by Joe Ide
“Mom liked to party, so maybe she was going to a beach where the cops don’t bother you and you can camp, build a bonfire, drink, do what you want. She was always doing stuff like that.”
He took the tiniest sip of coffee and his tongue winced. He’d seen her make the brew, the brown crystals like something mined from the center of the earth.
She showed him a map of California on her laptop. “Look at this,” she said. “We lived in Bakersfield—that’s here. If you wanted to get to the beach, you couldn’t go direct because the air force base takes up this whole part of the coast.”
“Okay.”
“You’d have to go around it to here, Gaviota State Park. Scott, my ex-boyfriend, is a professional surfer. He says there’s a party beach just south of there. It’s really isolated and it’s the closest one to the house. Maybe that’s where Mom was going in the pictures. Maybe she’s there now.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” Isaiah said. He knew this would go nowhere but didn’t want her to feel bad.
“I think we should check it out,” she said.
“You mean go there?”
“Yeah, it’s only a three-hour drive. If we leave now, we can be back in the morning.”
“Sure,” he said. “Sounds great.”
She had no idea why she concocted the story about the beach. One minute she was writing an email to Cherokee and the next, she was looking at a map of the California coast. And what was that she said? It’s the closest one to the house? God, he must think she was an idiot. And why had she touched him? She couldn’t help it, that was why. She’d lied to him too. Scott was a motorcycle mechanic who couldn’t swim. Was she trying to make herself more attractive? Look, Isaiah, see what cool boyfriends I had? How embarrassing. Isaiah wasn’t exactly a great catch himself. He was lonely and isolated and didn’t have any social skills or a social life to use them in, but that was true for her too. Pathetic things to have in common. But Isaiah was also gentle and sweet and there was a basic decency about him. What do you do with someone who doesn’t want to control you, undermine you, or use you for an emotional kickball? He was into her, that was obvious, and somehow she knew if she rejected him he would continue the case until the end. He was—what’s the word? Honorable. She hadn’t known anyone like that since her father. She wondered if that was part of it; her feelings for Isaiah a cog in some complicated Freudian backstory. Couldn’t you just care for someone because they were gentle, sweet, and good? She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about him. A relationship wasn’t possible. Isaiah was a curious person and if they ever got together he’d find the fracture where she’d split in two and he’d wonder how it happened and go looking in the wrong half and see the ugliness she couldn’t let anyone see and she’d have to get away from him and there’d be more pain and sadness and she was carrying enough already.
She knew they weren’t making progress on the case. She sensed his anxiety and wanted to tell him not to worry, that she knew he was doing his best. But how do you talk to a man like that? He was so withholding. He hadn’t said a single thing about himself. He didn’t brag about his cases or tell stories about the bad guys he’d faced down or recite a list of accomplishments. Every man she’d ever known had done all of those things, sometimes in a single conversation. She wondered what would happen when the case ended. Could she really let him go? She could already feel the loss. Maybe there was a whisper of hope—for herself. For the two of them. No, Grace. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be a stupid idiot.
And yet.
Grace said she had something to do before they left for Gaviota. Isaiah watched her leave the house. She had the toolbox and was wearing her dirty clothes. She was going to that damn garage again. Oh my God he wanted to know what was in there. Maybe TK sold her some parts. He called TK at home.
“Yeah,” he said, “she came in but I didn’t have what she wanted. Told her she had to buy it online.”
“What did she want?”
“An intake manifold for a Ford 390 FE but I couldn’t help her. They stopped making ’em in seventy, seventy-one, something like that.”
Isaiah wondered why Grace was working on a forty-year-old engine. Building a hot rod, maybe, like a hobby? A gift for Cherokee? She’s entering a car show? He had to stop thinking about it. It was making him crazy…
Grace didn’t get back to the house until after ten. She showered, changed, threw some things in her backpack, and just like that they were heading out of Long Beach on the 710, destination Gaviota State Park. She drove. She hadn’t got all the grease out from under her fingernails, her hair was still wet.
