Delicate Monsters (2 page)

 

chapter two

What did it feel like to fall in love?

This was a thought so novel and jarring that eighteen-year-old Emerson Tate nearly fell straight from his lawn chair into the soft grass of Ryan Bloom's stately Sonoma backyard. It was a slow slip, no drunken pratfall, just a teetering of Emerson's oversized frame and limbs, then an overcorrection to keep his drink from sloshing over, but in the end he caught himself. Stayed upright and off the ground. Relieved, he sank deeper into the low-slung canvas seat and let the warm haze of booze and late-summer sun weight him down. Let his wistful longing pulse through him like an anchor scraping the pebbly bottom of the deepest lake.

A roar of laughter came from the direction of the pool. Emerson's head snapped up, along with his hackles and insecurities. Were they laughing at him? He couldn't swim, a fact that embarrassed him badly, a stark reminder of the suburban normality his family had never known. But no, it was just a group of guys horsing around in the deep end of the Blooms' Olympic-sized pool with a sopping wet football. Bryan James pulled his trunks down and dove beneath the water. His bare ass bobbed around on the surface like a lost white whale. More laughter. A few shrieks and catcalls from the girls. Emerson felt himself relax again. The air hung ripe with the scent of coconut oil and pot.

That should be a candle flavor,
he thought.
Mass produced and marketed. The nostalgia line: Eighteen and life …

This was summer's end for him, for them, as true as any other. Sonoma High had just finished its first official day of fall classes. The pool party was a way for the senior class to forget about the burdens of the impending year, what with its college applications and achievement exams, its disappointments and acceptance. The inevitable good-byes. It was too much to face head-on, without the lights dimmed a little.

Gulping down more of his drink—heavy vodka, light orange juice—Emerson shifted his gaze from the pool back to the long patch of manicured bluegrass where a badminton net stretched between two elm trees. The net had a tear on one side, a sag in the middle, but none of this stopped the two girls with racquets who were swatting a birdie back and forth and giggling over the word
shuttlecock
. The girl closest to Emerson held a gin and tonic in one hand, and she wore her feet bare. Her name was May, and she was his opposite in every possible sense. Where Emerson was pale, blond, big, and clumsy, May was dark skin, soft breasts, lean and full of grace. She was a delicate turn of the ankle. She was ice slowly melting. Her hair, a mess of wild black curls, bounced and glistened. Like the soft trampolining of his soul.

Watching her move, Emerson felt his body stir, awaken.

Every part of him.

This, he told himself, this was the beginning of love. It had to be. The way he felt, like his heart was setting down roots in a bare dirt hole he didn't know needed to be filled, it was transcendent.

It feels honest.

It feels like truth.

“How many drinks does that make, Tate? You going for a record?”

“Huh?” In a shuddering instant, Emerson went from lust to shame. He set his screwdriver down in haste. Prayed it didn't tip over and spill.

“Nah, I'm not hassling you, man. Come on. It's senior year. There's no such thing as moderation.” Trey Bornstein, who was dressed in pink madras shorts and nothing else, slapped him on the back, then reached down with a bottle of Stoli and poured. He filled Emerson's glass to the brim and then some. “Whoops. Just watering the lawn. Maybe it's good for it. Think plants can get drunk?”

Emerson shook his head. He had a suspicion the vodka had come from the bar inside the house, which meant Ryan Bloom would be pissed when he found out. His mom was more territorial than most. Wealth did that, Emerson knew, made rich people care more about losing what they had than other people. Just stepping into the Bloom home meant not wearing shoes and sitting on plastic slipcovers. It meant guest orange juice and Otter Pops instead of fresh squeezed and hand-churned ice cream. Mrs. Bloom even kept a set of cheap swim trunks in the pool house so that no one would accidentally walk off with a pair of Ryan's brand-name board shorts. Emerson highly doubted the Stoli was her guest vodka.

