Perfect Sax

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  It took me about twenty minutes to drive to Dexter’s house, which was located up on Stone Canyon Road in the hills of Bel Air north of Sunset. He had given me clear directions because it’s easy to get lost up on those winding streets. I parked in his driveway, up off the street, and checked out his home.

  Some folks really hate the kind of boxy-room, lowceiling, ranch-style homes that were built by the thousands around Los Angeles in the fifties. Others now call it “Midcentury” design and boast about it in their real estate listings. I wasn’t sure where I stood on the debate, but I found I really liked Dexter’s relaxed, uncluttered environment.

  He met me at the door and smiled his laid-back smile. “Hey, you made it,” he said. “Here, let me take those bags. Want a tour?”

  He had bought the place a little less than three years ago, he said. His house had four bedrooms, two fireplaces, and the requisite white cabinet/black granite kitchen. As he pointed out this and that, I noticed that he was neat or had a very well-trained housekeeper. His furniture was authentic fifties stuff, with a lot of white upholstered pieces and those cool black leather chairs.

  In one hallway, I was struck by a series of black-and-white photos along the wall. Dirty faces of very poor children. Groups of boys playing soccer in a Mexican village square. A heartbreakingly beautiful close-up of a mother holding a small girl.

  “Did you take these?” I asked.

  He looked embarrassed. “I forgot I told you I liked to take pictures.”

  “They are amazing, Dex.”

  “You can’t take a bad shot of those kids.”

  He slid open a large glass door, and I walked outside onto the crosshatched used brick of his rear deck. A top realtor would call the scene from his pool patio “all-around endless views” and I was impressed.

  “I’m actually out here most of the time,” he said.

  “I can understand why.”

  The sun was just setting and the sky was tangerine and orange and deeper rust. “Pretty,” I said, admiring the peaceful dusk.

  “I agree,” he said.

  I looked over at him, a little surprised. “Most people feel compelled to tell me it’s really smog.”

  “Those who choose to be so freaking literal often miss the beauty of life entirely,” Dex said.

  “That’s true.”

  “We should pity them.” He looked at me, expressing equanimity.

  “I do.” The in-the-treetops perch of his patio made me feel like I was on top of the world. I reluctantly turned back to the house. “I’d better get our dinner started.”

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  “Can you cook?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then, sure, if you don’t mind a few helpful hints.”

  Dex had dropped the bags off earlier on the granite counter of his open kitchen. He followed me back into the kitchen.

  “I can open a bottle of wine,” he said, acting a little more like a host than I had expected.

  “How about I mix something fresh for us to drink?” I offered. “You have a blender?”

  “I knew there was a reason I bought one of those.” He smiled and led me to a shelf of appliances stored neatly in his pantry. I found a brand-new blender and plugged it into a socket next to the sink.

  “This is cool,” he said, walking back to the pantry and returning with a new black chef’s apron. He held it up and I smiled, so he looped it over my head and then slowly smoothed it over my body. He let his hands linger there just a few moments longer than were absolutely necessary, then efficiently pulled the string tight in the back and, circling his arms around front, tied it neatly at my waist.

  “You’re good at that,” I said, turning to look at him. His hands on my body had felt great and he could tell I had liked it, the bastard. He let me go slowly and then leaned back against the counter, standing close to me, watching as I washed my hands thoroughly. He was about six feet tall, maybe a little taller, and had clearly spent some time working out. He was dressed casually, wearing jeans with a tan shirt.

  I pulled some of the ingredients out of the bags I’d brought and set them up on the counter, including a small, perfectly ripe watermelon,

  “What’s this for?” he asked, grinning.

  “Summertime drink, I thought.” I opened the drawer most likely to contain utensils and found the knife drawer on my first try. I pulled out a long serrated knife and, using his cutting board, began rapidly chopping the fresh fruit into about one-inch dice, removing the seeds. Then I asked him to puree it up in the blender.

