Carl turned over again and unraveled the towel. He lay back, blinked sand from his eyes, and covered them with his arm.
For a minute, we listened to the Beatles sing of love and its loss.
"I understand," Carl said finally. "I think. It doesn't make sense, but I understand it. I'm getting used to things not making sense."
"Good," I said, "because they rarely do."
"There's only one thing."
"What?"
"I've been thinking about this for a while. If things are so screwed up, so backward and impossible, then it must be true that Lori is Debbie."
I nodded. "Again, it doesn't make sense, but…"
"Yeah. Besides, it works out better that way. If Debbie is another person, then I got some explaining to do."
I asked, "When did you finally convince yourself that she isn't another person?"
"The other day, when we went to the clothing store. When Lori came out wearing that pink blouse with the white lace around the cuffs, I recognized it. Debbie was wearing that blouse when we first met. I remember because I teased her about how shocking pink, it was. When I saw Lori choose it in the store, I stood there like I'd been struck by lightning, because it hit me that hard. I knew then that somehow-and don't even know how, yet-somehow Debbie and Lori are the same person. The only difference is the hair. Debbie's was darker. Not by much, either, now that I think of it, but it was darker. Seems to me that it was a little longer, too, but that may be my lousy memory. It's been a long time since I've seen Debbie."
Darla came back from a swim and lay down beside me, her skin glistening wet in the sunlight. She had bought a one-piece maternity swimsuit with a little skirt, and she'd been complaining that she looked ridiculous. She didn't look ridiculous.
I asked Carl, "Where did you meet Debbie?"
"That's another strange thing. She came right up to me on the-"
Carl sat up with a look of shocked realization.
I nodded and said sympathetically, "Yeah, Carl, it's going to be rough."
I tried to look fatherly.
Lori and I had come down into L.A. by way of Sunset Boulevard, which had taken us through Brentwood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, and into West Hollywood. It had been a nice drive, traffic on the moderate side, and I had reached a point where I felt comfortable operating Dave's Volkswagen. It was a good, economical little car. I know, because I had filled it up before we left. Gasoline was ridiculously cheap as it was. I couldn't see the price staying that low for any length of time.
"Okay," I said. "I'm going to let you off around Vine Street. Do you remember the address in Culver City?"
"Yeah," Lori said. She was nervous and a little scared. "Dave's sister is expecting you at ten."
"Ten, right. But I don't know where Culver City is."
"If everything goes well, Carl-Carl Two, the double-should take you there. He knows where Culver City is."
We had asked Dave if he knew anyone who could put Lori up for a few days. We couldn't have Carl Two bringing her to Dave's place. Carl One said that Debbie lived in Culver City, and it turned out, Dave had a, sister who lived there. Dave phoned her with the story of a social worker friend of his who ran a shelter for runaways, and of a girl who needed a place to stay because of overcrowding. Debbie Smith-nice kid, basically, just needs a little special attention. Dave's sister said fine, send her over.
Lori was chewing her lip anxiously. "What's the matter?" I asked.
"What if…?" She shivered. "Oh, Jake, this is so scary. What if I can't get Carl to pick me up? What happens then?"
"Good question," I said, "and I'd be lying if I said I knew. I don't know what happens if you foul up a paradox. I don't know that a paradox can be fouled up. But I don't think you're going to have any trouble. Those jeans of yours look sprayed on."
"They shrank in that silly clothes dryer of Dave's."
"All to the good, I say. Just walk around looking as pretty as you are."
She frowned and flicked a hand through her hair. "I think I look horrible as a brunette. What an awful color that dye turned out to be."
"Darla did her best. Okay, what street is this?"
"Bonita."
I turned left, went two blocks, and turned right onto Hollywood Boulevard. I cruised for a few blocks, then pulled over.
"This is it," Lori said.
I looked around. "I don't see him, but our Carl said that this is one of his hunting grounds." There were plenty of kids out, riding in cars, shouting at one another, standing on street corners, and generally misspending their collective youth.
Lori got out, closed the door, and poked her head in the window, her eyes wide with apprehension. "Jake? What if there really is a Debbie?"
I smiled. "Don't stay out too late, Debbie."
A little of the anxiety left her face, and she smiled thinly. "Wish me luck," she said.
I watched her walk away. Those jeans really were a second skin. Carl Two didn't have a chance.
17
It was a lovely summer with an undercurrent of suspense. The Paradox seemed to be working out on schedule. "Debbie" saw "Carl" on the average of three times a week. They'd go out driving, cruising the main boulevards and meeting friends, or they'd go to "drive-in" motion picture theaters, afterward ingesting hamburgers and accompanying confections at various establishments offering same. Every odd day they went to the beach, where Debbie learned the rudiments of surfboarding, Frisbee sailing, and increasing the natural pigmentation of the skin by overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. All these activities, and more, we were told, were typical pastimes for young people of the period and locale. "Debbie" didn't care much for surfboarding. "I'm always hanging ten," she complained-whatever that meant.
Meanwhile, Carl (our Carl) would grind his teeth. The drive-in movies upset him especially. He never mentioned it but once, and never asked Lori what transpired when the couple visited these "passion pits," as he called them.
"I know damn well what they're doing," he told me. "'Cause I did it, too!"
But he endured it. After all, it wasn't as if Lori were dating another guy. It was as if… In the final analysis, the language lacked the means for accurately describing the situation.
It was good, then, that Lori spent a good deal of time over at Dave's sister's place. Shelly and her husband seemed to like "Debbie" a great deal, and didn't balk at the prospect of her staying on indefinitely.
"Shelly can't turn away a stray animal," Dave explained. "Drives Bob nuts-they must have half a dozen cats by now." The couple had no children of their own.
Dave took Lori down to the Federal Building in L.A. to get her a Social Security card, which she obtained by presenting the authorities there with a false birth certificate that Dave had conjured up.
"Didn't cost a hell of a lot, either," Dave told us. "Amazing possibilities, if you think about it."
What did Debbie do, mostly, over at Bob and Shelly's? "Watch TV, sit and read movie magazines. Eat a lot. I've put on five pounds. I like TV."
She liked rock music, too. She adored the Rolling Stones.
There were dangers inherent in the situation of having two versions of the same human being running around in proximity to one another. Dave was worried that the other Carl might drop in some time, as he was wont to do on occasion. We forestalled that eventuality by having Dave call Carl up and tell him that he'd be away for a month or two-up in the mountains writing a feature film script. There was still the possibility that the two Carls might bump into each other. But the consensus was that, as Carl had no memory of encountering a twin of himself, it never happened. Ergo, it wouldn't happen. We could have rewritten the textbooks on logic that summer, if we'd have put our minds to it.