Loving Emily (17 page)

Then, Emily comes down the stairs. I gawk at her. In this light, her eyes look intensely blue. Her dress has a low, round neckline, and her hair is up, showing off the back of her neck and her creamy, perfect shoulders.

I hate how weird it is between us now. I wish things felt easy and simple again.

Emily gets to the bottom of the stairs, and there is The Necklace. It’s the first time I’ve seen her wear it since the night I gave it to her.

It glows against her skin. The simple white gold links pull your eyes toward them, while the heart, with its aquamarine in the center, points to the most kissable part of Emily’s throat. It looks rich and elegant. It looks
expensive.

She turns, smiling, to her parents, and so do I, and we both register the expression of shock on their faces.

“Emily!” Eleanor says. “Where on earth…” She glances in my direction, then away.

“Ryan gave it to me.” Emily’s smile fades as she looks from her mom to her dad and back.

“What was the occasion?” Mr. Wintraub asks, his voice tight.

Emily turns to me, a question mark on her face.

I fumble for the right thing to say and don’t find it. “I don’t know, I just wanted to give her something,” I bleat.

“How much did this cost?” Mr. Wintraub demands. We are still standing in their front entry. Mr. Wintraub’s practically standing toe-to-toe with me, jabbing his face into mine.

“David! It doesn’t matter!” Eleanor puts a hand on his arm, but he pulls it away.

“It does!” he says. “Emily can’t accept something like this. I don’t want her owing him.”

“Mr. Wintraub,” I say. “Emily doesn’t owe me anything. It’s a gift. I paid for it from my savings account.”

My eyes meet Eleanor’s, and she smiles at me in an encouraging way. She’s a cool lady. I wonder what she’s doing with this guy.

“You wanted to give her a gift, so you went out and spent a small fortune from … what, your
trust fund
?” The way Mr. Wintraub says it makes it sound dirty, shallow. I can see myself through his eyes—a spoiled rich boy who uses money to buy people.

And isn’t that in fact what I did? I wanted Emily to love me, so I bought her a crazy-expensive necklace, something that Mr. Wintraub could never afford to give Emily, or Emily’s mother, for that matter. And I did it with a four-figure wad of cash I had lying around, through no work or effort of my own. Ten minutes earlier, I had been proud of myself, proud that I had done something to show my girl what she meant to me. Now I’m ashamed of myself. I look at the floor, humiliated.

“Dad!” I hear Emily now. “I know how Ryan meant this. He was telling me I mattered to him. That’s all. And it’s not his fault that he comes from a wealthy family. That’s your hang-up!”

“I think I should go,” I say. I can’t believe that anyone wants to sit and chat at a restaurant right now.

“Oh, so that’s your response?” Mr. Wintraub says. “Run away?”

All of a sudden, I am looking at him from a great distance. He is edged in red.

I force myself to take a deep breath, several of them. I count to five. Then, I speak carefully, choosing each word.

“Mr. Wintraub, I really love your daughter, okay? She’s special to me.”

I pause for a second, then continue. “She’s a beautiful person, and she deserves to have a beautiful necklace. If I can afford to give her one,
what’s the harm in that
?”

A silence follows, while I have one of those weird moments where you think
That was really awesome. I wonder who said that?
And then you realize that it was you. I get over my shock and stare Mr. Wintraub down, defiant, no more polite-bowing-and-scraping Ryan. Now I’m giving him man-to-man-tell-it-like-it-is Ryan.

I glance over at Emily, who sends me a look so scorching hot I’m afraid she’s going to ignite the draperies. Mr. Wintraub looks like he’s been sucking on lemons.

“Well, shall we get going?” Eleanor’s voice is high and strained. Wordless, we walk out to the Wintraubs’ car to go to dinner.

Should be a fun night.

At the restaurant, Emily takes every chance she gets to hold my hand and gaze at me adoringly, which she knows will send her dad into fits of rage. His face is dangerously red, while a vein or something throbs in his temple. I can see it from across the table.

Eleanor and I, the peace makers, make small talk like two lunatics, smiling too much and laughing too much. It’s a relief to go to the theater, and more of a relief to say good night and finally escape home.

But Emily and I are back on the high burner again, hotter than ever.

