We are closer to the water, bright and blue, impossibly close, just beyond the grass tennis court, green, bright, and Love tells me about The Aisles. There are four houses on the property, one grass tennis court, one clay court near the main gate, and two swimming pools. There is a boathouse and I see the Donzi Love’s dad told me about and I want to drive that thing. I will drive that thing! They have a private beach and a shed that appears to be made of actual gingerbread cookies. A sign on the thatched roof reads mini pantry.
“Mini pantry?” I ask.
“Nothing mini going on in these parts.” She squeezes my balls and begins to give me a hand job right here, right now, about fifty feet away from where the kids have set up a lemonade stand. She gets down and feels me up and maybe this will be when she blows me. We could get caught at any second. I tell her this and she grins, Cheshire.
Love strokes me and cups my balls and I am her clay and she works her fingers to my bone and her face is so close. I put a hand on her head but I don’t push. I won’t push. I will take the hand job but the hands make me want the mouth and I push the littlest bit and she takes a hand away and opens her mouth. Yes. Yes. On the tennis court someone calls: Out! She licks her fingers and palm instead of licking my dick and she takes that wet hand back to my cock and I come. She wipes her hands on a palm frond and I pull my shorts up.
“You okay? You seem a little tense,” she says.
I shake my head. “Of course I am. I was just worried about those kids.”
She smacks my ass. “Well, even if they did see, they gotta grow up sometime, right?”
We walk. No wonder Forty calls me Old Sport. This place is The Great Gatsby, new and improved. Paul Simon sings; only it’s actually Paul Simon, the human being. He’s sitting on a lawn chair strumming a guitar for Barry Stein and Forty, a strange sight in so many ways, three men, one guitar, no Garfunkel.
“Barry Stein knows him,” Love explains. “Barry Stein knows everybody. I think that’s why my parents put up with him.”
“What do you mean?”
She tells me that Barry Stein is kind of a self-important douche, but her parents love the movies. Her dad wishes he were in that business but they don’t invest in movies because they’re too risky.
One of the million maids on staff emerges with a tray of vodka lemonades in Mason jars and Forty is quick to grab two. He offers one to Barry Stein, who shakes him off and Paul Simon says no too. Nobody wants to drink with Forty and Love sighs. “I wish Forty would get it. He always thinks Barry is gonna produce one of our stories. And it’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” I ask.
She laughs. “Cuz they suck.”
I love that Love isn’t self-deprecating or self-aggrandizing. What I don’t love is how she pulls my head toward hers and lifts her iPhone.
“Afternoon selfie,” she cheers. “Hashtag, Summer of Love.”
I smile. “Cheese!”
24
PAUL Simon left while we were settling into our suite upstairs in the main house and I’m not used to it, any of it.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask Love.
“There are some in the cabana and some in the main house but I love the ones in the blue house,” she says.
I try not to seem so astounded, but sometimes, the difference is too much. The French doors of the blue house are open and the bathroom is straight ahead and it’s the size of a studio apartment. A fat tabby cat meows and exits.
I can try, but I will never be at ease in this. I look outside and watch Dottie hug Pierce Fucking Brosnan. A fat child picks his nose. I close the door and sit on the toilet. When I was a kid, my mom used to leave me at Key Foods. Literally just fucking dump me there. She would say we were playing hide-and-seek and I knew we weren’t but I would play along. I would hide in the bathroom or sneak upstairs where they paid people to watch out for shoplifters, like ghetto Casino. The managers all knew me. They knew my mom. They didn’t call the cops on her. The nice manager would make me my favorite meal, On-Cor Veal Parmigiana.
Eventually my mom would come back and slap me hard on the face and scream at me not to run away or pull that shit again. I promised to be a good boy and the people who worked at the store went along with the charade.
I flush and splash cold water on my face. I leave the bathroom and “helpers” (Love’s word, not mine) circle in Bermuda shorts, can I help you, do you want anything? Love changed into tennis whites and she’s on the patio by the courts. Forty waves me over and hands me a caipirinha. Milo is here now too. He’s talking to Love, making her laugh. Barry Stein looks up Love’s skirt. Fucker.
Forty shakes his head. “I told you not to worry about that.”
“What’s Wianno?” I ask, nodding toward Milo and his stupid tattered T-shirt.
“Wianno Club,” he says. “And, Old Sport, I promise you that there is nothing to worry about over there.”
“Where’s Wianno?”
Forty sighs. “It’s nowhere.” He claps. “So you got any ideas for movies, Professor?”
“Not really,” I say. I watch Milo, the blond hair on his arms, his Chiclet white teeth. The violence in me is like the marketing campaign for Carl’s Jr., the way the signs change when they have some new jalapeño fat burger to promote. Instead of killing Amy I want to kill Milo.
Forty crunches on an ice cube. “Oh, come on,” he says. “You gottta have one idea. Everybody’s got one. What’s the last great thing you saw?”
“Nothing,” I reply. “This guy I work with always forces me to watch all this crap on Funny or Die.”
“You ever have anything produced?” Forty asks.
“No,” I say, and it would be socially inappropriate to pull Milo by his shirt into the water and drown him. Instead, I play along. I tell Forty about an idea I have, where you would show that part of Love Actually where Liam Neeson tells his stepkid that they need Kate and Leo.
“And then,” I say, hoping that Love can hear me, that she’ll leave Milo to see what she’s missing. “Then, they’re on the couch, only instead of showing that scene from Titanic, you show the scene from Revolutionary Road where Kate and Leo are fucking in the kitchen.”
Forty cackles. Love doesn’t notice.
“That is genius. Old Sport, you need to make that.” Forty looks to see if Barry Stein has been eavesdropping but he hasn’t.
I shrug. “It’s just something I think would be funny.”
“You gotta think, it’s something that will be funny, Old Sport.”
And then Forty has to go field some calls and he leaves. Love comes over and sits on my lap. “You having fun?”
“Yes,” I say, and I am. With Love on my lap, I am calmer. I can love it here now that she’s not talking to Milo. The light in Malibu has power that you can’t buy on Instagram. Everyone looks more alive than they did at Chateau, clearer yet grainier. The Aisles isn’t a home; it is a village and I wonder if any of the people who work at the Pantry know about this place and if they want to get together and storm the gates. I can picture them all shrieking, WE DON’T WANT LOVE—GIVE US MONEY!
Dottie says we’ve got to get ready for dinner and I didn’t realize time was passing. Love says that happens in Malibu. “Beach brain.”