Lucid

by Adrienne Stoltz; Ron Bass

  And of course, Lila texts me like eight times to say, Have a NICE time in Providence. And after. Great. Kelly texts me, Send a picture of you in the dress with Slowhand!

  My mom knocks on my door to bring me her bracelets. I’m standing there in my dress with the tags still on. She comes over, zips me up, and pulls off the tags. I guess I’m wearing the dress tonight. She says I look amazing, and instead of hating her for her Pollyanna attitude, I feel comforted. Looking in the mirror, I suppose it’s about the best I can look.

  “We’re just going to the Ocean House for dinner.”

  “Just? Your father and I go there for our anniversary.”

  “No. It’s really nice. It’s just weird why he changed plans. He said he’s driving three and a half hours to pick ‘someone’ up at JFK tomorrow morning. And he was extremely dodgy when I asked who.” Then I just stare at her. I feel my lip tremble.

  “It could be another girl. Or not. And normally, a girl should play it cool. But if he was really dodgy, which I guess means sneaky and secretive…”

  I nod like I’m four years old, yup.

  “You should tell him that you’re wondering if there’s another girl in the picture, and given the circumstances, that’s a question you have the right to ask.”

  “Mom, if I have to ask that, I’ll just die.”

  “I know, honey. I would too. But on balance, I think it’s better than the alternative of not eating, sleeping, or thinking about anything else until you actually know. And maybe you need to ask yourself, how much is a guy worth who could put you through something like that?”

  It’s a fair question. When he picks me up, he’s real chatty with my parents. They are their usual warm and welcoming selves. He compliments my dress and looks very admiring, but it still doesn’t feel completely natural.

  On the way out to Watch Hill, he talks too much, and all about our mutual interests rather than his interest in me or us. Maybe I can just get him to slow the car enough so that I can hurl myself from it with minimal pain.

  The Ocean House is a Victorian hotel that was recently restored to its original splendor, crisp yellow and white paint and wraparound porches. It is perched above white sand dunes and the blue Atlantic. The third floor used to be haunted by a woman whose husband murdered her on their wedding night.

  We pull into the valet parking circle, which wouldn’t be a big deal to Maggie, but I’ve never been in a car parked by a valet before. The guy opens my door and treats me like I’m a celebrity or something.

  But for San Francisco Cat Girl, already boarding her plane out west, this would be my Cinderella moment, a dream come true, filled with a fluttering heart wondering whether he has booked a room for us tonight and how I could play this off with my parents if I decided to accept.

  They don’t even have a dinner reservation for us. He says he called one in, but they never called him back to confirm. They are “fully committed” in the dinning room but offer us two seats in the bar.

  The bar is really nice but provides only a glimpse of the elegant dining room, which has magical views of the ocean. Through the French doors, we can see the diners enjoying their soft candlelight and romantic conversations. It’s like looking through the looking glass into a night that could have been. So although I have no right to be disappointed, I really am.

  They bring us dinner menus and as he’s looking at his, I just take my heart in my hands and ask him.

  “I have to ask you something.”

  He looks up with a nice smile. “Sure.”

  “You seemed kind of mysterious about who you’re picking up tomorrow in New York.”

  He doesn’t say anything. But he also doesn’t look nervous. He just waits.

  “So I guess I’m wondering if it is the girl from San Francisco whose cat you gave to your sister.”

  He laughs. The laugh seems pretty natural. But I can’t tell what’s funny.

  “I promise you that’s not who I’m picking up.” And says no more.

  “Not that there’d be anything wrong with that,” I lie. “I would have just wanted to know.” I’m such a chicken.

  “I’m glad you asked. I’m kind of feeling like the rib eye. What do you think?”

  Throughout dinner he is perfectly nice and I pretend I’m fine. I can’t taste my food and can only think about what a coward I am for not busting him on the obvious truth that all he had to do was tell me who he was picking up. I wish he’d just lie and tell me it’s a distant uncle. It’d be kinder. I don’t know why he asked me out in the first place.

