Chloe smiled across the tabletop. The restaurant was closed and the tables were cleaned. She could go home in a few minutes, as soon as Hank came to get her. “What a colorful way to describe sex.”
“No! Wait,” Kit said. “Don’t tell me. I’ve got my pathetic suspicions, but that’s not the same as saying I really want them confirmed. Let me be innocent for another week and a half, okay?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Did you bring the picture?”
Chloe got up and took her purse from underneath the counter top, came back to the table and handed Kit a manila envelope. Inside was the picture of herself on the ancient pony—her only baby picture. It had come out of the safe deposit box this morning, along with her birth certificate, with her parents’ names and her actual date of birth blacked out as they had been all along. Even such minimal proof of her existence was necessary to apply for another drivers’ license. The old one had somehow disappeared in the Hughville bust, and though she knew her number by heart and the computer confirmed it, the DMV insisted on another form of ID. Hank’s lawyer wanted copies of everything, receipts for whatever she had to replace—ammunition. She sat down.
“That’s really you?” Kit marveled. “God, you’re so little. You look so sad. Do you remember any of it? Your mom? What she looked like or anything?”
“I know her first name. Belle. That’s all.” She ran a thumbnail across the photograph’s creases—fractures, she thought. Her childhood.
Kit waved her hands. “Hello? Chloe? Can we finish the interview now or are you going to stare out the window thinking about boning that professor some more?”
“It’s been a rough month. Staring feels like an accomplishment.”
“Any word on Hannah?”
“Nothing yet. We keep looking.”
Kit pointed her straw across the booth at Chloe. A single bead of Coke dripped onto the tabletop, and out of habit, Chloe blotted it into a napkin. “Tell me your life didn’t start to crank out of whack as soon as you met Mr. Geekface. Go on, convince me.”
Chloe sighed. She’d agreed to help Kit with her assignment for this semester’s elective, Journalism. Assignment: The Eyewitness Memoir. Interview a role model and outline her life objectively in a feature story. Don’t forget the five W’s and the all-important H. Hank was none of her business. Where in the hell did she find these W’s—Dr. Joyce Brothers? The paper was probably due tomorrow. Role model, my ass. Why the girl couldn’t have chosen her grandmother…but after a quick inventory of Kit’s immediate family, Chloe knew without question she was the most dependable female Kit had ever encountered, familial or otherwise, and that included the animal world. Yet aiding and abetting a seventh-grader in the delusion that hers was a life to aspire to was just plain wrong. She could feel Rich’s stony glare peering out from the kitchen. Probably he had spy equipment set up in the napkin dispensers and was only pretending to be cleaning. He hated cleaning, hence the small fires that broke out on the average of once a week, precipitating his rages. What was he doing back there?
Kit tapped her yellow pencil against her notebook paper. “So don’t even answer me. Like I give one-sixteenth of a monkey’s shit.”
“Monkey shit? What are we talking about?”
“Jeez! I hope you concentrate more when you’re with the horses, or you’ll get stomped.”
“Kit, lighten up. I’m tired. I have things on my mind.”
She blushed. “Sorry Okay, I already know about Orangewood and your foster parents. When you lived there did you make a bunch of close friends? And do you guys, like, keep in touch forever now, like sorority sisters or something?”
How to go back? Open that creaking door and the dark mouth of her past loomed out—no lamps for sale nearby. “Close friendship wasn’t encouraged, Kit. Kids came and went. Most left within a few months at the longest. I was an exception.”
“Really? Guy, that is rough. What about weekends? Did you go on field trips and to Disneyland and all that free stuff they give to poor kids? Was it totally embarrassing or fun?”
Chloe took a moment organizing her words. “You have to remember this was twenty years ago,” she said, softly. “It wasn’t popular to help the quote-unquote disadvantaged, not that it really is much today, either. Once a year the Kiwanis or the Elks did a circus thing for us. I got into it when I was young. But as I grew older, it was the same thing year after year, a bunch of drunks finding an excuse to ride miniature motorcycles around like fools. Relieving their collective guilt in one lump sum, that’s all. Sure, a few tattered elephants whipped into lifting a leg to amuse the kiddies, sick horses that should have been put down, not asked to rear up on cue, but kids are smarter than anyone gives them credit for; you know that. They see through nonsense. We did have a color TV, and that was kind of great, but all the best shows were on Saturdays and we weren’t allowed to watch then.” She made a face. “Saturdays. Never mind all that shit. Here and now’s what matters. Ask me what it’s like to be homeless and finally get yourself squared away only to have it ripped out from under. Ask me a horse question. Or how to soothe a customer when I’ve refilled his tea with coffee. That’s what my life’s about, not Orangewood.”
