Killer Summer

by Lynda Curnyn

  “Did you make that doctor’s appointment?”

  “Doctor’s appointment?”

  “To have those tests done?”

  “Oh, right. Well, Sage, you’ll never believe it, but the pain just went away. It was like a miracle.”

  What was really a miracle was that my mother had lived this long, considering she and my father had forsaken all the necessities of life—like health insurance—in the name of living the same life they had when they met in a commune in the sixties. They had left the commune shortly after I was born, even gave in to bourgeois life enough to marry some time after my second birthday and settle down—as much as two bohemians who still thought it was the sixties could settle down—in a small house in Babylon, Long Island. The house was the only thing that saved them, really. They’d bought it for a song when Babylon was more undesirable marina than valuable waterfront real estate.

  I sighed, long and deep.“Mom, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have it checked out. I sent you a check over a month ago to pay for the exam.“

  “Oh, Sage, I really did appreciate your gift. We put that money to good use,” she said happily. “We had the floors fixed in Charlie’s apartment. After the laundry room flooded, they were all warped, and you know Charlie’s got that bum leg…”

  I wanted to argue that Charlie, their longtime tenant who lived in the basement, should perhaps pay for his own new floors, considering that he hadn’t paid his rent in the three months since he lost his job. But it was pointless. My parents were of the belief that what goes around comes around. The problem was, it seemed there was often more going than coming.

  As if she picked the thought out of my head, my mother continued, “Don’t worry, Sage. We only paid for the materials. Charlie did the work himself. He’s so handy that way. We’re lucky to have him. Do you know he’s going to repaint the living room for us with some of his friends? We’re going to have a little paint party. Barbecue. You should come out for it.”

  No thanks. I generally avoided the frequent parties my parents threw, mostly because I found them stressful. The last time I had given in and attended, one of their hippie friends—after one too many bong hits—had gotten it into his head to start a bonfire in the yard and nearly set the tool shed on fire in the process. It was too much work to be around my parents and their friends because someone had to be the sane one, and in their circle of hippie artist (read: jobless) friends, somehow it always wound up being me.

  “Oh, but you’ll probably be out at Fire Island,” she continued, her tone going pensive. The fact that I had, for the past three summers, foregone quality time with my parents in favor of a share with my friends at Fire Island was the only point of contention between me and my otherwise “live and let live” mother. Mostly because it made her “baby girl’s” visits less frequent during the summer months, and since I was my parents’ last remaining child, it was my duty to keep up the family front.

  “Is your boss even going to open the house?” my mother asked now.

  “I don’t know what Tom’s plans are,” I said. She had voiced the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind all this time. I know it was wrong to wonder about such things in light of recent events, but the truth -was, the beach was all I had to look forward to in the summer. And now, I thought, eyeing the stack of work that had built up during my absence, I wondered if I had anything to look forward to this weekend.

  “Look, Mom, I’ve got to go,” I said, knowing it was better at the moment to immerse myself in Edge rather than to ponder if I was going to have a life outside of it. “I’ll call you next week. And please make that appointment. I’ll send another check.”

  “No, Sage, not necessary. You’ve already done enough. We’re fine.”

  Since I was in no mood to argue with my mother over her definition of fine, I said my goodbyes and hung up.

  I felt the fight drain right out of me. In the wake of my conversation with my mother, the idea of tackling that folder of sales orders exhausted me. And come the end of the week, there was no hope of relief from it all. I sighed, turning on my computer. Well, maybe I wasn’t missing much anyway, I consoled myself, remembering my ill-fated seduction of Chad. As the song says, you can’t always get what you want. But now I was starting to wonder if I would even get what I clearly needed. Because in my book, there is nothing like a good piece of beach and a fine piece of booty to take my mind off more serious matters.

  I clicked on my inbox and was about to murmur an expletive at the seventy-five e-mails that greeted me when my eye fell upon one with a subject heading that piqued my interest almost as much as the man himself had.

  Re: Announcement—Manufacturing VP Vince Trifelli relocates to Bohemia offices

  Well, well, well. Clicking on the e-mail, I opened it up and read.

  After the successful management of our overseas manufacturing operations in China and Italy, Vince Trifelli is returning to New York to resume his duties overseeing production.

  All inquiries and correspondence should be sent to Mr. Trifelli at his new office in Bohemia, New York. For further information, please contact Mr. Trifelli’s assistant, Cindy Perkins, at 631-555-1400.

  I smiled, suddenly realizing I did have something to look forward to, now that our hot manufacturing VP was back in the States and a mere train ride away.

  In fact, it might be time for the head sales rep at Edge to get a personal tour of the production department, by the man in charge of making sure my skins were of the finest quality.

  And maybe, while I was at it, I could get a little skin myself.

  A knock sounded on my door, interrupting my thoughts. I clicked the e-mail closed, as if someone might guess, by a glance at its contents, that I had set my sights on Vince Trifelli. Office romance was generally frowned upon at Edge. Or at the very least, gossiped about. And if I hoped to take over Edge someday, the last thing I needed was to be accused of sleeping my way to the top. I could do it on my own. Especially now.

