Dangerous (40 page)

Still, I did penance by helping fold and put away the clothes, fresh out of the dryer. Though we labored in silence, she appeared satisfied.

Later that afternoon Val the Keeper, playing Felix Ungar to my Oscar Madison, resolved to dust the living room. Rather than fret over this new, silent criticism, I slipped into the studio to phone Carl about the expected plates from
Hammerfall
. Yes, a few of the shots had arrived for digital scanning, and yes, there would be work for me to do on Monday. Good news, as I didn’t relish the prospect of being cooped up with Val for an entire week…Though leaving her here alone was just as worrisome.

After hanging up the phone, I heard an unusual hush coming from the living room, not even the swish of the feather duster. A stealthy peek from the hallway showed me why.

Val stood at my bookcase, holding the plastic ice cube which had been the cause of our meeting in the first place. Quiet wonder showed on her face. The cube’s bright blue LED lit up when she smacked it, and so did her expression. I suppose it gave proof of my devotion to her, to us, in spite of everything.

With a start, I realized this was the Little Girl, exploring on tiptoe just outside her keep. Rather than startle that delicate creature and rouse her guardian, I ducked back into the studio and rustled papers to remind her of my presence. By the time I emerged, she had put the cube back in its place and resumed her labors.

The fourth member of this virtual throng was Val, her physical self, the one serving as vehicle for the other aspects. She was little more than a husk: quiet, hollow, uncomplaining, somewhat lost. An orphan.

And it was the Orphan and I who found ourselves, incredibly, watching Oprah at four o’clock, an entire episode devoted to the topic of sandwiches. After that hour of mental anesthesia, I persuaded Val to try the Teriyaki burger from Hamburger Addict. Keeper Val, the epicure, would never have consented to such pedestrian fare, but this Val relented. I was beginning to think of her as a friend.

§

“It isn’t fancy dining, but these are my favorite burgers,” I said, around a juicy bite.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Val said, as she reached across the table to wipe my chin with a napkin. “But yes, they’re not bad.”
Not bad
, in this case, meant
nonlethal
. She held her own burger as if it were something alien, not entirely safe.

Val was dressed well, but less severely than the Keeper: khaki slacks, white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, hair in a twist. A squashed image of me swam in each curved lens of her sunglasses, the kind cops wear.

And me? Geeky and plain in my post-doll outfit of jeans and a black tee shirt. The front of this particular shirt bore a famous geek webcomic, an old-style fantasy map titled
Internet Communities
. It had territories named AOL, Myspace, Facebook, WoW, and so on. When she saw it, Val expressed surprise that I should be a fan of that comic. I told her the shirt was a Christmas gift from a friend, Chaz, who did freelance Lightwave work for Lucid Dreams. He was a huge fan of such things. Val found the whole thing amusing.

Hamburger Addict was a popular burger franchise with locations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Their burgers were far superior to those from the big chains. I was, in fact, addicted to their teriyaki burger, with its Swiss cheese and fat ring of pineapple instead of onions. We had found a table outside, and ate while watching rush-hour traffic crawl along Ventura Boulevard.

Today had been hot, but not as bad as the last few days, and the smoke was better here, fully a dozen miles from the fire. And with the calmer winds, firefighters were slowly bringing the fire under control.

“What happens now?” I asked. “You have insurance, of course. ”

She took off her sunglasses and hung them in the neckline of her blouse. “Yes. There will be a mountain of paperwork. Police reports, claim forms, so on. It’ll keep me busy for some time.”

“When can you go back, to look for…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. It didn’t matter.

“I’m told perhaps Monday. I don’t expect to find much.” Her eyes grew distant.

“Will you get the house rebuilt?”

“Doubtful. I’m thinking of relocating, though not far. Silverlake, perhaps. It’s closer to work, not too crowded. For the short term, however, I need to rent a place while I deal with everything. Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair in a couple of days.”

“Oh,” I said, with a pang, before I reminding myself the relationship was over.

A passing car backfired just a few feet away, loud as a gunshot and strong enough to trigger a nearby car alarm. It made me jump, but the effect on Val was infinitely more dramatic. Her head whipped around to the source of that racket, eyes full of murder, neck muscles taut as steel cables.

Her intensity frightened me, but she quickly regained her composure and apologized, over the whooping alarm. Just as the sound became unbearable, a man emerged from the Greek restaurant next door, stopping the racket with his key fob.

I put a calming hand on her arm and said, impulsively, “We should do something tomorrow.”

“‘Do…something’?” she said, recovering enough to process my suggestion. It was the Keeper speaking.

“Yeah, silly. Instead of sitting around my place, moping and watching TV.”

“The idea has merit. What do you suggest?”

“How about a drive to Santa Barbara?” But it was the Orphan, not the Keeper, I was inviting. “A whole day of sun and blue sky, away from all this craziness. Come on, it’ll be fun. We can go shopping.”

“Shopping,” she said, with same enthusiasm she might have given the word
sputum
.

“We’re going to the beach. Did you pack a bathing suit in your things? No. So, shopping.”

