Silent Partner

surrendering to high eighties’ temperatures and air that smelled like oven exhaust. But Nichols Canyon still looked fresh- sun-washed, filled with country sounds. Hard to believe Hollywood- the grifters and geeks- was only yards away.

When I got to the house the lattice gate was open. Driving the Seville up to the house, I parked it next to a big burgundy Fleetwood Brougham with chrome wire wheels, a phone antenna on the rear deck, and plates that said SELHOUS.

A tall dark brunette got out of the car. Mid-forties, aerobics-firm and shapely in tight acid- washed jeans, high-heeled boots, and a blousy, scoop-necked black suede top decorated with rhinestones. She carried a snakeskin purse, wore large onyx and glass costume jewelry and hexagonal, blue-tinted sunglasses.

“Doctor? I’m Mickey.” A wide, automatic smile spread under the glasses.

“Alex Delaware.”

“It is Dr. Delaware?”

“Yes.”

She pushed the glasses up her forehead, eyed the coat of dirt on the Seville, then my clothes- old cords, faded workshirt, huaraches.

Running a mental Dun and Bradstreet on me: Says he’s a doctor, but the city’s full of bullshit artists. Drives a Caddy, but it’s eight years old. Another phony putting on the dog? Or someone who once had it and lost it?

“Beautiful day,” she said, one hand on the door handle, still scrutinizing, still wary. Meeting strange men up in the hills had to give a woman frequent pause.

I smiled, tried to look harmless, said, “Beautiful,” and looked at the house. In the daylight, the deja vu was even stronger. My personal patch of ghost town. Spooky.

She mistook my silent appraisal for displeasure, said, “There’s a fabulous view from the inside. It’s really a charmer, great bones- I think it was designed by one of Neutra’s students.”

“Interesting.”

“It just came on the market, Doctor. We haven’t even run ads- in fact, how did you find out about it?”

“I’ve always liked Nichols Canyon,” I said. “A friend who lives nearby told me it was available.”

“Oh. What kind of a doctor are you?”

“Psychologist.”

“Taking a day off?”

“Half day. One of the few.”

I checked my watch and tried to look busy. That seemed to reassure her. Her smile reappeared. “My niece wants to be a psychologist. She’s a very smart little girl.”

“That’s terrific. Good luck to her.”

“Oh, I think we make our own luck, don’t we, Doctor?”

She pulled keys out of her handbag and we walked to the slatted front door. It opened to a small courtyard- a few potted plants, glass wind chimes that I remembered, dangling over the lintel, silent in the hot, static air.

We went inside and she began her spiel, all well-rehearsed pep.

I pretended to listen, nodded and said “Uh huh” at the right times, forced myself to follow, rather than lead; I knew the place better than she did.

The interior smelled of carpet cleaning fluid and pine disinfectant. Sparkly clean, expunged of death and disorder. But to me it seemed mournful and forbidding- a black museum.

The front of the house was a single open area encompassing living room, dining area, study, and kitchen. The kitchen was early deco-massacre: avocado-green cabinetry, round-edged coral-colored Formica tops, and a coral vinyl-covered breakfast nook tucked into one corner. The furniture was blond wood, synthetic pastel fabrics, and spidery black iron legs- the kind of postwar jet-streamed stuff that looks poised for takeoff. Walls, of textured beige plaster, were hung with portraits of harlequins and serene seascapes. Bracket bookshelves were crowded with volumes on psychology. The same books.

A bland, listless room, but the blandness projected the eye toward the east, toward a wall of glass so clean it seemed invisible. Panels of sheet glass, segmented by sliding glass doors.

On the other side was a narrow, terrazzo-tiled terrace rimmed with white iron railing; beyond the railing an eyeful- a mindful- of canyons, peaks, blue skies, summer foliage. “Isn’t it something,” said Mickey Mehrabian, spreading one arm, as if the panorama were a picture she’d painted.

“Really something.”

We walked out on the terrace. I felt dizzy, remembered an evening of dancing, Brazilian guitars.

Something to show you, Alex.

Late September. I got back to L.A. before Sharon did, $4,000 more solvent, and lonely as hell. She’d left without leaving an address or number; we hadn’t exchanged as much as a postcard. I should have been angry, yet she was all I thought about as I drove down the coast.

I headed straight for Curtis Hall. The floor counselor told me she’d checked out of the dorm, wouldn’t be returning this semester. No forwarding address, no number.

I drove away, enraged and miserable, certain I’d been right: She’d been seduced back to the Good Life, plied with rich boys, new toys. She was never coming back.

My apartment looked dingier than ever. I avoided it, spent as much time as possible at the hospital, where the challenges of my new job helped distract me. I took on a full caseload from the waiting list, volunteered for the night shift in the Emergency Room. On the third day she showed up at my office, looking happy, almost feverish with delight.

She closed the door. Deep kisses and embraces. She made sounds about missing me, let my hands roam her curves. Then she pulled away, flushed and laughing. “Free for lunch, Doctor?”

She took me to the hospital parking lot, to a shiny red convertible- a brand new Alfa Romeo Spider.

“Like it?”

“Sure, it’s great.”

She tossed me the keys. “You drive.”

We had lunch at an Italian place on Los Feliz, listened to opera and ate cannoli for dessert. Back in the car, she said, “There’s something I want to show you, Alex,” and directed me west, to Nichols Canyon.

As I pulled up the driveway to the gray, pebble-roofed house, she said, “So what do you think, Doc?”

“Who lives here?”

“Yours truly.”

“You’re renting it?”

“No, it’s mine!” She got out of the car and skipped to the front door.

I was surprised to find the house furnished, even more surprised by the dated, fifties look of the place. These were the days when organic was king: earth tones, home-made candles, and batiks. All this aluminum and plastic, the flat, cold colors seemed declasse, cartoonish.

She glided around exuding pride of ownership, touching and straightening, pulled open drapes and exposed the wall of glass. The view made me forget the aluminum.

Not a student’s pad by a long shot. I thought: an arrangement. Someone had set the place up for her. Someone old enough to have bought furniture in the fifties.

Kruse? She’d never really clarified their relationship…

“So what do you think, Doc?”

“Really something. How’d you swing it?”

She was in the kitchen, pouring 7-Up into two glasses. Pouting. “You don’t like it.”