Brick by Brick (8 page)

“A drug problem?” I said.

“Yeah. We went through some tough times, us against the world. Rowan used to take care of me. Now it’s my turn.”

“Is she okay?” I said.

“So far.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Not unless you can order a hit,” Gage said.

“No problem,” James said. “Natalie’s maiden name was Felluca. They’ve all got connections, right?”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll just call my uncle in New York, or the one in Las Vegas. Who are we hitting?”

“This guy my mom used to live with. She could get anybody, and she had to choose him.”

“She must be pretty.”

“I guess. She was an actress.”

James said, “Should I know her name?”

“I doubt it. She called it her alphabet career. She provided the
T
and
A
in some B movies for a few g’s, before she got old enough that they said
C-U
. She was still pretty hot, I guess, enough that there’s always been this parade of boyfriends. Some okay guys, some assholes, no father types. And this one motherfucker. Stuart. He smacked us around—Mom too—but she wouldn’t dump him. He moved in, and everything about me pissed him off.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen. Rowan was sixteen. He’d beat me with a belt. You look close in nude scenes, you can see lines on my ass. Makeup can’t cover the scars completely.”

James raised startled eyebrows. I guess he hadn’t seen them with only firelight. “Where was your mother?”

“Watching and biting her lip. But never once trying to stop him.”

“How awful,” I said.

“Pretty fucking awful. Rowan ran away, crashed with these kids near the college, a dozen of them renting this big old house. She’d call me at my friend Rob’s house, after school, to make sure I knew she was okay. Anyway, Stuart saw I wasn’t worried enough. One night he beat me until I told. I, ah, held out a long time. That’s the scars.” Gage took a gulp of his champagne and burped politely behind his hand.

Nobody laughed. James put his hand on Gage’s forearm.

“Fucking Stuart hit us all, but only boys got the belt. I was self-involved even then, so sure nobody had it worse than me. He went and got her and everything was just like before. I didn’t know he was raping her.” He looked at James, then me. “How could I not see that?” The fleshy point of his chin quivered, barely discernible.

“Oh, Gage.” I grasped his hand. It hurt to see his pain, an invisible fist between my lower ribs. Forget magazines with Beautiful People. He didn’t exist in some celebrity vacuum where life was nice.

He sniffed, avoiding our eyes. “Sorry. She ran away again a few months later, and this time she didn’t call. Protecting me. I didn’t see her for five years, and by then she was a mess, with drug problems nobody can fix but her. If I hadn’t told—”

“Hey, no,” James said. “This is Stuart’s fault, and your mother’s. Not yours.”

“It’s mine to fix, though, and I can’t. All I can do is make sure she’s got a place to live with the lights on and food in the fridge. I got a woman who comes in once a week, to shop and clean.”

“You’re doing what you can,” I said, knowing it didn’t help.

He smiled at me, but there was no pleasure or humor in it. “I have to pay her more than her other jobs, because sometimes it’s pretty bad. This time, when Rowan sold the furniture, she sold the refrigerator and the stove too. She only called because she was hungry. I took groceries over myself. She ate like a fucking animal.” He sighed. “And I leaned on her, hard, about rehab. Again. How she could have a good life, if she’d just clean up and stay that way. And she said, ‘You mean this isn’t the good life?’ and gestured to the place where the fridge belonged, like it was funny.”

“Did she go?”

“Yeah, spitting at me and cussing me out as bad as Stuart ever did. The place was the worst I’ve ever seen it, some major party since Bernice cleaned. So I didn’t plan for Romania and I didn’t come here, either. I spent the time on painters and carpet cleaners and new furniture and finding a guy who could bolt the appliances in. And I went to see Rowan every day until I had to leave for the shoot, because she needs all the support she can get, and Mom’s worthless.”

“Does your mother know?” Like it was my business.

“About the rapes? She had to know he was going somewhere when he left their bed but not the house.”

“Maybe she was in denial?” James said.

“Maybe her kids’ bodies were a small price to pay for somebody else footing the bills. I left when I was sixteen too. She never tried to find me until I was working a lot, making money—I was in the phone book before then. But she sure missed her boy once he had a bank balance. I shut the door in her face.”

“That’s harsh,” James said.

