I spotted a slim young woman with long black hair standing on the corner of Sunset and Bundy with her thumb out as I was roaring my way back through Brentwood. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans and had a knapsack slung over her shoulder. I noticed her partly because you don’t see many people hitchhiking anymore, not like back in my own college days when hitching was considered very cool, very Kerouac. As in Jack, not Steve.
The other reason I noticed her was that her long black hair had three streaks of silver in it.
I made a quick right onto Bundy, turned around in the first driveway I came to and eased the Roadmaster over next to her.
Reggie approached me slowly, a slight smile creasing her face as she checked out my ride. Then she looked me over, her huge blue eyes glittering at me the way they used to a long, long time ago. “You’ve still got it, Stewie,” she observed.
“My raw, animal sex appeal?”
“Your motorcycle jacket.”
“Flight jacket,” I said, revving the throttle.
“What happened to your cheek? Did you get thrown?”
“In a manner of speaking. When did you get into town?”
“Early this morning. Caught the red-eye.”
“Are you heading for Aintree Manor?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“Care for a lift?”
“Will Lulu let me ride with her?”
“I don’t know. That’s entirely up to her.”
Lulu considered it for a moment before she hopped out of her sidecar and let Reggie get in. Then she climbed into Reggie’s lap and curled up there.
“You’re a sweetie, aren’t you?” Reggie cooed, getting her nose licked for her trouble as we idled there next to the curb on Bundy with the sun shining down on us and the cars whizzing by on Sunset. “Let’s ride, muchacho.”
“Not so fast. This is the part where I ask you what you’re doing here.”
“Pretty simple. I got a lift from the airport to UCLA from a very nice student whom I met on the plane. She’s hoping to go into environmental law. Then I started hoofing, hoping someone would give me a lift.”
“Okay, and this is the part where I say, ‘I mean, what are you doing in L.A.?’ If you were going to come, why didn’t you just fly out with me?”
“Because I didn’t know I was coming until I knew I was coming.”
“What changed your mind?”
She reached down into her knapsack, pulled out an express mail pouch and handed it to me. It was addressed to her at the Root Chakra Institute in New Paltz. Had been sent from a post office in Trenton, New Jersey. First Edison, now Trenton. I opened it and removed a folded sheet of paper and a sealed letter-sized envelope. On the sealed envelope someone had scrawled the words For Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald.
I glanced over at her. “‘Sir Reginald’?”
“Dad used to call me that when I was a kid.”
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t? Actually, my formal nickname was Sir Reginald Van Gleason the Third. He was one of those characters Jackie Gleason invented way back when.”
“Who else knows he used to call you that?”
“Besides Dad and me? No one. Except for Monette, of course.”
I unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a plain white sheet of paper. The letter to Reggie had been typed on an old Hermes 3000. It read:
Dear Sir Reginald—
Please do not open the enclosed envelope that is addressed to you and your sister. Not until you two are together in Los Angeles, and I sincerely hope that you will be very soon. It would mean everything in the world to me for my girls to be together again after so many years.
Love,
Dad
“When did you get this?”
“Yesterday afternoon.” She studied me, her eyes searching my face. “What do you think?”
I stuffed the letters back in the pouch and handed it to her. “I think we’re both getting moved around.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it.”
“I’m not.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep moving.”
I got back into the flow of traffic on Sunset and continued on past Kenter until I made it to Rockingham and hung a right.
“God, what a crappy neighborhood,” Reggie declared, raising her voice over the Roadmaster’s engine as we cruised past one camera-ready mansion after another. “I can’t stand this much neatness. And I swear the color green is ten times more electric out here. It’s like green used to look when we were tripping, remember?”
“I don’t have to remember. I still see flashes of it on my bedroom ceiling every night when I turn off my nightstand light.”
“Do you see purple, too?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Holy shit, there are photographers here,” she gasped as we approached Aintree Manor.
“This is just the skeleton crew. Wait until Monette gets home from work tonight. Between the Pat ’n’ Kat pregnancy scandal and Monette’s mysterious seven-figure book deal, this has turned into a solid-gold, double-barrel tabloid wet dream. Whoa, I should call Tom Wolfe right away. I just came up with the title for his next book.”
“Stewie, how long have you been here?”
“Twenty-four hours, why?”
“You sound like you’re already starting to lose your mind.”
“Only because I am. But thanks for noticing.”
The cops had kept the driveway clear so I could pull up to the gate. I entered the access code on the keypad while the photographers hollered at us.
“Hey, Hoagy, whattaya got for us?”
“Hey, look, it’s Monette’s kid sis!”
“What’s up, Reggie? Did you hear from da-da yet?”
“Stewie, why do they always talk baby talk?” she asked me as the gate swung open.
“It comforts them. They feel less evil that way.”
I steered up the weathered-cobble drive and came to a stop at the old stone bridge over the babbling brook so that she could experience the full impact of the vast estate’s colossally gaudy fakeness. “Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”
“I may vomit.”
“Wait until you see the inside. You will.”
I pulled up next to the crouching lions and led her inside by way of the kitchen, where Maritza was making a salad. Maritza raised her eyebrows at me curiously when she saw Reggie standing there, knapsack in hand.
