Death Gets a Time-Out

by Ayelet Waldman

I glanced at the sun-filled room and murmured appreciatively. I admire anyone who can keep a single houseplant green, not to mention an entire solarium. I can’t even keep a dozen roses alive long enough to get to a vase.

  “Yes, Chloe would certainly have adored San Miguel,” he said. “Those days of youthful freedom, of exploration and irresponsibility.” He smiled at the robed assistant with the beard. The man smiled back and raised his eyebrows.

  Polaris turned back to me. “We were very young, Trudy-Ann and I. We lived on the occasional check from our parents, and that was enough to meet our simple needs and pay our bar tab at La Cucaracha, the local bar. Don Chucho, the owner of the bar, was the first person to know when the checks from home made it to the post office. It was quite a scene in those days. Everyone made it to San Miguel, and to the Cuc, sooner or later.”

  “Everyone?” I said.

  He looked at me, and for some reason I blushed. I had no idea why. What was it about this man? “Everyone. The Beats were regulars. Neal Cassady died there after a particularly inebriated night. Back in 1968, before we arrived, the entire cast of the musical Hair had their heads shaved by the local police. I’m not sure why, but the story was famous.”

  “And Jupiter? What did he and his stepsister . . .” I made a show of looking through my notes for her name. “. . . Lilly, do in San Miguel? Did they go to school?”

  He shrugged. “The children were too young for school. Jupiter wasn’t more than two when we got down there, and Lilly was perhaps a couple of years older. They amused themselves at the house. It was, I think, rather a bucolic life.”

  I tried to imagine my kids, Ruby and Isaac, having fun hanging out with a bunch of random grown-ups while Peter and I drank with Neal Cassady and the cast of Hair. I couldn’t. And I couldn’t imagine Jupiter and Lilly as children enjoying themselves, either. I’ve always found children to be somewhat less liberal in their views than your basic snake-handling Baptist minister. Children like order. They like routines. They like to be and do exactly what everyone else is and does, and they expect their parents to live up to some imagined ideal of domesticated mundanity. Every once in a while, when I manage to put on a skirt instead of my usual jeans, you should see Ruby’s face. She smiles so hard it hurts my own cheeks to look at her, and she employs positive reinforcement. It’s really quite humiliating. “Look at how nicely you’re dressed, Mama. You look lovely.” Once, she even told me that I looked like “a real woman.” According to my three-and-a-half-foot-tall arbiter of gender classification, a pair of overalls does not a female make.

  “When did you return to the States?” I asked.

  “We stayed just a little over a year. Jupiter must have been about three or four when we returned.”

  “And why did you come back?” I asked. At that moment the rustling of the bearded assistant’s robes caught my eye. I glanced over at him. He was sitting quite still, his face wiped clear of any expression.

  Polaris looked down at his hands and carefully adjusted his thick gold ring so that its flashy diamond rested in the dead center of his finger. “We came home after Trudy-Ann transitioned,” he said, his voice much softer than it had been before.

  “Transitioned?”

  “Died,” the bearded assistant interrupted.

  “How did she die?” Al asked. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth in quite a while and everyone in the room turned to look at him. He looked up from his notebook and raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response.

  “There was an accident,” Polaris said.

  “What kind of an accident? A car accident?” I said.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “Something like that.” He glanced over at the sundial in the middle of the room. I knew he couldn’t possibly have read it. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve got things I must get done today.” He looked over at his lawyers, and they jumped to attention.

  “We’ve barely touched on Jupiter’s life,” I said before they could end the interview. “I’m going to need information about his medical history, his psychological history. How he did in school. What problems, if any, he had before this unfortunate event. I’m going to want to talk about his drug use, his recovery. And of course, we need to discuss his and your relationships with Chloe. All that information is critical to preparing for the penalty phase of Jupiter’s trial.”

