Party Girl: A Novel (21 page)

I could call Alex.

Even though I’d deleted his number from my BlackBerry, I still knew it by heart. Would I ever forget it? And that’s when I started to panic. We’d talked a lot in rehab about how the obsession to use gets removed at a certain point and after a few days in Pledges that had basically happened to me. But there in my apartment, with a new lease on life and a fantastic dream job to do, the thought of doing cocaine popped into my head like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And that’s when I realized I had to get out. Grabbing my laptop and cigarettes, I drove over here, and even though I know it’s good that I’m out of my place, I can’t help but feel like one of those i Book to ting poseurs I always judged so harshly.

But then I remind myself of what Rachel always tells me, which is that what other people think of me is “none of my business” and that what they’re really thinking probably isn’t as bad as whatever it is I imagine they’re thinking, anyway. So when Adam walks by again and I know I could blend right into the marked-down coffee mugs if I don’t say anything, I call his name.

He turns around and looks surprised. “Amelia,” he says. He says it softly.

I haven’t seen him since he left my apartment the night we made out, and for a split second, I feel myself about to surrender to a shame spiral. But there’s a thought I’m having about Adam that is thoroughly distracting me from how ashamed I feel.

Roughly translated, the thought is that he’s adorable.

How come I never really noticed his olive skin and square jaw before? And why did I fail to note that he has the exact body type I’ve always been drawn to—tall, boyishly lean, and not overly muscular? I don’t have much time to ask myself these questions before words just start tumbling out of my mouth.

“Look, I’d really like to apologize for the last time we saw each other—the night of Steve’s party,” I start to stammer. “I was a mess and—”

Adam smiles and holds up a hand as a gesture for me to stop. “Don’t worry. Come on, we all have nights like that.” He suddenly gestures toward the empty seat in front of him. “Can I join you? Would I be interrupting?”

“Not at all,” I say, sliding the seat over to him. “I’d love it.”

Adam looks at me as he sits and our eyes stay on each other long past when they should. “My God, you look amazing,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so good.” His green eyes peer into mine, and then he takes a breath. “What bothered me about the night we hooked up wasn’t the fact that you were high,” he says. “Or, I should say, what bothered me more than the fact that you were high was hearing after the fact that you’d also hooked up with Gus.” His eyes stay on me the entire time he talks.

“I know, but that didn’t mean anything,” I say.

His eyes flicker over me and he looks the slightest bit cruel. “You and Gus or you and me? After a while, isn’t it hard to tell the difference between which ones mean something and which ones don’t?”

“No, it’s not,” I say. I hadn’t planned to tell him about being sober, and feel wholly unprepared for some kind of “this is me now” speech but I can’t seem to stop myself. “I have to tell you something.”

“No, hear me out,” he says. “I really liked you, and that hurt me.”

“But I get it—”

“It’s just that…I don’t know, Amelia. You’re such a cool girl, but I don’t know…. You’re wild. And while I love that—it’s part of what attracted me to you from the beginning—being around you that night made me realize, I guess, that I’m not.”

There’s a pause, and I realize he’s done. “Can I talk now?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah. Sorry about that rant.”

“It’s okay,” I say, subconsciously putting my hand on top of his before realizing what I’m doing and snatching it back. “It’s just that I’m now a reformed wild woman. I’m sober.” I glance down and then force myself to look him in the eye. “And, well, I’m not at the part of my recovery where I start apologizing to everyone yet, but can I just say that I’m sorry for the hurtful and silly things I did?”

He nods, looking extremely surprised.

“The fact is, I had a great time with you that night, and it wasn’t about the coke,” I continue. “The coke was actually the only thing
wrong
with that entire experience.” He’s about to say something but I keep talking. “And maybe it’s because I’m sober now or maybe I would have seen it anyway but what happened with you
did
mean something to me.” I find myself unable to look him in the eye when I say that.

He smiles. “So you’re sober?” He’s looking either stunned or confused, and since at least half of L.A. is sober, he surely couldn’t be confused. “You mean, you don’t drink or anything?”

I nod and then shake my head. “Yes—I mean, no I don’t.”

“You don’t even smoke pot?”

