Follow the Dotted Line

by Nancy Hersage

  Andy couldn’t remember having called the police but wasn’t sure exactly how to object to the testimony.

  “I don’t understand you, Andy,” said the young woman, verging on tears. “What have I ever done to you? How have I hurt you?”

  Andy considered getting up to say something in her own defense but instantly forgot what she was going to say.

  “And what did my other husbands ever do to deserve your anger?” the witness continued. “I loved those men. I cared for them. Just like I cared for—”

  “Mark!” Andy shouted from the dock, as she jumped to her feet. That’s what she wanted to say. The point was that Mark was missing. “I did those things because I can’t find my husband!” she pleaded.

  The courtroom let out a collective groan, as if they had heard the defendant excuse her offensive behavior by making this claim before.

  “You mean your ex-husband, don’t you?” the young goddess reminded the gallery, as she scanned them with shimmering, innocent eyes.

  The courtroom laughed, silencing Andy and mentally pushing her back down into her seat.

  “Because Mark is my husband now, not yours,” the witness said. “But then maybe this isn’t really about Mark. Maybe this is really about you. Because you’re getting old, Andy. Doesn’t she look old, ladies and gentlemen of the jury?”

  A murmur of agreement made its way through the jury box. The witness went on. “Perhaps this is a case of simple jealousy.”

  Andy tried to stand again to object, but she was now tethered to the seat.

  “After all, I am young enough to be your daughter.”

  This set off another titter of amusement among the onlookers.

  Andy pulled helplessly against the restraints and then roared in frustration. “I’m not jealous! And I’m not old!” she bellowed. “Why won’t you answer my question, you New Age charlatan?!”

  The witness gasped, as if she’d taken a palm to the cheek. The courtroom recoiled in film noir horror.

  “I’m sorry, Andy,” winced the woman in the witness box, struggling to recover from the undeserved blow. “Really. I didn’t mean to make you so angry. Now, what was your question again?”

  The room sat in awed silence, marveling at the grace of such youth and beauty under fire.

  The woman’s performance was pure melodrama, Andy knew, but the idiots in the jury box and gallery were eating it up. She had to muster some self-control if she wanted to save herself. “Please,” Andy said, miming respect and forcing a smile, “just tell the court where Mark is.”

  All eyes focused on the witness, who blinked demurely. Hand to her trembling heart, she cleared her throat and then opened her sultry lips, as if she were about to bite into a French confection. “Why, he’s right there,” she said, raising a manicured finger and pointing to the judge’s bench.

  Along with everyone else, Andy looked up, mystified. The entire courtroom erupted in satisfied applause.

  There he was, alive and well, Mark Kornacky, looking down at them like Houdini in his voila moment, dressed in a black robe and wearing a Cheshire grin.

  “Isn’t she just the hottest little witness you’ve ever seen?” the judge beamed. “And she’s my wife!” He turned a disdainful gaze on Andy. “And she knows exactly where I am.” Then he leaned over and whispered conspiratorially to the witness, “What do you think, Tilda, my dear?”

  Andy’s thoughts were growing more and more muddled. Mark was right here; had been here all the time. And he was the judge in this proceeding. It seemed odd for a judge to solicit advice from a witness, but then Andy remembered that Tilda probably did most of the work in their relationship, except for the partying and drinking.

  Andy looked back at the witness stand, where Tilda had now morphed into the Queen of Hearts, which didn’t seem the least bit surprising.

  “I think it’s time,” she told the judge.

  “Your verdict?” he asked, eagerly.

  The Queen lowered her voice so that only Andy could overhear. “Off with her head,” she instructed.

  “Off with her head!” Mark bellowed to the courtroom and slammed his gavel down with the finality of a guillotine.

  All at once, the floor of the dock shifted violently beneath Andy’s feet, throwing her forward against the wooden rail. She struggled for balance but couldn’t right herself. The courtroom lurched again, throwing her backwards this time. Then, just as suddenly, the entire scene began to liquefy, with everyone and everything melting into a vast ocean. Without warning or explanation, Andy was caught up in the rolling waves, struggling to stay afloat. But each time she pulled herself to the surface, an icy current reached up and dragged her down again.

  “Aunt Andy?” said a voice.

  “I’m going under,” she said, gulping for air. “I can’t breathe.”

  She felt herself shake and realized her head was bobbing up and down, not in the water but into something soft and cloud-like.

  “Aunt Andy, wake up!” Harley barked. He continued to push her back and forth into her pillow until she suddenly careened into consciousness, panting like a runner.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, clearly concerned.

  She wasn’t sure. “Bad dream. Really bad dream,” she said between swallows of oxygen.

  “No kidding. I thought you were being attacked.”

  “I was.”

  “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  She hoisted herself up to a sitting position and began to inhale slowly, waiting for her heart to resume its normal rhythm. “Not particularly,” she rasped, her mouth acid dry. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and tried to smooth out her wrinkled brain.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Just past five.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Uh huh. It’s morning.”

  The light seeping in through the shutters drew her back to consciousness. She loved the sun. Daydreams. Nightmares. All her mind’s truly crappy creativity came out under cover of darkness.

