17
Leah barely balanced herself in my arms as I wrestled with the card key, slid it into its slot, and opened her hotel room door.
“I am so sorry.” Leah Bishop pronounced each syllable, stressing the so as she staggered towards the bed, plopping down into it. Her entire front end looked like a baby burp bib of vomit. Of course, so did I.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Every kiss pretty much ends up with a woman vomiting into my mouth.”
“Joshua, I am so sorry.”
I slid my tie from its collar, unbuttoned my shirt, crumbled it up into a wad on the desk, and made my way to the bathroom, where I washed my arms and hands and then immediately turned on the shower.
“Come on, Miss Bishop.” I tried to pick her up on the bed. “It’s Showtime. Let’s go.”
“I’m drunk,” she said.
“Yes, I’ve put the two and two together.”
“Where are we going?” She staggered across the floor.
“I’m putting you in the shower, because you smell like….”
“Like pooh?”
“Wrong hole, but you’ve got the right idea.”
“I’m sure this is how it plays out with all the girls.” She laid her finger on my nose. “You masterfully manage them to throw up in your mouth, and then you get them into the sheets.”
“You’ve discovered my master plan. Now take your clothes off.”
She dropped her jaw open, simultaneously amused and shocked, and playfully set her fingers on my cheek, as if mimicking a slap.
“You don’t want to go to bed smelling like….”
“Like mouth-pooh?”
“I won’t look.” I closed my eyes. “I promise.”
She fumbled with her dress.
“I might need some help,” I heard her say.
When I opened my eyes I caught sight of her shoulder blades, no bra strap, G-string panties beautifully wedged like a tabletop centerpiece between the bubbles of her rear, and her bridesmaid’s dress was tangled around her elbows and head. Steam lifted over the shower curtain and clung to the mirror.
“It’s stuck.” She laughed at the thought of it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You’d better keep your eyes closed, mister.”
I obeyed her instructions or looked away the best I could as I wrestled to pull Leah’s dress over her head, hoping not to brush my arm or hands up against anything that I shouldn’t, like the plushy mound of fat that sloped over her ribs.
“Do you need any help getting your…. you know off, or am I to help with that operation as well?”
“I think I can manage, maestro.”
“Don’t drown in there.” I held the door handle. “I’m credentialed in CPR. If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m coming back in after you.”
“But what if I’m still naked?”
“You won’t be the first naked woman I’ve seen in the shower.”
“Oh dear. You mean there’s been others?”
I closed the door.
From the bed I listened to the sound of pipes streaming a dozen tiny strands from the showerhead, lathering her body with water. I relished in the enigmatic thought of what she looked like with her clothes removed. In a couple of minutes the showerhead turned off and the curtain was pulled on the rod. The mirror was probably getting a good look at her. Lucky bastard. Dogs always had it good too.
Leah opened the bathroom door wearing only a tight-fitting towel and stammered for the bed, where she pulled the sheets back and dove in, under the covers, headfirst.
“I can’t find the exit,” she said.
Only her bare feet shown on the pillows as the curvature outline of her body aimlessly dug through for the other end. Finally she surrendered.
“I give up,” she said. Her body went limp. “Just leave me to die.”
I set two glasses down on the in-table; one filled with water and another with cubes of ice, and the ice bucket was empty, except for its plastic coating, just in case she needed something to throw up in. I helped her flip over 180 degrees in bed, keeping the sheets wrapped over her naked body, and set her head on a pillow before directing her attention to the water and bucket. I had little doubt she’d need one or the other before the morning, or both.
“You know what Flannery O’Connor once said?” She spoke softly from the pillow, eyes clamped shut.
“A good man is hard to find.”
“No,” Leah said, eyes still closed. She pointed her finger at me. Her finger fell just as quickly as it rose, as if collapsing into sleep. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, because I’m drunk.”
“Flannery O’Connor said that?”
“Of course not.” She thought about it, or perhaps she was dreaming. “She said, it is better to be young in your failures than old in your success.”
“She sounds like an interesting woman.” I tucked the sheets over her naked feet and patted it over her shoulders, just to make sure she was comfortable.
She was unresponsive.
“Don’t forget to call.”
But I don’t think she heard me. Leah was already sound asleep. I took one long gaze at her, breathing soundly. I still couldn’t believe that I was in Leah Bishop’s presence again, and that she’d thrown up on me…. in me. Maybe Alex was right. Maybe Boston’s welcome committee didn’t want me back. If that were true, the universe was doing a horrible job at it, because as bizarre as it sounds, Leah’s vomit was one of the most invigorating things that ever happened to me. I combed my fingers over her wet head of hair and then bent down to kiss her on the forehead before grabbing my shirt and tie and heading for the door, knowing with the fullest of confidence that I’d be speaking with her again, and soon… probably by the time that both of us woke up in several short hours.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said mostly to myself as I closed her door, and let the sleeping image of her sink into my brain the entire trip back to my hotel.
18
We landed at Long Beach Airport at 12:20 on a Sunday afternoon. The plane was still taxiing down the tarmac towards our terminal when I turned my cell phone on to see what message Leah might have left me while I was thirty-thousand feet up in the air. She never called.
