But that was too complicated for Dylan. “Hey, I have a little bit of X left from last week. We can split it.”
“You go ahead,” Jenn said. She had never taken Ecstasy.
“You’ll love it, it isn’t scary or anything,” Dylan said. “It just makes you happy.”
They washed the pills down with cranberry juice and waited.
“Oh,” Jenn said. “This is nice. This is very nice.” She put on an old Rolling Stones CD and began to dance. “Come on,” she said, pulling him up. She felt as though she could dance all night. Every so often Dylan brought her a glass of water.
“You have to stay hydrated,” he said.
She sat on the edge of the bed and drank the water, thinking how lovely he was, to be taking such good care of her. She didn’t know why she had felt so nervous the night before. Being with Dylan was the easiest thing in the world. Everything he said was wonderful, and everything she said was wonderful, and everything he did was wonderful, and everything she did was wonderful.
She lay down on the bed and took off her socks. “Look,” she said. Her toenails were painted silver.
He lay down next to her. “Cool,” he said. He nudged her bare foot with his. They lay there, laughing, kicking each other gently. Their shoulders and hips were touching. Dylan turned onto his side and looked at her.
“You really are beautiful,” he said.
“So are you.”
A slow song came on. He put his arm around her and held her close. “We’re all lined up,” he said. They lay there for a long time, just breathing. Jenn wasn’t used to being held. She walked her fingers up his spine, counting the bones. The only light in the apartment was the green glow of the stereo equipment.
“If you weren’t my sister,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m not your sister. I’m practically not even your stepsister, when you think about it. We were pretty old when our parents got together.”
“True,” he said, “true.” He kissed her on the neck, a slow kiss, and then another. “Your skin is so soft.”
He pulled his head back and they stared at each other, listening to the music, not talking. She felt she could look into his eyes forever. At last he kissed her. It felt like the kiss she had been waiting for her whole life.
“We can’t do this,” he said.
“We already are doing this.”
“We haven’t really done anything yet,” Dylan said.
She kissed him on the ear. “It’s okay,” she said, “everything is okay.”
“We can’t,” he said. “But we can do other things.”
“Like what.”
He smiled. “It doesn’t count if we keep our clothes on.”
He unbuttoned her flannel shirt but left her bra on. “Just hands,” he said, pressing his knee between her legs. Eventually their jeans came off, but their underwear stayed on. There was baby oil in the night table. They poured it onto each other’s bodies: across their bellies, over their backs, down the lengths of their legs. They took turns massaging each other, and then they found positions where they could massage each other at once. He was hard the whole time. She curled up behind him and worked his neck, hooking a leg over his back so that he could rub her foot. They lay head to toe, toe to head, kneading each other’s thighs.
He poured oil into her palm and guided her hand into his shorts.
“Harder,” he said. He unhooked the front of her bra and pressed a hand against her breast. She moved her hand in time to the music. She could tell he was about to come, but he wasn’t making a sound. Then there was a quick gasp, as if she had just delivered a piece of shocking news, and he came across her chest. She cleaned herself off with the edge of a pillowcase.
Then it was her turn. She was quiet, too. He used both his hands, playing with her slowly until she was wet. “Come on,” he whispered, “come on, Jenn.” She felt warm, and wonderful, and happy. She squeezed herself around his fingers.
Afterward they lay on their backs, just their shoulders touching.
“Did you,” he said, “you know.”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t tell,” he said.
She wished she had made some noise. “I don’t,” she began, “I don’t really … not big ones.”
“What does it feel like,” he asked.
She described it: how it felt warm, and as if her insides were rolling over.
“That isn’t an orgasm,” he said. “But you’ve … I mean, you’re not …”
“I’ve been with other men,” she said. “It’s … they’re just small ones, I think. I don’t know.”
“If it was an orgasm, you would know,” Dylan said. “Close your eyes. Lean back. Here, here’s a pillow. Relax. Relax. There you go.… Here we go.…” His tongue was all soft now. He moved his mouth slowly. It wasn’t like the other times, when men had used their mouths just to warm her up. He wasn’t going to stop. It’s happening, she thought, it’s finally happening, it’s happening to me. She came hard around his fingers. He rested his cheek on her thigh. Just as her head started to clear, he made her come again.
“That was an orgasm,” he said. He went to wash his face and came back with more water.
The Ecstasy was beginning to wear off, but it wasn’t crash-y at all, it was like floating down into soft feathers. She microwaved a plate of leftover stuffing and brought it to bed with two forks. The telephone rang.
“What time is it?” Dylan asked.
“Almost ten.”
“Shit.” He answered the phone. “Hey.… Okay.… Nothing.… Yeah, I know where that is.… My stepsister is here.… Right … sure, okay.” He began to get dressed. “I have to go,” he told her. “I’m supposed to meet these people, I forgot all about it.”
“Can I come?” she asked.
“I wish, but … maybe later, I’ll call you later.” He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her shoulder. “You are so beautiful right now.”
