When I walk in the door after a pre-Emmys party, the phone is ringing but I decide to hang a metaphorical “Do Not Disturb” sign and not answer. I feel the need to chain-smoke while unpacking the three shopping bags I’ve filled with thongs, conditioner, skirts I won’t ever wear, and cleansers that promise to deliver “face lift–like results.”
The fact that I’ve just been to a freebie Emmys event and have nothing to do with the Emmys—in fact, I couldn’t even begin to guess who’s been nominated—hardly seems relevant. I was invited by a publicist who sounded so thrilled I’d accepted her invitation that it was immediately obvious she thought getting me there would somehow generate coverage in Chat. Oh, well, I’d decided. I’d heard about these award show events where all the nominees and presenters are invited to some mansion to get all this free shit in exchange for allowing photographers to catch them clutching the newly acquired products, and figured there wouldn’t be any harm in attending.
Inhaling deeply on my cigarette, it occurs to me that I may have been wrong. From the minute I’d been allowed into this English Tudor mansion that was rumored to rent for $20,000 a day and walked from booth to booth, I’d felt this childish greed well up in me. My eyes darted around in a feverish panic—I wanted to be at the Keds shoe booth and the MAC makeup table and the Toys “R” Us mini castle all at the same time, even though I don’t like Keds, rarely wear makeup, and certainly don’t need any toys. Every person stopping me from getting everything all at once—which is to say, every person there—seemed an irritant. Yet no one booth seemed to whet my appetite. The best stuff is over to the right, I’d think. Or, ohhh, Nailtiques nail polish—now that’s what I should be getting. I felt like a contestant on a game show I used to watch when I was little, where the winners could take home everything they could pile into a shopping cart in the allotted time. It used to bring up simultaneous feelings of panic and excitement that I could barely stand. But actually being one of the participants inspired a far more powerful emotion: greed.
And I didn’t much like the sycophantic aspect of my personality the event seemed to bring out. I absolutely adore sarongs, I’d found myself saying to this woman giving out inexplicably tacky tie-dyed sarongs. Or I’ve been looking for sunglasses just like this I said to the guy giving out Ray-Bans I’d never wear. Most everyone was almost painfully nice—way too nice, considering the fact that I was taking things they typically sell and not giving them anything in return—and it seemed impossible to believe in that environment that something like poverty or a famine in Africa or even George Bush existed. Conversations seemed to revolve around plastic surgery and Emmy after-parties and the new line of Juicy now at Lisa Kline. And where were the Emmy nominees, anyway? The crowd seemed to be comprised of tabloid reporters, publicists picking things out “for their clients,” and other seemingly soulless moochers. And I couldn’t deny the fact that I was one of them.
Now that I’m home and have all the contents out of their bags and divided into small piles, I have this strong desire to give everything away. Not to the homeless or anything crazy, just to friends. I don’t deserve all this stuff, I say to myself as I mash a cigarette out, but I don’t know why.
Then I start resenting the event for making me depressed. I’d been feeling so good since getting sober—like I’d exited my life and wandered into someone else’s—that I guess I’d begun to assume that malaise was simply a feeling from my old life that I no longer had to be bothered with. But in my heart, I know it’s not the event that has me down; it’s the fact that it’s been over a month since Adam and I talked in New York and he still hasn’t called.
My phone rings and, as soon as I check caller ID and determine that it’s not Adam, I return to the couch and my pack of cigarettes. I shouldn’t be isolating, I think as I eventually pick up my phone to listen to the messages. They’d warned us about isolating in rehab, telling us that if we felt like being alone, we should do “contrary action” and get out. But I really just don’t feel like it.
There’s a message from Tim saying that he loves the new column, a couple of hang-ups, Stephanie asking if I want to go to a screening with her, and Rachel wanting to know why I hadn’t checked in with her for a few days. How the hell can he claim to be thinking about me obsessively and then not call? I wonder.
I turn on my computer to start going through e-mails I still have to respond to and somehow land on the one Charlotte (aka Tube Top) sent with all her writing attached. I open up the first document, thinking that reading her attempts to sound like a writer should make me feel better about myself.
