HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout

by Bill Orton

  “Still, I’d like them,” said Larry. “One for a million, exiting on good terms; the other for a million, with no way of knowing if I am happy or not. And then also the paper I hand to Ed to fire him and also hand him ten or twenty grand to get rid of him.”

  “If he takes the money, he accepts the terms,” said Emily.

  Larry sipped his Diet Coke.

  “Ideally, though, you still want a signature showing the person accepts the agreement,” said Emily, picking up an asparagus spear with her fingers and nibbling it to nothingness. “This place is good,” she said, licking her fingers.

  “Oh, and one other for a million, for someone else,” said Larry.

  “Lori?” said Emily.

  “Yeh,” said Larry. “So she has something waiting for when she gets out of the army.”

  “You’re a pretty amazing friend,” said Emily, waving for the waitress and asking for a box.

  “So’s she,” said Larry, “but it doesn’t feel like real money.”

  “Believe me,” said Emily, “a million dollars… that is real money.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not real to me,” said Larry. “I mean, only three actual dollars are real money that I put in. And those actually came from Lori’s, so, really, it may as well be hers….” Larry picked up the last piece of his pastrami sandwich, as Emily sipped her soda. “So how are things for you and your mom?”

  “Interesting you should ask, as she just sold her shop,” said Emily. “Some movie people came and offered to buy her entire store. She didn’t believe it at first, but then a director came with a bunch of money and bought everything.”

  “Oh,” said Larry, “whats she doing now?”

  “Nothing,” said Emily. “She’s totally bored. She’s watches TV with my brother’s kids all day. Hope she finds something soon. She’s driving all of us crazy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Emptiness

  Gina Milani sat with her hands folded on her lap, in a wingback chair pulled to the far side of the mirrored main studio of the Scandinavian’s suite, as Lena Martins adjusted the clip-on mic on Emma’s blouse and a second crew member applied powder to Emma’s forehead.

  “Great. Really great,” said Tres von Sommerberg, standing beside a camera operator, near where Gina was seated.

  .

  “It isn’t going well,” said Dr. Bosch, to Larry, as the two stood alongside Calvin’s gurney. “He just is not responding as I would hope.”

  “W’ull,” said Larry, “just like with my grandma, whatever you need to do….”

  .

  “Ready, old woman?” said the young blonde, walking past Lori.

  As eight swimmers stepped to their block for a trial heat, Lori kept her eyes focused forward.

  .

  “Ewa Sonnet?” I asked, with my notepad and pen in my lap, as Ed and I watched cable.

  Ed flipped the station, pausing at ESPN, for a soccer match. “Just don’t get the soccer thing,” said Ed, under his breath. “She’s on for a meeting, but prefers New York or Europe. I could take that one, to feel things out.”

  I jotted “NY/EU” next to her name. “Just email the contact and I will follow up.”

  Ed kept flipping, stopping at a Humphrey Bogart film. Adopting a stiff lip, Ed attempted to impersonate the voice. “Don’t prefer doing things that way.”

  “This may be odd work, Ed,” I said, “but this is still a job, okay. If anyone is representing themselves on Larry’s behalf, I need to know who’s saying what to whom.”

  “Do you know how to whistle? Just pucker up and blow.”

  “Odalys Garcia?”

  .

  Emily sat on a tall stool and her mother on a low chair, as they each worked their way through several take-out cartons from East-West Xpress. Inside Kashabara’s, the place was nearly empty, with the two women gathered around an atomic-theme coffee table heaped with food, two purses, keys and a pack of cigarettes.

  Ms. Kashabara poured chicken panang over her rice, and picked up her chopsticks.

  .

  Larry stood at his father’s gurney side. Calvin lay motionless.

  Two nurses lifted and adjusted the father’s splayed frame, checked monitors, and exited.

  Neither Larry nor Calvin reacted to any of it.

  .

  Lori stared ahead, as she gripped a pull-up bar in her dorm bathroom. She regularized her breathing and slowly descended and rose.

  .

