Billy Speare

So I was sitting on my couch, head back, ice pack lightly resting on my newly set and bandaged nose. Ariela “Doogie Howser” van den Berg sat cross-legged in the green crushed-velour club chair opposite me, chattering away, glowing over the fact that she had successfully caused me to yowl in pain and that the pain had forced from me tears, yes, sharp-edged diamond droplets of devout physical anguish. She also kept filling my glass with Patrón, sweetly explaining that as far as she could tell, it was the most effective painkiller I owned and that she was drug-free and had never been drunk a day in her life and planned to keep it that way.

And then, after deciding that the only way to cope with her schoolgirl monologue was to pretend it was Muzak, and just as I was about to drift into sweet, blessed unconsciousness, she said, “I think that what we need to do once you look human again is introduce you to my mom. She needs a husband.” Ariela propped her feet on my coffee table. “I need a dad.” She smiled brilliantly at me as I lifted my head and looked past my giant nose. “And you’re it.”

“Ha!”

“What? How can you say no? You haven’t even met her yet.”

I took off the ice pack, winced, reached for the Patrón. “Exactement, Doogie Howser! I haven’t met her yet. So how could I say yes?”

Ariela sat there, blinking madly, twisting the ends of the chair cushion in her pale little fists. I think this deranged child was serious. She wanted me to be her dad.

“Look, kid, I’m not the catch you think I am. And besides, about your mom, I’m not in, on, or even underneath the market womanwise.”

Her Cleopatras snapped with surprise. “Get out! You’re gay? But all that straight sex in your book. Hot straight sex. What did you do? Make it up?”

I know a few rules. Can even follow them most of the time. Rule number twenty-six: Don’t laugh in the immediate aftermath of having had your nose set if said appendage has been set without the numbing aid of an anesthetic. But this kid cracked me up. I laughed a long, hard, genuine laugh, all the while moaning, “Oh God, it hurts.”

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said indignantly, rising to her feet.

“I’m not laughing at you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’m laughing because of course I’m not gay and I’m not in the market for women because my girlfriend just died. And I’m really not prepared to take on the role of being anyone’s father, seeing how I royally fucked up that duty with my own kid. She won’t even speak to me.”

Ariela walked over to the table, rummaged through her purse, pulled out a cell phone, and punched in a number.

“Hey! Don’t you dare call your mother.”

“Fuck you, Mr. No Dick. I’m calling for a pizza. We’ve got to eat. Figuring out why you’re such an asshole—God, you laughed about your girlfriend dying—is going to take us the rest of the day.”

“Oh, great.”

“Yeah,” she said into the phone, “I’ll hold, but not for long.” She rotated the phone away from her ear. “I hate being on hold. So, give me the four one one. The girlfriend. Are you all broken-up? Did you know each other long? Was it murder, or some ghastly disease?”

“Yes. No. Accident. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to—yeah, I want a large veggie with extra cheese, light on the anchovies. . . . What’s your address?”

It went on like this for a few minutes. Her interrogating me and ordering pizza simultaneously, me giving her nothing, but all the while feeling slightly amused at her bulldoggedness.

She clicked off the phone, tossed it in her purse, and said, “You know what? You don’t act all broken-up.”

Bang, bang, bang, there was a knock at the door.

“Shit, that was fast,” she said. “You got any dough?” She clomped the three steps to the door and flung it open, not bothering to see who in the hell it was before exposing herself. She looked her poor next victim up and down. “Who are you?”

“Well, aren’t we Miss Manners. Billy, you in there?” A woman who looked vaguely familiar—I guess I’d seen her at Salty’s—stuck her head in.

“Oh, he’s here all right. What’s left of him. Come on in.”

Clearly, I was not in control. I stood up, wobbled, I’m afraid, and stuck out my hand. “Billy Speare.” Yeah, that was her. Seen her at Salty’s. She was a handsome woman. What the hell is she doing here? I wondered.

We shook. She had a firm grip, maybe too firm. “I’m Charlee Mudd,” she said, tossing back her blond hair, narrowing those startling green eyes. “I’m sure Murmur told you all about me.”

I looked at my wanna-be daughter, whose arms were crossed in front of her. She wore the bemused look of a woman who sensed a grand game was about to begin and only she—of all the people in the world—knew the outcome. I looked at Charlee Mudd. I thought, I could fuck her, but I sure would never like her.

“Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink? Yeah, I think she did mention you.”

“She yours?” Charlee Mudd asked, nodding her head at Ariela.

“Yep. That’s dear old dad,” Ariela chimed in, as speedy as only an eighteen-year-old can be. “Who’s Murmur? Your dead girlfriend?” she asked ever so delicately.

“Goodness. You are really something,” Charlee Mudd said to Ariela, a definite note of awe creeping into her voice.

“Why, thank you. It’s difficult, you know, standing out as a real person when you’ve got such a famous dad.”

“Ah,” Charlee Mudd said, “I suppose it would be. I love your tattoos. They really are gorgeous,” she added, cocking her head this way and that to get a better look. “Do you have a name?” She spun her gaze back on to me. “Does your daughter have a name?”

“Ariela,” we both said in unison.

“Pretty.”

“Thank you. My parents named me after a great-great-aunt who was Vladimir Nabokov’s ghostwriter and lover. She wrote every word that came out of his mouth.”

Oh God, Ariela, that made no sense. Any daughter of mine would know better than to say something that stupid.

“Really? That’s fascinating,” Charlee Mudd said. She and Ariela’s eyes met, and I am certain that some sort of feminine secret communication flew between them. It was two against one. Two strangers were standing in my tin can, strangers with ovaries—and they had experienced an undercover mind meld right in front of me, and I didn’t really know what either of them wanted. I mean, Ariela had said she desired a father. But how come of all the writers in all the world she’d chosen me? Just because of my brilliance? I didn’t think so. And who the hell knew what this so-called friend of Murmur’s wanted. I took a fresh swig of Patrón. I was getting over this warm little scene. And fast.

“How’s your nose?”

“Just fine. How’s yours?”

“Dad! That was sooooo rude!”

“Listen, Ms. Mudd, I’ve had a rough eighteen hours. Can I just ask flat out what you’re doing here?” That was good. I had scored an offensive shot. I was back in the game.

Ariela zipped over to the fridge, pulled out two soft drinks, and handed one to our guest. “Here, Charlee, have a Coke.”

“Thank you.” She popped the top, hesitated, and then said, “Ariela, do you mind if your father and I talk in private?”

“Actually, I do,” she said.

“My gosh, you’re confident for someone so young.” She turned to me. “This conversation really needs to take place in private.”

I indicated the green velour. “You heard my daughter. She stays.” I wasn’t happy with the tone that had crept into my voice. But I didn’t like her being there. I didn’t like her appropriation of Murmur Lee. I hated busybody cunts. “You’ve got five minutes,” I said as I slid the Patrón bottle to the center of the table. “So shoot.”

And good old Ariela said, “Bang, bang. You’re both dead.”