The Thrill of It

Chapter Eighteen

Harley

That’s how it goes for the next few days. We are together. We make it to our final classes and work. He takes me to the tree he planted for his brothers in Abingdon Square Park. We hold hands the whole time, until I see the tree. I let go of him so I can I wrap my arms around the tree and kiss the small trunk. Then we return to his place and we touch each other more. He gives me more orgasms than I ever knew I could have, and I learn how he likes everything.

We don’t go all the way though. I know we will. Just not yet.

I even hear back from Miranda. She emails me on Thursday morning.

The final file you sent has been received. The material contained in it has been approved. I will take care of everything from here. The terms of our agreement have been fulfilled.

It’s over then. My debt is paid. The slate is wiped clean.

I should feel light as a balloon. I should feel buoyant, ready to float to the sky on a cotton candy cloud. But I feel oddly unsettled when I see the next note. It’s from my mother.

I have to tell you about the story I’ve been trailing. Meeting with a source now. About to bust this wide open. Love, The Cleaner.

I remind myself that she’s investigating a congressman. That she busts big-time liars and cheaters. She’s probably going to call me soon, and want to celebrate her next potential award-winning piece.

But she’s not the only writer in the family. I can write again, and I can write for me.

While Trey’s showering, I take out the notebook Joanne gave me, opening it to the first page. It’s fresh and white, like falling snow. I imagine a dusky night sky, stars twinkling, and a bright shining moon. It’s cold, but a pair of walking, talking dogs joke about not needing jackets. It tickles a memory of when I was younger, of making up stories like this for someone. But who? I try to grasp at the memory, but it’s too hazy and it fades away. Still, the image is enough for me to go on, and I start jotting down notes about a new story. Because I can finally write what I want to write. Something simple, something magical, something for kids.

When Trey steps out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, he tips his forehead to the notebook. “You writing?”

“Just playing around with some ideas,” I say.

He sits down next to me on the futon, and I’m thoroughly distracted by the fresh, clean, sexy smell of him. I lean into his neck and plant a quick kiss. He pulls at the strap on my tanktop, and I’m pretty sure we’re about to go for another round of something.

But he taps my shoulder instead. “Hey. Weren’t you going to tell about your red ribbon? You were supposed to tell me what it meant to you.”

I cast my eyes down. “You won’t like it.”

The muscles in his arms tense. “It better not be for Cam.”

I shake my head, then raise my eyes. “It’s for my mom. It’s to remind me of her. She used to put this red ribbon in my hair when she did my hair for her parties,” I say, and as I tell the story I hear it for the first time as a dispassionate observer. I was her pretty pony. Her little doll of a daughter. Then I became the prize to help her catch men.

He blows a long stream of air from his lips, shakes his head. I swear I can feel the fumes of his anger. But he’s not mad at me. He’s mad at her. And maybe, just maybe, I am too. I didn’t want to be dressed up and paraded around. I didn’t want to be her wingwoman. I wanted to be her daughter.

He grips my shoulders. Narrows his eyes. “When you’re ready, say the word. I’ll redo that tattoo for you.”

“You will?”

“Fuck yeah. Almost one-quarter of our business is redoing tats from years ago. Covering them up. Reworking them. I can do something else for you. When you’re ready.”

“Okay. I’ll think of something else.”

“But thank you for telling me, and you’re right. I don’t like it. And I don’t like your mom. And I don’t like what she did to you. But that’s just the way it goes.” He points to my notebook. “Will you show me sometime what you’re working on? Because I’d be a hell of a lot more interested in your stories about animal magic, and why you are so drawn to those stories, than about that shit Miranda was making you write because you were covering up for your mom.”

I laugh. “Definitely. And check this out,” I say, closing the notebook and showing him the cover. “Joanne gave it to me. Isn’t that a cool heart drawing?”

He traces the misshapen heart with his index finger. “That’s an awesome illustration. I love how it’s all stretched and pulled and twisted, but it’s still whole.”

“It is still whole. It’s the ugly beautiful.”

Trey raises an eyebrow. “The ugly beautiful?”

“It’s this saying, I guess. Joanne told me about it. I think it means that beautiful things can come from an ugly place. That it’s the flower that grows in a landfill. Or the stained glass window in an abandoned apartment building. Or maybe,” I say, then take a beat, my heart skittering, “It’s meeting you in the middle of all the awfulness. Because you’re the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He closes his eyes briefly, then winces, as if the sentiment is too scary.

