Playing Along (7 page)

“Cool your jets, Lexi, I’m just joking.”

“Cool my what?”

“Your jets. It’s a saying. It means calm down.”

“Cool your jets? It’s not something I’ve heard you say before.”

“I’m a man of mystery. You don’t know everything about me, do you?”

“I didn’t used to, but I do now. Most things.”

“Really. Most things?”

“Cool your jets?!” She finds it hard to stay icy with Andrew and can feel herself thawing. He puts his arm around her shoulder and pulls her in for a hug. She sinks into him, feeling very tired and sadly aware that it has been a long while since she’s been held by a man. Touched by a man. Kissed by a man. Too long.

Just as she’s burying her forehead into the soft nook of his leather jacket, she hears a familiar voice behind her, “Well hello there, Lovebirds!”

Lexi turns around to find her mother looking extremely self-satisfied, clutching two books to her chest.

“Mom, what are you doing here?”

“Picking up books, honey. What does it look like?”

“But this is so far away for you. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s at home. Watching
The Bachelorette
or something.” She rolls her eyes in an exaggerated arc. Lexi’s mother, Jeanette, is in her late fifties and looking good on it. She gets Botox twice a year and highlights four times a year. This is low maintenance for LA. For the most part she is content to age naturally. Her father is ten years older and ten years grumpier and has recently become fixated by reality T.V. shows. He shouts insults at the screen and then talks about the participants as if they were close family friends. “Can you believe that Jessica chose Ethan? What the hell was she thinking?” Lexi is their only child and they have both doted on her excessively since the day she was born. She will always be a dazzling prom queen in their eyes.

“You don’t usually come out on your own?” says Lexi, beginning to feel concerned.

“I was bored. I felt like driving.”

“Hello, Jeanette,” Andrew steps forward to greet her.

“How are you, Andrew, honey, you look thin.”

“I’m fine. It’s probably the break-up. Heston left me, you know.”

Jeanette seems confused. “Oh please, Andrew, you’re not still pretending to be gay, are you? I thought that was just a phase. Lexi and you were so happy together. You were such a lovely couple. I hoped maybe you two were getting back together? Why else would you be standing embracing each other in public?”

Lexi is mortified, “Mom, come on! How can you say that? People don’t pretend to be gay.”

“Well actually honey, they do. Your father and I once—”

Andrew takes his cue, “Jeanette, it’s always a pleasure but I’m going to browse over there now… in the homosexual section.” He kisses Lexi’s mother on the cheek and wanders off. Lexi sighs.

“I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to upset you both. You can’t blame me for wanting you to be happy.”

“I
am
happy, Mom.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, maybe not happy, happy. But I’m not unhappy. I’ve got a new job. I’ve got a…”

“A what?”

“A… a… I don’t know… a hunch that this could be my year.” Lexi has a memory of having said that to her mother many times.

“You’re such a special girl, Lexi. You always have been a light… a light in our lives. Do you remember when your debating team won the nationals? You wore your hair in that gorgeous long braid and Andrew was so handsome. I still have the picture in my wallet. See,” Jeanette reaches into her purse.

Lexi puts her hand on top of her mother’s to stop her. “I know you do, Mom. I don’t have to see. I get it. You and Dad just want me to keep winning, but my idea of winning and your idea of winning might not be the same anymore.”

“We still think you’re a winner, honey, we always will.”

Lexi feels the tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. She wipes them away quickly and links arms with her mother. “Looks like you’ve got some steamy reads for tonight,” she says, glancing down at her mother’s book choices, the latest Jackie Collins novel and a paperback titled
Forget Your Husband! Train Your Dog Instead!
“Why don’t you go home and give Dad a hug and get into bed with some tea?”

“Good idea, honey. What will you do?”

“Oh, let’s see, Mom. Make out with Andrew in the back of the movie theatre?!” Both women laugh, and Lexi wills herself to keep smiling. The tears that she was about to cry are not far behind, but she is stubbornly resolved to keep them at bay.