  “Come in,” I said.

  The door opened, revealing Jamal, looking sullen in a do-rag, an oversized T-shirt and a pair of jeans hanging so low I thought they might hit the floor. “The new samples are in the first showroom,” he said without any preamble, then disappeared.

  “Nice to see you, too, Jamal,” I said, biting back a smile as I got up from my desk and followed his ambling figure down the hall to the showroom.

  Shari was already there, rearranging the six samples on the display hooks we had on the walls, as if by putting them in a certain order they might look better.

  But nothing was going to help these samples, I thought, studying the details Maggie had added—a buckle on one model, shoulder lapels on another. And the most ridiculously gaudy buttons—ridiculous because these bodies had been designed for urban youth and those buttons looked more Madison Avenue Ladies Who Lunch—on the lot of them.

  Details were everything in this business. Which was why I felt a flicker of irritation as I remembered how Maggie had insisted that very same thing, just as she added the very details that had nearly destroyed the look of these jackets.

  I turned to Shari, who was regarding me anxiously now that she had finished her fiddling. “The buckle’s not bad,” she began.

  Not bad? How could she even think that? I shook my head, wondering once again whether Shari was the right designer for Edge.

  Then I remembered Maggie, stepping in and ordering up all these changes, though she was the last person to be making design decisions.

  “Take them off,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “Everything. The buckles, the lapels, those buttons—everything.”

  Shari nodded, her eyes wide, as if I had just somehow blasphemed Maggie by dismissing her last decision at Edge. What a joke. This wasn’t a eulogy. It was business. And I knew this business, probably better than anyone at Edge.

  Living or dead.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Nick

  It�
�s a sign from the universe. Well, Federal Express. Whatever.

  I should have waked and baked. I wanted to from the minute I woke up this morning, even reached for my bong to fill it, until I remembered my roommate had borrowed it the night before. And since Doug was still shut inside his bedroom with my bong and his girlfriend, I dropped the idea. I didn’t like to roll joints. It was wasteful. Plus, I figured I probably shouldn’t smoke anyway considering it was a workday—I should make some effort, despite the fact that everything I was working for seemed to be slipping out of my grasp at every turn.

  So I turned on my computer and checked my e-mail, which was my second mistake of the day. Nothing but bullshit seemed to arrive over the Internet these days. Today was no different. Sixteen spam messages, offering everything from Viagra to invitations to view college coeds uncensored. Then there was the e-mail from Lance, my Web developer, who informed me that if I couldn’t come up with the first payment for the site by next week, he’d be forced to take on another project. He was sorry, he said. He had to eat, he said.

  Fuck you, Lance. The truth is your ass could stand to lose a little weight. Hell, his whole life could stand to lose a little weight. I’d warned him when he agreed to work with me on the Web site for the label that the financing might be tricky. That there might be some belt tightening and that he needed to be prepared to face lean times until we got this thing up and running.“No problem, dude,” he’d said. “I’m with you all the way, dude. Revelation Records is going to be a revelation.” Now he was fucking bailing in the name of grocery money. Where was the integrity there?

  And he wasn’t the only one. The other non-spam e-mail I got was from Bernadine. I didn’t even have to open it (I did anyway) to know what it said. She didn’t want us to hurt each other anymore, she said. Trying to keep the relationship going long distance was tearing us apart, she said. She loved me, she said.

  Yeah, love. If love means bailing out on your boyfriend the second you get a better offer, well, good riddance, Bern.

  I almost deleted the message right off, except that I always liked Bern’s e-mails. Even the breakup ones. I had a small collection of them—sixteen in total—that I kept in a little file on my hard drive. Clicking on my mouse, I added the latest one to the folder.

  Till next time you get horny and call me at three in the morning, Bern. I’ll have the Astroglide ready.

  Not even the thought of phone sex with Bern made me feel any better.

  I lay back on my bed, picking up the remote for my stereo— complete with fifty-disc changer, a parting gift from Bern—and hit CD #47, which I knew was Metallica since I had been playing it ever since I got back from the beach almost two weeks ago. Yeah, you could say it was an act of regression. I’m not a metal-head anymore. Hadn’t been since I was a pimple-faced teen. Nowadays I despise metalheads in general for their drooling love for the kind of clashing guitar riffs any twelve-year-old could replicate on a six string with only mild manual dexterity and a lot of hair spray. But even I’ll admit that every once in a while, a man needs a few pounding chords to get by. Besides, I thought, adjusting the volume higher as the song began, maybe I’d get my roommate out of bed and get my hands on my bong. Might as well smoke. Nothing else going on today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

  I was just rolling into the second guitar solo, even went as far as raising my hands to air-guitar to it, when I came out of my headbang long enough to realize Doug was standing in my doorway, dressed in a pair of boxer shorts and blinking sleep out of his eyes.

  He looked pretty annoyed. Fuck him. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even have a place to live.

  Though truth be told, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to afford this place after Bern moved out.

  “Dude, bring it down a notch.”

  “Sorry, man, were you sleeping?”

  “Well, I was, but between you and the fucking door buzzer—”

  “Door buzzer?”

