He gritted his teeth, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I want to know what you look like with that dress off. I want to take you home with me and tear it off and make love to you until you scream.”
He smirked a little. Like he was making fun of me. Then said, “I want to make music together.”
I was hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Did he really just say that? My lips parted, but I didn’t—couldn’t—say anything.
His eyes traced along my lips, and I bit my lower lip, because I was on the verge of doing something crazy.
“What are you afraid of?” he asked.
“Losing control,” I replied.
“Sometimes losing control can be wicked awesome,” he said.
“And sometimes it’s a disaster. Sometimes it can take your whole life and rip it to pieces. I should go. My date …”
“Screw him.”
“That wasn’t on the agenda for tonight.”
He gave me a wicked grin. “I’m glad.”
“I don’t want to be one of your conquests. I don’t want to be another fucking girl getting screwed—someone your bandmates say was a horrible scene the next morning.”
“I like it when you say ‘fucking.’”
I closed my eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“I do not love you. I don’t even like you.”
“You will,” he said, his voice low and luscious. I could feel the vibration of that voice from my ears all the way down to my feet.
“Maybe,” I whispered. “But not tonight.” So I backed away a foot or two, then turned, and stumbled back through the crowd until I found Barrett. I plastered a fake smile on my face. “Sorry about that. We should go.”
CHAPTER NINE
I was trouble (Crank)
It was close to two in the afternoon before I got clear of work, drove home and showered, then headed out for Dad’s. I was in my new car, an ’85 Toyota that ran surprisingly well.
Another of Julia’s hidden talents. When I got the final quote for repairing the car, I almost had a heart attack. Five thousand dollars to repair a car I’d paid a thousand for? No chance of that happening. She didn’t want to get the insurance company involved, or her parents, I suspect. She met me on Wednesday afternoon after her classes were out, and we went car shopping. Which made me wonder just what kind of world she came from, that she could drop a thousand dollars on a car without her parents noticing.
The first one I liked, she’d vetoed, pointing out coolant on the oil dipstick. “Means the head gasket is cracked,” she said, matter-of-factly. The second car met a similar fate: rusted and bent frame. It had been in an accident at some point and repaired.
We finally found a car being sold by an old widow in Malden. Damn near perfect condition, despite being twenty years old. While I stood there, open mouthed, she negotiated the woman down from twelve hundred to an even thousand, and I drove out of there the happy owner of a much better car than I’d started out with.
We stopped at a coffee shop on the edge of Somerville, briefly. “Where did you learn so much about cars?” I asked. I was flabbergasted. She was a diplomat’s kid … not the person you’d expect to know about engines.
“My bodyguard in middle school was a car enthusiast. He used to keep a couple hotrods in the embassy garage in Brussels.”
Her bodyguard in middle school. Yes, she really said that.
“So … he taught you about cars?”
She shrugged, a rare open smile on her face. “His name was Corporal Lewis … he was in the Marines. And I was a very lonely kid, so he let me tag along whenever he was working on the cars.”
“So, you like, know how to change your own oil?”
Her mouth quirked up on the left side, the same peculiar little smile she’d used the other day when she called me Dougal. “I could rebuild an engine with the right tools.”
That was wicked hot.
We didn’t discuss my declaration of lust last weekend, nor her date. Though I was seriously dying, wanting to know what happened after she left. And not wanting to know. Because if that English prick touched her, I was going to kill him, and that wouldn’t be good at all.
But she cut the coffee short, saying she had to get back and study for a big exam the next morning. I know that, in theory, you have to take lots of exams and stuff in college, but you want to know the truth? I think she was just dodging me.
Whatever. I had awesome wheels, and I was full of crazy energy because I hadn’t gotten laid in like … three weeks? That’ll drive you insane. The result being, I was both energetic and crazy as all hell on the way to my dad’s on Saturday. And I’d verified by phone the night before that Julia was going to be there, which was going to make me crazier.
I needed mental help. It was starting to get cold out, like twenty degrees, so I rolled down my power windows to cool off, lit a cigarette, and cranked up Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” on the stereo and sang along at the top of my lungs.
Okay. Time to get serious and figure out just what the hell was going on in my head.
Fact: As a rule, an often stated and confirmed rule, I don’t chase girls. They chase me.
Fact: I don’t get involved. You want a quick lay, well, I’m your guy. But only for the night.
Fact: I’ve got a brother to watch out for, a band to drive forward to success, a job flipping burgers, and I don’t have time to get emotionally tied up in some girl.
Fact: Six nights running, I’d dreamed about Julia, and that hot retro dress she wore Saturday night for her date.
Her date with some British guy in an expensive suit.
Oh, shit.
Next thing you know, I was going to be turning off the punk, listening to frickin’ Barry Manilow and the Carpenters and Aaron Neville. I’d cry my heart out at sob-story movies and send her chocolates and roses and tiny pearl earrings. I was so screwed. Because no matter how much I tried to think about Alicia or Candy or … whatever that girl’s name was with the leopard pumps … all I could think about was Julia.
This was not healthy, for a number of reasons.
