by Dan Taylor
On the other hand, Barbara must think I’m gullible to believe that story about Charles fainting. He looks tough enough to watch a whole line of women giving birth and not blink an eyelid.
I make Barbara my focus, go to ask her a question, but Charles shifts the topic of conversation.
We talk about my home life, which I fabricate with expertise. I snatch glances of Barbara, who’s looking worse for wear. We haven’t drunk that much, and Barbara’s a slight woman, apart from a curiously broad set of shoulders, but still.
I think she’s taking some medication. Something that doesn’t mix well with alcohol.
I’m going to find out what it is.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom. I think that chili sauce is going straight through me.”
25.
IT’S NOT THE best table etiquette, but it’s important that they don’t get suspicious when I’m away from the table longer than the time it takes to piss.
As I leave the table, Charles looks proud about the perceived effects of his sauce, Barbara looks vacant, and Megan’s trying to burn a hole in me with a look.
An effective PI takes in all his surroundings and their happenings, just in case he needs to use the information later on. Unfortunately, despite my sterling record, I’m not that good a PI So I have to resort to searching round the house for Barbara’s handbag—the place I figure her medication’s most likely to be.
In my experience, women leave handbags in any perceivable place. Need to find a man’s wallet? Easy peasy. It’s in the back pocket of the pants he wore the previous day, and they’re on the floor next to the laundry basket.
If I were looking for the handbag of one of the women I’ve dated in Hollywood, my guess would be the bedroom floor of my condo, probably stashed away under the bed, so that they’d have an excuse to come back and see me. Barbara isn’t an impressionable young woman from Hollywood, nor have we slept together.
This isn’t going to be easy.
Turns out it is. As I go down the hallway, I see it nestled under the coat rack by the front door. I take it, and groan, as though I’ve just felt molten lava move a couple sphincters down my colon, rush for the bathroom.
There are some curious items in the handbag: what looks to be a feminine electric razor, but which turns out to be an epilator on closer inspection; an ear, nose, and nostril trimmer; and a Polaroid of a man, circa early nineties. Could this be Megan’s biological father? It’s as sure as my need to use wet cotton balls to wipe my ass tomorrow once Charles’s sauce has actually made its way through my GI tract. I can see the likeness to Megan, as well. As clear as mountain spring water.
But this find goes no way to explaining why Megan has buried memories of calling two completely different people dad and mom. And goes no way to explaining who Barbara and Charles are.
I take a picture of the Polaroid with my iPhone, as well as the other items. I search the rest of the bag and find what I’m looking for.
Inside Barbara’s bag is a prescription of Lexapro.
26.
I HAVE NO idea what Lexapro is or if it’s significant to the case. A quick google informs me that it’s one of a few brand names of Escitalopram, an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class.
Another quick google informs me that Lexapro isn’t a good mix with alcohol, at least BunnySmile69 on some forum is imploring another member not to mix the two. I decide I believe her, then put back the drugs and the other items I’ve taken out of the handbag, flush the toilet, then head back out to the hallway.
I put the handbag back without incident and return to the dining table.
Charles is in the middle of some anecdote, and both Books ladies are captivated. Megan especially so. It’s clear she loves Charles.
When I sit down, I look at Barbara and get that Facebook feeling I described when looking at the picture of Charles during my briefing with Gerry. It’s the damndest thing.
I ask, “Say, Barbara, have you done any acting?”
She blushes, then says, “No, dear. But thanks for the compliment.”
I tell her she’s welcome, but I’m not sure that it was.
I shake off the Facebook feeling, and try and relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. My day’s work is done after finding Barbara’s medicine, and I need to rest my mind for tomorrow, the final whole day of being undercover.
We have a pretty good time. We drink wine, eat a decent dessert, and shoot the breeze till about eleven. Charles invites me outside and we smoke cigars, drink glasses of what he tells me is a quality brandy, though it’s wasted on me.
I like Charles. After the rough start, he’s really warmed to me. And I can’t really blame him for the frosty welcome. There’s no way, if I had a daughter, I’d want to see some old college student come through the door with her for a weekend visit. And wearing these clothes either, which make me look like a pompous asshole.
At about midnight, Charles has to take Barbara to bed, as she’s slouching-down-in-her-chair drunk.
Megan and I go off to the bedroom, and there’s a weird tension between us. We chatted away fine during dinner and the post-dinner chill out, but now she’s quiet, pensive.
She must be tired, or she hid her anger towards me during dinner for the sake of her parents.
Without a word, Megan heads off to the en suite, starts brushing her teeth. I look around for the blow-up mattress, but don’t see it. Feeling pretty drunk, I stagger around the room, looking for it in various places.
“I really enjoyed tonight,” I say.
Brushing stops, Megan says, “Me too.”
“Say, where did you put the blow-up mattress?”
Megan doesn’t reply.
I say, “Come on, Megan. It takes twenty minutes to blow that thing up properly, and it’s already late.”
Silence.
