Holly and Her Naughty eReader (13 page)

“Derek?” I said.

Nothing.

“Derek, did you butt dial me?”

Still no answer. Of course, why
would there be if this was a butt dial?

Because Derek spent the last six months of our relationship talking out
of his ass, so he should have no problem talking to me now
, I thought.

I turned the volume on my phone
to full blast and tried to make out what was happening on the other end of the
line. Other than Marianne’s cackle, I couldn’t get anything distinct. Still, I
listened. Through three traffic lights I listened to whatever noisy world Derek
was living in today while I drove south on Louisiana Boulevard. It wasn’t until
I reached the south end of town, butting up against the Air Force base I
couldn’t enter, that I decided it was time to hang up. Upon ending the call, my
phone kindly told me it had gone on for nearly seven minutes.

And then I felt really pathetic.

“He butt dialed me and I stayed
on the phone to listen for seven minutes,” I said to myself. “I need to get a
life.”

I went to Subway and bought a
turkey sandwich and some chips, which I took back to the room and ate while
watching Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Nuggets versus Heat.

“Take me away, Lebron,” I said.

Sad to say, even the drama of
the NBA Finals wasn’t doing it for me. That’s when I knew I was sick. I’ve been
a basketball fan since elementary school. On the days when Michelle and I were
the starting guard and forward on our high school team, I was an absolute
junkie.

Back in high school it was
Kobe’s heyday. Now it was all about Lebron.

I admit it. I had a big ol’
crush on Kobe back then and now I have a big ol’ crush on Lebron. What’s not to
like? Big, sexy guys with perfect arms, gleaming white teeth, and mad skills? I
have posters of both up in my bedroom at home. They’re sandwiched between a
picture of the New York Public Library and a flying unicorn.

That’s Holly for you.

Derek said those very words when
our mutual friend was over at my apartment.

“Yep, some basketball players, a
library, and a unicorn. That’s Holly for you.”

At the time I convinced myself
he was admiring me for my varied interests. Now I’m pretty sure he was making
fun of me. I’m pretty sure he was implying that I needed to grow up.

Lebron got the best of the
Nuggets on this night, and the Heat won 92-87. I turned off the TV and tried to
go to sleep.

No luck.

I turned the TV back on and
flipped to an episode of
Law & Order
.
But it was so flat, so….two dimensional, that it made me frustrated and I
turned it off again.

I tried reading the Bible that
was in the hotel nightstand, thinking some old story of
Jabe who begat Jedediah who begat Obi-Wan
or whatever would make me
drowsy. It didn’t. The words on the page were a constant reminder of what I was
missing. My brain sat there in waiting, wondering when the magic would kick in
and I would become one of the begattees.

At midnight I grabbed the phone
and started dialing Vivian’s number. But I didn’t finish. I knew what she would
say, and my own difficulty was just more evidence that she was right. I was an
addict. I was going through withdrawal.

I brought up a fan fiction web
site on my phone and read some
Twilight
fanfic. It was totally inadequate now. How could I read about Bella and Edward
when I had been Bella and Edward?

At one in the morning I dialed
Vivian again and this time I let the call go all the way through.

“Hi, you’ve reached Vivian--”

Argh! Her phone was off!

“I’ll just have to go over
there,” I said. “I’ll just have to go see her and take back what’s mine.”

I was out of bed and putting my
shoes on when I realized how pathetic this was. I couldn’t even make it through
one night without the Kindle? What would happen when I did get it? Was I going
to stay in this hotel room for the rest of my life, lying in bed and reading
it? What about when summer was over and I had to go back to work?

If I couldn’t make it through
one night, I was in trouble.

I turned off the lights, got
back in bed, and forced myself to go to sleep. It wasn’t all that restful a
sleep, but I did it, and when the alarm on my phone woke me the next morning, I
felt like I had accomplished something. I was strong enough to resist the siren
song of my Kindle, at least for one night.

Now off to Vivian’s to go get
it.

