The rain was having a hallucinatory effect. Headlights and taillights appearing smeared and dripping, a Dalí painting. “You mean-some kind of informant?”
“No. An agent.”
“He said that?”
“No, it just came to me. The way you described him, clean, clean-cut, weird. I thought ‘military,’ then ‘law enforcement,’ but that one remark, remember when he asked what you were doing on Temple Street? Why would he ask that? He follows you all over L.A. but he gets fixated on Temple Street. Why?” Joey bounced with excitement. “Because that’s where you don’t belong. That’s his turf, not yours-that’s the building the DEA works out of and he wanted to know if you’d made him.”
“If I’d what?”
“Made him. Found him out. Discovered his identity. They’re paranoid, those guys. He sees you downtown within ten miles of his office, he says, Me, it’s all about me, she’s following me.”
“That’s a complete long shot, Joey, it’s a huge leap of logic-”
“It’s not. I’m telling you, the DEA building on Temple Street, it’s-”
“Then he’s an informant,” I said, taking a vicious swipe at the inside windshield. “In a suit. White-collar informant, taking meetings in the building. Or a janitor. Or he works at the Music Center, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He can’t be in the DEA, he’s terrible at surveillance, I always catch him-”
“Oh, for God’s sake, he’s not surveilling you, Wollie, he’s courting you.”
“Plus he drives a really nice car. Too nice for a civil servant.”
“Look, it wouldn’t be my first choice, to fall for a narc, but that’s because I’m practically a junkie. You’re another story-you don’t even take aspirin.”
“It upsets my stomach. That’s not the point.” I stopped at the light at Topanga Canyon and turned to her. “I don’t know anyone like that. What would we talk about, someone who-does whatever it is he does for a living? Wiretaps and so forth.”
“Honey. How many of your acquaintances share your political values?”
I shrugged. “Lots. I don’t know. Most of them.”
“And how many of those people do you want to get naked with?”
I thought about it. The list was not long.
Joey smiled. “I rest my case.”
Three hours later I’d dropped Joey in Los Feliz, where her husband’s BMW was getting detailed, and got myself back to West Hollywood. It was now fully dark and pouring rain. I was inching closer to accepting Simon’s alleged profession. Since shooting up together wasn’t on my romantic agenda, what did I care?
But when had I acquired a romantic agenda?
Frozen and wet, I walked up the steps to my building. My down-the-hall neighbor was struggling with the front door, armed with groceries, and I ran to unlock it.
“Turkey?” I asked, nodding toward his grocery bag.
He groaned. “Darling, you don’t even want to know. Seventeen for dinner tomorrow. All male. All gay. And that dreadful little efficiency kitchen of ours. If you hear screams, that will be me. Drop in, if you like. Bring estrogen.”
“Thanks,” I said, stopping at the mailbox alcove. “But I’m working.”
I was glad Biological Clock was shooting. If you’re not with family on major holidays, people worry, calling to see if you’re being sufficiently festive, yelling at you if you eat Chee-tos for Christmas dinner. There had to be millions of others like me, orphans by circumstance, geography, or choice, but a cultural conspiracy was afoot to make us feel otherwise. Work, I decided, was the antidote.
I retrieved from my mail cubbyhole a huge assortment of holiday catalogs and some bills, and turned on my cell phone. It buzzed and pulsed, alerting me to all the unplayed messages acquired while it had been turned off. I ignored it. How had Doc talked me into a cell phone? They were more trouble than pets. My phone changed sounds, announcing an actual live call. All right. No point in putting it off any longer. “Yes. Hello,” I said.
“It’s Simon. Playing hard to get?”
I tried to conjure up Doc’s face, but Doc-in-my-head had gone out to dinner. “No,” I said. “I’m no good at that.”
“Lucky me. Okay. You had questions.”
“Are you a DEA agent?”
“Hell, no. Where’d you get that idea?”
I sank to my knees, picking up dropped mail. “Thank God. So what do you do for a living?” A blast of cold heralded the arrival of people dressed in pilgrim hats, doing a rock rendition of “Simple Gifts” in three-part harmony.
“Is there a church service going on there?” Simon asked.
“Of sorts. I’m in the lobby of my building.”
“Go upstairs. Call me in ten minutes.”
I didn’t dwell on how he knew I lived on an upper floor; I was too relieved to know he was not in the Drug Enforcement Agency. Relief is a beautiful, underrated feeling. I reached my apartment and stuck my key in the lock.
The door was already unlocked.
Uh-oh.
I hesitated, my hand on the doorknob, thinking, Maybe I left the apartment unlocked this morning while Ruta’s voice yelled, Run. Run while you have the chance.
Too late.
From the other side of the door a voice called out, “Wollstonecraft? Is that you?” A voice I knew as well as my own.
“Yes, Mother,” I called back, closing my eyes. “It’s me.”
27
“ A ctually, ‘It is I.’ ”
My mother sat curled on the sofa, a theatrical piece of furniture in leopard skin. My mother wore white. Her pants and caftan, drapey as a tablecloth, pooled around her, obscuring her small frame. The arrangement was so artful it would be a pity for her to stand and spoil the effect, and my mother, in fact, did not stand.
“What?” I said.
“You don’t say, ‘It’s me,’ dear, but ‘It’s I.’ Are you going to give me a kiss?”
I leaned over my mother, feeling graceless and large, and touched my lips to her very soft cheek. She closed the coffee-table book Aerial Views of Los Angeles, and smiled. “You look well. My word, have you always had those breasts?”
“Since I was twelve.”
“Oh, good. I’d hate to think you had them enlarged. Mine have always been small. A more pleasing look, especially as you age. The well-endowed look matronly.”
My mother was pretty much as I remembered her. Her hair was a touch more silver, the blond I’d inherited from her giving way gracefully. She wore no makeup, and I could smell the moisturizer she’d used for years.
I said, “How did you get in?”
“The plumber.”
“What plumber?”
“The woman plumber, in the plumber suit. An effeminate young man let me into the building, and the plumber let me into the apartment. A little kitschy, isn’t it? I would never put animal skin against these purples.” She gestured to the walls and carpet. “Of course, I wouldn’t use animal skin in any case. Even faux.”
“It’s a sublet,” I said, distractedly. “Cheap. Almost a house-sit. For my friend Hubie. Was this plumber… plumbing?”
“I have no idea. Gay, I suppose. Your friend. They can be kitschy, can’t they? Generally with more taste than this.”
I perched on a chair. Maybe the building super had let the plumber in. Maybe I had a leak I didn’t know about, dripping into the apartment beneath me. These things happened. I’d call the super. “How’s life at the ashram, Mom? I thought you-”
“Dear, is it so difficult to use my given name? I’ve requested-”
“Sorry. Estelle.”
“No, the new one.”
“Sorry. Prana. Didn’t you say only an act of God could get you back to L.A.?”
“It was an act of God that brought me.” My mother set the coffee-table book on a coffee table already cluttered with books. “I am concerned for your chi.”
I stood. “Okay, let me just change before we launch into… chi. Something to drink?” I detoured to the kitchen for a diet root beer.