‘The fact that you define her crap as “bullshit” shows you have no idea. It’s not bullshit to put peanuts in the food of someone who’s allergic to peanuts and send them to the emergency room. It’s not bullshit to unjustly accuse someone of having copied homework, or humiliate her in front of everyone because she has a patch on her shirt. And the fact that you didn’t intervene when you could makes you an accomplice. It’s almost worse than if you’d participated.’
‘I was only sixteen, Penny.’
‘Trump was sixteen once too, but the evil was always there.’
Igor laughed. ‘What, you’re comparing me to Trump now? Fine, I was an asshole, but I assure you I’m not one now.’
‘Well, how did that happen? Were you born again?’
‘I just grew up and wrapped my head around a few things.’
‘Oh yeah? And what would those things be?’
‘That most of the people in there are jerks. They’re high school beauty queens whose glory days are behind them, failed former quarterbacks and spoiled cokeheads. By the time Rebecca’s hit thirty, she’ll look like your grandmother, you’ll see.’
‘My grandma looks better than she does now.’
‘I’ve always loved that you’re such a fighter.’
‘Thanks, Igor, but you’re a liar and a jerk. Here’s what I think. I think Rebecca was disappointed that I didn’t show up with patches in my clothes and an ugly boyfriend, and now she’s going for plan B.’
‘So what’s plan B?’
‘How would I know? Maybe she wants to convince you to come up here pretending to be on my side, and then launch a counterattack? Maybe you’re supposed to fuck me and post photos of it on Twitter.’
‘You can’t really believe that.’
‘Of course I believe it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And now I’m going to invite you to get the hell out of here. If you’re recording our conversation, or Rebecca is behind that door having a laugh, you should both know that—’
‘Listen to me, Penny,’ Igor said firmly, interrupting her. ‘I like you a lot, and I liked you back in high school too. I found you intriguing from day one, because in the midst of a whole pack of fake rebels you were the only real one, and you were pretty as well. I always thought you had the sexiest lips and eyes in the world. During the game down there I wanted to kiss you so badly. Too bad Marcus is so possessive. For a moment I thought he wanted to kill me.’
‘You can stop the charm offensive, OK?’
‘I’m not trying to charm you and it’s not bullshit. I’m just trying to explain why I never asked you out when I could before. Rebecca told me you were a lesbian.’
‘Wait, what?’
‘Well, you were different. You were very much your own person and you didn’t date boys. Don’t blame me if I believed her.’
‘I don’t give a crap if you believed her or not. You can both go to hell. I’m leaving now – this party is shit.’
‘No doubt. But speaking of Rebecca . . . you were right about one thing. She’s going to want payback for all of this.’
‘I knew it. So what are you going to do now?’
‘I’m not doing anything – she’s the one you need to worry about.’
‘I’m not afraid of that skinny beanpole. Let her do whatever she wants.’
‘I . . . um . . . I’m afraid she’s already doing it.’
‘Doing it? Doing what?’ asked Penny, looking around as if Rebecca were hiding somewhere in that big room full of moulding.
‘She didn’t tell me what – we’re not close like we used to be – though a little while ago she told Tucker she was going down to the basement to get a couple of bottles of good wine.’
‘I hope the mice eat her.’
Igor shook his head, looking at Penny, his eyes full of regret. ‘She asked Marcus to go with her.’
Penny stood up quickly, her heart doing flips inside her chest. ‘What did he say?’ she asked, her voice broken with grief.
‘He went.’
Igor kept talking. As she walked down the stairs like a robot, rigid and desperate, she could hear his voice behind her, but she couldn’t hear him. Her pain was like a fog entering in through her ears.
Downstairs, the party went on, oblivious to her problems. They were listening to music, eating, drinking, dancing, smoking. Someone had dived into the pool with all their clothes on. Someone else was browsing through old photo albums. On the surface, it seemed like a reunion she’d seen in so many movies – nostalgic and cynical, both at the same time.
