Rich Friends (19 page)

“I don't know. Yet.”

“But you and her? Just you two?”

“Someplace.”

“I'd rather have her here with me,” he said, polite. After you, my dear Alphonse. “But alone with you is acceptable.”

“Philip, he was the nicest little boy.”

“We have this straight?”

“Not in Dan's house,” she said.

“Good. That's clear.”

“Yes!” she shouted. “It's clear! You need to punish us, Dan and me! But it's too late for punishment. It's too late for anything, anything.”

The gimlet splattered and with shaking fingers she set it down. During their marriage they never had shouted. “Just Alix and me.” Her normal, gentle voice was conciliatory. “Us.”

Philip's face, still pale, relaxed. “He was such a nice little boy,” he said in an odd, rusty tone.

“Phil, it's so terribly empty.”

“Empty, yes.”

She lifted her hands toward him, the fingers separated, entreating. But Philip had a lack, a flaw, a hypodermic of ice embedded in him, and even if Beverly had not left him, he never could have brought himself to share his festering grief. Beverly's face twisted with tears. He backed onto the vinyl-floored entry.

“Goodnight,” he said, opening the door.

She spent the night in an impersonal motel room. There was a scratch pad, and she covered sheet after sheet with convulsive pencil marks that resembled concentration-camp barbed wire. She did not sleep. At seven the next morning she was gone.

Beverly Hills north of Sunset always is quiet: the early mornings are smothered. None of the men is in an income bracket that needs to leave early for work, the gardeners have not yet arrived with sleep-destroying power mowers, and children are not ready to be car-pooled. The slam of Beverly's Buick door echoed. She let herself in, edging around terrazzo, imagining she could see speckles of red, knowing that Clara had scrubbed with the electric buffer. From the direction of the bedrooms came Dan's voice. “Whozzit?”

“Me.”

The bedroom drapes were drawn. A small amount of light seeped around the top and bottom of heavy folds, but not enough to dim the flame in the tall memorial glass. A
yartzeit
. It occurred to Beverly that in her parents' home and Philip's, too, there had been no
yartzeit
. Ah well, she thought. A sheet had been hung, covering the horizontal mirror. The room was clotted with stale odors: candlewax, sleep, liquor, cigars. A bottle of Scotch stood next to the bed where Dan sprawled, his white shirt unbuttoned to show a delta of brown hair, staring up at her.

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“To explain.”

“After six days?”

Could it really be six days since Jamie had died? “Yes.”

Dan didn't move. “I'm not in the market for explanations,” he said. Liquor slurred his voice and a trace of New York clung to the words. Quartuh, Dan would say, not quarter.

Outside, birds sang. She couldn't tell what kind, but their liquid chirping wove a fabric. She sighed.

“All right,” Dan said. “Where've you been?”

“You know. Arrowhead.” She had phoned from her parents' to tell him she was going with Caroline.

“The whole time?”

Beverly's head throbbed dully, from lack of sleep, she guessed, and a surplus of tears.

“I saw Philip,” she said. “Then I stopped at a motel in Santa Monica.”

“A motel. That makes sense.”

“Please don't sound like that.”

“How?”

“Reasonable. Sarcastic. Polite.”

He said in these tones, “Okay, what did you and that prize schmuck talk about?”

“He doesn't want Alix living here.” The words rushed out on an exhalation of fetid air.

“So?”

“I can't let him take her.”

“You mean he wants her to live with him?”

“Just not here.”

“You have custody.”

“He'll go to court.”

“There's lawyers.”

“He'll fight.”

“He'll never get her.”

“He could.”

“Like hell!”

“He could,” she repeated.

“Not unless you go along with him. You agree? She shouldn't live in my house?”

“How could I think that?”

“Easy. You blame me.”

“No!”

“Balls. Of course you do. Listen, I sat in that waiting room the night the news broke. There was a crumb on your cheek, and you looked at me once. The way your parents always've looked at me. Like I'm to blame for whatever's becocked in their world. Then you didn't look at me again.”

The force of gravity had become impossible. She leaned against the chest, the
yartzeit
flame flickered, and black smoke pointed upward. Jamie, she thought. What difference do all these ex post facto words make?

