Confessions of a Bad Boy (14 page)

“Hey, Kenny.”

“It’s really you!” the young guy in the tank top and big chain says. “Hey, Sam! Isaac!” he calls out across the room, like a mating call.

I raise a hand to stop him.

“No need for that. I’m just here to say happy birthday to my dad.”

“Nate! Do you remember when we used to go to those Raiders games together?”

Sam and Isaac – two clones of Kenny - join us and give me vigorous bro-hugs.

“Dude! Nate!”

“Do you remember?” Kenny repeats.

“I don’t think that was me,” I reply.

“Sure it was! We used to go all the time!”

“Nope,” I say, shaking my head and squeezing Jessie’s hand. “Pretty sure that wasn’t me.”

“Hey,” Kenny says, leaning in. “Is it true that you’re the
man
in Hollywood now? People are saying you made that Megan Wolf movie and all kinds of shit.”

“I didn’t make it. I just represent her.”

“Oh shit!” Sam says, patting Kenny on the back.

“Bro! You represent Megan Wolf? Hook me up, bro!”

“I told you, dog! Nate is the fucking man!”

The three of them start backslapping and talking among each other until I lose track of which is which. I debate introducing them to Jessie, but judging by the way she’s cowering behind me, I have a feeling she wouldn’t thank me. Plus, I’d hate to put her in their hands like that – she’d never make it out of here unscathed by their crude jokes and bad come-ons.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go find my dad, I’ll see you—”

“Yo, hold up hold up! We got a proposition for you, Nate dog!”

“Yeah! A proposition, dog. You’re gonna love it.”

“How about we go out back smoke a little green and we can fill you in, huh? Just like old times, right Nate?”

“Um…you know what? Sounds fucking good. Let me just say hello to my dad and then I’ll head out back and find you guys. How does that sound?”

“Awesome!”

“You’re the man, Nate! You’re gonna love what we got. I swear.”

I give them a nod and step away into the crowd, pulling Jessie along behind me.

“What was that about?” Jessie asks once we’re moving again.

“They have a rap group. They give me their mixtape every time I see them.”

“Wow, really?”

“It’s about as listenable as fingers on a chalkboard. They give hip hop a bad name.”

“They seem pretty into you, though.”

I stop and look right at her, then pull her away into a corner.

“Everyone’s into me here, Jessie. The one thing that’s worse than being an ignored kid is being a successful talent agent at a party full of relatives trying to get into the business. The three amigos are only the start of it, because as soon as people start realizing I’m here it’ll be like the world’s most embarrassing talent show. Last year my cousin Alexa seized the PA and forced everyone to listen to her sing the complete works of Celine Dion acapella ’cause she thought I could hook her up with someone in the music biz. And the year before that I had to sit through a private performance of my Uncle Johnny’s stand-up comedy slash drag show before I could leave.”

Jessie starts sniggering, sees the look of devastating seriousness on my face, then stifles it quickly.

“Okay. Calm down. Just stay here and lay low. I’ll go find out where your dad is, and then I’ll come back to get you, okay? That way you won’t bump into anyone else.”

I think about it for a few seconds, then nod.

“You’ll come back, right?”

“No,” Jessie says teasingly as she pulls away, “I’m gonna leave you here. Of course I’ll come back. Stay put and…I dunno, hide behind a potted plant or something.”

After a few minutes, Jessie comes back with a look of triumph and sheer determination on her face. She grabs my hand and pulls me back into the crowd.

“I found him.”

“How?”

“I just followed the trail of young peroxide blondes.”

She leads me to the lounge area, where the eighty inch TV screen is blasting out music videos, drowned out by the brittle laughter of young women that sit around the couches, all angular bodies and bored expressions. In the middle sits my dad, arms wide around the shoulders of two girls even I’d consider too young.

I step through the bodies and wait for him to notice me standing between him and the TV, though it takes a few seconds. The girls are hanging on his every word, way too scantily-clad for a birthday party, probably angling for a role in one of my dad’s movies. Nonetheless, my dad takes their attention willingly, as he spins them one of his old tales.