Except that, down in the basement, Rebecca and Marcus were definitely having sex. Penny had no doubt about that.
Her first reaction was to ask Igor where the damn basement was.
‘I’ll come too,’ he replied, ‘except that, if you go down there, you’ll show her how she’s getting to you.’
‘I didn’t ask for your advice, asshole,’ Penny said. Passing by the buffet table, she grabbed a shot and poured it down her throat, then glared at Igor with all the hatred she could muster – which was a lot, even if it was mostly reserved for Marcus. ‘So you came upstairs to distract me with all your talk, just to give that bitch more time.’
‘No, I swear I didn’t! Please believe me!’
‘Fuck you! Just tell me where the basement is and leave me alone.’
He told her, and then Penny once again ordered him to go with such force that Igor had no choice but to walk away.
She went down the flight of stairs and located the wooden door that Igor had described to her. It was locked from the inside. There would have been no reason to shut themselves in if they weren’t up to something in there.
She stopped in front of the locked door, and tears of anger, frustration and disappointment spilled out of her. She tried every way she knew to calm herself down but she just couldn’t stop crying, until finally she realised that going in and making a scene would be ridiculous.
He’s not your boyfriend, she told herself. And you haven’t even paid him yet.
She shook her head in a gesture of defeat, turned away from the door and walked out of the house without so much as a backwards glance. She was stumbling in her chequered heels and had left her coat inside, but she wouldn’t go back in there for all the tea in China. It was cold out and the air was damp, but Penny just wanted to get home at all costs, even if it meant freezing to death.
She asked a passer-by walking their dog to tell her the way to the nearest bus stop, which was a little further on. Meanwhile, it started to rain. A hard rain, like God was firing a load of nails into the earth.
She sat on the plastic bench in the bus shelter, but water hammered its way through the roof, drenching her face, her clothes and the shoes that had survived decades of boredom and were now destined to die in one stupid night. She didn’t want to look up and so she sat hunched over like a broken doll, her tears as heavy as cream. She could no longer feel her own heart – earlier in the evening the blood had been surging through every vein in her body, but now she just felt dull and limp.
She ran a frozen hand over her cheeks and noticed they were frozen too.
Great, I’m gonna get pneumonia. I just hope they all get Ebola.
The bus arrived just as her teeth had begun to chatter, and she stood up, ready to board, her arms wrapped around her body for warmth, the make-up dripping off her face.
All of a sudden, someone put their hands on her. Penny yelped, trying to wriggle away in that vast sea of rain.
It was Marcus, looming out of the darkness behind her.
14
MARCUS
She’s wrong if she thinks I’m gonna tell her she looks pretty, but then maybe she doesn’t expect that. She acts like someone who doesn’t know she’s attractive, let alone expect other people to think she is. She’s nervous and in a rush. All she wants is for me to put on a good act. She’s not expecting bullshit, corsages or photos posed in front of a blinding flash. She just wants us to get on wit
h the evening so she can forget about her school days forever.
We take a taxi. I pay for it, or she pays for it, since I get two hundred and fifty dollars for this whole charade. In the cab she’s trembling like a leaf. I can’t stand it when she’s like this; I prefer it when she’s tough. When she acts like she’s made of glass, I instinctively want to grab her so she doesn’t fall apart. Damn it, Penny, they’re not seven-headed monsters – they’re losers! They were then and they are now too, I guarantee it.
I get my confirmation of that as soon as we arrive. The boyfriend, the one with the asshole name, is a total jerk, and he’s high on something. Not light stuff either – probably something more like coke. Penny’s enemy, Rebecca, is a well-dressed slut, but a bitch all the same. She looks older than her years – I’d take her for at least thirty. She doesn’t seem as high as her dwarf boyfriend, but she’s taken something too. As soon as they see me, they react just like everyone else. He feels threatened, she’s turned on. I’m used to it. Nothing new there.