“What about these Saturdays?”
Chloe folded her arms across her chest. “Jesus, Kit. You could work for the IRS.”
“Come on, tell me, please? I just know this might be the one detail I need to make my story ultra-cool. Please?”
“You’ll probably get an F on this, and Rich will fry my ass up in the grease pit.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the kids don’t even do their homework. This’ll be an A paper, styling. I might even pass seventh grade.”
“You’d better pass seventh grade or I’ll take it personally.”
“Chill out. I will.” Kit poised her pencil. “Ready.”
“All right. Saturdays were a hot item thought up by some Simon Legree who never had to live through one. We couldn’t wait for Saturdays, because there was always a group of people who would come visit the home and think about adopting a kid. Like the Animal Shelter, in a way, checking out the puppies. So we were dressed up, told to smile, pushed into this whole competitive thing about who could be the most charming—you know, be the perfect child. They could take you home for the weekend and bring you back Sunday night, a trial run. Pancakes, your own bedroom, a shower without a guard and ten million girls looking to see if your breasts had started to grow. And there was always the possibility that if they liked you the situation might turn permanent.”
“So how many times did you go with someone like that? Were they rich and stuff? Did you get to go swimming in kidney-shaped pools?”
“I never liked the water much. Let’s just say I didn’t drown.”
Kit’s eyes widened. “No way! So you’re saying you didn’t ever get picked? Not once?”
“No.” A handful of dirty chain-link fence in her fingers. Shiny cars driving away to suburbs that rivaled any Disneyland adventure. Not that one. Not the skinny blond girl. Her hair’s too straight, that dress doesn’t fit right. Doesn’t she ever smile? “I wasn’t what you might call outstanding in the charm department. The whole ordeal kind of left a sour taste in my mouth. Pancakes!” She shuddered. “You know, to this day I can serve them up, but I can’t eat them.”
Kit dropped her straw in mid-suck. “That is just A-one fucked up, Chloe, and you have to admit that’s the only word that fits the circumstance.”
“Well, it’s a white man’s thinking. But don’t put that in your paper or your teacher will be on the phone to Rich in a heartbeat.”
“God, give me a tiny bit of credit, will you?”
“I do, Kit. Can’t help it. That stuff gets me riled up. It’s in the past where I like it. It’s not easy to go nosing around.”
“Did you ever go looking for Belle—your real mom?”
“No, I didn’t go looking for her. I don’t play the lottery, either.”
“Why not
?”
“’Cause it’s a misery business. What I am is here in my own two shoes, Katherine Wedler. Well, one shoe and a walking cast.”
“How much longer till you get it off?”
Chloe grimaced. “Would you believe a whole month more, thanks to Hank’s fancy-ass orthopedic doctor who says they set it wrong in the first place? I’ve already had it on a month! I should have got your dad to saw it off with his Makita.”
Kit pressed the ends of the straw between two fingers and smiled slyly. “So. You’ve been in our garage, too?”
Exasperated, Chloe reached across the table and took the girl’s chin into her hands and gave it a shake. “When I fixed the Jacuzzi filter, I needed a fucking screwdriver. Quit making my life out to be a soap opera, okay?”
“My, my. Such language.” Kit drew hearts in the margin of her notebook paper. “You really are in love with that weenie Hank, aren’t you?”
Chloe looked out the window at the steady stream of cars passing by, then closer in, where a bird was yanking sphagnum moss from a hanging fuchsia plant out front. Rich’s attempt at increasing curb appeal was a home-improvement bonanza for city birds in springtime. “It pains me to consider such an idea.”
“Then that means you are, or almost.”
Chloe took a moment to consider Kit’s words before responding. “When it comes to love I’m sure about two things—my good-for-nothing horse, and Hannah, wherever she may be. Those two shapes fit together, sort of like puzzle pieces inside my heart. Not much room otherwise. No geekface professors, no errant cowboys.”
