by Blake Crouch
This enormous, beefy black man bumps into me. He holds glow sticks and dances with his eyes closed. Another woman, very tall, is garbed in a wedding dress. She just stands in one place, nothing moving but her head, side to side with the beat.
The disco balls come to life and spit their bursting light all over the walls.
I plow on through the crowd to the other side of the room where a beer bar and more tables line the wall.
I sit down beside a table of five lovely women, and after listening to them gab, I discover they’re a bachelorette party. All late twenty-somethings. You can tell they don’t come out to places like this very often. I wonder how they got into La Casa anyway. They’re all drinking highly colorful drinks garnished with slices of tropical fruit. I imagine that once they’re sufficiently liquored up, they’ll be stumbling out onto the dance floor with everyone else.
One of them catches me staring.
“Hello.” I smile that winning smile.
“Hi.”
The other four women now look at me.
“Let me guess,” I say, very charmingly, “bachelorette party?”
They smile politely, let out some nervous laughter, and confirm that I’m correct.
“Who’s the bride-to-be? No. Let me guess.”
I lean back and squint and take them in.
Facing me, they occupy one half of a circular table.
From left to right: (i) a redhead, oldest of the bunch, cute, but the glitter on her cheeks is a little disturbing;
(ii) one of those tiny little blonds that probably have to shop for clothes in the children’s department. Short hair and twinkly eyes that shine with something none of her friends possess (hope she’s not the bride);
(iii) another blond, more regular-size, who’s athlete-pretty but might be stronger than me (yikes);
(iv) a factory-issue brunette who looks as though she’s been smiling since Christmas;
(v) another brunette, who, because of the disinterested way she’s staring back at me, I surmise is a lesbian. Quite beautiful though.
I point at the smiley brunette.
“I’ve got to go with you. You look very bridey.”
Incomprehensibly, her smile widens, until I think her face is going to split apart.
“Yep. It’s me.” They all laugh, and I laugh, too.
“Well, good luck to you and your fiancé. I wish you all the best.”
A waitress passes near our tables, and I lift my hand, snag her attention.
“Another round for the ladies please, and an Absolut for me, one ice cube, no lime.”
“Certainly.”
The ladies all thank me and make excuses about how they’d better not drink too much since their partying days are long since gone. But boy when their fruity drinks are replenished, and I’ve suavely toasted the bride-to-be, they suck them down like you wouldn’t believe.
The glittery redhead suddenly lights up and exclaims how rude we all are because we don’t even know each other’s names.
“This is…” She proceeds to name all five women in about three nanoseconds. I’m awful with names, so the only one I remember is the marvelous blond. Kara.
“I’m Jim,” I say and I reach across and shake everyone’s hand very delicately.
The lesbian cocks her head.
“What’s your last name?” she asks.
I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, but I play it very cool. Hesitating. Like I don’t want to say.
“Jansen,” I say, extremely understated-like.
The athletic blonde says, “Down From the Sleeping Trees Jansen?” Her eyes are about to pop out of her head. I’m serious.
But I just nod and look away like they’re making me feel uncomfortable. They’re not, incidentally. I’m loving every minute of it.
One of them says holy shit. I hear more nervous giggling.
I kind of don’t know what to say to them now. I mean, unless they start asking me questions, I’ve got nothing.
When I turn back to face them, you wouldn’t believe the shock on their faces. All except for Kara. She’s just staring at me with her calm, sweet eyes.
A hand squeezes my shoulder.
“Jim?”
Richard Haneline is standing above me. He’s a Star. A medium Star. Very recognizable. He isn’t handsome in the Hollywood sense. Just distinctive-looking. A long, pointy nose and piercing eyes. He always stars in these Vietnam flicks, playing the renegade solider or the bad guy. Some people just look like the bad guy, I guess. He’s always blowing shit up and going off the deep end.
I stand up and smile and shake his hand, wondering if I call him Rich or Richard or some nickname. I didn’t even know I knew the guy.
“Great to see you out, Jim. You get my message?”
“No, my voicemail’s been fucked up.”
I’m taller than Richard Haneline and much better-looking. I focus on these little things to keep from fainting.
“Look, I’m having a party next Tuesday after the premiere. Feel up to coming?”
“Absolutely.”
A woman calls out “Rich!” from the dance floor.
He waves to this perfect brunette.
“Jim, if I don’t see you again tonight, I’ll call you.” He starts to walk back onto the dance floor.
I grab his arm. “My phone’s going to be out of commission for a few days. Here.” I take a cash receipt, tear off a section, and scribble my new cell number down. “Use this number. Just call me tomorrow or Monday with details.”
“Sounds good. Hey, guy, I’m so happy to finally see you out. I think it’s terrific.”
He seems to want to say more, but instead he slaps my shoulder and backpedals into the tangle of dancers.
When I turn around, I see that the five ladies of bachelorette party fame have not moved. To tell you the truth, I think they’re fairly star-struck. And between seeing me and Haneline, that’s understandable.
I go ahead and take a seat across from them. The blonde and I lock eyes.
