this.
But then what? A new job. Where? Her old job at the Constitution had been filled long ago, and anyway, her heart wasn’t in newspapers anymore, even if there were any job openings. Television? What was it that Scott had called her? A wannabe foodie? Home-ec lady?
She pulled into the parking space in front of her town house, but left the Honda’s motor running. She found herself smiling at the thought of her home. She thought about the paint colors she’d agonized over, the window treatments her mother had sewn for the bedrooms, the thrift-store sideboard she’d stripped and refinished for the dining area. She couldn’t bear to think of those rooms, stripped, her furniture and belongings loaded in a moving van. A SOLD sign tucked in the front window.
Speaking of that window…the living room lights were on. She groaned. Lisa. With all the trauma of the past day, she’d forgotten about her little sister. She did not have the strength to deal with telling her about the day’s events. Not tonight.
Gina turned the key in the lock of her front door and with her last ounce of strength pushed it open with her hip and staggered inside. Dropping her pocketbook and laptop on the floor, she flopped down on the oversize down-filled sofa and kicked the shoes from her swollen feet.
“I want my mama,” she said, groaning.
The skinny blonde sprawled on the carpet in front of the television with a headset and Xbox controls looked away from the screen, where she’d just aced another killer in her seventeenth game of Halo that evening.
“What?” she asked, removing the headset and scooting over to where her big sister appeared to be in a near coma state. “What’d you say?”
“Mama,” Gina repeated. “I wish Mama were here. She’d rub my feet and fix me some supper and bring it to me on a tray in bed, and brush my hair till I fell asleep.”
“I thought that’s why you were sleeping with Scott Zaleski,” Lisa quipped.
“Lisa!” Gina said, horrified. “Who says I’m sleeping with my producer?”
“Not you,” Lisa said. “You never let anything slip about your sex life. But you are, aren’t you?”
“No comment,” Gina said.
“But you totally are screwing him,” Lisa persisted. “I know you’re on the patch. I see the box in your medicine cabinet. How is he, anyway? He seems kind of distant when he’s around me. My guess is, he’s an animal in bed. My friend Amber says those Nordic types are usually hung like a horse.”
“Scott and I are over,” Gina said dully. “Anyway, we are not talking about this.”
“Over? Did you two have a fight?” Lisa said eagerly.
“I refuse to discuss my private life with you,” Gina said wearily.
“Oh, give up the prissy-sissy act,” Lisa said. “We both know you’re no virgin. And neither am I. All these late hours you keep when you’re supposedly working? My ass! I bet the two of you were screwing like bunnies. So let’s stop this two-maiden-sisters charade.”
“No,” Gina said, sitting up with an effort. “Mama made me promise to keep an eye on you while you’re in Atlanta. You’re only nineteen. When I was your age—”
“You and Mike Newton went all the way at the Wayfarer Motel on Jekyll Island after you split a bottle of Southern Comfort. It was spring break, and you told Mama and Daddy you were going to the beach with your sorority sisters.”
Gina’s eyes goggled. “How did you know that? I never—”
“I found your old diary in a shoebox in the bottom of your closet,” Lisa said, swigging from the bottle of Natty Lite she’d left on the coffee table. “Everybody at home thinks you were a model citizen. Miss Teen Vidalia Onion. Only I know the real truth. You were a bad little girl, Regina Foxton,” she said, wagging the beer bottle at her.