Panic Attack (20 page)

— and he said, “I like it when we make love and we’re both tired. I think it’s sexy.”
That was perfect— rather than accusing her of not wanting to have sex, he’d expressed himself in a positive way without getting confrontational.
“Okay,” she said, “but I have to do the dishes first and clean up.”
“I’ll help,” he said eagerly.
He hardly ever helped her clean up after dinner— another common complaint of hers— and he could tell how much she appreciated him making the extra effort.
Later, he entered their bedroom, holding the bag with the cheerleader’s outfit behind his back. She was lying in bed in her bathrobe, reading some hardcover novel.
“I got something for you,” he said.
“What?” She seemed more worried than intrigued.
“You have to close your eyes,” he said.
She smiled as if she thought he was joking and went back to reading.
“I’m serious,” he said.
She looked at him again and asked, “What is it?”
“You have to close your eyes,” he said.
She breathed deeply, as if it would take an enormous effort, then finally shut her eyes.
“No peeking,” he said as he took the blue and gold outfit out of the bag. Then he said, “Okay, open up.”
Her reaction wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. She seemed, if not shocked, then slightly offended.
“What is that?” she asked.
“What does it look like?” he said, smiling, waiting for her to join in.
“You don’t expect me to
wear
that, do you?”
“What’s wrong? I remember you said you had a fantasy about this, right?”
“When did I tell you that? When I was twenty- five? Do you seriously think I’m going to put that thing on?”
She’d told him about her cheerleader fantasy a few years ago, okay, maybe five years ago tops, but he didn’t want to get into an argument about it. At the same time, he didn’t want to keep his resentful feelings to himself.
Trying to express himself in a nonthreatening way, he said, “I thought you’d be excited. But if you don’t feel comfortable about it I understand, though I thought you’d be . . . I don’t know . . . turned on by it.”
“What is that thing, a size
two
? Even if I wanted to put it on, I’d have to use a shoehorn to get into it. Come on, what did you expect me to do, get up on the bed and do a cheer for you?”
Actually that was exactly what Adam had expected her to do, but he was starting to feel attacked, belittled, and he said, “I feel like you’re getting upset with me for no reason. I feel resentful toward you right now.”
“Can you please stop talking to me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re one of your fucking patients. I’m not your therapist, I’m your wife.”
He knew this was just more of her stonewalling, her typical way of deflecting conflict.
Validating her rather than confronting her, he said, “I understand if you don’t want to wear it. I just want to work on ways for us to get closer in this marriage.”
“This is how you get closer?” she said. “We haven’t made love in I don’t know how long and then you come home with some outfit an anorexic sixteenyear- old would wear, talking to me like you’re lying on a couch?”
“I feel like you’re not being fair,” he said. “I feel like you’re purposely distorting everything I—”
“Oh, stop with that crap,” she said. “What if I came home, out of the blue, with some slinky Speedo and made you put it on?”
She was acting defensive again, but he remained calm and objective and said, “First of all, I’m not making you do anything. Second of all, if I’d told you I had a fantasy about wearing a Speedo, no, I wouldn’t be upset at all.”
“Fine,” she said, “I’ll get you a Speedo tomorrow and you can wear it. I’ll make sure it’s four sizes too small too.”
“Why do you always have to—” He caught himself using the word “always,” which was disrespectful. He took a couple of deep breaths to subdue his anger, not wanting to get sucked into an argument, then said, “If it’s something you feel uncomfortable with, I understand. I can return it, it’s no big deal.” He put the cheerleader’s outfit back into the bag and got into bed with her.
He started kissing her neck and under her chin. She was stiff, not reacting at all.
Finally she said, “Well, you really did a good job of setting the mood, didn’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He always told his patients to compliment their lovers, so he said, “You look so beautiful tonight.”
“You’re just saying that,” she said.
“No, honestly,” he said. “I know I haven’t been telling you that nearly enough lately, but it’s true, you look very beautiful.”
He started kissing her again, undoing her robe. During sex, he continued to kiss her and looked in her eyes as much as possible because in a marriage counseling session she’d said that it bothered her that he didn’t look into her eyes when they made love and that made her feel distant. Maybe he was overdoing it because she seemed uncomfortable and kept looking away.
“Is something wrong?” he asked assertively.
“You keep staring at me,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just you’re so beautiful, I can’t stop looking at you.”
Finally, after they switched from the missionary to the woman- on- top positions several times, Dana seemed to have an orgasm. He was starting to lose his erection, which had been happening a lot the last few years, so he did what sometimes worked— he blurred his vision and imagined Dana was Sharon.
“Is everything okay?” Dana asked.
Adam didn’t know if she meant okay with his erection or if she’d noticed the weird look in his eyes.
“Fine,” he said and went back to imagining Sharon’s full, heavy breasts, the scent of her perfume. At one point he almost blurted out Sharon’s name, but he managed to restrain himself.

