Lost Angeles

by David Louden

  “The old man doesn’t take kindly to certain things. Dissing the quality of his golf course, caddy service, guest clubs and greens are but a few of them.”

  “Christ.”

  “Indeed. Turns out Rick the Prick is something of a sore loser.”

  “You’d think the stutterin’ fuck would be used to it.” I offer a high-five, it’s accepted without hesitation.

  “So yeah Dad hates him, Mum’s just pleased one of the Marley women are planning to make it down the aisle after Tess and her dramatic u-turn, but I can’t see it.”

  “Stop please. You’ll make me hard.”

  “Well stiffen away cos I can’t see it working.”

  “You’re sweet for saying that.” I offer.

  “Oh I’m not trying to make you feel better, you and Kel were great together but by the end you both wanted very different things. I just don’t see The Prick being that thing…especially when their union is but twelve months old and they’re already having ‘save the relationship’ trips away.”

  “Really?” I’ll admit it…I was getting a little hard.

  “You know, if me and you got together we could really show them how it’s done.” Janie teases.

  “I’m not big on engagement.”

  “I was talking about the other thing.”

  The thought crosses my mind. It had been almost a year since Kelly had dragged me to one last dinner with her family. I hadn’t seen Janie since then. Janie’s was beautiful; she’s basically a younger Kelly, an undamaged Kelly. She looks like Kelly when I had met her, when I hadn’t exhausted her. The thought grows in my pants, I try to ignore it. Switching subjects we catch up. Janie tells me about her folks, how her mum hasn’t been too well recently and how Dad is considering selling the family home and retiring to warmer climates. I think it’s a good idea; Janie agrees but doesn’t see it happening. I agree on that. Her dad would be lost if he didn’t have work and digging the car out of mud. She tells me about Tess and how she’s pregnant; I feign interest in children, so did she apparently. Then we’re on to her and her increasingly poor choices and how the lecturer is just the latest in a line of errors. I empathise and tell her the story of Marcy, which garnishes a belly laugh. The drinks are empty so we reload only this time Janie has switched to Guinness and Grey Goose too and though she’s not matching me drink for drink she’s having good fun trying. She’s had a couple of short stories published recently in a National magazine, something that brings the excuse for celebration out of me so we toast. She thought Kelly would be thrilled, maybe even point her in the direction of some contacts that might prove useful but the only thing she had to offer to the conversation was colours for Bridesmaid dresses and whether Janie liked them.

  Last orders came at the same time it did anywhere else in the city. The difference with the Park Inn was that because it was a hotel bar it let you sit on while it locked up, they’d assume you were a guest and left you to it. At 12:55AM I bought us a round of three Guinness, two Grey Goose and four shots of tequila each. I had never spent this much time with Janie, had never appreciated how much fun she actually was. In that moment I was almost thankful for the situation I was in. Thankful Kelly had left me, that Mary was reliable for a booty call, that Janie’s Classics lecturer was such a dick. It all brought us here and I was laughing…she was funny.

  Our glasses would empty for the last time that night at around 3AM. Staggering out the front of the hotel on to the steep glassy slope of the car park I couldn’t help feel a bit dirty. Ten years (and change) her senior, falling out of a hotel in the early hours…and on a school night. She takes my arm to steady herself as we glide down the white driveway on to the Belmont Road. A large white Edwardian house sits ten minutes walk from the hotel, two to three minutes on a normal day but with the ice everything took longer. We reached the front porch as she fumbled for her keys. It all felt oddly familiar. Finally she opens the door. The hallway is in darkness, there’s little detail to the soggy naked eye but I can tell it’s huge. Whoever owned it was clearly doing well for themselves and Janie, by proxy, was doing well by simply being about to mind it.

  “You want to come in for some coffee Doug?” Even if you didn’t know the code the way Janie said the words “come” and “coffee” would have been an indicator.

  “I’m not entirely sure that’s a good idea.” I said, hating myself for the sudden moral stance I took.

  “Sure it is.”

