Page 100 of The Cruiser
ChapterThirty-Five
Whoever said being talkedabout is better than not being talked about must be a narcissistic fool. Or a sadist. In any event, they have never spent a Friday morning watching their life blow up on a laptop screen from the comfort of their home office. To remain sane, I’ve stopped Googling my name. Turned off commenting on my Instagram account. My focus now is on the grim client correspondence clogging up my email inbox.
It’s been a pleasure working with you, but in the light of recent circumstances…
Thank you for all your hard work. We’ve decided to pivot with our PR strategies…
We’ve enjoyed our working relationship and best of luck…
More surprising is a note from Perla, who must’ve tapped Sevruga’s website for my email.
I hope not so bad for you. Here is crazy. You two big news. Like BIG news. Ha, ha. Keep touch, Perla.
I could live out the rest of my days in here, I think. Shuffle around in fuzzy slippers, surviving on takeout. It’s easy enough to disappear in a city of thirty-two million people. Morgan’s not so lucky. On a good day, Monaco’s population flirts with forty thousand. If it’s as nuts as Perla says, Morgan’s no doubt captive in his apartment. Or he’s yanked Liberté out of maintenance and is speeding toward Vietnam. I keep checking for an email from him, but there’s nothing.
By the time four p.m. rolls around, I’m done. Eyes burnt from screen time and still in my pajamas, I slam another espresso shot to stay awake. June and Flynn arrive shortly for the debrief, and I’m gearing up for how I’m going to start. We all joked about it, me having a fling. Never did I guess it would end up being a Code Red. Even my sloppiest affairs at Stanford ended better than this.
Flynn arrives first with steaming hot pho and June (late, of course) with enough bottles of Cabernet for all of us to black out. They circle the wagons around me and blow by blow, I give them the whole enchilada.
Minus a few spicy peppers.
June, looking a bit ragged from overwork but rocking a skin-tight Alexander McQueen dress, tries to make sense of all the pieces. “Let’s start at the beginning, that first night in LA. He admits to propositioning you, but also claims wanting PR wasn’t a total ruse?”
“That’s what he said, but who knows.” With no appetite for rich broth and slippery noodles, I set my bowl down and cozy into the couch corner. We’re camped out in the living room, gas fireplace blazing.
“Not to play devil’s advocate,” Flynn says, even though it’s what she does. All the time. “How many guys did we talk about sleeping with? Long before we actually did.”
June flashes a careful look at me. “True. That in itself isn’t a crime.”
“Yes, but we never misrepresented our intentions in the process,” I add, prickling just a little. Whose side are they on?
Flynn fills her wineglass, emptying bottle number one. She’s about to embark on a two-month speaking tour and I notice she’s drinking more. It might have to do with the stalker she acquired after last year’s tour. He eventually backed off, although the residue of the situation hasn’t faded away so easily for her.
“Has Morgan said anything else since you left?” she asks. “Sounds like you stomped outta there without hearing him out.”
Trust Flynn to turn my pity party into a self-reflection session. And she does it so smoothly. Never assume a headful of wild curls means there’s chaos in her brain. She is ruthlessly efficient in uncovering the lies we tell ourselves.
“No,” I say. “But I blocked his number, so even if he did reach out…”
I glance at June, knowing she’ll sympathize. When it comes to relationship blowups, she’s at the top of the podium. Raising ten million dollars? Easy. Intimacy with men? Better odds buying a lottery ticket. She has a heart of gold but hasn’t found the right guy with the tools to mine it.
“Well,” she says, drawing out the word. “You’re always saying there are two sides to every story. Maybe you need to hear his.”
The lame thing is, I thought the same thing last night. Now, with some distance, two things are clear. Olivier is one hundred percent a giant shit, and Renan is a mafia goon funneling bitter teenage trauma into bloodthirsty adult drama. Those two losers aside, the ultimate question still hangs: did Morgan really need PR? He was so disinterested in what I had to say, and he and Olivier talking about me beforehand shades everything, no matter what my heart says.
“Sure. Fine,” I say. “I’m willing to listen. If I’m important enough to him, he can make the first move.” My flippant, superior tone doesn’t quite match the purple pajamas and Yankees ballcap and the hole in my heart, but hell if I care.
The trouble is, I do.
And it’s written all over my face.
Flynn’s inevitable next probing question gets preempted by my ringing phone. It’s TQ. We haven’t spoken live all day.
I force myself to sound breezy. “Hi. How’s it going.”
“Fine,” he says. “Just tidying up after World War Three.”
But there’s something else. He wouldn’t call otherwise. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
