Almost Wrong

by Aubrey Parker

  It’s tempting to tell myself that Angela was my first love and that, through a Romeo and Juliet sequence of events, we’ve been unjustly kept apart. But it was my decision to leave home, and my decision to hook up with Samantha no matter how much I try to blame it on Duncan. I’m the one who’s failed to break up with her even though I should. I can’t decide if that’s because Sam has her hooks in me or because I’m a coward. She’s a crutch of sorts and gives me someone to treat badly. But even that I can’t quite be sure about: Do I treat Sam like shit because she is a piece of shit? Or do I treat her like shit because I’ve made myself feel better by beating others up?

  No. I’m fine. Even if Samantha and I were dysfunctional before now, I’m a new man today. This was the day I changed my fate, with Angela’s help. I used to let others define me. But Angela and I broke through all of that. I’ve changed.

  It would be wrong to stay with Sam now. But whatever came before was just prior to my fresh start. Same with Duncan. He’s a good guy, and I like him, but he’s also kind of an asshole. Everything is more extreme now that I have money and we spend so much time together. Duncan’s twice the womanizer that I am. I used to smoke weed, drink, and have flings with hot girls. Today, I snort coke, take Molly, do all sorts of other shit, and cut loose with multiple women at once. Bigger and better, Duncan says. It’s true for Dreadnought, and that’s great. But Duncan applies excess to everything, and always has.

  I need to break up with Sam. I need to rein things in with Duncan. I need to get my shit together. I have more than one psychiatrist but don’t go often enough and only listen to what I want to hear. I need to kill those old demons. Maybe that means facing my dad, and maybe it doesn’t, but now that Angela’s here I finally have someone to lean on.

  We sit. They’ve been here for an hour already, and the wine bottle on the table surely isn’t the first. If they suspect what just happened between me and Angela, I can’t see it on their faces. To them, she’s my stepsister. They didn’t understand why I’d renewed acquaintances when I set this up, but now they’ll need to.

  I wonder what Samantha would say about me being with Angela. Not as my current girlfriend, but as a PR specialist intent on polishing Dreadnought’s public image. I’ll bet she’d advise me against it. I’ll bet she’d call me a stupid, asswipe, cunt-headed motherfucker. Sam can be such a delicate flower.

  The first course is served. We didn’t order, so it seems that Sam and Duncan must have ordered for us. That’s a little annoying, but whatever. Duncan taught me how to eat well in the first place, and they’ll probably just give Angela whatever they ordered for me.

  But throughout our salads and appetizers, Duncan and Sam keep snickering, maybe a little tipsy. I don’t know why, but it’s really annoying. I wonder if this was a good idea.

  “So, Angela,” Samantha asks, emphasizing her name too much, “what do you do for a living?”

  I eye Samantha. I’m thinking of saying it doesn’t matter, but what kind of an answer is that? It’s the first non-idle question directed her way, and she’s a big girl. I strongly suspect this is Samantha being a bitch, knowing our story and where Angela comes from, but raising the objection will look too defensive.

  “I work in a restaurant.”

  “Ah,” Sam says. “You own a restaurant.”

  “I work in a restaurant,” Angela repeats.

  “As a banquet manager, wine steward, saucier, sous chef? Which restaurant? Mélisse, Spago, Bäco Mercat?

  “TGI Friday’s,” she says, after a slight hesitation.

  I look over. Angela looks a bit humbled, which was, of course, the point. I stare at Samantha.

  “Sam’s a public relations specialist with Banner,” says Duncan. It’s unnecessary information. First of all, everyone here knows Samantha’s job. And second, while we might be impressed that she’s with Banner Agency, Angela won’t have any idea what Banner is or why working there is noteworthy.

  “What’s a public relations specialist do?” Angela asks, trying to recover.

  “I make sure my clients look good. That they attend the right events and get press for the good things they do.” She sips her wine. “That they don’t make fools of themselves, like Hunter tends to do without my help.”

  It’s a trap. I want to warn Angela not to ask her follow-up question, but she does anyway. Damn, I know Sam too well. This is transparent to me, but Angela has no idea.