  The drive home is virtually silent. He makes a couple of attempts at more impersonal conversation, and I just sit there trying not to completely humiliate myself by crying.

  At my door, he points to a greasy blotch on the skirt of my dress, his finger hovers above the fabric, he doesn’t touch me.

  “Looks like you spilled something,” he says, and I want to cry.

  He tells me he had a great time, which is obviously completely insincere. Then he tells me I look really pretty tonight, which may be sincere but is certainly beside the point. He makes no attempt to kiss me or even touch me. I tell myself I should be relieved by this, but it’s the most crushing moment of all.

  It’s not even nine. Of course my mom is waiting, reading her book. She takes one look at my face and just gives me a big hug. I ask if it’s okay if we don’t talk about anything, and she says absolutely. I show her the spot on my dress and she tells me to take it off and she’ll be able to get it out if she does it right away.

  Up in my room, I slip into my jeans. I call Gordy and ask him to meet me at Maxwell’s boatyard in twenty minutes. He’s at a party and immediately asks what happened, am I okay. Nothing and no, I tell him. He says he has a six-pack, and he will meet me on my front porch in ten minutes.

  He pulls up in his truck. I jump in. And before he can say anything, I tell him…

  “He’s just not the guy I thought he was. That’s all. It’s no big deal.”

  “So if I rearrange his face, you’d be mad at me.”

  “I’d be humiliated forever and would have to leave town.”

  He smiles and drives off.

  “I’m thinking,” he says, “it would almost be worth it.”

  It isn’t the Ocean House, but we have a full view of the sound, Ram Island and Fishers, a few boats drifting on their moorings, and the stars above. More to the point, I’m not sitting on the edge of the dock with my lifelong best friend. I’m sitting with a really attractive guy who wants no other girl in the world but me.

  “So Sloane,” he says leaning back on the planks to look up at the night sky.

  “So Gordy,” I say joining him.

  “Want to go to prom? With me? Seeing as how everyone else sucks, I figure we’re each other’s only chance for a non-brutal evening. At least I know you won’t grope me on the dance floor.”

  His casual act isn’t fooling anyone, except hopefully himself. It is sweet and innocent and awkward. And I mean it when I say…

  “That’s a great idea. We’re going to have the best time.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  maggie

  I walk Jade up to the Y for her swim class on Saturday morning. Nicole is at a photo shoot but promises she’ll be finished in time to collect her. I will stay nearby awaiting the inevitable call from Jerome that she is delayed. Which is fine. For some reason I love the smell of chlorine in Jade’s hair. But the photo shoot better be finished by dinner. I can’t give Thomas the same excuse tonight. Jade gives me the hairy eyeball when I tell her she and Nicole are on their own for dinner.

  “You will find this shocking, but I have a date,” I inform her.

  “You have a boyfriend?” she asks, incredulous that I may have kept such big news from her. “Is it Andrew?!”

  “No. He’s neither a boyfriend nor Andrew…” I take a breath to say it’s Thomas, but she eagerly interrupts.

  “So Andrew is available?”

  “Ac
tually, yes. He’s very available. He and Carmen broke up.”

  “Saw that coming,” she says, and I can’t help but laugh. I’m sure she just hears Nicole and me say things like that, but I love that she incorporates it into her seven-year-old vernacular. “I should probably call him, just to make sure he’s okay.” And she starts skipping, her backpack bouncing up and down as she goes. Jade is clearly pleased Andrew is available.

  He apparently isn’t available to answer his phone, however. After dropping Jade, I walk toward SoHo. Andrew isn’t picking up or replying to my incessant texting. He is either in an area with no coverage or his phone is off because it’s going straight to voicemail. This is odd.

  I meander down his street. There’s the GEM, so maybe he’s just asleep. I could look at the names on the buzzer lists of the buildings nearby and try to wake him up. But what if he’s not alone?