I smile. I’ve pretty much always hated pot. It would just make me more paranoid than usual that nobody could understand anything I was saying. Right when I was first getting into buying coke, it occurred to me that regularly buying pot would be far less expensive than getting coke so, in an effort to get myself hooked on a more economical drug, I bought an ounce and smoked it for three days straight. And that’s when I proved to myself once and for all that I hated it.

“No, not even pot,” is all I say.

“My God, that’s amazing,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I say. “It feels great.”

Adam still seems to be in shock. “But I mean you…” He shakes his head, as if trying to clear up space in his brain for this information. “You were the ultimate party girl.”

Smiling, I opt not to tell him about my new column. I’m enjoying this interaction far too much to allow it to turn into a conversation about work. “Well, now I’m the ultimate
ex
–party girl,” I say.

He smiles as he looks at me with mock seriousness. “Do you think the bar at Jones will survive without your business?”

After we both laugh, I ask, “So what about you? How’s Norm’s?”

He grins. “Still standing, I assume. But not really my concern anymore.”

“You quit?”

He nods. “I got a series.”

“Are you serious? Which one?” It never really crossed my mind that Adam would become a really successful actor; most of the aspiring actors I know seem to get, if anything, a small role in an indie that no one sees outside of Sundance, or like a one-line part on
Without a Trace.

“The Agency.”

My mouth goes slightly agape:
The Agency
is Darren Star’s new dramedy about the lives of four young male real estate agents. “Are you serious?”

He nods. “It’s crazy, I know. I’m the only unknown.”

“Congratulations,” I say, leaning over to hug him. “That’s incredible.”

“Incredibly convenient, too,” he says as we disentangle, “seeing as I was getting so sick of Norm’s that I was on the verge of pouring soup on the next person who ordered it.”

I laugh but in my head I’m thinking,
It figures. Just as soon as I’m sane enough to realize how adorable Adam is, he gets on a series and will now have women fighting over him like he’s the last pair of Hudson jeans at a sample sale.

Adam’s cell phone rings and he doesn’t answer it but glances at the time and seems to realize he has to be somewhere. “Damn, I have to go,” he says, looking like he doesn’t want to, “but it’s really fantastic to see you.”

I feel myself panicking. I could have had the moment we were having go on, like, forever, and yet it’s ending. I want to do something but I’m not sure what.
He said he “really liked” me
, I think as I sit there trying to look casual.
Why did he use the past tense? When exactly do you stop “really liking” someone?

Then he says, “I have to go to New York for publicity stuff for a month or so, but can we go out when I’m back?”

I can’t help but smile. “Definitely,” I say, wondering if I should try to pin him down to a specific date. I had a roommate once who always said it was good to nail guys down to a time and place if you really liked them.
Girls are allowed to be aggressive now
, she’d say.
This isn’t the fifties.
But she also terrified most every man she came into contact with and stayed in on weekend nights so she could read the dictionary. “Have a great trip,” I finally say.

“I will,” he says, then leans down to give me a kiss on the cheek and adds, “I’ll talk to you soon.” As I watch him walk away, I wish that I had a time machine that could make it be “a month or so” already. Just then, Adam turns around and walks back to me. “How much do you know about puppies?” he asks.

I think about the dogs we had when I was growing up and then about Tiger. “Some,” I say weakly.

“Well, I got one—a golden retriever—and while she’s basically the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I don’t know entirely how to handle her. I’ve only had her a week and she’s already chewed through almost my entire sneaker collection. And she runs in circles around my apartment, like she’s just inhaled helium or something.”

I laugh. “Inhaled helium?” I ask.

“Weird imagery for a dog, I realize,” he says. “Point is, right now she’s sitting in my apartment, potentially tearing the entire thing to shreds, and I could definitely use a wise woman’s help in taming him.”

I stand up. “Should we take two cars or one?” I ask.

“One,” he says, smiling. “You’re fun to drive.”

“If it hadn’t been for cocaine, I probably would have been a practicing, miserable alcoholic my whole life,” I say, as Adam drives us on the 10. I see a smile creep onto his face as he switches lanes, and I playfully punch him. “Glad you’re so amused by my sad tale of addiction and recovery.”