  “What kind of things does he do?” Angela smiles. Of course she does. We’re finally past those stupid old taboos; she’s stepped into what probably feels like a new life standard despite her pride; she doesn’t feel bad about violating Sam’s relationship with me because of all the horrible things I told her on the ride home — the reasons I promise to break up with Samantha tonight, once dinner is over. She’s trying to be friendly because, in our old neighborhood, attackers come at you with their fists.

  But shaking hands to hold a knife behind the back is a hallmark of my current circles.

  “Oh, all sorts of stupid things.” Sam gives me a crocodile smile. “Drinking way too much and beating someone up like he did a month ago. Too many drugs—”

  Angela looks at me. “Drugs?”

  “—getting wrapped up with the wrong people.” Sam smiles, ready to go for the throat. “Going bottom-feeding, hooking up with people from his past that were long gone and good riddance.”

  Angela flinches, but I know she’s giving Samantha benefits of doubts she doesn’t deserve. “His past wasn’t all bad,” she says.

  “I guess we’ll see.” Samantha smiles.

  A befuddled look crosses Angela’s face, but we’re interrupted by the waiter, who’s brought the entree.

  “What’s this?” Angela didn’t order grilled cabbage leaf, and I have no idea if she’ll like it.

  “The chef chars the leaf and serves it with a silken miso flan.” Duncan points to Angela’s plate. “And that’s a smoked almond milk Anglaise with fennel pollen. You’ll love it.”

  “Oh,” says Angela. Looking baffled, she picks up the wrong fork.

  “You’ve never had it?” Samantha tries to sound shocked.

  “No.”

  “Well, I guess they took it off the TGI Friday’s menu.”

  Angela blinks, unbelieving. She looks right at me as if to ask if she really just heard that.

  “Sam …” I say.

  Samantha changes the subject. “So. This is the Angela from that birthday card you got the other day.”

  Of course it is. Sam’s being a bitch for no reason. I catch Duncan’s eye and realize something awful: Duncan told on me.

  Out of all the people in the world, Duncan’s the only friend who survived my transition from poverty to wealth. He’s the only person outside my family who knew me back in the day and knows me now. That privileged position means he knows most of my secrets — including, I’m now remembering, the fact that I had a highly inappropriate crush on my stepsister growing up.

  I look from Duncan to Samantha, from Samantha to Duncan. Duncan knows I know, and he’s smiling. The son of a bitch thinks this is funny.

  “That’s me,” says Angela.

  “It came in a red envelope.”

  “I don’t remember,” Angela says.

  “I do. Because that was the day Hunter fucked me in the ass for his birthday. Well, me and some other girl.”

  Angela looks at me, unsure how aghast to be. My mouth hangs open. But what should I do? Lie? Who says something like that at any dinner table — let alone one where dinner for four will likely top a grand?

  “He was so distracted,” Samantha goes on, now looking down at her fingernails, picking them. “I guess he thought he was done hearing from that part of town.”

  “It’s not that,” I say.

  “So you weren’t distracted?”

  I find myself stammering. I already told Angela that the card unseated me and made me get in touch. “Yeah, but —”

  Sam laughs. “I remember
exactly what you said, ‘Why is this piece of shit bothering me?’”

  “My dad!” I look at Angela. “I said that about my dad!”

  “But you said it, of course,” Samantha goes on, still cleaning her nails, still pretending to be casual. “Just like the thing about how you were above all that now.”

  “I’ve made a good life for myself, and —”

  “Right, right. I remember how you wouldn’t shut up about it.” She laughs and then — unbelievably — reaches across the table to put her hand on Angela’s. To Angela, she says, “He almost couldn’t come, he was so distracted.”

  Angela’s eyebrows furrow. She’s staring directly at me.

  “While he was fucking me in the ass,” Samantha adds helpfully.

  Too low for Samantha to hear, Angela hisses, “Is what she’s saying true?”

  Before I can answer, Samantha says, “You’re lucky to be out of that shithole, Angie. Hunter’s right: only the world’s crap stays there.”

  Angela’s head cocks; her eyes are furious.

