Back to Square One (Brandon Bay Babes) (6 page)

Kit watched as clothes flew left and right out of Jasmine’s busy hands.
 
She smiled at her new-found friend.
 
They had nothing in common, but Kit had enjoyed her company so much this afternoon that she had promised to come down to her shop tomorrow to chat while Jasmine made her jewellery.
 

“How about this one?” Jasmine said, holding up a canary yellow concoction that hurt the eyes.
 
Kit screwed up her face and shook her head.
 
“No, huh?” Jasmine replied with a disappointed dip of the head.
 
“I agree, it is a little
Big Birdish
”

“Not quite me, I’m afraid.” Kit said with a frown.

“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” Jasmine grinned.
 
“From what you’ve told me, being Kit Davidson hasn’t been all that fun lately.
 
So why not break free and be someone else for a change?”

Kit looked at Jasmine and contemplated what she’d said.
 
“You very wise for someone so …
pink
”

“I’m not wise, I’m just me” she replied easily.
 
“I learned a long time ago, you can’t please everyone, so why try.
 
Be yourself and eventually you’ll find your place in the world.”

“Like I said,
wise
” Kit remarked.
 
“But how do you be yourself, when you don’t know
who
you are?”

“Easy.
 
Do what makes you happy.
 
Be with people who make you happy, the rest will come along pretty easily.”
 
Jasmine pulled out a baby blue shift dress and held it up against Kit.
 
“
Perfect!
”

Kit touched the soft fabric of the dress. “You think?” she asked hopefully.

“I don’t think, I
know
” Jasmine replied with conviction.
 
Digging deeper into the far reaches of her closet, Kit heard her utter in a muffled tone, “If you can squeeze into a size 7, I have shoes to match in here somewhere!”

******

Jasmine decided that the perfect place to show off the “new” Kit was karaoke night at Gillman’s pub.
 
When Kit hesitated, Jasmine assured her that she’d have a good time, because “After all, you’ll be with me.”
 

So after returning Gladys’ car keys to her at the
Betty Boop
shop and ignoring the surprised look she’d given her due to the makeover, Kit jumped into Jasmine’s old, beat up Mustang and sped down the highway like Thelma and Louise towards a night of boys, beer and she highly suspected, some severely off-key singing.

Gillman’s was practically full when they walked through the door, so they took a seat at the bar and watched for a table to become vacant.
 
The karaoke was in full swing and Kit was flabbergasted at the array of non-talent on display for the patrons.
 
Jasmine clapped wildly as a regular named “Trucker Joe” took the stage and did his very best interpretation of Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, crotch thrusts and all.
 
“Bad” didn’t even begin to describe it, and Kit was stunned that all of these people got up there and embarrassed themselves in such a public way.
 
Of course, alcohol played a huge part in contributing to their exhibitionism, but drunk or not, Kit knew she was way too concerned about appearances to do something so crazy.

“You’ve got to try one of these.” Jasmine said, pushing a drink her way.
 
“It’s a black Russian.
 
Pete the bartender once asked me if I’d ever had a black Russian, and when I said no, he gave me one of these.
 
I thought he was talking about
men
!” she said taking a sip.
 
“Still haven’t had a black Russian, if you know what I mean.
 
But I can’t get enough of these” she added pointing to her glass.

Kit laughed and took a sip, then put it aside.
 
Pretty powerful stuff.
 
Guess she was designated driver this evening.
  
“A table’s available over there” she said, touching Jasmine’s arm and pointing to the far corner.

As they made their way over to the vacant table, Kit could feel the eyes of some of the men follow her across the room.
 
Automatically she looked down.
 
Nope, no toilet paper on shoe.
 
She then smoothed her skirt.
 
Nope, not hitched up and showing her underwear at the back.
 
She nervously ran her hands through her hair.
 
Was she
wrong
in thinking that her hair looked good?
 
Did Jasmine leave a pink stripe down the back of her head or something?

“Stop worrying” Jasmine whispered as they sat down.
 
“They’re looking at you ‘cause you look great” she commented knowingly.

“That’s what you think” she replied with an insecure frown.
 

“Anyway, even if they thought you a complete woof-woof; who cares?
 
Which is totally not possible; because you look totally hot” Jasmine stated convincingly.

“Thanks Jasmine.
 
I needed that vote of confidence.” Kit said with a small grin, glancing around the room at the menagerie of men.
 

Jasmine patted her arm.
 
“Just ignore them.
 
