Never Enough(11)

Maybe I could at least help.



The dream decides it for me.

It's not about Gavin. It's not even about the money and what I could do with it.

In the dream, I'm sitting at my laptop, scrolling through an endless list of apartments for rent. None of them have prices on the listing, and they're all shitty - one-bedroom basement apartments, places with no kitchen where you can see roaches, hovels within spitting distance of the freeway - and yet, when I click to see the price, they're all hundreds more than my parents can possibly afford.

When I wake up, my heart is racing and my palms are sweaty, but I've got an answer.

If Gavin relapses, he relapses. It won't be my fault.

But my parents have worked their hands to the bone, for their whole lives. If I've got the chance to buy them a house, I'm taking it.

It's six-thirty in the morning, but I leave Larry a voicemail saying I'll do it.





11





Gavin





The light turns green, but no one moves. The intersection is completely gridlocked, cars head east-west blocking the path of cars attempting to travel north and south, but that doesn't stop several people from laying on their horns. 

"Keep honking, it's sure to do the trick," I mutter to myself.

Finally, I inch forward, getting about fifty feet before the light turns red again, and look at the time. Already late, and we've got to get all the way up to Malibu in Friday night traffic.

My God, we may not be there by tomorrow morning.

"In one hundred feet, turn right," the pleasant female voice of my phone's GPS says.

At the current rate of travel, that's only five minutes.

I text Marisol and tell her that I'm on my way and should be picking her up sometime before sunrise. She texts me back a thumbs up. The butterflies in my stomach churn.

I'm still surprised she agreed to it. I know it's the million dollars and not me, but I really didn't think she'd say yes, particularly after she spent an extra twenty-four hours deciding.

And then, of course, the meeting where we signed the paperwork went two hours over schedule, entirely her fault as she went through the contract with a fine-toothed comb and requested probably a hundred minor changes, resulting in the first time I've ever found paperwork sexy.

The agreement is pretty simple, or at least, I think so: no fewer than two dates a week, totaling at least three hours, at a location that Valerie's PR firm has pre-approved, meaning one with plenty of paparazzi.

Until such time as we can no longer avoid acknowledging a romantic entanglement, Marisol and I are to tell all interested parties that she's a member of my legal team, and we are getting to know one another. This, according to Valerie, will entice members of the press in a way that saying, "Right, she's my girlfriend," will not.

Hand-holding, arm-touching, and kisses on the cheek and eventually the lips are all explicitly discussed in our contract, though it's silent on further "physical affections." We are to smile and laugh in one another's presence. We are not to argue, at least until it's time for us to end our fake relationship.

Two months. The contract is for two months.

I haven't got a plan. I haven't got anything, except for the ceaseless sensation that no matter what I've said, I want more than this from her, though I barely know what myself.

The last time I dated someone was years ago. It ended badly, as relationships between two junkies often do, though I wrote a hit song about it. Then came a parade of one-night-stands, groupies, whoever was soft and warm and the moment.

And then there was nothing much except the needle, which has a way of dulling everything. Not least your very own wants and desires.

That is to say, it's been a very long time since I really wanted something from any woman. Hard to remember what it feels like or what it is I'm supposed to do next, but I think it's something like this, a warm sizzling sensation not unlike electricity crackling along a wire.

"Turn right," the GPS chirps. "Then turn left."

I grit my teeth, steel myself, turn right, and then merge across three lanes of traffic into a left-turn lane with no light and wall-to-wall traffic facing me.

"Turn left now," the GPS says.

"Fuck you," I tell it.

We go back and forth until I've finally gotten onto a residential street, large apartment buildings on either side. I check her house number again, but before I can find an address I see her, waving from the front steps.

I double-park, grab the bouquet from the passenger seat, and get out.

"It's a date," I say, as she squeezes between the bumpers of two parked cars. "I'm supposed to come knock on your door and hand you these."



