The Collector (6 page)

Chapter Ten

Red Dress

I pull up in Elizabeth Taylor at exactly 9:00
p.m.
Fighting the urge to honk, I kill the engine and walk to the door, the garment bag folded over my arm.

After Max left my hotel room, I decided on classing it up for the party. I’m sporting my black Boss dress shirt—sleeves rolled up, of course—dark jeans, and my red Chucks. Even sprayed on my favorite scent, Safari. Because it’s a little dirty, like me. If Charlie doesn’t dig my get up, I’ll expose her for what she is: asexual.

Grams opens the door after I’ve knocked only once. I guess she was expecting me. Her eyes drink me in, and a smile finds her mouth. “If I didn’t know better,” she says, “I’d think the devil just showed up on my doorstep.”

Normally I’d laugh my ass off at the irony of this statement, but I’m strung out, so I feel like shoving a bright light in her face and screaming, “What do you know?!”

Instead, I smile as Grams puts an arm around my shoulder and leads me inside. I’m wondering if there’ll be a moment when Charlie glides down the stairs like she’s a completely different person. But nothing like that happens. Charlie is sitting at the kitchen table to my right when I walk through the entryway. She’s eating a bowl of cereal, looking like she always does—unkempt.

I walk into the kitchen with Grams hovering way too close. Charlie pushes her bowl away and stands up. There’s an awkward moment where we half-hug, half-fumble. Then Charlie spots the garment bag over my arm.

“What’s that?” Her eyes widen.

“It’s for you,” I answer, holding it out to her. “Open it.”

Charlie takes the garment bag and unzips the front. When she pulls out the red dress, Grams groans this long, “Ohhhh, myyyyyy Gaaaaawd.”

“You got this for me?” Charlie asks. I nod, and she twirls around with it held against her like she did in the store. “Should I wear it tonight?”

“That’s the idea,” I say, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Grandma?” she squeaks.

“I’m right behind you, baby.”

Charlie and Grams head up the stairs toward her bedroom.
Why it takes two people to put one dress on one body is beyond me.

Charlie’s bedroom door clicks shut, and a few seconds later, the doorbell rings. Grams sticks her head out and yells down the stairs, “Man Child! Can you get the door?”

I head toward the entryway and listen as Charlie tells her grandmother not to call me Man Child. When I open the door, Blue and Annabelle are standing on the other side. Blue is holding two movies and a pizza box. His pinched expression looks like he just smelled his own asshole.

I take a few steps away and say over my shoulder, “By all means, come on in.”

Annabelle swivels around my side and stands in front of me. Her mouth is pulled into a smile, but her voice holds a note of accusation. “You watching movies with us tonight?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Blue mumbles.

I ignore Blue’s question because it isn’t worth answering. Annabelle is still standing in front of me, so I step around her and plop back down at the kitchen table. She must take this as an invitation to chat because she sits across from me. Blue lingers near the door, leaning against the stairwell railing.

“So if you’re not watching movies with us, what are you doing tonight?” Annabelle asks.

“I’m going to Taylor’s party.”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” She nods like this is a reasonable answer. “And who would you be going with?”

“I’d be going with Charlie.”

Blue doesn’t move, but I hear the
click
of his teeth slamming together. Annabelle must, too, because she glances at him and says, “Oh, come on. Is that really a surprise, Blue?”

She jumps from the table and heads across the entryway to a small den. Once there, she opens a closet door and searches for something.

“The mother lode!” she cries.

Annabelle holds a trunk the size of a microwave against her chest and wobbles back toward the kitchen table. I flinch when she drops the trunk on the table and beams at me. “In this trunk,” she says with a serious face, “is God’s gift to women.”

“Chocolate?”

“No.”

“Midol?”

“What? No.”

“Tampons.”

“Stop guessing,” she says. “In this box is Charlie’s grandma’s makeup stash. I’ve waited three years to bust into this thing. The time is now.” Annabelle unlatches the makeup box and lifts the lid ever so slowly. I half expect pixie dust to float out of the box in a twinkling, magical cloud.