GEORGE
13
^th
November, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada

It’s three a.m. again and this time George is lucky to have finally stumbled upon his room, having wandered the gaudy air-conditioned hallways for twenty minutes. He is a little worse for wear, after commandeering a roulette table with Duncan, Simon and Gabe, betting on all his lucky numbers (album release dates), winning 400 dollars, losing 500, and downing countless tequila shots at Duncan’s insistence. In fact his head is starting to spin and Italian frescoes are somersaulting in his brain. He fumbles with the key, attempting to shove it into the slot the right way up. He needs, very definitely needs, to lie down. Now.

“Can I give you a hand with that?” He recognizes the woman’s voice. Is it his mother? Polly? His fifth year art teacher with the large hoop earrings? His mind is not prepared to currently decipher anything. Perhaps the person behind him is all three women morphed together. Perhaps she is a guardian angel come to swoop him away to Las Vegas heaven? He turns around and comes face, to very close face, with Fanny Arundel. Her black hair is razor straight with a thick Cleopatra fringe.

“Hello, George, I guess I finally found you.” For a brief moment, he feels sober again. How has she miraculously appeared in this hallway? Has she been following him?

“Fanny! Fanny, Fanny, Fanny!”

“That’s a good sign, darlin’, at least you remember my name. For a while I was beginning to think you might have forgotten.”

“Forgotten? Me? Never. Such an interesting name—how could I possibly forget?” George is too drunk to consider an escape. The only door he can go through now is his.

“George Bryce—are you plastered?” says Fanny, teasingly.

“What? No. NO. Just wiped out after a long, long plane journey. I’m going to bed… to my bed…okay?”

George has managed to get his door open and is now trying to put it between him and her. She is clearly not going to give in and pushes past him into the room flopping directly onto the bed.

“You can’t fool me, George Bryce, clean living patron saint of pop and rock. You’re shit faced and I’m just a tiny bit high. Good combination.” Fanny looks at him with a mischievous smile and kicks off her four-inch heels, the same shade of deep crimson as her lipstick. George is suddenly mesmerized by her mouth. When was the last time he kissed a woman? Four months ago? Five months ago? She was a DJ on Radio One, very enthusiastic with yellow skinny jeans and an impressive knowledge of eighties music. It hadn’t lasted. He felt suffocated when they kissed—she never came up for air. But at this moment, in Las Vegas, reserves of self control plummeting, the thought of kissing Fanny’s red lips is like a million slot machines winning the jackpot. He drops down on the bed next to her, the sound of an avalanche of coins ringing in his ears.

“So, maybe. Maybe you
are
sort of right about the drunk thing. But, you know, Fanny… as they say, when in Vegas…”

She clicks her tongue and begins to wriggle out of her Little Miss Chatterbox tight pink t-shirt.

“Is that what they say?” asks Fanny, unveiling a skimpy red lacy bra.

“They do say that. I believe they do. Whoever they are. Do you know who
they
are, Fanny?” George tries to move but his limbs are not cooperating. Fanny rolls over on top of him and deftly gets up onto all fours.

“No I don’t, George, but I do know that you are
so so
cute…” Something in the tone of her voice reminds George of Polly cooing at the triplets, but in his drunken haze, nothing can deter him now. “And I’ve waited patiently for
too too
long…”

She lowers her breasts dangerously close to his mouth where they float like two summer cherries. The first time George had met Fanny, she’d brushed her hand against the front of his jeans and whispered, “Stand to attention, officer.” Embarrassingly, he had, and needed to make a hasty retreat to conceal the evidence.

“Don’t you just hate waiting?” says George, wearily, feeling like he has made the most profound statement of his entire life.

Fanny unhooks her bra, releasing two pert dark nipples and a breathy sigh. “Time’s up, Georgie, welcome to Fanny land…”

LEXI
November 13
^th
, 2009
West Hollywood, Los Angeles

Lexi can’t get back to sleep. She thinks maybe she was woken by a small earthquake. Or maybe not. Whatever it was, she feels rattled. She looks over at her clock. Three thirty in the morning. An insomniac’s netherworld. When she moved back to LA she had spent months not being able to sleep. But then her doctor prescribed a mild sleeping pill and she found herself dreaming again—disappearing into hours of uninterrupted slumber. She had never even taken the pill. Just the thought that she could if she wanted, appeared to have resolved the issue. The moon is full tonight and pressed cleanly onto the city-lit sky, like it’s been stamped there with silver ink. Lexi sleeps with her shutters open because she likes to be woken up by the light. It helps her to gauge how the day might go. Bright. Misty. She can recognize now the sort of clouds that will burn off by lunchtime, bringing the possibility of a sunny afternoon. Those are her favorite kind of clouds.

