“Well, this isn’t that kind of mail. This is mostly junk mail.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Muriel.
I hung up and stared at the ceiling. “Believe me,” echoed the voice of the Unicorn, “there is only an approximation of bliss.” The darkness spiralled the way it used to when I was a little girl. Believe me, went the echo, believe me believe me believe me
I turned over on my side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Daylight Savings
Kevin avoided me after the “item” confession. Once I saw him getting into his car and another time he was rounding the corner. He was charitable enough to wave. A third time, Muriel and I had stopped in front of the post office to mail a letter. A silver sedan, its engine running, sat in a no-standing zone, blocking our access to the curbside mailboxes. Muriel snorted disgustedly. “Hogs! These people are hogs! Leslie, you’re going to have to get out of the car.” As I reached a leg to the asphalt, a figure in a pink polo shirt appeared at the silver car.
“It’s Kevin,” I said excitedly. “Muriel, that hog was Kevin!”
Kevin caught sight of us. I waved through the windshield. He came over to Muriel’s window. I pulled in my leg and leaned across Muriel.
“Kevin!” I said. “Hi! This is Muriel.”
“Hi, Muriel,” said Kevin. The horse and rider on his shirt were stitched in yellow.
“Muriel said you were a hog.” I laughed. I had to say it. It was terribly funny. Muriel glared at me.
Kevin looked confused.
“Because of where you parked your car,” I explained. “We didn’t know it was you.”
Kevin laughed. “Hog! Thanks a lot.”
“Sorry,” said Muriel. “I couldn’t get to the mailbox.”
Kevin looked over at his car. “I guess I was a little close,” he agreed.
“So what do you think of Kevin?” I asked Muriel as we drove off. We were on our way to the mountains to hike.
Muriel grunted. “First of all, why did you have to tell him I called him a hog?”
“Oh, come on, Muriel,” I said. “Lighten up. He is a hog, isn’t he? I mean, don’t you think he really is a hog?”
“Why would I think that?” demanded Muriel. “I never said he was a hog.”
“I know you never said it, but you think it. So I had to tell him.”
“Your sense of humor, Leslie, is something else,” said Muriel.
I laughed. “I wasn’t being funny. I was telling the truth.”
“The truth?” said Muriel, her voice pitched high. “What truth?”
I paused. “That to you, basically, men are hogs.”
I could tell Muriel did not know what to say. She drove in silence, her hands tight around the steering wheel. Muriel’s car was a slightly tired lemon-colored Mercedes that belonged to her mother. She could use it as much as she liked as long as she paid for the gas. She was a taken-care-of daughter. And she had been, at one time, a taken-care-of wife.
I thought for a while about Muriel and Jack. Jack was what Larry would have called a real nice guy. And Muriel had tumbled, like a towel down a laundry chute, for Jack’s nice-ness. Then, suddenly, Muriel had fallen out of love. She never said why. I wasn’t sure she knew herself. Muriel and Jack had a pair of Irish setters. As she became more and more unhappy, Muriel walked the dogs more and more miles on Huntington Beach. The rifts grew bigger. Muriel fell into a depression. She could find no way to get out of it. She got a divorce, left the setters, and came back home.
A year or so ago, I bought a paperback copy of Shogun at a drugstore. Don’t start by reading the last page, Muriel warned me. The last page doesn’t make sense without the rest of the book and the book doesn’t make sense without the last page.
The Mercedes took a left turn, passing a hill with a tall crucifix looming from its peak. I turned in my seat to watch the crucifix recede.
“Are you okay, Muriel?” I asked.
“Okay?” repeated Muriel. “Why not?”
“Because of what I said about men being hogs.”
Muriel let out an audible breath. “Leslie. I don’t care what you think about me and men. I want you to know, I like men. I really and truly do. It just happens to be that—at the moment—I’m not interested in pursuing them. I just want to be left alone.”
I thought about that. “Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to be left alone?”
