“He was fucking Vito Corleone for fuck’s sake! Forever timeless. There will never be a more gorgeous man alive and, based on that fact, I will forever be willing to put his penis in my vagina, with or without his assistance.”
“Wait a minute,” Alice says, holding up a finger. “Marlon Brando was Vito Corleone first.”
“Ew, gross. He was like, in his sixties in the first‘God Father.’” Trina scrunches her nose.
“Yes, true. However, I would argue, and I would be absolutely right, that Marlon Brando, as a young up and comer, was about a gazillion times ten hotter than Robert De Niro.”
“No way! You’re on drugs if you think Brando was hotter than De Niro! Like, at any point in time, ever!”
“I’m not saying De Nirowasn’t totally gorgeous in his day,” Alice says, holding up her hands in surrender,“but Brando was god-like. The man was completely chiseled to perfection. And he could act, just as well as De Niro, if not better, because he played a greater range of characters. De Niro’sdone mostly criminal or gangster movies his whole life. He’s the iconic gangster, for fuck’s sake.”
“You’re full of shit! Name one movie he was hotter than De Niroin! One!”
“’Kay,‘Streetcar Named Desire.’”
“Eh, he was great in that movie, but hotter? Hotter than‘Mean Streets’? Hotter than‘Johnny Boy’? No way.”
“Fine,‘The Wild One.’”
“Gay out fit…no offense, Will and Chris.”
Will and Chris exchange looks and roll their eyes.
Alice frowns and glances at Anthony, who studies her intently. Her eyes widen and she smiles a slow, deep smile. “Fine. ‘Guys and Dolls.’”
Trina frowns. She opens and closes her mouth, running the movie through her memory.
“OOoo, she got you, girl. Ain’t no way De Niro gonna fuck with Sky Masterson! He was pure fuckin’ silk in that movie!” Will laughs.
“Seriously,” Chris nods. “Not only was he absolutely beautiful, but he was good boy gone bad, then a bad boy gone good. Can’t fuck with that combo character arch, that’s pussy 101. Quoting his daddy and the Script, he was so cocky and confident, and then he was in love, and suddenly he was a sweet little, lost puppy. And, on top of that all, he fucking sang. That Nazi bitch didn’t stand a chance!”
“She wasn’t a Nazi! She was like, part of the missionaries!” Will laughs.
“Really? Are you sure?” Chris frowns.
“Wait, seriously? You thought she was a Nazi? Why would Nazis be parading in the streets of New York?” Will stops laughing and stares at Chris in disbelief.
“No! Well, I mean, I just assumed with the hideous uniform…”
“Not everyone in a hideous uniform is a Nazi!”
“Not only the uniform but also the-I remember she was super frigged, too.”
“Because she was a missionary! They all have to stay virgins in case they have to be sacrificed to their angry god, duh. Everybody knows that,” Will says.
“I don’t remember that movie,” Trina says, narrowing her eyes.
“Oh, how convenient! She can’t remember!” Alice laughs.
“I haven’t seen it since my grandma put it on when I was a kid during Easter!” Trina protests.
“So, okay, so what? You haven’t seen it since you were a kid. Are you telling me you don’t have some sort of impression of him, that you didn’t feel something about him watching it as a kid? Because, I’ll tell you right now, I watched that shit when I was a kid and I never forgot that man, ever. That character was designed to burn into little girl’s brains and set their expectations to‘whacked’. He was a cluster bomb of fuck and love, designed to destroy our control and self-esteem by making our ideal man someone who doesn’t exist, making us always look to change the impossibly gorgeous bad boy to good, while keeping our frigged, Nazi hymen intact!” Alice says.
“Jesus, you really thought that out,” Chris laughed, somewhat nervously, looking at the others who are equally impressed.
She blinks at them, also stunned, and then frowns, turning back to the TV and getting another slice of pizza. “I really loved that movie.”
