Why did she tell him he could go ahead and take one? Why did he ask her in the first place? Isn’t the situation itself enough for him—isn’t she enough? Why does he feel the need to inject it with something else? She said she didn’t want one herself, why not add that she’d prefer he didn’t either?
But what was she supposed to do? You don’t come with your boyfriend out to his parent’s cabin on Long Lake just to go all prude on him when things are getting interesting. Not that they’re very interesting now. At least not for her.
Five minutes after taking the drug—which he had crunched up and snorted to speed up delivery (an unpleasant sight in itself)—Thomas had been plastering himself against her, drowning her in kisses and moans like something out of a tawdry romance novel. Telling her he loved her. Telling her she’s beautiful. Almost sounding convincing. Five minutes after that, they were naked on the bed and ready to go… except that not all of him was ready.
That happens sometimes with this stuff, he told her—or so he’s heard. ‘Cause he doesn’t do stuff like that, use drugs recreationally. Right. Of course he doesn’t.
“I think I’m ready to try again,” Thomas says, getting up from the bed, where he’s been doing sort of an open-armed backbend, flopping around like a dying porpoise.
“Okay,” she says, with nothing in the same thesaurus as conviction.
He comes over and embraces her, the pressure against her leg telling her he might indeed be ready this time. God, when they were in the bed before, and he was slack but trying to rally—that had not been a good feeling. She doesn’t want to go there again. She’s been trying not to have unreasonable expectations about this event over the past few weeks, trying not to build it up too much in her head, but the sight of Thomas bent over her, fiddling with his thing like that, trying to get it going or whatever… that was more than a few shades off from what she’s been picturing.
He grinds his hips against her. “I feel so close to you. Like we’re joined. No… more than that. Like two syllables—like join-ed.”
Her phone buzzes on the dresser. Thank God.
She peels herself away from Thomas, and he continues swaying to Death Cab for Cutie as she goes over to the dresser. She looks at her phone—two missed calls and a string of text messages, all from Jacob.
9:33pm - “Hey C, call me.”
9:47pm - “You there? Seriously, call if you can. Text. Something.”
10:01pm - “Where are you?”
10:07pm - “hellooooooo…”
10:11pm - “?”
It’s not like him to pelt her with messages like this. Something must be up.
She excuses herself to the living room, leaving Thomas to writhe contentedly, join-ed to the music as much as he had been to her.
The alleyway is better. Quieter. He can prop himself against the side of the building, sip the half-pint of bourbon the guy almost wouldn’t sell him due to his questionable out-of-state ID and the shiner forming on his face, and collect his thoughts. He shouldn’t be alone right now. He knows that. But he can’t face his band mates. They’ve been calling and texting him all night—” dude, where you at?” “worried man - you know we gotta hit the road tomorrow”—but it’s just too much, too close, too raw. He can’t let them see his tears. He needs some contact with the outside. A fresh perspective on the situation.
His phone buzzes. He looks—Clara. Finally. He answers. “Hello?”
“Jacob? What’s going on?”
“Hey, C. I’m kinda… I’m having a bit of a hard time here.”
“Are you drunk?”
“A little.”
“What’s going on?”
“I need to tell you something, C.”
“What?”
“You’re not at home, are you?”
“No, I’m… on a volleyball retreat.”
“Is anyone else there?”
“… No. I just stepped outside. What is it, J? You’re worrying me.”
Jacob takes a deep breath, his whole body trembling. “Clara, I’m… I’m gay.”
…
“Hello? Did you hear me?”
“Uh huh.”
“I said I’m gay.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, you mean you knew already?”
“Yeah. Matt told me like two years ago.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t think it was really a secret. Maybe you ought to give Matt a call.”
“It’s like 5am in Amsterdam. Do you think Mom and Dad know? About me, I mean.”
“Maybe. Not sure. Is that what’s the matter?”
“No, it’s…” Another deep breath. “I got dumped, C. I’m really hurting.”
“Awww, dude, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Where are you?”
“Burlington.”
“How far’s that from home?”
“Like a five-hour drive.”
“Okay. What I think you should do is sober up and get a few hours of sleep, then head home first thing in the morning. Don’t even tell Mom and Dad that you’re coming. Just surprise them. They’ll be so happy to see you.”
“Yeah… that might not be such a bad idea.” He senses his sister getting impatient. “Hey, C?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could come home too? We could hang out for a couple of days?”
She hesitates. “I don’t know, J. They might not let me leave the retreat.”
“Even if you say it’s an emergency?”
“I don’t know. I’ll be back tomorrow night anyway. I’ve got school on Tuesday.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t have the strength to mask his disappointment.
“Listen, I’m really sorry, J, but I gotta go.”
“Okay.”
“Hang in there. You’ll be all right.”
“Thanks.”
Getting off the phone, returning to the bedroom, witnessing the ongoing spectacle of her boyfriend’s precipitous launch into a drug-fueled revelry, two things are clear to Clara: one, there’s no way she’s making love to Thomas now; two, she’s got to get home tonight.
