“I do feel bad,” Andy finally confessed to the corn-fed minister-in-waiting.
“And your kids must feel bad, too, right?” Harley suggested.
“I’m sure they do. But their dad was more of a myth than an actual presence, so it’s always been hard to know how to feel about him.”
Harley nodded, seeming a little less clueless than he usually looked. “Well, maybe they’ll get a better feel for that when they see his will,” he said.
“Huh?” Andy grunted, dimly.
“You know, his last will and testament. Often absent parents make up for their emotional negligence through their estate.”
Emotional negligence? Where on earth did a mind like Harley Davidson’s have to go to find that many syllables? She was tempted to ask to meet his ventriloquist but was afraid he wouldn’t get the joke—and then was terrified he might.
“Aunt Andy?” he prompted.
“I’m thinking,” she finally said.
“About what?”
“About why nobody thought to mention a will, especially Tilda.”
“I thought to mention it,” Harley pointed out.
“Yes, that’s the other thing I’m thinking,” she said, standing up and pulling the keys out of her purse. “Harley, I don’t get you. I don’t get you at all.”
Chapter 3
Elvis Impersonators
Located on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, the Wiltern Theater passes for what is an historic building in the City of Angels. That is, it was built in the 1930s. Originally home to vaudeville acts, the Art Deco structure is named for what was once the busiest intersection in the world, just the kind of thing Angelinos would find it necessary to brag about. It seats nearly 2000 people, and Harley Davidson had never seen or imagined anything like it.
“Whoa,” he murmured, prayer-like, as Andy, Mitch, and his girlfriend, Melissa—the family called her ‘The Impresario’—all took their seats. “I guess Ian’s pretty famous. I mean, if he plays here.”
“The band’s pretty famous,” Andy told him. “Ian is just one of the musicians and back-up singers.”
“You know it’s a girl band,” added The Impresario, who was dressed in elegant black spiderweb tights, a leather skirt, and cowboy boots. Harley knew cowboy boots, and he’d never seen a pair like hers in Omaha. “The critics are calling them the pioneers of a new genre.”
“What’s a genre?’ Harley asked.
“A style. Or category,” said Andy.
Harley gnawed on this for a moment. “Oh. You mean the ‘Girls with Grits’ style?”
“No, that’s the name of the band,” The Impresario corrected. “Their record label calls their style Country Candy.”
“Oh,” repeated Harley, very slowly. “I get it.”
Mitch looked at his junior cousin and smirked. “No, you don’t, Harley.”
Harley looked back at the older man quizzically and opened his creamy blue eyes so they were fully visible. “Yes, I do. It’s country music, only it’s sweet, right?” Harley observed.
“Exactly,” pronounced The Impresario. “Pay no attention to the jackass seated next to you.” She elbowed Mitch, who winced.
“Okay, I’ll behave, I promise,” Mitch said, a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Harley. Melissa’s right, I shouldn’t have said that.”
This wasn’t the first time Andy had witnessed Melissa discipline the incredibly successful knucklehead into which her oldest child had grown. She liked this woman, despite the startling streak of white that ran through her jet-black hair and the studded, fingerless gloves that were, evidently, her signature apparel. The girl was gorgeous, Andy had to give her that. And she was accomplished, in a La-La Land sort of way. She was a talent agent for aspiring comics and, in her free time, she manufactured monogrammed leather steering wheel covers for the Aston Martin dealership in Beverly Hills. On any given day, Melissa de Toro was hustling enough money to afford a two-bedroom apartment near the beach in Santa Monica. For the majority of people in Los Angeles, it didn’t get any better than that.
The house lights in the expansive theater dimmed, and the crowd quieted. After the perfect dramatic pause, stage lights electrified, and the band swarmed out from stage left and stage right, taking their places. There was Ian, the shortest and undoubtedly the sweetest of Andy’s brood, wearing a western hat and tight jeans, seating himself at his pedal steel guitar and beaming, as if he had reached nirvana.
In the privacy of the theater’s darkness, Andy smiled to herself. Her son looked so happy. In fact, both of her sons looked happy tonight, she thought. It occurred to her that all four of her children were currently happier than she had any right to expect, given their unsteady upbringing. She had done so much wrong, and yet they’d each turned out so right—so right for themselves and, therefore, so right for her. God, I wonder what I could do to mess up all this bliss, she thought with the predictable panic that always showed up when things were going too smoothly between herself and her children. Then she metaphorically gave herself a sharp slap to obliterate her stinking thinking and willed herself to slide gratefully into the warm, soapy music.
It was an “epic” concert, according to Harley, as the applause finally flamed out and the audience made its way out of the theater, elbow to elbow.
“Where are we meeting Ian?” Andy asked.
“The Tofu Cafe on Western,” Mitch told her.
Harley looked up at his aunt.
“It’s Korean food,” she said.
His lingering excitement seemed to drain away suddenly. “What’s tofu?” he wanted to know.
Andy and Mitch both turned to Melissa to handle this one.
“Anything you want it to be,” she said, putting her hand on Harley’s shoulder. “Kind of like polenta or bean curd.”
