The Girl On The Half Shell Page 8

  “Friend material. Not attractive, but likeable.”

  “Oh, it is definitely not a code for that.” He stands up. “If you weren’t Jack’s daughter I wouldn’t have stopped and you’d hate me in the morning. I don’t want you to ever hate me.”

  I hug my knees and stare up at him. “I don’t know why you think so badly of yourself, Alan. You seem like a nice guy to me.”

  Alan is quiet all the way back to the house. It’s really odd, but I feel comfortable in his quiet. The morning has just started to come alive and the beach has the pleasant hush and slow stirring of sunrise. I find my UGGs where I left them at the bottom of the stairs, and I pull them on and begin the long climb back up to the house.

  I cross the patio and go into the empty kitchen. Alan surprises me. I thought he would head off to the pool house, but he follows me. The clock says 6 a.m. Even Maria isn’t awake yet. I stop in the center and look at Alan. I’m not exactly sure how to end this. It has been an unexpected kind of night. I wait for him.

  “It’s been a pleasure spending the night with you, Christian Parker.”

  I nod, wide-eyed. “It’s been a pleasure spending the night with you, Alan.”

  I step back from him. His face is washed with seriousness again. I feel the need to say something. Anything. “It’s going to be OK. You do know that, don’t you?”

  His black eyes do a quiet search of my face and he starts to shake his head. “Such a trite thing to say. Only it sounds so real and believable when you say it.”

  He’s waiting for me to leave and I can tell by his expression that he wants this over. I gaze at him. I don’t want this to be the end. And I don’t want to make a fool of myself.

  “Everyone may be angry with you, Alan, but it’s morning and I don’t hate you. According to you that’s improvement. Learn to appreciate the small improvements. Isn’t that what they teach in recovery?”

  Alan smiles. I’ve amused him. Good. “If you knew me you wouldn’t call that small.”

  I make a face at him. “There you go again thinking badly of yourself.”

  He lifts a strand of hair from my face. “There you go again not realizing how beautiful you are.”

  He takes a half-step back from me. We were standing so close and I didn’t even notice it. I want him to kiss me again, but he won’t. We are back in my dad’s kitchen, and I feel strange, out of place, and really curious to know what it would feel like to have him kiss me a second time.

  Alan waits for me to leave first. I can feel him watching as I disappear into the hall.

  * * *

  “Where have you been all night?”

  Rene must have stirred in her sleep. She hates to be alone at night. She’s afraid of the dark, but won’t admit it.

  “On the beach,” I say nonchalantly.

  She rolls over and pulls the quilt more tightly around her. “Doing what?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  Her eyes drift closed. “Tell me later. Don’t wake me until it’s time to go to the airport.”

  I stare at my room. The house is quiet. I am too wired to sleep. Wired and weak. I should lie down for an hour before I have to get ready to go to the airport.

  I drop before my suitcase and rummage for my journal. I’ve been keeping it forever. I put the date on a page. I am not going to write about Alan Manzone. It’s not that type of journal. It’s not that dear diary type shit that Eliza and her mob probably have carefully tucked beneath their mattresses. I write about nothing, fragments of dreams, random thoughts, poetry, but mostly just fragments of nothing. Disconnected pieces that aren’t meant to make sense or say anything.

  I begin to rapidly write. Tonight, though, it is a whole thought and one that is strangely significant to me. So I write quickly before I forget. Rene can be so profound at times. It is why we are friends. We don’t think or feel like the other girls. Our dreams are not happy. We feel strange and disconnected from people. The world doesn’t make sense to us. We don’t make sense to us. And the future, it is there and I can’t see it and I don’t know why, but it makes me a mess and only more disconnected from the world.

  Did I get the words right? I look them over again: “We are the generation of nothing. There is no war. There is no grand social struggle. There is no political wrong to right. There is nothing. We have everything we want and nothing we need. Even the music isn’t good. We live in empty houses. We have too much time to think of ourselves. It would be better for there to be a little strife than to be a generation with too much time to think only of ourselves.”

  I reread the entire quote. I stare at it. Is this why I am the way I am?

  Chapter Four

  Rene throws her everything bag onto the concrete.