Annabelle gasps when she finally peers inside. “It’s better than I ever could have imagined.” She pulls out mini racks of colorful pastes and powders. Grams may be a makeup guru, but she can’t apply it to her own face. Actually, it’s a case of applying too much. She doesn’t understand restraint.

“So you going to do Charlie’s makeup or something?” I ask. I’m hoping I’m right. The better Charlie feels tonight, the more trouble I can get her in.

“Charlie? No. This is
my
time. First I’m going to hook up with Bobbie Brown, woman of great mystical makeup powers…” She pulls out blue eyeliner and gives it a lustful look. “Then I’m going to hook up with Bobbie Davids, boy of great basketball skills.”

“What?” I say.

“What?” Blue echoes.

Annabelle stares at us like she can’t understand why we’re confused. “I’m going to make myself into a hottie, then make out with Bobbie Davids at Taylor’s party.” She brings the blue eyeliner to her eyes and leans toward a prop-up mirror. “I knew tonight was going to be awesome. I just had this gut feeling, you know?”

“Annabelle, you can’t go to Taylor’s party,” Blue says.

I’m glad Blue spoke up, because the last thing I need is Charlie’s crew ensuring she stays her same ole prude self.

“Who says I can’t go to the party?”

“Your lack of invitation says you can’t go,” he answers.

“Whatever. It’s not like there were formal invites or anything.”

I pull the orange envelope out of my pocket and lay it on the table.

Annabelle stops mid-stroke and stares at the invite, then at me. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She handed these things out? What is this, the sixteenth century?” She rips the invitation out of the envelope. “It says it’s for you plus a guest. I guess
a
guest means
one
, huh?”

Blue and I nod in unison. I’m glad we agree on one thing.

“What is she going to do, kick us out?”

We nod again.

“Bobbie Davids would see me kicked out on my ass.” Annabelle takes a second to think about this. “Well, what if I want to go, anyway?”

“Anna, don’t ditch me, all right?” Blue pleads. It’s a little pathetic, actually. But I try not to judge, since he’s doing me a solid.

“No, you’ll come, too!” Annabelle gets up from the table and grabs his hands. “I’ll do your makeup, sweet cheeks.”

“Funny.” Blue yanks his hands away. “I’m not going to that party. We’re not invited, or we’d have an invitation.”

Annabelle’s smile crumbles. She walks over to the table without saying another word and starts loading the makeup back into the trunk. I know the stand-up thing to do would be to invite them along. It’s not like I couldn’t sweet-talk Taylor into letting them stay. But I have an assignment with a big, blubbery D-day, and I’m not letting these two get in the way.

Annabelle is sliding the makeup trunk back into the den closet when I hear Charlie’s bedroom door open. It’s about freakin’ time.

Grams glides down the stairs, and a second later, Charlie limps out. She’s as happy as a Care Bear, and I’d love to say she looks like a beauty queen, but she doesn’t. What she does look like is
passable
, which I’ll take. And for the first time I’m reminded Charlie is seventeen. Her blond hair is piled on top of her head, and she’s wearing a tasteful silver necklace. The red dress is killer—strapless, tight through the middle, and ruffles that end mid-thigh—but her lack of curves does nothing for it. Then I notice Charlie has a rack. Color me shocked.

I quickly glance away when I realize Grams thinks I’m staring at Charlie’s boobs with more than friendly interest.

Blue smiles like she just gave birth to his firstborn son. I roll my eyes at how obvious he is.

You can have her body when I’m done with her soul
, I want to tell him.

When Charlie reaches the bottom of the stairs, she takes the hand Blue is offering. “Do I look okay?” she asks, her cheeks reddening with excitement. “The dress is so great.”

Blue opens his mouth to say something, but he’s way too slow and way too inexperienced to handle this.

“Charlie,” I say, pausing for added effect. “That dress is nice.” I lean in close and whisper in her ear, “But you make it…
hypnotic
.”

Charlie’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. She grabs the bottom of her dress in her hands and squeezes. Then she turns to Annabelle and Blue. “I’m so sorry, guys. I tried to call your cells to tell you about tonight.”