“Because I just want to. I’m more concerned with my art right now, and other things. I don’t need a relationship with a guy.”
“But you’re not concerned with your art,” I argued. “If you were, you’d be looking for a studio. You’re just biding time. And what I want to know is why.”
Muriel drove with a kind of ferocity. “I am not biding time, Leslie! And I wish you’d stop having all these opinions about me!”
“I can’t help having opinions,” I said. “Besides, they’re not really opinions, they’re observations.”
“Well, then, stop having them!” snapped Muriel. “I’m fully grown, you know, and in charge of my own life. If I feel like looking for a studio, I will; if I feel like dating I will; if I feel like moving to Borneo and shaving my head, I will!”
“Yes, okay,” I said. I had done my job as alter ego. The Mercedes was climbing a mountain strewn with funny yellow boulders. I watched them roll by. “You will.”
The next time I saw Kevin was on garbage night, under the streetlamp. “Hey, Leslie, how’re you doing?” He dropped a bulging black plastic bag on the sidewalk.
“I’m doing great,” I answered, stepping back from the garbage. What was this hey Leslie business? Hay is for horses, my grandmother used to say.
“Been running?” he asked.
“Off and on,” I said. “I swim a lot these days.”
“Swimming. Huh. I’m a terrible swimmer. I’d like to learn sometime.”
“I’ll teach you, if you like,” I offered.
“Well, maybe,” he said. “I could do with some lessons.” He cleared his throat and brushed his hands off. “I think what I need is to do some reading. Read up on the sport, you know. Like how to do it right.”
“I have some books,” I said. “They’re actually not mine, they belong to a friend, but he’s not using them. I’ve had them for months. Would you like to look through them?”
He considered, glancing up at the foggy balloon of light cast by the streetlamp. “I don’t know. Am I ready for this?” He looked at me and laughed.
I shrugged. “Whatever you want to do.”
He laughed again. “What the hell. Maybe I’ll get motivated to start exercising again.”
“You want them?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not.”
I ran inside and got the books. They were the ones Paul had lent me for my butterfly. I had yet to open even one.
And that was all I saw of Kevin for the next couple of weeks.
True to her word, I heard from Cornelia. We met at the Carrot for dinner. I felt a little guilty. I had actually seen her a couple of nights before in the parking lot of Big Bear. The whole thing had been very strange. I was crossing between cars with my bags of groceries. I read a license plate idly—my usual game. I felt a shock of the familiar. 2EGR391. It was my old car. Two people were leaning against it, talking. They were Cornelia and Raul. I passed quickly, staying in the shadows. They did not see me.
“How’s everything going?” I asked carefully as our menus were taken away.
“Right now?” asked Cornelia. She thought about the question and shrugged. “I am trying to get this job with a photographer. As a stylist. He is a really great photographer. I have seen his work. But I don’t have this green card, so he cannot pay me. So I have to work for free.”
“And are you going to do that?” I asked.
“Ya. It will be great. I will have a great portfolio after a few months.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” I said.
“Ya, but this is not working,” sa
id Cornelia. She stared around the Carrot. “He is weert. He does not believe that I want to work for free.”
“Well,” I said, folding my paper napkin into a spear, “I guess in this country that would be a little hard to believe.” I looked up at her. “Did you tell him you don’t have a green card?”
“Sure.” Shoe-er. She shrugged again. “He still does not believe me that I don’t mind if I spend all these hours with him for free.”
“Maybe if you give him a couple of weeks he’ll come around. Keep asking him. He’ll realize you really want to work, not fool around.” I thought of what Hilda had said. Give it time. I’m sure you’ll have him in a week or two.
“Maybe.” Cornelia looked skeptical. The waitress brought us glasses of water. “Oh, I know now what I wanted to tell you,” she went on. “I saw this Raul, this guy you sold your car to. He was in the supermarket.”
“Really?” I decided to play dumb.
“Ya. He said he will take me flying. Next week or maybe even before.”
