Love May Fail

  “I love when you get all nervous and cute,” she says, and then finishes her sandwich.

  When we’re maybe fifteen minutes away, I open my window and turn on the vent, because I’m sweating again.

  “You okay?” Portia asks.

  “Yep,” I say. “Still okay.”

  When we pull into the Mohegan Sun casino and enter the parking garage, Portia says, “Are we going gambling? I didn’t know you liked to play.”

  “I don’t. I never gamble.”

  “Oh, good, because we are entering a casino. What’s going on? There are casinos in our home state. A little place called Atlantic City. Have you heard of it?” she says.

  “Indian chief in a headdress walks into a restaurant and says, ‘I have a reservation,’” I say.

  “Okay, now I know you are nervous about something, because you are making bad—and slightly racist—jokes.”

  “Saw it on a T-shirt once.”

  “What the hell is going on, Chuck?” she says, half laughing.

  “You didn’t like driving with me?” I say as I troll the parking garage for an open spot. “An hour ago you said this was the best day you’d had in years.”

  “But you didn’t even talk dirty to me once in the old man’s Ford,” she says in this pouting voice that really turns me on.

  I smile, pull into a parking spot, and kill the engine. “We made it. Now lean forward.”

  “What?”

  When Portia leans forward, I tilt the seat and pull Tommy’s present out from behind us.

  “The boy wanted you to have this,” I say and hand it to her.

  “Is that supposed to be Tommy and me?” Portia says. “‘Welcome to the family, Portia. You will be a great aunt? Love, Tommy.’ What does that mean?”

  “Open the present.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, and the concerned look on her face makes me even more nervous.

  “Open it.”

  She peels off the paper carefully, trying hard not to ruin Tommy’s artwork, and then—

  “Is he giving me his Too Fast for Love original-pressing vinyl? Is he an idiot? Wait. Why did you drive all the way to Connecticut to give me a Mötley Crüe record?”

  “Because Mötley Crüe is playing this casino tonight, and we have tickets.”

  “Don’t even fuck with me, Chuck Bass.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Original lineup? Vince Neil. Mick Mars. Nikki Sixx. And Tommy Lee? They’re all here?”

  “Yep,” I say, smiling proudly.

  And then Portia’s kissing me.

  When we come up for air, she says, “I’ve wanted to see Mötley Crüe in concert since I was twelve!”

  “I know. That’s why I paid a small fortune for a hotel package that got us good seats.”

  “But what was Tommy talking about? Welcoming me to the family?”

  I pull the little red box out from my pocket, open it, and extend it to her.

  Her face drops, and I can’t tell if her surprise is good or bad.

  “I love you, Portia,” I say, my stupid voice shaking. “I’ve worked really hard to be clean and sober and get my life in order. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So will you marry me?”

  She’s staring at the ring, but she hasn’t said anything yet.

  “Did you want me to get down on one knee?” I say. “Was that important to you?”

  “No,” she says. “It’s not that.”

  “Is the diamond too small?”

  “No! It’s beautiful. Perfect.”

  “Once I get on my feet, in a few years, I can get you a bigger—”

  “This ring is the one I want. This one right here. I never want another ring. You hear me? Never. This one is the one.”

  “Put it on then.”

  Portia looks at me for too long; she takes off her silver chain and puts the ring on it, next to the small goth-looking crucifix she’s been wearing ever since that nun friend of hers who died turned out to be Mr. Vernon’s mother.

  “Why’d you put it there?” I say, worried now.

  She kisses me on the lips, rests her head on my chest, and starts to cry.

  “This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting,” I say.

  “Can you just hold me?”

  I hold her, stroke her hair, massage her back, as she cries quietly with her cheek against my chest. After fifteen minutes or so, she sits up. Her makeup has run down her face, which is bright red now.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I obviously fucked up. Maybe I rushed things a little, but—”

  “I’m going to say yes, Chuck. I am. I just need some time.”

