by Paul Neuhaus
Keri was looking back and forth between Hermes and me. “Remember how I said I have trouble reading social cues? I think I just read one. What’s going on? And I don’t mean with the dominatrix. You I’ve heard of, obviously,” she said, pointing at me. She looked at Hermes. “You I just met. Yet you both seem to know some dark secret about me and or my dad. Like we’re spies from a foreign country only he knows it and I haven’t found it out yet.”
“That’d be rad,” Hope said.
Hermes ignored her and sat down on the couch. He indicated Keri should do the same. “Have a seat,” he said. “I think it’s revelation time.” (I didn’t find out until way later, but he more than just the one revelation.)
My panic centers fired again. “Revelation time? Why would it be revelation time? There’re no revelations here. It’s a revelation-free zone.”
The teenager turned to Hermes and said, “My dad is missing. Has been for a couple of days. My uncle said Dora could help find him. I told Dora that and she got the dry heaves. Then we saw you in a diaper.”
The Olympian’s eyes flashed with embarrassment almost too quickly to see. “This isn’t about diapers,” he said. “This is about the past.”
I slit my eyes at Hermes and spoke to him through gritted teeth. “It’s about a dead past. A past we’re not gonna talk about.”
“Oh, but I think we should talk about it. It’s a wound that’s never gonna heal unless we expose it to the light of day.”
“Again. I beg to differ. It’s a wound that likes dark places. It heals best in the rot and the mildew.”
Keri looked back and forth between the two of us. She was getting nervous herself. “Look. I don’t know what this little... pageant is you guys’re putting on, but I don’t want any part of it.”
I raised a hand and indicated the girl. “See, Hermes? You’re frightening our guest.”
“Oh, I’m not frightened,” Keri said. “Actually, strike that. I’m a little bit frightened, but what I am mostly is wondering if I’m wasting my time. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but the two of you might be goofballs.”
The messenger god looked from me to the girl. “Oh, you’re not wasting your time. In fact, Pandora might be uniquely qualified to find your dad. After all, they were lovers for years.”
I did a face palm.
Wiener’s head pivoted toward me, lightning fast. “Whoa, fer real?”
“Totally,” Hermes said. “They were like toast and jam. Beer and nuts.”
“How is that possible?” Keri said. “You’re really, really hot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re pretty soft around the middle, but still, you’re really, really hot. You’re hot and my dad’s a complete dork-wad.”
“That was his best trait,” I said through the hand that still covered my face.
The teen nodded. “I think I understand.”
I looked around the hand. “You do?”
“Some good-looking guys go after fat chicks. Chubby chasers they’re called. You must be like that only, instead of fat chicks, you chase after dork-wads.”
I sighed and lowered my hand into my lap. “That’s not how it was.”
Hermes spoke, drawing the girl’s attention back to him. “No, they were really into one another. It was legit. But then it went south, and nothing was ever quite the same.”
Keri turned back to me. Watching her was like watching someone at a tennis match. “What happened?”
I scowled. “Your dad can’t hold his liquor.”
Back to Hermes. “Elijah got drunk and knocked-up a cocktail waitress.”
Keri sighed. “Lemme guess... That was more or less fifteen years ago.”
“Give or take,” I replied.
“Right,” Hermes added. “Dora kicked around for a while acting like nothing was wrong, and then wham! It caught up with her. She became a total recluse.”
I glared at the Olympian, wishing he’d burst into flames. “Thanks for the exposition, Dr. Phil. Also, for the grotesque oversimplification. I love having my life reduced to a dime store novel.”
Hermes shrugged. “I’m oversimplifying but I’m not wrong.”
“Wow,” Keri said, her eyes huge. “That’s amazing. I wouldn’t have thought my dad could have that effect on anyone. Much less a hot girl.”
“I’m not proud of it,” I murmured. “Anyway, I guess you can see why I can’t help you.”