They crossed the LA County line. He couldn’t believe this was happening. They’d be in the car together for three hours going and three hours coming back and if they weren’t returning until morning it meant they would stay there overnight. It was disappointing she was so matter-of-fact about it. No, this wasn’t a move on her part, she was just trying to find her mom. He glanced at her sideways. Her eyes were emotionless and glued to the road, her hands firmly on the steering wheel. She was almost grim. He envied her. At least she had something to do. He was the guy. It was up to him to start an interesting conversation but he didn’t know what to say, and as the road signs sped past, a tension crept into the car until there was no room for anything else but a queasy smell he thought might be coming from him. Say something, Isaiah. He ran through a list of subjects but they were all dumb, bordering on Do you have any hobbies? He’d never felt so inept in his life, and despite the thrumming engine, the car seemed to get quieter. The slightest movement was as loud as a belch. He cleared his throat like he was going to speak but didn’t, which only made it more imperative that he say something. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour went by without a word. There was nothing about the scenery to comment on, the freeway was the freeway. He had to clear his throat again but forced himself not to. He felt lonelier the farther they drove, like the wall between them had grown impenetrable and they would remain in their fortresses forever. They were all the way to Santa Barbara before she said, “Do you mind if we take the long way?”
Isaiah didn’t know what the long way was but he shrugged and said, “Sure.”
The long way was Highway 154, a two-lane road that went east and north, away from the ocean, winding and looping its way through the foothills. There weren’t any towns and it was too dark to see anything, brush and scrubby trees texturing the blackness. Grace drove fast. Really fast. The headlights lit nothing but the beginning of the next bend, but she steered into them headlong, no clue of what was coming. A sweeper, S turns, a hard switchback. A dead end. She braked into every apex perfectly, downshifted and accelerated all out, the tires screaming as they slid, the rear end drifting out wide, sometimes to the yellow markers, a cliff on the other side. Isaiah held on to the armrest, his back pressed against the seat, his body leaning back and forth like a windshield wiper as they went through the turns. He nearly said Slow the fuck down, are you crazy? but he held it in. He thought she might be grandstanding but there was nothing on her face except a focused calm and the absolute certainty she could control the car. And then he realized she was enjoying herself. The long way was for bliss, not showboating. When they reached the valley floor she said, “Sorry.”
He was wriggling the underwear out of his crack, sweat drying on his scalp. “No,” he said, trying to sound cool. “It was fine.” The road was flatter and straighter and she drove like a normal person. The pumping adrenaline gradually dissipated and the tension returned. Two lonely people sitting next to each other with nothing to say. A couple of centuries went by and she said, “Do you mind if I put on some music?”
“No, not at all.” He worried she would play some obscure band from Seattle called Filth Monger or ask him if he’d ever heard the Zoo City Boyz play live at the Adderall Club but when he heard the opening bars of “My Girl” he grinned and they both laughed.
“Greatest song ever written,” she said.
“How did y
ou get into Motown?” he asked.
“I had a friend, Lacey, and she had her dad’s old albums. I liked them more than she did. I lip-synced with Diana Ross, did the dance steps and everything.”
“Sorry I missed that.”
“You didn’t miss much, believe me,” she said. “I never told anyone I liked Motown. I don’t know why it was a secret. And then punk came along and I fell into that. I’m glad those days are over.”
They swayed in their seats to David Ruffin’s soulful crooning. Grace murmured the lyrics at first, but then she rolled down the window and with the wind for cover, she started to sing—to herself at first, but by the time the song got to I—guess—you’d—say for the second time, she was belting it out like Isaiah wasn’t there, joy and relief in her voice like she’d just been released from prison. And then, for the first time ever outside the shower, he opened his mouth and sang and shared the same joy and relief and he was sad when the song ended but “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” came on after that and “Superstition” after that and “Tracks of My Tears” after that and they sang and sang with her hair fluttering in the night air and her pale green eyes sparkling as they sped along the highway, the darkness wrapped around them like a cocoon, and he thought it was the best time he’d ever had in his life.
