by Dianne Emley
“I guess.”
“You can tell your mother I made a little donation to your college fund, but our deal will be between you and me. Can I trust you, Iris?”
“Sure.”
“There’s an old saying, Iris. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Never forget that.”
She folded the check into her jeans pocket and left the room. As she did so, she saw Paula slip down the opposite end of the corridor and into her room.
Iris followed and knocked on the door.
“Get the hell away!”
“It’s me.”
“Oh. Come in.”
Iris opened the door. The room was piled high with discarded clothing and record albums. Posters of favorite rock bands were taped to the walls. Paula was quickly stuffing clothes into a backpack on the bed.
“What are you doing?” Iris asked.
“Mike and I are splitting tonight to go to this commune up north. The one I was telling you about.”
“Splitting? For how long? School’s supposed to open soon.”
“You don’t learn anything in school. Anything worth learning you have to learn on the streets.”
“What about your parents?”
“Hell, my dad will be glad I’m gone. My mother never gave a shit about me.”
“Of course she did.”
Paula suddenly grew angry. “Bullshit! If she did, she wouldn’t have spent so much time being crazy.”
Iris picked up an old framed photograph from Paula’s dresser. “What’s this? Your grandparents’ wedding? Where did you get it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Three weeks ago, before they hauled her off to the loony bin, she came running in here with that picture, asking me to take care of it. I’m like, what? Take care of a picture?” She bitterly shook her head. “I’m getting out while I still can. People have a tendency to die around here. I’ll end up being kicked to death like Humberto and no one giving a damn. Those cops’ll get away with it, you know. Fucking establishment.”
“Shhh!” Iris hissed.
“I haven’t told anyone what you saw,” Paula droned. “I’m not stupid.”
“My mom says I didn’t see what I saw. She says they were just restraining him. She says I have an overactive imagination. She told me to forget about it.”
“You’d better.”
“Do you really think they’ll get away with it?”
“Police brutality against the underclass. Same old story. Course, after the revolution everything’ll change.”
The door opened and Dolly stepped into the room.
Paula threw the backpack off the far side of the bed. “Can’t you knock?”
Iris gaped at the dark bruises that circled Dolly’s arms and legs.
Dolly carried a photograph in her hand and was studying it intently. She put her index finger on each face, as if she were counting them, and then started over again. “I know this is Junior, this is Thomas, this is my husband, and that’s you and that’s me, but what’s the occasion, Paula?”
Paula sighed, stomped over to Dolly, and wrenched the picture from her hands. “It’s my graduation from junior high school. It was less than a year ago, Mom.” She shoved the picture back at her.
Iris winced at Paula’s cruelty.
Dolly peered at Iris. Her eyes, which before had glowed with a bright, persistent, restless light, now seemed dull and tinged with sadness. Her button-front dress had been extended at the waistband with safety pins to accommodate the weight that the usually hyperactive Dolly had recently gained. “Don’t I know you?”
“This is Iris from next door for chrissakes.” Paula picked up a brush and began angrily pulling it through her long hair. She threw it back on the dresser.
A tear sprang into Iris’s eye. She prayed it wouldn’t run down her face.
“I’m sorry, dear.” Dolly rubbed her forehead. “I have this darn amnesia.”
“You don’t have amnesia. You had shock treatments.” Paula flailed her hands at her. “Shock treatments, Mom!”
“I just can’t remember things.” She looked distressed.
Junior peeked in the room. “There you are. I was looking for you, Mom.”
Dolly left the room with the picture. “I’m going to lie down. I feel tired.”
After Dolly had left, Paula said to Junior, “Is that your job now, watching over her?”
“Someone has to, at least until she finishes her treatments and gets back on her feet.”
“What a good son,” Paula retorted.
Thomas wandered into the room.
“What is this?” Paula complained.
“Why is she all bruised like that?” Iris asked. “Why can’t she remember anything?”
Thomas explained, “The shock treatments made her go into convulsions. She got bruised by the straps holding her down. She can’t remember stuff because the treatments make people lose their memories. Usually they come back but sometimes they don’t.”
“Great,” Paula said. “Now we have two fucking experts in the family. Thomas and Dad. And one nurse and one guinea pig.”
“At least I care about her.” Junior left the room.
Thomas followed.
Paula picked the backpack up from the floor and continued packing. She angrily shoved in clothes and shoes while Iris sat on a corner of the bed and watched. Paula finally stopped. She took a rumpled cigarette from her back pocket, straightened it, then lit it with a plastic lighter taken from another pocket.
“Why do you have to go?” Iris asked.
Paula inhaled deeply, blew out a long stream of smoke, then looked at Iris with eyes tinged with red. It was the closest Iris had ever seen Paula come to crying. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I don’t get away, I’m going to end up like her. I know it. I just know it.”
She started to zip up the backpack, then impulsively snatched her grandparents’ wedding portrait from the dresser and slipped it inside.
Iris sat with Paula in the eucalyptus grove while she waited for Mike to signal at the bottom of the hill. It was dusk. The sun was setting beyond the skyscrapers of downtown.
