Christietown (25 page)

ne hour with Richard. That was all I needed. Jackie kindly
agreed to let me steal him away (her phrase, not mine). I told him we could walk up the hill to the Sunset Strip in less than ten minutes, but he insisted on driving, then wasted at least double that amount of time backtracking when he turned up Sweetzer instead of Flores, which is where I’d told him to turn in the first place.

I’d picked the Sunset Tower Hotel for its old-Hollywood pedigree. Bugsy Siegel had an apartment there in the thirties so he could be close to the Clover Club and the Trocadero. Howard Hughes once occupied both penthouses and the entirety of the fourteenth floor. John Wayne kept a milk cow on his balcony, currently part of the spa. With its art deco zig
zags and white plaster friezes of pagan goddesses, it exuded the kind of Tinseltown glamour I loved and Richard loathed. He preferred boat clubs, faculty clubs, country clubs, golf clubs— any kind of club, as long as it kept people out who didn’t wear navy blue blazers and Princeton ties. I was hoping for
at least one baby-faced music mogul wearing fat gold chains and drinking Cristal, but I’d settle for a half-clad starlet and her grandpa.

The maître d’ led us past the fire to a corner table near the piano. Richard, in characteristic fashion, shoved in front of me to take the brown suede banquette, so I sat down in the chair opposite. Without so much as consulting me, he asked the waitress to bring us two glasses of white wine but I changed my order to a Scotch on the rocks, despite being of the opinion that Scotch on the rocks tastes like cleaning solvent. It was the principle of the thing.

We waited in silence for our drinks. The piano player picked out the sultry notes of “Rhapsody in Blue.” I studied the walls, covered with framed black-and-white photographs of long-ago studio hopefuls with their bobs, their Brylcreem, their ready smiles.

The drinks finally came. Richard popped a handful of nuts into his mouth and said, chewing, “I’m glad you called this meeting, Cece. It’s high time I established some ground rules.”

All those beautiful young men and women. Would-be star
lets, leading men, character actors. So many hard-luck stories. Such hope. They came to Hollywood from Tulsa, Des Moines, Phoenix, the hills of Appalachia to make something of their lives. I’d come here to do the same thing. Through the window, I could see the city spread out before me—the palm trees, the flat roofs, the stately old apartment buildings on Fountain, the chilly office towers along the Wilshire corridor. This was my city, my home. Richard was a visitor here. And visitors don’t make the ground rules.

“This is a drink,” I said, turning to him. “Not a meeting. A drink. If we can just sit at this nice table and have a drink, then
maybe there’s some hope for us. We haven’t managed it before, but with the baby coming, it’s the least we can do for Annie and Vincent, don’t you think?”

Richard paused. “What is this sudden obsession with alco
hol, Cece?”

Jesus. “It doesn’t have to be an alcoholic drink. It could be juice. It could be water. It could be soda. Does it really make a difference?”

“I think it does. It makes all the difference in the world. It’s a small detail, but small details coalesce into big pictures. It’s the way scholars think.”

“There isn’t only one way to think, Richard.”

He smirked condescendingly, which would’ve given me déjà vu if his condescending attitude hadn’t been the defining feature of our marriage. Well, that and his infidelity.

“You seem to be stuck in a place of anger,” he said. “It isn’t healthy. Are there are some lingering resentments you want to get off your chest? Because if there are, I suppose this is as good a time as any.”

“How can you say that to me?” I asked, trying not to lose my temper. “You cheated on me every day we were married!”

“Can we get back to the point of this meeting, please? Excuse me,” he corrected himself. “This
drink
.”

“Yes, let’s do that.” I bit my lip.

“The first thing is, Jackie wants the baby to call her Grandma.”

“Fine.”

“That’s it?”

“As long as Annie and Vincent have no objections, it’s fine with me. Next?”

He wrinkled his brow. “So the baby will have three grand
mothers?”

“The more the merrier.”

“You don’t think it’s confusing?”

Now I understood. He didn’t want the baby to call Jackie Grandma. But he wanted me to be the bad guy.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think it’s confusing.”

“Does your fiancé want to be called Grandpa?”

“I don’t know.” I rooted around in the nut dish for a cashew. “
We
haven’t discussed it.”

“I see.”

I waited, wondering if he could control himself.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, Cece, your communica
tion skills have always needed work. That kind of problem can sabotage a relationship.”

Nope, he couldn’t control himself.

“In any case,” he said, “the second thing is, I want to pay for private-school education for the baby.”

“You should take that up with Annie and Vincent.”

“I have. They have a problem with it. I was hoping you could intervene.”

“I most certainly will not.”

“I should think you would be passionate on this subject, given the way your lack of a college education has hindered you.”

I sighed deeply. “Having unprotected sex with a man who seduced me when I was seventeen and then put me to work supporting his education is what hindered me, but I’ve come out all right in spite of it.”

