Claudia hesitates, considering the impulse that has driven her here. Surely Luz already knows about Dolores’s foreclosure. And how exactly is Claudia planning to offer support? She should have just gone home with the beard, a far more clear-cut response to Esme’s challenge. The longer Claudia stands there, the more muddled her intentions become, until finally the line before her has cleared and it is too late to dart back off into the evening.
Claudia steps up to Mary’s register. Mary’s braid is tucked up into a hair net that she wears underneath an orange Chicken Kitchen baseball cap. She is sweating slightly, under the band of the cap. A painful-looking pimple punctuates the tip of her nose. Mary offers up her diastemic grin, looking far too young to be working at a fast-food restaurant on a Monday night, and then turns to the boy working next to her.
“This is my film teacher, Mrs. Munger,” Mary tells him, in a low voice.
The boy nods, uninterested, and turns back to his customer.
“Not anymore,” Claudia corrects Mary.
Mary leans over the register until it presses into the top of her polo shirt. My name is Maria! reads her name tag, and Claudia wonders whether the anglicized Mary is for the benefit of the girl’s Ennis Gates classmates, another sign of her striving, or whether the Maria was a mistake on the manager’s part. “You know, I thought it was great that you told Penelope to go”—Mary glances behind her at her manager and mouths the words fuck herself. “I bet there are a lot of people who wished they’d said it first.”
“It still wasn’t appropriate,” Claudia says, growing uncomfortable. There is no possible way Mary could ever learn about her own small role in the Penelope debacle, she reassures herself. But it is more difficult to look at Mary’s guileless face than she’d expected it to be.
“Mr. Wilson is teaching the class now,” Mary says. “It’s really tedious. He keeps making us watch Spaghetti Westerns. I mean, I appreciate that those films contributed to the revitalization of the genre, but they’re so racist.”
“The Mexicans are always the bad guys,” Claudia agrees, feeling somehow responsible for this affront.
Mary nods. “And they’re not even played by real Mexicans.”
“You know, I never had a chance to write you that UCLA recommendation,” Claudia offers. “I’ve got more free time now, if you still need it.”
Mary gingerly touches the pimple on the end of her nose and then pulls her hand away. “Thanks,” she says, “but it’s too late. I got someone else to do it.” There is no bitterness in this, no accusation, just a statement of fact, but this doesn’t make Claudia feel any better.
Norteño Christmas carols blast over the loudspeakers, the oom-pa of the accordion forcing cheer into the otherwise mundane proceedings of the chain restaurant. Oom-pa oom-pa oom-pa! The racket doesn’t make Claudia much want a chicken bucket; she can only imagine how the music would grate after an eight-hour shift. “How are you doing, Mary?” she asks, stalling.
Claudia is holding up the line. The manager wanders close, watching, and Mary lowers her head. “What can I get for you, ma’am?” she says loudly. Claudia looks up at the overhead menu, with its laminated pictures of suspiciously fake-looking chili-cheese fries, oozing shiny Day-Glo goo. “Crispy chicken sandwich,” she says.
“Would you like our manager’s special with that? Side of mashed potatoes, ninety-nine cents?” Mary’s face pinks over with embarrassment. Claudia understands her mortification, understands how separate this flame-grilled world is from Mary’s days at Ennis Gates, sees suddenly how hard Mary must work to maintain two simultaneous lives. This was a bad idea, she thinks. Awkward for both of us.
“You sold me.” Claudia smiles broadly to the hovering manager to reassure him that Mary is an exceptional saleswoman. The manager grunts and disappears into the back of the kitchen to scold the sweating teen managing the fryer.
“Sorry,” Mary whispers. “He’s kind of a fascist.”
“Why do you work here?” Claudia asks. “You should be working at a bookstore or a museum, something more intellectually challenging.”
Mary laughs, not happily. “Those jobs are all going to grad students these days,” she says. “But the pay here is really good, actually, and it’s easy work so I can focus more on my studies. Plus I’m writing a script; you know, based on my experiences here.” She steps away to collect Claudia’s meal and returns with a cardboard box. The sandwich nestled inside it has been sitting under a heat lamp for some time, and the crispy coating has ossified into a dried-out crust. Mary slides it over to her on a tray alongside a tub of glutinous mash. Claudia’s stomach turns.
