Second You Sin (14 page)

“That was something,” I said.

“But this! It’s quite a coup for your mother, I’l tel you. Everyone’s going to want their hair cut at Sophie’s now!”

“Let’s hope,” I answered.

Mrs. P. pul ed a sheet of tissue paper from her apron and selected a jel y doughnut from her bag.

“These were always your favorite, Kevin.”

“Awww,” I said, genuinely touched. Maybe there was something nice about coming home after al .

“That’s very sweet of you.” I put out my hand.

Mrs. P. put out hers, too. “That’l be a buck twenty-five, dear.”

The inside of my mother’s shop had been transformed into the bastard love child of a beauty parlor and a television studio. Chairs had been pushed to the side, huge domed lights hung from alien-looking tripods, and cables and electrical cords snaked everywhere. Two huge television cameras captured my mother’s workstation from both sides, while a third hung back at the best angle for the ful -on capture of Yvonne’s unfortunate transformation from sophisticated television star to tacky Long Island harridan.

Ironical y, even though they were shooting in a beauty parlor, the producers set up a folding canvas chair, where my mother sat having powder applied by an extremely thin and fey looking African-American guy in his forties.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, dodging various
Yvonne
staffers.

“Sweetheart,” my mother said. “You’re late.”

“Am not.” I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“Nuh-huh,” the haughty queen attending her admonished me, wagging his finger. “No touching the face, child. She’s flawless.”

I stepped back and put up my hands. “Sorry!” Miss Thing puckered his lips. “No problem, sweetie. You’re pretty flawless, too.” He turned to my mother. “Is he taken?”

My mother, who always took any compliment to me as a personal credit to her, beamed. “He has a policeman boyfriend with commitment issues and a great ass,” she answered.

I felt myself blushing. “Mom!”

“We’re al friends here,” my mother answered.

Then, to the makeup artist, “Real y. You could bounce a quarter off it.”

Why, I wondered, and not for the first time in my mother’s presence, doesn’t the ground ever open and swal ow you when you need it to?

The makeup artist gave my mother a sly smile.

“You’re going to look Tyra-iffic on the camera, dear.

I’l leave you to chat with your boy.” I pul ed up a chair and sat next to my mother. “So,” I said, “how are you doing?”

Turns out, as she spent the next ten minutes explaining, she was pretty excited. Who knew? She might have kept talking until the cameras started rol ing had she not gotten distracted by someone passing by.

“Andrew!” she shouted. “Get your little tush over here and say ‘hel o!’ ”

I turned and saw someone who could have been an underwear model for a Calvin Klein campaign saunter over with the natural grace of a born athlete.

Six feet of lean and muscled bodyliciousness topped by a strong, angular face and sandy brown hair that fel into place like silk fringe on a real y expensive shawl. He wore pressed khaki slacks and the ubiquitous
Yvonne
T-shirt, which fit him like the skin of grape. A real y juicy grape.

“This is Andrew Mil er,” my mother said to me.

“Remember I told you about him? Yvonne’s producer? He says he knew you from high school.” Andrew had a mile-wide smile and I tried my best to place him. I couldn’t imagine not noticing someone as good-looking as him.

“Hi,” I said, a bit awkwardly. Andrew looked a few years older than me; I’d guess he was a senior the year I arrived in high school. Since upperclassmen rarely socialized with freshmen, I couldn’t imagine when we would have met. Was he one of Tony’s friends?

“Kevin.” Andrew extended his hand, and his grip was strong and warm. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“You look familiar,” I said, although I couldn’t say from where. Maybe he’d done modeling. I couldn’t imagine where else I’d have seen him.

“I was captain of the lacrosse team,” Andrew said.

“You came to a few games. I don’t think we ever talked, but I remember seeing you around.” Oh. My. God. Andrew Mil er? I had never known his name, but yes, I had attended a few games, mostly to ogle his incredibly fine form and the way the muscles in his arms moved whenever he swung his stick.

Swung his stick.
Jesus. I remembered some of the fantasies I’d had about him and felt myself blushing again.