At the bottom of the hill, they saw car headlights start up the spiraling road.
“It’s not him,” Paula said. “He’s not coming up.”
When the car rounded the last loop, they saw it was a black-and-white LAPD sedan. It stopped on the driveway in front of the ranch house. Two police officers got out.
“That’s them!” Iris urgently whispered.
“Fucking pigs,” Paula said.
“I hope they don’t see me.”
Alvarez and Cole left the car and walked to the front door.
“Maybe they’re going to arrest the old man,” Paula said.
“Why?”
Paula regarded Iris with amazement. “The land, stupid.” She arrogantly raised her chin. “Wouldn’t that be cool? Gabriel and the old man.” She snapped her fingers. “Boom. Both gone.”
“You really hate both of them, don’t you?”
Paula got up and dusted the back of her pants. “Let’s see if we can hear.”
Bill DeLacey had walked onto the front porch and was talking to the officers. Iris and Paula crept to the edge of the eucalyptus grove and lay on their bellies.
“It was decided that no further investigation into the death of Humberto de la Garza is warranted. It was ruled an accident,” Alvarez said.
“Justice was served,” Cole added. “Isn’t that what this is all about?”
Alvarez eyed DeLacey. “You’re one lucky son of a bitch. If it wasn’t for an accident”—he shot a glance at Cole—“things would have turned out a lot different for you.”
DeLacey jingled the keys and change in his pockets. “Do you know about the elephant?” He leaned back onto his heels, settling into his stance as if he planned on being there awhile. “Now, the elephant can’t do this.” He waved his head from shoulder to shoulder as if he were indicating disagreement. “He c
an only do this.” He nodded his head up and down. “That’s what policemen should learn from elephants.”
Alvarez moved close to DeLacey and said under his breath, “This case may be officially closed, but in my book, it’s never gonna be closed.”
“I don’t care what you keep in your personal book, Officer Alvarez.”
DeLacey went back inside the house and the two officers turned to walk to the patrol car when Cole noticed movement in the eucalyptus trees. He grabbed his flashlight and caught Paula and Iris in the beam. They scampered to their feet.
“What have we here?” Cole asked, walking over to them. He held the light so it shone underneath Paula’s chin, and then did the same thing to Iris. “Haven’t I seen one of you girls before?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe you should take a closer look,” Paula responded tartly.
“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” Cole said.
Paula looked at him salaciously. “Yeah.”
Cole persisted, “Do one of you two young ladies own a dog?”
Alvarez grabbed Cole’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
They climbed into the car and drove back down the hill.
“What did you do that for?” Iris asked angrily.
“Forget it,” Paula said. “They’re not gonna do anything to you. Case is closed, remember? Everyone’s happy.”
Iris and Paula waited silently in the eucalyptus grove for another half hour.
“Maybe he’s not coming,” Iris said.
“I hate him,” Paula said, as if a thought that had been churning in her head finally spilled out. “I’ll never forgive him for what he did to my mother. Bastard has to control everything. But not me, man. Not me.”
A light flickered far down the hill on the city street.
“That’s Mike.” Paula got up, fed her arms through the backpack’s straps, and started down the far side of the hill. “See ya around.”
“Will you write or call?”
Paula glanced over her shoulder as she began to run. “Yeah. Sure.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was 7:00 Wednesday morning, the hump day, the numbing middle of the workweek, when unstructured time dangled like a carrot an entire Thursday and Friday away. Iris poured a cup of black coffee in the lunchroom of the McKinney Alitzer suite. She leaned into the employee refrigerator, her mug resting on top of it. She pulled off a slice of roast beef from a deli platter brought in the previous day for an employee’s retirement party and shoved it into her mouth. She dipped in again for a piece of Swiss cheese and again for a couple of oily unpitted olives. As she chewed, she unfolded another employee’s neat brown paper lunch bag and had a peek inside.
She never took anything from anyone’s lunch. She just liked looking at them. The bagged lunches didn’t reveal too much, but they revealed something. The sales assistant’s Snickers bar showed she was cheating on her much-publicized diet. The newlywed male underwriter had started to bring in boxed frozen entrees instead of crisp sandwiches and assorted sides packed in Tupperware. Was the honeymoon over?
The lunchroom door opened and Iris sloppily refolded the bag with her oily fingers, guiltily slammed the refrigerator door, grabbed her mug off the top, and casually took a sip of coffee, her mouth full of olive pits.
Kyle Tucker sauntered into the lunchroom with his shoulders dipped back, his hips tilted forward, and one hand dangling at his side. It was his normal mode of movement. In his other hand he held the folded sports section from the newspaper almost against his nose. He lowered the newspaper and smiled as he opened the refrigerator. “Good morning.”
Iris raised her coffee mug toward him and mumbled a greeting. She slipped to the trash can, discreetly spat the olive pits into her hand, and dumped them.
Kyle examined his soiled lunch bag. He angled his expressive, finely outlined lips to one side, revealing small, square white teeth and displayed the bag to Iris. “I don’t get people. Someone was in my lunch and they weren’t even careful about it.”