“Maritza, this is Regina, the senora’s sister. You can call her Reggie or Sir Reginald. I call her Stinker.”
Maritza smiled warmly and said, “It is nice to meet you, Senorita Regina. You are so little and pretty like a doll. The senora is so tall.”
“We were always a mismatched pair,” Reggie said.
“I have not prepared a room for you. The senora did not tell me you were coming.”
“The senora did not know. And I wouldn’t prepare that room just yet if I were you. She may not want me here.”
Maritza’s eyes widened. “But you are family.”
“Exactly my point.”
“You can always stay in the pool house with me,” I assured her.
Reggie batted her eyelashes at me. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”
“You know me. I’ve always been a fast worker.”
“Really? I seem to remember you liked to take it good and slow.”
“And I seem to remember that you liked that I liked to take it good and slow. You certainly didn’t complain that week we were staying in that decrepit old hotel in Cadaqués.”
Her eyes gleamed at me. “I loved that old hotel.”
Maritza peered at us. “You two were much in love once. I can see this,” she said as Lulu ambled past her to the refrigerator, sat down and stared at it. “She wants her anchovy?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Maritza found a jar on a shelf in the door, pulled one out and offered it to her, almost losing a finger in the transaction.
“You must be hungry,” Maritza said to Reggie. “I am making a salad with grilled chicken for Senor Hoagy’s lunch. Do you eat chicken or are you vegetarian? You are so thin.”
“I eat everything,” Reggie said. “Just not very much of it. Will you be joining us?”
“Oh, no, I have much to do. But thank you. Would you like to see the rest of the house before lunch?”
Reggie glanced up at the exposed hand-hewn beams with those oh-so-artfully arranged bunches of dried herbs and flowers hanging from them. “I really wouldn’t. Not if I’m about to eat. But thank you.” She went out onto the patio, gazing with horror at all of the perfectly pruned rose bushes that lined the walkway out to the pool. “I’m being tested, Stewie. I may not survive the next twenty-four hours without totally flipping out.”
Maritza brought out a pitcher of iced tea and a place setting for Reggie, then a baguette and a wheel of brie and a big bowl of salad topped with grilled chicken.
“The pool’s nice. I swam this morning. Did you bring a suit?”
“Don’t need one. It’s not as if you haven’t seen me in the buff.”
“Hector hasn’t.”
“Who he?”
“The garden beautician. He hovers.”
“I could get you one of Senorita Danielle’s,” Maritza offered. “She is tall like the senora, but thin like you. It will be no problem.”
“That would be great, Maritza.”
Maritza went back inside while we sat at the table and helped ourselves to lunch. Reggie took only a very small amount of salad and nibbled at it with scant interest. She was never much of an eater. Merilee, on the other hand, can put away an aged thirty-two-ounce porterhouse at Peter Luger and then dream about dessert.
Maritza came back with a skimpy little yellow bikini of Danielle’s for Reggie to wear. Reggie thanked her and went inside to put it on while I ate. She returned a few moments later wearing the bikini and nothing else. She was riding a teeny tiny bit lower in the caboose than I remembered, but not a whole lot considering that twelve years had gone by since I’d last set eyes on said caboose. She still looked like that same nimble little ballerina she’d been when we were together.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” she demanded.
“When I saw you standing on Sunset with your thumb out, I thought you were a college kid.”
“When I saw you pull over on that Roadmaster, it reminded me of that morning in Yellow Springs when you showed up way late at the inn on your Norton, looking like a wild animal. I wanted to have crazy monkey sex with you right then and there.”
“It’s the jacket. Must be the jacket.”
She walked barefoot down the path to the pool and sat on the edge of it, paddling her feet in the water. Lulu and I joined her, Lulu watching her carefully in case she was planning to swim. I stretched out in one of the lounge chairs.
“Those were some pretty awesome times we had, weren’t they?” Reggie recalled fondly. “And I don’t just mean the part about how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We had so goddamned much fun, too. I mean, we jumped out of an airplane together, remember?”
“I remember.”
“So how come you haven’t written about us?”
“That’s a good question.”
“I’m sitting here waiting for a good answer.”
“All right. Because I never understood us.”
“At the time, you mean? We weren’t meant to understand. Just be living in the moment. But you understand us now, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I really don’t. And feel free to change the subject anytime.”
“Sorry, Stewie, I can’t do that. This is too important.”
“Why would I want to write about us now after all of these years?”
She gazed at me penetratingly with her huge eyes. “Because you need to.”
I left that one alone because she wasn’t wrong. She was never wrong. That was the single most maddening thing about Regina Aintree.
“Tell me what you’ve figured out about us so far,” she urged me. “Please?”
“Well, okay, but it’s not much. Seriously, it barely qualifies as a Hallmark card. All I know is . . .” I trailed off at the sound of the soft snip-snip-snip of Hector’s pruners. He’d appeared on the path nearby to primp the rose bushes and spy on us. “Hector, this is Monette’s sister, Reggie,” I called out to him. “She’s come to stay for a few days. Patrick will want to know.”
Hector said nothing in response. Didn’t smile either, for once. Just stared at me with a stony expression on his face.
Reggie’s eyes hadn’t left me. “All you know is . . .”
