Slipstream

by Leslie Larson

  “Rachel needs her bed!” Jewell called after her. “She needs to be in her own place!”

  Dana struggled with the car door, the rain pelting her.

  “Where’s Celeste?” Jewell shouted toward the street, even though she knew the rain would swallow her words. “Where the hell is she?”

  When she turned around, Celeste was standing in the doorway. For some crazy reason, Jewell broke out in a grin. Despite everything, she was glad to see Celeste. Her heart surged. Celeste looked back at her, and Jewell thought—for an instant at least—that she might laugh, that they might laugh together. Celeste might shake her head, put her arm around Jewell’s shoulder, and the two of them might walk away, get in the car, and drive home. But the instant passed quickly.

  “What the hell is going on?” Celeste demanded. She squinted out into the rain, toward Jewell’s car, where Dana was bent into the backseat, before she turned back to Jewell and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  For a second Jewell was dumbfounded. Then rage blazed up in her chest and hit the back of her throat. “Me?” she choked. “Me!? What am I doing here? What about you? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Before Celeste had a chance to answer, Dana bustled up the walk carrying Rachel wrapped in the blanket. She knocked past Jewell again and stood with her bundle like a fireman who’d just rescued a child from a burning building. “She left her in the car!” she wailed. “All alone, out there! Sleeping out there in the dark at this time of night!”

  “Oh, come on!” Jewell responded. “She was fine! I was right here! It was only for a minute!”

  Dana turned to Celeste melodramatically, the indignant, self-righteous mother. “She left her,” she whispered, as if her voice had failed her. “Alone.”

  “That’s a load of crap,” Jewell appealed to Celeste. Her heart banged against her ribs with fury. “Rachel’s fine!”

  Rachel raised her head and looked at each of them. When she had assessed the situation, her face crumpled and she started to cry.

  “Take her to bed,” Celeste ordered in her sternest schoolteacher’s voice.

  Jewell felt a tiny shiver of pleasure, hearing Celeste speak so harshly to Dana, who stood with her mouth hanging open in disbelief that her bereaved-mother act had fallen flat. She pushed into the house and headed down the hall. Rachel waved good-bye to Jewell as she passed.

  “What are you doing, Celeste?” Jewell began in a low voice when Dana was out of earshot. “What are you doing, huh?” she repeated, louder this time. She smacked the doorjamb with the flat of her hand. It felt good and she smacked it again, this time with her fist. “What the fuck are you doing?” she yelled, full voice. “What are you doing?!” She kicked the doorjamb. “What, Celeste?! What?!”

  “Stop it!”

  They locked eyes. Once again, just for a instant, Jewell thought that they might be able to forget the whole thing, to never mention it again. But then her eyes drifted to the buttons of Celeste’s cardigan. It was her coral-colored one, the one with wide ribbing at the wrists and waist. Something was off. Jewell’s eyes slid up the buttons and down again. With a shock of recognition, she took in the incriminating pucker between Celeste’s breasts where she’d missed a buttonhole. A patch of golden skin showed in the gap. She glanced at Celeste’s frightened face, looked back down. Sure enough, the last button was unbuttoned, bereft of its corresponding buttonhole. It blinked there alone, indecent and irrefutable, like the punchline to some horrible joke.

  This was how it was going to happen, Jewell realized. It was happening now.

  “You missed a button,” she spat. “Guess you were in a hurry.”

  Celeste blanched. She looked down and splayed her hands over the uneven closure.

  Nausea rose to Jewell’s throat. Watery spit filled her mouth. She was going to be sick. She was going to vomit all over the porch. “You’re disgusting. You make me sick,” she choked.

  “Jewell—” Celeste began. Her eyes gave it away. They admitted everything.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jewell hissed. “Just shut your lying, filthy mouth.”

  Celeste turned and looked behind her, down the hall. Jewell looked, too. The house with its potted plants and polished floor. The armchair and stereo speakers. Dana and Rachel at the back of the house, waiting. When Celeste turned around again, her eyes were brimming.

  “Don’t come home tonight,” Jewell gasped. Talking was like twisting a wooden peg in a tight socket; her voice was squeaky and dry. “I can’t talk right now. I can’t even look at you.”

