by Nina Revoyr
“Yes,” she replied. “There was a conference today, nine hundred people, continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. It kept us busy. Ay, I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry. We could have come later, Mom.”
She waved him off. “No, no, it’s fine, Oscar. Besides, our little girl here needs to eat.”
“Oh, I should have brought something,” he said. “You’ve been working all day. You shouldn’t have to cook.”
Again his mother waved him off. “Ay, mijo, it’s no big deal. I made some enchiladas last night. All I have to do is warm them up.”
They moved inside, and his mother disappeared into her room, returning in loose pants, a button-down shirt, and sandals. She slid the baking pan of enchiladas into the oven, while Lily went to the cabinet in the living room where her toys were stored and pulled out several dolls. Oscar sat in the dining room where he could keep an eye on Lily in the living room and on his mother straight ahead in the kitchen.
“So . . . you can drop Lily off at day care any time after seven a.m.,” he said. “And then pick her up—”
“After four thirty. I know, Oscar. I promise it will be fine. I did raise you and Sylvia, you know.”
“Sorry. I’ve never been out of touch for this long. I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“Well, don’t be nervous about us, mijo. I’m more nervous about your trip. Why are you going off so far away, into the mountains? What will you eat? And who are these people you’re going with? Is this one of those groups from the Internet?”
“I like the mountains, Mom. You know that. And no, it’s not a Meetup group. It’s people from my gym.” Two of them were, anyway: Tracy, who taught his fitness class, and whom he’d represented when she bought her house; and Gwen, who he sometimes saw on Tuesday mornings. Another regular at the gym, a high school football coach named Eric, had laughed at the thought of Oscar making the trip. “You won’t last one night in the wilderness, pretty boy,” he’d said. Eric’s disdain was half the reason he’d decided to go.
He didn’t answer his mother’s question about what they would eat—freeze-dried meals, jerky, and trail mix would be totally foreign to her; would not even qualify as real food. And he agreed, because one thing he wasn’t excited about was his supply of “dinners”—beef Stroganoff and chicken and rice and salmon with pasta—all light, colorless, and desiccated as a block of Top Ramen, in plastic packages with pictures of landscapes that tried to divert your attention from the strange matter inside to the pretty places where you’d be consuming them. But he did like the mountains, and for that he could thank Eduardo, his college roommate from Cal State Northridge. Eduardo was a former Boy Scout who loved the outdoors, and who’d taken him hiking in Griffith Park and up in the San Gabriels. Once they even went over to Mount Baldy in winter, and he’d been amazed by the pine trees with their snow-laden branches, how they folded in on themselves, bent over like praying nuns.
“But aren’t there bears in those mountains?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
This last exchange brought Lily running in from the living room. “You’re going to see bears, Daddy? I want to see a bear!”
Oscar scooped his daughter up and sat her on his lap. “I probably won’t see them, mija. I hope not, anyway. But we’ll go see some at the zoo sometime, okay?”
This didn’t seem to convince her. But she was quickly distracted as soon as her grandmother took the enchiladas from the oven. They sat and ate at the dining room table by the window looking out at the mountains, now hulking shapes against the darkening sky. Lily chattered on with her grandmother in English and Spanish, with a word or two of Vietnamese sprinkled in. And Oscar’s mind wandered—to last-minute preparations, to his girlfriend Claudia, and finally to the conversation he’d had with his uncle earlier in the week.
Oscar had worked for his uncle for three years. Their jobs had familiarized him with the neighborhoods where he later sold and bought houses; had given him the eye to see what improvements a property might need, and how much those changes were likely to cost. When the market collapsed, his uncle’s business still managed to thrive, as people hunkered down and improved what they’d originally thought of as “starter” homes. Now, David was sixty-three and getting tired. He’d first called Oscar a couple of months ago: would Oscar be interested in coming back and taking over? David would still handle the business end, at least for a while—negotiate with contractors, help to choose and plan jobs. But the actual projects, the day-to-day site work, would be Oscar’s.