“Can I get you anything else?” Mary asks, eyeing the line. “I’d love to talk, but—” She shrugs apologetically.
Overhead, tinsel Christmas presents twist in the draft. The dinner rush is gathering behind Claudia, impatient for their sixty-nine-cent drumsticks. “What’s happening to your grandmother?” Claudia asks quickly.
Mary stares at her, startled. “Mama Dolores? What do you mean?”
Already Claudia regrets having said anything. Under the fluorescent lights of the Chicken Kitchen it seems like a family matter that has nothing to do with her. Besides, Claudia doesn’t even like Dolores. Still, she perseveres, compelled by some force she doesn’t understand. “With her home?”
Behind Claudia, a man in carpenter’s overalls is clearing his throat to convey his dissatisfaction. Mary looks flustered. “She’s moving in with us,” she says. “I’m going to have to share my bedroom with her.”
The mental image that this news conjures up—the seventeen-year-old sharing a room with her smoking, wheezing, perpetually sour-faced grandmother—is unbearable. However hard it has already been for Mary, it is about to get a lot harder. “That’s awful,” she says, without thinking.
“I’ll survive.” Mary’s face tightens with cool determination.
For a brief moment, Claudia loses her breath. Instead of an insecure, hopelessly sincere sycophant, Claudia suddenly sees a focused teenager who plans to force her will on the world, despite the hurdles in her path. Don’t flatter yourself—Mary never really needed you, she realizes. Someday, she will probably do all the things you haven’t. The girl who stands before her, unconcernedly hawking chicken drumsticks as a matter of course—even using it as a “teachable moment” for a movie—would not be deterred by the setbacks that Claudia herself has suffered this year. Claudia is reminded of a younger, better version of herself, a Claudia she suddenly misses, a Claudia she only now realizes that she has lost.
“I’m sorry,” Claudia says. She isn’t sure whether she is apologizing for barging in on Mary’s world without an invitation, or for failing to take the time to get to know her, or for the unwritten recommendation, or for any of a number of unintended condescensions and personal failings.
Mary gazes at her with curious, mascara-fringed eyes. The pancake concealer she’s used to cover the acne on the end of her nose has caked into flakes of makeup that threaten to peel off. “Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault. It’s just the way things are.” She looks at the line and smiles at the next customer. “It was really nice to see you, Mrs. Munger. Thanks for visiting Chicken Kitchen.”
• • •
By the time she arrives home, darkness has fallen and the moon is rising over the hill. It stares baldly down at her through the eucalyptus trees. Claudia stands in her driveway for a long time, looking at the house across the street. Blue light flickers inside Dolores’s living room; she can almost make out the old woman parked on her couch, in front of the television set.
Her own house, when she goes inside, is freezing cold. It smells like fresh paint and lumber, like a place where no one has ever lived at all. Claudia flips on the new recessed overhead lighting and stands in the living room for a long time, without taking off her coat. In the kitchen, the freezer buzzes and rattles as the icemaker spits out fresh cubes. Claudia looks at the spot on the wall where Beautiful Boy once hung; the
square patch of unfaded paint has been completely erased by the contractor’s steady brushwork. Gone, too, are the cracks in the plaster from last summer’s earthquake, and the rough splinters in the floor that used to snag her tights, and the pervasive dripping sound. The house that once seemed cozy for two people now feels unbearably large for one.
For five months she has put so much energy into saving this house; and now that it is safely hers, she realizes, she no longer wants it.
Somewhere high up in the hills, the coyotes are howling; a dog answers, defending his territory. She wishes she could hear the sounds of human existence: a party nearby, or a neighbor’s music, even the sound of traffic. But all that has been consumed by the void of the canyon. For the first time in the three years that she’s lived up in Mount Washington, Claudia feels she is on an island far out at sea, cut off from the rest of civilization. She is truly alone. And she senses that it’s time to learn how to live with that.
You need to do something drastic.
She walks over to the silver catch-all dish on the table by the front door. She fishes through the junk stored there, pushing aside abandoned pennies and keys that open doors that no longer exist and old rubber bands before she finally locates Marcie Carson’s business card.