“There’s a brief slice of time in our lives, a sweet season of madness, that falls right in between who we want to be and who we end up being. That was you and me. While it lasted, it was amazing. And then it was over. That’s all I know. Like I said, it’s hardly anything.”
“Are you shitting me? It’s everything. Stewie—what if I told you that those were the best three years of my life? That absolutely nothing tastes as good, smells as good or feels as good as it did then?”
“It’s different now,” I conceded. “We were wild and crazy kids. That was a special time.”
“I want you to write about how special it was.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“Yes, I really do. I’m serious about this.”
“But everyone will know that it’s you. What if it’s not flattering?”
“I don’t care. Promise me that you’ll write about it, okay? No matter what happens.”
“Why, what’s going to happen?”
She lowered her gaze. “I don’t know, but I’ve been feeling a weird, edgy vibe ever since you walked into my meditation room. Dad feels it, too. That’s why he’s reached out to me. And it’s why I came. Something’s very wrong here. I can feel it. You can, too, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m here because they made me a very lucrative guaranteed offer.”
“Guess what? I don’t believe you.”
I heard the paparazzi clamoring outside the front gate. The gate opened and a car cruised up the driveway, pulling to a stop at the gravel turnaround by the crouching lions. A car door opened and closed, and none other than Boyd Samuels came striding up the path toward us in the bright sunshine, looking way too much like a cast member of Reservoir Dogs in his regulation HWA black suit, white shirt, black tie and Ray-Bans.
“What are you doing here?” I wondered as Lulu growled at him.
“Mr. Harmon Wright phoned me late last night,” Boyd answered, whipping off his shades. “He’s seen all of the press attention our project’s getting and asked me to fly out and get personally involved. So I snagged a ride on the Universal jet, dropped my bags at the Four Seasons and here I am.”
“Personally involved how?”
“When Mr. Harmon Wright makes a request like that you don’t ask how. All I can tell you is that the publishing world’s in a total lather over Richard Aintree. No one’s talking about anything else.” He gazed around at the lemon trees, very pretty, and the genuinely unreal babbling brook and, finally, at the mansion itself. “Is this place beautiful or what?”
“Or what,” Reggie said, squinting at him suspiciously as she sat there on the edge of the pool.
“Boyd Samuels, say hello to Regina Aintree.”
His face lit up. “This is a real honor, Miss Aintree.”
“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”
“Because you’re a distinguished modern American poet, not to mention a living, breathing part of our literary heritage.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Does he always talk like that?”
“He’s in the process of trying to reinvent himself.”
“As what, a dickhead?”
“I prefer to think of him as a kinder, gentler asshole.”
“I know all about you, Boyd Samuels,” Reggie said to him with withering disapproval. “You’re the single most amoral agent on the planet.”
Boyd smiled at her uncertainly. “I know all about you, too. I used to read about you and the Hoagster in the gossip columns back when I was in middle school in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Did you two really have sex on George Plimpton’s pool table in the middle of a Brazilian poetry reading?”
“Can he swim?” she murmured at me.
“I don’t know, I’ll ask him. Boyd, can you swim?”
“Of course I can. Why?”
“Too bad,” she said, sighing regretfully.
“I placed a call to Monette as soon as I got to town,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly. “She promised me she’d try to get home from today’s taping as soon as possible and was kind enough to suggest I wait for her here. I don’t suppose you have any news for me, do you, amigo? Because Mr. Harmon Wright is really anxious to be kept in the loop.”
“Well, I did just spend a fun-filled morning with Patrick Van Pelt.”
Boyd’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”
“He doesn’t want this project to happen, that’s what for.”
“Really? I’d think he’d be loving the extra media attention.”
“And you’d be wrong. If Richard Aintree chooses to reappear right now, he’ll shove Pat ’n’ Kat off the front page. As far as Patrick’s concerned that makes Richard an undesirable and potentially very expensive distraction.”
“Fuck Patrick,” Boyd snapped. “What’s he gonna do?”
“Just for starters, someone in a black Trans Am tried to run my short-legged associate and me over in Pacoima yesterday. Naturally, Patrick denies knowing anything about it. But someone in a black Trans Am also tried to run Monette off Coldwater Canyon the night before last.”
“Damn . . .” Boyd took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Mr. Harmon Wright will be deeply, deeply displeased if Patrick screws up our project. But you know what? I can handle this.”
“How? Do you have a professional hit man on the HWA payroll now? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“I’ll convince Patrick’s agent to lean on him by making it clear that our Richard Aintree project is the single most important thing happening in HWA’s universe right now and that Mr. Harmon Wright will personally destroy the career of a certain ex–football player if he dares to mess it up. I can talk to Kat’s agent, too. Remind him that we’re one big happy family and we all pull in the same vertically integrated, synergistically aligned direction.”
“I don’t like the way he talks,” Reggie said to me.
“Didn’t think you would.”
“I am on this, amigo,” Boyd vowed excitedly. “I am girding my loins for battle as we speak.” He opened his black Samsonite briefcase on a lounge chair and removed a mobile phone, then marched around to the other side of the pool with it and threw himself into the fray with Glickian zeal.
“What’s with the walkie-talkie?” Reggie asked me, watching him.
“All of the big kids and their loins play with them now.”
