The Lion's Den(66)
Summer sits in the back of the tender next to John, her eyes fixed on the sea as we push away, but the rest of us are jovial. Brittani starts a reprise of “Summer Nights,” and everyone joins in until John has Vinny silence us.
The twinkling lights of the boat recede on the horizon and the music grows ever farther away, until all that’s left is the throbbing of the tender motor and the slap of the waves as we skate over the water.
(seven months ago)
Los Angeles
It was sometime after we ate the mushrooms that I noticed the hole in the sky. A distinct black pinhole in the powder blue, like someone pricked it. How had I never seen it before? Maybe it was only a satellite. Or maybe it was the drugs. Was it moving? Watching us? I tried to sit up, but couldn’t coordinate the muscles required to do so. “There’s a hole,” I said, but it just sounded like galumph, galumph, like everything else.
Galumph, galumph, galumph, galumph. Why did everything sound the same? Maybe the sound of the universe wasn’t Om, but galumph.
I could feel the top of Hunter’s head touching mine, like we were conjoined twins who shared a brain. I endeavored to send him a message. “Galumph, galumph,” he said.
We both collapsed in giggles. When our laughter subsided, the sky had darkened, and the palm trees were lit from below by the streetlights.
“It looks like a movie set,” I said, glad my words were coming out like words.
“We’re the stars of the movie,” he agreed.
A scuffling drew our attention to the hatch that led down to my apartment, and a blond head emerged. Summer climbed out onto the roof, no easy feat while wearing her private-jet stewardess outfit—a tight, collared navy-blue dress with the gold logo of the company she worked for pinned above her heart, a silk Burberry scarf around her neck. “What are you guys doing up here?” she asked.
“Shroomies.” Hunter waved the bag of iridescent fungi in her direction. “Want some?”
“No thanks.”
She turned to go back inside, but I noticed that she was holding a bottle of water, and I desperately needed a sip. “Wait,” I called, pointing urgently at her water. “I need a sip.”
She traversed the distance and handed me the bottle. I stared at it, unsure what to do with it. She sighed and opened the top for me. “Do you need me to pour it down your throat, too?”
I grabbed the bottle and guzzled it until Hunter snatched it from me and finished it off. “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow,” I managed, proud of my ability to string together a coherent sentence.
“Trip got shortened.” She sat in one of the folding chairs Hunter had dragged up, kicked off her shoes, and began massaging her feet. “But I got a job offer from the client.”
“Good!” I said. I was finding it incredibly difficult to focus on what she was saying, but I knew I should be pleased. I searched for the next logical question. “Who?”
“His name is John Lyons, and he owns this huge company that invests in everything from real estate to movies. He sold his jet and has been waiting for his new one to be finished, which is why he was flying with JetSafe. But he wants me to come on this trip with him to Japan, Singapore, and Bali, and then we’ll figure out the contract if it’s a fit.”
I wondered if this meant that she would finally move off my couch, or rather, out of my bed, but was unable to formulate the question in any intelligible way, so simply nodded and smiled in what I hoped was a supportive manner.
“The Benjamins!” Hunter exclaimed. Summer looked at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “The Benjamins?” He carefully changed his inflection, turning the statement to a question, and I understood he clearly wanted to know how much the job paid, but she wasn’t getting it.
“How much does it pay?” I interpreted.
She shrugged. “We haven’t worked out the details, but his assistant told me that he pays really well, and he’d give me a signing bonus after our first trip.”
I could feel her sobriety rubbing off on me, erasing the effects of the shrooms. A little annoying considering how difficult it had been to obtain them. Perhaps I could just take a break, flip to the serious channel, and match Summer’s vibration to converse with her. Surely it would take only five minutes of intense concentration before she’d go back downstairs and I could return to the movie Hunter and I were starring in, which was obviously a stoner comedy with no role for Serious Summer.
Focus. “Did you see Eric while you were in New York?” I asked like a totally sober adult.
Though she’d never admit it, I knew Eric had broken her heart when he moved to New York a few weeks ago, effectively ending whatever was left of their relationship. She’d quickly rebounded with an Italian clothing designer, but that had also fizzled quickly, leaving her truly single for the first time in years. Eric’s departure, combined with the horrible thing that happened with Three, had changed her. Sharpened her somehow.
She nodded. “He wants me to move there and live with him, of course, but it’s not happening.”
I could see the lie hanging in the air between us like a black cloud, so thick I could almost reach out and touch it. Why did she feel the need to lie to me? It was so stupid. Then, of course, she wasn’t aware I could see her lie; also, she knew nothing of my afternoon with Eric or our budding friendship. His fault, not mine. I never planned to talk to him again after our kiss, but it wasn’t like I was gonna unfollow him on social. What was the harm? His accounts were mostly art stuff, and he had thousands of followers, so it was easy to lurk without engaging. I noticed he started following me back after that day in his loft. Likes here and there followed—totally public, nothing illicit, and anyway, Summer wasn’t on social media. Then he started direct messaging me, and it would have been rude not to reply, right? I may be many things, but rude is not one of them. And it was mainly just about stupid stuff like a movie he saw or a book I read or a meme that reminded one of us of the other. It was foolish, I knew. Extremely foolish. Sure, we were “just friends,” but if Summer ever found out, she’d straight-up kill me. She’d said it herself. The thought brought me crashing back down to the roof, where Summer was now lying to Hunter.