Crazy Love You (12 page)

“It hurts to be back here. I hate it,” I said. “This place is evil.”

“I know you feel that way,” she said. My hand rested on the gearshift, and she laid her palm on top of it. “I know you do. But you give it too much power. Bad things happen everywhere, not just here. We live in New York City; horrible things happen every day.”

“It's different.”

“It's
not
.”

I put my head in my hands and rubbed away at the headache that had settled there. The Hollows activated all my allergies, too. My sinuses were swollen, my eyes itchy and red. I could tell she was about to say something. She drew in a deep breath. But then she stayed quiet.

“You know what?” she said after a few moments. Her voice was gentle. “Just forget it for now. One step at a time, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let's get back to the peace and safety of Tribeca,” she said. I heard the smile in her voice, even though I was still staring at my palms.

“Yes,” I said. “Let's.”

We went back to the house first, though. It was clean inside, if outdated, containing all the same furniture my father had when he died five years earlier, stuff we'd had in the house since I was a kid—a hideous plaid couch, and beige shag carpet, a gigantic television in a wooden cabinet.

I had a monthly cleaning service come in, someone also to maintain the property. I guess I was keeping it for my mother, if she ever wanted a place to live outside the hospital. I hadn't believed until recently that she'd want to stay hospitalized in one way or another forever.

She'd had a brief stint at a halfway house a couple of years ago, but it wasn't six months before she had a psychotic break and they found her down by the Black River, just sitting, rocking in her nightgown. But, of course, she'd never go back to the house. How could she? I don't know why I was keeping it. It was on this first visit with Megan that I began to consider tearing the house down. Maybe Meg was right. Time to level the past and rebuild, re-create. She made me believe it was possible.

We turned out the lights, shut off the water, which I had turned on to run the faucets. I decided to take the Scout back to the city, park it in a garage. We could use it to run errands and such, do all those things that people who are about to play house do—go to IKEA and drive out for weekends in the Hamptons. It was a hunk of junk, but there was a cool factor, too. My dad had run our blue 1970 International Scout 800A into the ground, using it to haul materials around. And I had never put the money into having it restored. So it was pretty banged up, but it still rocked. Binky loved Scouts and I was eager to show it to him. Yeah, I was already kissing up to my future father-in-law.

As we walked out to the truck, the sun moved behind the clouds. And before she opened the door, I saw Megan look into the woods and frown. An uncharacteristic sadness had settled over her as we got into the car. It reminded me of that darkness I had seen in her that first day, that open window where the rain can come in. I wondered if she'd heard the Whispers. But I was afraid to ask.

“So Fatboy and Priss are breaking up?”

Priss was sitting on my couch when I got home that evening. On entering the loft and seeing her there, I'd felt a little shock, a little chill slither through me. What if Megan had been with me?

“You can't do this anymore,” I said.

I put down the bag I'd carried in from Whole Foods. Megan was coming over later to cook dinner. She had to spend a few hours with Toby while his mom went to the doctor.

“You're grocery-shopping now? Wow, she's really domesticating you. The most wholesome thing I've ever seen you eat is pizza.”

“That was a long time ago,” I said. “A lot about me has changed. You just don't want to see it.”

She issued a throaty laugh, put her feet up on the coffee table. Her legs were long and toned, the heels on her boots hard spikes, the toes coming to sharp points. She put her hands behind her head and made a point of pushing out her chest.

“People don't change. You know that.”

“Don't they? I think people change all the time.” I actually didn't think this. People might change on the outside—they got old, they got fat. But the core? It stays the same for life.

“Has Mikey Beech changed much?” she asked.

I didn't answer her, just slipped off my jacket and slung it over the bar stool. Mikey Beech was a sore subject between us.

“Did you have a nice visit home?” she asked. “Is The Hollows as lovely and idyllic a place as ever?”

