Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

  The elevator slowed and stopped.

  The doors opened.

  Chris looked down at the torn card on the floor.

  The doors started to close.

  He shoved his hand between them, popping them open again.

  He stepped out into the lobby and started across the floor, the warm Miami air blowing in from off the sea, thinking, Or maybe I’ll stay in Miami a few more days, see what’s what. Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Why the hell not?

  Christopher Fredericks felt pretty damn good.

  Lorraine at Ninety-Two

  “He was really handsome and had an IQ of about two. He was five years older, and we were on our way to get married and he started talking about what he wanted and he wanted a toy bulldog and fresh vegetables on the table every night and I said, ‘Turn the car around. I’m not going to be cooking every night, and I don’t like bulldogs. I don’t want a bulldog!’ I was a junior in high school then.

  “Then when I was forty and out at the Elks Club, Evan walked over and said, ‘I’m going to marry you.’

  “I was sitting with Warren and he had just proposed. He said, ‘You got that wrong, fella. She’s marrying me.’

  “‘No, she’s not,’ Evan said.

  “I said, ‘Listen, I’m not marrying anyone, all right?’

  “Then Evan got my address at work from my girlfriend and sent me flowers every day for two weeks. And I had never seen him before.

  “We had forty-five years together. He still visits me. Sometimes he comes in the night and sits on the edge of the bed and asks how I’m doing. The other night there was a big storm and terns were circling in the wind and Evan came in and said, ‘Look, there are birds everywhere,’ and I sat up and looked out the window and there was a big moon and I saw them and I said, ‘I see them,’ and he was standing up, getting ready to go, and I said, ‘Why can’t I go with you?’ And he said, ‘Not yet, dear girl, it isn’t time yet, but I’ll be here to take you when it is, and we’ll be together, just like always.’

  “I wish it was now.

  “I’m awfully tired now.”

  You Promise Me

  FIRST MONTH:

  “Darling, Darling,” she said, “I have never, ever come like that, I promise you!” “You promise me?” He laughed. “God, I love you,” he said. Then, “Man, that just slipped out. Jesus Christ!” And she laughed, saying, “Yes, I love you, too,” and they were off the bed now and standing up and dressing and quickly happy and he said, not thinking what he was saying, “We should get married,” and she laughed, her cheeks flushed, completely beautiful in her French leather coat, looking at him, eyes brightly blue with those tiny flecks of yellow and green in them, saying, “Yes,” the real person she was completely there then, and, going out into the hall, he said, “Was that a yes? It was, wasn’t it?” and not waiting for an answer, said, “Listen, I want to do this correctly, formally,” and said, “Will you marry me?” and she said, “Yes, yes, I will.”

  SECOND MONTH:

  She’d left the table, was in lying across the bed. “What is it?” he asked. It was simple. Things had changed. How had they changed? It was difficult to explain. “Try.” She turned to him. “There’s something I’m now feeling,” she said, “and I don’t know how to explain it.” “I’ll listen,” he said. “I know you will,” she said. “I love that about you.” They lay close to one another. “You’re always so good to be with. I always want to be with you. That is something that is true.” “Well, what is it?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t think I feel it anymore. It’s gone. I don’t feel it. Isn’t that good?” They went back out to the others, listened to the music. Things were fine again. Everyone was happy. It was a nice party, a nice night. The next morning she said she loved him very much, that he should always understand that, “. . . but for myself it’s becoming clearer and clearer that I need to live for myself for a while, only a short while, that we will still be lovers, I still want your baby, I still won’t use any birth control, that I only hope more than anything that you can understand this, and will support me in this . . .”

  THIRD MONTH:

  She found a small cottage for herself in the Avenues in Venice. It was a block and a half off the beach and classically English. There were plants in ceramic pots and hardwood floors without rugs. The walls were eggshell white. There was a single blue couch opposite a small fireplace, and a large bedroom with a queen-size bed with a white, down-filled duvet and white, down-filled pillows. There were no pictures and no books. There was a narrow kitchen with a green tile sink and a window over the sink that looked out into the alley. There was a terrible parking place for her small BMW alongside the back fence. It was almost impossible to park the car without protruding into the alley. If it protruded into the alley it meant a parking ticket. That was her problem. His problem was he found himself always over there, hanging around even when she wasn’t there, which was most of the time, and when reluctantly she finally said, “Okay,” he’d said, “No,” he didn’t want it that way, this after an afternoon where he’d waited around for her to return from a photo shoot, and when she came in and had said what he wanted her to say, had himself wanted to say, “You know what? This is fucked, and I’m fucked, but I’m just going to steel myself against it, and truly never want to see you again, and will never see you again, I promise you,” but he hadn’t. Instead, staring at her as she looked at him, he doubled up on his love, trying to lay it out right into her. She just looked at him, and he felt nothing coming from her—there was only the immediate memory of the weakness of that “Okay,” and he nodded and turned and went outside and got in his car and left.