  Polaris shot a glance in the direction of his lawyers. The one who had spoken up earlier said, “I’ll prepare a list of physicians, therapists, teachers, and friends for you. You can contact those individuals, and after you’ve done so, if you feel another meeting is necessary, we can consider the possibility.”

  “No one knows Jupiter as well as his father,” I said. “The Reverend is likely to have all sorts of information that those other individuals do not.”

  The attorney snapped his briefcase shut and rose to his feet. “Then you can put your questions in writing, and submit them to me. I’ll communicate the Very Reverend Polaris’s responses to you. Good day.”

  With that, Aldebaran and the other robed man began hustling Al and me out the door. I shook my arm free and extended my hand to Polaris. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Very Reverend Polaris. I hope we haven’t offended you in any way. You understand that our job is to help your son, don’t you?”

  He stared at me for a moment, and then smiled bitterly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you success in your endeavors,” he said.

  Six

  “‘SOMETHING like that’? What kind of an answer is that? Either she died in a car accident or she didn’t,” I said.

  “Yup,” Al said. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, drumming his fingertips against the steering wheel. I stood outside his window, and peered up into his face. Al’s Suburban sported oversized truck wheels, and since I’m about five feet tall, my head barely grazed the bottom of the window.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I think we’d better find out how ol’ Trudy-Ann kicked.”

  “Al,” I said. “Jesus. Lilly’s my friend, remember? You’re talking about her dead mother.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to know how her mother got that way.”

  “Any ideas how to investigate a death that happened thirty years ago, in Mexico?”

  He shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

  “I’ll talk to Lilly. See what she knows.”

  “Good idea. What’s with you and the Rev, by the way?”

  “What?”

  “Five more minutes in that house and you would have been getting fitted for your own white robe.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, feigning an anger I knew was unreasonable. There was just something about Polaris.

  “You couldn’t keep your eyes off the funny-looking little guy.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Is it?”

  I opened my mouth to insist on my innocence, but then sighed. “Didn’t you feel it? He’s . . . I don’t know . . . compelling.”

  Al shrugged. “I’m pretty immune to that kind of thing. Maybe it’s because I’m a man.”

  I frowned. “No, it’s not sexual. At all. He’s just . . . he’s just hard not to look at. When he looks at you, that is.” I shook my head, frustrated at my inability to pinpoint the exact nature of the man’s appeal. “Anyway. I’m thinking our next step needs to be the rehab center. We’ll get information on Jupiter’s drug habit. How hard he worked to kick it. That kind of thing. I’ll bet there’s at least one shrink at the center who can testify on his behalf.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Al said. “When can you head up to the Ojai Self-Absorption Center? Monday?”

  “The Ojai Rehabilitation and Self-Actualization Center. Yeah, Monday, I guess. I’ll leave a message for the director letting him know we’re coming. We can get on the road as soon as I drop off the kids.”

  Suddenly, I remembered what I’d found out sitting on Polaris’s th
rone. I didn’t say anything, though. I wasn’t ready to believe it myself, let alone tell my partner. I could only imagine what a pregnancy was going to do to my productivity, such as it was. And when the baby came, well, I’d be completely useless to Al. It was just so frustrating. Here I was, beginning to get something of a life back for myself, and this happened.

  After Al left, I sat behind the wheel of my car for a few moments, debating whether I wanted to take the coward’s way out and tell my husband over the telephone, or if I should go home and make my announcement in person. I felt the saliva gather in the corners of my mouth. I opened the car door, leaned out, and threw up on the elegantly appointed streets of San Marino. Nice. First I had to go up to my elbow in Polaris’s toilet; now I was either going to have to find a hose somewhere, or leave a delightful little calling card on his curb. My cell phone rang as I was wiping the sweat from my forehead.

  “Don’t come home!” Peter said as soon as I answered the phone.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I found a babysitter, but her mother won’t let her stay out past eight. Meet me at Off Vine in half an hour.”

  “Who’s the sitter?”

  “Bethany, from next door.”

