by Alexa Davis
She’s naked right along with everyone else.
I walk around to where Ellie has her back against the hot tub wall, and I set my hand on her shoulder. She looks up at me, saying, “Hey, baby! We were just talking about you. Why don’t you come in and join us?”
“Where did all these people come from?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Ralph here says he’s from New Jersey, but I haven’t had a chance to get to everyone yet.”
“Why is there a party at my house and I don’t know about it?” I ask.
With that, everyone but Ellie scatters. On their way out, it seems they fill others in because soon it’s just Ellie and me.
“What’s your deal?” she asks. “Andre and I thought it would be a good way to blow off some steam after all that’s been going on lately.”
“Andre?” I ask. “You called Andre Moriarty, just about the sleaziest guy making movies—and he doesn’t even do porn—and the two of you decided to throw a party?” I ask. “Now, when everything is hanging in the balance?”
“Calm down, will you?” she says. “He called the house. I didn’t know if it was you or if it was someone who needed to leave a message, so I answered. I told him you weren’t home, but we got to talking. Turns out he’s a really nice guy. I don’t think he’s a sleazy guy at all.”
“Have you ever watched his movies?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “If you think so little of him, why’s he calling your beach house?” she shoots back.
“He’s one of my oldest friends,” I answer. “I see your point. Still, this isn’t the time to do something like this, and whose idea was it for everyone to get naked?”
“I don’t know,” she says in that sing-song voice that I don’t want to hear right now.
“It was your idea?” I ask.
She shrugs. “So what? I’m a little drunk and I wanted to see if everyone would actually do it. By the way, this having power thing is fantastic. I haven’t even done anything and people I’ve seen on the news are dropping trou.” She starts laughing. “Sorry,” she says. “I heard that from Mike Humphry a little while ago and it still cracks me up.”
This isn’t happening. “Why don’t we go inside and talk a minute?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I’m mad at you.”
“You’re mad at me?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I was right in the middle of a perfectly wonderful conversation with Loreen LeFleur, Janella Swiss, and Nyla Th—”
“What are you doing?” I ask. “What is this? Have I offended you in some horrific way I don’t know about?”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asks. “After everything I’ve been through these last couple months, I’d think you’d support me having a little fun.”
The funny thing is, I know she didn’t cheat on me. Still, she’s not acting like herself, and I’ve seen it happen so many times, I know exactly what’s happening.
“Ellie, we need to go inside. Grab your clothes. I’ll get everyone home and you and I can talk. There are some things about this kind of life you need to understand,” I tell her.
“Nah,” she says. “I’m good. Hey, come back in, you guys!”
I turn to find about a dozen of my stupider guests peeking their heads around the corner, watching us. As soon as Ellie gives the green light, though, everyone’s getting back into the pool and the hot tub. Not everyone disrobes this time, but I still see a lot more of very familiar people than I ever wanted.
“We’ve got to go,” I tell her.
Ellie leans back, saying, “Where are we going?”
“How drunk are you?” I ask.
“I only had a couple of drinks, but ever since I got in this hot tub, woo!” she says, wiping her brow.
Thirty people echo, “Woo!”
“Come on,” I tell her. “It’s thinning your blood and making you loopy.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s kind of fun.”
“No,” I tell her. “I’m not going to stand here and argue with you.”
“Why do you think I told everyone to come back in the pool?” she asks.
Ever since she came back, I don’t know if it was Amelie, or exactly what it was, but Ellie’s starting to lose herself the same way nearly everyone I’ve ever met who came into this lifestyle has. I can’t let that happen.
I’m not getting through to her this way, though, and I need to make sure I can get everyone out of here without flipping my lid. Without a word, I start back around toward the back door and inside the house.
Making my way through the party toward the kitchen, I’m bombarded by three separate senators, each a little too inebriated for distinguished conversation. I politely, then impolitely, push my way past.
As usual, nobody’s in the kitchen, because nobody wants to risk having to clean anything, but when I hold my hand above the stove, I can feel the heat rising from it. There’s a bottle of Sambuca on the counter and I ever so clumsily tip it over onto the still-hot burners.
By the time I’m on my way out and back to dodging politicians, smoke is starting to creep out of the kitchen. It’s not long before someone yells, “Fire!” and everyone’s running for the doors, though not in every case the nearest ones.
As I come onto the deck, the people outside start to catch word. Before I’m to the side, everyone but Ellie, nude or not, is running in some crooked direction away from the house. Finally rounding the corner I see Ellie putting her clothes on.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “I heard something about a fire?”
“There’s a jet that drops flame-retardant on the stove whenever the alarm in the kitchen goes off, and it extinguishes everything,” he says. “We were going to release it next year, but we never quite got the cleanup part right.”
“What?” she asks.
I bend down and hand Ellie her shirt. I tell her, “We need to talk.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mulholland
Ellie
It’s been three days since I’ve been back home. By home, I mean home, home.