Number one: refer back to the facts above.
Number two: she’d made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in me. She was up for me being her tool for one night but only until the sun came up.
And for some reason, with her, that wasn’t good enough. I wanted more.
She had, however, left a tiny little door open the other night. Maybe, she said. But not tonight. What the hell did that mean?
I wasn’t looking forward to her being there for Sean’s birthday party. But other than me, the next youngest person who was coming would be like fifty. So having her there meant a lot to him. And to be honest: I’d do anything for Sean. Even stomach the first girl since middle school that I wanted, but who didn’t want me back.
Needless to say, I was in just a wonderful mood when I drove up to my dad’s house. Looked like I was the first person there, at least. My mother would be there later, of course. I didn’t see her often, didn’t talk to her often, and that was just as well, because those conversations rarely went well. I’d be on my best behavior today, for Sean. Tony D’Amato, my dad’s partner would be there, and Mrs. Doyle, who always got wicked flustered when I flirted with her, which I did incessantly because it annoyed my dad, amused me, and made her happy. And Julia.
Not much of a party, but Sean didn’t have friends.
I got out of the car, crushed my cigarette, and headed up the back steps, backpack slung over my shoulder.
When I walked in, things looked normal. Sean was sitting on the couch, curled up with a comic. I walked over to him and leaned over, kissing him on the top of his head. “Hey, bud. You doing all right? Happy birthday.”
He ignored me, which I pretty much expected. I started to walk to the kitchen, and Sean said to my back, “Did you bring Julia?”
I looked over my shoulder. Sea
n was still looking down at his magazine. “She’s coming separately. But she said she’d be here.”
He didn’t answer. It worried me that he’d become attached to her so quickly. Sean didn’t need that kind of letdown.
I headed on into the kitchen. Dad was in there, wearing his “World’s Best Mom” apron, just taking the cake out of the oven. Gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, because Sean was on a special diet. But, believe it or not, it would be pretty good. We’d all learned over the years to work around some things, and making food out of ingredients like tapioca and rice flour had become par for the course.
“Hey, Dad.”
“About time you showed up, punk.”
“Good to see you, too,” I replied, zipping open my backpack. Inside, I had two gifts for Sean, both of them newly released video games. “Cake looks good.”
He grumbled, setting it on the counter to cool. “Your mother will be here shortly. I want you on your best behavior.”
I took a deep breath. “I promise, Dad,” I said in a low voice. “Sean doesn’t need any arguments.”
“I don’t either,” he said equally quiet. Sean had uncanny hearing and would bring up conversations he hadn’t been in the room for, sometimes days later. “I’ve had it up to here with all of that. I wish you’d learn to …”
“To what, Dad? To forgive my mom walking out? Leaving you alone struggling with Sean?”
“Why not? You left at about the same time, kid.”
“I couldn’t take it any more,” I said.
He just stared at me. Which sucked, because about that, he was right. I was in trouble all the time back then. Drinking, partying, sex, drugs. Got picked up by the cops repeatedly, which is pretty embarrassing for your dad when he’s one of them.
I looked down at the table and clenched my fist. “I’ve done a lot of growing up since then, Dad.”
“I know you have, Dougal.”
“Why don’t we change the subject to something more cheerful?”
“What do you have in mind?” he said. “Funerals?”
“War?” I asked.
“Poverty,” he replied.
“The Simpsons,” I said.
He cracked a smile, and I grinned back. My dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye. But he was my hero, all the same.
I heard a knock on the back door.
“I got it,” I said.
I stood up, and just as I did so, the back door opened, and I heard Tony’s booming voice, “Where’s the birthday boy?”
My dad shouted, “Oh, Christ, who the hell let a dago in my house?”
Tony shouted back, as he thumped his way down the hall, “Some drunken mick invited me over.”
A moment later, Tony entered the kitchen. Tall, with salt and pepper hair, he and my dad had been partners for nearly ten years. During the worst of the storms in my teenage years, there’s been more than one time when Tony had provided a refuge for me, letting me crash on the couch in his tiny one bedroom apartment off Broadway. Tony and my dad threw ethnic and other insults at each other like bombs, but they loved each other, no question of that.
“Where’s the beer?” Tony asked when he entered the kitchen.
“What, you didn’t bring any?” my dad said. “Christ, Italians are so cheap.”
Tony chuckled. “I was coming to an Irish household, why the hell would I need to bring alcohol?”
I groaned, and my dad cracked up.
“What are you up to, Crank? Still up to no good?”
I shrugged. “Keeping busy with the band. Trying to stay out of trouble.”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when you get a brain transplant,” he responded.
I grinned, and then my dad had to chime in, “Dougal’s girlfriend is coming over for the party.”
“Dad,” I said. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Holy Moses, you got yourself a girlfriend?” Tony asked. “How did that happen?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Then why is she coming to your brother’s birthday party?” my dad asked. He grinned.
“Because you asked her to come?”
“Eghhh, only because you wouldn’t.”
I shook my head. It was going to be a very long afternoon. Tony went rummaging in the fridge for a beer, so I said, “Toss me one, Tony?”
