Woman No. 17

by Edan Lepucki

  “I can’t stay at Kitty’s forever, and I can’t handle this limbo state any longer.”

  “If I asked you to come home, would you?”

  I thought Karl would say, Yes, of course, without hesitation, which is why I’d asked the question at all.

  But he didn’t. “I’m not sure, to be honest. You push people away, Lady. That’s what you do. You have no reason to be angry with me, and yet—”

  “I know about the special signs,” I said.

  “That’s what this is about? Seth and I sharing a few of your made-up hand gestures?”

  “Don’t say it like that. You have no idea how much they’ve meant to us.”

  “We can stop if it’s truly an issue. They’re not that useful.”

  “It’s not about useful!” I said. “Those signs were between me and Seth. I told you that.”

  “You’re the only one who wants to keep them special.” Karl’s voice was kind, but only because he knew what he was about to say would hurt me. “Seth isn’t your possession.”

  “I didn’t say he was.”

  “It’s how you behave. You won’t let me parent him. And I’m tired of hiding out at my sister’s place like an escaped convict. This situation is real, Lady.” He started waving his hands around and I had to step back. “Do you get it? It’s real! This isn’t some game we’re playing! This isn’t a little thought experiment!”

  “I know it isn’t.”

  “I can’t believe you had the nerve to ask if I’d come home. You don’t even mean it, you just want me to assure you that I’ll do anything you wish at the drop of a hat.”

  “Are you done lecturing me in my dead mother’s house?”

  Karl looked like he might walk out. “Please. You hated your mother and what you’re feeling now isn’t grief. It’s guilt. You’re probably relieved too, because now Seth will never know his grandmother. That’s one less person to get in between the two of you.”

  “Wow, that’s low. Especially when that son isn’t choosing to be with me after a lifetime of raising him.”

  “Now you know how your mother felt.”

  I didn’t say anything. My heart was pounding sloppily: ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

  “I saw Kit’s photos,” he said finally. “The new ones. They’re wonderful. And Seth enjoyed doing them with her. She’s his aunt for all intents and purposes.”

  “She isn’t—”

  “Why won’t you let him be happy?”

  “Why are you saying all of this to me?” The tears were tightening my throat. “Why are you being so mean?” What I wanted to say was, Why are you being like Marco? Why are you being like my mother?

  That seemed to break the spell. Karl sighed and leaned against a dresser. He said my name again, but he was looking away, as if he expected someone else to answer. To him I was a sad, fragile little woman. And I was. Even when we met, when I was poor and angry and lonely—and pregnant—I hadn’t been this wretched. I could tell he was trying to decide if I was the same woman he’d married. Or if he’d been mistaken all along. Had he ever truly loved the real Lady? The discrepancies were painful, for both of us.

  “Don’t make it easy for me to push you away,” I said. “Don’t be like everyone else.”

  “I’m not.” He was nearly whispering. “I’m not.”

  “Why do you keep it?” I asked.

  “Keep what?”

  “The photo of me. Kit’s photo.”

  “It’s in the closet, no one can see it.”

  “No one but us.”

  “Don’t you think that’s important?” he asked. “Just you and me.”

  “That’s what you always said, and I loved it. I just don’t want Devin to ever think you aren’t his. I want him to be happy.”

  “He is happy. Look at him. And so is Seth—happy for a teenage boy, at least. You’re a wonderful mother. You just need to figure out what you’re doing. What you want. Do you want to be my wife?”

  Just then, Devin ran into the room.

  “There’s my boy!” Karl cried, and with such false cheer I almost laughed.

  “Ready to leave with Daddy?” I said.

  Devin shook his head. “Let’s go see Marco!” he said.

  “Who’s Marco?” Karl asked, laughing.

  I forced out a guffaw. “I have no idea!”

  Devin looked at me, confused. “Marco! Your friend!”

  “You okay?” Karl asked me.

  I nodded, but I wasn’t. I felt panicked, not to mention sick.

  “You all right?” Karl asked. “Lady, did you eat anything this morning?”

