Green Tea Won't Help You Now! (12 page)

Fourteen

I snapped out of my trance. It had, I noticed, not lasted longer than a few seconds.

Play resumed. Sebastián shook his head, prodded his horse and was gone.

Alex looked down at me. "Did he try to flirt with you?"

"Sort of."

"I can't say I can blame him, but I'm standing right next to you."

I sighed. "There's South American men for you."

"I don't think I like polo after all."

"No?"

"No. Latino dudes wearing silly hats, trying to shove each other off their horses—trying to steal my girl from under my nose." He took hold of me and turned me around to face him. For a dreadful second Kyle's face, not Alex's, was looking at me.
 

My knees gave out and I would have fallen if he had not caught me.

"I'm not feeling so good," I breathed.

"Yes, I can see that. There's an ambulance over there, do you want me to go and get the paramedics?"

"No—no." I did not want to seem like a simpering weak female, but I could not stay in these hostile surroundings for a minute longer. "Let's go somewhere else."

"Where do you want to go?"

"You could take to me your house."

"It's already four thirty and—"

"I'm going to call my father from the car and tell him I can't make it tonight."

"Okay, if that's what you want."

We walked to the parking lot. The Cherokee had gained a few more friends of the luxury segment kind.
 

I had almost reached the passenger door when a piercing scream ripped through the air. I turned around. A skinny woman with caramel coloured hair, slightly enhanced lips and breasts, diamond earrings and a pair of enormous sunglasses came running towards us on her sandalled feet, shrieking expletives and waving her fists. It was my cousin, Amanda. Hard on her heels was my father, who tried to catch her. She tore one earring off and hurled it at me. It bounced off the car. She was always a good throw.
 

"Get in, fast!" I shouted at Alex who stood frozen in place.

"
Puta! Trola!
- Whore! Slut!" hollered Amanda.

"
Quédate aquí, Mandí
- Stay here, Mandy!" thundered my father.

Alex and I jumped in and closed the doors. He pushed the 'lock' button and started the engine. Amanda flew against the window. Alex must have floored the accelerator because the car roared and shot forward.

"What if he wanted to rape her?" Alex shouted.

"No." I had a flash of wit. "He's husband and she saw him talking to me."

"Is it always like that with Argentinians?"

"Yes!"

We raced through the gate and onto the parkway. After about a mile or so, Alex slowed down and finally drew the car up to one side. He stared at me open mouthed. I was still holding on to the handle.

"I thought it was only me," it burst out of him.

"Huh?"

"I thought it was only me who reacts like this. To you. But it's the whole damn world. Everybody's crazy about you."

I swallowed. "No—no."

"Yes. There's the actor guy, now the old guy and the best polo player in the world, some woman, the Starbucks lady..."

I had to laugh. He had to laugh too. I lay a hand before my eyes.

"Are you still feeling dizzy?"

"Yes," I snorted.

He set the car into motion. "Ok, let's see if I have an icepack at home. Don't forget to call your father."

I did not need to call my father because my father was already calling me.

"Pet, I have her under control. Have you escaped?"

"Yes, we're gone."

"Your friend, I know him. He is the one, the, you know, the one who always wins at the ski! The one with the ice cream."

"Yes. Don't tell anyone."

"No? Why not?"

"Just don't. Daddy, can we please meet tomorrow morning at my place? I really don't want to meet any of the boys."

"Nobody forced you to throw yourself at them. You did that by yourself. Ah well, you were young and misguided and we were not there for you. — I locked Amanda into the trailer, she will calm down. I will come to your place tomorrow, but not so early. Eleven?"

"Eleven is perfect."

"We can go to the egg place."

"Yes, we can."

"All my love, my beautiful child."

"Good bye, Papa."

Alex fixed his eyes on the road. "Does that mean you're free tonight?"
 

"I guess it does."

Silence.

"It's another fifteen miles to my house. Should we take the highway or Sunset Boulevard?"

