I was still erect, began to move again. She rolled out from under me, smoothed her skirt, took out a compact and fixed her makeup.
“Sharon-”
She placed a finger on my lips. “You’re so good to me,” she said. “Wonderful.”
I closed my eyes, drifted away for several moments. When I opened them she was gazing off in the distance, as if I weren’t there.
From that night on, I gave up hope of perfect love and took her selfishly. She rewarded my compliance with devotion, subservience, though I was the one being molded.
The therapist in me knew it was wrong. I employed the therapist’s rationalization to quell my doubts:
It did no good to push; she’d change when she was ready.
Summer came and my fellowship ended. Sharon had completed the first year of grad school with top grades in all her qualifying exams. I’d just passed my licensing exam and had a job lined up at Western Pediatric come autumn. Time to celebrate, but no income until autumn. The tone of the creditors’ letters had turned threatening. When the opportunity to earn some real money presented itself I grabbed it: an eight-week dance-band gig back up in San Francisco, playing three sets a night, six nights a week at the Mark Hopkins. Four grand, plus room and board at a Lombard Street motel.
I asked her to come north with me, spun visions of breakfast in Sausalito, good theater, the Palace of Fine Arts, hiking on Mt. Tamalpais.
She said, “I’d love to, Alex, but I’ve some things to take care of.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Family business.”
“Problems back home?”
She answered quickly: “Oh, no, just the usual.”
“That doesn’t tell me a thing,” I said. “I have no idea what the usual is, because you never talk about your family.”
Soft kiss. Shrug. “They’re just a family like any other.”
“Let me guess: They want to haul you back to civilization so they can fix you up with the local scions.”
She laughed, kissed me again. “Scions? Hardly.”
I put my arm around her waist, nuzzled her. “Oh, yeah, I can see it now. In a few weeks I’ll pick up the paper and see your picture in the society pages, engaged to one of those guys with three last names and a career in investment banking.”
That made her giggle. “I don’t think so, my dear.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because my heart belongs to you.”
I took her face in my hands, looked into her eyes. “Does it, Sharon?”
“Of course, Alex. What do you think?”
“I think after all this time I don’t know you very well.”
“You know me better than anyone.”
“That’s still not very well.”
She tugged her ear. “I really care about you, Alex.”
“Then live with me when we get back. I’ll get a bigger place, a better one.”
She kissed me, so deeply I thought it signaled agreement. Then she pulled away and said, “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Things are just… complicated. Please, let’s not talk about this right now.”
“All right,” I said. “But consider it.”
She licked the underside of my chin, said, “Yum. Consider this.”
We began necking. I pressed her to me, buried myself in her hair, her flesh. It was like diving into a vat of sweet cream.
I unbuttoned her blouse, said, “I’m really going to miss you. I miss you already.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. “We’ll have fun in September.”
Then she began unzipping my fly.
At ten-forty, I left to meet the real estate agent. The mild summer had finally begun to wilt, surrendering to high eighties’ temperatures and air that smelled like oven exhaust. But Nichols Canyon still looked fresh- sun-washed, filled with country sounds. Hard to believe Hollywood- the grifters and geeks- was only yards away.
When I got to the house the lattice gate was open. Driving the Seville up to the house, I parked it next to a big burgundy Fleetwood Brougham with chrome wire wheels, a phone antenna on the rear deck, and plates that said SELHOUS.
A tall dark brunette got out of the car. Mid-forties, aerobics-firm and shapely in tight acid-washed jeans, high-heeled boots, and a blousy, scoop-necked black suede top decorated with rhinestones. She carried a snakeskin purse, wore large onyx and glass costume jewelry and hexagonal, blue-tinted sunglasses.
“Doctor? I’m Mickey.” A wide, automatic smile spread under the glasses.
“Alex Delaware.”
“It is Dr. Delaware?”
“Yes.”
She pushed the glasses up her forehead, eyed the coat of dirt on the Seville, then my clothes- old cords, faded workshirt, huaraches.
Running a mental Dun and Bradstreet on me: Says he’s a doctor, but the city’s full of bullshit artists. Drives a Caddy, but it’s eight years old. Another phony putting on the dog? Or someone who once had it and lost it?
“Beautiful day,” she said, one hand on the door handle, still scrutinizing, still wary. Meeting strange men up in the hills had to give a woman frequent pause.
I smiled, tried to look harmless, said, “Beautiful,” and looked at the house. In the daylight, the déjà vu was even stronger. My personal patch of ghost town. Spooky.
She mistook my silent appraisal for displeasure, said, “There’s a fabulous view from the inside. It’s really a charmer, great bones- I think it was designed by one of Neutra’s students.”
“Interesting.”
“It just came on the market, Doctor. We haven’t even run ads- in fact, how did you find out about it?”
“I’ve always liked Nichols Canyon,” I said. “A friend who lives nearby told me it was available.”
“Oh. What kind of a doctor are you?”
“Psychologist.”
“Taking a day off?”
“Half day. One of the few.”
I checked my watch and tried to look busy. That seemed to reassure her. Her smile reappeared. “My niece wants to be a psychologist. She’s a very smart little girl.”
“That’s terrific. Good luck to her.”
“Oh, I think we make our own luck, don’t we, Doctor?”
She pulled keys out of her handbag and we walked to the slatted front door. It opened to a small courtyard- a few potted plants, glass wind chimes that I remembered, dangling over the lintel, silent in the hot, static air.
We went inside and she began her spiel, all well-rehearsed pep.
I pretended to listen, nodded and said “Uh huh” at the right times, forced myself to follow, rather than lead; I knew the place better than she did.
The interior smelled of carpet cleaning fluid and pine disinfectant. Sparkly clean, expunged of death and disorder. But to me it seemed mournful and forbidding- a black museum.
The front of the house was a single open area encompassing living room, dining area, study, and kitchen. The kitchen was early deco-massacre: avocado-green cabinetry, round-edged coral-colored Formica tops, and a coral vinyl-covered breakfast nook tucked into one corner. The furniture was blond wood, synthetic pastel fabrics, and spidery black iron legs- the kind of postwar jet-streamed stuff that looks poised for takeoff. Walls, of textured beige plaster, were hung with portraits of harlequins and serene seascapes. Bracket bookshelves were crowded with volumes on psychology. The same books.
A bland, listless room, but the blandness projected the eye toward the east, toward a wall of glass so clean it seemed invisible. Panels of sheet glass, segmented by sliding glass doors.
On the other side was a narrow, terrazzo-tiled terrace rimmed with white iron railing; beyond the railing an eyeful- a mindful- of canyons, peaks, blue skies, summer foliage. “Isn’t it something,” said Mickey Mehrabian, spreading one arm, as if the panorama were a picture she’d painted.