The week before we left for Hawaii, I was hanging by a thread. Couldn't borrow any money, couldn't stock enough inventory. I subcontract my product from major studios and record companies. I used to get all my merchandise on consignment deals, but because of my money problems, the entertainment companies I was interfacing with all thought I was on the verge of going broke. They started refusing to let me sell their stuff on consignment, forcing me to buy the product, stock it, then mark it up for my service. Because of the current banking environment, the business was quickly strapped for cash, and soon we didn't have enough of what our online buyers wanted in stock. We ran a survey and found that if our customers couldn't get the titles they requested once or twice, even our preferred shoppers stopped hitting the website. That's my sad story.
So I was bleeding from the ears when we got to Hawaii, but my wife didn't give me a moment's rest. She's become the Queen of American Express. I'm afraid if I ever go to their national headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, there'll be a marble statue of Evelyn out front, abs and delts flexed, Amex Black Card at port arms.
Anyway, that was our happy little family the day we hit the Four Seasons, December 26th, the day this all started.
I had just begun breakfast with Evelyn the morning after we arrived. We were in the open restaurant on the second level of the hotel. The palms swayed in a gentle breeze. Turquoise water glistened, the smell of tropical flowers wafted. You get the idea-Paradise. My wife was wearing a skimpy top with a see-through sarong tied around her butt-floss thong, giving the hotel guests and staff a great look at her buns of steel. Her abs were rippling, advertising hours of physical dedication. As we ate, Evelyn was analyzing the other female guests, criticizing their flabby waistlines.
"Lookit that cow. She should never wear a two-piece. Doesn't she own a mirror?"
I was nodding and trying to stay out of the line of fire. Evelyn's always on me about my body. Okay, I'll admit, I've picked up a pound or two, but I'm killing myself at bestmarket. Com, and I'm still losing ground. I eat and drink a little more than I used to-so shoot me.
"You really oughta get into that weight room, Chick. I can have Mickey D set you up with a routine. He could fax it over here and we could get the guy in there to help you through it."
I was back in the squirrel cage running for my life. Mickey D was Mickey DePolina, Evelyn's personal trainer. I loathe Mickey D. Here's the story on that guy: He shows up at our house every day at 5:30 P. M.
He used to be Mr. Burbank or Mr. Bell Gardens, I can't remember which-trapezius muscles that slope down his neck like a cobra's hood, abs and shoulders that won't quit, but with the IQ and vocabulary of a tractor salesman.
After he arrives, the two of them wide-arm their way down to the private gym I have in the basement and go at it. I use this term cautiously, because I think he's screwing her. It started while I was out of town doing the road show, trying to raise money to take bestmarket. corn public. No proof. I don't have Polaroids or anything, just a guess. So far, I haven't said anything, but if you want the honest truth, I'm close to the end of my rope with this marriage. It was okay when the business was strong. I could hide out down at the office. People were kissing my ass. But now, with the company in shambles and money running low, I'm completely out of ass-kissers and feeling a whole lot less charitable. Why should I put up with this? But for some reason, I do. I keep my mouth shut. I soldier on.
After breakfast I decided to go down to the cabana and relieve my scowling daughter so she could go upstairs and do her morning line of blow. Just kidding.
I found her lying on the chair listening to her music. Another term I use cautiously. She's into some kind of alternative technosynth that sounds to me like a guy squirming on a vinyl chair making balloon animals. But she's deep into this music, and to further piss me off, has started punching holes in her body. She has ten pierces. Her dedication to her new alternative lifestyle knows no limits. Over the past eighteen months it has become almost impossible to get my daughter through an airport metal detector.
Melissa felt my shadow and looked up, her face wrinkling as if she just smelled something foul.
"Already?" she said. Sarcasm.
"Sorry. Your mother overslept."
"Jesus. I hate Hawaii. I hate this fucking hotel, I hate these phony people, I hate coming down here at 4 fucking A. M. every morning." Melissa, expressing herself. "What's wrong with a regular pool chair, for God's sake? What makes this dumb-ass tent so almighty fucking precious?"
"Your mother likes it… and stop swearing."
I should add that Melissa has purple hair. It looks simply hideous. She's got her mother's killer body, but with fewer cuts because Mickey D hasn't been able to convince her to start lifting yet. She's round-faced but mean-looking. Her eyes never smile.
She swung off the chaise longue and gathered up her things.
She looked angry enough to break a window. She's not above something like that, either. When she was ten, the first year we came here, she became enraged because we sent her to her room. She locked the door and threw golf balls at the guests from our seventh-floor balcony. They called us into the manager's office and told us if we didn't control her, we'd have to leave the hotel. Humiliating.
"Where are you going?" My version of parental concern.
"Gonna call Big Mac," she snarled.
A word here about Big Mac. His name is Bud McKenna. He's about six-five, two-sixty, and is the current president of the Devil's Disciples, a Southern California motorcycle gang. This guy is her boyfriend in L. A., and he is way the hell too old for Melissa. He's in his mid-twenties and scares the hell out of me. I think Melissa picked him because she knew I would hate him on sight and wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. He's violent and unpredictable and has tattoos that threaten your life, like B2K, which means "born to kill," or D4H, which is "death for hire?' The guy's a homicidal nutcase-an animal.
I believe that, like most of these bikers, he's in the crystal meth business. I can't prove it, but he is always taking her for rides on his Harley up Angeles Crest Highway. It's been in the papers that the sheriff was trying to catch a bunch of crystal cookers brewing blue meth and chicken powder in their double-wides parked up in the mountains. It didn't take Stephen Hawking to see the connection. I'd been watching Melissa, trying to spot any personality changes, which might occur if she switches from pot and coke to crystal meth. But since she only has two moods anyway-pissed-off and about-to-befurious, it's hard to tell. Being the father of a sixteen-year-old is no damn fun.
Melissa turned a few heads as she did her purple-haired stripper walk around the pool and disappeared into the lobby.
After she was gone, I lay down on the cabana pool chair and tried to shake off my daily bout with lethargy. Over the past year lethargy has become a regular part of my mornings, right along with acid reflux and deep depression.
I looked out across the pool, and that's when I saw her. That's when this whole thing started. Her vibe shot across the expanse of pool decking and grass and grabbed me so hard that my body shook. I let out a lungful of air and made a gushing sigh. My stomach flopped and my fingers and toes started curling. It was that powerful, that visceral.
I know… I know. I can hear what you're thinking. You're thinking, bullshit. But unless you've actually experienced it, you couldn't possibly understand what I'm talking about.
When I saw her, even from twenty or thirty yards away-when I felt that metaphysical projection lodge in my heart like one of Cupid's arrows-I knew I would never be the same.
In that second, with that brief glance, my whole life changed at first sight.