by Lydia Millet
She should have picked up her own wailing offspring. Making Lexie stay up all night when this shit just went down? Royal assfuck.
“He was probably on something. He was a drunk and sometimes he did coke. He lived on red meat and pizza. I actually told him he looked sick but he ignored me. I told him.”
“Man. Don’t blame yourself. That’s just crazy.”
She shook her head, drank from her can.
“Seriously,” said Jem. “It’s not your fault.”
He should have brought some pot. She wasn’t much of a stoner but if she ever needed to get stoned, it was tonight.
“What am I gonna tell her?” said Lexie. Almost more to herself. “He stopped in to see me. He was supposed to be in Orange County. That’s what she told me on the phone. My mom. She said he had to pick up some stuff for work, it was delayed. He said. So I go, yeah, he stopped in to see me. But then. Why was he at that gross motel? Why was he staying in L.A. at all?”
“I don’t get it,” said Jem. “Just tell her what happened. Right?”
She glanced at him without really looking, shook her head again.
“I have to protect her. Like, the way she thinks of him.”
“I don’t get it,” said Jem again. Lexie was kicking at the base of a metal patio chair with her bare toes. Pretty lightly. But didn’t it hurt?
“He was like, messing with me,” she said. “OK? Since, like, forever. Well. Two years. It seemed like forever. That’s why he was in town. I bet he didn’t even have a business trip. Probably told her some random crap so he could make a run down here. She can’t know, Jem. It would turn her whole life to shit.”
What was he doing? Was he staring? Adjust his face. Damn.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Lexie, and stopped kicking. “I told you he was an asshole. I told you ages ago.”
It explained a lot. The online sex for money. Truly fucked.
“I was ready to tell her,” she said. “If he didn’t leave me alone. It was always his threat, you know? From the first time. I woke up in my own bed one night and he was like, on me. He said if I told her it would be worse for her than anyone. How it’d ruin her life. I thought, he’s a pig. For sure. But yeah, he’s not wrong, it pretty much would. Then when I left home I started to think, maybe she’d be better off. In the end. But now—no way. She can’t find out. Just help me figure it out, Jem. Please?”
And then the guy gets off scot-free. Although yes, dead. So he would always be scot-free.
“It has to be simple,” said Lexie. “Just like, she had a husband, she loved him, he loved her back, and then he had a heart attack and died. That’s bad enough. She’s not a strong person. She already had a crappy time with my dad. She’s like, all about flowers. Kittens and puppies. Well. Not actual kittens and puppies. They don’t allow pets in the building. But she likes cute pictures of them.”
He finished his beer, crumpled the can. He felt pretty shit. Confused. Brain stuck on her being messed with.
But man. It wasn’t about him. Rally.
“Just say he was tired, he wasn’t feeling good. Which has to be true, right? Guy had a heart attack. Just say he came up to say hi, he didn’t want to drive back to OC tonight, so he was going to crash nearby. It’s not incriminating. It’ll be fine.”
“He wasn’t supposed to know where I was. I didn’t tell them. But there was this GPS app . . . he got the address off her phone. Admitted it. Which would look weird to her, you know? That he did that.”
“So say he called you and you just told him where you were. Being friendly to stepdad. Since he was in the hood.”
“OK. But then why was I there? At his motel at midnight? Is that a normal time to go see your stepdad at a shitty motel?”
“I guess not. Yeah. Not normal.”
She sat down on the half-wall and he sat beside her, bumps on the plaster sticking into his butt. Uncomfortable. He drummed his fingers on his knees.
“Maybe he wanted to come over earlier, say hi and shake hands all around, right? Meet your employers. Check out your new crib. But you had the baby to take care of. And then the baby was sleeping. He had to leave for OC early in the morning. So you said you’d stop by.”
“Like, Lora and Paul were out, maybe, and I had to wait till they got back.”
“Yeah. That could work. It’s still weird, but she’d probably buy it. Right?”
“Shit,” said Lexie, and stood up again. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“What?”
“His phone. The texts. She could see them.”
“Can she get into it?”
