Back Talk (7 page)

“Come on, can’t we get past that?” Nat got up off the grass and sat next to Hilton on the porch.

“You slept with her,” Hilton said.

Nat smiled. “Now we’re even, aren’t we?”

“I’ll go start dinner,” Liz said. She closed the screen door quietly behind her.

Hilton didn’t say anything. Nat took her hand. “Why do we have to be like this?”

“Because you have a phobia about commitment.”

“I do not!”

“Then why do you date other people?”

Nat appeared to be thinking. Hilton waited.

“Because I can,” Nat ventured.

Hilton sighed. “That’s lame. Try again.”

“Because I love you too much to lose you, but monogamy isn’t good for a relationship. Because my parents have such a hideous relationship that it frightens me. Because I have an inadequate sense of self—”

Hilton cut her short. “Oh, please, you probably have a little black book filled with these lines. They’re out of some psychology class you took in your first year of college.”

“They are not. I’m sorry I made such a stink about your latest liaison. I was totally out of line.”

“Great.”

“What?” Nat pulled out a cigarette from her knapsack.

“I just want us to have a normal relationship.”

Nat lit her cigarette and laughed. “Listen, normal equates to misery. Look at our friends. At best they tolerate each other. What we’ve got is a lot better. I should never have said anything about the neighbor. I broke our cardinal rule, and for that I prostrate myself and beg your forgiveness.”

“Please,” Hilton said. She studied Nat as she smoked her cigarette. It dawned on her that Nat had no sense of danger, of consequence, of anything beyond today. Tomorrow didn’t matter and 44

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

when it did she’d worry about it then. It was sort of like some pol-luted, warped kind of Zen. All that mattered was this moment and perhaps the next five minutes. The rest was irrelevant. What was past was finished. What was future was too mercurial to worry about. Hilton took Nat’s hand. “Maybe you’ll love me totally when you’re old and wrinkly and no one else wants you.” She could smell the pasta cooking and the pungent smell of spaghetti sauce.

Nat laughed. “You know I probably will. Now, let’s go check on dinner.”

They ambled inside. Liz looked down at their joined hands and Hilton could sense her relief. All was right with the family again.

For now, Hilton thought.

45

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

Anne was looking at the Web site Hilton had created. The past two weeks had been a blur and here it was Friday night and she still couldn’t get enough. Her mother was correct. She was a worka-holic, but one didn’t get to the top of the radio talk scene without wholehearted dedication coupled with complete obsession.

According to her mother, Victoria Anne Counterman, this was why her husband, Gerald, had left her. Anne pissed on her mother’s opinions once again. The Web site traffic was growing steadily. This meant a new market for sponsors and if the traffic continued it would increase revenue as more advertisers became interested, so Victoria-mother-of-all knowing-mothers could just go fuck herself, Anne thought smugly.

“I’m going to be happily obsessed,” Anne said to the empty room.

Perhaps the part Anne found most satisfying about the last two weeks was that she was interested in the show again. It was difficult 46

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

admitting to herself that at thirty-nine her lifelong dream bored her. The worst part for someone who shared her life with the world was that she had to keep this a secret. How could she tell her loyal followers or her devoted staff that some days she was bored to distraction, that she could care less about the day’s topic or the caller’s opinion. She, Anne Counterman, hated her job. It was a disgrace to herself and she was perpetrating a fraud on her listeners. This had been plaguing her daily until Hilton had walked into her life, and all of a sudden the show became fun again. It’s a good God damn thing, Anne thought, leaning back in her black leather chair. Hilton, of course, had no idea this was occurring, but that was of little consequence. It was better to be a muse and not know it. Being an inspiration put pressure on a person and could inhibit their future productivity. She had often wondered if she’d done that to Gerald. Had she picked his brain too often? Had she sucked him dry emotionally with her need for approval and security? Had she sent him in search of calm, clear waters?

