I didn’t much see the love in her eyes at that moment.
I showered as she (A) cleaned up, (B) gathered the laundry, (C) vacuumed, (D) swept, (E) sprayed the sliding glass doors, (F) found the empty champagne bottles on the deck, (G) bagged them, (H) bagged everything else, and (I) threw everything into the car, all before I was out of the bathroom. Either I was slowing down or she was on meth or something.
“Better now?” I asked about me, looking in the mirror, all clean shaven and fresh. And naked, except for a towel, which I was about to remove when she said, “C’mon, Steven. Get your clothes on, we are out of here.”
I couldn’t argue that point. In fact, I couldn’t actually function, as I was still having what I referred to in the chapters that I was working on as “Roxanne fever.” The mix of sleeplessness, isolation, alcohol, and what remained of Jacob’s Gold in combination with my vivid memories of that relationship had fucked with me big-time, had taken me to a place in my mind that was as close to crazy as you could get. And made me realize that I didn’t love Christina the way that she loved me.
“Sorry” was all I said, as we were leaving. I meant it in many, many ways.
Sorry meant a lot to her. She instantly softened. “Was it worth it?”
And I had to tell her.
“No. It was too scary. No one should be by themselves for this long. Ever.”
And we were out of there, back in my car, her driving this time and me in the passenger seat, my shades hiding me from the sunlight. I was feeling all vampire at the moment. My bare feet pressed against the windshield as I extended my seat all the way back to full recline and pulled a Yankees cap over my face.
“When you said over the phone that you hadn’t stopped writing for a minute, I thought that you were, you know, exaggerating,” she said. “Did you even sleep at all?”
. . . Which is the last thing I remember about the trip, because before we hit the Thruway, I passed out and didn’t wake up until we were home (actually at Christina’s house). She got out and gave me an obligatory kiss on the lips and told me that she loved me in a businesslike tone, and I wondered if she still did after our time together or was she disappointed, because maybe, along the way, she had come to the same realization that I did.
And as soon as I dropped her off at her house, my phone lit up.
Claudia.
I know, I know, you’re going to think I’m an idiot, and I can practically hear you saying, don’t answer it, but being that I hadn’t talked to her in a long time, I figured what could the harm be in just hearing her voice. So I flipped my phone open and she said two things that changed the course of the rest of my summer.
The first was: “I really, really miss you.”
The second was: “My parents are out of town for a few days.”
Actually, scratch that. Well, not completely as those two things totally gifted me with the spark that I hadn’t had since Christina left me alone in the woods. The truth was, it wasn’t just her saying those things. It wasn’t even the fact that she had this slightly raspy voice that reminded me of you-know-who. It wasn’t the fact that, after becoming someone totally radically different in the woods, I was craving to be just Crash again, or the fact that I knew how difficult it was going to be to get to the main event of the book and the secret and all and I just needed a real vacation.
What changed the course of my summer is that after she told me that her parents were out of town, I asked her, “Well, who’s watching you then?” OK, not the best line I ever came up with, and if you take it in the abstract, it actually sounds creepy, but she didn’t take it that way at all.
Instead she laughed. Really laughed. Really, really laughed.
And I was a goner.
I suspect that you don’t have to be a genius to know what happened next. Shit, if I was reading this, I would totally know. And you wouldn’t be wrong, but you’re not going to guess all of it, so I’ll have to tell you anyways.
For one, no surprises here, I didn’t go straight home. After all, after my two-hour car nap, well, after the phone call, I was completely refreshed. And getting mad hungry. And having called all of my boys earlier, and none of them were around due to summer jobs, family vacations, whatever, I figured why eat alone when in like twenty minutes I could be having dinner with someone who really, really missed me and who couldn’t stop laughing. So I reset my GPS to Claudia’s address.
I swear that at that moment, getting it on with her was the furthest thing from my mind.
Actually, I just wanted to see her and hear that laugh in person. Plus, when I told her that I was coming over, she sounded, swear to god, just like my dog Medusa sounds when I come home after sleeping out for a few days, all whimpering with her tail wagging so hard it hits both sides of her ass. Well, Claudia made a sound just like that.
Now how could you ignore a girl who whimpers for you?
Plus, she said she would get me whatever I wanted. Did I want Chinese, sushi, Italian, whatever, and what did I want to drink, she had it all.
Not trying to be a bastard or anything, but knowing that this girl had just whimpered, I figured I would test her dedication, so get this: I ordered a few burgers, plus hot and sour soup and cold noodles, plus chicken parm with ziti, plus a slice of pizza. Which meant she would have to either go to three different restaurants or order from all of them. OK, it was just a joke to see how far she would go, I wasn’t really going to make her do that. Except, I could hear her writing it all down, scrambling to get the menus on her computer, clicking away, all without asking me any questions or giving me even the slightest suggestion that I was being unreasonable.
Anyways, when I finally made it to the flag point on the GPS, I pulled up to a giant arch of a gate that separated two imposing stone walls. Through the gate was this giant brick building stretching out in both directions farther than I could see from the road. I had to get out of the car to get to the intercom, and even then, pressing down on the buttons and peering through the bars, I still couldn’t see both ends of the house.