“That’s all?”
“Go easy on me, Kit. Love’s expensive. Doesn’t have to mean that you’ll stop being my best friend.”
Over in the corner, Lita was counting out the day’s take into the bags for the bank. Chloe winked at her and Lita smiled back, her crooked half-grin born of seasoned motherhood.
“You shouldn’t kid about a thing like that.”
“Who said I was kidding?”
Kit balked. “But best friends tell each other the truth, goddammit. Best friends do right by each other.”
“Don’t I always make you wear your helmet when we’re riding?”
Rich brought out a tray bearing a cup of soup for each of them. “Here. Free samples.”
“What are these little floating things on the top?”
“For Christ’s sake, Kit. Just try it.”
“Dad. If I find out there’s squid in here, I’ll puke.”
He waved the spoons, then set them down. “I’d give a hundred bucks to the first person who can find me a woman who isn’t a smart-mouthed cynic. What we have here is soup. There’s chicken broth in it, and some goddamn shredded turkey breast and cracked peppercorns and sliced-up corn tortilla with fresh son-of-a-bitching cilantro. If you don’t want to try it, just say so.”
Lita came over and sat down with them. “Let me try it, Rich. I think it looks wonderful.” She smiled at him, then looked down at the soup, blushing. Rich twisted his frown back into his normal straight line. A smile wrestled beneath, hoping to come out, but he managed to contain it.
Kit said, “Eveybody’s always ragging on teenagers about responsibility, but it seems to me all you people over thirty seem to think about is fucking. Excuse me, I have to make some important phone calls.”
She slid out of the booth and marched to the pay phone.
“Where the hell did all that come from?” Rich asked. “Chloe, what are you filling her head with?”
Lita set her spoon down and pressed his hand. “Honey, if you don’t know, I really can’t think how to explain it to you.”
Chloe laughed out loud and smacked the table with her hand. All the little tortilla strips trembled in their broth.
Rich rubbed his chin. “All I know is one minute it’s Barbies and the next she’s a badge-carrying hormonal shrew. I suppose it’s time to start dropping Midol in with her vitamins.”
Chloe took a sip of the soup. “Good, but I think it could use a hair more spice. How about you throw in a couple jalapeños?”
Rich gathered the cups onto the tray. “Jalapeños. Jalapeños. Don’t start telling me how to cook, too, Little Miss Getting-It-Every-Night.” He lifted his tray and sped toward the kitchen.
Lita and Chloe looked at each other. Chloe said, “I told you this would be an interesting place to work.”
Lita smoothed an unfurling napkin and stuck it back into the dispenser’s chrome jaws. “I’ve been thinking I might want to sleep with our cook.”
“I wondered when you would recognize his unique form of courtship. You want some advice?”
“Anything. I’ve been celibate for six years, except for my dreams, and as promising as those are, they fade out into blackness at the important part.”
Chloe waved her hand. “Not to worry Lita. That part comes back to you pretty quick. But stay out of the Jacuzzi for awhile—just till you set down the ground rules, if you can. Something about those bubbles, I don’t know.”
“Oh?”
“It makes the next morning rather interesting. Sorry to say, I speak from experience, but that happened way back when, before I came to work for him. Probably he doesn’t even remember.”
“I doubt it,” Lita said. “He looks at you that way.”
“What way?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. Baffled, bewildered, utterly enraged that someone else has your attention.”
“Lita, he looks at every woman that way. He took a rough spill off Willie. Are you sure you want to climb on?”
“Kit’s a sweet girl, Chloe.”
“No argument there.”
“She needs a mom.”
“Well, Rich does, too. If you’re up to it, I wish you every last bit of luck available.”
Hank arrived fifteen minutes later. He walked in the back way now, familiar, nodded to Rich, who was slicing jalapeños on the cutting board and waved back with the knife, a wheel of bright green pepper stuck on the blade’s surface. He said hello to Kit, who didn’t say hello back. She bent closer to the phone, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece as if what she was up to were top secret and no one over the age of sixteen could possibly understand. Lita was always gracious to him. She smiled and held up the coffeepot, which Hank always politely declined.
