Fuck!
I debate going back in, but stop myself. I feel all jittery as if I’ve just spent a night doing lines of coke: partly paranoid, partly explosive and partly in hyperdrive.
If I go back to Chrissie now we’ll only end up in round three of the fighting and she isn’t up for more. She is so beautiful I often miss details of her face. She looked worn out by the end of it.
I walk down the main hallway and out the front door. The fog has rolled in, dewing my car, and I take from the backseat something to clear the windshield. When I toss it onto the passenger floorboard, I realize it’s a sweater. Aarsi’s sweater. Fuck. Too late. I’ve probably ruined it.
I climb in, put the car in gear, and just want to get the fuck away from here. I definitely blew it during that scene with Chrissie in the bedroom. I shut down my thoughts. I’m not ready to go there yet. Tomorrow. When I’m calmer. Less angry. That’s soon enough to work through how I feel about Chrissie’s latest bombshell to my life.
I exit from her driveway, intending to go back to Malibu. Fuck, Aarsi’s there. I’ve had quite a bit to drink. Everything inside me is edgy and ready to explode and begging for release. I definitely shouldn’t risk being alone with the pretty little Indian girl in my house. Not tonight.
My anger is enough to make me do something stupid, and I don’t know if I’m ready for what I’m feeling now to be irrevocable. The Indian girl would make it irrevocable if Chrissie ever found out. As awful as our reunion went, in Chrissie’s mind since she went to the effort of outlining ground rules, we’re together again. Fidelity rule in effect and we’re not even fucking yet.
I turn the car around and head towards Len’s. I’ll crash there until I sober up. Then I’ll get the fuck out of Los Angeles.
I should never have come here. Fucking Miles Abernathy with all his probing questions stirred it all up in me. Made me believe in the possibility of Chrissie, when life had already taught me not to, and fuck it, I couldn’t stop myself from being with her any longer. But it was the wrong move.
Yes, I love Chrissie, but I’ve been making the same mistakes over and over again for more than twenty years: loving her, trying to keep her, losing her anyway because I’ve never been the man meant for a woman like Chrissie. I’ve never been enough to keep the scene good for me or for her. Even Chrissie understands that. It is why she always ends us just short of me making her hate me.
We have survived only because she won’t stay until she hates me. And she always keeps just enough of the good between us so we can start again.
Over and over. Chrissie’s right. We can’t keep doing the same old thing.
I pull into Len’s driveway and park. The air is much cooler when I climb from the car to make the walk to Len’s front door. My body’s reaction to the blast of cold confirms that it was a good decision to have left Chrissie and a better decision not to drive back to Malibu.
A night in jail would be a brilliant finale to this fucking brilliant day. I shouldn’t have gotten drunk. But then, I was nervous about seeing Chrissie again, I didn’t expect what came at me at her house, and I certainly didn’t think I’d end the evening at the Rowans’.
I knock once, loudly, and wait. Then I remember Chrissie’s short list of people she trusts and that the Rowans had been in the tally and not even Len had given me a heads-up. Linda I can’t fault. She is loyal and a woman, so of course Chrissie would win in the friends’ war. But Len?
The door opens. I don’t think. I slam Len into the marble-tiled entryway.
Len groans from the physical exertion required to keep his head from slamming back against the flooring. “OK. OK. Enough, already! I don’t know what’s pissed you off, but you better fucking let it go now! What the hell’s the matter with you, Manny?”
“When did you decide you can’t be honest with me? What kind of fucking friends are you?”
“Aha. He’s been to Chrissie’s,” says Linda with the smugness of a cat from the sunken living room.
That only amplifies my anger, Linda’s matter-of-factness over this anything-but-matter-of-fact state of my life.
Len pushes me off. “I’ve been a good friend, you asshole! Don’t take your anger out on me because you didn’t put a cap on it and now there is something you have to deal with whether you want to or not.”
“Oh great, Len. That was a big help.” Linda comes up the stairs and grabs me by the collar. “Jesus Christ, Manny, let Len go. I mean it. Let Len up now. It was amusing to watch the two of you fight in your twenties, but it’s just plain creepy to watch it now.” Linda is jerking at my shirt. “I thought the band revoked your LA privileges!”
I release Len and struggle to a sitting position. “And I thought, Linda, that you were going to give up parroting trite lines from movies,” I mock.
Linda suddenly holds up the palms of her hands and freezes. “Don’t anyone move!” She stares at the floor, then with a toe she hits a square. “Damn it, you cracked the floor. You ruined my floor. Hear that? Tap. Tap. Scrunch. Scrunch. I told you you were getting fat, Len. You cracked the floor.”
Len gives her a heavily exasperated face. “Thanks for your concern over me, Linda. We’ll replace the floor.”
Linda rolls her eyes. “I don’t want another one. I want you to put him someplace to sober up so I can go to sleep.”
The one thing I’ve always admired about Linda is how unflappable she is. She may have the language of a sailor and the temper to match, but nothing ever rattles her.
She holds out her hand. “Give me your keys, Manny. You’re not driving any more tonight. You can thank me in the morning. Keys. Now.”
When I don’t offer the keys she rummages through my pocket and takes them.
“I should have stolen you from Len a long time ago.”
She ignores that comment and looks at her husband. “Take Madison back to bed, Len. I’ll be in soon.”
I shift my gaze to the hallway. Oh fuck. Their eight-year-old daughter, messy haired and wearing pink PJs, stands frozen and staring at us. I sink my teeth into my lower lip, carefully avoiding her watching eyes.
“You’ve got to stop this shit, Manny,” Linda says once we’re alone.
I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what to think about anything. I’m sorry about the floor, but I’m not sorry about hitting Len. Everyone I trust has lied to me. Even you, Linda.”
She plants her hands on her hips and shakes her head at me. “Who could tell you anything these days, Manny? I don’t know what set it off this time, but you’ve been this close—” She holds up her thumb and index finger with only a hair between them. “—from going over the edge. You do realize that, don’t you? You really need to stop this shit.”
I jump to my feet and go to the kitchen. I’m rummaging through the fridge for a beer when Linda catches up.
“You don’t need another drink,” she says.
I continue to poke around. She makes a frustrated growl, then pushes me aside, lowering so she can open a drawer. She pulls out a bottle and holds it up to me.
“Here, if you think it will help, drink it. Personally I think it’s fifty percent of what’s wrong with you these days.”
I twist it open and toss the cap at the trash. “What’s the other fifty percent?”
“You looking at the future and being scared shitless. I call it traumatic divorce syndrome. Kenny went through the same thing. Unfortunately, he remarried too quickly and didn’t choose well. For what it’s worth, I didn’t like your first two wives. But you’ve still got it. Midlife divorce syndrome.”
That comment makes me laugh. “No syndrome, Linda. Divorcing Shyla was the first sane thing I’ve done in years. I got out of that relatively pain free. All men should be that lucky. It’s not that at all.”
She arches one dark brow and gives me a critical once-over. “Aha. So what we’ve watched this past year is you lucky and pain free. Aha.”
I set the empty beer on the counter. “Have I missed something? Is this an intervention? Shouldn’t we wait until Len and the others show up? It’s going to be a dull intervention if it’s just you, Linda.”