Second You Sin Page 10

  We nodded again.

  “Muchas gracias, muchachos. I’l see you then.

  Angels unite!” He blew us air kisses and disappeared into the crowd.

  Freddy put an arm around my shoulder. “This fun thing we’re doing tonight? Not so much with the ‘fun,’

  huh?”

  “Not so much,” I answered.

  “Let’s say we blow this joint, huh?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “I thought you were having a great time. Five minutes ago, you were cal ing this ‘homo heaven.’ ”

  “Yeah.” Freddy squeezed me closer. “Now? Like I said, not so much.”

  Freddy and I sat in a diner down the street from Ansel ’s apartment. I kept my grateful y retrieved coat tied tightly around my waist. “Isn’t it warm in here?”

  Freddy teased. “Sure you don’t want to take that off?”

  “I’m fine, ” I growled, giving him what I hoped was a silencing squint.

  “Do you have something in your eye?” Freddy asked.

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Don’t flirt,” Freddy chided me. “So, your friend Rueben, what was that al about?”

  “Pretty sad, huh?”

  “I’d say. And what’s with that Ansel Darling? That guy could have practical y anyone he wants—actors, models, hel , I would have done him even though he’s not that good-looking. I mean, he’s Ansel Darling, right?”

  I nodded.

  “But, the minute he found out I wasn’t a working boy, he lost al interest in me. Lost interest in me! ”

  Freddy repeated, as if it were entirely unbelievable.

  “Is he only into sex if he has to pay for it? Is that what he’s about?”

  “It looked that way.”

  “Why? What would make a guy like him limit himself like that?”

  “His parents never loved him enough, making him feel undeserving of anyone’s affections. He went through school a skinny fag, with bad skin and an unflattering hairstyle, constantly rejected and hurt. As an adult, he’s achieved a high level of fame as a designer, but real y, his entire empire is built on ripping off other people’s work. He feels like he doesn’t merit his own success, and thus his self-image is fragile and suspect. Since he doesn’t think he’s actual y earned anything, he doesn’t trust anything that comes his way unless he’s paying for it.

  The only love he can believe in is the love he can buy.”

  Freddy looked impressed. “Wow. Real y? How do you know al this shit?”

  “I don’t,” I said snarkily. “I just made that al up.

  Pretty convincing though, right?”

  Freddy stood up and slapped me on the head.

  “Ow. But, seriously, who knows? Most of us don’t even understand our own motivations, let alone anyone else’s. I spent this afternoon fooling around with a guy who only likes to have sex when he’s dressed like a clown—having a thing for rentboys isn’t even the weirdest kink I’ve seen today. ”

  “You fucked a clown?” Freddy asked wide-eyed.

  “That’s beside the point,” I said, instantly regretting opening that door. Freddy wasn’t the type to let something like that pass unnoticed.

  “It wasn’t a group thing, was it? Like, you opened the door to his apartment expecting to find one clown there, but then a hundred tumbled out?”

  I tried giving him another evil look.

  “There goes that thing with your eye again. You real y should see an orthodontist.”

  “Optometrist.”

  “Whatever. Or maybe you got some whipped cream in there. He didn’t throw pies at you, did he?”

  This was getting too close for comfort.

  “Seriously,” I said, “enough with the clowns. What about Rueben?”

  “Yeah,” Freddy said, looking down at his drink.

  “That was pretty sad. He seemed real y upset at how blatantly Ansel put the moves on you. He treats Rueben likes he’s staff.”

  “I agree. It’s a bad scene. Rueben’s trying to stay on the straight and narrow, and I can’t believe his relationship with Ansel is helping.”

  “So what should we do?” Freddy asked.

  “I don’t know. We’l see him in two days, right?

  Maybe we can talk to him then.”

  “Great! We’l rescue our friend and solve the murders, too!” Freddy said. “I love this crime-fighting stuff.”

  “Yeah, wel , last time you weren’t the one who wound up tied up and tortured, were you?”

