by Kyra Davis
“Best whiskey on the rocks.” She looks at me for confirmation, then adds, “Make it two. It’s on Danny,” she says, referring to the owner.
“He said he’s buying us drinks?”
“Of course he did. When has one of these guys ever not covered our drinks?” When the whiskeys arrive she puts down a three-dollar tip and then turns back to me. “So your boyfriend, he lives in LA?”
“He rents a small house in Santa Monica.”
“Okay, so a small house in Santa Monica equals a small fortune. Are you sure this guy isn’t the real Johnny Depp?”
“I doubt Johnny rents.” I laugh.
“He might,” she counters, “if it was a nice enough place.” The guy behind Traci offers her his bar stool and she hops up, flashing him her sweetest smile as she does. I have a feeling I would have hated Traci in high school. “Is it nice?”
“Yeah, he says it’s fairly new construction, and it’s on a bit of a hill, so apparently it has a decent view of the ocean and—”
“He says?” Traci asks, stopping me. “Apparently? You’ve never seen your boyfriend’s house?”
Just then the whiskeys arrive and I take mine eagerly. This interrogation is getting to me. All I wanted was for her to acknowledge that the rehearsals had improved our performance, and now we’ve veered off into threeways and houses.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
I grimace involuntarily. When someone asks if they can tell you something it’s never something good. She presses on without waiting for a response.
“Your boyfriend’s cheating on you.”
A genuine laugh escapes my lips. “No way.”
“Why couldn’t he come tonight?”
“He was cast in a pilot and, I don’t know, they were working on some pilot stuff tonight,” I say, taking another sip. I’m not loving this whiskey, but it’s better than the conversation.
“Are they in the middle of filming?”
I shake my head no. “Not for another month.”
“Then he’s not working,” Traci says flatly. She crosses her legs, pushing her short skirt dangerously high. “It’s not like they do table readings at night, and if he was meeting with his agent or something that would have been an earlier dinner.”
“How do you know so much? You don’t even date actors.”
“Yeah, that’s because I know actors. Once you really get to know a few you don’t date them anymore. Not unless damaged and needy gets you hot.”
Another man stops by the bar to tell us how great we were. Traci smiles, exchanges a few words with him, and then manages to get rid of him with little fuss. “You don’t get it,” I explain. “Ash was the one who wanted to be exclusive. It was his idea.”
“He wants you to be exclusive,” Traci corrects. “Maybe he wants to fuck around while you hang around. I believe that’s the traditional way of doing things.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” I say quietly, lifting my glass again.
“He’s a man,” Traci says with a laugh. “Trust me, they all do that.”
“This guy’s different.”
“Oh come on, Mercy—”
“I said he’s different!” I slam my glass back down on the bar so hard the whiskey goes splashing over the side. Traci’s jaw drops. The guy to my left, who has not offered me his seat, casts an amused glance in our direction.
“I—” Traci begins, but she’s immediately interrupted by Tonio, who seems to come out of nowhere to throw an arm over each of us. He smells like cigarette smoke and radiates with artificial adrenaline.
“My bitches!” he says with a laugh. “You two drinking without me?”
I shrug him off and step away from the bar. “Take my place,” I suggest. “I’m outta here.”
“Oh come on, Mercy,” Traci groans, “don’t be so touchy. I was just speculating.”
“Yeah, well I’m done speculating for tonight, I want to go home.” I turn around and walk through the club and out the door into the cool night air. The streets are pretty quiet right now. It’s too early for last call, but too late for people to bar hop over to another location. A lonely street vendor is selling hot sausages to stragglers. I find myself suddenly disgusted with my familiarity with this scene. I don’t want to be this intimately aware of what the streets always look like this far after midnight. I don’t want to be the girl who can speak with experience about threeways, the girl guys want to fuck but won’t give up their bar stool for or be loyal to! I mean other than the conspicuous lack of cocaine, which I miss, how is Mercy’s life so different from Melody’s?
