Dating You / Hating You
Page 32
“Dan Printz’s phone,” it says.
“This is Carter Aaron—”
“Aaron, hey. This is Caleb, Dan’s manager.”
“Caleb, I remember you. We met in New York. We had drinks at that little place—”
“—in Brooklyn, right! I remember. I kicked your ass at pool that night.”
“You did, you little hustler. Still not sure I’ll ever be man enough for a rematch.”
“That’s right,” he’s saying. I can hear him clapping on the other end of the phone and I know I’ve hit my mark. Caleb heavily influences a lot of Dan’s decisions, and having him on my side is another point in my favor.
“Listen, Caleb, I was wondering if I could talk to Dan.”
“He’s on set right now, reshoots and shit, but I’ll tell him you called. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it.”
I silently fist-pump into the air.
“I appreciate it. Let him know I’m available all weekend, no need to wait till Monday.”
“Sure thing. You stay out of pool halls,” he says, laughing at his own joke.
I smile as the line disconnects.
• • •
Forty minutes to drive six miles on a Saturday? Someone help me.
There were just as many cars on the road in New York, but there we had buses and the subway; we could walk. Everything was interconnected and taking public transportation was nearly always easier than driving. Within the LA city limits there are 181 miles of freeway and over 6,000 miles of surface streets—I know, I Googled it—and yet I still sit in traffic wherever I go.
Which of course means I’m in traffic on Sunset when my phone rings through the Bluetooth. I jump, clamoring to answer and hoping it’s the call from Dan I’ve been waiting for, only to see my mom’s name flash on the screen.
I answer only because it’s better than putting it off until later.
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you, baby? Are you in your car?”
“I am. I’m meeting someone for breakfast, and stuck in traffic. In fact, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to talk. I’m expecting a call and it’s kind of important. I might have to switch over.”
“On a Saturday?”
“On a Saturday,” I say, knowing what comes next.
“You know you wouldn’t be working Saturdays if you had a normal job.”
I ignore this, reaching up to rub my forehead.
“Is the call from Jonah?” she asks.
I pause, confused for a beat. “No, why would he be calling me?”
She’s silent in response, and too late I realize what she’s thinking—Because he’s your brother and you live in the same city, not to mention I specifically told you to call him—but instead she says, “I haven’t heard from him in a week and he’s not answering his phone. It goes straight to that obnoxious message.”
This makes me smile, because his bare-bones voicemail greeting really is horrible: “Yeah, it’s Jonah. You know what to do.” It does me good to know that it makes even our own doting mother want to punch him in the throat.
“I’m sure he’ll call you back when he can,” I tell her. “You’re the one always reminding me how busy he is.”
“This is different,” she says, voice tight. “He’s terrible about visiting, but he always answers my calls. I’ve called four times without hearing back from him, and now the phone’s not ringing at all—it just goes straight to voicemail. Your father is so worried about him.” In the background I hear my Dad shout, “No, Dinah, I’m not!”
I take a deep breath. “Mom, what do you want me to—”
“I want you to call him,” she cuts in, “and if he doesn’t answer, I want you to drive up there and make sure he’s okay.”
My preferred response to this would be to tell her—honestly—that I don’t have time to go out to Malibu today. But the conversation plays out like a chess game in my head: She would follow it up with some version of how she didn’t have time to carry me around for nine months, but she did it anyway. Or how she didn’t have time to do our laundry or make our meals or clean up some of the horrifying things she found in our bathroom, but she did that, too.
I go for a different tactic. “He might be out of town—”
“Carter.”
“Okay, listen. I’ll call now and merge the calls, that way you can yell at him yourself when he answers.”
Traffic is stopped dead, so I glance down to my phone, switching the line and adding Jonah’s number. Right to voicemail.
“Okay, he didn’t answer,” I tell her when I switch back over, and let my head fall back against the seat. There is no way in hell I’ll be able to get out to his place and back again in time for my meeting. If he’s passed out in a drunken stupor, I am going to kill him. “Let me move some stuff around and I’ll drive up there.”
