by Roxie Noir
Of course I’d like it to be a sex thing. I’ve spent the past three nights thinking about Marisol’s thighs around my ears while I had a wank.
But I’m not stupid. If I were to say oh and also let’s shag she’d be out of here like a rocket.
“And I’ll pay you a million dollars,” I say. “Sorry, buried the lede again.”
Marisol freezes.
“You’re joking,” she says.
“I’m not,” I say. “Though I did get a bit carried away there and neglect to mention that quite important aspect of this transaction. It’s not just for shits and giggles.”
Marisol’s slowly going pink, the color creeping up her neck, clashing with her light green blouse even in the dark.
“Is that legal?” she asks.
“You’re honestly asking me?” I say, grinning. “I’ve not been too concerned with legality so far. That’s more your department, love.”
She stands suddenly, clearing her throat, glancing through the frosted glass wall.
“I have to think about this,” she says, sounding almost apologetic.
Fucking unbelievable. I’m on the cover of the Rolling Stone in the lobby, I just offered her a million dollars, and she’s got to think it over.
Any other girl would have said yes ages ago. Before I got a second sentence out. I wouldn’t have even needed to take over some stranger’s office.
But I don’t want any other girl. I want Marisol to be the one pretending to like me, so thinking it over is what I get.
I did ask for this. Quite literally.
“Are you going to negotiate?” I tease. “You want a million dollars, posh dinners, diamonds, and a vacation to a private island, is that it?”
“Is that what I should hold out for?” she asks, her brown eyes sparkling. “You must be a terrible poker player.”
“I am, but because I can never remember the rules and bugger it up,” I say, standing as well.
I grab the door handle. She’s standing in front of me, but I hesitate for a moment, long enough for her to look back.
“Marisol,” I murmur, suddenly so close that I can smell her shampoo and all my nerves sing at once, suddenly alive. “Say yes.”
I know she won’t, not right now, so I pull the door open without giving her time to answer and we walk down the hall, to the receptionist’s desk, in front of the elevators. She shifts her briefcase on her shoulder as the elevator doors open.
“I’ll call you,” she says, and walks into one. The doors close.
I turn back toward Larry’s office, catching sight of myself on Rolling Stone.
Smug cocky bastard, I think at my photo.
10
Marisol
I take the elevator down in a daze, because I feel like someone’s inserted a hand mixer into my ear and scrambled my brains, because all at once I’m angry, confused, and slightly offended, but a million dollars.
A million dollars.
I could buy my parents a house. Real estate prices in Los Angeles are completely insane, but a million dollars would get them something small but nice in a good neighborhood. Their rent would never go up again. They’d never get evicted again. They could actually save that money for retirement.
I don’t think they’ve ever actually considered retiring.
I could pay off my student loans, even the ones from law school. I could pay off my sister’s student loans.
I could study for the bar exam and look for a job without worrying about stringing together enough work to pay for rent and food in the meantime. When I get a job, I can save my money instead of putting most of a paycheck toward my student loans.
That’s what a million dollars would mean.
It would mean not worrying about money.
I have no idea what that feels like. Thinking about money, putting a cost on nearly everything I do, is second nature to me. I just assumed that I’d always worry about money, every day, for the rest of my life.
When I get to the plaza downstairs I sit on a bench for a moment and just stare into space, trying to think. It seems like it can’t be real, but we were in Larry’s office. I may not be crazy about the guy, but he’s a real lawyer, and I don’t think signing a contract to be a fake girlfriend is illegal.
And then despite myself, I think about the Rolling Stone cover again. I think about watching Gavin on stage Friday, the way Dirtshine made hundreds of people all lose their minds at once. The way he moves on stage, his deep raspy voice, his hands moving on the guitar.
At least I know I’m not alone in thinking that he’s ridiculously hot, pure British sex. The mystery is why the hell he wants me.
I know he was just saying what he thought I wanted to hear, piling on the sort of flattery he thought someone in law school would like, but it worked. He’s sweet. He’s funny. He’s a little broken — okay, he had a heroin problem, so a lot broken — but I wouldn’t mind spending more time with him.
We seem to get along, after all, but this is still insane. No respectable person would do it, I know that much.
Except: a million dollars.
And the way he murmured say yes, just before I left.
I shake my head and stand. I’ve got a day or two to think this over, so no need to decide right now.
I heave my second-hand briefcase over my shoulder, adjust my sale-rack suit, and walk to the bus.
Million-dollar fake boyfriend aside, I make myself stick to my priorities. That means going over the notes I took on my reading for class tomorrow, studying for a possible quiz Friday, starting next week’s reading, and editing the first ten pages of this terrible undergraduate essay.
Then, when all the things on my to-do list under “Tuesday Priorities” are finished, I put everything away, get another mug of tea, and tackle this Gavin problem in the best way I know how: with research.
It takes hours, because wow is there a lot on the internet about Gavin Lockwood.
