by JD Hawkins
“Well, bye Nate,” Jessie says, opening her arms wide for a goodbye hug.
“See you, Jessie,” I say, taking her in my arms.
We bring ourselves together in an embrace. It’s natural and sweet, innocent and harmless – for about three seconds. Then Jessie nuzzles my neck and takes my earlobe between her teeth, while my hands descend down her back and slide into the back pockets of her jeans. I push her forward into the apartment and she kicks the door closed behind me.
My lips are on her neck, devouring the soft smoothness of her skin there, while her hands grab my sides, pulling me onto her. I let the whirlwind of smells and sensations that make up the playground of her body take me over once again, turning me wild and rampant.
“Ooh, Nate.”
“You like that, huh?”
“No! Your…your…thing!”
Jessie pushes me away from her and points at my pocket. For a second I’m weirded out, until I realize what she means – my phone’s vibrating.
I pull it out and groan when I see the name: Mom. I look at Jessie and shake my head, setting the phone on a side table, already moving in to recapture the momentum.
And that’s when the universe decides to start being stingy with the luck.
“Come here,” I growl at Jessie.
“Hello? Nathan?”
The voice coming out of the speaker jolts both of us apart. I stare at the phone like it’s just turned into an iguana, then back at Jessie. She mouths the words ‘what the fuck’ and I shrug desperately at her, trying to gesture that I had no intention of answering this call when I was seconds away from tearing her clothes off, and that this is just the sort of terrible price humanity has to pay for smartphones.
“Hello? Nate! Are you there? I hear something! Can you hear me?”
I sigh with defeat and bring the phone to my ear, taking the call off speaker.
“Hello, Mom.” I feel my shoulders slump and out of the corner of my eye I see Jessie covering a giggle.
“Nate! Where are you? You haven’t called me in a month! I thought you were dead!”
“Mom, don’t be melodramatic. I—”
“And that’s the first thing you say to me? That I’m being ‘melodramatic’? Fine thing to say to a parent, that is. And I always told people you were the ‘good one.’”
“I’m the only one, Mom. And I’m sorry, I’ve just been really busy. I had to—”
“Of course you’re busy! Too busy to call, too busy to check if I’m alive, too busy to treat your parents with any kind of respect.” Yep, that’s Mom. Once an actress, always an actress. I think she likes working herself up into a tizzy over not hearing from me way more than she likes actually hearing from me.
“I’ll visit you soon, I pro—”
“No need to visit me, Nate. I just called to tell you that it’s your father’s birthday the day after tomorrow. You know how seriously he takes his birthday celebrations. I expect you to be there. If I can soldier through the agony of attending my ex-husband’s soiree, you can certainly make the effort and show up, too. Besides, I’ll need you there for moral support.”
I mouth the word ‘shit’ to nobody in particular.
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
“You always were my favorite son,” she coos.
“Only son,” I say. “I’ll call you later, Mom. Thanks for reminding me.”
The phone clicks as my mother hangs up. I pull it away from my ear and stare at it for a few seconds before putting it into my pocket. I look up at Jessie, who offers me an expression of deep sympathy.
“My dad’s birthday is in a couple of days.”
“I kinda overheard that.” Jessie nods. “I guess he’s having one of those big mansion-parties again?”
“Yep. Although calling them ‘parties’ is a little generous. Though I guess they don’t have an official term for ‘annual family in-fighting and score-settling as scantily-clad wannabe actresses splash around in the pool’ day.”
Jessie laughs softly.
“That sounds about right. Do you have to go?”
I sigh a little. “He’s still my dad. And my mom wants moral support. I think the reason she still goes to these is to be reminded of why she left in the first place.”
Jessie smiles sympathetically. “Sounds about right. I guess everyone will be there?”
“Yeah. All three of his ex-wives. All seven of his step-children. All his current gold-digging girlfriends that he’ll parade around like it’s something to be proud of. Probably a few ‘surprise’ guests to add some spice to the mix.”
I can sense Jessie’s awkwardness, her conflicting emotions fixing her in place, unsure of what to say, however much she’d like to console me.
“Anyway,” I go on, putting a little freshness into my voice and opening the door, “I guess I’ll see you soon.”
I step out of her apartment.
“Wait,” Jessie says, striding quickly up to me. I turn around in the hallway to face her. She looks at her feet for a second, curling her tongue around her lip like she’s stoking up courage. “Why don’t I come with you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, wondering if I heard right.
“I could come with you, to the birthday party.”
I let out a quick laugh.
“Why would you do that? I always go alone. Every year.”
“Right. And you always come back and talk about how amazingly horrible it was.”
“That’s the tradition.”
“Well, what if you had some moral support? What if I came with you, helped deflect some of that horrible-ness? It’s not like I haven’t seen your family at its worst. No offense.”
I cross my arms and shake my head. “No way. You’ve already bailed me out of one gathering of old folks, I can’t ask you to bail me out of this ten times more insane version.”
Jessie smiles softly.
“Maybe it’s turning into a habit.”