Still nothing. I just started unloading the groceries. I didn't have to talk to her. She didn't have a right to be there. I put the almond milk in the fridge, the peanut butter in the cupboard. Then I felt rather than heard her come up behind me. She was a heat source; whenever she was near, my whole body burned.

“Tofu? You must be joking.” She picked up the package and then let it fall with a smack onto the granite counter. I picked it up defensively and put it in with the vegetables.

I closed the heavy metal door, and she was there. She smelled of cigarettes and cinnamon. Even up close, she was flawless—not a blemish on her white skin, her mouth a perfect valentine, those eyes, that buzzing neon blue, dazzling me. She leaned in close.

“Don't let her turn you into one of those millennium nerds, Ian,” she whispered. “One of those neutered, so sensitive, stay-at-home-dad types.”

She wrapped her arms around me. There was nothing in me that wanted to push her away, even though I knew I had to. I wanted her, always. She used to be a tonic, someone who made me stronger than I had a right to be. But somehow she'd become a poison. Every time I drank from her I became sicker, less right with myself and the life I was trying to build. But I still wanted the taste of her on my tongue.

“Let's talk,” I said, unwrapping myself from her embrace.

“Uh-oh,” she said. She pulled a little pout and I moved over to the dining table. She followed and sat across from me, but not before grabbing a beer from the fridge. She drank a big swallow and put the bottle on the table between us, where it sat sweating, as if beckoning me to drink.

“Look,” I said. “Things with Meg are serious. I am going to ask her to marry me.”

She let go an unpleasant cackle. “Why would she marry
you
?”

Her question echoed my own dark thoughts. Why
would
she marry me? I literally brought nothing to the table except a little cash and a crazy mother. Meanwhile, she had a vast network of friends, a loving family—all of whom had welcomed me into their circle with open arms. She had beauty, grace, talent, intelligence. I, on the other hand, was just a grown-up, cleaned-up version of Fatboy. I wrote comic books for a living.

I had been worried enough to ask Megan why she loved me.
Because I can feel your goodness
, she told me.
You're kind and smart and a great fuck. I love you. You. The heart of you. That's all I need
.

“Because she loves me. And I love her,” I said. “There isn't another reason.”

“Aw,” Priss said. Her face had gone a kind of ash gray; her mouth was a thin, tight line. “That's sweet. I'm happy for you.”

“You'll always be a part of me,” I said. It was a gentler, easier scene than I had written on the page. You never have any of the big drama in real life that you do on the page. I guess that's a good thing. “But you're so angry. I need some space, Priss. I've changed.”

“And I haven't.”

I looked down at my hands; they were stained with different colors of ink—a splatter of red on my palm, blue under my nails, yellow on the knuckles. She
had
changed. We'd grown up together; she'd gone from girl to teenager to woman right before my eyes. She'd grown stronger, more powerful, older, as I had. She'd also grown darker, harder. There were no soft places to her anymore. Even when we had sex, it was often rough and hungry. I had scratches on my back and ass where she dug her nails into my flesh. It felt good in the moment, the pain. But it ached and burned for days. But I found I couldn't say any of that. Somehow, though, it hung in the air between us.

“I'm not the angry one, Ian,” she said. And, in fact, she seemed more sad than angry. Had I expected her to rage? Was I disappointed that she just seemed . . . bored? “You are.”

She got up and left without another word. When the door slammed, I felt a sob well up from inside me. I choked it back hard. Boys don't cry, especially not over girls.

•  •  •

“I can't believe you would even come up here,” Megan said.

The wind almost took her words away. It was not the night I'd hoped for, blustery and a little wet. But even with the bad weather, the tourists were out in force, crowding to the edge of the observation deck of the Empire State Building, taking pictures and videos with iPhones and iPads. In fact, it was as if we were surrounded by a wall of devices, the view around us duplicated a hundred times on little screens. Was it ever good enough to just
see
anything anymore? Must everything be recorded?

“I need the perspective for research,” I told her. “I need to experience the panorama.”

