Last Looks

by Howard Michael Gould

  After he dried himself he flipped the channels until he found something promising, two morbidly obese women on the ground clawing at each other in front of Maury Povich, apparently over the results of a paternity test. Waldo put on his clean underwear and, when the security guys began to pry the women apart, moved to the bathroom to listen to the Maury denouement while he hand washed his other set of clothes in the sink. The job was quicker today without socks. In fact, he thought, if the skin on his feet could get accustomed—no sure thing, as nasty irritations were already in bloom behind both heels—he might eventually go sockless full-time, opening two permanent slots to spend however he wanted. The thought made him feel like a rich man. For now, though, he was glad to still have one pair and that this would be a socked night.

  Maury went to break and another truculent Savannah Moon commercial. “Have you taken off all your clothes and looked in the mirror?” Waldo, in his boxers, appraised his own body, something he hadn’t done in a long time. Lorena was right: he was skinny.

  “Seriously, how fat are you going to get before you do something?”

  How skinny?

  “Well, guess what, Shamu—I’m your something.”

  Waldo finished dressing while he pondered his options for the trip to West Hollywood. His legs were shot, so riding over the hill and back was an intimidating proposition. The 218 bus went north-south over Laurel but would stop running before he’d need it to come home. Then there was the danger of the curvy canyon roads in the dark. He decided to coast downhill to Ventura, catch the bus and double back up and over to the other side, and choose later whether to brave the tough ride back or figure out something involving multiple transfers.

  Waldo got off the 218 at Sunset and biked to La Cienega, then carefully down its first steep blocks. Beyond Santa Monica most of the stores were dark, shut down for the night, but in the distant blocks ahead he could see pockets of light and people in the street. The first club he approached had a crowd milling out front and he figured that was Jayne’s until he got closer and realized that there were no women among them and the music inside was pulsing EDM. He checked Jayne’s construction paper and saw he was probably still a block away.

  The address she’d written had to be a mistake, because it matched a Lutheran church called Saint Luke’s. There were a couple of places open on the other side a block down and he tried those. One was a sports bar and the other a hipster joint with a jukebox loaded with sixties songs; neither was set up for live music.

  Waldo went back to the church and this time as he neared he heard a choir from within: “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” Waldo locked his bike to a rack near the heavy wooden door and took a look inside.

  It was a rehearsal, not a service, the choir in its stalls but in street clothes. Sure enough, there was Jayne among the altos, in a simple white blouse, hair pulled back in a blue ribbon. Come hear me sing. The setting was even more unsexual than the kindergarten, but still she had something ineludible. Waldo slipped into the rear pew to watch and listen. Near the end of the hymn Jayne noticed him and smiled; she might have winked, too, but he wasn’t sure. Between the classroom and the church, he’d been around her less than five minutes, but she’d already knocked him off his pins a dozen times. He listened to “Lift High the Cross” and “Go, My Children, with My Blessing” before the rehearsal broke and Jayne said her good-byes and walked down the aisle to Waldo’s pew. “You came,” she said.

  “I like music.”

  She told him she knew a place they could get a soda or something and he followed her out. They made small talk on La Cienega, Waldo asking how long she’d been in the choir, Jayne answering that she’d just joined, Jayne asking if he went to church and Waldo saying not lately. She led him into the hipster bar, where the jukebox was playing Jan and Dean. They slid into a wooden booth with high backs.

  When a waitress came over, Waldo waited for Jayne to order, but she said to him, “You first.” He looked at her demure ribbon and thought about her singing about Jesus and his cross and asked the waitress for a cranberry juice. Jayne said to the waitress, “Double Maker’s, rocks.”

  The waitress said, “Right up,” and started away.

  Waldo said, “Check that,” and changed his order to match Jayne’s, then said to her, “Who is who they are?”

  Jayne smiled at the playback and said, “Could be I’m exactly who I am—a kindergarten teacher choirgirl who happens to like whiskey.”

