Mr. Vernon is breathing heavily, and the fist gripping his cane is bone white.
He glares at me for a long time before he says, “Please. Just. Leave. Me. Alone!”
He pushes past me and canes his way up the street as fast as he can.
I stand there feeling like a huge asshole.
Talk about an anticlimax. I’ve fantasized about telling Mr. Vernon all that for years.
I used to mentally play out the scene over and over again, in and after rehab too.
When I turn away, blinking back tears myself, Portia’s looking up at me.
“Get your truck,” she says, “because we’re going after him. Let’s go.”
I’ve been in love with Portia Kane since the late 1980s, when I was a shy awkward fatherless virgin gawking at her whenever she passed me in the hallways of Haddon Township High School, wearing that same white jean jacket with her hair all teased out and a strength in her eyes that both attracted and scared the shit out of me simultaneously, and so I don’t need to be told twice.
We get into my truck and drive toward the White Horse Pike, and we spot Mr. Vernon in front of the police station.
“Let’s talk about this,” Portia yells out the window. “Can we simply talk?”
Mr. Vernon surprises us by going inside the police station.
Portia jumps out and follows him, so I park the truck. By the time I arrive inside, they have Mr. Vernon hidden away, and Portia is arguing with my cop friend, a guy I often serve at the Manor. Jon Rivers. I even helped him crack a drug case once by sharing some insider info I acquired back when I was a junkie. Jon and I are pretty tight. He owes me a few favors, so I’m more than a little glad that he’s the cop we run into tonight.
“Do you know this woman, Chuck?” Jon says. When I nod, he says, “Calm her down,” and then disappears through a door to the space behind the thick glass separating the waiting room from the rest of the police department.
“Why did Mr. Vernon go to the police?” Portia asks.
“I have no idea,” I say.
Twenty minutes later Jon comes out. “Mr. Vernon doesn’t want to speak with either of you. He’s willing to press no charges if you both just go home now.”
“Press charges?” Portia yells. “What charges?”
“Kidnapping. Harassment. And you did just hit him under the trestle, right? So that’s assault,” Jon says. “Listen. Just go home and leave this poor man alone. He’s back there sobbing and hyperventilating, okay? He’s having a breakdown of some kind. Sounds like you two were trying to do a very nice thing that ended up being not so nice for your guest of honor. Let’s not make this any more complicated than it has to be. Okay?”
“No! This is bullshit,” Portia says.
Jon gives me a look that says, Trust me on this.
“Thanks, Jon,” I say. “We’re going now. Come on, Portia.”
He nods once and then leaves us.
“I don’t understand.” Portia’s shaking her head as I lead her out of the police station. “This wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be beautiful. What the fuck?”
In my truck, I say, “Should we go back to the Manor? People are probably still waiting. They’re most likely very confused.”
“Can you just drive me the hell away from here?” Portia says.
Her face is blank.
Her posture is defeated.
She doesn’t look good.
I don’t know what else to do, so after I call Lisa at the Manor and explain that the party is over, I drive Portia away from all of the unanswerable questions and confused former classmates and Official Member of the Human Race cards. An hour or so later, we somehow end up on the Ocean City boardwalk, walking aimlessly, listening to the ocean crashing, both of us shivering the whole time.
Portia says, “This all has to be for a reason. Right? What do you think?”
“What do you mean?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Maybe tonight isn’t the end of Mr. Vernon’s story,” she says, and I can see the light returning to her eyes. “And maybe it’s the beginning of ours.”
“Ours?”
“Our story.”
“We have a story?” I say, maybe a tad too eagerly.
She turns and faces me.
I’m looking down into her eyes, and I can’t believe how quickly her mood has changed.
“Can I try something?” she says.
“Sure.”
“Okay, here we go.”
Then her hand’s on the back of my neck and she’s pulling my face down toward hers and we’re kissing.
Tongues and all—passionately—and I’m not sure this is appropriate or even a good idea, but Portia doesn’t give me any time to consider, because now her hands are running up and down my back, and it’s like she’s trying to devour me, suck me inside her.
When she comes up for air, I say, “What’s going on?”
“This is the beginning of us, Chuck Bass.”
“The beginning of us?”
“Yes. Absolutely. It must be,” she says, and then we’re walking hand in hand, and I’m absolutely drunk on Portia Kane and the freezing cold salt air.
We end up in a cheap motel four or so blocks from the beach, the Sand Piper. Before I know what’s happening, clothes fly to every corner of the room, and then Portia and I are making love for the first time.
There’s part of me that knows we shouldn’t be doing this, that it’s probably rebound sex. She has been so wounded and rejected by her hero, Mr. Vernon—and come to think of it, I was too—this person who had represented goodness in our minds for more than twenty years, but turned out to be beaten by the world at best and a complete fraud at worst. It’s like there’s this big gaping hole in both of us now, and maybe we’re just trying to fill each other up, but the sex stuff happens quickly and it’s mind-blowing and beautiful and sad and scary too, because I know that it’s not just sex stuff for me, but much more, and yet I don’t know for sure what it is for Portia, who is still technically married, if I have my facts straight.