CHAPTER 12
I guess some things do change, thought Devin Lowens as she looked around at the newly redecorated Jackie’s. Not that changing the paint was that big a deal. The people were still the same, and it was people that interested Devin. Well, not people exactly, but what they could do for her. She had to admit this even about herself. People were a means to an end, not something with any intrinsic value.
And from the look of things, the people at Jackie’s were not going to be much help to her. As she scanned the bar she saw many of the same faces she’d seen there the last time. That had been what, almost a year ago? She’d come for some supposed friend’s graduation party. Apparently some of the guests had never left, because there they were, drinks in hand and stupid smiles on their faces. They were probably still having the same dreary conversations they’d been having last Memorial Day weekend, conversations about their boring lives and their boring dreams and their boring plans.
She was tempted to turn around and leave. But where would she go? As much as she hated to admit it, Jackie’s was the place to be. How pathetic, she thought as she worked her way through the crowd to the bar. In New York this place would be begging people to come in.
New York. She wished she were there. Or LA. That would be even better. She could do well in LA. It was a town made for a woman like her. Instead she was stuck in Provincetown again. Why? Because she didn’t know the right people. Her family didn’t have connections. They didn’t have anything. It was her bad luck to have been born to an electrician father and a homemaker mother. “Everyone thinks the traditional family is such hot shit,” she’d once told her parents during one of their frequent fights. “What the fuck has it gotten me?” Maybe being the child of a film star or a big-shot power broker wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world, but at least it would have given her a head start. She would gladly trade twenty-two years of birthday parties and perfect Christmases for an uncle who worked at CAA or a cousin who did lunch with Spielberg.
“Give me a gin and tonic,” she told the bartender. She hoped a drink would make the evening more tolerable.
“Devin?”
She turned to see a perky blonde behind her.
“Kelly,” she said flatly, as if identifying a particularly uninteresting insect she’d discovered crawling across the floor.
Oblivious of Devin’s unenthusiastic greeting, Kelly beamed. “It’s so good to see you. Are you done with school?”
Devin nodded, looking over Kelly’s shoulder as if she were expecting someone else to show up.
“Me too,” the girl continued. “Can you believe we’re actually out of college? I mean, pretty soon we’ll be married with babies and turning thirty.”
Like fuck I will, Devin thought. She gladly accepted the drink the bartender pushed toward her and took a deep sip.
“What was your major?” Kelly continued, clearly determined to mine this particularly repugnant topic for all it was worth.
“Organic chemistry,” Devin lied, hoping it would be sufficiently intimidating to Kelly to make her pursue another line of questioning or, even better, another victim.
“Wow,” replied Kelly. “That sounds tough. I just went for your basic business admin degree.”
Devin, who as of a few days before possessed a B.A. in exactly the same field, nodded condescendingly. “That’s a pretty standard one,” she said.
Kelly shrugged. “I know,” she said, sounding guilty for being so ordinary. “But it seemed the most practical. I’m hoping to get a job in Boston. I’m just here for a few weeks to unwind. Me and a friend from school are getting an apartment in the city next month.”
The city. Devin cringed. That’s what so many of the kids she knew who grew up in and around Provincetown called Boston, as if it were the only major metropolis in the country. To many of them it represented the great unknown, the glorious forbidden city of their dreams where, if they were very lucky, they might escape when they were old enough.
“Sounds nice,” she told Kelly.
“Thanks,” Kelly said, mistaking Devin’s remark for a compliment. “So, how long are you here for?”
“Just a couple of days,” answered Devin.
“To see your folks,” Kelly said. It wasn’t a question, just a statement, as if of course someone would want to come back to town to see her family before setting out to begin her new life.
“Yeah, to see my folks,” Devin mimicked.
Before the conversation could proceed, Kelly was surrounded by several more people.
“Hey, Kel, we’re going to head over to the beach,” said a guy sporting a shaved head and a lip piercing.
“Cool,” Kelly replied. “Chad, you remember Devin, right?”
Chad looked at Devin and gave her a lopsided grin. “Sure,” he said. “You look good.”
And you look like a fish stuck on a hook, thought Devin, eyeing Chad’s lip piercing critically. Chad had been their school’s football hero, an empty-headed jock whom Devin had looked upon as the epitome of everything that made high school a living hell.
“You want to come with us, Devin?” Kelly asked. “A lot of the kids from school are back for the summer.”
Devin shook her head. “No, thanks,” she answered quickly. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Later then,” Kelly replied as Chad grabbed her hand and pulled her away.
“Not if I’m lucky,” Devin muttered under her breath.
She was relieved to have Kelly out of her sight. It was bad enough that she was back in town for the summer. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded of her old life there. During the past four years she’d worked hard to become someone new, someone who hadn’t grown up surrounded by people who earned their livings doing work for summer visitors who made more money than they did and thus could afford to have what they wanted. She’d slowly molded herself into something different, a person who wasn’t burdened with a blue-collar upbringing and the limitations that came with it.
