Tunnel of Love

by Hilma Wolitzer

  “Do you think it could be the battery again?” Linda asked, without much hope. Nathan had disappeared under the hood, as he’d done the day they met. He said something angrily in Spanish and slammed it down. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think you’ve got yourself a seized engine here.”

  “Is that very bad?” Linda asked, although she already knew the terrible truth from Nathan’s face and from the words he’d used. A seized engine. She imagined it wrested from the Mustang, separated from all its vital connections, like a terminally ill patient detached from life support. She remembered Wright, helplessly hooked up in the hospital, and she thought of Manny reduced to his outline on the floor of the Liquor Barn, and she burst into tears.

  “Oh, sweetheart, don’t,” Nathan said, taking her into his arms. They held her in a powerful brace of muscle and sinew, and she could smell his sweet skin and feel the regular clock of his heart against her own erratic flutter. How extraordinary it was to be held at that moment, not for sex or even dancing, but for the elementary and essential sake of solace. “It’s only a car, right?” he said. “Hey, niña, what’s the matter?”

  After she’d wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, she said, “Nothing. Everything. I have to have a car. I’m going to have to stop nursing the baby.”

  Nathan smiled. “You need to nurse her in a car?”

  Linda smiled back as she sniffled. “No. Oh, you know,” she said. “It all keeps piling up.”

  “Yeah, I do know, but you may have to forget about the Mustang. See?” he said, pointing upward toward a slow-moving cloud. “There goes its soul right now!” Then he said that he was sorry for making her cry like that, and to make up for it, he would be her personal driver until she got another car.

  “Another car!” she cried. There went all her daydreams of consumerism. She would need the extra work just to make car payments, maybe for the rest of her life.

  “We’ll find you something good in a used model,” he said. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you get stung. We can look around on Saturday morning, maybe get you a nice Jag or something, and blow old Robin’s mind.”

  “I can’t, Saturday morning,” Linda said. “I’ve got this private job. And then I promised to take Robin for new sneakers after that. Do you mind? When do kids’ feet stop growing, anyway? Can we go for the car another time?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m all yours.”

  14

  To Have and Have Not

  IF ROBIN’S HOSTILITY TO Nathan was unreasonable, her reaction to Cynthia Sterling was even more extreme and unfair: she hated her before she’d ever set eyes on her. When Linda announced that she was going to start a second job on Saturday, as a private trainer for a woman in Beverly Hills, Robin folded her arms across her chest and said, “Well, don’t expect me to babysit, I’m going to the mall that day.”

  “I had no intention of asking you to babysit,” Linda said. “Who are you going to the mall with, anyway—Lucy? And how are you getting there? You’re not thinking about hitching again, I hope, are you?”

  “So who’s staying with the baby?” Robin asked, neatly bypassing all of Linda’s questions.

  “I’m taking her with me. Cynthia Sterling’s housekeeper is going to take care of her.”

  “Her housekeeper? What is she, a millionaire or something?”

  “I sincerely doubt that,” Linda said. “And I really don’t care. All I know is that Mrs. Winston, from the club, said she’s a lovely person, and that she’s been having a very difficult time lately.”

  “Yeah,” Robin said. “She must of broke her fingernail or something.”

  “Robin!” Linda cried. “Why must you always be so cynical? I mean, rich people have problems, too, you know. Maybe somebody in her family died, or maybe she’s been sick herself.”

  “I’ll bet,” Robin said.

  Linda regretted having taken Robin to the Rod that once, on a Saturday morning, before regular hours, just to show her around. She had thought it would be fun for her, the way the Universal Studios tour had been. After all, Robin was so star-struck. She was forever spotting celebrities in unlikely crowded places, like the mall or the beach; and when Linda fell for it, spinning around and saying, “Who? Where?” Robin would say, “You just missed him. It was Michael Jackson. I swear.” Or it was President Rush. Or Madonna. Once, at a Jack in the Box, it was President Rush with Madonna. Many of the club’s members were involved in the entertainment business—or, as everyone here called it, “the industry”—although most of them were executives or agents, or the wives of executives or agents. None of them would be at the Rod that early, anyway, but Linda thought the glamorous atmosphere itself would impress Robin.

