Her Wild Oats (5 page)

“Their personalities. Don’t worry, he’ll come around. He just woke up on the asshole side of the bed this morning. Say, have you had breakfast?”

Bobby Lee microwaved an apple strudel with icing—something the Carson-Pixlie kids were never allowed to eat at home—for each of them. There was no denying this was a way nicer tour bus than the kind Oats was used to.

*

Oats could have just plugged in his iPod and listened to music, concentrating on the view out the bus window instead of listening to the sound track of
Snakes on Elaine
, being played at earsplitting volume. But
Snakes on Elaine
was turning out to be compelling. There were a lot of heavy bass lines in the backup music, with some occasional dialogue. A woman answered the door and said hello. A very brief conversation was followed by a whole lot of heavy breathing and exclamations. Oats was about to get up and watch with the guys when Pete plunked himself down in the next seat, so forget that. Still, Elaine sounded like a lot of fun.

“Hey,” Pete said, “did you ever hear the one about the guy with the rash on his arm?”

“Nope, can’t say I have.”

“Well, this guy has an awful rash all the way up and down his arm, so he goes to the doctor. Nothing the doctor gives him does any good—he tries one ointment after another to no avail. Finally the doc says, ‘Look, I don’t know why this stuff ain’t working. May I ask what it is you do for a living? That might give us a clue as to why you have this rash.’

“Turns out, the guy works at the circus, taking care of the animals. One of his jobs is giving the suppositories to the elephant—you know what those are, right?”

“Yeah, Pete, I know what an elephant is.”

Pete punched Oats on the arm.

“So,” he continued, “turns out he has to stick his arm all the way up into the elephant’s whatsis to administer the suppositories.”

“’Well,’ says the doc. ‘That’s your problem right there! All you have to do to make your rash go away is find a different kind of job.’

“The guy looks at the doctor in horror. “‘What, and quit showbiz?’”

Pete laughed hard at his own joke. “What, and quit showbiz?” became a running gag with Pete; a private joke Oats would always associate with that tour.

“So, let’s go over the itinerary, shall we?” Pete was suddenly all business.

It was a show day, which meant the bus had to bust ass to get to a county fair gig in time for sound check. Pete explained that the sound checks happen in the opposite order of how the shows happen. The headliner, in this case Gretchen Wilson, comes on last but sound checks first. This is so she can take as long as she needs to get everything set just so. Then she can go back to her hotel room or her bus and take a nap if she wants. But mostly the sound guys like it if the band that plays first goes last, because then everything can just stay set up. This is good for a band if the bus is running late, but bad if the headliner takes too long and cuts into the opening act’s sound check. They had just enough time to get to the Gilroy Garlic Festival to sound check before the first show.

On the Lollipopalooza bus his grandmother would have taught a school lesson or led a word game or sing-along. Here, the only entertainment was the sound effect of a grown-up woman answering the door in her underpants and the inevitable shenanigans that followed. Oats wondered when his new bandmates actually practiced the tunes.

He looked at the itinerary in the little folder that Pete had given him with the dire warning not to lose it “or else,” and his laminated all-access backstage pass on a lanyard to wear around his neck. These were also a lot more substantial than the ones Oats was used to. The itinerary was bound together with plastic rings and clear plastic front and back covers, and the laminate had a picture of Bobby Lee’s album cover with “the Hell Bent and Whiskey Bound Tour” scrawled across the other side with a little clip-art lariat and a ten-gallon hat.

Finally Elaine’s delivery guy said “ooh baby, you’re so hot” and the video ended. Oats decided to go up to his bunk and try to get a nap before the gig, though he wasn’t able to sleep. He went over the songs’ harp lines in his head while looking out his tiny porthole window. There was something about being up there in that bunk worrying about doing a good job that made him nervous—and a little homesick, too.

