Loving Emily

by Anne Pfeffer

  “What am I supposed to say?” Jonathan tugs at the sleeve of his shiny shirt.

  Now I’m the one who’s improvising. “Jonathan, you’re the new golfer who needs help with your swing. Calvin, you’re the conceited golf pro.” I move my camera into position and motion them to start. I suddenly remember when Jonathan and I did a skit in the sixth grade. “Do your cowboy voice.”

  I pray to the karma gods. Please let this work.

  Jonathan, looking doubtful, takes on a fake deep bass voice, and improvises. “Howdy, pardner! How ‘bout you showin’ me a thing or two about that thar swing o’ yers?” Jonathan’s golfing cowboy, in his turquoise golf clothes, is unusual, to say the least, and bizarrely entertaining. Or maybe it’s just bizarre.

  I give Calvin the go-ahead. He has suddenly gotten the idea and is ready to wing it.

  “My good man, your swing is in dire need of improvement,” he croaks, in his best version of a golfing English butler.

  While I hold my breath, they wander along in their newly invented characters, taking swings and cracking jokes that stink so bad I am sure we will clear the golf course. They get into it and really start working it.

  Jonathan swaggers and says, “I reckon I larned me a lot about golf today!”

  “Jolly good, old chap!” Calvin replies. “You’re a real swinger now!” He gives a horrible, leering wink, one that would make little girls run screaming for their mothers. Then he and Jonathan collapse into laughter, overwhelmed by their own wit and star quality.

  Standing there on the green, we look at some of the footage in the camera. It’s unbelievably hokey and bad. Every joke’s a groaner. It’s odd, but strangely compelling.

  I’m starting to breathe again. Yes. “I can work with this,” I announce. “It’s a wrap!” I go home seeing myself accepting the Oscar for Best Director, which Dad had won twice by the time he was forty.

  Later that evening, my palms are sweating, and I’m considering an identity change. Anything to avoid facing my partners, who are counting on me. I’m taking a hard look at the footage of their improvised scenes.

  I’ve got a half hour of Jonathan and Calvin talking funny and taking golf swings in bad clothes, but basically nothing that ties things together or makes sense as a story.

  What was I thinking? I can’t make a film with this. I’ve screwed up again.

  What else is new?

  • • •

  Since I’m always at Chrissie’s or studying or trying to make Emily happy, this is my first time at the tennis club in a month. I’m able to pick up a practice match with a good tournament player who beats me without breaking a sweat.

  As the match ends, I look up and see Ben Swanson watching me. I raise my hand, and he nods, but he doesn’t come over and speak to me. He’s probably not interested in coaching me again. I don’t blame him after what he just saw. Plus, I had a bad attitude the last time around. Why would he want me back?

  I go home, lock myself in my room, and fall onto the bed. I can’t even play tennis anymore. The one thing I was always good at.

  I find myself thinking about Michael and the envelopes of white powder in my drawer. I take out a baggy of powder and study it. Pulling my laptop onto my stomach, I type into a search box. “What is it like to take cocaine?” One answer reads, “You feel really good and have lots of energy. But it’s an empty feeling and doesn’t last.” Maybe that’s how Michael experienced it, I think. Maybe that’s why he went back to it this summer, because he felt empty inside.

  I type more questions. “What’s it like the first time you use cocaine?” “Can you take cocaine once and not get addicted?” “Does cocaine use lead to use of other drugs?”

  As the owner of some cocaine, it’s about time that I educated myself. I know I should just flush the stuff. But I don’t. It seems like the key to Michael somehow.

  I think of Chase standing at my locker. Do you have anything of Michael’s? He was supposed to get something for me.

  At the time, I didn’t know what Chase was looking for, but now, of course, I do.

  Chapter 43

  My cell rings, and it’s Spencer. I’m at home, because spring break has just started.

  “Jay and I got a house-sitting job!” He’s spitting out words machine gun-style. “In Malibu. This mansion on the beach. For a week.”

  He tells me they’re going to take Chrissie with them. “It’ll give her a change of pace.”

