by Tish Cohen
Lila forced a smile. Their second meeting and she’d already disappointed her mother.
“Turns out that was a good thing, because I’d never have recognized your name. Plus it shows your dedication. It isn’t everyone who is willing to go to such lengths to succeed. I’m quite proud of you, Delilah.”
“Don’t tell Dad, okay?”
“He doesn’t know?”
Lila shook her head. “And he never needs to.”
Elisabeth sipped from her drink and continued, “I’d offer to pay for your education myself, but all the years have left me rather broke. My paintings still sell, but not for a whole lot. Your grandmother left me a tiny inheritance and then there was some money the Web site brought in, but it’s been many years and life in either city isn’t cheap.”
“Grandma died?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Five years ago.”
Lila was silent a moment. “I’m confused. You came to L.A. months ago and searched through galleries for my work.”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you just call me? And why did a psychic have to tell you to head west?”
Elisabeth’s expression changed. She stared at Lila, sad. Quiet. A gust of wind played with the edge of her collar, and she leaned forward and took Lila’s hands. Held them tight. So tight Lila’s knuckles were being crushed. “You don’t know what happened, do you?” asked Elisabeth.
“What do you mean?”
“What did your father tell you?”
“About what?”
“About him taking you out here. About me being gone from your life.”
Terrible to have to say it. Forget anger and blame. Right now Lila wanted to just forget and forgive. Just lose the dozen years of limbo and hurt. “I don’t know.”
“Delilah. You can tell me. It’s okay.”
“Just that you were busy. Needed some space. Didn’t have time and stuff.”
Her mother looked away for a moment, closed her eyes, shook her head. “At least he didn’t say I was dead. That was my biggest fear.”
“Why would he—”
“Such a monster, your father. I mean, I knew it. It’s what the lawyer said he’d tell you. That I didn’t want you.”
Lila didn’t answer, but felt her muscles weaken. Liquefy. Either that or the patio had buckled beneath her chair and she was sinking lower and lower into the ground. Now that the moment was here, Lila didn’t want any answers. What was she thinking, wanting to know why? Why was a terrible question—one people should never ask. She knew that now, and wanted only to clap her hands over her ears and run.
Elisabeth touched her cheek with one hand. “Baby, your dad lied to you.”
Lila held her breath.
“I never washed my hands of you. I dropped you off for a sleepover expecting to see you the next morning. But then your father decided to take you to Florida. To Disneyworld. Did he ever actually take you there?”
Lila thought back to that Saturday in September. “Not exactly. First he said Florida, but when we lined up at the gates, it said Disneyland. He told me we weren’t in Florida and that I must have misheard him—he’d said California. I figured I was just so excited I got it wrong.”
“You didn’t get anything wrong, baby doll. He was trying to hide his tracks.”
It sickened Lila to ask. She was terrified that she already knew the answer. “Why?”
Kieran leaned forward over the white tablecloth, fingers pressing her white hair to her neck, eyes the size of swimming pools. “Because you were kidnapped.”
Twelve
A trio of badly dressed males, caught in that simian state between their teens and their twenties—backward baseball caps and drooping jeans only serving to broadcast their lack of maturity to the world—thundered past Victor on the sidewalk. He moved to the side, instinctively smoothing his tie, watching them tumble, shove one another, and carry on like baboons into a music store.
Not that Los Angeles was known for its pedestrian traffic, but Victor was painfully aware that he was the only one on the sidewalk who was alone. The suited woman up ahead might be by herself, but her briefcase kept her from being truly alone. The balding jogger across the street was kept company by not only his headphones but by the blood thumping purposefully through his veins.
He’d had a promising line on a job that morning. Just after Lila left to meet a “very special person” for breakfast, he’d had a return call from the head of a retirement home on Sepulveda Boulevard. Sounded like a simple enough job, sitting in an office every day pressuring guilty relatives into springing for the larger room, the private room, for their aging loved one. His conversation with the female manager had gone reasonably well, until she’d said she’d like to check out a reference before committing to a face-to-face interview and could he provide the name and phone number of his former supervisor.
