by Jenny Lee
“You’re here,” Vronsky managed to gasp in a raspy voice.
“So, who’s your new friend?” Anna replied.
“I’m Claudine. You must be Anna,” Claudine said, shaking her hand. “This poor boy cannot stop talking about you.”
“Pleased to meet you, Claudine.”
Right behind them, Murf showed up carrying a very large bong that he used as a microphone in his own rendition of Katy Perry’s “California Guirls,” which he sang as “California Kush” to the delight of the whole plane.
Vronsky pulled Anna outside and told her how happy he was to see her.
Anna stared at him until he finished. “Is she with you?”
“Anna, she’s no one. She’s the daughter of one of my mother’s friends from Paris. My mom insisted I bring her.”
“So your mother hates me now?” Anna asked in all seriousness. She could barely control the disappointment in how their reunion was going so far. “Such a shame because I felt like she, of all people, wouldn’t hold my mistakes against me.”
Vronsky wasn’t pleased that Anna referenced his mother’s past, as it seemed beneath her to do such a thing, but he told himself she had every right to be upset at his mother’s intent to sabotage them. He remembered what Anna had said the last time they had seen each other, the day Kimmie had shown up and thrown gasoline on the fire of Anna’s greatest insecurity. Anna had said she wanted to believe him when he told her that she was different than all the other girls from his past, and he had sworn on his knees that she was his one and only.
“Please,” Vronsky said. “It’s been torture not seeing you. Can’t we just focus on the now? You’re here now. We’re together now. I don’t want to waste a second. I love you, Anna.”
This was the first time he had ever told her this directly, and he would have preferred to tell her at a time when he wasn’t under duress, but it was too late for that. He needed her to understand what she meant to him, so he told her the truth. “I super love you, Anna; I super fucking love you in a big fucking way.”
Anna smiled. “Well that’s good, Alexia,” she said. “Because if I catch you checking out Claudine’s rack again, I’ll kill you myself and bury you in a shallow, desert grave.”
He laughed, surprised at Anna’s sudden change of attitude, also noting she didn’t say the L-word back to him. He knew he didn’t deserve it given the situation, but he wanted to hear it nonetheless.
“So you’ve forgiven me?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to forgive. You said so yourself,” Anna replied and then breezed past him into the idling plane. She popped her head out the door and held out her hand for him. “We need to get you to California; you’re in desperate need of a tan.”
At the front of the plane, Beatrice kept an eye on her cousin and shook her head as he and Anna snuggled next to one another in the hand-stitched custom Italian leather seat.
XXII
The plane ride was torture for Anna and Alexia. They held hands and whispered to each other in their seats at the front of the plane, ignoring the large group in the back who played a version of Marry, Fuck, Kill as a drinking game, using all the celebrities that were reported to be on their way to Coachella. Unable to stop himself, Vronsky began to kiss Anna, and soon they were locked in a hot and heavy embrace that rocked their seats in a way that became too ridiculous for the others to ignore.
“For chrissakes!” Beatrice called out. “Get a room, you two!”
Anna didn’t need to be told twice. She stood up first, holding her hand out to Alexia who grabbed it for dear life, and together they walked down the center aisle toward the back of the plane where there was a large bedroom with a California-king bed. Anna didn’t care what this looked like (though she avoided looking at her brother) and smiled when everyone slow clapped their approval. She was a single girl for the first time in her life.
In the beautifully decorated bedroom, Anna locked the door and ordered Alexia to get undressed. After he had, she slowly slipped out of her own clothes and stood just out of his reach. When he touched himself, she commanded him to stop, telling him the only person who could touch him was her. When she crawled up onto the bed, she teased him until he squirmed and begged for more. She felt powerful and free. Gone were her fears that their passion had been extinguished by their recent separation. If anything, she was even more enraptured by the beautiful boy who lay naked below her.