It is far too late to call: Marcie’s phone goes straight to voice mail. Claudia leaves a message, her voice echoing across shiny hardwood floors, newly installed bathroom tile, double-paned windows still covered with manufacturer’s stickers.
“Hi Marcie, this is Claudia, from Dolores Hernandez’s house yesterday,” she says. “Could you call me back as soon as possible, please? I’d like to put in an offer.”
Jeremy
THERE WAS A NAKED WOMAN SLEEPING IN HIS BED. JEREMY STOOD in the hotel suite, the key card in his hand, staring at the Teutonic blonde splayed across the mattress, draped in silk damask linens. A flaxen thatch of pubic hair peeked out from behind the sheet that was wedged between her legs. A green jewel winked from her belly button. One erect nipple pointed jauntily toward the ceiling; the other slid sideways on the woman’s chest to stare at Jeremy, alert to his presence in the room.
Even six floors up, he could hear the early afternoon traffic in the streets below, the screams of an ambulance, and the caterwaul of a busker harassing the tourists down on the piazza. The open balcony doors offered a view across the street to a department store housed in a seventeenth-century palazzo, its façade hung with Italian flags. Outside, it was threatening to rain again, but this hotel room was sweltering; moisture gathered in Jeremy’s armpits, trapped underneath two layers of fine Italian wool. The table lamp in the corner of the hotel room spotlit an empty jar of Nutella sitting on an abandoned lunch cart, alongside a ravaged basket of pastries, a congealing pitcher of milk, and two espresso cups ringed with violet lip prints. It was his third day in Rome, or maybe his fourth; he couldn’t remember anymore.
The woman stirred, opening one eye to assess Jeremy. “Ciao,” she said.
Jeremy removed his coat—a Pierre Powers original, still fresh from the designer’s showroom, like the rest of his wardrobe—and dropped it on one of the armchairs. He sat down, covertly scrutinizing the shadowy region below the woman’s pubic mound. “Where’s Aoki?” he asked.
The woman turned on her side, haphazardly tugging the sheet up over her body. It slid right back off, landing in a puddle below her breasts. “Who eez Aoki?” she asked, in an indeterminate accent.
“The Japanese woman,” Jeremy said. “The artist.”
The woman smiled, revealing crooked milk teeth, and rolled onto her back. “She wanted fromage. She went to Roscioli.”
A little shock of excitement shot through him—Aoki is finally back—as he unwound the scarf from around his neck. He folded the scarf in thirds with fumbling hands. “So, who are you, where are you from?” he asked, in a voice as colloquially neutral as he could muster. “Are you Italian? German?”
“I am Ulla.” The woman pulled a feather pillow toward her and hugged it, demurely, to her chest. “You like to take a sleep?”
“No, thank you,” Jeremy said, unsure if this was an invitation. He wondered whether Aoki had just seduced this woman, or whether she had invited a stranger to take a nap in their bed for more altruistic reasons. Perhaps Ulla was a prostitute, or a homeless person, or a famous European actress in need of a disco nap. Any of the above was possible with Aoki. That’s why life with her was so exciting, wasn’t it? It was astonishing how quickly he was adjusting to this, the strangers that drifted in and out of their hotel suites, pieds-à-terre, vacation villas. Two months in Europe, and he felt as if he’d been drunk for a decade—as if existence had become an endless, intoxicating whirlwind that kept him always slightly off balance and perpetually giddy, but without the wicked hangover in the morning.
They’d lasted only twenty-six days in Paris before Aoki packed them up and sent them on a cross-continental scavenger hunt, in pursuit of an elusive art dealer from Cannes they’d never located. Instead, they’d ended up at a black-tie gala at a London museum, where Aoki had been invited as the guest of honor but left early after she slapped Damien Hirst; then Berlin, to iron over some sort of conflict with Aoki’s gallerist there; and finally a ski resort in Moldavia for the Christmas holiday, where they connected with an alcoholic journalist from Vanity Fair who was writing a profile of Aoki. In order to recover from that, Aoki required a recuperative stay at the Positano villa of an Argentinian photographer she’d met the previous summer. It rained, and the two women argued about food and fascism and the meaning of the word obscene. They left Positano abruptly and landed here, in Rome, for no good reason whatsoever.