If a guy’s interested he’ll make his presence known; if not, then what does it matter.
 
Mr. Right
may be just around the corner and I, for one, want make sure I’m not with
Mr. Wrong
when that happens”

Kit nodded in agreement.
 
On previous excursions out to bars, catching some guy’s eye had always been the motivation for the entire evening; but taking that out of the equation, the pressure was off.
 
Maybe Jasmine was right; instead of looking for romance, if she just stood still and forgot about it, it would come looking for her.
 

As the night wore on, Kit was amazed to discover she was having one hell of a good time.
 
The place was really hopping by ten, and she and Jasmine had laughed till their cheeks hurt.

All of sudden, Jasmine jumped up.
 
“
Uh-oh
–feel the urge to sing” she yelled out.
 
Bounding up on stage, she requested a song and lowered the mic to the right height for her small stature.

When the Bangles’ “Eternal flame” started up, Jasmine sang every heartfelt word of the song with discordant verve.
 
Kit was stunned; Jasmine couldn’t hold a tune to save her life.
 
She nervously looked around the room at the myriad of faces that confirmed that her new gal-pal was completely tone deaf.
 
The moment the song ended there was a hush over the audience and then a thunderous applause.
 
Jasmine smiled and blew kisses, screaming out “Thank you.
 
Good night Brandon Bay!” like a true rock star.
 

Kit was in awe.
 
Jasmine didn’t shirk from life; she grabbed it and experienced it with seemingly infinite passion and energy.
 
She was the most amazing person Kit had ever met.
 

Returning to the table, Jasmine plonked herself down and let out an exhausted “Whew”.
 

“That
was
…” Kit started.

“
Bad
, right?” Jasmine giggled.
 
A passerby gave her the thumbs up, “You rock girl” he said on his way.
 
“Thanks” Jasmine called back.
 

Shaking her head in disbelief, Kit wished she had the courage to do what Jasmine had done.

“Why don’t you give it a go?” she asked Kit, as if reading her thoughts.

“Oh, no” Kit answered.
 
“I have a very low humiliation threshold.
 
If I got up there, I’d
literally
die of embarrassment.
 
So I’ll leave the superstardom to you, if you don’t mind.
 
You’re more cut out for it.”

“You know what I think Kit Davidson?”

“What?”

“I think we’ll have to work at getting you over being embarrassed about silly things like singing karaoke to a bar full of half-drunk strangers.
 
You’d be surprised how quickly the walls of shame can come down when you forget yourself and let go for the first time.
 
It’s like opening the floodgates.
 
All of sudden, you realise that by laughing at yourself, you negate everyone else’s opinion or ridicule.”

“Maybe” Kit replied with scepticism.
 
“I’ll take you at your word for now, but don’t expect me to be up there singing
Madonna
any time soon.”

Jasmine clapped her hands together in glee.
 
“Oh, you’d make a great
Madonna
.
 
And I’m pretty sure I have a
Jean-Paul Gaultier
pointy bra somewhere in my warehouse of a closet.”

Before Jasmine could get carried away Kit stopped her.
 
“Not gonna happen Jasmine”

“Never say never, I always say.
 
Good things come to those who wait” she said with a wicked grin.
 
“Speaking of good things, a certain somebody over there is checking you out.”

“Where?” Kit asked without looking around.

“Over in the far left corner” she said secretively behind her hand.

“I thought you told me to ignore them”

“He’s
much
too cute to ignore” she whispered back.

Pretending she needed to stretch her back and roll her shoulders, Kit quickly glanced in the direction of the so-called admirer.
 
Oh. My. God.
 
There was no mistaking who it was.
 
Putting her face in her hands, Kit found it hard to breathe and the urge to nervously giggle reared its ugly head.

“What’s up?” Jasmine touched her shoulder in concern.

“
Jeremy Atwell
.
 
It’s Jeremy Atwell” was all she could manage to get out in muffled tones.

“As in
Atwell Construction
?”
 
Jasmine asked in bewilderment.

She raised her face to her friend, “I guess so.
 
His father owned the business, so I suppose he runs it now.
 
I kind of hoped he’d left town, like most of the kids I went to school with, and never come back.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“Not much to tell really.
 
I had a huge crush on him in high school, and he didn’t even know I existed.”
 
Kit left out the whole toilet paper fiasco.
 
She’d save that tidbit for another time.

“Well, he seems to have noticed you now, in a big way.” Jasmine said wide-eyed.

“What makes you say that?” she giggled.

“He’s coming over”