Hotel Living (22 page)

“Grab Bush! Grab Bush!” God yells, and then, “Good boy, good boy.”

I am in the middle of shaping beautiful lines on the Greek marbles when I suddenly realize that Ray is standing above me, his abashed smile gone.

“What the hell're you doing?” he asks. “Teresa will kick your ass all the way to Sunset if she sees you.”

I nod my head slowly and offer my rolled-up twenty to him.

“I'm running out to get smokes and gin. You get it together.”

I do my lines, and now the conversation from the other room seems louder, or I'm just more alert. I catch pieces here and there: “. . . it's not that cut-and-dried . . . I don't like this . . . I don't want guns in my house, end of story . . . People get angry, so take away the guns. People have sex, so give them condoms. People get pregnant, so give them the pill. It's quite simple, really . . . Have you talked to Tatiana? . . . What did you tell her to do? . . . Who am I to tell anyone how to live? Things happen, we'll deal with it . . . Have you told Ray? . . . No, not yet . . . Does the Greek know? . . . Stathis knows . . . Can we get
him
pregnant? . . . I love him . . . How do you say hard-on in Arabic? . . .”

Tatiana's number flashes on my cell phone, and I pick up. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself,” Tatiana yells. “What the hell are you doing with my family?” I can hear Justin laughing in the background.

“I thought
I
was your family,” I say.

“Aren't you supposed to be working?” Tatiana asks.

“Not on the weekends. How are you? How you feeling?”

“Stop asking me that.”

“Trouble in Beatriceland?” I say.

“
Fuck
me, Stathis. I don't want you hanging out with Ray.”

“Ray's a friend. You're family.”

“Cut it out. If you dare tell him that I'm pregnant . . .”

“Relax!” I yell. Since we're probably both on coke, I need to stay calm for both of us. “Have I ever let you down?” I say calmly. “Did Kate speak to her doctor? Did you make an appointment?”

“I'm dealing with it. Kate cares. She didn't leave me.”

Osama jumps onto the sofa, with a helpless Bush doll dangling from his jaw.

“I think you should call your godmother
Allah
,” I say.

“I don't want you around Ray,” Tatiana insists. “He's an underearning scum.”

“I don't look at tax returns,” I sneer. “Can we move on now?”

“Oh . . . 'cause Stathis is so humble.”

“What's wrong with being humble but confident?”

“That's
exactly
what's wrong with you, Stathis. It's humble
and
confident. Not
but
! You're not doing us a fucking
favor
. You're not
Erik
!”

“No,
you
're Erik. Getting bored and moving on, fucking everyone over. You made Alkis break up with his fiancée, the mother of his child, and then you dumped him.”

“
Rapist! Middle class!
”

“I'm fucking
working
class!” I yell, reaching for my plastic bag. “Born and raised. Have you ever heard the word
job
?”

“I know your job—to hang out with me because my parents are famous.”

“Fuck off and die,” I say, and take a bump. “You use them as your props. ‘Boohoo, I'm so scared . . .' Go fucking kill them,
both
, so maybe you'll get a life.”

“Fine by me.” Tatiana sniffles. “Teresa taught me how to throw up.”

Saddam comes through the drapes with a heavy-metal jeweled skull on his collar. Osama jumps on him. “Why do I see skulls everywhere?” I mumble.

“Lee started it. It's an epidemic.”

“Lee?”

“McQueen,” Tatiana says. “It's his signature.”

“Freak . . . When are you going to see a doctor?”

“I'm working on it.”

I laugh. “Which means? Should I be worried?”

“I'm making up my mind.”

“What . . . What the fuck. You're not ready for this. You're not
sober
for this. You hate Ray. You're in a revenge trip 'cause she stole your boyfriend.”

“He was never my boyfriend, you
asshole
!”

“Whatever. You felt bypassed, humiliated. I love you, but you're a twenty-year-old drunk, pregnant bulimic.” I sniff. “And so am I, at thirty-one.”

She took a second. “Well, you're not pregnant.”

“True,” I say. “But I got a schizophrenic thing with my home too.”

“I want to go to France for a while. I want to spend some time with my father.” Her breathing is getting choppy. She sniffs cocaine, or cries, or both. “I want my mom.”

“Baby . . . she's right here.”

“Don't you
fucking
dare! Right now, you're the most important person in my life. I'll take the morning flight out to LA. Don't tell Teresa,” she sobs, and hangs up.

