Burnett was up on a ladder, painting wings on fallen angels.
“I don’t know a thing about you,” I said, to get a reaction and also because it was true.
“Sure you do,” he said, smiling. God, that smile. “Hand me pale blue, will you? It’s over by the closet.”
It turned out that our getaways had coincided, Burnett’s and mine. I was in Ventura, trying to go in a straight line instead of circles, and he was in Montecito, restoring a fresco in his mother’s bedroom.
Painted in the style of François Boucher, the fresco depicted a pair of lascivious rococo cherubs enjoying some après-midi delight amongst the sugarplums. I could practically feel the thing rotting my teeth. But it could have been my mood. Or being in that woman’s bedroom. At least she was out of town and wouldn’t suddenly appear, offering flavored iced teas all around.
“I keep wondering if I should just let the paint peel,” Burnett said, chewing thoughtfully on the back of his paint-brush. “It works with the theme, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it literalizes the notion of striptease.”
He turned and gave me a look. Smoldering would be the proper adjective. “Could I interest you in literalizing the notion of striptease?”
“Not with those little chubbies watching.”
“Paranoid.”
“Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean I’m being watched.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly how it goes.”
“Nothing wrong with a malapropism.”
“I need eggshell, do you see it over there?”
I picked up a small can. “Number Thirty-three?”
“That’s it. Thanks,” he said, stretching his arm down to grab it from me.
I picked up an embroidered pillow from the bed and tried pushing some threads back from where they had come loose.
“So,” I asked, “is your father coming to your birthday party?”
“My father? Where did that come from?” Burnett looked up from his work. With a few quick strokes of paint, he had made two pairs of angel eyes glisten.
“I told you, I don’t know anything about you.”
Turning his back to me, Burnett said that his father had come in from England early last week to celebrate the grand event. Those were his words, and they got a little stuck coming out.
“How does your mother feel about that?”
“They’re on speaking terms, if that’s what you mean. They actually like each other these days.”
“Was that not always the case?”
“Not always.”
“Why?”
“She’d never admit it, but she grew up pretty rough-and-tumble. My father’s family has been rolling in dough for generations. They’ve got that aristocratic thing going, the cultivated pallor, bad teeth. They never much liked her.”
“When did your parents meet? I’ve never heard that story.”
He gave me a hard stare. “Why are you asking so many questions today, Cece?”
“I don’t know. You ask me something.”
“How’s your book coming?”
He knew how to hurt a girl. “Fine, though I’ve been diverted, as you know.”
“I need persimmon. Can you pass it up? Sorry. Go ahead. What’s going on with the case?”
“Actually, it’s kind of interesting,” I said carefully. “Did you know your grandfather was involved?”
He didn’t look too surprised. “My grandfather was involved in everything. Tentacles everywhere, like an octopus. What’d he do this time?”
“It’s oil. These people owned some tidelands property. Your grandfather bought it.”
“‘Yes it’s oil, oil, oil/that makes our town boil.’ That was an old drinking song.” Burnett ran his fingers through his hair even though there was paint all over them. “Oil, oil, oil, that’s why I never had to toil.”
“Come on,” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t as if I started from nothing, like my grandfather did. Man, I need a break,” he said, climbing down the ladder. He flopped onto the bed and patted the spot next to him. I lay down.
“So why do I feel like we’re in high school?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling.
“Because my mother’s not home and we’re lying on her bed fully clothed. When’s the last time you did something like that?”
“The time I swore I’d never do it again.” I sat up and adjusted my T-shirt before I made another big mistake. Still, I had work to do here.
“So tell me about your grandfather.”
Now he was staring at the ceiling.
“Old Morgan came from Ohio. Came to Los Angeles in the teens, I guess. Looking for Oil-do-rado.” He dragged out the syllables.
“Go on.”
“He followed the cries of the pitchmen. They set up circus tents along the highway and promised the world to every sucker who happened by. In L.A., there was an oil derrick for every palm tree. You’d go to the beach and people would be sunbathing next to derricks planted right there in the sand. My grandfather operated a rig for Shell Oil at Signal Hill. I’ll never forget something he used to say. When the oil starts to flow, he’d say, you’d hear a growl below like waves roaring through a sea cave.”