  “Time? Like away from me?” An anger is rising inside of me, and I feel itchy, like I need a fix for the first time in a while.

  “No, time with you.”

  “That’s why I asked you to marry me!”

  “And that’s why I put the ring on my chain.”

  “Why won’t you put it on your finger? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not even technically divorced yet, Chuck.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because you’re perfect for me, and I wish we had met earlier before I fucked up my life. And I’m damaged—and I’m not sure if I will ever be undamaged. And—”

  “I’m damaged too,” I say. “Crazy damaged!”

  “And yet you are so brave—and romantic, putting all of this together,” she says. “So much stronger than me.”

  “So I completely fucked this up. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “No. This is all perfect. Today. You. Perfect for me. And we are going to enjoy this. Mötley Crüe. Shit. It’s like you’re some heavy-metal Prince Charming, making all my dreams come true. I’m the one who’s fucked up. But I’m working on it, and you’re helping more than I deserve. So I’ll wear the ring close to my heart for now, we’re going to get a room here, I’m going to make love to you like never before, we’re going to see the best metal band ever, and then we will continue on together. And at some point, I’m going to put this ring on my finger and marry you. I promise. I fucking promise you, Chuck. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Can you?”

  “So you’re saying that we go on as a couple, you wear the ring around your neck, and at some point in the future—once you sort a few things out—you put the ring on your finger and we get married? That’s your answer.”

  “Yes, that’s my official answer. And you are so getting laid before and after the Crüe concert.”

  “You are a beautiful and mysterious woman, Portia Kane.”

  “You make me believe in good men, Chuck Bass,” she says, but her voice quivers and she starts crying again. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, even though I’m more confused than I thought possible.

  The inside of Mohegan Sun looks like a gigantic futuristic tepee in outer space—like Native Americans built the starship Enterprise and docked it on Connecticut’s Thames River.

  Strolling around the slot machines and blackjack tables are many Jersey Shore–type guys with steroid-inflated muscles and Ed Hardy shirts, but there are also Crüe fans in Harley-Davidson shirts and old concert T-shirts—the band on motorcycles for the Girls, Girls, Girls album is what I see most, but I also spot some Theatre of Pain tragedy and comedy masks and good old upside-down pentagrams on shirts too, with the band’s teased-out hair making them look like they were the inspiration for the costumes in the musical Cats. The original look, the Mötley Crüe I loved best.

  “Look at the moons on the carpet,” Portia says, pointing down at our feet as we pass a poker pit. “This one is the Moon of Strawberries.”

  I look down at a ten-foot-wide circle with three strawberries in it.


  “There are thirteen moons in the Indian year,” she says.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I read it on the wall back there,” she says. “Look, there’s a robotic coyote up on that fake mountain. Its ears are twitching!”

  “Weird!”

  “Kind of awesome,” she says, and loops her arm through mine, pulling herself real close to me. “Let’s go fuck, Chuck.”

  “If you insist,” I say, playing the role, because she’s smiling and seems to be enjoying herself again.

  The whole time we check in, I keep wondering if her putting the ring on her chain is weird. But I keep telling myself not to go down rabbit holes.

  She’s with you.

  Smart women like Portia don’t live with men they don’t love.

  Portia said that she would put the ring on her finger in the future, when she is ready.

  Trust her.

  She lived with her first husband and she HATED him, genius.

  Stop it.

  Don’t fuck this up.

  “Where are you?” Portia says.

  I look around. “I’m in the elevator with you.”

  She kisses me, looks up into my eyes, and says, “You ready to get lucky?”

  “Always,” I say. “We have good seats. About fifteen feet off the corner of the stage. I hear they throw fake blood on the people in the front row, so I decided to go with—”

  “Everything is perfect,” she says, and then kisses me again. “Exactly as I want it. You thought of everything. Everything.”