It’s no biggie.” Annabelle shrugs a shoulder and smiles. “Next week.”

When I notice Grams is staring at me like she’s about to offer a one-way ticket to her bedroom, I decide it’s time to roll. “If you’ll excuse us,” I say, “I’m going to take Charlie with me now.”

Grams and Annabelle shuffle so we can reach the door, and Blue shoots me an I’d-like-to-cut-your-Achilles-tendons look.

I place my hand on the small of Charlie’s back and lead her from the house. As I’m opening her car door, Grams steps outside and yells, “Home by midnight, or I’ll whip you both.”

Charlie cringes, waves at her grandma, then slides into the passenger’s seat. I close her door and jog to the other side and get in. As I back out into the street, I notice a blue Nissan parked in front of her house. It has about the same appeal as a ninety-year-old with a heroin problem.

“Whose car is that?” I ask.

Charlie points a finger at the POS. “That’s Blue’s blue. We call him Scrappy.”

I decide that’s why Blue and Annabelle rode the bus to volunteer this morning. That thing makes a unicycle seem like reliable transportation.

Charlie is staring at me.

“What?” I ask without turning toward at her.

“Nothing,” she says. “You just look really nice. And I’m really happy you’re taking me to this party.”

“You are? I figured you might be having second thoughts.”

She shakes her head and tugs the top of her dress up, which is suddenly having an issue trying to cover up her chest.

“Well, that’s good.” I start Liz and pull out into the street. “I want you to let loose tonight. Try some things you wouldn’t normally try.”

“Like what?” she asks.

“Nothing crazy,” I answer. “It’s just…look, you don’t like when people judge you and your friends, do you?”

She shakes her head.

“Then just try to be open-minded and not judge the people at this party. You never know, you might even have fun.” I reach over to turn on the stereo, then stop.
She doesn’t like the radio
, I remind myself.

“Okay, I’ll be open-minded,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

With Charlie here beside me, I realize it was crazy to think she knows what she’s capable of. Not a chance. She has no idea she has a stash of glittery pink seals inside her body, and I’m definitely not telling her. The less she knows, the better.

I squeeze her knee and concentrate on finding Taylor’s house. We drive the rest of the way in silence, and strangely enough, it feels perfectly normal. Eventually, Elizabeth Taylor pulls off onto a dirt road, and we take it for a quarter mile. At the end of the makeshift road is an enormous two-story farmhouse with a wraparound porch on the top and bottom levels.

Music is blasting from the house, and a smile finds its way to my face. I park the car and open Charlie’s door. She bites her lip, and I tell her everything’s going to fine. But that’s not entirely the truth, is it? Because this party isn’t going to be
fine
.

It’s going to be the beginning of her end.

Chapter Eleven

The Party

I knock once, then let myself in.

Charlie doesn’t move from outside the doorway. “Shouldn’t we wait out here?”

“No, Charlie. If you’re invited to a party, you just go in.” I’m going to have to be careful tonight. She’s not used to parties, and I need her to mesh so she doesn’t get all holier-than-thou.

Charlie trails in after me like she’s expecting an alarm to sound.

Inside Taylor’s fridge, I grab myself a beer. “What do you want to drink?” I ask as I pop the top and take a pull. The beer rushes down my throat, and I shiver from how damn good it feels.

“Oh, I’m not drinking.” Charlie bites her nails and glances around. The kitchen is empty. In fact, the whole house is empty. Party must be in the back.

“Come on, Charlie. We talked about this on the way over. People drink at parties. You’re at a party.” I step toward her and run my hand down her arm. “Trying new things, remember?”

She wraps her arms around her waist, then smiles and nods.

“Thatta girl.” I grab a strawberry-kiwi wine cooler from the top shelf. A shot of tequila is what I’d like to feed her, but I figure I better ease her into this.

I slide the wine cooler across the kitchen counter, and she grabs it. More beer finds its way down my gullet as Charlie twists the cap off her drink. She takes a small sip.

“Not bad,” she says. She takes another sip.

Thank goodness for small miracles. “Ready to get crunk?”

“Get what?”

“Join the party.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says. “Where is everyone?”

