Exposure

by James Lockhart Perry

  Sheri couldn't help herself, when she finally dug in her heels and deliberately, even spitefully, refused to pick up on the love and spirituality broadcast on her mother's favorite wavelength. She had reached the point where she would cook for Marta, wash her dishes and clothes, and pick up the litter of belongings that trailed along behind her, but refused to swallow her bullshit.

  "Look at the stars," Marta said that night with an expansive wave. "Aren't they beautiful? Aren't they real?"

  "Wow," Tom-Dick-Harry chimed in dutifully and sloshed a mouthful of Ripple across his face. Jerry Fan handed off the joint and strummed an off-key chord, then forgot the words and trailed off, disappointed.

  "That's real smart, Marta," Sheri responded as snottily as any teenager confronted with adult stupidity. "I never would have seen it."

  Marta sighed mightily and exhaled a cloud. "They tell you things, child. Can't you see? The fish, the virgin, the roaring lion, the big bull. They're called signs."

  "Signs," Tom-Dick-Harry dutifully echoed.

  "Look, the cute little twins."

  Marta had memorized and now pointed out all of the configurations. But at age eleven, Sheri already knew that the signs of the Zodiac couldn't all show up at the same time, that none of the star patterns looked anything like their names, and that her mother was full of shit.

  And of course, she said so.

  Asked to lend Marta space—not sent to her room—they didn't do things that way—Sheri returned to the house and climbed the stairs past a wearisome Frank Zappa screech and a blue cloud of smoke from the living room. She noticed three or four strangers in the group, but thought nothing of it. Unfortunately, someone must have neglected to explain the sleeping arrangements. An hour later, Sheri awoke, screaming and suffocating under a pair of bodies, with a huge penis in her chest and a woman's unshaved armpit across her nose. Apparently, the pair was too stoned to notice the tiny child, when they passed out on top of her in the middle of fellatio. The next morning at school, Sheri walked into the Principal's office and asked for Social Services.

  Lydia wasn't the first surrogate mother Sheri had latched onto, but for some reason—and Sheri had no idea what it was—she was turning into the most important. Sheri didn't do things that way. She didn't spout one cliché after another, or meaningfully squeeze hands, or any of it. She had accepted that her relationship with Lydia was headed for lopsided—look at everything the poor woman had to deal with—but Sheri was used to lopsided relationships. Sooner or later, she always had to face the basic question her mother had posed all those starry days and nights ago—how could anyone warm up to a stone-cold bitch like her daughter?

  But when Sheri called Lydia late that night, and the voice on the phone—presumably, Lydia's husband Sam—hesitated when she gave him her name, it bothered her. Apparently, Lydia hadn't even told him who she was.

  "Hi Lydia," she said a minute later, putting aside the thought. "Have you seen Rudy?"

  "No, of course not. Why would I have seen him?"

  "I don't know. You left after me—"

  "He's not at work?"

  That was an odd choice of words. Lydia nearly always referred to it as the studio. And was she being just a little short?

  Of course, she was, Sheri realized. Lydia hadn't even told Sam that she was working with them. But why? Because she was embarrassed? And here Sheri thought she had connected with the woman.

  Sheri sucked up her disappointment. She would worry over that one later, once she figured out what was going on with Rudy. "Yeah, but he never stays gone this long. Not since we got into the photography thing. It's been dark out for two hours already. I tried Malloy's too. Mac hasn't seen him in a week."

  "Well call me if he doesn't come home, but I wouldn't start worrying just yet."

  "I suppose. Thanks." Sheri started to hang up, but Lydia's voice hushed and stopped her. "Excuse me?" Sheri asked.

  "I said I didn't think you have to worry about your man. He'll always come home."

  "Why would you say that? No, of course. I'm not worried." Sheri put more steel into it than she intended. They hung up silently, Sheri wondering if she was the only one wondering.

  Rudy. Oh my God. If she bit her tongue every time she regretted her words, she would be left with nothing but a stub in the back of her mouth. But she couldn't help it. Words burst out of her like salvos of uncontrollable rockets. They always had. She just had to face it. It was only a matter of time before Rudy figured out what people had been telling her since her childhood role as the spoiler in Marta's free love fantasy. Sheri had no feelings at all. She was a stone. She was nothing.

