28
JOREL'S BED WAS SURPRISINGLY unoccupied, considering how drunk or stoned everyone was and my wild animal encounter in his bathroom. My head felt suddenly light and dizzy, swamped with heat and an outpouring of sweat, probably a gush of blood, and I thought I might faint, so I shut the door and sat on the vacant mattress, listening to the woman's faker-than-fake groans in the other room. Crime scene photos of Gracie in the trash can and memories of Elise standing in the hallway of Cousin Joe's apartment days after 911 and footage of Leah on Brownstone's rooftop watching the South Tower fall invaded my skull. I suddenly felt the presence of EMINOR, but I didn't see him anywhere.
And then somebody said from behind. “Coca-Cola used to have wacky dust in it, you know.”
I immediately knew it wasn't my otherworldly stalker, mostly because I recognized the voice to be Alex Parker. I didn't turn to look at him though. I figured he was just as green and transparent as the phantom that I'd conjured in my thinking earlier that morning when driving through the Lincoln Tunnel, and probably just as sickly looking. The presence of EMINOR was there though. I’m almost certain of that now, not so much at the time.
“Is that what you kids call it nowadays?” I kept my head tucked into both hands. If I was really talking to myself, then I didn't care.
“I'm two weeks older than you. And you're girlfriend was just doing blow.”
“Why do you keep calling her my girlfriend?”
“Because it’s what you're subconscious really wants.”
“And you're my subconscious.”
“Do I have a choice?” Alex sat down at my side. “You play by the rules, with all those ancient impractical laws of chivalry that your Great-Uncle Jack and his brothers bottle-fed into you. The fact that you're so attracted to the freewheeling wild cards probably has something to do with the need to play ringmaster and tame things.”
I thought about it. The voice may have been onto something.
“Elise is a wild card,” that same voice continued. “When she went berserk on you, you turned to me, the other wild card in the new equation. Except I couldn't exactly be trained to play the horns like a circus-seal either, so you zeroed in on your girlfriend out there, high as a kite on blow, as wild a card as any I've ever seen.”
“She's not my girlfriend.”
“Either way, she's cruising the nine realms on blow with Dante as her guide. And you're just upset because your rules of chivalry can't break her inner-stallion in.”
“She's not on the road representing my name, and you were. Why couldn't you see that? Why did you have to let Gracie die?”
The sledgehammer realization that Gracie had been murdered finally took its long-lasting hold on me.
“You don't have a clue what happened, do you?”
“She's dead. I know that much. I had to sit in an interrogation room staring at pornographic pictures of her corpse, folded up into a trashcan, primordial soup for brains.”
“Yeah, well I didn't do it.”
“That may be. But you had something to do with it. And I know whatever masterful dunce-work you've managed; it has that man in the Nissan Cube following me all across the country.”
“If it's any consolation, I didn't do anything on our travels that I wouldn't have done had Gracie been present.”
“You spent the night with other girls.”
If grinning made a sound, then Phantom Alex did exactly that. “See, my point exactly.”
“You could have been toes up in cocaine and had your little swinger parties with Gracie on your own time, not on mine.”
“Hey, that's blame shifting. Your girlfriends the one doing blow.”
“Can't you just leave me alone?”
“Thank God.” He said.
If Phantom Alex left, and I know he did (because the feeling of presence was similarly liquefied), I never heard him. The thought occurred to me that I may have been speaking to EMINOR after all. I didn't like being duped, not by Alex at the airport or by devils in disguise. As I pondered the matter somebody knocked on the door. I didn't answer. It presently opened anyways. A handsome man about my own age stood there with his paws all over two beautiful women in tight skimpy dresses that probably wouldn't be staying on for very long, unless it was to keep their navels covered.
“I'm guessing you three need a room, seeing as how the bathroom is currently occupied.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! Uuhhhh!
The man looked too stoned or drunk to say anything sensible, despite an attempt with fish-lips, but both women giggled, and the fact that one of his hands was on an ass and the other perched on a boob, their purpose was well-understood.
I stood to leave.
“Hey, didn't I just hear you in here talking with somebody?” The woman with a hand on her boob said.
“Yeah,” I said, and stepped into the hall. “I was just in here talking with you.”
“Huh.” She pondered my claim that she was indeed in that very room only seconds before, alone with me, door closed, engaged in conversation, and let her eyes roll to the ceiling as she considered the matter.
“That’s intense,” Hands-on-ass woman said.
Definitely stoned.
29
“THAT GUY'S A JERK,” I plopped down on a couch. I'd just come from the bar with my second attempt at a Johnnie Walker Blue Label, except I hadn't taken a sip of it yet. Across the room, Leah was still being hit on by the master of the house and that Hollywood pimp, and enjoying every moment of it.
“Well, aren't we being Judge Judy?” Miranda said from my side.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean... I'm having a tough week, in case you haven't been able to tell.”
“Wow. Tense too,” Miranda tapped my leg with her own. “Leah brought us a live one. I don't think there's a chiropractor in the house, but I know a good drink or two and maybe something else afterword that will loosen those bones.”