  “This is so cool,” he said, showing no fear with an unfamiliar tool.

  I found a crystal pitcher in one of his upper cabinets and measured in two cups each of bottled water and Grey Goose vodka.

  Dex picked up the Grey Goose bottle and read the label. “You can get just about any man you want with this routine of yours, isn’t that right?”

  “Any man who drinks too much,” I agreed. “So that’s something I’ve got going for me.”

  I had brought a container filled with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and poured in two cups of that along with a cup of sugar. Then I asked Dex to measure out four cups of the fresh-pureed watermelon, and when he had, I stirred it well.

  “What do you call this?” Dex asked, awe in his voice.

  “Spiked watermelon lemonade à la Dex.” I filled two tall glasses with ice from his icemaker and poured us each a glass, which I garnished with lemon wheels and sprigs of mint. It’s in my DNA. Can’t help it.

  Dex held up his glass and clinked it to mine. The corners of his warm hazel eyes wrinkled when he smiled. “To you, Madeline.”

  “Aw.” I tried the drink. Sweet, sour, and lots of punch. I took another sip. It went down easily, very easily.

  “And now that we have our liquid refreshments,” he said, taking a sip and smiling, “why don’t you ask me what you are dying to ask me?”

  “What?”

  “Think about it.”

  “Why the world is round?” I joked, sipping my drink. “Why chickens cross the road?” I’d have to pace myself on the old spiked lemonade if I didn’t want to be too dizzy to cook dinner.

  He put down his glass and looked at me thoughtfully. “I’m not worried about your ex-boyfriends, Madeline. And I’m giving this thing my best shot. But I think you want to know what really happened that night three years ago when the three best pieces in my brother-in-law’s art collection were stolen.”

  I stopped midsip. Zenya must tell her brother every little thing.

  “Or am I wrong about that?” Dex had a very direct gaze.

  So, pow! There went my little idea of tiptoeing up to the subject ever so gingerly. A perfect time to take another tiny sip of spiked watermelon lemonade à la Dex.

  “Look of Love”

  Hold that thought,” Dex said, toying with me.

  So sly. He knew I was interested in the art theft. Though he might play for laughs most of the time, there was no doubt in my mind the man was extremely smart.

  So I went along with the flow, allowing the question of crime to sink below the surface, biding my time, and I set about prepping our little Mexican meal. Dex placed oversize aqua plates on the glass-and-chrome table in the open dining room while I whipped up some fresh tomatillo salsa and served the chilled avocado soup.

  We talked all through dinner. He had many questions, and I ended up telling Dexter about my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago. How tame it had been growing up in middleclass Lincolnwood, but how equal parts exhilarating and devastating my childhood had been, even there. It’s funny, those getting-acquainted stories we tell to a new person in our life. We reveal ourselves in shades, depending on our mood. The mood moved me to share the story of how I shocked the nay-saying Mrs. Applebaum and won the fifthgrade spelling bee by spelling the word culinary, thus foretelling my future career, as well as the horrible time my best friend Debra and I were escorted into the manager’s office at Walgreen’s. I had bee
n sobbing, totally shocked, until Debra, with a pout, pulled several bottles of frosted nail polish out of her Levi’s pocket.

  “What happened?” Dex asked.

  “My mom told me, ‘Be careful the friends you pick.’ ”

  “A story with a moral.” Dex had an easy smile. “So did you dump Debra?”

  “Of course not. She was my best friend.” I ignored good sense and poured each of us another drink. “That episode did answer one burning question, though.”

  Dex looked interested. “You mean about integrity?”

  “I mean how Debra, with the same exact allowance as I had, managed to have the coolest nails in Lincoln Hall Junior High.”

  Dexter told me more about his life, too. He and Zenya had grown up in L.A. in the well-off west side of town, the “good” side. Their parents sent them to the right private schools and belonged to the right country club. But after his mother had died, Dex was mostly left to raise himself.

