by Sara Shepard
Desmond pauses. “Well, no. I haven’t heard a thing. I just wanted to see how you were doing, my fairest.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
All at once, I flash back on my humiliating lunge toward him the day he came to my house. What had possessed me to do such a thing? It’s kind of a relief that he’s shown up today. I’d conjured that absinthe-with-Paul, holy-shit-you-won’t-believe-what-this-weird-girl-did-to-me scene in my mind too many times over the past several days.
I fold my hands and try to look proper and sober, though it’s difficult when surrounded by stuffed parrots in antique birdcages and a huge sign over my head that reads Just in! Whale Penises!
“I’m hanging in there,” I admit, though I sound so miserable it can hardly be accepted as the truth.
Desmond’s brow furrows. Then his voice drops an octave, as though he doesn’t want the taxidermy animals to overhear. “So I might as well get to my point and let you go on with your work. Would you like to partake in a beverage with me sometime?”
I stare at him. “Do you mean go out for a drink?”
“In layman’s terms, exactly.”
A date. I’m unequipped for one of those; I feel I’ve never really gone on one. Then again, I must have: there was Leonidas. If only I remembered what sorts of dates we went on.
Desmond leans his elbows on the counter. “I’ll take you anywhere you want. I’ll do whatever.” He smiles kinkily, which is not unattractive, exactly.
“I’m kind of busy,” I say automatically.
“Are you sure? You can’t even spare time for an aperitif?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“What about coffee? Even for ten minutes. Whenever you’re done with work today.” He tilts his head, and his woolly eyebrows hood over his lashes. “We parted so inelegantly last time. And far too abruptly for my liking.”
Maybe he had wanted to have sex with me; maybe he’d spent the last four days ruing how he’d chickened out. I fiddle with a rabbit’s foot Steadman keeps next to one of the brass register keys. The thing is, I am awfully lonely. I crave sex, but I can get sex. It’s closeness that’s more elusive. Sometimes, I get the urge to walk through a parking lot next to someone. To hold someone’s hand. To have someone make me a sandwich or place a washcloth on my head when I’m sick. I don’t know if that person is Desmond—I still can’t quite imagine kissing him without bursting out laughing—but a little companionship would be nice.
Then I think of Leonidas again. I have that to figure out, and I’ve decided on what I’m going to do. “Uh, there’s something I need to take care of after work.”
“I’ll join you!” He instantly looks sheepish. “Sorry, it’s just that I so rarely get days off when the convention is in full swing, and I’d love to see you, but if I’m being outré you can tell me to cease and desist.”
“It’s okay,” I say slowly, considering. I shouldn’t rope Desmond into this, but it might not be a bad idea to bring him along.
I take a breath. “I’m actually looking into my killer. Or, well, almost killer.”
“You mean from the pool?” He puffs out his narrow rib cage. “I’ll definitely accompany. You need protection.”
“Are you sure? Because I have this idea of what I need to do, and you might not like it.”
Desmond pretends to peel back his wrist and toss something in front of me. “The gauntlet has been thrown.” It’s a wonder he doesn’t have a real gauntlet. “When are you off? I’ll meet you here anon.”
I tell him, and he swoops his cape and exits with Edwardian flair. I am left with a symphony of strings and a whole bunch of lifeless, staring animals. I look around at them, wishing I could ask them if that actually just happened. I feel excited, kind of. In an eye-rolling sort of way. But before I can really dwell on it, a busload pulls up and out pour the other sort of people who buy from this store—busloads from God-knows-where, with their huge empty boxes. They look so normal, lumpy, suburban, and neighborly, but they come in here and fight over the weird objects rescued from babies’ stomachs and archaic tools of horrible things we used to do to one another before we knew any better. It’s a phenomenon, really.
Two hours later, Steadman arrives, relieving me from my shift. “We had great sales today!” I crow. I am trying not to walk too unsteadily or slur my speech, but I actually had three shots of meade, the only liquor I could find under a two-foot-high pile of papers in the cramped back room, in order to quell my buzzing nerves for my big Leonidas investigation. “We got a bus of tourists from Pasadena!”
Steadman slams his briefcase down on the counter and juts a thumb out the front door. “Someone’s waiting for you outside.” At first, I think he’s pissed because he knows I’ve been drinking. But then he adds, “He’s driving a Batmobile, and it’s taking up all the good parking.”
