She moved next to her mother, so that their shoulders were touching. They both looked at me with desperate hope. “I can see that you are a good person,” Mrs. Garcia said to me. “I know you will do the right thing.”
I hauled myself to my feet, weighted down by the burden of their expectations. Well, I’d known that might happen when I came here.
Juan wheeled his chair between me and his mother and grandmother, effectively herding me toward the door. When I got to the locked screen, he pushed himself forward so that he was almost touching my foot. I turned to face him and found myself looking down at a pattern of big white scars along his forehead and neck.
“Ray thinks if he goes to prison, he’ll come out a man of respect on the street,” he said quietly. “But I want him out now, before…I want him out, for my mama and my abuelita.”
“How long since your…” His what? His accident? Ha. I couldn’t think how to put it, but I knew what he meant was, he didn’t want his brother to end up like him.
“Six years,” he said.
“Oh.” I remembered how he’d said his paralysis was temporary.
Just when I was starting to feel sorry for him, he added, “My mother may trust you, but I don’t. If you use anything she told you against Ray or fuck this up somehow, you better watch out. I may be in this chair, but I have friends who will hurt you. I can get you anytime. You can count on that.”
I leaned over and said in his ear, “If your brother is guilty, I can’t help him. You have to understand that.”
“No problem. Ray isn’t guilty. If you try to prove he is, you better start wearing a bulletproof vest.”
The hair on my neck was standing on end, but I didn’t want him to see how nervous he was making me. “Did you by chance leave a message on my answering machine, after the trial?”
He laughed. “Lady, when I want to send you a message, it won’t be by telephone, I promise you.” Then he reached around me for the lock on the screen door, encircling my legs with his arm. The lock clicked, and he released me.
When I got to the end of the driveway, I turned around. He was still looking out, watching me go.
“You did what?” Mark demanded, when I got home. He was practically camped on my doorstep.
“Relax, will you? It wasn’t bad at all, if you don’t count the killer Rottweiler and the gang-banger in the wheelchair who threatened to sic his friends on me if I screw things up for Ramon.”
He stared at me openmouthed. “Have you lost your mind?”
He was just like Diana, all breathless disapproval. I had an inspiration: I should introduce them. They could vent at each other all night.
I rummaged around in my purse and extracted a battered can of pepper spray. I held it up for his inspection. “See, no problem. I was packing heat.”
“Ellen, this is not funny.”
“Maybe not, but it’s not The Godfather, either. Lighten up, for heaven’s sake. I admit there were some aspects to the visit that made me nervous, but I had to go there. I have to get Ramon to talk to me.”
“You’ve gone completely round the bend. You’ve lost perspective. You’re putting yourself in danger, and you act like you don’t even care.”
“A, I wasn’t in that much trouble, and, B, I don’t care if I’ve gone ‘round the bend,’ as you put it. I’m going to get to the bottom of this murder. Seeing the Garcias made me even more determined. Didn’t you ever just know that you had to do something?”
He shook his head. “Who do you think you are, Nelson Mandela?”
I rolled my eyes heavenward in the most beatific pose I could muster. “I think Joan of Arc’s more my style. I’ll let you know if I start hearing voices.”
He stared at me. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Good,” I told him.
18
Some services offer therapeutic help if you’re not matchable. Social skills can be improved; communication can be worked on. Everything is fixable, even if you’ve always eaten peas with a knife and your idea of scintillating conversation is a verbatim recital of the Magna Carta. A full makeover is available if necessary. Some services are even happy to consult about problems or discuss feedback—negative and positive—received from the “dates.” All at a substantial additional fee, of course.
—How to Avoid a Mismatch, and Other Tips for Finding Your Perfect Mate from the research notes of Cynthia Weatherford
My message machine was flashing. “Elena, this is Lili,” my mother’s caregiver said in the slow Spanglish she knew was necessary for my comprehension. “Your mother is very upset. I think she is saying your father has been calling again.” She paused. “I know she was talking on the phone when I came back from the store this afternoon, but she shut the door when she heard me come in. You know how she is.” I could hear her sigh into the phone. “I promised I would tell you. Please come.” Beep.
“Elena, this is Lili again. Your mother is sleeping. Maybe she will forget about the whole thing. I will let you know.”
I pushed the “stop” button, disturbed by my mother’s fixation on my father. Usually her delusions—a movie-star lover, a thieving maid—mutated in a few days. It was rare for her to persist this long. Besides, my father was not a topic calculated to help her retain her shaky grip on reality.
I sighed and mentally penciled in a visit before the end of the week. I remembered Mrs. Garcia and felt ashamed of my reluctance. It didn’t matter that my mother had been born without the nurturing gene; she’d probably done her best. She’d gotten up and gone to work every day so that I could have clothes and food and an education. I knew how hard it was to be a single parent; I should have been more appreciative of what she’d done. She’d even given me words to live by, though they were mostly things like “a man doesn’t pay for what he can get for free.” It wasn’t her fault if she couldn’t do any more. At least neither of her offspring had ended up in jail.
