Back to Life (14 page)

“Your California law is the reason I’m stuck here in the first place!”

“Calm down. Henry, check her blood pressure again.” I sit and wait while he cuffs me again, and it doesn’t take a test to tell me my blood pressure is, indeed, through the roof. “You sent my son down there with that woman!” I squeal. “Sure I have high blood pressure!”

“Your son’s a lucky man. Can I trade places with him?” The blue-eyed wonder asks.

Henry whistles long and high. “She’s a beauty.”

“Ah, beauty.” I open my arms. “You see what happens? It happens to the best of us. Better make sure you find more than a pretty face, know what I’m saying?”

“You’re a beautiful woman,” the handsome one says. “You have that flirtatious look. You flirt a lot when you were younger?”

“Was I supposed to stop when I got older? Someone forgot to tell me the rules.”

The men finish their work, and I reach for the telephone. I dial the number at home to tell Davis that I want him there when I return, but a strange woman’s voice answers. “
Hola
.”

“Who is this?
¿Quién es este?
” I demand.

She hangs up the phone, so I dial again. There’s no answer. My world is crashing in around me, and I’m stuck watching my son make eyes at my ex-husband’s trophy wife.
If You’re up there, God, this is definitely not the way I want to go!

Lindsay

S
he likes you, you know,” Ronnie says as we get into my BMW.

My car is old by L.A. standards—a 2006—but it doesn’t show its age, and I’m attached to it. I get like that. Too attached to objects that represent times in my life, coupled with an extreme inability to let go. I could barely stand to watch Haley leave the condo. I can’t bring myself to sell the condo, and now, there’s Jane. Even though she doesn’t like me, she likes me as much as she’s able, and the last thing I want is for her to leave before this will is finished or she’s feeling better. Though everything about her appearance and demeanor may deny it, she is not a spring chicken.

Ron goes on. “If she didn’t like you, you’d know it. She’s very obvious about such things.”

I smile back at him. I know it’s true. The fact that he’s in my car right now tells me his mother likes me as much as she’s able to.
Either that, or she’s met Kipling and isn’t overly fond of her. The idea of my husband’s stepson is even less palatable to me than her, so I don’t know what she’s worried about.

When Jane kicked us out to go to the mansion—together—I held my shoulders back, feeling confident she’d accepted the fact that I was not after her son. It was a sign of acceptance, weak-willed as it may have been. Though it could have been the drugs the EMTs gave her or Bette’s soothing words. Either way, it feels good to escape the condo and drive into the crisp, clear evening of an early, cold spring.

“Sometimes I think your mother endures me, and I’m good with that.”

“My mother does not
endure
anything she does not like. Trust me on this. She picks on those she likes. She doesn’t bother with people she doesn’t like.” I look over at Ron, realizing for the first time his charming, boyish good looks—the misty, green eyes under a crop of light brown hair, highlighted with natural streaks of blond. He has that California surfer look—everything about his body is in perfect order, topped by a head of hair in complete disarray.

“You must have really stood out in Mexico. How come you didn’t stay?”

“It’s hard. I want to fix everything, give the kids everything I have. Here, I can do that without being ineffective. I tend to be a sucker. Have it written on my forehead.”

“I can relate.”

“People sense the suckers. Have you noticed? There can be four hundred people on the street, and a kid in holey clothes and bare feet will find me to ask for money. He just knows. I have a beacon.”

“Well, you look like a hero. There’s something about a six-foot-four guy with muscles. Your presence makes people want to believe you can do anything. Like Superman.”
I did
not
just say that.

“Is that so?”

“Your mother told me how tall you were. I didn’t measure or anything.” I wish I could find my way back to the moment before we started this conversation. I now feel very schoolgirlish and ridiculous.

He holds up his hand. “You don’t have to explain. It’s not the gringo looks, though. It’s the same way here in California. I am a sucker. People sense it.”

“That’s why your mother is so protective of you, I’ll bet.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, she’s worried about the girl you’re dating.” She’s more worried about me, but I don’t make mention of that. “You’re going to be inheriting a lot of money. All the same things Ron’s friends probably warned him about with me.” I shrug.

“Anyone who would marry me for money wouldn’t get much. ”

“Why not? This house is worth a fortune. Even if you give a significant amount away, you’ll be left with money,” I tell him. “Wait until you see its location and how beautiful it is.”

