He starts to shake his head slowly. “No,” he mumbles.
I had this all planned, how I was going to break it to him. I was gonna walk in the door with him, be cool, be casual, say something like, Johnny, look, Nicole’s OK. She’s OK...
None of it’s working.
Johnny’s shaking his head. “Cat, no, no, no,” he mumbles.
The tears are hemorrhaging inside me. I’m tightening my jaw and the sting behind it is painful. My chin starts to shake.
“No,” he says. “Oh, God. God...no.”
And then, I can’t hold it in anymore. He knows. He already knows.
So I nod my head.
I nod my head and as I do I begin to sob. I begin to sob and weep and, somehow, I utter the words, “Yes. Yes, Johnny. The baby’s...gone. Yes.”
Johnny’s roar sends me back in shock.
It’s the wail of a wounded lion. An animalistic, murderous, pained and dying howl of agony and madness.
There’s a crack against the wall. “NO!” he screams. “NO, FUCKING NO!” And then he slams his fist into the elevator wall again. Slams it. “NO! NO! NO!” He says it again and again, each NO! accompanied by a slam against the elevator wall, his fists, his feet, kicking, hitting...and weeping. Behind the anger, the fury, the rage—tears. His tears, interspersed between the Nos and the crush of bleeding fists and kicking.
There’s enough violence inside him to tear the elevator down.
I walk toward him, the vision of him hazy and covered by my own tears and misty eyes.
His arm is a blur of motion.
I approach slowly, slowly, letting him see me.
The bloodlust is inside him. He’ll hit anything right now. Anything.
But as soon as I’m close to him, a few inches, he gives one final wail, “Nooooooooo!” and then he falls back, falls back against the elevator.
The bravado is gone.
This big, beautiful man...shatters.
His body crumples onto the floor, sliding down the back of the elevator. His shoulders rise and fall and sobs crack from him like the crashing of waves against the rocks. Tears stream down his face, unable to hold them back, spittle on his mouth.
Shattered. Completely shattered and broken.
I slide down next to him.
In an almost spasmodic move, he reaches out and crushes my body to his, holds me under his arm. His chest bounces up and down with pain, unable to stop the weeping.
In all my years, I have never seen Johnny weep, not like this.
We sit here, I have no idea for how long. But at least an hour. At least. Sobbing, crying, holding. And when the hour is up, we sit longer, Johnny staring at the closed door of his apartment, me staring at the floor.
Saying nothing.
Feeling nothing.
Just emptiness.
Complete, desolate emptiness.
-10-
I’m asleep when Johnny starts to move. My lips are numb, and for an oblivious moment, all feels right in the world, all feels OK. No one has died, no one has suffered. I’m in my bed—
And then it hits me.
We’re in an elevator, crumpled up into a corner. And neither one of us has had the will to move.
“Come on,” Johnny croaks, standing, holding out his hand for me. “Come on.” He doesn’t look me in the eyes, doesn’t look at anything, only looks at the blackness of pain sitting in front of his eyes right now.
I grab his hand and feel my back pop as I get up.
Johnny lumbers over to his door, so much weight in every step, as if every step is a walk against a gale of wind. He pulls out his keys from his pocket, fumbles with them for a bit. Misses the keyhole. And then the door’s open.
He walks in, leaving the keys in the door, leaving the door open.
His jacket’s rumpled, so are his trousers.
Johnny walks over to a cabinet, pulls out a bottle of Jack. Grabs two glasses, puts ice in them. Pours liquor into one of them. Drinks. Pours another, picks it up, looks at it...and puts it down.
He grabs the bottle and the two glasses, walks down the sunken steps of the living room. Sits.
And stares at the two glasses.
He pours some Jack into the second one. Slides it in the direction of the second couch.
I walk down the steps, sit on the bigger couch. Grab the glass.
Johnny holds his up to me. I lift mine hesitantly, and he clinks his glass against mine. I put my drink down, not touching it.