Unfortunately, Keri couldn’t see that at all. Her shoulders drooped, and she frowned. “Oh. You can’t? Hermes said you were uniquely qualified.”
“Sure, but Hermes’ brain's choked with pop culture psychology and Internet porn.”
“Ouch,” the god said.
I shot him a look that said, really?
He shot me a look back that said, guilty as charged. But then, against all reason, he kept talking. “This could be good for you, Dora. You’ve kept it bottled-up inside for such a long time; you need to let it out. You need to be free. Even if you don’t get closure, I know you wouldn’t want Elijah coming to harm. Do this, Dora. For yourself as much as Keri.”
Keri looked at me and smiled. “I like him,” she said. “He’s really melodramatic.”
I looked at the two of them for a long time then I sighed and stood. I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth next. “Lemme shower and put on clean clothes.”
Grinning, Keri turned to Hermes and said, “Thanks for the assist. This is gonna be more fun than Jellybelly’s Happy-time Petting Zoo.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Hermes replied, matter-of-factly.
I stood in the shower and let the water wash over me. I should’ve expected Elijah to come back into my life. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after thousands of years of living, it’s that loose ends have a way of tightening. But why now? Why this?
Hermes was right. Elijah had been the reason I’d gone into my long seclusion. At first, I didn’t want to admit it, and then I resorted to lying about it—to myself and to anybody that cared enough to ask. I’m a big girl; I’ve got a lot of mileage under my belt. Little things like a fractured love affair weren’t supposed to matter as much as that one had. And now, predictably, here it was back again, staring me in the face.
I got out of the shower, dried myself off, and wiped the fog away from the mirror. When I could see my face, I said to my reflection, “Snap out of it, dummy.”
With my short hair still wet, I went back into the combined kitchen-office-living room. “Okay,” I said. “We’re gonna see what we can see for the rest of the day. After that, if we haven’t turned anything up, we’re gonna reevaluate this arrangement—and, by that, I mean you guys’re gonna fuck off and leave me alone.” I tried to sound tough. I tried to convince myself I meant it. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, so I decided “gruff Dora” was the way to go.
Hermes and Keri looked at one another. “Deal,” they said in unison.
“I assume you’re gonna stay here?” I said to the Olympian. He nodded. “Okay. I need two things from you while I’m gone. One: I need you to watch Hope. Two: I need you not to do any weird sex stuff.”
“I can handle that.”
“Really? ‘Cause that’s what you said the last time. I’m gone less than a day, and I come back and Mistress Sheba’s giving you the full Marquis de Sade.”
The Wiener girl looked away, trying to pretend she wasn’t standing right next to such an awkward conversation.
Hermes raised his finger, and what I called his lawyer side came out. “Ah, to be fair, you said ‘no whores’. Mistress Sheba’s not a whore. She’s a licensed professional.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “How specific do I need to be to get you to not brothel up my place?”
Hermes raised three fingers and straightened his spine. “No freakiness while you’re gone. Scout’s honor.”
I glared at him, so he’d understand I was being dead serious. He didn’t flinch. “Okay,” I said to Keri. “Let’s go find your dad.”<
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Keri popped up off the couch and followed me.
While I was still half in and half out, Hermes said, “Dora...” I turned to him and he added, “You know I think the world of you, right?”
It was a weird thing for him to say apropos of nothing, but nice, I guess.
