The Lion's Den(64)
I snort. “My friend.”
“Lemme guess. She’s totally smitten with her sugar daddy. It’s true love.”
“Let’s just say she’d do anything for him.”
“Full disclosure, my mom can’t stand her,” he whispers. “Or John. She’s philosophically opposed to gold-digging as a career choice.”
I haven’t so much as said a bad word about Summer this entire trip, but the wine and the spliff have loosened my tongue, and I’m thrilled to have someone to confide in. “I swear she wasn’t always like this. Or maybe she was. I don’t know. Money does strange things to people. That, or I’m a terrible judge of character.”
“Money doesn’t change people,” he reflects. “It only magnifies the qualities that were already there.”
I nod, thinking about the Summer I used to know. She always found her validation in men, even when we were sixteen. “That makes sense.”
“I’ve seen it over and over with the owners of the companies my dad buys,” he expounds. “Money allows them to be who they truly are, without restriction. Someone generous becomes super generous; someone with insecurity becomes a super dick.”
“You’re very observant.”
“I’ve been watching people court my parents my whole life. Your friend’s sugar daddy is really only here to get money out of my dad. They’re not friends; their ideals are diametrically opposed. And my dad’s never gonna invest in the project he’s proposing.”
“How do you know?”
“John’s already burned him once, and now he wants to completely destroy a town that’s hundreds of years old, upending the lives of all the people who have lived there for generations, to make way for an incorporated luxury town and resort for the superrich. My parents have spent my life teaching me the importance of strengthening and giving back to communities, not destroying them. Not to mention you’d have to consider the environmental impact of a development of that scale. The ecosystem of this area is very delicately balanced.”
Sounds familiar. “I think I’ve heard him discussing that project the past few days.”
“He’s already bought most of the town at ludicrously low prices and run the rest out with threats of imprisonment for withholding property and all kinds of other made-up charges.”
“How can he do that, legally?” I ask.
“You can do anything with enough money.”
I think of Summer and what she’s gotten away with.
“Wait.” He jumps to his feet. “You said earlier you were Sandy in Grease. So do you sing?”
I nod. “When I’m drunk enough.”
“I play the piano. I can play anything. Like, anything. Come on.”
My body tingles from the hash as he pulls me to my feet and across the sunken living room to the grand piano. I’m on a yacht in the Mediterranean and life is good. Tonight has finally felt like a vacation. I curl my toes in the plush carpet as Michael lifts the shiny black top of the piano and takes a seat on the bench. “A grand on a boat,” he says, playing arpeggios. “What a terrible extravagance. So much damage from the salt air, you have to pitch them overboard every couple of years.”
“Is that true?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Makes for a good story, though, doesn’t it? You know this one?”
He starts into “Fly Me to the Moon.” I spin, my arms outstretched like wings. “A few steps higher.”
He scales up, and I start in, singing as much of the song as I know, which is more than I realized.
“Bellissimo!” He claps. “What do you like to sing? Throw it at me.”
“‘God Bless the Child’?”
He throws his head back in laughter as he plays the opening notes. “What are you trying to say?”
I join him, and before long Marlena wanders in with the Italian couple who were seated across from her. She lights up to see us playing. “I knew I gave you piano lessons for a reason. You have?” She raises two fingers to her mouth in the international mime for joint.
He extracts the spliff from his pocket with one hand, the other never leaving the keys, and the Italian man lights it for Marlena. Michael and I are warmed up now—flying, in perfect sync. He seamlessly flows into “Summer Nights,” and I squeal with delight. We camp it up as Sandy and Danny as the other dinner guests begin to file in.
Wendy dances coquettishly with Leo while Brittani and Amythest become our backup dancers. The Italian couple joins Leo and Wendy, and the others drape themselves across the furniture or lounge on pillows on the floor, incapable of supporting themselves after the generosity of our hosts. John and the goons are missing, but I notice Summer on the couch with Claire, her platinum hair looking yellow in the lamplight, the rocks in her ears and the big stupid not-a-diamond on her finger glittering as she mechanically nods her head to the music. She has a lipstick stain on her perfect white teeth, and there’s something sour about her smile.
The crew brings in tiramisu that looks divine, but I’m having too much fun singing to take a break to eat. Brittani dances like a bull in a china shop, while Amythest gyrates in the light, clearly not wearing any undergarments beneath her dress. The thin pale-blue fabric pulls in such a way that it looks like it wants to slip right off her—which I don’t think anyone would mind, except Summer, of course, who stares daggers at her.