Monsters

by Liz Kay

  “Okay, keep talking,” Jason says, and I do. I talk about the characters and the book and the script. I talk about Tommy, how much I trust him with this, how much I’m willing to trust Jason because Tommy says I should. Tommy is watching me too, but I only look at Jason. Jason I can handle. Jason I’ve got.

  • • •

  By the time Jason leaves, he and Tommy have a handshake deal that they’ve sealed with yet another round of drinks. In the foyer, Jason kisses my cheek a little sloppily, and his hand slides a bit lower on my back than his third wife would probably like.

  When Tommy closes the door behind Jason, he leans his head against it for a moment, lets his hand rest on the door frame. “Oh shit,” he whispers. “We’ve got him. We’ve fucking got him.” He turns around, and he’s smiling. Not just a smile really, more like a grin. “And you.” He walks toward me, grabs me by the shoulders. “Jesus, who are you? Why have I never met this Stacey before? I have to hang out with boring, uptight, pissed-off-all-the-time Stacey, and he gets fun, sexy Stacey. That’s kind of bullshit.”

  “Fuck you,” I say, shoving him backwards and turning toward the living room.

  “See? There’s my girl. There’s the Stacey I know.”

  I drop down on the couch, lay my head back, close my eyes, but I feel him sit in the spot where Jason had been. I hear his feet thunk onto the table.

  “You look beat. Go lay down,” he says, and he sets his hand on my leg, so he must be sitting closer than I’d thought. “We’ve got hours before dinner. Go get some sleep.”

  • • •

  When I open my eyes, the light from the window has faded. It’s seven forty-five, and we’re supposed to be leaving at eight. I didn’t bother to set an alarm because I can never sleep. Except today, which is brilliant.

  I’d at least had the good sense to take my clothes off and lay them over a chair in the corner so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. I slip them back on, walk into the bathroom to touch up my eyes, my lips, pull my fingers through my hair. I shake it out and let it fall around my shoulders. This is not about Tommy, I think because of course it isn’t. I just like to make a good impression.

  • • •

  Tommy must have spent the rest of the afternoon not drinking because he drives, which is not what I expected. There is something about sitting in the passenger seat of a man’s car that feels a little exhilarating, a little dangerous, and because the man who’s driving is Tommy, I try to look out the window a lot.

  “You really were great today,” he says. He pulls to a stop at a light and reaches over, grabs my hand. “And what you said about trusting me with this meant a lot.” He tugs on my hand like he wants me to look at him. “I promise I’m not going to fuck it up.”

  They seat us at a table near the back, and as we walk through, there are lots of people not looking at us, conspicuously so. There’s a lot of quickly lowered eyes, deliberate not-staring. I feel a little dizzy, like I might trip.

  It’s a circular booth, and while Tommy sits at an angle from me, he’s close enough that our knees are almost touching. There’s a bottle of wine open to breathe on the table. I’m guessing Daniel called earlier to set it up.

  Tommy must come here a lot because the waiter is totally relaxed with him, and Tommy orders for both of us without even looking at the menu. When the waiter steps away, I take a sip of my wine, look around. The place is packed, and I can tell by the way people are sitting, holding themselves so carefully, barely turning their heads, that everyone has noticed Tommy. On the far side of the room, one couple is openly gaping, which is unsettling, but at least it’s honest.

  “How did you even get started in all of this?” I say.

  Tommy looks at me over his glass. When he sets it down he says, “You mean like all of it, all of it? I don’t know. I just caught a break.”

  “No, I mean, what made you want to try?”

  “Oh,” he says, and he takes another drink. He looks like he’s deciding whether to answer me. “I guess I was running away.”

  I keep my eyes on him like I’m waiting for the rest.

  “Really?” he says, and he kind of laughs. “All right. Fine. I had a fucked-up family. My dad was mean and drunk and usually broke. I never did very well in school, and frankly, I didn’t have any other options, so it was either this or who knows.” He holds my gaze for a minute. “So anyway, I got out here, and I looked like me, which didn’t hurt,” but he says this in a tone like he’s deliberately being an ass. “And you know, I’d been playing roles my whole life, trying to dodge all the shit. I guess it all just clicked.”