Then I intertwine my fingers with Penny’s and the show begins. I’ve never held hands with anyone for this long. Francisca doesn’t give a damn about all that crap, and also we usually needed to keep our hands free, ready to kick someone’s ass or hold a knife. For a moment, just one, not even so long as the blink of an eye, I have the strangest feeling, which makes me think of the first time I drank alcohol when I was ten. That first gulp of beer. The coolness of it, the thrill and the dizziness. But then it passes, and now it’s gone.
One thing is certain: Rebecca hates Penny and that guy with the curly hair wants to do her. He doesn’t stop staring for a moment, and gives me a nasty look when he thinks I’m not looking.
I notice Penny’s seen him and is blushing and this pisses me off.
But why does it piss me off?
It makes no sense.
I’m only here to earn two hundred and fifty dollars, not to spin theories about who wants to be with who and who blushes when she sees who else, right?
Maybe she was the one he liked in high school, but he never went for it. Maybe, in addition to infuriating Rebecca, Penny hoped to get revenge on this idiot who snubbed her back then. Why he would have snubbed her at school, I don’t know, but the fact is that now he wants her and he hates me.
Dancing with Penny is strange. I’ve never actually danced with anyone before, except once as a kid with my mother. I have a lightning-quick and totally unexpected flashback to me aged eight or nine, already taller than she was, offering her my hand and performing a ridiculous imitation of a bow. I’d forgotten that, but now the memory’s returned, and I can even remember her words. She said to me, ‘One day you’ll invite your girlfriend to dance a waltz.’ It’s crazy how romantic she was, in spite of everything. She thought my future was full of heart-pounding waltzes and red roses for some unique and perfect woman who would suddenly appear, like a barefoot Cinderella on the steps of a crystal palace. My mother believed that love existed somewhere in the world – beyond her room, her body and her life. She tried hard to convince me, but she never succeeded. I liked to listen to those stories of hers, like a hopeless patient wants to believe the pitiful lies of some quack, but even then I knew they were only fairy tales told by a wannabe princess disappointed by life. The love that I saw as a kid was always a stack of bills left behind on a bedside table, a slew of curses, the mingled odours of sweat and blood.
I’m dancing with Penny, and her hair smells of wild strawberries. I hold her close and her body is rigid and hesitant against me. I wonder if it’s me or just the whole situation that’s bothering her. Maybe she’d rather dance with that loser with the golden curls, and the sheer thought of it pisses me off all over again.
So we’re playing spin the bottle like idiot kids when it lands on her, and that’s the end of it. The moron approaches, and suddenly I’m drowning in rage. Don’t you dare touch her, you prick! I kiss her and my mind goes blank. All I can think about is her mouth, her tongue, her breath and her strawberry-scented hair. If we were alone right now, I’d lift up her skirt and take her with all my might. But we’re not alone here, and all too soon the background sounds rush back in, and I feel confused and terrible and really mad at her.
When I feel this way, I insult people; and I don’t know why, but somehow I feel easier with myself when I treat Penny like shit. The truth is that I want to drag her behind a door, behind a curtain, behind a screen, and slip between her thighs without a single word of explanation. OK, it’s a fact: I have a thing for her. It’s nothing mysterious – I’m a young man and all my parts are in working order. I repeat it to myself ten times over while spewing a bunch of bullshit at her. I’m just a man.
Then, suddenly, Rebecca drags her away.
I follow them, hang around near the staircase they went up. After a while Rebecca comes down, and as soon as she notices me, she does the same as any other slut: mouth gaping, tongue hanging out, wide eyes, a smirk – the full shebang. She grabs me by the arm, tells me Penny’s coming down in a minute, and in the meantime I can go to the basement with her to grab some wine.
Of course I’ll go to the basement with you, my dearest little bitch.
Her boyfriend with his douchebag face doesn’t even notice, or maybe he’s just happy every time someone does him the favour of fucking his woman, since he’s barely able to stand with all that coke up his nose.
We go downstairs to a temperature-controlled room, all wood and white plaster, packed with rows and rows of bottles. We reach the far wall, where the rarest, most expensive vintages are kept.