“He’s driving a what?” I scurry out from behind the counter. It takes me only a second and a half to cross the store and open the front door. Sure enough, Desmond is standing at the curb, and I’ll be damned, he’s stolen Batman’s car.
From The Dots
I have something to tell you,” Dot said softly to Marlon during art history. They were talking about the Impressionists that day, paintings of ethereal flowers and rain-speckled streets. It was exactly the sort of art Dot wasn’t into—when she was young, if she walked into a doctor’s office with a Monet print on the walls, she would turn and walk right out. Dorothy would indulge this, saying Monet made her want to kill herself, too.
Marlon gazed at her with interest, putting down his pen. But then, because Dot was afraid of anyone overhearing, she wrote it down on a piece of paper and slid it toward him: My aunt is back. You know who. And of course he knew. They were together by then. Dorothy was all Dot talked about.
I’m secretly meeting with her every Wednesday, Dot wrote after he read this first part and widened his eyes. She wants to meet you.
She slipped the paper to him again. He read it, nodded, and then wrote something down. Sure. I’m in.
Dot made him eat the paper so no one would see.
On Wednesday, they got in Marlon’s car. “Where are we going to meet her?” he said excitedly. “The Ivy? That new Korean place on Melrose? An S&M club? I mean, she’s fabulous and up for anything, right?”
“Actually, she really likes this steak house in Alhambra,” Dot said. Her boyfriend made a face. She squeezed his hand. “It’s cool, I promise. Wait until she tells you her stories. You’ll be blown away.”
Marlon’s brow creased anyway when he saw M&F, which looked, Dot suddenly noticed, only a notch better than the Texas Roadhouse chain. “It’s really nice inside,” she said, gesturing to the valet line. Of course, they didn’t use the valet: as usual, Dot went for the back entrance, rapping on the door like a pro.
“What’s with the speakeasy thing?” Marlon grumbled uncertainly.
Dot beamed. “That’s exactly what Dorothy said!” There, it was kismet: he and Dorothy were going to hit it off for sure.
Dorothy hadn’t arrived yet. Dot settled into her regular chair, and Marlon sat across from her.
“Shouldn’t we be at a better table?” he asked. “We’re next to a utility closet. Our food is going to taste like bleach.”
“Oh, stop,” Dot said. “No one bugs us here. We can talk.”
The bartender Dot now knew well was mopping the bar; he looked up and smiled. “Champagne?” he said, and it materialized immediately. Bernie the waiter set down three glasses: one for Dot, one for her boyfriend, and one at Dorothy’s empty seat.
Marlon looked at Dot nervously. “I thought you only liked beer.”
Dot shot him a look. “Don’t be such a prude.”
Dorothy appeared in the back hall in a flurry of mink and silk. Dot shot to her feet; Marlon lingered shyly behind her. Dorothy hugged both of them, exclaiming over and over how nice it was to meet Dot’s boyfriend, what a specimen he was. “So tall!” she cried, touching the top of his head. “And tha
t hair! You should bottle it! And what do you do to remain so slender!”
Marlon blushed. “Genetics, I guess.”
“Lucky,” Dorothy said, winking at him flirtatiously.
They sat down. Marlon was still nervous and twitchy. Dorothy took a big gulp of champagne and made a face. “No wonder you’re not drinking this.” She pulled a flask out of her bag and snapped her fingers; two lowball glasses appeared. “From my special vault.” She poured brown liquid for both of them.
“What is it?” Marlon asked.
“Whiskey, darling.” Dorothy grinned.
Marlon gave Dot a skeptical look. “I’m not really into whiskey.”
Dot kicked him under the table. So don’t drink it, she thought angrily. Just don’t be a killjoy. She drank the whiskey heartily, with big swallows, ignoring the burning sensation in her belly.
Dorothy began to tell Marlon the tale of her African tribesman lover, Otufu. She included details she hadn’t told Dot—hiding in a whorehouse in some Somali village, having an assault rifle thrust into her hands in case she needed to defend herself, watching Otufu’s henchmen murder a man inside Otufu’s compound. Marlon blinked rapidly. Dorothy finally waved her hand in front of his face. “Hel-lo? You still in there?”
