"No, it wasn"t," Cheri says and then pauses. "Now that I think about it, my entire childhood was spent filling a void I didn"t even know existed and could never fill anyway. It"s ironic because before Michael died, we"d gone to a funeral for a baby. I was unhinged. They all kept insisting it was a "celebration of life," that we needed to be grateful for the hours the baby was here on earth. What bulls.h.i.t. If my math is right, Cici adopted me right after she lost her own baby. One puppy dies so you rush out and buy a new one?" Cheri meets Marlene"s gaze. "It was like there was this shadow child the whole time I was growing up."
"A shadow child...that"s quite common to feel when a child in the family dies and everyone must go on. Usually there"s a lot of guilt. Especially if your mother didn"t have time to process the death. Was her baby a girl?"
"A boy. It"s funny-when I was a kid, people mistook me for a boy. Cici was always trying to girl me up. I thought it was to make me look more like her, but maybe it was so I didn"t remind her of him? She put so much on me. I was her everything; it felt like she was stalking me with her love. Her happiness was all tied up in her being my mother-Sol was jealous of that. She told me that she got very depressed after the baby died. It sounded like she was nearly suicidal..."
"So you were her salvation."
"Or consolation prize. Maybe it was better I didn"t know. You need a flow chart in my family to know who knew what about whom at any given point. Moments of emotional honesty are few and far between."
"Did it change anything, when Cici told you that she knew about Catherine?"
"They say kids of divorce secretly wish their parents would get back together. Well, it was the opposite for me. I always wanted them to get a divorce and be done with the lies."
"And why do you think they didn"t?"
"Her whole ident.i.ty was wrapped up in being the wife of a rich, important man and living on the Upper East Side. Bought off with baubles. I didn"t exactly hide my feelings about her...choices." Cheri hesitates for a moment. "But what do I know about my parents" relationship? She said she was happy with Sol in the end; maybe he told her he"d broken up with the woman and they had a come-to-Jesus moment. Give all the credit, and the blame, to the Catholic Church. As much fun as it is deconstructing my family mythos, it doesn"t change what happened."
"As an exercise," Marlene says, "what if you stepped back and looked at them not as your parents but just as two flawed people, doing the best they could at the time? If you can separate your expectations of them as your parents from who they are as people and see them in a larger context, then it"s easier to let go of not getting what you needed from them."
"Does it all come down to not getting what you need from Mommy and Daddy?" Cheri doesn"t hide her irritation. "I"m a grown woman. This is what I hate about therapy. It all boils down to whining about your relationship with your parents. I want to deal with today. I want to get over this patch."
"You know how to go out in the world and accomplish. When you"re ready to do that again, you will. And what you "do" may look and feel very different when you"ve actually dealt with your grief. Past and present. Right now, your work is to let the empty s.p.a.ces be empty."
Cheri sighs; another version of nothing to do, nothing to change. "Well, I"m thinking about doing that somewhere else. Getting out of town for a while."
"I"m going to point out that there"s a pattern here," Marlene says. "When things get too tough emotionally-"
"I knew you"d say that. Taking a break isn"t the same thing as running away. I haven"t a clue what I want in any area of my life, but I"m not going to figure it out until I get some perspective."
"Do you have something in mind?"
"My friend Taya has a house she never uses in Malibu and is always saying I can come stay there. I hate the sun almost as much as I hate the West Coast, but it"s far away from here."
"Sometimes you have to go to the least likely place in order to find what you"re looking for," Marlene says, "especially perspective."
It had been years since Cheri had been to LA. She"d gone for a conference once when she was still a TA, and another time for Taya"s extravaganza of a wedding. She"d had the typical East Coast aversion to it then but, to her amazement, finds it appealing now. Being in transition herself, why not go to a place where the very ground was unstable, where people were coming and going in various stages of hope and disappointment? Michael had had a brief flirtation with Hollywood in the early seventies and lived in Venice. It was before her time, when Disco, Doughnuts, and Dogma was the coolest of the cool and he was being courted to make features. He"d enjoyed a whole Easy Rider period prowling up and down the California coast. She pictures young Michael on his motorcycle, his Jew-fro bobbing in the breeze, wearing one of his many ponchos.