  Finally. Something good. I have a week off from both schoolwork and Chrissie duties.

  I text Emily immediately with an invitation to the guest house. She answers back. Can’t. My nana’s here. From Miami

  The woman who gave birth to Mr. Wintraub. If anything could put a damper on my life, that would be it.

  ditch her

  not that easy

  I fume. I bet Emily could get away if she really wanted to. I go to the club and pound tennis balls all morning, come home, shower, and text Emily. No answer. I text her five times. Still no answer.

  Screw it. I’ll just go over there. I park in front of her house and run up the front walk. My nerves are tingling, because I’ve never just dropped in at the Wintraubs’ house before. You don’t do that to Mr. Wintraub. But it’s a work day, so I figure that particular parental unit is out of the picture.

  He opens the door.

  “Ryan.” It’s all he says. His eyes glisten. His look says fresh meat.

  “Oh! Hi. Is Emily there?” I shift around, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  “Yes. But she said to tell you she’s not available.”

  My mouth opens. She said to tell you.

  He shuts the door.

  I drive home, his words ringing in my head. She said to tell you. Is that true?

  I text her twenty more times. No answer.

  I can’t believe this. But when I add it up with everything else that’s happened, it makes sense. She’s squeezing me out of the picture, little by little.

  I’ve lost Michael, and now I’m losing Emily, two people that I’ve loved. It seems almost careless. It’s one thing to lose a pair of socks or an umbrella, but I keep losing people. They’re not as easy to replace.

  I wish that road rage guy had slashed me into pieces with a machete. I wish I were dead, like Michael, so I could just lie quietly in the ground and get eaten by snails and beetles.

  I hole up in my bedroom. Rosario is in Mexico visiting her relatives. Her niece Yolanda is here, treating my sisters with trips to Disneyland and Universal Studios. My parents have been gone even more than usual, due to a run of movie premieres, fund raisers, and other crucial events.

  Without Emily or the daily routine of school and Chrissie, I stay up until two and three every morning, watching old films from my dad’s DVD library. I create my own little Alfred Hitchcock film festival, watching a string of the psychological thrillers. Then, I put together and watch a series on The Films of Death Row.

  By Day Four of the break, I still feel like an aircraft carrier is parked on my chest at night, making it hard to breathe. I’ve gotten thin over the last few months, and even I can see how bad I look—like a cadaver, white, with almost sunken cheeks and dark purple smudges below the eyes.

  I get up and head for the library again. As I pass by the wet bar, something catches my eye. Through the glass door of the liquor cabinet, I see a label on a bottle. In an instant, I’m at Emily’s party again, with Michael’s arm clamped around my neck as I breathe in his whisky smell.

  Jeez, Michael, get off me.

  Stay here, man. Please.

  I don’t even stop to think. I grab the bottle and head back for my room. I lock the door, scrounge through the egg carton-sized freezer of my mini-fridge, and come up with a mini-tray of ice cubes. Jack Daniels on ice, taken straight out of my Pacific Prep travel mug. Just what I need.

  I lie on the bed, getting hammered. I figure, if you don’t like the state of your consciousness, then try an altered state.

  I’ve nev
er called Chase before, but I do it now.

  “I’ve found something. In Michael’s locker.”

  A pause. “Oh, yeah? What was it?” Chase’s voice scales up in excitement.

  “Is there some place private where we can meet?” I ask.

  “My house.”

  “The stuff I found—is it all yours?”

  “Half of it. The other half – well, I guess it’s yours now.” He pauses, then throws down a challenge. “Do you want to bring it by? Try a sample or two?”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  • • •

  “Mom, there’s this guy at school named Chase. He’s new this year. We’re gonna hang out tonight at his house.”

  No fool, I’ve chosen Mom as the parent to receive this information.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay? Maybe even the next day.”

  She just nods and says “Have fun, honey,” so now I’m covered for up to forty-eight hours.

  Chase lives in one of those mausoleum houses made of marble. I walk up a wide set of front steps to reach the front door, which is a polished black with a heavy brass knocker.

