Catalina

  “They’re Julius Shulman prints,” she’s assuring me. “Have you been to the Stahl House?” I nod, momentarily distracted by the breeze. There’s a great sycamore growing over the roof and I’m watching the leaves nod too.

  And how long have you been with Robby? Are you planning to get married? Her eyes get large, she might even be blushing—or could it be a flush from the champagne? There’s a second bottle now.

  “Relax,” I’m saying. “If I cared I wouldn’t have divorced him.”

  Have some more champagne, and I’m refilling our glasses. The little bubbles racing to the top. Do you have oysters? I want a pile of those opalescent shells surrounding us. She looks at me strangely and I quickly bring the conversation back to Robby.

  We laugh about his snoring, how he loves slapstick and stand-up, how he has to be up and outside before seven in the morning. I don’t allow her to do anything except laugh when I make little jabs about his inability to understand most politics, his prejudice against money. I even make her laugh about how he orgasms. Isn’t it always the same? I am cackling.

  We make eyes at the young waiters.

  Jane is laughing, tears in her eyes. She’s saying, “You’re such a bad influence!”

  Charly is delighted. She’s looking back and forth between Jane and me, as if to tell Jane, See? See? Didn’t I tell you?

  “How old is he really, Jane?” I say, pointing.

  The waiter in question knows we’re talking about him. He’s made sure to be very attentive. Tight jeans, young, with a thin mustache, his hair pushed back in a severe pomp.

  “Shhh,” Jane says. “I’m the restaurant manager—I have to work here.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  She bites her lip, leans in. “He’s twenty-one, from Indiana, wants to be an actor.”

  “Poor guy,” Charly says. “He has such a long way to go. He’s so young. Doesn’t he look so young?”

  “We hired a host the other day who still has braces.”

  “I think they are delicious,” I say with moxy. “I’ve picked one up at my hotel.”

  The two women look at me, waiting for the joke.

  I raise my glass to the young waiter. “Salud.”

  “What do you mean you’ve picked one up at your hotel?” Charly asks, her voice so low I almost laugh in her face. “Do you mean a prostitute, Elsa?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. One of the room-service boys has a crush on me, you saw him this morning—tall and clumsy. He brings me treats.” I enjoy the look on their faces. Jane has the same expression Mary had when I told her I was divorced and single.

  So I add, “I modeled bathing suits for him.”

  Charly’s mouth is in a small o. Then she laughs so loud and sudden that the table next to us looks over.

  Jane hides her mouth behind her napkin, and then all three of us are laughing.

  When we’ve recovered, Jane says, “Robby must have had his hands full with you.”

  “Well, he’s a man, isn’t he?” I drawl. “They love to be miserable.” The alcohol and pills have lessened their hold. I have a headache right behind the eyes, and there’s a cool drip of desperation down my back.

  “A scary thought,” Jane says, frowning.

  I refuse to let them pay the bill. I hear myself saying I’ve just gotten a raise and that this is celebratory. We toast to old times, and new. My hand trembling only a little.

  When Charly walks me back to my hotel, I’m already replaying the afternoon. Was I too loud? Did I laugh too much, or just enough? I can feel the heat in my face. When we hug goodbye Charly says, “I missed you, Elsa. You were always so carefree—nothing ever touches you.”

  8

  Back at the hotel my room is clean again. A dress that slipped from the chair onto the floor is now folded on the bed. The sheets and comforter have been plumped and smoothed over like a layer of fondant. Someone has removed the rug with the wine stain and replaced it with a different one, the same pattern but a different color. There’s a clean stack of towels; my makeup and pills and Austin’s Altoids tin are lined up in a neat row; the end of the toilet paper has been folded into a point.

  And Mary’s scarf is gone. It’s not folded with the dress or the towels. No one’s hung it in the closet or placed it back in my duffel bag.

  Something climbs into the back of my throat, sour and swollen. I’ve thrown off the bed pillows and sheets, and I’m rummaging through the couch when there’s a knock at the door.

