The Girl On The Half Shell (39 page)

“Nothing to think,” I say quietly, evasively.

Len laughs. “OK. I get it. Mind my own business.”

He nods, smiles, and places a light kiss on my cheek, to my great surprise. I realize he wasn’t being invasive; he was being concerned. I peek at him as I eat my dinner. By the time I’ve finished my meal, I know I read Len Rowan all wrong.

Len may be an ass on the surface, but there is a shrewd sensitivity to him that I think most people miss. It suddenly makes sense that he’s with Linda. They are the balance in this strange cluster of personalities: Linda with the girls and Len with the band. They’re the glue that somehow keeps everyone together.

After dinner, everyone just lounges around talking and laughing. The minutes turn into hours and it’s starting to feel like this evening is never going to end. I’ve spent the better part of four hours listening to an endless stream of industry talk and gossip, there is nothing of the substantive world here. There’s meaningless dialogue occasionally spiced with a quick anecdote about Jack, which feels weirdly inserted into the conversation as a polite attempt to include me. Nothing could be less polite. Every time Jack’s name comes up in passing, I tense. I can’t even imagine what the fallout for this will be when I go home.

Never before have I done anything that would test the boundaries of Jack’s tolerance or his approval. In all moments, I work desperately hard to remain as close to perfect—or at least if not perfect, then privately a mess—so as not to tip the strange balance of our totally careful father-daughter relationship. I’ve always been so afraid to tip the balance.

I stare down into my wine. Well, Chrissie, you better come to terms with the fact that you have tipped the balance. For some reason as I analyze this, it’s anger I feel flooding my tissues instead of my familiar apprehension and worry.
I’ve fucked up your image of me big time and this time in a public way, Jack. Are you going to ignore this?

I study the strange herd of dysfunctional people I’ve fallen in with. It’s like a public service announcement. Even Jack couldn’t move past this with his ’60s axioms and nonparenting for parents bullshit.

By the time the group starts to break up, there is breathing into life inside of me, a carefree sense of not giving a shit what anyone thinks about anything—not Jack, not them, not anyone. I fell in love. I let a guy love me. What’s fucked up about that?

I tilt my head to find Alan crouched down beside me. It’s strange, but we passed the entire evening not even together. Those mesmerizing, penetrating black eyes are slowly absorbing the details of my expression, and then he takes my face in his hands, his fingers spreading across my cheeks.

I’m just starting to lean in for a kiss when he stops me. “Are you OK?”

I laugh, frustrated. “God. You’re like the tenth person to ask me that tonight. What’s up with that?”

Alan laughs and shakes his head. “Just checking to see if you’re angry with me again. I’m tired, Chrissie. Take me to bed and be good to me.”

I make a face, lips turning downward in simulated pouting. “Don’t count on it,” I tease.

He shakes his head just enough for the dark waves to dance. “No?”

Beneath his unreadable surface I feel just a smidge of silly Alan in there.

“Nope.”

He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. The staircase is old, the wood creaks while we walk, and there is something in the creaking sound that is strangely comforting to me. I can see the moon through the round windows, high on the wall, and there is the lovely sensation again that we are alone even though I know perfectly well there are people in every upstairs bedroom. The staircase is narrow and dark we’re in a magical transition away from them to only Chrissie and Alan again.

Alan pauses at the door and flips on a switch before he pulls me in behind him. The room is simple and dominated by a charming, antique brass bed invitingly arranged with hand sewn quilts and country check pillows. The furniture is heavy and old and spotless, and the windows are dual-paned and framed with patches of swirling blue stained glass.

With easy grace, Alan reclines on the bed and stares up at me. Those black eyes are alive with tenderness and lust. It’s a disarming mix. I swallow and lean back into the door. It would be so easy to forget all the questions in my head when he stares at me like this.

“I thought you said you weren’t angry with me,” he murmurs softly.

There’s a sweet kind of smile on his face now, cajoling and affectionate. I feel my body respond.

“Depends on why you brought me here.”

He pretends to be confused. “To The Farm? Or the bedroom?”

I sink on the bed beside him, settling my chin in the upturned palm of my hand. “What’s going on here, Alan?”