  “Can I get you something?” Harley asked.

  Andy shook her head, drained by the frustration of Tilda’s testimony in tonight’s Rocky Horror Picture Show. She should try to go back to sleep. But what if it turned out to be a double feature?

  “Okay,” she said, changing her mind. “Can you go downstairs and slice up an apple and put it on a plate with a scoop of peanut butter?”

  “You want peanut butter at five in the morning?”

  “Crunchy. Please.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Crunchy it is.”

  Harley turned and headed out of the room. Still a little dazed, Andy looked up as she heard his bare feet shuffling across the carpet. Through the ambient light, she followed the hairless, spindly legs upward toward his torso, disturbed to discover that Harley Davidson was completely naked, except for a pair of striped boxer shorts and that damned prayer shawl.

  Chapter 18

  Life Imitates Movies of the Week

  Andy’s friends were an eclectic contrast of talkers and listeners. Many of them were bright and quirky and witty and never shut up. Others were more thoughtful. They made Andy feel as if she were the bright and witty one. And they made no attempt to compete with or disparage anything that came out of her mouth. They were, in short, free therapists.

  Lorna Drexel was one of the latter. In fact, she was a master listener and had a swarm of friends who, like Andy, seemed to need her and were, therefore, never very far away. As a result, you almost had to make an appointment to see Lorna. Which is precisely what Andy did.

  At present the two women were having lunch at a small café on Ventura Boulevard, down the street from Lorna’s office in Sherman Oaks. Besides being a good listener, Lorna was also a CPA. She had been Mark’s accountant when he first started his production company and had dissuaded him from some of his dumber business moves. Not all, Lorna liked to point out but a few. After Mark and Andy married, she kept their household accounts, as well
. That’s when Andy and Lorna began to notice they were often on the same side when it came to the family’s monetary policy: Lorna and Andy usually played John Maynard Keynes to Mark’s Ayn Rand.

  Andy was fond of saying that, besides primary custody of the children, Lorna was the best thing she got in her divorce. The pair had known each other for decades and had been close for twenty years. Lorna was not just Andy’s confessor, there were any number of other people in whom she could confide; Lorna was more of a co-conspirator. It turned out that the CPA’s cautious, analytic personality when it came to economics had an anti-twin when it came to emotion. Whatever Andy was feeling when she told her friend a story, Lorna felt, also. In fact, she usually felt it exponentially.

  “You found obituaries for all three of her former husbands!” Lorna repeated, with a bit more punch than Andy had used to deliver the information. “I’d think that would be proof enough for the police.”

  “Larry doesn’t,” Andy said. “And he was with the FBI for most of his career.”

  “I hate this woman.”

  “You’ve never met her, but I’m glad you hate her anyway,” Andy said, admiring her friend’s team spirit.

  “So what are you thinking, Andy?”

  “That we should go up to Big Bear. For the weekend.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Lorna also had a cabin in Big Bear. In a neighborhood called Alpine Woods Estates, just a few rambling streets away from the cabin Mark got in the settlement agreement when the Kornacky-Bravos marriage dissolved.

  Andy could see her friend calculating the risk and reward.

  “You think Tilda is staying in your old cabin?” Lorna asked.

  “I don’t think Mark sold it. We could ask the neighbors.”

  “Or just check the title with the county assessor’s office.”

  “Right,” said Andy.

  “For all you know, Mark may be there, too,” Lorna said. “Alive and well.”

  Alive and well, Andy thought, reminded of her late-night courtroom drama. But the dream presented a quagmire of insecurities she was too embarrassed to mention, even to her unpaid analyst. “I guess I hadn’t thought about that possibility,” she said. At least not consciously, she thought.

  “Really?”

  “Well, I mean, I hadn’t thought about what I would do if he’s at the cabin.”

  “Okay. So think about it. What will you do if he’s there?”

  I’d like to take a swing at the Cheshire grin, she said to herself. But revenge was not really the dish she was interested in; the truth was she just wanted to know he was okay. “Breathe easier,” she quipped. “Feel a little foolish, I guess. But definitely breathe easier.”

  “Would you tell him about the other three husbands?”

  Another scenario Andy had not envisioned. “I don’t know. In fact, I’m not sure I even want to see him. But I would like to know he’s alright.”

  Lorna brushed her thick, luxurious hair from her eyes. She was nearing retirement, and her features remained remarkably intact: smooth skin, slim nose, dark eyes. It was a countenance that made Lorna look ten years younger than she was, and Andy envied the fact that men still flirted with her.

  “Let me ask you something, Andy. Just so I know. Because when we go to Big Bear this weekend, and we will go, I want to be clear. What’s your motive here?”

  Andy was not surprised by the question or the least bit put off. Because whatever her answer, Lorna would take it for the genius or the failing it was.

  “Well, I guess I think looking into this could be important,” Andy said. That wasn’t entirely honest. She needed to get her verbs in order. “No. That’s not really it, Lorna. I don’t think—I want it to be important. I want finding Mark to be a highly significant moment in my life.”

  “Hmm.” Her friend looked downright wistful. “Still ambitious, are we?” Lorna asked rhetorically and without a hint of sarcasm. “I hear you, Andy. You’re out to find your children’s father. Maybe save his life.”