I checked again while waiting on my baggage at the carousel and again when I arrived at home. Estelle was working out front in the rose patch as the taxi dropped me off on the curb. She stopped to pet my hands, as she always did, asking if I was on my way upstairs to see Ira Chamberlain.
“Yes, something like that,” I said.
“Ira is a good man.” She patted my hand. “A good, good man.”
Aristotle announced the lord of the manner’s arrival from behind the swinging gate with a braying howl. By the time I ascended the two dozen or so steps he’d run up the iron stairs in the back, through the dog door, and met me at the entrance, nose to the mail slot just incase I was a postal worker in disguise. Sofia and Zoë were still doing zumba to the music of The Scissor Sisters, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing, just as they had when I left for Boston. I paid no attention to Craig and Debbie, disrobed and naked as usual in the Jacuzzi, as I made my way down the iron stairs and through the courtyard to say hi to Grandmother. The hound dog proudly paraded at my heels the entire way.
Shaquana opened her door. The Ten Commandments were still displayed in the window, just as they were before leaving for Boston, and Hawaii, and New Orleans.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Aren’t you going to do something about those nudists over there? They’ve been at it since you left. God gave Adam and Eve fig leaves for a reason, you know.”
“What?” I was shocked. “They’re naked?” I showed her how shocked I was by widening my mouth and eyes. “I didn’t even notice.”
“Mm-hmm. Best to read commandment number ten, Mister Chamberlain.”
She pointed to her sign and closed the door.
I ran my knuckles against Grandma’s screen door.
“Are we still on for breakfast tomorrow morning, Grandma?” I said to Adele Chamberlain, the world famous photographer’s living widow. Grandma was sitting in Ira’s favorite chair and Nishiko, the old Japanese woman from across the street, was drinking tea on her couch. She waved hi to me. Nishiko had a warm and embracing smile. Jazzy the Calico Cat and Aristotle met each other, nose to nose, at her screen door, like a street standoff in a spaghetti western.
“It’s a date.” Grandmother smiled.
I Don’t Feel Like Dancing ended its run and started up again amongst the gleeful zumba screams of Sofia and Zoë as I made my way back the stairs. Good to see that absolutely nothing had changed on the home front. I stood over the coffee table and stared down at my phone. Leah Bishop still hadn’t called in the few minutes that I’d been gone. For sure, I thought, she’d call by the time I went to bed. She never did.
Life went on as usual.
And the silence was unbearable.
.
PART 3
The Lost Boys
THE LOST BOYS
1
“Leah Bishop. Is she that girl who gave you drugs in high school?” Mother said from across the table at The Friendly Toast on Main Street in Seal Beach.
“No mother. I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I’ve never taken an illegal substance of any kind.” I opened a plastic container of jelly, spread a thin helping over my toast with a knife, and bit into it.
“Yes you did. It was Tweetie Bird or Captain Kangaroo or something.”
“Captain Kangaroo?”
“Isn’t that what you kids call it nowadays? Why does Fred Flintstone keep ringing a bell?”
“Probably because those are the chewable vitamins that you gave me as a child.”
Adele rarely said anything in her sunset years.
“Well anyways, I know she gave you something.”
“No, I never did an illegal drug with her or any other woman or person, for that matter, in my entire life. I smoked a cigarette or two with her though.”
“Mm-hmm. That explains the cartridge of cigarettes that I found in the gutter in front of our house one time.”
“You sure it wasn’t any one of my siblings, Thomas, James, or Evangeline?’
“Your brothers and sister would never smoke anything of the sort. Your father and I always knew that you were, well….”
“No mother, I never smoked a cigarette in front of the house and left the cartridge in the gutter.”
“Well, somebody did, and it certainly wasn’t me, Thomas, Evangeline, James, or your father. You saying someone just walked along and thought, oh, there’s the Miller residence, why don’t I just plant this here and embarrass the pastor’s wife, Mrs. Miller, by setting up her second born son?”
“Thanks for the confidence.” I forked a strand of scrambled eggs.
Mother stared at her cream cheese and eggs, sunny side-up, thinking on the matter at hand. “You’re not courting her, are you?”
“Who, Leah Bishop?” I almost choked on my coffee. “No mom, I’m married.”
“I’ve always said you shouldn’t marry a Catholic. They just don’t understand things about the Bible like we Baptists do. And now she’s run off with another man. What did I tell you about not marrying a Catholic?”
“You told me plenty. Sure, we have some issues to work out, but we’re certainly still married, and I love her very much, despite her current choices, no matter how much it hurts.”
“Good honey, because that would be adultery, like what she’s currently doing. You know what happens to adulterers, don’t you?”
Revelation 21:8?
“No I don’t.”
She began to sing the popular tune, Revelation 21:8 (it’s been a number one hit on Billboard’s Sunday School list for decades) taking personal liberty to swap out liars for adulterers, which kind of distorted the flow of the song a little.
“No mom. Please don’t. Not here in public, at The Friendly Toast, in front of all these people.”
“Well, if I don’t sing it, sweetie, who will?”
