The Girl On The Half Shell (13 page)

Trying to match Rene’s high spirits, I do a little tip with the bottle. “To our new lives.”

Rene beams. “Hopefully, it starts tonight. Face it, Chrissie. Our life in Santa Barbara is so pathetic.”

“Which club are we going to?”

Rene shrugs, taking the bottle, and laughs. “I haven’t a clue.” She rolls down the privacy partition. “David? Where are you taking us?”

David’s eyes shift and I can see them in the rearview mirror. “I was told to take you to The Blue Light, Miss.”

Rene makes a face at me. “The Blue Light?” she whispers. “Have you ever heard of that club, Chrissie?”

I shake my head.

“It’s new, Miss. Very popular. I’m sure you’ll have an enjoyable evening,” David says, somehow hearing Rene.

Rene chokes on a laugh and eagerly rolls up the partition. “I’m sure we’ll have an enjoyable evening,” she says with a heavy male voice impression.

I laugh.

Rene takes another long pull on the bottle. “God, David’s cute. Like a blond Nordic God. We’re going to have to take the car every chance we get.”

“Is there anyone you don’t enjoy messing with?”

“Nope, pretty much not.”

We’re suddenly laughing our heads off and we’ve killed the bottle of champagne by the time the car rolls to a stop. It’s impossible to go out with Rene and not have fun. She’s got such an
I don’t give a crap what anyone thinks
, self-confident manner.

“Are you ready to party?” Rene bellows. The door opens and David offers her his hand. She has a sweetly docile, ladylike smile on her face. I curl over in the seat laughing.

“Elliot assures me you are on the list, Miss,” David says formally as he assists Rene from the car.

“Thank you, very much,” Rene says slightly aloof, slightly stuffy.

Behind David’s back she makes a face at me as I’m assisted from the car. I bite my lip not to laugh.

This must be a popular club. The sidewalk is packed and the line well down the street, and there are plenty of tabloid photographers here. There is a little bit of everything that is New York crowding the concrete waiting to get in: the always hot; the always not; the always freaky; and the artsy.

“I’ll be waiting across the street, Miss Parker. When you are ready to leave, don’t come to me. I will come to you, Miss.”

“Yes, David,” I say obediently.
So much for no rules.

Rene loops her arm through mine as we stroll to the door. “God, Chrissie, you mystify me. I don’t know why you don’t love your life. If I were you I’d be out having mad fun 24/7. It’s like having nothing but E-tickets in the pack. There isn’t any place you can’t get into. Except perhaps the White House with a Republican President.”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you always have to exaggerate? My life isn’t like that and you know it.”

“It could be like that.”

Rene gives my name to security at the door, the bouncer checks the list and we are immediately allowed to enter. Rene makes a face. “E-ticket. I hate it when you downplay thinking I’m jealous that you have the famous dad. It’s so annoying, Chrissie.”

“It’s no big deal,” I say fiercely. “I hate that you make such a big deal of it.”

“Then let’s own it for one night and have some fun, Chrissie. Let’s get into some crazy-ass trouble. Let’s show Eliza how the real hot girls roll.”

She does a loud
whoop!
holding up her arms and makes a sassy swish with her hips. Instead of coming off looking dorky, it draws every set of male eyes to Rene. But that’s Rene, everything always works for her.

The three-story club is hot and packed and earsplitting with the sounds of a live band. The walls are black and all the furnishings covered in blue velvet. There are strobe lights and floor steam and two levels for dancing, and Rene drags me behind her as she fights our way through the crush of bodies.

“God, Chrissie, this place is so incredible. Why don’t we have something like this in Santa Barbara? Peppers looks so small town lame by comparison.”

We finally find two free spots on a sofa near the downstairs dance floor and she plops down with a heavy drop. “We should have gone to the clubs in LA more. We didn’t take full advantage of our partying opportunities.”

Right now, I’m glad we didn’t. I’m feeling a little fuzzy, the champagne from the car finally hit me, and we’re just starting our night.

Before our first drink round arrives, Rene has already got a small court of preppy young college guys surrounding our sofa-level table. She does know how to kickstart a party. The college guys from NYU are really only interested in Rene, but by the third round of drinks I’m exhausted from laughing and dancing, and we are crowded around our table playing quarters, since the band is on break and the giant video monitors are blasting.