Here’s the short, sweet version: he grew up in a village in Northern England along with his close friend and future bandmate Liam Fenwick. Yes, that Liam. They formed a band in high school, went to college — sorry, university — for a short period, then dropped out and moved to London.
That band broke up. They formed another, and it broke up as well, but one fortuitous night they met Darcy Greene and Trent Ryder, both Americans, and Dirtshine was born.
Then came the usual struggle in obscurity, though after a while they managed to get signed to a label and release an album that did okay, so they released a second album, Lucid Dream.
Lucid Dream was huge. Triple platinum, world tour, TV shows and magazine covers and constant radio play, the whole nine yards.
It was around then that, according to his Wikipedia article, “Gavin’s heroin addiction became more serious and problematic, and the Dirtshine frontman grew erratic.”
Gavin’s erratic behavior culminated in the night that he and Liam didn’t show up at a gig, and they were found strung out in Liam’s hotel room, along with a roadie named Allen Liddell. All three were transported to a hospital, where Allen died of an overdose, Liam was in a coma for two days, and Gavin came out of it the next morning.
Then: thirty days in rehab, possession charges reduced to misdemeanors, community service. Dirtshine is reportedly “hard at work on their next album,” albeit with a new drummer, not Liam. Apparently Liam also went to rehab, but if I had to hazard a guess based on his behavior Friday night, I’d say it didn’t stick.
I get up, make another cup of tea and a sandwich, and get back to it. This time it’s endless articles about recovering from heroin addiction: the Mayo Clinic, Narcotics Anonymous, addiction.org.
I put books on hold at the school library. I use my law school login to read articles on the cutting edge of addiction science, and even though I don’t entirely understand all the neurochemistry involved — okay, I don’t understand it at all — I keep going until it’s nearly one in the morning and I’ve still got no answer.
I fall asleep still not knowing what the right answer is. Yeah, I’d love to have a million dollars, but I don’t know if I can take it from someone falling back under the drug’s sway, and I don’t exactly think I’ll be the difference between him staying clean and relapsing.
But on the other hand, I am a social bond outside the sphere of addiction. And I like Gavin.
Maybe I could at least help.
The dream decides it for me.
It’s not about Gavin. It’s not even about the money and what I could do with it.
In the dream, I’m sitting at my laptop, scrolling through an endless list of apartments for rent. None of them have prices on the listing, and they’re all shitty — one-bedroom basement apartments, places with no kitchen where you can see roaches, hovels within spitting distance of the freeway — and yet, when I click to see the price, they’re all hundreds more than my parents can possibly afford.
When I wake up, my heart is racing and my palms are sweaty, but I’ve got an answer.
If Gavin relapses, he relapses. It won’t be my fault.
But my parents have worked their hands to the bone, for their whole lives. If I’ve got the chance to buy them a house, I’m taking it.
It’s six-thirty in the morning, but I leave Larry a voicemail saying I’ll do it.
11
Gavin
The light turns green, but no one moves. The intersection is completely gridlocked, cars head east-west blocking the path of cars attempting to travel north and south, but that doesn’t stop several people from laying on their horns.
“Keep honking, it’s sure to do the trick,” I mutter to myself.
Finally, I inch forward, getting about fifty feet before the light turns red again, and look at the time. Already late, and we’ve got to get all the way up to Malibu in Friday night traffic.
My God, we may not be there by tomorrow morning.
“In one hundred feet, turn right,” the pleasant female voice of my phone’s GPS says.
At the current rate of travel, that’s only five minutes.
I text Marisol and tell her that I’m on my way and should be picking her up sometime before sunrise. She texts me back a thumbs up. The butterflies in my stomach churn.
I’m still surprised she agreed to it. I know it’s the million dollars and not me, but I really didn’t think she’d say yes, particularly after she spent an extra twenty-four hours deciding.
And then, of course, the meeting where we signed the paperwork went two hours over schedule, entirely her fault as she went through the contract with a fine-toothed comb and requested probably a hundred minor changes, resulting in the first time I’ve ever found paperwork sexy.
The agreement is pretty simple, or at least, I think so: no fewer than two dates a week, totaling at least three hours, at a location that Valerie’s PR firm has pre-approved, meaning one with plenty of paparazzi.
Until such time as we can no longer avoid acknowledging a romantic entanglement, Marisol and I are to tell all interested parties that she’s a member of my legal team, and we are getting to know one another. This, according to Valerie, will entice members of the press in a way that saying, “Right, she’s my girlfriend,” will not.
Hand-holding, arm-touching, and kisses on the cheek and eventually the lips are all explicitly discussed in our contract, though it’s silent on further “physical affections.” We are to smile and laugh in one another’s presence. We are not to argue, at least until it’s time for us to end our fake relationship.
Two months. The contract is for two months.
I haven’t got a plan. I haven’t got anything, except for the ceaseless sensation that no matter what I’ve said, I want more than this from her, though I barely know what myself.