  Waldo shifted in his seat. This was feeling more social than he’d expected and he wanted to get back to work. “So why weren’t you shocked that Monica Pinch was murdered?”

  Her smile didn’t fade, but she said, “Let’s hold that till our drinks come.” She made him feel ham-fisted, like he wasn’t up to the job, like he didn’t know how to do any of this anymore, not how to chip away at a case, not how to order in a bar, not how to have a simple conversation with a woman he was attracted to. Jayne was watching him and waiting for his next line and all he could think of was that he didn’t have one.

  Finally she said, “So—you dressed up for me.”

  He looked around the bar at the rest of the clientele. There were hipsters wearing jeans and work shirts that seemed similar to his, but if she was saying this now he must be conspicuously untrendy, the stuff he bought for its durability wrong in some way obvious to everybody but him. “Sorry,” he said. “Where I live . . . I don’t have to think much about fashion.”

  She untied the ribbon and shook her hair loose, holding his gaze as she did it.

  Without thinking about it he said, “There goes the kindergarten teacher choirgirl,” but wondered right away if he’d gotten it wrong again.

  She said, “Just wait till I have a couple whiskeys in me,” and he thought maybe he was okay. Then she said, “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m totally a kindergarten teacher choirgirl. Who happens to like whiskey and has good hair.”

  The waitress came back with the drinks and they both thanked her. Jayne raised her Maker’s to Waldo in a silent toast and they both sipped. He hadn’t had a drink in his years on the mountain, not out of principle but because he didn’t see its place among the new habits he was creating.

  He asked again, “Why weren’t you shocked?”

  But Jayne was distracted by something over his shoulder. Waldo turned: the TV behind the bar, running silently while the oldies played—Buffalo Springfield now—was showing an update on the Monica Pinch murder, footage of Fontella Davis, footage of Alastair, helicopter shots of his house. Jayne said, “I have a confession to make: I’ve been watching CNN ever since the arrest. I knew who you were the minute you walked into my classroom, even with the new look.” Waldo wanted to ask again what she had to say about the Pinches, but before he could she said, “Who was Lydell Lipps? They keep talking about Lydell Lipps.”

  It was inconceivable that she didn’t know, that any Angeleno who even thought to turn on any cable news talk show, anyone who recognized Waldo at first sight even with all his hair, wouldn’t know all about him and Lydell Lipps. And given the way she’d been misleading him, teasing, taunting, flirting, toying, she had to be messing with him some more. Or at least trying in a playfully obvious way to get him to tell the story in his own words. But there was no guile in her look as she awaited the answer, no hint at double meaning. He said, “You really don’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  “Were you living in L.A. three years ago?”

  She nodded and said with apology, “I was busy, I guess.”

  “Usually I can tell when someone’s screwing with me. But you . . . something jams my radar.”

  “Maybe your radar’s just rusty.”

  He weighed it, wasn’t convinced.

  “Honest,” she said, “I never, ever heard of Lydell Lipps until I heard about you getting hired to help Mr. Pinch.”

  Waldo took a drink and a
good long look at her before he decided to tell her the story, the central story of his life, the story he’d never told aloud. He started haltingly, but something about the fully present way she listened—in sympathy, concern, horror, hanging on every word and never looking like she was waiting for her turn to talk—made him keep going. The alcohol, which hit quickly, made it easier. He told her about all of it, even the aftermath. About how, when he was still living in town after he’d quit the PD, he couldn’t look at the yellow Camaro without remembering that if it weren’t for what he’d done to Lydell Lipps, he wouldn’t have that car. Or his house, for that matter. Or even that girlfriend he’d been with off and on since the high-flying days. “I didn’t know how to be with anybody anymore,” he told Jayne now. “If somebody said something funny and I laughed . . . I’d start thinking, Lydell Lipps can’t laugh at jokes any more, what right do I have—” He stopped midsentence.

