Esme and the Money Grab: (A Very Dark Romantic Comedy) Read online

  I didn’t want her to turn around. I didn’t want to see how Serge had lied to me by saying “she was a very pretty girl.” I knew it would be an inconceivably deceptive understatement and his obsession with her was not brotherly. I seethed and it was only going to get to get worse.

  They stopped walking. He dropped her hand and went to a garden on the side road and picked a Gerber Daisy. I worried that he would see me, because I no longer wanted that to happen. But no worry, nothing could distract him from Zelda.

  He walked to her holding the flower in his hand. The two of them stood in profile. It wasn’t until that moment when I noticed what they were wearing. She wore a long white Victorian dress that was transparent in the sun, showing her camisole and boy-cut shorts like Cara had been wearing a few days before. For a slim body she had full breasts. I rolled my eyes to no one not believing that a girl like this existed in the world.

  Serge for some reason, and I had never seen him dress like this before, was wearing slim white shorts, not baggy ones that the boys of that time preferred and a white short sleeved button down shirt. The two of them looked that stepped out of a Jazz Age photograph.

  He was so dark, with his coffee colored hair and deep olive skin, and her so purely white. They didn’t look alike but they had an aura of twins as they stood together in the middle of the road.

  “What’s lovelier, Zelda, you or the flower?” He smiled at her, half joking, half serious.

  I almost vomited in the road.

  “Serge…” She lowered her head and looked up at him.

  Ridiculous, I could not believe what I was watching take place.

  He leaned in to kiss her. I didn’t think I was going to survive but it was just a kiss on the cheek. I could see from where I stood based on the pucker of Zelda’s lips that it hurt her even worse than myself.

  Serge was torturing her. I almost laughed. He could be so perceptive of others but so oblivious to what went on in his own life.

  He took her hand in his again and they walked down the road. All I could hear was his voice talking non-stop. He sounded excited. I thought he was probably talking about his project. Whatever it was, she was his captive audience staring at him while he led her home.

  They turned into her driveway. I hadn’t realized the house was hers. Serge had never pointed it out before. It was easily the most glamorous of the stately homes on the road. Of course the princess lived in a castle. Where else could she possibly live?

  I hated her, and I wasn’t too fond of Serge anymore either.

  An excerpt from A Girl's Story by Paloma Meir

  I must have been nine. She sat on her school bus seat alone, staring out the window. Her hair was white, the sun lighting it up, a sleep bump in the back. Her dark eyes took up half of her face. She was probably a year younger than me, and one of the last girls to be wearing a dress to school. The dress was red with tiny white flowers and a yoked top. She would have surprised I knew what a yoke was, but I did. The dress was short enough to show her pale knobby knees. Black patent leather shoes on her feet when the other girls wore sneakers.

  She was always alone. She would eat lunch at the cafeteria tables, the last one on the bench, eating her sandwich, picking out what she didn’t like and putting it in her napkin to throw away later. She never looked up and nobody ever spoke to her.

  I wondered what she thought about? What did she see as she stared out the bus window? I wanted to know. I played kickball with my friends after lunch and there she would sit on the bench not far from me reading a picture book with frogs on the cover. She never looked around, or noticed our game. Sometimes the balls would come dangerously close to her head. She would shift her position; that was it. No yelling out to be more careful, nothing like that.

  I always had lots of friends, everybody did. It was easy. We all liked the same things, kickball, throwing food at each other, wrestling. Not her though, always alone. I wondered how she could stand it. I tried one day to not talk to anyone, to sit silently away from others. I lasted maybe an hour.

  I started to sit next to her on the bus. She never noticed. Sometimes if her book bag or lunch was on the seat she would move it onto her lap. That was it though. Her eyes out the window, what did she see? I looked out the window with her.

  The trees, was she looking at the trees? I saw the them through her eyes. The winding branches, the knotty stumps. The shapes, was she looking at the shapes? Was it the colors? Sitting next to her I saw the colors changed over the days.

  My knees would knock into hers when the bus would run over bump. She would move them away from mine, still not seeing who was sitting next to her. My friends would talk over their seats to me, the noise of our conversations didn’t disturb her peace, but I ignored them anyway on the drive to school telling them I was sleepy. I wanted her to have her quiet time even though she had far too much of it.

  I don’t know why it happened, but she started dressing like the other girls, the uniform of jean and t-shirts. She still wore her shiny black shoes, but I knew that would change soon. I knew I would miss them when they were gone. Her white hair grew in fuller, the sleep bump not being able to form in the new thickness. I missed her knobby white knees.

  The girls on the bus, not all of them, more the leaders of the girls, the girls in my grade I had known my whole life, started picking on her. I didn’t quite get it at first. It started off slowly, and she didn’t turn around to acknowledge them, which probably egged them on. I wanted to stop them from bothering this deer of a girl. A slight figure who could be knocked down by a strong wind. I knew it wasn’t my battle. This was the girl battle; to jump in would have made it worse.