Trey pulled up his own chair and sat across from him. The wind shifted and brought with it the sharp stench of grapes fermenting on the vine from down off the hillside. Emerson felt a wave of sudden sickness. He picked his drink up and sniffed at it, wanting to inhale wafts of chilled citrus. Not wanting to vomit in the grass.

“New girl's a bitch, man,” Trey said. He leaned back and put his legs up on a padded ottoman. He had the same basketball height as Emerson—they played together—but Trey's legs were thin, wiry, like a thoroughbred, coated in red-brown hairs that matched the ones on his head.

“Mmm,” Emerson said, not sure if he dared open his mouth or not. What he wanted to do was keep looking at May, the girl he'd known since sophomore year, but had never truly
seen
. Until now. Maybe it was something in the way she moved. Pure feminine harmony. Why hadn't he noticed it before?

“She says she knows you.”

Emerson risked a sip of vodka. “Who?”

Trey had a way with restlessness; he'd mastered it. Before he answered, he pushed his hair back and scratched his balls. He picked a scab until it bled. Finally he pointed. “Her. Over there.”

Emerson turned his head reluctantly. Sure enough, a girl stood in the corner by the fence, smoking. Short, thin, she had dark hair and mirrored sunglasses. Her bikini top was black and her tits were small. Smaller than he liked.

“I don't know any new girl,” he said.

“She says she knows you. Name's Sadie something … Sadie—”

“Sadie Su?” Emerson peered closer.
Shit.
It'd been years, but it could be her.

“So you do know her?” Trey's voice held a note of betrayal. “Like I said, she's a bitch. Must be dumb as sin, too. I mean, who changes schools when they're a senior?”

Who indeed? Emerson didn't know and didn't care, but the thing was, Sadie wasn't new. She was
old
. She lived here, had always lived here, only not right in town, but out in the valley with her rich parents. They owned this ridiculous vineyard, despite not being vintners. It was the kind of home you saw photographed in magazines, immaculate sprawling grounds dotted with statuaries and teeming with hired help. Years ago, when he was just a kid, Emerson had spent a lot of time out there on the Su property. Every day after school, for a good six months, he and Sadie had been thrust together for hours. Every day they'd talk and play and—

A scrabble of dread ran up Emerson's spine.

Or maybe it was guilt.

“I don't want to talk about Sadie,” he said.

Trey shrugged, looked away. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

Emerson settled back in the chair and tried to reclaim his sense of peace. Once again, he fixed his gaze on the badminton game. On gin cocktails and a summer breeze. On the sleek, sun-roasted girl he was falling in love with and who just might love him back.

If only she knew how he felt.

If only he would tell her.

*   *   *

Miles was already home by the time Emerson stumbled in, way late, with his head pounding and legs sore from having walked all the way across town to where their dilapidated apartment complex sat in the shadow of a glowing Walgreens and a run-down Pizza Hut. Emerson was equal parts drunk and hung over, which was a bitch of a way to start the new school year, but at least he'd known better than to drive. His fifteen-year-old brother, who wore his blond hair too long and never cleaned beneath his nails, sat perched on a barstool like a spooked owl. He'd made food of some sort. Burned it, too, from the smell. What appeared to be angel-hair pasta and soy sauce.

Emerson took a deep breath. Promised himself he wouldn't get angry. “Why're you eating that crap?”

Miles shrugged. “Hungry.”

“You're gonna get sick.”

Miles shrugged again, skinny shoulders rising up with the sort of ennui he was known for. Fifteen going on fifty, Emerson knew three things to be true about his younger brother: First, he was sickly, something Emerson had come to believe was just a part of his nature the way impulsivity and overthinking were a part of his. Over the years, Miles's list of diagnosed ailments had grown faster than he had—night terrors, abdominal migraines, separation anxiety, failure to thrive, wheezes, rashes, fevers, impetigo, now possibly this celiac thing. When they were younger, their mom had been blamed for his frailties, but Emerson knew she'd done nothing but try and make him better. He'd testified to that in court.

