Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(33)

“Break it down,” he said firmly, his jaw still grinding. “You just said you’d be small time if you didn’t party. You know what, girl? I’ve done everything I could to support you. I lifted you up the minute you got here. And this is the attitude you throw me? You think your * is dipped in gold? Well, f*ck you.”

He turned on his heel and went down the hall just as Rob Devon cut the turn and ran into the men’s room as if his belly were on fire. In seconds, the hallway was silent again.

I dragged myself out the door, and Dean waited for me in the Rolls. I’d walked into the studio wrapped in confidence and love, and I was walking out feeling as if my expensive ride was an ugly appendage, a street sign pointing at my gold-plated cunt. God, I must make such a scene with this stupid car.

“Mrs. Drazen,” Dean said by way of greeting.

“Hi, Dean.”

“Back to the hotel?” He opened the back door.

“Yes, thanks.”

I slid into the pristine comfort of the Rolls. It envelops you, that luxury. The money. The sense of well-being. That was the point, wasn’t it? When the car started, there was no jolt, no rumble, just movement.

I called Jonathan as the streetlights streaked across the night sky, then stopped seamlessly at a stop sign, then started again.

“Hello, Monica,” he said, and I wanted to cry.

“Hi.”

“I see you’re on your way back to the hotel?”

“Is this Dean telling you everything, or do you have a tracking device on me?”

“Yes to both. How are you?”

“Do you know the Rolls doesn’t even obey the law of inertia? Like when Dean stops at the light, my body doesn’t go forward a little. and when he starts again, I can feel it moving, but it’s not like I feel my back against the seat. Did you know that?”

“I never noticed.”

We went through a busy part of town, and I curled into the seat, watching the Saturday night crowds walk the streets. People crossing stared at the car, big packs and smaller groups, dressed for big things and made up for the lights and sounds, a single wave in an ocean of revelry.

“Did you get my present?” he said.

“Yes. I love it. How did you know I needed to write my name on all my tags?”

“Are you all right?”

“What time is it there?” I asked.

“Sun’s just thinking about setting.”

“Is it hot? Is it gloomy? Tell me things.”

“It’s nice. It’s mid-June. Same as always. The marine layer burned off, and I can see… let me look… one two three four five clouds out the kitchen window. One is shaped like a rabbit. One is shaped like a guitar. It makes me think of you.”

“What about the other three? What are they shaped like?”

“Big white turds.”

I laughed. “Did you take your medicine?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“And drink your shit shake?”

“Yes.”

“And did you go for a run?”

“Yes. You never answered my question. Are you all right?”

I sighed. I knew he could hear it. I wanted him to. “I feel, I guess, not lonely. Not alone. Just separate. Separate from you, and separate from everyone here. It’s… I can’t pin it down. I guess it’s not a bad feeling as much as it’s a weird, disconnected feeling. Uncomfortable. I don’t know.”

I could hear him breathing, and the lawn mower outside our house, and the birds in Los Angeles.

“Would you believe me if I said I know how you feel?”

“Yeah.”

Dean pulled up to the hotel. A doorman in a snazzy uniform was ready to open the door before the car stopped without a jolt. The inside of the hotel looked gilded and soft through the glass windows, as if the lights were colored gold.

“Do you have your marker?” Jonathan asked.

“Of course. I’ll treasure it always.”

“Hang up with me then and call back on the tablet. I want to see you.”

Dean opened the door for me, and I hung up.

chapter 21.

MONICA

I’d kicked my shoes off and dropped my bag before calling Jonathan from the iPad. He picked up on the first ring.

“How is the hotel?” he asked.

“It’s a parody of itself.” In the screen of the tablet, I saw he’d moved out to the side patio that overlooked the twinkling grid of the city. “Or a farce. I can’t decide which.” I pouted at him from the edge of the bed.

“I’ll tell Sam you said so.”

“I wanted to stay in D.” I snapped the drapes open. Manhattan was dark and vibrant and closed tight in a granite-and-clay-brick embrace.

“It’s in Alphabet City. There’s piss in the doorways from the seventies. I already don’t like you spending days in a studio in Chinatown.”

“A little grit’s kind of nice.”

“Nice?” He leaned forward in his seat.

“Yeah, nice.” I opened the patio door, holding my tablet out so he could see me.

“Turn the camera around,” he said. “Show me the view.”

I did, then I showed him the street below and the building across Lexington. “Not much to speak of,” I said. “Except, yeah, New York’s kind of fabulous.”