  Sheri blinked. She didn't normally get this way without a drink or a joint, and she couldn't remember when either of those had last happened. What was it?

  Her cell phone rang. Thank God! "Rudy! Where the hell are you?"

  Rudy's voice took a second to respond. "I'm up in Marina."

  "Marina del Rey? What—"

  "My car was stolen."

  "Where? When?"

  "This morning. I haven't decided where yet."

  "What does that mean? What are you talking about?"

  "I need you to shut up and do something for me. You don't want to do it, fine, I don't give a—"

  "Shut up, Rudy. What do you need?"

  "Meet me at the studio. I'll be there in an hour. Go into Sam's old records. On his computer? There's a folder called Mischa, something like that. A bunch of invoices for a boat slip in King Harbor."

  "What are you—"

  "Sheri, for once just shut up and stop trying to control everything. You have no fucking idea."

  "Should I report the car?"

  "See what I mean? Why would you assume I didn't think of that?"

  "No! I—"

  "Listen to me! I know you think I'm a fucking kid just because I'm twelve years younger than you."

  "Who says!"

  "Sheri..." She heard the sigh. "You think you're such a puzzle. Just go get the boat slip number."

  Rudy started to hang up. "Wait!" Sheri cried. "If your car's gone, how are you getting here?"

  Sheri heard another long sigh then much more quietly, "I borrowed one."

  "Rudy! You promised!"

  "Yeah well, whatever. The keys were in the ignition, and it's lo-jacked. I'll leave a hundred on the seat for the taxi to come pick it up."

  For once Sheri's lip stayed bitten. She could tell this wasn't the time. "Anyways, it's F-eighteen," she said.

  "What is?"

  "The slip number. We were dividing up the bills yesterday while you were gone. The boat's called a Morgan or something."

  "Fine, then just meet me at the dock. I'll be there in an hour."

  Sheri locked up and set off on foot along the Strand south to Redondo. She had moved back here all of ten years ago, seven years before Rudy talked her into the unimaginable leap of letting him move in with her. On her right, the dark sea of sand stretched to where the Pacific took over and arced around the earth's curvature to Japan. On her left, a beach house exploded with a Sunday-night party that reduced all of life's complexities to a choice of shot, draft, or cocktail. Sheri tiptoed along the border between unimaginable and meaningless. It was a treacherous, delicate balancing act, just this side of sanity.

  At the border between Hermosa and Redondo, Sheri paused to gaze up the hill away from the ocean. Maybe fifteen blocks away on the crest, sat the silhouette of an ugly, squared-off, non-descript building that housed a nursing home for the indigent. When Sheri returned to Southern California ten years ago, she had gone looking for Marta and found her starving to a homeless crazy's death in a burned-out VW under the Harbor Freeway. Sheri cleaned up and brought her mother to the home, made all of the arrangements, even cajoled the staff into giving her the top room on the left. "So I can keep track," she told them.

  From the Strand now, she could just make out the faint yellow of the bedside light Marta needed to drift off to sleep. Sheri had gazed up at that
light every night for the last ten years, but not once even thought about venturing any closer. She couldn't help it. It was the way she was. You got all of the chances in the world, but when Sheri Ballin was done, she was done.

  Chapter 17

  Judging by their condition, Rudy guessed that most of the boats in the marina had forgot what their owners looked like. Salt-encrusted, paint fading, lines left dangling, sails poorly stowed in the rush to the Portofino for after-cruise cocktails. Just another reason to despise all those rich motherfuckers. Rudy hiked the four heavy plastic sacks down the gangway and along to the F slips. He hadn't seen Mischa's boat in years. He just hoped it was in better condition than some of its neighbors.

  "Where you been?" Sheri asked through the gloom. "I've been waiting here two hours already." She was shivering in the center cockpit between the two masts.

  "Here, store these below," he said, ignoring her.

  "Below what?"

