-13-
“Shut up,” Kylie said. “Shut up.” She was crying. These were not crocodile tears. They were real tears. They were the tears she cried when she was eight. When her tears could still flow freely when she was sad. She could cry then, when she was eight and nine. When she was ten, but not eleven. By eleven she learned she could cry when she wanted too. That she could control it. She could think of something bad and a tear would flow. Just like that, down her cheek one at a time.
Drop.
Drop.
Drop.
She practiced a lot. An hour a day between scripts. She didn’t want to let the make-up girls use glycerin. So she learned to cry on demand. “Action! And Cry! And Cut! Thank you.” They make bad TV in New Zealand. Just like everywhere else.
He consoled her for an hour, her face wet with tears and her breasts pressed close to him. He could feel her nipples were hard, and he tried not to think about them for too long. So he thought about other things, but those thoughts disturbed him and he thought he’d rather think about her breasts.
“It’s true,” he said. “How do you know? How do you know, huh? How?” “It must be true.” “It’s so horrible. I can’t even get a plane back to Auckland.” “I don’t think you can get a plane anywhere. Unless you find one, and even then you’d have to fly one, and where’d you fly it to?” “I don’t know.” “Can you fly?” “No.” “So?”
She cried some more pressing her breasts into him. And then the thought occurred to him.
“Oh, no.” “What?” “Oh, God, no.” “What?” “Oh, Jesus no. Oh, fuck.”
Jayson began to pace the room. His eyes were teary. His heart was beating fast. He felt his mouth dry. He wasn’t thinking about sex.
“OH GOD! GOD NO.” He wailed. “Why? Why?” “Jayson, calm the fuck down.” “My trust fund is gone! Everything. I had stock options in OLED technology. I owned a part of Google! Not at lot mind you, but still. Fuck, I fucking lost everything.”
“You must have something left?” “How Kylie?” “I dunno.” “Let me show you something.” He went to his bag and took out his new Apple Macbook Pro with 15.4-inch widescreen display 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB (single SO-DIMM) with 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 100GB hard drive, 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive and a 4x Superdrive. The keyboard was backlit, had a scrolling Trackpad, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, ExpressCard/34 slot, dual-link DVI video out, Gigabit Ethernet, and optical digital and analog audio in/out. He was proud of it. He opened it up, turned it on and connected it to his Motorola.
He opened the Safari web browser.
“See! My webpage doesn’t even come up! Nothing. Nothing at all. No CNN. No MSN. No Google. No Facebook!”
“Maybe that’s a good thing? You know?” "How is that a good thing?" "I was pretty addicted to Facebook." “That's the point of Facebook." "And, I'm just saying, maybe it's a good thing it's gone." "It’s not a good thing, Kylie. It’s bad. Really bad. Fuck!”
He put the Macbook Pro away. He still treated it like a newborn baby. After all he could still mix and burn cds and make a DVD. If he wanted too.
He felt like music.
“Thank God, I have my iPod,” he said pulling it out. “I have one too. Mine’s pink, not white.” "Is it bright pink, or more subdued?" "Why?" Kylie asked. "It's important," he said. "It's bright pink and small," she said. "You have a Nano." "Yeah?" "Nothing." "What?" She was annoyed. "I just don't think of that as a real iPod."
"What? Of course it is. It is too a real iPod. What else would it be?" "Okay," said Jayson,“I'm just saying, mine’s a real iPod because its the original, you know?” “Well excuse me for living, you fuck wad. Look, I’m just trying to make best of a bad situation! --- "Your iPod looks really old anyway, so I don't know what the fuck you're talking about anyway.” “Don't insult my iPod, Kylie. Its 80 gigs."
"Well, you did mine!"
"I know. I’m sorry. Okay. Truce?"
"Truce," she said. She hated fighting with someone she just met, over trivial things, but it was turning out to be that type of day. She felt exhausted, and she'd only been up for a few hours.
"You know," Jayson said, "I think if things ever get back in line, oil stocks will be up.” He thought of make-up sex. “And gold,” she said. She liked gold. “And gold,” he agreed. He liked gold as well.
There was a long pause, and they shifted uncomfortably on the bed thinking about all the things they would never do or own.
Jayson said sadly, "I guess, we'll never own an iPhone now." "No," said Kylie. "I guess we never will."