He pours himself another, a full glass.
I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t.
As he looks at his third glass, I see his jaw tightening, a swallow. He stares at the liquid, takes a sip...then downs it.
He pours a fourth.
“Johnny,” I say, stretching my hand out. It touches his knee, and I remove it as soon as I realize what I’ve done. “Johnny, don’t do this.”
He looks at me with eyes so green and sad that my body falls apart.
He says nothing. Drinks. Then he cocks his head. “Tonight, Cat. Just tonight, OK? In memory... In memory of my dead...son.” He fights the tears back at that statement. “Or...” He coughs. “Or...daughter. We never knew, y’know. So tell me, Cat. Tell me, did she get an abortion, huh? Is that what she did?” He pours another drink, downs it. “Did she get a frickin abortion?”
I don’t answer.
That isn’t my place tonight.
I think my place is to just make sure Johnny survives the night.
He pours another, drinks it, looks at the glass for way too long. His head begins to sway, and then he does something that has my heart in my throat.
He throws the glass against the wall, and cries out, “Fucking bitch!” He grabs the bottle, swigs it, drinks almost half of it. “Fuck!” He crashes it down against the table, falls back against the seat.
And weeps, then laughs, then weeps.
My phone buzzes. Johnny doesn’t even notice.
Thunder, the screen says.
I stand, walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, take the call a little out of earshot.
“How is he?” Thunder asks.
I look over at Johnny, he’s at the bottle again. Swaying. “Not good.”
“That’s to be expected.”
Johnny starts singing, I can’t even tell what.
“Is that him?”
“Yeah.”
“Christ, boy has a terrible voice. You at his place?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, keep him there. He’ll stay out of trouble.”
“Thunder, he’s drinking...a lot. Johnny’s not a big drinker.”
“Well, then he’ll be puking a lot. Make sure you have something to catch it all. Just make sure he gets enough water and food into him. And, Christ, get some vitamins in him if you have to. Last thing we need is an emergency at the hospital. I’ve had enough of those for one day.”
“How is she?”
“Withdrawing.”
“I mean...about the baby.”
Johnny sings and holds the bottle up. “She’s upset. But not about the kid, Cat. She’s angry. And I can’t tell if she’s angry about losing the kid, or about us finding her.”
“Can I talk to her?”
Thunder says nothing.
“She’s still my friend, Thunder.”
I hear him sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Twenty six bottles of shit on the wall, twenty six bottles of crap! If one of those bottles happens to...fuck itself...how many bottles of fucked-up-shit on the wall?”
“Johnny?” Thunder asks.
“Yeah.”
“Christ, he really sings for shit.”
“Twenty-five bottles of bitches on the wall...”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Cat. I doubt Johnny will be running the nightclub any time soon, unless it’s running it down.”
“Thunder?”
“Yeah.”
“I must speak with her.”
“I c
an’t force her to speak with nobody, Cat.”
“Try.”
-11-
I wake up in a foreign bed, warm, covered in satin sheets. My first thought is a ridiculous one—although, considering the amount of whiskey being drunk last night, and that I don’t remember making it into the bed...
I swirl to look next to me.
And Johnny isn’t there.
“Christ,” I mutter. “Thank God.” That would’ve just been, yeah, catastrophic.
I lift myself onto my feet. My head hurts, but I don’t remember drinking anything.
I’m still in the clothes I was wearing.
When I get into the living room, I see Johnny. Passed out on the one-seater.
The bottle of Jack is on the table, only a third of it left.
Johnny’s still in his suit. If he keeps sleeping in that position, he’ll have two reasons for his headache in the morning.
I remember what Thunder told me about liquids, and vitamins.
I rummage through Johnny’s kitchen, and I find his stash. Protein powders, seriously high dosage vitamins. Amino Acids.
