“I hope I’m not . . . interrupting anything.”
“If you were, I would throw her out.”
The bedroom is on the first floor. Winnie passes the open door. The sheets are rumpled. The suite is a duplex, two floors with terraces. She goes up the steps. Tanner follows her. He’s freshly showered. She can smell his cologne. (Cologne! The last time she was with a man who wore cologne was probably fifteen years ago. She can still remember it. Paco Rabanne. It was that one-night stand, and she probably wouldn’t have had sex with him if it hadn’t been for the cologne.)
“I’m just having tea,” Tanner says. “Want some?”
“Sure,” Winnie says. She sits down in front of a glass coffee table containing a tray with two teacups, a pot of tea, and lemon slices. “Were you expecting someone?”
“No. Someone just left. Unexpectedly,” Tanner says.
They both laugh.
“Evie?” Winnie says.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” he says. He pours the tea.
“I’ve got something of yours,” she says.
“I like your shoes.”
“James gave them to me for my birthday.”
“Old Jimmy’s got better taste than I expected.” He pauses. Takes a sip of tea. Looks at her over his teacup. “How is old Jimmy, anyway? He wasn’t in very good shape when he left here last night.”
“I think he’s going to live. Unfortunately,” Winnie says.
“Have you come here to force me to make amends?”
“You could say that,” Winnie says.
“I think I know what you’ve come here for, Winnie.”
“I think you do,” Winnie says. (She isn’t sure what to say next. She’s never been good at flirting. Even with James, at the beginning, she flirted by being interested in his work. Her loss of interest in him sexually has decreased at the same rate as her loss of interest in his work.)
“I think this belongs to you,” she says. She opens her purse and hands him the small vial of cocaine.
“Aha,” he says. “What would I do without this?”
“I thought you might need it,” Winnie says.
“Thank you very much,” he says.
He stands up. He comes around behind her.
Winnie doesn’t breathe.
“Winnie,” he says. “How long have we known each other.”
“Fifteen years.”
“I always said James was a lucky bastard.”
The Big Apple town car pulls up in front of a corrugated metal warehouse. Amber and James get out of the car.
“What if we get caught?” James says. (God, Winnie’s right. He sounds like a girl. He should be in charge here. But he isn’t.)
“So? They’ll arrest us. I’ve got a great lawyer. We’ll be out in twenty-four hours,” Amber says.
“I don’t think my wife is going to like it if I end up in jail,” James says.
“Who gives a fuck about your wife?” she says.
Do you know her? James wants to say. Instead, he says, “It’s just that the last twenty-four hours have been a bit . . . trying for her.”
“By the way, exactly what has happened to you in the last twenty-four hours? You haven’t explained this to me yet,” Amber says.
“I’ve already been in the hospital,” James says, picking his way over the broken sidewalk.
“Ambulatory surgery? Liposuction? That stuff?”
“No, not exactly.”
Amber pulls open the door to the warehouse.
“Are you just going to walk right in?” James asks.
Amber turns. “Excuse me, James, but I think that’s what doors are for?”
The warehouse is empty.
Was he really expecting anything else?
(Why is he here? He hopes he knows.)
“Christ. We’re too late,” Amber says. She lights up a cigarette. “They moved the fuckers. I should have known I couldn’t trust Danny Pico’s driver.”
She throws down the cigarette and stomps out.
“What do we do now?” James says.
“We go back. To Manhattan. What else?” she says over her shoulder.
They get back into the town car. “My house, please,” Amber says. She looks out the window. Bites her lower lip. “Fuck it,” she says. “Now I’m just going to have to make it up. Pretend I saw monkeys.”
“Make it up?” James says.
“Everybody makes shit up. Who’s going to know?” Her expression changes. She looks like a scared little girl. “James,” she says. “You don’t think . . . I’m a liar, do you? I’m the most honest person you’ll ever meet in your life. This was the address Danny Pico’s driver gave me. It’s not my fault they moved the monkeys.”
