The Freshmen - 42. Chapter 42

October 9, 2004

Tribeca

New York, NY

Jeremy

“Are Travis and Will going to be at this dinner tonight?” Kris asked me.

I shrugged. “I heard a rumor that they were, but no one has said anything to me about it.” I’d put dealing with my relatives on the backburner, even though I’d gotten bitched at by LaWanda for it. I’d convinced myself that part of the reason I was feeling good was because I wasn’t dealing with the stress of talking to my family. I was determined to avoid conflict as much as possible. She’d let me live in that bubble for a couple of weeks, but now she was really putting the pressure on me to work on those relationships.

“It has been almost a month since you got out of the hospital,” he said to me in an accusatory way.

“It’s been 22 days,” I said to correct him. He’d been giving me these annoyed looks for the past week, so I assumed he was about to pelt me about my family as well. It was incredibly annoying that he was jumping on that bandwagon now. I wondered if he had talked to LaWanda, and if this was some concerted effort on their part.

“When are you going to make things right with your family?” he demanded.

“When I’m ready,” I said calmly, because the meds were settling me down. If they weren’t, that would have come out in an incredibly bitchy way.

“Part of the deal you made with me and LaWanda was that you’d work on fixing your relationship with them,” he said firmly. “That was why I was allowed to be with you in the hospital.”

“You don’t think it’s reasonable for me to have a month to recover?” I challenged, my irritation starting to penetrate through my glacial shell.

“What does LaWanda think?” he asked. I ignored him. “What does she think?” he demanded more forcefully.

“It’s pretty rude for you to demand to know about my conversations with my psychologist,” I said. It was like there was a gauge inside of me and I could see my anger rising. Now was the time for me to try to tamp it down, but he persisted in bugging me, which thwarted that effort.

“Then I’ll call her,” he said.

“Don’t you call her,” I said coldly. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow, because I hadn’t been this obnoxious since I’d gotten home on September 17.

“She told you to start the process and you’ve done nothing,” he said, and glared at me. I said nothing. “Didn’t she?”

“I’m enjoying being at a stable place, a place I haven’t been in a long time, or maybe ever,” I said in my bitchiest way. I recognized that I’d blown out the controls my medications had put in my brain. “The last thing I want to do is to deal with a bunch of crap from people.”

“You are not going to change,” he said, shaking his head at me.

“Yes, I am,” I snapped. “I already have. Haven’t I been better?”

“It’s all on the surface,” he said in a contemptuous way. “Beneath that veneer, the one that your drugs help you create, you are exactly the same person you were before.”

“I thought you liked the person I was?” I demanded.

“I didn’t like the person you were when we were in California,” he said. “So if that person is back, let me know.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked loudly, surprising both of us.

“I’m out of here,” he said, and got up to grab his coat.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

“Out,” he said. “I told you when I’m pissed off, I need space. I am very pissed off, so I’m leaving this situation.”

“This situation?” I demanded. “I’m a situation?”

“You have created this problem, and I’m not willing to live in it,” Kris said adamantly. “I’ll see you later.”

“We have that dinner tonight!” I objected. “This is the first big social event since I got out of the hospital!”

“Well it looks like you either have to cancel or go solo,” he said. He gave me a smarmy look and walked out of the room.

“What if Will and Travis are there?” I shouted after him.

He stuck his head back into the room. “I guess you should have worried about that before tonight.” I heard the front door shut as he left.

I stood up and stomped my foot, the first time I’d done that since I’d been back. “Damn,” I said. I walked into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed, wanting so bad to have a pity party for myself and throw a tantrum, but those fucking meds were like a floor that stopped me from going there. So I lay there, mad because I couldn’t get madder, and sad because I couldn’t get sadder. God this was annoying.

My phone rang and I smirked, thinking it would be Kris calling to apologize, but instead I saw that it was Aunt Claire. I didn’t want to talk to her, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but she was my link to California, so I felt obligated to answer. “Hello,” I said, trying to sound chipper.

“Hello,” she said, but she was faking her cheer as much as I was. “How are you doing?”

“It’s not my best day, but I’m fine,” I answered. “I’m supposed to go to that banquet tonight. I heard a rumor that Will and Travis were going to be there, but I haven’t heard whether that’s true or not.”

“They were going to be, but they are skipping it,” she said. “They are out here visiting instead.” I was surprised to hear how irritated she was.

“What are they doing in California?” I asked.

“Travis has acquired a stalker,” she said, sounding worried now. “He had been running into him when he was out, but the stalker has gotten bolder.”

“Is he alright?” I asked. I was seriously annoyed with Will, but I genuinely liked Travis.