The trouble is, she doesn’t have her car. Thomas picked her up from the retreat. And there’s no way she’s going to convince him to leave in his present state. Anyway, she wouldn’t want to be driving with a passenger in his condition. She’ll have to wait until he comes down a bit and then explain the situation to him, trusting that when he’s sober, his usual self—the kind, understanding boy she’s been smitten with—will emerge. She has no idea what she’s going to say to her parents, how she’s going to explain why she’s home at 3am the night before she’s supposed to return.
But she’ll have the two-hour drive to think of something. For now, her main task is to babysit Thomas. Maybe it’s just as well. Maybe she wasn’t ready to have sex with Thomas. If she’s going to let a little psychotropic excursion and a convo with her possibly suicidal gay brother get in the way… then how much does she really want to do this?
“Watch your language,” says the lady behind the front desk, shocks of grey hair accentuating her disdain. “This may not be the Hilton, but I ain’t gotta abide no obscenity.”
“Sorry,” says Jacob, having let slip a string of choice words upon realizing that he left his wallet in one of the pockets of that goddamn-motherfucking indigo hoodie. And he left that goddamn-motherfucking indigo hoodie on the floor of the bathroom stall at that goddamn-motherfucking dive bar. He’d be glad just to cancel his credit cards and leave that sweatshirt for whatever vagrant wanders in and finds it, but all he’s got on him is a damp five-spot in the front pocket of his jeans. He’ll have to go back for the hoodie. There’s no way he’s spending the night at the apartment his band mates have rented. He needs space. He needs quiet. He needs to rest.
He excuses himself, apologizing again for his language, and slips out the front door.
<
br /> “Illuminating nose of your vacancy sighs!” Thomas sings. Not the right lyrics, but at least his attention is on the music rather than on her.
Clara goes to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. The fog has cleared. And something about her is different. Her face has changed. Or perhaps the way she’s seeing it has changed. She’s been so worried about trying to impress her boyfriend, a guy who’s now rocking out in the next room to maybe the most overrated band of the century, that she’s been seriously slacking off, neglecting to do her summer reading or to start her college application essays. WTF is up with that?
Leaning over the sink, staring in the mirror, she promises herself that she won’t do this anymore. She will never try to be anything other than what she is.
And that, she’s pretty sure, is better than anything Thomas is offering.
“Don’t I know you?” says the bartender, catching Jacob by the forearm as he heads for the bathroom.
“Yeah,” says Jacob, “I was here earlier.”
“I know. I remember our little chat in the men’s room. Didn’t expect you back.”
“I forgot something.” The bartender keeps his hand on Jacob’s forearm. His fingers are strong, a little rough. Not at all like Caleb’s. He’s looking at the bruise on Jacob’s face.
“Jesus, what happened to you?”
“It’s been a rough night.”
“I bet.”
“Look, I just need to check in the men’s room—”
“It’s not there,” says the bartender. Jacob gives him a puzzled look, which the guy returns with a barely-there, Bruce-Willis-type smile. “Your hoodie, you mean? That’s what you’re looking for, right?”
Jacob nods.
“Wait here.” The bartender heads off to the back of the house. Jacob glances around, sensing eyes on him, feeling like his wounded face is a giant flashing red light: Look here! Look here! Look who got his ass beat!
The bartender returns a moment later with Jacob’s sweatshirt in hand, continuing to hold it for a moment as Jacob takes it. Jacob checks the pockets… yes. His wallet is there.
“Thank God.”
“Would’ve sucked to lose that,” the guy says, smiling for real now.
“Yeah, especially tonight. I gotta get a motel room.”
“You sure about that?”
Jacob looks at him, puzzled as hell.
“I’m off in about half an hour. What do you say you hang out, and we see if that motel room is necessary?”
Whoa. No way. He shouldn’t. He absolutely 100% without a doubt should not. He’s got to get some rest, regroup. It’s no time to be—
“That sounds all right,” he hears himself saying. “I’ll be by the juke box, seeing if you got anything legit here.”
“I’m sure you’ll find something you like.” The bartender gives him a wink and goes off. Jacob strolls over to the jukebox and pulls the five-dollar bill from the pocket of his jeans, giddy from the booze and the emotional roller coaster he’s been on. He shakes his head in wonder at the things people manage to do without even thinking.
CHAPTER FIVE: Naughty Boy
Big Nat Muldoon is one heck of a shot. Whatever else John thinks of his future father-in-law—and there’s plenty he could say about the man—he has to give him that. His hammy hands cradle the shotgun like an infant, he pulls the trigger with total assurance—finesse even—and most often he hits his mark.
It’s a balmy Georgia morning in the summer of 1979. Nat’s satchel is filled nearly to the brim with dead ducks by the time he and John take a break to eat the turkey sandwiches Val’s mother packed for them.
John has yet to bag a single bird.
“How hard can it be?” he had said to Val after accepting her father’s invitation to go hunting. John had never fired, nor even held, a gun before, but his years on the lacrosse field had given him confidence in his hand-eye coordination.
“I think you ought to practice a little this afternoon,” she said. “We can go out in the field, and I’ll show you.”