“No, of course not,” James says.
“People always think I’m lying. It’s because I’m beautiful and smart. And I actually go out and get these stories. They sit around in their offices, you know. They’re jealous. I can’t help it if they’re jealous. It’s not my fault.”
Holy shit, James thinks. She’s going to cry.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s not that bad.”
“I know you can understand, because I’m sure people are jealous of you, too.” She moves closer. “You’re just like me, James,” she says, in that sexy, raspy voice. (Is he just like her? Who cares.) “I’m just like you, James,” she says. “We’re like twins.”
Suddenly she’s kissing him. She’s so easy. She’s so great. (Of course she’s not a liar. How could a girl like this be a liar?) Does she know he wants her as much as she wants him? He puts his hand down the front of her shirt, squeezing great soft handfuls of breast. He wants to pull down his pants and give it to her right then (the way he did once when he was seventeen with the ugly, fat girl who would do it with anyone, only he couldn’t get it in and came between the wet, moist crack in her ass). Amber puts her hand on his penis. She moans.
The car pulls up to a shabby walk-up building on the Lower East Side. He follows her up two flights of steps. Is it his imagination, or is she pushing her ass out at him? Or is it the shoes, the clunky platform sandals? He pushes her up against the wall of the landing. Puts his hand under her skirt. (She’s not wearing any underwear, and she’s hairy.) She pulls his hand away and puts her fingers in his mouth.
“I’m a really good fuck,” she says. “You’re not going to be disappointed.”
“I know I’m not,” he says.
It’s like a porno movie. Since when did girls become this easy? Why didn’t anyone tell him? (Why is she so easy?) They go into her apartment. It’s dark and dingy. Small. Messy. (Horribly messy.) There’s a mattress on the floor. She lies down and puts her legs up. “Fuck me, big boy,” she says. He unzips his pants and pulls them down. He crawls towards her. There’s a faint odor of garbage. He can’t tell if it’s coming from her apartment or the street below. He puts two fingers inside her. Then he puts himself inside her. She’s wet, but big. Enormous. It’s like an empty space in there. She’s bigger than Winnie, and Winnie’s had a baby.
What is he doing? What if Winnie finds out?
He comes.
He falls on top of her.
After a minute, he looks at her face. She isn’t looking at him. She’s looking up at the ceiling. Her face is blank. What is she thinking? Did she come?
“I should call my office,” she says.
James sits. He pulls up his pants. “That was great,” he says.
“Yeah. I know,” she says. She crawls off the bed and opens the tiny refrigerator. “I hope you don’t mind. I need a drink.” She pours herself half a glass of straight vodka. “Don’t look so shocked, James. I never judge anyone. Because it’s your problem, not mine. Right? If you have a problem with this, don’t give me a hard time about it. I don’t deserve it.”
“I know,” James says. Suddenly he feels horrible. The drugs have worn off. He’s exhausted. He feels dirty. (He is dirty.) He wishes he were back in his apartment, in his own bed, sleeping. If he
could just go to sleep, maybe when he woke up it would be like none of this ever happened.
“If you’re worried about my telling your wife, don’t,” Amber says. “I’m not that kind of girl. I don’t ever want you to think that I’m that kind of girl, because I’m not.”
“Okay,” James says cautiously.
She moves toward him and puts her hands on either side of his face. She kisses him on the lips. “You’ve never met anyone like me before in your life. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m your best friend.”
“I feel a little . . . anxious,” he says.
“Why didn’t you say so? I’ve got tons of pills. Xanax? Clonopin? Dexedrine?”
Dexedrine?
“Do you really know Winnie?” he says. Trying to sound casual.
“What do you think, James?” she says. “Duh.”
Winnie and Tanner are lying naked in his bed in his suite at Morgans Hotel. Winnie has her eyes closed. She’s smiling.
Tanner leans over and brushes her hair away from her face. He kisses her cheek. “Did you like that?” he asks softly.
“Oh yes,” she says.