  They seemed to think she was gay, a homo in their words. We had all been taught tolerance, their choice of words were ugly. She was a wisp of a thing. I wondered if she understood what they were saying. I wondered if she even heard them. They would lose interest after a few minutes of their taunts. I was relieved.

  I don’t know what happened, and I never asked her when I got to know her and love her but one day it escalated badly. The girls screamed “lesbo” out the window as she was getting on the bus. Her tiny doe eyed face looked up to the source of the taunts, a look of terror in her wide eyes as if hearing their ugliness for the first time. Her eyes met mine for a moment without any recognition of having ever seen me before.

  She took off up the street running with the speed of a deer she looked so much like. The driver got off the bus and went after her. She was tiny. It must have alarmed him having her run off like that. She wasn’t the kind of girl you want going off alone.

  In the confusion of the moment, I jumped off the bus and hid behind a bush, waited for the driver to get back on and drive off. It felt like forever. I worried I would lose track of her. I had to make sure she got home okay or wherever she was going. Finally the driver got back on the bus and drove off.

  I ran up the street in her direction. I didn’t see her. I stopped at what I thought was her house. I didn’t think she would have gone back home. I didn’t know why I thought this but I was sure about it. I looked up at the trees thinking maybe she climbed up to the top. Not there, I ran up the street. She was fast, but I was faster. I caught sight of her rounding the bend of the sharp turn on our canyon road. Her sneakers were brand new, white, they glowed in the morning fog. I thought of yelling after her. I didn’t knowing if that would scare her more. I stopped running, slowing my pace to a quick walk, not wanting to step on anything that would make a noise. At the top of the street I saw her looking into the window of a house that appeared abandoned. Apparently not, she ran from the window and crossed the street to another house that looked vacant.

  She looked through the window, and I guess decided the house was empty. Around the back she ran to an overgrown ivy-covered gate and climbed over it with a speed and dexterity I could never hope for, the benefit of being a string of a girl. I waited until she had gone over and I couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore before following
her. I climbed over as quietly as possible not wanting to drive her further away. I wondered what I would say when and if I ever caught up with her.

  I tiptoed down the tile-covered path to an open and unruly backyard overlooking the deep canyon. She sat in the center, her book bag and lunch spread out around her, staring off into the canyon, past the trees. Silent as she always was. I watched, for how long I don’t know. Eventually she lay down on the overgrown grass and took a nap. I walked over to her. She was asleep, her skin even more pale in the peace of slumber.

  I knew I had to leave. I had to go back home and make up a story about missing the bus and get a ride to school from my parents. I picked a flower, a dandelion, lay it next to her and walked home wondering why I had done this.

  A An excerpt from Overdone (The Loss Reason) by Paloma Meir

  “Danny time to wake–up. I need to go home and change. Will you drive me to the airport? My flight leaves at 4:00.” She stood beside the bed dressed in her clothes from the night before. Her long hair hung in loose waves down her back. I pulled her back down to the bed and kissed her.

  “You don’t need to go back. There are services that will pack up your things and ship them back.” She looked at me with a smile on her face and confusion in her eyes.

  “I’m not coming back Danny. Madrid is my home.” She leaned down to kiss me again. I shook my head away.

  “I’m missing something. What was last night?”

  “A night I will remember forever.” She ran her finger down my chest, still with the smile on her face.

  “You’re staying here Zelda. You told me last night, I don’t know, maybe 100 times that you loved me.” I said with a little more intensity than I meant to use.

  “Of course I love you. I’ll always love you. Love doesn’t die.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on in your head but you love me now. Forget forever. Now.” I took her finger off my chest and held it in my hand. I needed to get her attention, put some sense in her head.

  “Paolo and I are thinking of getting married.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Why would you come here and do this if you were only going to go away and marry him?” I didn’t know if it was from the beer the night before or her insane worldview but I felt nauseous.

  “Paolo and I have an understanding. Don’t be so American.”

  “I am American. How many times have you called me your American boy? By the way Ms. European Princess you grew-up up the street from me. You lived on pizza for half your life. You’re American. How many men do you do this with? Who are you Zelda?” She flinched at the word princess. I was so mad that I didn’t care.

  “I don’t do it. It’s Paolo. Well one time when I went to meet Theodora in Barcelona. I have to tell you the story... You’ll think it’s funny.” Why would she think I would think that’s funny?

  “It’s only Paolo. You mean that old man you’ve been with for the past five years? The man older than your mother? You’ve always lived in your head. Listen to me Zelda. Hear me. Paolo is an asshole who doesn’t respect you.” I banged the wall behind me with the full force of my fist, scaring her for a moment. Again I didn’t care. “Why did you come back to me?”