Adam lay in bed next to Dana, not touching her. She was sleeping soundly, snoring, but he was restless. Finally he went downstairs to get a snack and watch some TV.

It was past midnight, and Marissa wasn’t home yet. Now that Adam was on his way to fixing his marriage, he wanted to make it two for two and improve his relationship with his daughter. He was tired of Marissa and all of her acting out and attention- seeking behavior; it was time for some serious tough love. From now on, for as long as she was living in his house, he wasn’t going to let her come and go as she pleased. She was going to have to tell him where she was and who she was with and when she was coming home. He wasn’t going to allow any more drugs in the house— that bong was going in the garbage pronto, that was for sure— and he wasn’t going to let her parade strange boyfriends through the house anymore either. He was going to meet all her boyfriends first, and if she didn’t like it she could pack her things and move out.

He started falling asleep on the couch, so he went back upstairs. As soon as he lay down he heard voices from outside, Marissa and somebody else, a guy. He went to the window and looked out. From his angle, he couldn’t see them; they were probably right below him, near the front door. He couldn’t make out what they were saying either, and then for a little while he couldn’t hear them at all. The police car was still there, parked out in front, hopefully for the last night. Police protection seemed so unnecessary now.

Adam heard Marissa call out, “Good night,” and then he saw a guy he’d never seen before— longish hair, a leather jacket— heading away from the house toward the sidewalk. The guy didn’t exactly look like a doctor or a lawyer. God, where did she find these losers?

Adam heard Marissa’s footsteps on the stairs. He waited until he heard the door to her room close; then he went down to make sure she’d set the alarm properly.

Xan
. Just typing that stupid name cracked him up.
He knew there was zero chance she wouldn’t get back to him. He didn’t peg her as the game- playing type who would play hard to get. No, she was definitely an all- or- nothing girl, the type who decided she was into one guy and one guy only and blew off the rest of the world.
As usual, his instincts were dead- on because she texted back:

