The Experiment Read online

  Throughout the first year of their relationship, there were always lavish gifts, fancy parties, yacht trips, and spontaneous trips to Europe. All Matthew had ever wanted in return was her love and devotion.

  During that time, Holly was working as her mother’s assistant at Quality not Quantity. She did most of the grunt work, which had consisted of seeking out wealthy, single women around Los Angeles and inviting them in for interviews.

  Little did Holly know just how much she would need Matthew. The moment she found out her that mother had breast cancer—Holly’s whole world was turned upside down. From diagnosis to the day of Darlene’s death, a mere two months, Matthew had been there for Holly every step of the way.

  After her mother died, all the fun in Holly’s life came to an abrupt halt. As promised, she immediately stepped in as CEO and owner of the company. At that point, her relationship with Matthew went a different direction, and things became a little strained as work began to demand more of her time and attention. Holly worked long and hard hours to meet her clients’ demands, which left little time for a personal life. Matthew had never been too thrilled about her job hours, and he had complained about it more than she liked to admit.

  When Holly took over the company, she lost all ability to be spontaneous. All her focus had to go into managing a multi-million-dollar corporation. In a way, even though it wasn’t intentional, Matthew got the brunt of it when the two began to see less and less of each other. Matthew was the type who took off to Spain whenever he was in the mood. Holly had had the freedom to do so at one time in her life, but that was before she had so many responsibilities, so many plates to juggle. Matthew had a hard time understanding the shift, especially since he was wired to work whenever and wherever he wanted. He’d come to expect that his girlfriend would join him on these sudden excursions, and suddenly, that had all changed.

  “Matthew—”

  “Baby doll.” He brushed a hand up against her cheek and wiped away a tear. “I’ll admit that I’m a needy guy. When I’m in love with a girl, I want to be with her as much as possible. Maybe that’s selfish, but in my career, I can come and go as I please. Unfortunately, you don’t have that luxury. You haven’t had that luxury in years.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Holly asked with tears in her eyes. She’d expected some tears that night, but more of the happy, post-engagement variety.

  “Well, I would never want you to sacrifice something you’re so passionate about simply for the institution of marriage.”

  She sat back and tried to absorb everything he was saying. “You make marriage sound so…so—final.”

  “Sweetie, if you think about it—it kinda is.”

  The waiter appeared out of nowhere, and as Holly gazed at him for a distraction, she realized he bore an uncanny resemblance to Nicolas Cage. “Are you two ready to order?”

  “We’ll need a few more minutes please,” Matthew responded.

  “So… what? That’s it? You’re breaking up with me, just like that? After everything we’ve been through?”

  The wince of uneasiness on Matthew’s face made it clear that he wished there was a better, easier way to let her down, but quite simply, there wasn’t. “I’ll always love you Holly—and maybe one day, fate will bring us back to each other.” He ran his hand through her hair and wrapped a strand around his finger like he’d done a hundred times before. “No matter what, you’ll always be the prettiest red head I’ve ever loved.” With that, he polished off the rest of his wine and rose from his chair.

  “Where are you going?” Holly asked.

  “Oh—um,” Matthew straightened out his baby-blue tie and looked around uncomfortably. “I have to get to a Laker’s game.”

  “A Laker’s Game? Matthew!” Holly said, raising her voice. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged and replied, “I got courtside seats at the last minute, baby. I can’t pass that up.”

  Whenever Matthew made up his mind about something, rarely was there anything Holly could do to change it. As much as it pained her to do so, she relented and watched him walk out on her. In despair, she picked up a piece of bread and stuffed it into her mouth. Yeah, so much for my low-carb diet, she thought, realizing she was single again, with no one to impress.

  ***

  After her third glass of wine, Holly finally left the restaurant and made the journey back to her car. It was still light out, and it had begun to drizzle. A sorrow had washed over her like a summer downpour as she thought about her relationship going down the drain—almost five years of her life… wasted. How could this be? I’m a matchmaker, for God’s sake. I help women find true love, but when it comes to my own love life, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing? This is absurd! She’d broken one of the rules she often touted to the women she helped: She had allowed one man to make her feel vulnerable, and that only proved that she was weak at the seams.