And then something altogether shocking happens: I’m thoroughly transfixed. Her first attachment is an essay she wrote about meeting a nude photographer, asking him to take pictures of her and then almost backing out of the portraits until he gives her painkillers that subdue her enough to help her lose her self-consciousness. The piece so perfectly captures the conflict I’ve felt about being proud of my body while simultaneously ashamed of that pride. It’s funny and honest and so unlike anything I’d ever imagine an eighteen-year-old—let alone an eighteen-year-old that looks like her—writing that I’m in complete shock. Screw her, I think, wishing I hadn’t read her e-mail in the first place.
My phone rings and it makes me half jump out of my skin. It’s a private number but I will myself to do “contrary action” and answer.
“Hel-lo.” I sound a bit singsongy and, I notice, almost shockingly normal.
“Party Girl?” I immediately recognize the voice but pretend I don’t.
“Yes?”
“Jeremy Barrenbaum. What are you doing there? Why aren’t we out tearing the town up?”
I feel immediately self-conscious about having been caught at home with no plans on a Thursday evening. “Oh, I’m on my way out,” I say, glancing at the clock: 7:30 P.M. Sounds reasonable.
“Cool, where to? Maybe I’ll join you.”
Momentary panic, and then: “Just to a friend’s. Private party, sorry.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “How about tomorrow? Nobu in Malibu?”
I’ve never liked fish so I certainly don’t eat raw fish, which has long made me a complete anomaly in Los Angeles. But, most of all, I don’t like the idea of being out with Jeremy Barrenbaum and having to continue to perpetuate this notion that I’m wild when I’m not. What am I going to do, have the waitress crack open a bottle of Martinelli’s apple cider and pretend it’s champagne?
I take a breath. “You know, Jeremy, I should have told you something the other night.”
“Oh, I read that Page Six thing about how you’re not into guys. I don’t buy it for a second.”
I stifle the urge to hang up on him. “Oh, I’m straight. But I am actually seeing someone. A guy.”
A slight pause and then: “Look, I don’t care. I’m seeing someone, too.”
Oh my God, no wonder he has so many movie credits, I think. What a pushy bastard. “Yeah, well, I only want to be with the person I’m seeing,” I say. I picture Adam and for a second believe he and I really are dating.
“Oh, okay.” He doesn’t sound put out in the slightest. “Want to take my number? Things may not work out with this guy.”
“Sure,” I say, knowing I’m being spineless. He recites a few numbers—home, office, cell, and a place in Palm Springs—and I pretend to be writing them down while I lie on my back not moving. Then I say, “I’ll talk to you soon.” I immediately know I shouldn’t have said that because I don’t want to but it just automatically comes out of my mouth when I’m trying to get off the phone. He says good-bye and I sit there holding the phone for only what seems like a second when it rings again. A 212 number on caller ID. I figure it might be a Chat editor trying to close my column so I answer.
“Hello.” I’m not as singsongy but my voice still sounds misleadingly cheery.
“Sweetie, it’s Nadine. What on earth are you doing home?”
Oh, God. Nadine seems to be under the mistaken impression that I spend every waking minute going to A-list parties, and to be fair to her, I haven’t done anything to correct that impression. “Just stopping home for a minute,” I manage. “I had to change my purse.”
“Oh, of course.” I’d known that excuse would work; people like Nadine changed their purses a lot, while I tend to carry the same one for months or years at a time. “Where are you off to?”
“Just a friend’s private party.” By now, I was definitely beginning to believe myself. “A movie producer.” I plan to give her Jeremy Barrenbaum’s name if she presses further.
“Oh, fabulous! And I’m calling with even more fabulous news! Ryan Duran’s people called. Apparently, he read your column and wants to go out with you.”
Now I’ve heard of this kind of thing happening. Supposedly, Tom Cruise saw Nicole Kidman’s first movie, Dead Calm, then called her agent and set up a date. But it still shocks me to hear that it’s possible to look at life like it’s a Pottery Barn catalog or Pink Dot menu, and order people—even if you happened to be world-famous and adorable.
Ryan Duran, a well-respected movie star who had first become well known as a teenager in the ’80s and somehow managed to avoid the inevitable backlash that should have followed his initial success, has a fairly well publicized reputation as both a troubled soul and a ladies’ man—which means, of course, that I’ve had a crush on him for as long as I can remember. I’d actually just read a piece on him in Premiere where he’d talked about how all he wanted to do was run with his dog on the beach near Zuma, and I’d fantasized about being the one waiting at the Malibu house for him to come home to after said run. All I can manage to say is, “What?”
“‘He thinks she’s hot,’ his manager said. ‘Can he call her?’ I told him I thought so, but I’d have to check with you.”
