Page 25 of Melt With You

Mica leaned over Van to talk to Dori. ‘He’s already started,’ she said with a knowing smile.

‘Started?’

‘He took X an hour or so ago. So he’s feeling pretty happy.’

Van definitely did look happy. When she settled in a little more comfortably, he wrapped one arm around her, pulling her close.

Dori had never done Ecstasy, or anything much at all in the mind-altering department. Liquor didn’t scare her the way drugs did. She’d seen too many friends wind up in rehab, or worse, to want to follow along. But now look at her. She watched, mesmerized, as Bette lit a joint in the front seat and passed it back to Mica. She’d known that there was partying behind the scenes at the beauty supply. Yet she’d never guessed exactly what that meant. Pot, coke, X? Apparently, at least two out of three, and the night was young.

Not that Dori was a prude. But she’d moved to NY near the end of the coke phase. Most of her friends had wild stories to tell, tales that involved fish bowls filled with the expensive white powder, but few felt the need to continue the lifestyle. And yet here she was, in the center of the me decade, where extravagance was the style, where excess reigned king.

‘You smoke?’ Mica asked, passing the joint toward her.

Dori shrugged and shook her head at the same time, watching as Van hijacked the tightly-wrapped joint and took a hit. He was deviously, almost dangerously handsome, wasn’t he? Dori thought of her night with Luke, of the bitterness that seemed to have overwhelmed him. The sadness she saw in his eyes that he didn’t seem able to erase. Watching him drink was massively different than this. All of the people in the car seemed happy already and simply interested in becoming more so as the evening progressed.

When Dori didn’t immediately reach for the joint, Van took another hit and handed it over to Bette. Then he gripped Dori by the back of her hair and brought her in for a kiss, exhaling the fragrant smoke into her mouth. She fought the cough that welled up inside of her, breathing in deeply in spite of herself and feeling dizzy at the flood of emotions the scent aroused within her.

Yes, she’d smoked before. But it had been years. The people she hung around with now had a whole new circle of favorite drugs. Xanax. Valium. Percocet. All of her clients were on various meds, and all of the meds came in little amber-hued prescription bottles. Nobody was into street drugs any more.

‘Good stuff,’ Bette said from the front seat. ‘Isn’t it?’

Gael added, ‘Only the best for the best ladies.’

Where was Will? Dori wondered again. Will was Bette’s boyfriend. Shouldn’t he be in the car, too?

She turned now to watch the scenery pass. They were on the 280 to San Francisco, a peaceful journey, so different from the road clutter of the 101. Dori watched as they passed other cars, focusing on the styles, thinking about the cars of the future. She didn’t own one in Manhattan. There was no need. But what passed for a luxury vehicle now – the mammoth SUVs – were all missing from the 80s landscape. And if she mentioned a Hummer to the audience in Gael’s Mercedes, she was pretty sure everyone in the car would think she was talking about a blow job and not a Humvee.

She whipped her head around as a car streaked by in the opposite direction.

Christ, was that a DeLorean?

A sound disturbed her thoughts, and she watched as Bette flipped up the handset between the two front seats and pulled out a phone receiver. Dori bit down on a laugh. The height of fashion. A car phone. Complete with a long curly cord like that on a normal land-locked telephone. She hadn’t seen – or even thought of – one of these in years. What would Gael think if she whipped out her Blackberry, or passed him her high-tech razor phone in cherry (but also available in grape and blueberry colors), with the ability to show movies, to take pictures, to send email, to turn into a stereo? The word ‘text’ as a verb hadn’t even been coined yet, had it? Or ‘Skype’ or ‘eBay.’ And the only spam anyone in this world would understand was the kind canned by Hormel. She knew that her phone would be useless here, or her brand new friends would think it was a toy and that she was a show-off.

Was it the pot making her feel giddy?

Suddenly, Dori felt as if she’d gone back in time, not to the 80s, but to the land of the dinosaurs. And yet wasn’t it a bit freeing not to be reachable at all moments? Nobody could get her. Nobody knew where she was. When had that last happened to her? She was always on call in some way or another. First by beeper when she was working on a movie, then by cell phone. Something in her purse always seemed to be making a noise or vibrating.

She sighed and settled back in the seat, realizing as she did so that Van had taken her movements as an invitation. He pulled her closer to his body, and she let him. She wondered what he thought of her, whether he believed she was easy since they’d already slept together. And then she wondered why he was paying attention to her at all. What was he thinking? Notch an older woman on his belt? She didn’t actually feel older. That was the strangest part of all. Somewhere along the line, she’d managed to pretend to be an adult. But still, when she categorized her emotional state, she was always at that naïve teen level. Easily surprised.

Had it taken a time slip to show Dori how to let down her guard? That thought flickered through her mind. Maybe she’d had to go back to the 1980s in order to learn to relax. Or maybe that was just the marijuana talking. But there had to be something good about being trapped in the 80s, right?

Van’s hand began to stroke her arm, and she cuddled against him. Was Mica doing the same on his left side? Must have been, because when Bette turned around to offer her flask once more, she started to laugh.

‘You look like you’re in fucking heaven,’ she said, grinning at Van.

‘Not quite,’ he said, pulling even tighter around Dori’s waist. ‘But close, man. I’m close.’

‘Who was on the phone?’ Mica asked.

‘Nina,’ Bette sighed. ‘She’s bringing some friends.’

Dori heard the words, but couldn’t pay attention. Because Van had turned her toward him once more, and was kissing her again, this time without the pot smoke, and she felt herself lost for a moment. Loving his mouth on hers. Not caring that she was in a car filled with people. Or that she’d lost twenty years. Or that she had no way to get back home. For as long as the kiss lasted, none of those things mattered.

They broke apart at the catcalls from the front seat. Bette had turned around, facing them, watching with interest. Dori realized that her boss wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and that shocked her. Shocked her more than watching Bette smoke and drink in the car. Everyone in the future – wow, did that feel weird to say, even internally – but everyone she knew wore seatbelts. Slipping one on was an automatic reflex. Get in the car, put on your belt. Dori couldn’t even back out of a driveway without having her belt in place.

But she bit her tongue, didn’t say a word to Bette, because her boss was staring at her in such an odd way. Dori suddenly felt naked, as if Bette knew, as if she’d been recognized, either from the alley or from the 80s. She held her breath, waiting for Bette to call her by her real name, before realizing the woman was just buzzed. Not really focused on Dori at all. Not focused on anything. Bette shook her head and grinned.

‘What did I say?’ she reminded Dori with a stage-type wink. ‘You know, earlier, at the store.’

---