  SEVENTH MONTH:

  L.A. is not like New York where you bump into the people you know. In L.A. you never see anyone unless you contact them in advance. It is especially rare to run into someone on the opposite side of town. Justin happened to see her in the Rose Café. He was shocked. He was parking his car outside the café. She was sitting inside by the end window. He walked over to the window. She didn’t see him. She was drinking a latte. He never knew her to drink coffee. She spread a spoonful of honey on a scone. He went in and sat down across from her at a table. She didn’t look up. Her hair was parted now along the left side, cut shorter on the right, swinging from the left in a long flow that was now a natural light brown, no longer blond, around the back of the graceful length of her neck. Her head was bent, the sharply cut swollenness of the pouting upper lip, the classically rounded curve of chin arching smoothly and tightly up behind the tiny ear half-hidden under the long twist of hair, those large blue eyes studying the script on the table before her, all of her even more lovely than he remembered. She never looked up. She didn’t know him. He was a complete stranger. There was no past, no future. He said, “So this is how it ends.” She looked over. There wasn’t a flicker of recognition. “What?” she said. “Oh, excuse me, there’s someone I must talk to,” and she got up and left.

  FOURTEENTH MONTH:

  Justin heard she’d spent her savings on paying for a nose and chin job for some male model who was trying to become an actor. Justin drove by the cottage several times, always noting the little BMW parked in the alley. Several times he drove by and didn’t see it there. Several times more he drove by and absolutely didn’t see it there. No one he knew had heard anything about her. She had gone somewhere and made a bad movie, one friend said, but that’s all he knew. “No, I don’t know the name of the movie. Whatever happened to her? She was so incredible looking.”

  TWO YEARS LATER:

  Justin heard a famous rock guitarist had bought her a house and was living with her somewhere in Brentwood Canyon and had gotten her pregnant, and then one evening some guy came over to visit the guitarist and she had gotten up from the dinner table and had walked outside with this man and said to him, “You’re the most incredible man I have ever met. I have never met a man like you. I have to be with you, and I mean it, I mean it all the way,” and he
said, “But you’re pregnant,” and she said, “If that’s a problem, I’ll take care of it.” She took care of it and went off with this man. Justin didn’t try to imagine what those conversations had been like, the last ones between her and the guitarist, although he thought the same things that had been said to him would have been said again, maybe not the same things, but for the same end. Jesus, stop it, he thought. Then he softened, remembering it hadn’t been that easy on her, when she had moved out on him she had left with a fever blister on her lip.

  THE REST OF HIS LIFE:

  Justin never heard about her again. There were times when he wondered what had happened to her. Often it was when he saw the guitarist on YouTube or heard he was doing a concert somewhere or saw his picture or read about him online in Rolling Stone. Once he took an old picture out that he had of her, the only one he had. She was in a one-piece bathing suit. The suit was a light blue, tight on her body, and there was nothing remarkable about her. She looked like any girl. Her figure was average. She was blonde and standing more on her left leg than her right. That was the only thing familiar about her.

  FIFTEEN YEARS LATER:

  He saw her again. She was buying something in Whole Foods. It was her. She stood at the checkout waiting behind someone. The beauty had hardened. All the softness was gone from her skin. The mouth was smaller and tighter. Her eyes were unmoving. He moved off before she could see him. He felt she had, but it didn’t matter. He walked down an aisle to the produce section and picked out some apples, what he had come in to do. He was unsettled. That had been hard. When he brought them back to the counter she was gone, as he knew she would be. As he sat in the car in the parking garage he remembered running with her. Once he’d told her she was perfect, and she had blushed, turning her head, taking the kiss on her neck, on the slope of her shoulders, saying, “Drown me in compliments, do, make me feel perfect.” Every morning they went on a run. They were very fit. They were running fast. It was a four-mile run. They ran this every morning. They made love every night. She always climaxed when he did. They always climaxed together. She would get very wet. Everything was really easy. The nights were perfect. They were running fast, crossing Ocean Boulevard, running along the trees and park benches on the cliff above the ocean. The path split. He went one way. She went another. His pace was really fast. She could always keep up. He didn’t look back. He didn’t care where she was. It didn’t matter. He was breathing easily. He increased the pace. Then she was next to him, her arms going around his neck, running with him. “You,” he’d said.

  “Why didn’t you look back for me?” she said.

  “Why should I?” he’d said, putting a finger to her cheek, “I always know where you are.”

  “You,” she said, “you’re my magnet.”

  Darlene

  She wanted a bond, not a ring. No, she didn’t want to be married. She refused to be married. If you weren’t married you couldn’t be divorced. Either you loved one another, or you didn’t. If you did, you naturally wanted to be with one another, and so you would be. She knew where they should live. That’s where they would live. There was no point arguing. He didn’t want to argue. She would open her legs as widely as possible, pressing her ankles into the grip of his fists, everything straight and direct, climaxing fast, saying, “That’s a baby. I know that’s a baby.” Michael would talk to her. She liked him talking to her. She would answer, saying, “My mind is in your mind. Your mind is in my mind. Can you feel it? I can feel it.” Again her belly would come up to his and start bucking. She’d say, “Now you come, baby.” He’d say, “I already did.” She’d pretend to be angry, and they would start all over again.