"Sunset Boulevard. I love the feeling of it. I will never forget the first time I drove on Sunset Boulevard. When I reached the part where the tall palms are lining the streets, I had goosebumps all over. I'll take California over the Caribbean any day."

The by now familiar landscape had a soothing effect on me. I was back on solid ground, back in Trixie Beaumont's life. The encounter with my past ghosts seemed like a hallucination. Completely unreal.

"You've been to the Caribbean?"

"Cuba..." I prevaricated and squirmed.

"When you were backpacking."

I nodded vaguely.
 

"I've never been there, can you believe it? To myself I'm still just a ski racer, but suddenly I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams and suddenly I find myself wanting to do the things only rich people do, like vacations on paradise islands and watching polo matches and owning a hilltop villa and buying expensive cars. You know, I think I'm going to take my friend Mark up on his offer to go cruising for a week. He said the parties were wild and the chicks were hot." He winked at me.

"If you like cocaine snorting, shrivelling heiresses."

He smiled broadly. "Yeah, that's right up my alley. Do you think these people really take so many drugs?"

Yes
. "I wouldn't know."

"Well, I'd be lying if I pretended to be a stranger to dubious medication. We were all taking stuff to make it through the racing season. "

"Good lord."
 

"Yeah, I know, you only live on milk from holy cows. Hey, don't look at me like that. I never did anything illegal. Ski racing is a clean sport, it's not like cycling or anything. To us, the skill is most important and you can't dope that. But I tell you, the forces we are subjected to when we go through the curves are the same ones a fighter pilot experiences. They measured 12G for me once."

"I didn't say anything, I'm only surprised
you
say it so bluntly." Apparently doping controls for Olympic horses were far more severe than doping controls for Olympic skiers. We were not even allowed to use an antiseptic salve on the animals when they had a scratch, if we did not want to stay away from competitions for a month or so.

"I'm a blunt guy. I'm not good at tiptoeing. I just don't understand how anybody could be so stupid to voluntarily poison themselves, especially if they don't have a care in the world."

"Hmpf."

"Sorry?"
 

"You'd look surpassingly silly tiptoeing."

"No, I wouldn't. I never look silly."

"Hmm... hmm..."

"You little witch, wait until I have you safe in my lair, I'll show you what a serious man I am."

"I had rather hoped for a chilled coke and some ice."
 

I must have sounded a bit alarmed because he cringed visibly. "Sure. I—sure."

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I like blunt guys."

"Hmm...," he growled, but in a satisfied manner.

All of a sudden I was reminded of something my father had just said on the phone. "Ice! Ice cream. It was you!"
 

"What? Oh— oh no."

"Hahaha. I remember. It really
was
you. I have to watch it right now." I picked up my phone and pressed the Youtube app.

"No, come on Trixie, please don't. Really, don't, not while I'm here and especially not while I'm driving."

"Hahaha."

"I'm going to drive us over the edge if you turn it on." His face turned bright red.

"Why, it was a great commercial."

"I hate it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm wearing nothing but shorts."

"Weren't you wearing ski boots too? Weren't you skiing down a mountain of ice cream? I have to check."

"Please don't."

I took pity on him. "Alright, but don't think I'm not going to watch it later."

He sighed. "It was eleven years ago, anyway."

"Really, was it that long ago?"

"Yes, they aired it during the Turin games."

"Yes. I think you're saying 'Always makes me feel like summer' ?"

"I believe I do. Look up there on the right, up on the hilltop next to the Acacias. That's my house."

"Don't change the subject," I protested but I turned my head anyway.
 

Now, I am no expert on botany. I cannot tell a daisy from a pansy, or an oak tree from a beech tree. Far less am I equipped to identify an Acacia.
 

"The one made of cubes?"

"Yes, the cubes. It's the house's name too. The Cubes. It was build in the late 1940s by an avant-garde architect. It's one of the so called Case Study Houses. I bought it five years ago, but I only moved here after—after I sold the house in Tahoe." After Lucy Callahan left him. The Cubes, though fancy, was not the place to start a family, judging from the outside. "The interiors have been restored to look like the original."