At first Oscar had said no. Going back to his uncle’s company would feel like a step back, a step down. He couldn’t stand the idea of wearing workingman clothes again. He couldn’t stand the idea of someone treating him like a laborer. But as the weeks went by and he watched his savings drop, he thought about his daughter. Real estate was hit or miss, and he was missing more than hitting these days. By the time the market rose again, he might go bankrupt, and then where would he be? His uncle’s company wasn’t glamorous, but it was profitable and dependable. He knew that David must have had some sense of his troubles; everyone knew about the empty houses on Vallejo. When his uncle had called again a couple of days ago, this time Oscar listened.
After they finished dinner, Oscar went back out to the car and brought in the rest of Lily’s things—her pink suitcase full of clothes for the rest of the week, her Hello Kitty backpack. Then his mother handed him a plastic container of leftover enchiladas.
“Mom, I can’t take these, I’m leaving tomorrow. You and Lily can eat them.”
“We have plenty, Oscar. And maybe you’ll want a midnight snack or something to eat in the car.”
He knew it was no use arguing. He put the container down on the table and gave his mother a hug. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
Then he turned to his daughter, whose big brown eyes gazed up at him totally without guile. It made his heart melt. He’d never expected to be a father, had been surprised when Tammy, his decidedly unserious girlfriend, broke the news that she was pregnant. Initially he’d been furious and resentful, and even after Lily was born, he’d been ambivalent about his new role as dad. But now he couldn’t imagine his life without his daughter. He knelt down and hugged her tight, feeling her spindly arms around his neck. “Bye, mija. I won’t be gone long. You listen to Grandma Dulce and pay attention in school, okay?”
“Okay, Papá,” she said gravely. This self-possession just made him feel worse for leaving her.
“I’ll try to call you tomorrow from the campground, all right?”
“Okay, Papá,” she said again.
And then he left and walked outside and down the front stairs, turning once to see his mother and daughter waving at him from the doorway. He waved back, taking one last look at his girl, a knot forming in his stomach as he turned away.
He took backstreets to El Paso, over to Division, and then left up into the hills, Glassell Park on his right side, the fancier Mount Washington on his left. He avoided the street that would have taken him past his unfinished properties. Other houses he’d either helped buy or sell were sprinkled along the streets he drove: the two-bedroom, one-bath on Division, the three-bedroom with den and mountain view on Panamint. Ten years ago, when he’d bought here, the streets were quiet, and the cars parked on them were Hondas, Fords, Toyotas. Now every other car was a Volvo or BMW. He knew it was good for property values, this influx of money, but something solid and familiar was lost too. The first yuppies who’d moved in, maybe eight or ten years ago, had treated the old-time Latino families, blue-collar whites, and elderly gays with respect. The newer ones—well, they behaved differently. They complained about the bright paint on houses owned by Mexican families who’d been there fifty years. They didn’t pick up after their dogs. They sometimes turned their heads when Oscar and Lily went out for walks. Just that morning, on his daily run, Oscar had said “Good morning” to a thirty-something woman who was out walking with he
r toddler. She looked at him with what might have been fear or disdain, pulled her child close, and didn’t reply.
Oscar turned onto his street, pressed the button on the garage door opener tucked above the sun visor, and pulled into the safe cavern of his garage. It was good to be home. His house was folded into the hill, with the garage at street level, the living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms above, and the master bedroom and bathroom perched like a ship’s lookout on top of everything else, with a bank of windows facing the mountains. He’d been lucky to buy this place when he had, in 2003; now, even after the bubble had burst, it was worth almost twice what he’d paid for it. And he was proud to live in Glassell Park. Not like the other realtors who tried to expand the boundaries of Mount Washington. Not like the owners of the property that had just been featured in the Los Angeles Times, in an article titled, Mount Washington Eclectic—even though the house was only three doors down from Oscar’s.
