by Susan Isaacs
"Okay, now you know what lower middle class looks like, Gregory. Time to sit down." He did. "You're here to help me. Right?"
He nodded. He looked slightly less repulsive than the day before, mainly because instead of baggy shorts, he was wearing baggy slacks. His skeletal white legs, with their bulbous kneecaps, were covered. "I remembered what I couldn't remember last night."
"Great," I replied. I waited. He was staring at my holster, which was clipped onto my belt. "You remembered something?"
"You asked me if there were any threats made to Sy Spencer."
"And?"
"I don't know if you'd classify this as a threat. I mean, a genuine threat." Gregory hesitated. Now he was gazing at me with the same passionate intensity he'd directed at the bulletin board. He'd obviously decided I was the star of this movie. He flushed. He fidgeted. He beamed at me. I was his True Detective.
"Listen, Gregory, anything you think is even remotely threatening—a dirty look—is something I want to hear about."
"Did you know Sy had an ex-wife who lives in Bridgehampton?"
My heart gave a thump. I sat up, alert. Damn it, I'd been right. There was something about her. "Bonnie Spencer," I said. His face fell. "Hey, if by this time I didn't know Sy had an ex in the neighborhood, what the hell kind of detective would I be?" Gregory still looked like he was debating whether or not to be clinically depressed. "Now come on. You're my key man in this investigation. Okay, I gave you a name: Bonnie Spencer. But now it's your job to fill me in."
"Well, Sy married her right at the beginning of his career as producer. She'd written the scenario ... That's another term for screenplay. It's more common in Britain. In any case, she'd written a movie called Cowgirl in the late seventies. Unpretentious film. Her credit was Bonnie Bernstein."
That big Utah jockette didn't strike me as a Bernstein. "Had she ever been married before Sy?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Okay, go on."
It's funny; as he was talking, I realized that Bonnie had been on my mind since I'd left her that morning. I couldn't shake the images I had of her. One was the real Bonnie as I'd seen her. The other one was even more vivid, and unconnected with reality; she was in some sort of sleeveless thing, a dress or a tank top, that bared part of her broad shoulders. I could see her arms and shoulders: strong, smooth, with the sheen of a deep tan. Incredibly silky skin. It was really, well, an exciting image—and a strange one, because the bare-shouldered Bonnie in my mind's eye was so incredibly desirable, and really had nothing to do with the big girl in the big T-shirt I'd interviewed.
"The marriage broke up," Gregory reported, "and she went into total eclipse as a writer."
"How come?"
"I don't know."
Maybe, I thought, Bonnie Spencer reminded me of someone else, some large, bewitching girl out of my past. That made sense. But my house was no more than four miles from hers; I could have passed her one summer evening on one of my runs and focused in on her best few square inches. Or maybe I'd given her a half second of consideration in my bar-hopping days, before moving on to someone better. Who the hell knew? In all those years of drinking—especially toward the end—there were black holes in my memory. We could have met at a cocktail lounge and discussed Truth and Beauty all night, and it would be a total blank.
"From what I've heard," Gregory went on, "Bonnie is pretty much of a zero. Her only real significance is that she used to be married to Sy. But even then, I probably wouldn't have heard about her if she hadn't come to the set."
Right. Bonnie had mentioned she'd dropped in to see Sy. "What happened?"
Gregory rubbed his palms together as though he was heating them up for a passionate prayer. "One of the other P.A.s came running over to me, saying Sy's ex-wife was there and what should he do. But he couldn't do anything, because she was right there behind him. She'd followed him. To see her, she's this very plain Jane type, but you could understand how she must have learned a thing or two From Sy, because before I could say a word or go get one of the assistant directors, she walked right past me and knocked on the trailer door. I said, 'Excuse me, miss, but that trailer is private. I'll have to ask you to please wait over by the craft services table.' Well, that second Sy opened the trailer door. He took one look at her and ... you would not believe his face!"
"Tell me."
"Beet red, and I mean b-e-e-t. She said something like 'Hiya, Sy!' as if she expected him to give her this major warm welcome, which, of course, he didn't." Gregory drew in his sunken cheeks. He seemed to be waiting for applause.
I didn't clap. "Gregory, you came in to tell me about a threat."