“Jessie, come on. You don’t want to do this. I wouldn’t wish my dad’s parties on anyone.”
“Will it be embarrassing?”
“Definitely.”
“Funny?”
“If you like black humor.”
“Then I’m there. It’ll be quite entertaining to see your family go all bacchanalian.”
I smile at Jessie while I roll the idea over in my head.
“I don’t know. You already came to the retreat with me – as far as I’m concerned, we’re even now. I couldn’t ask you to suffer through this party as well. I’d feel so guilty.”
“The retreat was fine. Hell, I ended up meeting one of my heroines, making some amazing contacts, and I got the weekend off work. I should be thanking you for that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Look, you hate those birthday parties, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“And part of it is because you’re on your own there, right?”
“Kind of.”
“So having someone there who has your back, someone who you can talk to like a normal human being, should make it easier. Plus I can always get ‘sick’ and need you to drive me home in a hurry.”
I look around as if wondering where on earth all this blindsiding is coming from, then turn my eyes back to Jessie and shrug.
“I guess that could work.”
“Okay then!” Jessie says, as if the decision has been made. “Let me know when you’re going to pick me up.”
I watch Jessie’s smile broaden and start laughing a little.
“When did you get kinda awesome?” I ask, flippantly.
“I’ve always been awesome, Nate. It just took you a while to notice.”
12
Nate
When people ask me about my past, my childhood, my upbringing, I smile and tell them it was alright. I tell them my father was a producer, my mother was an actress, and I grew up in a really big mansion. That’s when they usually smile in admiration and tell me it so
unds great, that I’m really lucky, and I bow my head humbly say I really do know I’m lucky, I really do.
How could I tell them the truth? How would they even understand?
My father was a producer, that much is true, but he was also the sleaziest guy nobody in Hollywood knew. He made low-grade action films, straight-to-video thrillers, budget clones of whatever was big at the time. Every person on set from the director down to the runner was a friend of a friend, a connection only there because they knew someone – or something. Some of the movies ended up being cult hits, ‘so bad they were good’ – most of them were just bad, though.
It’s no lie that my mother was an actress, either, though only for a couple of movies, until she met my father. Only until she got married, had me, then divorced him a few years later, taking half of what he had. After that she was basically done playing house, and decided to leave me with him for the majority of every year while she’d travel the world, spending what she’d won in the divorce settlement across Europe and the Caribbean islands.
As for the mansion, that might have been the worst part. It’s big and beautiful from the outside, the brick and mortar version of the American dream. From the road it looks like the kind of place a wholesome family might exist; all natural smiles and mealtimes together, ‘how was your day’ and ‘eat up your greens.’ It’s only when you make it through the big gates and start getting up the driveway that you start to see it isn’t. When you get close enough to see the trashed grounds, bimbos and bros lying around stoned and unconscious from the night before. Empty wine bottles floating in the pool and items of clothing hanging off the bushes. The only movement being the maids and cleaners tasked with removing any trace of the fallout from the night before.
I really do know I’m lucky.
My father was a narcissistic asshole, and the mansion was nothing but a monument to his ego. He ruled it like a tyrant, compelling people to party there every night as if he thought they were worshipping him somehow. The people who came were on the fringes of Hollywood themselves, not good enough to make it to the proper A-list events. They were desperate, sketchy, opportunistic. Hopeless men with personality deficiencies who came to be fawned over by young, wannabe actresses too talentless to even pretend to like them. The only thing left for all of them to do was to indulge all their inane desires. Drugs, drink, sex. Growing more pathetic as the parties continued while my father, the mansion, and his guests grew older.
My mom got a pass – not because I thought her disappearing act was right, but because I understood it. And she always remembered to call on Sundays and send a card for my birthday, which was more than I could say for my father and the parade of wives, girlfriends, and step-siblings who’d come and go every year as if our front entry was a revolving door.
So that’s how I spent my childhood, right in the middle of it all. A young kid witnessing adults act so stupidly and irresponsibly that even I could tell something was wrong. Raised by nannies that loved me much more than the pithy salaries my father doled out required. When I got home from my private school, I’d beg the help to let me assist with the chores, gardening, cleaning, whatever. And at night I’d lock my bedroom door and put on a pair of headphones, pretend I was somewhere else.
Really lucky.
I should have grown up a mess. A fuck-up. Seeing all of that before I was even old enough to understand, a permanent sense of unjust anger in my soul, I could have done a million shitty things and forgiven myself. I didn’t, and the only reason I didn’t were my neighbors, who moved into the old, fixer-upper ranch house next door when I was about eleven or twelve. The house was a hand-built bungalow that looked even more humble and smaller than it was for being next to my father’s French Normandy-style mansion. A tiny but meticulously-kept place that became a safe haven for me, that I’d sneak away to at every opportunity to experience a little love and comfort. A home I wished I could live in permanently every second of my childhood.
Kyle and Jessie’s place.
I’m thinking about all this as we drive to the party, but my weighty memories are interrupted by Jessie’s sudden gasp.