  “It’s been lovely seeing you Janie.” I offered finally. “We should do it again.”

  “How about tomorrow?” She pitched testingly.

  “As long as I’m not keeping you back from anything.”

  “What like study? Don’t use that excuse.” She said “You’re better than that. You’re welcome to come over for dinner tomorrow night. I’m cooking cannelloni, so do or don’t but don’t go all studious on me.”

  “Look at you with the big britches.” I said, slightly taken aback by her directness “Ok. Game on muthafucka, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “At seven.” She stated, I wasn’t going to argue.

  “Seven it is. Dust off your best glassware.” I say looking at the house “Or get the Lady of the house’s best man servant to do it as I’m gonna be rockin’ some seriously grapey wine.”

  Janie smiled.

  I move in and give her a hug before turning and slip sliding my way down the Belmont Road. I didn’t look back. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know if she was watching.

  17

  MARY HAD TEXT me continuously the night before. My phone pinged and pinged quicker than I could acknowledge them and with more consistency than I ever imagined possible. The steady tone replaced by a constant buzz as I switched to silent mode. They became annoying quite quickly.

  I met up with her after work and decided to call it a day. It was going well until she offered a goodbye bang. One last rattle for old time’s sake. I had been so good the night before, chased, almost virginal. The horn was obviously still pumping through my blood as this sounded like a great idea. I rushed her back to my place and proceeded to throw her over the kitchen table and stick it in there good and proper one last time. I knew it was a mistake the second I’d released old salty and could think rationally. She was acting differently with me now, she was acting as though we were a couple and we just had our first bout of make-up sex. It meant I had to break up with Mary twice that day.

  “You’re a son-of-a-bitch do you know that?” Yelled Mary as my housemates began arriving home.

  “Mary I’m sorry, I really am. I thought we both wanted nothing serious,” I said with a mix of understanding and confusion “I just don’t think it’d work. I’m not there.”

  “Did you think it’d work when you had your dick in my ass?” I knew she wasn’t looking for an answer to that one.

  She threw a mug at me, clocking me on the same patch of face that the lecturer had struck the night before. The bruise was now angry and red again. Mary storms out of the house to a round of applause from my less than emotionally mature housemate Danny.

  “So that’s where you’ve been disappearing to,” he said with a ping of realisation “all this time I thought you were Batman.”

  Deleting Mary’s messages, tit pics et al, came as a relief. The situation had been fun, at least initially, but it was pretty toxic plus every time she text me something saucy I swung between aroused and disappointed. In the early days of my relationship with Kelly we spent a lot of time trying to develop mutual friends; our plan A of merging our existing plans was disastrous. It wasn’t that her friends weren’t nice, quite the opposite…in fact the exact opposite. Her friends were great, so great that my friends could barely contain themselves from crying when her friends refused to fuck my friends. It all got a little tense.

  The lads night out would start with the cheap date student special – the three of us partaking in a homoerotic amount of bromance and several litres of Buckfast. Suitably sauced we would head towards
The Parlour. A school friend of my friend Smyth worked the door at the weekend. It was reassuring to know no matter what stupid shit we got up to he’d take care of us. Setting a bar stool on fire was probably a step too far.

  Late night on these outings would lead to a racy thumb session with Kelly who having been out with her friends, drinking wine, dancing, sacrificing ones dignity to the karaoke gods. When she would make her way back to her Ulsterville house she’d turn her mind towards me.

  “Hey baby, I missed you tonight x.”

  “Missed you too Kels bells.”

  “I saw the most awesome thing tonight…made me think of you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Totally. This guy in Whites was wearing KISS trainers they were a-maz-ing!”

  “Awesome! Want! Did you find out where he got them?”

  “Hollywood Boulevard apparently.”

  “Denied. That’s a real shame. Ah well, maybe one day we’ll go.”

  “You want to go to Hollywood to buy trainers?”

  “Well not just trainers.”

  “That’s good cos I got them.”

  “?”

