Land of Shadows (36 page)

 

53

How can she afford to live in a fancy place like this?

He sits on a park bench in the middle of Cielo. People perch at other benches and hunker over wrought-iron tables with their coffees, boxes of sushi, and copies of
Fifty Shades of Grey
. A jazz band plays “My Favorite Things” as the sun starts its descent behind the Pacific Ocean a mile away. And most important: her condo is right over there.

He followed her home and parked down the block. In his rearview mirror, he watched as she eased the Porsche into the garage. Thinking about it now makes him simmer—as a taxpayer, he abhors seeing a public servant behind the wheel of a sports car.

The band ends the song. A few people clap. Children splash in the fountain.

Heaven.

He takes a breath, exhales, breathes in, out, in …

Something is wrong, very wrong, and in quiet moments like this, even when the spider is sleeping, he can smell it, taste it,
see
it.

He doesn't have much time.

Stay cool. Keep it together. Be smart.

But if he were being smart, he wouldn't be here, at this place.

At a bench across from him, a soccer mom in short-shorts and a tank top eyes him. Her son, a boy she calls Jack, is jumping off a lawn chair and into the shallow fountain.

He yawns—women of a certain age bore him. They smell like slow-cooked pot roast and fading antiperspirant. They drive minivans and buy organic beets, fat-free yogurt, and firming creams. This one here needs to go home, redecorate her kitchen for the fifth time, and screw the UPS guy.

The door to the detective's sun deck opens and Elouise Norton steps out. Phone to ear, she looks beyond the courtyard where he sits. Her hands jab the air. She's shouting into the phone.

He wishes the band would can it with their jazzy
Sound of Music
selections just so he could hear. But they now play “So Long, Farewell,” and he can only wonder about the conversation Detective Norton is having.

“You look familiar.” The soccer mom is now standing over him. This one smells of suntan lotion and coffee. A diamond pendant hangs in the cavern between her giant breasts. She flashes whitened and capped teeth, and asks, “Don't you have a son that goes to WNS?”

He blinks at her, annoyed. “What?” Why is she talking to him? And what the hell is WNS?

Stay cool. Keep it together. Act …
normal.

He forces light into his expression and says, “No.” From the corner of his eye, he sees Detective Norton still pacing the sun deck like a madwoman.

Soccer Mom says, “Oh,” and then chuckles. “You look really familiar.”

Twenty years ago she would have been his type. Pretty. Racially ambiguous. A whore. Now, though …

“Wish I could say yes.” He waggles his ring finger—he only wears the gold band on occasions like this.

She peers at the ring but the flirtatious smile doesn't dim. “You
can
say yes.” She bites her lip as little Jack pushes a girl half his size into the fountain. “I won't tell if you won't tell.”

Desperate housewives, indeed.

 

54

After she sat bags of barbecue on the deck table, Lena poured me a glass of Riesling.

In one gulp, I finished it and hiccupped.

Syeeda sat in the Adirondack chair beside me and offered a tissue from the box on her lap.

I shook my head—I wanted to
feel
the burn of tears against my skin. I wanted to
feel
the pain.

Lena poured more wine for me, for her, and for Syeeda.

“Are you surprised?” Syeeda finally asked.

I muttered, “No,” and a tear plopped into my wineglass.

Syeeda dabbed tissue against my face.

“It still hurts,” I whispered. “I love him. I didn't get married to…” I clamped my lips together—I couldn't say
that word
. Had it come to
that word
? I drained the glass and hiccupped again.

Lena sat a plate of ribs on my lap and this time poured cabernet sauvignon into my empty glass.

I glanced at her. “You haven't said anything.”

She kicked off her snakeskin stilettos and settled into the chair with a glass of wine. “You know what I think. I told you after the second chick that he'd do it again. And he did it again. And now, he's done it again after doing it again
that
time.”

My eyes dropped to the plate. Just an hour before, I had craved barbecue, and now that I had it … Fucking Greg. Ruined everything. My desire for ribs. My quest for a fairy-tale ending. “It's my fault,” I said. “I'm never—”

“Don't!” Syeeda shouted. “No! There's no excuse for his behavior. Don't let him do this, Lou.”