  The room overlooks the river, and it’s not bad, but a little average for what I paid, although I’m no expert on hotel rooms.

  “You’ve probably stayed in better with your husband, right?” I say.

  Why the hell did you just say that?

  “He never made me this happy—ever,” she says, and when I look into her eyes I know she’s telling the truth, but it doesn’t make me feel any better, knowing that I will never be able to give her what her husband did. I mean, first-grade teachers aren’t ever going to be multimillionaires.

  She’s taking off my clothes now, and then I’m on the bed naked and she’s running her mane of hair up and down my body, which tickles in all the right ways. Portia is way better at sex than I am, which makes me feel rather uncomfortable, because she had to learn all the sex stuff somewhere.

  Don’t think about that.

  Don’t fuck this up.

  It’s already fucked up, I think as the ring around her neck sweeps up and down my abdomen along with her hair and the nun’s little silver Jesus Christ on the cross.

  Just be here.

  Just be happy.

  You’ve made it this far.

  My cell phone starts to ring.

  I ignore it at first, but then I realize it must be my nephew. “I have to make sure it’s not Tommy,” I say. “I promised I’d pick up if he called.”

  She gives me a disappointed look, but nods.

  “Tommy?” I say into the phone. He tells me he’s okay, and I confirm that we are indeed at the hotel.

  Portia is doing a very titillating striptease over by the window, the afternoon sun dancing up and down her naked skin.

  Tommy lets me know that Johnny Rotten is there, and that his mom sent him to his room. “They’re kissing again.”

  “Yuck,” I say.

  He asks if Portia is his aunt yet, and I say, “Still working on it,” before I hang up.

  When I return my attention to Portia, she says, “Nothing turns me on more than an uncle who breaks away from hot steamy sex to make sure his nephew is emotionally taken care of.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “I’m serious,” she says, and then she takes a wild leap and lands on top of me.

  “You pounce like a puma.”

  “Watched a lot of metal videos when I was a little girl,” she says, and before long I’m inside her, and she’s moving on top of me, and I feel hot, overwhelmed, in love, like I don’t deserve this, like I’d do anything to keep it going—and I realize that I haven’t loved anything or anyone like this since I was on junk, that Portia is my new fix, and not just the sex, which is amazing, but just spending time with her, seeing her smile, talking with her.

  She comes, but keeps going for me, and it only takes another thirty seconds or so for me to finish, at which point she collapses on me, and we just lie there, still united.

  “You’re shaking,” she says when she finally picks her head up.

  I don’t know what to say.

  I’m embarrassed.

  “It was such good sex,” I offer.

  She picks up the ring around her neck, kisses it, and says, “Trust me, Chuck Bass. Good things ahead. I just need to do it my way this time. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  She kisses me on the lips. “Now I will shower and make myself look super hot for you . . . and Vince Neil.”

  She winks, and then she’s off me and in the bathroom.

  When she comes out again, her hair’s teased out a little and she’s wearing heavy black eyeliner and raspberry red lipstick. She has on these tight jeans, four-inch heels, and a black tank top. “Not bad for a last-minute pack job and having no idea where the hell we were going, right?”

  “I’m not letting Vince Neil anywhere near you,” I say.

  Because the casino comped us drinks at a restaurant called Tuscany, Portia insists we eat there, which makes me feel like a poor asshole. I tell her we can eat wherever she wants. “It’s your night,” I say. But she insists.

  They seat us at a table for two in front of a fake bald mountain, water flowing over beige rocks—all indoors, of course.

  We are in the mall portion of the casino—I can see a Tiffany’s and a Coach store, and I hope to God Portia isn’t interested in purchasing expensive items tonight, because I don’t have the funds for that. I’ve budgeted enough for concert T-shirts, this dinner, and maybe coffee in the morning. But the name-brand shit her first husband bought her is looking worn and old lately, and I know how much she loves high-end fashion. I also know I will never be able to buy her that stuff on a regular basis.

