Gap Year - 22. Chapter 22

February 9, 2004

Greenpoint

Brooklyn, NY

 

Will

We walked out of the restaurant laughing, which was surprising considering the intense conversation we’d just had. “This is so convenient,” Johnny said as he hopped into the Maybach. “Especially when it’s cold.”

“No shit,” I said.

“Where to, Mr. Schluter?” the driver asked. I didn’t want to end my time with Johnny, because he was fun and cute, and because by reliving our mutual traumas we’d bonded.

“Show me where your grandmother lived,” I said impulsively, for no real reason. He gave me an odd look, then gave the driver the address. It ended up being just a couple of blocks away.

“Subway stations at the end of each block,” he noted as we drove up the street. I could see where that would be incredibly convenient for him. When we parked in front, I was surprised by how nice it was. I guess I’d been expecting some shotgun house with nasty wood siding and chipping paint, but this was a nice brick townhouse. There was a ‘for sale’ sign out front, complete with a picture of the real estate agent. Her name was Doris Plonski, and she looked to be in her sixties, with brassy hair held in perfect place by what was probably a whole can of hairspray. “Want to see inside?”

“Can we?” I asked. He didn’t answer, he just hopped out, so I did the same thing and walked up to the front door.

“My great grandparents built this house in the early 1900s, then they left it to my grandparents, and now my fucked-up family is going to sell it to strangers,” he said bitterly as he got out his key. He opened the door and led me in, then took me on a tour. It was nice enough, but it had that old lady feel, and it clearly hadn’t been updated in forever. He showed me what had been his room, which unsurprisingly was the most tasteful place in the whole house.

“Nice place,” I said, when we’d finished going through it.

He ran his hand across what looked like one of those old record players, I think they called them Victrolas. “They took out most of her stuff except the furniture. They’re going to fight over that after they sell the house.”

“Are these mostly antiques?” I asked, pretending to be interested since I wasn’t into ancient furniture.

“A lot of this stuff was my great-grandparents’, but most of it was hers,” he said. “It’s easy, standing here looking at it all, to think she’s still alive and expect her to come walking in the room.”

“Dude, this just happened,” he said. “It takes a long time to get over someone you love.”

“It would have been easier if I wasn’t dealing with all this other bullshit,” he said bitterly. “My family and Patrick sure aren’t making it easy.”

“I understand,” I said, thinking back to the pressure cooker I was in after 9-11.

“How could you possibly have a clue about this?” he asked angrily.

“I have more than a clue, but I don’t want to talk about it now,” I said a bit curtly.

He nodded, then walked over to the front counter and picked up a spec sheet. “They’re asking half a million,” he said, gesturing at the paper. “Overpriced.” He handed it to me and I looked at it, then stuffed it in my pocket.

“How long has it been on the market?” I asked.

“Couple of weeks,” he said, then gestured to the guest log, where only four or five people had signed in. “Hang on. I want to grab a few things.”

I wandered around the main floor until he came back with two shopping bags filled with clothes, all of which looked neatly folded. “What’s that?”

“Some of my clothes,” he said. “They wanted me to leave some shit in the closet so it would look like people lived here, but fuck them. They’d probably sell them with the house.”

“Good call,” I said, then we left. “I’ve got a room at the Bryant Hotel. You want to go back and hang out there?”

He gave me a dubious look, since asking him back to my hotel room sounded pretty forward, and I was worried he’d freak out that I was hitting on him again. Instead he shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Cool,” I said, and told the driver to take us back there.

“Just because I go back there with you, don’t get the wrong idea,” he said defensively.

“It’s just a place to hang out,” I said. “I’m done hitting on you.” Annoyingly enough, that seemed to bug him. Models could be such divas. While we drove to the hotel, I felt an idea germinating in my brain, one that could resolve this whole issue. I was torn between wanting to help on the one hand, and minding my own business on the other.

We got to the hotel and I thanked the driver, then I helped Johnny carry his clothes upstairs. He walked in and looked around a bit. “Nice room.”

“It’s okay,” I said. It wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was nice. “It’s convenient. You can hang your clothes up in the closet if you can find room.”

“I’ll just throw your shit on the floor,” he joked. As he unpacked, I got to see how carefully and precisely he’d folded his clothes, and when he went to hang them up, he took a lot of care to make sure they were in order. It made sense that a model would worry about shit like that. “You got an iron?”

“Yeah,” I said, pointing to the contraption in the closet.

He got out the ironing board and set it up. “Want to help?”