Harley’s eyebrows shot skyward.
“You’re only feeding his anxiety,” Mitch pointed out.
“Oh, don’t be scared,” she said, taking the teenager’s hand and smiling seductively. “Stick with me,” Melissa whispered. “I shall lead you to a garden of earthly delights.” His spongy fingers melted into her touch.
“Oh, my god,” quipped Mitch, turning to his mother. “Look at the poor kid’s face.”
“I think he’s just discovered a whole new meaning for the ‘rapture’,” Andy suggested.
They watched the boy walk off with The Impresario, hand-in-hand.
Mitch wrinkled his brow, admiring the awesome power of the woman he was dating. “Uh huh, and she’s probably just committed some kind of statutory offence in the process.”
Besides the exotic Asian food, Harley was treated to one of Koreatown’s finest traditions: Elvis impersonators. Throughout the meal, four different men, three Koreans, and some Anglo in a wig, jumped on stage and did their best to imitate The King, accompanied by a karaoke machine. Andy noticed that her nephew was so absorbed in the entertainment that he plowed through the food without once asking her to identify any of the ingredients.
Andy assumed the conversation between her sons would inevitably turn to the passing of their father, but Ian spent most of the meal filling his older brother in on some financial hiccup the band was experiencing.
“Avocados,” explained Ian, so distraught that he didn’t seem to care his mother could hear every word. “Somewhere out of the country. Puerto Rico, maybe, I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“And who recommended these avocado orchards?” Mitch asked.
“I don’t know. Some investment guy our manager knows. All I know is that avocados were supposed to be very big.”
“Really, Ian? Really?” Mitch said, with an edge of skepticism that clearly cut through Ian’s thin skin.
Melissa was on it like a hawk. “We’re not all CEOs, Mitch,” she shot back. “And you’ve made a few mistakes of your own with the IRS.”
“Honest mistakes,” Mitch said, defensively.
“This was an honest mistake!” Ian nearly shouted. �
�We were all told it was a legitimate tax shelter.”
Andy could tell her youngest child was dazed and confused by how to handle the situation and would like nothing better than go in his room, close the door and practice, over and over, the fingering to ‘Black Bird.’ But the days of running away from the chaos surrounding him had long passed. She began to mull over what she might say to comfort Ian, but what the hell did she know about avocados?
Then Mitch, who was never one to mull over anything, said something that amazed even his mother. “Well, congratulations, bro. You’ve made it!”
Everyone, including Harley, looked at her eldest, who had finished his dinner and was rolling an unlit cigar in his fingers.
“What do you mean, I’ve made it?” Ian asked, perturbed.
“Unless you’re a poor starving artist or a drug dealer, being audited is part of the American experience,” Mitch pointed out. “You’re grown up now, Ian. Even Uncle Sam thinks you’re important. It’s part of life. Part of a successful business life. Be proud of yourself.”
Ian considered this, as Mitch continued to roll his cigar. “It’s only money, little bro,” Mitch concluded. “I doubt they’ll put you in jail.”
Melissa, whose hand had been resting on Mitch’s arm, dug her black enameled nails into his skin. “No one is going to jail, Mitchell!” she hissed. “It’s an IRS audit, for god’s sake.”
The waiter arrived unannounced with the bill and glanced subtly around the table. “That goes to him,” the Impresario instructed, taking the bill and handing it to Mitch. “Because paying the bill means never having to say you’re sorry.”
Chapter 4
Smoking Cubans
The party of four adjourned to Mitch’s new house in the Gillette Regent Square neighborhood of Santa Monica. The tony housing tract, situated in the midst of what was arguably some of the finest weather on earth, had been developed by the guy who made it big in razor blades and who then went into real estate. Mitch had worked 15 intense years to afford to live on one of the tree-lined streets. He was beyond proud of himself and swore up and down he would never need to move again in his life.
More than anyone else in the family, Mitch Kornacky was his father’s son. Like Mark, Mitch lived life to the hilt. He collected friends as easily as kids collect Matchbox cars, and he loved to surround himself with a bunch of them and hold court. He could keep up his end of any conversation and everybody else’s, if necessary. High energy and high risk, Mitch was the consummate salesman; he loved nothing better than telling people what they really wanted and then making them buy it.
Mitch also inherited his father’s love of indulgence. He threw himself into work. He threw himself into vacation. He lived for fun and excitement. And he worshipped food. But unlike the father, the son had a sense of proportion. He stayed trim and fit by running nearly 20 miles a week to keep all the calories he consumed from accumulating. He went home every day from the office at seven o’clock to stay sane. And he never touched alcohol or cigarettes. Those were the rules. He did, however, smoke cigars, about eight each week. And when he did, he always talked as many dupes as he could into joining him. Tonight Andy and Ian sat puffing away with him on the patio beside the pool. Harley was in the TV room playing video games with The Impresario.
“So let’s talk about this funeral,” Mitch suggested, after exhaling smoke from one of his newly arrived Cubans, bought not-so-legally via the Internet. “When is Sam coming to LA for the lecture series?” he asked Andy.
“Next week.”
“But I’ll be in Cleveland next week,” Ian said.