He did, and I sat back in my seat at the table. “What time’s Mom getting here?”
“Soon,” Dad said.
I nodded.
Let me clarify one thing. Yeah, I’ve got way too much hostility toward my mom. It’s not that she was a bad mom. In fact, in some ways I’d say the opposite. She gave me my love of music and started teaching me piano years before I was able to reach the pedals. I’ve got a lot of good memories—of going with her to the park when I was a little kid, of her taking me to the museum, having picnics at the park, going out to Revere Beach. I was probably ten or so when Mom and Dad realized there was a problem with Sean, and the rounds of doctor visits started. Two, sometimes three times a week by the time he was six. Speech therapy, physical therapists, vision therapists, allergists. When he was six, we spent all night in the waiting room at Brigham and Women’s while he was going through a sleep study to determine if he had sleep apnea.
My mom started to fade. That’s the only term I can use. Her temper became shorter over time; she’d lose it over the smallest things. If I left a sock on the floor, that was worth a ten-minute lecture. What kind of example are you setting for your brother? What will your father think? Why can’t you be more responsible?
By the time I was thirteen, my daily existence was trying to stay the hell out of her way. Her face was set in a permanent frown, she was stressed to the hilt, and the mother who had taken me to Revere Beach, the mother who had laughed with me while making cupcakes as a little kid—she had all but disappeared. And it only got worse. I went from being trouble to being invisible. Everything was tied up in Sean: the endless round of doctor visits, therapies and interventions stole both of my parents.
My eighth grade year I got the lead role in the musical, and my parents didn’t show. Sean had a meltdown, and they were tied up dealing with that. I remember standing backstage, peeking through the crack in the curtains, searching and searching for my mom and dad, wondering where they were, wondering why they weren’t there, dreading finding out that my brother had somehow caused them to not be there.
Yeah. I’m not proud of myself. When I think about how I reacted to all that…to be honest, it makes me ashamed. But I was a frickin’ kid and didn’t know any better. When the second act started and my parents still hadn’t shown, I got in my position on the stage. I looked out at the crowd, with too long a pause after my cue. Backstage, they thought I’d forgotten my line and stage-whispered it to me, urgently, as if that would help. But I hadn’t forgotten. I’d forgotten nothing at all. I thought of my parents, both of them, somewhere else, missing the most important thing that had ever happened to me, and I called out in a clear, loud voice, projecting all the way to the back of the auditorium, the title of a Gangsta Rap song I’d been listening to constantly for weeks.
“Fuck the police!”
There were shocked titters in the audience. I saw the horrified faces of parents and laughter from the kids. I grinned and opened my mouth, about to say something else equally offensive, when they dropped the curtain. Thus ended my dramatic career.
Let me tell you, that got my parents’ attention, very effectively. And I learned another very important fact from that experience. Girls think it’s hot when you break the rules. I was grounded for a month, but it was worth it, because I lost my virginity in the art supply closet three days later with Hannah O’Reilly, a hot little redheaded number who thought my performance was worthy of an Oscar.
So, anyway. After that, I was trouble. And the more trouble I was, the more girls were hanging around. I didn’t understand it, but I sure as hell took advantage. But the one thing I counted on, the one thing that
was a constant in my life, even as my trouble got worse and worse, was my mother. I counted on her being there. I counted on her loving me. I counted on her presence. My dad and I were at war—especially by the time I turned sixteen. We fought, we yelled. He would scream at me to get myself under control. I’d push and provoke and pull until he had no patience left. But my mother always calmed us down, always got things back under control, even while she struggled with trying to help Sean.
But then one day, not long after my sixteenth birthday, she was just … gone. And I didn’t see her again until I was almost twenty years old.
Sometimes, deep down, I know that her leaving? It was my fault. Like I said to Dad, I’ve done a fair amount of growing up since then.
That’s why, even though I’d been refusing to call her, I smiled at my mom and gave her a hug when she arrived at the front door.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. “You look so … larger than life now.”
I told I’d missed her, which wasn’t true. I didn’t say a word about her appearance. She looked much more together than the last time I’d seen her, but my mom still looks a good fifteen or twenty years older than Dad does, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, because he’s a lot older than her. Her hair went grey years ago, and she has deep creases around her mouth and forehead. I don’t think I can remember the last time I saw her smile.
“Hello, Sean,” she said. He was on the couch, still reading his book, and didn’t look up and acknowledge her.
I was used to this. Sean just didn’t engage people the way the rest of us do. But my mother’s face fell, and I could tell she was hurt and disappointed. I hoped he’d say something to her before the night was over.
I was still standing there, awkwardly, with my mother, when Julia walked up to the front door. She wore a knee-length black coat and scarf, with gleaming black boots with heels that looked none too safe. Her hair was done up in some kind of fancy braided up-do thing, and the only spot of color on her was a bright pink scarf. I took a deep breath as she approached. Her cheeks were slightly red from the cold, and the color inevitably led to speculation of what she’d look like in bed. I wanted to know, very badly.