  “Did your father ever remarry?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I was twelve and Zenya was fifteen,” he said, serving himself seconds of every dish I’d made from the colorful platters and bowls I’d brought to the table, pausing his story to comment, “This corn salad is amazing.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyway, Georgia—that was our new stepmother—was twenty-one.”

  “Oh. That can be tricky. Was it bad?”

  “I didn’t hate her.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t love her, obviously. Hey, I was in like seventh grade. I maybe had a crush on her. She was definitely hot.”

  “Boys,” I said.

  “But in any case, Georgia was sent packing after a few years. My dad kept busy, though. He managed to marry two other women after that. I think. I didn’t actually go to the last wedding.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not even sure what their names were,” he said pleasantly.

  “Not too bitter, though,” I commented. “Which is healthy.”

  He gave me his best smile.

  “Then one thing and another,” he continued, putting his fork down, “and my dad made the usual bad business decisions and bye-bye fortune.”

  “Had it been your mother’s money?” I asked.

  “Of course it had,” he said. “And all we were left with, Zenya and me, was the trust fund our mom’s mother had set up. Oh, Dad worked with the lawyers for years to get his hands on that. But it was pretty well set up.”

  “And that’s what you live on,” I said, wondering how different my life would have been if I’d had such an inheritance.

  “Well, I would if I could,” he said. “The market is down. I have needs. Let’s just say it’s going to be gone soon.”

  “But you still have this house?” I was in the man’s threemillion-dollar pad, the twinkling lights from the hillside homes beneath us glowing beyond the walls of glass.

  “Sure. As long as I can keep it. But I might have to sell. Need the cash.”

  Rich folks have different problems from the rest of us. I couldn’t imagine anything better than the life he was letting slip away. Or perhaps I had it better than I realized. I needed to work. I loved to work. I had achieved a great deal. Dex hadn’t been raised to know the joy in such things. No wonder he seemed adrift.

  “Oh, you poor little rich boy.”

  “I like sympathy,” he said. “More, please.”

  “And Zenya?”

  “Zenya got a rotten deal. My grandmother left her much less money than she left me. I guess she was expecting Zenya to make a rich marriage and thought she wouldn’t need it. I don’t know. And Zen is so sweet she did what was expected. She married Bill. What a deal, huh? I only hope she’s happy with it.”

  “Isn’t she?”

  He spoke quietly. “I don’t think so. No.”

  So all this time, Dex had had to watch his sister wrestle with a difficult marriage and he’d felt guilty because he’d inherited more than she had. I thought it was sad and noble that he wanted to protect her. To Dex, his sister’s rich life had too steep a price and he would rather sacrifice his own safety net to get her out of there. He looked at me across the glass table and reached for my hand. “I never talk about this stuff. Not to anyone. My last girlfriend didn’t even know I had a sister, and here I am, telling you…everything. I don’t open up to people. But there’s something going on here, Madeline. You’re killing me.”

  The one thing you never expect from a self-confident guy is an admission of weakness.

  “I was only trying to maim you. My aim must be off.”

  “It’s like I’m fourteen again and I like this girl too much.” He held on to my hand and laughed at himself.

  My breathing became shallower and I could feel myself get jittery. You know, like when you want a certain guy to like you and you get the signal that maybe he really does.

  “I don’t know anyone like you,” he went on. “You’re so calm when things are going crazy. You have this goofy smartness. I never know what you’re going to say. I’m scared I’m not worthy of you. You are something else.”

  “Ah, that’s just the spiked watermelon talking,” I said, smiling a little.

  “I have fallen for you. So watch out what you do with my heart, okay?”

  I burst out laughing.

  “I’m not joking.” But then he smiled, unable to maintain such a serious tone for too long. “Ah, crap. I am suddenly thinking of all the girls I’ve left along the way. Karma. What a horrible thought. So, are you going to pay me back for those women I was a bastard to?”