For the most part, she’d succeeded. The other students at the small college she’d attended knew very little about her. She’d manufactured a family consisting of an architect father and a mother who did political consulting for candidates whose names Devin pulled straight from the newspapers. Details were vague, and she’d allowed stories about her to grow naturally, fueled by the occasional shared anecdote or well-timed introduction of innuendo that could be passed around without fear of being discredited. She’d cultivated no close friends but a large circle of acquaintances and hangers-on, and in this way she’d managed to discard a great deal of what she considered an unwelcome personal history.
One thing she hadn’t been able to rid herself of, however, was her educational loans. She now owed various state and federal agencies in excess of $45,000. That’s why she was back, living in her parents’ home and looking for a way to pay her bills. She’d always assumed that she would find the perfect job, but as time had run out on her senior year she’d discovered that entry-level positions in the fields she thought herself worthy of paid surprisingly little. “For every person who turns us down, there are fifty who will say yes,” one recruiter for a New York public relations firm had told her smugly after revealing that the salary of the assistant job she coveted was barely enough to pay for daily lunch at Burger King, much less a studio apartment in Chelsea, dinners in SoHo, and the occasional shopping excursion to Fifth Avenue.
In the end she’d been unwilling to compromise. Scraping by was not her style, and she’d decided to take some time to come up with an alternate plan. Now here she was, newly arrived back in town and wondering if perhaps she’d made a mistake. Her parents, always disconcerted by her disdain for the life they’d provided her, took her return to them as an acceptance of their ideals, and had welcomed her warmly. Ensconced in the upstairs bedroom she’d spent her teen years planning her escape from, she was facing a summer of mindless work at minimum wage, nights listening to her father’s snoring in the bedroom below hers, and a steady stream of unwanted parental advice.
I’ve got to find a way out, she thought bitterly as she lit a cigarette and breathed deeply of the smoke. She couldn’t smoke in the house, as her parents strictly forbade the habit. It was yet another reminder to Devin that she was not in control of her own life, and it infuriated her.
Her drink was half gone. Thankfully, the bartender had been generous with the gin, and its soothing touch was beginning to take effect. She leaned against the bar and took inventory of the club. Jackie, as always, was flitting about talking to customers and keeping everything running smoothly. Devin admired Jackie for her ability to run her business, but pitied the woman for what she saw as a lack of vision. The place could be so much more hip, more cutting edge. All it would take was a few changes.
Like getting rid of that tired old drag queen, she thought as Emmeline finished a song and the audience applauded. Shouldn’t she be dead by now? She hated drag queens. They were an embarrassment, the clowns of the gay community. Why did people like them so much? They were creepy—pathetic men who wished they were women, settling for illusion because they couldn’t handle the reality of what they were. They should all be put in zoos, Devin thought, laughing at the image of children tossing peanuts at the cages of grotesque creatures as they tapped helplessly on the bars with their fake nails and screamed to be let out.
Yes, if it were her place the drag queen would be out. So would the homely members of the wait staff. Only beautiful people should carry food, she thought. Being handed a plate by a handsome waiter or a girl with a lovely face made its contents taste better somehow. An overdone piece of beef could be forgiven if the hands setting it on the table belonged to a waitress with porcelain skin and full lips, and even the most characterless of salads took on new life when sprinkled with fresh-ground pepper by an Italian man with dark eyes and long, fine fingers.
Devin herself knew all about the effects of beauty. One of the few things she’d inherited from her parents for which she was grateful was her genes. A lovely baby, she’d grown into a charming toddler and then a stunning teenager. Her auburn hair, a gift from her mother’s Irish ancestors, glowed like polished wood against her pale skin. From her father she’d gotten eyes the color of dusk, a soft gray that melted into gold at the edges. The combination was breathtaking, and her ability to affect people’s moods with her looks was one of Devin’s earliest discoveries. Men and women were equally entranced by her, and she’d seldom turned down an invitation from either, particularly when there was something to gain from the encounter.
Not that romance was something that particularly fascinated her. Sex was fine, but the emotional trappings that often came with it were just a distraction as far as she was concerned. Her liaisons were seldom repeated, unless doing so provided substantial benefits, and the notion of something enduring was not an option she was willing to consider. Early in her college years she’d made the mistake of allowing a young man she’d met and bedded at a party to take her out again. The result—a string of pleading phone calls and a final, unpleasant scene witnessed by more people than was necessary—had decided Devin against ever allowing herself to be put in that position again. Since then she’d enjoyed many partners in her bed, or more often in theirs, but had remained blissfully free of the affliction of partnership.
