Read Online Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis - Free Book Online
Authors: Bret Easton Ellis
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was barking and I’d lock myself back in my room and put the towel, damp, cool, over my eyes. The next day, out by the pool, there was an empty package of cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. No one smokes cigarettes in the family. The next day my father had new locks put on all the doors and the gates in back, while my mother and sisters took the Christmas tree down, while I slept
.
A couple hours later, Blair calls. She tells me there’s a picture of her father and her at a premiere in the new People. She also says that she’s drunk and in the house alone and that her family is down the street at someone’s screening room, watching a rough cut of her father’s newfilm. She also tells me that she’s nude and in bed and that she misses me. I start to walk around the room, nervous, while I listen to her. Then I stare at myself in the mirror in my closet. I spot this small shoebox in the corner of the closet and look through it while I’m on the phone with Blair. There are all these photographs in the box: a picture of Blair and me at Prom; one of us at Disneyland on Grad Nite; a couple of us at the beach in Monterey; and couple of others from a party in Palm Springs; a picture of Blair in Westwood I had taken one day when the two of us had left school early, with Blair’s initials on the back of the photo. I also find this picture of myself, wearing jeans and no shirt and no shoes, lying on the floor, with sunglasses on, my hair wet, and I think about who took it and can’t remember. I smooth it out and try to look at myself. I think about it some more and then put it away. There are other photographs in the box but I can’t deal with looking at them, at old snapshots of Blair and me and so I put the shoebox back in the closet.
Light a cigarette and turn on MTV and turn off the sound. An hour passes, Blair keeps talking, tells me that she still likes me and that we should get together again and that just because we haven’t seen each other for four months is no reason to break up. I tell her we have been together, I mention last night. She says you know what I mean and I start to dread sitting in the room, listening to her talk. I look over at the clock. It’s almost three. I tell her I can’t remember what our relationship was like and I try to steer the conversation away to other topics, about movies or concerts or what she’s been doing allday, or what I’ve been doing tonight. When I get off the phone with her, it’s almost dawn, Christmas Day.
I t’s Christmas morning and I’m high on coke, and one of my sisters has given me this pretty expensive leather-bound datebook, the pages are big and white and the dates elegantly printed on top of them, in gold and silver lettering. I thank her and kiss her and all that and she smiles and pours herself another glass of champagne. I tried to keep a datebook one summer, but it didn’t work out. I’d get confused and write down things just to write them down and I came to this realization that I didn’t do enough things to keep a datebook. I know that I won’t use this one and I’ll probably take it back to New Hampshire with me and it’ll just lie on my desk for three or four months, unused, blank. My mother watches us, sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room, sipping champagne. My sisters open their gifts casually, indifferent. My father looks neat and hard and is writing out checks for my sisters and me and I wonder why he couldn’t have written them out before, but I forget about it and look out the window; at the hot wind blowing through the yard. The water in the pool ripples.
I t’s a really sunny, warm Friday after Christmas and I decide I need to work on my tan so I go with a bunch of people, Blair and Alana and Kim and Rip and Griffin, to the beach club. I get to the club before anyone else does and while the attendant parks my car, I sit on a bench and wait for them, staring out at the expanse of sand that meets the water, where the land
.
A couple hours later, Blair calls. She tells me there’s a picture of her father and her at a premiere in the new People. She also says that she’s drunk and in the house alone and that her family is down the street at someone’s screening room, watching a rough cut of her father’s newfilm. She also tells me that she’s nude and in bed and that she misses me. I start to walk around the room, nervous, while I listen to her. Then I stare at myself in the mirror in my closet. I spot this small shoebox in the corner of the closet and look through it while I’m on the phone with Blair. There are all these photographs in the box: a picture of Blair and me at Prom; one of us at Disneyland on Grad Nite; a couple of us at the beach in Monterey; and couple of others from a party in Palm Springs; a picture of Blair in Westwood I had taken one day when the two of us had left school early, with Blair’s initials on the back of the photo. I also find this picture of myself, wearing jeans and no shirt and no shoes, lying on the floor, with sunglasses on, my hair wet, and I think about who took it and can’t remember. I smooth it out and try to look at myself. I think about it some more and then put it away. There are other photographs in the box but I can’t deal with looking at them, at old snapshots of Blair and me and so I put the shoebox back in the closet.
Light a cigarette and turn on MTV and turn off the sound. An hour passes, Blair keeps talking, tells me that she still likes me and that we should get together again and that just because we haven’t seen each other for four months is no reason to break up. I tell her we have been together, I mention last night. She says you know what I mean and I start to dread sitting in the room, listening to her talk. I look over at the clock. It’s almost three. I tell her I can’t remember what our relationship was like and I try to steer the conversation away to other topics, about movies or concerts or what she’s been doing allday, or what I’ve been doing tonight. When I get off the phone with her, it’s almost dawn, Christmas Day.
I t’s Christmas morning and I’m high on coke, and one of my sisters has given me this pretty expensive leather-bound datebook, the pages are big and white and the dates elegantly printed on top of them, in gold and silver lettering. I thank her and kiss her and all that and she smiles and pours herself another glass of champagne. I tried to keep a datebook one summer, but it didn’t work out. I’d get confused and write down things just to write them down and I came to this realization that I didn’t do enough things to keep a datebook. I know that I won’t use this one and I’ll probably take it back to New Hampshire with me and it’ll just lie on my desk for three or four months, unused, blank. My mother watches us, sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room, sipping champagne. My sisters open their gifts casually, indifferent. My father looks neat and hard and is writing out checks for my sisters and me and I wonder why he couldn’t have written them out before, but I forget about it and look out the window; at the hot wind blowing through the yard. The water in the pool ripples.
I t’s a really sunny, warm Friday after Christmas and I decide I need to work on my tan so I go with a bunch of people, Blair and Alana and Kim and Rip and Griffin, to the beach club. I get to the club before anyone else does and while the attendant parks my car, I sit on a bench and wait for them, staring out at the expanse of sand that meets the water, where the land
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