(What she really wants to say is, That was the most mind-blowing fuck I’ve ever had in my life thank you very much and now I finally understand what a mind-blowing fuck is, but she isn’t that kind of girl.)
He cups her bottom and pulls her closer. She runs her hand over his back. (She wants to remember his body for the rest of her life. She will remember his body for the rest of her life. It’s perfect. Slightly tanned and hairless. Muscular but not overly built. Whoever said that men’s bodies don’t matter to women was wrong. She never knew that sex could be so clean. And beautiful. Tanner is so clean. She’s never seen such a clean man in her life. James has white skin and nobbly moles. And black pores where the blond hair springs out. Sometimes he has blackheads on his back.)
“Wanna do it again?” Tanner says.
“Can you?”
“What do you think?”
She can already feel his erection.
“Just a minute,” she says.
She leans over and picks up the phone. He strokes her bottom. So gently, she feels excited again. She opens her legs just a little bit. “Hello,” she says.
“What’s up,” her assistant says.
“Just checking in. Tell Amber I need her copy first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t,” her assistant says. “She’s still at that press conference.”
“Just tell her, okay?” Winnie says. Thinking, Typical. Amber Anders was the girl who plagiarized her piece.
She hangs up the phone.
“Everything okay?” Tanner asks.
“Perfect,” she says.
JAMES AND WINNIE AT HOME
James can’t get home fast enough. For once. If he can get home before Winnie, he can take a shower. He can pretend everything is normal.
From now on, everything is going to be normal. He’s going to concentrate. He’s going to write that book. (He feels like shit. He can’t take it, this feeling like shit anymore. Is this how Tanner feels after he takes drugs and fucks some random chick he doesn’t care about? Mixed up and confused?)
He opens the door to his apartment. Closes it. “James?” Winnie calls out. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Winnie is in their boy’s room. Playing with their child. Helping him string beads on a cord. She’s sitting on the floor with her shoes off. She looks happy.
“Look, Daddy,” his boy says.
“Hello, Sport,” James says.
“Daddy. Bang bang,” the boy says.
“No,” Winnie says. “Don’t shoot Daddy.” She smiles. “Isn’t he such a boy?” she says.
“Bang bang,” James says to his boy. “Bang bang back.”
“Clay’s here,” Winnie says in a stage whisper. “Veronica kicked him out of the house. I’m thinking I should kick both of you out and let you go to a hotel. But on second thought, maybe I should go to a hotel and let you pay for it.”
“Do you want to go to a hotel?” James asks.
“What do you think?” Winnie says.
“How was your day?”
“Great,” Winnie says, looking up. “I fucked Tanner all afternoon in his hotel room.”
I wish you had, James thinks. Then they’d be even. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about anything. (But he would have to worry about Tanner. He wouldn’t be able to be friends with him anymore. And every time he looked at Winnie, he’d have to think about Tanner fucking her. And all the other girls Tanner had fucked. Maybe he’d have to divorce Winnie.)
“Uncle Clay threw up in the sink,” his boy says.
“Sssssh,” Winnie says. “How was your day?”
“I went to that press conference. It was useless.”
“I told you,” Winnie says.
(Should he tell her? Should he tell her he met Amber Anders at the press conference? If he’s going to tell her, now is the time. What if Amber tells Winnie she met James? What if she tells her she fucked James? If she tells Winnie she met James, Winnie will wonder why James didn’t tell her first.) “I met someone who works in your office,” he says.
“Who?”
“Andy . . . Amber something . . . ?”
“Amber Anders,” Winnie says.
“I think that’s it.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing,” James says. “She said she read my piece on satellites.”
“She’ll probably plagiarize it. She was the one who plagiarized my piece. I’m trying to get rid of her, but I can’t.”
“You should,” James says. “She seems kind of crazy.”
“She’s worse than Evie.”
“Do you think Evie slept with Tanner?”