I assumed she was talking about the very same thing, according to Susan's theory, that introduced the dawn to human civilization, but I never took my eyes away from Leah. Jorel Seeger discreetly glanced my way, just to see if my attention was still on his meaty kill. It was. And he looked annoyed. Greenberg was too. Good. I had a few Vaudevillian maneuvers that I wanted to try. A conveniently placed cart of cream-filled pies might be nice. How about the routine where we see how many teeth they can spit from their mouth? Where was Larry, Moe, and Curly or Shemp when you needed them?
“And by the way, he is a jerk,” Miranda continued. “Leah doesn't exactly have the best discretion in the men she dates. She does however like power, despite the fact that they're almost all the same in the end, manipulative and emotionally controlling.”
“Girls gotta eat,” Richie said, simultaneously relieving Miranda's glass of red from her fingertips in order to slurp from it.
“Can you buy your own glass of wine?” Miranda sighed with disgust. “You probably just put mono all over it.”
“Oh please, like you haven't contracted the kissing disease. And besides, I don't recall complaining when you wanted a sip from my beer that one time and you were out of work.”
“That never happened.” More disgust. “You'll live on water until you can pay the rent, thank you.”
“Not New York City tap-water, I won't. Can you believe the man doesn't even have the courtesy to supply bottled water at his own party?”
“Sounds a lot like her father,” the words sort of slipped from my lips, and I was sorry they did.
“Who, Leah's father?” Richie perked up.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Yeah well, I'm sure the tap-water sparkles in California.”
“No, the manipulation....emotionally controlling.”
“What was he like?” Miranda.
“Manipulative and controlling.”
“I knew it,” Richie grinned.
“Okay, I'll bite.” Miranda said. “If we're all simply choosing our mates by reacting, as you put it, or adjusting to the norm of our parents’ upbr
inging style, why in hell would we choose someone who embodies the worst qualities they have to offer?”
“Be careful, that's not the only thing she'll bite.” Richie.
“Attractions of deprivation,” I said.
“Come again?” Miranda said as she simultaneously slapped Richie's arm.
“Attractions of Deprivation; it's a term that refers to people drawn to other people who embody the worst emotional characteristics of our parents. It's an attraction to mates who can wound us just as we were wounded in childhood but done so in order to change and alter its ending, thus sparing us from our own destruction.”
“Stop describing Leah and Miranda's entire dating life,” Richie said, thoroughly amused.
“He is not describing my dating life.” Miranda slapped at him again.
“Believe what you want.” Richie dramatically lifted his chin. “I can't stop you from dating your own father.”
“I'm assuming you're getting this information from your estranged psychologist wife again.” Miranda made extra effort to trickle her fingers across my arm, just so there was no confusion in the sensual tone of her voice.
I smiled at her, letting my peripheral vision flicker back in Leah's direction. She had her back turned to us now, and all I could make out was Seeger and Greenberg. “I guess I must have picked some of this stuff up over the years.”
“Uh-huh.” Her hand squeezed my leg. “Well, if you ask me, she doesn't have all the answers.” She tightened her grip, perhaps to take my blood pressure. “It sounds to me like all that knowledge has gone to waste, since she's obviously missing out on a perfectly good thing.” Tourniquet fingers froze in place. “You know, you've been staring at her all night. Let it go. Have some fun.”
I kept my eyesight on Leah anyways, who graced the producers chest with her fingers. So what if she was landing a role in his next movie. I didn't like that.
“Holy Moly,” Miranda retracted her hand. “I didn't see this earlier.”
“What?” Richie and I said it at the same time.
“You love her.”
“No I don't.” I blushed. “What are you talking about?”
Richie peeled back in his chair and studied me. “Oh... my.... god,” he said.
“Yes you do. That's why you came all the way out here.”
“I came out here to photograph a couple of weddings.”
“Uh-huh. You came out here to see her. That look on your face just now was unmistakable.”
“Unmistakable,” Richie said.
“What face?” If I had blushed once, I was pretty sure it had wielded with the look of annoyance now.
“Love.”
“Mm-hmm,” Richie sighed. “If anybody knows love, I know love, and that's love. Good call, girl” He held the palm of his hand up.
“I know, right?” Miranda reached over and met his high-five, then turned back to me. “Does she know?”
“Does she know what?”
“Does she know that you love her?”
“Look guys, I'm really tired of trying to convince everyone that she's anything other than a friend.”
“Then stop trying,” Richie coolly said.
He had me stumped.
I stood to leave. “Enjoy the rest of the party. Have a good night.”
“Leaving so soon?” Richie looked shocked.
“I'm afraid so. I think I'll be staying with a friend tonight. Maybe I'll see you again before the weekend's over.”
Before the weekends over was a stretch of the imagination. I had no intention of seeing either of them, or Leah again, at least not on this trip. Goodnight sometimes means goodbye, as in, sayonara. Not that I wanted to be bogged down in self-pity, but it was my understanding then that Leah wouldn't have missed me. And that's exactly why I needed to leave, because self-pity was unflattering. It was just as destructive as any drug in the house, and the only way to cleanse myself of it was to move on as quickly as I could. Michael was right and Susan was wrong. I was moving too fast and would be spending the night in Susan's hotel, eating ice cream and watching Full House reruns. It was my lot in life, playing witness to the inheritance that would never fit my particular American dream, not that I was complaining or anything. I was through with self-pity.
