The Federal building wasn’t far from City Hall. Once upon a time, City Hall had been the tallest building in downtown L.A. Earthquake codes had limited others to a max of twelve stories. Vanessa didn’t remember those days; the codes had been reworked before she was born. Now City Hall lived in the shadow of newer, taller skyscrapers—when the sun came out to make shadows, anyhow. At the moment, it looked as if it was gearing up to rain. Vanessa had an umbrella in her purse. Don’t leave home without it, she thought: borrowed wit and wisdom from some old commercial.
In the shadow of City Hall lived the denizens of skid row. Los Angeles’ weather was less attractive to the homeless than it had been before the supervolcano blew. It was wetter. It was colder. In winter, you really could freeze to death here these days. Food and clothes were harder to come by; ordinary people could afford to spare less for the unlucky, the mentally damaged, and the addicted.
But if it was bad here, it was still better than it was in most places. Vanessa shivered, imagining trying to live on the streets in Boston or New York or Pittsburgh. Because of that shiver, she gave a badly shaved man in a newsboy cap and a dirty tan trenchcoat five dollars when he went into his spiel for her. She usually did the big-city pretend-they-aren’t-there thing with panhandlers. Not today, though. Her milk of human kindness might have been low-fat, but it hadn’t curdled.
She soon found herself wishing it had. When you gave to one homeless guy, you bought yourself a swarm of homeless people, all of them with a hand out for a handout. She didn’t feel like emptying her wallet to keep them in drugs or Ripple or even cheeseburgers. As soon as they figured out that she didn’t, they called her some names even her father might not have heard in his Navy days.
The San Atanasio city bus pulled out of the same station Greyhound used. Vanessa had enjoyed lots of walks more than the one over to the station. The homeless people followed her. Sometimes they followed her in front of her, like a cat. They must have realized they wouldn’t get anything out of her. If they wouldn’t, they’d make her sorry. They succeeded at that, anyhow.
A hulking security guard with a pistol on his hip discouraged her adoring fans from going inside with her. “Thanks,” she told him sincerely.
He touched the brim of his black Stetson. “You’re welcome, Miss,” he said. “It’s what I’m here for. I know them, and they know me, too. Oswald—the tall, skinny dude with the Dodgers cap—he’s a pain in the neck even around here.”
Vanessa hadn’t thought that skid row might have its own standards. Wherever it got them, Emily Post would not have approved. “I brought it on myself,” she said. “I gave some money to one of them, so they all tried their luck.”
“That’ll happen, yeah,” the guard said. “It was a Christian thing to do, though.”
She never knew how to answer when somebody said something like that. Her family had put up a Christmas tree and dyed Easter eggs, but that didn’t make her a Christian. Her father mostly ignored religion. Her mother had grabbed at every New Age fad for years. Mom didn’t seem to do that so much now. Maybe she’d decided enlightenment didn’t come freeze-dried and prepackaged after all.
Signs that said things like NO SOLICITING! and NO LOITERING! hung all over the bus station. More guards made sure people paid attention to them… up to a point. As long as someone sat quietly and nursed a coffee cup or a little something to eat, they let him alone, even if it was dollars to donuts he wasn’t waiting for a bus. That seemed fair to Vanessa.
The ride down to San Atanasio took her through South Central L.A.: a ghetto since before World War II and now ghetto mixed with barrio. Storefront churches; heavily fortified liquor stores; equally strong check-cashing and quick-loan places; fried-chicken joints and taquerias; old, faded stucco houses, many with Spanish tile roofs; newer, just as faded apartment buildings; gang graffiti on walls and fences; burglar bars on every other place’s windows… Vanessa didn’t like coming through this part of town, not even a little bit. Hers wasn’t the only white face on the bus, but she didn’t have much company.
Nobody hassled her, though. People got on. People got off. Some people stared out the window till their stop came. Others blocked the outside world with earbuds. Those were way better than boomboxes, which could annoy whole city blocks. Here and there, people who knew one another chatted in English, Spanish, and Korean.
Vanessa got off at Oceanic. Farther east, the same street was called Compton. It had been Compton here in San Atanasio, too, till the city council decided it wanted nothing to do with the working-class (a euphemism for poor and tough) town with the same handle. What’s in a name? she thought as she walked to a bench around the corner to wait for the westbound bus that would get her close to home. But she and the city council knew what, even if Shakespeare didn’t. Money was in that one.
As soon as she sat down, the rain started falling. “Shit,” she said resignedly, and popped open her umbrella. She’d wasted a day. She’d feared she would, but she’d gone anyhow. And, the next time she thought of something that might do Bronislav a bad turn, she’d gladly waste another one.
A long time ago—Louise couldn’t remember quite when—there’d been a sappy movie about an affair between two people over the hill. They’d called it Love Among the Ruins. Louise did remember that it had made something of a splash. Most of the time, especially if you were a woman, Hollywood forgot you had those feelings as soon as you turned thirty—thirty-five, tops.
She and Jared were younger than the people in that movie had been. Still, she didn’t expect a director would come sniffing around for their story any time soon. Her boobs sagged. Her seat spread. She had stretch marks. Jared had a potbelly and that haircut that looked as if he’d done it himself with tin snips. No, they weren’t the most photogenic couple anyone could have found.
He did remember the movie when she mentioned it, though. She didn’t have to explain herself to him, the way she had so often with Teo. (She hadn’t had to explain herself to Colin, but he hadn’t cared. That mattered a lot.) “Oh, yes,” he said. “Too sweet for its own good, but they’ve cranked out plenty worse. What about it?”
“I was thinking that, if they ever made a movie about us, they could name it Love Between the Ruins,” Louise said.
Jared broke up. He had a loud, high, shrill laugh, one that filled the bedroom in his neat little house. “I like it!” he said. “I like it a lot. The movies do kind of forget that people our age get horny just like anybody else, don’t they? Maybe not quite as often, but we do.”
He scratched, not seeming to notice he was doing it. His belly had a scar on the right side, a souvenir of the day he and his gall bladder had parted company. Louise was a member of the Zipper Tummy Club, too. She had an appendectomy scar, just about the minimum qualifier. She hadn’t needed a C-section with any of the kids.
She set her hand on his. He would never win any World’s Greatest Stud competition. But then, Louise didn’t suppose the Hollywood Madam would be ringing her cell phone and requesting her services any time soon, either. When they fooled around, Jared cared about her as another person there with him, not just as an instrument of his own pleasure. As far as she was concerned, that mattered a lot more than size and gymnastics.
“It’s… nice with you, you know?” she said.
“With you, too,” he answered seriously. “That’s kind of the point of things. Or if it isn’t, it should be.”
“I’m not arguing,” Louise said.