Green Tea Won't Help You Now! (13 page)

I spotted myself in the mirror and pointed a finger at my reflection. "Behave."

Alex stood by the sofa, coke in hand.
 

"On ice."

I took it from him and drank two or three sips. "Always makes me feel like summer..."

"I see you're feeling better."

"I do."

"So, how do you like it?""

"The coke?"

He dropped down on the sofa. "The house."

"I hate it."

"Witch." He reached for me.

"Careful. The glass."

"Put it down."

I did.

He moved me until I came to sit on top of him. His hands rested on my bare legs. I bowed my head and we kissed.
 

"Coke..." he murmured and his arms closed around me.

He felt so good. His hands were sliding beneath my dress and onto my stomach. I pressed myself against his groin as hard as I could. I buried my hands in his hair. He bit my shoulders. His hands went higher, I felt them on my breasts. Never in my life had I wanted any man as much as I wanted him. He was the one, the one I had always been waiting for, the one who would make me complete, the one who would make it all good, he would make the bad memories go away, he would make them all go away, Sebastián, Kyle... I loved him. I—STOP!

Once you would have obsessed about the guy
... Nicky's voice echoed in some far away corner of my mind.
 

"No. I can't." I pushed myself away with all my strength and I stood on my feet, panting and pulling my dress down.

"What's wrong?" Alex sat up straight. "Did I hurt you?"

Did he hurt me? Oh, the dear heart!

"No, no, of course not. It's only—", I swallowed. I forced myself to say it. "I get too involved. I can't get so involved. It's too early."

He gave me a hostile look. "I'm pretty damn involved already, you know?"

"I—I'm sorry. I let this go too far. We should not have come here."

He got up as well and stood very close to me. One of his hands went under my chin and he made me look up at him. "You don't have to explain anything."

"Sorry. If you don't want to see me anymore—"

"WHAT? Wait, what? If I don't want to see you anymore because you're not sleeping with me? What kind of shits have you been with?"

I smiled ruefully. "Shits, I guess."

He kissed me very gently. "I can wait, you just let me know when you're ready."

Ok, honestly? Between you and me? I suddenly felt as if I was starring in Rich and Ruthless myself.
 

Who says such things? Who writes such scripts?
 

An elegant mansion in the Hollywood Hills

Joleen: "No, please! We cannot make love. We only met five minutes ago! I get too involved!'
 

Carlos: "I can wait. You just let me know when you're ready. I will be there for you. Always."

Enter Dr. Logan Moore: "Joleen, I came as soon as you called! You're pregnant! With diabetic blind quadruples! But I also have bad news. The baby's father is the President of the United States! But he was shot by a terrorist! And the terrorist is Carlos! Oh, you're having a brain tumour now! I will operate on you right away! What did you say, Carlos? You are also a brain surgeon? Great, because I am already dead and I exist only in Joleen's imagination."

I snorted.

"No, don't cry."

"I'm not crying. It's only... it's so ridiculous."

He grinned broadly. "Yeah. We just sounded like a telenovela, didn't we?"

And that was the moment, dear ladies and gentlemen, that was the moment when I truly fell in love.

"Are you hungry?"

"Maybe a little?"

"Good. Let's have dinner and then I'll take you home."

"Yes, let's."

We drove to a burger restaurant in Santa Monica and afterwards he dropped me at the studio. He told me he would have to be in New York for the next few weeks to prepare the IPO, but he would be in LA on the weekends. He promised to take me to the Getty museum for our next date and I agreed. We kissed a little more by the sign he had taken down and then he went back home.

I was secretly relieved. If we had continued at this speed, I would have died of emotional exhaustion.

Sixteen

Six weeks later we were lolling about on the beach in Santa Monica. As promised, Alex had taken me to the Getty museum and to a lot of other places, too. Every Monday he flew to New York and every Friday he returned to LA.
 

We had not gone back to his house, neither had I taken him to mine. I felt very relaxed around him and very happy with our arrangement. Sometimes I even forgot who I really was and what it would mean to him if he found out. Hard Pack's IPO would be happening the week after Thanksgiving and once it was out of the way (I was going to tell Jacob Weinberg to sever any business connection I had with Hard Pack), I would find the right occasion to tell Alex the true story.
 