Now, I have seen rich, not gonna lie. Due to Jacob’s influential sphere of high-powered friends, I had been to some pretty big houses before (each time with a familiar Jacob warning . . . don’t touch anything, and don’t embarrass me). Still, I have never been to a house this huge. This was pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow rich.
“Crash, is that you?” on the intercom, even as she was buzzing me in.
It took me like a full minute to drive around the curved driveway to the front entrance. And when I arrived, the door opened, and Claudia was there, dressed like a hooker in six-inch-high heels, a tight-fitting miniskirt that practically showed everything, with this bikini top. My heart began to pound and I needed to catch my breath. This is how absolutely sexy this girl was.
She was, as Burn would have put it, porn star hot.
To be honest, if there was any chance, any momentary glimmer of hope that I was going to be strong and be faithful to the woman who loved me, it was all shot to hell the instant Claudia opened the door. Because, just seeing her, I was back to being “Crash” again, just like old times, realizing how tired I was of being “Steven” to Christina and how much the book had fucked with my mind.
And now that I was “back,” I had another problem, as in how was I going to keep this to myself? I mean, this was going to be a story to tell the Club Crew, only the Club Crew would tell the Herd, and one of them would tell Christina, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt Christina.
It pained me to realize that I was going to have to keep this to myself.
I hopped out of the car, jogged up the steps, and when I got to the top, Claudia flung her arms around me and hugged me so physically, I could’ve popped at the door. This was the kind of hug reserved for wives of soldiers coming back from Iraq or something, that’s how intense it was.
“Thank you soooooooooo much for coming,” this girl was saying, as she started kissing my neck, making my hair stand on en
d. This perfectly curved girl in the stripper outfit and the mile-long house was thanking me.
Well, who do I thank?
There was, however, the first order of business.
As hot as she was, as hot as she was making me, I was even hungrier. I didn’t know exactly how to bring that up, with her continuing to hug me and rub against me and all. But then, as if on cue, she took me by the hand and led me into the dining room, a room the size of a hotel ballroom, with this mega table, the kind you see in the movies, where if you sit at either end, you can’t even talk to each other.
Well, spread out on this massive table were plates of burgers and fries and thick shakes; then platters of Chinese food, soups, noodle dishes; plates of sushi; and then, down farther, the Italian section, two piping-hot pizzas, one plain, the other pepperoni, sausages, mushrooms, olives, and onions (in short, the Crash-perfect pie—how did she know?), and plates of pasta, fettuccini, ziti, penne vodka, and other dishes. There was enough food to feed the entire Club Crew for a week, and we eat like jackals in a frenzy.
“I wasn’t sure whether you would want anything else, so I improvised, seeing as you listed your faves on your Facebook page.”
And while I missed it before, there were two opened bottles of wine in the center of the table and, placed strategically between them, a single, perfectly rolled blunt.
“Crash, you are dead and this is heaven” is what my brain was telling me. “You are still in the cabin sick as a dog and the Roxanne fever is making you hallucinate. Either that or the weed you smoked all week was laced with something.”
Speaking of which, she reached for the blunt. “I promise no one is here to take pictures this time,” she said as she handed it to me, along with a solid gold lighter, flicking it on so I could light up.
I took a deep inhale as the tip flamed up like a torch.
Swweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettt.
Then she went for the wine, and I had to tell her, “Not much of a wine guy,” which didn’t stop her from pouring me a glass.
“Ohhhhh.” She laughed. “You will like these wines,” she told me in a really knowing kind of way. And then she did it: she delivered a fully robust laugh that came from the bottom of her being.
OK, I wasn’t exactly sure why she was laughing until I tasted the wine. You cannot believe how good this particular red wine tasted. Picture a velvet cherry, squeezed into your throat where the drip got better and better tasting until your taste buds were covered like a blanket. Got the idea? And the white wine, you could taste the sun in that, swear to fucking Christ.
“You’re right, these are unbelievably good,” I finally said.
“They should be,” she said, laughing. “Each bottle was over a thousand dollars.”
I practically coughed up the full glass when she told me this.
“There’s an unexpected kick to them,” she said with a smile. “But you’ll know what I mean in like ten minutes.”
And as promised, ten minutes later, I understood her point. Holding both bottles in one hand, she motioned for me to follow her into the next room as I dutifully trailed behind her. She pulled me down onto the couch and lay back, her head on the armrest, and chugged some of the red, a few drops dribbling down her chin, down her neck, then pulling me down onto her.
“If you like it so much,” she said, “lick it off me. . . .”
We immediately got busy, we got extremely busy. This girl was totally and completely into it in a way that I haven’t experienced since you know who. Plus, this girl seemed to really get off just knowing that she was exciting me, which she was most definitely doing.
And after a long time, I was done, but she apparently wasn’t, so she led me to her bedroom and put on a show for me that you would simply not believe, this is all I’m saying.
And then we napped, and she started up again, and every time I was done, we laughed together, and this went on all night, or most of the night, because I kept falling asleep between the wine (we opened other bottles) and the blunt and the sex.