We got in the Firebird and, of course, Keri immediately started talking. “Okay. My pop has a pattern. He goes over into Westwood to the same bagel place every morning. He likes the Everything Bagel with a schmear or—sometimes—lox. After that, he goes to the comic book store, picks up his holds and sees if there’re any new Pokémon cards. After that, he stops for a slushy. The blue kind. Each time, without fail, he drinks it too fast and gets a brain freeze—which he then complains about even though it’s nobody’s fault but his own. If he’s feeling outdoorsy, he might sit on a bench for a while and watch the cars go by, but mostly he just comes home after the slushy. When he gets home, he—”
I put one hand over my right ear and waved her down with the other. “Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it my way. Rule number one: Less talking. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you can say the things you’re saying with way less words. Rule number two: Slow it down. I don’t know what you’re on—is it cartwheels? Is it footballs? Is it magnums? Is it whites? Is it powder? Crank? White crosses? Ice? Ups? Bennies? Splash? Crossroads?—Never mind, doesn’t matter. You need to take it from third gear to first. Mamma’s tired, and she can’t keep up with your prattling. Rule number three: We’re gonna stop for breakfast and enough caffeine to kill a small horse.”
Keri blinked. “Rule three wasn’t a rule exactly. It was more of a declarative sentence.”
“Shut up. My car, my rules. You got a picture of Elijah by any chance? How he looks today?”
The girl gave me a sly look. “You don’t remember what he looks like? I would think you of all people would remember what he looks like.”
I glared at her. My needle moved a tic into the red. “I haven’t seen him in fifteen years and, also, you don’t get to tease me about my past.”
“Why? Because I was the unwanted child that ended the relationship with the man of your dreams?”
That was a little harsh, I thought. Was she fucking with me after I’d agreed to help her? If it had been a dig, I decided not to acknowledge it. The last thing I wanted was to have a verbal spar with a woman-child. “Do you have a picture or not?”
Wiener had a purse made of rigid brown leather. Another throwback to a bygone era. It was the kind of purse the hippie girls carried back in the late sixties and early seventies. She took out her wallet and flipped to the plastic photo holder in the middle. It was full of photos—mostly of people I didn’t recognize. I was surprised to see her carrying around hard copies like that. Most people kept their pictures stored on their phone. She found a particular snapshot and handed it to me. We were sitting at a red light, so I glanced down at it. It was Elijah looking more or less the way I remembered him. Like me, he was soft around the middle. He had crow’s feet and a little less hair, but it was definitely the man I knew. He was standing with a mousy woman with mean eyes. “And the chick would be...?”
“Exactly who you think it is,” Keri replied.
I passed the photo back to her as the light changed. She put it back into its vinyl housing and returned her wallet to her purse. Gods, what was I doing? Seeing Elijah was bad enough but seeing him with the woman who’d ended our relationship was a little much. Was I, as Hermes said, trying to get closure? Was I helping Keri? Gods’ honest truth, I had some hostility toward Keri, and I’m not sure closure was what I was after. Was I looking at this as a second chance? Was I looking to steal Elijah back from Addie? Was Elijah even worth the trouble? People can change a lot in fifteen years. For all I knew he’d turned into an even bigger goofball than he’d been when I knew him. I mean, let’s face it, as much as I blamed Addie for the breakup, Elijah’s drunken dick hadn’t slipped into her vagina by accident. I was praying the coffee would clear my head. I knew it wouldn’t.
“Look,” I said. “As helpful as your little itinerary was, I don’t see any reason to trace Elijah’s daily routine. We gotta think big picture. Where does Jack live?” Jack was Elijah’s brother. The one from the triple-A baseball misadventure.
“Right next door.”
“Next door to what?”
“Us. My family. My dad likes to keep an eye on him.”
By then we were at Swinger’s on Lincoln near Santa Monica Boulevard. I parked at a meter. “Okay, you know what? Let’s lay some groundwork for our relationship: You don’t get to tease me about my past, and I don’t get to be mean to you because what happened back then happened. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t get born to fuck with me.”
“Are you gonna yell at me when I talk too much?”
“Probably, yeah.”
The girl thought it over for a second. “Okay, well, I can’t fault you for that.”
We shook on it and went inside for some breakfast burritos. Over the meal, I said to Keri, “Why’re you looking for your dad?”
“Why’m I looking for my dad? He’s been missing a coupla of days. If your dad was missing for a coupla days, you wouldn’t go looking for him?”