It was after midnight when they reached Gaviota. Their silences were comfortable now but crackled with anticipation. He’d expected there’d be a motel or two, but there was nothing.
“What should we do?” she said.
“Sleep in the car?”
They parked on a side road under a eucalyptus tree. They went to pee in the bushes and came back to the car. They put the seats back, ate energy bars, drank FIJI Water, and looked at the sky through the sunroof, a gray wash backlit by the moon. They dozed awhile, and when he woke up, the music was off and he was a little damp from the mist. He glanced at Grace. She had dozed off too, a soft netting of shadows on her face. Even in her sleep, she seemed troubled, as if she was waiting for an order to evacuate. His eyes trailed down her delicate arm, pausing a moment on the pocket watch tattoo, sliding over her wrist to her small hand clutched in his. He held on until dawn, feeling like a voyeur, greedily watching her until a spangle of sunlight opened her eyes. She sat up, her hand withdrawing from his. She didn’t acknowledge the separation and he wondered if she had taken his or he had taken hers.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” he said.
A stand of cypress trees marked the beginning of the trail that zigzagged down to the unnamed party beach. They picked their way along the side of a bluff, sneakers slipping on the dirt, a long fall if you stumbled. This wasn’t Isaiah’s habitat and he was nervous without a sidewalk underneath him. His ribs were taped up and his other injuries limited his mobility. He was hurting and stifled his grunts. He took tiny steps and used his hands to stay upright.
“Are you okay?” Grace said. She had stopped and was looking back at him.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He hadn’t glanced up until now. The sun was glinting over the horizon, a mist rising from the steel-blue sea, gentle foam breakers like a smile around the bay. Seagulls sailed by, complaining about their privacy, the breeze so refreshing he nearly lost balance.
“Amazing, huh?” she said.
“Yeah, amazing.”
There was nothing on the beach. Not a person, a tent, or a campfire. “Well, I guess Mom’s not here,” she said wryly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. We had to find out, didn’t we?”
“Want to go down there anyway?”
They sat in the sand, the briny air filling their lungs, the sun warming their souls. She had her arms around her knees, her eyes closed, her face up to catch the sheer goodness of being alive. It was both thrilling and perfectly natural when he took her hand. She looked at him and smiled and he felt like the curtains had parted and the Wizard was God.
Reluctantly, they decided to leave. Grace lingered a bit and found a sturdy stick of driftwood. “What’s that for?” he said. As they climbed the trail, she stayed in front of him, reaching back with the stick to pull him up the steeper parts. Ordinarily, he’d have been embarrassed, but this was more like a connection, dreamy vibes moving through the old wood.
They stopped for Belgian waffles in a Danish-style tourist town called Solvang. She said if she didn’t paint or draw every day she felt guilty and he said he felt the same way about his work. The price of obsession, they decided. They both thought the best part was when you were in it and you weren’t aware of anything else, not sitting on your own shoulder kibitzing and criticizing. She squinted at him.
“You knew my mom wouldn’t be there, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Why? Because it was stupid?”
“No. Because the two men in those pictures were wearing hiking boots. Makes it hard to walk around in the sand.”
“You’re getting me back for the joke thing.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I’m not that kind of person.” This was fun, he thought. He’d never bantered before. He told her about her coffee.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m straight-up serious. I’d rather drink a cup of dirt than whatever it is you’ve been making.”
“It’s the coffee, right?” she said hopefully. “The instant?”
“No. I’ve had instant coffee. You must be doing something wrong. Do you follow the directions?”
“You mean boiling water and adding the coffee?” she said. “Yeah, I follow the directions.”
“From now on, let me make the coffee,” he said, like there would be more mornings together. Their eyes met.
