Between You and Me (8 page)

“No,” I say forcefully to him, as if I’m correcting a Doberman. Tugging on her other arm, I can’t ballast myself in these shoes.

“Are you hot for me?” he says, quoting her lyrics as his posse laughs and presses themselves into us. “Want me to make you moan?”
I whip out my phone to dial the police, because that’s all I can think of, when a man reaches over their shoulders and takes Kelsey’s.

“Miss Wade, your table is waiting,” the blond guy says firmly as he pulls out his walkie-talkie. “Miss Wade is on her way to her table.” Our aggressors spring apart, and she looks up at him, relieved. “Follow me.” With his height and broad shoulders, he cuts a path for us to the stage, where he expertly spins Kelsey, grabs her hips, and tosses her up over the barrier into the safety of the VIP area. She gracefully lands on a low velvet couch and twists back to stare at him through the Plexiglas.

He gestures for me, and I beckon him down to my mouth. “I’ll break something!” I shout in his ear, waving my hands to ward off the attempt. “And no one cares about me! Point me to the long way around!”

He smiles a crazily handsome smile and directs me to the doorway I’d been focused on before the douche brigade. I blow through it to find a stairwell lined with couples having vertical mostly dressed sex. After Kelsey vouches for me to the skeptical bouncer I step awkwardly over the cast of everything currently playing at the Angelika to make it to her. She pointedly ignores the ripple of intrigue around us.

“That was so nice of that guy—is he the manager?” I ask, as we both watch her savior make his way back onto the dance floor.

“Aaron? He doesn’t work here, isn’t that so funny? He was just talking into his turned-off phone!”

“Do you know him?”

“We’ve met a couple of times. He sang backup on Eric’s last tour,” she says as she rises to watch Aaron ease into the groove. “Oh, look, here’re my guys!” A group of very pretty Latino boys bound over to us. Beaming, she kisses everyone hello. “How are you?”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, this is the first day I can walk.” One of them turns to me. “Because she works us so hard, not because of my sex life. I’m Duane.”

“Duane is my choreographer.” I’m surprised when Kelsey puts her arm around my waist. “Guys, this is my cousin, Logan.”

“I’m Pita,” another dancer says, taking off his white Elton John sunglasses. “Stands for Pain in the Ass.”

I shake hands.

“Apologies for the calluses,” Duane says as we reseat ourselves. “But there’s a lot of acrobatics on this tour.”

“I like a man with strong hands.” Kelsey mugs, nudging him.

“So, Eric and his ho-bride aside, how has your break been, honey?” Pita asks her, and she snorts, pulling up her hem to show the bruises from the shoot.

“Are you trying to tell us you’ve been working hard—or you’ve finally found yourself a real man?”

“I finally found myself a real camel.” She regales them with the saga while I sip my drink and look surreptitiously around at those surreptitiously looking at Kelsey. I learn that Zoe Deschanel is as beautiful in person, Robert Pattinson has lost his keys, and January Jones has no sense of rhythm. I’m enjoying being behind the ropes for this one night. As we pass midnight and the population hits critical mass, the music segues from generic beats to recognizable songs.

I stand. “I’m gonna go to the ladies’ room. Want anything?”

“A tampon?” she asks jokingly.

“I meant
from the bar
.”

She inhales sharply, throwing her shoulders back and pressing her hands into her midriff. “Better not, my tummy’s on the countdown to being reviewed.”

Appreciating that mine is not, I follow Zoe to the VIP ladies’ room, which turns out to be one unisex space carved out of the old backstage from before this was even a movie theater. We shuffle past the makeup tables with their dusty wig stands, mustaches, and ancient bottles of spirit gum left as if still waiting for the next matinee.

“They must save a fortune on cleaning supplies,” the guy in front of me says.

“I can’t figure out if it’s that,” I respond, “or they clean it and then reapply false dust.”

He turns his cute face to me. “Art direction?”

“Sorry?” I ask.

“You work in art direction?”

“That is one of those mysterious Oscar categories no one gets. I’m a camel wrangler.”

“Of course.” He smiles as I note that even in my skyscraping heels, he’s a little taller. “Is there a lot of call for that anymore? Since Valentino died—and
Ishtar
bombed.”