The second thing about Miles was that he didn't like other people and didn't care to. Perhaps this was the result of their father's death, eight years prior. It was something that had made Emerson himself go a little crazy. No kid expected his seemingly healthy father to expire without warning one rainy Wednesday night while working on his Mustang in the family garage. And no kid expected to be shielded from the cause of his seemingly healthy father's death for reasons that had never been fully explained. It wasn't until years later that Emerson stumbled onto the disturbing truth: His dad hadn't succumbed to a heart attack or stroke or any kind of accident. No, his death had been a deliberate act, the calculated outcome of starting the engine, attaching a rubber hose to the tailpipe and running it back into the driver's-side window.

Lastly, for all his oddities, Emerson felt his younger brother was destined for … something. Greatness? Notoriety? Emerson hadn't pinpointed it yet, but there was a force within Miles that both awed and frightened him. Emerson wasn't awed or frightened easily, so these were definitely feelings he took note of.

“How was school?” Emerson asked, walking into the kitchen to pour a glass of water from the tap. He figured he needed to drink at least a gallon or two to even think about functioning in the morning. “Didn't see you all day.”

“I was there,” Miles said, and although Emerson waited, no further elaboration came. That was the extent of their communication. A few minutes later, Miles went pale. He gripped his stomach, slid from the barstool, and bolted for the bathroom. He didn't come out again. He probably wouldn't for a long time. Emerson cleaned the kitchen and put the dishes away so their mom wouldn't have to when she got back from her shift at the nursing home. He owed her that. He owed her more. He and Miles didn't have much after their father's death, but what they did was the result of her work ethic, her ability to move forward and not look back.

Finishing with the last of the dishes, Emerson went to the small room he shared with Miles and closed the door. He lay on a sagging twin bed. He turned the ceiling fan on high.

His head spun from the Stoli and the heat.

Despair took many forms in this room. In shadows and memories best left forgotten. In shame, dark and cloying. Tonight despair came for Emerson cloaked in the knowledge that he'd have to get up and do the whole school thing all over again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. The only bright spot in Emerson's life, besides basketball, was May—the girl, not the month.

Thinking of her, the way her body curved and the way he liked it, Emerson slid his pants off, then his boxers down. He longed for a real connection with May, of course. He wanted Friday night dates and lazy afternoon sex and whispered phone calls after curfew. He wanted those things with a need as bright and frantic as life itself, but tonight Emerson chased simpler dreams, using his hand and his loneliness to lope dutifully after brief fantasy and even briefer pleasure.

He longed mostly for the sleep that would come after.

 

chapter three

It was the third day of school when Sadie got called in to the vice principal's office to discuss her educational “strategy.” As if educating her might be akin to warfare, requiring hawkish tactics and well-planned maneuvers. Although considering what she'd done to get kicked out of her last school, that approach might not be unwarranted. Sadie wondered what Sun Tzu might have to say on the matter.

Practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.

There was no doubt this meeting was going to be a bitch and a half, but Sadie was glad to be attending alone and without her mother, who liked to make a big showy production out of everything and get lawyers involved. Sadie wasn't into that. Throwing money around didn't always mean you got your way, and it didn't make people respect you. Collateral was more important.

Leverage, the most.

Sadie strolled through the halls of Sonoma High at roughly the pace of the continental drift. She coolly eyed the students around her. Did they know who she was or what she'd done? The story of how Roman Bender had nearly died in an unfortunate “prank” last winter had made headlines in New York, but did it make waves out here? She doubted it. The California wine country didn't keep up with things like prep school hijinks or erudite tradition or how long-term exposure to the snow and subzero temps could lead to heart arrhythmia and frostbit fingers. It didn't keep up with much at all.

This whole place was gross, she decided, stagnant in its banality. Not that the fancy boarding schools had been great or anything, but at least there'd been a sense of
relevance.
There was nothing relevant in Sonoma. Beneath the glitzy wine industry and quaint tourism pooled a dark futility, a cruel sort of helplessness. It lurked in corners. It oozed from hormones.

When she got to the office, the school secretary waved Sadie right in. She was late, which was good, because if there was one thing Sadie hated, it was being made to wait for others.