Out of Orange: A Memoir Read online

  When I walked into the house at seven o’clock in the morning and woke my good friend Piper up, I was probably a little more cheerful than anyone likes another human to be when they are woken by surprise. When she threatened to kill me, I backed off to give her a little space. I took the Tumi bag I had with over fifty thousand in cash to the living room and dumped it out onto the floor. I had to separate out my pay from Phillip’s, and a third pile had to go to pay off the American Express bill Phillip was going to shit himself when he saw. Not really. He knew how much we had spent. He had wired us money in Bali several times. In any case, all the cash sitting together looked like I had robbed a bank.

  Dum Dum had no idea who I was, at least that’s the way she acted. But I knew otherwise. Cats aren’t like dogs. If they were, both of my kitties would have been attached to my face doing the I’m-so-glad-you’re-home dance the minute I’d walked in the door. Instead, Dum Dum was sitting up, alert, staring at me with her huge green lantern eyes like I might be a burglar. Piper was knocked out, and Edith was curled up right next to Piper’s face, almost certainly fake sleeping and trying to be like Oh, you. Whatever . . . I grabbed a wad of the cash, went back to my room, and threw the money into the air above the bed. Edith watched with a bored yawn from the pillow next to Piper, but Dum Dum thought it was playtime. It was.

  Piper jumped out of bed like I had thrown a snake into it with her, so I played with Dummy and ignored Edith back. Meanwhile, Piper walked toward the bathroom and I heard “Holy shit!” as she passed by the living room. I assumed she’d seen the cash still spread out on the floor. Her made-for-TV movie had just gotten slightly more interesting.

  “Go look in the driveway!” My fancy car still had its hardcover roof on it and I thought the car looked like it cost me much more than it did. The Miata had only been out for a couple of years; in fact, mine was from the year it was introduced. It was an impulse purchase I regretted the moment I handed over the cash to some guy in Chicago. I was acting just like the archetype idiot who buys his girlfriend a mink coat and a pink Cadillac after he robs a bank, and I knew Phillip would give me endless shit about it, so I claimed it was a gift from Alajeh. Not a particularly well thought out idea either; Phillip was then irritated that he had not been treated to the same.

  Piper got out of the shower and was dressed faster than I had anticipated. I had said I would put a pot of coffee on for us and I hadn’t even made it up off the bed. The cats had surprised me and come around very quickly this time. Either they were very comfortable with Piper replacing me and didn’t feel I needed to be extensively punished or they knew how much kitty food all this cash could buy. Whatever the cause, they were both being irresistibly cuddly with me. I rather doubt the latter, but who knows? It’s hard to tell what cats really know. People are a little easier to read, and I could tell Piper’s interest had been piqued by my big pile of loot. This was good. I had an idea growing in my brain, one Piper might like.

  I could do anything in the world as long as I did not have to do it alone. I needed a cat sitter, but more than that, I needed a sidekick. I was not yet sexually attracted to Piper—maybe a little, but not enough to risk losing my cat sitter and someone to keep me tethered to Earth. I hadn’t had great luck with sexual entanglements of late—or ever. Besides that, I couldn’t figure out if she was attracted to me, and unless I was certain about that, I was not going to be the initiator. It’s too awkward when I’m wrong.

  The idea came to me because I thought Phillip was about to run for the hills and I thought maybe Piper would be a good partner in crime. She could help me recruit people and take over Phillip’s role if and when he lost it. Phillip was in a tailspin at the time. I didn’t know about what the source of it was. I assumed it had something to do with Meg. He had kept her in the dark about what he was up to and I had no grasp whatsoever how that must be eating away at his soul. He loved her, perhaps more than the person he had used as collateral for Alajeh’s trust.

  A week later, Craig, Molly, Phillip, and I were sitting in the Brewery, the same restaurant and microbrewery in Northampton that Piper worked at. We were drinking, celebrating, and telling stories, just as Phillip and I had done when he’d returned. Piper was serving our drinks, and my motorcycle was parked where I could see it from the outdoor tables we inhabited once again. But it wasn’t the same. Something was lost on the trip we had just completed, but our friends were happy, paid, and done. They had no idea how blessed they were. Phillip and I no longer had a way out, but we didn’t have to actually smuggle the drugs ourselves anymore. We were now just well-paid escorts.

  Our new arrangement had only a small financial impact on Alajeh. He paid a slightly higher fee to us to deliver the bags and continued to cover the travel costs of however many bags there were needing carriers. If there were four bags, he paid for the tickets and room and board for four. We took our pay and our travel costs off the top of the delivery payment, and the recruit was paid fifteen thousand dollars. Phillip and I could have made a lot more money than we did, by penny pinching. I was incapable of such a feat and this fault fueled Phillip’s growing nihilism and my worries.

  Piper was a logical replacement for Phillip. If he did lose his mind and try to bail, Piper could step in and help me. It could even be fun. She could be Phillip’s stand-in and maybe save him from a horrible consequence. We could get a live-in cat-sitter maid if on a regular basis we were both making the kind of money I had just made. Hester would be perfect for that role and I could make sure my little sister used her time constructively, like going back to school or something.

