Vanity Fire
Page 24
Right.
And it hurt.
Right.
But you got over it, right?
Right.
Survived?
Right.
So you can survive this one, too. Right?
Well.…
Right?
Yeah. Right.
Right.
So I was in pretty good shape by the time I got back downtown, ready to spend another day alone in my office. F Is for Fugitive.
***
I put the key into the lock on my office door and turned it this way, then that way, which locked me out. Turned it back where it was and let myself in. So what was going on? Why was the door unlocked?
My books! My chest flooded with adrenaline, but one look had me back to normal: there were the boxes, just as I’d left them. I carefully walked to the back office and peered through the open door.
She looked up from her desk and smiled. A shy smile.
I walked to my desk and sat down. Our desks were arranged so that we had no choice but to search each other’s frightened, yearning eyes.
I spoke first: “You’ve come back?”
She shook her head. “I’m just catching up with the mail,” she said. “You’ve left a lot of work on my desk.”
“I was going to get to it eventually,” I said. “I figure it’s mostly orders for books we don’t have.”
“Vance told me about the fire,” she said. “Guy, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Who needs a warehouse?”
“So you’re all right?”
“No.”
“Neither am I,” she said.
We stared hungrily across the distance between our desks. I could tell she was as nervous as I was, and, like me, she was trying to fight off a monster grin. We both gave up at the same time, and our smiles filled the office. We stood up from our chairs, walked around our desks, and danced into each other’s calling arms. I held her firm, strong, trembling body, kissed her shoulder, her throat, and moved up to her open lips.
I said, “Jesus, I have—”
“—missed you so!” she answered.
***
“This is where the end began,” I said. We sat at a table on the El Encanto terrace, overlooking the bowl of red-tiled roofs pouring down the hills and out into the harbor. The midday, mid-October sky was a dazzling blue, and a soft breeze danced through the graceful droop of eucalyptus branches on the lawn beside us. I had just filled her in on all the details of all that had happened: the fire, the dead Commander, the stolen yacht, the avalanche of books on my body, the Ventura studio fire, Marburger à la Mercedes, Gracie’s arrest, and the trip to Honduras. Yes, I even told her about the night I went to the Kountry Klub, but I spared her the details.
“Fritz Marburger, may he rot in peace, and I sat at this table,” I said, “and I steadfastly defended the honor of being a rinky-dink small-press poetry publisher, while he wrote me a check for thirty thousand dollars so I could turn his celebrity girlfriend into a published author.”
“And—”
“And my soul flew out over the canyon and was gobbled by a condor, never to be seen again.”
“Poor Lorraine.”
“And poor Fritz,” I said. “He died trying to cheat me out of everything, but I still will miss that pompous piece of—”
“And Roger? Will you miss Roger?”
“This has been an awful year,” I said. “I loved the high of being a publisher of a book the public wanted to read for a change. But the rest of it—”
“I think you also enjoyed hanging out with Miss Kitty Katz,” Carol said. “How was your trip, by the way?”
“I have a lot to tell you,” I said. “A lot, a whole lot. About tropical fish and the sunset through the palm trees.…”
“And about Kitty.”
“I got to know Kitty pretty well. At least I think I did. I’m not really sure.” I looked at her and realized I’d said the wrong thing. “You’re not really jealous, are you? Jealous of Kitty?”
“Me?” she responded. “Jealous of a drop-dead gorgeous twenty-something, if that, porn star only two inches taller than you, with a bust like the Grand Tetons and a laugh like brookwater in the early spring? Jealous?”
I chuckled.
“Chuckle,” she said. “Go on and chuckle. You had me worried there, Guy. I’d like to say I was worried for you, and maybe that was true, but mainly I worried that I’d never see you again, and that would be the end of my heart.”
“How can I show you you had nothing to worry about?” I asked.
“You’ll think of something. So how was Honduras? Did you have a good trip? Tell me.”
***
We weren’t finished with lunch until after three o’clock. I suggested we go down to East Beach and take a walk along Palm Park, but Carol said we had to go to the office first. We had business to conduct.
I sat down and put my arms in front of me on my desk. I still couldn’t take my eyes off Carol, watching her sit down as if she still belonged in that seat. She said, “Look down.”
I dropped my eyes to the surface of my desk and read the rectangle between my arms: “Pay to the order of GUY MALLON…Eighty-two thousand dollars and no cents…” From Scarecrow Books, Jefferson City, California.
