His hands were fists. They sat on the table as if he were holding forks in them, and he was staring at the old fruit-design wallpaper, his brow lowering. Alarmed, Esme stopped talking. She could hear the clock in the living room ticking.
“Mom, listen. Leigh’s gone.”
“Gone?”
His eyes moved to the red vase, then he leaned over, reorganizing flowers, stretching out leaves with his long sensitive fingers. “Didn’t you wonder why she didn’t come tonight?”
“Well, I thought-What happened, Ray?” She sat down heavily in the kitchen chair.
“Did she say anything to you about us, what was happening with us?”
“Leigh doesn’t confide in me. Thinks I’d be too much on your side, maybe.”
“We had a fight.”
She wiped her wet hands on the dishrag, preparing herself for a sleepless night, hating to see him in such pain.
“A physical fight?”
“An argument. Serious.”
“Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.”
“I’m afraid it is my fault. Most of it, anyway.”
God, she hated seeing her boy like this. Why did women and men, whom nature presumably meant to put together, clash so violently and do each other so much harm? “When did she leave?”
“Friday night.”
“Well-where is she? Is she back here in Whittier with her parents?”
“No.”
“Are you going to try to find her?”
“No point in that. It’s over.”
She put her hand on his arm. Only after he gently wrestled out of her grip did she realize she had squeezed so hard it must have hurt.
Kat’s date that night came from Czechoslovakia, or, as he explained it in his e-mails, Slovakia, since Czechoslovakia had disappeared into history. They met at an outdoor cafe across from the beach in Hermosa. Tired of the brain-numbing hunt for parking, tonight she splurged on a lot, paying six bucks to cover the two hours she thought dinner might take. Gathering up her small bag, hustling down the street on her spike heels, she made it exactly on time, fifteen minutes late.
The prospect had secured a corner table with a glimpse of the sunset over the sea. He faced it; she faced him. She liked how tall he was when he stood to greet her. She even liked the way his eyes scoured her, her spiky red hair, as shiny as expensive products could make it, and her excellent rack neatly packaged in a Calvin Klein bra. She hoped he hadn’t padded his online profile as much as she had padded her physical one.
He ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and skipped salad. Nik did not bike. He did not hike. He did not have an interest in exploring small towns for unusual crafts.
What he liked very much was to smoke, apparently. Since he could not smoke in the restaurant, he instead held on tight to his pack of cigarettes, flicked his lighter, complained about American puritan mores, and reminisced longingly about a past in good old Bratislava or some damn city where you could light up anywhere. He made an effort to amuse Kat with his tales of growing up. He had come over as a young boy before the Cold War ended.
She found herself looking at the door, wondering if Leigh might eat at this restaurant, what she looked like these days, examining people coming and going, watching for someone familiar to arrive and plunk down next to them, ready for a showdown. Jacki had really got her going.
When their coffee came, he took her hand in his and gave her a soulful look, saying, “How I loff American girls.” Meanwhile, blonde, athletic, blithe, his American girls jogged along the boardwalk in the Hollywood sunset, movie-star skin glowing, minds free of archives, not like Kat here, thick with feeling and in a twist about an old friend. And thirty-five years of age, twice the number of years on some of the females he couldn’t keep his eyes off.
However. He seemed interested enough. Except for the lingering tobacco on his clothes, he smelled good. A pushover for a decent aftershave, she had nobody else going and would welcome some peace from the nagging memories. Glad her fingernails had been painted red that very morning, glad her hands still felt soft from all the lotions, Kat rubbed his hand back, thinking, hey, I could settle for a night out of him. He’ll hold me, kiss me, touch me. I won’t feel lonely. I won’t think about Tom or Leigh, or how it all went so wrong.
Excusing herself, she went to the restroom, where two women years younger than her primped, worrying about their wrinkles. Washing her hands with the cheap pink soap, wiping them with the harsh paper, she decided to go for it. If he wanted, he could have her, backwards, forwards, upside down.
She returned to the table, offered to split the bill, stood up, and said, “Well, time to go.”
Surprised, he stood, too, then shrugged and blew kisses on her cheeks, continental-style kisses o’ death. “My treat,” he said. “Nice meeting you.”
As Kat walked out, she saw the reason for his insouciance. Nik had pulled a smooth switcheroo, turning his attention to the tall, slim waitress-until-she-hit-it-big, who had winked at him when they ordered. He held his credit card teasingly out of reach. She leaned over him with a big smile, pretending to grab for it.
Kat left him basking in the glow of the waitress’s remarkably white teeth. She wasn’t insulted, exactly-dating had become a practical matter. She could cope with the night without him or any man. Fine.