“I know, I know. But you are such a
cool
guy.” She put air quotes around the word, teasing me. “And this is
so
not cool.”

“What?” I said, suddenly worried. “I thought this was your favorite place in the world. You told me that.”

“It
is
,” she said. She wore a girlish smile, and moved to the edge and looked down. The city spread out before us, a matrix of light and movement, a place in constant motion, growing and changing every second. It
was
cool to see it from so high. It
was
magical in the dimming of late afternoon, all the lights below us punching and twinkling against the city gray. “But I'm not cool. I've never loved anything like I love this city.”

“Funny you should say that,” I said. I said it a little too loudly—nerves had me feeling clumsy and awkward. I had my fist closed around the light blue box in my pocket. I bought her a
crraazy
ring—a huge diamond. The Tiffany Soleste, a carat and a half. Cost 30K—'cuz that's how I roll, yo.

She looked at me with an inquiring smile. If she knew what I was about to do, she hid it well.

“Because that's how I feel about you,” I said. “I've never loved anyone like I love you, Megan.”

I backed away from her and sank down onto my knee. I know, I know—it's corny but you gotta do it. It's not right if you don't. The crowd of tourists parted around us and everyone turned to look, all the girls smiling. Megan's eyes were wide, her hand over her mouth.

I took out the box and opened it. “Meg, will you marry me?”

She nodded and started to cry, dropped to her knees, and I took her in my arms. Everyone around us started to cheer and clap. It was the perfect silly, iconic moment I knew she wanted—something sweet and ironic all at once. I was quite pleased with myself, I must say.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, yes!”

We stood and I slipped the ring on her finger.

“Oh my God, Ian,” she said. “It's gorgeous.”

It glinted with that internal fire diamonds have; it really was mesmerizing. And big—like really big. On her hand, it looked like a cartoon engagement ring. I could tell right away that it embarrassed her, the size of it.

“Look at that ring!” someone said. And Meg glanced around with a shy smile. She pulled it in close to her body.

We floated through the rest of the evening—we had dinner at DBGB downtown, had drinks afterward at Beauty & Essex, then drifted home tipsy and laughing, holding on to each other.

“I've never been this happy,” I told her. “I mean it, never.”

“Neither have I,” she said. But I could tell she didn't mean it the way I did. I had
literally
never been happier, because my life up to now had been pretty barren in the joy department. But Meg had been in love; she'd been happy in her life before me. She hadn't experienced the same levels of fear, pain, and trauma that I had. She didn't know how good it felt to just feel normal good after feeling so bad.

Love is an anesthetic, isn't it? It dulls all the pain, pushes back all your worries, quiets your inner demons. You're ten feet tall and bulletproof. With Meg in my life, I felt like I could do anything.

The next day, she made me take the ring back to Tiffany & Co. We went together and she picked out a smaller, pink, heart-shaped solitaire that was a third of the price. I couldn't help but think that Priss would have wanted an even bigger ring. And she'd probably have wanted a car, too. She had big appetites and enough was never enough. You could tell that the pale, WASPy salesgirl thought Megan was nuts. But that's how my girl Meg rolls—and if more people rolled like she did, the world would be a better place.

After we exchanged her ring, we drove out to the Hamptons, where Binky and Julia opened a bottle of champagne and drank a toast to us on the porch.

“May you be as happy as we have been,” Julia said.

She was all choked up, and Binky looked on, smiling with only his mouth. His eyes were worried. But maybe
every
father's eyes are worried when his little girl is about to get married. That's what I told myself anyway.

Within twenty-four hours of the fire at Mikey Beech's house, the police came to my door. It was my first run-in with Detective Jones Cooper and it wouldn't be my last. My father answered the door and there was some good-natured backslapping. They'd known each other since grade school. My dad had done some of the restoration work on the Coopers' house in town. The Hollows was one of those places, everyone knew everyone forever.