by Joy Fielding
“Oh, yes. Of course.” He withdrew his hand. His body waved back and forth like a metronome. “Your daughter was a revelation.”
“Yes. She was wonderful.”
“Not wonderful,” Gordon corrected. “A revelation.”
“A revelation, yes.” Sandy looked helplessly toward the deserted street. “What are we going to do with you, Gordon?” Why did she always get into these messes? Why hadn’t she simply gone with Rita and the others to Chester’s? Why did the drunken drama teacher in the parking lot have to be her responsibility?
“It wasn’t easy,” Gordon was saying. “Those kids are talented, but they’re lazy. They don’t want to work. They just want to be stars. Everybody wants to be a star.”
“How are we going to get you home?”
Gordon looked vaguely startled. At least Sandy thought he looked startled. His eyes were so crossed, she couldn’t be sure. “I have my car,” he said, pointing in its general direction and almost falling over.
“Yeah, right. Like you’re in any condition to drive. Come on.” She took him by the elbow and led him as if he were blind. “I guess I’ll have to give you a lift.”
“Really? That’s awfully kind of you.”
What choice do I have? Sandy wondered as she guided him slowly toward her car, then helped him into the front seat.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not feeling very well,” he said, as if he were confiding a deep, dark secret.
“Please tell me you’re not going to be sick.”
“I certainly hope not. My mother would be furious.” He laughed, a sharp, girlish cackle that spewed invisible droplets of whiskey into the air. “Of course, Mother is dead.” He laughed again.
Oh, God, Sandy thought, climbing behind the wheel and starting the engine. “If you think you’re going to be sick, just try to give me some warning, so I can pull over.”
“My mother used to tell me to take deep breaths.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“She used to tell me wipe my feet and mind my manners.”
“One should always wipe their feet and mind their manners,” Sandy agreed, pulling her white Camry out of the parking lot and trying to remember the best way to Gordon Lipsman’s house.
Turn right at the corner. Then just go straight until you hit Citrus Grove, she heard Delilah say.
“How are you doing there?” she asked a minute later, watching Gordon’s head loll to one side.
“Taking deep breaths,” he said, although he wasn’t.
Please don’t let him be sick in my car, Sandy thought as she turned right at the corner. They drove without incident until they reached Citrus Grove and she made another right turn. If memory served, she was supposed to continue for about half a mile, then turn left.
“Where are we going?” Gordon asked suddenly, sitting up abruptly and looking around, although it was too dark to see much of anything.
“I’m taking you home,” Sandy reminded him.
“You could take me to your home,” he suggested with a grin that was more annoying than endearing.
“No, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? Don’t you like me, Sandy?”
Sandy decided the best way to deal with this conversation was not to have it. “Am I going the right way, Gordon?” The last thing she wanted to do—other than exchange flirty banter with a man she found borderline repulsive—was to get lost again. She recalled the last time she and Delilah had been out this way and shuddered at the memory of their gruesome discovery at the side of the road.
“Are you cold?” Gordon asked.
“What? No. I’m fine. Am I going the right way?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look familiar.”
“Concentrate, Gordon.”
“I am concentrating.” He trained his deeply crossed eyes on her right profile. “You’re a very beautiful woman, you know that?”
“I turn left, right?”
“Left. Right. What?”
“Oh, God. Gordon, you have to pay attention. I’m supposed to turn left now. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Although it’s faster if you turn right.”
“What?”
“It’s a shortcut.”
“It is? You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Sandy marveled that he’d actually managed to sound insulted. “Okay. So you’ll be able to direct me?”
“Yes, dear,” he said with that stupid grin. “It’s what I do. I direct.” For the third time that night, he laughed his high-pitched cackle. “Actually, I was thinking of directing Rent next year. What do you think?”
“Sounds very ambitious,” Sandy said distractedly. She was trying to focus all her concentration on the unfamiliar road ahead.
“Nothing wrong with a little ambition.” Gordon’s voice was ice-cold.
“No, of course not.” Where were they going? She should have stuck to the route she remembered. What would happen if he’d taken her in the wrong direction, if they ended up driving around in circles half the night? Why had she volunteered to drive him home in the first place? Why hadn’t she suggested he simply sleep it off in his car until morning? Why weren’t there any taxis in Torrance? Why weren’t there more lights along this stretch of road? What would happen if her car were to break down, her tire go flat? Why didn’t she have a cell phone so that she could call for help in case of an emergency? What was the matter with her?
“Did you see it?”
“See what?” Had she missed the turnoff onto Admiral Road?
“Rent.”
“Oh. Yes, yes, I did.”
“On Broadway?”
“Yes.”
“With the original cast?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“I have the original-cast album.”
“That’s good.”
“Not exactly the same thing as actually seeing the play.”
“I guess not.”
