Social Lives (30 page)

Moving his body closer to hers, he leaned over and kissed her, gently at first, then harder. She opened her mouth and felt his tongue sweep her lips, the roof of her mouth, and she did the same to him. They were breathing hard in and out of the kiss, both of his hands on her face now, stroking her hair. He moved his body back into his seat and pulled her over him, her legs straddling his body, her chest pressed to his—all the while kissing her with a hunger that she could not believe was finally meant for her. This was not the prelude to a favor. He wanted her, to be with her. It was
real
. She could feel the power of their attraction as his hands moved fluidly across her body, under her shirt, then the back of her thighs as they reached beneath the kilt. Through only the thin cotton panties, she could feel his erection and she moved against it, provoking him further. “Oh, God!” he whispered, grabbing her ass and pulling her against him.

Her mind was in a haze, and nothing could make her break away from him. She reached down and pulled at his buckle, and when he stopped kissing her to search her face, she smiled and leaned back into him, biting his lip. She wanted to consume him, every inch of him. This was not a moment that could last; it had to go forward to the end. She could feel it, the burning inside her, starting in her gut and running down her inner thighs. This was what they had warned her about—the teachers, the videos and books. Even her friend TF. What had she said? To think about what had happened to her, how it hurt, how it was over so quickly and then he never called. She didn't care. Kyle had taken her to a place that had just one exit.

As she pulled harder at the belt, he began gyrating against her. Then he moaned and leaned back, and her thighs felt wet. Her body was still moving against his, but his hands were now draped by his side. She tried to kiss him, but he was in another place. He moaned again, this time with a little laugh, and when he finally kissed her back, it was playful.

“Shit. Kinda made a mess.”

Sensing that it was over, Cait climbed back to her seat. Her legs were shaking, her body still hungry, and she had no idea how to make it stop.

He wasn't embarrassed, though Cait imagined that another boy might have been. The crotch of his khakis now had a dark circle where he'd come,
and it looked like he'd peed on himself. He reached into the backseat for a tissue and dried off what he could. Then he leaned over to kiss her one last time. “Look what you did to me. I'm a fucking mess, Cait Barlow.”

She smiled at him as he pulled back, though every inch of her wanted more.

From the center console, he pulled out a cigarette. “Here. For later.”

And Cait took it because she couldn't imagine getting out of this car without something to help her come down from this high. Not knowing what else to do, she reached for the door handle. This was all uncovered territory.

Kyle took her hand, and she stopped to look at him. “I had no idea you were . . .”

“What?” she asked.

“That you wanted to.”

There were so many things she wanted. There was a list she kept in her head. She wanted to be with him, and not just in this car. She wanted to sit next to him at a party, feel his arm around her. She wanted to tell him things she hadn't told anyone else. She wanted to call him late at night and confess her sins. She wanted to love him, to be loved by him.
Yes
, she thought, she wanted to do all of those things. But tonight her body had shifted into overdrive, and what she wanted to do was finish the ride and fuck the consequences.

She had no words that would not make her sound like a porn star, so she just shrugged and smiled.

“You have the number. Text me when your parents leave.”

He waited for her to get out, then waved and drove off. Thinking back on it later, she would remember him being polite. And as she walked to the back door, she felt high. She would wait until her parents left for Florida, their two-day jaunt to schmooze with the membership committee. Then she would text him, and he would return. She let the word float in her head.
Boyfriend.
That's what this might be. It sure as hell felt that way. And why not? That's what girls did—they had boyfriends, then fiancés, then husbands. Why was it so ridiculous to think it could happen to her, and with someone she actually wanted?

As she walked inside, quietly closing the door behind her, she refused to hear the evil voice inside that was playing over and over.
What about Victoria Lawson? What about the night of the party? What about the fact that you've never been on a date that didn't involve getting him off? And what about TF?

When she got inside her room, she sat at her computer. She couldn't smoke the cigarette until her parents went to bed, and she needed something to settle her nerves. She could tell her, couldn't she? TF had never judged her before, and who better to understand? Maybe she would even see that this was different. That Kyle wasn't like her guy. Maybe she would see that Cait had played things just right, that Kyle really wanted her after all the doubting.

Making up her mind, she set the cigarette down on the desk, then pulled out the keyboard and began to type.

 

 

 

 

 

“C
OCKTAIL
, M
RS
. B
ARLOW
?” A young woman in a neat blue uniform was leaning over Rosalyn with a small brown tray and a broad smile.

“No, thank you.”

Barlow, who was sitting across from his wife, did not wait to be asked. “Scotch. Neat.”

The woman left for the front of the plane and began to fix the drink.

Barlow leaned forward to see out the window one last time. “Where can they be? If we miss our time, we'll get bumped back an hour. Look at all those goddamned planes.”

Rosalyn didn't bother to look up from her BlackBerry. “They'll be here. I sent a car for them.”

“Uhh,” Barlow moaned. What the hell were they doing anyway, jetting down to Florida for two days just to parade the Livingstons around in front of the admissions committee? This was their annual retreat, and they liked to be left alone. Rosalyn usually skipped the whole thing, feeling above the rest of them as a senior member and mother of young children. Most of the members were well into their sixties.

Of course, he knew the answer. Rosalyn was hell-bent on blackballing the Conrads, and this move would cement the deal. Still, she was pulling all
of them away from home at the start of the holiday break—a time typically reserved for decorating, shopping, and being with family. At least, that was what he had observed from afar all these years. This was the first year he would not be working like a prison inmate, so he couldn't say for sure. But that was what he would like to be doing. Brett would be home tomorrow. Cait was already on break, and the little guys would have nothing to do but watch TV and wait for their parents to return. It was just wrong.