She exhaled loudly and shut her conscience off. What was done was done. She turned back to the Web site and began scrutinizing its parts. Speaking of creativity, she thought, the site should really have a message board where listeners could post notes to her as well as each other, a sort of online, off-air dialogue. That could spark tangents, and tangents were her forte. It could be a gold mine for brain-picking and she wouldn’t have to risk a relationship in the process. “It’s win-win,” she said aloud.

She headed for the technical back end of the Web site. It shouldn’t be that hard. She’d seen Hilton mucking around in it to change things. Surely, there would be a little icon or something for adding a message board. A box popped up indicating a password or the option to bypass. Anne thought nothing of it and opted for the bypass. She clicked the box and a message popped up on the screen. It read, “You have entered an unauthorized area. The system will now terminate itself.” A set of symbols started running through all the screens like the program was eating its own tail.

“What the hell?” Anne said. “It was a trick.”

47

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

It took about two minutes before it occurred to Anne what was happening. Hilton must have installed a virus so that if the program was violated in any way it would destroy itself.

“Oh, this is fucking great!” Anne frantically dialed Hilton’s cell phone. Hilton had made mention that she lived in the university district but what was she to do, drive around the college until she found a pea-green Bug parked out front? In desperation she called Veronica and after much discussion and threatening her within an inch of her life, Veronica gave her Hilton’s address.

Anne drove fast and redialed Hilton’s cell phone a zillion times.

In ten minutes she was in front of the Victorian house. The front yard was a parking lot and loud music emanated from the living room. It seemed every light was on in the house and the front door was wide open. Not knowing what else to do, Anne slipped inside with the rest of the party-goers.

She frantically looked around for Hilton. There must have been fifty people crammed into the living room and spilling down the hallway. She was about to ask the next passerby when a young woman with long dark hair grabbed her by the arm.

“What are you doing here?” the young woman asked her.

“Excuse me?” Anne said, slightly taken aback by the young woman’s tone of voice.

“You’re Anne Counterman, aren’t you? You look just like your billboard.”

“Yes. Look, I need to talk to Hilton. I did something to the Web site and it’s all messed up. Can you help me find her?”

“You didn’t bypass the password?” the woman asked. Her eyes got big.

Anne nodded.

“You’re in big trouble. I’m Liz, by the way, one of Hilton’s roommates.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Anne said, holding out her hand. Liz shook it firmly and Anne felt better immediately. This woman appeared competent.

Liz grabbed her shoulders and spun her around in an obvious 48

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

attempt to prevent her from seeing a topless woman in a g-string and red heels go marching by with a silver tray of Jell-O shots.

“Can I have one of those?” Anne asked the woman.

“Sure,” a man’s voice responded.

Anne watched as Liz cringed. She slugged down her shot and took a deep breath. “She’s in transition, I take it,” Anne said.

“Yes, Lyle is almost Lynette except for the last little snip. Let me take you upstairs, and try not to look at anything … please.”

“I’ve seen things …” Anne started to say when another topless woman dressed in black Levis went by. Her nipples were pierced and two long chains connected them to rings above her eyebrows.

“Okay, I haven’t seen that before,” she said stoically.

On the way upstairs Liz’s efforts to avoid the wildness proved futile. Anne was offered a mirror with several lines of cocaine on it, got propositioned and on the second floor, was handed a joint that Liz quickly snatched and handed back to its owner. Once on the third floor, they turned left and climbed a small narrow set of stairs which ended at a door. Liz opened the door to the attic.

Anne took it in. The attic ran the length of the house with a high vaulted ceiling. It had finished walls and a wood floor. There was an old cloth couch on one wall and piles of records and tapes along with clothes strewn everywhere. At one end of the room was a stereo system shoved into what had once been bookcases. Anne thought the room must have been someone’s hideaway. Next to the bookcases was an enormous desk that had a variety of computer equipment, some in pieces, others in perhaps working order.