  “Yeah I bugged him for ages but he gave me them in the end, he was pretty drunk though. I was going to surprise you with them but I got excited.” She never could keep a present secret.

  “Awww sweetheart you fuckin’ rock! Though you do realise he probably was expecting into you right?”

  “Oh no. I told him they were for my man.”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Well I hooked him up with Lisa so at least he’s got something out of it. As long as he realises he’s walking home bare foot tomorrow.”

  “Lol, you traded your friend for trainers for me?”

  “Not just any trainers…KISS trainers Doug…KISS!”

  “I fucking love you!”

  “You do?”

  “Definitely.”

  “They look good, I’m wearing them now. You wanna see?”

  She’d send me a picture message, she was right. They did look good though my first impression of the KISS trainers was of how incredibly naked the person wearing them was. Curvy and all booby in front of a full length mirror wearing trainers she had mercilessly pestered a random drunk man for because she knew I’d like them.

  I made it over to the Belmont Road for 6:30PM. I didn’t want to appear keen, keen would imply something that I was working on avoiding so I dropped by the Park Inn again for a drink. A Grey Goose and a Marlboro Red took the edge off what had been an eventful day. The ice had begun to thaw so my walk to the Edwardian house at the top of the road took less time than expected.

  “You’re early!” Janie said, pleased to see me.

  “Well I was in the neighbourhood.”

  “Wow your eye’s gotten worse.” said with concern.

  “Looks worse than it is.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. Just don’t touch it.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.” She said flirtatiously.

  “Dear Christ I’m in a Carry On movie.”

  Janie steps aside welcoming me into the house. The building was old, the ceilings high with cherubs around the chandelier light fittings but the artwork was modern. Painfully modern. A white A1 canvas with a single black streak down the centre. The sort of art that brings grand pondering and posturing from the kind of people that talked for the sake of hearing themselves. They were wankers and the artwork was the result of said strokes. Janie was dressed like a honey trap. I had sat across from her for Christmas dinners and though she always looked pretty, and in recent years beautiful she never looked like this. Standing before me, pouring a vintage bottle of the home owner’s wine, was a young woman in a figure hugging black dress, black Irregular Choice high heels with smooth, young beautiful legs. Janie was sexy. She holds my glass out for me, not too far out from her body; in close. As I take the glass from her delicate hand she brushes against me.

  The Marley women have the same taste in perfume, amongst other things, the scent was familiar, hauntingly so. She locked eyes with me; her left leg brushes up against the inside of my right. Janie’s leaning forward. I step back, out of trouble and the area of the kitchen that was marked for our first kiss. I walk to the backdoor stepping outside and light a cigarette. I sneak a glance; she’s returned her attention to the oven. A glance becomes a gaze which becomes a stare as I’m transfixed as her tight, round, perfect little ass pressed against the dress. Janie stands bent over in front of the oven as she inspects our Italian dinner. I ponder the ramifications. What’s so wrong with it? We’re both consenting adults, so what if she’s the younger sister of the woman I love. People move on, she did and she was engaged within the year. Why shouldn’t I be happy? I should, but is this a stride too far in the pursuit of happiness? Probably. I’d probably end up on one of those trashy daytime intervention shows screaming “I want a paternity test Ricki!” I told myself to be strong. That ass was tight, those legs smooth and everything between ankle and neck I’m sure would taste absolutely fantastic in mid gallop but I had to be strong. Letting the swollen gland make my decisions had got me this far in life. Single, living out of a spare room with two jobs I couldn’t stand and talking myself out of straddling someone I had known since before she had blossomed. The gland was a bad man.

  I focused on the kitchen that existed around her ass. Like the rest of the house it was old but had been tarted up. The cooker jet black, looked stainless, the fridge again jet black. A Smeg. Dotted along the top of the dada rail that ran round the tops of the walls were small kitchen, or food or animal based art. I finished my cigarette and stepped back into temptation. I took my seat at the dining table, sipping my wine. Janie straightens up before taking off the over gloves.

