Звёздный принц и Ангельское яблочко. Михаил Чирков

and tossed the pack to Electra. “Okay, so you really want to know? I have been busting my ass lately. I’m trying to get the director position for this next project so that Landon might finally start giving me the respect I think I’ve earned over the last six years that I’ve given my entire goddamn existence to ICRA. As it is, I’ll be working out of our charming West Coast bureau during most of my visit so Landon doesn’t think I’m just out here fucking around. That’s the one good thing about L.A.—having an office to go to when I’m here.”

      I handed him a refreshing vodka tonic as I sat down on the couch with him. “That’s the one good thing?” I asked skeptically.

      He relaxed an arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Not the only good thing, baby. You know what I meant. Gets Landon off my ass if I say I’m coming out here for work and not just to see you. We both know I come out here just to see you, but Landon doesn’t need to know that. If he did, he’d be imagining that all we do here is eat health food and go surfing, and that would horrify him, and then he’d give me a bunch of shit. Landon doesn’t understand the concept of leisure—even if we hardly eat health food and have yet to catch a wave.”

      I laughed. Landon is Roman’s totally demanding asshole boss. Roman says he still treats him like an intern even though everybody else knows Roman has fully reached big-cheese status. Roman says Landon is on his case all the time, which is one of the reasons he has to work so hard. He loves his work, he says, and loves working hard—but Landon says, “Don’t just love it, Roman. Be in love with it.”

      “Where will you be going this time?” Electra asked.

      “I put in proposals for three places in Africa.”

      “Africa’s awfully far away,” I said dubiously.

      He jostled my shoulders. “It’s really not when you think about it. You just get on a plane and go. Besides, I’m staying here for three whole weeks. Just to be with my baby.”

      I smiled. He wrinkled his nose at me as he smiled back.

      “Can we go to Ruth’s Chris tonight like we did the last time when you came, Roman?” Ava piped up. She was sitting on the floor, cutting out magazine pictures with pink-handled scissors.

      “Just say when, bella.”

      I love that Roman is so generous without being grand or boastful about it. I love that he is so easy-breezy. He treats my friends as if they are special because he knows they’re special to me. It’s not like he’s some walking, talking, ever-smiling human Ken. I’ve seen him get pissed. I’ve heard him yell. Sometimes he can be the biggest SOB. But he doesn’t get put off very easily and that is really important to me.

      Having Roman around was great. He would drop me off at work in the mornings so he could use my car during the day. Then he would pick me up in the evenings and we’d chat about this and that as we drove to the house. We’d cook dinner together and watch movies he’d rented for us, or read side by side in bed. I thought about how nice it was to be together, not having to worry about stupid shit like getting wasted or wasting time. It was cozy and fulfilling. When he’s here, life is grand. When he’s gone, life’s just life. When he’s not around I feel like there’s no end in sight. I’m a fish in a tank, dreaming of the ocean.

      “You got a nice guy there,” Ava’s friend Dylan Waters told me one night, having randomly materialized. Technically you could say Dylan’s my friend, too, but I’m happy to let Ava take all the credit. It irks me how he’ll disappear for months and then suddenly he just shows up and starts hanging around all the time, giving unsolicited advice and acting like he owns the place.

      “Thanks for the tip. Now, what are you doing here?”

      He was in control of the kitchen, chopping up vegetables for a burger barbecue. He handed me a piece of avocado before dragging on a cigarette. “Miss me, did ya?”

      I rolled my eyes.

      “She called me,” he explained, with a shrug.

      “That much I gathered. Now, what are you doing here?”

      He laughed as he pressed a bottle of Tim’s Pete’s Wicked Ale into my hand. “Just shut up and drink this, will ya? It’s the last of the dude’s brew. He packed up his khakis and moved back to New Haven without even saying goodbye.”

      “I take it you’re here to console her, then?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

      “You know it,” he said proudly, like it was some seriously gallant act on his part. Yeah, really chivalrous. I’ve been observing this asshole’s methods since I was eighteen. He picks people up just to throw them over.

      “You single right now?” I asked, eyeing him.

      “Right now I am,” he said, winking.

      It was a balmy evening and Ava and Electra were clustered around the patio table, wearing bright mango-and-banana tube tops and shimmery lip gloss. I pulled out a chair to join them as the men gravitated toward the grill.

      I met these two during our very first week of college. We were having an “Around the World” party in our dorm where every room represented a different country and served a corresponding cocktail. My room represented the Ukraine so we were serving white Russians. You had to decorate and dress up so it was really authentic. I wore a fur hat and a sweater with fur cuffs to match. I don’t really remember how the three of us bonded. It’s hard to define the moment that you first become friends with somebody. They are so different from each other. Definitely the sugar and spice in my life.

      In private, sometimes Jeremy refers to Ava as “Deprava.” He refers to Electra as “I’llfuckya.” Isn’t he clever.

      Roman thinks Ava and Electra are entertaining and comical. When I asked him once if he thought they were freaky and over the top, he said of course not—they’re just girls.

      “Dylan’s seriously unexpected appearance better not be your solution to getting over Tim,” Electra said to Ava, authoritatively. “I mean, if you’ve just summoned him here to dote on you, that’s acceptable…but I better not see you swooning!”

      “I see you swooning over Dylan and I will definitely puke,” I added.

      “He’s going to be my date at Aunt Carlotta’s wedding this weekend,” Ava explained. “You know I have to bring a date or Papa will make a fuss and try to set me up with Tony Montesilvano. I do realize Dylan’s hardly ‘date’ material, but at least he already knows the family.”

      Electra and I exchanged glances. Yeah, okay. We could buy that because Ava’s pretty sensitive about exposing an unknown to the family. In fact, an unknown will usually run after meeting the family. The first complaint is typically the crazy priest, Father De Marco, who’s always shaking a crucifix and shouting drunkenly in Italian. The Damianos brought him along when they relocated from New Jersey. Ava says they moved for a change of pace, but I swear I once overheard Uncle Paolo say they had to “flee” New Jersey because of that “dispute” with the Gasparellos. Now they live on a heavily guarded, walled estate in Del Mar. I mean all of them, and we’re talking like thirty people. Ava’s stepmom, Anna, used to be a showgirl at Bally’s. She is only twenty-nine. Ava’s father, Carlo, married her after one date. Oh, and just for the record—Ava’s little brother, Luciano-Marciano, told me once that he and Anna do it in the closet sometimes when his father isn’t home. Why the closet? You tell me.

      “I’m going to call Josh after dinner and make sure his ass is on a plane,” Electra told us. “Because if I find out he took a later flight due to some bullshit market disaster, you just better know he’s not getting any kitty when we go to Palm Springs!”

      Electra’s boyfriend lives in New York City. She met him while he was getting his MBA at USC and these days he is a big-shot investment banker on Wall Street. Ava and I call him Mr. Big Bucks in private. Electra is supposed to move out there when she’s ready, but since she’s not ready, he just flies in every now and then to spend a bunch of money on her and get laid.