“How did he wind up in Ventura?”
“He followed the oil.” Burnett took a breath and blew hard, like he was trying to expel a couple generations’ worth of hot air.
“It was beautiful at night. He’d take me when I was a kid. The natural gas illuminated the sky. There were flares and shadows and machines pumping away. The old man was a real wildcatter. All those guys were gamblers, making crazy bets on what lay hidden beneath the dirt. Everybody had a system. But nobody’s could beat his. He knew where there’d be a strike. And he was never wrong.”
“So what was the big secret?”
“You had to be patient. You had to wait for late summer, when the seedpod was good and sunburnt. In the sunshine, grass over oil will turn red. Look for the red grass, my grandfather said, but don’t tell a soul what you’re looking for.”
I hadn’t thought of Burnett before as someone who’d been circumscribed by his family, by who they were, what they’d accomplished, what they expected of him. He was the classic poor little rich kid. And I knew that no matter how much sympathy I had for him, I could never pity him as much as he pitied himself.
As if he could read my mind, he sprang up from the bed, uncomfortable. “I’ve got to go down the hall and check on the balcony. It needs some repair work. Come find me when you’re ready. You look happy stretched out there. Why don’t you take a catnap or something?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t very tired. I watched him walk down the hall. When the coast was clear, I tiptoed over to his mother’s closet. I owed that much to Bridget.
Closetry, she had once explained to me, is a dying art. True connoisseurs are few and far between. In these days of disposable everything, few can be bothered with matching padded hangers, acid-free paper, customized double rods, and Polaroid-enhanced shoeboxes for identificatory purposes. An innocent in such matters, I could only nod dumbly. Perhaps someday I’d try to arrange my sweaters according to tonal gradations. Things being what they are, however, my sweaters, acrylic and cashmere alike, have been smashed into my bad joke of a closet along with everything else I own. As for my shoe collection, those beauties live with my surplus toilet paper, napkins, and trash bags in the ignominious netherworld of my service porch. I don’t know where anything is. If you asked me to produce my lavender twin set, I’d have to kill you.
I approached Meredith Allan’s closet with reverence. People made pilgrimages to lesser sites. I knew it would smell like roses. Except it didn’t. It smelled musty. And it looked as bad as my closet. Only a thousand times bigger.
There were chiffon scarves strewn around like crepe paper. Evening dresses thrown over chairs. Beautiful mohair sweaters popping out of drawers like jack-in-the-boxes. I touched a real Fortuny dress, which was falling off a bent wire hanger. And I saw something that would’ve made Bridget’s skin crawl: a champagne-colored Norell suit, lying on the floor, turned inside out.
There was a big oak desk at the far end of the closet that the woman had transformed into a monster jewelry box. A gold necklace with a moonstone as big as a baby’s fist was lying on top. Next to it were a couple of chunky coral rings and an onyx brooch encrusted with silver. The top drawer was open. There were bracelets inside—three or four turquoise ones perfect for a Navajo princess, a deco piece with diamonds sprinkled across the surface like fairy dust, a spiny silver thing that looked like something James Bond would deploy under water.
Without even thinking about it, I slipped a large gold filigree cuff onto my wrist. Well, I didn’t exactly slip it on—I broke a sweat trying to work it over my knuckles. It was part of a pair, so I had to put the other one on, too. Then I held my hands up to the mirror. They were beautiful things, those bracelets, but I think I looked less like an oil heiress than Wonder Woman.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous crash from down the hall. What had happened? The balcony? It needed fixing, Burnett had said. Could it have given way? I rushed into the guest room and toward the open French doors. I stopped short. The spindly wooden railing was smashed to bits, and I didn’t see Burnett anywhere.
“Burnett!” I cried. “Where are you?” There was no answer. My heart started to pound. Oh, god, maybe he was down there, in the garden, unconscious or worse. Slowly, I stepped onto the balcony. It seemed secure enough. I walked over to the edge and peered down. Nothing out of the ordinary. The grass below was spread out before me like a bolt of green velvet. So where was Burnett? I turned to go and all of a sudden the floor shifted beneath my feet, then fell away. And I was falling, too, down, down, down, through the pale blue sky.