They had fought, but Henry prevailed, as he always did. Logical, solid, respectable, smart, he could outtalk her, outsmart her, and leave her laughing while he did it. So things had been in the beginning. Later, they had skipped over the part where he made her laugh. He looked at her differently, and the way he looked at her made her dislike herself, and that made her act badly.
She hated this dinged-up car almost as much as she hated being married to a man named Henry, whom she called Hank because it sounded more manly. Everyone, right down to the flakiest housewife on the block, drove cars like this because of their fuel efficiency and budget pricing.
In those days, she didn’t care about money or budgets. She expected life to have some flair, drama. She never expected to get stuck in a mundane house in a suburb. What happened to that girl who planned to move to San Francisco as soon as she got out of school?
Giving in on a more glamorous car was giving up on her idea of herself. She smacked the wheel. But Henry, handsome Henry, talked her into everything, a fast wedding in Las Vegas when she had always pictured herself in a white satin gown, maybe getting married at a chic hotel overlooking the beach. Having a child. She had never thought of having a child, but along came Ray. And God, she loved little Ray.
Hurry home. She had taken longer at the bar than she’d expected. Now, weaving, she panicked a little. Where was their street? Squinting into the late afternoon sun, she tried to read the street signs, but she was seeing double.
A car honked behind her and she realized she was crawling along. At the next big intersection, eureka! She realized that she had gone too far by a few blocks. She pulled into the far left lane, careful to leave some space between herself and the divider, congratulating herself on finding her way back. Easy to miss the turn, an honest mistake anyone could make on a hot evening like this, when you’re upset, when the sun rakes through the windshield and directly into your eyes when you’re trying to drive straight, do an easy thing, get on home.
She waited for the green arrow. Arrows took so long. Turned up the radio again and sang a little, then sang a little louder. Why not have a good time? She was fine, fine, on her way home after a long day. Happy for her husband for once. He used to say he loved her smile. Even now, he didn’t want her to complain. He wanted happy. So, tonight she’d give him happy!
One hand on the radio tuner dial, one on the wheel, she pulled into the intersection. The U-turn cut too wide and again she found herself heading for a curb. She put her foot down.
On the accelerator.
The last thing Esmé remembered hearing was not the crash, not the windshield shattering: she heard a baby’s wail.
Jack placed three small shot glasses in front of her with three colored liquids, one green, one yellow, one red. “Here’s your tease. A stoplight.”
“Tell Esmé what’s in it,” Amy said. Esmé, caught up in the frenzy of noise around her, the high spirits, the cars outside, had already knocked back the first one, green, absolutely vile.
Jack explained. “Step one,” he said. “The green drink. You mix an ounce of melon liqueur or Apple Pucker schnapps and an ounce of vodka into a shaker. Heave it to and fro. Then you strain the mixture into a rocks glass.
“For the yellow shot, the halt, caution, do not enter the intersection stuff, you mix an ounce of vodka into a shaker, best available stuff that’s yellow-tinged, or add a little food coloring, shake well with a little ice, and strain that into a shot glass or rocks glass.
“Step three, you add an ounce of Hot Damn or Cherry Pucker to one of Bacardi 151 rum. Put those two ounces in a shaker, bounce ’em around, then strain them into a shot glass or rocks glass. That’s stop, baby,” Jack said, leaning close to Esmé, almost whispering. “For some reason, people who drink this stuff never do stop. Careful.”
By then she had thrown the murky bile to the back of her throat, swallowing a few times to get it all down.
“Hey, honey, sip that stuff,” Eleanor’s friend Carmen said, putting a restraining hand to her wrist, “or Ward’ll be calling in a replacement for you in the morning.”
Esmé shook her off. The red went down sweeter than melted butter.
“I’ll have another,” she said. “No. That was awful.”
“Now that is the truth,” Jack said. “I’ll fix you something nice to get the taste out.” He gave her a manhattan. Esmé felt herself loosening, as though rubber bands had been holding her brain in place and were popping off one by one. Now she was laughing, too. She felt young and adventurous.
“Another.”
“Sure, honey.” Jack mixed it for her. There were peanuts on the bar, but she ignored them even though she hadn’t had dinner. Eleanor had disappeared and her friends were all involved in their own conversations, but Esmé no longer felt alone. She was part of all this shifting light, this lubricated bonhomie. Everybody happy, like life should be.
“More.”
Amy and her big hunky friend Craig stuffed her rather awkwardly into the back seat of their car, Craig holding one arm, Amy the other. Craig drove her home. She had trouble opening her front door, so Craig worked the key.
“You sure you’re okay?” Amy asked, watching from outside of Craig’s car.
Esmé waved her hands sideways. “Better than okay,” she said. She shut the door in Craig’s concerned face. “I’m good,” she told the door.
She tried leaning against it to keep herself propped up but she was pretty dizzy and it felt better to slip down and feel the cool hardwood. She passed out in the entryway.
20
S itting beside him so close she could smell Ray’s Pi aftershave and touch his shoulder each time he shifted, Kat studied the map. Just outside San Bernardino, they were heading east and most of the way out of the L.A. Basin. The Porsche’s outside temperature gauge showed a hundred four Fahrenheit on this Saturday afternoon in August. Not a single car they passed had the windows rolled down. The air carried a distinctly orange tinge. Little could be seen along the freeway-sound walls covered with ice plant, roofs. Not exactly scenic, but it got you there.
She said, “I went to Idyllwild on a field trip when I was in fourth grade. All I remember is bugs, dust, and manzanita. There’s no lake very close by. But one of the women in my office likes the place, and she told me it’s an artists’ town. A tourist town, prosperous these days.”
“It’s the closest mountain to L.A.,” Ray said. “Of course they would plant a town there, to escape to in the summer. It’ll be packed this time of year. And there’s some real forest, too, in the Mount San Jacinto park.”
“Did Leigh tell you about the ghost?”
“What ghost?”
“She claimed her parents’ cabin was haunted.”
“Then maybe she didn’t go there.”
“If there’s no sign of her, we’ll ask at the motels.”
“She could have just been passing through.”
“Going where?”
“I have one other idea,” Ray said. “She bought supplies for her work from a man who lives on a reservation somewhere around there, a Native American.” The Porsche whizzed into the middle lane and passed a slower car in the fast lane.
They did eighty on the uphill winding road, but Ray had his eyes fixed on the road and his hands squarely in the ten and two o’clock positions on the leather-covered steering wheel, so Kat just said, “What reservation?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Think!”
“I told you, I can’t remember.”
“This map doesn’t mark any Indian reservations.”
“It’s a highway map. What do you expect? Tell me about the Hubbel ghost.”