“Since when . . . ?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around my dad and Shu—
“We’re in love,” Dad said. “Shu’s on a work visa; she needs a green card. And I need someone to take care of me. We’re going to need a bigger place now, too.”
“This is so fucking cool,” Fin said.
“You girls don’t need me anymore,” he said. “Fin, I’m proud of you, kiddo. You’re really turning your life around.”
“Wait. Are you proud of me, too, Dad?” I asked.
“God,” Fin said. “It’s not always about you.”
“Dad,” I said. “Why do you need a bigger place?”
Shu grasped my dad’s hand and beamed. Ah, I recognized that glow.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “I cannot.”
“Hey, don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Dad the lapsed Catholic said.
“I’m going to be an auntie again!” Fin said. “No, I’m going to be a big sister! Finally!”
“So,” my dad said, “Shu and I talked. Do you want your house back, kiddo?”
“My house?” I asked.
“It is your house,” Dad said. “I was just living here.”
I blinked.
“Pep likes it here,” he said. “She told me. It’ll be good for her to come down off that hill.”
“The judge won’t approve. It’s nothing like the dead zone. I couldn’t even fit the orchid guy in here.”
“Wait. I’ll move my shit out of that extra room, and you can fit a bed in there; there’s enough room for a second bedroom,” Dad said. “And if it’s not too late, I want to say thank you. I should’ve said it a long time ago. I’m, you know, sorry.”
My head was spinning. I’d never heard my father apologize.
“Fin, you’re not leaving empty-handed. Here. I’m giving you my Boston Red Sox cap.”
“Dad, are you dying?” Fin asked.
“No,” he said, “Shu hates the Red Sox. She’s more of a Yankees fan.”
“You must really love her,” I said.
He tightened his hand around his bride-to-be’s.
24: Irreconcilable Similarities
“Word is Trevor’s not well,” Waverly said. I heard waves crashing in the background. A seagull cawing. Malibu, no doubt. “I’ve heard it from a studio chief, a director, and his agent. I can’t tell you who they are, but I’m saving their latest Marvel movie—total catastrophe. I can’t talk about it.”
“What do you mean not well? Mr. and Mrs. Anonymous have a court date tomorrow.” I’d forgotten to tell Waverly she was fired, but I hadn’t sent her money in a while and we hadn’t talked, so maybe she already knew I was cognitived out.
“Your ex is having a nervous breakdown,” she said. “Call your attorney. The judge will never give him custody. Right now, Trevor can’t even take care of himself.”
“Trevor hasn’t taken care of himself in twenty years,” I said. “He doesn’t need to.”
I’d seen people have nervous breakdowns. When I say people, I mean my mom. See how healthy I’m becoming? I’m being truthful here. My mom had a nervous breakdown, and then she left. I remember weeks of her hands shaking when she lit a cigarette, her knees collapsing when she tried to wash dishes, sending them crashing to the floor. I remember tears. I remember her screams. I remember puddles of amber liquid ballooning from a tumbler. We were two little girls and one big man, and we were helpless. Whatever was fighting inside her head was winning.
Murphy Family, 0—Head Goblins, 1.
We never even had a chance to score.
I hung up on Waverly; I didn’t want to hear anymore.
I called Anne and told her we needed to have a meeting with Trevor and his team. We needed to do this outside the courtroom, outside the office. Someplace safe and warm.
I told her his lawyers would understand and cooperate.
“Hey.” Fin barged into my bathroom. “How’s Gio’s health?”
“What? Why? Why would you be bringing that up now?” I clutched my heart.
“He just texted me. Said the script’s not a total piece of shit,” Fin said. “That’s like high praise coming from him, right? I just want to make sure he can be bonded.”
Trevor’s team agreed to my suggestion for a meeting and filed a motion to delay the court date.
“I could tell they were eager, even though Ulger tried to cover. His usual bluster wasn’t up to snuff,” Anne said. “What’s going on?”
“We need to talk about Trevor,” I said.
“Isn’t that a movie?”