“Probably in the back.” Following the thumping sound of bass, I lead the way through Taylor’s house and find a sliding glass door in the living room that leads outside. When I pull it open, the music washes over me.

Two speakers are built over an enormous deck that extends into the backyard. A dozen people sit on benches built along the inside of the deck, and from the sound of it, there are even more people farther out in the yard.

I nod
what’s up
to a few people and keep moving. Charlie stays near me as we head down a flight of wooden stairs descending from the deck. At the bottom of the stairs, she stops and makes this surprised sound.

In front of us is a clearing half the size of a football field. Beyond that are giant trees with white paper lanterns hanging from the branches. I’m a bit impressed myself. The parties I used to throw were limited to kegs and a bonfire. Guys don’t really do decorations.

Though this party is all
fancy
, the kegs are still in attendance, which is pretty delightful since I’ve already killed my beer. I crush the can and do a long-distance toss to the trash.

“Ready for another?” I turn around and face Charlie, who still has ninety-nine hundredths of her drink left. “Charlie, you’re nursing that thing. You need to drink it.”

She breaks her gaze from the lanterns and turns her drink up. I put my hand on the bottom and keep the bottle upturned for much longer than I’m sure she intended.

“There you go,” I say when she forces it back down. It’s going to take more than a wine cooler to earn Charlie seals, but I know where one wine cooler can lead, and that’s where we’re headed. Drunk people lose their inhibitions. People without inhibitions sin. Therefore, Operation Get Charlie Wasted has been launched. “One more good pull like that and we’ll be ready to hit the keg.”

“I knew you’d come.”

I turn around and see Taylor heading toward us. Over her shoulder, I spot a guy’s legs flailing in the air. Keg stand. Jealous.

“How long you been here?” Taylor wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me into a hug. Her boobs press against me, and I briefly wonder if they’ll make a full appearance tonight. The bright orange shirt she’s wearing is pushing those puppies up and over, and it wouldn’t take much to make it happen.

“Not long,” I say. “Good party.”

“’Course. I only throw the best. Come on, let me take you around and introduce you.” She loops her arm through mine and starts to pull me away.

“Hang on.” I pull my arm away. “Charlie, you want to walk around with us?”

Taylor notices Charlie, and her face puffs up like a blowfish. “I didn’t know you brought a date.”

I shrug because there’s no best way to handle this. Tearing into Taylor will be tonight’s dessert, but I can’t have Charlie upset.

“It’s okay,” Charlie says. “Think I might just hang out on the deck.”

Taylor grabs my arm again, and again I pull it away. “I’m not ditching her, Taylor.”

“Okay. Fine.” She smiles likes it’s no biggie. “I’ll be around if you decide to be social.”

I face Charlie as Taylor sashays toward a small group of girls. “Yes. Before you even say anything, yes. I want to hang out with you. No, it’s not fine that I ditch you. We came together, we’re partying together.”

Charlie grins. “I wasn’t going to say anything. But thanks.” She turns her wine cooler up and drains it dry. “Did you still want to go to the keg?”

“Damn, girl. You
do
know how to party.” I lead her toward the keg and fill up a red plastic cup. “Here you go, sweetheart.” I grab one for myself, and we sit down on the deck steps. “You having a good time?” What I mean to say is,
Are you feeling your booze yet?

“We’ve only been here, like, ten minutes,” she says in a completely sober voice. “But, yeah. I’m having fun.”

“Cool. How ’bout we make it even more fun?” I stand up and yell out across the clearing. “What’s up, people! Who’s up for a drinking game?”

Several drunkards give a slurred yell of excitement and raise their plastic cups.

“On the deck. Five minutes.”

I nudge Charlie, and she heads up the stairs, whispering to me over her shoulder. “I’ve never played a drinking game, Dante.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “It doesn’t take much athleticism.”

People crowd around us in a circle and await the drink-a-thon. I break past the crowd and climb up on a bench. My heart is pumping, and my mouth is smiling, and I feel like I belong.

“Everyone ready?”

Zombie-esque slurring.