So that was that. Siniwick wasn’t going to have anything good to say about Victor’s abilities. And, when interviewing for a senior sales position, was there any potential employer in the country who would not want to check his references? Victor Mack’s job prospects were abysmal.
He should be angry. Frustrated. Brimming with fight. But Victor was feeling anything but. What he felt, to the marrow of his bones, was unadulterated relief. With a new job came pressures and schedules and left turns he wasn’t sure he was up to anymore. For the first time in his life, he was without a goal or plan of any sort.
It had been depressing earlier, sitting in the cabin waiting for Lila to come home from wherever she’d gone off to. He’d hopped a bus and headed down to Sunset, where his aim could be simple: find himself a cup of coffee. Maybe even a nice toasted bagel. Poppy seed with cream cheese.
He wandered along in the late-morning sun, and, finding himself at the window of a pet store, Victor stopped to watch a playpen full of puppies leap and dart and pounce upon one another in a deep bed of newspaper shavings. All sharp teeth and pleading eyes, hopping around a steaming pile of excrement.
One pup, white with a brown head, saddle, and tail, seemed to feel he owned a green rubber bone, the only toy in the pen. He pulled himself out of the canine action and settled in the far corner for a good chew. Fascinating that the others didn’t object. A black pup—far too snub-nosed for Victor’s liking—stared at the play toy, his tiny tongue throbbing with desire, but he didn’t dare approach. Another one, clearly the runt, waddled over to the corner only to be chased away by the saddled leader.
In spite of this dog’s ears being too small for his blunted head, his nose being dotted with a sickly pink, the base of his tail being tied up in mats, this pup was very clearly the managing director of the bunch.
Victor had never considered a dog before. He marched into the tiny shop, set his mug on the counter, and headed toward the window. He leaned over and plucked the pup from the playpen. At first the animal stared down at his chew toy and watched, helpless, as his opportunistic siblings pounced upon it, snapping and snarling at one another as each tried to claim ownership. Victor prepared himself for the coming tantrum, maybe even a hostile nip in the abdomen. This was, after all, an alpha dog. But the little beast forgot about his bone and began to scrabble up Victor’s body. If he didn’t know better, Victor might have thought the animal to be attempting a badly executed sort of canine embrace.
So light, he thought, as he headed for the cash register and tried to control the squirming dog by pressing it close to his chest. And the smell. He hadn’t anticipated such a milky sweet scent any more than he’d anticipated the pup might actually take to him—straining as it was toward his face. Suddenly the muzzle was at his chin, all wet nose, soft fur, darting tongue. As the pup licked his tidy beard, Victor did everything he could to suppress the smile that threatened to pour across his face.
“That’ll be enough now,” he gently scolded the pup, who placed both paws at his collarbone and stared at Victor, yipping right back at him. Victor felt himself smiling and he scratched behind the
dog’s ears with one finger.
He set the tiny dictator on the counter in front of the clerk. “I’ll take this one,” said Victor, pulling out his wallet. “How much?”
The clerk, a tall bony male with long hair and a tattooed forearm, set down his papers. The tag on his shirt read THEODORE. “You want to buy this puppy?”
Victor slapped a credit card on the counter. “You take Visa?”
Theodore looked around, as if needing assistance. “Yeah, it’s just that…don’t you want to know anything about it first? People usually spend a bit of time with a pup. It’s a big decision.”
“Not for me.”
“This one’s a Maltipoo.”
“A what?”
“A cross between a Maltese and a poodle. People like them because they don’t shed a lot. And they train fairly well.”
Victor considered this, nodded. “That’ll be fine.”
The dog wandered too close to the edge of the counter on Victor’s side. When Victor did nothing to stop it from tumbling to the floor, Theodore scooped it up and held it to his chest while the pup chewed on his finger. “Have you had a dog before, sir?”
