Hailey's War Read Online Free PDF

onto the street. As he did so, he said, “What’s wrong with your arm?” He’d noticed the cast on my wrist.
    â€œBroken bone,” I said. “I fell. It’s no big deal.”
    â€œYou’re not out here on some kind of medical leave, are you?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I … CJ, I’m not going back.”
    I could see his confusion, and in a moment he articulated it. “You mean, you graduated early?”
    He knew that wasn’t it, but denial is like that. Often there’s a short detour on the way to the unhappy truth.
    â€œNo,” I said. “I’m not going to finish.”
    â€œAre you serious? Baby, what happened?”
    â€œA lot of people wash out,” I said tiredly. “I warned you about that before I went. Do we have to talk about it?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’m okay. I’ll be okay.”
    â€œI know you will,” he said finally. “Sure you will.”
    I’m not sure what I was expecting from the place that CJ, with his newfound wealth, would call home. Maybe a retro-Rat-Pack condo with a wet bar, or a beach house in Malibu.
    Instead, he drove us up into the hills outside the city, an ascent so steep and fast it reminded me of taking off in a plane, to an area of no particular repute, where acres of land separated the houses and amateur spray paint on the road warned: SLOW! CHILDREN ANDANIMALS . On the way, his cell phone rang so incessantly that he finally shut it off.
    His driveway wasn’t even paved, and as we pulled up in a cloud of dust, I looked curiously at the home he’d chosen. It wasn’t big, but somehow rambling, built of weathered wood, with old sash windows with little scrapes on them from many cleanings. A live oak tree bent toward the roof as though it wanted to enfold the whole house. There was a deck with a hot tub in it, but no landscaping. The grass that surrounded the house was natural. A Volkswagen Corrado, clearly in mid-repair, stood at a small distance. I observed all this with a growing sense of familiarity.
    For as shy as he’d been about bringing people to the Mooney home of his adolescence, CJ had chosen to re-create it here. It wasn’t until I’d known the adult CJ awhile that I understood. He had to live a certain kind of life down in the city: the velvet-rope-and-VIP-room life, riding in Navigators with the talent and their entourages, getting drive-thru from In-N-Out Burger after midnight and washing it down with Cristal. But when he was ready to buy a home, CJ chose a place where he could be who he really was: someone who listened to baseball games on the radio while working on cars with his hands.
    â€œNice,” I said. It was inadequate.
    â€œI took just about the first thing the agent showed me,” he said. “I just wanted someplace quiet.” He watched a red-tailed hawk wheel overhead a moment, then went on. “Look, I’d like to stay here tonight while you get settled in, but I have dinner plans, and actresses can be touchy about things like broken dates.”
    â€œMy, an
actress
. Aren’t you something?”
    â€œHey,” he said, “I’m gonna ask you to think twice about how you talk to someone who walked away from a meeting with two very big record label executives to drive across town to the Greyhound station to collect your stranded ass.”
    â€œI know,” I said, chastened.
    He smiled at me in the old way I remembered, eyes crinkling. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “It’s going to be good, having you around.”
    â€œThanks,” I said, “but it’s only for a while, until I get on my feet.”
    â€œNo hurry,” CJ said.
    â€œNo, I understand that you bought this place so you could have some privacy,” I said.
    He looked at me as if I’d said something incomprehensible, and said, “Not from
you.”
    I lived with CJ a month, long