“I did a shoot for
Vanity Fair
just this week. Watch for it—May issue. When you see the pictures, how glossy his coat is, think of me and the hours I spend making sure he gets his beta carotene.”

His blue eyes take me in, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing: tonight just got unexpectedly interesting. “So, do you live here?” he asks.

“Are you asking because Zoe and I are the only two pale brunettes on this line, if not the whole club, if not the city?”

He considers me for a moment as we move another step forward. “You do have an exotic quality about you, and by that I mean Botox-free.”

“I’m just passing through on my way back to the desert. You?”

“I think everyone is just passing through.”

“Not the Kardashians,” I remind him.

“I’ve got it, you’re a network comedy writer for some hit show, fresh from New York, and the honchos brought you here tonight to keep you from quitting now that you know what the hours are.”

“Oh, I like that vision of me.” Shoulders raised, eyes wide with delight, I bring my hands together, thumbs under my chin. “This is so exciting. Yes, it’s
Medium
meets
Dancing with the Stars.
It’s
House
meets
Bones
on Animal Planet. It’s
Law & Order SVU
but funny.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop trying to figure you out.”

“Please don’t,” I volley back.

He reaches the front of the line as we realize both toilets have been vacated simultaneously. He looks to the adjacent doors swinging open on their creaky hinges and back at me. “So, we have to pause our witty banter to pee in adjacent stalls now, which I think means we’re skipping dates one through five.”

I nod to acknowledge this awful truth.

He lightly touches my elbow. “Meet you back here by the gunkcrusted sinks, and you’ll let me buy you a drink, or twelve, whatever it’ll take to obliterate the memory?”

“You’re on.”

We boldly step forward, and he holds my stall door open. I freeze.

“What?” he asks as I start to laugh.

“What if you looked down after all that and our feet were facing the same way?”

A few hours later, Finn
has done a masterfully thorough job of obliterating all memories of Jeff with his mouth. “Let’s get out of here,” he says.

“Where?”

“I have a suite at the Chichester.”

My brain simultaneously plays through the absolute best and worst that could mean. I pull back to look into his eyes. “While I’m not sure if this is true for the other girls here, I think you should know that nowhere on my bucket list does it say be found dead in a five-star hotel.”

“I don’t think it’s five stars; it might only be four.”

“In that case, kill away.”

He takes my hand, but I pull him back. “I just need to let my cousin know I’m leaving.”

“Your cousin from the bedbug convention?”

“That’s the one. Just give me two minutes—I’ll meet you by the popcorn stand.”

“Keep an eye out—I heard Kelsey Wade’s here tonight, showing the world she doesn’t need a ring on it.” He gives me a hard kiss. “And if you try to sneak out the back, I’ll have my paparazzi friends personally deliver you to my car.”

“Aw, you even make creepy sound endearing.” I push him toward the exit, then snake over to our couch, which has been abandoned, and dig my clutch from under the guys’ jackets. I don’t see Kelsey. Maybe she’s on the powder-room line. Two minutes might have been ambitious. I turn around, colliding with Duane.

“Hey!” I say. “I’ve been—”

“Making out with the hottie—we know!”

“You don’t think he’s too cute?”

He puts the backs of his hands on his hips. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“I usually date guys who have a—I don’t know—a broken nose or a crooked tooth, something a little off-center about their hotness. But he’s just mouthwash-commercial symmetrically cute. He’s cute. Like, hand him a ball of yarn.”

“I want your problems.”

“He asked me to go to the Chichester with him.”

“Again, why am I sensing you’re asking?”

“Is it okay? I mean, in New York, if a guy asks you back to his hotel, it means he wants to post pictures of your corpse on the Web.”

“This is L.A. If a guy asks you back to his hotel, it means he wants to blow your mind. Go have your mind blown.”

“I have to tell Kelsey. She can’t think I abandoned her.”

“A, we’ll get her out the back door, and B, no offense, I’m sure she cares about your well-being and all.” Duane points to the main dance floor. “But right now, she doesn’t even know her name.” I crane and finally spot them, her sweaty body entwined with Aaron’s like two egg beaters blurred into one by the jolt of electricity passing between their hungry lips.