She forced herself to go slow, wanting to make it last for as long as possible, offering up the measured ache of their pleasure to the gods who’d fated them to meet, to kiss, to fuck in secret, and who had seen fit to rip them apart, so they could right their wanton ways and come together properly as two people who could belong to one another without anything standing in their way.
When he was inside her, she refused to let him move and instead buried her face in his neck, whispering she wanted to lead this dance. She started moving her hips above him, and she felt him gasp beneath her. “Alexia, my Alexia,” she whispered as she grinded against him. She was already at the peak of her excitement and wanted them to ride down the waterfall together. “Now, now, now,” she cried out.
“Oh god, I love you Anna, only you!” he cried out as they came together. He imagined the plane falling out of the sky, ready to accept death in this moment of bliss, better to die entwined with the girl he loved than die alone in the distant future.
They lay in each other’s arms for the next hour, basking in the ecstasy of their new life together. Anna told him she wasn’t going to be his girlfriend, because she needed to be her own woman for a while. She stated that she had no interest in anyone but him, and if he had outside interests in anyone else, well, too bad for him. He laughed and readily agreed to her terms. They were together now and that was the only thing that mattered to him. He didn’t need to label her. She wasn’t his to own. And he would gladly work each day to earn her affection if that was what it took. They made love once again and fell asleep, lulled by the roar of the engines, not waking until the plane landed at Palm Springs International Airport in the California desert.
Anna and Vronsky dressed quickly and decided they would walk out the door and pretend like nothing had happened. As Anna stepped into the main cabin she saw everyone strapped into their seats staring at their phones in silence. Even though she was embarrassed to face her older brother after what had just transpired, when she caught his eyes she was surprised to see his face was a mask of pure rage.
“Steven?” she asked, feeling frightened. “What’s wrong?”
Steven unbuckled his seat belt and was in the aisle in seconds. He pushed his sister out of the way and grabbed Vronsky’s shirt, his face red in fury. “You fucking asshole!” he screamed.
Anna tried to grab her brother’s arm before he punched Vronsky, but it was too late. Steven’s fist slammed into Vronsky’s face and sent him reeling backward across the doorway and onto the bedroom floor.
“Stop it!” Anna screamed, but her voice was lost in the chaos. Murf pulled Steven off Vronsky before he landed a second punch, struggling to keep Anna’s brother from pummeling Vronsky into a pulp.
Everyone grew silent as the plane rolled to a stop.
“What’s going on?” Anna demanded. She was now standing next to Lolly’s seat in the aisle, and Lolly held up her phone to Anna, who squinted at it. It was a video, but the lighting was dim so it took Anna a while to understand what she was seeing. “Oh Anna,” she heard Vronsky’s voice moan out of the phone’s speakers, and her eyes flew wide in disbelief. The video zoomed in on her own face now and everything became horrifically clear.
The video showed Vronsky and her having sex in her bedroom. Vronsky’s head was cut off in the frame, but it was his naked backside that was thrusting between her open legs with a raw lust that made her cringe. The video had arrived in a mass email to undisclosed recipients originating from a sender: [email protected]. Anna dropped the phone to the floor.
She didn’t kno
w where to look, or what to do, so she turned to see Vronsky still sprawled on the floor. He was watching the same video on Murf’s phone. She looked away, not wanting to see his face ever again. Who else but him could have videotaped their most intimate moments?
Anna slumped down in the empty seat next to Lolly and looked over at Beatrice and Claudine, who were seated next to each other at the front of the plane. Claudine had the good sense to look away, but Beatrice met Anna’s gaze and mouthed the words, “I have no idea…” which was true, Beatrice didn’t have a clue who would release the revenge porn video for all to see. She had already texted several friends back in Greenwich and found out it had been sent to the entire school. It wasn’t obvious from the angle that the guy in the video was Vronsky, though everyone on the plane knew. But it was, without a doubt, the face of Anna K., eyes half-closed in lust, on full display.
Beatrice had the power to fix many a social faux pas, but something like this was beyond her control. Even if Beatrice wanted to, and she didn’t know if that was the case yet, there was no saving Anna K.