  Tres, his index finger lightly touching his lips, listened intently, as Lena held the camera and posed questions. Gina, upright in her wingback chair, watched the filmmakers circle Emma, who sat on the center sofa of the studio.

  “It is right that Harald Lander sat where I sit now, and my mother danced for him, as I wound the Victrola and my father placed the discs. We had many visitors and for each, it was the same. On such nights, my mother seemed happy. The maestro stayed most of the spring one year, but many visitors stayed a week or more. The King sent emissaries, but they stayed only for the single meal. The Ambassador dined with my parents whenever he was in California and asked that my mother to serve as hostess for receptions in the studio, when he took up space near the Banning Residence, and would motor by water across the harbor, from Wilmington to Treasure Island. None of these great men saw it as their duty to take Astrid Ullagård as a secret lover, so I am unwilling to believe that the Maestro impregnated my mother. She may have been sour, but she wasn’t rotten.”

  .

  “I do nothing,” said Emily’s mother, as she swept the empty floor of her shop.

  “You don’t have to ‘do nothing,’ mom, but why take on more debt?” asked Emily.

  “Because the banks will give it to me,” said Ms. Kashabara. “Before I paid the balance with the movie money, the bank wouldn’t look twice at me. Now, I have a million-dollar line of credit.”

  “Mom, you cleared everything you ever owed, and you could do something for your future,” said Emily.

  “I am! I am capitalizing on my credit,” said the mother. “Do you know how rare it is for a woman my age to have a seven-figure credit line? Access to capital, my daughter, is what equals, ding – opportunity,” said Ms. Kashabara. “The bank speaks only one language, but a banker is proud for making the greedy feel comfortable, and the earnest feel safe.”

  .

  I closed my notebook, notes and doodles next to each of the names of Larry’s models.

  Ed stopped at “Lonely Island.” We both watched in silence as a shark circled in the clear water.

  .

  Larry stepped into the Lincoln and Ralphie closed the door behind him. As the car pulled away from Long Beach Memorial, Larry lay back in the leather seat and looked at the ceiling.

  His phone buzzed, “Lori,” read the screen.

  “Hi,” said Larry, putting the call on loudspeaker.

  “Hey,” came Lori’s voice.

  “Doing okay?”

  “Yeh, okay,” said Lori. “You okay?”

  “Yeh, okay, I guess,” Larry said. “I miss you.”

  “Yeh,” said Lori. “Me, too.”

  “Not like you to miss anyone,” said Larry.

  “This isn’t like normal,” said Lori. “People crack here.”

  .

  “Be right down, hunny,” said December, over the intercom.

  Larry stood outside her building, with its single-tone paintjob. December came outside, and a moment later, he and December stepped into the Lincoln, which had drawn a small crowd of kids as spectators. Ralphie closed the passenger door. Larry rolled down the window and was handing cans of soda to hands reaching towards the window, as Ralphie got in to the drivers compartment.

  .

  “Been nice hanging, dude,” said Ed, ”but I’ve got a date.” He quickly stood, gave a wave and left my apartment, seconds after the hour-long second-to-last episode of “Lonely Island” wrapped up.

  .

  Lori lay, eyes wide open, on the narr
ow bed of her dorm room, moonlight streaming onto the pillow from the open window. A white, fuzzy hand-puppet of a lamb lay limp on the pillow, next to a tiny stuffed pumpkin.

  Lori reached to her cell phone, alongside the Lambchop puppet, and dialed, setting the phone on the sheep. A woman’s voice answered over speaker

  “Hi, mom,” said Lori.

  Part Five – Chapter Twenty-Five

  Troubled Waters

  “Dis is da boat you bought, Larry?” asked December, as she and Larry walked towards the dock in front of the family mansion. Before them was the motor yacht Larry had chased in his whitehall, a mountain of white standing forty feet off the waterline, capped with its single-person pilothouse.

  “Yeh,” said Larry.

  .

  Now felt as good a time as any to call Lori.

  I’d been thinking about her almost constantly since she re-entered my life, as part of this crazy turn in Larry’s world, and even though he was going to cut me loose, and she was going into the army, I could still at least try this one last time.