  But the truth was she couldn’t take her eyes off Celeste. Every time she looked at her, it was like the first time. She had never gotten over her cheekbones, the folds of her eyelids, the corners of her mouth. She watched until the tears in Celeste’s eyes spilled over and ran down her face.

  “God, Jewell. Stop looking at me like that,” Celeste pleaded. “I can’t stand it. What can I say? I’m sorry.” Celeste covered her eyes.

  “Close the door, then,” Jewell rasped. Her own tears were cauterized by rage. “Why don’t you close it, Celeste? Go on, close the fucking door!”

  She slammed the flat of her hand against the doorjamb again, close to Celeste’s face.

  Celeste jumped, her eyes wide. “Stop it, Jewell!” she cried. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Jewell felt her shoulders sink, her arms drop to her sides. The nausea subsided, leaving a wide, empty space in her stomach. She watched as Celeste lowered her face into her hands. Celeste’s shoulders rose and heaved. She sobbed into her palms. Jewell didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Celeste cried energetically, dramatically, her cries escaping in measured sobs. Tears squeezed out between her fingers and tumbled down the front of her telltale sweater.

  “Look at me, Celeste,” Jewell rasped. “Look at me. Look at me!” Her own chest felt like a parched stump, heavy and twisted.

  Celeste’s face was battered when she finally raised it and looked at Jewell.

  Jewell felt the ugliness of her own expression, the rage and the humiliation. “You see me?” she shouted. “I’m an idiot! I’m a fucking fool!”

  An idiot! she repeated to herself as she turned and walked off across the wet lawn into the dark and the rain. A fucking fool!

  16

  Rudy checked the ground around the foundation of the house. It wasn’t quite midnight. He used a rake to pull the tall grass back from the stucco and shined his flashlight down at the damp earth. He found a hubcap, a mousetrap, a piece of hose. If only he knew what to look for. Wires, most likely, but also freshly dug earth, or footprints, or pipes. Anything suspicious. Out front, the battered white van parked two houses away caught his eye. He’d noticed it a couple of days running. It was just the kind of thing they’d use. Old and dinged-up outside, inside equipped with the most sophisticated listening devices money could buy. Two guys with headphones, cameras pointed his way. He hurried up the walkway, rain soaking his flannel pajamas.

  It had all come to him that night at dinner. How big the whole thing was, how everything was connected. He’d spotted the first guy on his trip to the salad bar, the sandy-haired man with a scrappy beard who sold newspapers and candy at a stand right before you got to baggage claim. Coincidence, he’d thought, until—at the other end of the dining room—he’d seen the scrawny barmaid with the shoe-polish hair who was working the cocktail lounge every night when he got off work. She was pretending to eat with a younger couple, but when he looked up from his steak, he caught her staring right at him. That’s when he started to catch on. All his suspicions came to a head when, just two tables over, he saw the bald Filipino gent who sat behind the X-ray machine at the security check. The Filipino glanced at the barmaid, the barmaid at the bearded guy, the bearded guy back at the Filipino. Like a net around him. He hadn’t let on that he’d noticed. But once he was out of there, he had to act fast.

  First secure the house. He’d had a quick look around the bedroom while Inez was in the bathro
om. Once she was asleep, he checked the pipes under the sink in the bathroom, the window over the tub. The closet in the hall where Inez kept the vacuum cleaner, the laundry hamper, and an assortment of coats and jackets. The loveseat upholstered in a large floral print, the floor heater, the light fixtures and electrical outlets. Nothing behind the couch, the TV looked okay. Even as he searched, he felt someone watching him. He cursed himself for being so blind, because he realized, the more he thought of it, that this had started long, long ago. Signs were everywhere. Remarks dropped at work, little things that seemed like nothing at the time. Looks his crew had given him, little nods between the higher-ups. Every piece that fell into place revealed a bigger piece. A web. Not just his dismissal, but business falling off at the airline, the supposed increase in security and terrorist threats. A ruse. All this time and he’d finally tripped over it. He opened cupboards in the kitchen, checked inside the oven, under the sink. The jars of spices, cans of food, and bottles of oil. Things he’d never looked at before, though he lived with them every day. His gut twisted into a knot. Was there anyone he could contact, anyone he could trust?