“I have no idea how to use one of those things,” I said. He rolled his eyes at my pampered ass, so I left him alone to put his stuff away and took that time to prop myself up in the bed and check my emails.

It took him about half an hour to get organized, then he came and sat down on the opposite side of the king-sized bed next to me, leaning against the headboard just as I was doing. “Dude, I don’t know why I did all that work. I’ll just have to do it again when I lug it home.”

“Or you can leave it here for the week, and you have a place to change clothes,” I said.

“Really?” he asked, stunned that I’d do that.

“Yeah, as long as I’m not using the room for some other reason,” I said.

“If you are, then I’ll watch while I’m changing clothes,” he said, making me laugh. It was cool to see him relax a bit. Ironically enough, that seemed to be my cue to talk to him about that whole situation with Patrick.

“So what do you want to happen?” I asked.

“With what?”

“With Patrick,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.

“You told him you were going to sue him,” I said. “You going to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and thought about it. “I want to hurt him as bad as he hurt me, while at the same time I just want to forget about it.”

“I think you could take this in one of three directions,” I said. If he’d known me better, he would have known that when I was intense about something and I’d thought about it, I quantified the number of topics.

“Alright, tell me what they are,” he said fatalistically, as if he were being forced to listen to me.

“The first option is that you go after him criminally,” I said. “That would make big news at least in the fashion world.”

He shook his head. “No. It will be my word against his. The best thing I can hope for is that he gets a slap on the wrist from a judge, and everyone hates me for doing it. I’d be lucky to ever work in this industry again.”

“Maybe,” I said, since that was my read on it too. “The second option is to get a slab of cash.”

“I like that better than just plain vengeance,” he said, letting his greed show.

“If you got a bunch of cash, what would happen to it?” He looked confused. “You’re not 18 yet. I mean, they’d probably appoint someone to manage your money for you, and it would probably be your parents.”

“Then I probably wouldn’t see a dime,” he grumbled, then thought about it. “No, they wouldn’t rip me off too bad, but I’d end up paying for shit for their house, like a new roof or whatever.”

“The third option is to just forget about everything and move on,” I said.

“Is that what you think I should do?” he asked, only with a malicious tone in his voice. His anger went from zero to like 100 almost immediately. I was actually sympathetic to that, because I remembered that rage. “I know you and Patrick are tight. Is this just your way to make me blow this whole thing off and let him off the hook? You take me to lunch, drive me around in your fancy car, bring me here, and then try to get me to give Patrick a big pass on fucking raping me?”

“No, that’s not it…” but he interrupted me, because he was on a roll.

“So you get me to say that I’m good, and it’s over, then the next thing I know he’s over here fucking you, only he wouldn’t hurt you like he hurt me, and you’d all laugh your asses off at what a gullible dumbfuck I am?” His voice had gotten much louder as he’d gotten more agitated. I almost wondered if he’d storm out of the room.

“I don’t think you should do that,” I said.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“I don’t think you should let him off the hook,” I said.

“You think I should go to the cops?”

“No. I actually have an idea for you,” I said. It was funny to watch all the anger and animosity drain from him as he thought about what I said, and because he was curious about my plan.

“Dude, you make me nervous because I instinctively feel like I can trust you,” he said. That was really flattering, and made me feel very obligated to try and watch out for him.

“Thanks,” I responded, but waited for him to talk again.

“Alright, what’s your plan?” he asked.

“I’ll buy your grandmother’s house and you can live in it until you’re eighteen,” I said. “When you’re eighteen, you can sign a paper that says you hold Patrick harmless in this whole thing, and then I’ll transfer the title into your name.”

“How much rent do I have to pay before I’m eighteen?” he asked. “Models don’t make a shit ton of money.” Modeling was one of the few professions where men got a worse deal. Women could make a fortune, while men were lucky to make a living.

“Nothing. All of the taxes, utilities, and other things like that will be covered. You live there totally free,” I said.

He thought about it and smiled. “That might make all of this shit I dealt with worthwhile.”

“There’s one other thing you have to do,” I said, wondering how he’d react to my next demand. He grabbed my crotch playfully and I smacked his hand away, both of us laughing. “Not that.”

“Alright, what?”

“You have to talk to someone, a therapist about this shit,” I said.

“I talked to you,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ve dealt with this. I understand how this works. You won’t be fine,” I said firmly.

“Yeah, well that’s you, not me,” he said obstinately.

“Yeah, well it’s part of the deal,” I said. He glared at me, then scrunched up his face in annoyance.

“That’s gonna be expensive,” he said, trying to deflect.