Pit Stop

5

“Gertrude, I think we have to stop for some licorice, plus we need gas.” Arizona had been on the road for several hours, watched the sun rise over the Grapevine, and was heading north on the flat part of Interstate 5 that smells like a cow pasture. She turned onto the exit ramp and followed the signs toward “gas, food, and lo ging” (the “d” had been missing for years), ignoring Gertrude’s persistent suggestions about turning around. She pulled into the parking lot of a large roadside area that included a gas station, a motel, and a Murphy’s Corned Beef ’n’ Cabbage Emporium franchise. Murphy, who was actually a man named Fred Novotnoy, had hit on a simple but lucrative concept: serving huge, family-style portions of comfort food and desserts bigger than your head. Murphy’s Corned Beef ’n’ Cabbage Emporiums had appeared up and down most of the West Coast highways, rivaling others in the family-restaurant category for a large percentage of hungry-traveler cash. The Murphy’s three-dimensional logo was a fat leprechaun wearing a checkered apron and a leering grin, perched atop the building and holding a large platter that, through the wonders of modern technology, released a steady stream of steam twenty-four/seven.

Arizona drove into the Murphy’s parking lot and turned off the car engine, interrupting Gertrude’s increasingly snippy suggestions to make the first available U-turn.

“Thank you, Gertrude,” she heard herself say.

I must be going crazy,
she found herself thinking,
talking to my GPS.
But at the moment, Gertrude seemed like the best friend she had. She looked at the dashboard clock: 7:00 AM—Jerry would be hitting the snooze button on his alarm clock, trying to pretend he didn’t have to get up. Jerry loved to sleep in, and normally she’d have dialed the house to deliver a wake-up call, but she fought the impulse. Better to let him find the note. Besides, it would serve him right if, without her help, he was late for work.

Oh shit, work! In the urgent rush of the morning, she had somehow forgotten about her own job as executive assistant to Grayson Lathrop, head of Gargantuan Entertainment, the enormous multimedia production company where she was due in exactly one hour. Lately she’d had to keep reminding herself how lucky she was to work for one of the most successful movie studios in Los Angeles, supervising the details of marketing blockbusters like
Fang!
This was her dream job, Arizona told herself for the thousandth time. Her boss was crazy and the demands at the office left her breathless. At twenty-eight, she was already starting to feel burnt out. Now, following up a blockbuster success with
Fang II: Dental Revenge
in post-production, her presence was needed more than ever. Hands trembling, she found her iPhone and dialed her boss’ top-secret private cell phone number.

“Yo, Ari,” Grayson Lathrop answered on the second ring. “Hey, dolly, where are the financials on that new Japanese property, the one with the chick Sumo wrestlers?”

“They’re in my top drawer, Mr. Lathrop. Listen, I won’t be in today. My, um, my uncle died. I have to go home and help my parents for a while. I’m so sorry to leave you in the lurch like this…”

“How could your uncle do this to me? Doesn’t he know we’re in post?”

“I don’t think he planned this, Mr. Lathrop…”

“Yeah, yeah, well listen. Call Ginny and give her the 411 on where we are. I don’t want any balls dropped. And keep your phone on if we need to ask you anything, will ya?”

“All right,” Arizona agreed. “Except of course for the actual funeral,” she added, thinking that made her story sound more authentic.

“Ten-four, over and out.” Grayson Lathrop had already moved on.
As if he’d ever driven a truck in his life,
thought Arizona as she watched an eighteen-wheeler roar up the highway. This was a man who’d spent his entire adult life in either one of his Lamborghinis or a chauffeured limo. Where did he pick up trucker language? From one of his own movies, of course.

Arizona walked into the looming emerald green Murphy’s Corned Beef ’n’ Cabbage building, intending to use the restroom, buy some black licorice, and then drive over to the gas station before getting back on the road. The ladies’ room was marked with a stylized drawing of a young woman in a festive green dress and black buckled shoes, dancing a merry jig to the piped-in music. She found an empty stall, closed the door, and sat down.

Thirty-five minutes later, Arizona was still sitting on the commode in the third stall from the left in Murphy’s restroom. She stared at the closed gray metal door and listened to perky, piped-in Irish folk songs, unable to summon the energy it would take to buy her licorice and be on her way. She knew that this wasn’t normal adult behavior.

She imagined Jerry’s face when he’d read her note. In the course of a normal day they usually spoke at least a couple of times, but he hadn’t called, and she had no idea if he was devastated, angry, confused, or what. Once again, she wondered if she was in real danger, or the victim of her own overactive imagination. Exhausted, confused, and with so many questions and too few answers, she put her head in her hands and wept.