  Rudy took the key he had found at the studio and handed it across to her. "Open up and start putting everything inside. I'll be right back."

  Sheri started to protest, but he ignored her. Knowing Sheri, if he answered the first question, they would spend the next hour with one follow-up after another until she decided she had enough information to supervise. Three more trips to the car brought four of the large green plastic sacks and armloads of supplies and provisions. By the time Rudy drove out, left the stolen car out on Catalina Avenue, and sprinted back, it was long past midnight.

  Sheri still stood in the cockpit, surrounded by the untouched bags. Rudy started to say something, but thought better of it. At least she hadn't run away. He cast off the lines, climbed aboard, and started the motors. The diesels surprised him by kicking in immediately and settling into a long, contented purr.

  Rudy had wondered if Sam had bothered to maintain the ketch. He was no expert, but five years was a long time for a boat to sit there, even one as painstakingly rebuilt as this one. Rudy had spent many a weekend hanging around and helping his uncles, so he had a pretty good idea how things worked—a hell of a lot better than he did of the photography business—but it had been a while. He would have preferred to nose around before they took off, but the stolen car three blocks away pretty much killed that idea.

  "You're just gonna take Sam's boat?" Sheri asked, aghast.

  Rudy gave her the look, but it was too dark to do much good. He watched behind him as he backed out of the slip. "Actually, I think it belongs to me, technically anyway. Sam kept up the slip fees and registration, but he never transferred the title. My uncles died without kids, so that leaves me in there somewhere."

  Sheri looked like she was measuring the standing-long-jump distance back to the dock. "But since when do you know anything about boats?"

  "Get a grip, Sheri. I spent more time on this thing than anybody, besides Donny and Mischa. I might not know shit about taking pictures, but I'm a fucking expert sailor compared to most of the suckers who dock here." And it was true. Donny had sailed boats his whole life and could be a brutal teacher when he wanted. Rudy probably still carried a leftover bruise or two.

  As if to prove the point, Rudy lit the red, green, and white running lights, eased and reversed the throttle, and turned over the helm to smoothly maneuver around and out of the tightly cramped slipway. He notched the throttle forward and headed for the harbor entrance and the breakwater.

  "Are you gonna put that stuff away or not?" he asked.

  Sheri climbed reluctantly through the open hatchway, reached back for a garbage sack, and stopped. "How do I turn on the lights in here?"

  "It's called a switch. Up or down? Next to the hatch."

  "You are going to explain to me what's going on, smartass," she warned him. She found the lights and glanced in the first bag. "Rudy! These are my clothes and stuff! What are you doing?"

  "I stopped by the apartment and the studio for a few things. And the grocery store."

  Rudy didn't want Sheri dissecting his brilliant plan when he had yet to come up with one. He was playing this thing by ear. It had started out with a night or two hiding aboard in the harbor, but the longer Rudy thought about it, the farther out there the idea mushroomed.

  "Where are you—"

  "Sheri, please! I'm concentrating! Can you at least wait until I get us out of here?"

  The boat crested the tidal swell at the harbor entrance and headed out to sea. The massive Palos Verdes mountain to the south killed the breeze this time of night, so there was no point in putting up a sail. And in any case, Rudy just wanted to get away. His general thought was to cross to the other side of the shipping channel and set a course southward around the outer shore of Catalina Island. He had done it before and knew the way.

  "It looks like a trailer in here," Sheri said from down in the hold. "They even got a shower and a little kitchen."

  "That's called the head and galley. How bad's the galley anyway?"

  "Nothing in it, sailor boy, but it looks clean enough. You want me to find your cute little white hat?"

  Rudy laughed—the sarcasm was a better sign than he had expected. He leaned down and glanced inside. At least Sam hadn't let the boat go to rot. Sheri was carefully arranging the groceries where the first wave they hit would spill them all over the cabin.

  Rudy went through the checks he should have run when they first came aboard. The gas and water tanks were full, the radio and compass looked good. He held down a switch, and the automatic furler let out the mainsail halfway. He checked as many of the lines as he could reach from the cockpit, taking his time, going over everything, reveling in the sense of competence, knowing that sooner or later, he would have to face up to how perfectly he had fucked things up.

