by Dan Taylor
Megan sighs. “You’re not very good at this, Jake.”
“I don’t even know what a booty call is.”
“The key’s in the name.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Oh fuck it.”
Megan hangs up and we kiss. And let me tell you, there’s more than lust in it.
Megan and I have a crazy night. We get a room in a Motel 6, and get some of that weed delivered that Megan and I smoked on Saturday night.
We get really stoned, fuck, and drink the closest thing to champagne the liquor store across from the motel sells, which is a sparkling rosé. Megan loves it, and I can tolerate it, so it’s a win-win.
After some point in the night, I stop making memories, and when I wake in the morning, I have flashes of jumping on the bed with Megan, whispering cryptic messages to the guest in the next room through the ventilation grate, and of phoning the receptionist desk repeatedly, asking for room service “immediately!” And flash after flash of laughing with Megan, our faces paralyzed from it.
I wake first, note the time, which is a few minutes before seven. There are just a couple hours before I should be at the airport, so I decide to wake Megan, so that we can shower and go for breakfast.
I tell her the checkout time is eight am. She doesn’t believe me, but she gets up anyway.
By the look of her, she can’t remember much of the night either, and she’s walking like she spent the whole of yesterday at the rodeo.
I brush my teeth as she showers. She says, “Remember Bryce’s reaction when you asked for beluga caviar served on freshly cooled blinis and topped with herbed sour cream?”
I stop brushing, and ask, “Who’s Bryce?”
“The guy who worked the graveyard shift at the reception desk.”
“Oh, that guy. I don’t remember his reaction, no.”
“He told you there’s a Blimpie not far from here.”
“No shit?”
“Said he could phone for us if we liked.”
“Poor Bryce.”
I start brushing again.
Megan says, “It was a hell of a night.”
“It was.”
“Do you want to come and shower with me?”
I think a second. “I can’t think of a reason not to.”
49.
WE DON’T GO to Blimpie for breakfast, but to a diner called Sweet Lickin’.
It’s not much of a place, but their bacon is crispy and their coffee isn’t putrid.
We don’t say much during breakfast. But Megan recalls the odd anecdote from the night before, and it sounds like I was a real blast, if her stories are anything to go by. And they probably are.
After breakfast, I offer to drop her off at home, as I’m driving a rental. But she insists on seeing me off.
Before we know it, we’re at the airport, and with a little help from Megan I’ve managed to check my bags and receive my boarding pass without having to speak to any member of the airport staff.
Now we’re in front of the queue for security.
She says, “I guess this is the proper goodbye.”
“It is.”
She pauses, then says, “I just want you to know, if we lived in the same place, and were at similar junctures in our lives, I’d definitely want to make this a regular thing.”
“You can say I’m too old for you, Megan. I’m a big boy.”
“That’s the thing, though; you’re not.”
“You’ve come a long way since I first met you at the airport.”
She laughs. “You haven’t.”
“I don’t expect I ever will.”
“I’d kiss you, but my lips are still greasy from the breakfast.”
“I don’t care about that.”
We kiss, and I catch one of the security staff—an attractive blonde twenty-something—pulling a funny face as she watches us.
There are quite a few people in the line, so after we say goodbye a second time, there’s this awkward moment where Megan lingers, not knowing whether she should stay until I’m through security. But I indicate for her to go.
Wow, what a girl! If I were more romantic, I’d say that part of me was tempted to say to Megan I should move to Massachusetts, leave my condo behind, and spend the foreseeable future with her. That the age difference doesn’t matter, nor does my waking up way earlier than her on a Sunday morning. I’d also say to you that I’m choking back the tears, trying not to blink, as I’d dislodge the vision-blurring accumulation in both eyes. But you know me better than that, despite the little time we’ve spent together.
Instead, I’m spending my time hoping that there’s a bar in the departure lounge that’s close to my gate.
Though I can’t help but look behind me just before I put my carry-on on one of those trays, looking behind to see if I can get one last look of Megan.
But I don’t, and I fear that a year is a longer time than both of us think it is—especially Megan. And that when I phone her, she’ll make up some excuse as to why she can’t keep our date at Sister D’s.
I won’t be angry if she does, just disappointed.
50.
THERE ARE NO hiccups getting through security, nor do I wander into International Departures, so everything’s going to plan.
And there is a bar near my gate—a faux-Irish pub called O’Malley’s.
I order a stout and sit down so I can digest the weekend’s happenings.
There are no loose ends in regards to the investigation. Sure, Megan knows there’s a family secret she’s not privy to, but she’s satisfied. She’ll go back to her nearly perfect life, and I know I’ll see her in some B action movie someday, maybe playing Liam Neeson’s daughter or Stephen Baldwin’s mistress. And the family’s secret is safe with Dean Gordon Anderson. I made sure of the fact, too, by sending him a text message from a pre-paid cell to the number Scottie provided me, threatening to expose his experience with Cherry Aidriana if he were ever to reveal the Books’ secret. He wouldn’t anyway, but insurance is always worth having.