I light a cigarette and slouch back on the sofa. The screen shows George Hamilton singing to Imelda Marcos. She applauds, laughs, and bends her head back the Andrea way. Then performers in glittering red costumes chant in absurd synchronicity to the Ceauescus in a large stadium, followed by footage of Persian army replicas parading in front of the shah. I look for an ashtray, trying to figure out the scenes on the screen, the parties, whether there's a theme. Two hollowed Greek stones are next to an ancient amphora vase in the living room. I open the vase and see watermelon scraps, used tea bags, and nutshells. God's composting, and I get it: Tatiana blurs trash and art by living in both. She panfries next to a Warhol. She's indifferent to the unique. God cooks in a Picasso pot,
eats
the extinct.

I take one of God's hollowed stones,
my
stone, and shove it in my pants. But it hurts my dick, so I pull it out again.

“How's my daughter doing?” Teresa says, her eyes freezing on my unbelted crotch.

“She's sorting it out,” I say, and Teresa smiles.

Are people proud of their children even when they totally fuck up? Could I ever go back to Greece? “And how are you?” I ask her.

“I am where I want to be,” Teresa replies.

T
HE POOL AT THE CHATEAU
is a simple oval surrounded by trees. I'm about to fall asleep on my chaise longue, but Tatiana's sudden strokes make me open my eyes. She reaches the deep end, puts one arm on the rim, and waves to me.

“Jump in,” she yells.

I glance at my watch; it's one a.m. The lights inside the pool, the only lights around, give her skin a healthy glow that it doesn't have in New York. “I'm not wearing any underwear,” I yell back.

“Pussy,” she says softly, yet loud enough for me to hear.

It's a large garden, but we are the only ones in it. I throw off my T-shirt and jeans and go for it.

We float for a while, talking nonsense, waiting for Ray's dealer to call back. I keep hearing my cell phone ringing when it really isn't. After the third false alarm, Tatiana tears her flannel bikini top off and throws it to the side of the pool.

“It's only fair,” she says, getting rid of her bottom too. “Plus, swimming naked is infinitely better. You are Greek, you should know that.”

“That's correct,” I say, absorbed by two butterflies near her spruced-up breasts. “These are new.” I touch them.

“Kate got them too,” Tatiana says with enthusiasm.

“They are beautiful.”

Her face goes all business. “What are you up to, really?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here. This. LA. Stathis, you've been moving from one city to another for years. What's the endgame?”

It's been a while since I've explained what passes as my life. I'd always been able to justify my running around the world—whether it was leaving Trikeri or chasing Erik. But now, naked, confronted, I'm stripped of excuses for my journey, and of my faith in it, and instead what comes to mind is all the time I've wasted. I see myself roaming, like Ray's lonely oceanic whitetip.

“Tu parles?” I ask Tatiana.

“Have some balls.”

I look down. “They shrink in water,” I say with a smile.

“Talk to me,” Tatiana says. She comes closer and kisses me lightly on the lips.

“Fine,” I say. “I just don't know how it all ends.”

“That's not necessarily bad,” she says, fixing my wet hair. “I can sort things out for you. Tell me about your village. How was it, growing up?”

She is a pregnant addict, she is sick, and I'm humoring her: “What do you want to know?”

“When did you fall in love for the first time?” she asks.

“That must have been my dog, Argan.”

Tatiana laughs, and so do I.

“Hey, honestly,” I say. “He was supersmart, the best dog in Trikeri, in the world. Okay?” I laugh again. “No. I mean, that's all you get there, love for dogs—there are no people. Either you turn into a saint, or you go mad. You masturbate a lot, you build fish traps, you go to church, you repair boats and nets, your knuckles get knobby and swollen. And if you leave and find love, you're so repressed that you fall unconditionally.”

“I want to go there,” Tatiana says. She takes my left palm in her hand and, poor thing, kisses it. “I love having sex by myself,” she adds.

“Me too.” I shrug, smiling. “Who do you think of when you masturbate?” I ask, a question I never dared ask Erik.

“Anyone. Kate, you, my mother . . . Does that bother you?”

“That you think of me? Or that you think of your mother?”

“Either. It's so natural.”

“I care about you,” I say, looking into her eyes. “I want you to be happy.” I touch her tummy. “You need to fix this.”

“I will, in France. My father is waiting for me. You'll like him. He's a genius, just like you.”

