Sympathy for the Devil

by Christine Pope

  Since Jacqui knew I had a second date with my mystery man, she let me flee a few minutes early so I would have enough time to get ready. I’d already pretty much lined up what I was going to wear, but an extra fifteen minutes never hurt anyone.

  The phrase “comfortable shoes” led me to believe we probably weren’t going anywhere too fancy. There seems to be a corollary that the more glam your footwear is, the more painful it has to be. So I’d picked out a pair of flat brown boots that still looked very smart because of the buckle detail at the ankles, my favorite pair of jeans, a white button-up shirt, and a tweedy fitted jacket in muted greens and browns. Put together, the ensemble looked very Town and Country, very English gentry rusticating for the weekend.

  I slipped in a pair of plain gold hoops, and decided against a necklace. But a few Christmases ago my father had given me a heavy gold ring set with a square-cut green tourmaline, and I put that on as well. Then I fiddled with my hair, trying to decide whether I should pull it back or wear it down. In the end I went with leaving it down — with it pulled back in a barrette, I looked just a little too much as if I were about to go fox hunting or something.

  After all that I started to wonder why I was wasting so much effort on my appearance. Did I really care what he thought? Should I care? I mean, here I’d been having minor freak attacks all day at the thought of seeing Luke again, worrying whether this night would be my last or something, and yet I was being a typical girl and futzing ad nauseum with my hair. Something was definitely wrong with that picture.

  I made a sound of disgust and threw the hairbrush back in its drawer. At that inopportune moment I heard a knock at the front door.

  Great. Despite my efforts to remain calm, I felt my heart begin to beat more quickly in my chest. I took a breath, tossed my hair over my shoulder, and went out into the living room. My fingers trembled as they worked the deadbolt.

  Wonderful, I thought. He’s not even inside, and you’re already a big ball of goo.

  I wrenched the door open. He stood outside, looking casually gorgeous in a black leather jacket over a white button-down shirt and dark jeans.

  “Hi,” I said. Wow, that was brilliant.

  “Good evening,” he replied. Then a corner of his mouth lifted as he looked at me. I’d continued to stand in the doorway, blocking the entrance. “May I come in?”

  I hesitated. Maybe I shouldn’t let him in. If I let him in, maybe that would give him some sort of strange power over me, just like —

  “I’m not a vampire,” he said, lip curling a bit. “I promise I have no dastardly intentions.”

  For someone who said he couldn’t read my mind, he was doing an awfully good job of it. But I didn’t want him to see that he’d gotten to me, so I stepped aside and let him enter my modest living room.

  Compared to his newly acquired home in Hancock Park, it wasn’t much. But I’d carefully selected each piece, from the chenille-upholstered couch to the rustic-looking tables from World Market, and I had to say I was proud of my apartment. It was warm and welcoming, in shades of soft tan and brown with accents of brick red. I hated cold-feeling houses, which was partly why I’d disdained his first choice of that modern ’50s place in the Hollywood Hills. Likewise, I didn’t much care for the way Traci — I refused to call her my stepmother — had decorated my father’s house. She’d brought in sleek, uncomfortable furniture and expensive modern art, all of which made the place look more like a gallery than a place where people actually lived. Whatever. It wasn’t the house I’d grown up in, after all, and they had to live in it, not me.

  “It suits you,” he said, after a brief glance around the living room.

  “Um — thanks,” I replied, feeling a little awkward. I wondered if he’d somehow discovered that I’d tried to enlist the big guns for a little divine assistance.

  “You’d better get a coat,” he advised. “It’s chilly out.”

  Feeling even more mystified, I went to the hall closet and retrieved the brown leather ankle-length coat that was my end-of-season splurge at Loehmann’s last spring. The coat always made me feel chic and tall, and I figured I needed all the help I could get at this point.

  After I’d locked up and we’d descended the stairs to the ground level, I got another surprise. Instead of the big dark-green Bentley, a fire-engine-red Jaguar convertible sat at the curb.

  I shot Luke a questioning glance.

