Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Hold my hand,” he advised.

  As if she had an alternative plan.

  She grabbed hold, teetering, twisting, thoroughly annoyed at herself for pretending enthusiasm, and took off.

  They glided south.

  On the right, on the beach, foreign tourists who didn’t know any better threw sand at each other, the ocean roaring in the background. On the left, raucous summer renters tossed down tequila in their deck chairs. The twinkling lights of the outdoor cafe they were passing came on.

  “You’re doing great,” said Zak.

  Yessir, Kat thought, yessir, Mr. Zak Greenfield, sneaking another good look at him. He had not shaved today, which put him into the category of the sexually suggestive, in spite of his clothing, which was a little too Dockers for her taste. Still, she tingled a bit at the thought of rubbing her own cheeks against his prickly beard.

  Something about him.

  Jacki talked about chemistry between people, how she saw Raoul and wanted him right then and there. But Kat knew all about the wonders of men, their skin, the way they smelled, what they aroused in her. When Jacki tried to explain this chemistry was bigger than Kat’s definition, Kat got as lost as she had when she was forced to contemplate reduction-oxidation equations for a brief moment in her past, not-so-successful college career.

  However, the tingling always boded well, that she knew.

  “Faster,” Zak said a few minutes later.

  They flew down the boardwalk, hands wetly locked, the surf white in the distance, all traditional imagery in place. When she wavered, he held her steadily. When she became exhausted, not too far into their journey, he insisted they stop and sit on a concrete bench to take in the waning light. They sat down and got playful, commenting on their fellow Rollerbladers, the muscle-beach guys with their rippling abs, the girls in their cropped tops and wet T-shirts. Zak made fun but displayed a forgiving and gentle wit, not mean.

  Kat disliked mean people but loved this kind of activity. Los Angeles was so made to be lampooned. “Don’t look at him!” she commanded, averting her eyes and turning Zak with a hand to gaze at the ocean, as a shirtless, particularly overdeveloped creature loped by on the boardwalk. “He craves attention. It’ll irritate him, wondering why we didn’t look!”

  Zak obliged, examining the sunset, laughing.

  While they watched the final purple, peach, orange melting display of a clear Southern California sunset, she asked him about his life, and Zak told her that the main thing she needed to know about him was that he loved his work. He wouldn’t quit until they fired him and if they did that, he’d find another job in his field.

  Kat tried to think of a man in her past who had a job he liked. She failed. A little voice said, “He has a steady income and a happy nature. Plus, Jacki approves.” Before Kat could make a further independent assessment of this information, she thought of Leigh. Had she married Ray out of some misguided sense that he would give her the stability Tom never could? Perhaps Leigh had not been misguided at all, but correct. After all, Tom showed his weakness, his lack of steadiness, in the end, didn’t he? He had self-destructed.

  They arrived back at the rental place as darkness fell, collected their shoes, and walked to the parking lot. He took her hand in his again, and asked, “What are you thinking?”

  Startled, she asked, “What?”

  He repeated his question.

  She thought about telling him the truth, but how could she? It was too soon to load him up with Tom, her grief, her missing friend. That wasn’t in the rules of the game at all. Automatically, trained in the art of dating, she lied. “I was wondering if you might like to come home with me.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-oh. You sound doubtful.”

  “No. Really, is that what you were thinking?”

  She couldn’t recall any time in the recent past when a man had asked her that when the quick lie didn’t suffice, particularly that one, which was intended to distract. And so, as they walked into the encroaching darkness, and the waves receded, completely uncharacteristically, she told him about Tom, Leigh, Ray, Jacki’s fears for her, the whole shebang.

  He listened as they walked.

  She realized at some point while she had been so intently unburdening her heart, he hadn’t said a word for at least three blocks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me. Talk about wrecking a good time.”

  “This is good, too,” he said, “learning more about you.” Then: “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Touched by the concern in his voice, she said, “You already have.”