“Hey!” she screams from the passenger side. “Stop the car! Pull over.”
“What?”
“Our old house. Look,” Jessie says, nodding towards it and opening the car door, even before I’ve had time to come to a full stop.
“Jessie, wait, we’re already kinda late and I wanna get in and out fa—”
She slams the door shut and I take a deep breath. I’m already struggling to keep it all together, I don’t need Jessie piling on more stress before the birthday party.
I get out of the car and walk around it, stepping towards her with my arms open in a gesture that politely translates as ‘why the fuck are we stopping?’ Jessie’s too busy leaning in to inspect the signpost hammered into the front lawn to notice.
“Look at this, they’re selling my old house!”
“Oh. Yeah, that sign’s been there for months now.”
She stares at me like I just asked her to solve a math problem.
“What? Months?”
“Yeah.”
Jessie continues to stare at me. I shrug in reply. The truth is that I drive past this place all the time. The house definitely holds some memories, but it’s hard to be sentimental about something when you’ve worked so hard to bury your past.
“Well why is it still for sale? Doesn’t anybody want it?”
Jessie spins around to look at it, as if reminding herself. It’s still a nice place, with a welcoming front porch, but the blue paint is peeling, the windows are boarded up, and the white flower boxes at the windows are overgrown with dead plants. It was one of those homes built for families who eat around the dinner table together and spend most of their time out in the yard, tossing a football or planting things in the mulch. Now, amid this built-up neighborhood of cookie-cutter McMansions, it’s just an eyesore.
“Look at it, Jessie. The place is falling apart. If anything, someone’s going to buy the property and then tear the house down so they can build a new one.”
Once upon a time the house seemed like it would stand forever, as much of a guardian as Jessie’s parents, but to look at it now, it’s hard to believe this is the same place the three of us would go on scavenger hunts or hang out in the treehouse, or just hole up and play board games on rainy days, gazing out the window at passing cars as we waited to make our move.
“How can you say that?!” Jessie shouts indignantly. “This place was my home! I thought you loved it as much as I did!”
“I did. But it’s only me and you – and probably Kyle – who feel that way. About all it’s good enough to play home to now is memories. Even your parents moved out the second they could.”
I shrug and start walking back to the car as Jessie casts one last, longing look at the weather-beaten wood siding.
Once she joins me in the car, I start to feel the tightening in my chest again. I rev the engine and drive down the road, and a few blocks away I reach the driveway of my father’s house, and slowly guide the car between the tall iron gates. As if sensing my increasing anxiety Jessie asks, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’d prefer this to be a funeral rather than a birthday party.”
“Nate! Don’t say things like that! That’s awful!”
The mansion creeps slowly into full view, already surrounded by various over-sized and overpriced cars, guests already shouting and talking loudly around it.
“Awful or not, it’s the truth.”
The foreground of the mansion is about as big as a parking lot – and just as full of vehicles. I ease my car into the nearest available space, a full forty yards from the front door. I kill the engine, grip the wheel tightly, and focus my vision on the horn, psyching myself up.
“So what’s the plan?” Jessie asks gently.
I nod a little at the question.
“We go in, and we look for either my father or my mother, whoever w
e find first,” I say, with the severity of someone planning a bank heist. “We don’t have to worry about my cousins or step-siblings – I’m sure they’ll notice me. I’ll have a conversation with both of them, which will probably end in an argument, and then we’ll get as far the fuck away from here as possible.” My mind whirls with ugly memories, old hurts – triggering what feels like PTSD. I don’t know whether to laugh at it all, start breaking shit, or just run.
“Okay…Nate, why are you breathing so heavily?”
“I’m not…what? I’m fine…”
“Seriously, are you alright?”
“Yeah.”
Jessie puts a hand on my shoulder and I jump a little.
“Shit, Nate. You don’t look alright. You’re about as tense as someone on trial.”
“My family is the worst kind of trial.”
“You’re going to be fine, alright? Come on.”
Jessie opens the car door and stops the second she notices I don’t do the same, shutting it again and turning to me. I look over at her, trying not to look so anxious, but the sympathetic expression she pulls tells me I’ve failed.
“Actually, you know what? You really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can just leave if you want,” she says softly, pressing a hand gently on my forearm.
“That would make things even worse,” I mumble at the dashboard.
“Nate, look at me.”
Her cool fingers go to my chin and turn my face slowly towards hers. She’s close, leaning in, her eyes wide and round and hypnotic, somehow giving me something to focus on, to steady myself. She brushes her fingers across my jaw, and her soft touch seems to loosen the pressure inside of me a little. Her lips part slowly, and then she kisses me.
I keep my eyes closed for a few seconds after she pulls away, savoring the soft touch of her lips on mine. A touch that feels like her fingers on my soul, caressing it and protecting it from the darkness and bitterness that’s built up inside. When I open my eyes again she’s still there, still leaning towards me, and it’s like I’m in a different place – and I realize I am. I’m no longer on the grounds of my dad’s mansion. I’m with her.
