“Excuse me, Zephyr?” Trish said. “The guy from… Umm… The man… Someone’s here to see you.”
A frown flashed across Zephyr’s face, and quickly disappeared. She nodded towards her office. “Emma, I just brewed a pot of tea. Go on in and make yourself comfortable. This shouldn’t take long.”
A song by Enya murmured on the hidden stereo speakers, and the unicorn wind chimes tinkled above the open window.
I retreated to the credenza for a cup of tea—this is the last cup I’ll have here—and glanced at the framed diplomas on the wall.
Yale University, Class of 1990.
Johns-Hopkins Medical School.
American Psychiatric Association.
Each conferred to Zephyr R. Tott.
I wandered over to the window with my cup of tea and stared out at the tiny concrete patio: a white, iron-wrought table with one chair, a small stone bird fountain, and a gray steel file cabinet.
The surface of Zephyr’s desk hid beneath stacks of folders and newspapers. Swan and turtle paperweights assembled at the base of the computer monitor, and I picked up a crystal turtle—$33 according to the price tag on its belly. I placed the paperweight on the stack of newspapers, and glanced at the top folder. Its handwritten label read NICOLE B.
Zephyr didn’t know my real name. Had to be another NICOLE B.
I sipped tea without thinking, and stared at that name written in thick, black marker.
What were the odds?
I drained the cup with one long gulp, then opened the file.
Credit reports from TRW and Experian for Nicole Porter Baxter. Magazine and newspaper articles about television executive Truman Baxter. Real estate documents detailing the purchase of our home in Beachwood Canyon, and the sale of Truman’s family home in Cerritos as well as Beryl Porter’s condo in Culver City.
My life in paperwork.
I reached the final sheet in the folder: Truman’s obituary. Someone had colored in his eyes with blue ink. I dropped the empty tea cup, and it shattered near my feet.
“That bitch.” I grabbed the folder, shoved it into my purse. That bitch. The only cohesive thought I could form.
Back in the waiting room, Zephyr was whispering to a middle-aged, chinless white man. “We just can’t keep ignoring what’s going on,” he was saying. “Now—”
Zephyr turned to me and smiled. “I’m so sorry, Nicole. This won’t take much longer.”
I stopped in my step. She said my name. I glanced at the man’s official-looking badge clipped to his shirt pocket. Art Morgan, City Inspector.
Zephyr said, “Nicole, maybe you should come back tomorrow. No charge.”
The chinless man said, “Tajarae, you’re not taking the City seriously—”
I backed away from the couple, then raced to the exit.
71
American Psychiatric Association had no members named Zephyr R. Tott.
Yale University had no alumnae named Zephyr R. Tott.
Neither did Johns-Hopkins.
I found her website, and read a chapter of her book. Losing Your Love, Losing Your Mind by Zephyr R. Tott. Twenty misspellings on the first page.
She had lied to me. She had no connection to God or higher powers or anyone. She had taken advantage of someone in pain to gain influence and money.
Yes, I too had lied—my name wasn’t Emma. But I had graduated from UC Santa Cruz. I had pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha my senior year. And my husband was missing and presumed dead. Nicole Porter Baxter existed.
My so-called spiritual advisor had fake diplomas, a fake name, a self-published book…
And my pride.
Monica was right.
I had been bamboozled.
I wandered back to the den, my mind muddled and exhausted.
The gun sat on the coffee table.
I eased onto the couch, my eyes never leaving the weapon.
Had I left it there?
Was it murder to kill someone who no longer existed?
Who are we talking about? You or Zephyr?
I slumped on the couch.
So peaceful in the house. No rumbling. No creaking.
I yawned My eyelids fluttered until they closed.
A cold finger stroked my cheek.
I opened my eyes.
Truman stood over me, his face strips of purple skin. One icy hand caressed my cheek, and the other clutched the .22. Drops of water hung from his chin and nose, threatening to drip onto me but never falling. His arms were scraped and bruised. Tiny holes in his neck leaked sea water. He grinned as though he belonged there. “Come with me,” he whispered.