“I wanted to see it,” Gordon said mournfully. “But my mother refused to travel all that way to see a bastardized version of La Bohème. That’s what she called it. A bastardized version.” He shook his head. “Oh, dear. Probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“Take deep breaths,” Sandy reminded him.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Do I just keep going straight?”
“The straight and narrow.”
“Gordon …”
“Besides, we couldn’t leave the cats.”
“What?”
“It was hard to go away and leave the cats.”
“You could have gone without her,” Sandy ventured, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Did she really want to be having this conversation?
“Oh, no. I could never have done that.”
“You were a good son.”
“Well, what could I do? She had no one else to look after her.”
“No other family?” Sandy remembered the photographs she’d seen in Gordon’s house, the two pretty, young girls luxuriating in each other’s company.
“She had a sister, but she died a long time ago. Car accident. How fast are you going, by the way?”
Sandy realized she was speeding and quickly brought the car back to below the thirty-mile-an-hour limit. “What about you?” she asked him. “No siblings?”
“No. I’m an only child. One of a kind,” he said with another of his creepy little half-smiles.
“That you are.”
“And you?”
“I have a brother in California.”
“Is he in the movie business?”
Sandy laughed in spite of herself. “No. He works for some big dot-com organization.”
“Really? And yet he has a sister who doesn’t even own a cell phone. How curious.”
Sandy felt a vague stirring of unease. “How do you know I don’t have a cell phone?”
“Oh, I know a great deal about you, Mrs. Cr
osbie.”
“Such as?”
“I know you’re very beautiful.”
Sandy groaned audibly. “How do you know I don’t have a cell phone?”
“I know your husband left you for Delilah’s mother.”
“How do you know I don’t have a cell phone?”
“I know you still haven’t filed for a divorce. Turn right at the next intersection,” he advised, before continuing on in the same breath, “I know you’re lonely.”
“How do you know I don’t have a cell phone?”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?”
“Gordon …”
“Yes, yes, yes. How do I know you don’t have a cell phone?” He paused dramatically. “I believe Delilah mentioned it in passing whilst regaling the cast with the details of how you two stumbled upon Mrs. Hamilton’s body the afternoon I sent her to fetch my sheet music. Which the clumsy girl totally ruined, by the way. Turn right here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure,” he told her, sounding suddenly very sober and very much in control.
Whilst regaling, Sandy repeated silently as she turned right and continued down the road. Could he be any more pretentious? And was it possible this road could be even less interesting than the one they’d just turned off? Her eyes strained through the darkness toward the empty field on her right. Not even any orange trees, she was thinking, as an old, abandoned farmhouse popped into view at the far end of the field. She couldn’t recall having seen it before and would probably have missed spotting it this time had it not been for the circle of bright stars that were gathered like a halo over its collapsing roof. “What’s this place?” she asked, glancing just past Gordon’s head.
It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to see it coming. One second she was peering out the side window, and the next instant she was staring into the leering face, the crossed eyes, the bulbous nose of Gordon Lipsman, as his too soft lips squished against her own. The back of her head crashed against the glass of the side window as her hands lost control of the wheel and the car veered sharply to the left. Instinctively, Sandy’s foot slammed on the brake, and the car careened to the side of the road, spinning around in a free-form half-circle before finally coming to a stop. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled, slapping at Gordon’s arms and trying to get out from under those massive lips.
“Ouch!” he yelped, pushing her hands away even as his lips remained fastened to hers, as if they were stuck there with Krazy Glue.
“For God’s sake, Gordon, get off me.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. Are you crazy?” She finally managed to push him an arm’s length away. He fell back against the passenger window, his breathing labored and loud. He took several deep breaths in rapid succession, and for one awful moment Sandy thought he was about to throw up all over her.
Instead, he shouted, “Kiss me, Kate!” and lunged again.
It might have been funny had it not been so nausea-inducing. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sandy sputtered, narrowly avoiding being pinned again by that leechlike mouth. “Stop it. Stop it this instant.” When he persisted in his attempts to kiss her, she slapped him hard across the face. That stopped him.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes trying to focus.
“You tell me.”
“How am I supposed to know?” he demanded angrily. “One minute, you’re telling me how lonely you are—”
“I never said I was lonely. You said I was lonely.”
“You’re confiding in me about your divorce, your family—”
“I did no such thing.”
“You didn’t tell me about your brother in California?”
“I was making small talk, for God’s sake.”
“You offered to drive me home.”
“Because I was being nice.”
“Because you’re interested.”
“I’m not interested, you idiot!”
“I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
“What?” Was she losing her mind? “What are you talking about?”
“You send mixed messages.”
“I send mixed messages?”
“You don’t make yourself clear.”
Sandy tried to make sense out of what he was saying. Was it possible she’d misled him in any way, that her actions tonight could have been so badly misconstrued? Was she really trying to talk sense to a man who only minutes earlier had been lying on his back in a hibiscus bush? “Okay, listen. If what you’re saying is true—”
“It’s true.”