  “Crap! What are we supposed to do now?”

  Rene is cranky and hung-over.

  “We wait,” I say calmly. “They said only a short delay because of the fog. Maybe an hour. We’ll be on our plane in an hour.”

  “Yeah, right. They’re backed up. We’ll take off late. We’ll miss our connection in LA, and we won’t reach New York until forever.” She stares at the airport terminal in frustration. “What are we supposed to do here to amuse ourselves?”

  The Santa Barbara Airport terminal is a tiny Spanish style structure with white stucco, red tile roof and tile floor. It isn’t really sectioned in any way. The boarding area is merely roped off from the lobby that acts as central location for ticketing, baggage and security check. You can see the interior ticket counter from the front curb. There is only one restaurant and one store within. There is very rarely ever a crowd. Never any excitement. So Santa Barbara and the morning has gone badly. Rene is feeling miserable from partying the night before, Maria took us to the airport instead of Jack, and thick morning fog has delayed all the planes.

  I sink on the concrete bench. “We could count the cars as they pass.”

  Rene gives a disgruntled laugh. “There are no cars, Chrissie.”

  She is fidgety and irritable. I’m selfishly pleased she is so out-of-sorts. By the time she woke, she forgot to ask the details of where I was last night. Another secret I don’t want to share with Rene. If I share it, she’ll pick it apart minute by minute in her hyper-analytical way until she has pointed out every mistake I made in my encounter with Alan Manzone.

  “We can go upstairs to the restaurant,” I offer.

  “If I eat I’ll throw up.”

  She looks around the terminal again. Her eyes fix on Steve.

  “Hey, Stevie, anything fun happen here lately?”

  Steve the Valet looks up from his wooden valet stand. It’s really bitchy, but that’s what we call him: Steve the Valet. We’ve never asked his last name. And it must be a boring job and he probably makes no tips. How many people could possibly want their bags carried when you can see the drop-off counter from the curb? He’s worked here forever even though he is only in his early twenties. Rene likes to pass the minutes annoying poor Steve while we’re stuck waiting.

  Rene sashays over to him. “Anything interesting in your world of airport curb convenience?”

  That was snotty. Steve just shrugs. He’s a nice guy. I don’t know why Rene is always so mean to him. We ran into him one night downtown in a club. Rene has been rude to him ever since.

  Steve looks at me. “John Travolta flew in last week. He’s a pretty cool guy. Do you know him, Chrissie?”

  I shake my head. Steve thinks that everyone famous knows everyone famous, and it was a subtle put down toward Rene, to look pass her and talk to me.

  Steve starts to arrange his baggage tickets. He’s trying to ignore Rene. She leans into him at the valet stand. “Hey, how’d you like to go into the luggage sort area and have a little fun, Steve? It’s not like you’re going to miss a tip.”

  “There is one hell of a Lear jet parked on the private strip,” Steve says only to me. “Been waiting to take off all morning. It must belong to someone who is somebody. If y
ou go upstairs to the restaurant and get a table on the terrace you should be able to see who it is when they arrive.”

  He wants me to get rid of Rene for him. I smile. “How’s school going?”

  “Finish this quarter and then I’m out of here. I’m going to grad school at UCLA.”

  “LAX. Much better airport. You can further you career.” Rene says.

  A car enters the airport drop-off loop. Rene runs the four steps to the curb and holds out her thumb. God, she is obnoxious this morning. The car drives past. Rene laughs uproariously. She can be so childish at times.

  She sinks down beside me on the bench. “Wow, that was fun. Now what, Chrissie?”

  I try to focus on my book. I’ve got an entire carryon full of books I have to read before break is over, since I’ve procrastinated most of the quarter because I spent most of my hours preoccupied and teary over my break-up with Brad. But I don’t really feel like reading and who the hell ever feels like reading Chekhov? Why did I pick Chekhov from the book list? I hate Chekhov. I turn a page.

  Rene is walking along the mow-strip like a gymnast on a balance beam. We really are an odd match as friends. I’m sitting beside a cello reading Chekhov, and she finished the entire spring semester reading list in one week, got a perfect score on her SATs, and is now flashing her panties at Steve the Valet, though pretending it’s an accident each time she pretends to wobble on her beam.

