Too Little, Too Late (18 page)

“What is it?”

“Another dead end, that’s what,” she replied. “It’s from the
Southern California Free Press Gazette
.”

“What do they want?” he asked, scanning the contents of the letter quickly.

“It’s not what they want. It’s what
I
wanted from
them
. That’s where my friend’s mother used to work,” she explained in frustration. “I figured the answers to Mom had to be connected to the sanitarium where she used to live. Since they weren’t answering my calls or letters, I wanted the paper to publish a story on her. The paper had been gung-ho to publish the story before but now they refuse to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Kind of makes me wonder.”

“Maybe your mom’s story isn’t newsworthy anymore.”

“I don’t buy that,” she told him firmly. “Years ago, when Mom was released from Serendipity’s Door and my friend and her family disappeared, the
Gazette
just clammed up.”

“Maybe there’s a conspiracy going on,” he suggested jokingly.

Liz looked at him seriously. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was.” She watched as Otis went back into her kitchen and started rooting through her cupboards. “Third cupboard to your left.” She watched as he took a box of chocolate chip cookies off the shelf.

“How’d you know I was looking for these?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever stop eating?”

He shook his head. “Not if I can help it.” He became serious at the worried look on her face. “You don’t really believe there’s something going on, do you?”

“I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore,” she replied.

“Have you tried the nut house where your mother stayed?” he asked.

“They threatened me with a harassment suit last year if I didn’t leave them alone,” she admitted, “and my Mom’s doctor at Serendipity died last year in a car crash.”

“How convenient,” Otis remarked.

Liz threw up her hands in frustration. “No matter which angle I try, it all leads to one big dead end.”

A thought occurred to Otis. “Didn’t you once tell me that some outfit was paying your mother’s freight?”

“It was some German company but an Internet search came up empty.” She went to the closet and pulled out the framed poster, propping it against the coffee table in front of him. “And then there’s this.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I bought it in a store on Las Palmas selling vintage memorabilia.”

“I didn’t think old movies were your thing.”

“They’re not. But this poster’s identical to a picture my mom had with her when she was released from Serendipity,” she explained. “Except that hers wasn’t a picture of the poster. It was an actual photograph of
this
woman posing for
this
movie poster.”

“How’d your mom get the picture?”

“I have no idea.” Liz went over to her dining room table where she’d left her notebook. Flipping it open, she glanced at the notes she’d made earlier. “I checked the Internet to see if I could find something about the movie but there wasn’t much to go on. Apparently,
One Spark Too Many
came out in 1946 and was touted to be an MGM blockbuster except that it ended up being only a so-so movie. Then I checked out the actors. Not much written about Sigourney Johnson or the other guy, Dennis Diego. Sigourney was a young actress from the forties who only did a few pictures before she retired to marry her director from
One Spark
.”

“She’s not a bad looking chick.”

“
Wikipedia
didn’t have anything on her at all. Dennis Diego was some Latin heartthrob from the silent movies whose career was pretty well dead by the time he did this picture. He got electrocuted on a set in Mexico a year after doing this movie and Jasper Kendrall just died a couple of years ago.”

“Not much to go on, is it?” he asked.

“Nope.” She shook her head in frustration. “Call me crazy, Ote, but somehow I know there’s a connection between this poster and my mother. I just wish I knew what it was.”

With a mother to suddenly support and no skills to speak of, Liz immediately set about looking for work. She found a job as a dishwasher in a family-owned restaurant in Tarzana. The place was a dump that paid only minimum wage, but Liz was grateful for the job, determined to support her mother so she wouldn’t have to be institutionalized again. She worked dinner hour until close and shared a two-bedroom apartment with Dixie, one of the waitresses from the restaurant, along with the countless one-night stands that seemed to clutter Dixie’s already complicated life. Dixie worked the day shift and was willing to keep an eye on Liz’s mother for a small fee while Liz went to work. Once the restaurant closed at two in the morning, Liz had time for a quick nap in her car before she went to her other job delivering newspapers until dawn. She delivered the paper daily and worked at the restaurant six nights a week. By the end of the third month, Liz was physically exhausted from her non-stop work schedule, as well as emotionally drained from caring for her mother during the day.
 