Eventually he looks up.

“Nate!”

“Hi, Dad.”

“It’s good to see you,” he says, patting away the arm of a girl offering a drink and standing up.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” he smiles formally, before turning his gaze toward Jessie for a second and raising an eyebrow. “I see you’ve brought company.”

“So I have.” I force my voice to sound polite. “This is Jessie.”

She holds out her hand with a genuine smile. “Hi.” My father takes her hand, almost kisses it, but then seems to think better. He squeezes gently and then releases her.

“Hello, young lady. A pleasure to meet you. And how do you know my son?”

I sigh. “No, Dad. This is
Jessie
. You already know her.”

He looks at me with a frown, then back at Jessie before shaking his head.

“Remember?” I prompt. “From that small house next door.”

“Oh!” Recognition finally flashes in my father’s eyes. “Did you come about the noise? Look, it’s barely even eleven right now and I’ve already spoken with the police—”

“No,” I interrupt with a groan. “She
used to
live next door. We used to hang out together as kids, remember?”

He winces now, as if it’ll help him see into the murk of the past.

“I’m sorry…the only friend I remember of yours was that little brute who looked like a boxer. You know, the troublemaker. Bad influence. Brought the whole neighborhood down.”

I grimace as I see Jessie’s stance stiffen, as if she’s holding back a left hook of her own. Kyle might be protective of her, but she’s just as protective – if not more so – if people start talking trash about her family.

“That was Kyle, Dad,” I say, angling my body between them. “Jessie’s brother.”

“Oh,” he says, almost on the verge of embarrassment, but instead deciding to laugh maniacally as he drops back down onto the sofa between the two blondes. “Well, at least
someone
got the good genes!” he says to one of the girls beside him, causing them to erupt in sycophantic laughter.

I stand for a moment in front of him, feeling the rumblings of anger and frustration that always accompany meeting him face to face, and then the inevitable emptiness that comes when I realize he wouldn’t care even if I did let him have it. I turn to Jessie, grab her arm, and guide us away.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Is that it? Don’t you want to talk with him a bit more? I know he can be a bit of a jerk, but if you—”

“I don’t want anything from him. Not anymore.”

W
e take
the fastest route away from my dad, which leads us across the back yard and out past the pool and guest cabin. We walk in silence as we skirt around the side of the property, circling back to the front yard and my parked car, my mood so heavy even Jessie can feel it.

“Hey,” she says suddenly, stopping.

I look up to see her gazing off toward the edge of the grounds. She looks back at me, smiles, and nods her head backwards at the path.

“Come on.”

“Jessie…”

“Come
on!”

Before I can reply again she’s off, jogging down the path that leads away from the mansion – and away from my car. I start following. The pathway cuts through dense, overgrown trees and bushes that cordon off the grounds of the mansion, curling around until it opens up again at the back yard of Jessie’s old house.

Her gentle jog turns into a full-blown run as she swipes and ducks around the overhanging branches. I try my best to keep up, catching small glimpses of her as she starts laughing. Suddenly I’m a kid again, smiling at the thrill of the chase.

When I stumble out from the foliage and into Jessie’s old back yard, she’s not there. My smile drops like an anvil, and I take a few steps in complete confusion.

Then I see her.

“Jessie!” I call out, rushing over to the tree with the hammered-in steps as she clambers up toward the treehouse. “That thing’s gonna break!”

She’s already up by the time I say it though, up on the small platform with a few uneven planks nailed together as walls and an equally lopsided roof.

“It’s fine! Come on up!”

“I…but…”

“Don’t make me dare you!”

Jessie beams me a smile and then disappears into the treehouse. I take a second to realize just how crazy this is, then start climbing. When I get to the top, I duck inside and we both spend a minute laughing goofily.

I sit up against the side, the same spot where I’d always sit when the three of us spent time in the treehouse, only now I have to keep my legs a little bent, and the plank behind me doesn’t seem quite so stable.

“You know, this whole thing is probably going to come crashing down with us inside it,” I say. “What is it, fifteen or twenty years old now?”