Reggie tied her hair up on top of her head with a rubber band, dove into the water and settled into a nice, easy backstroke. Lulu ran alongside her, barking and barking, while Boyd shouted obscenity-laced threats into his mobile phone.
Then the side gate opened and Joey and Danielle arrived from school with their book bags slung over their shoulders. Danielle was dressed for success in a navy blue blazer, powder blue sweater, pleated khakis and black suede slip-ons. Joey was dressed for disillusionment in a rumpled flannel shirt, jeans and work boots. He headed straight for the house with his eyes fastened on the ground, refusing to acknowledge me or the famous aunt whom he’d never, ever met.
Danielle did no such thing. She made her way directly to the edge of the pool and gawked at Reggie until Reggie swam over toward her and climbed out.
“I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed one of your bikinis,” Reggie said, toweling off.
“You’re her,” Danielle said in hushed disbelief. “You’re Aunt Reggie.”
“In the goose-bumped flesh,” Reggie acknowledged. “And you’re Danielle. Or do you prefer Dani?”
“No, I hate Dani. It’s an ugly name.”
“And you’re not ugly at all. In fact, you look just like your mother did when she was your age.”
“I’ve wanted to meet you for as long as I can remember. I’ve always wondered what you were like. But you’ve never . . .” Danielle broke off, her brow furrowing. “How long has it been since you and Mom have seen each other?”
“A fairly decent interval of twenty or so years.”
“You mean since before I was born?”
Reggie nodded. “Since before you were born. And in answer to your next question—no, she has no idea I’m here.”
“Will she be happy to see you?”
“I doubt it.”
“So why are you here?”
“I’m here because I’m supposed to be here. How is your mom doing these days?”
Danielle swallowed uncomfortably. “She’s kind of got a lot going on in her life right now.”
“By ‘a lot’ do you mean your horny idiot of a dad knocking up his slutty little co-star?”
Danielle’s eyes widened. “You say things, don’t you? You’re not at all like Mom.”
Maritza came out to ask Danielle if she wanted anything to eat or drink. Danielle said she didn’t.
“So where’s my nephew?” Reggie wondered.
“Senor Joey is up in his room,” Maritza informed her.
“Would you please ask him to join us?”
“He will not come down, Senorita.”
“She’s right,” Danielle said. “He doesn’t like to leave his room. His shrink calls it his cave.”
“But I want to meet him.”
“He will not come down, Senorita.”
“Oh, he’ll come down,” I assured her. “Lulu, we’ve got a job to do. Please lead the way, Maritza.” We started toward the house, leaving Reggie and Danielle alone together. Unless you count Boyd, who was still standing on the other side of the pool shouting into his phone. “I spoke to Patrick today,” I told Maritza as I followed her inside toward the front hallway. “He warned me that you’re ‘private property.’ What does that mean exactly?”
She led me up the grand curving staircase with its weirdly tacky gallery of framed magazine covers and photo spreads. “It means Senor Patrick thinks I belong to him,” she answered gravely.
“Do you?”
“No, I do not.”
“Maritza, has he ever forced himself on you?”
“He tries to grab me when he drinks, so I make sure I am not alone with him. I am very happy he’s gone, Senor Hoagy.”
The second-floor hallway was as opulently appointed as the downstairs. There were antique Persian rugs on the wide-plank oak floors, strategically placed urns, busts and side tables that were laden with fresh flowers and collections of ivory bric-a-brac and other assorted high-end dreck. There was no shortage of rooms. I counted seven doors. At the end of the hall was a set of massive mahogany double doors befitting a royal bedchamber.
“The master suite,” Maritza said, following my gaze. “Would you . . . ?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
There was a veddy British seating alcove with a pair of chintz-covered armchairs set before a fireplace and chintz-covered window seats built in beneath the row of windows that looked out over the rose bushes, babbling brook and a vast swath of electric green lawn. Floral-patterned curtains framed the windows. There was an old-fashioned canopied four-poster bed with frilly, white ruffled skirts, frilly, white ruffled everything. There were his and hers walk-in closets. Patrick’s was completely empty except for an extensive collection of wooden hangers. Monette’s closet, which was crammed to the ceiling with clothing and shoes, was bigger than my entire apartment on West Ninety-Third Street. The master bath had two antique sinks as well as a huge antique tub with clawed feet. It also had a thoroughly modern stall shower and a teak sauna. Next to the master bath there was a service stairway down to the first floor.
“That goes down to the hallway next to the kitchen,” Maritza explained. “So that I may bring the senora her coffee in the morning and carry the family’s laundry up and down the stairs without taking it through the main house.”
I’ve stayed in historic manor homes in England. It’s standard to find a service stairway down to the kitchen. This one, I noticed, had a door at the top of the stairs that could be closed and locked for privacy.
She led me back out into the hallway toward the second door on the right, which had a hand-lettered sign taped to it that read: stay the fuck out!
“Senor Joey’s room,” Maritza informed me.
I’d expected to hear loud rock ’n’ roll coming out of there, but there was only silence. When I knocked on the door, I was met with more silence.
“He cannot hear you,” she explained, tapping her ear with a finger. “He wears headphones because the senora hates the thump-thump-thump.”
“Does he lock his door?”