By the end, Will and Chris have fallen asleep against one another with Trina softly snoring at their feet. Only Anthony and Alice remain awake. Alice sits on the floor between his feet, her arms resting over his legs. He idly plays with her hair in tender, long strokes. As the credits come up, Alice looks around the room and then leans her head backwards towards him with a smile. He smiles down at her and hunches forward, kissing her quietly, softly. She pulls away, turning her head to look at the others who do not stir or wake.
“I need to get home. He comes back tonight and I have to be up early tomorrow,” she whispers, pushing herself up on his legs.
“I’ll walk you out.”
The night is quiet and damp with the late hour. Far off, sirens wail and dogs howl, but nothing penetrates the calm atmosphere around them. He wraps an arm around her as they walk slowly to their cars. She hits the alarm on hers and stretches. Anthony catches her in mid stretch and draws him into her, sliding her arms around his neck. He leans, his dark, heavy eyes locked on hers, and kisses her again. His tongue moves over hers, pushing it down, twisting around it and tugging gently. Her body quivers with a stampede of chills that run from her stomach to her knees and back again. He is almost suffocating in his girth, like a hot blanket of muscles tucked around her. His lips move to her neck and ears, his hands down her back, squeezing her and drawing her up into him. She moans and runs her hands along his great arms, up to his black, short-cropped hair, pulling it as he bites sharply and presses her into her car.
“…Alicía,” he whispers, grabbing her face and kissing her again and again.
She says nothing, gliding her hands over his dense chest and down to his waist, pressing herselfinto him. It has been much, much too long since she’s felt this rush. Her leg wraps around him and draws him against her, feeling his erection against her pelvis. How long has it been? He groans and pushes into her. When was the last time she felt this? Why has it been so long she can’t remember? And then she does remembers, standing in a doorway, seeing him asleep with his arms around a beautiful, young girl, much more beautiful than she. She gasps and shoves him away, hard. He stumbles backwards completely bewildered. Her head is lowered, she pants and avoids eye contact, and before he can speak, she holds up her hand and shakes her head.
“I can’t do this.”
He frowns at her for a moment before shoving his hands in his pockets and rising to his full posture, his head tilted up, his eyes down cast.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse you,” she continues. “I just-it’s not right.”
“Still, huh? Alice, how much longer are you gonnakeep this up?”
She blinks at him and folds her arms, leaning against her car. “Keep what up?”
“This,” he says, gesturing wilding,“This! Us. This back and forth bullshit!”
“I haven’t touched you until tonight. Not since it happened. So, tell me, what, exactly, is it that am I keeping up?”
“You know what I mean, don’t do that. You know I would do anything for you, you know that. I don’t understand how you can still be pissed! I mean, fuck, how long are you gonna be like this, for reals?”
“You think I’m still mad about what you did?”
He laughs. “Um, yeah, yeah, I think you’re still mad. Just a little bit, yeah.”
“I’m not, it’s not that.”
“Ah, c’mon! Are you telling me you can look me in the eye and tell me you’re not still pissed?”
She frowns and shakes her head. “Okay, maybe I am. But that’s not why I can’t do this.” She gestures wildly, mocking him. “It’s more than that.”
“What, huh? Tell me, what more could it be than you still mad that I stepped out on you?”
“Anthony, I don’t want to be in a relationship right now.”
“Nobody’s asking you to g
et married, Al.”
“No, but I know what happens.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yeah, really.”
“Dí me, what happens, huh?”
“We sleep together and start dating and it happens all over again. It’s the same shit over and over. I don’t want that, not anymore. I don’t love you, Anthony. Not because of what happened. I didn’t love you before that,neither of us loved each other. It’s pointless to keep doing this. It wasn’t right and it didn’t work for a reason. It just…it wasn’t right, you know?”
He stares hard at her, his mouth a thin line on his square jaw. Her eyes are large and pitiful, her pain apparent. He looks away and spits. “You know, you think you know everything. You think you have it all figured out. Alice and her big brains, analyzing everything. But you don’t fucking get it, not really. You’re not as tough as you wannathink. You can stand there, tell me you don’t love me, and maybe that’s true now. But when I wake up in the morning and I see this in the mirror staring back at me,” he says, pointing to his broken nose,“I know that you loved me more than any woman has ever loved me, and maybe ever will. And because of that, I will put up with your back and forth bullshit…for now.”
