The Girl of Sand & Fog (17 page)

He picks up my ankle and studies my Vans. “I like
your shoes. You’ve not worn them before. Where did you get them?”

Neutral topic.

Waiting and not pushing me mode.

I turn to face him. “You mean with all the spying
you did of me on the Internet before we started dating you didn’t find my
website? My shoe art? My videos? Kaley’s Kustom Kicks. All Ks. I used to sell
them.”

I open the laptop, type in my URL, and turn the screen
to face him.

“You do realize you named your website KKK?” he
asks, amused.

“Of course. All things bad eventually become good
with a little push. I wanted to remove KKK as a negative in American
nomenclature.”

“Ambitious, aren’t you?” He’s fighting back a
grin.

“No, entrepreneurial.”

He takes another sip of his beer. “Did you ever
sell any?”

“I used to. A lot. But I jacked up the prices to
get fewer orders because it takes quite a bit of time to paint the shoes, and I
stopped the shoe art when we moved here.”

“The shoes are amazing. Why’d you stop doing it?”

I slap closed the laptop and turn on the bed.

“I guess I didn’t need it anymore. It was just
something I started to keep my mind off other things the months after Jesse’s
funeral. We moved twice, first to my grandpa Jack’s and then here. It was
really hard watching my mom take apart our life in Santa Barbara, how quickly
she got over my stepdad’s death and then knowing why once it became obvious she
was pregnant. I needed something to work on, and doing the shoe art helped.”

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling,
hating that something girlie and fragile slipped into my voice just then. 

“It used to be a profitable website,” I add. “I’d
get white Vans for twenty bucks at an outlet and sold them for 750 plus
shipping. I have something like 240,000 hits on my Kaley’s Kustom Kicks website
and videos even though I haven’t posted on that site for a long time. I used to
try to post a new video each week of me painting shoes.”

“Capitalist,” Bobby teases, a smile in his eyes.

I shrug. “What’s wrong with being a capitalist?
What’s wrong with knowing how to make your own money?”

“Nothing.”

I give him a serious stare. “You didn’t apply for
college. I thought you were going to apply to USC so we could go to college
together. I don’t know why you didn’t. You can’t just surf and live off your
dad forever.”

“I don’t plan to live off my dad forever. But you
can live off your dad forever. Alan is worth over a billion dollars,” he mocks,
blowing past my comment about not applying for USC and adroitly easing into the
topic of my dad.

I sit up, pushing the hair from my face. “The
money won’t do me any more good than Alan ever has. I might be his daughter,
but he’s never going to admit it. You should have seen the way he looked at me
today. He can see it. It rattled the shit out of him. He knows I’m his daughter
and won’t say a word. And even if he did decide to come clean, I wouldn’t
depend on him for anything, ever. Alan can go fuck himself. It really doesn’t
matter if my dad someday acknowledges me because I won’t ever forgive him. I
realized that today when I saw him stare at me and then say nothing. I’ll never
forgive him for that or let him be a part of my life. I’d rather die than ask
him for anything. And he can leave and never come back for all I care. I’ve had
enough. I hate him. I just want him gone, Bobby. I don’t want him part of my
life.”

That prompts Bobby to shift back into quiet and serious.
Oh crap. I don’t know what he’s thinking but I know I’m not going to like it.

“You’re not done with him, Kaley. Not by a long
shot. You do know, don’t you, that you relentlessly compete with Alan?” he asks
quietly in his all-knowing way. “He isn’t even aware. But you do it anyway. It
must really piss you off. You are not even close to being over this.”

I give him a mocking look. “You think I’m
competing with Alan Manzone? With what? My websites? My films? My shoe art?
With my capitalism? That’s really a stupid theory, Bobby. You must have spent days
thinking up that one.”

He shakes his head. “No, you compete with him
with your attitude. All the ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ It’s not who you are. Don’t
waste your time trying to be him just to get back at him. It won’t work. And
the person you are is amazing.”