*

In actual fact, Jerry had not seen her note and never would. Without Arizona’s usual relentless reminders that it was time to get up, he’d turned off the alarm, waking at 10:30, an hour and a half after his first scheduled meeting of the day.

He dashed out the door in a panic, bypassing the kitchen. An hour later Esme, the housecleaner who came once a week, let herself in and spent the next several hours vacuuming, dusting, and laundering. When she was finished she searched for a piece of paper on which to write a note asking (for the third time—
Dios mio!
) Arizona to pick up some Lemon Pledge. She used the back of Arizona’s note to Jerry, the only paper she could find in the kitchen.

Later in the day, Jerry received an IM from Stephanie, his new squeeze. She could get away for the night; was there any chance he could join her at this cute little motel down in Huntington Beach? Jerry phoned the house, leaving a message telling Arizona that he’d been called away on a business trip and would see her tomorrow. Humming to himself in anticipation of his tryst, he had no idea that his wife had left him.

*

Arizona finally stopped crying long enough to leave the safety of her bathroom stall. As she stooped over the sink to splash some water on her face, a wave of dizziness hit, and she realized she was ravenous. Out in the bright noise of the restaurant a huge, green-aproned hostess led her to a booth and handed her an equally huge green-and-white laminated menu boasting an intimidating array of breakfast choices, all of which offered the option of corned beef on the side. Arizona ordered the classic Murphy’s hash with eggs over easy with juice and coffee, then pulled out her phone to check messages.

There were three from her office with routine questions. There was one from her former college roommate, with gossip about a sorority sister’s recent wedding. But there was nothing, not even a missed call displayed, from Jerry. Arizona got that message, loud and clear.

She stared at the huge plate of food for a few minutes. A mountain of corned-beef hash topped with two golden, drippy eggs; a mound of greasy fried potatoes plopped next to a quarter of an orange; a basket of steaming biscuits placed beside a plate containing little wrapped squares of butter, tiny plastic tubs of jam. It was enough to feed a family, the sort of breakfast she and Jerry would have shared had they not gone for the “waistline watcher” option of bran cereal and mixed fruit. She picked up her fork and seriously, methodically, insistently devoured everything that had been placed in front of her. Leaving an overly generous tip on the table, she paid her bill and walked toward the door.

Maybe one more stop at the ladies’ room before hitting the road…third stall from the left was occupied, and rather than use another stall Arizona decided to wait. Third stall from the left had started to feel a little bit like home.

She was startled by her ringing cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ari, I have Mr. Lathrop on the line for you,” chirped Ginny-from-the-office. “Oh, by the way, I’m sorry to hear about your uncle. How did he die, anyway?”

“Um…hi, Ginny. Heart attack or aneurism or something, I think.” Arizona scrambled to remember what she’d told her boss. “I’m still on the way there to find out all the details.”

“Oh, man,” Ginny replied sympathetically. “My dad had a heart attack last year. But, you know, he lived. Now he’s jogging every day and avoiding trans fats. Maybe that’s what your uncle should have done.”

“Thanks for your sympathy.” Arizona sighed. “Is Mr. Lathrop still holding for me?”

“Oh—yeah. Just a minute.”

“Ari!” Grayson Lathrop’s voice boomed through the phone. “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you in your hour of bereavement, but I need that thing.”

“Which thing, Mr. Lathrop?”

“You know—the thing about the deal. With the guy.”

“Do you mean the Morgan Freeman project P&Ls? They’re right there on my…”

“No! I mean the thing with the other guy…the Jewish thing.”

“Um, the Harry Shearer?”

“No, no! The cute one. The one with…oh, wait. Never mind. Here it is in my briefcase.”

“I’m glad you found it. Is there anything else you need to ask me as long as we’re on the phone?”

“Nah, have fun at the funeral, kid. Call me when you get back in town.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Lathrop,” Arizona said softly to the three little beeps that indicated the absence of anyone on the other end of the line.

Third stall from the left had been vacated, and Arizona lurched inside and sat down. Just for something to do until she could brave the freeway, she opened her purse and began sorting through the things inside, discarding scraps of paper and other items that had outlived their usefulness. You could tell a lot from a person, she imagined, by looking through her purse. But what tale would this purse tell? She emptied the purse and lined up all the items on the floor in front of her.