Chapter 5 #3
“At your age?” he laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.
We’ll talk about it in five years. Until then, you can have a lollipop and a Barbie Band-Aid if you scrape your knee,” he said, and she laughed.
It was magical being with him. And after the party, the moment they walked into his house, before he even switched on the lights, her shimmering silvery dress with the black and silver plumage lay on the white marble floor.
They only made it as far as the sleek white Italian couch in his waiting area, with the subtly lit pool beyond.
Both of them were naked within an instant and her whole body was electrified by his touch.
They began making love on the couch, and when she straddled him he carried her outside to the pool.
She felt as light in his arms as the feathers on the dress she had worn, he slipped naked into the pool with her, and they continued making love in the warm water.
They were hidden from view, and she teased and tormented him in all the ways she had discovered were what he liked best. He came with a shuddering surge and a shout of exquisite agony.
She pulled away afterward and swam away from him, and he followed her to the deep end of the pool, where she perched on a wide step and he took her again.
He fought her for control, and she bewitched him once more.
She was a strong swimmer, and their sensual dance continued as he pulled her deeper underwater, and held her there in his powerful arms. He only released her when she thought her lungs would burst, and she came while gasping for air when she reached the surface, and she took vengeance on him until he begged for mercy.
It was Mickie who won in the end. They were like two beautiful sea creatures in a primal dance that went on long into the night until at last they were spent, and fell asleep on a lounge chair, naked and exquisite in the moonlight.
Billie’s night out was very different from her sister’s. As different as they were.
Jason Bell had an apartment a floor above Billie and Mickie’s.
He came by to pick her up at eight, after Mickie had left for her Cinderella evening with Alex.
Jason drove Billie to the restaurant in his battered Jeep, with the top down, not in a Ferrari.
He was wearing a crisp white shirt, jeans, and loafers, and she was wearing a flowered blouse, white jeans, and sandals, with her dark hair loose down her back. She looked young and pretty and fresh.
The restaurant was crowded and fun. There was an outdoor terrace, where they got a table, and a terrific mariachi band played for the first hour.
Billie loved the music, they drank margaritas, and the food was delicious.
There was a festive atmosphere, and when the band left, Billie and Jason chatted over dinner.
He talked about growing up in New York. His mother was an intellectual property attorney and represented several famous writers, and his father was the head of a well-known, respected publishing house.
Jason had gone to private schools in New York, and was faintly embarrassed to admit that he had had a comfortable, privileged life with loving parents.
He had gone to college on the West Coast to get away from them and have a normal life “without someone ironing my jeans and doing my laundry and solving all my problems for me. After I graduated from UCLA, I went back to New York for grad school, at the Columbia School of Journalism, but I lived in a rat’s nest apartment with two other guys to pay penance for going to my parents’ place in Connecticut on the weekends.
I really like my parents. They’re good people, with good values.
I have a terrific sister, Emily, who’s two years older than I am.
She’s thirty-five, a novelist, and lives in Vermont with a guy I like a lot.
He’s a country doctor, a GP. My sister has had two novels published so far, not big bestsellers yet, but she’s good.
She went to Middlebury and liked it so much she stayed in Vermont, and that’s how she met Thad, Thaddeus MacAdams. His family has been in Vermont for generations.
She loves the country life. I’m a city boy.
I love New York, but I like living out here too.
I moved here three years ago when I turned thirty, and I was momentarily fed up with New York.
I have a love-hate relationship with the city,” he said, and she laughed.
“So what was Iowa like?” he asked her and she thought about it for a minute, thinking about how to describe it.
“I never fit in. Weirdly, neither did my sister. She was too glamorous and wanted the fast life, so she dropped out of high school, got her GED, left, and came out here. But she was the coolest girl at school and the prom queen every year at home in Iowa. And I was the nerdy, geeky one whom all the cool girls made fun of. My best friend all through school was a guy. He’s in the Middle East now, doing counterterrorist missions in the army.
I never see him anymore since he’s been undercover, but we were best friends till he graduated from West Point, and shipped out when he got into military intelligence.
“My mother was the glue that held our family together,” she said wistfully.
“She never went past high school, got married as soon as she graduated, and had me. She didn’t go to college, but she read everything she could lay her hands on.
My father doesn’t believe in education, for anyone, men or women, he thinks it’s all nonsense.
He’s an old-fashioned farmer, owns a small dairy.
My mother died when I was seventeen and my sister was fourteen, and it all fell apart after that.
I was a science nut and got into MIT on a full scholarship.
I graduated in May and now here I am. I wanted to stay in Boston.
I loved it, but I couldn’t find a job, so I came out here to share an apartment with my sister.
She’s modeling, and she just took a job with some weird doctor.
He’s a Harvard-trained plastic surgeon who doesn’t believe in surgery, so he does noninvasive treatments with some sort of miracle drugs and makes people look young again.
I can’t tell if he’s a charlatan or not.
I’m pretty skeptical about that kind of thing.
But he hired my sister to be the symbol of youthful beauty for his medical beauty center.
That kind of thing seems a little too narcissistic for me,” she said.
“Are you and your sister very close?” he asked her, touched by her story and how openly she told it, without dressing it up or hiding anything or making it better than it was.
“No,” she answered him bluntly about Mickie.
“I hated her growing up. She did all the worst stuff, I mean really awful stuff, and blamed me. My father always believed her, so did our teachers and other parents. The only one who didn’t believe her was my mother.
Mickie was a little witch as a kid, and I was always punished for her crimes.
I swore I’d never trust her again, and now here I am, living with her.
But I have to admit, she’s been really nice, and I’m actually enjoying her.
I just don’t trust her completely. But it looks like she’s grown up while I was in college.
She’s young, she’s only nineteen, but she’s always been very advanced for her age.
She was having sex while I was milking the cows and playing with dolls, and she’s three years younger!
” she said, and he laughed at her honesty.
“I think a lot of siblings fight when they’re kids, and are best friends later.
My sister and I had a few nasty rows, mostly because she was older and lorded it over me.
She was taller until I was fifteen, and then I shot up.
Before that, she used to beat me up. But we’re good friends now.
I love her books, and I hope she really makes it big one of these days. ”
“I can’t say I had a normal childhood,” Billie said.
“I’m not even sure what that is. You’d think life on a farm in Iowa would be as ordinary as it gets.
But it isn’t. Maybe some people there are normal.
The ones I knew married too young, were unhappy, got trapped there, cheat on their spouses, and drink too much.
” She thought of her father. “I don’t think they’re happy.
I couldn’t wait to get out, and I wanted an education.
My mother was determined to see that I got one.
In the end, my high school counselor got me into MIT, which was my ticket to freedom.
I couldn’t go back now, except for a visit.
I go home for Christmas every year, but that’s it. ”
“Are you happy?” Jason asked her gently.
She thought about it before she answered.
“Yes, I think I am. L.A. is kind of fun. I like my job. I want a better job when I can get one. But I like going to work every day. I loved MIT and everything I learned there. I got the education I wanted, and one day I’ll get the job, and I’m not trapped on a farm in Iowa.
I can go wherever I want. I’m free. All those mean girls I went to school with, who were such bitches to me because I was smart and I wasn’t cool, are miserable now. So yes, I am happy. Are you?”