JASON STARR - Panic Attack

Adam called Grace Williams up, ready to give her hell. Of course he got her voice mail, and he left a message. “This is Adam Bloom. If you don’t take that bullshit off your site I’m gonna sue you and your fucking magazine!”

He must’ve been screaming into the phone, because Lauren rushed into his office, asking, “Is everything okay?”

“Just leave me alone!” he yelled, and when she left he picked up his phone’s handset and flung it across the room. It hit the filing cabinet, and part of it broke off.

This day was rapidly turning into the day from hell. And to think, he’d been convinced he was going to be the next Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.

He didn’t hear from Grace, and the story was still online. No big surprise there. Why would they care about what he thought?

He rode the subway in rush hour back to Forest Hills. On the crowded R train, he felt like strangers were looking up from their newspapers and noticing him, scrutinizing him. At Northern Boulevard, a group of laughing teenagers got on. Adam didn’t know if they were making fun of him or not, but he felt like they were.

Adam decided there was nothing he could do to control what other people thought. If the press wanted to keep attacking him, and the public wanted to keep judging him, that was beyond his control.

In Forest Hills, he stopped at Duane Reade and picked up some stuff for the house- toilet paper, paper towels, dishwashing liquid- and then he went to the wine store around the corner and bought a bottle of $12.99 merlot, figuring, Why not splurge? He felt bad for arguing so much with Dana over the last couple of days, and he was looking forward to having a nice, relaxing evening at home. Maybe they’d order in some Chinese, have a couple of glasses of wine, and then make love. He had so much going for him in his life, and he wanted to start appreciating what he had instead of constantly wanting more. He didn’t need to be hailed as a local hero and be the basis of a Russell Crowe biopic in order to be happy.

When Adam turned onto his block in Forest Hills Gardens, it was starting to get dark. There were several teenagers playing touch football in the street, and as Adam got closer he recognized a few of them- Jeremy Ross, Justin Green, Brian Zimmerman. It brought back memories of when he was their age and used to play football on the street with his friends, not going inside until it was pitch dark.

“Hey, right here,” Adam said, and Jeremy tossed him the ball. Then Adam said to Brian, “Okay, go deep.”

Brian sprinted down the block, and Adam faded back and shouted, “To win the Super Bowl!” and then unloaded a bomb. Well, he tried to. The wobbly ball bounced off the windshield of a car about twenty feet in front of Brian.

“Next time,” Adam said, smiling, and headed up the walkway to his front door. When he went in he announced, “I’m home!” Then he saw the piece of paper on the floor. It was plain white, eight and a half by eleven, folded in half. He opened it and saw, written in Magic Marker in block letters:

YOU THINK YOU’RE SOME KIND OF HERO, HUH? YOU THINK YOU’RE A BIG SHOT. I’M GONNA MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN, YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKING SON OF A BITCH.

He went into the living room and saw Dana watching TV. Her feet were on the ottoman, a throw covering her legs. She looked very tired, maybe depressed.

“Did you see the note on the floor?” he asked.

She was slow to respond. Eventually, in a monotone, she said, “Note?”

He handed her the paper, watched her growing concern as she read it.

“I think we have a situation here,” he said.

Marissa’s goal for the foreseeable future was to spend as little time with her parents as possible. It was getting to the point where it was hard to be around them, even to be in the same house with them. It was bad enough with their arguing, but now her father was getting on her case because she went to a happy hour with Hillary? What, now she wasn’t allowed to hang out with her friends? What was he going to do next, lock her in a tower like Rapunzel? Oh, and how about her mom having an affair with Tony the trainer, of all people? It explained why her mom had been acting so uptight and distracted lately. If it wasn’t so annoying it would’ve been funny, hilarious actually, that her parents were always telling her how she had to grow up, get her life together, when she felt like she was the adult and they were the kids.

In the morning, after Marissa checked out her friends’ blogs and MySpace and Facebook pages, she posted an entry on her own blog entitled just when i thought things couldn’t possibly get any more fucked up. She wrote about Gabriela’s murder and how yesterday had officially been the worst day of her life. She was in a very nihilistic mood and ended with I’m so fucking sick of this stupid fucking world and I just don’t give a fucking shit about fucking anything anymore. She read the entry twice- she thought it was one of her best ever; maybe she should’ve majored in creative writing- then posted it and went downstairs. She brewed some coffee and was pouring a cup when her mom came in and said, “Dad got bumped.”

“Huh?” She had no idea what her mother was talking about. She also had no idea why her mom was wearing her robe and had no makeup on at- what?- one in the afternoon.

“He was supposed to be on Good Day New York this morning, but I fastforwarded through the show and he wasn’t on. They must’ve bumped him.”

“Oh,” Marissa said, surprised her mom cared after the way she and her dad had been arguing yesterday.

“If I were you I wouldn’t read the Daily News today. It’s not exactly a flattering portrayal of your father. Expected, I guess, but still not very enjoyable to see in print.”

“Did they say anything bad about me?” Marissa asked. She didn’t really think there would be anything bad; it was just instinctive insecurity coming out.

“They mention us,” her mom said, “but no, nothing bad.”

“Thank God,” Marissa said, then added, “That sucks for Dad, though.” She stood at the counter, sipping her coffee, trying to wake up. Her mother, meanwhile, started scrubbing the stove with a Lysol Wipe. “So,” Marissa asked, “are you feeling okay today?”

“I’m fine,” her mom said. “Why?”

“You didn’t get dressed yet.”

Her mom continued scrubbing, then finally said, “I have no place to go.”

What was going on now? Was her mom depressed? Marissa was tempted to blurt out, What’s wrong, Ma, boyfriend trouble? She managed to keep this to herself but couldn’t help smirking.

“What’s so funny?” her mom asked.

“Nothing,” Marissa said. “Why?”

Her mom gave her a look, then continued scrubbing- too hard, like she was trying to sand a piece of wood. Finally, maybe to herself, she said, “We have to find a new maid.”

Marissa had been trying not to think about Gabriela; it was too sad. “Is there anything new about that?” she asked.

“No,” her mom said, and she finally stopped scrubbing and dropped the wipe into the garbage. “But can you believe her sister called and asked me if we’d pay to have the body shipped to South America?”

“What did you say?”

“She was so upset, I didn’t want to be rude. I said I’d have to discuss it with my husband.”

“That was nice of you, I guess. I mean, we still don’t know for sure Gabriela had anything to do with the robbery, right?”

“Oh, come on, you sound like Dad now. She was dating that guy Sanchez, for God’s sake.”

She didn’t know what was up with her mom’s attitude, why she was acting so irritable. She wondered if it had to do with her affair. Maybe she was feeling guilty or something.