One Day at a Time (4 page)

After walking her usual round of dogs, in the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and at Crissy Field, she was back at the house on Broadway at four o'clock, and sank into the Jacuzzi. She had already decided not to cook dinner that night, and while watching another of her favorite DVDs, she ordered Chinese takeout. Her mother called from L.A. as she was eating the spicy beef, and had just finished an egg roll. Jack was sitting eye level with the kitchen table, drooling, with Sallie right beside him.

“Hi, Mom,” Coco said with her mouth full, when she saw her mother's number come up on her caller ID. “How are you?”

“Fine, and a lot happier knowing you're in a decent house and not that firetrap in Bolinas. You're very lucky your sister lets you stay there.”

“My sister is very lucky I'm willing to house-sit for her on five minutes' notice,” Coco snapped back before she could stop herself. Jack snatched an egg roll off the table, and Coco pulled the plate away while he wolfed it down whole. Her sister would have killed her for that too.

“Don't be silly,” her mother chided her. “You have nothing else to do, and you're fortunate to be there. The house is gorgeous.” There was no denying that, but it was like living on a stage set. “You should look for a place in the city. And a decent job, and a man, and go back to law school.” Coco had heard it all before. Her mother and sister had a million opinions about her life, and never hesitated to express them. They were the arbiters of what was right. Coco the embodiment of all things wrong.

“So how are you, Mom? Everything all right with you?” It was always easier if she got her mother talking about herself. She was more interested in that anyway and she had far more to say.

“I just started a new book,” she said happily. “I love the subject. It's about a Northern general and a Southern woman during the Civil War. They fall in love, get separated, she becomes widowed, and her favorite slave helps her escape and gets her to the North to find him. She has no money left, the general is desperate to find her, and can't, and she in turn finds the slave's woman for him. It's kind of two stories in one, and it's fun to write,” she said gleefully, as Coco smiled. She had been hearing those stories all her life. She liked her mother's books, and was proud of her, although as a very young child she had been embarrassed by her mother's success. All she had wanted as a kid was an ordinary mother who baked cookies and drove car pool, not a famous one. But she had grown into it over the years. She used to have fantasies about having a mother who was just a housewife, and her mother was about as far from that as anyone could get. She was always either writing or giving interviews when Coco was a child. By the time Coco was born, her mother was a major star. She had always envied people who didn't have famous parents.

“I see your last one is already at number one,” Coco said proudly. “You never fail, do you, Mom?” She sounded almost wistful as she said it.

“I try not to, sweetheart. I like the sweet smell of success a lot better.” She laughed as she said it. Her whole family liked that smell, not just her mother, but Jane, and their father. Coco often wondered what life would have been like growing up among “normal” people, like doctors and teachers, or a father who sold insurance. She hadn't had many friends like that growing up in L.A. The parents of most of her friends were famous, or one parent at least. Most of the children she had gone to school with had parents who were producers, directors, actors, studio heads. She had gone to Harvard-Westlake, one of the best schools in L.A., and many of the people she had grown up with were famous now too. It was like living among legends, and a lot to live up to. The majority were high achievers like her sister, although some of the kids she knew then were dead now, from drugs, or car accidents while driving drunk, or suicides. Those things happened to poor people too, but they seemed to happen with greater frequency to the rich and famous. They lived on the fast track and paid a high price for their lifestyles. It had never occurred to her parents when she was growing up that she would refuse to play and simply bow out of the game. It made no sense to them, but it made a lot of sense to her.

“Maybe now that you're in the city, taking care of Jane's house, you could take some classes, and get ready to transfer down here and go back to school,” her mother suggested, trying to sound casual about it, but Coco had heard that before too, and didn't answer.

“What kind of classes, Mom?” Coco finally asked, sounding instantly tense. “Piano? Guitar? Macramé? Cooking? Flower arranging? I'm happy with what I'm doing.”

“You'll look a little foolish walking people's dogs when you're fifty,” her mother said quietly. “You're not married, you don't have children. You can't just fill time for the rest of your life. You need to do something that has some substance. Maybe an art class. You used to like that.” It was pathetic. Why couldn't they just leave her alone to do what she was doing? And why did Ian have to… but there was no point thinking about that either.