“I feel like I’m in a movie,” Marlon murmured.
Dorothy slung her arm around him. “Love this one, darling,” she said to Dot. “He’s a keeper.”
Steaks, then, and a limo to a club Dorothy knew about for dancing. The club was through an entrance down a dingy set of steps; halfway to the door, Dorothy paused and glared at the sidewalk. “I think it was a paparazzo,” she whispered, pointing to someone with a camera. She pulled her scarf over her head and ducked out of sight.
Inside the club: foreign types, emaciated models, drunk bodybuilders. Dorothy kept her scarf over her head the whole time, a makeshift hijab. Dot danced wildly, feeling unhinged and free. At two a.m., Marlon gently pushed Dot away when she tried to put her hands down his pants.
“Babe, you seem really drunk,” he said gently.
Dot peppered him with kisses. “Nah, I’m great!”
“I’m worried about you. I want to make sure this isn’t hurting your brain, you know?”
“I’ve hardly had anything to drink,” Dot assured him. And it was true: just a few sips of the whiskey at the restaurant and maybe one drink here over the course of several hours. She was just high on life! Euphoria flooded into her, ripening her valleys, turning her leaves green.
But then she dropped to the floor as though her knees had been chopped off. People laughed and scattered. She tried to stand, but her head lolled on her neck. Vomit rose in her throat. Her legs wobbled, then went out from under her. The last thing she remembered was hearing the bass thudding against the club’s floor and noticing feet around her, and a dropped plastic cup, and someone’s chewed-up gum.
She woke up in a white bed in a quiet room. Something was beeping next to her, and she could feel a dull ache in her arm. Her first thought was that she’d fallen through a wormhole and was nine years old again and in the hospital. The room began to take shape. She saw green-and-white-striped curtains. A flat-screen TV on the wall. Out the window, a glimmering pool, palm trees.
A man in a white doctor’s coat appeared over her. He had a broad nose, wild eyebrows, intense, dark eyes. He smelled strongly of aftershave, which turned Dot’s stomach. “Feeling better, Miss Dot?” he asked in an Indian accent.
Dot looked around. “What happened? Where’s my boyfriend?”
“Just rest, all right?”
“Where’s my mother?”
The door opened, and Dorothy rushed in. “Darling, you’re up.” She touched the man’s arm, just below his elbow. “This is Doctor Singh. I had him pop in to check you out.”
Dot blinked. She must have fainted last night. From a seizure, surely. Another tumor. She bit down hard on her tongue.
Dorothy fluffed a pillow next to Dot. “You’re in my suite. At the Magnolia.”
“Is it . . . bad?” Dot whispered.
“Is what bad?”
“The tumor. It’s back, right?”
Her aunt’s shoulders sank, and she smiled. “Oh, honey.” She pressed her cool hands on Dot’s forehead. “You just had too much to drink last night. That’s all.”
Dot tried to sit up. “Are you sure? Maybe we should have me tested. Maybe we should call someone.”
Dorothy waved her hand dismissively. “Just rest. You’re dehydrated, that’s all. Too much alcohol does that to you. You should be thanking me. Doctor Singh was very kind to come here with all this equipment.” She leaned closer. “That IV will make you feel much better.”
“Thank you,” Dot said, robotically. Something felt off. Maybe it was just that she was exhausted, and there was still the residue of fear clinging to her. That tumor pulsed inside her, she knew, still hiding; those nasty little cells were rearranging, mutating, poisoning her. She still very much believed that.
“And incidentally.” Dorothy turned away from her and peered at herself in the mirror, fluffing her curls. Dot thought she saw her snake an arm around Dr. Singh’s waist, but when she wriggled up higher in the bed, her arms were by her sides. “Don’t mention it to your mother. She was never really one for partying.” She met Dot’s eyes in the glass. “It’ll be our little secret.”
ELIZA
“WHAT THE HELL is that?” I ask as I step onto the sidewalk.
Desmond, who has changed from his cape into a shiny-looking button-down, jeans that show exactly how thin his hips are, and a red beret, stands at the passenger door. “The Batmobile. And you are my Vicki Vale.”
“I look nothing like Vicki Vale.” The garish vehicle is all angles and wings and covered in a cheap-looking matte paint. It has a long front end with a launcher. There are vents on the sides and exaggerated wings at the back and some sort of rocket booster where a tailpipe should be.