"Thank G.o.d you"re going to get out of that place," Taya says when Cheri calls to ask if she can stay in her beach house. "You should seriously consider selling it. I would have immediately."
"So that"s a yes?"
"Yes, but I think it"s insane for you to stay in Malibu. It"s beautiful, but it"s isolated." Taya"s voice competes with blitzes of a blender.
"Sounds perfect," Cheri says.
"Two things, though. No smoking. Including on the deck; the smoke gets into the wood. And take care of Skipperdee." How could smoke penetrate wood and what the h.e.l.l was a skipperdee, Cheri thinks. "Skipperdee, as in the turtle from Eloise," Taya rambles on in the face of Cheri"s silence. "You know, the girl who lived in the Plaza?"
"Take care of the turtle and no smoking, got it."
"Cat," Taya says, "Skipperdee is a cat. Long story short, the dogs almost killed him so he lives at the beach house. Laura, the housekeeper, comes and feeds him but if you"re there, it"s on you. s.h.i.t, this f.u.c.king thing is stuck. I"m on a liquid diet because I"m so fat I can"t see my v.a.g.i.n.a over my stomach. Gotta go."
LA is just like Cheri pictured it: brown haze squatting on the horizon, cars and more cars, rows of palm trees in the glinty sprawl. No, she doesn"t want to pay a thousand dollars a month for a new Camry. She"ll take a long-term rental on that Buick that looks like a seventies cop car and squeals when she pulls out of the lot. It"s not until she gets her first glimpse of the coast unfolding like a party invitation that she"s glad she said yes to coming here.
Laura, a short sunburst of a Latina, is standing in front of a white stucco house with turquoise shutters holding a fistful of keys and instructions for how to work everything from electronic shades and pool covers to the cat, a talkative Siamese look-alike with folded ears. "I am a house manager and organizer, not a housekeeper," she says briskly, "but if you have any miscellaneous questions, you can call my cell." She walks through the house with Cheri, pointing out its many features, most of which Cheri"s sure she"ll never use. "These are Taya and the kids" favorites," Laura says, putting a bag in the fridge, "tamales-cheese and chili and pork. My cousin makes them. Warm them in the oven, not the microwave." And then she"s gone and Cheri is alone with a cat and a whole lot of white furniture.
She can"t sleep that night. The sounds coming from the coast highway are too unfamiliar, the ocean with its unceasing pull and push. At least the repet.i.tion quiets the thoughts of Marlene"s so-called empty s.p.a.ces that snap and bite like fish at the water"s surface. Just as Taya promised, Malibu is an insular outpost that shutters early and doesn"t do delivery. She starts reading a book, puts it down and starts another, only to put it down too. She wanders through the house, pours herself a tumbler full of booze from the bar cart. Taya"s become so grown up: the second home, professionally taken photographs of her and the kids beaming from silver frames placed just so, the bar cart. People Cheri"s age are living such fancy lives and decanting.
Cheri sits on the bottom step of the deck, staring at the ocean like it"s a fire. She prefers the beach at night, the oyster-sh.e.l.l moon, the way the sand is firm from the moist air. The ocean reminds her that there"s something bigger than herself. She could walk Michael"s ashes into the water one of these nights. Let the box float until it drifts out of sight. When she closes her eyes, she sees Michael"s gaunt face toward the end, eyes vacant. She walks the beach. Her feet get cold and damp. She walks in no particular pattern, like a songline. The sun is almost rising by the time she returns.
