Gray

Chapter 23

The sun is coming up but we're still awake. She lies next to me, in all her glory; the morning light is soft and blue and makes her skin glow. I want to trace the freckles on her shoulders into constellations. I want to map every square inch of her. She smokes a cigarette and looks up at the ceiling, casually stroking my leg, sighing. I kiss the top of her head to keep up the illusion. She keeps excusing herself to the bathroom and I know how it goes. 

I fall asleep and have the most insane dreams. She shakes me awake a few hours later, her face hovering above mine. She tells me she's been watching me, says it was adorable. The ash- tray by the chair backs up her story. I don't think she's slept—I don't know, she could have— and she's still as wired and lean as she was last night. She tells me we're going to a hotel, and I don't understand why, but I agree. I have to. I take a shower and put on the same clothes I wore the previous night. We barrel back down the hill in her SUV, and at least three cars are trailing us, photographers who accelerate around blind curves and try to overtake us, try to box us in. They dutifully fall back into line with the approach of oncoming traffic, then attempt to zoom ahead again when the road is clear. She is laughing and calling them "fuckers." It is the most pointless car chase I have ever been a part of. 

We walk to the coffee shop in the hotel lobby, making our way through a wall of even more photographers, all of who seemed to know we'd be lunching here. She is careful not to grab my hand as we navigate past the lenses. Inside, we take a seat that's near enough to the window—a happy accident—and everyone in the place notices. They're all either blatantly staring at us or trying hard to make it look as if they were not. Either way it makes my skin crawl. I hide my eyes in the shoulder of her jacket. We sit next to each other—not across from each other—at a booth. Outside, the photographers trample the shrubbery to take our picture. She pretends not to notice. I can't do the same. 

"Should we, you know, move?" I ask. 

"It's fine," she says flatly, like I've let her down. Then she strokes my hair with her hand, laughs at nothing in particular. It is a great photo op.

I struggle to stay awake, but we're both so fucking out of it. She's high on whatever comes out of that little bag and goes up her nose in the bathroom. I'm just along for the ride. I am aware of exactly what we are, and exactly what this is. Business, pure and simple. A way to make the tabloids. "Who Is Her New Man?" the headlines will scream. If only they knew I'm just her man for the day, someone preselected to give her the edge her career needs. Her "rocker boyfriend," as the tabloids will put it. The waitress comes by and I order a ginger ale. I pull my hood over my head and kiss her neck to keep up the act. The hotel manager lowers the screens on the windows now, as a courtesy to her. It's feeding time at the zoo. 

After lunch, we go up to her suite at the hotel. She has it reserved for all of infinity. I look around at all the furniture and mirrors and artfully arranged flowers and realize this is probably as close as I'll ever get to domesticity. She disappears to the bathroom again, and I follow her down the hallway, my feet padding on the cold wooden floor. Through a crack in the door I watch her shadow move. She runs the tap so I won't hear her snorting up the little lines. I'm not sure why she bothers with all the mystery. I already know exactly who she is. I think about leav- ing while she's in there, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I am fascinated by all of this, by her, because deep down I suspect she's just another sad, lonely girl. I think I can make her happy, can rescue her from her life and take her someplace far away. It is the hero in me. The ego. She turns off the tap and I slip back down the hall, sit in a chair and pretend to be interested in the latest issue of LA Magazine, which they always have in places like this. She walks into the room wearing only a bathrobe, traces her finger across my shoulders as she heads for the bedroom. She opens the robe a bit, and her golden shoulder peeks out of it. I dutifully follow her in. 

She lies on the bed, the robe unfurled around her like a flag. Old Glory. I stand in the doorway and want to believe that this is going to be something more than it is. Only I know it's not. She tells me she has condoms. It is like signing a contract. Initial here . . . and here. Notarized. Filed. One copy each for our attorneys. The hero in me dies a tragic death, as heroes tend to do. We complete a fruitful and successful business transaction while the photographers wait for us downstairs. 

Later, as she sits on the floor by the bed, smoking a cigarette and talking to me about Tran- scendental Meditation (or, as she calls it, "TM") and how it "saved my life" or something, I get up and start getting dressed. She stubs her cigarette out and asks me where I'm going, and I tell her I've got to split. As I'm buckling my belt, she crawls across the room to me, wraps herself around my legs, looks up at me with hungry eyes, and purrs, "Sta-ayyy." I tell her I can't, that I've got to get back home, and I step through her grasp. You can tell this doesn't happen to her often. As I'm pulling on my shirt and walking out of the bedroom, she sits on the edge of the bed and pouts, legs crossed, then lights another cigarette.

"You don't have to do this, you know." She exhales. "You don't have to prove a point to me." 

I tell her I'm not trying to prove any point, that I've just got to get back to my place. We both know that's a lie, but I can't stand being here any longer, trapped in this penthouse with her. I don't want to be a part of this anymore. I don't want to be pulled back down by her, don't need another addiction to (mis)handle. I'm heading out the door when she shouts that she'll call me, and then she cautions, "Leave out the back . . . it'll be easier that way." 

I take the freight elevator down and exit the hotel through the kitchen. A couple of Mexican kids in aprons are smoking out by the loading dock. As I walk by, they smile at me slyly. I'm probably not the first guy to leave this way. I walk a few blocks up to Sunset, call the Disaster, but he doesn't answer his phone. I hail a cab by a gas station and ride back to my place, making the driver take me back by the front of the hotel before we head into the canyon. Photographers are still out there, leaning on the hoods of cars, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee out of paper cups. Their lives are one long stakeout. For the first time, I feel sort of sorry for her.

I try calling the Disaster again, but it goes straight to voice mail. He might still be at her house, asleep with a model wrapped around him and a smile on his face. But as the cab pulls up to our place, I see him on the front porch curled up in a wicker chair, asleep. I can hear him snoring as I walk up the dusty driveway. I kick a stone at the porch, but he doesn't stir. I shout his name . . . nothing. He finally wakes up as the cab rattles back down the canyon; a dry, sick- ly grin crawls across his stubbled face. He looks sunburned and ragged, as if he'd spent the day crawling through the Sahara. He's out on the porch because, last night, he lost both his keys and his phone.

"Ah think one of them girls musta taken 'em," he drawls, scratching his stomach. "Or maybe I lefem at th' house. You think we can go back there again tonight?" 

I laugh and say that we probably won't be going back there anytime soon. As we go inside, he pats me on the back and chuckles, "Boy, whata night. . . ." I can tell he's aching to continue, but he knows that maybe right now isn't the best time to relive past glories. He is a good friend. The sun is slowly setting in the canyon, and the rocks are glowing electric red. We open the win- dows and sit on metal folding chairs—the only real furniture we've got in the place—listen to the birds settling into the trees for the night, greeting each other with their familiar calls. Soon the coyotes will emerge from their dens and scurry through the brush; the owls will start up their mysterious, sonorous racket. The moon will come up, will shine yellow on the canyon floor. She will still be up in our penthouse, alone, or with some other guy, it doesn't matter. I will still be sitting here, in this metal folding chair, with my best friend in the entire world. Maybe we will go out and explore, and maybe the Disaster will finally bag a coyote. Or maybe we won't. We've got plenty of beer and some great stories to tell, when the time is right. I think we both deserve a night in.