“Okay. The game’s called I’ve Never. For the two of you who don’t know how to play, I’ll explain the rules. I’m going to yell something out, and if you’ve done it, you have to drink. Here we go.” I raise my glass up in the air. Charlie is watching me with big eyes and red cheeks.

“Hmmm. Let’s see. Okay, I’ve never gone to Centennial High School.” People grumble and take a drink of their beer. I do, too. And more importantly, so does Charlie.

“Next. Uh, let me think.” I glance at Charlie and act like I just thought of something, like she happened to give me the idea. “I’ve never volunteered before.” Taylor makes a big show of drinking, and so do several other people. I bet they’ve never volunteered a day in their life. But the girl in the red dress has, which is why she places the red cup to her mouth.

Charlie smiles and shakes her head like I’m flirting. Taylor’s eyebrows furrow, and she whispers to the girl standing near her.

I decide to let up for a couple, or Charlie will know I’m purposely targeting her.

“I’ve never been in a fistfight.” I take a big swallow of my beer and watch as several other guys, and a few chicks, join me.

One more freebie and it’s back to Operation Get Charlie Wasted. “I’ve never had a one-nighter.” People laugh and drink up, and my eyes nearly explode out of my skull when I see Miss Charlie Cooper sneak a drink.

“Game over. Thanks for playing.” I jump down from the bench and lean in close to Charlie. “You’ve had a one-nighter?”

Her whole face changes colors.
Damn right, I just busted you.

“It was last summer. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Who was it?” Not that I care.

She shrugs. “Just some guy I met. He was staying at the same hotel as me and Grams.”

I stand up straight and run my tongue over my teeth. Charlie getting it on with some random guy on the beach? Who woulda thunk. “You make it a habit of mugging down with strangers?”

“We didn’t mug down. We just kissed and stuff. Not that it’s any of your business.” Charlie turns and heads down the deck stairs toward the clearing.

I run after her, wondering if she realizes that
kissing and stuff
doesn’t really classify as a one-nighter. “None of my business?”

She shakes her head.

That’s it. She’s officially feeling her alcohol. And holy crap, she’s heading to the keg again. “You want another one?”

“Yeah. Beer’s gross, but it’s good for my brain. I like the way it fizzles in there.”

Good for my brain?
The collector part of me snatches up her cup and pumps more frothy yellow liquid. But the other part of me, the human part, feels a twinge deep in my gut. She’s getting drunk because of me. This fact is 95 percent pleasing, and 5 percent…something else. I can’t think about the something-else part. Especially since Charlie is half walking, half staggering toward a guy who’s sure to blow her off.

“Hey there, football man,” I overhear her saying.

Sweet Jesus.

I jog after her and grab her shoulders. “There you are, Charlie. Why don’t we go back up on the deck and hang out?”

“Dante, stop.” She pulls away from me and grins up at the disheveled guy three times her size. “I want to talk to Vince Haggard.”

Vince’s face lights up, and he glances at his buddies. Together, they laugh like they’re one person, which they sort of are. Charlie doesn’t realize they’re laughing at her. She only laughs with them and makes sweet love to her cup of beer. I’ve got to get her to slow down before she becomes
that
girl.

“Hey, why don’t I get you something mixed? I bet there’s good stuff in the house.” What I mean by this is,
I bet there’s Coke in the house, and you’ll have no idea it’s virgin.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she says. “Beer tastes like gold nuggets and baby kittens. Which is exactly why I’d prefer another one.” Charlie upends her cup. I’d like to say beer spills out onto the ground. But it doesn’t. Because Charlie has already polished it off. In, like, two seconds.

This is getting ridiculous. If she keeps going like this, she’ll be passed out within an hour, and passed-out peeps tend to refrain from sinning. I need a distraction, something to get her mind off drinking.

Taylor is a few feet away, and I have an idea.

“Hey, Taylor,” I yell. “Good times.” I raise my glass, and she smiles with one side of her mouth. “How about another game? Maybe a sober one so the lightweights can play.”

She glances at her friends, and her half smile grows wider.

“Yeah, I got a game we can play,” she says. “But only since you asked.”