  “Be ready in ten.” She says as she walks over to me, delicately takes my glass from me. She takes a sip before handing it back to me and sits side saddle on my lap. My appendage embarrassingly presses into her thigh at an angle she cannot fail to notice.

  “It all smells delicious Janie. I had no idea you could cook.” If I stick to mundane conversation then perhaps he’ll soften.

  “Angel in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom. Isn’t that what they say?” And she’s giving me the eyes again.

  “They say something about shitting where you eat too.”

  “But you don’t eat here Doug,” she whispers “at least not yet.” She crosses her legs, her dress rides up ever so slightly. She’s killing me here. “I’m glad you came,” she says, switching the conversation to a lighter mood.

  I’m thankful for this, you can only have steak dangled in front of you for so long before you get hungry.

  “Yeah me too.”

  “Really? That surprises me,” she takes a sip from my wine “you don’t seem particularly enamoured with my company thus far.”

  “I am Janie. Believe me.” I confess “I’m just trying to be the nice guy, from what you were saying you haven’t had too many of them around you.”

  “And you know where they finish don’t you?” She seems ever so slightly irritated

  Janie gets to her feet and plates up. Dinner is delicious. It’s been months since I’ve had a home cooked meal. Months since I’ve dined on anything other than pizza or kebab meat. My palette is thankful for the revival. I didn’t even realise until much later that it was vegetarian. She made dessert. I think I would have married her there and then had my mouth not been too full of trifle for me to propose. We wash it down with my bottle of wine, I had broken my rule and made the trip to a fancy wine boutique for this one. The fruitiness is deceptive and it’s downed too fast. Our heads are soon swimming. Janie disappears, the sound of high heels on steps fade and then return and when she rounds the corner into the kitchen she’s carrying a vintage ’86 something or other and a ’42 what’s it.

  “This one might get us in trouble.” She boosts raising the ’42.

  I pop it open in one fluid movement and pour the
entire bottle into two huge wine glasses. Janie takes me by the hand and leads me into the living room. It’s enormous. There’s…

  “Even a fucking piano in the corner.” I think aloud.

  “Indeed.”

  Janie takes her position behind the Steinway, placing her small lake of ‘42 precariously on top of the immaculately clean piano.

  “Any requests?” She wobbles her head as she speaks mocking a pianist that played one of her parent’s anniversary parties.

  “Do you know the walking away music from The Incredible Hulk?” I ask with all seriousness.

  Before I can even collapse into the leather armchair Janie is fingering the keys and producing the theme tune of my childhood. I laugh as she even manages to throw in the hitchhiking hand gestures between bars. I take a large gulp from my ’42 not even savouring it now. The music stops and then fills the room again only this time it’s coming from all corners. Speakers placed throughout the room play Cat Power’s version of New York, New York.

  “I want to dance.” Janie informs me, holding out her hand.

  I take it and allow her to yank me to my feet before I step into her stride. We slow dance. “Dangerous” I think.

  “See you’re not a buzz kill.” She said, finishing my sentence.

  Kelly had the ability to do that. Janie moved like her sister. The Marley’s had some strong genes going on there. Soon the song was over and Black Sabbath’s Changes filled my ears. This was too much, her scent, the music. Whether Kelly acknowledged it or not this was our song. She had wanted it to be something by Otis Redding but Changes played on our first date, our first proper date. It had been in the cab that took me home the morning after the first time we made love. When we spent our anniversary in Milan an Italian busker spent half a morning singing it on his acoustic guitar in Italian and now I was sharing our song with another woman. Her sister. A younger version of her. My mind spasmed, unclear, misfiring, trying frantically to make sense of the entire situation. I only realised when she stopped that Janie had lent in and kissed me. I had not responded. I remembered vaguely the softness of her lips; the taste of cherry on my own. Now she was looking at me, she wasn’t angry but she wasn’t entirely pleased. It took me a while to locate the expression. She was acting. Kelly did the same thing whenever I fucked up and she wanted to remain expressionless to see if I knew what had happened.