That comment hurts me, even though I know he
intends to be constructive and not mean. I roll over on his stomach. “Is my
hypersexuality, as you so kindly phrased it this afternoon, me trying to get
back at my dad as well?”

Bobby gives me a lazy smile. “Maybe. Jury is
still out on that one, but we’re not discussing that here.”

“Then what are we discussing?”

He pulls me up into him and surrounds me with his
arms. “How did it make you feel to see your dad today?”

Those penetrating green eyes lock on me.

I make an aggravated shake of my head.

“It made me feel like shit, Bobby. How do you
think it made me feel?”

His arms tighten. “I’m sorry that it felt that
way. If I could fix this for you I would. I hate when you’re hurting, Kaley,
and I can’t do anything to stop it.”

He starts kissing my curls gently, comforting
touches, nothing more. But it’s not long before I pull him into me for a deep,
open-mouth kiss that makes my blood start to pump again. Then without intending
this, we are heatedly kissing, touching, straining and stripping. My clothes
are lying in a heap on the floor with Bobby’s towel, and he is in me.

*  *  *

Bobby
collapses on the bed and takes me with him until my head is lying on his chest
and we’re both struggling to breathe.

He rakes back his hair, clutches it tightly in
his fingers, looks at me and exhales slowly. “As amazing as that was, there is
no way we’re doing it again today. I don’t know how you got me going this time.
I’m exhausted.”

I lift my face to look at him. “Have we finally
reached that point where we’ve done it over and over again and can’t take any
more?”

“I have—for today—but I’m not sure about you.”

I pout and then frown. He does look tired, and
I’m suddenly reminded of all the crud Caroline—
then I—
put him through in
the past eight hours.

Yep, time to let my guy sleep.

Bobby fires up a joint and seems content to silently
watch me through his cloud of smoke. Good, he doesn’t want to talk either.
We’ve had enough intense discussions for a single day. I’m a little brain
fried, and emotionally, if not physically, exhausted myself.

Shit, I wish I could sleep. I can’t believe I’m
still too amped to sleep after that last fuck. I wonder if it’s true what Bobby
said, that my hypersexuality has something to do with my unresolved issues with
my dad. Nope, don’t want to think about that one tonight.

I climb from the bed and pull Bobby’s t-shirt
over my naked flesh.

He sets aside the joint and sits up. “You’re not
leaving, are you? I thought you were staying the night.”

“I’m just going to the kitchen. I’m hungry. Want
anything?”

Bobby relaxes back against his bed and shakes his
head. “Try to be quiet, will you? My folks know you stay the night, they’ve
given up on trying to stop that, but they would prefer not to see you. Get it?”

Frowning, I run my fingers through my hair. “No.
Actually, I don’t get it.”

“If Linda doesn’t see you, she doesn’t know, then
she isn’t lying to Chrissie. OK?” He watches me as I grab his UGG slippers.
“Where does Chrissie think you’ve been spending your nights?”

“With Zoe. I’m a good girl, remember? Chrissie
never checks. Doesn’t have to because I’m so good.”

I make a cutesy sort of face, expecting Bobby to
laugh.

His expression changes into that one that pisses
me off, the one he only gets when he feels a little sorry for me. “I love you,
baby,” he says. “Everything is going to be fine. We’ll get through it
together.”

Fuck, abrupt shift into emotional landmine
territory again. A lump rises in my throat and a flash of anger pulses through
my veins. I narrow my eyes at him. “Fuck you. Don’t do that. I don’t need a
pity
I love you
when you feel sorry for me.”

Bobby’s eyes flash, surprised. “I don’t feel
sorry for you. Not ever.”

“Well, you should. I’m not just here tonight
because I love you. My mom wanted me fucking out of the house so I wouldn’t
hear the shit going down and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. OK? I’m not
here because I want to be. I’m here because I have to be.”

Crap, why did I say that? It’s not even close to
reality and I’ve tapped into his anger when I didn’t want to.

