Sex and Violence in Hollywood (10 page)

The phrase made Adam wince inwardly.

Alyssa came into the store a few minutes later. Gasped when she saw Adam, quickly removed her black-framed cat’s-eye glasses. In the second he saw them, Adam thought her face made the nerdy glasses very sexy. Without them, he could see fear pass quickly over her eyes.

She was different, stiff. Glasses off, Alyssa gave him a quick, strained smile, then did not look at him again until they left. Talking with her mother, Alyssa’s voice became tight and the specter of a whine sometimes rose to the surface.

“I’m not saying you have to come, you know better than that,” Sunny said. “I’m just letting you know that Aunt Christianne is going to be here, and I know she’d like to see you. So, if you’re not doing anything, and if you’re comfortable with it, you might want to be at home this weekend, or at least drop in to see her. You could bring Adam.” She turned to him. “You’d love Aunt Christianne. She’s a scream.”

“Mom, I’m really sure Adam wants to spend the holiday meeting my relatives, you know?” Alyssa’s tone was bitter.

“Well, it was just a thought, Alyssa,” Sunny said with a dismissive wave.

Alyssa took Adam’s hand in hers. He knew by how hard she squeezed that she wanted out fast. She told her mother they had to go, as if they had plans, and they left, Alyssa holding her glasses in one hand, Adam’s hand in the other.

She spoke rapidly once they were in the car. “I’m sorry about that, Adam, I’m so sorry, I just went out to have lunch with my friend Brett, but I didn’t know you’d be coming by the store, see, otherwise, I wouldn’t have—”

“Hey, hey, you really have to lay off the caffeine, Alyssa,” Adam said.

She laughed, took a deep breath. “How long were you there? With her?”

“About twenty minutes, I guess. Your dad came out of the office and said hi.”

“Oh, God, both of them.”

“They’re nice, I like them. You’re lucky. How many people have a mom who’s so cool she gives their friends chocolate chip marijuana cookies?” He grinned at her.

Alyssa’s features seemed to slide down the front of her skull in horror. “She gave you...oh, God, I’m so sorry, Adam.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

She just shook her head. After watching the passing sights for a while, she said, “They were both raised in the same commune. Their parents were honest-to-God hippies, and they passed it on to Mom and Dad. You know, like some kind of...bad gene.”

“Hey, it could be worse. They could be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or actors.”

Facing front, she said, “I hate them. I’d like to kill them.”

Adam chuckled. “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around.”

Alyssa made a noise that sounded like it might have been a laugh trying to get out. “You hate them, too?”

“No, I think your parents are cool. You should be happy to have them.”

“No, I mean, do you hate your parents?”

Adam hesitated. “My dad,” he said after a moment. “I hate my dad.”

“You don’t hate your mom?”

“No, I miss my mom. She’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t know that.”

“You couldn’t have known. And don’t apologize, I’m pretty sure you didn’t do it.”

“She was murdered?”

Again, Adam hesitated. He wanted to say yes, she was, but decided not to share any of the dark stuff with Alyssa. Not yet, anyway. There was an airy, light-headed quality to their relationship and he did not want to damage it.

“She was killed in a boating accident.” The instant he said it, he heard the voice of Richard Dreyfuss in his head: This was not a boat accident!

“That sucks.”

“She was great, too. Nothin’ to hate there.”

“You were lucky to have her at all. I wish my parents had died in childbirth.”

“Jeez, what could be so bad about them? They seemed very—”

“They’re freaks.”

“Hippies, maybe, but not freaks. I think hippies are pretty...groovy. They’re with it, baby. They tune in, turn on, and drop acid. Make love, not Michael Bay movies, my flower child.”

“Stop it,” she said. She turned her face away from him and said, with some difficulty, “They have sex.”

“And that’s bad?”

“On the sofa? In the middle of the day? They walk around naked. The other day, I walked into the bathroom—the door was wide open, I figured it was unoccupied—and there’s Dad sitting on the sink while Mom gives him...well...you know.”