And then I rolled over and noticed the digital alarm clock by the side of her bed reading 3:01, which didn’t make sense because how could it be 3:01 if the room was so bright with sun?
Unless . . .
I bolted up, into the bathroom, noticing for the first time that I was alone in Claudia’s bedroom, which, by the way, was a vast castle of a room, how did I not notice that last night?
Then the search for my cell phone downstairs with the rest of my clothes. I picked it up. 3:06. Twenty-three messages, like eight from my mom, then Newman, Christina, like five, then Lindsey, my mom, Newman, then Evan, then Kenny, then Newman again, then my mom again, then Lindsey, then Jacob. Voice mails, texts, all saying the same thing:
Where are you?
And then Sally, I totally fucking forgot Sally. I was supposed to meet her in her office at 3:00 P.M. to go over a few things. Now it was 3:12 and I was somewhere in the heart of Westchester.
I had damage control to do.
First my mom, who would be easy since I had already let her know I was staying at Christina’s uncle’s place, but who expected me home the day before: I’m fine, no, nothing happened. I stayed an extra day is all, no not at the cabin, I know Christina is home, I stayed at a friend’s house, a new friend OK, yes, everything is fine, I’ll be home in an hour, no I didn’t call Dad, I called you first, yes, I will call Dad, no, I didn’t mean to make everyone worried, I’ll call Christina (what the fuck was I going to tell her?), I’ll take care of my friends, no I’m in Westchester, I’ll explain when I get home, yes, I’m sure I’m all right.
Claudia, by now, was standing beside me, in her bikini. She had apparently been tanning, as she was all oiled up. This girl was looking better and better to me every minute. I refused to look at her while I was on the phone; she was way too distracting. I had to concentrate, and I had more calls to make.
“You’re in hot water, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean, hot water?” I asked, preoccupied with calling Sally, pacing as the phone buzzed. I went through the dining room (where she had cleaned up expertly, not a drop of food remained on the table and it shone with a new polish), into the kitchen, this rambling open space with cooking islands and endless cabinets, then into the home theater, which had the biggest private screen I had ever seen (Jamie would have loved this), all with her following, me not realizing what I was doing, concentrating on getting through to Sally.
At least until I got to the huge glass doors that led onto the deck, overlooking a path to the most spectacular pool I had ever seen. I have been to some major hotel pools in my life, even Caribbean resort pools that circled the buildings. Nothing compared to this.
I stared suspiciously at Claudia. Was she like Trump’s other daughter or something? I made a mental note to get her last name, because, thing was, if she was famous, then she would have been identified when her picture was published. Except, given that her face was blurred out, maybe her father was powerful enough to keep her out of the paper.
Or maybe her father was like in the mob or something. . . .
“What do you mean, ‘hot water,’ anyways?” I asked, staring, just staring at the magnificent pool.
She looked at me like she didn’t believe me. “It’s an expression, silly. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it before. I didn’t mean that you were physically in hot water.”
“What’s it supposed to mean?”
“You’re in big-time trouble, is what it means.”
“Then you’re right, I am in hot water,” I said, stepping back into the house.
I could get used to a place like this. My mind started to spin: I could get the Club Crew guys over, get her to call her friends, have them party with us. This could be big-time.
Except there was the Christina problem, how could I forget the Christina problem? Fuckme.
I tried Sally again. This time she picked up with an angry outburst, as in, “You better have a pretty good reason for mi
ssing your appointment.”
Which I did, I told her, I was up all night working. I’m into the big chapter now, isn’t that what she wanted? Sorry that time slipped away, but I worked through the night and fell asleep, so sorry, but wasn’t I doing OK, no, better than OK, having supplied her with like five chapters in the last week.
And immediately she backed off. She had nothing else to say. And then, “OK, send me what you’ve done so far.” And I had to explain that it wasn’t ready, that’s not how we worked together, that as soon as it was, she would get it from me, but didn’t I just send her five chapters and weren’t they exactly what she wanted?
And she agreed. It’s all good.
Now the only thing I had left to figure out was what to do with Christina.
But first a snack. No way was I going to pass the opportunity to raid the massive refrigerators in Claudia’s massive kitchen.
I called Newman first. “You cannot believe . . .”
I wasn’t looking just to brag to Newman about how I had just connected with the richest girl in New York, but I needed to get his creative mind working. Because Sally was easy; I could handle Sally on my own, blindfolded. But I needed his expertise to deal with the Christina problem, because no way was I going to allow her to get hurt in any way, and I wasn’t capable of solving that riddle on my own. So I had to come up with a lie believable enough to cover my absence in the last twenty-four. Plus I was also going to have to come up with a separate set of excuses rolling forward. Rolling forward, because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stay away from Claudia, I already knew that.
And, just as I anticipated, Newman had a solution regarding my whereabouts last night. He was considering the rolling forward part when we were interrupted by a call from Jacob, which I felt obliged to take, cringing as I did so.
“Steven. I will cancel your cell service if I call and you don’t pick up next time, is that clear?”
Crash and Burn Page 39