I gawked at him, wanting to jump off the couch, wanting to scream. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
He offered me the gun.
A part of my brain unlocked, and I said, “What do you want?”
He motioned for me to take the gun.
My eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to—”
“Liar,” he said. “Tell me.” His dank breath stank of rotting fish.
“Is this the only way you can get back at me?” I whispered. “Don’t you—”
He grabbed my arm, and his sharp, cold talons pierced my skin.
I screamed, and fell off the couch as I wrestled out of his grip. I screamed again, then scrambled towards the door.
“Nicole!”
I threw a glance over my shoulder—he stood in front of the television, gun in hand. My face caught the edge of the door, and sharp pain zigzagged through my skull. I groaned as blood oozed near my hairline and in my mouth.
Truman wobbled towards me.
I forgot about my injuries, and I crawled down the hallway. Perfect beads of blood plopped from my head and mouth, leaving a crimson trail on the hardwood floor.
A few feet from the landing, I stopped. The stairs disappeared down into the darkness.
Truman took jerky steps towards me, his eyes dark with hate.
He’s gonna kill me. His eyes told me that he would.
My head throbbed and burned. It hurt to move. And why move? He’d be there, wherever I escaped. “I was alone here,” I shouted back at him. “When you were off climbing mountains, I was alone here.”
Truman cocked his head. Water dripped out of his ear and dribbled to the floor.
Blood from the cut on my head seeped into my eyes. I blinked and the world tinged red. “I didn’t mean to do it,” I cried. “I just wanted to feel again, and you weren’t around, and I was angry… I hated you, and I hated me, and I loved you… I slept with Jake Huston. I wanted to tell you back then, but I couldn’t, so I’m telling you now—”
Truman lunged at me, leopard-like.
I reared back to avoid him, and tumbled down the stairs. After a final oomph, I stopped falling and lay twisted at the bottom of the staircase.
72
Glass shattered and a car alarm squawked. The clamor forced me out of a dark, quiet place, and I opened my eyes. I lay on my back, arms bent over my head. My spit was goopy and thick, and tasted metallic. I rotated my head, but the jolt of pain stopped me half-way. I resisted the urge to push my tongue against my teeth. I’d lose it for sure if a tooth was loose.
The car alarm continued to shriek.
I sat up. The room swayed. I focused on the rectangle hanging on the wall. Clearer… clearer… I blinked.
The Frazier-Ali poster hung on the wall across from me.
Impossible.
I blinked again, leaving my eyes closed for several seconds.
I left that poster in his office. It was there when I cleaned. I know that.
I opened my eyes: “Thrilla in Manila” written in blue. Ali and Frazier in red. September 30, 1975...
No.
Nonononono…
The shrieking car alarm didn’t help my headache or my attempts to think clear. I placed a hand against my sticky forehead, and groaned again.
It took several minutes, but I made it to my feet and limped to the kitchen door.
Outside, in the driveway, I saw that the lights on the Volvo were flashing.
I grabbed my keys, and steadied myself against the doorframe as the world rocked and rolled. I jabbed the car’s ‘PANIC’ button.
One last chirp, then silence.
I opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch.
Glass from the Volvo’s rear window sparkled against the concrete like diamonds. A cinder block sat near the front wheel. ‘WHORE’ had been scratched into the paint of the passenger-side door.
Monica didn’t believe me. “He pushed you down the stairs.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me through the telephone. “Please come.”
“At one o’clock in the morning?”
“Please?”
Monica said, “Fine,” before hanging up.
Her anger ebbed once she saw my busted face and the vandalized Volvo. “What the hell happened?”
I said nothing as I trudged to the living room.
“I don’t understand,” she said, following me.
I plopped down on the couch and sipped wine from a mug.
“Who would do something like this?” she asked.
I drained the mug, then stood. Without a word, I limped to the staircase.