He made his way to the main level, where he put the enchiladas in the fridge and checked his messages. Only one, from Claudia, saying that she hadn’t called his cell because she knew he was at his mom’s.
He smiled. She was like that, Claudia. He wasn’t used to the women he dated being so thoughtful and low-key. It was easy to take her for granted, and he did so now—not calling her back as he got his gear and clothes together.
There wasn’t much to do, actually. Since he hadn’t had any showings that day, he’d been home in the afternoon, and had already packed most of his gear—filling up the bulky, old-school backpack, borrowed from Eduardo, organizing his food. His bags of jerky and trail mix and freeze-dried meals were all stuffed into his pack. He double-checked to make sure he had the new items he’d splurged on—a headlamp, a GPS device, lightweight collapsible plates. Then he decided to throw together a small duffel for the first night, when they’d be staying at a campground. He packed sneakers and extra jeans, a heavier jacket. But soon he was done, his two bags ready by the door.
He opened a beer and stepped onto the patio, gazing out at the lights of Eagle Rock and Pasadena. It was a cool night, but clear, early summer in LA; the head and taillights of the cars on the 134 looked like stars moving sideways across the sky. For the first time in ages, he felt truly alone, felt what it was like to be by himself, and to be himself, Oscar Barajas, not a father or son or boyfriend at this particular moment, just a man, about to spend four days away from everything he knew. Fuck Coach Eric, he thought. Fuck anyone who didn’t think he could do this.
It was after ten, and he knew that Claudia would be in bed—she worked the early shift as a pediatric nurse at Kaiser on Sunset—so he texted her goodnight and said he’d call her in the morning. Then he went to bed, leaving the sliding glass door to the deck open to get some fresh air.
He awoke around three thirty a.m., groggily, not sure what had disturbed him, until the sound from his dream continued as he opened his eyes. It was a car horn, going off for several seconds. He heard the horn, and then the silence—and then another horn, held slightly shorter, answering back. He lay fully awake now, and it happened again—one car horn, followed seconds later by the other. And again, and again, and now he was annoyed. Really? he thought. At three thirty a.m. on a Wednesday night? The sounds could have been from people leaving The Eastside, another new hipster bar down on Verdugo. He got up and closed the door to the deck but still he could hear them—one horn rich and sonorous, almost like a trumpet, the other one higher and flatter. The sounds would vary in length and in the time lapsed between them, so when the first horn sounded he couldn’t relax until the second one completed the exchange. Sometimes the answer came right away, sometimes it took five or ten seconds. There was no pattern he could expect and tune out. Again he cursed the newcomers, the hipsters who’d invaded this part of town and showed so little regard for those who’d always lived here, working people. Now it was four a.m. and he was getting up at six.
But then he thought of the Great Horned Owls that appeared every winter, one that took up residence in a tree across the street, its mate on a telephone pole just down the hill. They’d start at dusk, the black silhouette of the male almost eye level from his bedroom deck, leaning forward and spreading his wings as he released his call, the four-syllable appeal to his smaller intended. It would be followed, soon after, by the answer from down the street, and the two owls could go on like this, calling and answering, for hours. He and Lily would step out on the deck and watch them sometimes, to witness the conversation, the courting. One night they came out and saw not one silhouette but two—the owls perched on the branch just inches apart, quiet now in their togetherness.
The thought of the owls calmed Oscar—if he could sleep through them, he could sleep through this. Besides, maybe there was something kind of sweet about this exchange. However awkwardly, however inconsiderately, people were reaching out to one another—sending a call into the world and getting a response. On a night when he’d felt so alone, he suddenly wasn’t lonely. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Three
Todd
Todd Harris woke up before the alarm sounded and listened to the quiet. He loved these few minutes at the start of the day—before he showered and dressed for work, before the chaos of breakfast with children. Often it was still dark—he usually woke before six—and he felt like the only person in the world, or one of two. He reached out for his wife, Kelly, but she wasn’t there. He could tell from the empty coolness of the sheets that she’d already been gone for some time.