  I have time to kill in case I need to turn around and pick Jade up, so I pull out my Kindle and just decide that this would be a perfect spot to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo even though I’ve never been interested in it before. I feel the best place to do so is this one particular spot where I can see the GEM very clearly, sort of hidden by this van I’m leaning against. Yes, some might call this spying. But chances that I’m actually going to see him are so slim, I don’t think it really constitutes full-on spying so much as waiting to pick up Jade in a place that is odd to be waiting.

  And then, just as the full craziness of my being here is making me think I need to call Emma, Andrew walks out of a building two doors down from where I’m standing. He is with a very slender and pretty and intelligent-looking young woman. At eight thirty in the morning. Coming from his apartment. They actually walk right past me. I face the van and pretend to be engrossed in my Kindle, which is turned off. She is extremely pretty, and I catch a whiff of lavender as she passes. She says something to him that I can’t understand, but her voice is soft and musical, and she rests her tiny hand on his arm as she says it. His dorky crooked smile is pleased or amused or something. They get in his GEM and simply drive away.

  So I call him. Again. This time it rings. I can see him pull out his phone as he drives down the street. He glances at the screen, turns a corner, and I’m positive that he’s screening my call. But then he answers.

  “What’s up?” which sounds abrupt, as in “please state your business and get the hell off my line.”

  “Feel like some breakfast?” I pitch.

  “Already had mine.” Now unless the blonde simply came to his place to share breakfast at, say, seven o’clock, there is only one other explanation.

  “I’ve got the morning free,” I say, “feel like hanging?”

  “Wish I could. I’ll check in with you later. Everything all right?”

  “Totally!” I say a little too positively.

  And he hangs up on me. What pops directly into my mind is whether he picked this skank up at Kennedy at seven in the morning—what James had told Sloane in the dream. My God. Maybe I am going crazy.

  Of course, the real question is, why do I care? I resist the urge to manipulate Jade into actually calling Andrew when I pick her up from swimming. I ask myself “why do I care?” all day and into the evening, even while dressing for dinner with Thomas. Andrew never checks in with me later, and as far as I’m concerned, he can stick his future checking-ins where the sun will never find them.

  First I put on matching bra and underwear. Not that anyone is going to see it, but if they do, they’ll be impressed. I then go with a pair of my skinny jeans that make my butt look great, which is always a consideration because it needs just the right pocket and fit. For a top, I choose a Chloe peasant blouse I stole from the Elle closet. Thomas is the type of guy who might notice a designer piece. Shoes are the big debate: if I go for a python pump, they’ll be classy and easy to kick off. Knee-high leather boots would look better, but they’ll just be hard to take off. I mean, not that he’ll be taking my boots or anything off, but he might be the kind of guy who likes you to be barefoot in his house. I go with the pumps because as Andrew (whoever he used to be) observed, I can handle the situation.

  Thomas lives at 27 West 67th in a prewar building with a charming doorman who has to bring me up in the old cage elevator. This place is posh. Hard to square with Andrew’s “flunky” handle, but I’m starting to learn that maybe certain statements from that source cannot be relied on. Not that he ever said specifically that he didn’t dump Carmen for that scrawny blonde, who probably isn’t nearly as intellectual as she looks (being an actress, and insecure, I believe against conventional wisdom that someone can actually look intelligent or intellectual). Anyway, what he had said was that he’d never been in love before and wouldn’t settle for anything less. Which means there’s a lie in there somewhere. Unless, of course, between Union Square Café and breakfast at his place, he met his potential soul mate, who really could use a little touch-up on her roots.

  Thomas welcomes me into an apartment far more impressive than even the building suggests. The brick ceilings are high and domed. The views are amazing; there is art everywhere. He catches me gawking and explains that the place belongs to his dad, who lives in Toronto, and even though it’s far from his office, free rent is nice. I like that he’s not trying to impress me and notice that he took some care to look his best. Which I also like. Certain other young men of my acquaintance have never done anything of the sort. Not that he should have.

  He announces that he’s making linguini with white Alba truffles. I know enough to know that those things are exactly a bazillion bucks a pound and are intoxicatingly yummy.