  Why was he doing this? He’d come here tonight to ask her things, to find out what she had to say about Monica and Alastair Pinch, but the evening had gone completely off course. “Sorry,” he said, “I never really talked about it.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re talking to me.” She reached across the table with both her hands and took his, comforting him. “Did you get any help? Therapy?”

  “Someone made me an appointment, but when I got to the guy’s door, it was, Lydell Lipps can’t go to therapy . . . and I turned around and went home. I got to where I couldn’t get through the day, you know? Couldn’t live in the world.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I stopped.”

  He finished his drink. She said, “What do you mean, you stopped?”

  So he told her about how he sold the Camaro and renounced materialism, about Idyllwild and the Hundred Things and the three years alone. He didn’t tell her about Lorena’s visit or any of what followed, only that somebody approached him about helping out with Alastair Pinch’s case and that he decided to come down the mountain and do it.

  After that they sat together quietly for a long time. When the waitress came over, Waldo motioned for the check. Jayne reached for her purse but he said, “I’ve got it,” and paid in cash.

  Talked out, he walked her back to the church, still unspeaking. She was silent too. He didn’t feel awkward with her anymore, just drained.

  “This is my car,” she said, stopping at a white Civic hybrid, a sensible kindergarten teacher ride.

  He remembered that he still hadn’t taken care of the business he’d intended and felt incompetent again. “Why weren’t you shocked about Monica Pinch?”

  “God, of course I was shocked! How could I not be shocked?” He was completely baffled now, about the entire night. She looked at him like he was a fool and said, “Don’t you know when a girl just wants to have a drink with you?” and when he still didn’t know what to do she kissed him. Not a flirty kiss, either, an all-in kiss, her tongue darting between his teeth, then her own teeth tugging at his bottom lip, the fingers of one hand on the back of his neck and the other tangled in his mane, and soon his own hands were moving all over her. Like everything else, more than everything else, it had been so long. He slipped a hand under her blouse and she drew a breath.

  “Kindergarten teacher choirgirl,” he muttered into her mouth.

  “When I like it, I like it,” she said and sucked on his tongue, leaning against him and pressing his back against her passenger door.

  He eased his fingers under her bra and found hard pebbles and squeezed and she gasped. “Jesus,” she breathed, kissing him harder . . . then suddenly broke from him and pulled away. “I said, a drink.” She spun out of his arms and continued around to the driver’s side. She staggered a little; Waldo himself was reeling. She opened her car door, looked back at him and said, “Three years in the woods—you haven’t been with anybody all that time?”

  He shook his head.

  Her mussed hair hung in front of her face, wanton, and she said, thickly, “That’s kinda hot, Waldo,” then slipped into her car and closed the door. Waldo stepped back from the curb and watched her pull away and disappear down La Cienega and into the night.

  He was bewildered and alone again and he still had to get back to the Valley. He decided to risk the traffic in the dark, straight over the canyon. Do it the hard way.

  FIFTEEN

  His sleep wasn’t deep, even though it was only the second time in four nights that he hadn’t been tucked in with a blow to the cranium. Jayne’s teeth and tongue and hands kept coming back to him in dreams and in half-awake moments; he’d spent the whole night trying to sort out which was which. In the early morning light he heard footsteps and he remembered where he was and why and grabbed hold of wakefulness and pulled himself out of sleep though he was still exhausted.

  He padded to the bathroom and washed his face and hands, scrubbed yesterday’s clothes in the tub and, swapping them with those that had been drying over the glass shower wall, got dressed and followed voices out to the kitchen.

  Rosario and Waldo traded good mornings and Gaby said, “Mr. Lion! I forgot you were here! Rosario, can I make breakfast for Mr. Lion?”

  Waldo asked Rosario where Alastair was. The housekeeper froze, caught between betraying her boss and being rude to his guest. Waldo, to help her out, asked if he was in the house. She nodded. “Still asleep?” She nodded again. “Does this happen sometimes—he has trouble getting up in the morning?” She nodded a third time. “Who takes Gaby to school on those days?”