“There’s got to be a code. But I don’t know. Even if there is, maybe she knows it. I don’t know!”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know! Maybe in the truck?”
“And the truck. Still at the motel?”
“I guess. I don’t know. Yeah. Probably?”
He could do this. He could. She shouldn’t have to deal.
“You think the truck’s locked up?”
“Jem! I don’t know. It was like, a blur when I left. They took him away and I just got in my car. Your grandma’s car. And drove.”
“I’ll deal, OK? I’ll go there. Just give me the name of the motel.”
She headed inside, Jem trailing, and called it up on her phone’s map app. Seventeen minutes, it said. He typed it into his. When he went out the slider again she was lying down on her side by the sleeping baby, still holding her phone clutched to her chest. Her knees were drawn up. She looked like a baby too.
Drove. Drove. He realized when he was almost there that he hadn’t asked about the truck. Hadn’t asked her what it looked like. He texted, but no answer. Maybe she’d finally fallen asleep. Damn. Fool’s errand.
But when he got to the place, there were only two trucks parked in the lot. The rest were shitty cars. It wasn’t the Ritz. One of the trucks had a bashed-in side and Wisconsin plates. Couldn’t be that one, right? So he tried the door on the other, a big shiny gray Dodge with a toolbox in the bed. Opened right up.
The driver’s seat was laid way back. WTF. Maybe the guy’d been sleeping in it. Shit, keys were here. Anyone could’ve driven off with the rig. Key ring was lying right on the floor of the driver’s seat. He flicked the light on overhead. Looked around for a phone. Felt under the seats. Nothing.
Maybe they’d taken the guy’s phone with him. Like, personal effects. But if they bothered with that, why not the keys?
Room. The guy’s room. Should have asked her which room he was staying in. Could he ask at the desk? Would they help him? He texted her again, but still nothing.
He sat there for a minute. Then grabbed the keys, turned off the light, got out and pressed the beeper to lock it. Chirp-chirp. Headed for the lobby. It was dark, but there was a doorbell. He pressed it. Heard nothing for a while, so he pressed it again. Starting to feel hopeless. Failed mission, man. Useless.
But then a light went on inside and a guy shuffled toward the door.
“Yeah, sorry,” said Jem. He held the truck keys up. Like proof of he was legit. “My stepdad was staying here. He had a heart attack. Can I get into his room, please?”
“Oh, right,” said the clerk. Sleepy fat guy. “OK. Yeah. Sorry for your loss. Yeah. Hold on a second.”
Zero professionalism. Didn’t ask for ID. Not even the stepdad’s name, which Jem didn’t actually know. Would have been shit out of luck. But the sleepy fat guy didn’t have a clue. Lucky.
He came out with a keycard.
“Here you go. 226,” he said. “Just leave it in the room.”
A rush. Success. Took the cement steps two at a time. Little green light on the lock.
Lights were blazing inside. Messy bed. He saw the phone right away, beside a near-empty bottle of Jim Beam. He almost grabbed the bottle to take a swig. But didn’t. Who knew where that guy’s mouth had been. Turned the phone on, but got a code prompt. OK. Looked around. Beside the sink there was some ragged-looking
shit. A grimy plastic case, razor inside. A bar of soap. The sink had a scum of short hairs on it. Guy’d shaved before he died. Toothbrush, old bristles splayed, yellow and disgusting. Toothpaste. Empty coke-sized Ziploc bag, faint remnants of the powder.
And Viagra.
“Fucking pig,” he said. For Lexie.
That was it. No clothes except a dirty T-shirt, wadded on the floor of the bathroom.
He left it all, except the phone and the Viagra. In case the mom came in. She might, right? At some point. Should he keep the truck keys? Yeah. Give ’em to Lexie. He kept the keycard too. You never knew. Took the bottom of his shirt as he went out, wiped the door handle with it. Seen it in shows. Not a crime scene, but still. It should be like he wasn’t here. Only the sleepy fat guy had seen him and hadn’t asked his name. He could pass for a ghost. The ghost in the machine.