“Is it? Harsh is doing nothing while your boyfriend beats your son bloody and rapes your daughter. I only have a will so I could make sure she gets nothing.”

James nodded. “I guess I’m lucky that I can’t imagine a mother like that. You do what you have to do.” He turned his glass by its stem, too fast.

Champagne slopped onto his hand, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I could see my brother David becoming Rowan, in a few years. He’s stoned all the time, except at work.”

“What does he do?”

“Washes cars for Hertz, out at the airport, part-time. And deals dope on the side, we think. This charming underachiever shit is only cute when they’re young. He’s twenty-six now.”

“Still young enough to have a good life, if he can get his act together,” Gage said. “Listen, enough about Rowan and my tragic past. I wasn’t trying to get sympathy, just to explain why I didn’t call.”

“You were pretty busy there,” I said.

“Not once I got to Romania. We waited on the weather a lot. I used to sit in my trailer and rehearse what I was going to say, and I’d pick up the phone, and…do nothing. I knew what kind of person you must think I am.”

“This is where I got lost the last time,” I said.

“The kind who uses fame to get laid. So shallow I screw whoever’s attractive without getting to know them, because who they are doesn’t matter. That I’m such a selfish bastard I just assume I get the middle and expect you to do all the work to please me, because I’m the center of the fucking universe.” He studied his hands.

I did too. They were smooth and soft compared to James’s.

“So yeah, there was Rowan, and then I was working, but I could have called. I could have sent flowers or wine, a card saying how great it was or that I was thinking about you. But I didn’t. So maybe ‘I’m not like that’ is just another lie to think about while I’m lying awake at night, reviewing my shortcomings.”

“Sounds to me,” James said, “like you need to learn how to turn all that shit off, Gage. Really.”

“I’d sleep better if I could. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the Chinese, and this champagne, and that you’ll accept my apology for being so selfish when I was here and for not calling after. Now let’s just get better acquainted. Nothing physical. Okay?”

“Not so fast.” James’s reply was firm and immediate. Why hadn’t he checked with me before making a decision that wasn’t his but ours?

“Doesn’t he get a second chance?” I felt so bad for him. How could James not?

“He does. With conditions.”

“What?” Gage said.

“That you’re open with us. You’re right; you should have called. Not just because you owed it to us, which you did, but because you needed some support yourself.”

“I couldn’t call people I only just met to whine about how hard I have it,” Gage said.

Did I dare ask the obvious? “What about your friends?”

“It’s Hollyweird. Nothing is what you think, including people who care about you. It’s safer to assume it’s every man for himself and they’ll stab you in the back for a walk-on. There’s a lot of good actors who can fool me every time, making like they’re my friends.”

“Then we won’t try to fool you,” James said. “If you just want the sex and not to share your actual life, find somebody else.”

That was callous, even if it was true. “Otherwise,” I said, “you should be calling to complain, or say hi, or ask what I’m making for dinner.”

“Calling for no reason isn’t imposing?”

“It’s what friends do,” I said. “And lovers.”

Gage grinned. “So I can stay awhile, and maybe come by again tomorrow?”

“Unless we convince you to stay over,” I said.

“Which, if you get drunk, you should.” James poked a thumb toward the front window. “Assuming the Porsche is yours.”

“Yeah. The part came in. Of course, they fucked me royally for storage.”

“If you’d called, we could have picked it up for you.”

“Yeah, rub it in, Natalie,” Gage said. “So, did I tell you I brought two bottles?”

An hour later we were pleasantly lit from within, the way champagne does. Except for the part where Gage beat himself up for not calling, we had a great evening. Gage may have been a professional performer, but he made a wonderful audience, listening attentively, laughing at the right times, getting our little jokes, asking the right questions. The three of us clicked on every level, the way James and I had on that first date.

“You know,” James said, “Natalie and I had plans for tonight.”

“Man, you should have said something. I’m sorry. Listen, it’s not that late. I’ll just take off, and you can—”

“We’d planned a romantic evening at home.”

“Don’t let me spoil it. I’ll let myself out.”

“I think being watched might enhance it,” I said. “Don’t you, Jamie?”

Chapter Eleven

“You don’t have to do this,” Gage said.

