A Place of Hiding

“What’re you talking about?”


“I’m talking about what he paid. The price tag. He thought it would be only once. They both thought that. But I was good—a whole lot better than he expected and a whole lot better than I expected—so he came back for more. The original plan was just to get his cherry taken care of, and my brother assured him that I’d go for it if he treated me right and acted like a real nice guy, if he pretended he wasn’t interested in that. So that’s what he did and that’s what I did. Only it went on for thirteen years. Which, when you think of it, is pretty much a bargain since he shelled out only fifty dollars and a surfboard to my own brother. To my own brother. ” The torchlight trembled, but she steadied it and forced out a laugh. “Imagine. One person thinking it’s love eternal and the other showing up for the best fuck he’s ever going to have while all the time—all the time, Deborah—there’s an attorney in LA and a gallery owner in New York and a surgeon in Chicago and God knows who else in the rest of the country but none of them—are you getting this, Deborah—can fuck him like I do, which is why he keeps coming back for more. And I’m so stupid as to think that in a matter of time, we’ll finally be together because it’s so good, my God it’s so good and he’s got to see that, right? And he does, he does, but there’re others and there have always been others which is what he finally tells me when I confront him after my God damn brother admits he sold me to his best friend for fifty dollars and a surfboard when I was seventeen years old.”

Deborah didn’t move and hardly dared to breathe, knowing that to do either might be the one false move that encouraged her friend to leap over the edge she was balanced on. She said the only thing she believed. “That can’t be true.”

“Which part?” China asked. “The part about you, or the part about me? Because I can tell you, the part about me is fact-o amaze-o. So you must be talking about the part about you. You must be saying your life hasn’t just clicked along, day one to day one hundred fucking thousand, and all of it going according to plan.”

“Of course it hasn’t. It doesn’t. No one’s does.”

“Dad who adores you. Rich boyfriend willing to do anything for you. Follow up with equally well-heeled husband. Everything you ever want. Not a worry in the world. Oh you go through a bad time when you come to Santa Barbara but it all works out and isn’t that always the case with you. Everything always works out.”

“China, nothing’s that easy for anyone. You know that.”

It was as if Deborah hadn’t spoken. “And you just fade away. Like everyone else. As if I haven’t put my heart and soul into being your friend when you needed a friend. You end up like Matt, don’t you. You end up just like everyone. You take what you want and you forget what you owe.”

“Are you saying...You can’t mean you’ve done all this—what you’ve done...This can’t be about—”

“You? Don’t flatter yourself. It’s time for my brother to pay the piper.”

Deborah considered this. She recalled what Cherokee had told her that very first night he’d come to them in London. She said, “You didn’t want to come with him to Guernsey, not at first.”

“Not till I decided I could use the trip to make him pay,” China acknowledged. “I wasn’t sure when and I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that something would come up sometime. I figured it would be dope in his suitcase when we were going through customs. We planned on Amsterdam, so I’d pick the stuff up there. That would’ve been nice. Not foolproof, but a definite possibility. Or maybe a weapon. Or explosives in the carry-on. Or something. The point is I didn’t care what it was. I only knew I’d find it if I kept my eyes open. And when we got here to LeReposoir and he showed me...well, what he showed me...” Behind the torch, she offered a ghostlike smile. “There it was,” she said. “Too good to pass up.”