Back at the house, felt satisfied as he went in the slider. Job well done. Lexie was fast asleep. Baby Rae too. He laid the truck keys on the bedside table, placed the phone beside them. Gently. He was stealthy but not stealthy enough.
“Hey,” said Lexie, and struggled to sit up. The baby stirred.
“No, no,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep. It’s OK. I got it.”
“No, I’m awake,” she said. The baby stopped moving again.
“Phone,” he said. “It’s locked. And the keys to his truck.”
“OK,” she said. “Jem. You’re the best.”
“Text me in the morning,” he said. “It’s Saturday. I got nothing but time. I’ll do whatever. Just text me.”
She nodded, settled down again as he went out.
Back at the ranch there were lights blazing. In the kitchen his mother was up, wearing baggy flannel pajamas, waiting for him.
“Where’d you go? It was the middle of the night. It’s almost four a.m.!”
“I know, Moms. I’m sorry. It was Lexie. Her stepdad died.”
Her face changed, kind of relaxed into sadness.
“Oh, that poor girl.”
“He was kind of not a nice guy. But she was there when it happened. His heart. So she’s, like, traumatized.”
“My God. Of course.”
“I’m gonna crash for a couple hours, OK?”
“Yes. Get some sleep, honey.”
He lay down on top of the covers. Then a text alert. Plus morning light in the window.
Call me. He hit voice call.
“I got into the phone,” said Lexie.
“You did?” Groggy.
“I tried my birthday. No. Then tried some other things. Finally I got an idea and tried another date. My birthday, but the year I turned sixteen. That’s when he started—you know. And that was it.”
“That’s warped.” He swung himself out of bed. Where was the bong? He could use a hit.
“It’s good I did. There were pictures of me. One in a bikini. Like, edited so my friends weren’t in it. I trashed all of them. And our texts.”
“Score,” he said.
“Also some photos of this actress. I forget her name. Just like, captured from BuzzFeed or something. She looks kind of like me. I mean, prettier. But.”
“Gross.”
“You saved my ass.”
“Hey. All in a day’s work.”
“I have to go meet my mother soon. Would you come with?”
Mother. Shit.
“We have to choose an urn. She’s going to cremate him.”
Urn. Shit.
Clear cue for serious bong use.
Although. The mater felt strongly that he should be sober more often. For the sake of his brain. “You’re going to need that thing,” she said. He’d been working on it. Progress was being made.
Still. Urn for a molester. Plus molester wife and molester victim. That was a challenge, sober.
“I mean, you don’t have to. Of course.”
“No, no worries. Sure. I’m solid on urns. Done a lot of urn shopping. I can tell a premium urn from a piece-of-shit urn. It’s all in the seams. Gotta hold them up to the light. You ladies need my expertise.”
She laughed. So good to hear.
He got off the phone, looked it up. Yep, straight Roman. Urna. Vessel of baked clay.
Knock. “Jem?”
He opened it.
“You want pancakes?”
“Can they be chocolate-chip?”
“Sure. I think we have some chips.”
“OK. Then I have to go to a funeral parlor. They’re picking out an urn.”
“Oh? Are you sure, honey? It’s kind of a family thing. Usually.”
“Yeah. She asked me to go.”
“Well. As long as her mother’s comfortable with it.”
He nodded, though he had no idea.
“And don’t be stoned for the funeral parlor. Disrespectful.”
“Damn, Moms. You read my mind.”
“You think people don’t know, but they do.”
Lexie’s stepbrothers cooked meth, a full-on Bryan Cranston scene. The dead molester was a cokehead. Doubtful a whiff of weed would scare off the mom, but his own was a different story.
“Fine, fine. I’ll just have pancakes. With chips. Hold the Purple Kush. I gotta get dressed.”
She smiled and closed his door.
Since he agreed to go to private school next year she’d eased way up on him. She thought it would be a magic bullet. He’d be Ivy League–bound in no time flat. He didn’t want to disillusion her, but he feared the day reality set in. For her, not him. The place would surely suck ass.
However. Audentes fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold. Some Virgil shit right there.