  In the bathroom, I check for hair product (maybe the CIA needs me and my spying abilities). Unfortunately, I find plenty. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. At least I don’t find any blond dye; that could be a deal breaker. As if there’s a deal to break. Which there definitely isn’t. At this point.

  He opens a bottle of his dad’s fancy wine. It tastes really good and makes me feel warm and flush. He tells me I can drink up because there’s a second bottle of the same wine, which he already opened. I feel a bit like that’s a red flag, but I push the thought away.

  He sets a cheese tray by the plushy couch, assuring me that while he prefers blue, these are “double cremes” that won’t mask the taste of the wine. I’m sure Andrew wouldn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I don’t either, but I am here and he isn’t. I kick off my pumps. I love cheese.

  Thomas mentions casually that there will be three or four callbacks among the several (though unnumbered) women who are auditioning for Robin. He is “working on it.” Well, he’s certainly working on something.

  On the bookshelf, there’s an adorable picture of him with a five-year-old’s version of the Hair. His mom is quite beautiful, duh, and seems very adoring. When I compliment her, he tells me that she passed away from breast cancer when he was nine. This brings tears to my eyes, and I tell him the story of my dad. He is only the second (and certainly nicest) boy that I have ever discussed my dad’s death with. He really listens, and it’s nice to share it with someone who understands. I don’t know any other kids who have lost a parent. Not that Thomas is a kid, I suppose. My mom tried to get me to join a teen support group. I went once. Having a dead parent be the only thing I had in common with those kids just made me feel lonely.

  Dinner begins with a salad that he overdressed (guys do that a lot). He made garlic bread, which is about the last thing anybody would want to eat if they are thinking of kissing someone. The table is set beautifully; there’s a crystal vase with peonies, which happen to be my favorite flower. He is trying hard, as whatshisname once noted, and I like it. Especially tonight.

  It’s easy to make a case for Thomas. He’s easy on the eyes, he’s easy to be with, he promises an easy life. What’s there even to debate? Well, how fast and how far to go with all this, of course, being barely seventeen and even more cautious realizing that I am basically (expensively
) drunk.

  Just as I reach this point in my rigged debate, a strong and confident hand reaches a plate down in front of me. The aroma of white truffles mixes with the alcohol in my system and the positive energy of my thoughts, so that when that masculine hand strokes the hair from my neck and begins massaging my shoulders, I realize something. Old Andrew is right about one thing. I do know how to handle this.

  I wrap my fingers around his wrist, excited by how slender and delicate they look against his musculature. I only have to pull very slightly, and his mouth comes to mine, and I rise half out of my seat, twisting my body into a full, openmouthed, committed kiss that sends a definite (though slightly blurry) thrill through pretty much all of me.

  He lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer. He rests me down on the table and starts to kiss my neck as his hands work the buttons of my peasant blouse. I weave my hands through his gorgeously thick hair. All of this feels good and exciting until, without really knowing why…

  I push him away. Gently at first, and so he understandably feels it isn’t a serious move but just me being playful. So I push him away harder and he stops. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. And only then do I understand why.

  “No, I’m so sorry, Maggie. Are you sure you’re okay? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you or make you feel uncomfortable or force myself on you…” He keeps a respectful distance between us and keeps apologizing, clearly worried that he pushed a young girl into the deep end.

  “I’m the one who kissed you, Thomas,” I remind him.

  “And I took it further and faster than you were ready for. I want you to set the pace for us, Maggie. I have to keep reminding myself that you are much younger than you seem. I want you to take as much time as you need to figure out what you want. I’ll be here. And whatever you decide, I promise it will have no relevance on your chances for Robin.” Right.

  I rebutton my shirt and pull my pumps back on as easily as I’d kicked them off. Thirty minutes later I ring the bell at Andrew’s door. I don’t really care if the little blond skank answers in a teddy or less. In fact, I don’t really care about anything but seeing him right now.