I feel a bizarre internal tug-of-war—I don’t really care but this latent adolescent part of me is beyond thrilled. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Say yes! It could be fabulous publicity for the column!”
I’m slightly surprised by Nadine’s response, even though I probably shouldn’t be. What did I think, she was suddenly going to transform into a spiritual giant and talk to me about something besides publicity?
“In that case,” I say, fantasizing that news of my date with Ryan will get out and Adam will be fantastically jealous, “pass my number along.”
“Hooray! I’m so glad you said that—because, actually, I already did.”
“Nadine!”
“He actually should be calling any minute.”
“But you called to ask if it was okay with me.”
“I pretty much assumed you were going to say yes. I mean, who says no to Ryan Duran?”
Just then, my call waiting bleeps in. Private number. “Oh, Nadine. That’s my other line.”
“It’s probably him!”
I can’t imagine Ryan Duran making the effort to do something like call a person when surely everything is always delivered to him before he can even realize he wants it. I’m about to tell Nadine not to worry, that I’ll just call whoever it is back, but she shrieks, “You’re answering it!” and hangs up the phone.
I click down and clear my throat. “Hello?”
“Amelia?” I immediately know it’s him. His voice seems more familiar to me than my mother’s, or even the AOL Moviefone guy’s. Of course, I’m not remotely willing to let this on. “Yes?”
“It’s Duran. How are you?” I’m simultaneously repelled and charmed by his last-name-only introduction—turned off by the potential cheesiness of someone doing that to a person they’ve never met while also touched by the bizarre sense of intimacy our interaction already has.
“I’m well. And you?”
“It’s all good. Except for one thing. I’m sitting here on my deck, having watched an insanely beautiful sunset. And I’m wondering why I’m doing it alone.”
Was this really how he introduced himself to people? Was he not even going to bother with the whole Hey, I know this is a bit out of left field but I was reading your column and I thought, why not ask my manager to try to get in touch with her? If you were a household name, were you simply allowed to skip over the small talk the rest of us believe is absolutely imperative?
All I say is, “Is that so?”
“Mmmm hmmm,” he says, and I can picture him on the other side of the phone, sitting on an expansive deck talking on a cordless phone, wearing the close-lipped smile I’ve witnessed in at least half a dozen of his movies. “What are you doing?”
“On my way to a friend’s house for a party.” I’ve said it so much that at this point, it may as well be true.
“What do you say you blow that off, drive over to the beach, and hang out with me? I’ve got my kid tonight.”
Ah yes, I’d forgotten. Ryan had been briefly married to a Spanish aspiring actress/singer in the mid-’90s and he sometimes talked about his kid in interviews. Even though all I’d wanted for the night was to go into a TIVO coma and everyone knows that you don’t go over to a guy’s house the first time he calls, I feel hopeful that hanging out with Ryan could potentially take my mind off Adam.
“I can be there in half an hour” is all I say.
“Come on in,” Ryan says as he opens the door to reveal a minimalist, cavernous white loft. Looking every bit the way he does in movies, he gives my lips a quick peck and gestures for me to follow him into his kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?” He picks up a glass, shakes it so that the ice cubes in it rattle, and then takes a generous sip.
“Water?” I ask, feeling nervous and hating myself for it.
“Pellegrino okay?” He says this as he opens the fridge.
“That’s great.” Ryan produces a small bottle of Pellegrino, pulling the corkscrew top off by wedging it under a wooden table and pushing the bottom of the bottle down. It’s such a casually masculine move that I find myself unnervingly turned on by it. He hands me the bottle and I take a sip.
“What do you feel like doing? Want to take a walk on the beach?” He asks me this like I come over here all the time and determining our nightly plans is simply part of our ritual. Just then, a small dark-haired boy comes barreling into the room and throws himself around Ryan’s legs.
“Hey, you. What’s up?” Ryan says, tousling the kid’s hair. “Want to come walk with Daddy and his friend on the beach?”
The child gazes at me with wide eyes. “I’m Diego,” he announces.
“I’m—”
“Amelia,” Ryan finishes and I’m both impressed by Ryan’s ability to remember and say my name and horrified by how easily impressed I am.
“Hi, Amelia.” Diego scatters out from under his dad’s arm and runs up to me. “Are you going to be spending the night?”