“A pedicure?”

“They were naked. They’re always naked. I can’t have any friends over because their idea of dressing for company is throwing a towel over their genitals. And even then, Dad’s dick is always hanging out.” She said the word “dick” the same way she might say, “Grandpa’s colostomy bag.”

“Yeah, that sounds a little too...natural for me.”

“And they’re always stoned. Naked and stoned. Letting it all hang out.”

“Stoned isn’t so bad.”

“Hey, I’ve got nothing against anybody getting stoned. I don’t smoke pot, but I don’t mind if others do. It’s a lot different, though, when the pot’s in a plate of brownies Mom made and put on the coffee table like a bowl of peanuts. You know what it’s like to have a friend over and then spend the whole evening thinking, Gee, I hope Mom doesn’t offer Brett a hit off the bong tonight. When my parents leave town, the last thing they tell me before going is to take care of their marijuana plants. They’re more worried about those than about me. I hate them, Adam.”

Adam shrugged. “Maybe you’re being a little hard on them. Like I said, I hate my dad. He’s like this big rectum on two legs. But eighteen’s a few years behind me, and I’m still living there. I guess there are things in life we all have to live with, you know?”

“One of these days, I’m gonna quietly snap, and I’m gonna get the biggest knife in the kitchen, and I’m gonna stab each of them as many times as I’ve wished they’d used a rubber.”

“And leave me without a date?”

Alyssa turned to him and smiled. “Is this a date? Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere you want.”

“Take me to my house so I can get my contacts.”

“I think the glasses are sexy,” Adam said with enthusiasm.

“Cut it out.”

“I’m serious. They’re very sexy. But they make it hard to see your eyes. I prefer to see your eyes.”

She smirked and said, “You’re just being nice.”

Adam’s surprise came out as laughter. “No! I’m serious. Your eyes...” Words got clogged together in his throat and he had to gulp them back down. He had never said such things out loud, not to mention to anyone. “You have beautiful eyes. They make me feel...I don’t know, like touching you. And not just your body, I mean, there’s something about your eyes that makes me want to reach into them. And touch you inside.”

Alyssa stared at him curiously for a long time as he drove. Something was happening behind her eyes. Adam could tell, even through the glasses.

“Pull over.” She turned her body toward him, tucked her legs beneath her in the seat.

“What?”

“Pull the car over.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere, I don’t care, just pull it over now.”

Adam pulled the car over at a bus stop and shifted to Park. A sign warned that the spot was for buses only and no parking was permitted at any time. He turned as Alyssa’s eyes closed in on his quickly. She held his face between her hands and kissed him very gently at first, small kisses, over and over. The kisses grew in intensity until her open mouth stayed on his. She continued to hold his face in her hands, stroked his eyelashes with the pads of her thumbs. Finally, she pulled back, just a little, and looked into his eyes with something that resembled desperation in hers.

“It was so, so wonderful of you to say that,” she whispered.

“I didn’t say it for points, Alyssa. I mean it. I could...” Maybe you should quit while you’re ahead, he thought, but went on. “I could sit here and look into your eyes for hours. For...ever. If...if only we weren’t parked at a bus stop.”

“Oh. Then we should skate.”

She started to pull away, but he did not let her. He kissed her again, then held her tightly, chin resting on her shoulder. On the sidewalk, a homeless man wearing filthy rags stood beside the bus kiosk. He held a sign that read,

LOST JOB, HOME—

WILL DOCTOR SCRIPTS FOR FOOD.

The homeless man watched them. When his eyes met Adam’s, he slowly lifted his right arm, extended his fist, and stuck his thumb skyward.

“What would you like to do?” Adam asked when they were back on the road.

“How about a movie?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Or we could go back to the bookstore and kill my parents.”

Adam tried to laugh, but it sounded like he was clearing his throat instead.

Smirking, Alyssa said, “Then we could go take care of your dad. And then...we could just run away.”