“Look, if there were any way to apologize, to make it right, don't you think I would?” Dan, his hands dangling between his knees, was watching her from the edge of their rumpled bed. In that bed he had whispered,
This is my beloved and this is my friend
.

“You wouldn't have blamed me,” he said, “if I hadn't made that one half-ass remark about Raymond Earle being anti-Semitic.”

She had no answer. After a minute he rose, walking unsteadily to the bathroom. She heard the strong splatter of water on water. The toilet sounded, a discreet, expensive flush. Dan returned, zipping his fly.

“If you aren't living with me, you get to keep her, is that the idea?”

“Dan,” she whispered, “I love you.”

He picked up the Scotch, squinting around it at her. “Love?”

“I do.”

Setting down the bottle, he moved closer. She could smell the staleness, feel his body warmth, see his expression, chiaroscuro. Dan searched her face.
But my beloved had turned away and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke, I sought him, but I could not find him: I called but he gave no answer
. She looked away first.

“How can I let him take Alix?” she murmured.

“Schorer can take her about as far—how far can you throw diarrhea with a fork? Now. Get the hell out. Get the hell out of my house.”

In a sort of reflex action she fumbled in her purse for her keys, two small ones to the Oldsmobile 88 he had bought her and the heavy Schlage for the front door. She set them on the dresser near the memorial candle.

He followed her down the hall.

“Need money?”

“No.”

“You do!”

“Thank you, no.”

He dragged bills from his money clip, forcing them into her hand. She let green paper flutter noiseless to the carpet. He looked down, then gripped her arm above the elbow, his fingers biting between flesh and muscle to the bone. “Pick it up,” he shouted. “Pick it up, you no-good cunt!” And with the flat of his other hand, he hit her full force on the left side of her face. Involuntarily, she reached for his arm, steadying herself. There was darkness, shadows whirling around. His arm, the only steady object in the void. She'd never before been struck, not by her parents, not by her husbands, yet now it was a relief to have a physical dimension to her pain. The world settled. A slow liquid trickled down her nostrils. She ran through empty rooms. Outside, she knelt by one of the ornamental pools, cupping water to her throbbing face. Slowly, redness disappeared in water.

Dan stood over her.

“Here,” he said, giving her his handkerchief. She held it to her nose, rising heavily to her feet.

He stretched his lips, an attempt toward a smile. His strong teeth were even, the result, he'd told her, of long-term orthodontia. “You'll have a time explaining that eye.”

The pool shivered as a dragonfly touched down. Beverly watched widening ripples, her mind swimming in crosscurrents farther and farther from reason.

“We'll find the best lawyers. He won't get her, Buzz.”

Buzz.

The silly nickname. He never said darling, love, sweetheart, always Buzz. He never called her Buzz unless they were alone. In bed he whispered Buzz. A gate slammed, starting a string of mournful puppy howls. Erratically she wondered if she should phone Bel Air Kennels to explain Boris-the-wanderer no longer had a master.

“Come inside. I'll put ice on it.”

She didn't move.

“I've been crazy, Buzz,” he said. “Six days wondering when I'd see you. If. Know how crazy I've been?”

He put his arms around her. He was warm and she was cold.

She couldn't bear warmth!

She pushed her handbag at his chest, forcing him away. Her heart expanded, her stomach lurched as if she were dropping in an elevator shaft, and bile filled her throat.

She fled.

Down the path lined with voracious birds of paradise she ran, heels clattering on newly paved sidewalk. She didn't pause at Lexington. Her breath came loud. She raced into Sunset, and a red light trapped her on the grassy central divider. Cars swished by. The real Beverly, the gentle, dreamy painter, stood with a hand to her pounding heart, thinking, How I must be hurting him. I can't let it end like this. I'll go back to explain and apologize. Yet the woman with a wild, distraught look, hair in need of shampoo, continued walking quickly south.

4

Five months passed.