  I hear a car in the drop-off loop. Rene jumps off her beam and is back at the curb again. It’s a Town Car with tinted windows, from the local limo service, and now Rene is really amped since it must be Mr. Lear Jet. She has her leg out toward the road this time and is doing a little swish with her hips as she holds out her thumb. The car moves past her and continues on its way to the turn in for the tarmac.

  “Maybe I should have flashed a little?” Rene jerks at her shirt. She looks at Steve. “What do you think?”

  Steve nods his head toward the road. “I think flashing your panties worked. He’s coming back around.”

  “HOLY SHIT!” Rene shouts. She laughs and drops down beside me on the bench. She tries to look innocent. “Oh god, oh god, oh god don’t let it be a friend of my parents,” she whispers to herself.

  A little late to worry about that, Rene. It could very well be a friend of the Thompsons. The limo crowd in Santa Barbara is definitely their set. No one travels by limo here. Such a pretentious thing to do when everything in town is only five minutes away.

  The Town Car stops. The door opens before the driver can come around to open it. I focus on my book.

  “Holy shit,” Rene whispers again.

  “Chrissie?”

  A low voice, sexy and surprised. Holy shit is right. Alan Manzone is above me, staring down at me after Rene just flashed him her panties. How awful is that?

  I shake my head to gather my wits. “Hello Mr. Whoever You Are.”

  He laughs. “I thought I’d be Alan after last night.”

  Rene’s mouth drops. I feel my cheeks burn. To distract myself from Rene, who is behind him mouthing the words ‘pool house,’ I reach down and shove my book back into my bag.

  “Why are you sitting on a bench reading while your friend flashes her panties at cars?” he asks, sensual lips curled in amusement. “You left for the airport hours ago. I expected you to be halfway to New York by now.”

  “Fog delay. You must be the private jet. How nice it must be to have the plane waiting for you and not to have to worry about the pesky delays of commercial travel.”

  “Yes, non-proletarian travel does have its perks,” he acknowledges.

  I glance behind him at Rene. She is really irritated with me because I haven’t introduced her. Before I can introduce her, he’s back at his car barking orders at the driver. Suddenly Alan’s luggage is pulled out and he’s gesturing for Steve to collect all the bags.

  I stand up. “You know you’ve exited in the wrong place. The private entrance for non-proletarian is down there.”

  He gives the airport a once-over. “It doesn’t look like it makes much of a difference here.”

  Steve is grabbing all the bags: Rene’s, mine, Alan’s.

  “Wait,” I protest. I rush over to Steve. “Leave those. Those are ours.”

  “You’ll travel with me to New York, Chrissie,” he says. “I won’t leave you sitting on a bench in an airport.”

  Whoa…. Did Alan Manzone really just invite us to travel to New York with him?

  “Really, we can’t impose.”

  Rene is practically having a seizure behind his back from that.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Can’t or won’t? And it’s no imposition. I’m going to New York, Chrissie.”

  Of all the reasons not to accept, the one that claims me isn’t the one I expect. Alan hasn’t factored in what six hours trapped in a private plane with Rene will be like for him. And I find that I don’t want him to find out, and I don’t want Rene, who gets every guy she wants, to get him.

  “I won’t travel with you,” I say, ignoring Rene’s eyes that are now flashing at me.

  He raises an eyebrow. He rubs his chin with a long index finger then runs his hand through his hair. “Did I do something that offended you last night?”

  He looks unsure and Rene is listening mouth open.

  “No. I enjoyed talking with you last night.” It’s the truth, but I need to send Alan on his way without us or I will be a mile high with Rene all over him. I know I’m being petty in that petty girl way, protecting my turf that isn’t even my turf, and having really unkind thoughts about my best friend. “Listen, you don’t have to do one of those ‘be nice to Jack’s daughter’ kind of favors. I was the one who behaved badly last night. I knew who you were the second my eyes opened and I thought it would be fun...”

  His finger presses on my mouth to stop me. Oh crap, I’m in nervous chatter mode. Why is he smiling?