“Run away where?” he asked, his mouth dry.

“Anywhere! Everywhere! Just hit the road and ride. Just travel the country and save others from weird asshole parents. Like Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in Badlands.”

“Yeah! Or Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. Or...no, wait...” Alyssa laughed and he was relieved to change the subject. “What kind of movie do you want to see?”

“Let’s go home and get my contacts. We can call from there for show times. I’m in the mood to eat popcorn and hold hands in the dark.”

“Hey, if it’s dark, why stop with hands?”

She touched a fingertip to his lips. “Good question.”

TEN

On the way home,
Adam stopped at a florist and spent some of his dad’s money on a dozen red roses to be delivered to Alyssa at the bookstore. Then he stopped for a carton of frozen yogurt and went home.

The garages were closed, so he could not tell who was home. Inside, he went to the kitchen, where he found Mrs. Yu in the breakfast nook, a newspaper spread open on the table next to a steaming mug. Smoke curled from the cigarette held between her thin lips.

Adam pointed a finger at her and gasped loudly. “Mrs. Yu! Shame on you, Mrs. Yu!”

Mrs. Yu took the cigarette from her mouth, laughed and shook her head. “You funny.”

“I’ve never seen you smoke before.” He put the bags on the table, took a seat.

“Becah yo fadduh no ret anybody smoke inna house. Missy Jurian, she light abou dat. Missa Jurian jus gonna haffa get used to some tings. I too old be smokin’ beside swimmy poo.”

Adam’s laughter echoed off the surfaces of the kitchen. “How would you like a bowl of strawberry frozen yogurt?” He took the carton from the bag, put it on the table.

Mrs. Yu picked it up as she put down her cigarette and stood.

“No, no, Mrs. Yu, I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh, no. No sugar for me, doctor say.”

Adam scooped some of the yogurt into a bowl, put the carton in the freezer and returned to the table. “Is Gwen around?”

“Missy Jurian go shopping. I rike Missy Jurian, she nice. I haffa give her exla dessuht.”

Adam took his books and frozen yogurt upstairs. At the landing, just before he turned right to go to his room, he glanced absently down the hall to the left. Did a double take when he saw a flash of the bright, sworled colors of a Missile Pop rounding the corner at the end of the hall. Frowning, he went to his room.

Gwen was shopping. Dad was at work. Mrs. Yu was downstairs and it was the wrong day for any upstairs cleaning. The only other person it could have been was Rain.

He sat at his desk and tried to do some writing while he ate the frozen yogurt.

What would Rain be doing in Michael’s bedroom? It was the only room past the corner on that side of the house, so if she went around the corner, that was where she was headed. It was Gwen’s room as well, but Adam did not think that excuse would go over with his dad. Michael Julian fiercely guarded the privacy of his bedroom.

As a child, Adam had gone into his parents’ bedroom only when he knew his dad was not around and his mother was with him. He used to love watching her brush her hair at the vanity. Sometimes she would put the music box that contained Grandma’s jewelry on the floor and let him carefully examine the pieces. The jewelry box played “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago. Whenever he heard it now, Adam thought not of Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, but of the colorful, sparkling jewelry that had been worn by his mom’s mother. Sometimes, Mom would lie down on the floor with him and tell him stories about some of the pieces. A couple times, she had brought out an old photo album filled with pictures of Grandma and Grandpa. Adam had tried to find some of the pieces of jewelry in the snapshots, but was distracted by the faces. They were all hard, unsmiling faces. Everyone in those old pictures looked as if someone had just said something that deeply offended them, and like they weren’t going to forget about it anytime soon.

His dad had sometimes surprised them by coming home unexpectedly. “How many times have I gotta tell you, I don’t want the Goddamned kid fucking around in my room!” Depending on his mood, he would kick or hit Adam, and Adam would leave the room in one of three ways: he would crawl, be dragged, or picked up and thrown out. Usually, his dad had dragged him out by the hair.