  She had hoped for a different end to the evening—to go back to Matthew’s loft after dinner where they would snuggle under the covers, eat chocolate-covered strawberries, and sip champagne in celebration of their engagement. Well, so much for that.

  Once the rain let up, Holly slid out of her Jimmy Choo high-heels and walked in her bare-feet. There was an unpleasant feeling of wetness and sludge with every step she took on the pavement, but she didn’t care. Who cared that she paid eighty dollars for a pedicure that afternoon? No one would be massaging her feet tonight anyway, or anytime soon for that matter.

  Holly noticed all the Valentine’s Day lovers surrounding her. The world seemed to be playing some cruel joke—like they were purposely staged to make her feel worse. She passed small shops and cafés where couples seemed to be laughing and holding hands. Groups and knots of people gathered at every corner of the street. A young couple kissed in their car as a drunkard staggered by. A man wearing a knock-off Armani suit held his skinny, acne-ridden boyfriend in a tender embrace at the bus stop. Two older punk rockers, riddled with tats and piercings, stood next to the surplus store and made out against the wall like two adolescents in heat. Holly watched him grope the woman’s breast, as though they were the only two people in sight. This only made her want to gag.

  Everywhere she looked people were making memories, being happy, and celebrating each other. Everyone was in love. Everyone but the matchmaker herself had a match. For the first time in four-years, she was the single one. Holly took a tissue out from her purse and dabbed away her tears. It had been the worst Valentine’s Day of her life. She could hardly imagine what her two assistants were going to think when she’d been so adamant that she would return to the office the next day beaming and gleaming, with a ring on her finger. Now, all she had to show them was a broken heart.

  ***

  As soon as she stepped foot in her high-rise apartment, Holly made an emergency call to her best friend, Todd Everett. She sat on her couch, moaning and sobbing to him over the phone until the wee hours of the morning.

  “Can you believe it?” she asked, taking a swig of wine straight from the bottle. “He broke up with me…on Valentine’s day!”

  “I’m sorry, honey. What do I keep telling you, though? It’s never too late to cross over to the dark side.”

  The two had known each other since junior high, although it wasn’t until their senior year that Todd had finally admitted that he was gay. Holly’s first clue had been at the end of their junior year, when he suddenly started wearing his mom’s blouses to school. Todd, still in the closet at the time, had come up with the excuse that his washing machine was broken and that he had no clothes to wear. Todd’s father had skipped out on him while he was just a kid, so it wasn’t like there was extra male clothing lying around, and his single-mother didn’t have the means to go wardrobe shopping all that often. When the cross-dressing became somewhat of a routine, Holly realized that something was up, and that a broken-down Whirlpool had nothing to do with it. Todd had hidden it really well up until that point. He’d always looked as normal a
s everyday macaroni and cheese, but the moment they turned their tassels at the end of the graduation aisle, the once subtle homosexual turned utterly flamboyant. Still, regardless of his sexual orientation (or perhaps even because of it), Todd had always been a dear, true friend to Holly. Unlike some other people in her life, he was someone she could always count on in a moment of need.

  “I’m sorry, but with what I go through with my millionairesses every day at the office, I think not. I’ll stick with men.”

  “You’re right.” Todd logged into the Lifetime movie network website and clicked on a virtual makeover game. “Too bad you’re not a boy. I’d totally date you.”

  “Ugh! I don’t get it!” Holly screamed out in frustration. “I’m a freaking matchmaker, and I can’t even keep my own relationship together? That’s like…I don’t know—a flight school teacher crashing a plane! How are people going to take me seriously?”

  “Awe, forget that jerk,” Todd said as he added a bob cut hairstyle to the head of his virtual fashionista self.

  “But I miss him,” she said with a sob. “He was…Matthew was everything to me.”