With exclamation points no less. Talk about being primed.
They spoke on the phone for about a half hour. They could’ve gone longer— hell, all day— but Johnny knew how important it was to always leave phone conversations on a high point, to leave them wanting more. Nobody was better on the phone than Johnny Long. He knew exactly what to say to girls to get them— well, there was really no other way to put it— totally wet. He was so charming, so funny, so— what was the word?— personable, yeah, personable, and girls ate that shit right up. He knew he could pick a name out of the phone book, call the girl up, and there was a pretty good chance he’d be able to screw her. He’d actually done this one time just for fun, to see if he could pull it off. He called a couple of dozen women, pretending he was a cable guy from Time Warner. Well, that was the opening, but when the women starting talking to him, he turned on the Johnny Long charm. Yeah, a bunch of them hung up on him, and some were going to let him come over to check out their cable, but he wasn’t convinced he’d score with them. But it was all about percentages and he finally hit pay dirt with a woman on Staten Island. She was in her sixties and had gone back for seconds on the ugly line, but what difference did that make? She invited him over to her house, where he checked out her cable— actually fixing a problem receiving premium channels— and then screwed her twice and got away with a few hundred bucks in cash and jewelry. It proved that Johnny Long wasn’t just eye candy. He could use his voice and charm to seduce women, too.
Johnny invited Marissa to spend the afternoon with him at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and naturally she thought it was an amazing idea. She’d actually said, “Wow, that’s an amazing idea.”
He met her at two o’clock on the top of the steps at the main entrance, and when he saw her approach he was impressed with how good- looking she was. In the bright sunlight her hair looked shinier than it had last night, and there was no doubt that she had a hot little body. She was in preripped jeans, some trendy- looking black lacy top, and a short black leather jacket.
To sound like he knew his shit, before he’d met her he’d gone to Burger King and logged on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Web site and memorized info about twenty or so paintings. So when they went inside and she asked, “So what do you want to see first?” he said, “How about
The Storm
? That’s one of my all- time favorites.”
“Oh my God, I love nineteenth- century French romanticism,” she said, obviously trying to impress him.
He’d only picked
The Storm
because it looked so sappy, so girly, with the guy and the girl running in the wind, their clothes coming off, and him trying to protect her. It looked like something that would be on one of those faggy books with Fabio on the cover, and he figured every girl in the world was looking for a guy like that, a guy who would save his girlfriend, do anything to keep her safe, even if she was kind of fat and not very hot.
As they looked at the painting, he told her some of the crap he’d read online about it, going on about the romance and passion in the painting and how he tried to get “that feeling” into his own work. She said, all serious, “
The Storm
always reminds me of Rodin’s sculptures, such as
Eternal Spring
.” He knew she was just repeating some uppity crap some uppity teacher at Vassar had told her or she’d read in some book. Johnny wondered how much Adam Bloom had spent to send Marissa to college— probably a hundred grand. A hundred grand and she didn’t know any more than Johnny did after spending one morning in Burger King.
They went into one of the little rooms off to the side—“the Impressionist wing”— and she showed him some of her favorite pictures, acting like she was a tour guide, going on and on about them, using big college- type words like “symmetry,” “aesthetics,” and “illusionistic.” Johnny didn’t understand half the shit she was saying, and he wondered if she did either. She took him to other “wings” of the museum, walking him around until his feet hurt. All the pictures looked the same to Johnny, and the artists sounded the same, too— Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Picasso, how did anybody keep track of who painted what? While she was blabbing away, trying to impress him with how much she knew about paintings nobody except other uppity people gave a shit about, Johnny was looking at her with an interested expression, like he was totally gripped, but inside he was laughing his ass off, thinking about the things he was going to do to her and her family when the time was right.
After the museum, he was expecting her to invite him back to her place. Taking her up to see that
Storm
painting, showing his deep, sensitive side, had pretty much sealed the deal. Walking down Fifth Avenue, alongside Central Park, she even hooked her arm around his and said, “It’s amazing. I feel so normal around you, I feel like I can be myself.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, trying to look sincere.
She invited him out to some party later on, but he said he couldn’t make it, that he had plans. His only actual plan for the night was to hit some bars and pick up a woman or two, but he’d already spent a couple of hours with Marissa today and didn’t want to spend too much time together too fast. If he wanted this to turn out right, it had to be a slow build.
They stopped at a Starbucks for Frappuccinos; then he walked her all the way downtown to the subway at Fifty- ninth Street. He offered to ride with her back to Forest Hills, but she said it was okay, she could go alone, and he decided not to push it. He made out with her for a long time near the subway entrance, and when she was all worked up he said good- bye, leaving her wanting more.

He didn’t suggest seeing her again on Sunday, figuring three days in a row might’ve made him seem too available, and a girl always wanted a guy to be a challenge even if she was dying to tear off his clothes. But they got together again on Monday, going to see a movie. He was hoping she’d ask him to pick her up at her place, so he’d have a chance to meet her father, but for some reason she insisted on meeting in front of the movie theater on Forty- second and Eighth. They saw a horror movie— her idea— which was perfect as far as he was concerned because they spent the whole time snuggled in the back, making out like teenagers, pawing at each other like they hadn’t gotten any in years. Yeah, right.

At one point she whispered in his ear, “God, I want to fuck you so bad.” He was surprised— she was a raunchy little thing; he didn’t expect that. He knew he had to handle this right, and he whispered back, “I want to take

He saw her again on Tuesday, for lunch at Dojo in the Village. Yeah, it was a cheap place to take a date, but that was the whole point. He had to play up this starving- artist thing because he knew that was what turned her on. If he was trying to scam a Paris Hilton type, he would’ve been wearing Armani and it would’ve been Le Cirque all the way. But with a wannabe bohemian chick like Marissa, talking about how he couldn’t pay his rent next month and how he’d been living on ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese was the way to go.