“My dad’s been dead for like five thousand years, but in principal, I would go looking for him, yes. What I meant was why didn’t you go to the police?”
The teen hesitated, her orange juice halfway to her lips. “I... wanted to keep it on the down low. Pop’s been acting strange. Secretive.”
“Is he still on the sauce?” I tried to make the question sound as casual as I could since “the sauce” was what split Elijah and me up.
Wiener took a drink before speaking. “No, he’s been clean for eight years. He never touches the stuff.”
“Alright, so give me your theory... What do you think he’s up to?”
“I... think he might be having an affair.”
I felt my stomach acids boiling. I really didn’t wanna know from Elijah and his affairs. I didn’t need that kind of sordid detail messing with my already messed-up brain. “Has your mom been faithful?”
Keri’s laugh was loud enough to draw the attention of the staff and all the other diners. The girl looked around, embarrassed, and mumbled an apology. When she turned to face me again, she was smirking. “Addie’s a serial cheater. If she wasn’t my mother, I’d say she’s seen more dick than a Grand Central john.”
“Good thing she’s your mom.”
“I know, right?”
Again, the situation was making me queasy. Like I was peeking into a world that was none of my business. “Why does your dad stay with her?”
“I’ve never asked him, but I think it’s because he’s loyal. Especially, since his twelve step, he’s Mr. Stiff Upper lip. Mr. True Grit. Or at least as close to those things as a man like him gets.”
“Okay, so, your mom’s had affairs, what if Elijah is having one too? Wouldn’t you say he’s entitled?”
“I’d say he’s entitled, but I don’t want him to go down that road.”
“How come?”
“Because he’s better than that. If he takes that road, he’ll be no better than Addie.”
I nodded. “I get it. How confident are you in your affair theory?”
She shrugged. “He’s being secretive and weird which certainly could mean an affair, but it doesn’t matter one way or the other. The fact he’s gone, and I don’t know where he is trumps the why.”
Breakfast was over, and eight cups of coffee is my limit, so I picked up the check and headed for the counter. The teenager followed. “I admire your pragmatism,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she replied. “I admire your gruff but lovable style.”
Westwood is a little neighborhood next to UCLA. It’s a quiet place made up of shops and restaurants. There are two theaters there, you’ve probably seen on TV. Whenever H
ollywood has a premiere, it’s usually at either the Fox Theater or the Bruin. Both of them are on the north side of the little town and both get featured on Entertainment Tonight regularly. The Wiener homes were a couple of streets inland from Westwood proper. It was the middle of the day, so there was plenty of street parking. As we got out of the Pontiac, I noticed a man sitting in a car looking at us. It was a red BMW 3 Series and the man had a tightly-trimmed beard. “Do you know that dude?” I said.
“Which dude? The dude in the beemer?”
“Yeah.”
“Never seen him before in my life.”
I wanted to go have a chat with Mr. Looky Loo. Nothing good has ever come from people ogling me (apart from sex, but I don’t think Beardie was looking to get laid). I had to quash the impulse to lean on him since Keri had already moved on.
The teenager stood in the middle of the street and pointed at two houses. On the left was a nice, upper-middle class home like all the other nice middle-class homes on the street. On the right was what I would’ve thought of as a mother-in-law house, but those’re usually behind the main home. This one was in the same row as the others. The fact it was tiny threw off the rhythm of the street. “I don’t guess I need to tell you, but we live in the big one and Jack lives in the little one.”
“How often do you have to change out the gingerbread?”
The girl cocked her head at me. I realized then she reminded me of a very young Carrie Fisher. Right down to the clothing and the accoutrements. “What?” she said, confused.
“Never mind. Do you think Jack’s at home?”
“Do I think he’s at home? I told you about the foul ball, right? The last time he left this place, it was because he thought Danny DeVito had gotten into his toilet tank and wouldn’t leave.”