  “Peter! Bethany’s like twelve years old!”

  “No she’s not. She just turned fourteen. And you should see her—she’s grown up a lot in the past couple of months. She looks like Pamela Anderson.”

  Was that what he was doing while I was driving carpool? Scoping out the local teenage girls? “I missed the section in T. Berry Brazelton where he says that you should judge a babysitter by her breast size.”

  “Juliet, give me a break. She’s fine. Her mom is right next door. Just get your butt over to the restaurant. We haven’t had an evening without the kids in I don’t know how long. Let’s have some fun, dammit.”

  Oh well. A cute little restaurant in a renovated cottage in Hollywood was as good a place as any to tell my husband that our lives were in for a drastic upheaval. Again. I slammed my car door, determinedly not looking at the mess I’d made in front of Polaris’s house. It’s biodegradable, after all.

  On my way across town, I called Lilly. Her assistant patched me through to her cell phone.

  “Hi, Juliet!” she shouted over the sound of traffic. Her freeway was moving faster than mine.

  “Hi. Listen. I hate to ask you this over the telephone, but do you mind telling me how your mother died?” There was only the sound of cars on her end, the hiss of a cellular connection. “Lilly? Are you still on the line?”

  “Yes,” she said. “There was an accident.”

  We already knew that. Why, I wondered, had Lilly used precisely the same inexact words to describe her mother’s death as had her stepfather? “What kind of an accident?” Again the only sound in my ear was the hum of traffic. “Lilly?”

  “I’m still here. Juliet, I’m sorry. I can’t talk to you about this. It’s too . . . too traumatic.”

  “But—”

  “No. No, I can’t.” And she hung up.

  As I drove the rest of the way to the restaurant, I pondered Lilly and Polaris’s unwillingness to talk about Lilly’s mother’s death. Something had happened in Mexico, but what? And could it possibly have anything to do with Chloe Jones’s murder? But I had my own problems to worry about, and I pushed thoughts of Lilly’s mother out of my mind. I made it to Off Vine before Peter, and sat down at a table on the front porch under the heat lamps, nervously eating my weight in bread. I smeared inch-thick layers of butter on the crusty rolls—For the calcium! Really!—and looked around the empty restaurant. Apparently, Peter and I were the only two people in Los Angeles uncool enough to be dining out at 5:30 P.M. I glumly counted off how many years it would be before we didn’t have to rely on a babysitter to go out for the evening. By then we’d be old enough to qualify for the early-bird special, and would still be eating dinner while it was light out.

  When I saw Peter’s vintage orange BMW 2002 pull up to the valet stand, I took the pregnancy test out of my purse and put in on his plate.

  He bounded up the stairs and gave me a kiss. “Date night!” he said happily, and squeezed me around the middle. I smiled despite my trepidation and squeezed him back. He plopped down in his seat and reached for his glass of water. The smile disappeared from his face when he glanced down at his plate.

  “Surprise,” I said softly, trying to smile. I couldn’t read the expression in his gray eyes. He didn’t speak.

  “Kind of a shock, huh?” I asked.

  He nodded slightly and gingerly picked up the pregnancy test. “On my plate?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You put it on my plate.” He handed it to me. “It’s, like, full of pee.”

  “Eew. Right. Sorry,” I said, and stuck the test back in my purse.

  “You’re going to save it?” he said.

  “I saved both of the others.”

  “Huh.”

  “What does that mean? Huh?”

  “Nothing. Just huh.”

  My eyes got hot and prickly, and I could tell I was about to cry. “So I take it this isn’t good news.”

  “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just . . . it’s just a surprise.” He rubbed at his jaw and exhaled loudly.

  “No kidding.” I tore off another hunk of roll and spread the butter with short, angry jerks of my knife.

  “It’s just that I kind of thought you had to have sex to get pregnant,” he said.

  I glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He smiled weakly. “Nothing, I mean, we’re not exactly doing it all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re obviously doing it enough.” I snatched up my menu and pretended to read it.