  They arrived at the Echo. “Cool car,” he said, running a finger through the dust on the hood.

  “Yes, cool’s the word, in more ways than you might think. The a/c went out on it, and today I tried it and it had healed itself. I bet Boxsters don’t know how to do that.”

  He turned her toward him, placing her hands around his waist. “Did you mean that, about me coming over? It’s late for a work night.”

  “I meant it, but, Zak, I totally forgot I have to be somewhere ridiculously early tomorrow morning.”

  The fact that it was true didn’t take the sting out of his good-bye kisses, which whispered and promised and left her aching for more.

  12

  W ell before she would ordinarily leave for work on Thursday morning, at six-thirty, Kat hit the road, leaving her dreams behind her and wondering about her reluctance to invite Zak over after all. True, it would have made a short night, but he was smart, funny, handsome, and in general exceeded her usual requirements by a mile. But after their conversation, she had found herself unaccountably-vulnerable, even shy, at the thought.

  She called her office, and Gowecki, the only one ever in at such an ungodly hour, unfortunately answered. She explained that she needed to reassess a house in Pico Rivera, that she’d lost some paperwork, which was why she was driving there so very, very early.

  Then she apologized a few more times for goofing up, then she drove to Whittier instead.

  As Ray Jackson had said, the Hubbels still lived on Franklin Street in their white mansion with the red tile roof and the palm trees. Their home looked as wonderful as it had in her childhood. Across the street, her old house looked about the same, a ramshackle two-story with white wood siding.

  The friendly old wooden fence that had sat at the top of the driveway of her old home had been replaced by a mean-looking chain-link. A Rhodesian ridgeback’s nose poked past the metal as he watched her nervously, although silently. There had been a couple of owners since their mother, and the place today would be worth maybe fifty times what her grandfather had paid. He had owned the place before leaving it to Ma. He had paid twenty grand. Too bad Ma had sold it and burned through the profits far too fast at a nursing home.

  Kat climbed the steps to the oversized plank door of Leigh’s childhood home and saw the wrought-iron peephole where Leigh’s mother always checked first. Now, an educated adult, she recognized that this house had been built in the thirties. They had paid it off long ago, no doubt. She thought that today it would be worth maybe a million five, more if they had ever put a pool into the backyard, but she hadn’t looked at comps for the area, so she could be off. And of course, some depended on whether they had upgraded the kitchen and bathrooms.

  “Why, Kat!” Rebecca Hubbel appeared surprised and delighted to see her.

  “Hi. I was in the neighborhood.” She was pulled in, kicking off her sandals at the threshold. The Hubbels had been watching the Nature Channel from behind TV trays full of eggs and steaming mugs. Rebecca Hubbel wore a sleeveless blouse and walking shorts. There were a lot of veins in her legs Kat didn’t remember, but otherwise she looked just the same, glasses, untidy hair, sweet face.

  Leigh’s father, James Hubbel, sat back down in his red leather chair. The TV was a plasma screen hung above the massive fireplace, which Kat had never seen producing a fire. Lit by windows flooding with morning sun that showed the
sheen of the polished wood floor and its silk area rugs, the double-height room with its formal staircase had lost none of its beauty. Leigh’s father muted the sound but let the sharks on the screen roam free. He had gotten very paunchy in the six years since Tom’s funeral, but he still had the long arms and barrel chest she remembered.

  Kat was invited to sit down in a Queen Anne recliner covered in soft green chenille upholstery with curved legs and a doily protecting the headrest. She remembered the chair. What was it like, living with the same chair-partner-for so many years you finished each other’s sentences and corrected each other without getting mad?

  Surprised at her sudden reappearance in their lives after so many years of silence, the Hubbels traded a few cautious pleasantries. Rebecca Hubbel said she was still feeling weak after a bout of diverticulitis. The people who lived in the Tinsleys’ old house were Hurricane Katrina survivors who had given up on New Orleans. Kat told them about Jacki’s marriage and pregnancy. They offered her coffee. When she refused it, a cold Snapple appeared in her hand.