  I looked at him. His eyes were teasing, but I thought I saw something more there. He was clearly a man who had spent a lot of his life avoiding any dependence on a woman. Since he was a kid. Since his mother had left him so young. I’m no Sigmund Freud, but anyone watching a month’s worth of Lifetime movies could make such a simple connection. For all of that, I was so attracted to him.

  “Anyway,” he said, after a significant pause in which I did not tell him to get lost but on the other hand did not confess I was falling for him, too, “anyway, that’s why I’m going to have to sell this place. I want to offer the money to my sister. So she can leave that asshole. She deserves so much better than that.”

  “Has she told you she wants to leave?”

  “No. She doesn’t get it all yet. But she will.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the art that was stolen?”

  “So.” Dexter played with his napkin, a linen weave in oatmeal colors. “We’re back to that already.”

  Without my realizing it, something had shifted, so that solving a puzzle and sorting out a crime seemed so much less important than getting to the heart of this man. But I was not ready to let this topic alone. I had to remember my mother’s sensible advice and make a good choice here. I had to consider what he was capable of.

  Dexter rose and began clearing dishes and I joined him, picking up two empty serving bowls. His tone was light but resolute. “You want to know anything, Madeline, I will tell you the truth. It will always be that way with us, okay? Let’s make it a rule.”

  “Like you enjoy following the rules,” I joked.

  “I’ll start now. Zenya’s husband, Bill,” Dexter said, walking around the glass-topped table, but stopping to make eye contact. “What a bastard. He knew I needed money.”

  Oh no. My stomach sank.

  “Anyway, he and Zen and the kid were going to Maui and they asked me to stay at their house.” We walked together to the kitchen as he talked. “Bill said they’d pay me for my time. That was before I had this place, so I was like Uncle House-sitter for a few weeks.” Dexter began rinsing the dishes. I opened the dishwasher.

  “And then what?”

  “And then I came home from a concert with a date and the front door was standing wide open. The alarm company was already there and so were the cops. It had been a simple heist. The only things missing were the three most precious etchings from B
ill’s coveted collection.”

  “They didn’t take anything else? His guitars? Any other art? Zenya’s jewelry?”

  He shook his head.

  “Didn’t the cops think that was sort of odd?”

  “Look, the artwork had been displayed a few months earlier at the friggin’ art museum. Any good crook could read Bill’s name on the donor plaque and wait until the exhibit had ended. They must have found out where Bill and Zenya lived and waited until the house was empty. That was that.”

  I looked at him. For once, the easygoing manner was gone.

  “What?” he asked, looking more closed down than I’d seen him before. “You wondering if I had something to do with the theft?”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay. Whew. That’s good.” I smiled up at him.

  He grabbed me and looked at me for a minute. I felt the rush of too many spiked watermelon lemonades à la Dex. After the strength of his grasp I was unprepared for the softness of his mouth on mine. We stood in the kitchen kissing for so long my knees really did go weak. I had missed being with a man, missed being held. I wanted him to go on kissing me.

  He ripped my shirt open, popping the tiny buttons, which I heard hit the polished hardwood floor.

  “Dexter,” I said, breathless. “Dex, you have no curtains in this entire house.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “Too much money.” He began to nibble my ear.

  “And the whole place is made of glass. All windows,” I pleaded as he slipped my blouse off and cupped my breasts in his hands.

  “Are you worried about the neighbors?” he asked, touching me in a way that made me want to pull him down on the floor right there, beg him to stop talking.

  “I am feeling,” I said as he pulled my skirt to the floor, “a little exposed.”

  I stood in my tiny white silk thong panties and high heels and nothing else. His hands brushed over me, caressing my skin, touching me all over.

  “Do you want me to?” he asked, nuzzling my neck, his hands slipping into my panties and twisting them, touching me, making me gasp.

  “The lights,” I said, looking to see where the switch was, hoping it was close by because I was so turned on I couldn’t have left him for even a moment.