“It’s a house. You feel attached to it. To me, it’s just a house that will help attain my goal. Once that’s done, I’ll be poor again. Rich by Mexican standards, but poor by California standards, any way you look at it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I work with kids on the south side. I send extra money back to Mexico for my friends running the schools there. I don’t need much to survive. Any woman I’m with will have to accept that. Doesn’t make me much of a catch, does it? At least not in L.A., where people spend more dressing their dogs than caring for the poor. This house is going to purchase a new wing for that schoolhouse.”

“It could build several schoolhouses,” I tell him.

“I know,” Ronnie admits. “But that overwhelms me, so I have to start small and build from there.”

“Hamilton will help you with any of this, you know. Managing this kind of money can be a full-time job. It’s not as much fun spending it as you might think.”

He looks over at me questioningly.

“Ron never relaxed very well. He was a wonderful husband but having that kind of fiscal responsibility makes it hard to just pack up and go. Not to mention all the other accounts he managed.”

“That is not the life for me at all. So if that makes me a catch, any girl will be sorely disappointed when she realized I gave it away to be rid of the responsibility.”

I laugh. “It will make you the right catch for the right woman,” I offer. “Do you think this woman you’re seeing needs much to survive? Mowgli?”

“Kipling!” He corrects. “Did my mother tell you to say that?”

“No, we just have the same sick sense of humor, I suppose. Mowgli gives me such an image, and she doesn’t suit you at all.” I’m smiling as I drive through a green light. I can see his eyes upon me, and I’m embarrassed to admit, there is a distinct chemistry between us. So I do my very best to ignore any connection.

“Kipling spends a lot of money on purses.”

“All women spend money on handbags.” I look over at him. “Unless there’s something physically wrong with them, I believe it’s genetic. Even my friend Haley spends money on handbags, and she’s as cheap as a indie producer.”

“All right. I won’t hold that against her.”

“Shoes don’t count either.”

“Anything else?”

“Getting her hair done. No one wants bad hair. That comes at a price.”

“Purses, shoes, hair. I’m beginning to think I would be better off with a dog.” He laughs.

“You can’t leave a dog to run off to Mexico. You’d have to spend money to leave the dog in the kennel.”

“All right. I give up. Is that what you want from me? I am too low maintenance for human consumption.”

I laugh out loud at his comment. “Would she move to Mexico with you, if you went back?”

He looks at me and smiles. “I’m not going back. Not permanently. Unlike my mother, I can’t shut my heart down like it’s a machine.”

“I told you, you’re preaching to the choir. I’m a sucker, too!” For some reason, I bond to this admission, and it makes me see him in an entirely different light.

“Did you love my father?”

It’s such a pointed question, and I admire him for asking. He’s much more like Jane than I thought. “I did love Ron. There was a lot about him to love.” We come to a red light, and I take a good gander. Ronnie has a Matthew McConaughey charm without knowing he possesses such charisma. He really does have a lot of Ron’s characteristics, but he’s entirely individual to himself, and that’s what I can’t help but find attractive. This admission, even to myself, sends a surge of guilt through me. “Ron was a very lovable man. He accepted people for who they were. Warts and all. Those people are hard to find here in the plastic surgery capital of the world.”

“Says the five-ten blonde.”

His comment stuns me, and I stare at him. “That was rude. You don’t strike me as the rude sort.” The light has turned green, and there’s a BMW honking hard behind me, but I’m waiting for my apology.

“Was it rude? I hadn’t meant it that way. It was supposed to be a compliment, but Cary Grant I’m not.”

“He had his words written for him, so I suppose that’s all right.” I grin toward him, and I feel the power in his smile back at me. It warms me inside.

“But seriously, Lindsay, you are so striking. It’s hard for a guy to see past that. I didn’t know Ron like you did. In a way, that ticks me off, so maybe some of that is coming out in inappropriate comments. I mean, I think you have a great heart, but it is wrapped in a pretty nice package and I am male. Moaning about things that aren’t meant to be is a solid waste of time.”

“You’re right, but pain in life shapes you. It molds you in ways you don’t want to be molded.”

“Only if you let it. We give others too much power over our thoughts, don’t you think?” I should take my own advice, but it’s so much easier to see your problems in others, it just warrants a sermon—but then, you feel completely hopeless after giving it, because it would be so simple, if only I heard myself. “I hope your mother is going to be okay with Bette tonight. Maybe we should have stayed home. I’m feeling guilty.” See? I can’t even get past the thought of a sermon, without a healthy portion of guilt.