Total silence, and then I force a laugh. Ryan’s the one who should probably be embarrassed by the direction this conversation has taken, so why am I the one blushing? When it becomes clear that I don’t have an answer, Ryan smiles. “Chill out, kid,” he says affectionately. “Where’s Sam?”
Diego yells, “Sa-am!” and a towheaded kid comes scampering into the room. “Are we going out for pizza?” he asks Ryan.
Ryan doesn’t introduce me and I decide that it’s not worth getting offended over not officially meeting a prepubescent. Ryan glances at me and then at the two kids.
“No, we’re going to play ball on the beach,” he says and, even though I’m still stricken with the memory of all those notes I forced my mom to write so that I could get out of P.E. on “Dodgeball Day,” I try to smile. “Right, Amelia?”
Maybe it’s that Ryan’s face is about as familiar to me as my own. Maybe it’s that he’s undeniably sexy. Or maybe I just hoped that a game of ball (football? baseball? who knew?) would calm my nerves ever so slightly. Running around on the beach with a couple of kids could maybe help me forget the fact that I was standing in the home of someone I’d had posters of my entire adolescence or that the guy I was obsessed with—who happened to live mere blocks away—was clearly blowing me off.
“We sure are,” I say, kicking off the platform heels that I’d so carefully selected for this excursion. “Who’s coming?”
“Here you go!” I shriek, tossing an enormous beach ball toward Sam. He catches it, which makes me feel enormously validated, and tosses it back. Next to us, Ryan and Diego kick a soccer ball back and forth.
“Bet you can’t catch it if I throw it really high!” I yell and toss the ball up what I imagine is going to be hundreds of feet in the air only to have it fly about a foot up before flopping to the ground. Sam good-naturedly runs toward me to retrieve it.
“That was lame!” he yells as he scoops the ball up and makes his way back to where he was standing before.
Does Sam know that I’m faking interest in this impromptu beach ball game? Does he understand that I’m self-consciously watching myself try to act cavalier playing nonsensical ball games on the beach with Ryan Duran and two eight-year-olds? Or does Ryan have so many different women over that the sight of a slightly uncomfortable, overly enthusiastic young woman doesn’t even seem like a fact worth noting?
As Sam tosses the ball back in my direction, he doesn’t seem remotely aware of any of the thoughts racing through my brain. He seems intent, actually, on having the ball reach me, and I’m oddly touched by his fervor and the way he’s acting like all of this is all so normal. Inside I’m thinking, It’s probably not good to be excited about getting validation from an eight-year-old, but on the outside I think I’m doing a fairly decent job of acting like an all-around beach and sports enthusiast.
Then Diego kicks the soccer ball to Sam, and Ryan walks over to me and grabs my hand. “I’m just trying to tire these guys out so they’ll crash,” he says, and his face cracks into one of his famous, beautiful smiles. “You’re an angel for helping me out here.”
“Are you kidding? I love it,” I say, worrying that my voice sounds fake, even though, at the moment, I feel like I’m telling the truth. He falls down onto the sand, pulls a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds from his jacket pocket, and starts searching for matches. And even though I don’t have a clue what the hell I’m supposed to be doing or saying, I smile and think, Ryan Duran called me an angel, pretending that Adam was somehow walking by and heard it.
“Red or white?” Ryan asks as he glances at the wine menu and then looks up at me. We’re in a casual Italian restaurant down the street from his loft, after having finished the beach ball games and left the kids watching The Lord of the Rings at home with a babysitter.
“Neither—I don’t drink,” I say without even pausing to feel self-conscious about it. I’m not sure if that’s because I sense that Ryan doesn’t seem judgmental or because he seems really only focused on himself and probably wouldn’t care.
“That’s cool,” he says, sliding his napkin onto his lap. “I used to be sober, you know.”
Since getting out of Pledges, I’ve run into some people who have casually explained to me that they’re not sober anymore and while none of them have had heroin needles dangling from their arms, I’ve tended to treat the whole concept of “formerly sober” somewhat skeptically. Nobody ends up here by accident, people at Pledges say, meaning, like the Hair Club for Men, if you thought you needed sobriety at one point, chances are you still do. But maybe there are exceptions, I think as I unfold my napkin and put it on my lap. You never hear about the people who leave and have perfectly wonderful lives where they’re able to drink and do drugs casually. We only learn about the ones who go out, screw it up royally, and come back after having lost everything—or, of course, the people who overdose.