“He used to, but the senora hired a locksmith so he cannot.”
I opened the door and in we went. The wooden shutters over Joey’s windows were shut against the brilliant Southern California sunshine. It was quite dark in there, aside from a tiny desk lamp. Stuffy, too. Smelled strongly of old sneakers, dirty socks, sweaty armpits, Right Guard and Clearasil. Joey was hunched at his desk with his headphones on, tapping away at a Macintosh on what appeared to be a homework project. Two textbooks were open on the desk next to him. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could make out a dozen or more posters pinned to his walls. A regular rogue’s gallery of the tangled up in tragic—Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin. Hanging directly over his unmade bed was that famous photograph of Charles Manson staring right at the camera with his frozen madman’s glare.
“Is disgusting in here,” Maritza said, glancing disapprovingly at the dirty clothing that was strewn everywhere. “But he will not let me come in and clean. The senora, she says if he wants to live in filth then let him.”
Lulu was looking up at me, waiting for my go-ahead. On my nod she made her way under Joey’s desk and clamped her jaws firmly around his ankle.
He yanked off his headphones with a shriek. “Ow, what the fuck is she doing? Tell her to stop!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“If she doesn’t let go I’m going to kick her.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“What do you want?”
“Come outside and say hello to your aunt. She’s flown three thousand miles to see you.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Yes, she does.”
“I’m trying to finish a paper that was due two months ago, okay? If I don’t do it, they won’t let me graduate.”
“Finish it later. Come on outside.”
“Fuck off!”
Lulu sank her teeth in deeper. Not deep enough to do any damage but enough for Joey to feel as if his ankle was snared in a steel-jawed trap.
“Okay, okay, I’ll come! Make her stop, will you?”
He followed us outside into the sunlight, blinking. Danielle was perched on the edge of Reggie’s lounge chair, enthralled, as Reggie chattered away at her. Boyd was still shouting into his phone.
“Joey, this is your aunt Regina,” I said. “She answers to Reggie.”
She stuck out her hand. “Hey, Joey.”
“I don’t believe in shaking hands,” he said coldly.
“Because you consider it an outmoded societal ritual, am I right? I can relate to that. Do you believe in having a seat?”
He stood right where he was, peering at her. “Hoagy told me I should read your work. He says you’re a stone-cold genius.”
“Hoagy said that?” She smiled at me impishly. “How sweet of him. But I’m no genius. Your grandmother was. Eleanor Aintree was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century.”
“What about our grandfather?” Danielle asked, her eyes gleaming at Reggie excitedly.
“Your grandfather is someone who wrote one very fine book.”
“It was okay,” Joey said grudgingly, frowning as he gazed across the pool. “Who is that?”
“Boyd Samuels, your mom’s New York literary agent,” I told him. “He has a more formal title but I’ll spare you that.”
“Every time I turn around there’s another total stranger here,” Joey complained. “And those yapping cretins are always outside the front gate with their cameras. This place is driving me nuts.”
“I don’t blame you one bit,” Reggie said. “It’s driving me nuts and I just got here. So, Joey, what are you going to do when you finish high school?”
“He wants to be a writer,” Danielle informed her.
“Really? Most excellent! How about you, Danielle?”
“Yale undergrad, Harvard business school, then a job in studio development. I plan to be running my own production company by the time I’m thirty.”
Reggie looked at her in horror. “You poor thing. What are your plans for this summer?”
“I have an internship lined up in Elliot Schein’s office. He produces Mom’s show.”
“Why on earth do you want to do that?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s a huge opportunity.”
“It’s a waste of your time. You need to experience life.”
“That’s what I told her,” I said. “But she wasn’t buying it.”
“Wouldn’t you rather rescue wounded elephants in Kenya?”
Danielle peered at Reggie as if she were utterly crazy. “Uh, no . . .”
“I can get you on an oceanographic research vessel that’s heading to the Galapagos Islands. Wouldn’t you like to do that?”
“Not really.”
Reggie shook her head at her. “Young lady, you need to reassess your priorities. Find yourself a bad boy with a motorcycle, go riding off into the desert with him and don’t come back until you’ve seen the light.”
“Light?” Danielle frowned at her. “What light?”
“And you, young sir, need to ride the rails,” she informed Joey. “Catch a freighter that’s heading north. When you make it to San Francisco, find some cool people to hang with. Tell me, when’s the last time you laughed?”
Joey took a very long moment before he said, “I don’t remember.”
“Both of you need to get out of this mausoleum—and I mean pronto, as in before it gets burned to the ground. Come the revolution this whole place will be nothing but charred rubble.”
Joey tilted his head at her curiously. “There’s going to be a revolution?”
“Oh, hell, yes. It’s a millennial thing. All the signs are pointing to it. The America that we know and don’t love won’t exist after the year 2000. Come the year 2001 everything will change. And I, for one, say bring it on.”
I heard a huge amount of shouting from the paparazzi now as the front gate swung open. Two vehicles came cruising up the driveway and parked. Two car doors opened and closed, then Monette strode briskly up the rose-lined path toward us followed by Elliot. Today, he resembled two very large marshmallows stuffed inside of bright orange Nike warm-up gear.
Boyd dashed around the pool and made straight for Monette. “How is my favorite client doing?” he exclaimed, beaming at her.
