Page 14 of Intoxicated
Chapter 5
DREW
With my target on lock, there’s no reason for me to travel all the way back up to Seattle before next weekend. I call my assistant Brent to ask how things are going in our office. I have no new messages, not even from my current client. Then again, I prefer to keep a loose line to them until the job is done and I receive the rest of my payment. Better if I can provide evidence of ruined lives and broken hearts in the form of newspaper reports. Before you ask,yes,I have gotten lucky more than once. It’s really handy when a woman you’re working ends up in the news for starting a drunken fight because someone looked at her wrong.
But this all means I’m stuck in Portland. It means holing myself up in my South Waterfront apartment, where the walls are made of glass and my “excellent views” are constant reminders of how much this town has changed since I was a kid. Every time I gaze upon the eastside, I get this knot in my stomach. I can remember when it was all single-family homes, low-income apartments, and industrial neighborhoods. Now it’s one high-rise after another. Progress is one thing. The entire decimation of a city and its culture is quite another.
Oh, and keep your opinions about how my family has contributed to yourself. I’m well aware of what my family has wrought. Especially the real estate side of my family. The whole reason I have this apartment is because my mother practically gave it to me.
Ah, yes, my mother! The third thing I have to face when I’m in Portland for more than a few days!
I don’t take the Camaro to my family’s house in Beaverton. Ha! That thing stays locked up tight in my personal garage. So does the Armani and Valentino. If my parents think I’m showing up in anything less than myrealclothes and my beat-up truck that still gets amazing gas mileage, they don’t know me very well.
Actually, I kinda wish they didn’t.
“Whatisthat wretched thing?” My mother already has the vapors as I pull up to her favorite sunning spot on the expansive property we Bentons calls “home.” I may have grown up here, but it has never,everfelt like home. That’s always abundantly clear when I park next to my sister’s Maserati and everyone turns their noses at a perfectly good truck I bought off an old friend ten years ago.
Before you go turning upyournose, I invite you to take a quick look around. See? It’s clean. No weird, funky man-smells. I have an air-freshener to go with my brand-new stereo and repaired upholstery. Sure, the truck itself is banged up and scuffed, but what good truck isn’t? Who cares about some rust on the bumper or a giant scratch on the side? It still works! It still gets me from place to place!
Trust me, nobody is in a hurry to steal this thing. The Camaro? I’m always on the verge of a heart attack when I park it anywhere. That thing hassteal me!written all over it. I only own a fucking Camaro because it makes seducing women easy. Women like Cher. Who live and breathe their precious name brands and are convinced they’re what make a man.
“This is the same truck I’ve had for a decade,” I say to my mother a few yards away from my truck. She’s lying back on the settee wearing nothing but a sapphire blue one-piece swimsuit, a wide-brimmed hat flopped over and jewelry hanging from every limb. She’s nursing a drink. Looks like orange juice, but I bet my Camaro it’s got at leastsomealcohol in it. My mom likes to get the day drinking started early. Say, eleven in the morning early.
Mimosa? Probably a mimosa.
“I’m not talking about that awful truck,” my mother spits. “I mean that thing on your head! I could see it from the end of the driveway!”
I yank my ballcap off my head. Thought I had grabbed a brand-new Blazers cap before leaving my South Waterfront apartment earlier this morning, but it looks like I grabbed another one. Whoops. Instead, I have one of Brent’s caps. Probably one he left in the cab of my truck the last time I gave him a ride somewhere. The guy has a cap collection to rival my own, you know. This one’s a washed-out green with faded white text advertising some fishing tour based out of coastal Washington. Huh. Fishing sounds pretty fun right now.
The band is worn out and there are a few frayed threads sticking out on top of the hat. My mother looks like she wants to puke. I bet she’s worn that hat on her head all of two times, and that’s one time too many for her, usually.
“Why must you always dress yourself like a dirty, smelly lumberjack,” she scoffs. Her wrinkled hand picks up a small, black device from the end of her settee. A thumb jams into a button. Probably summoning Opal, the family housekeeper who has been around since I’ve been alive. (Yet somehow she barely looks a day over forty-five. Let me tell you about what young, pubescent Drew dreamed about when Opal used to run around in a short-skirted uniform that only changed when my mother realized both her husband and son enjoyed it a little too much.) Ah, there’s Opal now! Alacritous as always. My father once quipped that Opal was the kind of woman who respondedverywell to orders, if I knew what I meant.
Yeah, I did. Which is why I thought it a swell idea to sleep with her when I was twenty. Turns out I can’t give her the kind of orders she really likes, though. I daresay I disappointed her. I was pretty disappointed in my younger self, too.
Opal gives me a cursory greeting before standing at my mother’s side. She’s either really good at never once betraying who in this family she’s slept with, or she really doesn’t give a shit about me. I can take either explanation, honestly. “What would you like, Mrs. Benton?” she softly asks my mother.
“Bring me some Advil, please.” My mother pushes herself up, mimosa sloshing in its glass. “My son is here, and once again he’s dressed like a hobo.” She inhales that drink. I mean,reallyinhales it. I’m half-expecting orange liquid to shoot out of her nose. At least a very unladylike belch. Not that my mother ever would.
Opal barely offers me a glance before she shuffles back into the main house. My mother searches for an adequate pose for sitting on the settee. Me? I remove my offensive hat.
“If you’re looking for your father,” my mother begins, “he’s out golfing with some basketball player. Could be Phil Knight for all I know.”
“Phil Knight isn’t a…”
“I know that! You know what I meant.” My mother finally looks up at me. Do I look more to her liking without the hat? Hm. Maybe I’ll put it back on. I really hate making eye contact with my mother. It’s like staring into a vacuous black hole. “So, what brings you back home, my wayward son? Do you need money? Your father and sister pull most of the purse strings around here. All I have is a few hundred in cash. You can’t have it. I need it for my spa trip later today.”