“And stop ignoring all the bullshit,” Lena added.

“I'm not,” I countered.

Syeeda rolled her eyes.

“I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons—”

“Con,” Syeeda said, “he's cheated on you more than once.”

“Pro,” I shot, “he knows what I've been through.”

“Con,” Lena said, “he knows what you've been through and he
still
cheated on you more than once.”

“If he didn't want to be married,” I said, “why hasn't he pulled the trigger? If he wants to fuck around,
why
is he married?”

“You need to ask
him
that,” Syeeda said.

“I wasn't there for him,” I argued. “I'm barely home. And even when I
am
home, my mind is—”

“No, it's not,” Lena snapped. “Not
once
have you come to this house with one of those effin' … dead people folders. Not
once
has somebody's momma called here to ask about her murdered son. You
never
left his side even when he screwed around on you. When he got laid off and didn't know what he was gonna do, you were there for him and this is such
bullshit
that … that…” She hopped up from the seat, pacing and flapping her hands. “I'm three seconds from exploding and ruining my favorite pair of python Louboutins. That's how ridiculous this is.”

“And his hours weren't nine to five, either,” Syeeda pointed out. “He worked just as crazy as you. Except when he was fucking around.”

“Maybe
you
should've fooled around, too,” Lena muttered into her wineglass.

“With the new guy,” Syeeda said. “Detective Funny Face.”

Lena nodded. “
Especially
with Detective Funny Face. Want me to call him?”

“Bang, bang, that's dead,” I said.

“Why?” Lena asked. “You're a man, he's a—”

“Easy, there,” Syeeda said, taking Lena's wineglass.

“First,” I said, “I'm married—”

Lena gave that point a raspberry.

“Second, I'm Colin's superior and—” I gave my own raspberry. “And
sixth—
”

“
Third
,” Syeeda corrected.

“I ain't got where I am, fightin' the Man all this time, to have a … a…”

“A sexy, forbidden
liaison amoureuse
?” Lena asked.

“Exactly. And with a guy I wouldn't date in any other situation. If he was freakin' … freakin'…”

“George Clooney,” Syeeda said.

“Or … or…”

“Harry Connick Jr.,” Lena said.

Syeeda and I gaped at her.

“He sings so pretty,” Lena said.

“Then I'd be all over that,” I said. “Quicker than a tick on a dog.” I poked at a rib, tore away a chunk of meat, and ate it. “It's good,” I said, chewing.

Lena said, “Yeah.”

“Elouise,” Syeeda said, “go ahead and cry. Go ahead and give up. You don't have to be the tough cop all the time. You'll be okay.
We
won't leave you. Right, Lena?”

Lena nodded. “Shoop shoop, my sista.”

My phone, lost in the mess of barbecue bags and wine bottles, rang. Not pinballs but Darth Vader's theme from
Empire Strikes Back
.

“Who the hell is that?” I asked.

“I thought Greg deserved a new ring tone,” Syeeda explained.

Tears filled my eyes. “But I
like
Darth Vader.”

“Shit, Sy,” Lena said, holding out the phone. “Change it before she melts.”

Syeeda fumbled with the phone, which rang again—whooping Ewoks. She beamed. “Everyone hates Ewoks.” And the Ewoks whooped again. Syeeda glanced at the phone's screen and held it out for me to take. “It's Greg again. Wanna talk to your devoted son-of-a-bitch?”

I stared at it, then shook my head.

She tossed the ringing phone back into the trash.

“Eleven years,” I said.

“I'm sorry,” Syeeda whispered.

Lena stroked my hair. “
Désolée
.”

After eating the whole side of a cow, drinking a vat of wine, and inhaling a chocolate cheesecake, I lay my head in Syeeda's lap. The smell of seaweed rode atop the marine layer and twisted around us like cold, damp bandages. And I cried until I could no longer see the moon in the sky. Cried until I fell asleep and awoke in that dream-place where Tori was alive, Greg was in love with me, and no one was ever murdered.

