Thanks for the Trouble - Tommy Wallach Page 0,52

living room, a glass tabletop rested on thick cement columns, with a vase of freshly cut roses and a silver bowl of fruit on top (It’s still life, I thought). A couch upholstered in gold and brown lay like a muddy hippopotamus across an Oriental rug, facing the wide maw of a marble-edged fireplace. Shelves that wrapped all the way around the walls had been stocked with the sort of books that could have been film props: leather-bound, ancient, embossed with gold.

I went into the bathroom, which was covered floor to ceiling with tiny white tiles that glimmered like the inside of an oyster. The tub was set in the middle of the room on a platform. All the faucets were a bright, shiny gold. I appraised myself in the mirror. My black eye was a rainbow radiating out from pink to dark green. I looked older than I had yesterday, and by a lot more than a day. Tomorrow I’d be a different person entirely.

When I came out again, Zelda was sitting cross-legged in front of the minibar, trying to unscrew the top of a tiny bottle of Maker’s Mark.

“Oh, the tragedy of the minibar,” she said. “Perennially overpriced and understocked. Besides, only alcoholics drink from little bottles like this.” The A word made me feel a pang of remorse for my mom, on her own back at home. Ignore it, Santé. Keep your head in the game.

I took the bottle out of Zelda’s hand and helped her to her feet. We faced each other, there in front of a massive four-poster bed. The only light was a golden streak from the cracked door of the bathroom. I kissed the line it cut down her face. Then we were on the bed, and she was taking off my shirt and I was taking off her shirt and that was enough for a while, to feel her warmth and to touch all the soft, dreamy places I’d dreamed about but never touched. And there was a part of me that was like, Just this would be enough, but there was another part of me that was like, Hell no it wouldn’t. Zelda helped me resolve the conflict by unclasping my belt and pulling my jeans off. It made for a funny pause when she took off my socks (let’s face it, there is nothing remotely sexy about socks), which was good, because it gave us both the chance to laugh. Then I shimmied her jeans (which were technically my jeans) past her feet and we got under the covers in just our underwear. We kissed for a while, in a way that made it feel like things were escalating even though we were still just kissing. Then she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of my underwear and began to tug them downward. . . .

I grabbed hold of her wrists.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I didn’t even know myself at first. But when she tried to kiss me again, I pulled away.

“Parker?”

I reached over to the bedside table for my journal.

If we’re going to do this, I wrote, I have to know who you are. For real.

“You know who I am,” she said quietly.

I don’t, though.

“Yes, you do. You promised to believe me.”

That’s not how belief works. You can’t force it.

“Fine!” Zelda said. “So let’s say I’ve been lying to you ever since I met you, even though it’s not true. Why would that matter? We’re here. You’re here and I’m here and we’re in bed together. What more do you want? What will ever be enough to make you shut up and live your life?”

It was probably the two glasses of scotch that pushed me over the edge. But after everything we’d been through that day, and in light of everything we were about to do, the idea that she would keep lying to me just about broke my heart.

I’ll tell you what would be enough. One second of the truth.

“And what’s the truth, Parker?”

I gave her my best guess, based on the little evidence I had. You’re a normal seventeen-year-old girl, but someone you care about is very sick, and you don’t know how to deal with it, so you made up this story.

Zelda was up out of bed even before I’d finished, staring down at me with a palpable fury. “How do you know about that?”

So it’s true, I wrote in big letters, so she could read them from where she was standing.

“How do you know about Nathaniel?”

I