She nodded skeptically, and I recalled I’d never seen her wear a bathing suit in public—probably because of her scars. I left that question unasked, and forged on, confident an outing would be good for us both. And so it was decided.

§

Upon returning home we packed for the next day’s trip. After that, I suggested Val choose a movie for us to watch after I took a shower. She was still deciding when I emerged fifteen minutes later in sweats, hair wrapped in a towel. As I brushed my hair she pulled out my copy of
Earth Angel
, signed by the director himself in silver ink.

“You worked on this?” she asked.

“Yeah, we were nominated for a VES Award, but that stupid pirate movie won everything,” I said.

“You sound a little bitter about it.”

“I guess I am,” I admitted. “Mom keeps asking when I’m going to become famous, and I was
this
close to shutting her up. She doesn’t quite understand it’s not really about what you
do
, it’s the people you know. The asses you kiss.”

“I’ve noticed you don’t talk about your parents much,” Val said, putting the DVD in the player.

I found myself unreasonably annoyed by her comment. “Neither do you.”

That arrow squarely found its mark, and struck her dumb for the next hour as we sat on opposite ends of the couch while the movie played.

But as we neared the protagonist’s death scene, the one tattooed on Paul’s arm, I regretted my sharp tongue and made popcorn. Sharing the bowl gave an excuse to sit closer. And after the film’s signature moment, in which the dying hero finally beholds Angie’s luminous wings and recognizes her true nature, I caught the shine of a tear on Val’s cheek.

“That was your work, wasn’t it? That scene,” Val asked quietly.

“Yeah.” I had composited that sequence, knew exactly what went into its making, yet it never failed to move me powerfully.

And Val had recognized my work without being told, just as she’d noticed my wonder at a trash can of glowing garbage, in an unseeing crowd.

When she spoke again, it was in a low voice that was not Keeper, Guardian, nor even Little Girl, but simply Val.

“Well done,” was all she said.

I cried.

And cried again when she insisted I let the credits roll and, finding my name, clapped softly.

§

As I feared, bedtime proved a little uncomfortable. I offered to let her sleep in my bed, while I took the foldout couch, but she would have none of it. Without preamble she stripped and changed to her pajamas, with a child’s lack of modesty, there in the middle of the room. Once again, the sight of the marks on her light skin gave me a throb of sympathy. I busied myself by washing dishes to avoid that bit of awkwardness.

I changed as she brushed her teeth, wondering why I suddenly found modesty such an issue, after all we’d been through. The Keeper and me, rather. This was a different Val: more innocent, more vulnerable.

Then I returned to shut off the lights and tuck her in, by the light of the softly gurgling aquarium. And found myself stroking her hair again, as I had the night before, fretting about sending the wrong message. What was the right message? But I felt close to her, so close, in that moment.

§

Feathery cirrus clouds draped the morning sky as I drove west along the 101, toward the coast. The weather had finally begun to cool off, and past Calabasas we left the smoke pall behind for good. I lowered my window to enjoy the sweet, fresh air so full of promise.

Because her Audi was in storage, and a round trip to Santa Barbara was just outside the range of her fully-charged Batmobile, we’d taken my Corolla. But not before Val had insisted that we wash it; she couldn’t abide dirty cars and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered.

Val sorely missed her in-dash mp3 player, though. She spent several minutes searching the FM stations in vain before shutting off the radio. After that we cruised in wind-whipped silence until reaching Oxnard and the coast, where we stopped for a quick breakfast at Danny’s. This proved yet another assault upon Val’s aesthetic sensibilities, but she endured her Home Run Breakfast with an anthropologist’s detachment, as if bravely sharing a meal of roasted beetles with mud-daubed primitives.

Then another hour’s drive along the wild, scrubby coast. This was one of my favorite stretches of road, today made even more picturesque by the pod of dolphins Val spotted, just before Carpenteria. But there was no place to stop, so Val held the wheel as I watched their silver shapes arc joyously in the morning light.

It was a little past nine o’clock when I turned onto State Street, and found a public parking structure about a mile and a half inland. After our windy drive, the sudden calm rang loud in my ears. The air was cooler than I’d expected, about 75 degrees, with a breath of westerly wind. A feathery layer of cirrus clouds softened the sun’s rays.

Val seemed serene, even happy, in a way I’d never seen before. I stood a moment, admiring the sight of her.

“What?” she asked, noticing my gaze.

“Nothing. You look nice.”

Indeed, she looked adorable in the white halter-style tee and tan capris I’d persuaded her to wear. Only the barest hint of the lattice-scar on her left hip showed above the waistline. Getting her to wear that pair of white peep-toed flats had been harder. But she hated Crocs more, so I’d won that battle, too. The cheery ensemble and diffuse sunlight softened the angularity of her lean, fit body.

She smiled self-consciously. For the time being, at least, the Keeper was a million miles away.

As for myself, I wore a breezy yellow sun dress, with large bird-of-paradise flowers printed across the skirt. It slid pleasantly against my bare legs as I bent to grab my purse from the car. I shut the door and locked it, and we were off.