 

55

Elvia, a Mormon but not a very good one, has dated a lot of men. Slept with more than half of them, too. Not that they're just
any
men—they are all well-off, older guys who never grumbled if she ordered expensive cocktails and the filet mignon instead of cheap wine and sirloin. She paid her lovers back in full—her bedroom skills were off-the-chain. Or so they said. Her talents helped pay the bills.

And now, Chi is back in her life, right in time for a summer vacation in St. Thomas, a closet filled with Burberry, and a check for fall tuition.

She eases the small BMW into the parking lot of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Her heart pounds—from the drinks and from the anticipation of being with him again.

Her girlfriends turn up their noses any time she says that she is seeing Chi. “He's so …
old
,” they say.

“Who wants to fuck somebody's grandpa?” her girl Zsa Zsa had said earlier at Hooters.

Elvia had rolled her eyes. “He's not
that
old,” she snapped back. “And
biologically
, he's no different than the frat boys that go here. In the end, a dick is a dick.”

True.

Kind of.

Chi's dick is surrounded in graying hair just like the graying hair on his chest. And his muscles are softening. And he always wakes up in the middle of the night to pee.

But he gives her trinkets in turquoise boxes and takes her to restaurants with French names.

He takes his time in bed and he doesn't need his parents to put forty dollars into his checking account so that he could feed her.

And all she has to do is let Chi play his little choke games. No problemo. She does that for Rodolfo all the time and he takes her to no-star restaurants.

Zsa Zsa could be such a jealous ho. But then, haterz hate.

The stilettos kill her feet as she rushes from the parking lot to the elevator bank. Up, up, up until the car reaches the twenty-first floor. A moment later, she wanders the carpeted hallways.

There.

Room 2109.

Back at the lounge, Chi had given her a hotel room key. She now slips the card into the reader.
Green light. Click.
She pushes open the door and steps into the room.

No bright television. The curtains are closed. “Hello? Baby?”

“Hey.” He stands in the bathroom doorway.

“Hey, yourself,” she says, closing the door behind her. “Miss me,
papi
?” She moves over to him and runs her hands up his bare chest and through that graying hair.

He takes her right hand and kisses the palm, sucks her middle finger. He pulls her close, nuzzles her neck, and whispers, “I thought we'd try something different tonight.”

 

Sunday, June 23

 

56

Syeeda and Lena had decided to stay overnight, and together, we killed three more bottles of wine. Ewoks whooped all night but neither friend would let me answer. The phone chirped with text messages, too, but Lena silenced the ringer, then stuffed it deep into my purse. “If your boss needs to reach you,” she said, “he can call that monstrous Motorola thing they gave you.” She paused, then added, “Not that you're sober enough to work as a crosswalk guard right now.”

We all stretched out on my bed. “Life is always better in the morning,” Syeeda said as I fell asleep on her shoulder. “Like Orphan Annie sang: the sun will come out tomorrow.”

All night, I dreamed wine-soaked dreams about trudging through a vast parking lot, crying, eyes on the asphalt, searching for something I had lost, but not knowing what it was as Greg followed behind me without speaking. And then I dreamed about Tori and Monique, holding hands, leading me to a crevasse filled with sharks.

Other than the headache and sour gut filled with liquor and meat, other than lingering memories of betrayal and cursing and crying, I awoke clinging to promise—tomorrow happened and the sun came out and Syeeda made omelets.

But then, I remembered the betrayal and the cursing and the crying.

Tomorrow, tomorrow … Go screw yourself, Tomorrow.

Greg had left twelve of the sixteen voice mails on the machine, and I deleted each one without listening to them. Since he claimed that I was never there for him, so be it.

Fucker.

After a late breakfast and several cups of coffee, I showered and changed into “formal” leggings that I paired with a light cashmere sweater and riding boots. Being hung over meant that I couldn't tolerate the clinch of a buttoned waistline or the scratch of linen or wool against my skin.