“No. Do you have some sort of box I can put it in? It’s a long walk home.”
Theodore knitted his brows together, processing the odd request. He backed up, the puppy still in his arms. “You know, I’m just going to check something with my manager. I’ll be right back.”
While he was gone, Victor busied himself collecting a few cans of puppy food, a black leather leash, and matching collar. Then a brush and comb set. Feeding, walking, grooming; these acts would offer some shape to his days. After setting his loot on the counter, he thought for a moment, his chin still tingled from the puppy’s soft tongue. A youngster needed a toy, did he not? Victor spun around and picked up a rubber bone just like the one in the playpen, added it to the pile, and waited for Theodore to return with his pet.
No longer would he be faced with wandering the hills, the dales, of the Western Hemisphere all by his lonesome. With a dog by his side, he’d be positively brimming with purpose. Didn’t even need a job. He had a decent severance. Should last him if he was careful with it.
Theodore did return, but with an older woman in tow. A broad, busty female with the shoulders of a garbage truck. Her hair was as short as Victor’s and she blinked at him through funky metal glasses. “I’m Sandra, the manager here. I understand you’re interested in buying a puppy?”
He pointed at the dog in Theodore’s arms. “This one here.”
“And is this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?”
“What’s this all about? I just want to pay for my dog.”
Sandra motioned for Theodore to step aside. “I’m afraid we can’t sell you a dog today, sir. Buying a puppy is an enormous decision and we have to feel certain you’re…ready for it.”
Victor could feel the vein in his temple throb.
“Our breeders trust us to place their dogs in good homes.”
“If my home is good enough for me, it’s good enough for a dog.”
“You live in a house, do you? I mean, as opposed to an apartment.”
“Yes. A house. And I’ll protect him from coyotes, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll build one of those…one of those…” He searched his brain, the word just slightly out of reach. His hands formed the shape of a barrier, an enclosure, while his mouth tried to wrap itself around the word. “F-f…” It started with an F. What the fuck came after the F? He turned to the side, all these eyes staring at him made it impossible to think. Sweat dampened his back. “It’s hot in here. Is there some goddamned reason you keep it so hot?”
Sandra’s eyes grew soft. She knew. Hadn’t spoken with him for longer than two minutes and already she saw his mind for the dried up piece of Swiss cheese it was becoming. Victor watched as she told Theodore to put the dog back in the playpen and stay close by. Just in case.
If she hadn’t told the fellow to stay close, if she hadn’t had that look in her eye when she said “just in case,” Victor might have walked out, disappointed. But it was clear this Sandra person thought him a faulty pistol, capable of misfiring at any moment. He was to be feared. Pets were to be protected. God only knew what he might do—smash a fist through an aquarium! Tip over the parrot cage! Unleash the tarantulas!
He hated the look on her face. Patient. Understanding. Nervous. He hated the way she inched herself closer to the phone. “You think you can judge me, just like that? You think you fucking know me?”
Sandra’s hand was on the phone now. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir.”
He shot a look at the playpen. His pup was standing, tail wagging, paws pressed into the mesh siding, his affection for Victor not dampened in the slightest by the outburst.
Sandra picked up the phone. “Sir? I’ll ask you to leave one more time and then I’ll call the police.”
With a longing glance at the puppy, Victor Mack shuffled out of the pet shop and out to the curb, where he stared up at the underbelly of a low-flying plane and tried to think of the word for those metal or wood or—who the hell knew, maybe even vinyl—enclosures that wrap themselves around a property. When an elderly woman in a polyester pantsuit set down her shiny black pocketbook next to him so she could slide a few envelopes into a mailbox, he asked her. What did he care what she thought? He was never going to see her again. “Fence,” she replied in a way that was surprisingly nonjudgmental. She wished him a nice day, picked up her purse, and headed into the bank next door.
He looked toward the sky, where he imagined Fate hid itself away, and gave it the middle finger. “Fence!”