  “I’m looking for Leigh,” Kat said.

  They deflated like bad inner tubes. “Then you don’t know where she is, either?” said James. “I guess when we saw you, we thought maybe…”

  “I went to her home and her husband told me she’s taking some time away. But it’s been days since anyone saw her-”

  “Six days!” Rebecca interjected.

  “-and she hasn’t been in touch at her office either.”

  “Or with us.” They spoke together.

  Leigh’s father said, “I put some LAPD buddies on it-they’ve got a missing persons unit-but to tell you the truth, Topanga’s not their jurisdiction; it’s the sheriff’s. They have more limited resources. With an adult, they have to be convinced something’s wrong: she’s disabled, in danger, sick, a crime victim, impaired…We can’t prove anything. The sheriff says not to panic. Wait a few more days, a week at the outside. If we don’t hear from her by then, everybody gets involved.”

  “You think that her husband-”

  “What can we think? You don’t go off like that, take an overnight bag, leaving everything without a damn good reason, and she didn’t have any reason. If she had a fight with Ray she knew she had her room upstairs, and we could have kept Ray away if she wanted. Why not come home to the room she left years ago, that we’ve kept for her, or for her children-”

  “How often would you talk before she, uh, went away?”

  “Every day, almost,” said Rebecca. “I just don’t understand. Ray seems like such a good young man. We were so happy when they decided to get married. And he encouraged her to do exactly what she always wanted to do. Helped her set up a business. She’s very successful, you know.”

  “I have heard that.”

  “We missed you at the wedding. She missed you,” Hubbel said.

  “Yes, well, I was still getting over Tom’s death and I-”

  “I wish she had stayed with your brother, now,” Hubbel interrupted, focused on his own problems. “Maybe she would be here with us.”

  Rebecca Hubbel had teared up. Her husband handed her a clean handkerchief, and she dabbed at her eyes. “Did you know Leigh saw a counselor for almost a year after the-incident?”

  Maybe if Kat had seen a counselor, she wouldn’t be sitting in this house on Franklin Street again, getting singed by burning memories. “No,” she said. “Did it help?”

  “Some. But she could have used a friend.”

  “Don’t make Kat feel bad, Jim,” Rebecca said.

  “It’s all right,” Kat muttered. She remembered playing dolls in this room with Leigh, how they had turned that painted cabinet in the corner into a miniature house with curtains, windows painted on with markers, even adding a patio alongside on the coffee table. Leigh’s father, young then, had helped enthusiastically. Her mother bought toy furniture for the project.

  What would they think, if they had known the stories she and Leigh dreamed up? In their fantasies, men played a peripheral role. Male dolls were so ugly. Their doll world featured Junoesque women who bore and raised children alone, with men as fleeting presences, available only when required.

  She wondered at her memories, how they influenced the present. Did she want a man literally to come and go?

  Had Leigh?

  They swung side by side in the swings in the old swing set in Kat’s backyard. Fifth grade. “I wish I had your parents,” Kat said, kicking hard to get up higher.

  “Are you crazy?” Leigh asked. Her legs dangled lazily, and she pushed off each time on only one foot. “I think you must be.”

  “They do a lot for you! Barbies are expensive. You have five of them.”

  “No,” Leigh had said. “They buy me stuff but they pay way too much attention. My dad follows me around warning me about bogeymen on every corner. He goes bananas if I’m ten minutes late home.”

  “He’s a cop, right? That’s his job.”

  “You guys have so much fun.”

  “Oh, yeah, my great family. We’re broke. They take us to Vegas to blow their money and then we don’t get any new clothes for school. They yell at each other.”

  “Hey, at least it’s not all quiet at night with two people breathing down your neck about whether you did your homework and on you about whether you brushed your teeth and warning you that too much television rots your brain. You and Tommy and Jacki watch all the television you want.”