S
he and I go out to Venice Beach on a Friday afternoon. It feels so good to just be alone with her. We pull off our shoes and walk along in that uneven way you do down by the water, when the beach is slanted. Our fingers are interlaced and our feet sink deep with every step. I love the squawks of the seagulls and the beach sand between my toes. I feel myself relax, the nervous tension draining out of my neck and shoulders.

It’s warm for January, but because it’s winter and the sun’s going down, the place is almost empty. We walk away from the water, find a patch of dry sand, then end up lying down. We kiss, and she presses her body against mine. My hand slides up under her shirt. We lie there for a while, fooling around, my hands moving under her clothes.

As the sky darkens and we start to get cold, we walk back up the beach toward the boardwalk, with its stores and restaurants. I ask her “Are you hungry yet?”

“Not really,” she says.

“You want to get out of here? We’ll find a place to eat later.”

My BMW’s in the shop, so I’m driving the extra car my family keeps for just such circumstances—a three year old Lexus sedan that Mom replaced with a new Jaguar.

Mom’s Lexus is all alone in the deserted parking lot. I open the door to the back seat so we can throw in the sandy shoes we’re carrying.

Emily gives me a playful push, saying “Climb in.” I do, my heart leaping like a jackrabbit.

•   •   •

We are lying together in my Mom’s sedan, on its wide back seat with its soft, expensive leather. I have my arms around Emily. I touch her shiny hair and put my face against her neck. I smell lavender and the salt of the ocean, as well as the leather of the car seats. A seat belt digs a hole in my hip, but it’s a small price to pay.

I’m on my back, and she’s lying on top of me. We’re fully dressed, but I can feel her breasts, soft against my chest. I’m so turned on, I can hardly think.

“I want to see you. I want to take off your clothes.” I can barely get the words out. The entire length of her body is pressed against mine, making coherent speech difficult. I close my eyes and try to think of a total turn off. Mr. Wintraub’s unsmiling face comes to mind.

Light is shining in the windows onto Emily’s face. She looks like one of the angels they have in those paintings I’ve seen at the Louvre. She pulls back a little to look into my eyes.

Almost out of my mind with wanting her, I slowly, painfully count to ten. I wonder if Mr. Wintraub owns any firearms. As I slide my hands up her back to unsnap her bra, our eyes meet.

“I’ve never done this before,” she says. She looks as nervous as I’ve ever seen her.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, I begin to count to one hundred, picturing armed guards around the door to Emily’s bedroom.

“Neither have I.”

We kiss some more, very tenderly. She lays her head on my chest and I put my arms around her.

“Maybe you need time,” I say. I stroke her hair. We have light from the lamp posts in the parking lot, but we’ve steamed up all the windows, giving us a feeling of privacy.

“Are you … uncomfortable?” she asks me. My boner from the Pier was nothing. This one’s like the state of Florida.

“I’ll survive,” I say, hoping it’s true. “Anyway, we don’t have any condoms.” We untangle ourselves and start to sit up. Emily is silent, then mumbles something I don’t catch.

“What?” I ask. She mumbles again, and I could swear she’s saying
I might have a few in my purse.

“You have
condoms in your purse
?” I am riveted by this new piece of information.

She turns red as a traffic light and tries to reach for her purse on the floor of the car, but I, with my tennis player’s lightning reflexes, am faster. Grabbing it, I slide away from her on the car seat. Emily bursts into laughter and clutches my arm.

“Hey, that’s private!”

“Oh, no.” I hold the purse out of her reach. “It is written in the Code of Dating when a girl brings condoms on a date with a guy, he’s entitled to open her purse and take them out.” I turn my back on her and unzip the purse. Seeing a condom package, I pull out a strip of some four or five and wave it in the air.

“Not just a condom, folks, but multiple condoms!”

Emily’s laughing helplessly. She gets control of herself. “Those were in there for months. Just in case something
good
came along.”

“Were not,” I say. “They’re, like,
shiny
, they’re so new. And they were
on top
. I mean, on top of the keys, on top of the wallet. These condoms have my name written all over them!”

She laughs again, but will admit nothing. So after a brief stand-off, I realize that I’m right back to being what I was five minutes ago – a beggar, hoping for crumbs.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Let’s go to dinner.” But now that Emily has thoroughly established who’s in charge here, she relents. She gets a gleam in her eye.