  “Would you please stop talking about your job?”

  Freddy asked. I threw my napkin at him.

  “Listen, before we go too far with this stuff, we don’t even know that there were any murders,” I reminded him. Sitting in the diner, the whole thing seemed a lot less likely than it did an hour ago.

  “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us.”

  “Yeah,” Freddy said, “we real y should stop clowning around.”

  “It’s a shame your parents didn’t have any human children,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s bounce. I’l walk you home.” Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Freddy flipped open the screen.

  “Wel , wel ,” he said. He typed something into the keypad and hit “send.”

  “What’s up?”

  “That guy I was dancing with at the party. He just texted.” Freddy showed me his phone. “Leaving now,” the screen read, “want to finish what we started on the dance floor? J.”

  “J.,” I said. “Which one was he?”

  “Damned if I know.” Freddy shrugged.

  “How did you answer him?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You don’t even know who he is!”

  “So what? They were al fine. Besides, why should you be the only one around here who gets to solve mysteries?”

  Great, I thought, Freddy in The Case of the Unknown Trick .

  “Unless,” Freddy said, giving me the sexy stare that seduced half the eligible men in New York City,

  “you want to make me a better offer?”

  “I’l pass,” I said bitterly. Although what I had to be angry about, I couldn’t have told you.

  “Your loss,” Freddy tril ed, pursing his perfect lips in the manner that seduced the other half.

  Is it? I asked myself, and not for the first time.

  “Wait a minute,” Freddy said as he was getting ready to leave. “Isn’t tomorrow that thing with Yvonne and your mom?”

  I had forgotten about that. I grimaced. “Yeah.”

  “Wel , good luck with that, darling. Just remember, if the going gets tough, close your eyes and let warm thoughts of the man who loves you keep up your spirits.”

  “Tony?”

  “No, darling. Bozo.”

  13

  When You Wish Upon a Star

  I didn’t get home from Rueben’s party until two in the morning. Four hours later, my phone rang, waking me from a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The only person who’d cal me this early was Tony, usual y to say he was just getting off a late shift and wanted to drop by. Yum. As tired as I was, that thought was never unappealing.

  I answered in a raspy morning voice. “Hey, sexy daddy.”

  “It’s not Daddy, baby, it’s your mother. And why are you cal ing your father ‘sexy’?”

  It was like waking up to a bucket of ice water poured on your head.

  “I thought . . .”

  “Never mind that,” my mother interrupted. “Aren’t you excited? I’m excited! Are you excited?”

  I was until I realized it was you, I thought. “I’m so excited,” I said, feeling very Pointer Sistersish. “What are we excited about, again?”

  “Yvonne,” my mother said reverently. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  “Why aren’t you here yet?”

  I looked at the clock again. “It’s six o’clock in the morning, Mom. You sai
d to be there at noon.”

  “How could you sleep at a time like this?” my mother asked. “Aren’t you excited?”

  This is where I came in. “Listen,” I said. “I’m real y tired. I’l be there at noon, OK?”

  “Can you make it by nine?”

  “I’l try for eleven.”

  “Nine thirty,” my mother countered.

  “Ten thirty. That’s my final offer.”

  “Fine,” my mother said. “Just meet us at the shop.

  They set up the cameras and the lights yesterday.

  Isn’t this exciting?”

  My head was going to explode. “There are,” I assured her, “no words.”

  “That’s my darling boy,” my mother enthused. “See you at ten!”

  The car service got me to Sophie’s Choice Tresses at 10:15, which seemed pretty reasonable, considering.

  The place was a madhouse. Outside were two high-end steel gray trailers, with smoked windows and “Yvonne” decals applied to their sides. Thick bundles of cables ran from them into the propped-open door of my mother’s beauty parlor. Various staffers, al wearing black Yvonne T-shirts, ran around carrying clipboards, cups of coffee, and thick rol s of silver tape. The air was dark and sooty from the idling trucks.