  Vanessa’s room was the only place he hadn’t checked. Some self-imposed rule had always made it off limits to him. But now he wondered. They could use her to get to him, they could take advantage of the respect he’d shown her. Her closet, her bed, her desk. Anything could be hidden there. He’d look later, when no one was home. Sundays they went to church, Wednesdays to Bible study. He’d find a way.

  He had to get organized. It was a short dash from the kitchen door to the garage. He’d make it command central, his nerve center. The smell of gasoline and dried grass reassured him. He started to work methodically, laying things in place. Once he had a plan, he’d feel better. Thoughts bubbled while he worked: how his coworkers always kissed ass at the same time they were backstabbing. Incompetent, all of them. No wonder the airline, the whole country, was in such a state. Jesus Christ! Part of him was tempted just to let it all go to hell, to stand back and watch it happen. But then it was his duty to open their eyes, to show them where things were headed. Not just by telling them, because the idiots wouldn’t listen to reason. You had to show them. That’s what he meant to do.

  He was shivering when he headed back inside, his pajamas damp and icy, clinging to his goose-pimpled skin. He needed his rest. All his strength and brain power. They’d do everything they could to discredit him, to spread the rumors around. Even to his family. He had to expect it, to keep it in mind. And he had to work fast. Little things counted. Details. He remembered how Inez and Vanessa had looked at him when he came home, and later, again, at dinner. Guarded, like they suspected something.

  The minute he opened the back door, the flash hit him in the face like a searchlight, like a beam from an interrogation lamp.

  And there she was.

  Oh God. God, oh God.

  His knees could barely hold him. A spasm jolted his hands, scattering the things he was carrying across the floor.

  She was in on it, too.

  Wylie was having a heart attack. The more he tried to breathe normally, the harder it became. He forced himself to take deep, regular breaths, but his chest felt as if it were bound by thick elastic bands. Beside him, Carolyn slept peacefully on her back, as if their little chat, their predicament, didn’t bother her at all. It was only nerves, he told himself, though considering his age and diet and the stress in his life, he couldn’t rule out a coronary. In that case it was important to act quickly. He’d read that in the paper. Mortality rates and muscle damage were directly related to how long you waited before getting help. Should he wake Carolyn? Tell her to dial 911, take him to the hospital? He checked carefully for other signs. No stabbing pains, though he did feel slightly nauseated. No pain in his left arm, though his jaw ached, especially on the left side. He was clenching his teeth, he realized. Relax, he told himself. Relax and breathe.

  He’d been lying there for hours.

  He needed air. It was stifling upstairs, under the roof beams. Carolyn slept so soundly it was easy to slip out of bed and pull on his shirt and pants, to tiptoe down the stairs and unlatch the front door. His breath came in shallow gasps. What if she found him sprawled on the kitchen floor, or in a heap at the bottom of the steps? His face blue—who knew what? Would she still have the baby, raise it without him? “Your dad died right here,” he pictured Carolyn saying, pointing to the very spot where he was standing. “A long time ago, before you were born.” He saw the child, recognized the bewildered expression on his face. It was his own face, he realized.

  Cripes.

  The wooden steps were slick with rain. He descended carefully in his bare feet, the cold biting his skin. The menthol smell of eucalyptus rose up. Branches creaked and swayed. He made his way slowly over the wet leaves, following the path that led to the back of the house. There, between a coiled garden hose and a pile of empty clay pots, he squatted down and leaned against the side of the house. He breathed, pulling in the moist air. The elastic bands squeezed his chest front and back. His ribs were caving in, his lungs collapsing. What would Carolyn think if she found him there, crouching behind the house like a spooked dog?

  It was like an X-ray when the flash came. A brilliant second of whiteness. The space between the stark, straight tree trunks burned at regular intervals across the background of pure light. Black on white. Wylie’s breath caught. His heart paused. The rumble rolled across the sky, shaking the earth and reverberating in his chest. The bands eased then, like they had been shaken loose by a profound cough that began deep in the earth and rattled up through his bare feet to the pit of his stomach and then to his throat, where it exploded out of him in a gasp of relief. The sharp crack of the thunder was followed by a deluge of rain. A fever breaking, a release from pain. Wylie looked up at the sky, letting the water drench his hair and face.