“Wow,” I said. “I can’t even believe you knew who I was. I was just another fan in the stands. Lacrosse fan,” I added. I turned to my mother. “I love lacrosse.

It’s so . . . sticky, I mean, they play with real y long sticks. Much bigger than basebal bats, you know.” I real y needed to shut up.

“Funny,” my mother observed, “I don’t remember you ever expressing any interest at al in lacrosse. Or any other sports for that matter. A mother,” she said to Andrew, “is always the last to know, though, isn’t she?”

Andrew laughed. “Even people who don’t like sports seem to enjoy lacrosse,” he told her. “We always had great crowds for our games.”
I bet,
I thought.

My mother turned back to me. “And look at Andrew now. So young, and the producer of
Yvonne.
”

“Wel ,” Andrew said, cocking his head to the side,

“I’m not
the
producer of
Yvonne.
He’s in LA counting his money, I’m sure.” Andrew winked at my mother and she laughed as if his joke was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

“I’m just a segment producer,” Andrew continued.

“There are seven of us, and we rotate between episodes.”

“Wel , weren’t we lucky that you got to produce
this
one,” my mother gushed.

“Oh, luck had nothing to do with it.” Andrew grinned. “I specifical y request the episodes when we have beautiful women as our guests.”

Another disproportionately loud laugh from my mother, this one accompanied by her wel -

manicured hand flying up to her ample bosom in a gesture that was meant to convey humility but instead shouted,
Hey, check out these babies!

“Such a charmer,” she purred. “And so successful at such a young age! Already a producer on
Yvonne.
While my dear Kevin . . .” Her voice trailed off and she threw up her hands in surrender at the thought of her useless progeny.

“Uh, standing right here,” I said.

“Wel , darling,” my mother said. “I’m just saying that your friend Andrew here has one of the top positions on America’s most popular talk show, whereas you, wel , what is it you do anyway, dear?” If we were real y going to play Can You Top This, I could mention that last week I got seven hundred dol ars to receive a scalp massage with a happy ending (don’t ask) from the married author of the current number two book on the
New York Times
bestsel er list, but I wasn’t sure that would impress.

“You know what I do,” I said. For years I’d been tel ing my family I worked freelance as a computer consultant.

“No, real y,” my mother persisted, “what exactly . .

.”

Just then, another
Yvonne
staffer, a rather timid overweight young woman with purple hair and boxy square-framed glasses sidled over to my mother.

Why do they all look so frightened?
I asked myself.

“Mrs. Connor,” she asked shakily. “We need to do a sound check.” She looked at Andrew for approval.

“Is that OK?”

“Check away,” Andrew said, flashing his megawatt grin. I could have sworn the purple girl’s glasses fogged up a little.

“Thank you, sir,” she answered. “Right this way, Mrs. Connor.”

“Please,” my mother said, “cal me Sophie. Mrs.

Connor is my mother.”

Actual y, I thought, your mother is Mrs. Gerstein.

But it didn’t seem worth mentioning.

“Tel you what,” Andrew Mil er said as they walked away. “How about you come with me into the production trailer, and I give you a behind-the-scenes tour of what we do here?”

Step into my parlor, huh? As a working boy, I had a good instinct for when a guy was interested in me. I tried to tap into Andrew’s vibe and got . . . nothing.

He seemed a perfectly innocent jock extending a friendly and agenda-free invitation to an old classmate.

Damn.

14

He Touched Me

We walked into one of the long trailers that flanked my mother’s shop. Al kinds of monitors, control panels, and communications equipment ran along the wal s. Andrew walked me to the back, where a bathroom took up one side and a narrow door marked “Producer” occupied the other.

Andrew opened that door and motioned for me to join him. The smal space contained a computer station and various monitors showing live feeds from the cameras inside the salon. Andrew invited me to sit on the folding chair in the corner. He closed the door behind us and sat at the computer station, turning the wheeled task chair to face me.

“Wel ,” he said.

“Huh,” I answered.