She sat up and gave him a hug. The stone-y part of the drug was over, but the warm part was left. She felt so close to him, so wonderfully close. He held her a long time. Maybe he wouldn’t leave. Maybe he was going to come back to bed.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too, little sister.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your little stepsister anymore.” She pouted.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just joking. Don’t be mad.” He offered his hand. “Friends?”
She shook her head. “I love you, Dylan.”
“I love you too. Like a … okay, not like a sister. Like a friend.”
“More than like a friend,” she said.
“No, just like a friend.” He tousled her hair. “That’s the X talking. You’ll see. In the morning it’ll be different.”
“But it won’t be different. I’ve always loved you. Ever since I was eleven years old. Remember that first summer in East Hampton? I still remember exactly what you were wearing. I remember everything about you.” She described his old purple T-shirt, and the music he used to listen to, and she recited slang he hadn’t heard in years.
“Hey, come on, you’re not serious,” he said.
She waved at the bed. “What about this? What about all of this?”
“That was just sex,” Dylan said.
“Just sex?”
“Technically, it wasn’t even sex. Don’t be such a … Oh, never mind.”
“A what? Don’t be such a girl, is that what you were going to say?”
“Don’t be such a kid,” he said, and then he was gone.
Jenn waited up until just before dawn. She slept past noon on Friday, then spent the rest of the day watching soap operas and old movies, waiting for the phone to ring. On Saturday morning she packed up her bag, making sure that she left nothing behind.
She took a taxi to the airport. The radio was turned to a top-forty station. It was a relief to hear hip-hop blasting after Dylan’s depressing music. She had figured him out, it was just the way the a
rticles in Gloss described it: he couldn’t love anybody because he didn’t love himself. Dylan had used her. Just like all those other men, using a beautiful girl for their own pleasure. To build themselves up. And then tossing her aside when they were through.
The photographers used her, too, and the designers, and the magazines. She was only someone who helped them make money. No one really cared about her. There was no point in being angry about it, that was simply how the world worked. Everybody was always using everybody else. She wasn’t going to give herself away so easily again. She deserved to get what she wanted. How many years did she have left? Fifteen, twenty at most. She wasn’t going to end like her mother, all alone, looking for a man to live up to her romantic daydreams, eternally disappointed. She was smarter than that.
The flight attendant brought her a glass of champagne before takeoff. They were always so nice in first class, and why shouldn’t they be, it cost a fortune. The more you paid, the more you got.
Life could be just like this: you figured out what you wanted, and you decided what you needed to do to get it, how high a price you were willing to pay. Jenn remembered something Neely had once told her: No one ever looks back and says, “I wish I’d been nicer.” What women regretted was this: that they hadn’t tried for more, that they hadn’t put their whole hearts into following their dreams. Being nice is what held a woman back. Dylan never worried about being nice, and neither did her father.
It was Jenn’s turn now. The plane lifted off the runway, and she watched the city grow small below. She signaled for another glass of champagne, and this time she didn’t say please.
1997.
Neely was staying at the Stanhope, in a two-room suite that overlooked Central Park. She had been asked to present an award at a charity fund-raiser for Project Serenity, an organization that funded research on substance abuse. It was her first public appearance since leaving rehab.
She called Anne in the early afternoon. “You gotta come over,” she said. “I’m a wreck, I can’t decide what to wear.”
“I’m at work, Neely, I can’t just up and leave. I’ve got piles of things to do.”
“But I need you,” said Neely. “Lyon won’t be here until seven, and anyway, men are never any help, they always say you look wonderful even if you’re wearing the worst dress in the world. Can’t you sneak away early? Or you could go home and change and then swing by here on your way over. Remember when we used to get ready for parties together? It’ll be just like old times, only without the hooch, of course.”
Anne arrived just after four. The suite was filled with flowers. Neely was lying on the bed, watching television. She was wearing a hotel bathrobe, and her hair was tucked up in a plastic clip.
“I changed my mind, I’m not going,” Neely said. “Look at me. I can’t go out like this. Everyone is just going to talk about how fat I am.”
“People are counting on you,” Anne said. “You have to go.”
“No I don’t.”
“I thought someone was coming up to do your hair,” Anne said.
“I canceled that, too,” Neely said.
“Neely, you have to do this.” Anne read some of the cards that had come with the flowers. It was a who’s who of Manhattan. Nancy Bergen had sent the costliest arrangement: a dozen peach roses from the most expensive florist in the neighborhood.
“But I’m scared,” Neely said. “You should see the list of who’s gonna be there. I didn’t know Sandy Dunbar was on the board! I thought it was just going to be a bunch of rich doctors and businessmen, but she’s invited all these Hollywood people, and of course they all have to come, just because Sandy wiggled her skinny little finger. She never liked me anyway. She’s probably expecting me to cancel, just so she can tell her friends ‘I told you so.’ ”
“Then why give her the satisfaction. The columns will be all over this, Neely.”
“Well, it’s too late now, I canceled the hair guy.”
“The concierge can find us someone.”
Anne called downstairs. Neely still hadn’t decided what she was going to wear. Three designers had sent over clothing, hoping for some free publicity. Neely tried the outfits on one by one, turning slowly in front of the mirror.