  I pointed to my bag on the end table behind me. “There’s a bar in my—” I began, but the room was already going black, I was already falling to the floor.

  49.

  I drove west with all my gear tossed across the passenger seat like a couple of salt-stiff beach towels. There were two rolls to develop and I planned to arrive at the lab right when it opened. The place had been around for decades, and I guess there were enough photo nerds in L.A. to keep it alive. Mornings the guy with the gimp arm worked the counter, and if I flirted with him and said my name was Diane Arbus, wink-wink, he might shave a couple bucks off the order. I would call Lady back while I waited, I didn’t care if there was one of those signs on the wall with a crossed-out cell phone, I was a paying customer, I was Diane fucking Arbus, dammit, back from the dead with a headache the size of the Inland Empire.

  Lady had called over an hour ago without leaving a message. She was probably wondering how I was feeling (like an old plastic bag filled with battery acid, thanks for asking), and why I wasn’t sleeping it off in the Cottage. Was that actually my bunny floating dead in the deep end of her swimming pool? Seth had texted me twice more about his mom’s tweets, and he might have confronted her too. If he had, well, shit, then her questions were going to be a lot scarier.

  Stopped at a red arrow, I finally replied to Seth.

  Saw the tweets. I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to hang with your mom.

  For the rest of the drive I waited for my phone to light up with his reply, but it didn’t, and it wasn’t until after I’d paid the lab (no Gimp Arm today, so no discount) that I heard back from him. He wanted to know what I was doing. With one hand I pushed the lab’s big glass doors open, the watery Culver City sunlight simultaneously assaulting and purifying me, and answered:

  What am I doing existentially, on this planet, with this life? Or right now?

  My phone dinged immediately. Right now

  I’m at a lab off la cienega waiting for pics to develop. Old school style.

  This time, there was no answer. I wasn’t going to wait for one.

  Why…?

  Still nothing.

  I know you’ve got your phone in your hands or by your balls. Answer.

  I waited.

  Fuck this. At least yr mom doesn’t send mixed signals.

  I thought for sure that would do the trick, but alas.

  I’m getting a drink.

  50.

  There was one dive bar nearby, its windowless brick exterior painted dark gray, and I was willing to bet that the gallery snobs hadn’t yet ruined it with Marcona almonds and atonal music. It shouldered a mini-mall on Venice, which meant I could also do my laundry or fill a plastic jug with potable water. The bar was called Bills, and I was never sure if it meant bills, as in cash, or if Bill had simply left out the apostrophe. Though every time I’d passed it the wide dark door was closed and unmanned by a bouncer, I knew the place would be open during the day because, years ago, driving by on my way to school, I’d witnessed a man going in as if drinking were his job.

  At least my mom had never been a barfly like that. She was a functional alcoholic. She wasn’t classy, but she had dignity, she had coworkers and health insurance, she had a daughter to support half the time, emotionally if not financially. She occasionally went out drinking, but mostly she liked to drink alone, at nights or on the weekends, in front o
f the TV, thank you very much.

  Anyway, I knew it wasn’t Katherine Mary who longed for a vodka soda, but me. I could already anticipate the drink’s fizz and burn, the acid of the lime. The way the vodka would ice my veins. Here I was, walking down Venice Boulevard in a fake-vintage shirt without a bra, burgundy lipstick crumbing the corners of my mouth, and nobody but me wanted what I wanted. I dialed Lady’s number.

  She didn’t answer, which was probably for the best since I wanted to tell her that I was walking into a scary bar when most people my age were going for brunch with their buds. The Sitter is my best friend. It could be true; I had no one else but her. I couldn’t wait to get the photos back, to see what I’d made.

  The door was heavy, its inside padded with burgundy Naugahyde. The nearest wall announced that patrons needed to be over twenty-one, and that the management retained the right to refuse service to anyone. Beneath these a handwritten note announced NO PERSONAL CHECKS, EFFECTIVE 8/3/2009. I’d pictured myself entering a dim and mysterious cave of a room, a few sad sacks huddled over shots at the far end of the bar, but this place was bright with halogen-powered lights, the kind that people with “environmental sensitivities” sue their bosses to replace. The floor was carpeted. The bar was a mass of thick gray plastic that reminded me of a Jacuzzi, and no one was drinking at its edge. Ranchera music played softly from a speaker in the corner.