I grab some yoghurt from the fridge. He can’t take this shit on an empty stomach. OJ. Water. No, maybe he won’t want either. I grab a few sodas. Hell, he even has non-alcoholic beer.
I lay the spread out on the table in front of him, glass of water in my hand, another glass (with OJ) on the table. If he’s already hungover, it’ll be hell to get something down his throat. But heck, if I’m standing here holding the thing...
I kneel next to him, put my hand on his wrist.
“Johnny,” I whisper.
“Hmm.”
“Johnny, drink this.”
“Hmm, Nic? Hmm?”
I bow my head. “No, it’s Cat, Johnny. It’s—”
“His eyes shoot open, shocked...and then it hits him. He remembers. I see it in how his face changes. He sits up—
“Fuck, my head hurts.”
“Here, Johnny, drink this.”
He looks at the water like it’s poison. “You need to hydrate, Johnny.”
His eyes squint, and his lips curl in disgust. “OJ?” I ask.
He doesn’t say yes, but his disgusted face changes to a lighter one. I grab the OJ, and Johnny downs it in a gulp. “What...what time is it?”
“I don’t know. Must be early. It’s still dark out.”
He eyes the multiple plastic containers on the table. “You want me to take all that shit?”
“Uhm, yeah.”
He looks at me skeptically. “You’ve been talking to Thunder, haven’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Ah, Christ.” He grabs the yoghurt, pulls off the top and sucks down half of it. For a second I think he might hurl. Then he grabs some vitamins, some amino acids. Pops them down, realizes there’s no more OJ. He grabs the water from my hand and downs it. Grimaces. “Fuck, that’s horrible.”
“C’mon, Johnny, you gotta get to bed.”
“But you were in the bed.”
“I...I... Yeah, uhm, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you didn’t, because I took you there.”
“Oh.”
“I’m fine here, Cat.”
“Your neck,” I say. “If you keep sleeping like this, it’ll be stiff tomorrow or, well, today. Later today.”
Johnny looks at the bigger couch, gets up off the one-seater. Spreads himself out on the longer one. His eyes are closing the second he’s down. “Take the bed, Cat.”
I stand there looking at him, disheveled, messy. I go to the bedroom and rummage through a few cupboards looking for blankets. All I find are sexy dresses belonging to Nic, some more sexy dresses—whoa, didn’t need to see that...
Finally, I find some extra blankets.
I get out the room and lay it on Johnny’s body.
Can’t sleep in that room, I think. It’s their room...
I sit on the one-seater that Johnny had been sprawled on a minute ago.
And I stare at the front door.
I can’t sleep anymore.
My head hurts like crazy, so tired.
But I can’t sleep, not at all.
I look at my phone, hoping vainly there’ll be a message from Nic.
Nothing.
I look over at Johnny, so peaceful now. All that booze numbing away things he’ll have to face later. And it’ll be worse when he gets up. It’s always worse after booze.
I look at the bottle of Jack in front of me.
Almost empty.
-12-
It’s six AM when my phone buzzes again.
I look at the screen and wonder why my agent is calling me so early.
I step out onto the terrace, trying my best not to make a noise and wake Johnny up on the couch.
His sleep has been fitful, but at least he’s sleeping.
The air is crisp, but not cold. Summer is coming, and soon it’ll be too warm even at this hour. Traffic already whirrs down below, cars honking.
“Bill.”
“Catherine, have I got news for you!”
“It’s early.”
“I’m in Frankfurt. It’s midday already here.”
“What do you need?”
“Big news, Catherine. Big news. Hitting the scene like wildfire. I’m not allowed to say much, Catherine. But he asked for you by name. It’ll be his first photo shoot for any magazine worldwide, and he wants you. He saw your shots of Inkubus and Acid Reflex and said he wanted you specifically.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say much. Part of the contract.”
Musicians and Actors, always so special. “Fine. When?”
“Today, Catherine. Today! I’ve booked you a flight—”
“Bill, not today.” I look over at Johnny. He’s got no one here. No one. “Not today.”