“He picked Will up from the train station and took him back to his apartment,” she said.

“Where is he living?” I asked.

“Off Riverside, near Riverside Park,” she said. “It is close to the studio.”

“Makes sense,” I said, even though I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live there.

“When he picked Will up, he saw his stalker staring at them. Travis was going to run after him, but a van drove on the road between them and when it passed, the guy had vanished. Evidently that’s his modus operandi. He’d been doing that to Travis all week, but yesterday he did it four times.”

“That’s a little creepy,” I said, and felt my skin crawl. That would really be horrible.

“When they got back to Travis’s apartment, they found it all but destroyed,” she said, then went on to delineate the things that this psycho had done.

“That is fucking terrifying!” I said, worried shitless for Travis.

“He even left a note on the door,” she said. “He told Travis that he was sorry he missed him, but he’d catch him next time.”

“No wonder they flew out to California,” I said, shaking my head. “What is Travis going to do?”

“That was the subject of a most unpleasant discussion at dinner last night,” she said, and now she really sounded pissed. “Travis has to move, and I suggested that he stay with you. The thought was that your condominium is quite easily guarded, much more so than a normal apartment building.”

“That is fine,” I said. It normally irritated me when my family decided to invite guests to drop in and live with me, but this was clearly a big deal, and I really did enjoy being around Travis. He was such a cool guy, and more than that, he had always been nice to me. Even in school he’d made sure to watch out for me. “He is more than welcome to stay here.”

“Will absolutely refused to allow it,” she said. “He said that if Travis moved in with you, he would only be able to see Travis when he came up to Boston, because there was no way he was going to visit Travis when he was staying with you.”

“He’s going to be that stubborn even when Travis’s life is on the line?” I asked incredulously.

“I made that very point, to which Mother agreed, and was treated more rudely than I can remember,” she said. “He told me that after all that he had done for you, and after all of the stuff he had put up with from you, you told him that he wasn’t your brother and that you weren’t even related.”

“He said that before,” I said, fighting against feeling guilty, and fighting against the realization that he was right.

“He basically told us that because of that you were dead to him, and told Mother and I that we were out of line to even bring up the subject with him,” she said. I was stunned at how angry he still was.

“How did everyone else react?” I asked.

“My father had the nerve to tell us that we were being incredibly rude for even bringing this up, and told us that our manners were horrible,” she said. I tried not to giggle at how outraged she was over being slammed about that. “He said that Will and Travis had flown out there for safety, and we had ‘poked the bear’ and started a fight when we should have been supportive.”

“What about Stef?” I asked nervously.

“Will asked everyone at the table if any of us had heard from you since you got out of the hospital, and besides me, no one answered,” she said.

“I was just trying to get myself together,” I whined, even though I felt incredibly guilty for not at least reaching out to Grandmaman.

“Will said, or rather shouted, that you have done this same thing over and over again,” she said.

“What thing have I done?” I demanded, so annoyed with Will.

“He says that you will claim that you were ill but now you are better, and that’s just an excuse to avoid accepting responsibility for your actions. And he said that you’ll claim to be sorry when you aren’t,” she said. It was extremely irritating that Will was right.

“It’s different this time,” I objected.

“No one knows that, though, because you haven’t reached out to them,” she admonished.

“Shit,” I said, suddenly getting clarity that by ignoring this whole thing, I had just made it into a much bigger problem.

“Stef launched into me, telling me that by creating such a ruckus about this, Mother and I have set your whole timeline back and derailed your efforts,” she said. “After that, I had had enough, and I left the room. Mother had already left so she was spared that indignity.”

“I am sorry you had to deal with that,” I said sincerely.

“I talked to Daddy this morning, and he said that the plan we’d worked out, that you would first approach Stef and Daddy, then Brad, then finally Will, had only made Brad and Will more irate,” she said.

“What’s wrong with that plan?” I asked.

“Because, in Will’s mind, and the mind of your father, you would be basically backing Will into a corner. You would make your peace with Stef and my father, then use them to bully Brad, who would in turn bully Will,” she said.

“As if anyone could bully Will or my father,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Will sees this as a big scheme to get everyone on your side and to then freeze him out of the family,” she said.

“That is ridiculous!” I said vehemently. “Everyone knows he’s the golden boy. How could he possibly be frozen out?”

“I agree with you, but that is where his mind is at,” she said. I was stunned at how pissed off Will was at me, and how paranoid he was being. I began to worry that he wasn’t just mad at me; I was concerned that he actually hated me.

“So what do I do?” I asked, even as I reeled at the destruction I had caused.