“Size twelve, can you believe it?” she said. “You could land a plane on my ass.” She chose a navy-blue sleeveless dress with a long matching jacket. An hour later a hairdresser and manicurist from a neighborhood salon arrived and went to work. Anne helped her with her makeup, blending a large dollop of bronzer into her foundation so Neely wouldn’t look so pale.
“There. You look fabulous,” Anne said.
At six o’clock Neely’s little travel clock began to beep. She got a vial of Zoloft out of her bag and opened a bottle of water. “They raised me to a hundred and fifty milligrams a day,” she said. “I’ll never lose this weight. I know, I know, don’t make a face, I’m being a good girl.” She shook a small blue tablet into her palm. “Neely loves her baby dolls.”
“Just one more thing,” she said. She took out a container of glittery gold eyeshadow and scraped some out into the bottom of a coffee cup. Then she added a scoop of moisturizer and mixed them together with the rounded bottom of a makeup brush handle.
“Cleavage juice,” she said. “Trade secret.” She rubbed it onto her chest. “Wait till you see this under the lights. Who’s gonna look at my face!”
“You really shouldn’t be nervous,” said Anne. “You don’t have to talk for more than a minute.”
“It’s the reporters,” Neely said. She hadn’t talked to the press since going into rehab. “They’re like animals. And the photographers, they’re the worst. They’ll do anything. I try to avoid them, but they’re everywhere. I can’t even go shopping anymore. I’m a prisoner in my own home!”
“You know how it works. The more you avoid the press, the more they come after you.”
“You sound just like my publicist. She says if I give them a little of what they want, they’ll ease off.”
“Why don’t you listen to her, then.”
Neely shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t feel like it, that’s all.” Her face lit up. “Hey, I could go on your show. You could come out to Malibu and interview me there.” She knew she would be safe with Anne.
Keith had been pressuring Anne to get an interview with Neely, but Anne had kept putting him off, saying Neely was still too fragile.
“It’s up to you,” Anne told Neely. “I’d love to, but I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.”
“Are you kidding? I owe you everything! You practically saved my life. I just need to lose another twenty pounds,” Neely said. “And I want a good slot. I don’t want to be the opening act for one of those boring tearjerker stories they’re always doing about some kid who has some horrible incurable disease.”
Which was exactly the kind of story Anne specialized in. “Are you sure,” Anne asked.
“What do you want, a note signed in blood?” Neely said. “Of course I’m sure. And you tell the guys at IBC that I want the big buildup, teasers in prime time and the whole bit.”
Anne couldn’t wait to tell Keith. There were rumors that IBC was about to be taken over by a cable consortium, the same one that had bought Anne’s old station. The news division rarely showed a profit—as the jewel in the IBC crown it wasn’t expected to—but who knew what might happen if the network were bought and new management brought in. Keith was under a great deal of stress, and it was starting to show. He had already made veiled comments about what people could expect in the next round of contract negotiations. Even Charles Brady, who had survived several management regimes, was feeling the heat. He had been threatening to retire for years, but each time his contract was up IBC sweetened the pot. “This time I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stay,” he had told Anne. “I love this network, it’s been my whole life, but I don’t want to stick around just to watch some guy from Wyoming tear it to pieces. It would break my heart.”
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But Anne knew Keith would stay and fight, even if it meant making the lives of everyone who worked under him pure hell. For the last few months he had been on her case constantly, about ratings and the kinds of stories she was bringing in.
“You should have gotten that interview,” he would yell at her, after reading about another of Nancy Bergen’s coups.
She was sick of it: Nancy this, Nancy that. Last week Anne had snapped. “If you want another Nancy Bergen, why don’t you just go out and hire the original.”
“Don’t think we haven’t tried,” Keith said. No one’s job was secure. Bill told her she should feel free to quit, he made more than enough money to support the both of them. But Trip kept telling her to hold on: she had a rich contract, and they would have to offer her an enormous package if the show were canceled.
It was time to go. Lyon would be picking Neely up in fifteen minutes. Anne was meeting Bill in the bar downstairs for a quick drink.
“You look amazing,” Bill said. Her martini was waiting.
“Oh, this tastes so good,” Anne said. Maybe it was hard for Neely to be sober, but right now it felt just as hard for Anne to be sober around Neely.
Over the next several weeks, Neely telephoned Anne every few days to talk about the interview.
“I’ve lost another two pounds!” Neely would shriek into the phone. “But the skin around my neck is all loose. We’re going to have to tape it up in back behind my hair. With the right lighting it won’t show. Are you gonna hire a special lighting guy? I’ve noticed sometimes the lighting is a little off, there isn’t enough fill. I know it’s probably a union thing, but I thought you’d want to know.”
And she wanted to talk about potential questions. “So you can ask me what it was like to lose custody of the twins to Ted, and then I’ll look kinda hurt and surprised, maybe I’ll tear up a little, and then I’ll talk about what a great guy Ted is, and how sometimes a mother has to sacrifice to do what’s best for her children. They’ll eat that up. I think if I work it right, I can come off pretty sympathetic, don’t you?”
“Neely, this is journalism, not filmmaking. We can’t script everything beforehand,” said Anne.
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