On the way home, she picked up wine, several bottles. She drove by a couple of her favorite places, but mentally perseverating on the conversation with her sister, she went home instead of finding a cool barstool on which to get blitzed.
She had been living at Candor Court in Hermosa Beach for almost eighteen months. She didn’t like all the townhouse association rules, especially the no-pet rule and the no-park-on-the-street rule, but her red geraniums on the second-floor balcony, lit by the Chinese lamp she always left on in the living area, made her feel welcome. She petted a few new leaves, said hello, but the geraniums didn’t talk back. Fine, fine.
Tossing her keys into the antique plate and her clothes on the floor, she decided not to open up the wine after all, to use this opportunity to work on her spirit. The sun lingered while the moon came up, and the air on the balcony cooled. The year had fallen into its deepest, truest season, ripe summer. Out on the lawns, sprinklers started up, and not a breath of air disturbed the yellow sycamore leaves.
Kat slipped out of her work clothes and into her robe and went into her walk-in closet, closing the door firmly. She had set aside this space with its tiny window to use as a shrine room. A picture of Rinpoche rested against the small brass Buddha, a tea-candle in a dish in front. She lit the candle and some incense, sat down, crossed her legs, checked her posture, and began counting her breaths, letting her body calm itself.
She closed her eyes and of course there was Leigh the last time she had seen her, six years before, standing by Tom’s grave, hair uncombed, hand over her eyes. So Leigh still returned to his grave to bring him flowers and mourn. Kat felt a wave of sympathy and longing for her old friend. Leigh had known and loved their beloved Tommy, who was now a fading memory for all but his close family. Kat let the emotions rise and noticed them, and now they were supposed to pass away, but they remained and built on themselves. She remembered Tom, too, what he did for her, and what she had not done for him.
All three siblings and Leigh had attended California High School, “Cal High,” in Whittier. Jacki loved school, and caused Kat and Tom numerous problems later with her expectant teachers as they followed behind like muddy dogs trampling over her hallowed footsteps.
Kat studied sporadically but did well enough to take a few advanced courses. Tom studied rarely, but excelled at sports and was therefore forgiven many transgressions, and managed to advance year by year in a predictable fashion. Like Kat, he appeared college bound, although if you asked him, he would say he planned to travel the world, goof off, surf, and skateboard through life.
For some unknowable reason, in Kat’s junior year, a pack of senior girls decided to hate her. She never knew if it had to do with a brief fling she had with one of the point guards on the boys’ basketball team or if she had merely worn the wrong perfume one day. Or said something negative about a certain hairstyle. Or worn a T-shirt in the wrong color. At any rate, some days, when she missed the bus, she had to walk a long, long way home, a couple of miles, much of it up busy Whittier Boulevard. Tom and her best friend, Leigh, stayed late for sports or they would have walked together.
Instead, she bore alone the greasy-faced boys who recognized her and offered her rides she knew better than to accept, and the middle-aged men who stopped, goggling, wanting her in their cars where they would have power and she would have none. God only knew what would happen if she ever accepted a ride from them.
Many of those unhappy days, three girls followed her, harassing her. Kat thought about telling Jacki, but by then Jacki was in college, not living at home, useless. She told Leigh but Leigh, being Leigh, totally overreacted, insisting she get them expelled, kick their butts, etcetera, absurd suggestions in Kat’s opinion. She told Leigh she would, just to shut her up. She considered complaining to her mother, but Ma had problems of her own, an overworked husband and not enough money. And what would her mother do? Call their moms?
Then one day, the girls had come up quite close behind her, so close they didn’t need to shout epithets, they could murmur them, intensely more menacing.
“We could cut you right now,” one said.
“Walk faster,” the last one warned, “or we’ll catch you.”
She ran as fast as she could.
“Why are you running?” Tom said, catching up to her as she ran, sweating, the last steep hill.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Got a reprieve today. Coach got food poisoning.”
“Ah.” She slowed down.
“It’s too hot to run.”
“You’re so right.” She looked behind her, but the girls had disappeared, probably when they saw Tom, the quarterback, who, over six feet by the time he was fifteen, had the exaggerated musculature of a
“So why?”
“No reason.”
“Liar. You never run for no reason. You look like shit lately, Kat. Even Ma noticed.”
“Thanks. I hate you, too. Did she tell you to talk to me?”
He nodded.
“I’ve got problems. Three of them. But you can’t tell Ma.”
“Never.”
Confiding in her younger brother for the first time in her life, trusting him for the first time, she told him everything.