After that party, Nick and I had a talk. I dare say it didn’t go quite the way either of us wanted it to. He says I’m changing, that I need some time away from all the distractions of New York.
He says he’s going to join me here when he can, but we’ll see if that ever happens.
I know I should be at the store right now, trying to hock what I have for next month’s rent, but I don’t feel much like going anywhere.
I’ve hardly left my room, except to take care of Max and Sammie. Naomi left them with a friend of hers who does that sort of thing for a living. She takes excellent care of animals and all, but the woman can’t get it through her mind that not every animal needs a poodle cut.
Sammie has little puffs of straight, short fur sticking up in the oddest directions while Max looks like a canine social deviant. The way Bernice lets them run around her fenced-in three-acre lot with other animals, though, the two couldn’t care less about the bad groom job.
They’re happy, so I’ve learned to live with the occasional look from people on the street when I take Max out for a walk. Problem is, Max’s walks are the only time I’ve left the apartment since I’ve been back.
Nick says I’m changing, that I’m losing that thing about me that he fell in love with oh, so very long ago. The thing is I know I’m starting to change. I’m getting sick of people walking over me all the time.
How much money I have or what I do doesn’t matter. I sat down with a lot of people who will be talked about for generations, and small-town as I am, we got along just fine.
My door opens and Naomi walks into the room.
I sit up in bed, saying, “Where have you been?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” she says. “When everyone ran out of the party because you were stripping or whatever—”
“That did not happen,” I interrupt. “Along with everyone else, I removed my cloth
es in a very mature, even ladylike way. Besides, everyone left because of the smoke coming out of the kitchen.”
“Whatever,” Naomi says. “Anyway, so I was looking online because I found Nick’s secret liquor cabinet. By that, I mean, it’s like bigger than this whole apartment and there’s booze—booze everywhere!”
“What’d you steal?” I ask, lying back in bed and covering my face with my blanket.
A moment later, Naomi’s on top of me, pulling the cover back off, saying, “I didn’t steal anything.”
“Okay, what’d you try to steal?” I ask.
“A bottle of Jose Davolos Cognac,” she says. “If that maid lady wanted a big payout, instead of spreading your tits all over the world, she should have just snagged a bottle of that and sold it on eBay.”
“You tried to steal a two-million dollar bottle of cognac?” I ask.
“Calm down, I put it back right after I took it off the shelf,” she says.
I lean up on my elbows and ask, “And why did you do that?”
She looks away a moment, saying, “There may have been an alarm.”
“Okay, so why aren’t you in prison?” I ask. “You know when you’re out on bail you’re not supposed to leave the state, right?”
“Oh stop that,” she says, slapping my arm. “Nobody’s arresting anybody. I did have to play some shadow games with that one maid, though. I think her name is Fern or something old-fashiony like that.”
“Her name is literally Jane Doe,” I respond.
“Whatever,” Naomi says. “The point is, she does not stop looking. After a while, I started to get hungry, though, so I was eating some crackers and drinking some water—”
“What were you really having?” I interrupt.
“Okay, the crackers were imported and I may have slathered them with caviar, but the water was just water,” she says.
“You’re a sterling example of knowing proper boundaries,” I respond.
“I know right,” she says. It takes her this long before she’s looking down at me, saying, “Are you all right?”
“I think it’s over,” I tell her. “That party—I don’t even know if that’s what did it. Ever since I got back there, I just feel like I can’t do anything right.”
“It’s not over,” she says. With a laugh, she adds, “You were pretty wasted, though. I almost took some pictures to show you, but I thought that might be a bad idea after the other thing.”
“How bad was I?” I ask.
Naomi returns, “You don’t remember?”
“I think I remember most everything,” I answer. “Honest opinion: was I or was I not the most embarrassing person you’ve ever seen at a party.”
“No,” she says. “But I’ve been to a lot more parties than you.”
She always has to have the upper hand somewhere.
“It’s not on the news or anything, is it?” I ask. “I haven’t exactly been watching a lot of television the last while.”
“You’re fine. Nobody snitched,” Naomi says. “I kind of do think more people could have seen your naked belly flop into the hot tub, though. That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” She starts laughing and she grabs herself between the legs with both hands, saying, “Ow, my vag!”
I was hoping it hadn’t been that noticeable. At the time, everyone was kind enough to pretend it hadn’t happened. I guess I got into a false comfort zone.
“You’re not telling me something,” I say. “I said it was probably over, you said it’s not. What don’t I know?”
Naomi giggles, “Well, for one thing, you kind of need to turn your hips before you hit the water, otherwise you’re going to get smacked right in the—”
“Not what I’m talking about,” I interrupt.
“Oh yeah, right,” she says. “So, I was going through some of Nick’s stuff for perfectly valid purposes and I came across something.”
“Did you want to tell me what it was, or …”
“He’s not breaking up with you,” she says.
“Then why would he send me home?” I ask. “If he’s so gaga over me, why am I lying in my apartment in Mulholland while my annoying kleptomaniac sister keeps clutching herself randomly, mouthing that stupid word.”