“Thank you, honey.”
“No problem, Mom.”
“Let me know as soon as you hear something, okay? And there’s a gate, so I’ll text you the code.”
“Will do,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face.
• • •
I’m able to move my meeting to later in the day with only minimal trouble. Hours away, plenty of time.
Malibu is about thirty miles west of Beverly Hills; it takes an hour to get there. Most of the drive I’m making phone calls and deciding how I’m going to kill my brother if I show up and he’s not already dead.
I point my car onto Latigo Canyon, a two-lane road through chaparral-covered hills and steep, wooded canyons, with a view of the ocean along every turn. The houses are huge and spread wide up here, most of them hidden from view by tall fences and towering trees.
On Jonah’s street I stop to enter the security code into an illuminated keypad. An intricate metal gate opens up onto a long, winding driveway, and at the top of the hill sits the terra-cotta-tiled house. I’d forgotten how ostentatiously huge his place is. Two stories wrapped in white stucco, it has to be at least five thousand square feet. My apartment and my parking space could fit into his front room alone.
I spot the front of Jonah’s black Range Rover around the corner in front of the garage. He’d really better be dead.
The ocean wind whips at my hair and my clothes as I climb out of my car. A wide walkway leads up to a set of stained-concrete stairs and a massive double door, and I knock twice, turning to look around while I wait. Now that I’m closer, the yard looks a little more unkempt than I’d expect. A set of urns filled with dying flowers border a lawn that could definitely stand to be cut. It’s quiet, too. It’s still early, but not that early. Last time I came, there was music playing from the back near the pool and signs of life everywhere. People coming and going and multiple cars. A yard crew, a pool man, a housekeeper. This time, I don’t hear anything coming from inside the house.
It might just be my mom’s overreaction gene rearing its head, but anxiety gnaws at me, unease prickling along my skin.
I’m heading back to my car to call . . . I don’t know—someone—when the door opens behind me. The guy is shorter than Jonah, but fit and tanned in a way that one becomes from spending a lot of time outside. His shorts-only outfit is just one indicator of his cool casualness.
“This is Carter Aaron—”
“Aaron, hey. This is Caleb, Dan’s manager.”
“Caleb, I remember you. We met in New York. We had drinks at that little place—”
“—in Brooklyn, right! I remember. I kicked your ass at pool that night.”
“You did, you little hustler. Still not sure I’ll ever be man enough for a rematch.”
“That’s right,” he’s saying. I can hear him clapping on the other end of the phone and I know I’ve hit my mark. Caleb heavily influences a lot of Dan’s decisions, and having him on my side is another point in my favor.
“Listen, Caleb, I was wondering if I could talk to Dan.”
“He’s on set right now, reshoots and shit, but I’ll tell him you called. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it.”
I silently fist-pump into the air.
“I appreciate it. Let him know I’m available all weekend, no need to wait till Monday.”
“Sure thing. You stay out of pool halls,” he says, laughing at his own joke.
I smile as the line disconnects.
• • •
Forty minutes to drive six miles on a Saturday? Someone help me.
There were just as many cars on the road in New York, but there we had buses and the subway; we could walk. Everything was interconnected and taking public transportation was nearly always easier than driving. Within the LA city limits there are 181 miles of freeway and over 6,000 miles of surface streets—I know, I Googled it—and yet I still sit in traffic wherever I go.
Which of course means I’m in traffic on Sunset when my phone rings through the Bluetooth. I jump, clamoring to answer and hoping it’s the call from Dan I’ve been waiting for, only to see my mom’s name flash on the screen.
I answer only because it’s better than putting it off until later.
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you, baby? Are you in your car?”
“I am. I’m meeting someone for breakfast, and stuck in traffic. In fact, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to talk. I’m expecting a call and it’s kind of important. I might have to switch over.”
“On a Saturday?”
“On a Saturday,” I say, knowing what comes next.
“You know you wouldn’t be working Saturdays if you had a normal job.”
I ignore this, reaching up to rub my forehead.
“Is the call from Jonah?” she asks.