"My life is insanity," Taya says, plopping down next to Cheri at the table. She makes desperate hand signals to the new nanny, like she"s a baseball catcher and the nanny"s the pitcher, as her kids hurl themselves into the horde of toddlers in the playground in front of the cafe. Cheri has been waiting for her for the past twenty minutes, watching nannies wipe snot and donkey diaper bags while casually beautiful parents check out the casually beautiful shops and wave at their progeny. Was there really a time when such a sight warmed the c.o.c.kles of her heart? It all feels far away. She can"t imagine what it would be like now if she"d had a baby with Michael. Yet there"s a part of her that"s still sad they didn"t. "Sorry we"re late," Taya rushes on. "The old nanny didn"t show up to train the new nanny. Do you see who that is over there? She"s adopted two more kids from Cambodia or Mali; I guess brown is the new black. Waiter! We need bread and b.u.t.ter immediately. I kept my poor friend waiting here forever. She"s starving." Taya pulls up her shirt and grabs a roll of belly, which she shows off to anyone within eyeshot. "And, as you can see, I"m desperately in need of carbs." The waiter trots off. "So you are in trouble, CM. My friend Janet said she called you and wanted to take you to some wine event around here, and you didn"t even call her back."
"Must have slipped my mind," Cheri says.
"I don"t know why you came to LA if you"re just going to stay holed up in Malibu-you could have stayed in Chicago if you wanted to be housebound. You have to call Janet back." Taya jumps up and chastises the new nanny for something, then makes a point of telling her to order anything she wants for lunch. "Oh, is Skipperdee okay?"
"Great," Cheri says, wondering if she"s put out food in the last day or two.
"Waiter?" Taya signals to a harried-looking man. "We need to get one of those pizzas right away, what she"s eating-what is that, peach and burrata? Yum." She turns back to Cheri. "Okay, sorry. Enough about me. I"m just glad you"re here. And, listen, this is important. I"ve been thinking about the whole ashes thing. My friend Rick Gould had his first wife"s ashes put into a book, like those hollowed-out books people used to put drugs in back in the day? When he got remarried, his new wife didn"t want the dead wife"s ashes around, so he gave them to his friend to keep for him until he could figure it out. Cut to ten years later, and the friend is moving, forgets all about the ashes, and donates the book with a bunch of other stuff to charity. Rick finds out that his wife is now in Rancho Cucamonga, of all places, at some Christian Science Reading Room, and their whole friendship blows up."
"Your point is?"
"You never know what you might find at a Christian Science center! No, but seriously, people should be buried, it"s less complicated. Just bury Michael"s ashes when you get home and be done with it."
"I"ll put that into the suggestion box," Cheri says. Easier than saying his ashes are in the glove compartment of her rental car.
"I just want you to be able to get yourself a new career or a new man, preferably both. You"re brilliant, CM. Forget the university, you wrote a book-which is more than I can say for myself. Write! Write about the museum looting. It"s a total detective story-right up your alley. And you have the personal angle because of the tablets. Great for PR! Call it Baghdad Boondoggle! Don"t look at me like that-forget the name; it"s a genius idea." Thankfully, the tiny pizzas arrive at the same time as the frantic nanny and sandy toddlers. An older woman in too-tight jeans whom Taya introduces as Honey whisks Taya away to meet her boyfriend. One of Taya"s kids puts french fries in his nose. The older one tries to wedge them in with her fist. Time for an adult beverage.
It"s a revelation to Cheri how she can do nothing in a day and look up and the sun"s gone down. How did she ever manage to work? It doesn"t seem like anyone in Malibu works. They"re all in organic coffee shops or going to or from yoga. Is this who she will become, a member of the gainfully unemployed, living off her inheritance? She"d found a way to say yes to get here. Her mind wants to lurch forward to What if this is it? Or go backward to the tipping point, to Richards and anger. But she"s supposed to be here. What did she think would happen? It wasn"t as if life comes along like the arm in the bowling alley, sweeping away the dead pins and putting in fresh ones nice and neat. Roll again.
