Flesh And Blood

“The thing about Tony is, I still feel close to him. He’s really a great person, not at all what you’d think.”

“What would I think?” I said.

“You know, the whole sex thing. The dirty old man stuff. I really did – do love him. Just in a different way, now. He’s-” Shaking her head. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this.”

I ran a finger across my lips. “Don’t mean to pry.”

“You’re not prying, I’m blabbing. The thing is, it’s totally my life, right? Why should I be always listening to people telling me what to do?”

“Who tells you what to do? Anita and Kent?”

She picked up the crossword puzzle, squinted at the grid, blinked. “These letters are tiny, I probably need a new contact lens prescription… You know, I think that pony clue might be ‘cayuse.’ That’s got a y, and I think I remember some Indian word like that from Arizona – Cayuse ponies, whatever. Take a look – what do you think?”

She pressed forward, bosoms resting on the table, slid the paper toward me.

“You know,” I said, “I think you’re right – excellent.”

A huge smile spread across her face as I filled in the blanks, and for a moment she looked very young.

“You must be smart, doing these. Maybe I should start doing them too,” she said. “To keep my mind active. I get bored a lot – there’s not much to do.”

“At the estate?”

“I know, I know, it’s everyone’s idea of paradise, what am I bitching about? But believe me, it’s boring. There’s tennis, but I hate tennis ’cause of the sun, and how many laps can you swim, how many times can you ride that cable car, up and down, up and down, and stare at the ocean? Even Tony’s zoo – he’s got these rare goats and some monkeys and other stuff, but it smells bad and it’s noisy and I don’t like animals. Even the kids are bored with it. When they’re up and running around, I keep pretty busy, but when they nap, like now… I want to put them both in preschool, but so far it hasn’t worked out.”

“Why not?”

“So many details,” she said. “Finding the right place, arranging transportation. Making sure about security.”

“Security?” I said. “Like a bodyguard?”

“At least somewhere we can be sure they’ll be safe. There are plenty of movie stars in Malibu, and they send their kids to preschool, but we want to be especially careful.”

“Could I ask a personal question?”

“I might not answer it.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “If you’ve been divorced for a year, why are you still living there?”

“Well,” she said, “that’s another long story.” Her hand rested on mine. “I still want to thank you. For being there, you know? Because Baxter can swim, but he could’ve been in trouble. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it in front of Anita, so I have something else to thank you for – not saying anything.”

“No problem.”

“What do you do for a living?” she said.

“This and that. I have some investments.”

“Ooh,” she said. “That sounds rich. I bet you’re not as rich as Tony.”

“No argument there.”

Her hand trailed up my arm, tickled my chest, touched my lips, withdrew.

“Why am I still living there,” she said. “Well… after the divorce, I had my own place. Up in Los Feliz hills, a really cool place. Tony got it for me because of the gates and the security – it was a real safe place. Or at least we thought so. Tony wanted the best for me.”

“Sounds like a friendly divorce.”

“He was sweet… Anyway, me and the kids were in this great old house in Los Feliz – lots of land, all these fancy details, this gigantic bathroom with a view of the hills. And close to Hollywood, so one day I took the kids to the Egyptian Theatre to see A Bug’s Life – it was cool, they had this whole sideshow next door about bugs and stuff, computer games, toys, Bax and Sage went crazy. Afterwards we went out for dinner and ice cream and it was late when we got home and Sage was already sleeping on my shoulder and Bax was pretty close to conking out. Anyway, I turn the key and we walk into the house and instead of greeting me with a big bark the way she always did, Bingles – that’s our dog – was – this gorgeous standard poodle who won a ton of shows – instead of greeting us, Bingles is lying in the entry hall, not moving, with her tongue stuck all out and her eyes real dull.”

“Oh boy,” I said.

“I freaked, Alex. If the kids hadn’ta been with me, I would’ve screamed. Baxter runs over to shake Bingles, but I could tell from the way her tongue was sticking out that she was gone and I’m screaming at him not to touch her and then Sagey wakes up and starts crying and then I smell it. This horrible gas smell. I got us all out of there fast, called Anita. She sent a driver for us, brought us out here, sent some specialists to Los Feliz. Turns out there was this massive gas leak – the house was old and the pipes weren’t great and somehow the main flue got clogged or something. They said it was lucky we left when we did because all the windows were closed because it was a cold night. They said we could’ve died in our sleep. Or if I’da lit a match, the whole place could’ve gone up. They fixed the problem, but we’ve been here ever since. Eventually, I’ll get another place – but closer to Tony because… he is their dad.”

“Scary,” I said.

“Close call. Just like today.” She rubbed my thumb with two of her fingers, and the gems in her rings glinted. “There must be an angel looking down on me, or something.”

She finished the rest of the bagel. “Anyway, that’s how Hollywood Me became Malibu Me again.”

“You never did say how you got from Vegas to Malibu.”

“Oh, that,” she said, wiping crumbs from her lips. “After they wouldn’t make me a headliner, I got bored and decided to see what I could find in L.A., figured I’d try modeling or acting or something. I had some money saved up, got myself a neat apartment in the Marina, hit the agencies. But they didn’t want full-figured girls, and I didn’t want to do sleazy stuff, you know?”

I nodded.

“Nudies, hard-core – I mean the body’s beautiful, but you have to keep standards… Anyway, I checked out a few agents for commercials, but they were all losers. I’d started thinking about taking a boring job or something. Then one day I saw this ad in the paper offering good money for being in a psychology experiment. And I said, Girl, if there’s one thing you know, it’s psychology. ’Cause back when I danced, it was all psychology. Fix your eyes on certain guys in the audience and play for them, pretend you know them and they know you. It set the tone – so you could be… realistic, you know? It made it more real, and that pleases the audience, and when the audience is happy, everyone’s happy.”

“Connecting,” I said.

“Exactly.” She rolled my thumb some more. “So I figured, what the hey, it might be fun doing some psychology. So I checked out the ad, and the guy running it was really sweet and it turns out all he wanted me to do was be in a room with some guys – just be myself – and see what they would do.”

“That’s it?”

“He – the psychologist – was measuring reactions to what he called stimuli. For commercials, ads, whatever. I guess he figured I was pretty stimulating. Another good thing, it was down in Newport Beach, so during lunchtime I got to sit on the sand and chill. I’ve always loved the ocean; there isn’t much of that in Phoenix.”

“All you had to do was sit there and he paid you?”

“That was it,” she said. “Like modeling, but better. ’Cause there was no photographer making me twist in weird positions. And Ben – the psychologist – was a sweet, sweet guy, never made a move on me. Which, for me, is a twist, you know?” Squeezing my thumb.

I said, “I’ll bet,” and she grinned.

“At first, I figured he was just waiting for the right time, but then I could see he just wasn’t into it, so I started to think he was gay. Which was fine, I like gay guys – I mean I wasn’t disappointed or anything like that. I am not like that.”

Suddenly her voice hardened, as if I’d accused her of something. Her nail dug into my thumb, and I lifted it