“I honestly do not know,” she said. “I will have to ponder this.”

“OK,” I said, and felt like I was in the middle of the ocean, floundering amongst the waves, with no idea of which direction to swim.

“Let us think about this and try to come up with an idea,” she said. “I have to run.”

“Thanks for calling me and telling me what’s going on, and thanks for having my back,” I said.

“You are welcome,” she said, then ended the call. She was very mad, and it dawned on me that some of that anger was directed at me. I had now alienated my entire family. Part of me rebelled at that, and I petulantly wondered what they could possibly do to me. Then I remembered the last time I’d had a conflict like this with my father and he’d threatened to sell my Maybach and given me subway tokens to use instead. If he did that now, what would Kris do? Would he stay with me if I was poor? I lay there in agony, staring at the ceiling.

I needed advice, so I opted to call Kris. “What?” he demanded as he answered. I could hear lots of voices in the background.

“Can you come home? I need your help?” I asked, or pleaded.

“I’m at Fuego. If you want to talk to me, you can find me here,” he snapped.

“I can’t even get in there,” I objected. “I don’t have a fake ID.”

“That’s where I’m at. You want to talk to me, you figure it out,” he said, then ended the call. I looked at the clock and saw that it was already 7:00. There was no way I could make the event tonight, so I just sighed. I lay there on my back, feeling sorry for myself for half an hour, then finally got my lethargic ass moving and sprang into action. I spent half an hour writing an email, then I spent an hour planning my outfit and getting ready. I reread my email and hit ‘send’, then went downstairs to find the Maybach waiting.

“Where to?” Dave asked.

“Fuego,” I said. He raised an eyebrow at me, but I said nothing.

“On the way,” he quipped. I watched blankly out the window as he headed into the West Village. It made sense that a gay bar would be here. We arrived at a bar with a very chic sign that had ‘Fuego’ in letters that were lined in neon flames. He pulled up to the front where there was a line, which made me a little nervous. While he got out to let me out, I spotted what looked like a VIP entrance. “Do you want me to wait for you?”

“Stay close for thirty minutes, then I’ll call you when I need a ride home,” I said.

“Gotcha,” he said. He held the door open for me and I stepped out of the car with pretty much everyone in line staring at me. That wasn’t unusual when someone arrived in a Maybach limousine. My Prada sunglasses made me look cool and gave me a shield to hide behind. I wore a skintight pair of black Gucci pants, a custom-made pair of black leather boots by Jimmy Choo, and a tight white shirt by Dior Homme that was unbuttoned to below my nipples. Over that I wore a sleek black blazer that was as slutty as a blazer could be, designed appropriately enough by Patrick Christian. I had gelled my blond hair forward and spiked it up, so I looked a little fierce. My outfit gave me confidence, but I was still nervous as fuck in this environment that I knew absolutely nothing about.

“Who the fuck are you?” one of the guys in line asked me lustfully.

“Evening,” I said in a flirtatious way, then headed to the VIP door.

“I need your ID and your VIP card,” the guy at the door said in a no-nonsense way.

“I don’t have either one of those things,” I said, then lowered my sunglasses to bat my eyes at him in a provocative way. “I’m wondering if this will work instead?” I handed him a wad of ten $100 bills.

“That’ll work, sweetheart,” he said, and moved aside to let me in.

“Thanks,” I said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. It dawned on me that when I’d been with Carullo and we were alone, I’d acted a little whorish, and I was finding that that act worked really well here. I walked into this club and was struck first by the loud music. I found a wall and went over to lean against it, staying out of the way and largely out of sight while I studied this place.

“You wanna dance?” a big handsome guy asked me.

“That’s really nice,” I said, and put my hand on his arm. “I’m just getting my bearings. Look for me in a bit?”

“I’ll do that,” he said, and winked at me.

I checked out the dance floor, watching people gyrate. They were almost all young, fit, and beautiful. I smiled to myself, thinking that I belonged here, then laughed at my arrogance. I more purposely began to scan this place, moving around on the edges of the bar to get a better view, all the time trying to spot Kris. I expected him to be on the dance floor, naked from the waist up, rubbing against some twink, which seemed to be a thing, but I didn’t spot him. I glanced at the tables and finally found him sitting alone. He had a drink in front of him, probably gin and tonic, and was staring at it looking sad.

I saw a young guy walk up to him and give him a friendly hug. I felt my temper rise, and my jealousy began to soar, but fortunately my meds calmed my ass down. They chatted for about fifteen minutes in an animated and happy way, then the dude gave Kris a friendly kiss and vanished. I watched him for half an hour longer and saw him talk to three more guys. Each time he acted cheerful and upbeat when they were talking to him, but each time after they left he looked sad and lonely. He was all cocky when he talked to me, but I could almost read his eyes and see how much he missed me.