  Inez was hot and restless in the bed. Maybe it was the steak she’d eaten, or the wind that whistled around the house and caused the screen to slam like someone pounding on the front door. Rain pelted the roof and windows. In her fitful sleep she worried that the ceiling in the living room would leak again, that she should get up and put a bucket under it so it wouldn’t drip on the loveseat. She slipped back into a jumble of fragmented dreams that merged like a series of unrelated movies spliced haphazardly together. She was on the bicycle again, flying effortlessly up and down hills, traveling miles and miles. The landscape changed from green countryside to burned-out cities, but people were nowhere to be seen. Then she dreamed she was making deliveries, but when she opened the bags it was food, not Avon products, she handed out—chicken wings, pork ribs, and chocolate cake that her customers devoured hungrily, smearing their faces and hands. She dreamed that she gave birth to a monkey, that she discovered a secret passage in the bedroom closet that led to the house of her dreams, that Rudy had a disease that caused his bones to soften into taffy. It was a relief when she finally started awake, her heart beating hard, her chest and neck wet with perspiration. She looked at the clock next to the bed. 1:43. She breathed deeply and listened to the rain, a comforting sound. Gradually she felt the presence of God, His nearness, as if He were right there in the room watching over her. It was a great peace, a blissful feeling of rest that both surrounded her and filled her body.

  When she turned toward Rudy, she saw that the blankets were thrown back, that the sheet reflected light from the street lamp outside. There was an indentation in his pillow, a pool of shadow where his head should have been.

  It seemed to take Jewell forever to drive home from Dana’s house in Silver Lake, but when she pulled up in front of her own house, all she could remember of the trip was the yellow line of the freeway racing past her. She had glanced at the speedometer once, and though it felt like she was moving at a suicidal speed, the needle pointed to forty-five. She sat in the car with the motor running, the windshield wipers thwacking back and forth. Rain hammered the car. Her house looked dark and empty, as if i
t had already been abandoned. Now it was just one more place she’d have to leave.

  Her strength left her when she turned off the engine. She slumped forward until her forehead rested on the steering wheel. She closed her eyes and cried copiously, monotonously, clinging to the steering wheel, shaking it like the bars of a cell. Snot ran down the back of her throat and big, warm tears fell on the thighs of her jeans.

  When the flash came, her first thought was that someone had taken a picture of her through the window of the car. It was the same blue-white light as a camera strobe, and for an instant—as thunder rumbled down the street like a battalion of tanks—she saw herself in immediate exposure, frozen in that moment, like a snapshot. Curled in a C around the steering column, her head down as she cried, watering her own body. Her skin absorbed the tears so that her bloodstream could move them back up to her eyes so she could cry again. Her own little biosphere, the same old story.

  Wet and tired, Logan nodded to other residents as he made his way up the stairs of the Morningstar. The hotel came alive at night. Doors swung open and slammed shut, footsteps sounded in the halls, the old elevator clanked up and down like a ghost dragging its chains. People shouted, toilets flushed, music played. As if suddenly everyone had somewhere to go.

  Cockroaches scattered when he opened his door and turned on the light. He’d left the window open. He took off the Bogart jacket, the Italian shoes. Thank God the guy hadn’t puked on them. A shopping cart rattled past outside; bass boomed from a car idling on the corner. A shower would be nice. He remembered Sylvia Salvetti’s bathroom from that morning. My God, was this still the same day? But at least he was home. Still on the straight and narrow and with a wad of money in his pocket. He took his towel, his shower shoes, a change of underwear, and headed down the hall.

  Wonder of wonders, the shower was free. His lucky day. The whole room was tiled in pale blue. The grout was mildewed and the drain clogged with hair, but the water came on full force. Logan opened the little window and stood under the hot spray while cool air from outside blew on his face. A heavenly combination. No one to tell him his time was up, get back to his cell. Nothing to worry about until the next day. He lathered his head with the bar of soap, worked down from his shoulders to the soles of his feet. A wad of money. He would go out for breakfast the next day, he promised himself. A place in Hollywood he hadn’t been for years. Pork chops, eggs, and toast—no holds barred. The newspaper and cups of steaming coffee.