“How do you think?” she responded coolly.
“What’s bright boy doing here?” Elliot demanded, glaring at Boyd.
“Mr. Harmon Wright asked me to take personal charge of the situation,” Boyd informed him. “And that’s all you need to know.”
“Guess again, bright boy.” Elliot stabbed Boyd in the chest with a pudgy index finger. “Everything that goes on in this lady’s life is my business. You and me need to have a conversation.”
“So we’ll have a conversation,” Boyd said. “Lighten up, will you? And get your fat finger out of my chest while you’re at it.”
“Why don’t you make me?” Elliot blustered at him.
Monette paid no mind to their turf squabble. She was too busy staring at Reggie seated there poolside with Joey and Danielle. Staring at her sister as if she couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her.
“Hey, Olive, love what you’ve done with the place,” Reggie said to Monette super casually—all except for the quaver of emotion in her voice.
“No, you don’t,” Monette responded hoarsely. “You hate it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you don’t hide your feelings very well. You never have.”
“Maybe that’s because I don’t try.” Reggie got up from her lounge chair and walked slowly toward Monette, looking incredibly tiny as she stood before her sister barefoot. Monette towered a foot taller in her pumps.
The estranged sisters faced each other in charged silence.
“What are you doing here?” Monette finally asked her.
“Just passing through town. Thought I’d say hey.”
Monette considered this, her lower lip clamped between her teeth. “Do you . . . have you a place to stay?”
“Relax, I won’t impose on you. I know you’re cramped for space.”
“I have five empty bedrooms upstairs. Maritza will prepare one for you. But you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“I got a letter from Dad,” Reggie said. “It’s addressed to both of us.”
She studied Reggie guardedly. “What does it say?”
“No idea. He asked me not to open it until we were together.”
“Well, where is it?”
Reggie fetched the express mail pouch from her knapsack and set it on the patio table while the rest of us gathered around her. She removed the sealed envelope and showed it to Monette. “See? It’s addressed to Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald. Nobody but Dad ever called me Sir Reginald.”
Monette smiled at Reggie faintly. “My God, I haven’t thought of that name in years.” She stared at the envelope. “Shall we . . . ?”
Reggie tore it open and unfolded the plain white sheet of typing paper that was inside. A brief letter had been typed on it. Same old Hermes 3000, it appeared:
Dear Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald—
I am so glad that you girls are together again. I want you to spend some time getting reacquainted. You two are sisters, after all. You need each other, perhaps now more than ever. I promise that I will be in touch again very soon.
Love,
Dad
Monette stood there frowning at it. “It’s . . . not much, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Reggie said.
Monette gulped back a sob. “This is all so strange.”
Reggie nodded her head, swallowing. “I—I know . . .”
The Aintree sisters stood there, struggling to hold their emotions in check. They couldn’t. Both let out huge sobs before they threw themselves into each other’s arms.
“I’ve missed you so much!” Monette cried, tears streaming down her face.
“I’ve missed you!” Reggie cried.
“You were my best friend. I have no one. No one!”
“I know.” Reggie hugged her big sister tight. “I know.”
“Damn, this is one awesome Instamatic Moment,” Boyd said. “I wish I had my camera. They’d plaster this on page one all across America.”
“I’m so—so glad you’re here,” Monette sniffled, swiping at her eyes. “We’ll have a party tomorrow to celebrate. It’s Joey’s birthday.”
“I don’t want a birthday party,” Joey reminded his mother.
“It’ll be fun. We’ll swim. We’ll cook out.” Monette hesitated before she added, “And your dad wants to come. He’d like to see you. Both of you.”
Joey shook his head at her. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to see him. Ever.”
“I feel weird about it, too,” Danielle said.
“Well, he’s coming,” Monette informed them. “So deal with it.”
“Will he bring Kat?” Danielle wondered, her voice heavy with dread.
“Oh, he’ll bring her,” Elliot answered. “No way those two can resist that army of tabloid lemmings camped outside the gate.”
“I hate this,” Joey fumed. “When do we get our lives back?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Monette said. “I wish I could tell you. But we’ll have fun, I promise. Maritza can make steak fajitas on the grill. And I’ll bake you a cake. Any kind you want. How about my triple chocolate?”
“Don’t bother. I’m not coming.”
Monette looked at him in dismay. “Joey, you’re not going to hide in your room, are you?”
Lulu let out a low warning growl.
“Why is she doing that?” Joey asked me, his voice rising in alarm.
“She doesn’t intend to let you hide in your room.”
“Shall we say noon?” Monette suggested. “It’ll be fun.”
“Mom, why do you keep saying that?” Joey demanded. “It’s going to be the worst day of my entire life!” He went storming off into the house, enraged.
Monette watched him helplessly. “Talk to him, will you?” she asked Danielle.
“I’ll try.” Danielle started inside after him. “But he doesn’t listen to me.”
Maritza came out of the kitchen with a tray of guacamole, salsa and tortilla chips. Then she brought out a bucket filled with soft drinks, mineral water and long-neck bottles of Corona.
“What can I offer you?” Monette asked Boyd.
“I have to scoot,” he said, glancing at his watch. “There’s a mandatory team meeting at 6:00 pm every Friday at every HWA office across the globe. But I’ll see you tomorrow. If I’m invited, that is.”