On Wednesday night something happened that nearly ruined everything. Johnny met Marissa in the East Village, and after a couple of drinks at a bar on Avenue A, they went to the Knitting Factory, where the Limons, some new retro Latin punk band she was into— she’d called them “the Ramones meet Ricky Martin”— were playing. They’d been in the place for only a few minutes when Johnny felt a tap on his shoulder and heard, “Frederick, is that you?”

Johnny looked over his shoulder and saw a woman— not so bad- looking, late twenties, maybe thirties, with straight brown hair and bangs. She didn’t look at all familiar, but he’d used the name Frederick with various pickups.

She didn’t, saying, “Like hell you don’t, you son of a bitch. Where’s my fuckin’ money?”
He looked at her again and said, “Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Actually, she was starting to look familiar, but he couldn’t place her face yet.
As he started to turn away again, she grabbed his arm and said, “You took two hundred fucking dollars from my pocketbook and, oh, yeah, some jewelry, too, but it wasn’t worth shit.”
Now he remembered. A couple of months ago he’d picked her up at a bar, Max Fish on Ludlow, not far from where they were now, and he’d stolen some cash and some jewelry that had turned out to be gold plated; waste of his goddamn time. He usually didn’t like to return to neighborhoods where he’d scored for at least six months for this very reason.
“I’m telling you, you have the wrong guy,” he said, shaking his arm loose. He noticed that Marissa was starting to look a little worried, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he was being hassled or because she was starting to believe the woman’s story.
“Give me my money back or I’m calling the fuckin’ cops,” the woman said, flipping her cell phone open.
“You’re out of your mind,” Johnny said. Then he took Marissa by the hand and said, “Come on,” and led her toward the other end of the bar.
The woman followed them, shouting, “I want my money back, Frederick!”
A bouncer came over and asked what was going on. Johnny calmly explained that he had no idea who the woman was. The woman continued to go on about how Johnny had stolen money from her, sounding more and more crazed and hysterical. At one point she shoved the bouncer, and he grabbed her and pulled her out of the bar. Then the bouncer apologized to Johnny and Marissa for the “inconvenience” and bought them a round on the house. Johnny, turning on his charm, bonded with the bouncer— they were both from Queens, around the same age— and after a few minutes they were like old buddies.
Johnny and Marissa bonded, too, talking about how “weird” it was that the woman had mistaken him for that other guy and flipped out like that. It turned into a big joke, and Johnny knew that Marissa couldn’t wait to tell her friends about it; he figured she’d probably blog about it, too. This was yet another example of how golden Johnny was, how he could do no wrong. Something that could’ve been a disaster and ruined his plans had turned into something that had scored more points with Marissa, bringing them even closer together.
Johnny was hoping that Marissa would invite him home with her tonight, but again she wanted to take the subway home alone. He insisted on going with her because it was past midnight and “you never know what kind of maniacs are on the subways at this time of night.” She agreed, but when he was walking her back to her house, she was acting uncomfortable, not talking very much, and when they got to her house she barely kissed him good- bye and rushed inside. He had no idea what the hell was going on. He knew she was into him— that was obvious— so there had to be some reason she wasn’t inviting him in. It wasn’t like she’d never taken a guy home with her before. She’d talked about a few guys she’d had over to her house since graduating from college, including that skinny little dork Darren. Johnny wanted to ask her if something was wrong, but he figured it was better if she brought it up herself. He didn’t want to push too hard and blow all of his plans.
The next day, Thursday, Johnny called Marissa in the morning and asked her if she wanted to meet him for lunch in Brooklyn. She said she’d love to— not exactly a surprise— and he met her outside the Smith– Ninth Street subway station and rode the bus with her to Red Hook, where they went to some trendy coffee bar where Johnny had seen a lot of artsy types go. They talked for a while, holding hands the whole time, and then he took her back to his place.
He’d been working hard to try to make his studio apartment look like a place where an artist would live. He’d picked up some more paintings from thrift shops and, a couple of days ago, had bought four paintings of bowls of fruit from some guy on Craigslist who lived about ten blocks away. He’d done a few more of his own paintings, too, in the Jackson Pollock style, and he thought they were at least as good as that shit in the Met.
