by Anna Roberts
“She’s not a blood relative!”
I feel tears prickle behind my eyes. Why does nobody explain anything to me?
Oh God. Do you really want me to answer that?
- No.
“It hardly matters now, Crispian,” says Claudia. “What matters is that I got a call from her when you were arrested...”
“...oh my God. You never told me. What did she say?”
“No idea. The usual fake Japanese gibberish. I told you – she’d stopped miaowing but she’s still calling everyone a ‘baka gaijin’...”
“Your sister miaows?” I whisper, as my veins turn to ice. Watashi wa baka ne. Holy crap.
“Yeah. She kind of feels more catlike than human a lot of the time. Just like she says she feels Japanese even though she's not.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “Does she...” I falter. “Does she...wear cat ears a lot of the time?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“Er...I think she’s living in the dumpster behind the bookstore near my apartment.”
“Come again?” murmurs Claudia, swaying on her Louboutins.
“And I saw her this evening as I left work. She was wearing dirty ballet slippers and pink cat ears and she...” I can hardly say the words. “She asked me where Crispian was.”
“That’s it,” says Claudia, draining her glass. “No wonder that adoption agency went out of business. You boys are bad enough but Alicia? One minute she thinks she has the soul of a Hello Kitty backpack and the next minute she’s gone feral. What the hell is wrong with these kids?”
“Try searching for the common denominator, mother,” snarls Crispian.
“Oh please. You had every opportunity, you little prick. An extremely expensive prep school, Harvard business school – which you then dropped out of, presumably before the class on intellectual property rights and copyright law because otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here with a tag on your ankle and a prison groupie on your arm.”
“I’m not a prison groupie!” I yell. “I love him!”
“So you keep saying. Doesn’t it worry you that ‘I love him’ seems to be the defining characteristic of your entire personality?”
I stare at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “I don’t think you understand,” I say. “I really love him.”
Claudia reaches for the vodka again. This time she doesn’t bother with a glass.
“So much for psychiatry,” says Crispian. “After all these years you still have addiction issues.”
“I don’t have addiction issues,” says Claudia. “I have kids.”
For the second time today, I smell popcorn. The microwave pings behind the kitchen’s half-partition. I glimpse Kate’s spiky blonde head through the smoked glass.
I stare down at my thumbs and start to cry.
“Oh don’t cry,” says Claudia.
“Yeah. Seriously. Don’t,” says Crispian. “It’s like blood in the water to my family. They smell the salt and the shark instinct takes over. Sometimes I wonder what I’d be like if they’d left me with the crack whore in Iowa.”
“For the last time, Crispian – she was not a crack whore. She was a college junior who had personal qualms with abortion. Actually, come to think of it she looked a lot like...”
“...OW FUCK!” Kate has burned herself opening the microwave popcorn. It serves her right.
“You’d be exactly the same,” says Claudia. “A chubby, sexually regressive manchild with an unsavoury My Little Pony obsession. The difference is that you wouldn’t be nearly as rich.” She takes another unladylike chug from the vodka bottle and checks her hair in the cooker hood. “I don’t suppose Helena has negotiated your bail to include the Kleptocrats Masked Charity Ball on Saturday, has she?”
“As a matter of fact, she has.”
Huh. Is there anything Helena Handbasket can’t do?
Crispian’s mother shoulders her huge designer purse and looks me up and down. “I’m sorry – I’ve forgotten your name again. I want to say Anabella but I’m sure that’s not right.”
“Hanna.”
“Hanna. Yes. Could I trouble you for specific directions to my daughter’s brand new dumpster paradise?”
I give her the address of the bookstore. “What’s going on?” asks Jesús, wandering back in.
“Crispian’s sister is El Fupacabra.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-huh. Crazy little white girl. Cat-ears, filthy ballet shoes, fangirl Japanese – it’s her all right.”
“On reflection, letting her go to Japan was obviously a very bad idea,” says Claudia, aiming a drunk airkiss in her son’s general direction. “I’ll see you on Saturday night. Bring...Thingy...wotsername. I’m sorry – it’s gone again.”