“You dance?” I ask her. She shrugs—very cute. I think she’s adorable. Perhaps it’s mean of me not to ask the bride-to-be to dance, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to dance with anyone except this little blond.
“I’m a terrible dancer,” I say.
“Me, too.”
“Then shall we?”
Kara polishes off her fruity drink and rises from her chair. I’m praying for a slow song, but something tells me they don’t ever play slow songs in this place.
I take her by the hand and lead her out onto the dance floor. Her hand is very small and warm. Would it kill DJ SuperCasanova to play a slow song?
Kara only comes up to my shoulder. When we find a spot in the crowd, I lean down and put my lips to her left ear. The beat pulses on relentlessly. Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom.
“Would you mind if we slow-danced to this?” I ask.
I hope I haven’t hurt her eardrum, but I have to scream to be heard.
She looks up at me, smiles, shakes her head.
I cup the small of her back and pull her body into mine. She’s wearing a sleeveless black dress and she smells like someone I could love. I know that sounds strange. But right now, I don’t give the first shit about anything except standing here with her, moving together at our own pace. Even though we haven’t said three words to each other, I know her more than anyone I’ve met since leaving North Carolina, and underneath all this noise, I’ll bet we hear the same song.
Chapter 14
leaves La Casa ~ takes Kara home ~ prepares his specialty for the Dunkquists ~ talks with Bo about marriage and Hannah ~ plays with Sam in the swimming pool
We slow dance through two more fast songs, and it feels so good being pressed up against her. Finally she pulls my ear down to her mouth and tells me that the music is hurting her ears. It’s hurting mine, too. I ask her if she wants to leave, because it kind of seems that way. She does. I’m ready to go, too. Even though
I haven’t been here very long, I’ve seen all I care to see of LA club life. And of course, I secured an invite to my good pal, Richard Haneline’s, movie premiere and party.
On a side note, his most recent movie was called The Soldier. It’s about a solider who has to sneak behind enemy lines in World War I to kill some general or colonel. And the movie is actually pretty decent, but do you think they could’ve put a tad more thought into the title? I just hate stuff like that.
I hold Kara’s hand again and lead her out of the crowd. We return to the table of her four dance-shy friends and she tells them she isn’t feeling well, and that I’ve offered to take her home. Of course, her friends are very concerned about her, but I also catch a whiff of envy.
You think you’d enter and exit through the same doors, but actually you exit out the side of the building. I guess those three fuckheads at the door wouldn’t want any of the La Casa hopefuls to know that anyone ever leaves the place.
Kara and I stand in the warm evening while the long-haired valet goes searching for my car. You can still feel the throbbing music, but it’s muffled enough to hear the traffic cruising up and down Hollywood and the murmur of the crowd standing in line just around the corner of the building.
“Thank you,” Kara says as I hear my Hummer crank somewhere out in the parking lot darkness. “I just had to get out of there.”
The Hummer pulls up to the curb, and I usher Kara to the passenger side, open the door for her, and help her in. I know it sounds mean, but I don’t tip the valet. I mean the guy’s made $200 off me already tonight. I think that’s sufficient. Even still, he sighs and rolls his eyes when I get in without tipping him.
So I head back out onto Hollywood and we just drive for awhile in the direction of UCLA.
Kara’s quiet. I can’t tell if something’s wrong since I don’t really know her, but I can’t believe she isn’t more excited to be riding in James Jansen’s Hummer.
“Everything all right?” I ask.
“I’m a little nervous,” she says.
“Why?” I know why, but I’d love to hear her say it.
“I’m just a little in awe. I don’t really know how to act. My friends would be talking your ear off, but I’m…I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” I say, and it’s true. I really don’t. I want her to be comfortably in awe.
“Turn here,” she says.
“How about this?” I say. “Pretend I’m just some guy you met in the club.”
“I wouldn’t have met any guys in that club. They certainly wouldn’t be driving me home. I don’t know if you noticed, but everyone in that place is swimming in the kiddie pool.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, bad analogy. They’re shallow.”
“Oh. Yes, I agree.”
“Look, Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how this normally works for you. I’m sure you get women like crazy, but I’m not one of those. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I really…I’m incapable of bullshit. That’s who I am. So I’m going to just say it. The reason you’re taking me home, the reason I wanted you to, beyond the fact that I despise clubs, is we made a connection. It has nothing to do with who you are, your fame I mean. I honestly felt something that has nothing to do with any of that. And I know that I’m not supposed to be telling you this. Maybe you’d rather we…turn here…maybe you’d rather we played a little game where neither of us admits how incredible that was on the dance floor, but that’s not me. I’m sorry if I’m ruining this for you.”
“It was,” I say.
“What?”
“It was incredible dancing with you, Kara.”
She smiles and brushes her hair behind her ears.
“That’s my building up ahead.”
I turn into the parking lot of a four-story apartment building on the outskirts of the UCLA campus. I kind of wonder if she’s going to invite me up. This sounds strange, but part of me hopes she doesn’t.