The phone rang right under my hand. I picked it up.
“Ellen St. James?” A man’s voice.
The moment of truth. Nobody knew me by that name except Ivanova Associates. In fact, I now seemed to have three identities—Santiago, St. James, and Laws—according to who was on the receiving end of the conversation. I could, in perfect honesty, say “no” and just hang up.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Melanie Klein gave me this number,” he said. He had a reasonably pleasant-sounding voice, so low that I wondered if he had a cold or a sore throat. At least it wasn’t reminiscent of ax murderers or cannibals, or not the movie versions anyway.
“Oh. Yes.” At this rate, I was sure to wow him with my powers of conversation.
“From Ivanova Associates,” he prompted.
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard.” Damn. I’d already said “I’m sorry,” and the conversation was only thirty seconds old. My forehead broke out in a sweat. I hadn’t felt this socially inept since age fourteen.
“Is this a bad time?”
This was a bad decade, but it wasn’t going to get any better. I remembered I was supposed to sound awesomely well-to-do. What should I say: I was just watching the maid dipping my diamonds, and I completely lost track of time? I was in the middle of having my garage floor re-parqueted? “No, not at all,” I told him.
“Good. I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me on Thursday. We can go anywhere you suggest, but if you don’t have a preference, I happen to like La Bourgogne in Redondo Beach. I thought it might be easier to meet at the restaurant.”
“Yes, I know it,” I said, surprised. It was only a few blocks from where I lived. “It’s very good. That…that would be fine.”
“Excellent,” he said briskly. “Shall we say eight, then? Or is that too early?”
“No, eight would be fine.” I had a consultation at ten on Friday with Julia Livingston, and late dinners always wrecked my sleep. “I have to go to work the next morning.�
��
“Oh, really?” He sounded surprised. I wondered if I’d already committed a faux pas. Maybe all your wealth was supposed to be inherited. “Well, that’s set, then,” he said briskly. He was all efficiency. I wondered if he might be a lawyer or an accountant. “See you Thursday.”
“I—” I was listening to the dial tone. Then it hit me. I really must have been out of practice.
I hadn’t even thought to ask his name.
Of course, he hadn’t volunteered it, either, so maybe he was less self-assured than his no-nonsense, get-right-down-to-things manner suggested. No preliminaries like a name or a job description or even a favorite food. Maybe it was a Freudian slip. Maybe I was going to look like a fool in La Bourgogne, meeting someone whose identity was a total mystery.
“What do you think I should wear?” I asked Andrea. I hadn’t wanted to involve her, but I was too insecure not to get a Second Opinion, even from someone whose normal attire was skin-tight jeans and T-shirts bearing the logos of music groups I had never heard of.
“How about body armor?” she said, hands on hips.
I turned from the closet, where I was lifting more traditional outfits from their hangers, one by one.
“I’m serious, Mom. I can’t believe you’re going to meet some guy when you don’t know one thing about him. Not even his name,” she emphasized.
I held up a beige knit dress for her inspection. She rolled her eyes. I put it back in the closet. “I admit I might have been a little careless about that,” I told her. “But—”
“A little careless? Mom, I don’t believe you. What if I pulled something like that?”
“I’d probably be in cardiac arrest,” I said, because she expected it. But I wouldn’t. She’d done worse; she just chose not to remember while she was in the guise of her Responsible Adult persona, and I certainly wasn’t going to remind her. “Look, the whole point of the article for City of Angels is to see what turns up. Besides, the men are supposed to be prescreened. And he’s taking a risk, too, don’t forget. He doesn’t know anything about me, either.”
“Including your real name. This whole setup sounds like something out of a James Bond movie.”
I laughed. “So what does the well-dressed spy wear for dinner with 007?”
“You’re really going through with this?”
“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “I wouldn’t know who to call to cancel.”
“Ha, ha,” she said grimly. She reached into the closet and pulled out a matching black gabardine jacket and pants I’d bought at Nordstrom’s. “Wear this,” she said. “It’s classic. It’s elegant. It doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard.” She smiled, saving the best argument for last. “It’s slimming.”
“Sold,” I said, taking it out of her hands. “What should I wear under it?”
She laughed. “Normally, I’d say just some beads or a camisole, but in this case, make it a turtleneck.”
These companionable moments were the benefits of having a nearly grown daughter, a reward for weathering the teenage years all alone. After Michael died, I’d been so worried about her that I scarcely let her out of my sight. Then I worried that I might be smothering her. I thought about Lupe Garcia and my eyes filled, I was so grateful for the way she’d turned out. It was mostly luck. “Andy,” I said, trying not to sniff.
She had her back to me. “What?” she asked. She was looking through my shoe boxes.
“If I forget to say it sometimes, I really do appreciate your concern.”
She turned, a pair of low-heeled black shoes in her hand. She caught me in the throes of sentiment and rolled her eyes again. “Oh, Mom,” she said. But she let me hug her.
Ramon Garcia called while I was in the shower, getting ready for my mystery date.