On the way over to his place he gave her some BS about how “nervous” he was about her seeing “his work.” She told him how silly he was acting and said she was sure his paintings were amazing.
In the apartment, he watched her reaction closely as she looked around. He could tell she was seriously impressed.
“Wow,” she said. “You really have a lot of range, don’t you?”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You use oils and acrylics, huh?”
He had no idea what he was talking about, but he said, “Yeah, I like to do a lot of everything. I mean, I don’t like to limit myself. I want to blow the whole thing wide open.”
Wasn’t that the line in
Pollock
? Eh, something like that.
Admiring the paintings he’d bought on Craigslist, Marissa said, “Do you do your portraits from real life or photographs?”
“Real life,” he said.
“Wow,” she said. “Impressive.”
She turned toward the wall where he’d hung up a couple of his own paintings and said, “So you’re into modern and abstract, too, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You see the Pollock influence, right?”
Influence
. He was on a roll, all right.
“They’re
very
Pollockesque,” she said. “You and Pollock have a very similar controlled freedom in your styles. I love the use of gray— very Jasper Johns. I also see the homage to Picasso in your use of blue.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going for,” he said. “Johns and Picasso. Yeah, I’m so glad you noticed that.”
She continued to admire the paintings while he was thinking about how this whole art gig was so perfect for him. It was all about bullshitting, and nobody could bullshit better than Johnny Long.
When the love fest for his artwork ended, he cracked open a couple of Heinekens and sat with her on the couch.
A few minutes later, she was snuggled close, wrapping her leg over his legs, saying, “I’d love to watch you work sometime.”
“That would be great,” he said, “but nobody’s ever watched me before. I might get nervous, you know?”
“You don’t have to get nervous around me,” she said, and she put her beer on the coffee table. She kissed him, rubbing his chest with one hand, then said, “Maybe I can... help you.”
“What kind of help do you have in mind?” he asked, playing along.
“Maybe some of this,” she said, kissing his lips. “Or this.” She kissed his neck. After a while, she moved one hand over his crotch, then unsnapped his jeans and started to reach inside.
Naturally he was ready for her, but he shifted back a little and said, “I think we should wait.”
“Wait for what?” she gasped, wanting him so badly.
“Until we get to know each other better.” It was so hard to deliver these lines with a straight face. “I mean, we’ve only known each other for less than a week.”
“So you’ve never slept with somebody you’ve known less than a week?”
Only about four hundred and fifty before you, baby.
“But this feels . . . different,” he said. “It feels . . . special.”
She smiled, blushing. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why? Doesn’t it feel special to you?”
“It feels very special to me,” she said. “I’m just not used to hearing guys say things like that to me. I’m used to guys trying to get into my pants.”
“I’m not most guys,” he said.
“You’re
definitely
not most guys,” she said.
They kissed for a while longer. He was glad, because if he’d had to talk right then, not laughing would’ve been impossible.
When he was sure he’d composed himself he said, “I guess I also feel a little uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable about what?” she asked.
“Well, you’re living at home with your parents. I feel like I should meet them first before we . . . you know.”
That was the way— make out like he was too shy to say “have sex.” That was him all right, Shy Johnny.
Marissa moved her leg off of him and shifted away a little and suddenly seemed upset. Johnny hoped he hadn’t taken this playing- hard- to- get routine too far.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s not you, it’s just . . . I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Johnny held her hand, squeezing it tightly to show how much he cared, then said, “I’m gonna have to meet them eventually, right? If my parents didn’t live so far away I would’ve already brought you to meet them.” The other night he’d told her his parents lived in San Diego.
“It’s just really complicated,” she said. “God, I wish I wasn’t living at home. It’s just so hard, especially with my father and his mood swings.”
“Mood swings?”
“Not ‘mood swings,’ mood swings. I mean, he’s not manic- depressive. But one day he’s aloof, in his own world, and the next day he wants to be this involved father. Suddenly he has all these rules— I can’t drink in the house, even a glass of wine, and he made me throw out my pot even though I barely smoked at home. Then I came home the other day from the museum and my freaking bong was gone— it was handmade, from Guatemala, and he threw it in the garbage. Oh, and I have to let him know when I’m coming home at night, the exact time, like I’m a teenager again. He knows I’m dating you, so the other night he made this big stink about how I can’t bring you up to my room and you can’t stay over or anything until he meets you.”