Chloe sat in the booth counting her tips, taking in the little scene with all its various characters. We’re like a soap opera, she thought. Drama at every intersection. No wonder Kit’s so busy trying to fit us to one another. She tried to unravel what Kit had said—in love with him, or almost—was she? She was fond of Hank, that was the term, fond. The word fit right beneath his mustache and most nights her mouth fit right over his. His body on hers, his fingers inside her, his cock, his lapping tongue, sometimes it scared her that she couldn’t seem to get enough. But love? Love was the arched neck of Absalom, his quick canter below her at the minute press of her calf muscle; it was Hannah’s head resting on her knee, the two of them bonded without speaking the same language, in their shack in the canyon. Love did not have an IOU a mile long connected to it. Love was not awaiting a twice-postponed court date for assault, and dependent on somebody else’s tricky lawyer playing expensive games with the DA.
“It’s early,” he said, just standing there, looking at her. “You want to go somewhere or straight home?”
He never forced pancakes on her, though sometimes he pushed her into sex she wasn’t entirely ready for. There was a swimming pool in the condominium complex, not kidney-shaped, as was the vogue in the fifties, like every kid at Orangewood drew into pictures with stubby crayons on miles of rolled out butcher paper—Someday I’m going to have me one with a high dive and a slide and a Coke machine you don’t even need a quarter for—but one long, blue-tiled sensible, shallow rectangle for executing laps to harden the body. While Hank swam, Chloe sat in a webbed chair, her cast resting on the arm of another chair, her body wrapped in his towel. Overhead, the late afternoon sun gently warmed her
as it gained strength for the summer. She watched his pale arms slice easily through the water’s surface. His willowy butterfly stroke made her heart dance, his underwater turns, fluid as an otter’s, never failed to surprise and delight her. When he finished, he’d stand over her and shake his head like a dog, dousing her in a hundred cooling drops of water, then bend down to kiss each one away. It was comfortable there with him in his place, as comfortable as anywhere could be without Hannah and her own things, as long as she didn’t think about it too hard. “Home,” she said.
But they didn’t go straight home, they stopped in at the shelters between here and there as they often did, and were led back to the wire-and-cement kennels where dogs howled in primal fear. Hank brought along a giant box of Milk Bones for the occasion, and they doled them out one by one when the shelter attendants would allow. Despite their minimal rations, some of the dogs would no longer take them—they would go hungry rather than trust another outstretched human hand. She was starting to recognize them. Most were big dogs, shepherd mixes, clumsy Labs cut liberally, with terrier, producing that wiry, curly-tailed large mutt that no one wanted to adopt. They weren’t cute; they were rangy loose-jointed mongrels who needed a place to run, something to guard or protect—jobs, tasks, a reason for living, someone to live alongside. Occasionally they came across a purebred Great Dane or handsome Saint Bernard—money dogs, their muzzles screaming pedigree, careful breeding, show ring. Chloe sat down to pet them through the mesh and wished she could take them home. Sometimes they licked her hands with sorrowful dignity. Her hip joints ached for these animals who would never run free, never rejoin the hierarchy of herds humans had so successfully bred them out of recognizing. She could not allow herself the luxury of loving them. She sat in the car after these awkward missions, seething. Her lack of courage humiliated her as much as the dogs’ imprisonment, but the truth was, in the end none of them was Hannah.
Chloe stood at the sink doing the dinner dishes by hand. There was an automatic dishwasher Hank pointed out on a daily basis, but she never trusted it to clean the dishes properly. The feel of her hands in the sudsy water was too familiar a pleasure to forgo, especially since she was still limited to makeshift bathing. She stood at the sink naked, her body rosy from post-dinner fooling around, a panacea rapidly turning to habit following the shelter forays. They’d done it right there, leaning over the sink with the blinds pulled halfway down; I’m getting adventurous in my old age, Hank had said. You make me want to add one more location to my life list. Let me get a condom. No, she said, you won’t need one. She finished him off in her mouth, laughing when he had to grab the counter to keep his balance. She told him, Listen, if you keep on breathing like that you’re going to hyperventilate. He ran his thumb across her glistening lips, kissed her for the thrill of tasting himself, caught his breath, stammered, What have you done to me? Now he sprinted downstairs in his running shorts, bringing her a shirt.
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