  He opens the door barefoot wearing a stained sweat-shirt, the hair on the back of his head mashed into a weird cowlick. As he leads me past the stone lions and glittery chandeliers in his entry way and through other rooms, I catch sight of mirrors and dark wood and shiny fabrics with tassels and fringe.

  In spite of all the designer furniture and lamps and stuff, the house is strangely free of human inhabitants. We pass through room after room, all empty and quiet. Between my two sisters, their friends, Rosario, all the work buddies Dad brings home, my parents’ personal assistants, and our fleet of maids who continuously patrol for crumbs and dust particles, I’m used to having people around.

  “Is anyone here?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Just Dora. She’s the housekeeper. She puts in ear plugs and goes to bed by eight.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Fiji.”

  Chase locks the door to his bedroom, just in case one of the nonexistent people in the house might want to pay us a visit. Feeling like I’ve just landed on an alien planet, I watch him lay down lines of white powder on a mirror. Hunched over the white lines, he looks up with a big grin on his face.

  “I can’t believe you got hold of this,” he says “I paid Michael, and then he was going to buy for both of us. But then he, well, he wasn’t around anymore.”

  Chase has split up the wax bags from Michael’s locker into two equal piles. He has put one pile away in a drawer and left the other out for me. “Your half,” he says. I notice that the current evening’s entertainment is coming from my half.

  “Do I need to get a bill from my wallet?” I ask, thinking of how I’ll get this stuff up off the mirror.

  “Naw, I got straws,” he says. Chase has his head down and has vacuumed up a line. He pushes the mirror over to me.

  How did I get here? I’ve lost the people I loved, and am now hanging with a guy I can’t stand, preparing to do something I’ve never wanted to do.

  “Close one nostril with your finger,” he says. “Breathe in through the straw with your other nostril.”

  Should I leave? My eyes flick over to the closed bedroom door. You know where the exit is, Ryan.

  Seeing me hesitate, Chase pushes the mirror closer to me. “Don’t be such a pussy.”

  I shoot him a scowl. “Just chill, okay?”

  I could walk out of here right now, but if I stay, it’s not because I give a flying fart about what Chase thinks of me. It’s more as if a force has been pushing me toward the hidden box of white powder. I need to understand why Michael did this, to become Michael, to become somebody else for a while. I need to leave the old Ryan behind.

  I pick up a straw.

  My nose and sinuses burn as I breathe in. I do one line, as Chase instructs.

  “Now what?”

  “We wait. Fifteen minutes maybe.” Chase moves over to a wall of expensive sound equipment and slides in a CD. “A little Nirvana, to set the mood.”

  I’m really nervous now, not knowing what’s going to happen. I’m starting to feel warm and heavy. “I’ve never done cocaine before.”

  Chase does a double take, although it’s kind of in slow motion as the drug starts to kick in. He has a really weird look on his face.

  “You dumb dick. This isn’t blow,” he says. “It’s heroin.”

  • • •

  The word heroin hits my conscious mind at the same time that the drug hits my bloodstream. It feels sort of like when you hold down the gas and brake pedals of a car at the same time: the car’s generating all this internal energy, but it’s not going anywhere.

  I lie on Chase’s bed, thinking I’m in big trouble, but I don’t do anything about it. I’m on heroin, but it’s fine. Everything’s fine. The heavy feeling’s pleasant, and it occurs to me that Chase isn’t such a bad guy after all. All my feelings of fear and loss and grief evaporate. I feel so comfortable, so good in my own skin. Slowly, I begin to realize that I am powerful. Powerful enough to have anything I want. I am awesome. I am a beast. I can do anything.

  Chase and I lie around in his room, laughing occasionally and talking. I am warm and have such a sense of peace. Chase feels like my best friend, like I’ve known him all my life.

  But then I feel my stomach ball itself into a knot. I sit up, knowing something’s wrong. Chase doesn’t even lift his head. “Bathroom’s that way.” He points.