  “Huh,” I say. “Interesting.” I hold my glass on the table, twist the stem through my fingers.

  “You sound like a shrink.”

  “No, it is,” I say. “It’s interesting. And you know, that’s kind of what I do, think about what shapes us, where we end up. It’s kind of my thing.” I smile.

  “Maybe your next book should be about me.”

  “Mmm. I don’t know. I don’t really write smut.”

  “Right.” He laughs. “But think of all the research opportunities.”

  “Oh my god, yes. So many opportunities.” I nod. “Like syphilis.”

  “Ha!” He shakes his head. “People don’t get syphilis anymore.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m pretty sure they do.”

  • • •

  When we get back to the house, Tommy opens a bottle of red wine and pours us each a glass.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s late. I have to fly tomorrow.”

  “Who cares? It’s not like you’re gonna sleep.”

  He leans against the bar, holds the glass out to me and waits. And of course, I take it. It’s like I have no self-restraint. I take a taste, but then I set the glass on the bar. I wrap my left hand around my right arm and try to stretch out my shoulder, roll it around in the socket.

  “All tense again?” he says.

  “I’m always tense,” I say, and I frown at him. “I’m uptight. Remember?”

  He steps toward me and puts his hands on my shoulders, rubs his thumbs along my neck. He works his fingers along my collarbone, up the top of my spine. He’s standing close enough that his breath rustles my hair. He holds my neck in his palms and tips my head upward with his thumbs, catches my mouth with his lips.

  “I think you should go to bed with me,” he says, his lips still against mine.

  Actually, this sounds like a terrible idea, but again I have no self-restraint, so I say, “Okay,” and he laughs. He says, “Wow, Stace, you’re really blowing me away with the enthusiasm.”

  “Never mind, then.” I brace my fingers against his stomach and start to pull away, but he catches the back of my head, winds his arm around my waist, tightens his grip. “Honey, I’m just teasing you,” he says. He slides his hand up under my shirt, traces the edge of my rib cage with his fingers, and he coaxes my mouth open with his teeth. And then he pulls away and grabs my hand. “You want to bring your wine?” he says.

  “Not really,” I say, and he says, “Good.”

  He pulls me through the house to the master, which is in the back, past the study, and there are even more of his stacks of books, and there’s one book lying open on the middle of the bed, and it’s mine. It’s not Monsters though. It’s my first book, and I don’t even know what to think of that, but Tommy just moves it off to the side table and sits down on the bed. He pulls me to stand in front of him, and he catches my legs between his knees, works his hands under my shirt, and rubs his palms along my waist. He slides his hands up, lifting my shirt over my arms, dropping it on the floor behind me, slips his fingers under the straps of my bra, rubs his knuckles along them. He presses his mouth into the space between my breasts, moves slowly up my neck and to my mouth, pulling me down onto him. I move my knees up onto the bed on either side of him, and he grabs me tight around the waist, holding me up. “You doing okay?” he says into the side of my neck, and I nod. He lifts me by the h
ips, rolls me over onto my back, grabs his shirt by the collar and tugs it off. He leans into me, pressing his skin against my skin, and I let my head fall back, let him bury his face in my neck. His fingers are working at the waistline of my pants, which are loose enough not to unfasten. When he pulls hard enough, they just slip off. And he kisses me again, catches my knee with his hand and lets his fingers trail all the way along my thigh, and when he slides his finger inside me, I catch his lip with my teeth. “Oh, baby,” he says, “you don’t feel uptight anymore.”

  • • •

  The morning that Michael died, when I came down the stairs, he was in the dining room, sitting with his laptop. He had his planner out, working already, and it wasn’t even seven o’clock. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet, but it was one of those mornings when my hair looked all slept in and sexy, and Michael was wearing this dark striped button-up that I liked.

  “You look kinda hot this morning,” I said, and he said, “You too.”

  “You’re not even looking.”

