Cruel Summer (13 page)

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” another girl said, far less attractive than the first. “I mean, what does she do besides look great in clothes? And you can’t even say that she’s a real model.”

“Did you see the way the hotel people scrambled to get her chairs?” the guy asked. “Shit, I wish it was that easy for us. We’ve been hanging out here for four hours and can’t get near one. That bitch crooks a finger and lands
five.
”

“I know,” Girl Number One agreed. “I say we get drunk, and try to forget that we’re not part of ‘the Fabulous Five.’”

Dante stepped out of the pool and headed back to the group, drying off quickly with a towel and returning his watch to the naked wrist that missed it. “Guess what? We’re topic A around here.”

Pippa rose up first. “Really? What’s the goss?”

Dante grinned. “They’re calling us ‘the Fabulous Five,’” he said. It didn’t matter that he was basking in the reflected glory of Vanity’s fame. The truth was, less than a year ago he was a greasy nobody, lifting heavy trays at a barbeque joint and going through the motions at a bottom-ranked public school.

But things were different now. He had a real chance at MACPA, a better job, some wild new friends, a serious piece of bling, and a plan to make his ultimate dream come true. Oh, yes. This would be Dante Medina’s year.

And it was just getting started.

O
nly homos wax,” Breck Hopkins said, a Corona Light in one hand and a bottle of Ciroc vodka in the other. The easygoing Phi Delt sophomore from the University of Miami glanced up to wink at Shoshanna. “What do you think, baby girl?”

Lazily, she stretched her arms overhead, all the better to show off her new breasts, which were natural-looking teardrop implants courtesy of one of Miami’s top plastic surgeons. Yes, before she could legally drive, Shoshanna had been given a license to make grown men cry. “I like guys with body hair. I think it’s sexy.”

Breck flicked up his Dave Matthews Band T-shirt to give her a flash of his furry chest.

Shoshanna giggled, snatching Breck’s Mexican beer and taking a generous swig, slithering her tongue down into the bottle neck to get a taste of the lime wedge stuffed inside.

Max wanted to rip out the fraternity boy’s heart. It had something to do with his sister. It had something to do with the poker game, too. And if he hated his opponents, then he usually cleaned them out.

Tonight was frustrating as hell. The stakes were too low. A minimum three hundred-dollar buy-in? That was for pussies. Max wanted to see the look in a player’s eyes when he not only realized that he couldn’t come out on top, but when he knew that the loss would be unbearable. To watch someone crumble like that right before his eyes was more beautiful than a South Beach sunset.

“Lots of dudes wax,” J.J. put in. He grabbed Breck’s Ciroc and turned it upside down, like a homeless drunk underneath a bridge. The only thing missing was the brown paper bag.

“Duuuuude,” Breck protested, “I’m trying to get my drunk on here. Chill.”

“Oh, is that it?” J.J. challenged, pushing the vodka to Breck’s side of the table. “I thought you were trying to do this.” He nodded to Shoshanna and made the international squeezing tits gesture with his hands.

Breck grinned and hooked an arm around the girl’s waist, slyly slipping a few fingers under the waistband of her too-tight Shagg Downtown jeans by Sally Hershberger. “Just doing my thing, bro. This is my good luck charm. Isn’t that right, baby girl?”

In answer, Shoshanna made a dirty little show out of lighting a thirty-dollar stogie and putting it between her pink, pouty, heavily glossed lips.

“There’s nothing hotter than a girl who knows how to smoke a cigar,” Breck praised. And then his roaming hand took possession of Shoshanna’s ass and squeezed. “I might need to fold, boys. I think there’s a better pot right here.”

Shoshanna beamed. This kind of attention was especially sustaining for the precocious girl. It made her feel beautiful, rebellious, special, and loved.

Max knew exactly where his sister was heading. By next summer, Joe Francis would probably have footage of her pulling up her top and showering with a girlfriend for his
Girls Gone Wild
video series. It seemed impossible to stop the runaway train that was Shoshanna Biaggi. Fast-forwarding to the girl at sixteen hardly required an active imagination. One rowdy spring break trip to Panama City Beach. One wild night at Harpoon Harry’s. Endless shots of her blurred nude body on late-night infomercials.

And what could a brother do with a sister who looked like Shoshanna? Especially if that sister was desperate for attention and purging demons caused by an abandoning mother, an absent father, and an ambivalent stepmother/stepmonster. Well, shit. There was no chance of convincing a girl like that to pinky swear with the God Squad and join the True Love Waits virgin club at school. Of that Max was damn sure. So all he could do was keep an eye out for her and make certain that she partied safely. Or at least reasonably so.

