Faking Life (33 page)

She picked up the two-piece lingerie outfit, the bra made of see-through black mesh. The panties had no fabric covering the crotch.

“I figured,” Nico said, a careless smile on his face, “you could use that for your special nights with John. The nights he's sure to remember.”

She stared at Nico in horror, but then looked up, her resolve firmed. Suddenly, Esther had never been surer of anything in her life. She shoved the dress back into the box without folding it and tossed it all behind Nico's desk. What she and John had was pure, and she'd never let this monstrosity touch it.

“
I'll
do it,” she said. “I'll get John Gillis back. But I have one condition.” She approached the desk and placed her hands on the glossy mahogany. “If I can do this, if I can get him back,
I
want to represent him. Not you, me. Take those clothes and return them. If I ever see them again, or even a shred of wrapping paper I walk. I don't want you anywhere near John.
I
negotiate the contract,
I
submit the manuscript. Otherwise I'm gone right now and so is John Gillis. If I'm going to do this, it will be on our terms—mine and John's.”

“Fine,” Nico said without hesitation.

“Fine.” Esther turned and walked out of the room.

J
ohn listened to the rhythmic breathing and watched as drop after drop of clear liquid fell into the tube that ran from a steel hanger into a needle embedded in the arm of Paul Shrader. He watched Paul's eyelids flutter, eying the bone-white bandage wrapped around his head.

They'd taken the tube out of his mouth earlier, Paul's breathing raspy but strong. Paul didn't seem human, like a robot had been hooked up to the machine, not his friend. Not Paul. Yet there he was, a second-degree concussion, two-dozen partially digested pills and over a fifth of vodka being sucked out of his stomach.

He'd gathered Paul's hysterical mother in his arms, Paul's father looking on, trying unsuccessfully to remain emotionless, a rock they could rest on. His lips quivered at their sides as his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

“Why would he do this?” she'd said, the tears dripping into her mouth. “Why would he
need
to do this? Doesn't he know we love him?” John had nodded, remained silent, took the stringy hair into his hands and stroked them as she cried into his chest.

Suicide attempt, the doctor had said. Passed out in a bar, hit his head on the floor. Unconscious when he hit the ground. That's where the concussion came from.

John stayed up all night with Paul's family, trading solemn silences. Paul had woken up once during, Paul's mother holding his hand as her son mumbled incoherently, his eyes blinking at the dull glow from the light fixture. His dry lips smacking, then slowly closing as he passed out. His mother cried and told her baby to wake up, gently slapping his arm. John watched in awe, scared that such a simple movement could rip a hole in their suffocating blanket of fear. For the first time in hours, John had taken a breath.

He got lucky, the doctor said. If he hadn't been in a public place, who knows when he would have been found. They might not have gotten to him in time. John nodded as Paul's parents fired questions.
He got lucky.
John didn't believe that for a second.

The next day, morning sun peeking through the drawn shades, John sat by Paul's bedside holding a paperback he'd bought in the hospital gift shop. He'd passed by rows of wilted flowers and lonely greeting cards, it dawning on John that he was in the single most depressing store he'd ever seen in his life. The musty magazine racks, all copies dated at least two weeks behind, accentuated the notion that shoppers wouldn't merely be looking for sympathy gifts, but something to pass the time while they prayed their loved ones would make it through. The shoppers wandered around grimly, picking up Hallmark cards from an aisle that celebrated no holidays or special occasions.

The sound of Paul's breath was the only noise he could hear as he flipped the pages. A light-blue tube ran from a socket in the wall and ran into Paul's nostrils. A saline drip ran from a hanger, crisscrossing his arm like a cold, gray noodle.

John turned to page 93, then flipped back. Who was this Larry the book kept referring to? Was he the main character? What the fuck was this book about? Hell, almost a hundred pages in and he didn't even know what he was reading. He thought he recalled something about a cattle drive, or maybe not. His eyes had been scanning the words for hours, but were retaining nothing. He looked up at the motionless form lying in bed. A watched pot never boils, he thought. Paul won't wake up as long as I'm paying attention. Paul's parents were busy trying to locate the nearest Starbucks. John had asked them to bring back the strongest cup they could find. Three Sweet-N-Lows should do the trick.