"Oh. Right. Yes, well, Sy gave her this withering look and said, "This is not a Bonnie Bernstein production. You know you do not come onto a set unless you are invited.' And believe me, the way he said it was not exactly sotto voce. I mean, Sy could be heard."
Shit. Even though I knew there was something wrong about Bonnie, I felt lousy for her. "How did she react?" I asked.
"Jolted. Absolutely jolted. I mean, for whatever reason, she had been expecting a red carpet. She must have thought he'd welcome her with open arms and..."
I cut him off. "The threat, Gregory."
"Right. Well, she stood there for a minute, paralyzed. I mean, you can imagine the humiliation. For a second, I thought she might cry. But she didn't. No. Quietly, and I mean quietly, like probably I was the only one close enough to hear, do you know what she said to him? She said, 'Sy, you've just been a rotten bastard for the last time!' That's what she said. Days before he was murdered. And then she just turned her back on him—and walked away!"
*6*
Jesus, what a day! Trying to dope out what was under Lindsay's sheet of ice, behind Nicholas Monteleone's cloud of congeniality. Feeling upset that my brother was so upset, wondering if he'd be able to find another job. Seeing Germy again, seeing my past. Lynne.
And Bonnie Spencer. The hardest part of the whole day. Ever since the morning, I'd been fighting her off—the desirable, bare-armed fantasy Bonnie and the real Bonnie, big, plain. Okay, so with fantastic, gold-medal thighs. But I wanted her out of my mind, and she wasn't cooperating.
After Gregory had gone—although not before he'd announced, in front of about ten guys in the squad room, that I was a "fascinating combination" of Scott Glenn and Keith Carradine—I lifted the phone to call Marty McCormack, at home. I wanted to fill him in, ask him if he thought I should bring Bonnie in for questioning, scare her a little. Actually, I just wanted to talk to a friend.
But all of a sudden, I'd started feeling ... It's hard to describe, but every drunk knows the sensation: a slight tightening in the throat, a fluttering of the heart, and then weariness, edginess. It all happens in that microsecond before your brain says, Hey, I really would love a drink. I hung up the phone and drove over to Westhampton Beach.
And at five o'clock, I was sitting on a brown metal folding chair in the basement of the Methodist church in the usual repulsive fog of cigarette smoke at an AA meeting. But I seemed to be doing everything I could to avoid making the old searching and fearless inventory of myself. Instead, I found myself easing into a real hot reverie—reliving my morning meeting with Bonnie, then improving on it. I was in her kitchen again, moving in on her. Her back was pressed against the sink, but now I was rubbing up against her. I kissed her, and she let out a cry of relief and desire and put her arms around me. Her arms felt so incredibly wonderful.
I became aware that I was breathing a little too deeply, crossing, uncrossing my legs. I forced my attention straight ahead.
The smoky basement haze softened the too-lipsticked dark-red mouth of the speaker. Her name was Jennifer. She had wide maroon makeup stripes on her cheeks and dark-brown eye shadow that went up to her eyebrows. But although she looked hard, she didn't sound it; she had that high, silly, sweet voice of a girl who asks you to make a muscle and then squeals "Oooh!" She couldn't have been muc
h older than Lynne.
"See, I used to empty out the saline solution for my contact lenses and put vodka in the bottles!" Jennifer explained. We all laughed, applauded; that was one we hadn't heard. "Anyhow, I kept three bottles in a drawer at work. Two or three times a day I'd start blinking like crazy and rubbing my eye."
Usually I hated meetings in the summer. Somehow, when I wasn't looking (or was too drunk to notice), AA had become a nonalcoholic version of a singles bar. Dingy church basements were packed with yuppies exchanging degradation stories and slipping each other business cards. Despite all warnings, pickups were common. "Hi, babe. Need a sponsor?" AA had turned into the new Hamptons scene, and locals like me felt like ... well, locals. Jennifer giggled. "I'd grab a bottle of saline solution, toddle down to the bathroom and chug the vodka! And after work, I'd sneak the bottles into my purse, take them home and refill them for the next day!" This meeting wasn't all that bad; along with most of the others, I nodded with recognition at Jennifer's desperation and—despite her lack of anything resembling intelligence—her enormous ingenuity. I thought: We're all so cunning when we're desperate to fuck ourselves over.