“If I’ve given you the wrong impression in any way, then I’m sorry.” Was she really apologizing, just as she’d apologized to Will Baker a month ago? And while Will Baker could at least make a case for his egregious behavior, could Gordon Lipsman? Did she really not make herself clear?
“Can we go now?” Gordon asked.
Wordlessly, Sandy restarted the car and steered it back on the road.
“Turn left at the next intersection,” Gordon directed icily.
Sandy signaled her intention to make the turn, even though no other cars were on the road. She glanced into her rearview mirror, watched the old farmhouse with the collapsing roof vanish into the night.
THIRTY
Hey, everybody, Joey’s here,” Joey Balfour shouted over the loud music blasting from the new surround-sound system. Brandishing a case of beer over his head, he strutted through the front door. “The party can now officially begin.”
Megan listened to the prolonged applause, accompanied by a series of admiring hoots and whistles, that greeted Joey’s entrance, along with a few dissenting groans and a smattering of boos. Someone yelled, “There goes the neighborhood!” Someone else muttered, “Asshole.”
The party was being held at the home of Lonny Reynolds. And even though Lonny had only had a small part in Kiss Me, Kate, he had a large house, and best of all, his parents were away for the weekend. The living room had been emptied of furniture for the event, and Lonny had been assured that the entire cast of Kiss Me, Kate would be back on Sunday to return everything to its previous position, so that his parents would never be the wiser.
“Out of my way, faggots,” Joey ordered, laughing as he roughly navigated his way through a group of revelers dancing in the middle of the crowded living room. He pushed past a small circle of boys talking animatedly about a basketball game they’d missed on TV earlier in the evening and winked knowingly at Greg en route to the kitchen at the back of the house.
The wink made Megan uncomfortable. It spoke of secrets and hidden agendas. She glanced up at Greg, who was standing beside her, one hand draped casually over her shoulder, the other clutching an almost empty bottle of Miller by the neck. It was his fourth beer of the night, and they’d been here less than an hour. She knew he was already more than a little drunk by the steadily increasing weight of his arm on her shoulders. “What was that about?”
“What was what about?”
“The wink.”
Greg laughed. “What wink?”
“The one Joey just gave you.”
Greg shook his head, took a sip of his beer. “Didn’t notice any wink.”
Megan almost said, How could you not notice? He winked right at you. But she didn’t because it sounded like something her mother would have said to her father. Instead she said, “I wish he wouldn’t say things like that.”
“You wish who wouldn’t say things like what?”
“Joey. He calls everyone a faggot.”
Greg dismissed Megan’s concerns with a wave of the hand holding the bottle. A thin arc of beer sprayed into the air, depositing several coin-shaped drops dangerously close to Megan’s new tan suede boots. “He’s just kidding around. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“Then why does he say it?”
Greg’s response was to lean over and kiss her. Megan’s annoyance disappeared as soon as his lips touch
ed hers. She tasted the beer on his tongue and wondered if it was possible to get intoxicated by proxy, like secondhand smoke. Which could kill you, she remembered, as he kissed her again, the second kiss even longer and deeper than the first.
“Bedrooms are upstairs,” Victor Drummond said as he brushed past, the scent of marijuana snaking after him.
Megan quickly pulled out of the embrace and lowered her head to stare at the beige marble floor.
Greg laughed. “What’s the matter now?”
The now lingered, a subtle rebuke. “Nothing.”
“Anybody ever tell you you worry way too much about what other people say?”
The question poked at her psyche, like a sharp jab to the ribs. “I don’t worry about what other people say,” she protested, sneaking a glance around her to ascertain whether anyone was listening to their conversation.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Really? Then come upstairs with me.” He backed away, depositing his empty beer bottle on a nearby table and extending one arm toward her. Joey Balfour immediately thrust a fresh bottle of beer into his open palm.
“Trust me. A cold one is even better than sex,” Joey said.
“Only if you keep doing it by yourself, faggot.” Greg laughed. “Oh, come on,” he said, as Megan’s face grew dark. He took a long swig of his new beer, then held the bottle out toward her. “Come on. Have a sip. It might loosen you up a bit.”
“No, thanks. I don’t like beer.”
“Is there anything she does like?” Joey asked pointedly.
Megan felt her cheeks grow warm and the air grow heavy. A wary silence suddenly replaced the blaring rock music. Gyrating bodies swiveled toward her expectantly. Curious eyes waited to see what she would do.
At least that’s what it felt like to Megan, although in truth the music continued, the dancers kept moving, and only a few people were watching. It seemed as if everyone was letting go but her, that she was the only one holding back, stubbornly refusing to cut loose, to have a good time. It was a party, for God’s sake. The cast party. And she was the star of the show. The envy of every girl here. Because not only had she landed the part of Kate—a role she’d performed spectacularly, at least that’s what everyone said—she’d also landed her sexy costar, the boy every girl wanted.