“BYE MOTHER I HATE YOU!” screams Christian. She only waves as the elevator doors close.
Kate passes round the popcorn. “So. That’s a fine, functional family you’ve got there, Equus.”
Crispian sniffs hard. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sure you do. Can you get me an exclusive with that sister of yours?”
He glares at her for a moment and then says, “Don’t you want an exclusive with me?”
“No,” says Kate. “Not unless you’ve been wearing cat-ears, living in a dumpster, screaming gibberish at passers-by and been regularly mistaken for some kind of cryptid, no.”
“Er...I’ve been to prison?”
“Boring. No dice.”
“What’s the charity shindig in aid of?” asks Jesús.
“It’s a rehab charity,” explains Crispian. “For drug and alcohol problems.”
“Filthy rich cokeheads?” says Kate. She leers at Jesús, who is still wearing her indecently small pajamas. “Do you want to wear the dress, or shall I?”
“No, you’re not going,” splutters Crispian. “No way. Not ever.”
“Yes way,” says Kate. “Or the case for the prosecution is going to find out about a tiny little major felony that Ms. Robinson is currently trying very hard to ignore. That and you’re gonna have an even more serious problem when the authorities find out about the Oompa Loompas. I may have flunked History but I’m pretty fucking sure slavery is illegal, dude.”
Chapter Ten
Love Means Never Having To Say ‘Stop Whining’
I lie awake, alone in the big bed. I can't sleep. Crispian said he'd be in hours ago but he still hasn't come to bed. Has he lost interest in me already?
More likely he's clutching his pearls at the idea of sharing a bed with a menstruating woman.
- You are never any help. I hope you know that.
I sigh and turn the pillow over, but I can't get comfortable. I can't think of a time Crispian and I have ever shared a bed without doing you-know-what, except for that time when he rescued...
...kidnapped.
- Not helping.
Not trying to.
Ahem. When he rescued me from the parking lot and took me to his hotel. He told me that nothing happened that night, on account of the fact that he likes his women conscious.
But not too conscious. Or sane. Or self-aware.
I get out of bed. At first I think about removing part of my brain with an ice-cream scoop - just to give my Inner Goddess a scare, but she adjusts her sleep-mask, flips her pillow and flips me off before settling down to snores.
I tiptoe past Kate's room, although it's unlikely she's going to hear me over her own pornographic squeals. That cannot be normal. He's probably wearing her underwear even now. What the hell do they even see in each other? They never talk - they just do...that. All night.
Crispian is at the drawing board when I walk in. He is illuminated only by the spotlight above and at first I think he's naked, sitting in his own little pool of light, the hairs on his shoulders glistening softly. Then as I move closer I see he is wearing pajama pants and...oh...so poignant - the electronic tag around his ankle.
"Are you coming to bed?" I ask, plaintively.
He closes the drawing board as soon as he sees me there. "Hanna, go back to sleep."
"No. Why are you shutting me out? What complicated secrets are you brooding on, alone in the depths of night? Why won't you tell me?"
He turns his face away from the light. "I can't," he murmurs, his voice husky. "It's too dark. Too intense. I'm afraid you'd leave me."
"Crispian, why would I leave you when we're halfway through the second book of a trilogy?"
He gazes up from the locked and heavily symbolic drawing board, his eyes shadowed and his gaze hooded. "You left me once before, Hanna. I don't know if I could stand it if you left me again."
"I was confused."
His lips quirk up in a mirthless smile. "Were you, indeed?"
"Yes. You'd just been arrested - duh. And I just...couldn't see us having any future at the time. But now you're here and there's no reason for us not to have long boring circular conversations about our relationship forever and ever."
He steps out from behind the drawing board and holds out his hand. "You're right, of course. Where do you want to start? Abandonment issues or shall we just cut to the chase and take a shower so I can call myself a husk of a man and cry hopelessly while you tell me I'm awesome?"
"Abandonment issues sound good. Is this about your mother? Your real mother?"
