The Thrill of It

by Lauren Blakely

  Screw this.

  I leave the carrots on the counter. Let her clean up the bag when she returns to her den of iniquity. Maybe they’ll be dried out and inedible when she sees them. I leave behind the cookies too, my small act of defiance.

  I head for the front steps when Neil reemerges. He’s wearing jeans, cuffed once at the ankles ,and a striped button down.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, as if a double apology alleviates his trespass. But I will never see him as anything other than unwelcome.

  I don’t answer him. I walk toward the door.

  “Wait. Harley. Something came for you a few minutes ago.”

  My ears prick, and I spin around.

  I spy a package on the coffee table. “Barb had left for work, and a few minutes later a courier knocked on the door.”

  My lips quirk up into a traitorous smile. I want to jump up and cheer. He intercepted the package! He unknowingly intercepted it from my mom.

  I race to the table and lunge for the envelope. It’s manilla, thick and padded. It already has the well-worn look of an envelope that’s been manhandled on its route across town. I clutch the package tightly to my chest. “Thank you.”

  Then I want to smack myself. Why am I thanking him? He has nothing to do with the good fortune of my mom missing the early delivery.

  “Is everything okay?”

  He casts his eyes to the package momentarily, then back to me. He notices the logo.

  “Of course,” I say quickly. Does this half-baked lover of hers think he can catch me in trouble since he’s seen Miranda’s name on the return address? I can lie with the best of them. I can dance circles around the truth.

  “Because I saw the name on it,” he adds, gesturing to the package I’m clutching like a newborn baby. “Just curious.”

  My heart races in my chest, but the wheels turn quickly, and the lie is already fully formed. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. Because it’s a gift we’re working on for Barb.” Then I press a finger to my lips. “Shh...Don’t say anything.”

  “Ah,” he says with a knowing wink and a smile, since it’s natural that Miranda and I would pair up to give my mom a gift. Now, Neil and I are co-conspirators. Or so he thinks. He grabs his phone and wallet, and says goodbye.

  Good riddance.

  I peer out the window, making sure he’s gone, waiting until I see him raise a hand, and hail a yellow cab on Central Park West. He’s off in a sea of New Yorkers, fanning out from clandestine encounters, the city hiding all their secrets. The anonymity, the size, the surreptitiousness of Manhattan, the cloak we all wrap ourselves in.

  I sink down on the royal blue couch, rip open the package and pull out the pages I’ve written in the last few weeks. Maybe fifty or so, full of Post-it notes and penciled-in marks, instructions to me. Notes that say things like: “More salacious,” “More details,” “Is this how it really happened or are you leaving out key parts?”

  On and on, they’re all the same: More, more, more.

  Shame, shame, shame.

  I find one more note. I read it, and it’s a shovel digging through my innards, scooping them out, serving them bruised and battered on a platter for me. “This story about Pierre and the carnival? I don’t care that your mommy taught you to kiss. You should have some more respect for your mother. After all she’s done for everyone. I don’t need you psychoanalyzing yourself and why you did what you did. You did it because you’re a whore. Your mother is not to be dragged through the mud. Even anonymously. Shame on you.”

  I toss the pages on the table, make two fists, dig my fingernails into my palms, then scream. A loud, shrill, sharp sound like a train whistle tearing through the cold, quiet midnight of a lonely town. It knocks picture frames from walls. It rattles vases off tables. It reaches all the way to the top of the building and out into the afternoon sky. Neighbors drop their afternoon coffee cups. Curious. Concerned. Terrified. Is everyone okay?

  But none of that happens.

  Because no one notices, nothing changes, my father leaves, my mother reinvents herself as my friend, and so when a tree falls in the forest and no one can hear it, it doesn’t make a god damn sound.

  I reach for the pages and pull at the ends, wishing I could tear them apart.

  If Miranda only knew how much my mother had done. If she only knew the full truth of why I’m writing these awful, horrid memoirs. I push up the sleeve of my shirt, grip my shoulder, as if the red ribbon will give me strength to finish, courage to get this monkey off my back. To leave Miranda behind me, say goodbye to this debt, and move into a new life.