I close my eyes and count to ten, trying to remind myself that I’m overreacting. I’m letting Traci get inside my head. My life is fine . . . or at least it’s not horrible. I love that high I get when I’m onstage, in front of a crowd, singing my songs. Maybe if I had started doing that at a younger age I wouldn’t have gone so overboard with the drugs. And Ash is being loyal. I didn’t ask him to commit, he offered. So the idea of his cheating is just silly. Things are going great for us. They really are. We’re having the kind of fun I haven’t had in ages. He may not have been able to come tonight, but it’s not like he’s been avoiding me. We’ve been going to clubs and dive bars, pool halls, all places I enjoyed in my last life, but it’s totally different now because this time I’m going to those places as part of a couple. I’m part of a couple! Every night I’m with Ash feels like a celebration of that.
The only problem is, when he leaves, I don’t feel so celebratory anymore, and it’s not just because he’s reintroduced me to hangovers. When he leaves . . . I don’t know, there’s this weird sense of emptiness that I can’t quite explain.
I glance back at the bar I just stormed out of. Typical that neither Traci nor Tonio came after me.
If Brad were here, would he have come after me?
I push the question aside and start heading to where I parked my car. Even if I chose to pursue Brad, the best I could hope for is a one-nighter. No way is a guy like that hitching his wagon to someone like me. So then once we were done sweating it out in the sheets, all I’d have to show for it would be one lousy memory. Plus, the obligatory awkwardness that follows those kinds of encounters would probably cost me one kick-ass drummer.
I spot my car, which I purposely parked under a streetlight. Ash is the one who matters here. I do love the way that man touches me, the way he’s learning my body, the way I’m learning his. And it’s right that after everything we should be together.
But as I slide behind the wheel I’m reminded that I haven’t told Ash what everything is. He certainly doesn’t know how he brought about Melody’s death. I wish I could pretend that I don’t know why I haven’t opened up to him, but the truth is, I know.
I haven’t told him because, while I’ve trusted Ash with my heart, I don’t trust him with my soul.
I’m not sure if I ever will.
CHAPTER 16
IT’S EARLY ON a Sunday morning and my phone is ringing. Two weeks have passed since my confrontation with Traci and not much has changed. In two more weeks Ash will be filming his scenes for the pilot and his elation has been growing exponentially. Last night we were out until almost four. There had been drinks, dancing, greasy late-night breakfasts, and all sorts of sinful fun. It was all great . . . except now my phone is ringing and I am in no way, shape, or form ready to face the day.
“Ash, get that for me?” I ask, saying the words into my pillow. When he doesn’t answer, the memory of how last night ended comes back more clearly. He didn’t spend the night. He wanted to sleep in his own bed so when he woke up he could start studying his lines right away. Well bully for him, but now I have to get the friggin’ phone.
I roll over on my mattress, eyes still shut tight, and flap my hand around until I find something that feels like a receiver. “Hello,” I croak.
“I need a favor.”
“Brad?” I open one eye and peek at the digital clock on the nightstand. “It’s
nine fifteen in the morning.”
“Yes, I wanted to call earlier, but decided I should wait for a more reasonable hour just in case you were sleeping in.”
“Nine fifteen on a Sunday morning. It’s not reasonable.”
“Mercy, my mom is back East. Her flight was supposed to land at LAX at one o’clock, but there’s a snowstorm over there. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to get in until well into the evening, if she’s able to make it here today at all.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. Can we talk about this at ten?” I glance at my window, see the sun peeking out from behind the blinds, and immediately scrunch my eyes closed again.
“She was going to watch June tonight, but now she obviously can’t. I was hoping you could fill in for her.”
I immediately sit up. “Wait a minute, are you asking me to babysit?”
“I’ll pay you,” he says, his voice tinged with urgency and worry. “I don’t expect you to do this for free.”
“Brad, it’s me, Mercy. The girl who dances in a cage and constructs toe-sucking fantasies for needy fetishists.”