“Okay,” she said.
The drive back was different in the daytime, less clandestine but still exciting because it seemed normal. Two people who liked each other had gone to the beach and now they were going home. Grace didn’t have any more Motown so Isaiah played some of his music. The Atomic Mr. Basie, the Count and his band swinging so serenely it made you want to skip down a country road, and Louis Armstrong’s Potato Head Blues, as tasty and joyous as anything ever played by men with horns, and George Shearing’s “Little White Lies,” Shearing’s fingers moving over the keys like a butterfly flitting from dandelion to sunflower to peony to poppy.
Grace drove and listened to the music and thought about her mom. How their relationship had been much more than just getting along okay and the usual mother-daughter bullshit. Sarah was always affectionate and she encouraged Grace to be independent. She let her daughter solve her own problems and take the consequences of her mistakes. She never said It’s cold outside, Grace. Please take a jacket. Instead, she let Grace go outside, feel the cold, and regret not taking a jacket. If Grace had a choice between doing her homework and watching TV, Sarah didn’t say Homework time, Grace. She let Grace skip the homework, go to school, and be embarrassed. But she was always there to help and was effusively happy when Grace accomplished something. She didn’t push. She stood at the finish line shouting encouragements. And as Sarah grew as a person, she made sure Grace did too. She talked to her daughter about ideas and books and art. She never said Isn’t Michelangelo amazing? She said what she enjoyed about him, she showed her own interest. It wasn’t a teaching moment. It was a shared experience.
And Sarah let her daughter make decisions. When Grace started wearing embarrassingly short skirts, Sarah said she couldn’t control what her daughter did outside the house, that she could hike up her skirt as short as she wanted to. Sarah said she had done things like that to get attention from boys. The question was, what did Grace want attention for? Sarah never pried, never said Do you want to talk about it, Grace? She talked about herself. She confided, in an age-appropriate way, and always tried to understand instead of judge. Who wouldn’t confide in someone like that? They were close because Sarah let her daughter come to her.
Their only serious point of conflict was her father. Sarah was a different per
son around him. Quieter, more acquiescent, inclined to say nothing instead of something. But as she came into her own the marriage deteriorated, Grace felt she had to choose sides, dividing her time like a parent with twins. She loved her mother. She respected her and trusted her and would have crossed the Sahara or caught a dragon for her. When she left, she took the world with her.
Elena was home when they got back from Gaviota. Grace was disappointed. She wasn’t ready to take Isaiah to bed but she did let her eyes linger on his before they went off to their separate rooms. As she got ready to shower, that familiar, reflexive voice of ambivalence bled into her hopefulness. She was always ambivalent. Nothing in her life had ever been black-and-white. The people who said there were no gray areas were simply ignoring them. The ones who said Go for it had never been haunted by her demons or slogged through the muddy swamp of complications that were sure to arise.
Something always prevented her from getting what she wanted. In this case, it was her. Check that. It was always her. Was she really going to let Isaiah go? He was smart, compassionate, sexy—and something else. What was the word? Tender. She’d never said that about man nor beast. Maybe, she thought, things would be different this time. Maybe she would be different and they could make something good together. “Yeah, that could happen,” she said as she stepped into the shower. But as the warm water cascaded down on her face, the same face she’d held up to the sun and felt the breeze coming off the steel blue sea, she got angry. Why should she be controlled by all the shit in her past? Why should she always get in her own way? She deserved a life beyond her fears. “Jesus, Grace,” she said. “For once, just go for it.”
Chapter Twelve
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
They were gathered in the study for another stupid meeting. It bored Richter shitless, how Walczak could turn one goddamn paragraph into the Gettysburg Address. Look at him, with his homo tennis sweater and his homo haircut and his indestructible smile, those fucking teeth like a row of shiny sugar cubes. He was messed up from all the dog bites, cringing and wincing every time he moved, everybody enjoying the shit out of it.