He leans into me, long fingers closing on the fastenings of my overalls. He gives me a full mouth kiss that I feel all the way down to my toenails. It leaves me breathless and just a touch angry.
So Alan, you don’t want to answer my questions.

I stare up at him, completely committed to being resistant. “You’re lying to them and I want to know why, since you’ve made me a part of it.”

He lies back on the pillow, irritated.

“I’m quitting,” he says, just when it was looking like he wasn’t going to answer me. “You know that. But I’m not a solo act, Chrissie. I can’t walk out in one day. For a lot of reasons, most of them legal and involving lawsuit settlements, I’m doing the tour, I’m doing one more album with the band, and then I’m through. Will you kiss me now?”

“But why lie to them about me?” I stare at the quilt, fingering the design, trying to make sense of this. “You made them think we’ve had this long, hot, and heavy affair going on for months. Why? Why don’t you want anyone to know you were with Jack?”

His eyes widen with a mix of disbelief and irritation. “Fuck, you don’t know anything about Jack, do you?”

I feel my face flood with a burn, and uncontained hurt unfurls within me. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

I can tell he can see he fucked up with that comment. He runs a hand through his hair and his expression softens.

“Your father is an extraordinary man. He’s the guy people call for you when you’ve fucked up big and you want off the road you’re on. He helps you clean up your shit, get your head straight, and get you on a different road. I’ve got fifteen more months, Chrissie. I just want it all to end. If they know I’ve been with Jack, they’ll know I’m leaving.”

I don’t know where to begin to process my emotions. I didn’t know any of this about Jack, and that’s not the Dad I’ve had, not by a long shot. It makes everything inside of me somehow hurt even more. And even though it’s trivial and secondary, it reminds me of that day at the airport, Alan’s concern over the tabloids spotting me and how sweet I thought his worry was. It was never about me. It was about him, and for some reason I wonder: how much about us is only about him? There is that sense there is something going on between us that I don’t fully understand yet.

I focus on the wood slats of the ceiling, trying to calm my inner turmoil.

“What’s wrong, Chrissie?”

I look to see Alan studying me, trying to assess my reaction to this. I muster an overly bright smile. “I just want to go to sleep.”

I curl on my side, feeling as if I’ve grown smaller, filled with childish resentment about how little Jack was there for me, and a petty type of jealousy that Jack was there for Alan. It’s so bizarre how the random pieces of your life can suddenly join into something so heartbreaking. I’m a little unsteady, a little dazed.

He plants a feather-light kiss on my lips and then moves to the door to lock it. He starts shedding his clothes. When he gets to the bed, his eyes have that smoky quality to them.

He is trying to undo my overalls. I stop his hand and he frowns. “What’s changed? Why are you upset, Chrissie?”

I fumble for a fast excuse for my sudden change of mood. “I’m not doing it. Not in a house full of them.”

Alan starts to laugh and visibly relaxes. “It’s going to be a very long week if you don’t, love. Miserably long for me.”

“Then long week. Learn to live with it. Suck it up.”

He eases me back on the bed, and then starts to work free the fastenings of my overalls. I can see it in his eyes. My mood has changed his mood, as well.

I don’t resist as he undresses me and I lie atop the bed as he gazes down at me. The cool air of the room touches my flesh, and the warmth of his fingers pushes the chill away.

A kiss on my arm. “I’m sorry.”

A touch on my shoulder. “I love you.”

He covers my entire body with a kiss, a touch, an “I’m sorry” or an “I love you.” And I know he isn’t talking about just highjacking me to The Farm. Or his obnoxious behavior at the party. Or being stuck here with the dysfunctional. Or even all the complicated shit. He can see inside of me even when I fight not to let him, and he is apologizing for my pain.

I relax into his touch and his words and his lips, and the things I am feeling seem to melt. Soon, all I am feeling is him.

He kisses the inside of my thigh and then he stops, his face lifting. “I love you. That’s why you are here with me.”

I don’t know why, what it was in his voice that time, but it washes away any doubt that he loves me or that I love him. It is all there in his voice, his touch, and his eyes when he looks at me, in the ease with which I give myself to him, and the ease in which he takes, and how very right it is.