“You’re right,” James said. “And it’s getting late anyway.”

I found Gage’s confusion adorable. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”

“My workday starts at six, so my crews can be off by two or three, beat at least some of the heat.”

“Oh. That makes sense. My car was like an oven yesterday afternoon.”

“You can burn yourself on an Arizona car. Literally.”

“The guy at Euroworks thought it was pretty funny watching me try to open the door.”

“Great sense of humor. So anyway, I should be in bed.”

“Okay. I’ll say good night, then.”

James caught my eye. At my small nod he turned to Gage. “Aren’t you coming?”

Gage’s answering smile was huge, the one that lit up movie screens, making women want him and men want to be him. “I’d like to. But I have conditions.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” James said. “What?”

“If I’m, you know, included in what you do, which I’m not assuming I am, it isn’t about me. I had my turn. It’s about you. Both of you. I do what pleases you.”

“Okay,” I said immediately. “You said conditions, with an ‘s.’ What’s the other one?”

“All that tea, and then champagne? I really need to use your bathroom.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Dibs on the powder room,” James said.

“One of you better hurry,” I said, leading Gage toward the main bathroom.

* * * *

Like anyone in construction, James knew guys in every line. Buying this Arizona bungalow as a fixer-upper before we met made perfect sense. He’d been miffed when I refused to move in with him because he hadn’t fixed enough.

Our luxurious bath, originally two cramped full baths in mint green and pastel pink, had been designed to please me. Ten years later, I still loved the Italian tile and oiled teak. It was probably the nicest room in the house. Maybe that was why Gage stayed in there so long.

James finished in the powder room, and I went next, but Gage was still splashing in the bathroom. “What do you think he’s doing?”

“Some secret beauty ritual,” James said. “Let’s get in bed. He’ll find us.”

I wasn’t ready to be found naked. We undressed quickly and got under the top sheet. James kissed me, reached past me to turn off the bedside lamp, then kissed me again with more vigor.

Southern Arizona’s summer days are brutal, even for the natives. Summer nights, however, are silken jewels. A light breeze, just a few miles an hour, moves air that matches body temperature with a trace of coolness at its edges.

James and I had fallen into its embrace by sheer luck.

At my insistence, he’d replaced the rusting swamp cooler that smelled like mold with a whole-house air-conditioning unit he got incredibly cheap because it couldn’t cool even a small house. After consulting with HVAC guys, he replaced the bedroom window and added another one, creating nice cross ventilation, supplemented with a built-in fan drawing air from the shaded patio.

Once the sun set and the desert quickly cooled, so did the room. By James’s early bedtime, the air in there was made for naked.

Every summer we put away the bedspread and draped the top sheet rather than tucking it in, but most nights we rarely pulled it over our skin until three or four in the morning.

Most nights we weren’t waiting for Gage Strickland to emerge from our fancy bathroom.

“Mmm,” I said, snuggling against my husband’s chest and its golden fluff.

He didn’t quite whisper, but almost. “This is okay, isn’t it? Letting him watch?”

“It’s fine. Better than fine.”

Light split the darkened bedroom. Gage had taken off his shirt, and his belly scar looked bloody black in the dimness. “Nice bathroom.” He turned off the bathroom light. “Is watching you in the dark going to be anything like watching submarine races?”

“Your eyes will adapt,” James said.

“Even if they don’t, I’m not complaining.” Gage found the bed in the dark. Over the soft hum of the fan, I heard his zipper and the rustle of clothing, then the gentle creak of the bedsprings. “Thank you for inviting me.” A slab of cooler air floated in as Gage got under the sheet next to me.

James’s reply was to start the “show,” even though Gage surely couldn’t see yet. My husband kissed me again, longer, his tongue exploring my mouth. Already moisture gathered. Moving my legs made my secret folds slither against one another.

My husband encouraged me to roll onto my back, where he kissed me again, his body half draped on me beneath the sheet. He found my breasts by touch and nuzzled the gap between them with his face, through the percale. My nipples stirred, then stood as he cupped the flesh with both hands, crushing my breasts against his face. Finally, he let his thumbs and forefingers touch the sheet and find nipples tenting it, eager to be pressed and rolled.