“Of course you are,” Monette assured him.
“I still want to have a word with you, bright boy,” Elliot reminded him.
“Fine, whatever,” Boyd sighed, retrieving his briefcase. “Follow me to my car.”
The two of them started down the path toward the driveway, sniping at each other. Monette passed bottles of Corona to Reggie and to me before she opened one for herself, gazing at Reggie. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“Believe it,” Reggie said. “It’s all part of Dad’s plan.”
Monette furrowed her brow. “Why is he doing this? What does he want from us?”
“Olive, my dear, I don’t have the slightest fucking idea.”
We ate our dinner of grilled tuna with black beans and rice out on the patio. Joey was still smoldering with anger. Refused to speak or make eye contact with anyone while he bolted down his meal. Seven minutes. He stayed at the table for seven minutes. But Danielle lingered there long after she’d finished eating, the better to soak up her mother and aunt’s giggly girlhood reminiscences of slumber parties and adolescent crushes way back when they’d lived in the leafy New England town of Woodbridge outside of New Haven, back before their father became a world-famous author and their mother hurled herself off the roof of that East Village apartment building. Monette seemed genuinely thrilled to see her kid sister again. And Reggie acted as if she was happy to be there. Hell, for all I knew she was. Reggie had always been a searcher. Maybe finding herself face-to-face with her big sister for the first time since the seventies was just what she needed. Who was I to say otherwise? The two of them were still reviving giddy girlhood memories for Danielle when I excused myself and left them there.
I took Lulu for a stroll around the grounds. We paused when we reached the front gate. It was nearly ten o’clock. The paparazzi had gone home for the night, but a pair of uniformed cops remained parked there in a black-and-white cruiser anyway. Monette’s well-heeled neighbors insisted upon it, I suspected.
After our walk we retired to the pool house. I stretched out on the bed and called my phone machine in New York. There were more messages from reporters who wanted to talk to me. I paid them no mind. There was still no message from Merilee in Budapest. This I did mind. We were often on separate continents for days, sometimes weeks at a time. That didn’t bother me. But I didn’t like it when I had no idea how to reach her. It unsettled me.
It was just past eleven when I slid under the covers and turned out the light. Lulu stretched out next to me with her head on my chest. I lay there in the darkness gazing out the open window at the lights in the windows of the big house. Gradually, the upstairs lights went out one by one. Then most of the downstairs lights went out. The last one to go out was the light in Maritza’s room off the kitchen. The house was totally dark after that.
I continued to lie there watching the darkened house in the moonlight. Soon I heard the kitchen door open and close, then soft footsteps on the path that led to the pool house.
Lulu let out a low growl. I shushed her.
And then someone was tapping quietly on the bedroom window. A voice whispered, “Hoagy, are you still awake?”
I threw on my dressing gown and went to the door and opened it.
My late-night visitor wasn’t Reggie. It was Monette who stood there looking nervous and big-eyed in the soft blue glow of the swimming pool’s nightlights. She was wearing a matching sweatshirt and sweatpants of what appeared to be lightweight powder blue cashmere. She had her long blond hair gathered up in a bun with a few loose strands tumbling here and there in a way that was meant to look casual but I felt quite certain wasn’t. Absolutely nothing about Monette was casual. She was barefoot. “I wondered if you felt like a nightcap,” she asked me hesitantly. “Perhaps out by the pool . . . ?”
“There’s some single malt in the cupboard. I’ll be right out.”
I put on my jeans and a T-shirt and brought the bottle and two glasses out with me. Monette was stretched out on one of the lounge chairs facing the pool, her feet crossed at the ankles. I poured us both generous slugs of Scotch and took the lounge chair next to her. Lulu settled on the pavement between us with a disapproving grunt. She doesn’t like to have her beauty sleep disturbed, especially by tall, attractive blondes who aren’t named Merilee Nash. It was very quiet out and the cool night air was scented with the fragrance of roses and honeysuckle. I sipped my Scotch and lay there, gazing up at the three-quarter moon overhead while I waited Monette out.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed finally. “I’m too tied up in knots about Patrick. I don’t know what to say to him when he shows up here tomorrow. Honestly, I feel as if I’m about to explode inside.”
“Why don’t you just tell him to stay away?”
“He’s Joey’s father. He wants to bring his son a birthday present.” She gazed at me warily. “Did he say anything to you about us?”
“He said that you were class and he was trash. That he felt trapped here and he had to get out.”
She thought this over, her chest rising and falling. “Anything else?”
“Just that he wants to quit the TV business and move to Maui.”
“Is he still talking about that? My lord, he’s been spouting that pipe dream for so many years that I’ve lost count. He never actually does a thing about it. The producers give him plenty of hiatus time between seasons. He could fly over there, find himself a piece of beachfront property and put his money where his mouth is. But he never does. He hasn’t even been to Maui for ten years. I doubt he’d recognize it.” She heaved a long sigh. “How did he seem to you?”
“He’s a mess. Surely that isn’t news to you.”
“No, it’s not. Patrick’s a deeply unhappy man. His work doesn’t make him happy. His family doesn’t make him happy. I certainly don’t. The only thing that seems to give him any pleasure whatsoever is running around with trampy young girls, which explains why he and I are through.”