Rebecca begins to run her hands over the necks of the bottles as she watches me, then she takes one and caresses it in a suggestive way. There’s a strange blue light in her eyes as she comes up to me, and now she’s running her hands up and down her body, twisting and turning like a snake, only one thing on her little mind. She’s stroking my arms, my stomach, the crotch of my pants. ‘You’re very sexy, you know, Marcus.’
‘I am. And you?’
‘I’m better than Penny.’
I give her an oblique smile. ‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yup.’
‘Let’s see. Take your clothes off.’
Rebecca gives a low laugh and starts to undo the zipper at the side of her dress. She slides it down, all sensual and slow. The dress falls on to the dusty floor. Now she’s standing there in a lace bodysuit, squeezed into it like a herring through the eye of a needle.
‘Take it all off,’ I command.
She’s loving how firm I am with her – she’s licking her lips and her face is flushed. She’s fully naked now, with her small but perfect tits and her Brazilian wax.
I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say in my coldest voice. ‘I can see now. You’re not in any way better than my Penny.’
Her eyes widen and she looks like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘But . . .’
‘I’m sorry, but my dick just won’t cooperate,’ I tell her. ‘In fact, seeing you naked like that just makes me want to fuck Penny even harder.’
‘That bitch! I’m sure she’s paying you! But I’ll give you more – I have my chequebook upstairs. How’s two thousand dollars sound to you?’
‘I’d need a whole lot more than a couple of grand, believe me. But it’s not a question of money – I just find you repulsive. I have no intention of getting down in the filth and slime alongside you, you know.’
With that, I turn my back and leave her, naked and pissed off. I think I can hear her swearing at me, but I don’t care enough to know exactly what she’s saying.
I can’t find Penny. For a minute, I’m afraid she’s stuck somewhere with that creep – the one who looks at her like she’s a lollipop he wants to suck. I can’t stop myself from clenching my fists.
Then I see him.
‘Where is she?’ I ask, and he frowns.
‘If you’re referring to Penny, she left. If you’re referring to Rebecca, you should know better than I do.’
> ‘She left? When?’
‘About ten minutes ago, after discovering you’re a scumbag.’
Another time his comment would bother me, but right now I’m worrying about Penny, and he leaves me strangely indifferent.
‘Where did she go?’
‘What do I know? She didn’t want me to go with her.’
‘Did she take a taxi or what?’
‘She didn’t even take her coat – she practically ran out of here. You know, you’re a piece of shit. If you have someone like Penny, what would you need with Rebecca? But maybe it’s true what they say – the bigger the muscles, the smaller the brain.’
I grab the collar of his shirt. ‘You’d better hope nothing happened to her.’
‘You too.’
He’s not wrong. It’s not his fault. I came here with Penny tonight. I’m the one who should have protected her. I hold back my desire to crush his balls with my knee just for the sheer enjoyment of knocking that accusatory expression off his face, and I leave that evil house.
It’s raining. I look around but there’s no trace of her. My heart starts racing.
OK, take it easy. She’s not a child. It’s true you went to the party together, but you didn’t exactly sign a deal in blood. So she left, did she? Well, that’s her business.
But I can’t convince myself not to worry. Part of me realises I’m a fucking liar. I think back to her frightened expression before we arrived – her moist, glistening eyes – and I get seriously pissed at myself.
I try to call her on her phone but it just rings. I fire off a few expletives.
She didn’t have enough money with her, so she couldn’t have taken a taxi. Maybe a bus?
I ask a couple where the closest bus stop is, then start running like crazy.
She’s in a bus shelter that’s actually not giving her any shelter at all. She’s sitting on the bench staring out at the muddy street. The bus arrives, spraying water everywhere. Penny gets up to climb on board. I don’t really get what I’m doing here, and most of all I don’t really get what I’m feeling; I only know that as soon as I embrace her from behind, wrapping her tightly in my arms, I feel like I’ve conquered some essential part of myself.
Trying Not To Love You Page 13