  In my plan, Piper would never have to carry any drugs—she would just help me coordinate the recruits, help figure out ticketing, hotels, and budgets, and all the things I sucked at. I spent most of that July in Northampton with Piper and my cats, but I did a little traveling too. Piper had decided to move to San Francisco when the summer ended. Moving to the West Coast sounded like a good idea to me, so I invited myself to be her roommate, and easily sold her on the idea that my inclusion would make it more affordable. Piper and I went to California. We found a real estate agent and got a place to rent in San Francisco together. We were there for less than a week.

  Piper added a stable element to my otherwise adrift life and that would be as true in San Francisco as it had been in Northampton. I had already made the decision to leave Northampton before the impulse to go to San Francisco came up. Phillip was moving to New York in September and I hadn’t known how long Piper would stay before she moved on with her real life. She wasn’t going to work at the Brewery and cat sit forever, not with a degree from Smith. As long as I was traveling so much of the time, it didn’t seem all that important what city I called home.

  In the meantime, I could take a little more time to figure out if I really thought my idea was rational, would work, or whether she would even be interested in being an escort. I also had to be sure I could really trust her before I went down that road and wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with Phillip about my concerns in regard to his mental state. It would suck to be stranded in Indonesia with a bunch of people if he just dropped the ball. I didn’t have an American Express card or the credit to get one.

  To complicate matters, which is my specialty, I had previously accepted an invitation to join a friend of mine in a home-buying venture in Vermont. Larry still worked at Spoleto. He was the one who had served me my scotch the first night I was back in town. He and his wife were buying a house outside of Brattleboro, Vermont, and it had a second building on the property they thought I might be interested in renovating. What they were really interested in was the cash I could provide for a down payment. I had about twenty-five thousand dollars saved up so far. I liked Larry and loved the idea of rehabbing the little dilapidated carriage house when I saw it. I thought it was a wise investment and that, in the very least, I would have my own home.

  I figured the house in Vermont would be a project I could work on slowly. I wasn’t going to do the wo
rk myself, though, or camp out in a tent with my cats until it was done. So when the San Francisco idea came up, it was a good place to plant myself, Edith, and Dum Dum till our house was ready to live in, and I was ready to live in Vermont. Vermont seemed like someplace to retire to with a partner or to become a hermit. In the meantime, I got to spend more time with my friend Piper and keep my cat sitter. Our plan was to move to San Francisco in August. After we got back from our successful apartment hunt in San Francisco, Piper gave her two-week notice at the Brewery.

  Making plans with me at this particular time in my life was a crapshoot. But Piper knew that. She had her agenda and her schedule set for getting to San Francisco, job hunting, and all of that business, and she would stick to it no matter what, even if I did get called out right in the middle of our move across the country. It’s a good thing she was so organized and able to easily make her own plans to pack up and go to San Francisco without me, because that is exactly what she would have to do. Fortunately, Alajeh called Phillip and me back to the starting gate before Piper and I were actually on the road to California, loaded down with both of our belongings and my cats in tow.

  Alajeh had a sudden urgent need for me to get to Jakarta. He wanted Phillip and me to have five people ready in Jakarta and five more ready to go when the first five finished. We couldn’t do that. The best we came up with was two rounds of three people. Piper’s best buddy, Donald, was now one of our couriers. Donald and Garrett both thought they might have two more guys we could bring, but there was too little time to try to get that all together so fast.

  Alajeh settled for what we could do. Since this was going to be potentially two or more round-trips in a row, and half the people knew what they were doing already, Phillip and I made an adjustment to how we operated as escorts. He would cover the U.S. to Europe and Europe back to the U.S. portions. I would cover the Europe to Jakarta and Jakarta back to Europe portions. By doing this, we could move the two groups through more quickly. Our groups could overlap in Europe. Phillip and the second group would fly to Europe a couple of weeks after I left with the first group to Jakarta. Assuming everything went as planned, he could send me the second group from Europe, meet up with the first group returning from Jakarta, take them home, and turn around to do it again. When I got rid of the second group in Jakarta, I could then finish my move to San Francisco with Edith and Dum Dum.

  I didn’t have to leave that minute, but it was too short notice to try moving myself to San Francisco yet. I would do my move when I came back. Piper and I still had a little time before she would leave for San Francisco without me, and I would leave for Jakarta. But it was not going to be a relaxing two weeks. She had to get ready for her move and I had to get ready for another psychotic mission. I was not particularly thrilled with the idea of going all the way back to Indonesia again, and going alone made me even more anxious. After all, the last trip there had been anything but quick and smooth.

  The two weeks that would get cut off on either end of the trip Phillip and I planned helped us out. By splitting up, we decreased the amount of time each of us would have to travel by two whole weeks, but it meant I would not have a sidekick and it would still be a monthlong journey for each of us. I got a bright idea. I asked Piper if she would come with me to Jakarta. I was certain her job hunt in San Francisco wasn’t so pressing that she would turn down a trip to someplace as exotic as Jakarta. I would have jumped on it if a friend had offered me a chance to go on this trip when I was her age, no strings attached. Of course, I had ulterior motives; I just wasn’t quite ready to share them with her. Piper accepted my invitation.