“I don't have your talent, Mom. Or Jane's. I can't write books or make movies. And maybe one day I will have kids. In the meantime, I make a decent living at what I'm doing.”

“You don't need to make a 'decent living.' And you can't rely on children to fulfill you. They grow up and go off to their own lives. You need something to give you a sense of accomplishment of your own. Children are only temporarily time consuming. And a husband can die or leave you. You need to be someone in your own right, Coco. You'll be a lot happier when you find that out.”

“I'm happy now. That's why I live here. I'd be miserable in the rat race in L.A.” Her mother sighed as she listened. It was as though they were whispering across the Grand Canyon—neither of them could hear the other, nor wanted to. It was almost funny how Coco being a mere dog-walker made both her mother and Jane feel insecure. It didn't have that effect on Coco at all. Sometimes she felt sorry for them.

Talking to her mother depressed her. It gave her the feeling that she had never measured up and never would. She didn't care as much about it now, but it still bothered her at times. She thought about it after they hung up, and she ate another egg roll. In Bolinas, she lived on salads, and bought fresh fish at the local market. She was too lazy to go to the supermarket in San Francisco, and her sister's high-tech kitchen, which looked like the inside of a spaceship, intimidated her. It was easier to order out. She was still thinking about her mother when she went upstairs to her bedroom and put a movie on. Jack happily climbed into bed next to her, without waiting to be invited, and put his head down on the pillow, Sallie settled at her feet with a moan of pleasure. By the time the movie started, both dogs were snoring, as Coco snuggled into the comfortable bed to watch her favorite romantic comedy, with her favorite actor and actress. She had seen the movie half a dozen times and never got tired of it.

She noticed only after the movie was over that someone had sent her a text message on her cell phone. It was from Jane. Coco was expecting it to be something about the dog again. She had had several messages from her in the past two days, with reminders about the house, the dog, the gardener, the security system, their cleaning woman. Coco knew that as Jane got busier with the movie, she'd stop sending texts every five minutes. This one was slightly more involved than the others. It was about a friend of theirs who was apparently going to be staying at the house over the weekend. Coco wondered for an instant if she could ask her to babysit the dog, so she could go home to her place, but she had a feeling Jane would be mad if she imposed on their houseguest and escaped.

It said only, “Our friend Leslie hiding from psychotic, homicidal ex-girlfriend. Will probably show up tomorrow or Sunday to stay for a few days. Knows how to find hidden key and has alarm code. Thanks. Love, Jane and Lizzie.” She couldn't remember meeting a friend of theirs called Leslie, and wondered if it was someone they knew from L.A. It sounded more exotic than most of their friends, who were intelligent and creative but generally a pretty staid group of middle-aged women, most of whom had been in long-term relationships like theirs, and not prone to psychotic homicidal lovers. Since the fleeing Leslie apparently had the alarm code and the key, she didn't need to worry about it. Coco put on another movie, and went to sleep around three a.m. She only had two dogs to walk the next day, and didn't have to show up until noon, so she was planning to sleep late.

She woke up to a brilliantly sunny day at ten a.m., and looked out to see a flock of sailboats on the bay, preparing for a regatta, and all she could think of was how much she wished she were in Bolinas. She was thinking about driving over to take the dogs for a run on the beach, and check her mail.

She stretched lazily, let both dogs out in the garden, and propped the door open so they could get back in. And then she went to the kitchen to make something to eat. She still hadn't had time to buy groceries in the two days she'd been there. She was trying to decide between the Chinese food from the night before, and some frozen waffles she'd found in the freezer, when she realized that she had left the Chinese food out. The containers were still sitting in the sink. So she opted for the frozen waffles and stuck them in the microwave. She found syrup in the fridge, and as she turned around to put it on the table, she saw Jack, standing, with both paws on the sink, happily eating the Chinese food. He had eaten most of it by the time she spotted him, and she had a feeling the spicy beef wasn't going to do him a lot of good. She shooed him away and he barked at her, and then sat down next to the kitchen table to watch her eat. Sallie sat next to him, looking hopeful too.