I stretched out my legs and leaned back in the chair, forcing myself to relax, to listen, understand, learn. But just as I was thinking an enlightening thought—about how so many drunks have this almost religious belief in the superiority of vodka, its odorless innocence, its purity—Bonnie pushed her way into my head again.
Beneath that straight-shooter veneer, behind the savvy, self-effacing humor, what the hell was she? A Fatal Attraction psychopath pursuing Sy, hounding him to produce some hunk of junk she thought was a screenplay—or to get him to love her again? Or was she simply a no-talent loser who had barreled onto the set after pumping up her courage with cocaine or booze or some dopey assertiveness training book?
And what about the threat Gregory had overheard? Look, telling someone it's the last time he's going to be a rotten bastard is, to a homicide cop, somewhat less significant than a vague "I'm gonna get you" or a specific "I'm going to hack your balls off and make them into cufflinks." Still, when I'd interviewed her, Bonnie had tossed off her visit to the set in a couple of words, giving the impression that dear old Sy had asked her to drop by just to be friendly: a little cheek-to-cheek air kiss, a little "Oh, Bon, you must meet Johnny, our key grip," a little chat about some dangling participle in her screenplay.
And what about her story about being invited to Sy's house, getting the fifty-cent tour? Why would a smart operator like Sy Spencer risk the Wrath of Lindsay by bringing home his tall-in-the-saddle ex-wife to have a look around the master bedroom suite with its king-size closets, its emperor-size bed? Why would he offer Bonnie a tour of a house that had to have pointed out to her: Sweetheart, did you get fucked over on alimony! Was he that insensitive? That much of a prick? Or had Bonnie pushed her way in there too? And why had she told me about it? Good old honesty? Or had anyone seen her, maybe making an unseemly fuss? rifling through drawers? taking something that didn't belong to her? Had she been smart enough to know we'd be dusting everything—from the doorknobs to the blade of Marian Robertson's Cuisinart—for prints and knew hers were there?
Goddamn Bonnie. It ticked me off that all day long I hadn't been able to get her out of my mind. When I thought about it, she was the one who'd ruined Lindsay Keefe for me. Here I'd been expecting at least a cheap thrill, and what happened? I'd actually gotten turned off because Lindsay, posturing in front of the window, had seemed so false after Bonnie's "naturalness."
Big deal. She was in great shape and she'd ... I don't know. She'd amused me. But I knew, as I sat there, tuning out the AA meeting, that I was acting nuts, fixating on Bonnie. By any rational standard, I'd never had it so good. Lynne was great-looking, sweet, young. But there I was, eyes closed, imagining running my hands over the flawless satin of Bonnie's arms—even though, for all I knew, she could have clammy, fish-belly flesh or rough lizard skin, or her entire body could be dotted with dime-size brown freckles.
I wasn't sure what was going on. Had Bonnie Spencer gotten to me? Or had I gotten to me? Gregory, after all, had been right on target about her: a plain Jane. Barely nice eyes—okay, an interesting color. An ordinary nose. A forgettable mouth, most likely with chalky, premenopausal lips; I really hadn't noticed. So what the hell was I doing wanting to ... I can't even say wanting to see her again. Just wanting her.
Forget reality. I wanted my fantasy too much to open my eyes: I had dropped my jacket onto her kitchen floor. My tie was unknotted, my shirt was open, and I was tearing off Bonnie's bra so I could hold her against me, skin to skin. Applause startled me. I looked up. Jennifer, smiling with lipsticked teeth, was stepping down.
Engaged-guy nerves. That was my problem. Definitely, After more than half a lifetime of drinking—and womanizing—of being a master self-deceiver ("Only three beers tonight") and a consummate liar ("Oh, sweetheart, oh, you're so beautiful, oh, I love you"), it was so hard to keep it simple.
Willie, the leader, a big local guy in a plaid shirt who was a motorcycle mechanic, stepped to the front. Years before, he'd gotten his teeth knocked out in a fight; his dentures looked as if they'd been molded for a giant; they made him lisp. "Thith hath been a great meeting!" he boomed. "Time to clothe now. Would all thothe who feel like it join me in the Therenity Prayer?"