       
         
       
        

I hand over the flowers. I don't know what they are, but they're colorful and I picked them out myself.

"Sorry," she says, laughing as she smells them. "Should I go back upstairs while you look for parking?"

I glance up and down her block. No empty spots.

"You'd be a while," she says. "Or we could just go on our date."

I at least open the car door for her, then get in myself.

"Swanky car," Marisol says, running one finger along the leather seat.

She's wearing fairly tight jeans, heels, a blue top, and a tailored jacket, her hair down. It's the first time I've seen her wear anything so casual, and I'm a bit afraid I'll crash my car staring at her.

"I admit I bought it with dreams of speeding down the California motorway, stereo blasting, sun shining in my windows," I say. "So far I've not found California to be a very speedy place."

"Not around here," she says. "Drive out to the desert sometime, that should do you."

"Make a U-turn," the GPS says.

"Why?" Marisol asks it, frowning.

"I think I've put her on difficult mode or something," I say. "She's trying to kill me."

"Don't make a U-turn," Marisol says, and takes my phone from its holster on the dash. "Drive forward and turn left in two blocks."

"Oi, I need that," I protest.

"You don't trust me?" Marisol teases.

"That's not what I said," I say, easing the car forward to the next stop sign.

"Good," she says. "Make a left here and a right at the light onto Vermont."

I drive and let Marisol guide me. Not having the map does make me uneasy, but Marisol at least doesn't seem interested in having me take our lives into our hands every few minutes, so I relax after a bit.

She narrates as I drive, pointing out hole-in-the-wall restaurants with great food, the Korean place with ox-blood soup, dive bars, bowling alleys, the apartment where she used to live, the subway stop she uses. I've only been through this part of town a few times and it never seemed like much to me, but it comes alive as we drive south.

Plus, she gives good directions, far better than the woman in the GPS. Before long I realize: I don't care if we actually get to the restaurant in Malibu or not.

Once we hit the freeway traffic moves better, and before long we're through the final tunnel and then suddenly driving on the coastal highway, Santa Monica beach next to our left, ten minutes after sunset with the sky still fading pink and orange.

"Good sunset," Marisol says approvingly. 

"Aren't they all good sunsets?" I ask.

"They're mostly good sunsets," she says. "When it's too cloudy or too clear they're a little lackluster."

I come to a stop light and look over at the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.

"Lackluster," I say, and she laughs. "You've clearly never been to England."

"I may be somewhat spoiled when it comes to weather and sunsets," she says.





12





Marisol





The sun fades as we drive up the coast in the nicest car I've ever touched. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure it is - it's black, low slung, two-door, has butter-soft leather seats and more knobs and dials than a spaceship.

Plus, it purrs like a tiger, even at stoplights. Frankly, it's a shame to drive this in the city of Los Angeles, where its top speed can't be more than forty-five miles per hour.

"You've not forgotten about giving me directions, have you?" he asks after a while, during a lull in our conversation.

I had, completely, and I switch his phone back on to look at the map. We're not there yet, but we're getting pretty close.

"Of course not," I say. "But it's gonna be coming up on the left. I think it's that second stoplight up there."

"You did forget," he says. "You'd have let me drive clear to Santa Barbara."

I laugh. He might be right.

"I would've noticed before too long," I say. "You might be drive-to-Point-Dume-by-accident interesting, but you're not all-the-way-to-Santa-Barbara interesting. Plus we're already half an hour late for our reservation."

"I'm not sure what you've just said but I think it might be an insult," he says, his voice teasing as he slows the car, waiting at a stoplight with his blinker on.

I laugh.

"You'll learn your geography sooner or later," I say. "We're far enough from Point Dume that you shouldn't be insulted."

"If you say so," he says.

There's a break in the traffic and he turns left, down a smaller road, past some very expensive houses, to a classy-looking backlit sign that just says NORU in big gold letters, a valet parking stand next to it .