“And Elise isn’t going to hell…. at least not yet anyways.”
Mother stared down at her cream cheese and egg, sunny side-up, letting the issue marinade.
“So, is she cute?”
2
I ran my knuckles across Penny Parker’s door. She answered halfway through the first knock.
“Special delivery.” I held up several digital cards. “I think you’ll like what you find on there.”
Oh, she blushed. “Joshua, you didn’t take any of yourself, did you? You naughty boy.” She grabbed them from my hand and dashed immediately over to the computer screen.
“Only in your dreams, Penny.” Whenever I visited Penny’s apartment, I always wore two pairs of underwear…. sometimes even three. “It’s only another wedding. Boston. No big deal, but all the bridesmaids come from Broadway. You might recognize the name of one of them…. Leah Bishop…. from a little sideline production called REPUBLICAN BLUE.”
Penny gasped. “By the sweat of Kevin Sorbo’s pectorals, that’s really her!” I was glad she was pleased. I noticed the REPUBLICAN BLUE poster with Leah Bishops picture was still hung up over the couch. She held up one of the cards to her nose and sniffed it. “Did this card touch her?”
“Please don’t do that while I’m standing in front of you.”
“Did she take you into the White House?”
“It’s just a play, Penny. The White House in REPUBLICAN BLUE isn’t real.”
“Did you touch her?”
I said we hugged each other goodbye.
“Did she touch you? David Hasselhoff’s shadow touched me once. I orgasmed instantly.”
I said we slow danced to Shania Twain.
“If I were the First Lady of the United States, as soon as the president left the room, I’d totally touch you,” she said.
“OK, that’s just plain weird, Penny.”
“If you were in the White House and I was the First Lady, you know what else I’d do?”
“Good-bye, Penny.” I shut the door. She was biting her lower lip, beaming like a seaside beacon as I left. Sure, she was a little weird, but her photo editing would be amazing and all of my underwear was still intact, so no foul, and I was glad she was pleased. I knew she would be. And the fact is the First Lady of the White House did touch me. My feet went tapping all the way back to my car.
3
“I’m so glad Alex convinced you to come over for dinner, Mr. Chamberlain.” Gracie sat next to her husband on the couch. “Alex has been having so much fun on the road. I’m thrilled that the two of you could reconnect again, and I thought this was the least I could do to repay you.”
“Thanks for having me. This mushroom tortellini is amazing.” I wedged another helping into my mouth. “And please, call me Joshua. We’re only a few years apart in age, Gracie. I think the possibility of being your father is pretty slim.”
“I’ll try to remember that, Mr. Chamberlain.” Gracie smiled, rather flirtatiously.
I blushed. “Gracie, so long as you charm me with the loveliness of your presence, you can call me whatever you want.” Then she blushed. And then I blushed again. Alex was the only person whose cheeks weren’t painted red.
“If you think you’re getting me to blush again, forget about it.” He stared back and forth at the both of us, “I already blushed for you in bed that one time.”
“You’re talking about me, right?” I said.
“Mr. Chamberlain. I think he’s talking about me.”
“No Gracie. I must insist. I’m pretty sure he’s talking about me.”
This time Alex blushed.
“How is it,” I finished another bite of her magnificent mushroom tortellini, “that Alex ever landed someone as beautiful as you?”
Alex shrugged. “I was playing with Dumb Angel one night and she’s in the front row lifting her shirt up and letting her boobies fall out.”
Gracie slapped his arm. “That’s not how it happened. Explain it right, next time.” She turned to me. “That’s not how it happened, Mr. Chamberlain. Yes, I was at one of his shows, but this perv here was staring at me all night from stage, and after the show, when he finally mustered the courage to approach me and my girlfriends at our table, he had the worst one-liner imaginable, something about leaving Earth to go to Mars. I was well ready to turn him flat down right there if it weren’t for the pathetic groveling.”
“So that’s the secret.” I smiled at Alex. “Groveling.”
“And lots of it.”
“Alex tells me that you’ve converted to Catholicism?”
“Well, sort of, I guess. I mean, I’ll always be a western evangelical Christian, but my wife is a lifelong practicing Catholic. I really didn’t see any issues with it, and I wanted to support her convictions. There’s a theological wedge between the two on some levels, but we all read from the same Bible – so says Lincoln.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about what happened.”
“With Elise? We have some issues to work out, but that’s all. What about you two? What church are you attending?”
From her end of the coffee table Gracie slumped back into the couch. “Well, it’s kind of embarrassing. We haven’t actually attended one in a while. It’s just, we get so busy, you know.”
“Other priorities have a way of creeping up on you like that.” I smiled. Alex looked startled. “You guys really should find a church that you’re comfortable with and go.”
“Well, now that Alex is traveling with you, I don’t know.” She stopped to consider the issue. “Catholic, huh? Not that I have anything against it, it’s just….”
“Go ahead Gracie. We’re just dancing here. Say it.”
“It’s just, we have a hard time believing everything that’s in the Bible. You sort of have to pick and choose what’s right for you and your own happiness, I guess, and shrug with the rest. Isn’t that what it all comes down to, your own personal happiness?”
Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1) Page 23