  “What?”

  “Hi, Lori,” I said, again inexplicably nervous, as I always am talking to my ex-wife, unable to think of what next to say.

  “Lawrence, I got a lot going on,” said Lori. “Unless it’s something important, I gotta get back….”

  “Lori, I can’t stop thinking of you,” I blurted out. “I’ve never wanted you more than I do now.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “Ever since I saw you again, I can’t get you out of my mind,” I said. The light of the moon burned like fire, as I looked out to the ocean. “Larry’s going to let me out of this thing, and so I’m closing up books, and I know you’re closing things up, too. Can I go with you?”

  More silence, broken finally by a simple question. “What do you mean, ‘go with me?’ ”

  “Wherever you’re going,” I said.

  “Lawrence, I am going into the fucking U.S. Army,” said Lori. “I doubt there’s tag-along quarters in Kandahar or Kabul or Iraq....”

  “Please, Lori, I just want to be back in your life again,” I begged. “Larry’s giving me a million bucks. We could create a new life somewhere, anywhere.”

  A burst of anger followed Lori’s silence, in that same tone she had used when she first left me. “Is that all anybody wants now, is a tit to suck on?” she said. “Lawrence, you’re nuts if you think that I’d let you take a bailout from my best friend, so you can ditch him for whatever hope you have about me, which I can promise is definitely not gonna happen.”

  “Lori, please,” I begged, feeling with absolute clarity the fullness of the definition for “pathetic,” as I said each word. “You’re all I can think of.”

  Lori hung up.

  .

  “Gina!” yelled Ed, from the sidewalk that separated the van der Bix mansion from the docks.

  Gina Milani stood on the top floor at the stone railing, in the moonlight, looking out at Larry’s enormous motor yacht, with its single cabin aglow.

  “I miss you, baby!”

  “Go away, Ed,” she yelled.

  .

  December, wearing only a bikini bottom, set a small boom box on the plush couch built into the bulkhead of the main cabin. She pushed play and Frank Sinatra began crooning. “I thought we’d go old school for tonight’s dances,” said December. Larry had stripped down to briefs and a tee-shirt. He held a remote and dimmed the lights, prompting a cooing sound from December.

  A single lamp in the far corner of the cabin glowed, as December straddled Larry, holding the back of the couch for support, as she brushed her breasts lightly across his face. “Thanks for letting me dance for you, hunny. I prefer to work for my money.”

  A phone vibrated on a small counter just above the couch. December looked, climbed off Larry, whispered “Lori” and answered her phone. Using Larry’s torso as a cushion, December rested again him as she took the call. “Yeh, baby?” December’s spare hand had dug into Larry’s briefs and pulled out his enormous, limp penis, which she held as she talked on the phone. “Naw, just hanging out with Larry. He got a big boat. He’s showing it to me. Yeh, a boat. Big,” she said, squeezing his penis. “Like, crazy big.”

  Larry’s phone buzzed. “GINA.” He picked it up. “Hi,” he said. “No. Just in the boat. Alone? No.” Larry held his phone away from his ear for a moment, looked at the screen and returned to the call. “Ed’s on the other line. Just a second….”

  “No, baby, Ed’s not here,” said December.

  “What, Ed?” said Larry, as December gave a strong squeeze.

  “Ed’s calling Larry,” said December, not letting up her grip.

  “Yeh, I’m in the boat,” said Larry. “No, you can’t come up.”

  “Go, Larry!” said December. “He’s telling him, baby.”

  “No! You can’t... fuck!” said Larry, pulling away from December, who released her grip. Larry slid on his shorts, as the sounds of heavy footsteps came from the deck, followed by knocking on the cabin door.

  “Fuck!” yelled December, grabbing her bikini top and putting Lori on speaker, as Larry went toward the knocking, only to hear more knocking from the other side of the cabin.

  “Go away, Ed!” Larry yelled through the locked sliding door on the left side of the cabin.

  “Damn,” said December, tying her bikini top and then reaching for her tank top.