“Look, if I can find the five hole while running full-tilt with a 200-pound defender charging at me, I think I can point a stick at a duck and make it go bang.”
Val shook her head. “There’s a bit more to it than that. You’ve got to learn the right firing position, learn to weld your cheek to the stock—”
“Do what to the what now?”
“You see! You don’t even know the basics.”
“I thought you didn’t even like guns.”
“I don’t. But you don’t spend nineteen years in the Muldoon clan without learning how to fire a weapon. You’ve got to deal with the recoil—and the noise. These are not minor factors.”
John put his hands on Val’s shoulders. “Look, I agreed to devote one afternoon to this Neolithic nonsense—I don’t want to lose another whole afternoon preparing for it.”
“What do you care,” she said, “as long as you’re doing it with me?”
“There are other things I’d much rather be doing with you.” He moved his hands to her hips. She pushed him away.
“You know the rules. No fooling around in my Mommy and Daddy’s house.”
“Come on, they won’t hear us. This house is huge. There’s acreage between us and them.”
“My dad will know. He’ll see it in our eyes. He’ll smell it on us.”
“That’s gross.”
“I know. So back off.” She stepped around him and went over to the dresser to grab a hair elastic. “Let’s go do some target practice.”
They had not, however, gone shooting that afternoon. As they were preparing to leave, Val had gotten a call from a friend, inviting them to a party at her parents’ lake house. John had insisted that they go, which they did, drinking too much and returning home late.
In the morning, Big Nat had some fun with John’s haggard condition, blasting country music as he gunned the jeep at forty, fifty miles an hour down the winding dirt road to his favorite hunting spot. “You musta been soaked better’n a beaver’s beaver last night,” the man had said, blowing a plume of cigarette smoke over to John’s side of the car.
His inexperience with the weapon was obvious from the start. The older man had to help him hold it, load it, pump it—everything. He wasn’t fooling anybody. Even the dogs seemed unimpressed.
The first flock of birds rose to the sky in such a flurry that John couldn’t set his aim on one in time to get a shot off, and he drew down without firing.
“You’re more likely to hit one if you pull the trigger,” observed Big Nat.
When he finally did get a shot off, it cracked like thunder on his already splintered nerves. He was tempted to say “to hell with it” right then and walk the four miles back to the house—screw this crazy Southern man and his demented Southern pastimes. But that was out of the question. However intelligent, confident, and independent Val was, her father still yielded considerable influence in her decisions. If John was serious about her, which he was, he had better do his best to ingratiate himself to everyone in her family, even—no, especially—this shotgun-wielding patriarch.
Still, the shot dealt such a blow to his senses, blasting his nerves to a fine powder, that his subsequent attempts were hesitant and shaky. He had played hungover before, but this was totally different from anything he’d done on the lacrosse field, and his brain was in no condition to be building fresh neural pathways at the moment.
An hour went by with no improvement.
Two hours, and he was still a mess.
The day was shaping up to be a total disaster. What was he going to say to Val? How would he look her father in the eye for the rest of the week?
Things improve after lunch. With a turkey sandwich and a quart of water in his belly, John’s vitals are on the upswing. His hands begin to steady, and his focus sharpens.
A little past noon, a flight of ducks takes off. John raises the shotgun and takes aim. He can feel Big Nat’s eyes on him, scrutinizing his ev
ery move. He steadies the barrel and squeezes the trigger—firmly but not suddenly, as Nat has instructed him. The shot blasts. A body falls from the sky, landing in the heather. Big Nat’s hound takes off to retrieve it.
Big Nat slaps John hard on the back as they look down at his first kill. The shot hit the bird squarely in the breast, staining its front feathers a deep crimson. John stares at the carcass, amazed at the power he has wielded.
“Feels all right, dun’t it?” says Big Nat.
John nods. Yes, it feels all right.
It feels more than all right.
It feels really Goddamned good.
9:47 p.m.
“Fee… fie… fo… fum…” Dresden bellows, taking oversized steps across the Persian carpet, John’s MacBook tucked under one arm. He stops in front of John, leans over, and finishes with a whisper, “I smell the blood of a wealthy man.” He sets the computer down on the desk and turns it to show John the results of his investigation.
Twenty minutes earlier, John had helped Dresden log into his banking and investment accounts, offering up his passwords freely. Val might have killed him for putting up so little fight. But Val’s not here. For the second time in the evening, Stanley has taken his wife away from him, and John doesn’t know where she is. It’s just him and Dresden here in the second-floor study.
“I crunched some numbers,” Dresden continues, “trying to get an estimate of your overall worth. This is what I came up with.” He clicks on the calculator app. The figure that appears seems unreal to John.
His surprise must show on his face. “Yeah,” Dresden says, chuckling, “I had about the same reaction. Nine figures. Not bad. I’m a little disappointed we don’t have a bona fide billionaire on our hands, but whatcha gonna do? Nonetheless, you’re one of the richest people in the state, did you know that?”
“I… I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Dresden laughs. “You just crack me up, Doc.” He claps John hard on the back. “Really, you’re too much.”
“Where’s my wife?” John’s getting antsier by the minute being apart from Val.
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