  “C’mon, sweetie,” he said.

  I ignored him and studied my menu. “What the hell is a cardoon? And why is it on every damn menu in the city?”

  “Juliet. Honey. Look at me.”

  I didn’t.

  Suddenly, he got up and walked around the table. He kneeled down next to my seat and took me into his arms. I stiffened, not yet ready to forgive him for feeling the same ambivalence I did. But after a moment, I leaned into his chest and buried my face in the folds of the old flannel shirt he hadn’t bothered to change out of. Then I started to cry.

  “Aren’t you happy?” he said. “I’m happy. Let’s be happy about this, okay?”

  “You are not happy,” I wailed. If there had been another living soul in the restaurant, they would have stared at me.

  Peter smoothed my hair out of my streaming eyes and kissed me. “I am. Really. It was just kind of a shock. But I’m happy. Definitely. Are you happy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, wiping my nose on his shoulder. “Didn’t you sleep in this shirt?”

  Peter and I agreed to wait until we were sure the pregnancy was going to stick before we told the kids. He tried to convince me that the secret should be kept from everyone else, too, but he knew that was a lost cause even as he made the argument. I’m just not constitutionally capable of keeping my mouth shut about something like that. I’m fully aware of the ludicrous irony of a private investigator who can’t keep a secret. But to give myself a little credit, I’ve never violated a client’s confidence. It’s really only the intimate details of my own life about which I’m embarrassingly indiscreet. My poor long-suffering husband found out about my little problem the hard way. We had been dating only a few weeks when Stacy came to New York on business. One of her clients was performing in a spectacularly bad play off Broadway (Models turned actresses should never, I mean never, attempt Strindberg. I think that’s actually a federal law, and if it’s not, it should be.), and Stacy had begged us to come to a performance. She took us out for dinner afterwards to thank us for being the only people in the theater who hadn’t rushed the exits at the intermission. Over dessert she congratulated Peter on his sexual prowess. I believe her exact words were, “Juliet says you’re the best lover she’s ever had
.” First he turned red, and then green, and then kicked me under the table.

  “Oh, honey,” Stacy had said to my blushing boyfriend, “get used to it. Juliet and I tell each other everything. And I mean, everything.”

  I think for a while Peter deluded himself into thinking that it was just Stacy, my best friend, who was privy to all my most intimate secrets, but when he came upon me comparing severity of menstrual cramps with a woman standing in front of me in line at the health food store (she introduced me to red raspberry leaf tea, a truly miraculous substance), he had finally to confront the ugly truth. I can’t keep my mouth shut. He knew before he even suggested the opposite that I was going to tell all my girlfriends, and my mother, that I was pregnant.

  “But what if you have a miscarriage? Are you really going to want to have to call everyone and tell them that you’re not pregnant after all?”

  “How long have you known me?” I asked my husband. “If I have a miscarriage, I’m going to be on the phone crying to every single one of my friends anyway. You can’t get emotional support unless you let people into your life.”

  He raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. “But not Ruby or Isaac, right?”

  “Of course not,” I said, and wondered exactly how long it was going to be before I slipped up and mentioned it in front of them. Wasn’t Ruby bound to ask why it was that I was spending so much time in the bathroom, throwing up?

  Seven

  THE next morning, Al and I met in the parking lot of Isaac’s preschool. We were heading almost two hours north of the city, to Ojai, and I was running late. When Al pulled up, I was still trying to wrestle my son’s shoes onto his feet.

  “Problem?” Al asked, jumping down from his truck.

  “No,” I said, gritting my teeth and shoving a squirming foot into a Hot Wheels sneaker.

  “Wrong foot, Juliet,” Al said.

  I shook my head and scowled at him. “I know that.” I crammed the foot into the shoe and tugged the Velcro strap tight.

  “It hurts!” bellowed my son.

  “Well, of course it hurts,” Al said. “It’s the wrong foot.”