“I’ll kill the suspense for you. I’m not going to ask you up,” she says as I pull up to the main entrance. “I’m sorry.” She unbuckles her seatbelt but doesn’t open the door yet.
“This is it?” For some reason, the possibility of her getting out of this car and me not ever seeing her again turns me desperate. “Could I call you?”
“What are you doing tomorrow?” she says, opening the door and stepping out.
“No plans.”
“Pick me up at eleven if you want to. Right here. I’ll spend the day with you.”
“I don’t even know your—”
“You will. For now, just enjoy what happened tonight. Relish it. It was pure.”
She slams the door and I wait until she’s inside the building before driving away. I’m tempted to hit another club or bar, or just cruise through the mansions in the hills.
But instead, I decide to head on home and relish it.
I rise at 6:30 before anyone else and creep into the kitchen and start assembling the ingredients for the only dish I know how to make—a Mexican omelet.
Since there’s four of us, I break a dozen eggs into a glass mixing bowl. Then I shred half a block of sharp cheddar and what’s left of a block of monetary jack. Then I cut up some tomatoes, add a third of a cup of hot chipotle salsa, sauté some onion, green pepper, and a heap of diced jalapeno peppers. I add everything to the eggs, throw in salt and pepper and red pepper and a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce. Then I whisk it all together and dump the whole runny mixture into a buttered frying pan.
The Dunkquists start drifting into the kitchen as the smell of my Mexican omelet fills the house. I’ve gone ahead and brewed a pot of coffee so strong it could run a car engine, and I’m sitting on the kitchen counter, staring out the window at those hills catching early morning sun.
“You didn’t have to do this, Lance,” Hannah says as she opens a cabinet and retrieves her Lakers coffee mug. She pours herself a cup, sips it, winces. Without saying a word, she dumps it into the sink, and takes a teabag from a glass jar. As she fills a saucepan with water and fires up the gas on the stove, Bo enters in underwear and a tee-shirt.
“That looks interesting,” she says, staring down into the congealing eggs.
“Surprised to see you up so early,” Bo says to me. “Smells great.”
He takes a mug from the cabinet bearing the logo of his software company (the talons of a hawk in swift descent) and fills it with my unwanted coffee. He sips it, looks at me, and smiles.
“Now that’s what coffee’s supposed to taste like.”
“You tasted this yet, Hannah?”
“Little strong for me,” she says flatly, coldly. I am unfortunately coming to the realization that my brother married a real fucking bitch.
“Where’d you go last night?” Bo asks, leaning against the counter beside me. I’m wearing a red and blue Ralph Lauren robe, incidentally. Very classy.
“This dance club.”
“Oh? I didn’t think you liked that sort of thing.”
“I don’t, but I was curious to see some LA nightlife.”
“Meet anybody?”
“I did actually. I’m going to spend the day with her.”
I notice that Hannah is staring at me like she wants to ask me something. She might loath me.
“Could you stir the eggs, Hannah?” I ask as nicely as I possibly can.
She takes the wooden spatula, turns her back to us, and stirs the eggs.
“So are you going to look for a job next week, Lance?” she asks.
“I sure am.”
“And you were a legal assistant up until a week ago?”
“Yes.” I sip my coffee. I hate being asked questions by people who dislike me.
“What kind of work do you have in mind?”
“Whatever’s available. Doesn’t really matter, long as it pays decent.”
Little feet come slapping down the hall, and Sam runs into the
kitchen. He stops suddenly when he sees me. You can tell that he forgot I was here. He just sort of looks at me for a moment, not unlike the way his mother does. But then he smiles and runs over to Bo and hangs on his leg.
“I wanna swim,” he says, looking up into his daddy’s eyes.
“Gotta eat first, pal.”
“Swim!”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
Sam considers this, then nods.
“As soon as you eat, you can go swim. I’ll bet Lance would love to swim with you. You remember Uncle Lance?”
“No, just you.”
“Okay, okay.” Bo winks at me. “Let’s get in your highchair. Uncle Lance made breakfast for everyone.”
After breakfast, I offer to wash the dishes, but Hannah won’t let me. She didn’t touch the omelet I made, even though it was very tasty.
Since it’s just past nine, the brutal heat has not set in. Bo and I put on swimming trunks, and Sam leads us out into the backyard. The water in the swimming pool is tepid and grass clippings float on the surface. We turn the pool upside down. This is unbearable to Sam, who starts sobbing and screaming because I guess he thinks that was the only water around. He settles down once Bo unwinds the garden hose and starts refilling the pool.
Sam loves water. He climbs into the pool while it’s filling and just sits there on the plastic, watching the stream of water flowing out of the nozzle.
Bo and I sit on the picnic table. It feels exceptionally pleasant out here at this hour of the morning. I take off my shirt.
Once the pool is filled, Bo takes the hose away from Sam and cuts off the water. Apparently, Sam enjoys squirting adults who don’t care to get wet.
“So tell me about being married,” I say, since neither of us have yet said a word and I’m a bit curious anyway.
Bo smiles and removes his shirt. I’m in exceedingly better physical condition than my brother.