He put on Anarchy in the U.K. Loud. One good thing about the middle-class Los Feliz digs: the neighbors were too nice to yell about loud music in the daytime. Or too poor. Not poor, get real, even this modest casita was a million five, but not as rich. In his old hood, the neighbors used to send over the help to ask him to turn the music down. Which really bit, because when the help asked, some under-minimum-wage lady from Honduras with a hangdog look, it was way harder to say no.
Picked out some somber-looking duds. Passed over the T-shirt that said FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING FUCK. Respect. Theme of the day.
After the pancakes he felt like going back to bed, but pushed himself into the truck, pulled up the funeral parlor on Google Maps. Listened to Sid as he drove. She ain’t no human being. Same queen, man. Over there in England it was still the same queen it had always been. She outlasted Sid. She outlasted them all. That queen refused to die.
The funeral place was a bummer. Not exactly upscale. This was where losers went when they died. Razor wire across the empty lot next door. Weeds in the sidewalk cracks. Lexie and her mother weren’t here yet. She texted they were on their way. Shit if he would cross the threshold without them. He sat in the truck. The neighborhood was blighted. Homeless guy across the street, sitting against the boarded-up window of a shutdown bakery, was actually messing with his works. In broad daylight.
Wanted to say, Hit the methadone clinic, man. That shit is free.
Die rich, was the lesson here.
Almost enough to make you want to go Ivy League.
There was the Dodge truck from last night, pulling up to the curb. Lexie was at the wheel. Parked and a lady got out the passenger side, skinny and wretched, with long pink fingernails and a little beige purse hanging off one shoulder. She didn’t look like Lexie at all.
Man, did he wish he was stoned. Got out of his own truck anyway. Into battle. Ubi mors ibi spes. Where there is death there is hope.
“My friend Jem,” said Lexie. “He’s been a big help. Jem, this is my mom. Rita.”
The mother lady nodded. Big bags under her eyes. Altered state. Maybe not drugs, maybe tiredness. But altered state either way. Seemed barely there. Jem put out his hand for a shake, but she just grabbed it sideways for a second, then dropped it.
Inside it was like funeral parlors on TV, different coffins on display. Except grimier. Nothi
ng looked new. The flowers were all fake. Bad lighting. Those ceilings with pockmarks in them, low and white. A guy came forward. Short. Gayish. Maybe Latino, maybe Asian. Hard to peg.
“We’d like to see the urns, please,” said Lexie. Rita just stood there, fiddling with her purse. Unzipped it, took out a tissue from a travel pack.
The short guy led them back past the coffins to a shelf of urns. Not a big talker. Not much of a salesman. No wonder the place was decrepit.
“Price list,” he said, and handed them a binder. The vinyl was fingertip-smeared. Brown-red. Maybe ketchup. Jesus. Or barbecue sauce. Really?
“You know,” said Jem, aside to Lexie while her mother stood staring at a green pot, “we can go somewhere else. I mean, there are other places. Even on a budget. I can look that shit up.”
“She picked this one,” said Lexie. “First she was going to get a Ball jar from Target. I said, let’s get a real urn. I think she liked the name of the place. It’s no big deal. Don’t worry.”
Rita was still just standing there. She was shivering, he noticed. One thing the place did have: powerful AC. It was frigid as a meat locker.
What was the name? He hadn’t noticed.
Lexie stood with her mother, put an arm around her waist.
“How about that one?” she said, and pointed to a plain gray thing. “He would’ve been down with that. Kind of industrial. Like, masculine.”
“OK,” quavered her mother, “fine,” so Jem told the short guy, who was standing there doing something on his phone. He nodded, went to the back and came out with a box. Lexie got Rita’s wallet, paid with her credit card.
When they left, Jem looked up at the front. It said WING ON FUNERAL PARLOR.
Then they were standing beside the big Dodge. Rita was looking at the sidewalk, dabbing at her eyes with the Kleenex. Lexie held the box in one hand, got the keys from her hoodie pocket with the other.
“You guys eat anything?” asked Jem. “Could I take you to lunch?”
He had zero appetite. But what else was there to offer?
“We didn’t eat,” said Lexie. “Mom. You hungry?”