His wife, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem abandoning her children at Christmastime.

“Could you stop working for one second?” he asked finally, when his drink arrived.

Rosalyn looked up, annoyed by the interruption. “I only have a few more minutes before I'll have to stop, so no—I can't put it down for one second. This is a crazy time of year for me.”

“How? How is it so crazy? What the hell are you doing?” Barlow took a long sip of the drink, then nodded a thank-you to the flight attendant, who was standing at attention by the front of the plane.

“Let's see—I'm checking the delivery status of the boys' iPods. They've been on back order for weeks, and if they don't ship by tomorrow, I'll have to bid for them on eBay. I'm checking our golf reservations for tomorrow. I'm scheduling a lunch with Dr. Wright, who's coming to town to discuss her presentation on blow jobs. I'm—”

“Enough!” Barlow raised his hand in a show of defeat. “Enough.”

With her fingers moving quickly now across the tiny keypad, Rosalyn did not look up, but she kept speaking. “How many times have we had this discussion? When running the house becomes your job, you can tell me how I've done it all wrong for the past eighteen years. Until then—”

“Yes, I know—just shut up and do my job.”

Only Barlow didn't have a job anymore, and Rosalyn was now convinced her husband's unemployment was at the heart of their recent marital freeze. He was bored and testy and needing to re-create himself. That he thought Sara Livingston could do that for him was laughable. Only it wasn't.

“There they are!” Barlow shouted, jumping from his seat.

Looking out the small window, Rosalyn saw the black town car pull up to the plane. She quickly finished her work and shut down her BlackBerry.

“Hello, welcome!” Barlow was standing at the top of the stairs, looking
down at the Livingstons. “No, no—don't touch the luggage. Mitch will get it—Mitch! The bags!”

Rosalyn couldn't see them yet, but heard them as they climbed up to the plane's hull.
Sorry we're late . . . traffic . . . what a gorgeous plane . . . we've never been on a private jet.

And there was Barlow, being the perfect host. “Welcome aboard,” he said as they appeared through the door. They looked tired and disheveled, and mostly uneasy about having held up the plane.

“Come down here,” Rosalyn said, grabbing their attention. “Let's sit together around the sofa.”

Sara, with her hair pulled back in a baseball cap and a colorful knit scarf roped around her neck, looked like a kid as she walked back.

“Wow,” she said, reaching Rosalyn. She leaned in to give her hostess a peck on the cheek. “This is incredible.”

“Thanks. We've had it a few years. It makes much more sense when you've got five kids, three nannies, friends . . . and commercial flights these days . . . well, might as well stay home.”

Sara smiled politely as she took a seat on a leather sofa in the center of the plane. It was like someone's living room, with end tables, reading lamps, and footrests, though everything was bolted to the floor. Toward the front were more traditional seats, which swiveled to face either direction and appeared to recline down into beds. There were little draperies for the windows, a wet bar, oven, and mini-fridge, and an attractive woman standing at attention, waiting to serve them. After a nice meal and a few drinks, they would walk off into the brilliant Florida sunshine. It was surreal. Too surreal for Sara, who didn't know what they were doing here and was already missing her little girl.

Nick, on the other hand, was in his bliss. Taking a seat beside his wife, he patted her gently on the knee and stole a look around while the Barlows took their seats in the plush chairs on the opposite side of the coffee table. When he caught her eye, he mouthed the word
wow
. Sara smiled and nodded. Why did she agree to do this? It was the start of the Christmas week, her favorite time of year. The smell of pine from the tree in the living room, the bright reds and greens, the cards from other families with the annual picture that the mothers pained themselves to acquire. Then, of course, there were cookies and more cookies, those cutout shapes that looked like blobs until the frosting was applied just so, Santa's red coat, an angel's white dress. She and her sisters would
speculate about their gifts and watch the evening TV cartoons. Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and Frosty. Annie was just old enough to do these things with her, just old enough to start forging her own memories. And now, thanks to Nick, Annie would be making different memories with Nanna while her mother was golfing in Florida. And Sara didn't even play golf.

Sara in surreal life felt like bolting off the plane when she heard the door pulling shut. Her head was spinning as she felt her life being stolen out from under her by billionaires and private planes. By country clubs and golf. By her own husband, it seemed. And yet her husband was the only reason she remained in her seat—Nick, and her aversion to looking like a complete lunatic. Nothing had been the same between them. Even after she resumed taking her pills, in secret, they hadn't made love once. Not once in almost three weeks. That was a new record for them. Now he needed her to do this with him—to do this for him, if that was all she could manage it to be.

So she crossed her legs and ordered a drink. “I'll have whatever he's having,” she said when the woman arrived, brown tray in hand.

Nick gave her another look, this one laced with disapproval. He hadn't exactly enjoyed her performance the last time she and Ernest Barlow had a few drinks together.

“Wonderful!” Barlow bellowed out. “And I'll have another.”

“Champagne, thank you,” Rosalyn said, her voice subdued by contrast. “Nick?”

“That sounds perfect for the occasion. Sara—how about champagne?”

“Fine.” She didn't care. Not about the drink or the fact that her husband was treating her like a child. She had gone underground, to some bunker within herself, and she decided to pretend that nothing mattered for two days. Nothing mattered until she returned to Wilshire and her little girl and the cookie dough that was in the freezer.