Fly Me to the Moon Read Free Page A

mint.
    “Mr. Right?”
    Clay looked at me and shrugged. “Mr. Right This Second. So are you nervous?” he asked as the cab hurtled over the Triborough Bridge, straight into the city.
    “A little,” I said, gazing out at the Manhattan skyline, wondering how, out of the millions of people living there, I could be so sure I’d found the right one.
    “Just don’t forget about the little people,” he said, tapping me on the shoulder. “You know, the ones who bar crawled with you, sample sale-shopped with you, held your hair back when you got sick from that bad coach-class lasagna, and basically stood by you long before you had that M-R-S in front of your name.” He frowned at me.
    “Clay, I could never forget you,” I said, grabbing his hand and squeezing.
    “Please, that’s what they all say. But it’s an age-old story. Every fag loses his hag eventually.” He shook his head and turned toward the window, pressing his forehead against the smudgy glass.
    “First of all, you’re my best friend.”
    He turned and smiled.
    “And second, don’t call me a fag hag; it creeps me out. Besides, Michael
loves
you,” I insisted.
    Clay just looked at me, brown eyes wary.
    “Okay, so he tolerates you. But I promise,
nothing will change!
You’ll see.” I nodded my head and smiled brightly. But all the while I hoped I wasn’t just saying that.
     
    When we arrived at my building, I leaned over and gave Clay a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll meet for coffee, and I’ll give you all the dirty details and show you the ring. I promise,” I said. Then I grabbed my bags and ran inside, anxious to get upstairs and out of my ugly polyester uniform that smelled faintly of everything I’d come in contact with the last two days.
    Riding the elevator to the fourteenth floor, I performed my usual striptease, so by the time I walked through the front door I was shoeless, jacketless, and just about to step out of my skirt when I noticed a navy blue blazer lying on the Turkish rug we’d gotten at the Grand Bazaar last spring. Vowing to be a better housekeeper once we were actually married, I flung the jacket lightly over my arm and pushed through the partially closed bedroomdoor and straight into a scene I’d heard about many times before, but never expected to see in real life.
    There, sitting on the edge of our queen-sized bed, was my future husband, Michael. Dressed in the gray cashmere sweater I’d bought for his birthday, with his dark denim jeans pushed all the way down to the top of his brown suede driving mocs. His head was thrown back, his eyes were shut tight, and his lips were moist and parted, while a petite, dark-haired flight attendant in a crisp white shirt and navy blue uniform pants knelt between his legs, head bobbing up and down
rhythmically.
    I stood there in shock, watching
someone else
do what I had done just two days earlier, right before running out the door to catch the bus to Newark International Airport. Then suddenly, there was a horrible, loud scream.
    It came from me.
    “Hailey! It’s not what you think!” Michael yelled, his face frantic and panicked, waving one hand in the air to distract me while using the other to cover the evidence.
    “Oh my God!” I screamed.
“What is going on, Michael?”
    “Hailey, relax. Everything’s fine,” he said, tugging on his black bikini briefs that were all knotted and twisted around the leg of his pants.
    “What the hell is going on?”
I repeated, unable to move or close my eyes to the sight of his little friend cowering at the foot of our bed.
    “Hailey, please just—
shit!”
he yelled, hopping one-legged around the room, teetering dangerously, while his underwear squeezed around his thigh like a boa constrictor. “I can explain, just . . .
fuck!”
    “WHO THE HELL IS SHE?”
I demanded, my eyes darting between Michael and the tiny dark-haired girl whose face was pressed tightly into the folds of the bed skirt.
    And