  She hesitated but said, “If Mr. Alastair is not up by seven thirty I drive.”

  Gaby walked up to Rosario and said, “Can you go away and let me make breakfast for Mr. Lion?” Rosario told her not to bother Mr. Waldo but Waldo said that she wasn’t a bother, that he could even keep an eye on her in the kitchen if Rosario needed a few minutes to get ready.

  When Rosario left, Waldo smiled at Gaby and said, “May I please have an orange for breakfast?”

  “No.”

  “But there are oranges right there.”

  “You’re gonna have cereal for breakfast.” She dragged a chair across the kitchen and climbed up onto the counter, opened a cabinet and stood on tiptoe to reach the boxes on a top shelf.

  He crossed the kitchen to spot for her. “Are you allowed to do that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’d rather have an orange.”

  “You’re gonna have Frosties and Lucky Charms and Froot Loops.” She put each of the boxes on the counter by her feet, squatted and sat on the counter, swung her legs down and dropped to the floor.

  Waldo said, “I can’t eat any of those.”

  “Are you allergic?”

  “Can’t I please just have an orange?”

  “Are—you—allergic?”

  “No. It’s something different.” She made a face she must have learned from television and waited for an explanation. He said, “It’s because cereal comes in boxes.”

  “You’re allergic to boxes?” Not buying it, she opened a lower cabinet and took out two bowls.

  “Seriously—don’t pour any of that for me; it’ll just go into a landfill.”

  Ignoring Waldo’s protests, Gaby started carrying the cereal boxes and bowls one by one to the table. “What’s a landfill?”

  “It’s a place in the ground where they put all the millions and millions of tons of garbage. It ruins the whole planet we live on.” He had to raise his voice a little; a helicopter was hovering close overhead. Even in a six-million-dollar house, you couldn’t avoid the sound of chopper blades—one more fact of L.A. life he hadn’t missed.

  As she put the box on the table she said, “My mommy’s in heaven.” He didn’t answer, hoping she’d just change the subject again. She didn’t. “Do you know my mommy?”

  “No, I never met her.”

  “She died and went to heaven
.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  “Daddy says everybody goes to heaven someday and when I’m very old I’m going to go there too and see her again and everybody’s allowed to have a dog.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “These cereals are really good all mixed together. It’s my secret recipe. If you’re not allergic you’re gonna really like it.”

  “How about I just watch you eat it?”

  Gaby poured way too many Frosties into the first bowl and said, “Is your mommy alive?”

  “No, my mommy’s in heaven too.”

  “Maybe your mommy and my mommy are friends.”

  “I bet they are.”

  “Do you have a dog?”

  “No, but I have chickens.”

  “Chickens?”

  Gaby poured from the second box and Waldo was trying to figure out how to get out of tasting her secret recipe, when he realized he was hearing a second helicopter. He went to the window and looked out but could see only one of them. Then he saw two more approaching from a distance and realized what was happening. “Shit,” he said.

  Gaby gasped dramatically and said, “You’re not supposed to say that word. Don’t worry, Mr. Lion—I won’t tell.”

  But Waldo was already heading out of the room. He said to Gaby, “Show me where your daddy’s bedroom is.”

  She said, “I’m not supposed to wake him up unless it’s a ’mergency,” but followed Waldo up the stairs. At the top he let her lead him to a closed double door at the end of a hallway. Waldo knocked, got no answer, knocked louder. “He’s sleeping, but it’s okay. Rosario’ll take me to school.”

  Waldo cracked Alastair’s door and looked inside. The bedroom itself was oversize, opulent, with a chandelier and a sitting area complete with divan and coffee table and a pair of its own hallways leading presumably to walk-in closets and a bathroom or two. In the center of the bedroom stood a luxurious bed with luxurious linens, on top of which Alastair lay snoring with his bare ass pointed toward the luxurious canopy.