I touched it. I picked it up and smelled it. It was real.
“You found a buyer! That didn’t take any time at all. But all this money—”
“The books are safe with me, Guy.”
“I—”
“What?”
“How much do I owe you?” I asked. “Have you figured out your commission?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s important. Where’s my calculator? My checkbook….”
She reached into the drawer of her desk where she kept the company checkbook. She stood up and brought it to my desk. “Don’t write me a check,” she said. “Write a check for forty thousand dollars to Samuel Welch. Put ‘repayment in full’ in the memo line. Then we’ll walk it over to the post office together. And you’ll be free.”
“Free to what?”
“Free to love me again, dope.”
***
“I never stopped loving you, Carol,” I said as we took our late-afternoon stroll by the ocean. The sky was bright orange and the silhouettes of the palms were black; Halloween season was approaching. We held hands.
“How lovely it is here in Santa Barbara,” she answered. “This town is still so easy on the eyes.”
“You might come back?” I asked, then chewed my lower lip.
She squeezed my hand. “No. I don’t live here anymore. I haven’t told you all my news yet. I sold my house. I mean Vance sold it. And I’ve bought a house in Jefferson. I’m meeting the movers tomorrow morning. Art Summers and Max Black will be there to help with the lifting.”
“Oh.”
“What does that mean, oh?”
“So that’s what brought you to Santa Barbara? To meet the moving van?”
“Partly. Also to give you your check and pick up the books. Also to hold your hand at this very moment. And to ask a favor of you.”
“Anything.”
“Would you help me move?”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“For starters.”
***
We went to Arnoldi’s for dinner. Jim saw us coming through the door and poured Carol a double Bombay on the rocks without asking. Sitting at the bar, waiting for our favorite booth, I asked her, “So, did you make a bundle in real estate?”
“I certainly did,” she said. “The real estate market in this town is obscene. I sold the East Side bungalow with a hefty mortgage and bought a much bigger house by the ocean, free and clear, and made a profit. I never had this much money before.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You bought my first editions, right? I mean you gave Scarecrow Books the money to bu
y them?”
“I’m a money-launderer,” she confessed. “I can’t lie to you, never could. But I only did it to keep those wonderful books in the family. I know how presumptuous that was of me. Are you angry?”
I was done forever being angry with Carol. “I’m glad they’re in good hands,” I said.
“Maybe you could come visit the books from time to time?”
“For starters, I could drive you north tomorrow. I don’t have any other plans right now. We could go up together, get there before the moving van arrives. How’s that?”
“And will you stick around for a while?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not sure. We could talk about it on the drive.”
“Guy, can’t you see how easy I’m trying to make this for you?”
“Make what?”
“Come be with me, Guy. Please, please, please! There’s nothing holding you in Santa Barbara now.”
“But I don’t know what I’d do up there,” I said. “How will I make a living?”
“I’m wealthy now, remember?”
“But I’m broke. I can’t just—”
“Marry me,” she said. “Please marry me. You love me, Guy Mallon, and we both know it. Marry me.”
Jim said, “Your booth is ready.”
***
“Marry you?”
“That’s what I said.” She opened the door and we walked into the house where we’d lived together for a decade. She flipped on the living room light. The floor held an array of cardboard cartons labeled “Dishes,” “Linens,” “Books,” “Clothes,” “Food,” “Pictures,” “More Books.” I followed her into the kitchen, where she poured us each a glass of bedside water. I followed her into the bedroom, where she lit a candle and we took off our clothes. We sat on the bed, her on one side and me on the other. Yes, I was nervous.
“You really want me to—”
“Marry me. Can’t you see how easy this will be?”
“You’d, uh, you’d take me as I am?”
“As you are? Guy, you’re all in the world I love.”
“But I sold my soul,” I said.
“Yes, but you’ve earned it back. With interest. Guy, one last time. No, it won’t be the last time till you say yes. Will you marry me?”
I grinned. “But I’m so short.”
“Oh, that.” She pealed with Irish laughter. “You’re going to have to give up being short.”
Carol Murphy threw her strawberry curls back on the pillow and stretched her long body out in the center of the bed, reaching with her strong arms and naked legs to the four corners of the world. “Come to me, king of my heart,” she crooned. “Climb aboard my body and my future, and I promise you the ride of your life!”
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