  “This is a little more maneuverable,” he explained. “Better for tight spots.”

  That sounded…dubious…but, not knowing what else to do, I went ahead and climbed into the passenger seat after he’d opened the car door for me. He got in the car, started it up, and headed east toward La Brea, then turned left.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “Hollywood first,” he replied.

  Hollywood? Not really my destination of choice, even though the city really had done quite a bit to improve its reputation the past few years. And at the end of January, it wouldn’t be quite as overrun with tourists as it was the majority of the time.

  It was still busy, though — Friday nights could be horrendous, with everyone trolling along both Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards. Even though the police really tried to crack down on random cruising, it was still pretty obvious that a lot of the people who shared the street with us didn’t have a particular destination in mind. They were more interested in showing off their tricked-out cars. The Jag could more than hold its own, luckily.

  We turned right on Hollywood and headed east, crawling along from light to light. It was the sort of traffic that would have made me chew the dashboard in frustration, but Luke threaded his way through the packed cars with ease. Finally he turned down a side street and parked in a pay lot.

  As I followed him back out to Hollywood Boulevard, I realized what our destination was. I’d never eaten there before, but Musso & Frank’s Grill was a landmark, a restaurant that had been in the same location for more than eighty years.

  “You sure do know how to pick them,” I commented, as he held the door open for me and I went on into the building, which was clubby and dark. I felt as if I’d stepped back in time to the ’50s.

  He smiled. “Let’s just say that I do enjoy the finer things of this world.”

  That much was obvious. Not bothering to reply, I watched as he spoke in a brief undertone to the maitre d’, then trailed along after them to a high-backed booth upholstered in red leather. After we were seated and handed heavy menus that looked as if they’d been around since Hollywood’s heyday, I said, “I still don’t see where the comfortable shoes come in. If I’d known we’d be coming here, I would have dressed up a bit more.”

  The amused look never left his face. “Don’t worry — I saw several other people in here wearing jeans as well. You Southern Californians are remarkably relaxed about your dress codes.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen people wearing T-shirts in expensive restaurants and sporting flip-flops at cocktail parties. Micaela told me she’d once spotted someone wearing tennis shoes at an Oscar party, but since I hadn’t been there, I couldn’t confirm that sighting.

  “The chops are particularly good here,” he said. “In case you wanted something besides steak.”

  Personally, I was the kind of girl who couldn’t ever get tired of steak, but I thought I’d give the grilled pork chops a try. Luke requested a porterhouse from the red-jacketed waiter who took our order, asked for wine recommendations, and settled on an Australian cabernet.

  “What is this all about, really?” I asked, after the waiter had returned with the wine, poured a measure into each of our glasses, and then departed with an air of having bestowed a great favor. “All this wining and dining? This captain of industry act you’ve got going? I just don’t get it.”

  “Back to that, are we?” He let me stew in my own juices while he took a sip of wine.

  “Yes, ‘back to that.’ Did you really think I would stop asking you why you
wanted to see me so badly?”

  “I’m curious, Christa. Do you question all the men you’ve dated as to why on earth they could possibly be interested in seeing you?”

  “Of course not.” I allowed myself a mouthful of wine. It was good — fruitier than the Bordeaux we’d shared a few evenings earlier. “But you can’t tell me the situations are exactly equal. I mean, those guys aren’t — they’re not — ”

  “Not the Devil?” For the first time, his smile looked a little tight around the edges. “How many reassurances do I have to give you?”

  “As many as it takes to convince me you’re not up to something.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he stared straight at me, the blue eyes catching my own. At that particular second I felt as if I couldn’t do anything but look back at him. His gaze seemed to bore into the depths of my soul.

  “I swear that my intentions aren’t evil,” he said. “No soul-snatching or Rosemary’s Baby. I promise.”

  He’d said as much to me before, but for some reason this time I found myself beginning to believe him. Yes, there was obviously something going on here. I’d be an idiot if I didn’t recognize that much. But whatever that something might be, I was starting to think it didn’t involve any sort of sinister objective.