  “Honey, listen. Truthfully, I never liked the guy. If you ask me, he’s a closet homo––way too pretty to be straight. I say good riddance. Someday you’ll find someone deserving of you, somebody who’ll love you for who you are and will understand that you have to run that busy company of yours—you know…the one you won’t let me become a member of,” he said with a sigh.

  Holly chugged down the last of the red wine and had to laugh a little at Todd’s persistence. “Todd, if you recall, it’s women only. This would require you to actually act like a man and…well, to stick it in female parts.”

  “Oh—ew! The last time I tried that was in 1997 in the back seat of Dana Moran’s Ford Mustang. Nice car, nice girl and all, but I’d rather have been driving a stick, if ya know what I mean,” he said, releasing a naughty laugh.

  “Oh my God. Todd, you’re just…incorrigible.”

  “I love you too, honey.”

  Holly jolted at the sound of the doorbell.

  “Girl, who’s that booty-callin’ you at almost one in the morning?”

  “Hell if I know. Maybe it’s Matthew! Maybe he’s changed his mind!” Hope rose like a tide in her heart. “Gotta go. Thanks, Todd. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, God—I don’t even want to know.” And with one click, he was gone.

  Holly hung up, wiped away her tears, straightened out her silk nightgown, and then rushed to welcome her boyfriend back into her life. This was a good sign. Matthew never made house calls after midnight. Holly would forgive him, of course. It was all probably just a case of pre-proposal jitters. She exhaled deeply and finally opened the door. Holly’s heart sank like dead weight at the sight of her ex-roommate and her two young sons staring back at her in despair.

  Lesson 2

  Holly once had a brief bout of rebellion coursing through her veins like a wild fire. At the age of eighteen, she hadn’t been sure that being a matchmaker was what she really wanted to be in life. Holly had always dreamt big, and those dreams hadn’t included repairing damaged love lives. Also, living in Los Angeles had begun to cramp her style, and Holly made the decision to move far away from her parents.

  Her search for new living arrangements had begun in Orange County, just an hour and a half away from Beverly Hills. In the city of Newport Beach, Holly met twenty-two-year-old Madelyn Maria Gonzalez, an average-looking girl with chocolate-brown hair that fell just below her shoulders. Her smile revealed a slight overbite, and her green eyes sparkled like stardust. Although Madelyn often passed as a Kim Kardashian look-a-like, many people mistook her for being Armenian instead of Mexican.

  Madelyn was looking to split the cost of her rent with a roommate. Desperate and eager to get away from the Los Angeles scene, Holly agreed to move into the two-bedroom condo that following weekend. As far as Holly could tell from their brief introduction, the girl seemed nice enough, and Holly didn’t think there was anything to be concerned about. Unfortunately, it didn’t take Holly long to recognize that Madelyn’s personality wasn’t quite as sparkly as those eyes of hers. The girl was as sweet as cotton candy, but clearly lacked common sense in all aspects of her life. Case in point: When a florescent light bulb went out in their shared bathroom, it took at least two months for Madelyn to report it to the landlord. As a result of Madelyn’s lack of good judgment, Holly was condemned to taking showers in the dark. Not only that, but uneaten food would sit on the kitchen table for days, and dirty dishes festered in the sink for well over a week. Madelyn made it known that she despised chores, especially washing dishes and cleaning of any kind.

  However, with Madelyn’s negligent domestic behavior put aside, the two had a blast as roommates. They shopped, dined, and partied like best friends—but that fun came to an unfortunate end, the moment Madelyn met Morgan Greene.

  Madelyn had a thing for African-American men, and as far back as Holly could remember Madelyn always desperately sought attention from the opposite sex in all the wrong places. She was never able to differentiate the good from the bad when it came to men. If a man paid her the slightest bit of attention, she had no problem opening her legs for him.