  “Shush. Will you let me get in a word, Chrissie? You’re not confessing anything I don’t know. Your entire face lit up when you opened your eyes. It’s not a look I’m unfamiliar with. I knew you were playing and I played along. I just wanted to talk to you. Have a reasonable conversation without all the bullshit. I played along. I think it worked out very well.”

  Oh crap, he saw right through every part of my game last night. I feel as though my knees are about to buckle.

  He runs his index finger down my cheek. “This is not a ‘be nice to Jack’s daughter’ gesture. I like you, Chrissie. I consider us friends.”

  I blink rapidly. “OK.”

  He nods. “Good. Let’s get your things.”

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak because I can feel that stupid crooked smile on my face, the lopsided one I can’t control that I get only when I’m really happy.

  Alan turns to face Rene. “I’m Alan Manzone.”

  “Rene Thompson.” She sounds stunned. I’ve never seen Rene lost for words before.

  Those black eyes burn into her before he shifts away with hardly a look. Wow, no one ever looks away from Rene so dismissively. She is beautiful, like stop cars on State Street beautiful. All guys love Rene.

  “It’s a long flight. I need to sleep,” Alan says to Rene over his shoulder. “If you must speak to me call me Manny. You call me Alan I’ll have you tossed from the plane even if we’re at twenty thousand feet.”

  I’ve never seen Rene’s eyes so large. Rene cowed by a guy. I never expected to see that.

  It is really very bad of me to enjoy her discomfort. I feel myself smiling. “What will you do to me if I call you Alan?”

  He grins. “You get tossed from the plane if you call me Manny.”

  Oh my. There was definitely something in his voice when he said that and I feel my crooked smile growing larger. I bite my lip. “Your own nicely organized system?”

  “Yes, my own nicely organized system,” he responds, and there is a pleasant, secretive note to that comment.

  He leans over for my book bag and hands it to m
e. He picks up my cello and gestures to Steve. We walk through the airport amid heavy stares, as Steve guides us to the private tarmac exit.

  The pilot is outside the plane finishing pre-flight check and the co-pilot is by the stairs. He crosses the tarmac to Alan. “Welcome back, Manny. We’re ready to roll whenever you’re ready to roll. Tower gave us clearance an hour ago.”

  It must be his plane. His crew. They are friendly and familiar with each other. Steve is loading our suitcases in the luggage bay. The co-pilot takes my cello and trots up the stairs. The pilot waits for us to board. Alan gestures for me to go ahead of him, but Rene rebounds back into her old self, and runs up the steps before me, and then turns back to the airport terminal, doing a little swish with her hips. “We are independently destitute princesses again. I could get used to this, Manny. Even if you aren’t really my type.”

  God, why does she have to be this way? Why does she have to embarrass me? She disappears into the cabin in a cloud of laughter.

  Alan arches a brow. “Independently destitute princess?”

  I shrug. “Rich girls without money.”

  “Oh.” He rakes a hand through his hair. I stare as his hair floats down around his face and shoulders. He makes a graceful gesture of his arm. “We should board. After you.”

  He has such pretty manners. You see none of that in his public persona. Obnoxious. Arrogant. Self-absorbed. Yes, he is right about how the press sees him. But he is sensitive, sophisticated, educated, and elegant. He isn’t at all the type of guy I thought he would be.

  At the top of the short flight of steps I surreptitiously gaze back at him. I go crimson.

  “Are you all right?” Alan is staring at me. I stopped on the steps for no reason. “You really don’t like to fly, do you?”

  I smile and shake my head and continue on. I stare carefully down at the steps. The light touch of his hand against my back is like an electric shock wave all through my flesh. Every move of his body is graceful and nerve-poppingly quiet, but each touch zapping and potent. He’s like the ocean. He can lure you in quietly and then drown you.

  Desperately struggling for my equilibrium, I focus on the interior of his jet. The interior of the jet is luxurious, with comfy cream-colored leather seats and polished wood tables, with a conservatively dressed flight attendant standing in wait just for him. But it is also a traveling trashcan. There is stuff absolutely everywhere: instruments, stacks of mail on the long bench seat, clothing. I start to laugh. If he were some guy living in a car, this is exactly what it would look like. What a strange thing to find. What a strange contradiction.