  “He’s a year younger than my mother. You don’t understand. It’s the way things are done there. I’m sorry. Your mom told me you’re a wild one now. I didn’t think that you would reattach to me. I miss you so much sometimes.” Her eyes filled with tears. I pulled her close to me and hugged her because I fucking loved her.

  “You miss me because you’re meant to be with me.” I kissed her forehead and ran my hand through her tangled hair.

  “We don’t want the same things. I don’t want to live in Malibu. This isn’t my city. We had our time.” I didn’t want to think about what may or may not have been true about what she had said. All I knew was I didn’t want her to go.

  I laid her back to the bed, this time gently and made love to her one last time knowing this was it. If she came back I wouldn’t see her. There was no reason for me to ever go to Spain in my life. There were 47 other countries in Europe if I ever had a desire to travel to that part of the world.

  She was quiet as I said over and over again I loved her and didn’t want to be without her.

  “Can I tell you about Barcelona? Would that be all right? You’ll like the story Danny.” She asked as we lay curled up against one another finished. Her arm warmly stretched across my chest where it belonged.

  “I don’t want to hear about you and another man.”

  “It’s not like that. I mean that’s what happened, but that wasn’t the point.”

  “Why don’t we just lay next to each other and enjoy our last moments together?”

  “No.”

  “I missed your one word answers.”

  “Thank you. I hadn’t seen Theodora in such a long time. She lives in Paris, which isn’t too far away, but our plans never worked out. Her Dad was having a show in Barcelona. We met for a week at the most beautiful hotel overlooking the Marina. We should... never mind. Every morning we went down to the cafe for breakfast and the waiter.”

  “A waiter Zelda? You had sex with a waiter?” I didn’t want to hear another word of her story.

  “Shush where was I? He would stand over me as I ate my breakfast, making sure I liked it, checking that my orange juice was topped off, that kind of thing. On the last morning before I was to go back to Madrid a group of German tourists tried to sit with us. They were very aggressive about it. He kicked them out. I took a good look at him after that, he was a dark version of you. He looked exactly like you Danny,” She sat up with a big smile on her face, excited as if she thought I would be too. “But with brown eyes instead of your beautiful blue.”

  “Please don’t finish your story.”

  “Stop that. I looked at him and I missed you so much. It hurt my heart badly. I hadn’t thought of you in that way in so long.” She sighed and shook her head.

  “After breakfast I handed him my room card and told him my room number. He was up with me within the hour. He was quick and mannish like a bull, nothing like you in the end. That’s my story.”

  “I don’t know why you had to tell me that.” I had an urge to fly into Barcelona, find the waiter, destroy him.

  “It felt like a secret. I don’t want to have any secrets with you.” Squeeze my heart a little tighter next time Zelda. I wrapped my arms tightly around her, forcing my mind to find an angle to keep her with me.

  “Have you ever thought that you had a father complex? Forget about me wanting you to stay. Why go back to that old man? Stay with me.”

  “You just said to forget about you wanting me to stay.” She kissed my chest, running her lips downward. I pulled her up.

  “No. We are not doing that again. You’re making a mistake. You’re only 25. That’s too young to marry anyone.”

  “It’s my birthday today. I’m 26.” She ran her lips down my chest again.

  Eleven years she had been on my mind, in my heart. I wasn’t even going to bother adding all the years I watched her, wanting to be with her. It felt like my entire life.

  “Will you drive me to the airport?” She crawled back up to me and rested her head on my chest.

  “No but I’ll walk you back up to your parents house. My car is up there anyway.” I willed myself to let go of her.

  “You’re walking me up there because your cars is there? I can walk myself, thank you.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Letting go? It wasn’t working.

  “I know I was kidding.” She put her clothes back on, “Time to get up Danny. What are we going to say to your parents if we see them? I feel like a teenager again.”

  “We’ll say good morning. Zelda I don’t want you to go. You’re making a mistake. Stay with me. We’ll figure it out.” Didn’t work at all.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  We made it out of my house and to hers in silence without seeing anyone. />
  “I’ll try to come out more often,” She said as we stood on the doorstep of her parent’s home.

  “Every three years instead of five?” She was breaking me in two.

  “I could come home for the holidays.” She carried on, not getting it at all.

  “Do you hear yourself? What kind of life are you planning? Fly out for your annual Danny fuck? I’m not going to see you again. I don’t understand you. I don’t think you understand yourself. You can’t have it both ways. Nobody can.” I kissed her for what I thought would be the last time.

  “You’re right. I lost my head for a moment. Good-bye Danny.” She closed the door, leaving me alone on her doorstep. I stood for a moment frozen, lost. With a powerful shake of my head, I turned and walked down to my car. I headed down Sunset at lightning speed, turned right on PCH and drove straight up the coast to Marin County to visit my brother.