  Meanwhile, about fifty neighborhood snoops stood outside, talking among themselves and peering through the shop windows. Two teenaged girls who real y should have been in school held up a sign that read “We love you, Yvonne!” Mrs. Petroski, from the bakery down the street, was sel ing doughnuts to the crowd. She spotted me exiting the car.

  “Kevin!” she cried, running over to me. She smel ed like chocolate and powdered sugar. It was love at first sniff.

  “Hi, Mrs. P.,” I said.

  She pinched my cheek. “Stil such a cutie, you are.

  Isn’t this exciting?”

  Here we go again. “It’s unbelievable,” I answered, honestly.

  “Your mother on Yvonne!” she gushed. “This is the most

  glamorous

  thing

  to

  happen

  to

  this

  neighborhood since Merv Griffin, now gone but not forgotten, at least not by me, almost choked to death on a piece of gefilte fish at Lenny’s Deli on 167th Street. We real y hit the big time then, sonny.”

  “That was something,” I said.

  “But this! It’s quite a coup for your mother, I’l tel you. Everyone’s going to want their hair cut at Sophie’s now!”

  “Let’s hope,” I answered.

  Mrs. P. pul ed a sheet of tissue paper from her apron and selected a jel y doughnut from her bag.

  “These were always your favorite, Kevin.”

  “Awww,” I said, genuinely touched. Maybe there was something nice about coming home after al .

  “That’s very sweet of you.” I put out my hand.

  Mrs. P. put out hers, too. “That’l be a buck twenty-five, dear.”

  The inside of my mother’s shop had been transformed into the bastard love child of a beauty parlor and a television studio. Chairs had been pushed to the side, huge domed lights hung from alien-looking tripods, and cables and electrical cords snaked everywhere. Two huge television cameras captured my mother’s workstation from both sides, while a third hung back at the best angle for the ful -on capture of Yvonne’s unfortunate transformation from sophisticated television star to tacky Long Island harridan.

  Ironical y, even though they were shooting in a beauty parlor, the producers set up a folding canvas chair, where my mother sat having powder applied by an extremely thin and fey looking African-American guy in his forties.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, dodging various Yvonne staffers.

  “Sweetheart,” my mother said. “You’re late.”

  “Am not.” I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  “Nuh-huh,” the haughty queen attending her admonished me, wagging his finger. “No touching the face, child. She’s flawless.”

  I stepped back and put up my hands. “Sorry!”

  Miss Thing puckered his lips. “No problem, sweetie. You’re pretty flawless, too.” He turned to my mother. “Is he taken?”

  My mother, who always took any compliment to me as a personal credit to her, beamed. “He has a policeman boyfriend with commitment issues and a great ass,” she answered.

  I felt myself blushing. “Mom!”

  “We’re al friends here,” my mother answered.

  Then, to the makeup artist, “Real y. You could bounce a quarter off it.”

  Why, I wondered, and not for the first time in my mother’s presence, doesn’t the ground ever open and swal ow you when you need it to?

  The makeup artist gave my mother a sly smile.

  “You’re going to look Tyra-iffic on the camera, dear.

  I’l leave you to chat with your boy.”

  I pul ed up a chair and sat next to my mother. “So,”

  I said, “how are you doing?”

  Turns out, as she spent the next ten minutes explaining, she was pretty excited. Who knew? She might have kept talking until the cameras started rol ing had she not gotten distracted by someone passing by.

  “Andrew!” she shouted. “Get your little tush over here and say ‘hel o!’ ”

  I turned and saw someone who could have been an underwear model for a Calvin Klein campaign saunter over with the natural grace of a born athlete.

  Six feet of lean and muscled bodyliciousness topped by a strong, angular face and sandy brown hair that fel into place like silk fringe on a real y expensive shawl. He wore pressed khaki slacks and the ubiquitous Yvonne T-shirt, which fit him like the skin of grape. A real y juicy grape.

  “This is Andrew Mil er,” my mother said to me.

  “Remember I told you about him? Yvonne’s producer? He says he knew you from high school.”