His tentative smile breaks into a mammoth grin. “I’m not amused. Just happy.”

I smile and ask, “And what are you so happy about?”

He gestures from me back to him. “This. You. The way you talk. All of it. If I could bottle your voice, pheromones, and words, I’d be a rich man.”

I laugh. I’m about to give him a hard time for being such a cheeseball, but instead I just grin. I reach over and grab his right hand, placing it under my left leg, and it feels like the most natural gesture in the world. “I feel lucky right now,” I say. Adam smiles as he exits the freeway, and then he bursts out laughing.

“Let me guess: just laughing out of the joy of this moment?” I ask.

“Sort of,” he laughs. “That, and the memory of you sleep-singing the last time you were in my car.”

Now I start cracking up. “Christ, why didn’t you drive me to the nearest insane asylum?” I ask, cringing at the memory.

“Don’t think I didn’t want to,” he says, smiling. “But then I knew I’d never have a chance with you.” Still chuckling, he pulls up in front of a garage in Venice. “Now prepare yourself for a creature so cute, she even gives you a run for your money.” Adam stops the car, jumps out, and rushes to open the door for me. “My lady,” he says, giving me a mock bow.

“Sir,” I say, mock bowing back, opting not to confess what a horrific surrogate Mom I was to Tiger. “Please bring me to my arch nemesis, the other woman vying for your love.” As soon as the word “love” is out of my mouth, I want to hurl. The primary way to terrify a man—probably right behind sleep-singing in his car—is to tell him you love him. I hadn’t, of course, but the word is potent enough on its own.

But Adam doesn’t seem remotely ruffled. “Don’t you worry, now,” he says, leading me down a path to his apartment. “There’s enough love in my heart for both of you.” As he opens the door and an adorable, tiny golden retriever comes bounding over to him and immediately starts humping his leg, I tell myself not to make too much over the fact that he said the L-word back. And I don’t really have time, seeing as the image of this tiny dog thrusting back and forth on his shin like her very life depends on it is so hilarious that I immediately lose it.

“I thought you said she was a girl!” I gasp, between laughs.

“She is!” he shrieks, cracking up himself. “Doris, stop!” he yells at the dog, who seems to take that as a cue to hump Adam’s leg all the more furiously. Adam looks at me. “Is that totally weird—a female dog being this sex-crazed? Is Doris some kind of a mutant, gender-bent pervert—possibly a preop transsexual?”

“Doris?” I ask, actually trying to get myself to stop laughing. “What kind of a dog name is that?”

“It’s not,” he says, gesturing for me to pull Doris the dog off him, which I do. Falling back onto the floor, Adam sighs. “It’s my favorite grandmother’s name,” he says. I look at him, not sure if he’s kidding, and let Doris go. Instead of rushing back over to Adam, she digs under his couch, where she seems to have stashed a roll of toilet paper. “Oh, God,” he says, watching Doris grab the toilet paper in her mouth and start tearing it apart. “She loves to TP the place,” he says, smiling, gesturing for me to come sit next to him. “She’s worse than a drunk teenager on Halloween.” I sit on the ground, next to where he’s lying down, and he pulls himself up and faces me. I see Doris kick the toilet paper across the room and lunge at it, then skid with it in the other direction.

“We should probably take that away from her,” I say. “I predict nothing good can come from this.”

Adam moves closer to me. I can suddenly hear my heart beating in my chest as he moves less than a foot away, staring at me and not breaking eye contact. “Screw the dog,” he says. “I’m sorry but she’s just going to have to share me with you.” He leans in and, before I can wonder if he’s going to kiss me and if it’s going to feel as amazing as it did the last time, our lips are touching and pressing together and opening and meshing as perfectly as two things not belonging to the same person could.

After being with Adam—two hours of the best kissing of my life, followed by him telling me he had to pack because he was taking the red-eye that night, both of us saying we couldn’t wait to talk and see each other soon—I feel so much better that I realize I’m perfectly capable of writing at home without succumbing to any urges to call Alex. Now that I’m filled up with joyful thoughts about Adam, the idea of coke is actually back to sounding completely disgusting again. So I go home, ignore all the thoughts I’m having about how I don’t know the first thing about writing a column, and just type.