“It just really didn’t work for me,” Ryan is saying. “The whole sponsor thing. Like I really need some asshole telling me what to do? You know?” He focuses his bright green eyes on me, clearly seeking validation of some kind.
“Some sponsors are assholes,” I say, feeling a bit guilty for deriding the program instead of telling him he sounds like he’s trying to justify not being sober anymore. “But some are great. Just like with anything, I guess.”
I’d hoped my statement would show how open-minded, nonjudgmental, positive, and yet realistic I was but once it’s out of my mouth, I realize it sounds pretty inane—a fact I’m even more convinced of when it becomes clear that Ryan isn’t going to say anything in response. I can hear Just like with anything, I guess echoing in my brain and I cringe.
Glancing at Ryan, I see he’s examining the menu with serious intent. I gaze at mine, too, but can’t seem to rustle up the same level of concentration. Eating when I’m around a guy who makes me nervous has always been slightly difficult, so I can only assume that getting any food down during this interaction will be out of the question. I used to think being nervous around a guy was good—it meant I really liked someone. But I’d felt the opposite hanging out with Adam that day. I’d felt, cheesy as it sounds, like I’d come home. Chicken—I’ll just have whatever the first chicken dish is, I think as I try to brainstorm possible topics to bring up with Ryan.
Now, it’s always been my firm belief that when two people are eating together, it is the equal responsibility of both parties to contribute to the conversation. Of course, it usually happens naturally—one person says something or asks a question, the other responds, and conversation starts to just unfold—but it’s always annoyed me when I feel like the communication responsibility rests solely on me. Why the hell doesn’t this long silence make you feel uncomfortable? I’ve wanted to shriek across the table before. Don’t you at least feel slightly compelled to try to change it?
The waiter comes over. I order chicken marsala, Ryan asks for tortellini and a glass of the house Chianti. I wonder if I should judge him for drinking or be offended that he didn’t not drink because of me, and Ryan sits in what looks to be completely enjoyable silence. I already know that Ryan’s dad was a character actor, his parents divorced when he was young, he dated Maria Bello throughout his twenties and didn’t go to college, so all the what-did-you-want-to-be-when-you-grew up, what-do-your-parents-do, what-did-you-major-in types of questions—standard first date fare—would be silly and redundant.
Forcing a conversation about what’s going on in the world would feel just that—forced—and I’m not interested enough in food to start discussing the menu. I am, for one of the first times I can remember, at a complete and utter conversational loss.
And then I feel just the slightest glimmer of hope in him. He could ask me the typical first date questions, or about my column, or about why I decided to get sober. Flooded with sudden optimism, I smile at him. He smiles back and I assume he’s going to ask me something, but instead he takes his index finger and taps the table, then his other index finger and does the same thing. And, before I know it, he’s doing some kind of impromptu drum solo on the table of Café Italiano, clearly grooving to some wild beat inside his head.
“Mmmm, you smell so good,” Ryan says as he breathes in my ear. He’s just finished kissing me, expertly, and we’re looking into each other’s eyes. I’m much more comfortable now than I was at dinner when, in between Ryan’s drum solos, we made allegedly casual conversation about the restaurant, the weather, and the waiter. Of course, there was nothing casual about my end of the conversation—each sentence I tossed out was attached to a prayer that he would respond in a way that would allow me to answer back—but at some point I realized that he didn’t seem to be expecting a lot of scintillating talk, and I relaxed as much as someone who’s in the process of gnawing a cuticle into a bloody stub can be. Maybe some people just always eat in semi silence, I started to think. I’ve often speculated that the conversations I have are a thousand times more bizarre or boring or superficial or whatever else my mood tells me they are than the ones everyone else is having. But dinner certainly convinced me that stressing about it wasn’t going to help anything.
After dinner, we’d walked the few blocks back to his loft, during which he grabbed my hand to point out a shooting star and I couldn’t help but see us as a stranger, or a camera, might. Were we secretly being snapped by paparazzi hiding behind sand dunes? Again, I picture Adam walking by right now, seeing us, and kicking himself with regret.
Right at his front door, Ryan had turned his face toward mine and started kissing me. And that’s when the chains that had seemingly been wrapped around my tight shoulders released. I felt comfortable as we kissed, even more so when he told me how good I smell. Maybe he really will be able to replace Adam in my mind.