“This is the sequel,” I said. “Apparently, Trevor’s having a bit of a breakdown. Pep’s fine, she doesn’t seem to notice from what I can tell, but he’s just . . . not himself.” After I spoke to Waverly, I had everyone’s favorite Latina triplets do a little reconnaissance with the ladies working for Trevor in Malibu. AT&T had nothing on the El Salvadoran connection. Gabriela had called me at midnight to confirm—Trevor wasn’t sleeping, Trevor was taking sleeping pills and still not sleeping; Trevor was drinking and taking sleeping pills and still not sleeping. Trevor was mumbling to himself, Trevor was rocking back and forth. He could pull himself together long enough to hide it from Pep, who was too young and technologically distracted to understand.
It was worse than I’d imagined.
“I see,” Anne said. I didn’t fill in all the blanks. She was smart enough and kind enough not to push for details. I would say she’d never make it as a divorce attorney, but she’d been at it for twenty years. Maybe it was her calling. Or her penance. Had she been Stalin in a former life? Not saying and not judging.
“So lifeguard station 21?”
“That’s the one, outside the police station and the skateboard park, south of Muscle Beach, north of turban guy on roller skates,” I said. “I’ll set everything up. They just need to bring their client and sunscreen.”
Ulger wouldn’t stop squawking about getting sand in his Ferragamos.
“Stay on the blanket, Ulger,” I said. I thought it’d been a great idea, meeting here on Venice Beach among the negative ions and soft breezes, the skateboarders and the young families, the German tourists and the local homeless. I’d fished a couple of my dad’s old beach blankets out of the cupboard, hauled them down onto the sand, and laid them out. I dragged a cooler full of bottled water and Diet Cokes, because only the unhealthiest divorce lawyers love Diet Coke. I set out legal pads and pens and an assortment of bagels from the Strand, which we could share with the pigeons.
Trevor didn’t show. Ulger informed us he had a work emergency that needed taking care of right away, but he was fine with his representation taking the meeting. Anne and I exchanged glances from behind our sunglasses.
“Everyone crisscross applesauce,” I said as we all took our places on the blanket and set out to make a deal, serenaded by seagulls badgering us for our bagels.
An hour later, Ulger had slipped off his Ferragamos and his silk socks and rolled up his pants legs, and we couldn’t get him out of the water to sign off on the final document for the longest time.
Anne and I watched as he looked for shells, digging in the sand with his cane. I didn’t have the heart to tell him there weren’t any shells left in Venice Beach. Unless he’s digging for used condoms.
“Keep digging, Ulger!” I yelled, then took a deep breath of salt air with a hint of grime. Eau de Venice Beach.
A few minutes later, I walked Ulger back to his Merlot-colored Bentley.
“Why do you divorce for a living?” I asked as he packed his papers in the trunk, which was already filled with files. “You’ve already got this hideous car and a couple of houses you don’t use. What more do you have to prove? We all know you’re an asshole.”
And then I punched him, sort of lightly.
On the edge.
He sniffed and looked down, then gazed back at me. “Agnes, I hate my job. I’ve hated it for thirty-six years. Do you like fly-fishing?”
I stopped to think. “I don’t know. Do
you have to touch the fly?”
“Miss Agnes,” he said, gazing up at me. “I’d like to ask you out sometime.”
I mentally fainted, then recovered.
“Now’s not a good time, Ulger,” I said. (Does never work for you?)
On a Saturday morning at 7:00, a moving truck pulled up in the alley behind my dad’s place, and two big dudes rapped on my door and asked me if this were the right address and was I expecting a delivery.
I shook my head, but they insisted, so I followed the Oakland Raiders offensive line to the alley, where Fin, with slicked-back hair, was dancing around in a wetsuit.
“Oh, hells yeah!” she said, her shit-eating grin stretched ear to ear.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “It’s seven in the morning, Fin.”
“Wait, wait,” Fin said. “Look at this.”
The linebackers slid open the back, and the metal clanged against the top of the truck. Inside, blanketed like a baby, was our piano. In all the divorce excitement (excrement?), I’d forgotten about our neglected Steinway.