“So not only is he haunting you because you screwed the next-door neighbor,” Monica said, “he’s also attacking you in the hallway and trashing your car all while being dead?”
I climbed the stairs.
Monica followed me to the bathroom. “This makes sense to you?” She noticed the video camera’s lens sticking out from the towels. “What the hell…? No. I don’t even wanna know what that’s…” She sighed, then said, “Why do you have a camera in the bathroom?”
“For surveillance,” I croaked. “I put them all around…” I considered the camera, then limped to the den. I grabbed the recorder from the bookshelf, sending Milton and Shakespeare to the floor. “It should be here. And I’ll know. And you’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?”
“Truman.”
Monica peered over my shoulder as recorded video played in the camera’s monitor: there I was, talking and screaming in the den.
“Who are you talking to?” Monica asked.
Anger burned in my belly. “Wait a minute… I don’t see…He was… He was here.”
Cory at Best Buy had assured me…
Monica said, “Do ghosts show up on video? Cuz you can’t see vampires in mirrors.”
I threw the camera to the floor. The body cracked, and the lens rolled beneath the couch. I stomped back to the bathroom. “Fucking Cory.”
“Who’s Cory?” Monica asked.
I retreated to the bathroom. Grabbed the Xanax vial from the medicine cabinet shelf and dumped two onto my palm.
“What are you—?” Monica slapped the pills out of my hand.
“Hey!” I dropped to my knees and searched for the pills.
Monica grabbed vials from the medicine cabinet. “Xanax?” she screeched, reading a label. “You just drank two glasses of wine, and you’re taking…?” She grabbed another. “Klonopin? You’re on this, too? What kind of doctor prescribes—?”
Couldn’t find the fallen drugs, so I grabbed the sink to stand. “I’m fine.”
“You’re seeing Truman because you’re doped out of your mind,” she shouted, grabbing every prescription medicine from the shelf. “You’re hallucinating, Nicole. No wonder you’re sleepwalking and seeing weird—”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said, and moved towards the door.
Monica blocked my way. “Honey, you have to stop taking all of this.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of addict,” I shouted.
Monica shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. I don’t think that at all.”
“Why did he leave me, Mo? Why did he have to go?”
“What do you want me to do?” Monica asked, her eyes pleading with me. “I’ll do anything for you. We’ll get you help.” She reached for my face, but I slapped her hand away. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Is that what this is?”
“Leave!” I shouted, pushing my friend out of the doorway. “I don’t want you here. Go!”
“Nic—”
“Go!”
Monica, crying now, stormed down the hallway to the stairs. Moments later, the front door slammed.
73
Monica didn’t understand. She had never lost anyone important to her. She had no clue what Leilani and I were now experiencing. Screw her, I thought, stomping down the hallway that led to my sister-in-law’s apartment. I didn’t need that kind of friend.
Back in the early 1990’s, the Grand Towers had been one of the swankiest luxury apartment complexes downtown. It boasted a swimming pool, a gym, even a concierge. But then, spoiled brats with trust funds moved in—including Leilani. These tenants acted as though they had never cleaned up after themselves as children, because now, as adults, they still didn’t. Beer, food and mud soiled the carpets. The ripped gold wallpaper hung like molted snake skin. The corridors stank of cigarettes and spilled booze. People thawed meat in the swimming pool, and their dogs crapped on the gym floor. Grand Towers was now the most expensive ghetto in Los Angeles.
I knocked on the door to Unit 5D. “Lei,” I shouted, “I know it’s late, but…” I banged on the door again.
No answer.
I turned the knob—unlocked—and nudged the door open.
The living room lamp burned bright. Better to see the half-empty take-out containers and torn magazines covering the living room carpet and couch. Rotting food on the kitchen counters. Unwashed dishes in the sink. Squishy carpet that reeked of spilled beer. The constant buzz of flies...
Leilani had been taking care of me even as her life deteriorated.
I gagged, and tried to breathe through my mouth, but the stink had texture. “Lei, you in here?”
No answer.
