On the long drive home, Father Herlihy’s words reverberated in my ears. The din was deafening, and I didn’t like it. I thought about Joseph Albacco and how desperate he must be. About how big his cell was and when he had last gotten a phone call or eaten a good meal. I thought about his theory of life and about the sorry fact that I had theories about everything under the sun except the things that really mattered.
I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. My ex was always amazed at how I could do that. If he got to talking about James Fenimore Cooper, I could fall asleep even before my head hit the pillow.
I’m a deep sleeper. Comatose. Known to drool. So when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it isn’t a good thing. Call it my morbid temperament, but I always assume it means someone has died. The only thing I hate more is being woken up by the doorbell. This means that not only do I wake up frantic, but I have to compose my features into some semblance of normality, and before coffee. It’s inhuman.
The doorbell chimed. It was going to be one of those days. I bolted upright and peeled my eyes open. I was wearing the contacts you were supposed to be able to leave in for a week. Another case of false advertising. I pulled on my robe, cursing. It wasn’t until I stumbled toward the front door, patting my hair down from its Don King state, that I realized it was not, in fact, the middle of the night. According to the kitchen clock, it was 9:05 A.M.
After looking through the peephole, I opened the door to the woebegone figure of my son-in-law, clutching a pair of plush pink slippers in his large hands.
“Hi,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I woke you up,” he said.
“No, no. I’ve been up for hours, cleaning,” I replied quickly. An obvious lie, given the state of the living room, but I expect he appreciated the courtesy.
“Come on in,” I said. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
Wrapping my robe tighter around me, I strode purposefully into the kitchen. The prospect of caffeine gave me strength. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
Vincent followed me like a puppy and sat down at the table, still holding the slippers.
“These are Annie’s,” he explained. “She puts them on the minute she wakes up. Her feet get cold. I knew she’d miss them.”
“I’ll give them to her when I see her,” I said gently, pouring what was left of the Hawaiian Hazelnut into the filter and flipping the switch.
“Where is she?” he asked, looking toward the hallway. “Isn’t she here?”
“No,” I answered with a half smile. “She went to Lael’s.”
He smiled back. “Oh, that makes sense. It’s no big deal. She probably just didn’t want to upset you, that’s all.”
It was classic Vincent. Here he was offering me a shoulder to cry on instead of the other way around.
“You’re sweet to say so, Vincent. But I’m more concerned about the two of you. What is this all about?”
Vincent fidgeted uncomfortably. I could tell he was torn between the fear of being disloyal to Annie and the need to talk.
“Listen, Vincent, Annie and I spoke on Friday, but none of it made sense. I love my daughter, but I don’t understand why she’s acting like this. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“What are you talking about, Cece?” he cried. “She’s not acting like anything! Annie isn’t that kind of person! You of all people should know that!” He jumped to his wife’s defense with a ferocity that was pretty surprising given she was sleeping with another man.
Vincent picked up his coffee, poured in unholy quantities of cream and sugar, and walked over to the couch, trying to regain his composure.
“Look, you obviously don’t get it. I’m the one who’s responsible for everything that’s gone wrong. I’m the one who’s a liar, a fool, and a coward. I’m the one who’s ruined our lives.” He looked up at me, his eyes filling with tears.
I wasn’t expecting dramatics. Not from him. Vincent was calm personified, the Buddhist monk type. Once, I had called Vincent and Annie in the middle of the night, hysterical, convinced my house was being taken over by a colony of enormous, prehistoric rats. Vincent came over with a broom and talked me down. I was a city kid—how was I supposed to know those were opossums?
“What are you talking about, Vincent? You’re scaring me,” I said.
“I scared your daughter, too. That’s why she turned to someone else, and then just left. I can hardly blame her. She thought she knew me, and then she found out I was somebody else.”
“Okay,” I said, playing along for the moment. “Who are you?”
“I’m the father of a kid who’s never laid eyes on me, that’s who,” he answered, and walked out the door.
I poured my cold Hawaiian Hazelnut down the drain and headed straight back to bed.
I woke up for the second time that day just before noon, when my gardener rang the bell.
“Cece, four dead snails!” Javier exclaimed, shoving the evidence in my face. I was finding it hard to revel in our triumph at just that moment, given my empty stomach and the news that I was sort of a grandma.
“Wonderful, Javier,” I said.
“No problem,” he replied, though I had clearly burst his bubble. “I thought you’d be happier. Say,” he said, grinning, “were you still sleeping?”
“Oh, you know us creative types. We can work in our pajamas if we want to. You should try it sometime.”
He didn’t much like the joke, which came out nastier than I’d intended. It was just that I didn’t appreciate his insinuation that I was sleeping the day away, which, of course, I was. But no more. I felt like hell. But this, too, would pass. I took a deep breath. I reached way down into myself. I straightened my spine, sucked in my gut, and produced a horrific, pageant-worthy smile. I turned on the shower. I could do this. I could trust Annie and Vincent to work it out. I could try living my own life for once. And it was a gorgeous day. A perfect day, in fact, for a drive to Ventura.
Half an hour later, I was spanking clean and bedecked in a powder-blue 1940s halter dress and matching patent-leather ankle straps. They gave me blisters only that first time. I opened a can of food for Mimi, poured out a bowl of Buster’s low-fat kibble, and emerged into the dazzling sunlight. Without being asked, Javier stopped pulling up weeds and moved his truck out of the driveway. I was off.
It was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way over Laurel Canyon—me and a phalanx of Valley folk heading for the fabled land of hospitality and convenient parking. It took about twenty-five minutes to get to the 101, but from there it would be a straight shot to Ventura, an hour and a half, max. I’m not exactly a Formula One driver, but I am an old hand at the 101, thanks to a torrid affair I had a while back with a beefy LAPD detective who, like so many of his buddies, lived in the nether reaches of Simi Valley. When I asked him why they were willing to put up with that kind of commute, he said the guys wanted out, way the heck out, after a long day of cleaning up other people’s messes. And I’m talking messy messes. Still, there were all those bored skinheads out in the exurbs. I preferred the local gangbangers, not that I was friends with any, of course.
I drove past the San Fernando Valley’s endless gated communities, with their faux-tile roofs and faux Spanish names—El Petunia Gargantunita, Los Picadoritos Machos, etc. Then I hit Calabasas, where the horse people live, then Thousand Oaks, home to a passel of big box stores—Ikea, Best Buy—and not much else. From there, it was on to Oxnard, where the air smells like fertilizer. Lots of lettuce in Oxnard.
Just when I started to get that desperate, been-in-the-car-for-too-long feeling, the Pacific Ocean came up on my left, a bolt of blue stretching as far as the eye could see. That meant the next stop would be Ventura. I took the Main Street exit, veering away from the ocean toward the historic downtown district, located at the base of the foothills between the Ventura and Santa Clara Rivers. Once, those hills had been covered with sprays of gray sage, blue lupine, and, east of town, golden mustard. It must have been something. Passengers arriving by stagecoach back in the 1860s and 1870s would have been lured by the area’s great beauty, the promise of rich soil and balmy weather, and business opportunities ripe for the picking.
Me, the girl in the silver Camry, I’d been lured by the possibility of answering someone’s prayers.