  I jam the pages into the envelope and tuck the envelope in my purse.

  My phone rings. “It’s your mother. Neil just called me. Darling, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hi,” I say, trying to collect myself, to let go of the rage. Of the sadness. So I can make her happy as she has always needed me to do. To be her best friend.

  “I want to apologize. I feel terrible that you ran into Neil.”

  “It’s nothing,” I mumble into the phone. I want to get out of here. I want to go. I want to finish this damn book. I want to rid my body and my mind of all these memories. And Miranda is wrong – it’s not the memories of the men that hurt so much.

  It’s the other ones. The memories of her. Of us.

  “Oh good. I’m so glad it didn’t bother you,” she says, and I can hear her clapping once, Happily. I roll my eyes. Seriously? She believes me? But I guess that’s what you get from spending your life pretending you’re fine with your mom’s parade of lovers.

  “So,” she says in a flirty voice. “What did you think? He’s not too shabby in the downstairs department, right?”

  My eyes go wide, they practically pop out of my head like a cartoon character’s, pupils bobbing on the end of their coiled wire springs. “What did you just say, mom?”

  “Well, you know. He’s got it going on, right? He’s no Phil, of course,” she adds wistfully. “But not everyone can be Phil.”

  “Uh….” My jaw is hanging open. I can’t believe we are discussing the size of Neil’s penis or Phil’s for that matter, like we’re a couple of girlfriends, like we’re Carrie and Samantha having Cosmos and discussing our conquests.

  “What’s going on with you, darling? I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages. Do you have a date tonight?” She can’t mask the hope in her voice. She’s dying for me to say yes. Dying for me to share every detail. It’s been so long since she heard anything. So long since I shared. There’s a part of her that’s probably wasting away from the lack of oxygen. “Maybe someone new? Someone you haven’t told me about yet?”

  She might as well be saying, “Just a quick hit, Harley? That’s all I need.”

  Maybe we are all addicts. I consider making up a name to make her happy. Creating a fake boyfriend, a fake date, a fable she’d lap right up and love. I could spin thousands upon thousands of tales, I could make up fantastical stories of boys and men, men and boys, and she’d love them. But I don’t.

  Maybe this is progress. Maybe I will tell Joanne I had a little victory.

  “No. Not tonight.”

  “Anyway,” she continues, like my run-in with her lover is no big deal because it isn’t to her. “I know we were going to chat this afternoon about summer plans, and I want to. But I need to reschedule. I had to rush back to the office. I landed a tip on a new story and it’s terrible. A terrible blackmail story,” she says, and I nod. Blackmail is a shitty, shitty thing. “But I have another piece I’m snooping around on too, and I was hoping you could do me a little itty bitty favor. You know that lawyer I work with from time to time on stories? I need him to take a look at a document I received from a congressman’s intern. It’s on the thumb drive in my laptop on the dining room table. Can you grab it and drop it by his office? He’s only a few blocks from the house.”

  “You have a lot of sources, mom. Who do you mean?” I ask because I’ve helped my mom on stories before. Ran errands here and there. Dro
pped off documents. Ferried information.

  “The one who looks like Vince Vaughn.”

  I grin, a wicked, thrilling grin at the description. Little does she know. Little will she ever know.

  “It would be my absolute pleasure,” I say in my best happy daughter voice. If she’s going to be all delighted over me seeing her boyfriend’s dick, then I can act happy about seeing my ex-pimp.

  Because you know what? It’s not an act. I am happy to see Cam.

  Cam doesn’t lie to me. Cam doesn’t hide things from me. Cam isn’t hot or cold, turning me on or off, telling me secrets, then backpedaling. Besides, whatever sweet nothings, sweet somethings, sweet everythings that came out of Trey’s mouth last night were all lies. Probably lies to get me undressed.

  There is no such thing as real love. There is only agenda. There are only expectations. And if you can remove the sticky mess of feelings from the equation, you’re better off.