  “I don’t have to. You always look hot.” His right hand was still on the trackpad. I could hear it clicking. His eyes were on the screen.

  I walked around him, straddled his lap from the left, stretched my arms over his shoulders, kissed his jaw.

  “Babe, come on,” he said, and he put his hands on my shoulders, pushed me over far enough that he could see around me. “I’m leaving in five minutes. Save it for later.”

  “Maybe you should go in late,” I said, and I leaned in again, this time kissing his lips.

  “Why are you always like this when I’m busy?” he said, and he put his hands on my hips, nudging me to get up.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, pushed my lips out into a pout. “I hate you,” I said, and then he did kiss me, but only lightly, not with any interest, and he said, “I know.”

  • • •

  When I wake, it’s dark out, and Tommy is still curled around me, his hand tucked between my thighs, but I slip out without waking him. In the upstairs shower, I lean my face against the cool tile and let the hot water run on my neck. I stay like that for a long time, and I keep my eyes closed tight, but I don’t cry.

  • • •

  It’s close to eight when I hear Tommy’s bare feet scuffing on the tile floor behind me.

  I say, “Morning,” but I don’t turn around.

  He walks around the island and goes straight for the coffee. He’s just wearing these low jeans, no shirt. “You didn’t sleep any better?” he asks, turning to face me.

  I smile, but I shake my head. “Not really.”

  “I gotta tell you, that’s a little insulting.” He frowns. “You could at least fake it.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “Good one,” he says. He takes a sip of his coffee. “Flight’s at noon? Before you go, I want you to read through a new draft of the script. Joe sent it yesterday while you were sleeping.” He pulls a banana off a bunch sitting in a bowl on the counter and snaps the peel. “Banana?”

  “No,” I say. “When you say ‘new draft’ …”

  He takes a bite of the banana, shifts it to his cheek, and talks around it. “You’ll just have to look at it.” He walks around the island and across the room, toward the study. When he comes back, he drops a stack of pages in front of me. “Start on page eighty-seven.” And then he stands there next to me, leaning against the counter, half naked. Christ. “Sure you don’t want some of my banana?” He smiles.

  “No. I really don’t. Thank you.”

  “Come on, just a little bit.” He pulls a piece off and holds it up to my mouth. “Just the tip.”

  “You are a pervert,” I say, pushing his hand away.

  “Come on. One bite.”

  “Then will you go away so I can read this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I open my mouth, and he holds the piece of banana up, and I take it with my teeth.

  “Jesus, Stacey, not the teeth. It’s very tender.”

  “Oh my god. You are like a twelve-year-old. Go away.”

  I hear the front door open and close, Daniel’s feet in the hallway. He walks into the kitchen, and he takes one look at us, Tommy leaning on the counter, his foot on the rung of my stool, both of us eating the same banana, and he says, “Jesus Christ. Tell me you’re not that stupid.”

  “You’re fired,” Tommy says, and he takes another bite.

  Daniel walks around to the coffeemaker and pours himself a cup. He adds sugar, walks to the fridge, pulls out the milk, stirs.

  “Stacey,” he says finally with a kind of sigh as he turns to face me, “I’m not gonna lie. I’m disappointed.”

  “I know,” I say, frowning at him. “I’m kind of disappointed in myself.”

  “Oh, fuck you both.” Tommy stands up and walks back around the island, throws the banana peel in the trash, and picks his coffee back up.

  Daniel shrugs, shakes his head at me with this sad frown. “I’ll be in the study if you need anything, sweetie.” He walks around the island and rubs my arm. “Like some penicillin,” he says, and I laugh.

  “Just read the script,” Tommy says.

  I pick it up, flip the pages across my thumb, looking for eighty-seven. “I feel like you’re very demanding, Tommy.”

  “Yeah? I feel like I’m very fucking generous.”

  “I feel like your ‘generous’ is mostly about being demanding.” Then I look up. “What am I looking at?”