I pause, confused for a beat. “No, why would he be calling me?”
She’s silent in response, and too late I realize what she’s thinking—Because he’s your brother and you live in the same city, not to mention I specifically told you to call him—but instead she says, “I haven’t heard from him in a week and he’s not answering his phone. It goes straight to that obnoxious message.”
This makes me smile, because his bare-bones voicemail greeting really is horrible: “Yeah, it’s Jonah. You know what to do.” It does me good to know that it makes even our own doting mother want to punch him in the throat.
“I’m sure he’ll call you back when he can,” I tell her. “You’re the one always reminding me how busy he is.”
“This is different,” she says, voice tight. “He’s terrible about visiting, but he always answers my calls. I’ve called four times without hearing back from him, and now the phone’s not ringing at all—it just goes straight to voicemail. Your father is so worried about him.” In the background I hear my Dad shout, “No, Dinah, I’m not!”
I take a deep breath. “Mom, what do you want me to—”
“I want you to call him,” she cuts in, “and if he doesn’t answer, I want you to drive up there and make sure he’s okay.”
My preferred response to this would be to tell her—honestly—that I don’t have time to go out to Malibu today. But the conversation plays out like a chess game in my head: She would follow it up with some version of how she didn’t have time to carry me around for nine months, but she did it anyway. Or how she didn’t have time to do our laundry or make our meals or clean up some of the horrifying things she found in our bathroom, but she did that, too.
I go for a different tactic. “He might be out of town—”
“Carter.”
“Okay, listen. I’ll call now and merge the calls, that way you can yell at him yourself when he answers.”
Traffic is stopped dead, so I glance down to my phone, switching the line and adding Jonah’s number. Right to voicemail.
“Okay, he didn’t answer,” I tell her when I switch back over, and let my head fall back against the seat. There is no way in hell I’ll be able to get out to his place and back again in time for my meeting. If he’s passed out in a drunken stupor, I am going to kill him. “Let me move some stuff around and I’ll drive up there.”
“Thank you, honey.”
“No problem, Mom.”
“Let me know as soon as you hear something, okay? And there’s a gate, so I’ll text you the code.”
“Will do,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face.
• • •
I’m able to move my meeting to later in the day with only minimal trouble. Hours away, plenty of time.
Malibu is about thirty miles west of Beverly Hills; it takes an hour to get there. Most of the drive I’m making phone calls and deciding how I’m going to kill my brother if I show up and he’s not already dead.
I point my car onto Latigo Canyon, a two-lane road through chaparral-covered hills and steep, wooded canyons, with a view of the ocean along every turn. The houses are huge and spread wide up here, most of them hidden from view by tall fences and towering trees.
On Jonah’s street I stop to enter the security code into an illuminated keypad. An intricate metal gate opens up onto a long, winding driveway, and at the top of the hill sits the terra-cotta-tiled house. I’d forgotten how ostentatiously huge his place is. Two stories wrapped in white stucco, it has to be at least five thousand square feet. My apartment and my parking space could fit into his front room alone.
I spot the front of Jonah’s black Range Rover around the corner in front of the garage. He’d really better be dead.
The ocean wind whips at my hair and my clothes as I climb out of my car. A wide walkway leads up to a set of stained-concrete stairs and a massive double door, and I knock twice, turning to look around while I wait. Now that I’m closer, the yard looks a little more unkempt than I’d expect. A set of urns filled with dying flowers border a lawn that could definitely stand to be cut. It’s quiet, too. It’s still early, but not that early. Last time I came, there was music playing from the back near the pool and signs of life everywhere. People coming and going and multiple cars. A yard crew, a pool man, a housekeeper. This time, I don’t hear anything coming from inside the house.
It might just be my mom’s overreaction gene rearing its head, but anxiety gnaws at me, unease prickling along my skin.
I’m heading back to my car to call . . . I don’t know—someone—when the door opens behind me. The guy is shorter than Jonah, but fit and tanned in a way that one becomes from spending a lot of time outside. His shorts-only outfit is just one indicator of his cool casualness.