J.J. ran a hand down his baby smooth arm. “I have to keep my body waxed for work.”

Max gave him a look. “Oh, yeah? I didn’t realize that Sears had such high grooming standards for their catalog models.”

Breck and Shoshanna busted out into gusts of head-shaking, hysterical laughter.

The flush of humiliation was high and red on J.J.’s sculpted cheekbones. It took him several long seconds to recover, or maybe that’s the time it required to download his snappy retort, “You suck, dude.” And for him, this constituted heavy-duty debate.

Max cackled at the male model’s ego meltdown. The fake crotch bulge fame of the Hilfiger tighty-whitey campaign had faded long ago. And months were like dog years in the demimonde of modeling, which, theoretically, made Jayson “J.J.” James about…oh, thirty-five. So why was this middle-aged loser playing poker with high school and college kids? Instead, he should be reading sappy Mitch Albom books and waiting for his Levitra to kick in.

“Hey, what happened to that J. Crew thing you were supposed to do a few weeks back?” Max asked.

J.J. reached for Breck’s Ciroc again. “That gig fell through, man. It was a location shoot at the CEO’s crib in Water Mill, and they decided to use Hamptons locals. Pissed me off.”

But Max already knew about the J. Crew career waterloo. He also knew that J.J. had gone psycho bitch on his booker over it and been subsequently canned by his agency. Now he went around bragging that he was a “free agent.” Happy talk for a has-been mannequin with anger management issues who couldn’t find decent representation.

“Whatever,” J.J. said. And then he drank deep on the grape-infused vodka. “Anyway, waxing isn’t a fag thing. Lots of guys do it.”

Breck shook his head, disagreeing with both J.J. and, quite possibly, the cards in his hand, too. He rocked back and forth to the crunching guitars of Weezer’s “Beverly Hills” and peeked at
The Shawshank Redemption
DVD running silently on the plasma screen.

“I enjoy a good wax,” Max admitted, bored with J.J. and ready to verbally abuse another jackass.

“Duuuuude,” Breck sang. He searched Max’s face for the punch line, and when it didn’t drop, he said, “Seriously, bro?”

Max nodded. “I even get my junk waxed.”

J.J. laughed and raised a hand for some dap. “Been there, dude.”

Grinning, Max went through the stupid male-bonding ritual.

Breck dropped a hand onto his crotch. The worried look on his face said that a newscaster might’ve just reported that all the beer in the world had mysteriously disappeared. “Down here? No way. You’re shitting me.”

Max nodded again. “Chicks love it. You get better and longer blow jobs, not to mention lots of attention to the family jewels.” He laughed a little. “I bet you’d have to give a girl your cat’s hairball medicine if she went anywhere near your nut sack.”

This brought down the house in the Biaggi party basement. As the belly laughs commenced, all elbows left the cash-green felt of the poker table. Had Max been a comedian with a first-time shot on Letterman, he would’ve
destroyed.

The truth was, Max loved making people crack up. As far back as elementary school, he’d rise from his chair if the inspiration hit, recite monologues from Jay Leno, and get wall-to-wall laughs. Sometimes he thought about a career in comedy. But he knew how brutal the world of stand-up could be. It was that way for poor whack job nobodies from New Jersey. So for the rich son of a Hollywood action star? Shit. It’d be acts of psychological terrorism every day. Besides, Max didn’t have the soul-deep compulsion to perform. He just liked to screw around with people. And he was good at it.

Tears were spilling out of Breck’s eyes. “I’m fading, dude. I’m fading,” he managed in between guffaws. “Man, I gotta take that one back to my boys at the house. That was some funny shit.” He reached for Shoshanna again and edged her closer. “Ready for some real fun, baby girl?”

J.J. laughed, looking at Max as he did so.

Max grinned at Breck. But it was the reassuring smile of a serial killer with a bloody butcher knife. The drunk asshole had gone too far.

Shoshanna took advantage of the
High Noon
moment and stole more Corona.

Max stirred up some nervous energy by riffling his chips ambidextrously. The move made one thing crystal clear: He’d spent
hours
playing cards—real poker with real players. Max was a true backroom rock-n-roll gambler. Breck and J.J. were pretenders who’d learned how to fake their way through on the Internet. Big difference. Bigger consequences.