She begins venturing out of the keep. Her rental car"s got old-school vroom, and if she travels at off-hours-it would be easier to decipher the Phaistos Disc than understand LA"s traffic-she enjoys taking it out for sorties, listening to Johnny Cash because he"s the best of Taya"s CD collection and she"s too lazy to download music. Johnny and June, along with Morticia and Gomez Addams, had always been her shining examples of true love. She gets lost and then found and then lost again. She gnaws on beef jerky as she winds through the canyons, descends the craggy coastline, purrs through streets lined with minyanim of gnarled oaks. She avoids the claptrap of suburbia with its prefab and McMansions, the malls and discount oases with inflatable air dancers. The road less traveled, the brackish water, this is what"s always interested her. Instinct is the ultimate survival weapon-it leads her to an inn that declares it was Al Capone"s love nest and a biker bar featuring drag-queen bingo but is silent on the question that crooks its finger everywhere she goes: Does this say Michael?
Besides a scattering place, Cheri is looking for a good gun shop. She stumbles across Walter"s Second Amendment Guns, which proves to be ridiculously well stocked. A Texan array of fully automatic weapons is the big draw, but what catches her eye is a sweet .308 Palma rifle and a Benelli M2. She leaves with both guns, plenty of ammo, and the address of an outdoor rifle range, courtesy of the redneck salesman with an Only G.o.d Can Judge Me tattoo on his arm whom she talked into not charging her tax if she paid cash. Gusmanov"s rules for being a gentleman: Always carry plenty of cash, mints, and an umbrella. "A man arrives without these three things...date over."
She drives to the gun range with the box of Michael in the backseat. Next thing she knows she"ll be turning into her mother and talking to him. She"s crossed over into crazy land; this is what happens when you have too much time to think. Thankfully, there"s the turnoff for the range. It doesn"t matter if she"s in Bakersfield or Ireland; give her a target and a gun, and time telescopes. All worries slough off like dead skin. She focuses on nothing but her shot. And somewhere in the middle of it all, Cheri realizes that she was looking for something when she went out that first time to Pro-Maxx and she"s looking for it again here. She wants to reclaim a part of herself she gave up for Michael.
Not all of her forays are equally successful. Sometimes the best of the worst is a Christmas Store open 365 or a dive bar with nothing but sad, bleached-out strippers and tourists in backward baseball caps. Cars crash into each other or into electrical poles along the Coast Highway, shutting down access to Malibu for miles. It"s on one of those days that she decides to f.u.c.k taking a canyon in b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper traffic just to get out of the house, and she turns the car around and heads home. As soon as she walks in the door, she smells it. s.h.i.t. Cat s.h.i.t, on the white carpet and dribbling along the kitchen floor. She narrowly avoids stepping in it. f.u.c.king cat. That"s going to take some scrubbing. While looking for cleaning products, she spies the f.u.c.king cat staring at the kitchen floor. "Hey, Skip, are you okay?" Are cats supposed to blink? Because he"s not. His pupils are dilated. Catatonic. He won"t drink water. She doesn"t know jack s.h.i.t about animals. No point calling Taya and getting her all worked up, and she"s pretty sure that Laura, the non-housekeeper, said something about going out of town. Now Cheri does step on something. It"s brown and vegetal, and what is that underneath the wine cooler? She kneels down and runs her hand along the bottom; it"s moist, and she snags a few scraggly mushrooms. Out of the recesses of her memory she pulls up a genus and species: Agaricus xanthodermus. If her long-ago mycology lessons with Zia Genny serve her, they"re poisonous.
"Say that again," the girl behind the desk at the vet clinic says. Skipperdee"s head sticks out of the towel she"s thrown around him so it looks like he"s wearing a babushka. Cheri juggles him while she fishes a plastic baggie out of her purse.
"Agaricus xanthodermus. Here"s the sample. I told the guy who answered the phone all of this already, and he said the vet would take him right away."
"You would have spoken to me, and I"ve been here the whole time. Are you saying you spoke to me without my knowing it?"
"We"re not really going to argue about this, are we?" It"s looking like they might when a guy with a shaved head and full-sleeve tattoos interrupts: "It"s okay. I spoke to her. So this is the shroom eater?"
"Yup. I think I gave you all the info. Should I leave him with you and you"ll contact me?"
"No, no. I can take you back right now."
