“It’s weird,” he said, snagging a second piece.
“When your brother was a toddler, he ate carpet backing,” Gloria said. “A real connoisseur of kapok.”
“Ah! So that’s what this tastes like,” Henry said, popping the last piece into his mouth. “Sondra says they won’t be able to begin processing the claim without a copy of the official incident report. One of us has to go to City Hall and request it. Even with that, the bureaucracy can take weeks to spit out the report . . . unless it’s goosed along by someone on the inside.” Henry eyed Deirdre. “Know anyone who might be able to help?”
“I do not know”—Deirdre drew quote marks in the air—“Tyler Corrigan.”
“Tyler?” Gloria said. “The boy who lived across the street?”
“Used to show off for Deirdre,” Henry said. “He was kind of a prick.”
“He was a nice boy,” her mother said. “Delivered our newspaper for a while.”
“He’s the city’s lead arson investigator,” Henry said, “and Sondra says he’s the one who signs off on cases.”
“So now we’re a case?” Deirdre said. Henry’s fixation on Tyler was starting to annoy her. “How is Sondra doing?”
“She’s up there,” Henry said, “literally picking the place apart. Talking into a cassette recorder and making an inventory of everything that got damaged, from the carpet to the toilet paper dispenser. It’s like watching an autopsy. Slow. Painstaking. Messy.”
“I’ll bet,” Deirdre said, sniffing at her own fingers. She didn’t know if that was the soy bacon or barbecued prayer beads that she smelled.
“She’s got rubber gloves and baggies that go over her boots. The smell and the heat got to me right away, but she’s oblivious. Girl knows how to travel—she’s got water in her backpack and a very long straw.” Henry poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “So what were you two talking about?”
“Those photographs that were stuck in the Players Directories that Dad wanted you to throw away? There’s only one that didn’t get incinerated.” Deirdre turned it over so he could see Joelen’s face.
For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were Baby’s claws clicking across the floor and a chuffing as she sniffed, ever hopeful, at the floor where bacon had landed. Deirdre waited until she couldn’t any longer. “Recognize her?”
Henry raised his eyebrows and smirked, allowing that he did.
Deirdre turned the picture over to show him the asterisks. “Mom says Dad didn’t write those.”
Henry picked up the snapshot. “Really?” He and Gloria exchanged a look.
“What?” Deirdre said.
“What what?” Henry said.
“Don’t give me that. I’m not blind. What’s up with you two?”
Gloria said, “Henry, your sister thinks your father was responsible for that.” She pointed to the photograph.
“And the others like it,” Deirdre said.
“He was responsible.” Henry stared impassively at Gloria. “A regular trailblazer.”
“Henry—” Gloria started.
“And what do you know about it?” Henry said, cutting her off. “You were on the path.” The path was the term that their mother used for her cleansing journey to what she called self-awakening. It had started long before she left Arthur, and even though Deirdre knew Gloria had needed to do something to preserve her own sanity, like Henry she resented the way Gloria had spun herself a protective cocoon.
Gloria reared back. “And look what you were on your way to, Henry.” She spread her arms and looked around. “Still living with your father in a house that’s literally falling down around you.”
“It wasn’t my fault that I got thrown out of school. My roommate—”
“Right. He’s the one who made you stop going to classes. Did he make you give up music and wreck your car, too?”
“Oh, remind me again, how much did you pay for that car?”
Deirdre knew from experience that they were just getting warmed up. “Stop it!” she said, standing so fast that her chair tipped over backward. She snatched the photograph from Henry, nabbed her crutch, walked her plate to the sink, and dropped it in with a clatter. Across the room, her messenger bag hung from a hook by the back door. She grabbed it. It was still damp and weighed almost nothing. All that was in it was her keys and wallet. She slipped the photograph in, too, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Gloria asked.
“Out.”
“Go to City Hall, why don’t you,” Henry said, “and file the request for the form we need.”
The last thing Deirdre felt like doing at that moment was agreeing with Henry, but it was actually a good suggestion. She paused, the door open. “What’s it called?”
“An incident report,” Henry said. “And remember to charm Tyler, won’t you?”
Deirdre stepped outside and slammed the door behind her. She clumped down the back steps, out the driveway, and into the street to her car. She’d started the engine when she realized a ticket was stuck to her windshield. She got out and snagged it. Overnight parking was checked. There was an envelope for remitting her twenty-five-dollar fine. Damn. She got back into the car, jammed the ticket in her glove compartment, and took off.
Charm Tyler. She glanced at her reflection in her rearview mirror. Eyes wild. Skin blotchy. Hair a rat’s nest. On top of that, her outfit—those ridiculous boots and her father’s shirt—made her look as if she were on her way to a Halloween party. She needed to pull herself together if she was going to get anywhere in the charm department.
It had been many years since Deirdre had shopped for clothes or gotten her hair cut in Beverly Hills. She parked in the lot behind the stores on Little Santa Monica near Beverly Drive and fed some coins into the meter. Across the street was the park where she used to stand and wave at trains that rode through. If she was lucky, someone hanging out of the last car, a real red caboose, would wave back at her. That was even better than getting a semi on the freeway to toot its air horn at you.
Walking along Little Santa Monica, feeling as if she were throwing a dart at a map, she stopped in front of Latour’s Hair Salon. A small WALK-INS WELCOME sign was in the window. She pushed open the heavy wood door and stepped inside.
A spectrally thin young woman in a black turtleneck and fringed leather vest stood at the front desk, talking on the phone. Her gaze flickered over Deirdre and then away. It was the same dismissive look the clerk at Jax had given her when she was in high school and ventured into the elegant store where the popular girls at school bought their straight skirts and shells and matching Geistex sweaters. Back then, Deirdre had turned tail and fled. Didn’t matter that she had saved up enough from babysitting to pay for any of their outfits.
Now she held her ground. Behind the counter, stations on facing walls were half-full of customers and the air was laden with the sewer-gas smell of perms.
Finally the receptionist got off the phone. She gave Deirdre a brittle smile. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Do I need one? I’d like to get my hair cut.” Quite deliberately Deirdre laid her crutch on the desk.
The woman looked startled for a moment, then turned and buried her nose in an appointment ledger. “Cut? Blow-dry?”
“Please.”
An hour later, Deirdre emerged from the salon, her hair cut short and layered, just framing her face, the bangs poufy and saucily blown to the side. She caught glimpses of her new self reflected in store windows as she continued to Rodeo Drive. For so many years she’d cursed her curls and now they were in style. The chambray shirt and boots, on the other hand, had to go.
She entered a new shopping complex with a glass atrium. She couldn’t remember what had been at that address when she was growing up—maybe Uncle Bernie’s, the toy store with a lemonade tree in the back. Now it was home to Gucci, Giorgio, and Chanel. They made Jax look like J.J. Newberry.