Chapter Twenty-five

Phil heard from Annie. She was so cool, and she called him Philip, which was oddly thrilling.

“ Tonight, Philip,” she said. “ Eight o'clock in Room 101, downstairs in the residence building.”

He had asked her what was happening there, but she just teased him.

“Can't tell you. It wouldn't be a surprise then, would it?”

Phil felt just like a kid going on a first date. Excited, scared, jittery, and barely able to wait.

Now he paced on his small balcony, looking out at the stars and the mountains. The rest of this trip was going to be so far removed from the first part. He could hardly believe how much things had changed.

Annie made him feel so young. So virile.

Great. It was going to be just great!

He started imagining taking Annie's blouse off as he kissed her shoulders. The fantasy was so intense he barely noticed Dee Dee come in the front door. She shut it ever so gently, and Phil thought about how when you knew someone like he knew Dee Dee you could tell when they did the “guilty shut.” Yeah, that was it. Just a little more finesse than she ordinarily would use to show her husband that she was still a caring and decent person, but a little too decent and a little too caring for Dee Dee, the bitch!

“Philly?” she called, her voice in the “guilty sweet,” too high register.

“Out here, baby,” Phil said, going for the mocking but not too mocking voice so she couldn't tell if he was psychotically angry or not.

She pranced out onto the balcony, looking kind of too fresh. He knew the look. It was the fresh-makeup-and-combed-hair look, the identity a guilty woman assumed after fucking her brains out for the last five hours.

He took a deep breath and smiled at her.

“Did you and Kiki have fun?”

“His name is Ziko, as you well know, Phil,” she said, plopping down in the recliner and looking out at the lovely mountains.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Did you have a good time?”

“You bet,” she said. “What did you do, nap?”

The way she snapped out “nap” was unbearable. It sounded all hard-edged and metallic, like two pieces of chrome banging together. “Nap,” as in “you old piece of shit who can't get it up anymore, Flaccid Guy!”

Phil felt his temperature rise. The way she had pushed and pushed him to make the business successful. The way she had made him cut corners. Why, he would have been happy with half the money they sold it for, but Ms. Greedy had to have it all, every goddamned last dime, no matter who they hurt.

And, he thought, looking at her with fresh eyes, they had hurt plenty of people. Hundreds of them—no, be honest, probably thousands of them—over the years.

But it wasn't him. No, it was Ms. Nickel and Dime, gotta have it all. It wasn't him who was greedy.

Was it?

He looked at her sitting there on the patio with her legs propped up on the drinks table. He thought about how he used to live to see those thighs. How important it had been, how impossibly wonderful her breasts had seemed.

But now, now her legs, her breasts, her ass—none of it did a thing for him. Nothing at all.

He thought of Annie, impossibly cute Annie, with whom he would soon be bopping in the boudoir, and he felt such happiness and freedom.

He was still almost young and cool, and he didn't have to listen to this skank ever again.

He started to ease into a wild sexual fantasy about Annie, but Dee Dee's chrome-clank voice cut through his reverie.

“I'm not going to be around tonight,” she said. “Ziko and I are dining together at a special party with his friends.”

“That's wonderful,” Phil said. “May you have a wonderful time together, Dee Dee. And don't worry about me because I've run into someone and I'm also dining out. And I might add she's way hotter than you.”

Dee Dee looked horrified. Her lips curled up and her eyes turned into rattlesnake slits.

“You son of a bitch. What is she, some kind of nurse/whore you paid to change your bedpan?”

She threw her cocktail in his face and headed back across the room.

“Have a great night, loser!” she screamed, opening the door.

Phil threw his own glass after her.

His head was splitting, so he popped an Advil. It was all over. This relationship was history. He had a new thing going with lovely, youthful Annie. In a mere two hours!

Better pop a Viagra, too, and get ready to rock and roll!