She puts her hands around my neck and wraps her legs around my waist. I look up to the trees as she gets comfortable on me. She's fit for a cokehead.

“I love you,” she whispers into my ear. “Please don't tell anyone I'm here. Please don't let me down.”

“Have I ever?” I keep one hand on the rim of the pool, the other treading water, keeping both of us afloat. She buries her head on my neck as her ass bumps on my dick. “What are you up to now?” I ask.

“Nobody can know I stayed with you,” she repeats nervously.

“I thought we settled that.”

“I need a clean break from them. I can't stand it anymore. I want to change.”

Naked in the pool, holding the daughter of a movie star who fucks herself thinking of her mother, and who, right now, makes my dick hard, I pretend I believe her. She wants to change, she says. She can't pay for a cup of coffee and flounces back from cattle calls like she's hot shit, and yet she's got it in her mind that she wants to change.

“They don't know you are here,” I reassure her. “They'll never know.”

“You are so handsome,” Tatiana says, and I feel her breath on my neck. “So smart and subtle. When will you stop chasing this nothing? When will you stop hotel living?”

“I'm not sure,” I say, and kiss her on the lips as she plays with my nipple. “Can I eat your ass out?” I ask.

“I want you to rape me, like you did that boy. But don't hurt me.”

March 2007

A
LKIS, IN A SHORT OVERCOAT,
drinks espresso by himself on the patio of the Chateau. He has no newspaper or handheld in sight.

“You live here, and you are still late,” he says as I approach.

I had just woken up. “Welcome to Los Angeles. How is London?” I mumble, looking for a waiter so I avoid breathing on him. “How's your daughter?”

“Great,” Alkis says, and from the corner of my eye I see him staring at me. “Don't worry, I will not torture you with pictures. You look roughed up enough.”

I ignore him. “How is the fund-raising coming along?”

“Not swimmingly,” Alkis says, tapping his hand on the table.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I say and finally look at him.

“Nah, it's all good. My boss ran into some of his Morgan mafia mates. They go all the way back to Boca Raton. They hooked us up with a big boy.”

“That's good.”

“One hopes,” Alkis says. “You can take off your sunglasses now. How bad can it be?”

“What?”

“Whatever it is that you're doing. Everything,” Alkis says. “Your Palm Springs shirt, to begin with. That coke look all over your face.”

“I feel great,” I lie, and peek at my shirt, Ray's shirt. “I try not to take myself too seriously,” I mutter.

“You look like a sorry fuck. Have you been up all night?”

“Enough! Let's get some eggs or something.”

We order a lamb sandwich, salmon, Bloody Marys, and a triple espresso for me.

“Coffee in LA is crap,” Alkis says, and puts some sugar in his cup.

“I thought you liked this place. You were the one who brought me—” I stop.

“Christmas 2003,” Alkis says with satisfaction.

I nod. “I know, I was here.”

“So the Dubya is gone for good,” Alkis says.

“Yes, Erik's gone. A hundred percent.”

“Good. He was a phony.”

“I've done worse. Let's not talk about him.”

But Alkis is having fun. “Is Erik fighting the stem-cell war with his new boyfriend? From within the machine?”

“Don't know and don't care,” I say, loud enough to feel my headache. LA's smoggy sun is approaching our table. This will be a long lunch.

Alkis gives me a condescending smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Funny, that, 'cause I thought Erik was the reason you partied with Teresa . . .” Alkis shrugs. “One's got to match, right?”

He's an ass. He blames me for Tatiana, for his becoming her pet. For the fact that he broke up with Cristina for nothing. “I don't party with Teresa,” I say.

“Oy, mate, last time you
bothered
to answer your cell phone you were at her place in Laurel Canyon. And you were hammered.”

“Happens,” I murmur. “And where were you calling me from? Tatiana's?”

He shakes his head, smiling. “Hillarical! You got me! Oh, you got me good.”

The sun, my hangover; I want to throw up.

“By the way—” Alkis quickly checks the tables next to us. “Judging from the daughter, I can't
begin
to imagine how high maintenance Teresa must be.”

“I don't know,” I say. “She is overseas, shooting. She's not around.”

Our food arrives.

“Eat!” I say. “Greeks are hungry.”

“Don't get grumpy with me 'cause of your pals.”

“I'm not grumpy.”