I turn my back to the en suite door, start looking for it again, then Megan says, “You don’t need it.”
I turn around, and my eyes nearly pop out of my head.
Megan is stood in the doorway, buck naked.
“Oh, boy.”
27.
AT SOME POINT during the last day and a half I convinced Megan that I’m sexual-partner material.
I know. I’m as confused as you are.
I’d love to tell you that I do the sensible and professional thing. That I take a warm blanket and wrap it around Megan’s shoulders, sit her down on the bed, delicately explain why we shouldn’t have sex. That I rest her head on my shoulder so that she can cry a little, then put her to bed, and do what any self-respecting PI would do in this situation. Go and whack off in the bathroom when Megan’s sound asleep so that I don’t become tempted to get in bed with her during the night.
But I’m a man. And you should see Megan’s breasts. They’re large and perfectly shaped, with no overhang, and her nipples point up at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle. Bam!
It’s ok to think I’m a piece of shit. I’d agree, too, if I wasn’t seeing what I’m seeing.
My eyes move downwards, and let’s just say that the lawn matches the playing field. Her figure is bewitching, and I’ve already made up my mind, no matter how much of a creep you think I am.
I’m sorry to let you down, but I’m thirty-seven. Knowing this generation, I become gross at about fifty, barring rap-music-producer wealth. So there aren’t that many opportunities left for me to have sex with such a young beauty.
If you’ll forgive me, I’d like to make the most of this opportunity.
Besides, you never know what’s going to happen. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow.
A really big bus.
28.
“THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED to me before.”
“Really?”
“Okay, maybe once or twice, but never like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you saying sorry?”
Megan sits up in the bed, emphasizes her question by dis
playing open palms.
“Your parents might have heard.”
She shudders, says, “I don’t care. That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.”
What did you think had happened?
Oh, that.
It takes a few more glasses of brandy for that to happen to me.
“Want to share a joint?” Megan asks.
She goes to a drawer, takes rolls of socks and G-strings out of it, and then pulls out a false bottom. She takes out a Ziploc bag, in which is a pre-rolled joint.
Megan’s still naked, by the way.
I say, “I better not.”
“Are you scared of getting caught?”
“Why would I be scared? They’re your parents.”
“True. So why are you scared?”
“I didn’t say I was. Last time I smoked was at Snoop Dogg’s New Year’s Party, 2009.”
“So?”
“And I freaked out then.”
“You won’t freak out if you smoke this. Trust me.”
Megan explains that the weed encased in her crudely rolled joint is something called Project-31. According to Megan, it’s a strain of weed bred by the CIA. It delivers a high as powerful as a kick from a steroidal mule, but with little paranoia. Sounds like a load of horseshit dreamt up by college students to sell more weed around campus, but I give it a try.
We start smoking it next to the open window.
Megan says, “What do you think?”
“Tastes like any other weed I’ve smoked.”
“Not that, silly. The idea of us hooking up on a regular basis?”
She catches me mid-toke, and I cough up the smoke in my lungs.
Megan laughs. “I’m just fucking with you.”
“Good one.”
We’re quiet a minute.
“Where did you learn to do that thing with your thumb?” she asks.
“I didn’t learn any place. Why do you ask?”
“Because whoever I end up marrying, I’m going to teach it to him.”
“Sounds sensible.”
The weed kicks in quickly, and let me tell you, there’s some truth in that story of hers.
I feel like I’m in college again—high, few worries, and next to a naked young girl. Apart from this time I was able to get it up when the twenty-something dropped her panties for me.
“Why’ve you got that stupid grin on your face?” Megan asks.
“Have I?”
“Yeah.”
I try and straighten my face the best I can, though it didn’t feel like I was smiling in the first place. “What about now? Am I still smiling?”
“Like a bored husband who’s farted and is waiting for it to drift over to his nag of a wife.”
I laugh, and hard. “That was pretty funny.”
“Gee, thanks.”
I take the joint, take a toke, then pass it back. “You should really learn to take a compliment better.”
“You should learn not to patronize people.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah.”
“I really didn’t mean to. I was sincere. That really was a good joke for a girl.”
“Zing!”
I’ve no idea what that means, but Megan’s smiling.
“You’re pretty cool for an old guy.”
I give her the dumbest look I can possibly pull—eyes crossed, lips askew, brow furrowed—and repeat what Megan said, “Gee, thanks.”
“No, I mean it. Last old guy I brought to my parents house to seduce turned his nose up at the after-sex joint.”
“Zing!”
Still no idea what it means, but Megan laughs, indicating I probably used it in the right context.
“Just joking. You’re my first old guy.”
We finish the joint and get in bed. Megan tells me to not get comfortable, as I’ll be sleeping on the blow-up mattress again.
The weed’s made Megan quiet, and it gives me time to think about what I’ve learned so far in the case.