Fear grips me. I’ve said too much. I want to take it all back, and time stands still in the wretchedness of this moment that I’ve ruined.

Then it revs up and my heart is racing at the speed of light as he curves a hand around my neck and leans his forehead against mine in the most tender gesture. All the hairs on my arms are standing on end and I’m coated in warmth and anticipation and something else too. Hope. The most painful, wondrous, delirious kind of hope that’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And this feeling is hope multiplied. My hope and the hope he is falling for real.

“I’m falling for you in a big way, Harley, and I have no clue what to do about it but let it happen.”

“Let’s let it happen.”

“It’s happening and I don’t want to stop it,” he says as he cups my cheeks. He brushes his lips to mine, and my breath catches from the softness, the sweetness.

But the kiss is cut short when my phone rings loudly.

My mother’s ringtone. I ignore it and return to Trey’s lips. But she calls again. And again. And again.

I finally pick up. “Hi. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been looking into a story. I saw some pages of a manuscript and – call it a reporter’s hunch – I feel like I might know the writer. Are you Layla?”

My blood freezes and my brain goes numb. The walls around all my secrets are cracking.

Even when I try to escape her, I can’t. She is at the beginning and the end and the middle of every twist and turn and dead end in this maze.

Miranda is my mom’s editor too.

Miranda is the most important person in my mother’s career.

Miranda plucked my mom from the lowly assignment desk, honed her journalist chops, and molded her into the fearless cutthroat reporter she is today.

Miranda is like a fairy godmother to my mom.

Miranda is also the woman cuckolded by her most prestigious investigative reporter’s daughter.

Phil is Twenty-Four on my list. I had an “almost affair” with my mom’s editor’s husband.

But I had my reasons, I swear I had them.

I never shared them with Miranda. Because I don’t want her to know my mom stole her husband first, and I walked into the trap I knew was being set. I walked into it with my arms wide open, ready for the photos to be snapped, the evidence to be amassed. Only I never expected Miranda would do what she did and handcuff me back. How could I? Those things don’t occur to you as possibilities. You don’t think, “Oh, if I have an affair with my mom’s editor’s husband to willingly get caught, the editor will then blackmail me into writing Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

It’s a catchy title, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t pick that up? It has mega bestseller written all over it. Especially since it’ll be shrouded in secrecy when it hits bookstore shelves.

Because it’ll be by “Anonymous.” Everyone will be abuzz trying to figure out who this Layla character is who learned how to kiss at a carnival, then went pro and made money hand over fist when she became a high-priced call girl. But wait! The salaciousness doesn’t end there! The girl got caught! Gasp! The girl confessed! The girl then cleaned up her act! She went to recovery! Who doesn’t love a tale of redemption? The hooker with the heart of gold. The whore turned good. It’s Heidi Fleiss, it’s Elliot Spitzer, it’s Tiger Woods. Only sexier and scarier.

Because it could happen to your daughter. It could happen to your son. Your kid could be a sex addict. Your kid could be a prostitute.

You can just smell the movie rights, can’t you? Miranda could. So she kept them all for herself. Because Miranda is the only one who knows who “Anonymous” is. Miranda found the story. Miranda brought the story to the publishing house she runs. Miranda alone is “Anonymous’” editor. And Miranda alone will cut the checks — or claim to — for “Anonymous” when the book finally lands on shelves in a few months. After all, she’s done editing it. Anonymous won’t see a dime of the profits. Anonymous doesn’t want money from this story.

Anonymous wants to be free.

But I will never be free. I know that now. Because the secret only grows bigger. The wall only rises higher, more mortar slathered between each brick, superglue that’ll hold forever.

Until it topples. Because it will.

Because somewhere, some enterprising person, maybe another journalist, maybe some dogged detective, will want to know who Anonymous really is. And someone will recognize himself somewhere in the story, though names of course have all been changed. And enough someones will put enough somethings together that this enterprising reporter-detective-dog catcher will figure out that Anonymous is me.

Page one of New York Post! “Layla’s true identity revealed — the daughter of The Cleaner.”

Page 212…

I don’t know a thing about Nathan. I never met him, never saw him, never heard him. But I heard her. And hearing your mom have sex with men is bad enough. But hearing your mom have phone sex is worse, especially when you are only thirteen. There’s nothing grosser I can think of in my whole life than hearing my mom masturbate every night for two weeks to Nathan on the phone.

“Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan, Oh Nathan.”

I wanted to die.