“Nope, I got it covered,” I told him. He gave me a frustrated look. “Nice try though.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What’s to prevent me from doing this, then when I’m eighteen I turn around and sue Patrick for shitloads of money?” he asked.

This was one of those times when I had to be firm and direct, so I channeled my father. “First of all, you don’t want to make a deal with me then back out.”

“What makes you such a badass?” he challenged.

“Because if you do that, I will still own your house, and I will burn it to the fucking ground,” I said, with no small amount of malice. “So if you think the courts will give you more, that’s the tradeoff you make.”

I watched him blanche as he took in my full power mode. “Alright, you are a badass.” We both laughed.

“I’m an easy guy to deal with, I just don’t like people dicking me over,” I said. He nodded, then changed the subject.

“What happens to Patrick? He gets off scot free? Fucker didn’t even say he was sorry,” he said, letting out his considerable rage. If he wanted a reason to be in counseling, he just exhibited a very good one.

“You want him to?” I asked. That kind of freaked him out, because he now had to consider if he wanted to deal with a big scene.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We have a Falco family tradition when two people hate each other.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked curiously. “What is it?”

“The two people who are pissed meet with two other people who are most likely to be objective,” he said. “They’re like judges.”

“So the two people argue with each other, then the judges issue a verdict?” I asked.

“It’s more of an opinion, but it works pretty much like that,” he said. “In the past, my grandma was always one of the judges. Her sister was usually the other one. Now they’re both dead.”

“We can do that,” I said. “I have the perfect judges in mind.”

“You?” he asked, wondering if I was going to slot myself into this thing.

“No,” I said firmly. “I’m too involved.”

“How are you involved?” he asked, which was pretty stupid since I’d just agreed to spend half a million dollars to buy a townhouse in Brooklyn.

“I have relationships with both of you,” I said.

“Dude, we haven’t even fucked yet,” he joked.

“You don’t just have friends?” I challenged.

“Most of my friends are women,” he said, but he’d gotten where I was coming from. “So who are these judges?”

I heard a bunch of commotion in the main suite. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to at least one of them.”

“Just a minute,” he said, and went into the bathroom. “Ok if I use your stuff?”

“Sure,” I said a bit skeptically. I walked in and found him using my toothbrush, which was a little strange. He finished with that, rinsed and spit, then used my hairbrush to finish making himself look perfect. He walked up to me and paused, then leaned in and kissed me. It was really nice: not a passionate kiss, but one that was more sedate and said that the passion would be awesome if it were there. “Figured if I used your toothbrush, that was no big deal.”

“That was a good trade off,” I said, winking at him. I led him into the main suite and found Stefan relaxing on the sofa. “Hey there! This is Johnny Falco.” It was funny to watch Stef trying to be Grand and be all stoic and not react to Johnny being here.

He stood up quickly, showing the agility he still had. “How wonderful to meet you,” he said, shaking hands with Johnny. “I’m Stefan Schluter, but you will call me Stef.”

“It’s nice to meet you, uh, Stef,” Johnny said. Like most people, he was a bit awestruck by Stef.

“I have seen you on the runway. You are very handsome, which many are, but you are also quite adept at modeling.”

“Thanks,” Johnny said, soaking up that praise. Stef turned his attention back to me.

“Are you planning to go to the show this evening?” he asked.

“Why?” I sensed there was a reason, something he wanted.

“JJ wants to invite his friend to the event, but we do not have space for her,” he said. “If you were not interested in going, I thought perhaps she could take your spot.” So JJ wanted me to give up my space to Zanie.

“What is Grand doing?”

“He is staying home and being a slug,” Stef said with a frown.

“I’m fine with that,” I told Stef. “Just remind JJ he owes me a favor.”

“I am sure that will be effective when you want to redeem it,” he said dubiously. “What are your plans?” I looked at Johnny, who just shrugged.

“I have to buy a house,” I said. I pulled out the spec sheet and handed it to him.

“It looks lovely,” he said. “I am sure JP would help you if you want his assistance.”

“I’ll bother him,” I joked. We went back into my room and Johnny shut the door behind us.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You told him you were going to buy a house, spend half a million bucks, and he doesn’t bat an eye,” he said. “Does he just toss money around like its confetti?”

“No,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “He trusts me, and he knows if I’m doing this, it’s for a damn good reason. He’ll bug me for details later.”

“My parents wouldn’t handle it that way even if they were billionaires,” he said.

“My father is a billionaire, and he wouldn’t handle it that way either,” I said, laughing to myself at how my father would have freaked out over all this.

“He doesn’t trust you?” he asked.

“He’s a control freak, so it’s more about that,” I said. He nodded.