“No, you're not grumpy, you're angry. You are angry because you can't afford them. If they stay up all night, they'll
sleep in. If they drink their savings, people still ask them to go out. That's not your life. Never was.”

I'm this close to telling him that I fucked his ex up the ass. “Is that why it didn't work out with you and Tatiana?”

Alkis gives me a pitying once-over. “Paul says you're neither blue- nor white-collar anymore. He says that you're
black
-collar, their clubbing entourage.”

“Paul
talks
?” I say, and down half my espresso.

Alkis takes a deep breath. “He can, I suppose. Who would have thought Paul would be our success story?” he says seriously. “He's getting rich, on paper at least, and more famous than the people he stalks.”

“Please, I'm eating . . .” I make a face. “And Tatiana's a friend. So let's drop it.”

“She's a bipolar
prostitute
!”

I'm not sure where to start now. With the “haute provincialism” he used to smell in her pussy, or with her fucking him like a dog? But I don't know if he knows I've slept with her—one never knows whom Tati calls when she's wasted—which makes me slightly nervous. He could be sniffing me out, testing me to see if I'll come clean.

“What do you want from me?” I say calmly. “To write on a piece of paper that Tatiana is a whore? Is
that
what you want?”

“Pretty much,” he says, and his face finally relaxes. “Do you know that if it wasn't for me, Paul would have ‘lost' your number?”

“That's just Paul.”

“That's
so
not Paul, mate. He sent you a postcard from Trikeri, from your bloody village, which he visited with his girlfriend. He and your father tried to call you. They were worried about you.”

“Never got the postcard.”

“He sent it to Command. I passed him your work address
myself
when he couldn't get online in Greece.”

“Well, I've been on the road.”

“You've been on the road going down. And it's a stupid way to go.”

“What's a clever one?” I chug my Bloody Mary with a shrug, but Alkis's face stays serious.

“Just don't go. If someone fucks with you, like Erik did, or the way Tatiana fucked me over, maybe you don't have to fuck them back. And you
definitely
don't have to fuck yourself up. You learn and move on.”

I don't need this right now. “Who wants an easy life?”

“Then toughen up. Smile and lie about it. Everything's a lie. Lie or die!”

“Like you do with work?” I throw back. I can't tell if I need more food or to get rid of some.

“You seriously think that you are better than me,” Alkis says, almost laughing. “You go from one biotech to another, selling them the same shit. You only exist because pharmacos want to spy on one another. You're a delivery boy who makes way less money than I do. And look at you—I'm surprised you still have a job.”

He thinks I still give a damn. “Well, they can't fire me,” I mumble to myself, but Alkis picks up on it. His pitying expression is gone.

“Talk to me,” he orders. I can tell by the sound of his voice that he smells blood.

“Andrea and some BioProt folks are devaluing the company,” I concede, happy for the distraction. “So her man can do a takeover at a discount.”

“I
knew
it!” Alkis exhales. “I fucking knew it.” He leans toward me worriedly. “How deep are you in it?”

I say nothing.

He grabs me by my palm-tree shirt. “Listen to me. Now you
listen
to me. You'll be the first one to be subpoenaed if shit hits the fan. Andrea knows you're a cokehead and tolerates it. She may actually
like
it, 'cause you'll make the perfect ass to blame if they need one. Get a lawyer.
Today
. I can find some names for you in New York. This is no ‘oops' with Tatiana anymore. Copy your hard drive—what am I saying, you can't do that. You have to ‘lose' your laptop and ask for a new one. Get a prepaid phone and don't give the number to anyone but your lawyer. And stop e-mailing me. I'm
serious
.”

My brows furrow, and I nod my head in assent. All I really want to do is go back to my room.

“Stathis, I'm here for you. You're still my ace, mate,” Alkis says, and his guy's-guy vulnerability comes through. I look at his broad shoulders; the kind they like to recruit to investment banking.

“And?” I shrug.

“And get the hell out of here. Finish the project and drop those leeches around you. You used to play rugby, for Christ's sake. You don't belong here! Andrea? Teresa?
Constantine?
The guy had to become a Muslim to measure up to his dad.”

“You don't know him.”

“Fuck him. I don't
wanna
know him. I know you. How about you transfer to London? Or get a new job there? I'm there, and you'll be closer to home. The Greek army was reduced. You can pay for part of your service.”

“I'm not your EBS protégé anymore,” I say, and stand up to him, literally. “May be a criminal, but I'm a man now.”