  Cam is a one-track man, and he brings me out of the mess of my life.

  Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict…

  Page 203…

  Mac, short for MacDougal, was the first man I saw naked. Such a fond memory from the year I turned nine. He was a Scotsman visiting Manhattan for a summer for his dissertation and quickly became my mom’s lover.

  One time when he stayed over, I woke up in the middle of the night to pee. As I left the bathroom, he was walking down the hall without anything on. I froze and so did Mac. Then he laughed and his laugh even had a Scottish accent. He kept walking and patted me on the shoulder.“Someday, you’ll like it.”

  He didn’t even shut the bathroom door, just started whizzing with it still open. I slipped back into bed and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t because Mac and my mom were going at it again. It’s really hard to get some shut-eye when your mom is crying out, “Oh my god Mac, I’m so wet. I’m so turned on. I want you to fuck me hard, Mac.” I pulled the pillow over my ears, so tight and hard I was drowning my ears in pillowcase, but it didn’t matter. My mom’s cries rattled through my skull, then burrowed into my skin and I was never going to erase them ever. Because once you’ve heard something like that you can’t blot it out. Those bedroom moans are tar you can’t wash off your hands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Harley

  Cam’s towering skyscraper comes into view and memories race back. Day after day I walked into that building, pressed the elevator button for the fifty-fourth floor, put my hand on my belly as that weird twisty feeling from shooting up into the sky kicked in, then told the receptionist I was there to see him. I have no clue if she knew about his side business. Nor did I care. She gestured to his office down the hall and my stomach flipped and wiggled in a different way as I walked to him because he was my power broker, he was the man who set me free from how I’d grown up. He grinned when he saw me. Then shut the door, and gave me the details of the job. Like I was a hired assassin. Like he had a top secret classified file about the target and he was giving me the download.

  We were comrades, partners, pulling off heists.

  Wednesday was our big day. I’d head straight for his office when the final bell rang at my school, and we’d review the gigs for the next week. Sometimes I’d have one, sometimes several. It all depended on my schoolwork and my mom’s schedule, whether she was in town or out of town chasing a story. But even if she was around, I knew how to concoct cover ups. I said I was at study group, or extra field hockey practice, or I made up the name of a boy I was seeing, spinning my own tales of a date with Cody or Hunter or Jay or some other random nonexistent boy, stories of dates and ice cream and kisses in Central Park. But we always broke up too soon for her to meet this fictional mate.

  When I had my regular appointments with Morris, Cam wanted me to prep at his sprawling Upper East Side brownstone, not far from the hotel where I met the political adviser for his doggy trysts. “It’s safer,” Cam said. “Safer for you. I’ll have a car waiting to take you to the hotel.”

  We had a ritual before the Morris meetings. Cam took a bath and I polished my toe nails. Cam liked his sea salt crystals mixed with Sweet Lemon bubble bath in his baby blue claw foot tub, filled to the top with scalding hot water that he soaked in for thirty minutes, while singing along to big seventies classic rock, like the Eagles “Hotel California” or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

  I perched on the closed toilet seat painting my toe nails — a mouth-watering fire-engine red for Morris. Cam chatted about whatever business meeting he was heading to during my session, all while dispensing little tips here and there. “Press hard with the right heel between his shoulder blades while he sucks your left big toe,” he told me. “Call me if there’s any trouble, but there won’t be.”

  I looked away as he stepped out of the tub, the water sloshing around and cooled down to lukewarm, then dried off with an oversized white fluffy bath towel. He’d already have his outfit carefully laid out on the down comforter on his king-size Japanese-style bed, usually a suit, along with one of his colorful “cowboy shirts” — as he called them — and no tie. Cam never wore ties.

  Then I’d zip up my skirt, slide on my shoes, and he’d give me a peck on the forehead. “Go make me proud, baby doll. Can’t wait for your report.”

  He’d head off to a steak and lobster meal someplace, likely to woo a shady businessman into a shady deal that seemed legit – all smoke and mirrors was my man – while I’d let Morris slide his tongue between my toes for $2000.