“You can take off my clothes if I can take off yours first. But I can’t promise I’ll do anything more than that.”

“Deal,” I tell her.

So I have to go first, and we are laughing and nervous, and then I’m naked, while she is fully dressed, and I’m a little embarrassed, and she says, “Wow,” which I hope is a good thing, and then I slowly take off her clothes and see her neck, her shoulders, and then, God, her breasts, and, God, she’s so freaking beautiful, and we are nervous and laughing and awed and serious, all at the same time.

Emily has such a warm, womanly body. I am touching her, but our bare skin sticks to the leather upholstery, and the seat isn’t long enough for me, and a couple of times we freeze, conscious of car headlights passing over us. And then we laugh and kiss, and at some point we start to really fool around and get serious. I have fantasized about this moment, wanted Emily, thought about touching her so many times, that in the end, I just do the things from my fantasies and hope it’s okay. We don’t laugh anymore, and we look into each other’s eyes and go to a place where we are totally, insanely into each other, but then it’s time for that comedy of errors which is the condom and then, after more laughter and finding places for our arms and legs in the crowded back seat, we finally Perform the Act, with me saying “Are you okay?” every twenty seconds, and it is awesome and awkward and tender all at once.

And after we are done, I tell her it will be better next time, and she says “No, it was interesting,” and I say “I love you,” and she says “I love you, too.”

Just as we realize it’s eleven o’clock and I have to get Emily home, I start to see alternating bands of blue, orange, and red light. I look out the window and there, looking in, is a big man with a blue shirt and a badge, and I hear the words, “Open up. Police.”

•   •   •

Right in a row, Emily screams, I toss her my sweater, she pulls it on, and I, clutching a wadded up t-shirt over my private parts, lunge for the window to lower it an inch or two. The cop is standing there, trying to keep a straight face. I feel like yelling “Very funny!” out the window at him, but I decide against it. I hear the sounds of Emily behind me, whipping her clothes on.

“Get outta here, you guys,” he says, letting a big grin escape.

I am half-dressed as I drive Emily home. I’ve managed to locate my pants, although my briefs are somewhere in the back seat, and my shirt’s on, but unbuttoned. Emily has pulled on most of the basic clothing items, but her usually smooth, sleek hair’s running wild, curling out in all directions. She’s got one sock in her hand, but can’t find the other.

“Do you think he saw us, like, naked?” she asks me.

“Definitely. It’s okay. We just won’t ever go to Venice again.”

“
Omigod
.” She’s looking in a mirror. “Why didn’t you tell me about my hair?” It’s completely matted in the back and frizzing out in the front.

“I like it. It’s so … post-intercourse,” I say, feeling very sophisticated. Then, I pull up in front of the Wintraubs’ house, look out, and see Mr. Wintraub standing in the open front door. He’s just a dark silhouette in the lighted doorway, but I think I see the outlines of a semiautomatic weapon. I am sinking below the dashboard trying to button my shirt without seeming to. I look at my watch. It’s five minutes to midnight, so we’re right on time.

“I’ll handle this.” Emily acts brave, but as she runs her fingers through her hair, I can see they are shaking. She’s wearing more clothes than I am, though, and we know that, unlike me, Mr. Wintraub will let her live.

“You’re okay,” I tell her. “You’ve been walking on the beach. That explains the hair and the bare feet.” I give a jaunty wave in Wintraub’s direction, while Emily sprints across the lawn toward her waiting father.

As I peel out of there, a thought pops automatically into my head.
Wait ‘til Michael hears about this.

“Awesome, dude,” he would have said. “Took you long enough.”

Well, yeah, compared to Michael, who lost it just before his fifteenth birthday. But Michael’s dead, and I’m not the type who would tell anyone besides my best friend. So I will have to keep my big news to myself.

T
he next morning, as I stand with Calvin and Jonathan at the first hole of the Beverly Crescent Golf Course, my mind’s back on last night, in the car with Emily. I still don’t know what happened with her dad. I hope she’s not locked up in a tower right now, growing her hair into long, rope-like braids.

I set up a tripod and video camera, while Calvin and Jonathan choose golf clubs and pull out their data charts. If we need to, we’re prepared to step aside and let other groups play through. But it’s a really slow day at the course.