  Kat pumped hard so that she was flying and out of breath. Leigh had a big house and tons of money and parents who were always home. She felt jealous. Things came too easily to Leigh, so easily that she didn’t care if she dropped something and broke it, or just lost it along the way.

  Leigh’s parents were looking at her as if she might have some solution for them, and she saw how troubled they were, which made her really worried. “Will you call me if you hear from her?” Kat asked, getting up, handing Leigh’s mother her business card at the door.

  “The worst is not knowing. If she’s all right-how could she let us suffer like this? Doesn’t she realize,” Rebecca said, placing the card carefully in her pocket, “how very much we love her?”

  Leigh’s father walked Kat out to her car. “You do remember to lock all your car doors when you’re driving around, don’t you?”

  She drove a block, pulled over, and called Ray. He wasn’t in at the office yet, and didn’t answer at home. She called her office, and to her relief, got Gowecki’s voicemail. She left an abject message, saying she’d be in sometime in the afternoon, and drove to Ray’s house in Topanga.

  Wilshire Associates had the all-important meeting with Achilles Antoniou this afternoon, but Ray could barely drag himself out of bed at eight-thirty. To make up for his old-man eyes and the cut on his face and the bandage wrapped around his right hand where the cut was really hurting today, he dressed carefully. He considered a tie, but he had never seen Antoniou wearing one, so he settled on a comfortable cross between casual and formal, a blue Armani shirt over blue jeans, more like their client.

  As he dressed and drank his coffee, the police visit replayed in his mind. He went down to his workshop to pick up a few things, but found himself staring at the models. The two houses with tapes, Norwalk and Downey -Esmé and he had fled those homes in the dead of night, running like grunion in the darkness. Sometimes, he now figured, Esmé left things behind because they ran too fast.

  He studied the models. He had not taken the time to revise them, and now he saw all their flaws, all the flaws in his own memory. They had left those two houses in the dark, and in those places he had found tapes. Other places-Ojai, San Diego -he didn’t seem to care as much about them, which was a good thing since they were a lot farther away. Maybe the reason he didn’t have models for them, didn’t have this feeling of urgency, was because they had left in daylight, with time to say good-bye to the houses and the neighborhoods.

  His eyes stopped moving on the Bright Street model. He couldn’t remembe
r the move from Bright Street at all.

  Bright Street. Uptown Whittier. Age eleven. He should remember. Why didn’t he remember? Bright Street with its fruit cellar, the old trees, and the cracked sidewalk.

  Opening the Nesbit book, looking at the list, he felt overtaken again by some destructive looming force.

  There it was, the number on Bright Street. His keys still sat in the cabinet where he had hung the ring. He consulted his watch. Ten already. There were two messages from Denise on his voicemail.

  Kat arrived just in time to see Ray Jackson’s Porsche pulling out of his driveway. She honked a few times to catch his attention, but he either ignored her or didn’t notice. Well, she decided, staying as close as she could without rear-ending his fancy car, she would follow him to work if necessary.

  The Hubbels’ suspicions about him had a contagious quality. She was now sick with it.

  Predictably, Jackson took Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway. Then he surprised her, driving right past Wilshire Boulevard and veering onto an on-ramp to the Santa Monica freeway.

  What was he up to? He didn’t seem to know she was following.

  As they continued on, the route became familiar. Ray was taking just the route she had traveled from Whittier, only in reverse. She felt foolishly unbalanced, but continued to follow him.

  Maybe he was visiting his mother? On a workday morning?

  On the way, driving down Whittier Boulevard with its car dealerships and fast food joints, Ray called Denise and asked her to tell everyone he wouldn’t be in for a while longer. She wanted to know how long and when he couldn’t tell her, reminded him about Antoniou at two o’clock and a later meeting with Carl to work out details on the museum contract.

  “Right,” Ray said, dodging a weaving SUV. “What have you put together?”