“This is the highest rate we’ve ever had, Catherine. The magazine’s prepared to pay double, triple, even. They want this guy. Like I said, he’s tearing up the scene.”
“If he’s an actor, surely he’s done shoots before.”
“Not an actor, Catherine. He’s... Look, it’s part of the contract. He’s real private, keeps to himself. His latest film is taking Europe by storm.”
“Not today, Bill.”
“You can’t throw an opportunity like this to the wind, Catherine. This will make you. Your book is guaranteed to hit number one if you’re the one who does this guy’s first official shoot.”
I don’t care about sales. I just wanna take photographs. “Not today. It’s...it’s a...family emergency.”
“You gotta put family aside in this business, Catherine. The show must go on, you know?”
“Not today.”
Bill’s silent for a second. “They might get someone else.”
“Then let them.”
“Damn it, Catherine, you don’t make this easy for me.”
“Book it for a few days from now. I’ll let you know when.”
“I don’t... Damn it. The opportunity might slip us by.”
“Then let it. I have stuff to deal with here.”
“OK. Fine. Maybe it’s good that you hold off. Means I can negotiate a higher rate. The mag will be OK with it. You’re becoming a big name, Catherine. And that show you did on NBC... Well, you’re hot news right now. Hot news dies quick in showbiz.”
“Bill.”
“Fine, fine.” Pause. “Fine.” He mutters something. “Fine. Tomorrow then.”
“Not tomorrow. I’ll let you know.”
“Goddamnit.”
-13-
Johnny and I head over to Freddie’s Bagels and Breakfast. Johnny’s wearing shades. Indoors.
I’ve ordered pancakes and he’s gone with a greasy plate of sausages and bacon and eggs.
Johnny takes his shades off, squints out into the light outside. His eyes are still red, puffy. And his skin, usually so golden and beautiful, looks pale and jaundiced. “She texted me,” he says. “A few hours before I
got home last night.”
He pulls out his phone, slides it over to me.
I scroll through the text messages, find Nic’s name.
Open it.
I can’t believe what I see. Can’t believe it.
I stare at the phone, trying to take it in. Nic, oh, Nic...
The text has two words in it. Two words only:
Fuck you.
-14-
“Where did they find her?”
I hesitate. “I think... I think Nic should tell you that, Johnny.”
He forks a sausage. “I don’t think Nic’s coming back, do you?”
A lead weight settles on my head. “You don’t know that.”
“Well, if she does, she’ll need to find a place to stay. Because she’s not staying with me.”
“She can stay with us.”
Johnny’s eyes go dark.
“She’s my best friend, Johnny. I have to... I have to help her.”
He chews, looks out the window. “Let’s not talk about Nicole.”
Nicole. Not Nic.
We sit in silence for a while, chewing, sipping coffee. “Who called so early this morning?”
“You heard that?”
“I was restless.”
“My agent. Some bigshot in Europe asked for me by name and wants me to do his first ever public photo shoot.”
“My, my, my. The illustrious Catherine Ramsey.”
“Oh, come on.”
“When do you leave?”
“Uhm...” I play with a pancake. “Not sure. A few days?”
Silence again.
We finish our food and linger. Neither of us wanting to take the step to say goodbye, neither of us wanting to admit we both need each other right now, and that the thought of being with anyone else during this experience seems kind of...pointless.
As if only in pain Johnny and I come together.
“Wanna catch a movie?” he asks.
I smile. A movie. A nice, normal thing in this very abnormal day. “I’d love to.”
-15-
We’re at Washington Square park, strolling with ice creams in our hands.
We pull up on a bench. Johnny sits on the top of it, his feet on the seat, staring out at the bushes across from the walkway.
Out of the blue, Johnny says, “I’ve always wanted a family. I was brought up in a good one.”
Claiming Johnny: A New-Adult Novel Page 3