Despite the effects of the gin and tonic, she was getting depressed. There was nothing at Jackie’s for her, no one to distract her from her situation or provide some moments of amusement. It was typical Provincetown, and it annoyed her. The residents had nothing to offer, and the summer people were by and large fags. Not that fags weren’t interesting; she’d had a lot of fun with gay men over the years. But tonight she was bored by them, irritated by their perfect haircuts and beautiful bodies because she knew that when they left the town most of them would be going back to places she wished she lived, to lives she wished she had.
It was time to leave. She hurriedly finished her drink and put out her cigarette. She found her way through the growing crowd and out the door into the cool air. Even that disturbed her, reeking as it did of nature and the sea rather than the musty scent of a nightclub with its odor of sweat, smoke, and alcohol. Everything was a reminder of the step back she’d been forced to take.
As she walked angrily back toward her parents’ house and the cramped twin bed of her childhood room, she spied a fire on the beach. The sound of voices flickered in the night, punctuated by the occasional spark of laughter. Kelly and the rest of the morons, Devin thought, looking at the shadows moving around the flames. Probably every single person around that campfire was someone she’d gone to high school with, someone she’d despised. The idea of them all gathered in one spot repulsed her.
Fueled by her bad mood and the drink coursing through her blood, she took the steps down to the beach and walked out onto the sand. If she had to have a miserable night, she thought, she might as well spread the unhappiness. It would at least give her something to do.
“Hey,” she said as she entered the circle of the fire. There were five people gathered there. As she’d suspected, she knew them all.
“You came!” Kelly said happily, her voice carrying its perpetual exclamation point. “I was just telling everyone that I saw you.”
“Well, here I am,” Devin said. She settled herself on a log beside Jack Merton. She and Jack had shared an English class in high school. Back then his distinguishing characteristic had been that he wore too much aftershave. Devin was disappointed to discover that things hadn’t changed.
“Kelly tells us you’re just back for a little while,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” replied Devin, suddenly wishing she’d gone home instead of detouring onto the beach. “Who could stand more than a couple of weeks?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “It’s not such a bad place.”
“If you’re eighty-five or queer,” Devin remarked sharply. In high school Jack had prided himself on his ability to get women into bed, and Devin hoped her gibe would get under his skin.
“Jack’s already got quite a gig,” Chad said. “Not that he’ll tell us anything about it.”
“I told you,” Jack said, holding his hands up. “I can’t say a word.”
“What’s the big mystery?” Devin asked, intrigued despite herself.
Kelly answered her. “Jack runs a housecleaning business,” she said. “He’s got some big important client this summer, but he won’t tell us who it is.”
Big deal, thought Devin, disappointed. It’s probably Martha fucking Stewart or something.
“All we know is it’s someone in the movie business,” Chad elaborated.
“I didn’t say that,” Jack protested.
“Dude, you said it was someone from Hollywood,” said Chad. “What else is in Hollywood?”
Devin watched Jack’s face. He was looking anywhere but at his friends, making her suspect that he’d already said more than he was supposed to. Was it possible his client was someone important? She doubted it, but it was the first even remotely intriguing thing she’d stumbled upon since coming back to Provincetown.
“Come on, Jack,” she said, putting her hand on the man’s back. “It’s not like we’re going to tell anyone.”
Jack shook his head. “I had to sign a form and everything,” he said. “Not even the girls I send out there are allowed to know.”
Now Devin really wanted to find out who Jack was working for, not because she thought it was anyone she cared about but because it was a secret that was being withheld from her.
“Okay,” she said, employing a new strategy. “That’s cool. If this person asked you to keep quiet, you should. We’ll just talk about something else.”
“Thank you,” said Jack gratefully.
“So,” Devin said, “what’s everyone else been up to?”
For the next hour she listened as her ex-classmates described in excruciating detail the specifics of their pathetic lives. She didn’t really pay attention, but she nodded and laughed when appropriate so that they would think she was listening. In reality, though, she was figuring out a way to get what she really wanted.
When, shortly before one in the morning, the party broke up, Devin waited around as everyone left and it was just she and Jack, who had volunteered to put the fire out, left behind. As he spread the coals around, burying the embers beneath a mound of sand, she went to work.
“It’s so good seeing you again,” she said.
“Really?” Jack replied. “I always got the impression you didn’t much like me.”
Devin laughed. “You know how girls can be when they have a crush on a guy,” she said.
Jack stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “You liked me?” he said.
Devin nodded. “Yeah, but you always had some other girl around,” she said.
Jack came and sat beside her. “I don’t have one around now,” he said nervously.
Devin smiled. “Maybe we should make up for lost time then.”
As Jack kissed her, she shut her eyes and willed herself not to pull away. Jack’s tongue moved eagerly between her lips as he embraced her. Devin allowed him to wrap her in his arms. Jack was clumsy, anxious, his hands all over her. He probably hasn’t gotten laid in forever, thought Devin. Good. She could use that to her advantage.
She moved her hand to Jack’s crotch. Not surprisingly, he was hard. She found the zipper of his jeans and pulled on it. With any luck, she thought, this should only take a few minutes.