Rene bounces a quarter, making it into the glass, and she forces a shot on me. She holds the tequila shooter in my face. “Pound it, Chrissie.”

I pound it and Rene laughs, but her latest male conquest gives me a sympathetic smile. I can tell he can tell I’m pretty messed up at this point by the way I laugh, how wobbly I am just sitting, and the flush spreading on my cheeks. Rene has forced on me every shooter round she’s won, but the guys stopped picking on me three shots ago.

“I think we should take a break from the drinking.” Jimmy Stallworth motions for the waitress to bring me a glass of water. “Do you always let your friend get you so messed up?”

I shake my head weakly. “Never. I don’t know why she is being so rotten to me tonight. She never forces me to take every shooter.”

Rene waves off his concern. “Oh, don’t worry about, Chrissie. She’s a lightweight, but she never passes out.”

I turn my head to find Victor staring at me strangely. “Do you need to go outside for some air?” he asks.

I smile weakly at him, but Rene grabs my arm. “No, no, no! You’re not taking her anywhere.”

When the water comes, Jimmy Stallworth forces it into my hand and orders me to drink. I’m halfway through the glass when the video on the monitor changes. The moving lights cast strange colors and shadows all around me, I’m in a totally groggy frame of mind, but not too groggy to recognize the gorgeous guy one story tall on the monitor…or is my mind playing tricks on me? Is that what happens after too much alcohol? You just start imagining you see a guy everywhere.

“Is he everywhere?” I try to focus my blurry vision on Jimmy Stallworth. “It’s strange…two days ago nothing, and now I see him everywhere. Is he really on the monitor or am I imaging it?”

Rene shakes her head. “You’re all right, Chrissie. He’s really on the monitor.”

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. “I’m already seeing double. It would be really bad if I were seeing things not there.”

Jimmy Stallworth sighs heavily and pushes the glass back up to my lips. “OK, no more drinks for you, and lets have some more water. Do you have a way home? I can get them to call a cab for you. I think you should take your friend home before she passes out. She’s really fucked up, Rene.”

Rene points to the monitor. “No, she’s not wasted. She’s talking about the video. We know him.”

Victor leans across me to speak to Rene. “You know Alan Manzone?”

Rene shrugs. “We flew to New York with him.”

“Bullshit,” says Jimmy Stallworth. “California girls are always full of such shit.”

I shake my head. “No, we know him.”

“Then who is that sitting over there giving Rene the serious
fuck me
stare?”

I turn my head in the direction Jimmy indicates, but I’m seeing double, so this just isn’t going to work.

“What? Are we in eighth grade or something?” Rene snaps. She looks. She frowns. “That’s Kenny Jones, Blackpoll’s drummer.”

“Well, if you know Manzone you must know Kenny Jones.”

Rene shrugs and springs to her feet.

I just want to sit and Rene is trying to pull me to my feet. I stare up at her. “Are we going home?”

“Come on, Chrissie.”

I lean into her and my thoughts fade in and out of my brain and the floor feels like it’s coming up to meet me. I am suddenly too hot and I am really glad that Rene is always here for me.

* * *

It hurts just to try to open my eyes. It’s not possible to feel as badly as I feel. The light in the room is muted, it must be morning, and I am in bed and every muscle in my body aches.

I struggle to roll onto my side. The spot beside me is empty, but the blankets are pushed down. Rene’s everything bag is lying beside me. At least I did manage to bring Rene home with me. On the bedside table there is a glass of orange juice and two Tylenol.

My befuddled brain struggles through fractured snapshots of the night before. I remember going into the club. The drinks. The NYU preppies all hot in their boxers for Rene. The drinking games, but then only bits and pieces. I don’t remember how we got home. I’m still wearing my black halter dress and panties, but I don’t have my bra on. I find it lying on the floor beside the bed.

I sit up and take the Tylenol and drink the juice. I fall back into the pillows and tug the blankets tightly around my aching flesh.

Rene runs into the bedroom. She is ecstatic. She drops on the bed with a bounce that makes my head swim. “Finally! You’re awake. You are not going to believe this. You are never going to believe this.”

I pull a pillow tightly over my head.

“I hope you don’t feel as bad as you look. I should have stopped forcing shooters on you,” Rene says matter-of-factly.