Anna started laughing, which was hardly the reaction anyone on the plane expected. It started as a giggle, a schoolgirl who had just received a dirty note from a friend in class, but then it grew louder into a crazed laughing fit. She looked like a deranged maniac, sitting next to a terrified Lolly, who was staring at Steven, begging him with her eyes to do something. Steven spat at Vronsky, who was still on the floor with his head in his hands, and then walked up the aisle. “Lolly!” he barked. “Get Anna’s bag, we’re getting the fuck off this plane.” Anna stood up when Steven grabbed her arm and followed him as he headed out the open door.
Still giggling like a psycho, Anna grabbed a bottle of Tito’s vodka from an ice bucket at the custom bar as she passed it. “I think I need this more than you, Bea!” she called back, erupting once again in laughter. “Peace out! Anna has left the plane…”
XXIII
Steven was relieved he’d let Lolly convince him weeks ago to accept the invitation of one of her mother’s friends who owned a place at the Lexington Club, instead of staying at the six-bedroom house Beatrice had rented for the week, which was also in the gated country club community. Their place, a two-bedroom bungalow, technically a pool house behind the main house, was down the street from where Beatrice and the rest of the gang were staying. His anger hadn’t subsided and Steven wanted to keep Anna as far away from Vronsky as he could.
Anna tried her best to get drunk in the Uber on the way, but the driver threatened to dump them on the side of the road if she didn’t put the booze away. Steven pried the vodka bottle out of his sister’s hand and gave it to Lolly for safekeeping. Lolly put the bottle in her purse, happy to have something to do because she was silently freaking out. She just couldn’t believe she was front and center during a real live sex tape scandal! Anna could become the next Paris H. or Kim K.! (And what was really crazy was that Kim K. herself was rumored to be staying a few houses over from them; Kanye was performing his Sunday Service on Easter.) Lolly stared out the window at the barren desert landscape. She couldn’t believe how dry her skin felt already even though they had only been in the desert for twenty minutes. She was super stoked she’d remembered to pack her extra moisturizing Creme de Corps lotions.
Lolly had so many questions to ask Anna, but she kept her mouth shut and decided to give her some space. She had never seen Steven hit anyone before and wondered if the pool house would have an ice machine since his hand was probably swollen. Lolly couldn’t fathom why Vronsky would have released a sex tape of him and Anna. Anyone could see he was the smittenest little kitten ever for her. Why would he blow everything up by sending out a sex tape? She had tried to tell Steven this right after the plane landed and everyone’s phone started going nuts with all the texts about it. She had over one hundred missed messages that came in, a new record, though it had freaked her out initially because she assumed someone had died. Honestly it seemed teenagers cared far more about a sex tape than a death. But Steven was already seeing red by then.
Poor Anna, Lolly thought. Anna was positively glowing with satisfaction when she opened the door from the back bedroom only to find everyone on the plane unable to meet her eyes. Well, if there was any consolation, which there probably wasn’t, Anna looked stunning on the video and she had obviously gotten milk for cookies. Lolly wondered what she looked like when she and Steven were having sex. Maybe they should film themselves so she could find out. Though, they’d have to delete it right afterward.
Who could have done this? Lolly worried briefly that Kimmie could be involved somehow, since Kimmie definitely had a bone to pick with Vronsky, especially when it came to Anna. The thought made her sweaty with panic, but when she watched the video a second time she could tell that they were in Anna’s bedroom at the house in Greenwich, not her CPW bedroom (where Anna had an antique mahogany sleigh bed that was over a hundred years old). Her bed in Greenwich was a matte-finished wrought-iron canopy. As far as Lolly knew, there was no time after Kimmie had returned from Arizona when she could have traveled to Greenwich, filmed them having sex, and come back without her or her mom knowing.
Anna changed into a killer Valentino camo bikini as soon as they arrived at their bungalow. She then filled a glass with ice and took back her bottle of vodka and set herself up poolside with headphones. Lolly was impressed Anna wasn’t hysterically bawling. If something like this happened to her, she’d for sure be crying her eyes out.