But the sky tonight is thick and cloudless, bare except for the luminous moon. She attempts rolling over, but something tells her that she’s not falling back to sleep any time soon. She decides instead to get up and get a glass of milk and a sneaky vanilla wafer. Maybe she’ll just turn on the TV and check to see if there was an earthquake. There usually is a local channel with a 24/7 seismic cam. Maybe she’ll find an infomercial and buy a Thighmaster or an automatic card shuffler. Andrew and she could start a poker group and invite her parents. Should she be worried that her parents are having marital problems? Her mom did seem a bit odd tonight at the bookshop. Being an only child, Lexi was the intimate observer of her parents’ marriage and mentally documented how her mother repaired all breaks, even the hairline fractures which might have gone unnoticed. “I’ve left that teabag in for too long, honey. Here, let me make you a new one.”

Her mother was intent on preserving appearances and would do almost anything to sustain that. In comparison, Lexi loses tempo quickly in relationships—perhaps the legacy of Andrew—she wonders if she’ll ever find a middle ground. Lexi holds that thought as she rifles through the kitchen cupboards. Well stocked with vanilla wafers and a tall glass of milk, she settles down on the couch and flicks on the television. She presses the mute button so as not to disturb Andrew. He’d been very disgruntled by her mother’s comments that night.

“What if I am just pretending to be gay, Lexi? Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to stay in a relationship with a man. Do you think your mom is right? Should we have sex one more time, just to check?”

“You’re insane!” Lexi had screamed, outraged, slamming her bedroom door.

“I was just kidding!” he had yelled. “Very sensitive tonight.”

“You or me?” she had shouted back, pressing her forehead to her bedroom door.

“Both of us!” he had replied.

They just couldn’t seem to manage a civil conversation for long recently.

Lexi starts surfing through the channels searching for news. Home shopping. Cheap jewelry. Cher in Las Vegas.
Friends
re-runs. Music videos. Beyoncé shaking her bootie. Maroon Five looking very sleazy and then… who is this? Lexi turns up the volume slowly. She knows this song. She’s heard it before but she’s never seen the video. She loves this song. Who is it? The video is filmed in moody black and white. The band are standing in the woods, sheltered under trees, the camera jumping about. The lead singer is so attractive. He has these incredibly intense eyes and Lexi feels completely drawn in by them. And the lyrics. She’s never really listened to the lyrics before.

It was a suitable dawn

A beautiful dawn

Your fragile heart

So torn apart and I’m

Here now, here now

And I hear you, hear you

As my love rises like

a suitable dawn

The singer’s voice is so damn sexy and his eyes, she can’t get over those eyes. And then she realizes. The band is Thesis. Meg’s latest obsession. Of course. This time she might have to agree with Meg—the lead singer is seriously cute. As the video fades away, she feels a bit like a teenager again, hungrily daydreaming about making out with Eddie Vedder. The pit of her stomach is heavy and fluttery both at the same time.
Oh I’m so stupid
she thinks
he’s gotta be at least ten years younger than me. He looks like a baby
. She turns off the TV and eats another vanilla wafer. Distracted, she turns the TV on again and continues to channel hop. Maybe she’ll find another Thesis video. Nothing. She clicks the off button and tosses the remote onto the couch. Earthquake or no earthquake, she really should go back to bed. She’s got work in the morning. Russell to wrangle. The ozone layer to save. Who knows, maybe the work she ends up doing with Russell really will make a difference? Even in the last week, she’s stopped taking paper bags at the market and replaced all the lights in the apartment with energy saving bulbs.

Lexi walks quietly back to her room thinking there must be thousands of other people awake right now, so why does she feel like the only one in the world? It’s four in the morning and the moon is full but her milk glass is empty. She crawls into bed and pulls her cozy comforter up around her chin. She can’t seem to get the Thesis song out of her head.
Your fragile heart, so torn apart, and I’m here now, here now…
Hmmm. She wonders who the lucky girl is who had that song written just for her?