Give a little, get a little. That’s always been his motto. Only lately he’s been getting just that. A little. And sometimes not even that.
He adjusts his swim goggles over his eyes. His girls, if they were really there, would be a golden blur now. The camera dolly would have faded into murky darkness. He imagines it tracking him as he steps slowly, deliberately to the deep end of the pool. The wall of his garage, lit by a wavery glow, makes an eerie backdrop as his shadow creeps up it, nearly reaching the windows of his second-floor office. In a film, it would feel like foreshadowing. Very dramatic. Perhaps a bit melodramatic—at least that’s what Gloria would have said, and she’d have been right.
Arthur faces the pool. Centers himself. Three long strides and he feels the concrete apron around the pool under his bare foot. A leap and he’s airborne, outstretched and arcing in a racing dive. He lands more heavily than he’d like and the water is a lot colder than he expects, but the initial shock quickly recedes.
He swims, stroke after stroke after stroke, a turn of his head to take a breath. He reaches the far end, barely pausing before pushing off and surging in the opposite direction. Back and forth. He’s nearing the zone, the place where his mind lets go and muscle memory takes over. He starts to review his work in progress the way he used to work through a movie script, running the maze of major and intermediate plot points; unpacking the emotions, goals, and obstacles that drive them; probing at knots and dead ends until he’d worked them through.
But what rises to the surface, like the taste of a bad oyster, is last week’s phone call and tonight’s meeting. Arthur feels his shoulders tensing up, his breathing begin to labor. If he wanted to be dictated to, told what he could and couldn’t write, he’d be working on a screenplay.
He’s not looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting with the Realtor. She advised him to list the house at 899K. Apparently nine hundred is a barrier for buyers, and even though the market is hot, his house is not. How did she put it in the ad copy? A classic open-plan home with lots of possibilities. In other words, a dump. But hey, it’s Beverly Hills, even if it is in the flats south of Sunset, and Arthur is determined to list his house for an even mil. Let them underbid and think they’re getting a bargain. One thing he’s learned: you don’t ask, you don’t get.
His daughter, Deirdre, agreed to drive up from San Diego tomorrow and spend a few days helping him get the place ready to go on the market. He called to remind her before coming out for his swim, but she didn’t pick up the phone. Probably sleeping—Arthur loses track of the time. It’s no big deal because Deirdre has never needed reminding. Even when she was little, she got out of bed and dressed for school without having to be coaxed. She did her homework. As grueling as the physical therapy was, she just did it, never complaining, even when it was clear that it wasn’t going to make any difference.
Once he’d have taken Deirdre for granted. But having someone he can depend on is something he cherishes now. Especially since he hasn’t exactly earned her undying loyalty. She blames him for the car accident that crippled her, and how could she not? It’s the kind of thing that apologies can’t fix, though Lord knows he’s offered them up.
Apologies. Excuses. Anything but the truth. It really wasn’t his fault, but he can’t tell her that, because if it wasn’t his fault, then whose was it? He can’t go there. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never. Besides, it’s the last thing Deirdre wants to hear and it won’t bring her the peace he wishes he had to give her.
He strokes across the pool. Turns.
He means to thank Deirdre properly this time. Maybe send flowers to that art gallery of hers. Her constancy is such a support these days. Henry seems incapable of fulfilling even the smallest commitment unless it involves one of his dogs or his muscle bikes. Gloria left years ago. Oh sure, they talk on the phone, though only occasionally, and not since Gloria began a monastic retreat. Tibetan Buddhist, shaved head, vegan diet, the works.
He tries to let go, to push away unfinished business as he pushes off from the end of the pool. As he strokes, he tells himself, There’s always tomorrow. A wrong-answer buzzer goes off in his head. As Gloria often chided him: Focus on the now.
In this moment, as he swims in a steady rhythm, he is the star of his own movie, his life story brought to the silver screen, his backyard the set. The director, hidden in darkness behind the camera, has long ago called for Quiet! Roll camera! Action!
Fade in.
All attention is focused on Arthur as he turns again at the far end of the pool.
A beat.
He plunges back in the opposite direction, stroking powerfully toward the spotlight where . . . Who? Billy Wilder and Elizabeth Taylor, he decides, are waiting for him to surface and accept a golden statuette with his name engraved on the base. Recognition of his lifetime achievement, something even his kids can feel proud of.
Ready for his close-up, Arthur reaches the opposite end of the pool, raises his head, and hangs there for what he thinks will be just a moment, basking in the illusion that he’s the star of his own show. Realizing too late that the spotlight he sees through the goggles—a yellow, water-streaked glow—is real and getting bigger, until it’s bright and blinding and right in his face.
He blinks and looks away, and in that split second the light goes out. And we hear the sound that Arthur can’t—the thud of heavy metal connecting with Arthur’s head, his prefrontal cortex to be precise, the part of his brain responsible for a lifetime’s worth of lousy decisions and selfish moves.
It’s a wrap.
SATURDAY,
May 24, 1985
Chapter 2
By the time Deirdre Unger reached the Sunset Boulevard exit off the San Diego Freeway, her stomach burned. The Egg McMuffin she’d wolfed down an hour and a half ago had been a mistake.
Used to be this was an easy turn, but traffic had grown heavier over the years. As she waited, she took a sip of what was left of her coffee. It tasted mostly of waxy cardboard and only made her stomach seethe. She set the cup back in the drink holder and foraged with one hand in her messenger bag, feeling for an errant Rolaid or Life Saver and coming up with only lint.
“How hot is it, kiddies?” The voice on the radio sounded maniacally overjoyed. “So hot trees are whistling for dogs!” A buzzer sounded, then hollow laughter. “Seriously, it’s hot out there, so drink plenty of water. Red flag warnings have been issued for today and tomorrow. Heat and dry winds are expected to turn Los Angeles and Ventura County mountains and valleys into a tinderbox.”
Yippee. Deirdre snapped the radio off and gripped the wheel. Another reason to have stayed in San Diego.
At last there was a break in the traffic and she turned onto Sunset. Why on earth was she doing this? Couldn’t Henry for once in his life have stepped up to the plate? She wondered, what would he do after the house sold? No way he’d want to live with Arthur in a condo complex filled with actual grown-ups. He’d have to find a place for himself and Baby and Bear—those were his rottweilers—and his Harleys. She had no idea how many bikes he had at the moment, but she wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he’d named them, too.
It was a shame about Henry. He’d wanted desperately to be a jazz guitarist, and if he’d worked at it, he might even have made a career of it. But freshman year of college he dropped out, stopped playing, and moved home. Not that he’d done badly after that. He made a good enough living selling bikes for a Harley dealership in Marina del Rey. Problem was, he “invested” his earnings in vintage bikes, Stratocasters, and the best pot that money could buy. Girlfriends came and went so fast Deirdre had stopped asking. Henry seemed to be allergic to any kind of personal commitment.