  I run for it, or rather, I stagger and stumble for it. I reach the toilet just in time. I’m kneeling with my head in the toilet bowl. I’m there for, I don’t know, a couple of minutes? A couple of hours? I hurl my guts out. Then, I lie on the floor, my cheek pressed against the cool granite.

  My left calf itches, and I scratch absentmindedly, thinking Heroin’s not such a big deal. But the itching spreads down my left leg and to my right. No amount of scratching will help. I am way too unsteady to stand. My whole body itches. I still want to throw up, but I want to scratch more. I tear at my skin with my fingernails, scratching and scratching. The itching’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The high’s almost gone, and now my whole body’s hot, sweating like a pig. The palms of my hands itch. Then all of a sudden, I’m freezing, my teeth chattering.

  I crawl on my hands and knees from the bathroom and somehow get to Chase’s bed. He’s on the floor. “You wanna do another line?” he mumbles.

  “No, you go ahead,” I hear myself say. I fall into a dark, deep well of sleep.

  Chapter 44

  I’m sleeping, but this rude person’s interrupting me, waking me up. Lights turn off and on, doors creak open. A door accidentally slams. I’m in a bed, but I’m not sure where. I hear a distorted, bloated voice that turns into Chase’s after a minute. Then, a second voice, a girl’s. The girl and Chase are outside his bedroom, their voices getting louder as they get near.

  I stir and try to lift my head off the pillow. I would call out, but my throat’s so dry I can’t make any noise.

  “Where is he?” the girl is demanding. Then she’s in the room and runs over to me, and I have died and gone to heaven because it’s Emily who’s there beside me, holding me and kissing my face and saying “Ryan, are you okay?”

  “We have to call a doctor,” she says to Chase.

  “Negative. We call a doctor, we go to jail.”

  “But…”

  “He’ll be okay. He just needs time.”

  I slide off into sleep again.

  • • •

  I wake up to find myself in a strange bed spooning with Emily, both of us fully clothed. She’s lying behind me, her face against my shoulders, one arm around my waist. At my first movement, she springs up to a sitting position beside me. I’m nauseated and my head’s pounding. Slowly, I roll over onto my back.

  I want to ask where we are, but I’m not up for the challenge.

  “Chase gave us a guest bedroom
,” Emily says. She picks up a damp cloth and smooths it on my forehead.

  I try to sit up, then sink back into the pillows as my head pulsates. Emily tells me what happened. It’s nine o’clock on Sunday evening, and I’ve been at Chase’s for twenty-four hours. When Chase realized around three this morning that I was not coming down from my one line of smack according to any normal schedule, he checked my pulse and breathing and decided I was going to live and should just sleep it off. It was his own drug-addled way of caring, staying close by me for most of a day, checking my vital signs, but not calling 911, which would have resulted in inconvenient felony charges.

  But by four this afternoon, Chase needed reinforcements. He had plans to go out tonight. So he called Emily with what he seemed to think was a reasonable request, that she come and spend the night taking care of me.

  He must have told her I was dying, because she recruited Chloe to pick her up and cover for her. Emily’s parents think she’s sleeping over at Chloe’s.

  I finally get a question out. “Where’s Chase now?”

  “Gone.” Emily’s voice is matter-of-fact. “He’ll be back really late. He didn’t want to leave you alone, so he called me.”

  I’m gonna puke again. Luckily this guest bedroom has its own bathroom. I make it just in time. I push the door closed with my foot, not wanting to share the experience with Emily, but she follows me in and strokes my head and helps me over to the sink afterward, where I wash my face. She produces a toothbrush, has me brush my teeth, and helps me back to bed. Her hands are so gentle that I could do this forever, just stay here in this strange room letting Emily touch the small of my back and smooth my hair off my face.

  Does she think I’m as big an idiot as I do? Sick as I am, I still manage to throw little glances at her, trying to read her expression. But I can’t.

  “Do you need to call your folks?” she asks.

  I try to remember. When I was younger, I often stayed at Michael’s two or three nights in a row, so Mom’s used to it. I should probably check in with her, though, and confirm I’ll be gone another night. But that means making a phone call and speaking normally. Right now, even the thought of it tires me out.