  “Hola,” the bartender said. Bill? He didn’t look up from his phone.

  “This is the craziest bar I have ever seen,” I said, and pulled myself onto a stool.

  “Sí.”

  “Vodka and soda, please,” I said. I dug through my bag for my ID, but the guy was already reaching for the vodka.

  He served it to me in a plastic cup and said, “Seis.”

  “Do you have ice?”

  He shook his head.

  I pulled out a five. “Cinco then.”

  He took the money without complaint.

  The drink was lukewarm and flat, but I finished it in a few big gulps anyway. The clenched feeling at the center of my head began to go slack.

  “Uno mas,” I said, and the guy complied.

  I was midway through the second when a clot of men in work clothes entered and began speaking in quick Spanish to the bartender, who had finally put down his phone to attend to their needs. A couple of the dudes looked over at me, but only for a second, as if properly acknowledging my presence would mess up whatever Elk Club vibe they had nurtured. A minute later, a middle-aged white guy in Carhartts came in and held up a wad of cash to grunts of gratitude. El Jefe.

  My phone dinged and I sat up straighter. But it wasn’t Seth, it was my dad.

  Dad: Happy Day Off, Waterbug! What are you doing?

  I sighed. Poor Steven Shapiro.

  Me: I’m curing a vicious hangover. On my second vodka tonic at a dive bar in Culver City surrounded by manual laborers.

  Dad: LOL!

  Dad: Esther?

  Dad: Really, what are you doing?

  Dad: Honey?

  I was having a little fun, letting him sweat, when the white guy was suddenly by my side, grinning. His teeth were nicer and straighter than I expected.

  “Can I buy you a drink…”—he looked at my shirt—“Virginia?”

  “No, gracias,” I said.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Drinking. Is this a private club or something?”

  He scratched his cheek, which was tan but acne-pitted, and leaned away from me. “I didn’t mean it like that, Your Highness.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I went back to staring at my phone.

  “You don’t have to be a bitch about it,” he said. “I was just trying to make conversation.”

  Now the other men were looking at us. I lifted my cup and drank the rest of it as fast as I could. If there’d been ice it would have avalanched down the side of the plastic, smashing into my lips, making me look like an idiot. Sometimes there is a God.

  I slid off the stool as gracefully as I could. The room was brighter than ever, the vodka’s doing. Not that I’d let that show.

  If you counted the shadows of my nipples beneath my shirt, I had four eyes. I pointed them all at El Jefe. Lady at my age: she’s a beast.

  I made sure everyone could hear me. “When the rent goes up here—and, believe me, it will—you guys will be priced out. They’ll shut this place down and you’ll have nowhere to go. Nowhere.”

  Vaccinated with vodka, I glided to the exit.

  51.

  Being drunk was the best! I couldn’t wait to see the photos! I was young and hot, and all the sleazy men of the world would starve to death while they dreamed of going down on me. Strutting back into the lab Saturday Night Fever–style, I felt so invincible that I didn’t see anything in front of me. Or anyone.

  Someone was calling my name and I turned.

  It took me a second to recognize the woman speaking. She was in her fifties, and she had her hair up in a tight, headache-inducing ponytail.

  “Kit Daniels,” she said.

  Kit Flippin’ Daniels!

  “Oh! Kit! Mrs.—Ms. Daniels!”

  “Please. Kit.”

  “Kit! Sorry, I just didn’t expect you to be here…you know…out of context!” I let out a big, high-pitched laugh, more hyena that human. “But duh! This is a photo lab, so why should I be surprised?”

  She bestowed a kind smile upon me and smoothed the front of her dress, an ankle-length kaftan deal with billowy sleeves and a deep V-neck. In gray. Who else but Kit Daniels would own a kaftan in such an understated color? She wore no jewelry, as if to let her décolletage do the talking. I wanted to bow before her, ask if she needed her studio swept, her hair braided, anything.