“Does it drive?” I ask.
“Naturally.”
“And it’s yours?”
Desmond opens the passenger door, which flips up like a DeLorean. “Naturally.”
“Why didn’t I see this at my house the other day?”
“It was in the shop, getting new paint,” Desmond says. “That day, I came on a bike.”
The car uses a normal key and has a Buick logo on the steering wheel. The dials and readouts are less techie than I thought they’d be; the speedometer’s top speed is a tame one hundred thirty miles an hour. As we pull away from the curb, people barely give us a glance. It’s Venice, though. We could be octopus people in a penis-shaped spaceship and no one would care.
“Where to?” Desmond asks.
“This office in Westwood. Not far.”
This morning, I found Leonidas on Facebook. It took some doing. His is a fan page, for one thing, and he lists himself as “The Only Leonidas You’ll Ever Need to Know.” He isn’t my friend on my fan page, but perhaps he had been on that other page I used to have that disappeared into the ether, if I’m to believe that it existed. He’s the only twenty-two-year-old Leonidas Lorre in Los Angeles—the only one you’ll ever need to know, clearly—and thank God his page is public. Naturally, I carefully scrolled back to see if there were phantom pictures of him and me together. The guy has a thing for taking pictures of sunsets, really bad tattoos he spots around town, and his breakfast every morning, but there are none of me.
The page says Leonidas works part-time in reception at his father’s plastic surgery office in Westwood. It’s the same block of office buildings where my mother works, too, as an assistant to a podiatrist. I can picture the Whole Foods down the block with its parking garage and bike racks. I looked up the office number, called it, and heard his voice answer. It jingled bells in my head. That voice had spoken to me. It had said nice things. But had it yelled, too, like in my one memory of him? Had it yelled a lot?
I touch my temple. An MRI is in the books at a walk-in clinic in Los Feliz th
at doesn’t ask any questions and doesn’t take insurance. The schedule was so jam-packed with other people wanting mammograms and bone scans and whatever else that I have to wait three weeks. The tumor feels like a foregone conclusion, really; maybe I don’t even need an MRI. After all, what else could have stolen my memories so effectively? I picture the tumor as the Grinch who stole Christmas, chuckling as he stuffed my life experiences in a Santa sack and climbed up the chimney.
We drive several mural-riddled Venice blocks in silence, Desmond cruising in his Batmobile with only one hand on the wheel. This American Life on NPR plays scratchily through the car’s speakers. Ira Glass’s nasal voice is incongruous in such a vessel.
“Tell me seriously,” I ask Desmond. “Did you steal this thing from a museum?”
“Not at all. I got it at an auction a few years ago.”
“Didn’t it cost a fortune?”
He gives me a saucy smile. “I had a small inheritance.”
What a stupid thing to spend money on, I almost say, but I catch myself. When I got my book advance, I went through this phase of special-ordering my produce from a company who swore all their crops had been blessed by the Dalai Lama.
We drive through astoundingly light traffic on Santa Monica, managing to make almost every traffic light. As we’re gliding toward Westwood, Desmond gestures at an apartment complex down Camden Avenue. “That’s my building. Camden Arms, apartment 105,” he answers, glancing at me with a grin. “It has Tesla EV parking, in case you’ve got one of those.”
I stare at the large, gleaming building. A Porsche has just pulled into the roundabout. “Can most convention marketers afford such a nice place?”
“Well, technically, it’s my parents’ apartment. But they’re rarely there. My brother lives there, too. Stefan. He’s a dabbler.”
“A what?”
“He dabbles. In many things. You’ll see when you meet him.”
I slide closer to the window. There’s no way I’m meeting Desmond’s creepy brother, Stefan the Dabbler.
Stoplights, pedestrians, strip malls. I fill Desmond in about Leonidas and what I’d overheard at the hotel, trying hard not to give away the fact that I’d only recently relearned about Leonidas’s existence. “He seemed to be in cahoots with someone. Apparently, the police have been asking questions.” This buoys me—perhaps the cops had taken me seriously after all. “I want to know if Leonidas was in Palm Springs that night. If he was, he could have done it.” I bite down hard on my lip. “I just don’t know why.”