  Sometimes, I’d meet Cam at Bliss after a job and tell him how it went. We’d have drinks – soda and martini – and appetizers, and I felt like every second with him was a fantastic secret. A bubble I lived in that no one could ever touch.

  “Who takes care of you? Who looks out for you?”

  “You do,” I said poking him playfully in the chest.

  “All the time, babydoll. Anytime you need it.”

  He was proud of me. Like a proud papa.

  I don’t think Cam ever knew how hard it was for me to leave him after those dinners. Every time I did, I felt like black sludge had settled under my skin, because then I had to deal with my mom, my house, the noise. He was the antidote — the only one I ever had — to what awaited me inside my own home.

  When I reach Cam’s floor I’m greeted by a crisp, controlled energy in the air the second the elevator doors sweep open. Sharp women in fitted skirts and heels, men in tailored suits, and assistants with headsets melded to their ears pace from cube to cube on either side of the gleaming floor-to-ceiling glass walls flanking the entryway.

  I walk inside.

  “May I help you?”

  I used to be a regular in these parts, but receptionists come and go, and since this one is new she doesn’t recognize me. She’s young and blond, with stick straight hair tucked neatly behind her ears.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Cameron Jackson. I have a delivery for him. He’s expecting me. You can tell him Layla is here.” I don’t use my name. Nor do I use my mom’s name. I know better. My mom doesn’t reveal her sources, and Cam would never go on the record for one of her stories. He is all background, all behind the scenes. Besides, I’ve just used the one word that guarantees my entree anywhere Cam is.

  Layla.

  My name is probably sashaying its way through the air, down to his office, slinking behind the door, reaching his ears, all five letters whispered in that sexy, seductive tone that will turn him into the man he is with me – mesmerized.

  “Let me just call him,” she says, then picks up the phone and stabs a finger against a button.

  “Hello Mr. Jackson. You have a delivery from someone named Layla?”

  I don’t have to hear Cam’s side of the conversation to know what he’s saying right now. He is all yeses.

  The receptionist stands up, ready to escort me, but I tell her, “It’s okay. I know the way.”

  Cam’s door is ajar. I knock lightly and he calls me in. His smile — that familiar broad grin that
reveals all our naughty, tawdry, dirty, delicious little secrets – greets me first.

  Then he leans across his desk, taps on the calendar, and pretends he’s deep in thought, his index finger resting on his chin. “Well, that’s funny. My calendar doesn’t say it’s my lucky day. But clearly it’s wrong.” He turns to me. “Because seeing you two days in a row means I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire fucking solar system.”

  Has it been less than twenty-four hours since I’ve seen him? Since last night at Bliss? So much has happened since then, but so little too. Last night with Trey, the talking, the drinking game, the time on the couch, and then this morning and that dismissive denial from his mouth. I feel as if my world has been tugged, pulled and twisted through the smallest eye of a needle, and parts are bunched up on one side, left behind in a mess.

  Cam walks over to me – no, he struts, because there is nothing subtle about this man. Not the five o-clock shadow, not those big eyes twinkling, and not his green shirt, so rich, so opulent in its shade, he could be wearing a button-down made out of emeralds. This man is flash personified. He might as well wear a gold chain around his neck, but that’d be trashy and Cam’s not trashy.

  He wraps his arms around me, runs his nose over my hair, my neck, my shoulder. “Mmm….dee-li-cious,” he says.

  I push him away, shaking my head. “Stop it. I’m only here to bring you this.” I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to hand him the thumb drive. As he takes it, I wonder briefly what my mom is working on. My mind flashes back to the stories she mentioned on our phone call.

  He eyes me up and down, surveying my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. I touched up my make-up before I left my mom’s. Applied mascara and a fresh coat of lipstick. “What’s up with the outfit? You slumming it today, Layla?”

  I sneer at him. “Oh ha ha. It’s called casual Friday, Cam. Ever heard of it?”

  “I had no idea you owned sneakers.” He gestures to the couch in his office. “Sit for a minute. We can catch up, my baby doll.”