"I'll never forget the first time I saw the Pacific...," I mumbled into Alex's soft, golden hair. His head was resting on my chest.

"Where was that?"

"San Francisco."

"During your backpacking tour?"

"Yes. Me and my school friend Tabitha spent four days in San Francisco and afterwards we drove all the way down to Los Angeles on Highway 1 in a rental car. A GMC Yukon. I nearly had a heart attack when we came out of the city and rolled towards the Big Sur. It blew my mind."

"I haven't done that in a long time."

"It totally sucked."

"WHAT?"

"Yes," I chuckled. "In the morning it was ok, but after we had lunch in Carmel, things got really bad."

"Why? It's amazing up there."

"Yes. But the sun hung over the ocean the whole time and when you're heading south, you're always driving on water side, next to the abyss. Every time there was a right turn towards the sea, the sun blinded us so much we nearly fell off the cliff! I remember how we crawled along the street at twenty mph, in a total panic, while the locals raced past us, honking and waving their fists at us."

Alex laughed. "I would have waved my fist at you, babe."

I do not remember when he started calling me babe, but I liked it a lot.

"But we really didn't see a thing. Then there were those bloody bridges. What were they called again? Rocky Creek and Bixby Creek? They were like three feet wide and the banister was not even a foot high and they passed over gorges which were at least two thousand feet deep. We were screaming our heads off when we crossed them."

"They're pretty spectacular, aren't they? But the banister's higher than one foot."

"No, it isn't."

"Whatever you say."

"Whales were jumping out of the water, too."

"I bet they flew over Bixby Creek Bridge at the exact moment you were crossing it."

"No. But almost. There were deer crossing though, absolutely everywhere. I don't know whether there were more deer or more warning signs saying WARNING: DEER."

"Perhaps Santa was in the area."

"Silence, unbeliever! There were more crazy warning signs. NEXT 200 MILES: ROCKFALL, NEXT 500 MILES: NARROW STREET, NEXT 1000 MILES: WINDING ROAD, CHALLENGES AHEAD, NO OUTLET, METEORS, RATTLESNAKES, FLOODING, SLIDES AND JUMPING WHALES"

Alex chortled merrily. "Go on."

"We wanted to sleep in Santa Barbara. We even had a hotel reservation, but we did not make it there. I can't see well in the dark and I was the only one permitted to drive the car because of the insurance."

"What did you do, camp out on the street?"

"No, we found a Holiday Inn in St. Louis Obispo. But before we got there, we went to the loo in Tijuana."

"In Tijuana..."

"Well, in a place that looked like Tijuana and was called something like Tijuana. We needed to pee so badly and there was this gang of drug dealers by the ocean front, sharpening their knives, waiting for the next delivery from Columbia. They wanted to cut our throats, I'm sure of it. We peed with high pressure and ran back to the car like rabbits. It was a narrow escape."

"Cayucos?"

"Yes, Cayucos! It was hell. Anyway, the next day, we drove through a military area where they tested nuclear bombs right next to us. There were even checkpoints and sexy soldiers wanted to take a look at our trunk...s."

"Lompoc."

"Yes. It was sensational. We felt like Tom Cruise in Top Gun and we hoped to be taken into custody, but nobody volunteered to stop us."

"Too bad."

"Finally we got to Santa Barbara—who would have thought—where we encountered a group of gangsters with pit bulls in an underground passage and we feared for our lives. Yet all they did was smile at us and say 'hey, how are you', like one always does in Santa Barbara."

Alex nodded wisely. "Santa Barbara
is
hell."

"In the end, after another million miles of deer and rockslides, we made it to LA and the first thing we did was drive up Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Drive. I think we almost drove as far as your house. It was beyond fantastic. Our hotel was near LAX and we went to Venice the next day where I experienced hot love for the first time in my life."

"With Venice."

"Sure, with Venice."

"Can I ask you a question? How can anybody be a yogi and a crackpot at the same time?"

"I told you a hundred times before, I'm not a yogi, I'm an instructor."