He leans in and kisses her cheek before walking away. “Have a good night.”
“Turn left up at the light,” he calls to the driver. He presses the leather glove to his mouth, his brow furrowed as he stares out over the street speeding by. People move up and down in slow motion, pushing through one another like ghosts, lit by fluorescent and neon pouring from advertisements surrounding them. He glances down his phone,glowing in his lap, down into his own drunken, stupid face, down into her clown-like mouth grinning at the photographer. Something about the image was confusing him. For the entire flight, he could not examine it without feeling a surge of intrusion and shame. It was too soon. Shit like this didn’t get out this fast. He could still smell her on his clothes. He rubs his eyeballs and heaves a great sigh before dialing.
The phone rings again and again. 5 rings. She never lets it ring 5 times. The voicemail clicks on. ‘Mom…I’m tryingto watch the television! Leave a message, dumb-o.’ He realizes he’s never reached her voicemail and, for a moment, he is speechless.
“Uh…no. I’m going to try again. Pick up,” he says before hanging up.
He hits‘redial.’ This time it only rings once.
“…Hello?” she says in a deep, husky voice he doesn’t recognize.
“Alice?”
“What’s wrong? What happened? Did your plane crash?”
“No…no, I don’t think my phone would be working if we’d crashed. Are you asleep?”
“…No?”
“Yes, you are.”
“No…I was asleep. I’m not at the moment. What’s going on, are you back?”
“Yeah…I need to talk to you. Can I come over?” he asks, and then to the driver,“Turn right at the next stop.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh…sure.”
“Good, because I’m in front of your house. I’ll be right in.”
“Jesus, I’m-not even dressed. Give me a minute!”
“Okay, bye. Don’t wait for me,” he says to the driver as he climbs out of the car. “She’ll drive me home. Just pop the trunk and I’ll get my stuff.”
“I can get,” the driver protests.
“No, I got it,” he says, handing the driver a $50. “Thanks.”
He taps lightly at the screen door, sending Dirt Bag into a barking fit that blares through the sleeping complex. He hears her yell at the dog before the door swings open. She wears a long, ripped kitty nightshirt and a Christmas themed bathrobe. Her hair is in two, long tangled ponytails on the top of her head. Her face is flushed and bare of make up. She has never looked so young and sweet, and his heart skips at the familiar half smile.
“Honey, I’m home,” he smiles.
She rolls her eyes and lets Dirt Bag go, helping him drag in his carry-on. “I like how you asked to stop by but you were already here.”
“Is it not okay? Seriously? Do you have company?” he asks, suddenly unsure.
She rolls her eyes again and hugs him tight, holding him in the doorway while Dirt Bag sniffs through his bags.
“He’s looking for the Nathan’s hotdog I brought you,” Julian says.
“You brought me a Nathan dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You love them.”
“Yeah…and you can get them at Costco. Why would you lug a stinky, old hotdog on the plane?”
He pulls away from her, grinning. “Because! It’s like that scene from that dumb movie you love. The one where the chick has the hot dogs flown out to Vegas for the guy from‘Friends’.”
“’Fools Rush In?’ It’s not dumb! That movie’s hellaromantic,” she growls, stooping down to get the hot dog. She pulls it out and dangles the shriveled meat with a look of disgust.
“It didn’t look like that when I bought it.”
“Ten hours ago? I’d hope not,” she says. “Dirt Bag, NO!” Dirt Bag darts up and grabs the hot dog, running away before she can move to catch him.
“Fuck! The dog ate the dog!” Julian laughs as she runs after him.
“He did! He ate my present. That little shit. You’re a little monster, Dirt Bag, aren’t you, my little fatties?”