Liz was lucky enough to find a clinic downtown where her mother was given free medication to help deal with her mood swings. Maria never spoke more than the odd word or two and despite her erratic behavior, Liz cherished their time together. She was determined to make up for all the time
she had lost growing up without Maria.
 

One morning, on returning to the apartment after a particularly tough time delivering her papers in a torrential downpour, Liz was alarmed to find Maria squatting in a corner of their bedroom, her knees drawn up to her chest, seemingly mute. It was only when she crouched down to her mother’s level that Liz noticed the ugly welt on the side of her left cheek. When Liz reached out to touch it, her mother flinched in fear, retreating even further from her.
 

“Mom.” Liz tried to keep her tone even so as to not upset Maria. “What happened to your cheek?”
 

“No touch, Lizzie!” Her mother began sobbing, clawing at the wall in an effort to get away from her. “I be good!”
 

“It’s okay, Mom,” Liz crooned. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
 

After several minutes of coaxing, her mother finally allowed Liz to take her in her arms. When Maria had calmed down enough to fall asleep, Liz put her to bed before going to find Dixie. Dixie was in the kitchen, wearing a stoned look and a man’s worn undershirt as she tried to clear enough space on the countertop to measure coffee into the ancient relic of a coffee maker. Her efforts were hindered by a horny stranger in jockey shorts, tonguing her inner lobe. Liz guessed him to be Dixie’s newest one-nighter, having never seen him before.
 

“What happened to my mother’s face?” she asked Dixie. “She’s got an ugly welt on her cheek.”
 

“She musta fallen,” came her roommate’s sullen response.
 

“How?”
 

Dixie didn’t answer, distracted by the tongue in her ear and the hand playing with her exposed nipple.
 

“How about some titty to go with my hard on, babe?” The guy bent down and sucked on the nipple.
 

“Not now, Todd.” Dixie’s efforts weren’t very convincing. “I got a get to work.”
 

“How about some answers,” Liz interjected.
 

“I gotta get to work.”
 

“Not until you tell me what happened,” Liz persisted.
 

“I’m not her god-damned babysitter,” whined her roommate.
 

“But you were supposed to be keeping an eye on her,” Liz accused. “It’s part of our deal.”
 

“Deal my fuckin ass!” Dixie yelled, yanking her breast out of the guy’s mouth. “She was goin’ around bustin’ all of my dishes.”
 

“So what did you do?” asked Liz incredulously. “Smack her with a dish?”
 

“Nope.” The guy’s hand snaked down to raise the hem of Dixie’s undershirt before sticking his finger into her vagina. “I smacked her with the back of my hand.”
 

“You let this
asshole
touch my mother?!”
 

“I had to. The old cow was acting like a fucking lunatic.” Todd’s fingers came out of Dixie’s vagina, his hard on having deflated at the onset of Liz’s wrath. “I don’t need this shit from either of you cunts.” With that, he ambled back to Dixie’s bedroom.
 

“Look, this just ain’t workin’ out for me,” Dixie told her, lighting a crooked joint she pulled out of an empty peanut butter jar. “You and your old lady’d better split.”
 

Liz nodded, unable to speak as she watched Dixie follow Todd back to her room, evidently forgetting she was supposed to be going to work. Calling in sick at the restaurant, Liz scoured the paper, managing to find them a room at a small boarding house, not far from LAX. It didn’t take her long to figure out why the rent was so cheap. The boarding house was directly on one of LAX’s busiest flight paths and the reverberation from the planes made the walls vibrate, causing Maria to wail at the top of her lungs. Liz’s solution was to turn up the volume on the radio in order to drown out the noise. She tried locking Maria in their room when she went to work but was called home twice because her mother managed to get out. Maria would pace the halls, beating on doorways and cackling at the top of her lungs.
 