“This is awkward,” he said.

“It’s cramped in here,” I agreed.

“Seeing you again.”

Sometimes, I didn’t know if it was my ADD

causing my confusion, or if the other person real y wasn’t making sense. Had I taken my medicine today? No. Crap.

“Wel ,” I said, looking at the cluttered space where we sat almost knees-to-knees, “nice to see you, too.” Andrew frowned. “You know why I’m here, right?”

“To shoot my mother’s segment,” I answered.

“Wel , yeah, but why do you think we chose your mother to be one of Yvonne’s makeover artists?”

“Uh, I don’t know, but I have to tel you, holding up my mother as any kind of ‘artist’ is only going to result in disappointment and pain. Just so you know.”

“Your mom has a lot of personality and color.

She’s going to pop on the show, you wait and see.

But why do you think, out of al the beauty parlors in al the world, we decided to shoot here?”

“Someone hates Yvonne and wants to make her look as bad as possible?”

“Wel , that goes without saying.” Andrew rol ed his eyes. “But seriously, don’t you get it?”

“I might get it,” I said. “I mean, if I knew what ‘it’

was.”

“You stil haven’t figured it out?”

We didn’t have enough time to list al the things I haven’t figured out. This was the least of them.

“I’m not much of a detective, Andrew.”

“It’s like this. We had this episode on the books for a while now—Yvonne gets made over at four regional beauty parlors. You know, a Midwest matronly kind of thing, the LA look, whatever. The New York segment was supposed to be at some high-class salon on Fifth Avenue—the glamour shot.

But at the last minute the place backed out. They found out about Yvonne’s reputation and realized they didn’t want to deal with that level of drama—at least not on TV.”

“Yvonne has a reputation?” I asked. Wasn’t she cal ed the Queen of Kindness or something? Hadn’t she started an orphanage or a religion? Or was that Oprah?

Andrew rol ed his eyes again. I seemed to have that effect on him. It was a little annoying, but he had real y pretty green eyes that were nice to watch on their orbit.

“That’s not the point. Anyway, when the Fifth Avenue place dropped out, we had to come up with something quick. We were going to reach out to another of those famous stylists when I remembered your mother’s shop here in Long Island. I brought it up at our production meeting, and everyone loved the idea. A local neighborhood place with native New Yorkers—the kind of neighbors you have outside, with their signs and their doughnuts. You can’t buy that kind of authenticity.”

“You probably could,” I told him. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to. Growing up, I couldn’t get away from this “authenticity” fast enough.

“Trust me,” Andrew said. “This kind of stuff is golden. So, the executive producer is loving me because I found this great location, Yvonne is thril ed because she loves to pretend that she’s one of the

‘real people,’ and I’m excited because I got what I wanted out of it.”

“A good show?”

“No, you little jerk. The chance to see you again.” For a quick second, I turned around to see if there was someone standing behind me. “See
me
again?” I asked.

I didn’t know he’d seen me the first time.

“Kevin, I’ve wanted you ever since senior year.”

“Say what now?”

“I wanted you, Kevin. You think I didn’t notice you in the stands, watching me? You think I wasn’t incredibly aware of the cute kid sitting on the sidelines, eating me up with his eyes? You think I didn’t look for you every time I went out on the field, that I wasn’t disappointed when you weren’t there?” Andrew rol ed his chair closer to me and our knees touched. Electric currents ran from where we connected, up my legs, and into my crotch.

“You like guys?” I asked.

“I like you,” Andrew answered. “You’ve always been so beautiful. Such a beautiful little guy. I used to fantasize you’d take a job as our towel boy. I’d come out of the shower, naked, dripping wet. ‘Where’s my towel?’ I ask, and you’d run forward, dropping to your knees before me, rubbing the towel up my leg, along the inside of my thigh, final y brushing against my bal s, getting me hard so fast, my big cock slapping wet and heavy against my flat bel y.” As he spoke, Andrew took his hands and ran them along the path he described, but on me, inside my thigh, up, up, until they stopped just below my tenders.