  Rex is there, his hand behind his back. I’m telling myself to calm down. “Look,” I say. “Help me look—the fucking maid stole my scarf.”

  “Oh no, I—” A smile twitches at his lips. His hands fidget behind his back.

  I’m breathing heavily, and for a moment I want to smack him. Really hurt him. If he were any closer I’d swallow him whole and spit his little pearlescent uniform buttons back to his mother in Idaho or Iowa or wherever.

  “Give it to me.” I can feel the wet on my upper lip. He brings out his hands. On his right there’s a class ring. He spreads his fingers wide and empty.

  “I thought you’d be happy. I sent it to dry cleaning. It won’t be charged to your room.” He’s backed away from me, still holding his hands out.

  I touch his class ring gently. It’s very cold, compared with his hand, which is soft and warm. I can almost twist the ring clean off. It’s only his knuckle that keeps it on.

  “Can you get it back?”

  “They won’t have cleaned it yet. I just took it down an hour ago. There was a wine stain.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t care about that. I just want it back.”

  He looks at me.

  “Wine stain and all,” I say. “Can you get it for me?”

  He nods and leaves and I’m suddenly exhausted. I crash down onto the rumpled bed, the pulled-apart sheets, and stretch out. I push my face into the only remaining pillow, breathing in that blank hotel linen scent. I think of Jane’s and Charly’s faces when I said I modeled bathing suits for him. How had they looked at me? Was it with envy or alarm?

  When I wake it’s dark and the curtains are drawn. My bedside clock is blinking. The power in the hotel must have gone off sometime in the night. I get up and pull the curtains back. The scarf is near where I had been lying. I pick it up, fingering the stiff silk. It’s hardened where the wine stain has dried. The smell is comforting. No, more than comforting. It’s reminiscent of some memory, teasing me: a floral smell that is half Mary and half her perfume. I take what I hope is a sleeping pill and a little pink pill too, because the light in the room is slanted and spooky. A note on the floor reads:

  INGRID, I’M SORRY—REX

  It’s in a neat, almost girly hand—the g is a fancy loop, the rest of the letters evenly spaced. What a nice, capable name. At the window I can see the tiny lights on a buoy out in the bay. It must be early still because the sky is soft and gray. I can just make out Catalina Island on the other side. It’s a looming lump of land right on the horizon. It seems indifferent, a little judgmental.

  I’ve been only once, when I was eleven. I did not like it. Avalon’s a terrible, touristy town with families and couples spilling out of golf carts because there are no cars allowed, and the boardwalk is barely a mile, which I guess is too far for most tourists to walk. The Catalina Express is a great big bucket of a boat that crashes headlong into swells rather than riding with them. It just plunges right in, launching deck trash cans at the crowd of summer camp kids who are goofing off, daring one another to walk up and down the stairs without holding the rails. A chubby blond boy falls, skidding a little across the deck so that his knees get cut up and bloodied. His father saying Good and his mother giving him a look that says We will not be having any fun.

  All the summer camp families are there for the day. My parents are in much better moods now that they can talk about their boys with the others, Mother beaming. This year they learned to scuba dive! My father telling a man and his wife, They’l
l be better off for it, of course.

  And there’s a dusty bus ride to the boys’ camp, eucalyptus trees and someone peeling an orange. She’s a teenager, probably not yet fifteen. An attractive girl with dark hair, she puts her finger to her lips and winks. The bright orange peel flies off, disappearing into the dust kicked up by the van.

  The boys are tan and smiling a secret joy. They show us the kayaks they used to paddle into coves where they learned about seaweed and ocean currents. One of them saw a leopard shark, the other a sea turtle. We must have stayed until dinner. I remember coming back to Avalon at night, to the Hotel Atwater, an aging Victorian-style building with sloping floors. I make my parents laugh by showing them if you place a marble on one side of the room it rolls easily to the other side.

  How clever, Mother is saying.

  There’s a bar on the ground floor that has all-night karaoke, and I dance in our hotel room to someone’s dramatic rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

  Such a silly girl, my father says, hugging me tight.