I don’t think this is
just any suite. We’ve taken the elevator to the top floor, and there’s only one door. Without releasing his warm grip, Finn submerges the key, revealing a very disjointed vision. I pull away as I take in what it could mean. It’s exquisite, what I would’ve described, had I never seen Kelsey’s house, as the most beautiful place I’d ever been. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out on a vast balcony with private pool. The dining table is marble, the curtains grey velvet, the staircase seems to twist out of spun sugar.

And it is trashed.

The dining chairs lie on their sides, the table has been shoved to the wall, and littered with fetid takeout containers and diet Red Bull cans. The pool area is sodden with discarded towels left in chlorinated moguls.

“Well, you had quite a night,” I say, crossing my arms, realizing that I’ve deserted my cousin for some trust-fund asshole with a coke problem.

He looks around, seemingly suddenly seeing what I’m seeing. “Oh, no, I had no night—wait.” He catches himself. “Ever since I decided to excuse myself from a bunch of Italian advertising executives to use the bathroom, I have had a spectacular evening. But before that, I got up at four
AM
to get here, where we spent the day shooting a cologne campaign with the fervor of neonatal oncologists, then out to an excruciating dinner with a bunch of guys from Milan and their honest-to-God escorts.” He holds out his hand. “But I have this place until noon, and we never made it upstairs. Upstairs is pristine. The bed is pristine.”

I smile, letting him lure me up the floating steps. “How can I resist a guy who says pristine after four whiskeys?”

Before the sun has risen
, I awaken in a downy mound of bedding, feeling utterly limp and delicious. I push to sit but don’t see or sense Finn. I twist on the lamp to find he’s left a piece of the hotel’s linen notepaper atop my cell. It reads, “Thank you for a wonderful night, Miss Logan. I’m sorry to rush off, but my boss texted. Stay. Enjoy yourself. Order the caviar eggs, have the concierge call you a town car, it all gets charged back to the Italians. I’ve programmed my number into your phone. XX Finn.”

I throw myself back onto the bed, not sure if I, or my phone, can take it.

When the town car pulls
past Kelsey’s guard booth the sky is streaked orange. Peter steps from the apartment over the garage while tying his tie. He waves. I wave back, wondering if he knows my mother and if he’ll tell her that I’m rolling home with the sun.

Kelsey comes around the side of the house, one hand clutching a lavender blanket around her, the other interlaced with Aaron’s.

“Hi.”

She smiles a warm, drowsy smile as he leads her toward me, holding his shirt. “This is my cousin, Logan. Logan, this is Aaron. I think y’all met last night.” She rests her head against his bicep.

“Pleasure,” he replies.

One of the garage doors rise. “Nice to meet you, formally. Thanks again for saving our butts last night.”

He tips his fingers to his forehead in a loose mime of a salute. “At your service.”

Kelsey turns her nose into his skin and closes her eyes. “Well, I’ll let you two say your good-byes.”

Andy seems to have found his way to bed, and the living-room TVs are black. But on the circular entry table sits a Cartier box with a flat notecard.
“Was waiting to give you these for opening night but thought you could use the cheer now. Love, Daddy.”
The box sits here expectantly for when she returns through the front door. I did more than my fair share of sneaking out, but my returns were met with fury, not Cartier. However, I wasn’t paying the mortgage.

I’m drawn to the wall of glass that looks out to the green-gray ocean. I lift the neckline of my dress and inhale the citrusy remnants of Finn’s cologne. That was . . . that was like nothing I have waiting for me in New York.

I turn to see Kelsey pick up the red box. “Uch,” she says with disgust as she reads the card, dropping it back onto the marble like an overdue electric bill. She raises her face to me, slipping back into post-coital reverie. “Holy crap.” She shuffles across the rug.

“Me, too.” I sigh. “Were you in the pool house?”

She smiles slyly. “On the big pile of floaties.”

“Okay, remind me to stay off your floaties.” Even though we both know that I’ll probably never be here again.

“I was improvising,” she says impishly. “I’ve never brought anyone back before.” She comes to stand beside me, the grate in the floor between us blowing warm air up our legs. She rests her forehead against the glass and twists her face to mine. “Let’s go down to the beach.”

“Lead the way.”

She sort of half-skips down the lawn, through the bracing dew, and then under an arch in the hedge down to the lower lawn, across and down again, over and over, descending toward the ocean while I take long strides behind her, savoring this last bit of sea-salty air. Finally,
we reach a gate to a private tunnel that leads under the PCH. One more door, and we’re there.