Here it is. During my first evening, I noted that Megan looks like both her father and her mother. I seem to remember something about washed-out-green eyes, but this isn’t conclusive evidence, I know. The next day we went to a hypnotherapist who specializes in age-regression therapy, who turned out to be legit. During this session I learned that Megan identified with two people called Judy and Paul as her parents when she was still pooping in potties. Megan and her family supposedly moved to Rodeo when she was three, and Megan’s photo album supports this. Oh, and there’s the information that Scottie found out. On paper, Barbara and Charles Books didn’t exist before the year nineteen-ninety, the year that they supposedly moved.
And tonight, I learned that Barbara has a prescription for an antidepressant, and that she carries round a picture of someone in her purse that looks like Megan.
Her real dad? Maybe.
Is Barbara her real mom? Probably yes.
Am I confused? Affirmative.
I laugh about the last thought, and for some reason Megan joins in with me, which in turn makes me laugh harder.
When we’ve calmed down a bit, I say, “There’s no way I’m blowing up that mattress.”
“You can stay in here if you want. But no cuddling.”
“I think I can manage that.”
“Good.”
Megan kisses me on the cheek, turns off the bedside lamp, and gets into a sleeping position.
We’re quiet awhile before Megan says, “Want to fuck again?”
“I can’t think of a reason not to.”
29.
MEGAN’S STILL ASLEEP, snoring surprisingly loud for a girl her size and age. I haven’t been able to sleep in like that since the age of twenty-two—bar yesterday. It’s 6:35 A.M. and she shows no sign of waking. Not even when I accidentally nudge her with my elbow while shifting position, hoping for morning sex.
I know. I’ve royally fucked up with this Megan situation. There’s no way I’ll get rid of her today.
And to make matters worse, Scottie sent me a text message at 3:23 A.M., which I’ve just read. He’s found out that Barbara and Charles each made a handsome payment to Fluffy Garden Shears Ltd around the same time. And the payments were almost identical, give or take a few dollars—$35,987 and $34,999. Scottie wrote that it’s unclear what these payments were for, and that Fluffy Garden Shears Ltd isn’t an organization he’s been able to find. Which means it’s a decoy payment identifier, like when you order sex toys and don’t want your husband to find out when he pays your credit card bill. But they would have to be pretty effective dildos for that price. Maybe custom molded from some famous actor’s cock.
He’s going to carry on trying to get an address for me, which I’ll be checking out. Whatever it is, I don’t want Megan there.
Which, in turn, means it was a pretty bad idea giving her multiple orgasms last night.
At least Megan and I sleeping together has cleared up the mystery of why she demanded I come and work the case undercover.
Imagine Megan at a restaurant with Gerry, looking at a picture of me, looking passed my squinty eyes. Licking her lips.
I was pretty naive when I believed her before when she said that she hadn’t demanded I come. You’ll just have to trust me on this one. I’m pretty good-looking.
Megan stirs, but doesn’t wake.
It’s 6:47 A.M. The kids of today, huh?
I get up and go and phone Gerry, but she doesn’t answer.
Weird. I know Gerry to get up at 5 A.M. every day, go for a run.
How do I know this? I had a thing for Gerry, which got intense. I posed as an African-American homosexual aerobics instructor with a crazy-big afro, and followed Gerry on her running route every morning with a pair of Bolognese dogs I was looking after for a client. I gave up when it became clear I had no chance of keeping up, giving me a chance to get a hold of myself.
Next I send a text to Regan, telling her not to phone again, and that if she can afford a lawyer, she can contact mine
through hers. Harsh, but you don’t try and remove a wart with a beaded exfoliating scrub.
I get back in bed, adjust my position a few times, then do the thing she asked me not to.
30.
“WHY THE HELL are you cuddling me, Jake?” Megan says.
“I didn’t mean to. I did it in my sleep.”
“You sound completely awake, like you’ve been up for hours.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s Sunday. I always sleep in late.” I feign a yawn.
“What time is it?”
“6:51.”
She makes a noise like she’s hocking up a loogie. “It’s way too early to be awake. Go back to sleep.”
“I was sleeping until you spoke to me.”
“Bullshit. I could hear you padding around before you got back in bed and started cuddling me.”
“So you were awake.”
“I was dozing.”
“Isn’t that just being awake with your eyes closed?”
“No.”
“What is it, then?”
She makes that noise again. “Stop talking or I’ll never get back to sleep.”
I haven’t stopped man-hugging her.
After a moment’s silence, she says, “Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“It’s too early for that, Jake.” She lifts my arm off her. “Go back to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
She sighs, then says, “If we have a quick fuck will you leave me alone?”
“Yeah. But I’ll have to get that noise out of my mind, first.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Jake.”
“True.”
It’s fun, despite Megan’s morning breath, and despite Megan looking like she’s half asleep when she’s on top. Dozing, she’d call it.
It wakes her fully up, and she goes and gets a shower. I try to get in, just for time efficiency’s sake, but get rejected.
We get dressed, and she says I look like a Scout leader dressed up in his Sunday best, going to his first son’s Briss.