He kept telling himself not to feel guilty, that he wasn't to blame. He would have prevented it. Maybe that was the reason he'd kept the contract from Paul. Deep down, whether he'd been up front or not, John knew Paul's reaction would likely have been the same. And where had he gotten the drugs? Zoloft. He hadn't had a clue. But the booze…Jesus. He'd polished off at least ten or twelve beers, and that was
before
he hit the bar.

Might as well try to read, John thought. Take his mind off it. Trying to assuage the guilt was pointless. It was there whether he deserved it or not. If he was going to support Paul, really
support
him, feeling sorry for himself wasn't the way to do it.

He hadn't told Paul's parents about the fight. They assumed the cuts on his arms were from the fall, a dropped cocktail glass. John looked at the bandages and wondered if Paul would have any scars. Whether they would heal, or always be there to remind him.

John let out a frustrated breath and flipped to the beginning of the book. He might as well start over, let himself be sucked in.

He tried to tune out his surroundings, the sterile white sheets disappearing in his mind's eye. Escapism. That's what he needed. Just let his mind float away…

“I read that one before they made the movie. They ruined it by casting that guy, you know, the one with the Plexiglass hair.”

John whipped around and saw Paul staring at him, his eyes bright green. John's book fell silently onto the linoleum.

“Shit, you're awake!” Paul nodded and looked sleepily around the room. He pointed to the book.

“Promise you won't tell anyone I read that crap.” John laughed.

“Yeah, of course I promise.” Paul grimaced and gritted his teeth.

“My stomach hurts.”

“Doctor said it would when you woke up.” Paul yawned and scratched his head, wincing when his fingers found the bandage.

“My head hurts too.”

“Better you don't touch it, Paulie.” Paul looked up and blinked.

“Paulie. You haven't called me that since…”

“Darcy LaPierre's afterparty, sophomore year,” John said, smiling.

Paul nodded and laughed. “You were so drunk that night. I remember Darcy kept trying to convince you to go home and sleep, and you were all like 'It's ok Darky—you kept calling her Darky cause she wore so much eye shadow—Paulie here is gonna take care of me.' And then you booted all over her kitchen sink.”

“I think that was the moment my crush on her ended.” They sat in silence for a moment, John too stunned to figure out what to say next.

“So…how're you feeling?” Safe question, he thought.

“I feel like I'm due for one mother of a hangover.” John stifled a laugh. He stood up and dragged his chair over to the bedside. Placing his elbows on the rumpled sheets, he let his eyes linger on the sallow color of Paul's skin, the aroma of old cheese wafting up from the bed.

“First thing you're gonna do when you get out of here is have a shower. I'm talking Brooklyn car wash clean.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse than the time we rented that summer house in the Catskills that didn't have hot water.” Paul whistled and sucked in his breath. His eyes looked sunken and hollow. John slowly moved his hand across the bedspread and grasped Paul's. He squeezed it and felt the gesture weakly returned. His skin felt like dry paper Mache.

“Funny,” Paul said.

“What's funny?”

“This,” he said, raising his shredded arm, pointing to the tube in his nose. “Couldn't even finish this right.”

“Did you really want to?” Paul sighed, coughed. A glob of yellow phlegm landed on his shirt. John took a tissue from the counter and wiped it off. Paul shook his head.

“No, I guess I didn't,” Paul said softly.

“I figured that.”

“How so?”

“The bar. If you really wanted to, you know,
do
it, you would have gone to a nice dark alley or a subway station. Someplace nobody would have thought twice about a guy lying unconscious in a pile of dirt.” Paul laughed.

“Funny. If I wasn't drunk already I might have done just that. Maybe your subconscious really kicks in when your brain isn't working. I guess mine didn't really want to go through with it.” John nodded.

“But the pills, Paul…I mean…” Paul's eyes squinted, then closed.

“I guess we all had our secrets.” He looked up, his eyes tired, yes strangely hopeful. “Hey John?”

“Yeah buddy?”

Paul took a deep breath. “I'm sorry.”

“Paul, don't, it's really not…” Paul held up a trembling hand.