  In the meantime, I made arrangements for another woman to stay at my house in Northampton with Edith and Dum Dum, since Piper wouldn’t be there and I was keeping my apartment a little longer. It was just until I got back from the trip and it didn’t seem like money was going to be an issue by then. Piper would meet me in Jakarta after she finished her move to San Francisco. I would have a sidekick, even if she were just there to keep me company.

  Ultimately, we had everything settled and everyone was ready to go. Phillip and I had our frenzied itineraries full of contingencies for what if this happens or that, and our crew was prepared. Piper was packed and ready for her move. She would get that done and then meet me in Jakarta. If she were going to rule the world with me, she should probably get a peek at how this all worked.

  Piper’s friend Donald was the one who had most recently joined our secret club. I had a feeling they were going to be very good at our expanding profession. Piper and Donald, more than the others, struck me as people who would never get bothered by officials. They were both tall, with the same shade of strawberry-blond hair, pale but freckled skin, and the same blue eyes. They even shared many of the same snobby mannerisms. Mistaking them for siblings was easy to do, even though they weren’t related. I wondered if it would make her a better escort if she actually carried drugs once herself or if it mattered. Really, all an escort is, is a glorified travel agent who babysits.

  By the time the trip actually launched, Craig, Molly, Donald, and Garrett were the first four to go. They left Northampton with me. Garrett’s lover, Edwin, and two friends of theirs would fly with Phillip a couple of weeks later. Piper would come on her own to Jakarta via Paris, after she finished her move to San Francisco. Molly and Craig’s trip went according to plan, not a single hitch. After the debacle they’d had during their first trip, I sent them back first when we discovered only two bags were arriving. Garrett and Donald got stuck in Bali. The bags were coming in two at a time and not quickly.

  Alajeh’s big rush was turning out to be a big bust. So I left Garrett and Donald in Bali, where we had already been for the two weeks we had planned on, while I went to Jakarta to send Craig and Molly on their way. Phillip slammed on the brakes for the next group to come over to Europe. When he was done collecting payment for Craig and Molly in Chicago, he and Edwin flew all the way to Jakarta. Phillip flew to Jakarta to bring me a pile of cash to get me through the rest of the trip, which was now going to take considerably longer to complete, because Alajeh had told him to.

  Somewhere in there Piper flew to Paris and got stuck, because in all the ticket changes I was making, I forgot to have hers waiting for her at Singapore Airlines in Paris. Somehow she got in touch with Phillip to resolve the issue and she made it to Jakarta while Phillip was still there. Phillip flew back to the United States. Edwin, Piper, and I joined Garrett and Donald in Bali, and the wait began.

  7 A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Bali, Indonesia

  Midsummer 1993

  I POURED A CUP OF COFFEE for myself from the full pot and took my seat at the table on our small porch. There was an assortment of whole fruits and a couple of breakfast pastries on the tray. I grabbed a banana and a croissant, leaving the fruit I didn’t know how to eat for Piper to figure out. The little breakfast spread was the same every morning. Piper had ordered it from room service the night before, as she had done every day we had been there. I was getting a little bored with the rituals we had established on our first day at the Bali resort.

  My face felt dry and tickled, like my skin might be on the verge of peeling, and the sun was already beating down on our side of the building. The sun had jumped out of its sparkling orange slumber in what felt like an instant and had extinguished the dazzling colors in the clouds and the water it had risen from. Soon it would be too bright and hot to sit comfortably on the porch, and we would pack it in and go to the beach. Piper slid the door open and joined me, closing the door behind her to preserve our air-conditioned escape from the sun.

  “Ouch!” Piper held her hand up in front of her face to block the sun while she surveyed the tray and picked out the star-shaped fruit and the pale green fruit that was filled with something very much like snot. But then she hesitated and traded them both for a banana nut muffin. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were bloodshot. I suspected she felt as bad as she looked. We had eaten at the res
ort’s version of a sports bar the night before and she had won a contest involving a meter-high beer glass, which had required assistance to drink from. Donald, Garrett, and Edwin had lost. I had defaulted when I accidentally poured my beer all over the floor and myself.

  Piper took the seat next to me and gave me an evil eye, like her hangover was my doing. She grabbed the liter of bottled water and nearly drained it in one shot. Then she ate her tiny muffin and poured herself a cup of black coffee. “I think I will skip the gym today.” Her voice was a little gravelly. She had also smoked quite a few cigarettes the night before that were not her brand but an expensive alternative they sold at the bar. They were pretty but tasted like they might be made of asbestos instead of tobacco.

  She dressed in shorts and a spaghetti-strap shirt made of air that had just been returned to her from the laundry service. The bill for this tiny luxury was probably higher than what she had paid for the shirt. The breakfast tray, I knew, was costing us about forty dollars a day. I had checked on the remaining cash I had in the room safe and started to worry. I was going through cash like the safe could magically replenish itself while it was closed. Phillip had already needed to wire me more, twice, and that was on top of what he had personally delivered to me in Jakarta a month before.