“So let me meet him,” Johnny said. “What’s the problem?”
She had that concerned look again. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said.
He thought,
Uh- oh, VD
. Not that this really bothered him. He’d had crabs before, and he’d knocked out a case of gonorrhea last year. VD was part of the job when you wanted to be the next Casanova.
“I mean, you probably heard about it on the news,” she continued,“but maybe you didn’t make the connection.” She waited, as if trying to find the right words, then said, “Our house was robbed last week.”
“It was?” Johnny thought he sounded convincingly surprised.
“Yeah, it happened when we were all asleep in the middle of the night,” she said. “I heard the burglars in the house and woke up my parents, and then my father went and shot one of them.”
One of them,
like he and Carlos had been what, two cockroaches? Isn’t that what people said when they were trying to squash bugs:
I got one of them, but the other one got away?
“Oh, that’s right, yeah, yeah,” Johnny said, like it was all coming to him now. “I think I read something about that in the paper. Yeah, the shooting in Forest Hills by that shrink. Wow, that was really your father?”
“I’ve been afraid to tell you,” Marissa said, suddenly talking faster, full of nervous energy. “I’ve been afraid that you’d, I don’t know, judge me. Maybe I was just being crazy— I do that sometimes, get all neurotic and paranoid, overthink everything— but that’s what I thought. It’s not true, right? You won’t hold it against me, will you?”
“Relax, baby,” Johnny said, squeezing her hand, letting her know that he’d always be there for her. “You know I’d never do that to you.”
He held her and kissed her for a while; then she said, “I’m still so pissed off at my father for doing what he did. It was so stupid, so totally thoughtless, and the thing is I don’t even think he feels guilty about it.”
“Really?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, he’s been in this weird denial phase or something,” she said. “I mean, even the morning after, he was just going about his life, acting like nothing happened. You would think a psychologist would be more in touch with his feelings, but with him it’s the total opposite. I don’t think he has any idea how he’s feeling, ever.”
Johnny remembered being in the car outside Bloom’s house, with the gun in his hand, seeing Bloom strutting down the block in his sweat suit, like he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Well, you have something to worry about now, asshole
.
“So you think what they were saying in the news was true?” Johnny asked. “Your father wanted to kill the guy?”
“Between me and you,” Marissa said, “yes, I do. I think my dad just lost it, in that moment and wanted to shoot him. I don’t think he’s a crazy person— I mean, he’s not
psychotic
— but he holds stuff in, he’s wound up, you know? It was also the middle of the night, he was tired, so, yeah, maybe he wasn’t thinking rationally. He was angry that someone was in his house and he just went too far. He gets that way sometimes, does things without thinking.”
Johnny couldn’t wait to kill Adam Bloom, watch him die in pain.
“That’s rough,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Yeah, I know, it was pretty scary and traumatic,” Marissa said. “But the most terrifying thing was there was somebody else in the house that night.”
“There was?” Johnny was acting shocked.
“Yeah, the cops think it was our maid. Did you hear about what happened to her?”
“No, I don’t think I . . . Wait, wait, I did hear something. She was hurt too, wasn’tshe?”
“She was
killed,
in her apartment.”
“Oh, man, that sucks,” Johnny said. He hoped Marissa didn’t start crying, get all gushy and girly about it.
“Yeah, it was incredibly sad,” she said, “but I don’t know, that just doesn’t make sense to me that our maid actually robbed our house. We were really, not like best friends, but really friendly, you know? Oh, and we got this note under our door, a kind of death threat.”
“Really? Who left it?”
“That’s the thing, nobody knows. My dad’s convinced it was a prank, but he’s constantly making up stories, trying to rationalize everything. He’s so screwed up, if you met him you’d never guess he was a psychologist. But maybe that’s the way it works— maybe if you want to cure people’s craziness, you have to be a little crazy yourself.”
Johnny put his arm around Marissa and said, “It sounds like your family’s going through a lot right now. If you don’t want to bring me home to meet them, I understand, but I guess I should meet them eventually . . . I mean, if we’re gonna be a couple.”
Her face brightened, and she said, “You really mean that?”
“Of course,” he said. “You think I’d want to go out every day and every night with every girl I meet?”
Finally he’d said something that wasn’t a total lie.
She said, “You’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever met.”
He couldn’t argue with that.