He nodded. “I realize that’s the way you see things. I see them quite differently. Why don’t we agree to disagree?”

“Why don’t we agree that you’re an—?” I swallowed the word that came to mind. “No. I am not letting you do this to me.”

Eyes wide, Richard said, “Do what?”

“You know what.”

“I’ve had just about enough of you,” he said, his face sud
denly contorting with anger. “Why don’t you get off your high horse? You know what you did.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I wasn’t the only one to blame. You cheated on me, too.”

The room went still.

The piano player stopped playing, the waiters stopped serv
ing, the young couple at the table next to us froze midkiss.

My first impulse was to deny it. I wasn’t that kind of person. Cheating went against everything I believed.

But instead I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I whispered it over and over again, until the words were nothing but hollow sounds in my ear.

It was so long ago.

And I was so good at forgetting. Forgetting was easier than remembering.

We were living in Chicago. Annie was in first grade. The marriage was in trouble. I was trying to work up the courage to leave. He was a colleague of Richard’s, a young assistant profes
sor. Luke. We’d known each other for years, but had never so much as flirted. He was quiet and serious. I was somebody’s unhappy wife. One night, when Richard was away, it just hap
pened. Afterward, I was filled with regret, but Luke saved me the trouble of ending it by suddenly backing off. A month later, he left to take a job in Michigan. I never heard from him again. Two years later, Richard and I were divorced. I’d never dreamed that he’d known.

“Stop saying you’re sorry,” said Richard. “I never did.” He reached for my hands, then dropped them the minute he had them. The gesture was somehow symbolic.

“Richard?”

Now he was running his finger along the outside of his glass, catching the beads of condensation and crushing them.

“Richard.”

He looked at me.

“How did you find out?” He must have seen it in my eyes.

He sank back against the velvety banquette. “Luke told me.”

Luke? My head started to reel. I had to stand up, to get out of there, but I couldn’t trust my legs. No more alcohol. I pushed my glass away so hard it slid across the table and crashed to the floor. The waiter instantly appeared. He picked up the cubes of ice and shards of glass and placed them in a wet rag. The Scotch had already been sucked up by the thick brown carpet.

“Can I get you another one, miss?” the waiter asked.

I shook my head.

“I’ll take another,” said Richard.

After the waiter left, I asked, “Why would Luke do such a thing? Did you confront him? Did you threaten him?”

Richard shook his head. “I didn’t go to Luke. He came to me. He wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“He wanted to know if our marriage was over.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said desperately. “We agreed to keep it to ourselves.”

Richard looked down at his lap as he spoke. “He asked me about our marriage being over because he was in love with you. He wanted to be with you. Okay?” He looked up. “Surely you knew that?”

“No,” I whispered. “He never said a word.”

“Shit,” said Richard. The waiter set another drink down in front of him but he waved it away, saying, “Bring it back later.”

I took a deep breath. “What did you tell him?”

Silence.

“What did you tell Luke?” I repeated.

He waited a long time before answering. “I told him no. That our marriage wasn’t over.”

“God!” I shook my head. “You
knew
it was over!”

“No.”

“Yes! You were the one who destroyed it.”

He looked down at his lap again.

“Did you tell him that to spite me?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did you hate me so much that you’d take any possibility of happiness away from me?”

“How stupid can you be? It was just the opposite. I told him the marriage wasn’t over because I didn’t want it to be over.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Because I still loved you.”

There was a sudden, deafening silence.

“Look,” said Richard, pulling out his wallet. “It’s late. I think we should call it a day. We’re all exhausted, and Jackie and Dot are waiting for me back at your place.” He slapped his credit card down on the thick linen tablecloth. We sat there without saying a word to each other. The waiter took away the credit card, ran it through the machine, came back with a receipt for Richard to sign. Richard signed it and shoved the copy into his pocket. Still, we didn’t speak. At the valet station in front of the hotel we waited for the car, both of us staring
straight ahead. When Richard’s rental appeared, I let him get into it alone.

“I’m going to walk,” I said, stepping across the asphalt into the neon glare of the Sunset Strip. Cars cruised by, honking their horns. People crowded the sidewalks. Billboards bore down on them, promising perfect lives if they bought these sunglasses, that CD, that perfume, those jeans.

Just east of the hotel was a set of stairs that led down to a pocket park whose grass never seemed to grow. It was named after the silent screen’s first western hero, William S. Hart, whom nobody remembers anymore. I stumbled down the stairs and sat down on a concrete bench opposite a homeless man who was railing against god knows what. He didn’t seem to notice or care when I put my head in my hands.

I stayed there until the sun went down, thinking.

About the things I chose to remember.

About the things I chose to forget.

Then it struck me like a thunderbolt.

I’d given myself amnesia.

Just like Agatha had.

C
HAPTER
4
2

gatha wrapped her fur-trimmed coat more tightly around
her. The winds were up, but the cold was a welcome relief from the overheated rooms at the Hydropathic.