The further we drove up on Mulholland Drive—an interminably long, winding road high up in the Hills—the better I could see the house. It consisted of four black cubes assembled like a four dimensional cross, resting on a fifth white cube, which in turn stood on top of an elongated concrete base, which was half covered and half open.

"I gather there's the terrace with the pool?"

"Yes, there are two pools, one indoor and one outdoor. They're connected."

The white cube only had slits for windows, whereas the three lower black cubes, each were completely open on one side. The structure was topped by the fourth black cube with windows on three sides, possibly even with a glass roof.

"You said you could see the ocean and downtown from your house, you did not say you could see Studio City, too."

"I can't see the three of them at the same time. The master bathroom's in the way."

"I see."

"You will."

We took a right turn into a tiny street called Pacific View and up to the driveway. Alex pressed a button on the garage remote and in we drove.

I was in his lair.

Fifteen

"Consuelo is not in today," he said when we climbed the stairs from the garage into the house.

"May I suppose Consuelo's your housekeeper and not your wife?"

"You may. I have much better options for Spanish speaking girls."

"Do you?"

"Yes. They fall helplessly into my arms when they see this." He stopped on the top stair and let me walk past him in to the open.

"Oh my God," I gasped. "This is incredible."
 

Downtown Los Angeles lay sprawled at my feet, bathed in the orange glow of a late afternoon sun and framed by green mountains. It topped every fantasy I ever had.
 

"I could watch it all day long." Alex said and he was suddenly very close behind me. Breathing became a lot more difficult. I expected him to embrace me but instead he moved on saying, "but then, I could not look at this!" He turned me around to look in the other direction.

"Holy shit," I wailed.

There it was. The glittering Pacific Ocean fading into the horizon. I could even see the waves hitting Santa Catalina island.
 

True enough, there
was
a spy-glass by the window.
 

"The study looks out over Studio City. It's especially nice at night." I was shown to this room as well.
 

The interior design was unobtrusive and mostly of white marble and naked concrete. I had visions of myself performing an unlimited number of sun salutations in the ocean-facing living room. The only remarkable object in there was a large, bright orange leather sofa.

"The sofa is part of the original concept," Alex explained hastily.

"It's very orange."

"It's very comfortable too."

 
The dinner table could be found in what I privately named the
LA cube
. I wondered for a moment where the kitchen was, but then I found it at the rear end of that same cube, behind a sliding door. The kitchen was, of course, a stainless steel affair and it had slits for windows which I had not been able to make out from the outside.

"There's a guest room in the white cube."

"The laundry, too?"

"Yes, but that's Consuelo's domain. Do—do you want to see the top cube?"

"I—sure, why not?"

Top cube is a nice euphemism for bedroom, don't you agree?

"Why don't you go up while I go looking for your coke. Then it's ready for you when you come back down."

I have to say I was impressed with Alex's diplomacy. I was also a little disappointed and had a sudden panic attack. What if he did not want me? He was so considerate, it was uncanny! What if he was a chainsaw murderer after all? These marble floors could be easily cleaned from blood and nobody would hear me if I screamed!
 

The bedroom showed nothing but a bed. A bed and California.

The bed was large, but simple. The good boy had even made it. (It had to be him because it was Consuelo's day off, remember?)

As the attentive reader will recall, the top cube was open on three sides. There was downtown LA, there was the ocean and there were the mountains. Since I could not behold Studio City, I understood where the master bathroom was and I took a sneak peek into it. Here, I was surprised. There were the slit windows, but the rest was very different from what I had expected in this cool, understated house. The entire bathroom was covered in a turquoise mosaic and the miniature tiles shone like mother of pearl. There was a tub and a separate shower, two wash basins and even a door leading to a sauna. Within five seconds, my dirty mind identified at least three spots where enticing intercourse would be possible, apart from the floor.