Ya think? And why is she waiving a newspaper?

She collapses beside me on the pillows. Just the motion of her body nearly makes me to throw up. She snaps open the paper.

“I’m on the front page of the
New York Post
, Chrissie.”

“What?”

As miserable as I feel, that gets me into a sitting position. She is on the front page. It’s a picture of her exiting the plane with Alan. I feel even more sick, but not from the alcohol. There are also pictures of her in the club last night. Did Rene really dance on a table? I don’t remember any of this, and even the single photo that has me in it has that surreal feel of not being me because I don’t remember any of this.

“Let me read the caption. ‘Manzone, the edgy rock superstar lead singer of Blackpoll touches down at JFK with Rene Thompson, daughter of legendary civil rights attorney George Thompson…blah, blah, blah, the couple has no comment on the singer’s unexplained six month absence.’”

Rene slaps the newspaper and grins. “The
New York Post
, Chrissie. Eliza is going to die.”

I curl in a ball and hug the blankets more tightly around me. Things just seem to work out for Rene without her even trying. Front page of the
New York Post
. Eliza thinking we’ve taken Manhattan by storm. At the club last night, every man in the room after Rene.

“I have a terrible headache. I want to sleep,” I whisper. I hear sounds from the kitchen and lift my aching head. “Rene? Is there someone else in the apartment?”

“Oh, that’s just Jimmy Stallworth.” Rene does a dismissive shake of her head and then her eyes settle on me and widen. “Oh shit, I knew you were wasted last night, but I didn’t think you were so fucked up that you wouldn’t remember.”

I sit up, alarmed. “What?”

“How much do you remember?”

What’s the last thing I remember? What’s the last thing?
I frown. “I don’t know. We were playing some drinking games with some guys…Oh god, was one of them Jimmy Stallworth?”

Rene makes a face. “Yep.” And then her eyes sharpen intensely. “Do you remember seeing Manny?”

I don’t like how she asks me that. “Oh god. On the monitor?” I ask nervously.

Rene shakes her head.

My eyes round. “Alan was at the club last night?”

Rene nods. “Yep, with Nia,” she says with heavy meaning.

Nia? Nia?
The latest tall, brunette supermodel du jour. I saw Alan last night. Alan was with Nia. Why don’t I remember any of this?

Rene’s expression shifts into anger and disgust. “He was such a prick. Pretended he didn’t even know us, which is probably good because you were pretty fucked up by the time he strolled in.”

My face scrunches up. “I didn’t do anything stupid last night, did I?”

“You mean other than getting totally shitfaced?”

“How did Jimmy Stallworth end up here?”

“Well,
that
I’m not surprised you don’t remember. By the time we left the club you couldn’t even walk, Chrissie. Jimmy had to practically carry you to the car. We put you in the car. David brought you home and put you to bed, and we went to a party and ended up here.”

Now I’m alarmed and furious. “You left me and let David put me to bed? How could you do that, Rene?”

Rene shakes her head in aggravation. “Well, you were pretty much done for the night, Chrissie.”

“I can’t believe you did that.”

Rene springs from the bed. “Don’t blame me. You were the one who was the downer. I’ve got to go get rid of Jimmy. He’s a total bore.”

Rene slams the bedroom door behind her. Between the hangover, Alan, and the paper, I feel completely deflated. My emotions cascade over me in relentless waves, like the nausea that never quite makes me vomit.

According to Rene, Alan ignored me last night. I’m glad I don’t remember, it would hurt even more than it already does if I remembered it with clarity. Why do I even care? He’s a total asshole sometimes, like how he treats Rene, and last night pretending he doesn’t know us. Maybe he’s already forgotten about me.

God, I made a fool of myself and the only saving grace is that I don’t remember.

I need to forget about Alan Manzone and focus on why I am in New York. I roll over in bed, agitated in my flesh.
You don’t really want him, Chrissie. It’s not like there could ever be a relationship. With a guy like Alan Manzone it would just be a fuck and a goodbye. Nothing more.

I close my eyes and begin to drift. Yes, sleep will be good. Very, very good.

* * *

I jerk awake to the sound of the phone ringing. I open my eyes. Crap, its morning. I’ve slept an entire day away. And how is it possible I still feel lousy? What day is it?