Before the last flop, Max had thrown down a medium pair of eights to get more money on the table. At this moment, he was fighting the urge to laugh in Breck’s frat boy face. Right now Joe College actually thought he might be holding a strong hand. Max knew this because the guy’s nipples were visibly hardening against the fabric of his snug shirt. It was a good tell that always had the asshole on a permanent losing streak. So when Max flipped over and revealed a pair of kings, he raked in everything.

Game on.

Game over.

Game out.

Breck tossed his best cards—two queens. Close. Very close. Just not close enough. “That’s it for me, dude. I’m wiped clean.”

“Me, too,” J.J. said, turning a pair of red tens.

Max checked the time on his Sidekick. “It’s still early, boys. What is this—a sewing circle?”

“Too rich for my blood,” Breck grumbled. And then he stood up, grabbed his Ciroc, and reached for Shoshanna’s hand. As he pulled her up the stairs, he turned back to give Max a significant look, rubbing it in that the night wouldn’t be a total loss.

“Hold up, Sho,” Max called. “I need to talk to you for a second.”

Reluctantly, she relinquished Breck’s hand and started down the steps, her body language talking major irritation. “What, Max?” she huffed.

“That guy’s a tool,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Why don’t you hang out with me tonight?”

“I think he’s hot,” Shoshanna argued. “Besides, I like older guys. Boys my age are boring.”

Max shook his head. “Compared to those stockbrokers at the sushi joint, I suppose Breck
is
your age. But he’s a frat, Sho. And a frat’s mind is stuck on—”

Shoshanna cut him off midsentence. “Chill. I won’t do anything that you didn’t have fifteen-year-old girls doing to you.” She smiled.

He didn’t smile back. “That’s hardly a comfort.”

“I didn’t think it would be. But look at it this way—even at nineteen, Breck probably doesn’t know half the things you knew at fifteen.” And then she was gone.

Helplessly, Max watched them disappear. There were no options here. Sure, he could kick Breck’s ass and throw him out. But then Shoshanna would get pissed off and take her revenge by doing something worse. If it wasn’t this guy in the safety of their home, then it’d just be another one someplace more precarious. Hence, Max’s open-door policy. No hassles, no judgment. Not the easiest path to take, but it kept his sister close to him, and they had to stick together because they only had each other to count on. Of course, Max blamed his idiot father for the way Shoshanna acted out. After all, you couldn’t buy a girl new boobs for her fifteenth birthday and then expect her to spend her time at the mall.

J.J. lit up a fatty and headed over to the sofa to get good and baked. “Heard from Vanity lately?” he asked, stretching out and dragging deep. “I’ve been trying her for the last few weeks, and she won’t return my calls.”

“She’s around,” Max said. “How many times have you called? Maybe she thinks you’re a stalker.”

J.J. held out the hellacious herb as a silent offer to partake.

Max waved him off. He had enough vices—drinking, gambling, partying, scamming girls for commitment-free sex, being a lazy son of a bitch. Besides, he knew his ways. Poker had become its own kind of drug. And he was an addict. If he added marijuana to the mix, then he’d no doubt go tripping off into cocaine and meth and end up in rehab before turning eighteen. Paging Jack and Kelly Osbourne.

“Are you a businessman, Max?” J.J. asked.

Max poured a shot of 1800 tequila and sauntered over to the suddenly existential out-of-work model.

“Because I need a businessman,” J.J. went on. His tone was serious. His eyes were almost gone. “They call you Baby Don. After Donald Trump, right? Are you that good?”

“You’re high, man,” Max laughed.

“I’m drunk, too. But I do my best thinking this way.”

“Well, that explains a lot.” J.J. took another hit. “Seriously, man. I’m sitting on a major marketing opportunity.”

“Right now you’re sitting on your ass.” Max knocked back his shot, closing his eyes until the liquor burned all the way down. “And it’s an ass that even J. Crew didn’t want.”

J.J.’s mouth curled into a blissful smile as he shook his head. “I’m not talking shit, man. See…you’re talking shit. Me…I’m trying to keep it real. You know what I’m saying?”

Max grinned. “That must be some damn good weed.”

“Oh, it is, man…it is.” J.J. stared up at the ceiling for several long portentous seconds. “But it’s not half as good as this business deal that I’m talking about.”

“Okay, I’m officially curious,” Max admitted. “What is it?”

“I can’t say…not yet.”

“Screw you,” Max snapped. “You’re wasting my time.” He walked away from the stoner to pour another shot. So this was his Friday night? Waiting around for Breck and Shoshanna to finish hooking up and listening to this pothead’s crazy rant about making the next
Fast Money
cover.