“I may be attracted to my problems, but at least I don't run from them.” I heard Miranda's voice.
She was right, but I didn't turn around to answer her. I just kept on running.
As I made my way across the room, eager to dissolve into the safety of a self-inclusive staircase (I wouldn't be taking the elevator), as far away from Seeger and Greenberg and their inner-circle leeches as possible, that fashion designer what’s her name backed her rear into me again, as if on cue, thus spilling my second Blue Label across her dress. And I hadn't even taken a sip of it yet.
“That's the asshole that doesn't watch where he's going! Hey, asshole!”
Further descriptions of me included a four-letter word. It started with F and ended with K. I didn't turn around to apologize. I didn't even turn around to say goodbye to Leah. Nothing, not even the spellbinding siren from my sixth period drama class, could detour me from getting as far away from self-pity, cocaine, Yes! Yes! Yes! Uuhhhhhh!, that imaginative specter in the bedroom, and Seeger’s leech party as humanly possible.
30
I MADE IT AS FAR as the street, was attempting to calculate my bearings (the nearest Williamsburg subway couldn't be far), and Susan's number was already conjured up on my cell phone, it even rang twice, when I heard the spellbinding sirens voice from behind.
Leah said: “Joshua, what are you doing?”
Susan's voice pronounced the J syllable of my first name as I hung up and turned around to face my high school drama partner. She was outrageously radiant, apart from the fact that she stood under a streetlamp. I always felt like such a child in her presence, and secretly despised her for that.
I ignored her question and chose another. “Why did you leave the party?”
“You first,” she said.
“I didn't really want to disturb you, seeing as how you were having so much fun with that painter and his friends.”
Sarcasm filled Leah's facial features.
I tried my second excuse. “I'm tired. I only got three and a half hours of sleep last night. It’s been an emotionally draining week, and I think I’m going to skip out a little early. I’ll help myself to a friend's hotel, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t be silly. I may not be coming home tonight, so you can sleep on my bed.” It clearly wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and to make matters worse, Leah grinned at me like we’d been buddy-buddies all weekend.
“Getting along with that artist friend of yours.”
“His name is Jorel. But Lawrence, he's a producer from Hollywood. I think I'll be going home with him tonight. And since you’ll have the apartment to yourself, if you hit it off with Miranda, I'm pretty sure she'll read you your Miranda Rights.”
She smiled at the possibilities of what being arrested under the legal conditions of her roommates Miranda Rights might actually imply. It was cute and clever, but ultimately misguided, and I wanted to cry. Mark Twain once warned me about this. He said: Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
“I didn’t come all the way out to New York to hit it off with your roommate or any other girl whom I’ve never met before.”
Leah looked suddenly self-conscious and embarrassed. She nervously twitched her eyes back and forth between several pedestrians and what I thought might be a street sign behind my head and then back on me.
“I don’t get it. What do you want from me?” She said.
“I don’t know.” I slapped both hands on my thighs for effect. “I guess I came out here to spend some time with you.”
“We are. You just walked out from one of the most coveted parties in all Manhattan.”
“I thought for one glimmering moment it would be like Boston again.”<
br />
“Joshua, that was, that was one night in Boston…and nothing more. Whatever happened happened.”
“What about our phone conversations?”
“What about them?” She breathed sarcastically. “You’ve totally lost me.”
“You were so warm and friendly and inviting. I thought maybe we had something special. I thought I was coming out here to invest in…I don’t know…something.”
More nervous eye twitching at another couple entering the building, possibly on their way up to Jorel's party; Leah waited until they were out of sight. I thought she might have recognized them. Or perhaps she thought there was a possibility that they recognized her. “Who led you to that impression?”
“You did, Leah, when you called me on the phone. Why are you always so much friendlier when we're three-thousand miles away?”
Leah tried not to laugh. It hurt. And to emphasize her point, she held her hands up. “Whoa. I’m sorry if you misinterpreted the script, but I clearly have no intent of taking you into my wigwam for a powwow.”
“I didn’t come here for that.”
“Then tell me, what do you want?”
“I thought we could at least be friends.”
“We are.”
“That’s what I thought too. But ever since I arrived you’ve been so entirely festive with your colleagues and so exclusively cold with me. I feel like I’m in high school vying for your attention all over again. I'm not fighting for table scraps.”
“Joshua, you have to understand something. This is my last week in REPUBLICAN BLUE, ever. It’s my big farewell. There’s a good possibility that I’ll never be successful on stage like this again, and there’s nothing wrong with me taking a moment to contemplate where I started and how far I’ve come. If I screw this one chance up with Greenberg....”
“Leah, I’m thrilled for you and all of your accomplishments. I really am. And I hope you get the part in his next film. It’s just; I could have picked a better week to come out here had I known.”
“I thought you needed a place to stay. That’s what I do for friends. I help them. And that’s what I thought we were. Friends.”
Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2) Page 20