“If you’re cool with it, I think I’ll go home and get some stuff, and come back and stay here,” he said a bit nervously. “I’m working the Michael Kors show tomorrow and I have to be there super early. If I’m here, I’ll be on time.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I may end up crashing here too, just so you know.”

“Cool,” he said, and winked at me. He grabbed his coat, I handed him a key, and he was gone in about a minute. I just stood there, staring at the closed door, not a little stunned. I went to the suite and Stef was nowhere to be found, but I did hear moaning in the bedroom. I chuckled and called for the car, then left the hotel.

“I need to go back to the condo,” I told the driver.

“On our way,” he said. I realized that this was a different guy than before.

“Shift change?” I asked with a smile.

“Yeah, with all the stuff going on, hours are too long for one guy,” he said. “Will you need the car tonight?”

“Probably,” I said.

He actually seemed happy about that. “Sounds good. I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” the driver said.

“Cool,” I said, since it was almost like he was hitting on me, and while he was cute, he was in his thirties, and with the deal with Patrick, suddenly older guys looked less attractive. While he was driving, I called the realtor.

“Doris Plonski,” she said when she answered, with a hard-core Brooklyn accent.

“Hi, I’m interested in your listing in Greenpoint,” I said, then grabbed the spec sheet to give her the address.

“That’s a beautiful townhouse just waiting for the right owner to make it into their new home,” she said, and started to rave about its features.

“I know,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Who took you through it?” she asked, suspiciously. “You should have your realtor talk to me directly.”

“I don’t have my own realtor, so I thought it may be easier to just work with you,” I said pleasantly.

“I can do that,” she said, with a hint of greediness in her tone. I understood how this worked, and if she handled this for me, she’d get the whole commission and not have to share it with another agent. That was replaced by her suspicion again. “How old are you?”

“I’m seventeen,” I said.

“Look honey, I don’t have time to play around with kids who aren’t even legally allowed to own property,” she said in an annoyed tone.

“I’m seventeen and legally emancipated, so I can, and do, own real estate,” I said, using the same tone my father would use. I could sense she was pretty freaked out about this whole thing. “I’m staying with my brother. Why don’t you meet me at his condo and we’ll talk about it?”

“Where is it?” she asked, like I was going to make her trek to New Jersey or something horrible like that.

“Tribeca,” I said.

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me at the house you want to buy.”

“Alright,” I said. “Give me an hour and I’ll meet you there.” We’d just finished exchanging phone numbers when the car pulled up to JJ’s condo. “I need to go to this address,” I told the driver, showing him the spec sheet. “I need to be there in an hour.

“Better be down here in 20 minutes,” he said. “Traffic will suck.”

“See you in a bit,” I said. I strode up the stairs quickly, all four flights, and burst into the condo a bit brashly. JJ was near the door and gave me a dirty look as a result.

“I see you’ve returned,” he said in an annoyed way.

“Just for a few minutes,” I said, and made to move past him.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, stopping me. “I need my car tonight.”

“I’ve already got the driver lined up to take me where I’m going,” I said. “Take one of the other cars.”

“I want to take my car,” he said, emphasizing the word ‘my’. He was smirking at me, since he figured ownership would let him win this one.

“If you want my ticket for tonight, I get the car,” I said. “So what’s the deal?”

He glared at me, because he hadn’t thought that all out. Sometimes he got all roped up in the tactics and forgot about being strategic. “Fine,” he said, and huffed off.

I found Grand in the front room looking at me expectantly, since he’d probably heard my entire conversation with JJ. “Hey,” I said, and gave him a quick hug. “I could use your help?”

“With what?” he asked cautiously.

“I’m buying a house, and I’m meeting the realtor there in forty-five minutes,” I said. “I have to leave here in ten minutes. I want you to go with me.”

“You are buying a house?” he asked, somewhat shocked.

“I am. Can I explain this to you in the car?” We didn’t have time to dick around.

“You can,” he said. “I will go and freshen up and meet you right here in eight minutes.”

“Awesome,” I said. I had changed clothes into something more casual at the hotel, so I had to go dig up something that looked more business-like. I managed to do everything except tie my tie, so I ended up leaving the condo with it draped over my neck.

“I suspect you will have time to complete your appearance in the car,” Grand said loftily.

“While I’m explaining the situation to you,” I said. That shut him up until we got into the car and the driver headed to Brooklyn. I put up the privacy screen, then handed Grand the spec sheet. “This is the house I want to buy.”

“And why do you want this house?” Grand asked.