During the first few years of their marriage, they always woke together. Even after Joey was born, they’d lie in bed in the morning, talking about their plans for the day. Often, morning was when they’d make love, the sense of peace and connection sustaining them through the day. And they’d lie together at night too, reading or talking, the bed a refuge from the constant motion of their lives. When Brooke came along three years later, things started to change. They’d fall asleep as soon as they went to bed, and Kelly would be up before him in the morning. It was easy to blame these changes on exhaustion, on the kids, but Todd knew it was more than that. Even with all the time they spent together, they had somehow lost touch.
Todd sat up, swung his feet over the side of the bed, and thought about work. He was a partner at Harrington & Fletcher, one of the top law firms in the city. He worked on corporate antitrust and licensing cases, and there was never a shortage of companies that wanted other companies to stay out of their field, not compete for their customers, or not exist at all. Just two weeks ago he’d helped negotiate a $300 million settlement on behalf of DataSense, a software company in Silicon Valley, bringing the firm—and himself—a big payout. Now he was working on a couple of smaller licensing issues, including one on behalf of the Colsons, his clients from hell. But then he noticed his backpack in the corner and remembered that he wasn’t going to the office. Suddenly everything shifted and he thought: I don’t have to put on a suit today. He felt tremendous pleasure at this fact.
He stood up, slid into his slippers, and walked over to the window. He looked at the empty cat hammock there, half expecting to see Roger, his cantankerous gray tabby. But they’d had to put Roger down last month, and he felt again the twinge of sadness. He opened the curtains and looked out into their yard, just revealing itself in the first light of morning. It was gorgeous here in June, the jasmine white and pristine, the lantana delicate and purple against the thick green shrubs. A hundred feet in front of him was the giant oak with the kids’ treehouse, which was as big as his first apartment. They lived in Brentwood, close enough to the ocean for the overcast skies of June Gloom to last all day and into evening, yet what they lost in sun they gained in landscape, their yard and garden much more lush than those of properties farther inland. But the thick grass, the sculpted rosebushes, the native poppies and Mexican sage and primrose didn’t happen by accident; their gardener came twice a week, and it showed.
It also cost. The gardener, the
tree trimmer, the housekeeper, the cook, the nannies for Brooke and Joey, all of it took money. Not to mention the obligations of the house itself—upkeep, taxes, insurance. They had a four-bedroom Spanish-style traditional, with a spacious living room that opened out onto a half-acre lot, even a wet bar in the basement where he and Kelly had once made cocktails, when having their own place had still been a novelty and pleasure. Even though the house had been a wedding gift from Kelly’s parents, the expenses were a lot to manage. And then there were other things—the kids’ tuition, and fees for their summer activities. Membership dues for the Ocean Club and the country club and the women’s auxiliary that Kelly belonged to, not to mention her clothing and accessories, their evenings out and the charity events, their always clean luxury cars. Todd was doing well at work, making more money than he could ever have dreamed of as a boy in Wisconsin, before his father died and his mother met John Ingram and they moved to California, and he traded the woods and lakes and marshes for the beach. And yet somehow, paying for everything was still a struggle. Kelly didn’t seem to comprehend that money was something that Todd earned, something he had to work for; in her experience, money simply accumulated. It boggled Todd’s mind that his father-in-law, who lived solely off investments, made several times as much money each year as Todd did.
He took a quick shower—a quiet, less amusing process now that Roger the cat wasn’t sitting on the edge of the tub to supervise—and shaved, examining himself in the mirror. He didn’t look bad for forty. He had a full head of dirty-blond hair, just a touch of gray at the temples; his face was tan, with a few wrinkles at his eyes and brow. He was pretty fit too, thanks to weekend runs and his sessions with Tracy, although he had a stubborn bit of gut he couldn’t seem to get rid of, no matter how many crunches he did. All in all, though, he couldn’t complain.