I rang the doorbell at
seven-thirty. Max answered.

“Oh….um….is Vivian here?”

Max put a big smile on his face and
looked right at me. It was kind of weird.

“Come inside,” he said.

Something about him--maybe it
was his body language—made me feel completely at ease. He moved and spoke with
a confidence that made me think our own awkward history wasn’t on his mind in
the slightest. It was like he was saying,
I’ve
forgotten all about what happened and you should too.

And my mind had its own
involuntary response.
Yeah, I should just
forget about it too.

I stepped into the house. As Max
closed the door behind me, he also put his hand on the small of my back,
guiding me further inside. There was an energy to his touch.

This was a completely different
Max than I remembered from high school.

“What are you up to these days?”
I asked him.

“Come to the den,” he said.
“I’ll get you a drink and we’ll talk.”

The house smelled of the smoke
from Vivian’s herbs, reminding me that the strange events since the reunion
were not some hallucination. At least, not the part where Vivian and I got
drunk and stoned and I slept on her couch.

Max entered the den carrying two
beautifully made Bloody Mary Martinis complete with little stalks of celery.

“Oh, Max, I don’t know. I don’t
usually drink this early in the--”

“Stop,” he commanded. “You’re on
vacation. This will make it a fun day.” He handed me the glass and said, “Start
with a little sip.”

Something about the way he said
it to me. He spoke with such force. He was bossing me around, but it wasn’t
rude or offensive. He had real authority.

I took a sip.

“That’s really, really good,” I
said.

“I felt inspired,” said Max. “It
is so, so good to see you again, Holly.”

Okay, this is a little weird
, I thought. Was Max hitting on me?

“Where’s Vivian?” I asked.

Max sighed and set his drink
down.

“She left,” he said.

“She’s already left? How many
hours a day does that woman work?”

“Too many,” Max said. “Perhaps
that was the problem.”

He took another sip on his
drink. He was so relaxed about things. It was good—he was setting me at ease,
because Lord knew, I was on the verge of panic at hearing that Vivian was
already gone.

“Stay here and have more of your
drink,” Max said. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’ll be…where are you going?”

“Just to the kitchen,” he said,
already on his way out.

I shook my head in frustration.
I couldn’t believe Vivian didn’t even call me before she left. We had discussed
this! She got the Kindle for the night; I got it back in the morning.

No doubt she took it with her to
work. No doubt she was going to read it all day, and tell me I needed more time
away from it still. Ooo…I could just hear her voice and it made me mad.

One day isn’t enough to prove anything,
Vivian said in my mind
. Look at you Holly. You made it through the
night, but just barely. You came running to my house in the morning and wanted
the Kindle back right away and freaked out when I wasn’t there.

“Shut up, Vivian. It’s my
Kindle,” I muttered under my breath.

Max returned with a piece of
paper in his hands.

“She left this note,” he said.

“Note? You mean Vivian? Why
would she--”

Max handed the paper to me before
I could finish the sentence.
Dear Max
,
it began.

“Oh no. She ran away with the
Kindle,” I said, more to myself than to Max.

“The Kindle?” Max said.

I ignored him and continued
reading.

I’ve decided I need
some space. I need to get away from my life for a time. I’ll be gone for a
couple weeks. You’re welcome to stay in the house or go your own way if you’d
like. I’ve enjoyed our time together, but it’s time for both of us to move on.

Vivian

“Max, you should know, this
isn’t about you,” I said.

He smiled. His teeth were good
but not perfect. There was an incisor on the lower row that was tilted just a
smidge to one direction. Oh how I fawned over that crooked incisor in high
school.

“I’m not concerned about me,” he
said, taking another drink.

He seemed so relaxed, not at all
upset that his girlfriend had broken up with him and disappeared in the night.

Maybe he was too relaxed. Maybe
this idea of Bloody Marys in the morning with a guest, acting all cool—maybe
this was his way of coping. The poor dear. First his wife leaves him, taking
their two children away and leaving him broke after child support, alimony, and
legal fees, then his girlfriend disappears in the night. No wonder he was behaving
so strangely. He was in denial.