  Andrew had a mile-wide smile and I tried my best to place him. I couldn’t imagine not noticing someone as good-looking as him.

  “Hi,” I said, a bit awkwardly. Andrew looked a few years older than me; I’d guess he was a senior the year I arrived in high school. Since upperclassmen rarely socialized with freshmen, I couldn’t imagine when we would have met. Was he one of Tony’s friends?

  “Kevin.” Andrew extended his hand, and his grip was strong and warm. “You probably don’t remember me.”

  “You look familiar,” I said, although I couldn’t say from where. Maybe he’d done modeling. I couldn’t imagine where else I’d have seen him.

  “I was captain of the lacrosse team,” Andrew said.

  “You came to a few games. I don’t think we ever talked, but I remember seeing you around.”

  Oh. My. God. Andrew Mil er? I had never known his name, but yes, I had attended a few games, mostly to ogle his incredibly fine form and the way the muscles in his arms moved whenever he swung his stick.

  Swung his stick. Jesus. I remembered some of the fantasies I’d had about him and felt myself blushing again.

  “Wow,” I said. “I can’t even believe you knew who I was. I was just another fan in the stands. Lacrosse fan,” I added. I turned to my mother. “I love lacrosse.

  It’s so . . . sticky, I mean, they play with real y long sticks. Much bigger than basebal bats, you know.”

  I real y needed to shut up.

  “Funny,” my mother observed, “I don’t remember you ever expressing any interest at al in lacrosse. Or any other sports for that matter. A mother,” she said to Andrew, “is always the last to know, though, isn’t she?”

  Andrew laughed. “Even people who don’t like sports seem to enjoy lacrosse,” he told her. “We always had great crowds for our games.”

  I bet, I thought.

  My mother turned back to me. “And look at Andrew now. So young, and the producer of Yvonne. ”

  “Wel ,” Andrew said, cocking his head to the side,

  “I’m not the producer of Yvonne. He’s in LA counting his money, I’m sure.” Andrew
winked at my mother and she laughed as if his joke was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

  “I’m just a segment producer,” Andrew continued.

  “There are seven of us, and we rotate between episodes.”

  “Wel , weren’t we lucky that you got to produce this one,” my mother gushed.

  “Oh, luck had nothing to do with it.” Andrew grinned. “I specifical y request the episodes when we have beautiful women as our guests.”

  Another disproportionately loud laugh from my mother, this one accompanied by her wel -

  manicured hand flying up to her ample bosom in a gesture that was meant to convey humility but instead shouted, Hey, check out these babies!

  “Such a charmer,” she purred. “And so successful at such a young age! Already a producer on Yvonne. While my dear Kevin . . .” Her voice trailed off and she threw up her hands in surrender at the thought of her useless progeny.

  “Uh, standing right here,” I said.

  “Wel , darling,” my mother said. “I’m just saying that your friend Andrew here has one of the top positions on America’s most popular talk show, whereas you, wel , what is it you do anyway, dear?”

  If we were real y going to play Can You Top This, I could mention that last week I got seven hundred dol ars to receive a scalp massage with a happy ending (don’t ask) from the married author of the current number two book on the New York Times bestsel er list, but I wasn’t sure that would impress.

  “You know what I do,” I said. For years I’d been tel ing my family I worked freelance as a computer consultant.

  “No, real y,” my mother persisted, “what exactly . .

  .”

  Just then, another Yvonne staffer, a rather timid overweight young woman with purple hair and boxy square-framed glasses sidled over to my mother.

  Why do they all look so frightened? I asked myself.

  “Mrs. Connor,” she asked shakily. “We need to do a sound check.” She looked at Andrew for approval.

  “Is that OK?”

  “Check away,” Andrew said, flashing his megawatt grin. I could have sworn the purple girl’s glasses fogged up a little.

  “Thank you, sir,” she answered. “Right this way, Mrs. Connor.”

  “Please,” my mother said, “cal me Sophie. Mrs.