“What are we gonna do?” Lolly whispered to Steven. “Should we go back home?”
“You don’t have to whisper, Lolls,” Steven said. “She can’t hear us over the Adele she’s blasting. I haven’t heard from my parents, which means it hasn’t hit their radar yet, but it’s only a matter of time. My dad is gonna shit a cinder block when he finds out. He’ll be more upset over this than my mom cheating. This is his Anna, Daddy’s perfect little girl.”
“Surely there’s some damage control we can do,” Lolly said.
“The internet is forever, Lolly,” Steven reminded her. “Every teenager in Manhattan and Connecticut has seen it by now. You’re still checking TMZ, right?”
Lolly nodded. “All they’re covering is Coachella arrivals, and I was thinking about it. They can’t post the video because Anna’s underage. It’s technically child pornography.”
Steven was thrilled at this news. He immediately got on his phone and replied-all to the mysterious email, alerting everyone who watched the video that posting it was a federal offense due to Anna and Vronsky’s age. He didn’t know if this would do anything, but he had to try something.
“Can you go over to Beatrice’s for a temperature check?” Steven asked. “I’m gonna try to talk to Anna and see whether she wants to stay or go home. I doubt we can get a flight out tonight, short of renting a private plane. I can’t make such a huge charge on my AmEx without Dad’s approval, and no way I’m gonna be the messenger who gets killed by delivering the news that his favorite child is the new star of a sex tape.”
Lolly said she’d go as soon as she changed clothes. She had packed a big suitcase full of cute new Coachella outfits, and if they were leaving tomorrow she at least wanted to get in a few looks before they left. She wondered if Steven would get mad at her if she posted a Coachella selfie right now. She decided to take a few pics in her room but would hold off posting them until the smoke had cleared.
Twenty minutes later Lolly entered the arid backyard of the mansion Beatrice had rented, after no one answered the front doorbell. She found Beatrice and Claudine skinny-dipping in the enormous lap pool. Beatrice gave her a friendly wave, as if it was any other day, cheerfully informing Lolly they were killing time until the Ecstasy they took kicked in. “Join us!” Beatrice called out. “The water is supes warm. It’s like a big saltwater bathtub.”
Neither naked girl brought up the whole Anna and Vronsky situation, which forced Lolly to awkwardly ask Bea where she might find her cousin.
/> “Use your nose, Lolly,” Beatrice singsonged from the deep end. “Follow the trail of smoke. V and Murf are around here somewhere, trying take the sting out of his throbbing face. Your hunky bf sure can throw a punch, though I’m surprised Steven didn’t just karate chop him.”
Lolly wrinkled her nose at Bea’s vaguely racist comment but let it go. Maybe Bea was pissed about Anna’s sex tape, because if ever there was a high school girl who was ripe to get famous off one, it was Beatrice. “Steven shouldn’t have hit him,” Lolly replied quietly. “I know he didn’t send the email. I mean, he couldn’t have, right?”
“Don’t know, don’t care Lollygirl, sex tapes are so ten years ago,” Beatrice said with an edge of stolen thunder in her voice. “Can’t you see I’m busy with my new BBFF Claudine? The first B is for Buxom, the second B is for Beautiful and the first F is for what we’re about to do to each other after the X kicks in.”
Lolly nodded and went into the house. Could Bea have sent the sex tape? She did brag about having her own IT guy on retainer. Maybe she timed its release for when they were flying to make sure no one suspected it was her. But why would she do that to her cousin? It just didn’t make sense. Vronsky seemed like the one person on the planet that Beatrice genuinely cared about, and he’d never forgive her if he lost Anna over it.
Lolly wandered through the enormous house, checking all the rooms, and finally found Vronsky and Murf sitting on a small upstairs balcony. As Beatrice had predicted, the two boys were sharing a fat blunt, and Vronsky held a box of frozen mixed vegetables against his face.