“Great,” I said.
“It’s good he is driving a car.” Cornelia leaned back against the vinyl padding of the booth. “At least he is not one more American man with a truck. All these men here are driving trucks.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I can’t imagine why.”
“You are not getting it?” Her eyebrows shot skyward. “These are the horses! For these men—” she said, leaning forward, “these trucks are horses. They all want to be again the cowboy.” She settled back against the seat.
I thought about that. It seemed much too simple. The waitress put down a carafe of wine.
“Are you still seeing Muriel?” Cornelia asked.
I looked at the soup bowls in front of us. This could be tricky. “Of course,” I said.
“And how is she?”
“Fine.” I wondered why I always had to do this tippytoes dance. “We went to the mountains for a hike,” I said.
“And how was it?”
I thought about the hike. Big clumps of snow had been melting on the trails. The sun was very warm and we had stripped to shorts and T-shirts. We had concentrated on footwork—sidestepping trickles of water and boggy patches of ground. “It was all right,” I said. “A little muddy.”
“And Kevin?” She stirred her soup. “How is this going with him?”
I let out a hesitant breath. I felt as though she were some kind of firing squad. “Who knows,” I said.
Cornelia gave me a long look over the rim of her wine glass. “You are not seeing him anymore?”
It was my turn to shrug. “I think he’s a bit afraid.”
“And why is he afraid?” Cornelia drained a healthy swig of wine.
I shook my head. If I were God, I would have all the answers. But I wasn’t. “Who knows,” I said.
The teakettle hissed gently with the heat underneath it. I stood at the window, drying my hands. The yard was quiet and pretty. New grass sprouted in tiny spears from the little section of lawn. I hung up the dishtowel and stepped out into the yard. Kevin’s head appeared on his side of the fence.
“Hi, Leslie,” he called. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” I nodded. Why was he so friendly? “I’m doing fine.”
“Aren’t you glad we’ve set the clocks ahead?” He gestured to the sky.
I nodded. I tugged my swimming towel from the clothesline.
“How’s work?” he asked.
I nodded again. “Fine. I might even take a day or two off.”
“Lucky you.”
I hitched the towel over my arm. “Well,” I said. “I’ve got to go inside.”
“I do, too,” he said. His face stared at me over the fence. I turned toward the house.
“Hey, Leslie.”
I turned around.
“When are we going to your favorite restaurant? You know, the Carrot.”
“I didn’t know we were going,” I said.
“Well, why don’t we go?” The pointed pickets of the fence chopped him off at the neck. I was looking at a live bust. “How’s Thursday for you?” said the bust.
“Fine,” I returned. “Thursday’s fine.”
“Good.” The live bust stared at me. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Weert, as Cornelia would say. This was all very weert. I couldn’t say I didn’t like it, but the way he had asked me was definitely a little weert. What was wrong with saying, Hey, Leslie … I don’t want us to be an item, but I’d like to go to the Carrot with you. I also hoped he wouldn’t be terrifically late, like the last time. If he was going to be an hour or two late, then the Carrot would close and we would be stuck sitting on the couch with the item business looming all over again.
As it turned out, I heard him cough at the door at about twenty past seven. I wondered if he really had to cough, or if he coughed to announce himself, or if he coughed just because he had to get ready to face me. I opened the door. He stood at an angle, as though he preferred not to face the doorway squarely. He had on nicely pressed clothes and his hands were in the pockets of his pants.
“Hi, Leslie,” he said.
“Hi, Kevin,” I said.
We drove to the Carrot. His car was all smooth and powered—the windows, the doors, the brakes, the steering. It hummed like a limousine. The Carrot, in rude contrast, bumped and banged our senses with its usual din.
He sat on the same side of the booth as me. I was surprised. He claimed it was because the stretch across the table was too broad and he didn’t want to shout at me. I moved over for him, and we ordered burritos with a scoop of avocado.
“No,” said the heavier of the two Carrot owners in answer to our order.