“Because this house is the key to saving Patrick’s ass, and to giving Johnny some help in working through things,” I said. It took me almost the entire 45 minute drive to explain the situation to him, and to finish tying my tie.

“That was a very unique solution to the problem,” he pronounced.

“Unique as in good, or not so good?” I asked. His approval was so important to me, the plaintive tone in my voice was apparent even to me.

“In a good way,” he said. “It really is ingenious. Will Patrick approve of it?”

“Ironically, he’s not really involved,” I said. “Unless I tap him to pay for the house, there’s only one thing he has to do.”

“I am not seeing anything he has to do, so I’m interested to hear this penance you’ve devised for him,” he said.

“Johnny said that in his family, when two people hate each other, they have an argument in front of two impartial judges who then decide the issue,” I said. “Patrick is going to sit through that.”

“So he has family members he is still on good enough terms with to allow them to be the adjudicators?” Grand asked, somewhat surprised. That was entirely reasonable, since I’d told him how all Johnny’s cousins hated him.

“No, I do,” I said. “I told him you and Stef would do it.”

“I am not sure why I get roped into these things,” he grumbled.

“I think that instead of being bitchy about it, you should be flattered,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I am interested to see how your negotiating strategy turns out.” I’d told him my plan for buying the house. It was so cool, because he and Stef had confidence in me so they didn’t question my actions unless they were pretty extreme.

“Me too,” I said. The car pulled up to the house, where I could see an older woman who was probably Doris peeking out from behind some curtains. “She’s not very good at spying,” I told Grand.

He chuckled. “Indeed, she has not mastered that skill.” Under normal circumstances Grand and I usually let ourselves out of the car, while Stef and JJ waited for the driver to open the door. In this situation, the car was stopped in a traffic lane, so we jumped out pretty quickly. We walked up to the door and before we could knock, Doris opened the main door, then the glass door that was in front of that one, and ushered us in.

“Welcome,” she said. “I’m Doris Plonski.”

“I’m Will Schluter,” I said, and shook her hand. “This is my grandfather, Dr. JP Crampton.”

“Oh,” she said, drawing that word out. “What kind of doctor are you? My cousin Bernie is a podiatrist.”

“I’m not a medical doctor, I hold a PhD,” Grand said. “I am retired, but used to be a professor.”

“Where?” she asked. All of her words were loud and filled with various emotions, most of them evoking some sort of judgment. “My niece is trying to get into Columbia, but it’s tough.”

“I was at Stanford,” he said calmly. “I wish your niece luck. Columbia is a good school.”

“Well let me show you around,” she said.

“We can do that, but I want to put in an offer. I figured we could do that first, then you can show me around,” I said. “I’ve already seen it.”

“We can do that if you want to,” she said, surprised. “Let’s sit at the table and I’ll write it up.”

“Ok,” I said. Grand and I followed her into the dining room and she pulled out some papers and started writing.

“Did you know how much you wanted to offer? When do you want to close?” she asked.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, and looked at her seriously. “I want to offer them $550,000 for this house and all of its contents as of right now, and I want to close by the end of the week.”

“I’m not sure about the contents,” she said dubiously. “I’m sure there are a lot of heirlooms here.”

“Do they want the heirlooms or the cash?” I asked.

“We can see,” she said. “What about inspections? I don’t think we could get that done and close by Friday.”

“I’ll waive any inspections,” I said. Grand had already coached me on how that worked.

She looked at me in surprise, then nodded. She wrote down what I’d just told her, and I signed off on the form after giving them four hours to respond. “Give me a second and let me call them,” she said, and left us alone.

“This is a very nice house,” Grand said. He got up to wander around, so I went with him.

We were checking out the front parlor, as Grand called it, when Doris came barreling into the room. “They’ll take the offer, but they want to be able to clear out some of the furniture that’s a keepsake. Here’s a list of the things they want.” She handed me the list and I saw that old Victrola was on it, and I remembered how that had impacted Johnny.

“No, I want all of them,” I said. She stared at me in frustration, so Grand intervened.

“We are impressed with the overall charm of this home and its contents, and if anything is removed, it upsets the incredible balance found here.” It was all I could do not to start giggling at Grand pretending to talk like Stef would.

“Alright, I’ll let them know,” she said.

Only after she was gone did I start laughing. “You sounded like Stef.”

“When you spend so long with a person, you know how they think, and it seems you can emulate it,” he said with a smile.

“I can see that,” I said, wondering if I’d ever have someone like that in my life.

Twenty minutes later, Doris came back with an amended contract. “They want $560,000 for the house and all the stuff.”

“Done,” I said, and signed the papers.