“Don’t dance in a cage while you’re with June and try to keep feet out of the bedtime stories and you’ll be fine.”
“Wow,” I say lightly as I drop my aching head into my hands. “This is really not your finest parenting hour.”
He chuckles, and I smile despite myself. I try to visualize what Brad looks like right now, still dressed for sleep, his normally neat hair a little mussed, the strains of worry creasing his forehead.
“So you’ll do it?” he asks.
“Oh come on, are you really telling me you can’t find someone a little more suitable?” I ask. “Like, I don’t know, one of the homeless schizophrenics that hang out on the Promenade? Or maybe a nice cross-dressing hooker with cultivated maternal instincts?”
“She likes you, Mercy.”
“Yeah, I like her, too, but—”
“Just this one time,” he says. “I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”
“What exactly does that mean?” I push myself to my feet and cross to the window, happy to discover that I’m not nauseous.
“We’ll talk about it when you get here . . . say six forty-five?”
I open the shades and discover a pigeon sitting on the ledge. There’s something sort of surreal about the way it’s looking at me, with its head cocked to the side, like it was eavesdropping on the conversation. I can still feel grains of sleep in the corners of my eyes . . . maybe this entire phone call is a dream. Isn’t that more likely than the possibility that Brad looked at me and thought, Oh yeah, that’s a caregiver. “How long would you want me to stay?”
“I’ll need you for the whole evening, until late if you can manage it. You know my address, right? You can get here on your own?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Great, I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.” And just like that he hangs up.
I put the receiver back in the cradle and stare at it for a few minutes, waiting for him to call back and tell me he’s joking. But it doesn’t ring.
I’m going to take care of a child. A little girl. Tonight.
I fall back down onto the mattress and stare up at the amoeba-shaped water stain on the ceiling.
How can I take care of a little girl?
I can’t. That’s the answer, I can’t. After all, June is the only child I’ve even exchanged three words with since . . . well.
I put one hand over my eyes and try to take a deep breath, but it gets trapped in my chest, doing nothing more than adding pressure to my heart. Slowly I get up and, as if of their own volition, my eyes travel to my turntable. Without giving it too much thought I cross over to the records stacked below it and pull out Peter Gabriel. Carefully, with miraculously steady hands, I put it on, place the needle into the groove, and step back as the room fills with the eerily elongated notes of the synthesizer, starting low and then layered with something higher. Soon the sound is complemented with those light chimes and that odd whistle and finally the slow rhythm and the melancholy, seductive voice of Gabriel as he sings about empty streets and dreams . . . I back up, my eyes still on the turntable, listening, just listening. And, oh, there’s that chorus, all those quiet notes of longing and hope. I feel just the faintest smile on my lips. When this song came on the radio that night, I had decided immediately that it was my song. This is what I thought would be my touchstone. It was supposed to be symbolic of the renewed faith I was going to have in family, my renewed faith in love.
And now? I sigh and lower myself onto the sofa. The song still has meaning for me. It’s just that now it symbolizes the hope for love rather than the realization of it, and while I suppose that’s better than nothing, it’s not much.
With a flick of my hand I wipe away a tear that has escaped. It is a song about dreams after all. How had I expected any more from it than that?
But did those dreams have to be the precursor to so many nightmares?
Another tear slithers down my cheek and I shake my head, laughing at my own stupidity. God, I’m ridiculous. Why must I overthink everything? Brad didn’t ask me to take this child under my wing. He just asked me to watch her for a few hours. I can do that. Of course I can. It’s really not that big a deal.
And I sure as hell shouldn’t be crying over the past.
After all, I have no past to grieve.
WHEN BRAD OPENS the door and finds me there, the look of relief on his face is so intense it actually amuses me.
“You’re five minutes early,” he says gratefully.
“You thought I wasn’t gonna show at all,” I say, shaking an admonishing finger while stepping past him into the living room.