“He treated me to quite a vivid display of mood swings, including full frontal rage. Is that typical?”
“It didn’t used to be. I always thought of Patrick as laid-back and easygoing. That all changed a few months ago.”
“What happened?”
“He decided that he looked like a flabby old man next to all of those young hunks in the cast, so Lou upped their workouts and started feeding him megadoses of energy-boosting minerals.”
“They’re not energy-boosting minerals.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said bitterly. “That fool. That vain, stupid fool. I understand from Elliot that Lou deals illegal drugs.”
I nodded. “He made a delivery while I was with Patrick. In fact, I watched Patrick snort up four lines of coke and go through half a six-pack of beer at ten o’clock in the morning. I don’t know if you still care about him . . .”
“He’s the father of my children. I’ll always care about him.”
“But he’s on a stairway to nowhere. I’ve been on it myself. I fell a long, long way before I hit the bottom. That’s what will happen to Patrick. He can’t keep on going the way he is.”
“I’d help him if I could, but I’m the enemy as far as he’s concerned. Kat will have to be the one who straightens him out.”
“Is it true that he isn’t the father of her baby? That he’s had a vasectomy?”
“Yes, it’s true. The vasectomy was his idea, not mine. Quite a few sexually active men out here have been getting them. Especially high-profile ones like Patrick who are targets for paternity suits.”
“I understand why he’s kept silent about it. He’s loving the tabloid heat. But why haven’t you spoken up?”
“I don’t wish to play that game.”
“This is no game, Monette.”
She gazed out at the pool. “I’m taking the high road. I don’t care how much mud he drags me through. I won’t give in. I won’t,” she vowed defiantly. “Do you believe me?”
“I’d like to, but you haven’t been totally honest with me.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Why did you tell me that Patrick didn’t know that your dad called you Olive Oyl? He did. He does.”
“Because this project isn’t about him,” she answered brusquely.
“That’s not a helpful answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re going to get.”
“That’s not helpful either. Patrick did threaten to break both of my legs.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Why would he do that?”
“He wants me to leave town. If I don’t, he intends to sic Lou on me.”
“Does this mean you’re going to quit?”
“No chance. Nobody hands me my Olympia and tells me to leave town.”
“You’re a stubborn man in your own odd way, aren’t you?” Monette glanced over at me for a moment, then looked back at the pool. “I noticed those scars on Reggie’s wrists.”
“So did I.”
“When did she do that?”
“Three years ago, she said. I wasn’t in the picture.”
“Neither was I. I should have been. I’m her big sister. She needs me. She acts all feisty but she’s not nearly as tough as she thinks she is. She’s very sensitive. Mother was the same way.” She took another sip of her Scotch, smiling at me faintly. “This is nice. I miss having someone to sit back and talk things over with late at night when it’s quiet. May I ask you a somewhat awkward question?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“Do you trust Boyd Samuels?”
“No one trusts Boyd Samuels.”
“Yet Harmon Wright speaks very favorably of him. And I must admit he’s done right by me so far.”
“It’s early. He still has plenty of time to hose you.”
“Elliot thinks he’s an amoral sleazeball.”
“Only because he is. Why are you asking me about Boyd?”
“Because I found it very strange the way he suddenly showed up out here today. Has it occurred to you that this business with Dad could be an elaborate hoax that Boyd’s cooked up to revive his own career? Or am I being paranoid?”
“You’re not being paranoid. The thought’s occurred to me, too. But the letters do appear to have been typed on your dad’s Hermes. How would Boyd have gotten hold of it? And how would he know that your dad used to call you girls Olive Oyl and Sir Reginald?”
“Someone else would have to be in on it with him. A member of the family. Someone who knew where the typewriter’s been stashed.”
“Someone like who?”
“Someone like Reggie,” she said bluntly.
“She and Boyd met for the first time right here this afternoon. I introduced them. They didn’t know each other.”
“Are you sure? How do we know they weren’t faking that for your benefit? How do we know she isn’t responsible for this whole crazy business? Her writing career has evaporated. She sits alone in a stone hut in the woods all day. She’s suicidal. Tell me, how do we know?”
“We don’t.”
“So it has occurred to you that Reggie could be behind it.”
“Of course it has. Same as it’s occurred to me that you could be behind it.” Not to mention Patrick. Not to mention one or possibly both of their extremely bright children. The old Hermes could be hidden away in this baronial pile of bricks somewhere. Elliot Schein was also in the mix. So was Alberta Pryce. They didn’t call her the Silver Fox for no reason. And they didn’t call me the publishing world’s preeminent ghost for no reason. I trusted absolutely no one. Everyone was in play. Everyone. “I got the impression that you were happy to see your sister.”
“I am. I guess I don’t understand why she’s here.”
“Because it’s what your dad wants. Or so it would seem.”
Monette fell silent for a moment. “We’ve followed each and every one of his instructions so far. You’re here, Reggie’s here, we’re all here. What happens if he doesn’t write us again?”
“He will.”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
“Then I go home, Reggie goes home and your life returns to normal.”
“Good lord.” She tossed down the last of her Scotch. “What a truly horrifying thought.”