He stares at me with harshly penetrating green
eyes. “Then you shouldn’t be here. You should go home or to Zoe’s or anywhere
else. But not here, if that’s how you really feel.”

“Fuck you.”

He picks up the joint, takes a hit, and then
another one before setting it aside. “You only think you’re in control, Kaley.
I let you be in control. It is the submissive who is really in control. Didn’t
anyone ever teach you that?”

I stomp my feet into his UGG slippers until I
have them on securely. “Well, fuck. I guess I’ll have to think about that one
the rest of the night.”

He grabs my wrist to stop me from leaving.
“Kaley, listen. I get it. I know seeing Alan is going to have you all fucked up
for a while. That you’re working through a lot of shit. It’s OK. I’d rather you
let it out here. With me. Because I love you and I will love you through
anything.”

Now, on top of everything, he is doing it again,
being a really great guy when I am being a total bitch.

I sink my teeth into my lower lip to hold back
the tears.

“I’m glad that you’re here, Kaley. I’m glad that
I’ve got your back through this. I don’t want you getting hurt before you
resolve this junk with your dad.”

The tears come this time. I can’t stop them. He
doesn’t climb from the bed, doesn’t close the space between us, but somehow I
am surrounded by the feel of him, comforted without being touched by him.

He runs a hand through his hair and waits for me
to look at him. “And don’t ever tell me to fuck off again when I tell you I
love you. I love you, Kaley.”

“How come you’re such a good guy?”

“I don’t know that I am.”

I slip out the door, leaving Bobby naked on the
bed in a cloud of pot smoke that follows me outside. I make a careful trek from
the pool house to the sliding glass patio door, stepping where Bobby showed so
I won’t trigger the automatic floodlights, preserving his parents’ ability to
continue in non-denial denial about what I am really doing every night here since
they never see me after midnight.

Carefully I close the door behind me, hear a
sound and tense. After two months am I finally getting busted sneaking into the
family room? Shit. I turn slowly to look into the room.

The earth drops away beneath me as I spot Alan
sleeping in a chair. The house is dark, and I would have missed him if he
hadn’t done the lightest bit of snoring then.

So my dad is still in Pacific
Palisades. I didn’t expect that. He didn’t run off. I wonder if my mom told him
about Khloe or if she lost her nerve.

What the hell is he doing at the
Rowans’?

I sink down on my knees beside the chair, sitting
there quietly, just studying him. Everything about me I can find in prototype
on him, everything except my too-small nose and my crooked smile that I hate
because it lends a flash of Chrissie’s sweetness to my features. Those are the
only things I got from Chrissie’s gene set. The rest of me is him, down to the
shape of our hands, the length of their fingernail beds and the shade and
texture of our skin. Even our hair and eyes; the exact same shade.

I run an angry hand across my face, disappointed
in myself because I can feel dampness on my cheeks. Seeing my dad is like going
to see the pyramids. I look, never touch, marvel and stare. I am fucking
seventeen years old and that is the sum total of my relationship with the man
who gave me life. Staring at a pyramid.

I’m halfway to convincing myself to wake him up,
to get the confrontation over here in the safety of the Rowan household, but
Linda comes into the kitchen, sets a pair of keys on the counter, and locks me
in her all-powerful stare. The look stops me cold in my tracks.

Linda’s severely beautiful face slowly softens
with a look of motherly sympathy and knowing. With her brown eyes still sharply
fixed on me, she gestures with her hand to be silent and follow her.

I am taken to the end of a long hallway I’ve
never been down before, to a small day room that Linda has clearly appropriated
for her own use. She points to the sofa and stands against the door almost in a
way that suggests she is barring exit.

After a long while of silence where Linda does
one of her thorough Dr. Phil searches of my face, she says, “Aha. So that’s it.
That’s the anger I feel inside of you these days. I thought it was. I wasn’t
certain. I didn’t want to press.”