“That would be me.” Iris didn’t know what compelled her to say it. Maybe it was because Kyle had been so obviously trying to suck up to her since he’d been hired or because his slick veneer seemed so implacable or because she was in a shit-eating mood and was looking to rattle someone’s cage.
Those slender, rubbery lips conveyed surprise, then quickly recovered, telegraphing amused bemusement. “You?”
She figured he didn’t believe her. She theatrically placed her index finger against her forehead like a TV psychic divining the future or what was contained in an audience member’s purse. “Let’s see…apple, orange, two sandwiches, carrot sticks, chips in a Ziploc bag. Did you make that lunch all by yourself or did your mommy make it?”
He angled a look at her in a way that he surely knew made him look very cute. It was unlikely that he’d be unaware of things like that. He ignored her question and asked his own. “You make it a habit to look in people’s lunches?”
She ignored his question and smiled in a way that she knew made her look very unlike an ice princess. “It must be cheaper to bring in chips from the big bag than to buy the individual portions. Are we counting our pennies, Kyle?”
He laughed, his deep-set brown eyes crinkling at the corners. He reached in the bag, pulled out the apple, rubbed it on his shirtsleeve, and took a big bite. “Well, not everyone can be Iris Thorne.”
She answered his first question. “Actually, I’m doing a sociological study. Believe that?”
“If you say so.”
“Actually, I’m nosy.”
“Aww, don’t say that. You’re just curious.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
He took another bite of his apple and offered her the contents of his bag. She declined.
“What’s in your lunch bag?” he asked.
“I eat out.”
He waved the apple up and down in her direction. “Why are you got up like that? Going to a funeral or something?”
They were into it now, that teasing, joshing, pushing-and-shoving guy thing. He’d later tell people that he didn’t think Iris Thorne had a pole up her behind like everyone said. Underneath the facade, she seemed real regular.
She looked down at her gold-and-pearl-button black St. John knit suit, her black Anne Klein pumps, and sheer black stockings. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
He almost choked on the apple. “I’m sorry. I just…”
“That’s okay, Kyle. Make fun of me in my time of grief.” She feigned affront.
“My condolences, really.”
“Thank you.” She fingered her short string of cultured pearls. “I feel like a freaking politician’s wife.”
“I think you look very nice.”
“Thank you again. It’s the mother of a childhood friend. I haven’t seen either of them in years. The family stayed in the old neighborhood. I haven’t been back since college.”
He patted his straight strawberry blond hair, which was held in place by hairspray or something that made it stiff. “Where is the old neighborhood? No one seems to know much about you.”
“Not much to know.” She winked at him.
“I don’t think it’s hard to figure out. Let’s see.” He took another bite of the apple and chewed thoughtfully. “Professional family. Daddy’s a doctor or attorney or something. Mom’s in the Junior League. You went to riding camp in summer. Ski camp in winter…”
“Kyle, you are an astute judge of character.” She wondered why in the world she was flirting with him. She sensed it was a big mistake. He probably thought he was in a position to score.
“One thing I can’t figure out is why you went to UCLA instead of USC.”
“Just a rebel, I guess.” She sashayed toward the lunchroom door, knowing that the knit suit clung to her curves, clung too suggestively for the office but she’d worn it anyway. To hell with protocol. To hell with everything. Dolly DeLacey had hanged herself. Everything else seemed trivial. She opened the
door.
“So what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you always see yourself moving large sums of money, holding people’s financial future in your hands?”
She considered his question and thought about using him to float some preposterous rumors about herself through the office. That was always entertaining. But instead she answered truthfully. “When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was an adult.”
She walked back to her office, stepping quickly and purposefully to convey the illusion that she had just left one important thing and was rushing to the next. Busy, busy. What was that about Iris? she asked herself. He’s cute. It was fun. Remember fun?
She walked past the investment counselors’ cubicles, past Warren Gray, Amber Ambrose, and Sean Bliss. Sean gave her a more piercing up-and-down than usual. She made sure her extra-sheer stockings whizzed together for his libidinous benefit.
Inside her office, the texture of the carpet changed when she walked across the new piece that the building maintenance had patched in to replace the water-damaged section. She flopped in her desk chair, picked up the telephone receiver, and punched in the series of numbers that would reveal her phone messages. She jotted them down on a yellow pad. Nothing special. A few anxious clients needing to have their hands held. A referral from someone Iris went to college with who worked for a city councilman. The councilman wanted financial guidance. The last message made her gasp and widen her eyes.
“Two thousand dollars,” she exclaimed. “My ass!” She sure as hell wasn’t going to pay that for less than a full day’s work.
She leaped to her feet and angrily paced behind her desk. Then she walked to her floor-to-ceiling southern-facing window and leaned against it, pressing her cheek against the glass. It was a clear day and she could easily see the hills of Northeast Los Angeles. She spotted the one that she always fancied to be Las Mariposas, although she knew she couldn’t really see that far. She directed her comments to Bill DeLacey, whom she imagined sitting at his desk there.
“Two thousand dollars for some crooked gumshoe to find your daughter. Bullshit! And the funeral’s today. Just like you to expect the impossible.”
