Joe Schreiber - Pretty Lethal

High above us, seagulls squeaked and wheeled in the gunmetal sky, sounding lost and far away.

Paula hugged herself and shivered. ‘It’s chilly.’

‘Here.’ I took off my Columbia sweatshirt and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘Better?’

‘Always the gentleman.’ She smiled and looked down at the beach, her cell phone still clutched in her hand from the call that she’d just finished. ‘So, do you want to hear the big news?’

‘I thought you’d never tell me.’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

‘Officially asking.’

‘I just got off the phone with Armitage . . . and he wants to book Inchworm . . .’ she paused, making me wait an extra split-second . . . ‘for the whole tour.’

‘Europe?’

‘Twelve cities in eighteen days.’

‘No way!’ I laughed, and she grabbed me, and I hugged her, lifting her up off her feet and spinning her around. ‘Paula, that’s unbelievable.’

‘I know!’ Her smile had blossomed into a full-out grin, and I looked at all eleven of the sun freckles across the bridge of her nose. I’d counted them when we were waiting in line for one of the rides at Six Flags last month.

‘How did that happen?’

‘I told you the new songs were great, Perry. Armitage heard your demo and flipped.’ Now she was clutching my hands, bouncing up and down on her tiptoes with excitement. Her toenails were painted a very dark shade of plum, almost black, and they looked great against the sand, ten little black keys, like the kind you use to play ragtime. ‘He’s booking you guys on a twelve-city tour, starting in London on the twenty-ninth, then Venice, Paris, Madrid . . .’ Paula got out her phone, clicking up the screen. ‘I’ve got all the dates here.’

‘This is amazing,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to see Europe with you.’

She sighed softly, and her shoulders sagged a little. ‘I wish.’

‘Wait – you’re not coming?’

‘Armitage needs me here in New York. And I’ve got to be back in the studio at the beginning of December. Moby’s recording a new album in L.A., and . . .’ She saw my expression. ‘Hey, maybe I can sneak out to Paris for a weekend.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Perry, this is a huge step for you guys. If this works out . . .’

I smiled. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘You made this happen.’

‘Well, that’s sweet of you to say.’ Her blue eyes sparkled, appearing and disappearing as her hair blew in front of her face. She’d spent most of the summer in L.A. and somehow held on to her tan into the Fall, so that her blond hair looked even blonder by comparison. ‘But we all know who really deserves the credit.’

‘Stop it.’

‘You wrote all of those new songs, Perry.’

‘Norrie and I wrote them together.’

‘Then you and Norrie are the next Lennon and McCartney,’ she said. ‘And now the entire European Union is going to find that out for themselves.’

‘This is amazing.’

‘I know.’ She frowned a little, seeing the hint of apprehension in my eyes. ‘What?’

‘Nothing – it’s just great news.’

‘Stormaire . . .’

I smiled. ‘I just wish you could go with me, that’s all.’

‘You’re adorable.’ She kissed me again, and the kiss lingered this time, her mouth warm and soft against mine, her hair tickling my ears.

‘I know.’

She stood there looking at me. We’d been dating for less than three months, but I’d told her everything, and she could read me like a book.

‘Europe’s a big continent, Perry.’

‘I know.’

‘You don’t even know if she’s there.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s not like you’re going to run into her.’

‘I never said – ’

‘You didn’t have to.’

‘I wasn’t even thinking it.’

‘There’s a reason why I’m not sending you guys to Lithuania,’ Paula said, and squeezed my hand. ‘Come on. I’m cold. Let’s walk.’

Paula and I had met back in the beginning of August, at a party in Park Slope, not long after I’d seen Gobi for the last time on the steps at Columbia. It turned out that I didn’t really know a lot of people at the party, one of those friend-of-a-friend-who-wasn’t-really-a-friend type of things. Someone kept playing old Elton John tracks on the iPod docking station, and I was in the process of saying my goodbyes when a voice I’d never heard before said, ‘Hey.’

That was how she’d started out, as a voice over my shoulder, sounding raspy and unfamiliar and amused. ‘You’re that guy,’ the voice said.

I turned around to look at her, my brain immediately struggling to crunch the numbers. Laid out on the chalkboard, it would’ve gone something like this:

(blond hair) + (blue eyes) x (killer body) = don’t even try

Yet here was this woman, a little older than I was and a whole lot hotter, not only looking at me but actually seeming interested.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I saw your picture in the Post, ’ she said. ‘You’re Perry Stormaire, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re the guy whose house got blown up.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘That was insane.’

‘Yes,’ I said, because I never know what to say in these situations. She was referring to what happened on the night of my senior prom, three months before, when the Lithuanian foreign exchange that had been living in our house – a girl named Gobija Zaksauskas – turned out to be an assassin with a hit list of names. With Gobi’s gun to my head, we’d spent the night careening around New York City in my father’s Jaguar while she killed her targets one by one, ending with my house getting blown up. Describing the night as ‘insane’ could arguably be considered an insult to the mentally ill.

‘Your family was all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they never found that woman’s body?’

‘Destroyed in the fire,’ I said. ‘That’s what they think, anyway.’

‘Wow.’ We stood there for a moment, and she seemed to realize that she hadn’t introduced herself. ‘I’m Paula Daniels.’

She held out her hand, and I shook it in that smiling, somewhat awkward way that people shake hands when they’re flirting, and it occurred to me that that’s what we were doing. When a couple of people stepped past us on their way through the door, Paula edged a little closer, her bare shoulder brushing against my arm, and the party noise seemed to fade way down in the mix so it was as if just the two of us were standing there talking to each other. Something happened right then. It was that weightless moment when you stop worrying about riding the bike and just starting riding it.

‘Can I ask you a personal question?’ she said.

‘Sure.’

‘Was it all true?’

‘Are you kidding?’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have made that stuff up.’

‘I had a feeling.’ A tiny smile touched the corner of her lips and echoed in her eyes with a shimmer that I could almost hear, like the soft chime of an incoming text message. ‘I pride myself on my ability to separate truth and bullshit.’

‘That’s a rare talent,’ I said.

‘Not as marketable as it used to be.’

‘Maybe you should be a detective.’

She laughed an easy, natural laugh. ‘I bet you get asked that a lot.’

‘What?’

‘You know – fact or fiction.’

‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘It’s weird, but most people don’t really seem to care.’