“No?” repeated Kevin. “Why not?”
“I’m not gonna hassle my cook.”
“I don’t get it,” said Kevin.
The Carrot owner shrugged. “Ve cannot change the vay it is on the menu.”
“Wow,” said Kevin. “A little extra avocado is hassling your cook?”
“Thass right,” said the Carrot owner, glancing briefly at the ceiling. “Vee don make substitutions. Notheenk deefrent. My cook dozen like to be hassle.”
“Can you bring us avocado on the side?” I tried.
“Fine,” he said stoutly. “I charge you van dollar extra.”
“Man,” said Kevin when he had gone away, “This is some restaurant.”
I shook my head. “He’s never been so temperamental.”
The burritos came with two small plates of avocado on the side. Kevin picked over his with a fork. I ate most of mine. I could have eaten it all, but I didn’t want to be a burrito monster. I left two inches of the burrito on the plate.
“Hey, Leslie,” said Kevin. “Can I put my head in your lap for an hour after this?”
“What?” I asked.
He grinned. “I thought it would be nice to put my head in your lap for a while.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I’m not,” said Kevin.
We sat in his living room after the Carrot. He turned on the TV, dimmed the light and lay down with his head in my lap.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Whatever you like. Do you want to change the channel? The remote’s on the table.”
Five minutes later he got up and said, “This isn’t too comfortable. Why don’t I open this up? It’s a futon.”
I stared at him. “Don’t you think that’s a little intimate?” I asked.
“Huh? No. It’s more comfortable, that’s all.”
I lay next to him while he slept on the pulled-out futon. The blue light of the TV flickered and the little voices in the set chattered in rapid accompaniment. Kevin snored very slightly. I propped my head up with my hand.
“What’s the matter?” he mumbled. “Are you going home?”
“No,” I said. I waited. “How long do we have to lie like this?”
“Just for a little while.” All was quiet. Then
again, very faintly, he snored.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Alligator
Cornelia was mad at Raul. They had gone flying, and it was all right, Cornelia had said, but there was something else going on, something that was very weert.
“This plane ride, it was not great, it was okay. He is a good pilot, better than Geoff, anyway, but I do not know what he is doing at home.”
“Home?” I repeated. She had called me fairly late one evening.
“He is living with this woman. He told me that he was going to pick me up at five in the morning so that we could also see the sun rise in this plane and he had to go to work at a normal time. He is doing this tile work, I don’t know if you know.”
“I know,” I said.
“Ya, so I was waiting at five and he did not come. So I called his house. At quarter to six. And I woke up this girl friend.” She said it again like two separate words. “And of course she is very mad.”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Well, I said, ‘My name is Cornelia and I was supposed to go flying with Raul. Is he there?’ And she said, no he is not. And I said, ‘Do you know if he is coming to take me flying?’ And she said, ‘I have no idea. I don’t even know who you are.’” Cornelia paused. “This is a great story, don’t you think?”
“I can’t believe it,” I sighed.
“And then I said, and maybe I should not have said this, ‘Where do you think he is right now?’ And she gets very angry and hangs up the phone.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Well, this Raul, this idjut, he comes over five minutes later. And when I opened the door, I said, ‘I think I just got you in big trouble.’ And he said, ‘Ya, you called my house.’ And I said, ya, you gave me the number. And he said, ‘Don’t ever do this again.’
“And I said, ‘Would you like to call your girl friend now to tell her that you are here and you are taking me flying? I will pay you for this flying, if you want.’ And he said, No. I don’t think I will call her.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said again. “So then what?”
“Ya, then we leave for the airport—well it is not really an airport, it is just this big, how you call it, field? But—” she continued emphatically, “He takes me, not in your car, but in this truck. And I said, ‘I thought you did not have a truck.’ And he said, ‘Ya, I have this truck for my work.’” She snorted. “Every man in California is driving a truck!”
The Shadow Man Page 21