June is standing on the couch, her hair in one huge, bushy ponytail, and the moment she sees me she starts jumping up and down, happily hollering, “She came, she came, she came!”
Brad calmly crosses over, lifts her off the couch, and places her on the floor. “No jumping on the furniture.” Turning back to me, he points toward the kitchen. “There’s a Trader Joe’s pizza in the freezer.”
“It’s yummy!” June chimes in.
“And cranberry juice in the refrigerator. I’ll have my cell phone on me, but I can’t have it out while I’m working—”
“Wait a minute, you work?” I ask incredulously.
“Of course I work. How did you think I support . . .” His voice fades off. “Wait,” he says slowly, “you weren’t serious about that stuff you said at Envy.”
“No?” I ask meekly, “I wasn’t?”
“I work,” he says impatiently. “And tonight’s a . . . it will be lucrative. So if there’s a real emergency, then call and obviously I’ll come. But if it’s not an emergency . . .” He makes a small gesture with his hand indicating that I should refrain from contacting him for anything short of a house fire.
He pulls out a wrinkled yellow Post-it from his pocket and hands it to me. On it the word Commerce is written in Brad’s hurried cursive, and under it is a phone number. “Commerce?”
“It’s the name of the place where I’ll be,” he explains. “Only call there if you have no other option and you can’t reach my phone.”
“Tell her the latitude and longitude, Daddy!” June suggests.
I give her, then Brad a quizzical look.
“It’s a game we play,” he says with a little smile at his daughter. “I give her the latitude and longitude of a place and a map and then she pinpoints the place.”
“Ah, very educational. So what’s the latitude and longitude of Commerce?”
His eyes dart away from his daughter. “It’s a little ways outside of the city lines.”
I study him for a moment and then fold the note in half and carefully put it into my wallet. “June,” I ask, “would you give me a minute alone with your dad?”
“You guys going to talk ’bout grown-up stuff?”
I do a quick double take. I don’t know that anyone has ever re
ferred to me as a grown-up before.
“Yes, June,” Brad says, answering the question for me. “Just go play in your room; one of us will get you in a few minutes.”
She points at him threateningly. “Don’t leave without saying good-bye!”
“Do I ever?”
“So don’t start!” And with that she turns on her heel and half stomps, half prances to her bedroom, closing the door with a gleeful slam.
“She’s so great,” I whisper.
“Yes, a bit of a handful at times, but great. I can’t tell you how much this—”
“Are you a drug dealer?”
“What?”
“Commerce?” I repeat again. “It’s going to be a lucrative night? Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s not . . . normal.”
“First of all, I thought you didn’t believe in normal,” Brad says as he crosses his arms over his chest. A black-and-white New York looms behind him. “Secondly, look who’s talking.”
“I don’t have a kid,” I snap. He raises his eyebrows at my sudden change in tone. “You are that child’s world. If you’re doing something that will put yourself at risk, I’m not helping.”
“I’m not putting myself at risk.”
“Then tell me how you make your money.”
He hesitates for a moment and then gives a quick nod as if he’s come to some sort of decision. “I play poker.”
“What do you mean you play poker?” I ask, seating myself on the armrest of the sofa. “You mean you, like, have a poker night with your pals?”
“No, I mean that’s what I do. It’s how I earn a living.”
I sigh and wait for him to laugh at his own joke and tell me what he really does. But Brad remains quiet. And after about a minute my eyes begin to widen. “Wait a minute . . . you’re serious? You gamble for a living?”
“Poker isn’t really like gambling, not if you do it right.”
“Oh.” I turn that over in my head for a moment. “Kind of like how dropping acid isn’t really like taking drugs if you do it for enlightenment?”
“No.” He takes a seat on the couch right next to me so that now I’m looking down at him . . . but not by much; the man really is very tall. “Gambling is playing games of chance for money,” Brad explains. “Poker isn’t about chance. If you’re good you’ll win much more than you lose.”