  That Saturday, true to form, she’d looked around the premises with a fixed expression of scorn on her face. Linda pointed out some of the particulars that had impressed her on her own first visit: the futuristic lobby; the rooftop swimming pool, with its exquisite mosaic border and retractable glass dome; and the private treatment rooms—each one a separate little asylum of luxury. One of the nicer masseuses had even invited Robin to lie down on her table for a mini-rub, but she’d curtly refused, as if the woman had offered to chain her to a torture rack.

  Later the same day, Nathan drove Linda, Robin, and Phoebe to Rodeo Drive, to complete their Beverly Hills tour. They’d mostly window-shopped there, with Linda exclaiming over the elaborate displays of clothes and jewels. “Robin, look at that!” she kept saying. “Isn’t that incredible?”

  Robin had simply stared at everything and everyone with those laser-beam eyes, especially the bedecked and bejeweled women who walked past them and disappeared into the enticing and forbidding recesses of the stores.

  Nathan tried to make a joke out of the whole thing. “Who wants to be rich, anyway?” he said, nudging Robin, who scowled at him in return. “Then somebody’s always out to rob you, right?”

  Linda knew that wasn’t even true; poor people were more likely to rob other poor people, who were conveniently nearby and relatively unprotected. But she didn’t see this as the fault of the wealthy, who had somehow managed to earn, and keep, their lion’s share of things.

  Robin, on the other hand, perceived a strict, totally unfair division between the haves and the have-nots. She persistently wanted what she couldn’t have, and, to her mind, those who had what she wanted were all dirty rotten crooks. When Linda tried to reason with her, to point out that America was still the land of opportunity for all people willing to work hard and follow their dreams, Robin looked at her with contempt. Linda gave up. To tell the truth, she wasn’t actually that persuaded by her own argument; she had worked pretty hard most of her life and she had hardly anything to show for it. What could these rich women have possibly done to deserve so much? Of course, Linda’s life wasn’t over yet, and she didn’t think it was appropriate or useful to present a negative attitude to someone younger than herself. It didn’t matter, anyway—Robin made her own crazy assumptions about everything, and nobody could talk her out of them.

  Well, at least Linda was able to convince her to let Nathan drop her at the mall on their way to Cynthia Sterling’s house in Benedict Canyon. Just as Robin was getting out of the car, she turned to Linda and said, “If you want me to, I’ll take Feeb with me. She likes the mall, and she’d probably be bored stiff with some boring housekeeper.”

  “No, thank you,” Linda said. “Phoebe will be fine. You just worry about yourself, Robin, okay? And I hope you really have a ride back with Lucy’s father.” Linda had managed to squeeze that dubious bit of information out of her during the trip here.

  Again, Robin didn’t bother to answer. She rapped Phoebe lightly on the head, saying, “Don’t let Ms. Rich Bitch get to you, flake,” before she strolled off toward the crowded mall.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her,” Linda said, with a heavy sigh.

  “Leave her alone,” Nathan advised as he drove away. “It’s just a stage she’
s going through.”

  Like life, Linda thought, sighing again and looking out at the rushing scenery.

  They stopped for gas a few minutes later. Nathan pulled up to the self-service island, slithered out of his Z, and headed for the cashier’s station. As he walked away, Linda noticed the tinted window of a Mercedes at the full-service island sliding down. The woman sitting there lowered her sunglasses next and stared long and hard at Nathan walking back to his car and then pumping the gas. Linda looked at him, too, as if for the first time, at his dark ringlets and perfect profile, at his tilted hips, which were as narrow as a girl’s. He was wearing a gauzy white shirt that fluttered in the mild breeze against his sculpted shoulders and back.

  The woman in the Mercedes began a thorough inspection of Linda and Phoebe now, with occasional, calculating side-glances at Nathan. Nathan replaced the gas nozzle and gave her a little mock salute. “Everybody says she can’t be my kid,” he said, “but, hey, I know my woman’s true-blue.”

  “Nathan!” Linda squealed, but the window of the Mercedes had already slid up, and Nathan slipped in beside her, kissed her gaping mouth, and started the engine with a roar.