  “What’s happening?” came Lori’s voice.

  “It’s Ed outside the cabin,” yelled December, as she picked up the phone. “And that girl, who helps the grandma....”

  “Gina,” said Lori, the sound of anger rising.

  Gina slid open the door on the right side of the cabin. “Isn’t this a nice, little vacation getaway?” she said.

  Ed climbed across the front-facing windows, quickly reaching the door Gina had slid open and finding Gina standing with her hands on her hips and with Larry and December barely dressed.

  “I see,” said Ed. “Maybe this is why Lawrence just wasted my evening running me through pointless questions.”

  “Don’t you touch my girl, Ed!” yelled Lori, through the speaker.

  “Jealousy doesn’t wear well, even on a hero, swim chick,” said Ed. “but it looks like your best friend already beat us to the punch.”

  “This is disgusting,” said Gina.

  “What the hell’s going on there?” yelled Lori.

  Larry, holding his stomach, said nothing.

  “Ed, you have a lot of balls coming up here like you own da place,” said December, before she turned to Gina. “And you....”

  “No,” said Larry. “No, please….”

  “I don’t know what you think I’m thinking,” said Gina, squaring her shoulders, “but it’s not what you think I’m thinking.”

  “Somebody tell me what’s going on!” yelled Lori.

  Larry fell to his knees and began vomiting.

  “Oh my God!” yelled Gina, looking about and moving quickly to grab a stack of towels.

  “Oh, dude,” said Ed, backing away, but not before Larry looked up towards him, spraying his flip-flops, feet and ankles. “Aww, gross, man!”

  “Nevermind,” said Lori. “I know what’s happening.”

  ”Oh, hunny,” said December, as Larry continued puking.

  Gina leaned in close to Larry, handing him a towel. He reached up and as he took the towel, Gina released it into his hand, whispering, “You’ll be okay.” She strategically tossed two of the towels onto the floor just in front of Larry before returning to the stack, grabbing several more towels and crossing the cabin to a sink area, where she ran water onto one of the towels. She returned to the spot next to Larry and offered him the wet towel.

  .

  I made my way to the only lit compartment on the enormous yacht now berthed in front of the van der Bix mansion, to find Larry slouched in a swivel chair, next to a large couch in the rear of the main cabin. Ed sat near the forward-facing windows
. The air hung heavy with the smell of vomit. Gina and December sat on the couch, the women on either side of Larry.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said, avoiding a pile of wet towels in the middle of the floor, “but Lori told me to find out.” This could have been high school. This could have been Saturday night, sneaking beers at the suite. This could have been another disastrous drive with Larry, the only person I had ever known who could get carsick as he drove. “I can sort of figure it out, but why doesn’t someone tell me.”

  “I just care about Larry,” said Gina.

  “You talk like you own him,” snapped December.

  “You didn’t even look down when I was at the sidewalk,” said Ed.

  “Oh, God,” said Larry.

  “Excuse me, but has anyone ever heard of a private life?” said December. “Until everyone barged in, Larry and me were minding our own business.”

  “He was minding your business pretty well,” said Ed.

  “Please,” said Larry, as he began coughing.

  “Everybody stop!” I yelled. “This is Larry’s boat. Let the man breathe.”

  The silence that followed made the rumbling of engines all the louder, followed by a chorus of “What the…?”

  Everyone in the cabin looked up, as hands in the night slid one of the cabin doors open. Two burly men entered, as the boat began to move on the water.

  “Sitko! What the hell are you doing!” yelled December.

  “Why look,” said the bigger of the two men, “it’s the man with the soda cans.” Sitko Bladich stepped up to Larry and delivered a kick to the face, sending Larry bouncing back on the couch before he collapsed forward, onto the floor. Gina and December shrieked.

  “I love that,” Sitko said to his comrade.

  “You fuckin’ bastard,” yelled Ed, standing, as the man with Sitko drew a long-bladed knife.

  “C’mon, surfer boy,” said the man with the knife, crouching. “Be a hero.”