Thirteen
It took a minute for Kieran’s words to have meaning. They were too big, titanic. Throbbing as they lurched up over her head, burst through the yellow umbrella, mushroomed toward the sky. These words were epic, unfathomable. While Lila struggled to make them fit into her ears, into her brain, her fingertips pricked and sparked with lack of oxygen.
Her mother started to speak, but the roar of an overhead plane—working extra hard to penetrate that huge cloud of words—blocked it out. Lila sat back in her seat and watched Elisabeth’s lips move, wondering if she could make her mother vanish all over again.
Was it years later or just minutes? Elisabeth had risen and wrapped herself around Lila. Only this time Lila wanted to run right from the start. She couldn’t take any amount of closeness just now. Couldn’t take that black-lashed child staring at her like she was a charred wreck on the side of the freeway. The pastel buildings, billboards, palm trees, and buses of Sunset Boulevard warbled and bobbed, and the sun—having finally broken through the clouds—flashed white in her eyes as she was rocked back and forth, in and out of the glowing yellow shelter of the umbrella. Flashes of white, then yellow, then white, then yellow. It was feverish and nauseating. People stared. The waiter touched her shoulder, asked if she was all right.
Lila pulled away from it all. Moved away from the table and mumbled something about the restroom. She entered the restaurant nearly blinded by glare. Fumbled her way inside and reached the toilet just in time to drop to her knees, wrap her arms around the bowl, and throw up that morning’s coffee.
SHE’D BEEN IN the bathroom too long. Not that it mattered. Surprisingly little mattered once your reality had exploded like this, into millions of invisible flakes of ash and horror and vomit swirling above the city. Could be what smog was made of—the incinerated remains of lives like her own. Lila rinsed her mouth, her face in icy water, then stood leaning on the sink, staring at the mirror, watching water trickle down her chin and into the neck of her sweater.
Her hair. Her dyed hair.
It was their first month in Los Angeles. They’d just moved into the cabin, unpacked what little they had, when Victor piled her into the Datsun—bought for a steal from a couple going through a divorce—and drove down to La Cienega where he pulled up in front of storefront complete with rotat
ing barber pole and sign reading HOLLYWOOD HAIR. “Time for haircuts,” he announced.
Lila had been impressed with the sign. “Is this where movie stars get their hair cut?”
Victor caught sight of the faded Elvis bust in the window and smirked. “Not likely. But it seems as good a place as any.” Before opening the door, he looked down at her. “I thought we’d try something new. Short hair all around.”
Her hands flew up to her head. “I’m not getting my hair cut short.”
“You’ve got nice features, a long neck. Short hair would look perfect on you.”
“I’m not having short hair, and you can’t make me.”
“We’ll see about that.” Victor opened the door and waved her inside, where a rotating fan with colored ribbons tied to it blew hot air in their faces. Lila entered, sucking angrily on a blond pigtail. While her father dropped into a spinning chair and announced he’d like his wavy hair buzzed off—he would later return to his longer layers, accusing the ultrashort hair of being too prickly against his pillow—Lila parked herself at a child-size table loaded with stacks of white paper and old coffee cans full of markers, crayons, and pencils and began to scribble with fury. It would be another few years before she would see footwear as paper.
Once her father had been sheared, the stylist, a leathery woman closing in on sixty, her long hair an unruly combination of dun gray and nicotine yellow, with a polished stone strung around her neck from a chain, gestured toward Lila. “And your daughter? Is she having a haircut today as well?”
Victor smiled. “I’d like to have her hair cut short, but she isn’t too excited about it.”
The woman, whose beaded bracelet read KRISTINA, laughed. “Little girls—they all want to look like princesses nowadays.” She wandered over to the kids’ corner and touched Lila’s hair. “You like your hair long, sweetie?”
Lila nodded. Kristina squatted down low and set an oversize magazine on the kiddie table in front of her. “Why don’t you look through this and see if you don’t find a hairstyle that makes you happy.”