Jeremy hadn’t seen Aoki since they checked into the hotel on Tuesday evening. She vanished at the concierge desk, just as a bellboy wearing a little blue fez trundled their luggage away. “I have to meet an old friend for drinks,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss Jeremy. “I’ll be at this enoteca by Piazza Navona if you need me. We can have dinner later—there’s a place in the old Jewish ghetto I want to take you, run by this deaf old grandmama who makes the most pornographic fried artichokes.” And then she vanished back out into the night, leaving Jeremy standing alone on a flat field of marble in the chilly hotel lobby, where a pianist was mournfully playing a Liszt étude to an elderly couple swaddled in minks.
Aoki never returned. Jeremy went down to the Piazza Navona around midnight that night, thinking she might still be there with her friend, and quickly realized that there were about fifty wine bars in the three-block radius surrounding the square. Aoki was at none of them. When he woke up the next morning to see that her side of the bed was still made with crisp hospital corners, her Vuitton weekend bag still zipped closed, he realized he’d been abandoned. Temporarily? Permanently? Should it matter? It crossed his mind that she could have had a relapse and be passed out in a drug den somewhere, just like the old days. But she’d barely even touched a drink since they’d arrived in France; she instead seemed to be surfing some kind of ecstatic natural high. Really, knowing Aoki, she could be anywhere, doing absolutely anything.
The ensuing adrenaline rush kept him up all night. You are starting each day as a blank slate, he thought, not for the first time during this trip; No two days will ever be the same. That very unpredictability was why he’d come, wasn’t it? To escape the mundanity and tedium of domesticity? Maybe other guys would be upset that their lover had up and vanished with no explanation, leaving them alone in a foreign country, but not Jeremy: He was cut from different cloth.
Not that he was using this sudden independence to do anything particularly notable. Without Aoki as his social planner, Jeremy found himself settling into the role of your standard American tourist. He visited the Roman Forum during a lightning storm, eating a Magnum bar as he huddled underneath two-thousand-year-old colonnades. He took a four-hour tour of the Galleria Borghese, learning more about baroque sculpture than he ever cared to know. He threw all his spare change into the Trev
i Fountain, relinquishing five euros to have his picture taken with a guy in a gladiator costume who brandished a plastic sword over his head. He thought about giving the photograph to Aoki as a joke, before deciding that she wouldn’t see the humor in it. (You’re enabling the virulent spread of vulgarity, he could hear her say.) He threw it away instead. To avoid the unbearable desolation of a bottle of Chianti for one, he ate most meals in their hotel room while watching CNN on satellite cable.
Even after three nights without Aoki, he was able to maintain a nonchalant attitude about her absence. He knew she would come back eventually. Besides, wasn’t their mutual freedom the whole point of this reunion? He wasn’t beholden to her, nor was she to him. It was about passion, about adventure, about being young and wild and free. “A symbiosis of mutualistic reinvention”—that’s what Aoki had called it on that night in Moldavia when he got drunk and asked her what she thought was going on between them. He wasn’t quite sure what that nonsense really meant, but whatever it was, Aoki seemed to be thriving on it. There had been no crying episodes since the night on the airplane; instead, upon landing at Charles de Gaulle, Aoki had reverted back to her most compelling, animated self. In Paris, they flung themselves into a series of personality-studded cocktail parties, dinners that ended at three in the morning, VIP art openings, all part of a spinning social circle that never seemed to recycle the same people twice. Aoki spoke haphazard French these days, as well as select bits of three or four other languages, and just watching her work a room in her polyglot tongue—her dazzling persona a weapon that dared anyone to misunderstand her—was an aphrodisiac in its own right.
And then there was the art. During those few weeks in Paris, Aoki vanished into her studio for days at a time, returning back to her pied-à-terre with paint in her hair and a feral, consumed expression in her eyes. “I’m doing the best work I’ve ever done, and it’s because of you,” she told him, when she climbed into bed at four in the morning. “I’m doing a canvas that’s twenty feet long. It’s an allegory about art as sex and the importance of the masculine gaze. I painted you into it. You’re naked and masturbating.”
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