Which way should I go? I asked Sweets.
Heck if I know. I just wish you’d slow down. Do you want me to puke?
I’ve got to find her. I need to know about Donny.
Turn down the radio, can you? And would you wind down the window? It’s hot in this cab.
I turned off the radio and rolled the window down, continuing to wander through the Point Loma neighborhoods under the shadow of Donny and Renee’s romance. What would it be like to watch your first love broken below on the rocks? Could you ever be the same again? Would you ever be able to love again?
I hung a left and a left and a left, imagining Donny and Renee at Baskin-Robbins. I imagined their first awkward kiss. I imagined the first time they made love. Over and over, I saw Donny Ray lying on the rocks and Renee throwing flowers into the sea. Then I saw Renee’s Sentra parked along the curb. I pulled in behind it and got out. I stood on the grass for a moment, arms akimbo, looking around.
“Hey!”
I looked up to see her on a balcony, scowling down at me. “Are you stalking me?”
“I tried to catch you at Coco’s,” I replied. “You left early.”
“Just because you rescue me from some old drunk doesn’t mean you get to follow me home.”
“I only want to ask you one question.”
“About what?”
“About Donny Hubbard.”
Her head jerked and she stared at me in profile through her fallen hair. The top button of her uniform was undone. “Donny?” She seemed suddenly out of breath. “Did you know him?”
“I know his brother.”
“Shelly?” She gripped the rail. “How do you know Shelly?”
“From the racetrack. I’m watching his business. Do you mind if I come up?”
“I don’t know.” She fastened the button. “Did you really escape from a mental hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you there?”
“I lost my wife, and then I lost my mind.”
She licked her lips. “I have to be at my second job in an hour.”
“It won’t take a minute.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“One question.”
She looked away. “I’m in apartment 21.”
Renee’s two-bedroom apartment had an old round brown couch, brown shag carpeting, a few bland seascapes in driftwood frames on the walls. There were two green-gold barrel recliners and an antique trunk with castors for a coffee table. The kitchen was small, bright, with a glass table inside. There were pictures of children all around, two boys, roughly as Shelly described. Their father was nowhere represented. Renee perched herself on the edge of a green recliner. “What do you want to know about Donny?” she demanded.
“Just one thing. Is he still alive?”
“No, he’s not.” Her lips tightened. She clutched her collar. She blinked rapidly and pressed together her knees. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m watching Shelly’s house and his business,” I explained. “Both his parents have died and he’s had to go back to Alabama.”
Renee, huddled, watched me through narrowed eyes. “I’m surprised he let you in,” she said.
“You know Donny’s room hasn’t changed in twenty years. But there are sounds from that room that I can’t explain. There is a tape marked ‘Donny’s Favorite Songs: 1986.’ Someone sleeps in his bed, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t Goldilocks. Whenever I’m in that house alone I don’t feel like I’m alone. Shelly is hiding something.”
She cast a glance to the side. “That’s Shelly for you.”
“I checked back through all the obituaries of that year and Donny is not listed.”
She relaxed a bit. Her arms unfolded from her chest. “That’s because he didn’t die here.”
“Where did he die?”
She shut her eyes and explored with her fingertip the cup of her throat. “He was in a coma for so long they finally took him back to Alabama.” Now she stood and began to pace. “It was a miracle that he lived at all. God.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I went to see him once before they took him back. They had him in Spring Valley at a convalescent hospital. His eyes were open. One arm had shrunk up into his chest.”
Her face was drawn now, and she shook her head for a good thirty seconds, eyes closed. “When I heard that he finally died, I hate to say it but it was a relief.” Moving to the window she looked out for a while before speaking again. “I know he’ll forgive me for saying that.”
“I’m sorry to bring it all up again.”
She took a deep breath. “I still dream about him. Sometimes I swear he’s still around, watching over me. Maybe he’s visiting you too.”
“Maybe so.”
She sat again at the edge of her chair. “How long has Shelly been your friend?”
“I met him at the Del Mar Racetrack when I was seventeen.”
“You’re a record-collecting buddy?”
“Horseracing buddy, mainly.”
“You’d be the first friend of Shelly’s I ever met.” She flapped her lashes at me. “He keeps them all a secret.”
“Why does he come to see you every Tuesday?”
She snorted and her lip curled. “He used to tag along with Donny and me, I mean everywhere, movies, beach — four years older than Donny and he was more like the little brother. He was jealous of Donny because Donny had everything Shelly didn’t — good looks, confidence, athletic ability, girlfriends. Shelly loved music but Donny could play.”
“I see.”
She studied me a while, the lashes of her pale eyes flickering. She stretched out an ankle, lifted her hair from her neck and said after a minute: “When he came along with us that day to the Clam, Donny had no plans to jump. That was Shelly’s idea. Of course Shelly wasn’t going to jump. He used to taunt Donny sometimes — he liked to egg him on — and he started in with this little chant. Jump, boy, jump. Donny was athletic and could swim pretty well, and I think he wanted to show Shelly, to prove something or whatever, you know, like little brothers will do. Anyway, Donny could