Was it only that I was having the normal alcoholic's trouble of keeping it simple? Or was I in deeper shit, really looking to self-destruct? To throw over Lynne, which equaled throwing over happiness, stability, a chance to be a human being? Was I still drawn to oblivion?
Forty-five of us stood and held hands. I squeezed tight. I felt warm I'm-with-you squeezes back, even from the yuppie jerk in tennis whites on my right. I thought: This is what I'm here for. Support. I can't do it myself. I need these people. I need God. I need...
I couldn't fight Bonnie. Something is wrong about her, I thought. Plus, objectively, there is absolutely nothing about her to turn me on. And yet now I was imagining kissing her soft, warm skin.
"God grant me the serenity..." My voice was embarrassingly loud.
Maybe I could keep it simple: Just admit she was one of those women who, despite the most commonplace looks, had always been an erotic genius, even now, even as she was getting too old for anyone to want. A not-homely, not-pretty woman you'd overlook on the street but who, in close quarters, knows exactly how to get to you. Or maybe she wasn't devious. Maybe she did it unconsciously: she gave off primitive, subliminal signals or secreted some subtle female animal smell. Whatever it was, I wasn't going to let it affect me.
"...To accept the things I cannot change," I prayed. "Courage to change the things I can. And wisdom to know the difference."
Amen.
On the basis of its architecture, my mother's house, an old place with weathered cedar siding and a deep front porch, should have been charming or quaint or inviting. But it wasn't. There were too many trees too close: overpowering oaks, dark, drippy maples, grim spruces; their humid shadows spooked the house. And inside ... well, it was always dank, especially in the living room, with its never-quite-dry upholstery; sit there long enough and your pubic areas felt about to mildew. No wonder I'd gone off to Vietnam, come home for three days and then never gone back. But my brother had never moved out.
Oh, right, you could say, hearing that: He still lives with Mommy. But it really wasn't like that. Easton was no mama's boy. Sure, with his navy-blue blazers and golden color, he might look like some harebrained heir to a Southampton fortune. But in truth, he was very unindulged. My father had given him almost nothing, except an occasional unbankable belch, and in any case had cleared out soon after Easton's sixth birthday. My mother, although she clearly preferred him to me, spent every cent she had on upping her own Quality Quotient, not his; she would never pass up buying a hundred-dollar ticket to a benefit for hyperkinetic Maori Anglicans held on some rich socialite's lawn (with shrimp in sculpted-ice
swan boats) in order to do something nice for her son. Still, Easton had inherited my mother's grand dreams, although unlike her, he had never lost touch with the truth. He was not the typical Bridgehampton local who falls in with the summer crowd; he did not get dizzy drinking rich people's champagne. No matter how much time he spent in their perfect houses, he knew he wasn't one of them, that he was, essentially, poor and, in addition, not blessed with that mysterious personal magnetism that attracts money.
So forget Easton buying his own place, or even renting an apartment. Both assumed a steady income, and my brother understood that long-term job retention—unlike cutting lemon peels into translucent twists—was not one of his fortes. I'm sure he never actually sat down with my mother and said: Listen, I can play golf, tennis and croquet, sail a boat. I know the correct dress shoes to wear from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But for some reason I keep getting canned after six or eight months. So if you don't mind, I'd going to stay put here. Why go through the embarrassment of setting up housekeeping somewhere and then getting evicted? Right, Mom?
Actually, Easton's living at home suited them both. No rent for him, just whatever he could contribute, whenever. And living in the big house set far back from the road, he could pass himself off as a Bridgehampton blueblood. Who among his city slicker acquaintances would get out of their Porsches to inspect the house—and discover we did not own the adjoining farmland? Who, over the course of a lazy summer, would bother to check his credentials, to find out that his father had been not a gentleman farmer but a drunk given to pissing on the floor of the local tavern?
(I call Easton's friends acquaintances. Just like my mother, he lived for the summer people. From the time he got his driver's license, he ignored the kids at high school and hung out with a semi-social Southampton crew: the Daddy-is-on-Wall-Street-and-by-gosh-so-am-I fraternity. It didn't seem to matter who they were individually; they all had boats to invite him on, golf clubs to take him to, wives' college roommates to fix him up with. They were interchangeable: extremely tan, mildly wealthy and slightly stupid.)