Scotty immediately answers my 9-page letter with a special delivery envelope. At the end of his calligraphy letter he’s added a PS in plain block letters. YOU’RE NOBODY’S CHILD. We write each other almost every day.
I’ve come to the final week when my decision is due. My choice will shape my destiny. The farm is a squalid cul-de-sac, a village of peripherals. I am to go back to my father and Madeleine and pack my necessary mementos and then return for school in Beverly Hills in September.
Of course I can visit my father and Madeleine whenever I want. I can spend my vacations and summers there, if I prefer northern Pennsylvania to French Polynesia or Italy. It’s just the matter of school, of being settled, on track and participating effectively.
At night, the swimming pool is implausibly turquoise, as if painted and starched. It looks glutinous, like you could get stuck in it. I walk in and out of rooms, turning lights off and on, off and on. I count the crystal vases in the living room, 11. In the kitchen 18 copper pots hang from their antique copper rack. There are 29 rows and 19 columns of hand painted Italian tiles in the entrance hall below 5 skylights and 14 Fichus trees.
I watch my mother and Marty play tennis. I’m suddenly afraid of the pool. I count my mother’s prescribed 50 laps. She actually does 34. The gardener subtracts 3 scorched Pink Camellias and adds 5 Hibiscus bushes in their place, 3 yellow and 2 red. He loads his truck with 6 different sized shovels and 3 green hoses coiled like ropes or creek snakes. I memorize his license plate.
Marty is in his office with the 22 framed record covers of the bands he’s produced hung on the creamy white wall behind his back. His 6 platinum record plaques hang across from his desk. He wears white tennis shorts and stares at his just-delivered FAX machine. He looks stunned.
I try to remember the 10 Commandments. “Do you bear false witness?” I ask.
Marty is surprised. “I’m an attorney. My license obviates such distinctions. I’ve never had a contract seriously challenged.”
That night, my mother is stretched out in a chaise lounge by the pool. She’s drinking cognac disguised as root beer. I sit next to her. We wear identical tropical print bathing suits and I realize our legs match precisely. We have thin ankles and our tanned flesh adheres seamlessly to the bone like some newly invented millennial clay was poured over them. My mosquito and spider bites have gone into remission.
“Do you steal?” I begin with my mother.
“I would never steal.” My mother doesn’t hesitate.
“What about the Millennium lipsticks you took?” I ask.
At our last Diva Salon appointment, when her stylist wasn’t watching, my mother took 3 lipsticks from the shelf and slid them into her purse. Later she gave me one.
“That’s not stealing.” My mother smiles. “That’s called slippage. I’m a regular customer. They expect established clientele to take samples.”
“But is it wrong?” I want to know.
“Stealing? Of course it’s wrong.” My mother bites her lower lip and a dent forms in the red gloss.
Marty drives to the Malibu house for what may be my last weekend of the summer. He’s tan and wears a Dodger baseball cap. The convertible is down so I yell through wind.
“Do you steal?” It’s the only Commandment I remember.
“My pen is heavier than Pete Townsend swinging a guitar. It has more force than an enraged diva with her mic at max.” Marty’s eyes are on the Pacific Coast Highway. My mother is already in Malibu with Maria preparing the house.
“I don’t draw up contracts, honey. I devise war plans.” Marty shows his ivory teeth. “I really build prison camps.”
“But you did steal.” My voice is raised, competing with the salty wind. There are 5 of what my mother terms real restaurants and 8 traffic lights between Santa Monica and our house on stilts in sand. The night beach glistens with mica like tiny shattered stars.
“You mean the commune days? Sweetie, those are times no one remembers, including me.” Marty is driving his birthday Porsche. He passes a house, swerves, and pulls over to the shoulder of the road. He stares at a house and his mouth is half-open.
“Geffen’s having another party,” he says. His voice is a mixture of anger and stunned admiration. Perhaps that’s called coveting. That’s against the law.
“You grew drugs with my dad. You traded drugs for guns and sold them to the Weathermen. You and Dad robbed an armory,” I point out.
“That’s hearsay and inadmissible,” Marty replies. “We needed Marshall amps. Madeleine had Stevie Nicks’ dress designer on retainer. Retainer, no less. It’s ancient history. The rules were different then.”
Marty’s words are spaced with precision like a mathematical equation proving the existence of gravity and why you can’t go faster than light, not even in a Porsche. Marty can say anything, with his stretched wide lips and teeth like infant tusks. He can take a lie detector test and pass it.
“What about the dude in Les Miserables? 20 years in prison for stealing bread when he was starving,” I remark.
“He’s got a malpractice action against his attorney. No question,” Marty decides.
At the beach house, I walk along the lip of the ocean counting stray pebbles and pieces of damaged clamshells. Later, I’ll count beads of mica like miniature fractured mirrors beneath my feet. This is how you learn to walk on glass and not get cut. After dinner, I’ll carry a calculator and count sand particles.
“Tell us your most memorable Camp Hillel experience,” my mother begins. Maria has prepared her special salad with avocadoes, crab and pecans. Marty cooks steaks on a grill on the terrace just above the slow slapping waves.
“Spiritual Discussion. Scotty Stoloff said he’d take a kilo of cocaine and a 9-millimeter gun to outer space.” I’m wearing my Millennium lipstick. My mouth is encrusted with camouflaged metal discs. If the wrong person kissed me, my lips would make them bleed.
“That’s disgusting.” My mother puts down her fork in slow motion. She looks like she’s just accidentally discovered gravity.
“I’m calling the Camp Director now.” Marty stands up. “That’s absolutely unacceptable.”
“I’m shocked,” my mother decides. She stares at her fork. She has what appears to be a glass of orange juice near her plate. I know she put vodka in it.
“Don’t call the Director.” My voice is too loud. I glare at Marty and add, “I mean it.”
I want to leave the table, but I don’t. I finish dinner. Then I go to my room, close and lock my door, and begin packing. I wrap all 16 masks separately and take an extra suitcase.
My father and Madeleine wave to me in the corridor of the Erie Airport. We run to embrace each other. When we walk, I’m in the middle. My father holds one of my hands and Madeleine holds the other.
My dad’s gray van is like the skin of winter. It’s made of rain, clouds and wind. It’s a hot summer night. Even though the moon is nearly full, the stars are astonishing, strewn like confetti, and more abundant than mica in sand. The stars aren’t broken pieces, but separate entities, each in its appointed place, spinning and burning. Dad plays a U2 tape. It’s Joshua Tree and Madeleine sings the chorus.
“In Spiritual Discussion, I met a guy named Scotty,” I begin.
“Did you fall in love?” Madeleine inquires.
“I think so. Practice Rabbi Jeff asked what we’d take to another planet. Everyone lied. They all said they’d take their parents and dogs. But Scotty said he’d take a kilo of cocaine and a Tec-9 with extra ammunition.”
Madeleine laughs. “Sounds like someone we know.”