I walked over toward him until I was behind him, then took off my jacket and tossed it onto the back of the chair next to him. He turned around and saw me, then I watched emotions cascading across his face. He was really happy to see me, he was really surprised that I was here, and he was still mad at me. “You told me that if I wanted to hang out with you, I had to be here, so here I am,” I said cheerfully and sat down in the chair.

He looked at me, smiled, then grimaced, then smiled again, and that was so funny I started laughing. He rolled his eyes, then shut me up by planting a major kiss on me. “How did you get in here?”

“Dude, I am fucking hot,” I said, acting so cocky I could have been Will.

“You are,” he agreed.

I gave him a fake frown. “I bribed the guy at the door.”

He really laughed at that. “We need to get you a fake ID.”

“You think I’m coming back to a place like this?” I asked, feigning outrage. “This is a one-time deal.” It was amazing that being in this environment had blown out all of my normal restraints and all of my typical uptight asshole attitudes. It was actually kind of fun.

He kissed me again. “I know you are.”

“You’re probably right,” I admitted, then looked into his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m not the one you have to apologize to,” he said grumpily.

“You’re one of the people I have to apologize to,” I corrected. “I already started on the others.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I sent Will an email,” I said. “We’ll see if he even reads it.”

“What are you going to do if he doesn’t?” he asked in an obnoxious way.

“Then I’m going to go up to Boston and hang around until I bug him enough that he will talk to me,” I said.

“He may just kick your ass,” Kris said.

“He may,” I said philosophically. “If he does, he does, but I don’t think he will.”

“I thought your strategy was to work things out with Stef and JP first?” he asked.

“That was Claire’s strategy, but she’s wrong,” I said. “Once I manage to get Will back in my corner, the rest of them will fall in line. If I do it the way Claire suggested, Will might never come around.”

“If you say so,” he said skeptically. “What did you say to him in your email?”

“I’ll let you read it, but only if you come home with me,” I flirted.

“Let’s dance,” he said. That made me a little nervous, because I was a decent dancer when it came to ballroom dances, but I’d never really danced at a place like this. He sensed my nervousness. “Just follow my lead.”

“Alright,” I said apprehensively.

“I have seen you do such amazing things with your body,” he said in a suggestive way that fired up my libido. “I’ve seen you do it on the ice, I’ve seen you do it in the bedroom, and I even saw your performance at MOMA.”

“You want to fuck on the dance floor?” I asked, making him chuckle.

“Almost,” he said. He got up and led me out to the dance floor and they started playing The Cha Cha slide. I’d done this one at weddings before, and I had it down. He looked at me in awe as I stepped to the left, took it back now y’all, did one hop, stomped my right foot (no one was better at stomping feet than me), stomped my left foot, then did a really smooth cha cha. “Holy fuck, you are really good at this.”

“I am,” I flirted, then I had a great time. We danced to Maroon 5’s This Love then did a slow dance, where I hung all over him. We danced and danced, and I was having an absolute blast, until he finally led me back to our table so we could get a drink.

“I have never had so much fun as I am having with you,” he said, beaming at me. We sat there, drinking our drinks, when a familiar person showed up.

“Look who came out to play,” Chris Mendoza said.

“I did, and I’m having an awesome time,” I said.

“Maybe Kris will let me show you some real moves when they play a song with some salsa,” he said in his sexy way.

“Maybe,” Kris said, in the same way he’d say ‘as if’. “You just get here?”

“About half an hour ago,” he said. “Had to dodge the same bitches who always chase after me like they’re in heat.”

Kris laughed, so I chuckled with him, then Chris froze. He stared across the club at some cute young short dude who was dancing. “Motherfucker!” he said loudly, then tore off after that guy.

“I’ll be back,” Kris said, and ran after him. I had no idea what this was all about, but I was annoyed that they were running and causing a scene. The dude they were chasing spotted them and took off, heading to the door. Chris caught up with him and tackled him, but the guy managed to squirm away from him and ran out of the club. Chris looked really disappointed until Kris reached down and picked up what looked like the dude’s wallet, then they both came walking back to the table smiling.

“What the fuck was that all about?” I asked, mildly annoyed because they’d made such a scene.

“That was the dude who’s stalking Travis,” Chris said.

Kris opened the wallet and tossed an ID on the table. “Chuck Diller.” He shook his head. “That fucker is toast now.”