He leans against the doorframe, watching her sprawled on the kitchen floor in a ridiculous thrift store nightshirt, petting her fat dog as he licks the evidence away from his chops. Her home is exactly the same except for the giant flat screen plastered along one wall and a plush, new couch sprawled across from it. He realizes he hasn’t been there since the day he hired her, and is relieved that it is the same. Except that it is much, much warmer.
“Jesus, it’s hot in here,” he says, pulling his knee length wool coat and sports jacket off and tossing it on the couch. He unbuttons his sleeves and rolls them.
“It’s freezing outside. I have the heater on full blast.”
“It is NOT freezing. New York was freezing. This is paradise here,” he says, sinking into the couch and pushing the books scattered around it to the ground.
“Yeah, I heard it snowed. I was afraid you’d get snowed in.”
He thought the same thing when they left the hotel, hand in hand. Only it wasn’t fear he felt, but hope.
“Do you want some tea? Cocoa? Warm, almond milk?”
“Water.”
He listens to her yawning as she pours the water and yawns as well, realizing how exhausted he was. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours his whole trip. And, despite the Valium he swallowed before the plane embarked, he could not relax. For the first time, it was not the flying he was anxious about.
“So…”she says sweetly, handing him the water and sitting next to him,“how’d it go?”
He tosses her his phone and she scoops it up, glancing quickly at the image. By her expression, he sees she has seen it. A look of concern flickers in her eyes.
“You guys look happy. Some would say even‘radiant.’ Some being CeCe, of course. What was she like?”
“She’s nice. Smart. Fun…incredibly hot.”
“Yes, she sure is.”
He leans back and looks at his friend, curled up and facing him, but studying the image with a frown. She looks up at him and then down again before he can read her.
“You don’t like her?”
“I don’t knowher. If you say she’s cool, then she must be. She looks really stoked in this picture so I’m guessing she likes you, too.”
“Yeah…I’m, I’m not sure…”
“What?”
“Well…she has this expression, like…”
“Like she posed or something?” she says too quickly.
“What, what do you mean?” he asks, drinking as he takes the phoneback and squints at it. “Posed? Like, she knew she was getting her picture taken? But neither of us knew that fu
ck was going to be there.”
“Probably.”
“What does thatmean? You think she knew?”
“I don’t know…does it matter? It’s great exposure. This picture is everywhere right now. They’re combining your faces to see what your babies will look like on all the lonely heart blogs.”
“Really?” he asks, swallowing hard.
“Of course! It’s what you wanted, right? The‘beard.’ That’s what you were talking about.”
He taps his phone against his thigh, studying their reflection in the black screen before them. He can see her imploring, confused gaze. He purses his lips together and looks back at his own confused face.
“Right?”
“Yeah…about that. I don’t think it’s a‘beard’ situation anymore…”
“…Oh my god…you guys hooked up, for reals?”
The sound of disbelief and disgust are apparent in her voice. He frowns as both guilt and shame come over him. “Yeah. And?”
She is quiet, fighting off her own confusion. She had seen the girls come and go from his place in the brief time she worked for him. There were more than a few occasions she arrived to a hot little model prancing around the kitchen, collecting her things from the night before, while Julian worked out in the rec room. She had seen the tabloids of him stepping out of nightclubs and restaurants with girls just as beautiful as this Sharleen Dors. But none of them had caused her concern. And she realized she had never seen that look of panicked confusion on his face as he walked into the Waldorff, a beaming princess dragging her prize.
“What’s wrong with that? I like her. She’s fantastic, actually. She makes me feel good.”
“No, that’s good,” Alicesays quickly, shoving her jealousy down. “That’s great, really. I was just shocked because you were so against the idea of it being fake and all and you were like,‘I don’t have time for the real thing.’ But if it’s-if you’re happy, then great. I’m happy for you.”
He leans back and closes his eyes, rubbing them. “Yeah…except I don’t know if it is such a good idea.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
Dirt Bag hops on her lap and starts to whine. He paws insistently at her chest. “Dirt Bag, not now,” she says, tossing him down.
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