Page 19 of Goode Vibrations
He glanced out the window at the sun, which was to our left and behind us a bit. “North, maybe? I don’t know. I’ve not really been paying super close attention, to be honest. I just sorta go where the road goes until I find a new road that looks like more fun driving.”
I perused the options—ahead, more open highway, cow pastures and cornfields and silos; left, more of the same; to the right, a sign cautioning that the road became winding, and the promise of something like hills. “I’d say right. No idea where it’ll take us, but it looks more interesting.”
Errol nodded. “Woman after my own heart, you are. Exactly what I’d pick.”
God, that fucking accent. Could it get any hotter? If I were to be wearing underwear under this skirt, that accent would make them all wet. I wasn’t, though, so I just got all squishy and warm between my thighs every time he spoke.
He turned right, and within a mile we were winding through a forest of rolling hills, sunlight dappling us in staccato flashes of brilliance.
“You never finished your story,” he said, smirking at me. “Don’t think I forgot. The one about the portrait.”
I winced. “I had hoped you’d forgotten.”
“Not even almost.”
“Fine. But your story had better be seriously embarrassing, if I’m telling you this.”
“Oh, it is. And it ain’t the only one. There’s the time I spent two weeks in a Malaysian jail over a situation involving a prostitute, a poor translation, and me being a right cad sometimes.”
She blinked. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”
“All’s I can say is, it’s not what you think, which is why I landed in jail.” He chuckled. “I’d have to be a mite more pissed to tellthatstory, though.”
“Pissed meaning drunk?”
“Yeah, ’xactly.” He jerked a thumb behind us. “There’s a little white chilly bin back there with cold drinks in it, if you’re thirsty. And one of the cabinets up top has snacks in it, nuts and crisps and the like. Help yourself.”
I unbuckled and moved carefully to the rear of the van, found the cooler and fished two bottles of water out of it—it was more water than ice at that point, but it kept the bottles chilled. In the cabinet I found a box of prepackaged mixed nuts, and brought some of those forward as well.
“What was it you called it? A chilly bin?”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, chilly bin. Cooler bin, if you like. It’s what it is, ain’t it, a bin that keeps things chilled?”
“Well, yeah. It’s just funny to me for some reason.”
“What would you call it? Acooler?” He faked an American accent, making the final -er syllable exaggeratedly pronounced.
“I mean, it’s a Yeti. If you have a Yeti, you call it a Yeti.”
“You Americans are weird, bro. Who gives a shit what brand it is? It’s a chilly bin, just call it what it is.” He twisted the top off his water and sipped at it. “Now. Story time. Embarrass yourself, if you please.”
I popped a salted almond into my mouth. “Well.” I chewed, swallowed, washed it down, and continued my story. “There was this guy in the class with me.”
“Ahh, now we come to it.”
I snickered. “You have no clue. Just wait. But yes, like all good embarrassing stories, it was brought on by my own thirst. His name was Teague, and he was from this super-wealthy Upper West Side family, and he literally could have walked off of the set of a Hollywood teen rom-com as the pretty asshole villain. He was actually a nice guy, though, and a crazy good painter. His work with chiaroscuro was damn near genius, but he couldn’t do hands for shit. Anyway. I had a stupid crush on him, as in I’d maneuvered myself into that particular track not entirely for him, but partially. And I had it on good authority that he was just over a breakup, so I figured it would be a good time to make my move. We agreed he’d sit for me first, and since I didn’t have a swanky penthouse condo like he did, I had to reserve a studio at the college. My portrait of Teague was in the style of the grand old portraits of kings and generals, I had him wearing a full French army uniform from the Napoleonic Wars era, with his hand in his shirt and a big ol’ codpiece and the cavalry sword and all that. It was so fucking cool. Then it was my turn to pose for him. He’d said he hadn’t decided what he wanted to do, so just come ready for anything.”
“Now comes the good part, yeah?”
“Yeah, oh yeah. So I take an Uber to his condo, which was probably worth triple the house I grew up in, in Connecticut. Big, open concept, super modern, all black and white and stainless steel, couches worth more than cars, the works.”
“Sounds hideous.”
I laughed. “Honestly, it was. But it screamed money, which was the point.”
“I knew a guy from Dubai,” Errol said. “Family was worth billions. He said something I’ll never forget—if you’ve got to talk, walk, dress, act, and drive like you’ve got money, then you don’t haverealmoney. He had a garage chockablock with supercars, like a quarter-mil minimum for the cheapest one. And his condo was a penthouse, and his clothes were nice, but if you didn’tknowhe was worth several fortunes, you wouldn’t know. Screaming ‘I’ve got mad money’ just means you’re only rich enough to fake it.”
I thought about that. “You know, that sounds about right. His family had enough to own penthouses in New York, which cost enough that they had pretty serious money, but not billions. That’s a different level.” I waved a hand. “It impressed me, is the point. Growing up, we weren’t poor, not by a long shot, but not, like,rich, not on Teague’s level, and certainly not your Dubai friend’s level. We were comfortable and certainly privileged. But this condo had my jaw dropping. You could see most of Central Park from it, which is a pretty enviable thing. So I get there, and he’s got a whole, like, wing of his condo set up as a studio, with custom ventilation, an industrial canvas stretcher…and this whole huge cyc setup like he was about to film an ad for, like, Apple or something.”