"Yeah, right. By the way, we booked the yacht."

I felt a pang. I did not want him to go cruising in the Caribbean. I did not want him to be contaminated by the jet set.

"Ah."

"The boat is called Unicorn Moon. Ain't it sweet?"

"Very candy."

"She's a hundred-forty feet long, can go fourteen knots and she has a crew of eight and six guest cabins. Whatever that means. Kind of strange to think you have your own little cruise ship."

"Huh. Who else will be coming?" I pictured Alex, his friend Mark, (whom I had never met and who in my imagination looked vaguely like Leonardo DiCaprio), and ten Victoria's Secret models.

"I don't know, some friends of Mark's, couples... and my buddy Christoph from Austria."

"Ski racer."

"Former. We're retired, remember?"

"Yes—don't you hate this couple stuff? I despise it."

"Ahem, well, I don't know, really, I'm kind of used to it, I guess."

"Right." My stomach went sour every time I thought of his fifteen years with Lucy 'The Pal' Callahan, as I had baptised her in my mind. The few times Alex had referred to her, mostly by accident, she had sounded like, 'such a good sport', yuk, yuk, yuk! — "Where will you be going?"

"To the Caribbean."

"Duh. Where exactly?"

"It really doesn't mean anything to me. When I look the places up on the internet they all look alike. Palms and white sand beaches. We're flying to Nassau where we board the Unicorn Moon. From there, we'll be going to all sorts of places. I really don't remember. Everything sounds like Monkey Island names to me."

I stuck out my tongue. He darted forward and caught it between his lips. We snogged for a little while, rather passionately, but when he let go of me, his face took on an a shy expression. I knew he was going to ask me something of a more sensitive nature. He was completely unable to hide his feelings. They always advertised themselves on his face directly. He licked his lips unconsciously and I felt a slight tremor of apprehension.

"You couldn't cut your vacation short and come with me? I'm sure you'd like it there."

I grimaced. "I wish I could, but I have so many people to meet in England. There's the baby and there's my mum, my dad's coming over and I need to see my friends from school... I'm fully booked."

He kissed me one more time. "I know. I just wanted to let you know I'd be happy to have you there."

"Thank you." I wanted to resume our tongue action when I realised there was something else holding him back.

"Is there something else?"

"Hmm... yes, there is."

"Spit it out."

"I'll be going up to Tahoe on Thursday."

"I know, you told me already."

"Your studio will be closed over Thanksgiving, right?"

"Yes."
Oh dear...

"I talked to my mother earlier and she said, err, she asked me to ask
you
if you wanted to come, too. She felt sorry for you not having anybody to go to for Thanksgiving."

"You told your mother about me?" I sputtered and clumsily got onto my elbows.

He blushed. "Yes."

"Are you serious?"

"Yep."

"You'll be there for four days! I can't stay at your parents' house for four days—with you."

He blushed some more. "It would only be for one night. You'd get your own room, of course and we could stay at my cabin for the rest of the weekend."

"You have a cabin?"

"It's more like a chalet."

My heart was beating in my throat. If I went with him to his mountain cabin, it would be the end of innocence, so to say. I closed my eyes, whispered, "I'd love to", and opened them again.

His face showed incomprehension.
 

"There's one problem, though," I continued with more confidence. "I have no winter clothes."

His jaw dropped. "You're coming?"

"Yes, I'm coming."

"Wow." I was instantly buried under 6'6'' of prime athlete as he let me understand the degree of his contentment.
 

We were not wearing swimwear, in case anybody wondered. It was November after all.

Seventeen

"Fuck!" Alex cried.
 

"Holy shit!" I wailed and jerked the steering wheel to the left.

"Fuck!" He repeated. I had never heard him use such strong vocabulary before but—even though I employed far more foul language than he did—I wholeheartedly agreed.
 

Here comes why.

We had started very early in the morning. It was a seven hour drive and we would be encountering some holiday traffic, too.

I demanded to take the morning shift behind the wheel because my, "Start the Day", yoga classes had turned me into an early morning person. Alex had no problem relinquishing the control over the Cherokee to me since it meant he could sleep.