  “Dialogue sounds off.” He’s right, most of the script is really lyrical, and in this scene, a lot of the rhythms are stilted, flat. “You should take that with you.” He nods at it. “Read the whole thing. I think it’s good, but read it. See what you think.” He crosses the kitchen, leans over, resting his elbows on the island. He’s directly across from me, but it’s a big slab of granite. We’re still a few feet apart. “Can you fix it?” he says.

  “On paper? I can fix almost anything.”

  • • •

  It’s already dinnertime when I pull up to Jenny’s house to get the boys. She’s made whole-wheat spaghetti with fresh mozzarella, and the kids are crowded around her kitchen table, sucking the noodles up through their puckered lips.

  “Look, Mom,” Stevie says. The skin around his lips has an orangeish tint.

  “Nice job,” I say, kissing him on the head.

  “I know you haven’t eaten yet,” Jenny says, putting a plate at the breakfast bar.

  “No, I’m starved,” I say. “It looks awesome.”

  “So, how did it go?”

  “Great.” I twirl a few noodles onto my fork. “Fantastic. We got the director Tommy wanted, so it all worked out. And I have a new draft of the script to look at, make a few tweaks.” I take a bite.

  “And then you spent the rest of the day just hanging out with Tommy DeMarco,” she says. “Remember that time we went to see Destructions and Michael was like, ‘That guy seems like a real …’” She glances at the kids and makes a face. “You know.”

  Michael hated that movie. He hated all of Tommy’s movies.

  “I remember,” I say.

  “So what’s he really like?”

  “Nice.” I wave my fork like, Nothing to tell. “Tommy’s always really nice, and his house is gorgeous. Really modern, airy, lots of glass. Beautiful place.” I take the last bite of pasta and stand up. “We should really get going though. It’s a school night,” I say.

  • • •

  Ben has a birthday party to go to. It’s a bowling-alley thing. When the invitation came, Stevie cried and said, I never get invited to anything, and I promised we could go and play in another lane. We end up at the far side of the room, far enough from the party that I can see Ben but not hear him. Stevie wants an orange ball, but all the balls that are light enough for him to manage are pink.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” he says. “I know it’s not your fault.”

  They’ve got these automated rails that go up for all of Stevie’s turns and retract for
mine, so the end result is that all of my balls go straight in the gutter, and Stevie always manages to at least hit something.

  “It’s just a game, right?” Stevie says.

  It is loud as hell, and there are at least three parties. One of them is in the lane next to us, and the boys look about six. The kids that don’t seem scared to be here are chasing one another in circles around the tables. One table is piled with gift bags and packages with ribbon. The table for Ben’s group looks very much the same, so I feel a little bad about his yellow envelope with a generic robot birthday greeting and twenty-dollar gift card.

  “Mommy, watch this,” Stevie says. He uses both hands to roll the ball from between his legs, and it bounces from the right rail to the left to the right to the left. It knocks down four pins, and Stevie says, “Yes!”

  “Good job, baby,” I say.

  One of the dads from the party next to us wanders within talking distance. “Some Friday night, huh?” He’s wearing a red golf shirt, tucked in, and it’s pulling a little at the beginnings of a beer belly. He smiles. “Greg,” he says, holding out his hand.

  “Stacey.” I stretch my hand out, palm down, and let him squeeze it.

  “This pro bowler over here your boy?” he says, nodding at Stevie.

  “Yeah,” I say. “He is.” I point toward the party across the room. “And I have another one over there.”

  “Oh yeah?” he says. “Mine’s with this group. Pretty loud, aren’t they?” He’s wearing a ring, a gold watch. His hair is thinning at the top.

  “Is yours the birthday kid?”

  “No. His mom just makes me stay. She’s a little, you know, nervous.”

  “Oh,” I say, and I smile. It’s a really good smile. I don’t know why—probably because my night’s just so dull. “Moms can be so annoying.”

  Stevie tugs on my arm. “Your turn.”

  I brush my hand against Greg’s forearm. “I better go throw another gutter ball.”

  I don’t look back, but I’m sure he watches. I only look at Stevie, who yells, “Mom, you got one!” and throws his arms around my waist. “Good job, Mommy,” he says.