On the refrigerator door, I noticed a picture trapped beneath a TIJUANA magnet. Leilani and another woman wore bikinis and large sombreros. I peered closer at the tiny woman beside my friend. I knew that face. Zephyr Tott. Taj.
Inside the fridge: beer, moldy strawberries, and a quart of Bombay gin.
I kept my hands over my mouth and nose, and crept to the bedroom door.
Stained sheets on the bed. The stink of sour milk. More take-out containers, more trash. Flies buzzed over a bowl of something I refused to identify.
Was this her apartment? Maybe, in my confused state, I had stumbled into the wrong unit. Maybe that picture on the fridge wasn’t Leilani and Zephyr.
Because Leilani’s place boasted creamy-white carpet, not this gray, smucky stuff. And the only constant sound had been the R&B radio station she kept on, not the buzz of giant houseflies.
I returned to the living room and pushed my foot through the litter of trash, glass vials and little plastic baggies. This couldn’t have been Leilani’s apartment. Not Truman’s sister. Not this crack den.
But then again, when was the last time I had visited Leilani at home?
Sometime in May. A group of us had come over for a Passion Party—Cosmopolitans and fancy hors d’oeuvres, and a woman named Roxie selling sex toys and soft porn for couples. Even in that mess of pink and feather boas and vodka bottles, Leilani’s apartment had smelled of sandalwood incense and had been free of insects and garbage.
Not that she cleaned her place. A young woman named Celia came to Leilani’s once a week. Looking at the apartment now, though, it was obvious that Celia hadn’t visited in weeks… just as I hadn’t.
A near-empty bottle of Acqua di Gio on the crowded coffee table.
Truman wore Acqua di Gio.
I screwed off the bottle’s top. Crisp. Citrus.
A mesh bag sat at the foot of the couch. Inside: a paperback copy of Cell and a package of licorice. A BlackBerry sat on the couch cushion. Its tiny light blinked red—it needed to charge. Leilani doesn’t own a Black
Berry.
But Truman did…
My arms weakened and the bottle slipped from my hands. Cologne seeped into a small mound of white powder left on the table, and onto a Mach 3 razor, its blade thick with whiskers.
74
I sped out of the apartment’s parking garage, the images of all I had just seen storming around my head. Truman’s cologne, the phone, the razor blade, all that filth… I remembered the smell of Leilani’s place, and I gagged, and my skin felt oily, and the car stank of cologne and sour beer still wet in my shoe soles.
Could she have dumped the whiskers into the sink at home?
Did I smell Truman’s cologne, not because of memories, but because she was actually sprinkling it all around the house?
Was she texting me?
But why would she do that?
Was I being paranoid again?
I didn’t know what to do, what to believe. Because I saw Truman. I had talked to Truman.
Or was Monica right about that, too? Had the Xanax made me hallucinate more than what was normal for a grieving widow? Had the pills pushed my pre-disposition to freak out into over-drive?
The videotapes.
I almost slammed the car’s brakes as I remembered the other cameras hidden in the bathroom and kitchen. The den’s camera seemed to offer nothing, but maybe I hadn’t rewound the recording far back enough.
The house was a sauna when I got home. I pulled off my sweatshirt and tossed it to the kitchen floor—back to bad habits. My head pounded, and my body felt like it had been trampled by a herd of wildebeest. Blurry-eyed, I grabbed the vial of Tylenol off the breakfast bar.
I dumped one of the last two pills onto my palm, then, slipped it onto my tongue. I pulled the camera from between the chips and the box of cereal. I pushed REWIND and waited.
Maybe I am hallucinating because of drugs, because of grief.
Maybe I do need to stay at Rayo del Sol for a few months.
I pushed PLAY. No sound. Empty kitchen. Just as I started to touch STOP, the video showed a woman entering my kitchen. Wasn’t Monica. Wasn’t Leilani. And I had changed a lot since Truman’s accident, but I hadn’t lost four inches, become light-skinned, and had my hair twisted into dreads…
The View from Here Page 23