There is the matter of Regan. And whatever has happened that she thinks will convince me I should go back to her. But knowing Regan, it’s probably the fact that she’s stopped clogging up the bedspread with teddy bears, which I hated. Whatever it is, I’m afraid she’s on her own.
There’s also this situation with Gerry Smoulderwell. She hasn’t been in contact, which has alarm bells ringing in my head. It’s not like her.
My phone beeps and I take it out, look at the text message I received: I left something at your apartment. Jane.
I text her back, tell her I’ll be back in town by tonight. And that if she’s game, we can go for dinner.
I’ll actually be back midday, but I’ve been deprived of my weekend, apart from the odd Czech beer at Sister D’s, so I’m going to spend my afternoon unwinding.
And I know just the thing.
I dial a number, wait for her to answer.
“Hello, Dr. Hannah Roger’s office. How can I help?”
Sounds just like a receptionist, but I know better.
“Hi, I’d like to schedule an appointment for today. Two-ish.”
“Let me see. I can fit you in at two-fifteen.”
I chuckle. “Fit me in, nice.”
“Sorry, sir? What did you say?”
“I said that sounds good.”
“Excellent. Your name and date of birth?”
“Jake Hancock. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one on your books.”
I hear the tapping of a keyboard. “That’s right. You are, sir. Two-fifteen it is.”
I hang up. You get what you pay for in this world, and let me tell you, this is the Rolls-Royce of role-play experiences.
While sipping my warm, flat beer, I catch some the baseball game, get bored after two or three swings of the bat.
The last customer, along with tearing the beer mat into tiny pieces, left his newspaper, which happens to be the Hollywood Herald, so I flick through
it.
A headline I find blows my mind.
51.
“L.A. NURSE INHERITS O’Cain Estate,” I say under my breath.
I read on, knowing what I’m going to find, that it’s Regan who’s inherited a large number of zeros.
I’m right.
So it wasn’t the overpopulated bedspread.
Good for her.
But it doesn’t change anything. And I’m offended that she thinks it would.
The article is only a short one, and there’s a picture accompanying it I think I might have taken. There’s not much on who this O’Cain guy is or how Regan came to inherit his estate.
So I phone her.
She answers, “Regan Hancock residence.”
“So it’s residence, now?”
She pretends to not know who’s calling this time. “Oh. It’s you.”
“And isn’t this your cell phone?”
“It is. But it can still be a residence.”
“Whatever. So what’s going on with this O’Cain guy?”
“If you’re phoning up to tell me you’ve changed your mind, that ship has sailed.”
“Look, I’m not bothered about any of that. I’m just interested in who this O’Cain guy is.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Right, fine.”
I’m silent a second.
Regan cracks. “Okay, so you’re not going to believe what happened.”
She’s right. I don’t.
52.
Some unspecified time ago…
IT TOOK THREE months for Regan Coalfield to get over her husband. God, she fucking hated him. Hated his guts and everything in them.
On top of him having beady eyes, he was also a crap lay. When he’d gone down on her, it felt like a vacuum cleaner with the skirting board attachment going down on her. And don’t even get her started on the size of his penis.
It was way too big.
She’d let herself go when married. But who wouldn’t, right?
This made dating difficult. As well as her muffin top and the camel toe that was formed when she put on her now ill-fitting pants, she was also majorly out of practice.
It was easy for guys. They just had to use a chat-up line (they found on some website) on a girl that everyone else thought was way out of their league, and the girl would laugh, thinking they were being ironic. And before you knew it, they were screwing in some fancy-pants condo on Hollywood Boulevard.
But with tits that were threatening to cover up her belly button, and the jaded look she had in her eyes from working overtime at the hospital, she could forget about finding another man at the snap of her fingers. Like that bastard Jake.
It was going to be tough. But technology was on her side.
She signed up for a dating website, filled in all the fields for her bio, uploaded some slightly slutty, younger pictures of herself, and the replies came flooding in…from overweight fifty-year-olds and spotty teenagers.
Until one day when she went home and checked her computer, found that a Nigerian prince had contacted her—though she was skeptical about the prince part. Until she looked round his bio, found pictures of him wearing expensive-looking traditional Nigerian dress, posing next to sports cars and yachts.
He wasn’t much to look at. His stomach looked distended, and he wasn’t much in the facial department, but there was a chance that this guy was Nigerian royalty. He was at least rich. Without a shadow of doubt, this was the most attractive suitor to have contacted her in the two weeks she’d been a member of the website.
She pictured herself riding in one of his expensive open-top cars, sticking her middle finger up at Jake, as they drove past. Imagined him reading a newspaper article about her marriage to Nigerian royalty. Then she pressed reply.
Things went well between Regan and Omar the first couple weeks. He took her to fancy restaurants, was really romantic, and although his erections never got completely hard, he was reasonable in bed. Better than Jake, anyway.