“Let’s check on the little ones,” he says after we make out for a few minutes, so we go into the media room where we’d left them riveted by The Lord of the Rings, and they’re both sound asleep while Elijah Wood pontificates on screen. “Sit,” he says, smiling and pointing to the couch, as he pulls cash out of his pocket and hands it to the babysitter. I find myself aroused by the cool simplicity of his demand. For such a domineering person, I certainly do like to be ordered around sometimes.
So I sit on the couch as Ryan picks up Diego with one hand and Sam with the other to carry them upstairs and I’m simultaneously turned on by both his strength and his fathering skills. Within seconds, he’s back and kissing me even more passionately than before.
And then we’re just lost in the kissing, and I finally feel like I have some control. Sober people have warned me about sober sex and how disorienting it is, but I feel a million times more comfortable making out with Ryan than I did making conversation with him. I compare it to kissing Adam that day and have to admit that this falls short. I just think that because I’ve known Adam longer, I tell myself, annoyed that I’m kissing a household name and thinking about a guy who won’t even deign to call me.
I’m concentrating on doing a good job, reasoning that all men seem to like the same things when it comes to kissing: slow, tender, quick pecks at first, followed by openmouthed exploration with the tongue trailing on the upper gum, followed by neck nibbling and ear breathing, with soft moans thrown in for good measure.
Ryan is kissing me back so well that in my light-headedness, I wonder if the reason he’s been so successful in his career is that he’s made out with all of the casting directors. As we kiss and breathe and nibble, all memories of the awkward dinner dissolve. Now I could talk to him, I think as I trail my tongue on his upper lip and he softly moans. But I’m just not willing to stop kissing him long enough to prove it.
Pretty soon, Ryan and I are lying down on the couch and he’s on top of me so that I can feel his full erection through his jeans. He starts moving his hips up and down ever so slightly and, even though one of my least favorite expressions, “dry fucking,” floats through my mind, I don’t stop him. But when he starts unbuttoning my Joie cords, I take his hand and move it away.
“I just don’t feel comfortable going there right now,” I whisper and he nods, but a few seconds later, he goes for the buttons again. When fingers enter my nether region, all rational thought—as well as any ability to say no to anything else—seems to escape me, and I know that having sex with Ryan Duran right now is simply out of the question. I may have run right over here the minute he asked, and be grinding up against him despite the fact that he hasn’t given me any indication that he’s actually interested in anything about me, but I know I’m going to follow the no-fucking-on-the-first-date rule because I’m not willing to screw this up yet. Cosmo says that you can give it up after three dates, but I’m harboring some notion that Ryan can be the one who will take my mind off Adam, and I know I’m going to have to strategize if I want to reel him in. I should probably make him wait three months, I think, as I breathe in his ear and feel his body shudder. Then his hand is on my cord buttons again, so I move it away and look him in the eye to shake my head.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes. I want to wait. It doesn’t feel as good when you don’t know a person well.”
He furrows his brow as if he’s confused and it occurs to me that this may very well be the first time Ryan Duran has even heard of the concept of not jumping right into bed. “You mean, maybe go out again and fool around a little more that time?” he asks, and I nod. “God, that sounds nice,” he says, looking suddenly completely relaxed and I wonder why I allowed myself to be so intimidated by him earlier. He kisses me again, and then says, “Want to spend the night? We wouldn’t have to do anything—we could just spoon.”
I shake my head and Ryan pouts somewhat adorably. “Are you sure?” he asks. “It would be so sweet—the kiddies are up in my bed.”
I sit up suddenly, too surprised to worry about how I’m probably killing the moment. “The kids are in your bed?” I ask.
“Sure.” He smiles and reaches for a Marlboro Red, which he lights with a Zippo. “That’s where Diego likes to sleep.”
“And you want me to sleep there with all you guys?”
He nods and smiles and inhales on his cigarette and I can’t decide if I’m a secret straitlaced conservative or if asking a girl you just met to spend the night in the same bed with your son and his friend is normal. I gesture for him to let me take a drag off his cigarette and decide that the sooner I leave, the less time I have to discover other potentially disturbing things about my adolescent obsession.
“I should go,” I say when we finish the smoke. He nods, kisses me on the nose, pulls himself up off the couch, and takes my hand to lead me out through the kitchen.
“Thanks for a great night,” I say as he walks me to the door. What am I supposed to say—Thanks for drumming throughout dinner and inviting me to your Michael Jackson-esque slumber party?