  Rudy had left his car in a long-term Park-And-Ride near Santa Monica airport, the back fender punched in, but no blood he could find. The more he thought about it, the less likely that the cops in Santa Monica would associate a major fender bender with a vehicular homicide in Inglewood. It didn't work that way.

  And he had no idea if he had killed the sonofabitch. The blow would have finished off a normal-sized human being, but that massive drug dealer counted for two or three bodies. Truth was, Rudy wasn't exactly dying of remorse for running over a scumbag who sucked money out of addicting children and was reaching for his gun anyway. But if the monster survived—or if the rest of his crew added two and two and remembered the pair of ten-year-olds who left just before the collision—there was a possibility Rudy had sincerely fucked with the wrong people.

  What really bothered Rudy—what had led to the hours of aimless cruising up and down the streets of the west side—was the sense that he had proved yet again what a worthless out-of-control fuck-up he was. It wasn't like he deliberately ran over the dealer on some righteous crusade against drugs. It wasn't like he drove his car through the building windows, guns ablaze, mowing down scumbags and smashing their business to smithereens. All he did was lose control and fall off the deep end into his usual pile of shit. Stupid as it might sound now, he really thought he had left all that behind him. Some chance. Vera's big mistake rides again.

  "Hey, can you hand me my coat?" he asked through the hatch. "I'm freezing my balls off up here."

  Sheri took a long time to empty the bags. If Rudy had to guess, he was pretty sure she had never set foot on an ocean-going cruiser before. The boat took the grand Pacific swells in its stride. Even so, most people would be throwing up over the sides by now, not rolling with it below decks and getting anything done.

  The old pea coat Mischa had given Rudy appeared at the hatch, and he put it on. Behind it came two steaming plastic mugs of coffee. That really surprised him. He had never seen anything go this easy with Sheri. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that, for once, he looked like he knew what he was doing. He slipped the mugs into the holders and leaned over to ease out the main.

  When Sheri appeared, she had changed into what she apparently took for sailor garb. She looked good for a bun
dled up balloon of a ski bunny with a hat pulled squarely down over her hair. At least she was making an effort. She climbed out to the cockpit, found her coffee, raised it to her lips—and let it crash to the deck.

  "Oh my God, Rudy! Oh my God! We're gonna die!"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Rudy!" she screamed. "Where's the land?"

  Rudy couldn't help it. He laughed his ass off, not at Sheri, but at a memory of his. A million years earlier, he had reacted with the same terror when Donny finally gave in and let Mischa bring him along for a sail. Only that afternoon, they had run almost immediately into a minor squall, with five-foot swells and six-foot waves on top of them. And Rudy, bullshit artist that he was, had embarrassed the shit out of himself by converting all that fear into bravado.

  Rudy still vividly recalled the sight of Donny at the helm, taking the waves head on, the sails tight, the bow smashing into the walls of water and lifting half of the fucking ocean to come crashing down on their heads. Scared out of his wits, Rudy watched the impassive Donny steering and the lazy Mischa lolling around on the deck, and provoked himself into climbing onto the gunwale and shouting, "Fuck you God! You got nothing on—"

  Immediately Donny executed an expert tack to port and, just to make sure, planted a boot in Rudy's tottering back to send him flying out of the boat. Even as the grinning Mischa tossed Rudy a life ring, Donny's voice thundered out to the heavens and echoed back again with all the fury of a wild-eyed Texas preacher. "Motherfucker! Do not ever—ever!—fuck with the Lord in my boat! You hear me? Never!"

  In the twenty minutes it took Mischa to talk Donny into coming back for him, the flailing Rudy passed through some of the worst physical terror of his callow young life. Later, as his uncle helped him out of his clothes and wrapped a blanket around his pink and blue shoulders, Rudy stopped the chattering of his teeth just long enough to whisper, "Jesus, I didn't know he was such a fucking Christian."

  Mischa laughed like he always did, gently, with no hint of disdain. "Donny's from Corpus and that makes him a Texan, but I'm pretty sure it's not a matter of Sunday school."