Mitch thought for a moment. “No, that’s too soon, anyway. I don’t think I could pull it all together by then.”
“Please, Mitch, let’s not overdo it,” Ian said with a slight wince. “Just something simple. What about getting together at the end of the month?”
“I’m in Amsterdam the last week,” Mitch said.
“And whatever we do, we need to give Lilly some notice,” Andy reminded them. “Especially if she’s going to bring the whole family.”
The complexity of gathering them all together at one time took the life out of the discussion. Andy savored the Swisher Sweet smoke in her mouth and waited to see what else the boys had to say on the subject of their father. When the discussion seemed on the verge of petering out, she decided to wade into the waters that had been troubling her.
“Did Tilda really say nothing about how your dad died?” she asked Mitch.
“Nope. I guess she thought we wouldn’t care how it happened. “
“Well, do you?” Andy asked.
Mitch shrugged. “Heart disease. Liver failure. Does it make a difference?”
“Maybe not,” admitted Andy. “But I, for one, would like to know.”
“Okay, point taken,” Mitch agreed.
“And what about a will?” she asked. “Did he have one?”
Mitch shrugged again. “Look, the woman’s a sorceress or something. She thinks his children are heathens, and all we care about is money.”
“I don’t care that much about money,” Ian protested.
“Right. You care about your art. But we all know that money is my drug of choice. So I sure as hell am not calling her to ask about a will,” he said. And then, as an afterthought, “Don’t we have to be notified if there’s a will?”
Andy considered this. She’d never inherited anything or been involved in any probate and wasn’t sure. “I suppose,” she said. “But it would be foolish of us not to at least find out if he made a will, no matter what’s in it, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” Mitch said. “Frankly, this whole thing makes me feel a little foolish. The guy’s my dad, but I only talked to him a couple of times a year. I’ve never met his wife, and I know nada about his health issues. Now I’m the one left holding a carton of his ashes. Makes you question your value as a son, you know.”
Oh, let the guilt begin, Andy said to herself. How was it that Mark had walked out the door one day, never to return or place a phone call to any of his children, and they were the ones grappling with feeling guilty?
“You’ve done more than anyone else to stay in touch with your dad, Mitch. You have no reason to feel bad about your relationship,” Andy said. “I thought he used to ask you about investment ideas.”
“He did. Whenever I’d call. We haven’t talked that much since he got married this last time.”
“But he had assets,” she said, more as a statement than a question. “Don’t you suppose he left you all something?”
Ian laughed. “Hey, maybe I could use my inheritance to pay off the IRS.”
“Maybe you could,” she said, trying to illustrate the importance of her question about a will.
Mitch smiled. “Look, the man never gave any of us money when he was alive, and none of us expects money from him now that he’s dead, whatever he was worth.”
“Okay, but you know what they say,” Andy found herself parroting, “absent parents sometimes make up for their emotional negligence through their estate.”
The two boys stared at their mother, as if they’d just witnessed the first sign of dementia.
“Really? I’ve never heard that before,” squinted Ian.
Mitch erupted in an irritated laugh. “That’s horseshit, Mom, and you know it. Negligent parents are just negligent. And Dad was what he was.”
She pressed on. “Yes, but maybe we’ll feel differently about him if he left you all something in his will—”
“Will you quit trying to defend him?” Mitch suddenly shot back. “He’s not going to make any of us feel better about our family, no matter what’s in his will.”
Andy halted instantly. She knew Mitch was right. Nothing was going to redeem their father this late in the day. And nothing was going to redeem her from having married him, either. She leaned back in her chair, put the cigar to her lips and retreated.
Ian wondered if Mitch had any idea how hurtful he coul
d be, even when he didn’t intend it. Their mother was just doing what mothers do: trying to make a bad situation better. She wanted to fill in the blanks. Find a little closure. Frankly, so did he.
“You know,” Ian began, as forcefully as he could, “I think we should find out about the cause of death. And if there’s a will.” He looked pointedly at Mitch, indicating his big brother’s remarks had gone too far.
“Do you, Ian?” Mitch sighed, backpedaling for at least the third time this evening.
“Absolutely. Only, I haven’t really got the time. Have you?”
Mitch picked up his cue. “No. Unfortunately not.”
“And the girls work even harder than we do,” Ian continued.
“No, they don’t—”
“Yes, they do,” Ian countered. “So they can’t do it, either. But maybe Mom could.”
The boys both turned to look at Andy, who knew they were trying to placate her. Still, she appreciated their attempt to make her feel useful. “Well, getting a death certificate and a copy of the will should be fairly straightforward,” she said. “I’m sure I could find the time.”
“You’re not too busy?” asked Ian.
Her youngest had always been so sweetly co-dependent, Andy reminded herself, reflexively ferreting out people’s feelings and then trying to rescue them from the pain. Even as a little boy of seven, Ian knew Andy felt bad about the way Mark had disappeared from their lives. Now he sensed his dad’s death was bringing all that excess of regret to the surface, and he was working furiously to bail her out.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?” he repeated.
“No. Really. I’d like to find out,” she said.
Follow the Dotted Line Page 3