  I wonder if my financial situation kept her from putting on my ring.

  Portia orders a pink grapefruit Cosmo, and I order a diet tonic water.

  We clink glasses, and Portia says, “To our future.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  We drink.

  Portia says, “Remember the video for ‘Looks That Kill,’ where it’s some postapocalyptic world and there are all of these women running around in loincloths and the boys of Mötley Crüe are herding them into a pen with torches? And then the woman leader comes to free all of the herded women in the pen, which she does, and she seduces the members of Mötley Crüe and even jumps over walls like a superhero?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “And then in the end the Mötley Crüe boys surround her with their fists in the air, and they all disappear into a flaming pentagram?”

  “That’s the best part!”

  “I used to imagine I was that leader of women in the video, the one Mötley Crüe could not herd into a pen. A freer of women. Do you think that made me a feminist even before I knew what the word meant?”

  “Couldn’t tell you for certain,” I say, and then laugh. “But I’ll go with it if it makes you happy tonight.”

  “You think that’s stupid, right?”

  “It was just a music video. It didn’t mean anything,” I say, and then instantly wish I hadn’t, because Portia loves to talk about stuff like this—get all deep and philosophical—and I want her to be happy tonight.

  I’m relieved when she smiles and takes another gulp of her pink drink.

  “As someone who lists Gloria Steinem as
a hero, I probably shouldn’t like Mötley Crüe—a band who will most likely have strippers onstage tonight,” she says. “A band that’s notorious for objectifying women. I tell myself I’m grandfathering Mötley Crüe in, because I listened to them before I knew any better.”

  “Like letting the racism of a beloved uncle slide?”

  “Exactly! This music—Mötley Crüe—it’s our childhood. It’s what we have. It raised us, for good, bad, or indifferent.”

  I glance at the ring hanging around her neck and say, “It’s that for me—but it’s a bit more too. It kept raising me even after I became an adult.”

  I really wish I hadn’t said that, because I don’t want to talk about my past tonight.

  “How so?” Portia asks, and then I know there’s no turning back.

  “I mean, as a former junkie.”

  She cocks her head to the side, sips her pink Cosmo, and says, “Mötley Crüe did do a lot of drugs.”

  “They say Nikki Sixx used to do five thousand dollars’ worth of drugs a day. And that was in the eighties. Can you imagine?”

  “You sound impressed,” she says.

  “Many years of my adult life, I didn’t make five thousand dollars a year.”

  Why did I just say that?

  “But what really impresses me is Nikki Sixx’s sobriety,” I say, and wonder if it sounds too soapbox, too former-drug-addict-turned-reformer. But for some reason I keep on going anyway, maybe because I really believe it. “When I was in rehab, one of the counselors—his name was Grover, which is an unusual name, and he was an unusual guy—he saw me draw a pentagram and the words Mötley Crüe in my notebook, with the little dots over the o and u and he asked me if I had ever seen the Nikki Sixx episode of I Survived. When I said I hadn’t, he pulled out this VHS tape and we watched it together. It was all about how much drugs Nikki Sixx did, how he didn’t even enjoy playing music anymore, didn’t even care that he was a rock star, crashed cars, ended up alone on the holidays, paranoid in a closet, died twice and was brought back to life by an EMT Mötley Crüe fan who gave him adrenaline shots even though he was already pronounced dead. How he didn’t even go to his grandmother’s funeral, because he was so strung out. He was very close with his grandmother apparently. The episode ends with Nikki hitting rock bottom, but then getting clean and discovering that playing music sober could be a rush too. And then he started a charitable organization that helps teen drug addicts. They can learn how to make and produce music. I remember Nikki saying that music can give them a goal, something to focus on. When Grover showed me that episode, something clicked, and I decided if Nikki Sixx could beat addiction and make Dr. Feelgood sober, well, then maybe I could get sober and become an elementary school teacher.”