  “You’re worse than Robin,” she chided as they pulled away, but she felt suddenly, excessively happy, and less nervous than she’d been about the new job. She even sang along with the radio while they drove, some impassioned Spanish love song to which she had to fake the words, making Nathan laugh.

  Linda was still singing as they approached the wrought-iron gate of a walled estate. Then she saw the name Sterling etched in silver script above an intercom box and the song disappeared down her throat. “Oh, my goodness. Nathan, stop, this must be it,” she said. Nathan switched off the radio and they both grew quietly thoughtful. The closed gate was tall and ornate, like the one at Paradise, and there was a winding, tree-lined gravel road beyond it. Linda leaned out the window to ring the bell on the intercom, and when a voice crackled, “Yes?” she said her name in an awed whisper. In moments, the gate slid open and they drove slowly up the road. The rambling, pink stucco house at the end of it was a pale gem set against a deep-green velvet forest. It had a handsome terra-cotta tile roof and a little courtyard with a turquoise ceramic fountain that splashed and sparkled in the dappled sunlight. To Linda, the scene was like a picture in a magazine, and she had just turned the page and been surprised by it. Nathan braked sharply when he was still more than fifty feet from the circular driveway, where a sleek Porsche and a sporty-looking Jeep were parked. He took one hand from the wheel and hastily crossed himself.

  “Why did you do that?” Linda asked.

  He shrugged. “Habit,” he said, and he leaned over and kissed her forehead, and then Phoebe’s.

  Linda kissed him back, skimming his ear. “Thanks an awful lot for taking us, Nathan,” she said.

  “Anytime,” he told her. “Just don’t go Hollywood on me, sweetheart, okay?” Then he stepped on the gas again, and they drove over the flying gravel toward Oz.

  Robin wasn’t meeting Lucy at the mall, as she had let Linda think. They’d had a big fight in the corridor at school the day before, and now they weren’t speaking to each other. Lucy had started acting really uptight when they kept showing Rodney King getting beat up on the news every night, as if it was all Robin’s fault. Then, when the Thompsons’ store was torched during the riots, that seemed to be Robin’s fault, too. In fact, Robin had been so upset by that dim, silent black-and-white tape of the beating, she’d turned the TV off and stopped watching everything for a few days. It was much more disturbing than the noisy, full-color violence on some of her favorite cop shows—the ones Linda was always telling her not to watch—and it only proved what she’d always known, that the whole world, and everybody in it, sucked. And when she heard about Images of You getting burned up, Robin felt as bad as if somebody had died. But Lucy didn’t want her sympathy, she didn’t even seem to want her around very much.

  Later, when they called a special assembly in school to discuss all the issues—the beating, the verdict, the riots, and the beating of that white guy, Denny—Robin had sat in confused silence, while all around her black kids and white kids shouted and taunted each other. The teachers had to patrol the aisles, like cops, to break up fights, and the principal kept screaming for order over the P.A.

  Robin and Lucy became friends again, but it wasn’t the way it used to be. Lucy was super-sensitive—she’d blow up if you looked at her crooked. Then, yesterday, weeks after everything was over, Robin asked her to cut English and go to the beach with her, and when Lucy wouldn’t, Robin accused her of being a goody-goody, the teacher’s little kiss-ass slave.

  Lucy grabbed Robin’s wrist, hard. “Don’t you ever call me that again, girl, you hear?” she said, her big eyes narrowed and smoldering with anger.

  Robin tried to escape, but Lucy held on so tightly Robin s wrist began to burn. “Hey,” she said, “let go! I didn’t call you anything.” Lucy only intensified her death hold, and Robin bopped her with a math book. Of course, Lucy hit her back, and finally two boys had to jump in and separate them.

  When Robin was waiting for the bus later, Carmel came by and started to talk to her, but Lucy strutted up, saying, “Why are you talking to that racist pig?” Carmel seemed as shocked and bewildered as Robin, but she walked off with her sister, lagging behind a little and glancing sorrowfully back at Robin.