“You know, you guys are pigs,” she said, addressing both dogs. Her long coppery hair hung straight down her back, and she was wearing her favorite flannel nightgown with the hearts on it, with pink wool socks because her feet were always cold at night. She looked like a kid as she sat there, with both dogs staring at the waffles as they disappeared into her mouth. “Yummm!” she teased, laughing at them as Jack turned his head from side to side. “What? The Chinese food wasn't enough? You're going to make yourself sick,” she warned him. After she had finished the waffles, she walked back to the fridge to put the maple syrup away. Some of it had dripped down the sides, and she thought about wiping the bottle off, which was probably what Jane would have done, but Coco promised herself she'd do it another time. Jane wasn't coming home to check on her, and she wanted to shower and walk her two clients' dogs. She had almost made it to the fridge with the dripping bottle of maple syrup, when the scent of it overpowered Jack. He took a wild leap past Coco, and knocked the bottle from her hand. It spun across the granite floor, broke, and spilled the sweet-smelling syrup everywhere. Before she could stop him, Jack had leaped into it and was trying to gobble it up amid the broken glass, and she was pulling him away, as Sallie suddenly reverted to her shepherding origins and ran circles around them, barking. Coco was pulling Jack away by his collar when her socks slipped in the syrup and he knocked her down. She was sitting on the ground in a pool of syrup, fortunately with no glass in it, as Jack barked frantically at her. He wanted the syrup and she was determined to keep him away so he wouldn't cut himself on the glass. Her nightgown and socks were soaked by then, and she had even managed to get some of the syrup in her hair. She was laughing while both dogs barked, as she struggled to her feet and pulled the mastiff away. And as she did, she suddenly realized there was a man in the room watching them. In their excitement over the syrup, even the dogs hadn't noticed him, and they barked even louder as he took a step back, and Coco told them both to stay. It was a scene of utter chaos, and the man looked terrified of the dogs, and mystified by her.

“What are you doing here?” Coco asked sternly as she looked at him. He was wearing jeans, a turtleneck, and a black leather jacket, and he didn't look like a burglar, but she had no idea how he'd gotten in.

She was still standing in the maple syrup as she stared at him, and he was trying not to smile at the vision and the acrobatics he had just seen. She looked like a lion tamer, with her long, red hair wild around her head, her nightgown and socks soaked in maple syrup, and the huge dog barking in her arms, while the Australian shepherd ran rings around them, yelping frantically. He could smell the maple syrup and see it in her hair, glistening like spun glass. He couldn't help noticing that she was a very pretty girl and looked about eighteen.

“Did you have some sort of food fight?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “I'm sorry I missed it. I love that sort of thing. I think I'm meant to be a houseguest here for a few days, or a refugee.” He held up the key to show that he entered the premises honorably, as Coco caught her breath. That couldn't be. Her sister had told her that a woman would be staying there. There had been no mention of him. Or had she also given access to someone else? And then suddenly, it all registered, the British accent, and as she stared at him, she nearly screamed. It couldn't be. This was impossible. She was dreaming it. She had watched him two nights in a row on her sister's enormous screen.

“Oh shit… oh my God… it can't be you…,” she said. But it all fit together now. Leslie. Not a woman. Leslie Baxter, the world-famous British heartthrob and movie star. How could her sister not warn her who it was? She blushed furiously as she looked at him, and his eyes laughed as he smiled, just as they did on screen. She had watched his movies a thousand times, and now he was here.

“I'm afraid it is me,” he said apologetically, and then he glanced at the mess around her. “I suppose we ought to do something about this.” She nodded, bereft of speech for the moment, and then she looked up at him again.

“Do you suppose you could get the dogs outside…” she asked, pointing to the open door to the garden, “so I can clean this up?”

“I would,” he said hesitantly, “but I'm terrified of dogs actually. If you do the dog thing, I'll find a Hoover somewhere and clean up.” She laughed at what he said, as much over the suggestion as the word. Ian had called their vacuum cleaner a Hoover too. Leslie Baxter was British, and no vacuum cleaner was going to suck up maple syrup.