“She wouldn’t have let us do anything. Trust me, the faster this place is gone, the faster she can go home. That’s what she wants. To be back in her world where she can escape at random.”

“Did she do that when you were growing up?”

“Believe it or not, she was the consummate stay-at-home mom when I was growing up. She baked cookies, she let the neighborhood kids in, she fed half of them dinner since she knew they wouldn’t get it when they went home. Surprise you?”

“Not really. I saw a lot of that in her when she first came, but the longer she was caged up here, the more I saw the other side of her. Bette will straighten her out.”

Ron laughs.

“No, really. She will. She has this presence of the Holy Spirit in her that one can feel emanate from her. She can seriously smack you upside the head so softly, you never know you’ve been hit. I’ve only heard her say one mean thing in my life, and I probably deserved it.”

“I doubt that. She sounds like the perfect woman to be there. So let’s not worry about her. If there’s one thing I know about my mother, she’s tough enough to withstand the whirlwind that is L.A.”

The house is as beautiful as ever, and when I drive up to the courtyard driveway, I can’t believe I ever lived here. It’s still magical. Undeniably the most beautiful house near the Palisades Village, with some of the best canyon views in the area. “I’m so excited for you to see the house.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s so much of Ron in it. So much of me here. I’m anxious to show you all I did, I guess. I’m proud of it.” Naturally, I think of his mother making fun of my “mermaid” house, but this place is different. It’s understated, traditional, and beautifully furnished. “It’s everything you’d expect of a good, trophy wife.”

He glances at me to see if there’s a joke involved, but I don’t offer the hint of a smile. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t stay here if you love it so much.”

“When Ron went back to drinking, I was devastated. When he returned to me, I wanted him to know it wasn’t the house that brought me back. We spent the last year in my little condo after Haley moved out. I would have lived in a shack with him. You’ll find out when you have everything stripped from you and all you have left is each other—you either sink or swim. Money can really do more to tear apart a relationship than bring it closer. I suppose I learned that the hard way.”

“He was so much older than you. How did you two find anything to talk about?”

“We just did. I was raised around my mother’s friends, so I was probably much older than my years.” As we pull up to the house, I watch him scan the vines growing up alongside the three-car garage, and his eyes widen. “I didn’t start out with the best of intentions with Ron.”

“I’ve heard.”

“But I fell in love with him. He was such a light and so warm, it was impossible not to. The age, I never noticed. I’m like that. You know how people will say, ‘Oh, you’ve lost weight’ to someone? I never, ever notice things like that because I see the inside of the person. Okay, with the one exception being my best friend Haley. She thinks it’s her life duty to sparkle.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“She likes to wear rhinestones and sequins, animal prints—you know what I’m saying. It’s hard for me to see past that. I have this innate need to tone her down.”

He looks at me like I am a rambling idiot. “I can’t believe this house is just sitting here unoccupied.”

“I know, it’s a shame. The schools are excellent here. This will be a fabulous house for some lucky family.”

“Do you want children, Lindsay?”

“I have myself to worry about now. I made a mess of things, why pass it on? Ron didn’t want children and I didn’t, either. I never thought I’d make a great mother, I guess.”

“Everyone makes a mess of things, but that doesn’t stop them from becoming parents.”

“I suppose I should have told you.”

“Told me?”

“I have perfectionist tendencies.”

“There’s no perfect parent, trust me. I see them all in the schools.”

“Your mother would do anything for you. My mother sort of blamed me for everything.”

“My mother spends too much time pondering life and not enough with people.”

“I thought her house was a fiesta house!”

“Oh, it is. But having a party and sharing yourself can be two different things.”

I push the gate code, and we arrive into the private Mediterranean courtyard. I watch Ronnie as he spies the canyon view for the first time. “Wow, this place is—”

“I know, huh?”

We climb out of the car, and the gate closes behind us. I can see a thousand reasons to spend the rest of my life in this house. Its walled-off perfection from the bustle below and its European charm makes me feel as though I’ve been transported to a private, Spanish island. There’s just something about being here that makes me feel alive. I close my eyes and let the remaining sunlight fall onto my face.

We walk behind the iron gate to the tiled courtyard, which is centered around a lovely fountain. I flip a switch and the water bubbles serenely into the pool at its base. “All of that along the staircase is hand-painted Italian tile. I picked it out online when I felt something was missing here.” I pull him over to the studio at the end of the patio, overlooking the canyon. “Can you just picture your mother out here painting?”