Sitting beneath the piano, wrapped snuggly, was my Tiffany clock.
I looked at my sister, clear-eyed, her hair stiff from salt water. Fin had taken up and mastered surfing in about a week. Of course she had.
“I paid them a visit,” she said.
“You paid who a visit?”
“The weaselly guy and his wife,” she said.
“Wait, the famous buyers?” I asked.
“I heard he was an actor; is that true?” she said. “He’s all teeth. Anyway, we’re good.”
I had a bad feeling. A bad Fin feeling. A Fin-tingling. “Fin,” I said. “What did you do? What did you say to them?”
Fin smiled and punched my arm.
“Fin,” I said, rubbing my arm and staring at the piano like a giant pet I had no space for. “Where the hell are we going to put a piano?”
Fin is better with a hammer than I remembered.
“Dad taught me,” she said. “Don’t you remember? I used to help him around the house.”
“I vaguely recall being jealous over a tool belt,” I said. I’d brought her some water. She was busy tearing up the garage floor in the back of the house, on the alleyway. She’d found pipes in the wall; someone had lived in that little space years ago, and there’d been a bathroom, a doll-sized kitchen. Fin knew guys who knew guys who knew construction, and she supervised them. Lay down a wood floor, install a toilet, a sink. Wire the place and put up drywall.
When she gets tired, she plays the piano. Which is in the backyard. It’s unusual, but somehow it feels right, and we cover the Steinway when she’s not in use, but she’s in use a lot more than in the dead zone. Fin says the piano’s fine for now until we find it a permanent home. I have a feeling that means building her a shed in the backyard.
The neighbors like the music. They come over for margaritas and Led Zeppelin.
Did I tell you that Liz had navigated her Range Rover down Venice’s mean streets and proclaimed that my dad’s house had great bones and just needed a fresh coat of paint and a bit of interior work? Then she took it upon herself to decorate, tossing paint and carpet and drape samples on my desk in the semi-functional workspace I’d carved out. I paid for materials and labor, but she wouldn’t take a dime herself, even though Lucas had finally sold my book to a network I’d never heard of until they optioned my work. There are actually several networks I’d never heard of now. Nothing makes you feel as old as not knowing the difference between PEP and CRNCH and VGOR and, well, you get the drift.
Hey, as long as they’re buying, I’m selling.
Lucas called me the other day. “Guess what?”
“No,” I said.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Your book made the list.”
Lately, some of his clients are peeing at their book signings. One made herself throw up halfway through her reading.
“No!” I said.
I’d never be a literary darling; I’d sold enough books to write another. More than most, less than some.
I’d made the list.
Number eight with a bullet.
“What a pisser,” I said.
“Oh, about that, I got a call on a deal,” Lucas said. “As a spokesperson.”
“Me? Someone wants me as a spokesperson?” I was grinning, my cheeks heating up. Me! What could it be? Skin cream? Hairspray? Shoes?
“You,” Lucas said. “Good news is, it’s sixty grand for a year’s work of doing next to nothing.”
“The perfect job for me!”
“The bad news is . . . ,” Lucas said. And paused.
Which is how I became a spokesperson for Pampers Adult Diapers. They’re quite comfortable, and I haven’t had an accident since.
What?
Like you wouldn’t.
I’m a spokesperson, y’all. That’s some adult shit. (So to speak.)
Oh, and FYI, if you’re interested, there’s quite a few schnauzer rescue organizations. I know, because that’s where I found Edgar. He’s a little older and a little not totally housebroken, and Pep and I are his biggest fans.
I got a call. I recognized but didn’t recognize the area code, like a phantom arm; this was a phantom number.
I answered.
“You gotta get me out of here,” my ex-husband said.
* * *
I flew to Tucson and rented a convertible Mustang because why not. I’d told Trevor I’d land at noon and would be at Madre de Tucson by 12:45 and I’d be waiting outside. As it turns out, a heat wave had gripped Arizona, and I’d been lucky to land. Most flights were grounded.