  Leave it to Lorna to make her motive sound much better than it was. “Well, maybe just account for his whereabouts.”

  “Fair enough. Still, I’m sensing more here,” Lorna proffered, as she began to dig deeper into Andy’s psychological dermis. “This is about feeling better—about yourself?”

  “It could be,” admitted Andy.

  “No work lately?”

  “Not much.”

  “Kids pretty busy?”

  “Completely ocupado.”

  “And you’re feeling unimportant.”

  “I’m feeling, well—,” Andy knew exactly how she was feeling. “Slightly irrelevant.”

  Lorna’s sculpted eyebrows lifted in quiet confirmation. “Got it,” Lorna said, nodding.

  “Really?’

  “Losing your place. Transitioning to who-the-hell knows what. Who could blame you, Andy? Or me.”

  “You?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s happening to me, too. And probably everybody we know who’s our—”

  “Generation?”

  “Age, Andy. Our age. I’m preparing to close my business and retire in six months, and I’m already feeling irrelevant.” Lorna looked at her watch and motioned to the waiter to bring the bill. “By this time next year, I may be totally forgotten.” She said this without levity or self-pity. It was a simple calculation that, as far as her work life was concerned, added up to zero. Unlike Andy, Lorna had already seen the future enemy, and it was herself. “I’m not waiting around until next year to find something interesting to occupy my underutilized gray matter,” she asserted. “So let’s go find Tilda this weekend.”

  “Thanks, Lorna.”

  “And bring what’s-his-name. Your nephew.”

  “Harley? You’re kidding. Why in god’s name should we bring Harley?”

  “Because he’s in transition, Andy. Just like we are. From boy to man. From Christian to Jew. From sucker to seeker. Who the hell cares? It sounds like he could use the company. And, frankly, so could we.”

  Andy was tempted to debate the issue, as she walked Lorna back to her office in the Scotty building on Ventura near Hazeltine, but her reasons for wanting to ditch Harley would sound a tad narcissistic now that Lorna had issued the same diagnosis for all three of them. As the two women strolled past faux European furniture stores, medicinal weed dispensaries, and an all-natural dog-food store, they decided they would leave for the mountains at around 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, taking Lorna’s new car so she could try out the 4-wheel drive.

  They said their good-byes at the glass doors leading to the lobby, and Andy headed for her car parked at a meter on the street. Just as she unlocked the driver’s side door, her cell rang. She pulled the phone from her purse and saw that it was the-child-who-never-called. Tapping the screen, she slid behind the wheel of the car, rolled down the window for air, and answered with a question.

  “Is everything all right, Ian?”

  “Mom?”

  “Don’t beat around the bush. You call me even less than I call you. What’s the matter?”

  “My IRS audit. Remember? You told me to call.”

  “Oh my god, yes. Yes, I did. So sorry, Ian. In fact, I was just wondering how it went.” The lie slipped out so effortlessly, it made her cringe. Worse, it was a totally useless assertion. He didn’t care if Andy had been thinking about him. She’s the one who wished she’d been thinking about him and hadn’t bothered to get around to it. Mitch was right; she didn’t pay enough attention to her youngest. “Anyway, how was it?”

  “Not what I expected. That’s why I’m calling, actually.”

  Okay, she thought calmly, willing herself to be fully present in the conversation. He’s in trouble with the feds, and he’s calling his mother to discuss it. This is my chance to heed his pain, even before he has a chance to articulate it. Because Ian probably can’t articulate it; that’s just who he is. “How much do you need, honey?”

  “What?”

  “Don’
t be embarrassed. It’s only money. I can take it from my savings.”

  Go with the silence, she instructed herself. Give him a chance to find the words. She waited. He didn’t find any.

  “Ian? Are you there?”

  “Um. Yeah. Sure. Right here.”

  “Okay. We’ll take it slowly. How much did the auditor say they wanted?”

  “About what I expected.”

  “About what you expected. Okay.” He was being vague. Another thing he often did. She focused on getting to the feeling beneath the statement. “All right. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Neither. I guess.” As she quickly searched for hidden meaning, he added, “We worked out a payment schedule.”

  “A payment schedule?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay. Well, is it something you can live with?”

  “I think so. Um hum.”

  Now she was exasperated. All this rhetorical bobbing and weaving, while he just kept standing there. “Then, this is good news, right?” she nearly snapped. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Ian?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was good, Mom. Just no big surprise. That’s all.”

  “Okay,” she finally murmured, because that’s all she had left in her arsenal of neutral-but-supportive responses. Evidently, the call was just to fill her in. Keep her apprised. Exactly as she had requested. She had to give him credit; it was more than she did for him. Just be grateful, she told herself. That’s all he requires. “Well, then I’m glad to hear it. Thanks for letting me know. For calling. That’s nice.”

  “Oh. Sure. No problem.”

  She waited for him to close the conversation. He didn’t. She wondered if he wanted her to do it. But that might be cutting him off. Damn it, she thought, why can’t he ramble on mindlessly like the other three?

  “Ian? Is anything else wrong?”