Lights Out by Jason Starr Page A

old room, since converted to a guest room. Glancing around, he saw that the bed was covered with coats, and Steven and Ellen, some old friends of his parents’, were there. Before he was seen, Jake made a U-turn and went through his parents’ bedroom, into their bathroom, and locked the door.
    He took out his cell and called Christina at work. A receptionist answered, and Jake said, ‘Yeah, Christina, please.’
    ‘She’s with a patient. Who’s calling, please?’
    ‘Tell her it’s her little itty-bitty cuddle bear.’
    ‘Little what?’ The receptionist was suspicious, as if she thought this might be a crank call.
    ‘Itty-bitty cuddle bear,’ he said slowly.
    She asked him to say it a third time, and he did, spelling
itty
and
bitty.
    ‘Wanna leave a number?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s an emergency; just put me through.’
    The receptionist deep-breathed, then said, ‘Hold on.’
    About a minute later Christina came on and said, ‘Hello.’
    ‘Hey, baby, hey, baby, hey,’ Jake said to the tune of the No Doubt song.
    ‘What’s up?’ Christina asked, sounding pissed off.
    ‘That’s the welcome I get?’
    ‘I’m really busy. What’s the emergency?’
    ‘I wanna see you.’
    ‘Where are you?’
    ‘Hell.. . I mean my parents’ house, hiding out in the bathroom
    . . . Hey, you didn’t know about this party bullshit, did you?’
    ‘Kind of. Look, I really have to go. I’ll see you later, okay?’ Still looking in the mirror, Jake noticed a short, very thin hair on his forehead, below his hairline.
    ‘Shit,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ He opened his parents’ medicine chest to look for a pair of tweezers. ‘So when am I gonna see you, baby?’
    ‘I just told you - later. When I get off work.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re gonna keep me waiting so long.’ Jake made a disgusted face, looking at his mother’s diaphragm and at a bottle of wart ointment, and then he found the tweezers.
    ‘Look, I really have to go,’ Christina said.
    ‘When do you get off?’
    ‘Four thirty.’
    ‘I’ll come pick you up.’ Jake plucked the hair.
    ‘No,’ Christina said quickly. ‘I mean, I gotta go home and change and . . . I’ll just see you at your house like around six.’
    ‘Cool,’ Jake said. ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
    ‘I better go.’
    ‘Can’t wait, baby.’
    After plucking another stray hair from under his right eyebrow, Jake replaced the tweezers and realized he was feeling bummed. For a second he thought it had to do with the party and the whole Marianna Fernandez mess, but then he decided it was Christina. In high school they used to have great times together, talking and laughing, but now he felt like they had nothing to say to each other, and he wondered if this whole getting-married idea was a big mistake. Maybe his lawyer could talk the Fernandezes’ lawyer into getting Mr Fernandez to sign that paper and settle. Or, if they couldn’t settle, and they needed some distraction PR, maybe he could start dating Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan or an Olsen twin. Getting linked with some trendy chick would get him tons of photo ops and mentions in the gossip columns, and it would save him from having to marry a dental hygienist from Brooklyn.
    Nah, Jake decided. The big sports star hooking up with the movie-star type was a cliché - marrying his high school sweetheart was the right move for his image.
    Jake left the bathroom. In the hallway outside his parents’ room Jake met his father, who’d just come up the stairs. Antowain Thomas gave Jake the same once-over that he’d given him outside, looking him slowly up and down, and then said, ‘You spend so much time getting dressed, no wonder you got no time to return your father’s damn phone calls.’
    ‘You called me?’ Jake said, taking out his cell.
    ‘Not now,’ Antowain said. ‘I’m talking about during the season. I get your voice mail every