  We play cards. I pretend the stick pretzels are cigarettes and talk with what I imagine is a mobster accent. But then they start to fight, about something, anything, and my father leaves for the bar, and Mother tells me to get to bed.

  A great baritone wakes me. It’s coming from the bar below. It’s my father, his singing slurred.

  I call into the darkness, but no one answers. The room is strange at night, with its sloping floors and peeling pink walls.

  In the morning my parents take me out for waffles and buy me a hot pink hat that says “Island Style.” They buy me a caramel apple too and let me play games in the arcade.

  And then I’m at the stern of the boat. It’s loud from the thundering engine, the fierce beating wind. My parents are below, where it’s warm. I have the hat in my hands and I’m thinking of that older girl with her dark hair, how the orange peel looked when it sailed out the window—her one finger pressed against her lips. How beautiful and mysterious she was, with that secret hush, that wink meant just for me.

  The pink “Island Style” hat is flapping wildly in my hands. I watch, transfixed. Then, one finger at a time, starting with my pinky, I let go. It billows out like a handkerchief and then whips up violently, shooting out, up against the sky—for a moment I think it might fly on forever—but then it dives down, down, crashing into the boat’s wake.

  9

  I read and reread the email: I still think about you when I touch myself —Elsa.

  I’ve slept through the morning and into the afternoon. The television is on, and everything seems to take place in New York. Reality TV shows, police procedurals, music videos. There’s Central Park, the Flatiron Building, ferries coasting back and forth to Ellis Island. I almost see MoMA a handful of times.

  Why not send this to him? It says everything. Only, I’ve never been this blunt before. Is it sexy or desperate? Something would have to give; he’d have to write back if I sent this, wouldn’t he? I let my finger hover over the SEND button until I’m almost sweating. Instead I turn the television off and send this: Hey you, I’m in Los Angeles—on vacation. I miss everyone, though. Write me back when you can —Elsa.

  I remember at the last Christmas party, the curators saying Things are changing, only I did not believe them. What silly spoiled children, I thought. Because there is only wine and beer, not a full bar, they think the world is ending. Eric telling them It will be okay, and then leading me by the hand, away from the party, down to the vaults below, to the soft-lit corridors, the blue shadows, the artworks packed away in their housing. That dazzling smile and those dark eyes, the smell of his cologne—and then the pretense drops, and there’s just the sound of my breath and his, hot and labored against my neck.

  I take two white pills and shower for dinner. The restaurant where we’re meeting the potato chip heir is on the pier, one of those commercial places where the fish is flown in frozen and they use the cheapest liquor in their drinks, but I don’t mind because there’s a gift shop, and someone might come around to sing or do card tricks at your table.

  I wear sandals and a linen sundress that would make Eric stare at my shoulders, his eyes saying Yes, yes, yes.

  The streets let off heat, the sun slants over the Pacific, the hotel thermometer reads 85º. When I step into the lobby young Rex is talking to a valet. He waves when he sees me. It’s a small gesture, full of innocence, and I can barely smile in return. I refuse to feel guilty, though—I haven’t done anything.

  Outside there are people everywhere. A young French family argues on the corner, the son crying, “Papa! Papa!” His pale, freckled face is sunburned. The pregnant mother holds her stomach and looks away from them both, out toward that lovely orange-pink sky. Couples are sprawled on blankets along the grassy bluff, caretakers push despondent elders in wheelchairs, pigeons and gulls waddle among debris from an overturned trash can. There are dogs on leashes: fat ones, skinny ones, shaggy ones; some so ugly I want to kick.

  At the beginning of the pier the air is different. It smells saltier, a little sour, nasty. I hear a lifeguard tell a couple in bathing suits that blue algae bloomed recently, and is now dying. The surf is pea-soup green.