  “Seth is feeding the meter,” she said.

  “Seth’s with you?”

  “When he said you were at a lab off La Cienega,” she said, “I knew just the place. It’s the only one left in Southern California. For professionals, I mean. I met the owner at jury duty, if you can believe it. He said the mail-order business was skyrocketing. People all over the country are sending in their rolls of film. Seems sad, doesn’t it? Or inspiring. You pick.”

  The woman behind the counter obviously recognized Kit because she was ogling. I glared at her and she did a one-eighty into the back room.

  “Do you need to pick up some prints?” I asked when we were alone.

  She waved her hand like there was a gnat in her way. “I shoot almost entirely digital these days, or I develop myself, at my studio,” she said. “But you’re picking up, right?”

  I said nothing.

  “It’s funny,” she continued, “because the other day, when I had lunch with Lady, she told me you were a painter.”

  “I am. I mean…I also paint.”

  “Also?” Kit said. “Very impressive.”

  “I’m either multitalented or a dilettante.”

  “You’re funny,” she said without laughing. “And this look you’ve got going.” She was nodding at my shirt.

  “Business casual,” I said.

  “If you’re willing, I’d love to see the prints.”

  “You would?” A private crit with Kit Daniels! But no, I couldn’t—if Lady found out. What exactly had Seth told his aunt?

  Just then, he came through the door wearing blue basketball shorts and his TALK WITH THE HAND T-shirt. On his feet were shower sandals and tube socks. Obviously, he and Kit weren’t related by blood.

  Kit signed, Hello, as if she hadn’t seen him two minutes ago.

  “Seth,” I said. He immediately realized what I was wearing and he had to suppress a laugh. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?” I asked.

  “Seth was…concerned,” Kit said.

  I made my best bimbo face. “Concerned? Why?”

  “You’ve been drinking,” Kit said, and I knew Seth had mentioned my text.

  Seth signed, Sorry.

  “I just had a beer. It’s so hot alrea
dy, and I have a headache.”

  Kit crossed her arms; Seth was gazing at his shower shoes.

  “It’s not even noon,” Kit said.

  “But what’s that saying? It’s five p.m. somewhere! And who cares how early it is? It was just a beer, I’m of age. I’m not taking care of Dev. I don’t see what the big deal is. If I smoked cigarettes, no one would care.”

  Kit unfolded her arms and put a hand on my shoulder. “I would care. Cigarettes tar your lungs, they’re nasty. And, I know, drinking is completely legal. But what about last night, with Lady?”

  I saw me and Lady, outside at night, and before that, standing in her closet, the empty Champagne bottle, the secret, Lady’s secret, spilling out as we looked at the photograph. By Kit. Who was now in front of me. She had no idea that I knew.

  “Lady isn’t in a good place right now,” Kit said.

  I pretended she hadn’t said that, and turned to Seth. “Does she know about Muffin Buffin?”

  “What’s that?” Kit asked.

  I tried to telegraph to Seth a billion questions with only my eyes, starting with, Did you really think confiding in your mother’s nemesis would help matters? but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Guys?” Kit said, and then shook her head. “Never mind. Seth was worried you’d drink and drive.”

  I leaned in until Seth was forced to look up. “Seriously? That’s why you’re here with your aunt? You were afraid for my safety? Yeah right.”

  Seth signed, Stop Drop Dead.

  Kit let out a little whinny. “She knows the private signs? I don’t even know them!”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea what that means,” I lied.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner,” Kit said, and Seth yanked his head up like one of those wind puppets.

  “Realize what?” I asked.

  “You two.”

  Seth recovered faster than I did. His face was a mask of surprise and disgust—no, worse than disgust. It was repulsion he was expressing: that the idea of sleeping with me would be like eating the bloated worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle. Gee, thanks, Seth. It was such a convincing reaction that my blood went as cold as the vodka I’d been craving when I’d walked into Bills. How had I not seen it sooner? Seth was a skilled liar. Dangerous, even.