He sighs. "Yes. The crack-whore."
"Do you remember her?"
"Vaguely. She was...kind, when she wasn't falling-down-fucked-up from smoking bucketloads of crack cocaine. She had pretty hair, and bad teeth. Sometimes she'd spend all night screaming and shitting herself - crack will do that to a person, but other times she'd sing to me."
"That's so sad," I murmur, my heart breaking for this beautiful, complex, fucked-up man of mine. Could it be that I'm better than other people for loving someone so deeply flawed? Yes, I think it could. "Do you remember what she used to sing?"
"It was I've Got You Under My Skin, I think. That or it was her way of telling me she had parasites. It was hard to tell."
"Come back to bed," I say, leading him towards the hallway. "I'll sing to you. If you really want me to."
"I bet you have a beautiful voice, Hanna."
"Well, you know..."
At that point Kate and Jesús ruin the moment by screeching like monkeys. I sigh and stomp back to bed, but this time Crispian follows me. He wraps around me like a slightly clammy octopus and I fall asleep dreaming of a lonely brown-eyed little boy with unruly hair that smiles innocently and loves me unconditionally, forgiving even the god-awful mess I can make of the simplest prepositional phrase.
I wake several hours later because it's morning. Crispian is snoring softly and there is no longer any 'slightly' about his clamminess. Maybe we should have opened a window. He's a close, sweaty sleeper. His bleary beautiful brown eyes blink alliteratively at me for several moments.
"Good morning, Miss Squeal," he says.
"Good morning, Mr. Neigh."
We're so witty, talking like this.
"Did you sleep well, faire maiden?"
"Forsooth I thinketh I did, kind sir. Although I fear the air is somewhat stale."
"Prithee the pepperoni gaveth me gas, my sweet damsel."
Kate knocks on the door. "Hanna, your mother's here - quit talking like an asshole and get up already!"
"Oh crap!" My mother! I put on a robe and throw open the door. "What is she doing here?" I ask.
Kate shrugs. "She said she spoke to you yesterday about it."
"Holy crap. This is insane. Why does everyone in the whole wide world suddenly want to pile into this apartment?"
"Dunno, dude," says Kate. "Probably because it's like the fucking Tardis or something."
Crispian leaps out of bed. "Did you just...make a Doctor Who reference?" he murmurs, in tones somewhere between reverence and horror. He loves Doctor Who.
Kate frowns. "Er...yeah? Is that a problem?"
"It's not for you," hisses Crispian, and storms off into the ensuite bathroom.
"What the fuck was that all about?"
"It's his culture. You might want to be a little bit more sensitive about it."
"What culture? The only cultures Cloppy's got going on are the unknown growths of bacteria festering under his moob flaps. If Doctor Who is a fucking culture then does that mean the whole of Great Britain are hipsters now? Cause they were watching that shit long before it was mainstream."
I stare at her for a long moment, puzzled as to why she thinks I would ever be interested in any of the pointless mental hairballs she regularly coughs in my general direction. Right then my mother floats down the hall in a cloud of patchouli, the tiny bells on her peasant skirt jingling as she walks. "My baby," she gasps, clutching me to her braless bosom. "Oh my Goddess, you're okay - I've been so worried about you."
"Mother, I'm fine," I say, detaching myself. "I told you I was fine. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get ready for work."
"Hanna, I'm worried about you. You're a very sick girl..." She trails me into the bedroom as I sort out my clothes. "Are they...you know?"
"No," I say, picking out a clean blouse. "I don't know."
She closes the bedroom door, shutting Kate out. "You do know, Hanna," she says, lowering her voice. "Are they back? The voices?"
"I've told you, I do not have voices."
Liar liar pants on fire.
I press my lips together, not trusting myself to respond.
My mother squeezes my upper arms. "Listen, I know a great guy here in Seattle, and he can fit you in this week..."
"I don't need to see anyone. There's nothing wrong with me. Everyone's a little bit crazy, for God's sake..."
"Well, yes Poopkin - that's true, but..."