I rounded the driveway at the rehab entrance, and Trevor was already waiting outside with his little suitcase. He was shaved and his hair was clean and flopped forward in his eyes, and he looked like a little boy patiently waiting for Mom to pick him up from camp. He waved as I pulled in front, jumping up and down.
“Drive!” he yelled as he hopped over the passenger’s side. “I have a movie to make! We just closed on George!”
“I heard he was out—”
“Oh, not for that piece of shit, no, different movie. I’ve got the next Lawrence of Fucking Arabia. Fuck you, Harvey!”
“Harvey’s already fucked,” I said. “Did you run into him?”
“Yeah, he tried to grab my dick,” Trevor said. “Degenerate.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed any outside communication. How do you know you have a movie?”
“My coproducer got me the script. She knows a guy who works here. I guess they used to party together. He sold it to me for twenty bucks.”
“Trevor,” I said. “Who’s your coproducer?”
“Fin, you know that, right?” he said. “It’s fast-tracked; we’re shooting in Mexico in four weeks! Lightning has struck!”
“Trevor, isn’t Gio directing?”
“I love that dude!” Trevor looked at me, raising his sunglasses.
“You hate Gio,” I reminded him. “You called him all kinds of names.”
“Business isn’t personal, Ag,” Trevor said. “What did I always tell you? Didn’t you learn anything from being with me? Nothing is personal!”
“Except divorce,” I said. “Divorce is personal.”
We were driving the whole way. Eight hours, with luck. Trevor had screamed at his number-one and number-two assistants, but somehow the airlines weren’t cooperating. Maybe the number-three assistant would’ve made all the difference.
“How fast can you get there?” Trevor asked.
“We’ll be in LA by 7:00,” I said.
“Make it 6:30 and you have yourself a deal,” he said.
“I already have a deal,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s right.” The deal we’d made on the beach held. We’d share custody, but we all know what that meant. C’mon, I’d do the heavy lifting, and Trevor, Trevor would be just what he wanted (after I brought it up): Trophy Dad. He’d be fun and exciting and bigger than
life, and Pep had incredible adventures in store for her. Perhaps Trevor would adopt me to go on his more exotic trips. Maybe he’d marry Kate Moss and we could all hang on a beach in Ibiza, even though I was over legal Ibiza age.
“Get me there by 6:15 and I’ll pay the rest of your legal bills.”
“Buckle your seatbelt,” I said as we drove into the Tucson Mountains.
Trevor looked out at the desert.
“Should we get back together?” he asked.
“No.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re right.”
Twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep.
* * *
Gabriela surprised me the other day by taking me to meet La Reina.
A privilege, she’d said, because as she’d told me numerous times, La Reina never met with white people. I told her I’d try to do my best not to shame her. We drove downtown and stopped in front of a small Spanish house with tile rooftop off Crenshaw. Inside, Christmas lights were strung across the living room above a red velvet couch in front of a shrine to the Madonna and Baby Jesus. La Reina was younger than I’d imagined, a clairvoyant Selena Gomez. Gabriela held my hand and told me she would interpret. I was excited to see how this could possibly work, and once again, I regretted my poor Spanish. Except as it turns out, La Reina’s English was fine. Better than mine. She’d majored in English lit at Berkeley.
“You are healthy and . . . not unhappy?” she asked. I nodded, not unhappily. “Your daughter is healthy and not unhappy.” Pep had found her equilibrium for the moment—and her serve. She was killing it on the volleyball court. All the moms hated me and somehow dropped me from the email chain in punishment. Elation!
“Like mother, like daughter,” I said. “Will I find love again?”
“Yes. There is a good man. He will come.”
“How will I know?”
“There will be a few iffy men first,” she said, using the universal hand sign for iffy. “Stay off Tinder,” she said. “Your sister’s wrong about this.”
My thoughts ran to Gio. Was he enjoying an espresso and a cigarette and someone’s unhappy wife at a table outside Les Deux Magots? Thank God for Gio, whose cameo appearance in my life helped propel me once and for all over the wall . . . or the gate at the dead zone.
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