"Animals are required to be on leash or in a carrier. She should have brought him in a carrier," the receptionist says, twisting her red kabbalah string.
"At ease, Jenna," he says, "I got this." The guy, who is dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, comes around from behind the counter and takes a look at the bundle of Skipperdee in her arms.
"He"s my friend"s cat-I"m just kind of visiting," Cheri says to the guy.
"It will be okay, little dude," he says, taking him gently from her. "He"s in shock. Good thing you came right in."
Cheri follows the guy into a room, where he puts Skipperdee on a metal examination table. "Do you know how long he"s been like this?" he asks. She"s about to answer when a long-haired surfer dude with exceedingly white teeth and scrubs walks in, extending his hand: "I"m Dr. Rick. Nice to meet you. Let"s take a look at Skipperdee."
"You"re in good hands," the guy says, touching Cheri"s shoulder as he walks past. Dr. Rick says he"s seen it all-dogs who"ve scarfed a batch of pot brownies, a whole soccer ball, a bottle of antidepressants. The patient is whisked away to be hydrated, fed activated charcoal, and monitored for the next twenty-four hours. Cheri forks over her credit card and checks the boxes to say she authorizes and will pay for whatever is needed. "You don"t have to call me first, just get him back to normal."
Outside, released from the smell of disinfected p.i.s.s in the clinic, Cheri reaches for a cigarette only to find her pack is empty. "Impressive knowledge of mycology," says a voice over her left shoulder. She turns to see the guy with the tattoos proffering a cigarette and a light. "I Googled it. Think you nailed it." He smiles with just enough curve to be genuine but also to say there"s more to him than being a whatever-he-is at the vet"s.
"Thanks."
"Don"t worry. Doesn"t look like you"ll need to go find another Scottish fold to pa.s.s off as this one to your friend." She can"t deny that the thought had occurred to her.
"Good to know."
"It"s pretty scary seeing animals so helpless."
"I"m not really an animal person."
"Okay, then. Drive safely, just-kind-of-visiting lady." He stamps his cigarette out on the ground. She notices just then that his eyes are the color of tide pools-she wants to jump in.
She"s too wired to head home. She hits the firing range again, then an ber-dank dive bar with wannabe punks (everything old is new again) called Sinners and Saints. By the time she checks her phone, she"s three Jack and c.o.kes lighter. Dr. Rick informs her that Skipperdee is doing well. If he doesn"t convulse overnight he can go home in the morning. A bullet dodged deserves another drink. She flags down the bartender, who says his name is Chad but everyone calls him Rico.
"You didn"t say if you"re coming or going," Rico says, pouring her drink.
"In between," she says.
Sonny.
Someone is ringing the doorbell. It takes a minute for the sound to register and then Cheri thinks it"s her phone. She picks it up. It"s one in the afternoon. How did that happen? How many Jack and c.o.kes have there been? It"s not her phone. It"s the door. She"s wearing one sock, underwear, and her shirt from last night. She throws on sweatpants. "Stop that f.u.c.king dinging. It"s hurting my head. I"m coming." She swings open the door.
"Land shark."
"What?" Cheri is too blinded by the sunlight to determine what she"s seeing.
"Land cat."
"Is this a joke?"
"Don"t tell me you"re too young to get an SNL reference." Cheri vaguely recognizes that this is the guy from yesterday with all the tattoos before he says: "It"s Sonny...from the vet. You remember this little dude?" Skipperdee"s face peers out from behind the grate of a cat carrier.
"Haven"t you heard of the phone?" she says, realizing she"s not wearing a bra.
"That was plan A. You might want to check your..."
She looks down at the phone clutched in her hand and discovers her ringer is off. "Oh, s.h.i.t. I"m sorry. You didn"t have to come all the way out here."
"I live right down the beach, so it"s no big deal."
"Come in. I"m a bit disorganized at the moment. What do I owe you for this?"
"I don"t work at the clinic. Dr. Rick"s my oldest friend. I stopped in to see him yesterday and randomly picked up the phone just to irritate GI Jenna. That girl cannot get enough of me."