The last time I dated someone was years ago. It ended badly, as relationships between two junkies often do, though I wrote a hit song about it. Then came a parade of one-night-stands, groupies, whoever was soft and warm and the moment.
And then there was nothing much except the needle, which has a way of dulling everything. Not least your very own wants and desires.
That is to say, it’s been a very long time since I really wanted something from any woman. Hard to remember what it feels like or what it is I’m supposed to do next, but I think it’s something like this, a warm sizzling sensation not unlike electricity crackling along a wire.
“Turn right,” the GPS chirps. “Then turn left.”
I grit my teeth, steel myself, turn right, and then merge across three lanes of traffic into a left-turn lane with no light and wall-to-wall traffic facing me.
“Turn left now,” the GPS says.
“Fuck you,” I tell it.
We go back and forth until I’ve finally gotten onto a residential street, large apartment buildings on either side. I check her house number again, but before I can find an address I see her, waving from the front steps.
I double-park, grab the bouquet from the passenger seat, and get out.
“It’s a date,” I say, as she squeezes between the bumpers of two parked cars. “I’m supposed to come knock on your door and hand you these.”
I hand over the flowers. I don’t know what they are, but they’re colorful and I picked them out myself.
“Sorry,” she says, laughing as she smells them. “Should I go back upstairs while you look for parking?”
I glance up and down her block. No empty spots.
“You’d be a while,” she says. “Or we could just go on our date.”
I at least open the car door for her, then get in myself.
“Swanky car,” Marisol says, running one finger along the leather seat.
She’s wearing fairly tight jeans, heels, a blue top, and a tailored jacket, her hair down. It’s the first time I’ve seen her wear anything so casual, and I’m a bit afraid I’ll crash my car staring at her.
“I admit I bought it with dreams of speeding down the California motorway, stereo blasting, sun shining in my windows,” I say. “So far I’ve not found California to be a very speedy place.”
“Not around here,” she says. “Drive out to the desert sometime, that should do you.”
“Make a U-turn,” the GPS says.
“Why?” Marisol asks it, frowning.
“I think I’ve put her on difficult mode or something,” I say. “She’s trying to kill me.”
“Don’t make a U-turn,” Marisol says, and takes my phone from its holster on the dash. “Drive forward and turn left in two blocks.”
“Oi, I need that,” I protest.
“You don’t trust me?” Marisol teases.
“That’s not what I said,” I say, easing the car forward to the next stop sign.
“Good,” she says. “Make a left here and a right at the light onto Vermont.”
I drive and let Marisol guide me. Not having the map does make me uneasy, but Marisol at least doesn’t seem interested in having me take our lives into our hands every few minutes, so I relax after a bit.
She narrates as I drive, pointing out hole-in-the-wall restaurants with great food, the Korean place with ox-blood soup, dive bars, bowling alleys, the apartment where she used to live, the subway stop she uses. I’ve only been through this part of town a few times and it never seemed like much to me, but it comes alive as we drive south.
Plus, she gives good directions, far better than the woman in the GPS. Before long I realize: I don’t care if we actually get to the restaurant in Malibu or not.
Once we hit the freeway traffic moves better, and before long we’re through the final tunnel and then suddenly driving on the co
astal highway, Santa Monica beach next to our left, ten minutes after sunset with the sky still fading pink and orange.
“Good sunset,” Marisol says approvingly.
“Aren’t they all good sunsets?” I ask.
“They’re mostly good sunsets,” she says. “When it’s too cloudy or too clear they’re a little lackluster.”
I come to a stop light and look over at the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.
“Lackluster,” I say, and she laughs. “You’ve clearly never been to England.”
“I may be somewhat spoiled when it comes to weather and sunsets,” she says.
12
Marisol
The sun fades as we drive up the coast in the nicest car I’ve ever touched. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure it is — it’s black, low slung, two-door, has butter-soft leather seats and more knobs and dials than a spaceship.
Plus, it purrs like a tiger, even at stoplights. Frankly, it’s a shame to drive this in the city of Los Angeles, where its top speed can’t be more than forty-five miles per hour.
“You’ve not forgotten about giving me directions, have you?” he asks after a while, during a lull in our conversation.
I had, completely, and I switch his phone back on to look at the map. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting pretty close.
“Of course not,” I say. “But it’s gonna be coming up on the left. I think it’s that second stoplight up there.”
“You did forget,” he says. “You’d have let me drive clear to Santa Barbara.”
I laugh. He might be right.
“I would’ve noticed before too long,” I say. “You might be drive-to-Point-Dume-by-accident interesting, but you’re not all-the-way-to-Santa-Barbara interesting. Plus we’re already half an hour late for our reservation.”
“I’m not sure what you’ve just said but I think it might be an insult,” he says, his voice teasing as he slows the car, waiting at a stoplight with his blinker on.