It looked like a mad scientist lived up there. The rest of the large room was filled with something that looked like a kidney-shaped swimming pool made out of wood. She could hear something scraping around in it. It was about four feet high on one end and almost six feet on the other. It reminded Anne of a large-scale architectural model and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what the hell it was.

“Hilton?” Liz called out.

Lyle Lovett was blaring on the stereo and Hilton’s head and 49

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

body came flying up on the edge of the pool-like thing on a skateboard.

“Hilton,” Liz screamed again.

Hilton popped up on the other side. “I didn’t do it.” Seconds later she came up on the other side. “I don’t know where it is.”

Another swoop and she said, “And yes, I am busy.”

“Hilton, it’s Anne. I think I destroyed the Web site.”

“Anne?” Hilton seemed momentarily suspended in the air. She dropped the skateboard and disappeared into the bottom of the wooden structure. There was a loud crash. The skateboard resumed its course up the other side with so much force that it flew into the rafters and stuck there.

“Hilton, are you all right?” Anne asked.

Hilton groaned.

Anne was about to go see when Liz grabbed her arm. “Wait, put this on,” she said and handed her a silver hard hat.

“What for?”

Liz pointed to the rafters, which were filled with an assortment of errant skateboards.

“Got it,” Anne said. She put the hard hat on. It appeared that if one fell in this strange contraption you might send the skateboard into the attic rafters never to been seen again.

Liz and Anne climbed a short set of wooden stairs that led to a small deck where they could see Hilton lying flat on her back in the middle of the wooden structure.

“Are you all right?” Liz asked.

“Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me. Damn, I liked that skateboard,” Hilton said, looking up at the ceiling.

“It’ll come back down eventually,” Liz said diplomatically.

“What is this thing, exactly?” Anne asked.

“It’s a skate bowl. You enter from up here and you can ride the edges of the bowl. They used to do it all the time in California but they used drained swimming pools. Hilton had this one built along those same principles,” Liz said.

“Oh, shit! Watch out.” Hilton jumped to her feet and turned 50

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

her gaze to the rafters. The impact of the skateboard hitting the rafters must have loosened the other errant boards and four skateboards came careening down.

“You see, you lost one and gained four,” Liz said.

Hilton surveyed her riches. “You’re right. I really liked this one,” she said, studying the design on the bottom. It was a flying dinosaur swooping over a primordial jungle.

Anne watched and waited for what she’d said to sink in.

“Did you say something about the Web site?”

“I wanted to put in a message board and so I bypassed the password.”

“Did the message pop up mentioning termination of the program?”

“Uh, yes. That’s not a very nice trick,” Anne said.

“How long ago?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Hilton took off her helmet and appeared lost in thought for a moment. She was wearing only boxer shorts and a sports bra.

Hilton had a teenage boy’s body, Anne thought, only with breasts.

Her arms and back had visible muscle tone as did her torso and thighs.

“Okay, let me get dressed and we’ll sort this out.” She started rummaging around for clothes in the sundry piles littering the room. She looked at Shannon. “Well, which pile is clean or cleaner?”

It appeared to Anne that Hilton came up here to relax and just took off whatever she was wearing, which was why she had no clue as to its condition.

Shannon sniffed both piles and then barked, indicating which pile was clean. Hilton plucked off a T-shirt and a pair of black jeans. She got dressed quickly. Anne noticed that Hilton studiously avoided her gaze. Either she was embarrassed about her lack of clothing or her laundry situation.

“Come on,” Hilton said.

“What are we going to do?”

51

All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

“Find my Palm Pilot, which I’m hoping is in the bathroom with my knapsack. It has all my codes to get the computer to stop the termination. I have a timer set within the termination program, which gives us a little time, but the process has already started. I built in periods of rest so the person who violated the program has the option for negotiation.”

Liz and Shannon followed them out of the room. “I think I’ll go downstairs and try and tidy up a bit,” Liz said.

“Great idea. Maybe Jessie can help,” Hilton replied.

Anne saw the look that Hilton gave her. Anne smiled, thinking it was too late. She’d already seen most of what was out there.