“Talk fast. I don’t have much time,” he said, when I had come dripping and panting to the phone. “What did you want?”
He had a don’t-mess-with-me prison voice. For all I knew, it was his real one.
“I want to know what happened that night at Ivanova Associates.”
Silence.
“Don’t know, lady. I wasn’t there,” he said finally.
“Then how did the stuff from Natasha Ivanova’s office get into your mother’s car?”
He laughed, a smirky sort of giggle that made me want to throttle him. “Like Johnny says—”
“Who?”
“Johnny. My brother. Like he says, the pigs set me up.”
“They stopped you on your way home from somewhere and planted the stuff in your car, is that it?”
“That’s it. Was out getting myself laid. Long and slow, like I like it. You like it like that, lady?”
I ignored him. “You have a witness?”
“Just some ho. Hos don’t tell you their real name.”
“And you told your attorney Ms. Ivanova gave you all that stuff because…”
“Because I was scared nobody would believe me about the pigs. Yeah, that’s right.”
I sighed. This was getting nowhere. “Look, I know you haven’t got any reason to trust me, but—”
“You can say that again, lady.”
“But your mother wanted you to talk to me.”
“What’re we doing?”
“You’re telling me some version of the story you and Juan worked up before you called. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the complete truth.”
“What do you frigging want from me, lady? I don’t need any help from you. If I get out of here, you better be watching your back.”
“By the time you get out of there, I’ll be in a nursing home,” I told him. “I’ll be the oldest living person in a bullet-proof wheelchair.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Just think about it, Ray. You’ve got nothing to lose. I need to hear what really happened that night. You’ve got my number. You can—”
The receiver slammed down with the click of a weapon.
Not only that, but now I was going to be late for my dinner.
La Bourgogne is a tiny restaurant on a busy street. It serves classic French food in surprisingly elegant surroundings. From the outside, it looks like it might have been a former paint store or something equally inauspicious. Inside, it is filled with tapestried chairs and the accoutrements of fine dining without pretensions. If it were in France, it would probably rank a Michelin two-knives-and-forks and cost three times as much. Besides, it had never been trendy, so the maître d’ acted glad to see you, and nobody snubbed you when you called for a reservation. I had taken my mother there, before she started thinking the waiters were trying to poison her and insisted on sending the steak tartare back to be cooked. Maybe she was anticipating the E. coli and salmonella scares, but I doubted it.
Since I didn’t know who I was meeting, I gave my name to the hostess and asked if anyone was expecting me. I tried not to scan the dining room as she checked her notes. “Why yes,” she said, smiling brightly in relief that I wasn’t being stood up. “Right this way, please.” I wished she hadn’t sounded quite so surprised and delighted.
She led me to a table against the wall. The man seated there was writing something in a notebook. When we approached, he looked up and capped his pen, putting the notebook in his pocket. He stood. He was tall and slender with a cleft chin and a strong jaw. His hair was light brown, with just the right amount of gray for distinction. His eyes were an attractive metallic blue-gray, a color you might order specially on a new car. He looked as if he’d been born in a suit. A very expensive one.
So far, I had to give Ivanova Associates high marks.
I extended my hand. “I’m Ellen St. James,” I announced. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” I didn’t volunteer that I’d been held up by a phone call from a convicted murderer.
The hostess looked from one to the other of us with suppressed curiosity. Mystery Man didn’t acknowledge her presence. “That’s quite all right,” he said, relinquishing the handshake. His voice had the
same low pitch as on the phone, so at least I knew it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. “Please sit down.” He pulled out my chair. “I’m happy to meet you.”
I sat. I didn’t want to, but I was going to have to prompt him. “And you are…?”
He looked at me as if I might have taken leave of my senses.
“I’ll just leave the menus,” said the hostess, backing away. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
“You forgot to give me your name when you called,” I informed him.
He gave a small, amused smile. “William Collins,” he said.
“Like the Jane Austen character,” I said, without thinking.
He looked startled.
“Pride and Prejudice,” I explained lamely, cursing myself. “William Collins is a minor character.” Actually, Mr. Collins is a buffoon, and I couldn’t believe I’d brought it up. I was definitely not cut out for dating if I was going to continue in this vein.
The smile came back. “Oh, right. I get that all the time. Do you by any chance teach literature?” he asked me eventually.
“No, I just read.”
He laughed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t.”
“Actually,” I said hurriedly, “I’m an art consultant.”
“Is that like a decorator?”
Touché. “Sometimes,” I confessed. “Sometimes it’s more exalted than that. It depends on the client.” My theory about telling people about your career is that you give them a capsule summary and keep your mouth shut after that, unless they demand more. Too many people go prosing on and on about things that are inherently fascinating only to themselves.
The wine steward brought over a bottle of white Burgundy that had not been discussed in my presence. Either William Collins was a regular, or he had ordered it before I got there. They both looked at me. “Will this be all right? This is a good year, but if you’d like something else…” It was polite, but I could tell he wasn’t expecting opposition. Clearly a take-charge kind of guy.
Staying Cool Page 21