“You’re the one that said it,” she says.
I snap back, “Well, it hurt.”
Finally, I’m able to let out at least a little laugh.
Naomi climbs on top of me and starts tapping my forehead. “You’re not listening to me,” she says. I’d try to fight her off, but she’s already kneeling on my arms.
“Okay,” I say, thrashing my head and trying to avoid those bony fingers. “What were you going to tell me?”
“I can’t tell you now,” she says. “The moment’s passed. It was supposed to be this glorious thing and now you’ve ruined it by making me discipline you.”
“Just get off of me!” I grunt as I manage to roll my bodyweight enough that Naomi loses her balance and falls onto the bed next to me.
“Now what?” I ask.
“Oh, poor Max,” she says. “He kind of looks like a posh lion, don’t you think?”
I reach over and twist Naomi’s ear, saying, “What was it you wanted to tell me so bad?”
“Ow!” she says, swatting at my hand, but only succeeding in making it worse. “Okay, okay,” she says. “Let go and I’ll tell you.”
“I fell for that too many times when I was six,” I tell her. She’s so focused on protecting that ear, she leaves the other one wide open, so with my free hand, I latch onto that one.
“Fine!” she shouts. “It’s a ring!”
I release my sister from my kung-fu grip. “What?”
“Ellie,” she says, rubbing both her ears, “he bought you a ring.”
“Oh shut up,” I say and smack one of her hands covering an ear.
She pulls the hand away from her ear sharply and she’s moving her jaw around, saying, “That was horrible. Don’t do that to anyone ever.”
“Maybe he had thoughts, but you weren’t there for the last conversation,” I tell her.
“Well, then tell me about it,” she says. “Enlighten me.”
I wince. “I kind of only remember bits and pieces,” I admit. “That hot tub after the liquor was a bad idea.”
“Hey, at least you didn’t pee in there,” she says.
“That’s true,” I agree. “What I do remember, though, it wasn’t the kind of conversation you have when you’re about to pop the question.”
“Say whatever you want,” she says, resting her head on her hand. “He got you a ring.”
“Are you doing that thing where you lie to me just to see if I can tell?” I ask. “This really isn’t the time or the topic—”
“Yeah,” she says, “gotta level with you. I would have taken that course and everything, but then I realized I didn’t want to after all, so I just watched a few episodes of the show they made about it.”
“So you’re an admitted liar telling me to trust you?” I ask.
She jabs me in the ribs just to show me she can and says, “Don’t believe me then. The thing was freaking huge, though. You should have seen it.”
Chapter Twenty
Reality
Nick
The board room is empty, but it won’t be for long. I’ve called a meeting and we’re going to discuss the terms of my resignation as CEO of Stingray.
There just isn’t a point anymore. I’ve tried to change directions, tried announcing one of the more notable things we were saving for next spring—a cellphone that builds up a small backup charge with every step a person takes, rewarding them with extra off-the-charger time for physical activity—but everyone hailed it for exactly what it was: the last desperate attempt of a man who can’t let go.
Even if I could keep my job, the company’s not pulling out of this nosedive without something drastic. Maybe this will be seen as just another desperate attempt, maybe not. All I know is I’m not willing to see
what feels like the only thing I have left go up because I’m not willing to give up control of it.
I’m going to be one of those guys all the late night guys talk about for a while, but lately, what else is new?
The door opens and the board starts filing in, one by one. I knew they were expecting this meeting sooner or later, but they could have done a better job hiding the fact.
“Come in and have a seat,” I tell them. “There’s only one item on the agenda, and I think we all know what it is.”
“We’ve done some new math,” Reeves says. “I think we can nearly double your legacy fee if you’re willing to step down now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say, raising a hand. “We’re doing bad enough without me grabbing a huge payout on my way out the door. I want two things and two things only,” I say.
“All right,” Reeves says. “We’re listening.”
“First,” I start, “I’ll transfer my stock in the company over to whomever replaces me, but I keep all my private holdings. I won’t screw the workers the way you’re going to, but I’m not going to be left humiliated and destitute.”
“What else?” Reeves asks, scratching his red chin in anticipation.
“Second, I know I can’t convince you not to move the company,” I say, “but we’re going to do right by all our employees. Everyone gets a fair severance and a recommendation.”
“Define ‘fair,’” Reeves says.
“They keep their benefits for one year after they’re laid off or until they find another job, and they get no less than sixty-percent of what they would have made over the same period,” I answer.
“That’s going to cost a lot of money we frankly can’t throw around right now,” Reeves says. “I don’t know if we can do that and keep the company afloat. After the expense of that building in Mulholland that’s never going to get used. You left us with a state-of-the-art office building in a place nobody wants to go.”
“You have my terms,” I say. “Take it or leave it, but I’m warning you: You leave it, and you’re going to spend the last days of this company trying to pry me out of my office because I will not leave my people with nothing. And make no mistake, they are my people. Either you meet my terms, or I’ll make sure each one of you goes down just as hard as I do.”