"So you deliver cats for community service?"
"Only tripping ones," he says, opening the carrier and letting Skipperdee out. "Go forth and multiply, little dude. Or not, given you don"t have the equipment. He"s probably going to be super-thirsty so put out lots of water. Oh, and don"t freak out if his s.h.i.ts are black for a while. From the charcoal."
"Good to know."
"Nice place. Very white."
"Not my house."
"Or cat. Got that." He takes in her appearance; she knows he"s seeing the crumbles of yesterday"s mascara dotting the top of her cheeks, her hair in a knotted mess. He gives her a half curl of a smile. "Rough night?" Cheri straightens her shirt. Skip wraps himself around her leg; she makes a point of petting him. "Hey, I"m the last one to judge," Sonny says. Even while pretending to like the cat, she can"t help notice that Sonny"s got a great skull, marble smooth. She suddenly understands why bald men are s.e.xy. His face is lined enough to say he"s lived loudly but not so much that it gives away his age. Maybe he"s younger than she is.
"You want coffee? I think I"ve got some of those cup things left." After leading Sonny to the kitchen, she reaches into one of Taya"s mile-high cabinets to get the individual pods for the coffee machine and realizes she didn"t tie her sweats. While her midsection is exposed, she thinks she catches Sonny checking out the tattoo on her hip. She sucks in her stomach as she discreetly pulls her pants up.
"No thanks to the coffee," he says, "but you can have dinner with me."
"Excuse me?" She spins around to face him.
"Tonight. You. Me. Red meat. You do partake of dead cow, don"t you? I"ve got some beautiful T-bones and big Italian reds that need to be drunk before they go bad. If you can"t think of a reason to say no by seven thirty tonight, come over."
"You want to cook me dinner. I don"t even know you."
"Perfect way to get acquainted. It"s just a walk down the beach, so you"ve got an easy exit if my grilling skills fail to impress. You can"t miss the house; it"s got a green-and-white-striped awning. Here"s the address." On his way out, he turns and says: "Nice ink, by the way."
As soon as he"s gone, she thinks, Did he just ask me over for a date? Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and she was single, she"d played away games only. Going to a guy"s place gave her freedom to get up and leave whenever she wanted with some excuse like having to feed the dog she didn"t own. She has no idea what it would feel like now. She hasn"t been with anyone except Michael for almost twelve years.
She takes her cup of coffee and sinks into the big purple paisley pillows on the huge bed that Taya had insisted she sleep in because it had the best view. Taya had gone on to add, "And do not, I repeat, do not hesitate to f.u.c.k in it. You of all people need to get laid." Cheri isn"t sure she even remembers how to kiss someone. She hasn"t had an inkling of s.e.xual desire since long before Michael died and wonders if all of her parts still work. She"d gone into the bedside-table drawer looking for a pen one night and found a huge Rolling Stones tongue vibrator. In fact, s.e.x toys turned up in virtually every cabinet she opened. Her hand wanders idly over her stomach. It always looks so flat lying down. Was her gun tattoo the only thing Sonny had been checking out?
"I like my animal flesh short of blue but far from black," Sonny says, brushing b.u.t.ter on the steaks. He"s doing it with a bundle of herbs tied to a wooden spoon. "Hope you"re not too cold out here. I should have warned you, it"s a bit spartan. Fire pit"s built in, so n.o.body can sell that." Cheri had noticed the For Sale sign when she parked in front of Sonny"s gray concrete modern house. What"s left of the contents of the house are either in boxes or labeled for auction.
"I"m fine," she says, sipping on a gla.s.s of red wine. "I thought you had to leave the appliances if you"re selling a house."
"You do, but tell that to my sister. On divorce number two, I guess she figures, f.u.c.k it. She sends e-mail updates listing the indignities. Today"s was how could her ex drive his new girlfriend around Brentwood in her beloved Jag? I"m not kidding, she used the words beloved Jag. Good to know she"s got her priorities straight."
"What are you cooking in that?"