“Vivian isn’t well, Max.”

“Yes, I gathered as much from
her note.”

“I know it seems like it came on
suddenly, and it did, but I spoke with her last night, and…”

I couldn’t finish my sentence I
was so angry. That bitch stole my Kindle! I took a big swig of my Bloody Mary.
All this talk about protecting me from my own addiction. I should have seen
this coming. I got so wrapped up in the idea that I had a problem I never
considered the problem Vivian would have when she went home with my precious.
She was just as hooked as I was, and had run away with it so she wouldn’t have
to give it back to me.

“And what?” Max said. “You spoke
to Vivian last night and what?”

“And she’s…not well.”

“Yes, you’ve said that part
already.”

“I mean not well in the head. I
should have done more. I’m sorry, Max. I should have known she would pull
something like this. She’s sick. We have to go find her.”

“Interesting,” Max said.

He took another sip on his
drink. He was acting so suave—he might have been James Bond at a casino sipping
on a dry martini.

Maybe cool was what I needed
right now. I was in such a panic about my Kindle I wasn’t thinking straight.
Maybe Max could help me.

“Max, we should leave today,” I
said. “We should go together. You and Vivian can’t end like this.”

“Me and Vivian?” Max said.

“Yes, Max. You and Vivian. Did
you know…just the other night she was speaking about a future where you and she
got married and had children.”

Max took another drink. “Was she
now?”

“We’ve got to find her,” I said.
“I’m worried about her.”

Or rather, I’m worried about my Kindle. I’m worried about Christoph. I
want so badly to be together with him again. And I’m insane with jealous rage
that Vivian has taken my place.

“She said she wants to be
alone,” Max said. “We should give her the space she needs to sort out whatever
troubles her.”

“No, Max, she needs help,” I
said. “There are things….things that happened the other night. After the
reunion.”

“Oh? What sort of things?”

I imagined myself telling him a
story about a ceremony to summon a Dream Spirit resulting in a magic Kindle.
Without the Kindle here to show him, there was no way I would come across as a
sane person.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said.

“Because I’m a man,” Max added, thankfully
giving me an out.

“Precisely,” I said. “This is
girl stuff. And it’s pretty heavy. We need to find Vivian. I’m worried about
her. Is there anyone she would contact to tell where she was going? Is there a
credit card she would have used to buy plane tickets or something?”

Max finished his cocktail with a
long, slow drink, and gently set it down on the coffee table.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll
take a look around this place and see if she left any clues behind.”

“I can help you,” I said.

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll
call you the minute I’ve found something. Let’s exchange phone numbers.”

I wanted to protest more. I
wanted to dig through every inch of this house, call every person Vivian knew
and hunt her down like a dog.

But that was how a crazy person
behaved. I knew that now. This morning I was on the other side. I was the one
who lived in reality and was looking on as the naughty eReader stole someone
away with its promise of adventure, excitement, and piping hot sex.

Not that I wanted to remain out
here in the real world. I was itching to find Vivian, yank the Kindle out of
her hands, and leave her in my dust while Christoph and I rode a sex sling into
the sunset.

“Okay, yes, let’s trade
numbers,” I said.

We had our phones out and were
sharing digits and the words just slipped from my mouth.

“You remember when we did this
at Clarissa’s graduation party?”

Max looked up from his phone and
right at me.

Oh shit
, I thought.
Now I’ve
gone and done it.

“Sorry,” I said with a giggle.
Then, in a sing-song voice, I said, “Elephant in the room!”

Max looked at me even more
intently. I felt like I wanted to shrivel into my shoes.

“We have quite the history,
don’t we Holly?” he said.

I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah
we do.”

“Well, allow me to apologize now
for all the many ways I’ve wronged you in the past,” Max said. “You’ll have to
forgive me. I was a stupid child back then. I’ve changed.”