“Yeah, something like that. Fuck. That’s a long time. I didn’t think this would still be here.”

I gaze down at the wood, dense and strong as if fortified by memories.

“It’s not the things that change, it’s the things that stay the same which you notice as you get older.”

“Oh, very profound,” Jessie says sarcastically. I shrug, and something in her eyes softens.

We sit in the gentle peace of the treetop for a while, gazing out the windows at the horizons we knew so well, at each other, at the stillness of everything. Allowing the weird sensation of feeling out of time take over.

“I’m sorry, Nate.”

Jessie’s voice emerges from the quiet like wave lapping the beach, almost catching me off-guard.

“What? Why?”

She takes a moment before speaking.

“I used to judge you while we were growing up. For being the way you were.”

“What do you mean?”

“For the way you acted around girls, especially when you and Kyle got to high school and left me behind. I dunno. I thought you were being an asshole, the way you talked about it, and then when you guys left me behind again for college it was even worse. Especially since you seemed to have everything already – money, a big house, success.” She grips her knees and pulls them under her chin. “It’s only a lot later that I realized how tough it was for you just to get away from that house, everything you had to go through when you were little. It’s no wonder you turned out kinda fucked up.” She grins to make the words sound less harsh, but I’d be lying if I said she hadn’t struck a nerve.

“I don’t need anyone’s sympathy.”

“I know. I’m just saying I understand.”

The words hang in the air for a while, seeming to get louder as they remain unaddressed. I wonder how much she’d understand if she knew the whole truth – that me being ‘kinda fucked up’ included making video blogs about my sex life every week, posting them on the internet for the world to see, self-perpetuating my own gratifying debauchery with every entry. But suddenly all of that seems a million miles away, like it’s not even really me who’s been posting those vlogs, and I find myself talking from somewhere deep inside, without any of the usual ego or thoughtfulness.

“You asked me once why I said I’d never have kids. I’ll tell you. I don’t
ever
want there to be the slightest chance that I’ll cause as much pain as my father caused me.”

Jessie just nods, like she really does understand, and we let the calm seep into our souls once again.

“Hey,” she says eventually, “do you remember that time Kyle and I found you sleeping up here? You never told me what that was about.”

I smile bitterly.

“That was the night of my thirteenth birthday.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” I nod slowly. “That was a bad one. I mean, I knew my dad would make it all about him. But still…” I drop my head into my hand and rub my forehead roughly, as if I could somehow massage the memory away. “All I wanted that year was a new bike. Not anything flashy, either, just one that I hadn’t outgrown. I asked my dad about it every chance I got, left hints everywhere, drew pictures of bikes and put them up on my wall, on the fridge.

“And he actually listened. He actually bought me a bike! It was the first time I felt like he gave a shit, like I was more than just some annoying kid he wanted out of the house.”

“That’s good. Right?”

I look up at her and smile, then shake my head.

“The guests ended up playing with it, and at some point some drunk asshole rode it off the stairs into the foyer. The thing broke into three pieces. Absolutely fucking ruined. Everyone laughed, of course. Except for me. And then they laughed at me for not getting the joke, for being so serious about a stupid bike. I got out of there, so upset and pissed off I wanted to hit someone. I wanted to run away for good, just get out of that place and never go back.” I look up at Jessie, her eyes glistening wetly. “But the only place I could think of coming to was here.”

“That’s awful, Nate.”

“The worst thing was that my dad told that story for years afterwards – he probably still does. He tells it to me even, as if I’m supposed to find it funny that one of the most meaningful things he ever did for me was destroyed before I even got it.”

Jessie looks down at her lap solemnly, before quickly raising her eyes again, confused.

“But you had a bike. I remember.”

I feel a slow smile spread involuntarily across my lips.

“Because of Kyle. The next day, when he found me here, I ended up ranting at him with tears streaming down my face. Telling him what happened, promising him I’d never go back home, that I’d kill my dad if I ever saw him again. He just ordered me to pick up the bike pieces, and then he went to the dump and – God knows how – but he found a frame. Then we built it again from scratch. And after that he never said a word about it to me again.”