“I have no idea,” Winnie says. She picks up a few beads and threads them onto the cord. (She thinks about Tanner. How he was so strong; he kept gently picking her up and moving her into different positions. He knelt over her like a god. He overwhelmed her. He kissed her neck until she thought she was going to swoon. She did swoon. She slid off the chair onto the floor, and that’s when he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. She was incapable of protest.)
“I bet he didn’t,” James says. “Evie’s a little too close to home. Even for Tanner. She’s your sister.”
“You think so?” Winnie says.
(She’s not even yelling, he thinks. Maybe he is going to get away with this after all.)
“I’m going to take a shower,” he says.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
He passes the living room. Clay is sleeping on the couch. Did he fuck Evie? When James had left Tanner’s hotel room last night, Clay and Evie were still there. Would they (Clay and Evie) really do that?
Christ. He’d wanted to fuck Evie. For about two seconds. But then he’d started talking to Tanner about that monkey shit. And alpha males. What the hell was he talking about?
(What if he had slept with Evie? Winnie’s sister. It would be like Tanner sleeping with Winnie.)
He goes into the bedroom. It’s clean. And neat. His glasses are on the night table next to the bed, along with his black Braun traveling alarm clock and three old business magazines he keeps meaning to get through. Winnie’s shoes are on the floor. The strappy sandals he gave her for her birthday.
Suddenly he feels okay. Maybe he didn’t fuck up after all.
When he comes out of the bathroom, he can hear Winnie on the phone. “I’ll send him home as soon as he wakes up,” she’s saying. “Oh God, Veronica. I don’t know. I don’t give a shit anymore. . . . I know, but maybe you should try to have the same attitude. Maybe you should go out and fuck someone else.”
“Veronica,” Winnie says as James passes by on his way to his little office. He nods. “I don’t think we should get involved.”
“Neither do I,” Winnie says. “I don’t give a shit.”
James sits down at his desk. He turns on his computer. The phone rings
again. Shit, he thinks. What if it’s Amber? He didn’t give her his number. But she might have Winnie’s number.
They work in the same office.
He’s just being paranoid. Amber isn’t going to say anything. She’s not that kind of girl.
He can hear Winnie giggling softly into the kitchen phone. “We definitely have to do it again,” she says seductively. He’s never heard her use that tone of voice before. “The next time you’re in town.
“It’s Tanner!” she shouts.
Oh.
He picks up the phone. “Hey, man.”
“Hey, man. How you feeling?”
“Rough.” (He wants to tell Tanner he got laid. Because he did. He did get laid. But he definitely wouldn’t tell Tanner about the girl’s vagina. It was enormous. And a little stinky.
He definitely can’t do that again.)
“I hear you, man,” Tanner says.
“Clay’s here,” James says. “Veronica kicked him out of the house.”
“She’ll be begging him to come back in about two hours.”
“She already has,” James says.
They laugh.
“You heading back to L.A.?” James asks.
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll see you next time I’m in town.”
James hangs up.
He checks his e-mails. The top one, sent at 5:03 P.M., says, “From Amber 69696969. Re: Alpha Males.”
This can’t be happening. Should he delete it or read it?
He’d better read it. Find out how bad the damage is.
Dear James,
It was great to meet you. It’s so hard to find decent guys. (Don’t worry about your wife. I told you, I’m not that kind of girl, and I NEVER go back on my promises. Unlike other people we know.) I really want to talk to you about this idea I have about alpha males. (I think there are alpha females, too, and I’m one of them.) This would be a terrific piece for the magazine. And, I think you should know this, I’m going to proceed with it. Let’s meet on Monday at six at the Café Grill. My friend Jerry is the bartender and he always gives me free drinks.
Big Kiss.
Oh fuck.
Should he respond? What if he does respond and his e-mail goes to the wrong address? What if, somehow, Winnie sees it? (Amber and Winnie work in the same office. E-mails are always getting passed around in offices.) What if he doesn’t respond? She might keep sending him e-mails. She might get mad. She might tell Winnie.
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