“Stop, just hear me out.” John sat back in his chair. Paul took a breath. “I owe it to you. Fact is, I knew you'd been writing for a long time and it was killing me that I didn't know what it was. When you went to meet Esther, I'd already tipped back a few—you knew that—and my curiosity got the better of me.” He paused and closed his eyes again. For a moment, John feared he'd fallen asleep. It was a full minute before they reopened. .

“I booted up your computer and found the file. Wasn't hard, it was the only one in the 'Recent Documents' folder that wasn't a bootleg music file. When I started reading, I was expecting it to be a piece of shit. I
wanted
it to be a piece of shit. I would have been happy with that. I wouldn't have had to pay it any more attention. But when I read it, I could tell that not only was it
not
a piece of shit, but it was actually pretty good. Now you gotta understand, by that point I'd probably thrown back a case of long-necks, and the more I thought about it, the more I hated it. That make any sense?”

“A little.”

“I guess with me getting the heave-ho from my agent and then seeing what you did, I got jealous. I started wondering if you'd been hiding anything else. I didn't want to believe that someone who'd never written so much as a haiku could do what you did. So I started going through the files on your computer. When I didn't find anything there, I went through your desk. That's where I found the contract with Nico Vanetti and I just lost it. I mean fucking
lost it.
Right then, I knew it was going to sell. And that's before I heard the message. One thing I've learned about marketing is that the only thing better than a great platform is no platform. That's what you had. The greatest non-platform of all. It's the people that come out of nowhere who make the waves in this business, and it pissed me off to think that you could be such a big fucking wave. You and Esther just happened to get home right when the brunt of it hit me.”

Paul took John's hand and squeezed it tight, tighter than John thought he was capable of. He felt a tightness in his chest, then gasped for air, not realizing he'd been holding his breath while Paul spoke. Hearing his closest friend praise him while lying in a hospital bed was almost more than he could handle.

John looked up, his eyes stinging.

“I should have told you.” Paul nodded, his face solemn.

“Yeah, you should have.” He paused, wiped his eye. “John?”

“Yeah?”

“You take that fucking thing and you conquer the damn world with it.” John looked up, confused. Paul's eyes were wide open. John's fingers tingled, the blood squeezed out by Paul's grip. He could see the tendons trembling in Paul's wrist like strings on a plucked harp. He was using all the strength he had. Slowly, John wrenched free.

“Paul, the book's gone. My computer's wrecked, remember? I didn't have the file backed up.” As soon as John said the word 'gone', Paul started shaking his head. “What, what is it?”

“It's not gone.”

“What do you mean?” John said, his heart palpating.

“When I started reading it, I was planning to stop after the first chapter. I didn't know when I'd get a chance to read more, with you home all the time now. Sue me, I was curious and didn't think I'd actually sit there and read so much in one sitting.” He closed his eyes. For a terrifying second, John thought he'd fallen asleep. Then they snapped open. “I made a copy. It's on a floppy disk in the middle drawer of my desk. The label says 'Asshole'. You can work off of it.” John's felt his heart skip a beat.

“You're not fucking with me, right? You really have a copy?” Paul nodded. Suddenly John felt a magnet pulling him. He looked around the room, then back at Paul.

You're staying right where you are
, John thought.
Your friend is lying up with a concussion and you want to go home and punch keys? Shame on you, you self-centered prick.

“Hey John?” Paul said.

“Yeah?”

“Get out of here. I don't want to see you again till that thing is finished.”

John nodded and bolted out of the room, nearly knocking over a nurse in the hallway. He pressed the elevator call button, waited four seconds, then threw open the door and took the stairs four at a time. He ran past the security desk and squeezed ahead of an elderly man passing through the revolving door. No cabs in sight, he sprinted to the corner, his jacket flying out behind him, and headed home.

N
ico's 9mm Browning rested in an empty manuscript box in his bedroom closet, under a shoebox with Allen Edmond wingtips he hadn't worn in ten years. The shelf was a good nine feet off the ground to prevent Pietro from reaching it. As far as he knew, Pietro never knew it was there.

But Valerie did. And that was a fact he was sure would be used against him in the impending divorce. With the Gillis project putting Vanetti Literati back on the map, he was ripe to be torn open by Valerie's lawyers. That was why it was so important that the book
not fail
. He'd need the money, and his reputation, to withstand the onslaught.