  Robin might run into some other kids she knew at the mall, and one of their fathers could offer her a ride home later, so what she had told Linda wasn’t an out-and-out lie. She’d felt much too restless to stay home by herself, while Linda was off sucking up to some billionaire. Every time she thought about Lucy, Robin would start to get mad—she wasn’t racist, Lucy was crazy if she thought she’d meant that kind of slave. And Robin really hated to be called a pig, since that was the animal she privately feared she most resembled. But her anger gradually gave way to a feeling of anxiety and sadness that was almost unbearable. She couldn’t stay home, she had to get away. But in the bustling aisles of the mall, Robin still felt anxious and alone. Even the profusion of material goods in the stores couldn’t tempt or soothe her.

  She didn’t try to hitch a ride home until she had walked about a half mile past the mall, to the side of a heavily trafficked road. Then, keeping one eye out for any red Zs that might be coming along, she stuck out her thumb. There were days when she’d stand there for fifteen or twenty minutes before anyone stopped. Other times, it was as if the pickup was prearranged; someone would pull over, she’d get in, and that would be that. A few weeks ago, a police car skidded to a stop alongside her, and one of the cops inside said, “You looking for a ride, sis?” A woman’s voice on the car’s radio kept sputtering stuff Robin couldn’t make out, probably about murders and robberies that were taking place that minute, while the cops were busy bothering someone innocent like her.

  “No, thanks,” Robin said coolly. “I’m waiting for my father.”

  “He picking you up all the way out here?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He works over there.” She pointed vaguely toward some buildings across the wide road. One of them could have been the police station, for all she knew, and the cop didn’t look like he believed her for a second. But he must have been in a good mood or in a hurry or something, because he only said, “Well, you be careful now, sis,” and they drove away.

  Now Robin stood there with her thumb out, and cars whizzed steadily by her. But after about ten minutes she got lucky; an older guy in a Buick convertible pulled up and said, “Where to?”

  Robin looked him over quickly but carefully. Despite what Linda thought, she knew what she was doing. The guy seemed okay—friendly, but not too friendly—and she was pretty sure most ax murderers didn’t drive around in new white convertibles. She named a street two blocks from home, and he leaned over to push the passenger door open and said, “Hop in.”

  Nathan waited with the motor running while Linda pushed the doorbell. A series o
f musical chimes went off inside the house, and she could hear what sounded like a whole pack of dogs barking. As soon as the heavy oak door opened, Nathan’s car pulled away behind her. She didn’t even have a chance to remind him that she’d call when she was ready to be picked up. She spun around to wave at him, but he kept on going without looking back. When she turned to the door again, a tiny Mexican woman in a maid’s uniform was standing there, flanked by two huge black dogs, who were still barking vigorously and wagging their stunted tails. The woman held her arms out for Phoebe, and Linda relinquished her and the diaper bag before she bent down to pat the excited dogs. “Hi, there, cuties,” she crooned. “Oh, you just want to say hello, don’t you? Don’t you?” The woman crooned something in a similar tone, in Spanish, to the baby, as Linda and the dogs followed them into the house.

  She found herself in a large vestibule, which had the same beautiful and mysterious quality of light and shadow as the little courtyard. There was an expanse of lustrous blond floor under her feet, with a jewel-like pattern in its center from the stained-glass skylight overhead. Linda turned to give the woman instructions about the baby, but they had both disappeared, and another woman, in her forties, dressed in a black leotard, with silver-streaked black hair and intense dark eyes, was standing at the top of a spiral staircase across the room, looking down at her. “It’s Linda, isn’t it?” this woman said, in a commanding voice, as she started to descend the stairs. “I’m Cyn Sterling, and you’re just in time to save my life.”

  Robin had combed out her braids the night before, when she was still feeling furious with Lucy. She didn’t want to look like her anymore, or have anything to do with her. Linda had been after Robin for months to undo the braids, just for a while. She kept saying that Robin’s hair would fall out if she didn’t let it breathe. Robin told her that was stupid—hair didn’t have lungs—and to mind her own business, but she was secretly a little worried that Linda might be right. So when she snipped the rubber bands with Linda’s cuticle scissors last night, and ran her fingers through her liberated hair, she was relieved that it stayed attached to her head, and astonished by the way it had thickened and rippled during its long confinement. Even after an energetic brushing, it still fell into an abundant cascade of waves. And in the convertible it blew wildly around her face without losing any of its new, crinkly fullness.