One day, about a week after moving in, Liz came home from doing her paper route to discover that her mother was nowhere to be found. She frantically searched the building and when her
search came up empty, Liz called the police. Maria’s disappearance made the evening news. After following countless leads, the police eventually picked up Maria on Hollywood Boulevard. Liz didn’t know what to make of the situation. While her mother obviously had some mental challenges, her sense of direction was uncanny, so for her to be roaming Hollywood Boulevard didn’t make any sense at all – unless her mother hadn’t wanted to come back.
 

In desperation, Liz went to the drug store and bought some sleeping pills. She gave her mother two pills about an hour before she went to work. The pills worked for almost three weeks before Liz came home to find Maria missing again. This time, the media wasn’t notified and the police took longer in finding her. They even recommended that Maria be put under constant
supervision, something Liz couldn’t afford. Over a period of six months, Liz’s mother left and was brought home four more times. Each time, Liz became more despondent.
 

The last time she ran away, Liz didn’t call the police. She found her mother curled up on a bench in the park where they took their daily walks, sound asleep. Staring at her mother’s peaceful face in slumber, Liz came to the realization that although her mother didn’t want to live with her, she could never have Maria institutionalized again. That left her with only one alternative. She would have to let her mother go.
 

Karen Devane was at one of the most exciting parties of her entire life. It was to kick off the release of her boyfriend Josh’s new single, “Taggin’”. Several of Albatross’ executives were in attendance, including Lionel Connors, the owner of the Malibu beachfront where the party was being held. Josh took her around and introduced her to everyone, making her feel special. Outside, the paparazzi were camped out along the perimeter of the property, rabidly snapping pictures of everyone, including several of Karen in her new bikini.

Josh had been given carte blanche with the invitations and much to her annoyance, he had taken it upon himself to invite Laurie and Spic, Karen’s friends from Hollywood High.

“I told you I’d already invited Ashley and some of my other friends from Killenby,” she had informed Josh when he had first told her the news. “You shouldn’t have invited Laurie and Spic without running it by me first.” Laurie was a stoner and Ashley was pure Beverly Hills princess. Although Karen liked them both, that didn’t mean she wanted them at the same party.

“Well,
excuse me
,” Josh told her sarcastically, “but aren’t you forgetting this is
my
party?”

“I know that,” she argued, “but Laurie’s really high maintenance and I don’t think she and Ashley are going to get along.”

“For Christ’s sake, they won’t even have to eyeball each other, if that’s what’s worrying you. There are going to be tons of other people there.”

“Thanks for being so supportive,” she retorted.

“Listen, if you don’t want your friends to come, then un-invite them. I honestly don’t give a shit.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she shot back heatedly.

“Whatever,” was his disinterested response, “but if you ask me, I think you’re making too big a deal out of this whole thing.”

Karen still had her doubts as she introduced Ashley and her other friends to Laurie and Spic.

“Hey.” Ashley’s gaze was cool as she gave Spic a cursory once-over before her eyes came rest on Laurie’s nose. “Your nose looks almost as good as mine. Maybe you used the same nose guy?”

“Huh?” Laurie’s eyes were unfocused, probably from the two joints she’d smoked earlier. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”

Hardly the beginnings of a life-long friendship
, thought Karen, as she watched her friends from Killenby head down to the beach to play volleyball, while Laurie and Spic got swallowed up in the mix of people. Pretty soon everybody appeared to be having a great time except for her. Despite the great music, the free-flowing booze and the interesting people, Karen was finding it hard to get into the swing of things.

Josh appeared out of nowhere. Pulling her into a corner, he tried to get one hand down the front of her bikini bottom while balancing a sweaty glass of vodka and a lit joint in the other. Much to Karen’s annoyance, he was totally shitfaced.

“That thaing you got on is fuckin’ too much,” he mumbled.

“Quit trying to cop a feel.” Karen managed to avoid his roving hand.