  “Yeah, dude, didn’t you even hear it?”

  “Well, who was it?”

  “Fucking FedEx. And the worst part of it was, they had the wrong buzzer. Some sort of package for Revelation?”

  “Dude!” I sat up, stared at him. “I’m Revelation.”

  Doug blinked at me. “What?”

  “The label, man,” I said, shrugging jeans over my boxers and sliding into my sneakers.

  “I thought you were calling it Bootleg Records?”

  Fucking burnout. That was my last record company. Not that he remembered that.

  I ran past him for the door, hoping to catch the FedEx guy before he left. It was the third time they’d come by—I had gotten a couple of “sorry we missed you” notes stuck to the door. I wasn’t sure if they would come again, but I damn sure didn’t feel like having to haul my ass to FedEx to spend a half a morning in line waiting for a package that might not be anything than more contracts to sign for Lance. For a guy who was in this allegedly for his love of music, he sure did create a lot of paperwork. And since Lance was bailing, who fucking cared about his damn contract?

  But it could also be something else. Maybe something from the executive I had met with at the Music Festival three weeks ago. I had given him the demo of one of the bands I was planning to sign, as well as an overview of the label. He had seemed interested.

  I ran down the steps, all three flights, spotting the telltale blue uniform just before the front door shut behind Mr. FedEx.

  I leaped onto the final landing. “Wait!”

  He stopped, turned to look at me with a bored expression.

  “The package for 3C—Revelation Records? I can take that.”

  He handed it over, along with a pen, and I signed the line for “receiver’s signature,” my eyes running over the address label as I did. “Thanks, man,” I said, handing back the pen.

  I could barely make out the tiny, flowery scrawl, but once I did, my heart nearly stopped at the name above the E. 64th Street address.

  Maggie Landon.

  A bong hit might have been good about now. I mean, come on. It’s not every day a guy receives a letter from a dead woman.

  More than a letter, I thought, noticing the envelope had some heft to it. I hesitated before opening it—I mean, I was seriously freaked out.

  Curiosity got the better of me and I tore it open, sliding out a package of neatly typed pages, all clipped together and topped by a lavender piece of stationery, monogrammed at the top with a big ML.

  The note was short, and in the same flowery script I’d seen on the address label.

  It was dated June 9th. Three days before I’d tried to tell her who was in charge of Revelation.

  Three days before she…

  Dear Nick,

  I jotted down a few notes for the business plan for Revelation. Let’s talk about them this weekend at the beach. I can’t tell you how excited I am about working on this project with you. I can’t wait to get started! Maggie

  A few notes? I thought, flipping through the packet of pages and seeing that she had not only included song lists, but financial projections, graphs charting the label’s development, publicity angles—you name it.

  Jesus Christ. This woman was a piece of work.

  Was being the operative word.

  I shuddered, remembering howgung ho she had been about the label when I’d told her about it. Then how angry she’d seemed when I tried to tell her that I was the man with the business plan, not her. It was, after all, my label. I even said as much, which was probably a mistake, considering that Maggie’s spirits had dampened a bit. If only she would have listened to reason.

  I shuffled through the papers once more, peering inside the envelope as if I expected to find a demo tape from Maggie herself (she had also told me that night that she had dreamed of being a singer once) and was amazed at what 1 did find floating down at the bottom of the cardboard mailer.

  A check. For twenty-five thousand dollars.

  Hell, if I knew Maggie had
already forked over the cash, I would have done things differently that Saturday night. Apparently, she hadn’t been planning to renege on her offer to put up a little money.

  A little money. Fuck. This was more money than I’d ever had in my life. At least, all at one time.

  The front door opened, letting in a waft of humid air and my neighbor from the fifth floor, some guy I barely knew—yet I still found myself stuffing everything back in the envelope.

  “How’s it going?” I said, nodding, a smile plastered on my face that I hoped might mask the unease pumping through my system.

  “Hey,” he replied, blowing past me with barely a glance and heading up the stairs.

  Once he turned on the second landing to ascend the next flight, I followed suit, slowly climbing the steps as if my body were weighted down with the thoughts whirling through my head.

  The first woman to believe in me. I mean really believe in me. To the tune of twenty-five large.

  It was like a sick fucking joke. It was, in fact, the story of my life. The minute I finally get somewhere, the bottom falls out. Like my last start-up, which crashed about five minutes after I finally got some good people on board. Now I lose my first big investor on the brink of signing my first promising band.

  Then I remembered that, in the envelope I clutched in one sweaty hand as I trudged up the steps, I still had the investment.

  Yeah, I really had lost it. That check wasn’t any good now, was it?

  I reached my apartment door, sliding the envelope under one arm to somehow camouflage it, as I headed through the door.

  Doug was now on the couch with Lou—short for Louise, though she looked more like a Lou, with a short, butch haircut and shoulders of a linebacker. Doug, who was about six-one and slender as a rail, liked his women large, and Lou was no exception. They made kind of a funny couple, especially right now, swaddled together within an afghan with a box of Pop-Tarts, watching TV Doug looked up from where he’d been nuzzling Lou’s neck. “Did you get your package?”