There are noises behind the ensuite door - strange, unbathroomlike noises. My mother stares at the door for a moment and frowns. It sounds kind of like a lion is in there. Oh crap.
I try the door but it's stuck. I rattle the handle in rising panic.
"Hanna, what's the matter?"
"I think he's fallen into Narnia," I gasp.
My mother begins to cry softly. "Oh, my poor, poor baby."
The door suddenly jerks open and Crispian almost falls out, looking confused and smelling of Turkish Delight. A piping pixie voice behind him says "And don't come back!"
"Would somebody mind telling me what the hell is going on?" asks my mother.
"And me," says Crispian. "I was in there for like forty years."
"Time passes differently there," I explain, and turn back to my weeping mother. "It's nothing to worry about, Mom. It's just a really poorly written apartment. Stay away from the shark tank, the Stargate and the Chocolate Factory and you'll be fine. Now I really have to get ready for work."
As they leave the room I hear my mother say to Crispian, "I hope you know I hold you totally responsible for this." Yeesh - maybe we both have mother issues.
I get to work to find Timothy Grope has stuck a post-it to my computer screen. It simply says SEE ME. I don't see him so I get out my phone and start to type a text message to Crispian.
"Oh no you fucking don't," says Timothy Grope, appearing out of nowhere. Jeez - he looks pissed. What have I done to annoy him now? He swoops past my desk, grabs me by my ponytail and yanks me into Liz's office.
I immediately want to cry. Can he even do that? Is that legal? He slams the door and flips down the Venetian blinds. As the door slams I catch the scent of the air as it gusts from the main office; once again, it smells of popcorn.
"What part of 'pick up the manuscripts from your desk' were you not getting?" he says.
"There weren't any manuscripts," I murmur, staring down at my folded hands.
Timothy Grope holds up a CD. "These manuscripts," he said. "They were on your desk. Labelled 'FAO HANNA, PLEASE READ'. See?"
I blink in confusion. "I don't...but there were no...I just..."
"Look," says Timothy Grope, leaning close. "It's very fucking simple. The books
you had to read were on this CD, okay?"
"You can fit a book on that?" I murmur.
"You can fit a small library on a dongle the size of a fucking cigarette lighter, you moron. How did the entire digital revolution pass you by? Even my grandmother owns USB sticks and you're like, twenty." He straightens up, takes a deep breath and massages his temples with both hands. "Okay. Breathe. In. Out. Phew...okay...I'm calm. I. am. calm."
"Do you want me to go get you a green tea?" I venture.
"No way," he says, and he's not calm. He's not calm at all. "You're staying right here and you're going to read these fucking books, okay?"
"Um...I don't like fucking books. I'm okay if the characters make love but..."
He slumps down towards me again, his hands on the desk. "Hanna, we don't have time for your dumbass daisy-mae special snowflake routine, okay? If on page forty one Rodolphe crams his throbbing length up Mary Sue's quivering love tunnel and pistons it passionately back and forth until our heroine experiences actual female ejaculation, I expect you to deal with that like an adult. Because you are an adult. Kind of. Yes?"
I nod. "Yes."
"Good. Grab your laptop. Pick a book. There's fucking hundreds of these things."
He's not wrong. When he loads the files onto my laptop I gasp - how am I ever going to get through all these books? I pick out the first one I come across and oh my. Oh my oh my. It's um...
Bit spicy?
- It's disgusting is what it is. Why is everything about...butt stuff these days? It's all I ever hear through the walls at night - stick it there, stick it in hard. It's just...wrong. Why would you even do that?
Because it's fun?
- Ew.
Says you. After a handful of tepid wrigglings with your doughy douchelord of a boyfriend, you allegedly turned into the second coming of Linda Lovelace - emphasis on the coming. And now you're claiming that a cheerful bit of backdoor action is giving you the fucking vapours. Which is it?
- Look, just because Crispian and I don't hoot like gibbons and make the headboard bang against the wall doesn't mean we don't have better sex than anyone else.
I dunno. In my experience the really good times come with a certain amount of headboard banging.