Suddenly, I am out of my mind with the feel of him. I begin to move, more demanding, more greedily into the play of his hands and lips. He puts a finger in my mouth, scented of me, and I take it. He moves faster, harder, and I am whimpering and he is flooding my mouth with fingers, overfilling me as I greedily melt into him.

He pounds me in a frantic rhythm much faster than what I am used to with him. He doesn’t hold back. He pumps his body directly there and lets go into my climax.

As we lie before sleep, I don’t want to talk. I just want to sleep with him, to feel him all around me, in the perfection that is sleeping with Alan.

We are fitted like puzzle pieces, his bicep beneath my head, and I am playing with the dark hairs on his arm.

“I’m sorry about the fingers,” he whispers into my neck.

I frown. “Fingers? You’ve lost me.”

“I would have preferred not to have to put almost my entire hand in your mouth, but I did it for you. Me, it’s all good. Your high pitched whimpers and screeches are such a turn-on. But I knew you would prefer the fingers.” He kisses my cheek. He settles against me with a wickedly teasing grin. “You, love, are very noisy.”

The laughter takes me by surprise, but it is welcomed and needed. There are times when Alan completely gets me.

* * *

OK, what do I do now? While I slept Alan deserted me. I haven’t any clothes. I haven’t any things.

There is warm, orange light pouring through the windows. Late morning. The room is surprisingly hot and the air in the room is still. I should open the windows. It’s too hot in here to stay comfortable, but I can’t hide in here forever, naked and in bed without Alan.

I look around the room, realizing there is no adjoining bathroom. Shit, that’s all I need.

The bedroom door slowly creaks open. Linda’s face appears. She smiles and enters quickly, closing the door fast behind her.

She plops on the bed beside me. “I’m glad you made up.”

I try not to sound too relieved that we did. “Me too.”

She lies on the bed on Alan’s pillow, as though she doesn’t realize I’m naked beneath the sheets.

I turn on my side, keeping myself carefully covered by the blankets. “Do you want to go with me into the village? I need to buy some things.”

Linda shrugs and smiles. “Don’t worry, Chrissie, whatever you need I’m sure I have. I always pack too much, but I am a world class packer.”

“I need everything, Linda.”

She frowns. “What?”

“Alan didn’t tell me he was bringing me to The Farm. I don’t have anything.”

Linda shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Oh shit, Chrissie. What is it about guys? Come with me. Linda can fix anything.”

Linda jumps from the bed as if she expects me to climb from the sheets butt naked and follow her. Carefully tucked behind the bedding, I pull on my panties and the long sleeve thermal of Jack’s I wore yesterday. It reaches halfway down my thighs, and though I cursed it yesterday, trying to tuck it into the overalls, I am grateful for that today.

By the time I catch up to Linda, she is already sitting on the floor in her room, busily rummaging through her suitcase. The Rowans’ room looks like a storm hit it and I have to pick my way across the clutter on the floor to get next to her.

Linda smiles. “It’s a good thing we look like we’re about the same size.”

She starts tossing things into a stack. Linda does have everything, everything in buckets. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have anything I like, anything I would feel comfortable wearing, and since we’re nearly the exact same size I can’t politely beg off of the loan of her things with a “they don’t fit.”

I am suddenly knee deep in eight outfits: a two-piece black, baby doll nightie set; panties; bras (if you can call them that because they are absolutely useless); a brand new hairbrush and toothbrush; toothpaste, hairspray and four changes of shoes.

“Something for every kind of outing, Chrissie,” Linda announces, shoving things into my arms. “The guys like to tear up the village at night. There is no telling where we’ll end up when we stay at The Farm.”

Tear up the village. So there is more than getting fucked and fucked up. There is tearing up the village.

After thanking Linda, I go back to my room and toss everything on the bed. I make a face and start to search through my new wardrobe. I’m relieved to find a little yellow sundress almost exactly like something I would buy, and a pair of panties not too stripper awful. I settle on a pair of high-top tennis shoes to finish off my outfit.

The guys are not downstairs when I go into the kitchen to find Linda. There are only the wives in the living room, lounging and laughing on the cushy furnishings there. I hear music, muffled and distant, and I wonder where it’s coming from.