  “The water’s too warm,” he’s saying. “But don’t worry, it won’t hurt you.” The couple look disgusted. They turn away from the water. Down at the end of the pier old men cast lines and gut fish. The wooden pier groans from the weight. There are tourists in flip-flops with sunburned thighs buying cotton candy and corn dogs and tickets for the roller coaster. There are babies crying over sand in their diapers; the older kids cry too, they want a picture drawn by the cartoonist. Children know that life is incredibly unfair.

  The Klonopin—or whatever it was—puts all that noise at a distance. I feel loose, my limbs, my ligaments, down to the blood and bone. There’s a lightness in my chest, not quite giddiness, but I could see how it might get there. Even that feels far away, though, a healthy, breathable distance. I suck in that rotting sea air, feel my chest expand—exhale slowly, a gentle wind, just light enough to puff along those tiny sailboats out in the bay.

  The restaurant is a cluster of Budweiser posters and cowboy hats, bearded men all greeting, Howdy little miss. So I sit at the bar to wait for Charly and the gang. In the corner a woman laughs with her friend, beside me two men hold hands and speak in quiet voices, every table has tourists and out-of-towners. A man asks my name. I think of telling him Susanna from San Diego, or Ingrid the wine rep, or somebody else entirely, but something about him seems to be daring me to lie. So I give my real name.

  “Thought so. Jared described you to a tee. I’m Tom,” he says, smiling, but I can see his jaw clenching, biting that smile in half. He gives me a firm, lingering handshake before touching my bare shoulders. “What a beautiful dress.”

  Tom Cooper should be unattractive—hooked nose, small eyes and chin, and completely bald, smooth and shiny. But he has an aristocratic air about him. He’s older, almost forty, tall, broad, athletic. He tells me about windsurfing, how he scuba dives, rock climbs, and sails. He’s an excellent horseman; his uncle has a horse ranch in Wyoming, and he invites me up sometime. He’s well-groomed, scrubbed clean, and absolutely menacing.

  “And how do you know Jared?” I ask. I can tell he’s enjoying talking about himself.

  “He did a bit of design work for one of my companies—real good guy. We flew down to Baja a few summers back. That wife doesn’t let him get out much. Got the guy on a tight leash.”

  “I don’t think Charly could leash a dog.”

  The side of his mouth tilts up, more of a smirk than a smile.

  Just then Jared and Charly arrive. Jared bounds over to clap Tom in a big embrace, but Charly hangs back a bit. I can tell they’re fighting. She’s withdrawn, icy. She apologizes for being late but won’t say why. This I remember. And for a moment I’m relieved at how familiar this is.

  Jared orders two double Cadillac margaritas and a shot
of tequila, which means the fight must have been a doozy. “Enjoy your marg,” he says to his wife.

  Charly gives him her back and turns to me with an artificial smile. “Sorry we’re late,” she says.

  “It’s okay, Robby and Jane aren’t here yet.”

  She doesn’t touch the drink, just fiddles with the straw. “The valet took forever too,” she says before giving me her drink and asking the bartender for a club soda.

  Then Robby is there with Jane, who’s all happy liquid energy.

  “We ordered at the bar,” Tom says, pointing at Jared. “This guy couldn’t wait.” He kisses Jane on the cheek, shakes Robby’s hand.

  “Hey, man, I’m on vacation as of today.” Jared tosses back his shot and orders another.

  The six of us squeeze into a booth. I’m between Tom and Jared. I can smell Tom’s aftershave; even this smells expensive. He rests his thigh next to mine, all coiled muscle. He smiles that same biting smile at me.

  “You okay, Jared?” I ask. “You’re already on shot number two.”

  “El numero dos,” he says, sucking up the last of his margarita and putting an arm around me. “Aw, Elsie. What happened to you? Where’d you go? Remember the fun times we had? Remember those desert trips? Coachella in its early days?” His mouth slants.

  “Before it got filled with shitty hipsters,” Robby says from over his drink.

  “Yeah, man! We used to pack up my Jeep and smoke pot the whole way.” Jared leans his head back, his eyes slits.

  “You were all at UCLA together?” Tom asks.

  “Except for Jane,” Robby says, bumping her playfully.