But whenever she asked him about his royal life in Nigeria, he was sketchy on details. Or brushed the conversation aside, complimented her hair instead of talking about his life back in Nigeria, and about how big the castle was that he lived in with the rest of the royal family. Regan was no dummy. She knew he had probably made the whole thing up to get into her panties. But he was rich. She knew that much. Did it really matter if he wasn't Nigerian royalty? Regan didn't think so.
A couple months in, things were getting serious. Omar had asked Regan to marry him on three separate occasions. One time he had hidden a ring in a piece of black forest cheesecake, another time in a glass of champagne, and the latest time in a condom packet, which he’d opened with a scalpel and resealed with glue, to be found after foreplay. That last attempt warmed her heart, but she still said no.
She caved in on the fourth attempt, while at a restaurant, took the ring out of the dove's talons, which had flown out of a cloche moments before, and put Omar's big, ugly ring on her finger and proclaimed "yes!" she would marry him.
Omar wanted for them to move to some island in the Bahamas, but she convinced Omar that their life together would be better spent in LA. They went out to Walmart and bought Omar baggy sports clothes to wear, instead of his traditional Nigerian dress, so that he could blend in with the locals. Regan no longer worked overtime at the hospital, as Omar was easily able to provide for the both of them. And Omar spent his days phoning Nigeria and other African countries—Regan saw from his cell phone bill—probably running some legitimate business.
Her life had improved immeasurably since Omar had come into it.
But at no point did they see Jake, even when they went to dine in Hollywood, and she even paraded Omar up and down Hollywood Boulevard, hoping that Jake would get a glance of her new man, her soon-to-be husband—just as soon as she agreed to divorcing Jake, which was a formality.
But Omar wasn't completely happy in LA. Whenever they went to bars, Omar was treated as though he were primitive by the Los Angelenos. Sure, he spoke in broken English, and he didn't seem the glossiest cupcake under the sneeze guard, but he wasn't a caveman. He struggled to make friends, and it was no surprise to Regan when she came home and found Omar balls deep in some waitress. She was pissed for approximately ten minutes, then she felt sorry for Omar. It was difficult for him. It was difficult to be away from family. Must be impossible to be away from them when they're probably royal!
She forgave him. And he turned the romance up to eleven. Bought her extravagant gifts. Offered to buy her a second engagement ring, but she told him there was no need. The first ring was plenty big and ugly enough for two rings.
They set a date for the marriage, and that left the matter of divorcing Jake. Omar knew about him. Pretty much every time Regan had a glass of white zinfandel, she would talk endlessly about what a jerk Jake was, and how he'd been aloof during their marriage. Omar told Regan that he could have Jake killed, and for the price of a goat. Though Regan contemplated his offer, she never took him up on it. She thought Jake having to be Jake for as long as possible was a decent punishment for him.
Sure enough, a couple weeks later, Regan came back from a shift at the hospital to find Omar balls deep in yet another tramp—this one an employee of Taco Bell. She was pissed again. And this time she wasn’t going to let Omar get away it with so cheaply.
She threatened to kick him out, and he cried again. Told her she was the most important person to have ever been part of his magnificent, royal life.
This time he was going to make it up to her properly.
He explained that he was heir to an estate on his white family’s side, that of a rich British aristocrat named Keith O’Cain, who married into the family. Though Omar didn’t talk any numbers, by all accounts, it was a huge fortune. This O’Cain guy was rich, and he didn’t have many years left, so it was akin to buying a winning lottery ticket, just if it were inside a big block of ice that was slowly melting.
That was an apology she could accept.
He told her to keep it quiet, for some unknown reason, but she still hadn’t got back at Jake. So she came up with the perfect idea. She didn’t think it would make front-page news, but it was worthy of an article.
She made the call.
53.
“THIS ALL SOUNDS fantastical, Regan,” I say.
“Only because it hasn’t happened to you,” Regan replies.
I sigh. “You think I want to meet a Nigerian prince, then have him fall in love with me, so that I could inherit what sounds like drug money, so that it can be laundered?”
She’s quiet a second. “No, but something special like this.”
“The only thing special is how naive you are.”
“Fuck you, Jake.”
“Look, Regan, we don’t like each other, but I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“You are a bad thing that’s happening to me.”
“Let’s just be pragmatic, shall we. I can do a background check on this guy if you want. We both know he isn’t Nigerian royalty.”
“We don’t know anything.”
“I don’t get it. Didn’t you do a quick google search to check this guy out?”
“I trust Omar.”
“You trust a guy that says he’s Nigerian royalty?”
“It’s Nigeria. We’re not talking Buckingham Palace here.”
“But it’s still significant. Don’t you think you’d know? Wouldn’t the press get wind of it and be at your door quicker than Omar pulled his pants down on your first date?”
“Don’t be so crude.”
“I’m just being realistic.”
“Whenever someone says that, they’re just excusing the fact that they’re being a dick.”
“This is going nowhere. If you want, I’ll do a background check, make sure this guy’s legit.”
“What I want is to never speak to you again and for you to leave me and Omar alone.”
I think for a second. “Fine. I’ll do that. Sign the papers and it’s done.”