  Asphalt Cowboys

  “For sure she’s doing what you think she’s doing. Of course you feel bad. How many times you called now without an answer? Seven? Eight? She’s outta town, too, isn’t she, just like you? You wanna keep calling on that stupid phone? What’d she say she was doing, going for drinks after the interview? And that she needed to extend for one more day? And what time is it now? One thirty? How many hours is that? That’s what goes on, man. She is doing what you think she’s doing. Of course she hasn’t called. She’s not gonna call. She’s not even thinking about you. She doesn’t even want to think about you. You are not even on her mind. No way. Not now. That’s why you’ll never hear me say nothing to no one. Not now. Not never. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’ve done it, man, I have. I’ve done it in spades. My third wife, you know that Johnny Cash line, ‘We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout?’ That was her, amigo, my third wife. She was fine. So fine, slim little waist, big little rump, loved to hump, couldn’t get enough. We were in the Marina Del Rey once, the guy on the front desk had to call and tell us to tone it down, her screams were rattling the people in the next room. All of it was good, man, all of it, until I told her I loved her, I mean truly, truly loved her, that she had me completely, not what she wanted to hear. It lasted about three years before I caught her in bed with some fat slob of a mortgage broker whose big fuckin’ dream was to one day run Bank of America, Maybe, he tells her, maybe if he had the right woman with him he coulda done it, maybe he could still do it, ’n’ they could travel the world together, that’s what he tells her. My fine little woman, right? Jesus, fuck! Never again, man. Never! Never tell ’em shit! Like this one guy I know, owns a paving company just like me, he goes over to his ex-wife’s in Newport to borrow some money offa her, her new husband’s got lots of money, he’s in the fiberglass boat business, and she gets him in the bedroom and shows him her new fake tits, and he says, ‘Yeah, they look nice, but so did your old ones, what was wrong with them?’ And she gets close to him and says, ‘Don’t you want to touch them?’ And he goes, ‘Well,’ and one thing leads to another, and he starts to pull her pants down, but she says ‘No,’ she can’t do that, not in her new husband’s house, but she’ll blow him if he wants. Well, he wants, ’cause, like he tells her, ‘How come you always refused me BJs when we were married?’ ‘Because I always knew you wanted them,’ she says, ‘but now you’re reluctant.’ So she blows him, ’n’ then he drives home with a boner still going on, ’cause he’s still thinking about it, see, ’n’ his wife comes out the front door and says, ‘What are you doing sitting out there in the car? It’s hot out there.’ Well, what he’s doing is waiting for his dick to go down, so he says, ‘Thinking.’ And she says, ‘Well, stop thinking, and come inside, and I’ll get you some dinner.’ So he goes in walking sideways, like he’s got something in his shoe, so she won’t see the come stain that’s leaked out on his pants, and then eats her dinner and feels like shit about himself on both ends, but just keeps his mouth shut to see how it’ll all turn out. He’s a grownup, see. Now that’s why I like staying in hotels. ’Cause what you do in here, once you do it, it’s done, and when you leave it, it stays in here, ’cause you know what it all boils down to? Jus’ keeping your mouth shut. That’s what hotels are for. You come in and order anything you want. They bring it to you. You have it. It’s done. It’s over. You don’t tell anybody. Don’t even worry about it. That’s where your old lady is, isn’t she? Staying in some big hotel? Keeping her dignity by keeping her distance? If my friend hadn’t let his ex know he wanted blowjobs he woulda got ’em, right? And the way he handled his new wife he probably got another one that night. That’s the only way it gets done, unless you want to keep sittin’ in here bawling like a baby over what you think she’s doing, or has already done, and, by the sound of it, is going to do again. Just assume she is doing what you think she’s doing, and assume you are not going to hear anything about it, ’cause you won’t. Certainly not the truth of it. She’s a full-grown woman, ain’t she? An adult? Just like you, right? Aren’t you done with this bullshit yet? There’s only one reason your phone isn’t ringing and you know it as well as I do. C’mon, let’s go down to the bar and get a drink. I’m buyin’. No sense in keeping this shit up. All the cryin’ in the world has never brought one woman back, a
nd that’s a stone-cold fact. Time ’n’ alcohol’s the only thing that’ll fix this thing up. That, and we’ll get another girl up here. This one just for you, even better than the one I just had. It’s amazing how much better you’ll feel after you do that. When you get back in town and walk in that door of yours you won’t have to ask no questions, you won’t wanna ask no questions, and you won’t have to give no answers either. Everything’ll be fine. You’ll see.

  “C’mon, let’s go. Get up. Take that damn pillow off your face, and let’s go.”

  Your Call Is Important to Us

  “Mom?”

  “Hello?”

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  “Who?”

  “Celeste.”

  “Who?”

  “Your daughter, Celeste.”

  “Leslie? I don’t know any Leslie.”

  “Mom! It’s me! Celeste, your daughter!”

  The phone goes dead.

  Celeste redials.

  The phone rings and rings and rings.

  The message prompt comes on.

  “Hello, your call is important to us. Please leave a message after the tone.”

  Celeste hangs up. She redials. The same result occurs. She redials again with the same result. She waits twenty minutes, then calls again.

  The phone on the other end is picked up.

  “Hello.”