  “I—”

  Angela just shakes her head, stopping me. She pulls her napkin from her lap and slaps it on the table then stands.

  “Looks like you are that guy after all,” she says, “and apparently always have been.”

  I rise to chase her as she rushes from the restaurant, but Duncan grabs my hand. I shake him off, but Samantha grabs my other wrist.

  “There’s press outside,” says Duncan. “Let her go.”

  I don’t want to. I want to punch Duncan in his face, and damn what anyone thinks. I want to beat him nearly to death, then slap Samantha into the wall, which she’d probably like a little too much.

  But I don’t do any of it, or follow Angela, because Duncan says something that stops me. “Don’t,” he says. “Maybe she liked you back then, but she wouldn’t like who you are now.”

  Slowly, in a daze, I sit.

  Not because I don’t want to chase her, but because I know that Duncan is right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  HUNTER

  I take some pills as we’re eating dessert. Then, over post-dinner drinks, I take some more. The pain dulls. The fog comforts me like a soft blanket.

  We’re in the limo, about halfway home, when I realize that I’m Hunter Fucking Altman, and Hunter Fucking Altman, who snagged the cover of Rolling Stone, doesn’t go without something he wants.

  For a little while, the idea confuses me — some mishmash of my old ways of seeing life blending with the new ways like two streams coming together. I’m lost in the turbulence for a while, but then I decide I’m being stupid and that the trajectory of all this is obvious.

  I stayed away from Angela’s part of my life for almost ten years, and during that decade, my life steadily improved. Duncan and I started dicking around while in our teens, then got serious with seed money from Duncan’s dad when we were twenty. Since then, my net worth has ticked steadily upward. I have the Midas touch because I’m Hunter Fucking Altman. I didn’t give a crap back then, and being true to who I was (plus not giving a shit) made me bulletproof.

  I lived on the streets, literally, for a brief period between getting the hell out of my dad’s house and the day we got that first loan. Before then, I was fighting for pretty much everything. I lived under a dead-weight sack of shit while my dad was between wives, then lived under two dead-weight sacks of shit when he married Maria. That second sack of shit just yelled at me all the time, adding sinning to being a criminal on my personal resume. Everything I did in that house was going to earn me a ticket to Hell.

  Whatever. The way I saw it back then, I was in Hell already.

  Leaving home improved for me. The longer I stayed away, the better things got.

  So far, so good.

  But then what happens? I get some mail and go backward — dumpster dive by revisiting the world of my poor, hated past. I have a weak moment and decide to stop being Hunter Fucking Altman, going back to my life as an insecure douchebag by hooking up with Angela and her baggage.

  I feel like shit the minute I do.

  Leaving my old life made things better. Bringing it back made them worse.

  It’s so obvious to me, as the chemicals in my system put my thoughts to order.

  Of course I said that only the world’s crap stayed in places like where my old man lives. I said it because I believe it. I still do, now that I think about it. Angela could have left but decided to stay. That’s on her, not me. Why should I feel bad for looking down on who and where I used to be? Why should I feel bad for thinking those old days were unmitigated shit? Why should I pretend to think they were fabulous now?

  I look out the window. Samantha and Duncan are somewhere beside me, but I barely care. I drank a lot as we finished dinner, and I finished dinner because I’m Hunter Fucking Altman.

  I ride for a while in melancholy, trying to ignore Sam and Duncan’s yammering.

  I open the windows. I close them. I turn on the radio over Duncan’s protests. Then I turn it off. For a while, I stare out the window, feeling nineteen again, effortlessly slapped back to my old shithole because I foolishly allowed a moment of weakness to suck me in.

  Didn’t my shrinks warn me to stay away? It’s fine to divorce your parents, they said. Dad’s a dick? Then let him rot. And if he has prisoners of fortune with him, that’s his problem and their problem, not Hunter Fucking Altman’s problem. I’m a good person. I give millions to charity. I don’t have to help my dad, and screw anyone who thinks I do. Screw Angela if that’s what she’s implying, which after enough alcohol I’m sure she is.