Raymond Earle had been adjudged incapable of his own defense, and in accordance with California State Penal Code 1370, was committed to the state facility for the criminally insane at Atascadero. The walls of Victory Enterprises' Encino Mall rose. And Van Vliet's no longer had alternating presidents, Caroline's Uncle Hend having died in May. During that August hot spell, Caroline and Gene took his widow, Bette Van Vliet, to dinner at Scandia.

As they waited for the captain to seat them, Gene happened to glance into the crowded bar. Dan Grossblatt sat on a stool, one arm around his blonde secretary, Georgia. His hand dangled over a large breast on which a brooch shone like a good-conduct medal. Gene hadn't seen Dan since Jamie's funeral—company reorganization had chewed every minute of his time. Caroline hadn't seen Beverly since Arrowhead—wasn't
that
two days' sacrifice enough for a cheerful hedonist?

Dan, sighting them, waved. The broad face looked puffy. Gene zigzagged through the crush of noisy drinkers.

“Gene, hi. Grab a stool, have some fun.”

“I'm with Caroline and her aunt.”

“Mustn't antagonize the bosses, huhh?” One of Dan's fingers touched Georgia's gold pin.

“What happened?” Gene asked. On Dan's forehead was a large, flesh-colored Band-Aid. A greenish bruise lay under one eye.

“You should see the other guy.”

“Honestly, Dan!” Georgia giggled. “Mr. Matheny, he got the littlest tight and hit a lamp post.”

Dan laughed loudly.

Gene asked, “How goes it otherwise?”

“What otherwise? Great. Fabulous. The time of my life.” Dan gave him a bloodshot, despairing wink. “Can't you see?”

Gene could see. And in that awkward minute before he could get loose, he decided this was Save Dan Grossblatt Week, and that friend to all suffering mankind, Eugene Matheny, was elected president.

Which was why he was easing his new, air-conditioned Pontiac (replaced annually by Van Vliet's) through used-car country, peering at fading numerals on run-down units. Number 1043 was a decaying Mediterranean court blanketed with purple bougainvillea. D, the rear apartment.

Beverly opened the screen door. Chalk smudged her shirt, her brownish hair waved in the soft pageboy of their youth around a face innocent of lipstick. She hugged him. “Oh Gene, Gene.”

In the shabby living room she held up a finger. “One second,” she said. “I've got to get this shadow.”

She picked up a pastel, stroking lavender onto one of those saccharine baby portraits. He sat in the armchair. A spring came up to meet him. The furniture was awkward, old, but he sensed Beverly hadn't noticed. Almost covering one wall was a vast, unstretched canvas. At first it seemed abstract. Gene realized he was simply too close. Narrowing his gray eyes behind his correction, he saw raised hands, hundreds of pairs of hands, hands of every age, reaching, grasping, pleading into empty darkness. Even though he understood the content, the painting remained mysterious, disorganized, glimmering with something he couldn't quite grasp.

“Yours?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” she said, still intent.

“It's powerful.”

It was more than powerful. It was desolate. Yet with all the despair, it aroused an odd exultation in Gene. How could Beverly—of the baby pastels—evoke such emotional response?

“That does it,” she said, setting down her chalk, offering him a cold drink. He followed her into a kitchenette, sitting at the breakfast booth. He inquired about Alix. “Off with a friend to a swimsuit sale. You know how they are at that age. They always need clothes.” And it was her turn to ask after Caroline and Cricket. They talked of daughters and ate cinnamon streusel from a Safeway package (“Sorry, Gene, but there's no nearby Van Vliet's”) and drank iced Nescafé. Her face glowed with pleasure, and he put off hurting her. She went for fresh coffee.

“It's Dan,” he said.

She set down glasses carefully.

“Beverly, he's cracking up.”

She stared at him. Her eyes, deep and huge, were made to express suffering.

“He smashed his car,” Gene said. “He's been hitting the bottle. Hard.”
Grossblatt cheated me, so I decided to get even
, Raymond Earle had told newsmen before he was committed.
I thought the boy was his
. “I don't know how anyone could handle that kind of guilt. And your leaving.”

Beverly stared down at the table. “Philip won't let Alix live with Dan. If I go back to Dan, I lose her.”

There was something glib about the explanation. Gene had known Beverly too many years. She was never glib.