  After six months of dating, Madelyn’s relationship with Morgan led to a far-too soon announcement that she was moving in with him. The decision sent Holly packing and back to Beverly Hills with her parents. Madelyn got pregnant with her first child, Alex, that same year, and that was quickly followed by the birth of her second son, Emilio, just a year later. Through it all, there was still no ring on her finger. Madelyn’s reckless behavior had led her into a trap: loving a complete loser who ultimately made his home in his beat-up mini-van and whatever seedy hotels he could afford. When the two split up, Madelyn was forced to work a dead-end job in Orange County, where she made calls for a debt collection company.

  Holly blamed most of Madelyn’s naïve and oblivious tendencies on her upbringing. Her family had come to the United States from Mexico when she was only twelve-years old. Although she’d been taught proper English throughout her schooling, Madelyn had never really grasped it. The poor girl could hardly spell to save her life, even at thirty-two-years old.

  “I know this is totally out of the blue.” Tears had welded up in Madelyn’s eyes. The long drive had left her in a troubled and panicked state. “But I have nowhere else to go.”

  Holly peered down at the boys and wondered if the day could possibly get any worse. If she remembered correctly, the kids were eight and ten, and God forgive her for thinking this, but Madelyn’s sons looked like a couple of wild hellions.

  “What happened?” Holly asked.

  “My landlord. He kicked us out.” Madelyn shook her head dejectedly. “Sold the house I was renting right from under us.”

  Emilio, who looked 100-percent Hispanic, glared up at Holly with a twisted, evil grin. The abnormally short boy had shaggy, dirt brown hair, like a Caribbean savage, and two dark, resentful eyes that bulged out of his head like some amphibious creature in the dark. Alex looked identical to his father with a tight curly brown afro and buck teeth. The tall, lanky ten-year old wore high-water jeans that he’d clearly outgrown years earlier.

  Holly continued to stand in the doorway. “So, um… what do you need from me?”

  “All my cousins live in Temecula. I don’t think they will take us in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Everyone already has a full house. You know how it is with Mexican families, girl.” Madelyn rubbed her aching temple in small circles. “We’re so exhausted. I’ve been driving around all day and we really need a place to crash.”

  Holly didn’t see the harm in letting them sleep over for one night. Madelyn was a friend in need and she felt some obligation to help her. “Sure, that’s fine. I have a guest bedroom you can share if you like.”

  “Thank you so much!” the worried young mother said as she shuffled in the doorway. “Ca
n you watch the boys for a sec? I just have a few bags in the car. I’m going to run down and fetch them.”

  The boys glanced at Holly as if she was some ill-fated disease.

  “Um…sure,” Holly said, suddenly feeling her skin crawl.

  The second their mother walked out the door, Holly’s suspicions were confirmed. The boys morphed into some kind of mini-monsters, as if no adult were around to stop them. Emilio promptly head-butted his brother in the stomach. Alex let loose with the most ear-piercing screech, fell to the floor and just barely knocked over the Swarovski crystal swan on the coffee table.

  “Hey! Hey!” Holly rushed over to grab the swan just in the nick of time. “This isn’t a playground. Let’s get that straight right now. Do you hear me?”

  Holly’s apartment was nowhere near child friendly. To anyone else, her place might have seemed staged, like a set for a brand new TV pilot. Every square inch appeared sterile and unused, as if no one lived here at all. Her two-bedroom, two-bath apartment was equipped with a balcony that overlooked a breathtaking view of Beverly Hills. Holly enjoyed watching the daily activities of transportation and the people on the grounds beneath. Her favorite thing about the place was the enormous kitchen. There were gleaming stainless steel appliances, a Sub-Zero fridge, and Italian marble counter-tops. Light streamed through the kitchen windows during the day, and accentuated the beauty and richness of the dark oak cabinets.

  Holly had always felt truly blessed to live in such accommodations. Fortunately, she had never known what it felt like to be down and out. She and her family had always enjoyed the finer things in life. Matthew had even agreed to move into her place if they had gotten married because he knew how hard it would have been for her to give it up. Of course, none of that mattered now. The only thing she’d been forced to give up was him.