  My money is mine to spend as I please, and I can have any prejudices I want. I earned what’s mine. I refuse to feel guilty about my success, or about the failure of others.

  I don’t stop to examine my logic, because with all this shit in my veins, I already feel a lot better than I did when Angela stormed out and I failed to follow her. Instead, I try to unpack this newer, better set of emotions. And you know who’s good at helping me with things like this? Duncan.

  I turn to Duncan and say, “Let’s go somewhere noisy.”

  Duncan owns this club called Supernova, so he tells Brian to take us there. I’m too old for clubs, but at this point I don’t care what anyone thinks I’m too old, too rich, or too good for.

  I’ve got my first tab of ecstasy two minutes after entering the thumping, riotous mass, and by the time I’m into rehashing dinner’s events with Duncan, I’ve forgotten why it seemed like such a big deal. Ten minutes after that, there are two slutty girls on either side of me and way too much touching. I figure this is wrong somehow, though I can’t remember exactly how. So I turn to Duncan, and seeing him strikes me as hilarious.

  Duncan takes charge of the situation because he’s a motherfucking player. He starts reading the two sluts the Dreadnought balance sheet, and I think they both have orgasms every time he recites a number above seven figures.

  I consider calling Samantha, but can’t remember if I broke up with her. Then I remember through my blissful haze that she’s already here, somewhere in the club. I text her rather than trying to find her. I tell her she should come back to Duncan’s, where the hot tub’s about to get sticky. Of course she’ll show. If anyone can be bought, Samantha can. And right now, I’m in a buying mood.

  While I wait for Samantha, I show the girls my watch. I promise them rides in my jet. Duncan says he wants to get in on that, and before I know it we’re both in his limo because it’s bigger than mine.

  More booze.

  I don’t remember much of what follows. There are more drugs to go with the booze, though I’m not sure what they are. All that matters is that the more I take, the more I feel like myself.

  I wake up in a suit I’ve not worn in months, not sure how the hell I got it if it was in my closet rather than Duncan’s. There’s a wash of color and feelings, and that’s when I realize someone’s hands are pawing at my crotch, trying to open my fly like there’s
cookies inside. The hands turn out to be Samantha’s. There’s still no indication as to whether or not we’ve broken up, but I seriously consider not caring until she does whatever she’s intending. But still I shove her away, using my foot. I’ve got serious wood, but for some reason I don’t want her touching it.

  Sam isn’t perturbed by my denial. She stands and crosses my apartment, where I see Duncan’s dark form laying down, apparently nude, a chocolate protrusion on his silhouette pointing to the ceiling. Sam’s naked too, I realize. When she reaches Duncan she just sits on his dick, mating Slot A with Tab B. Duncan doesn’t move. It’s possible he’s still asleep or too wasted to move, but he must perform down below because pretty soon Samantha starts shouting in orgasmic pleasure. Then she hops down and tugs on Duncan’s shaft like she’s trying to start a lawnmower. I want to tell her that particular lawnmower will never start, but that’s when Duncan, still motionless, manages to haul off and blast her like a Super Soaker. The dude’s a stud, even when unconscious.

  I’m still pretty high, so I find this intensely funny. I have no idea what time of day it is. I decide it’s fuck-o-clock, then laugh like a crazy person.

  Sam returns to me and says she’s done with Duncan, as if this was a chore I recently asked her to handle. I don’t reply. She sits down and resumes trying to grab my persistent erection, but I just keep kicking her away. I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. I want to get laid. Sam’s hot. But I get this feeling I’m done with her—and that, no matter what she says, what’s in my pants no longer belongs to her.

  Sometime later, I hear a vibration. It occurs to me that Sam might be riding a silver bullet because I keep turning her down, trying to get off again with mechanical assistance. But no; when I turn my head I see that Sam’s moved beside me, maybe asleep or passed out, a stray jet of white come on her cheek.

  I laugh again. Oh yes, I’m still fucked up.

  I realize I’m not in Duncan’s apartment. Sam, Duncan, and whoever else is crashed where I can’t see them are all in mine. At some point, I must’ve come home and invited them to join me.