  The waiter arrived with our food at that point, and I had to wait until he had safely departed before I could reply.

  “I’ll stop with the questions,” I said, “but only because I’m hungry, and these chops look delicious.”

  Luke shook his head slightly and said, “I suppose I’ll have to accept that for now.” He raised his glass toward me, as if conceding the point, and the rest of the dinner passed peaceably enough. I didn’t ask any more awkward questions, and tried to keep the tone of the conversation light. The booth seemed private enough, but the sorts of things I kept thinking I’d like to discuss weren’t topics I really wanted overheard. I could only hope that we’d be someplace less public later on.

  As it turned out, we ended up somewhere extremely not private: Griffith Observatory.

  We parked the Jag in the parking structure at Hollywood and Highland and caught a specially designated tour bus to take us up the hill to the Observatory. The site did have parking, but at that hour on a Friday night? Forget about it. I wondered if Luke’s “opening doors” somehow failed to extend to good parking karma.

  It felt odd to sit next to Luke on the crowded bus; we’d never been in such close physical proximity before, and once or twice I felt his knee brush against mine as the bus took a particularly tight turn on the uphill grade. Strange, too, to sit next to this being who looked like a man as we were surrounded by faces of every color and every age: I saw what looked like church or school groups, couples out on dates, families making a night of it. All so human, all so ordinary.

  Except one, of course.

  The Observatory wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me. My parents took Lisa and me back when we were around ten and eight, respectively — I knew we couldn’t have been much older than that because Jeff hadn’t even been born yet. We all piled into my mother’s Volvo and trekked up the 5 Freeway into L.A., stopping at Philippe’s downtown for beef-dip sandwiches before making the final leg of the journey to Griffith Park. We watched a laser show that accompanied the music from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, gawked at the Tesla coil, and stared in awe at the Foucault pendulum. Although this evening we weren’t exactly hiking up the hill, as I saw some people doing, the planetarium still had a lot of steps and ups and downs, so I was glad of Luke’s advice that I wear comfortable shoes.

  No laser show this time, but honestly, I found the presentation given in the planetarium to be even more engaging. We all sat there in the dark, watching as an amazingly intricate map of the heavens was projected on the smooth dome of the ceiling above us, and listened to the astronomer who was giving the talk discuss space exploration and the mythology surrounding the various constellations. The whole time, though, I couldn’t help thinking about the man who sat next to me. Had he witnessed the birth of these stars? Could my mortal brain even begin to comprehend everything he must have seen and done throughout his long, long existence?

  Feeling a bit chastened, I remained silent as we filed out of the Observatory proper and wandered through the halls. Luke paused by the Tesla coil to let a group of excited elementary school kids laugh and point at the coil before being swept on by a pair of harassed-looking teachers. I wondered if they were getting overtime pay to herd their students up here after hours.

  “He was a true genius,” Luke murmured, after the hubbub had died down a bit.

  “Who?”

  “Tesla.” The static discharge from the coil cast odd shadows across Luke’s face as he added, “So many people have no conception of how much he really contributed to this world. You can thank Edison for that.”

  “Thomas Edison?” I asked, feeling a little stupid. I had to admit that I didn’t know a lot about Tesla, but school kids in the United States got Edison’s genius drummed into their heads from an early age.

  Luke began to walk toward the doors, and I followed him. We emerged into the open area outside the front entrance, where spotlights illuminated the beautiful Art Deco building and the astronomers’ statues that stood in the center of the circular drive. Although the day had been clear and mild for late January, by now the air was quite cold, and I found myself glad of the leather coat Luke had suggested I wear.

  “Edison,” he said, after we took up an isolated position against a railing that overlooked steep hillsides and gave way to a staggering view of the Los Angeles cityscape, “was a jumped-up hack who stole ideas left and right and strong-armed those who would oppose him.”

  “Wow,” I remarked, after pulling my coat a little more closely about me, “so much for that diorama I made in the fourth grade with Edison inventing the light bulb.”

  Something suspiciously like a snort reached my ears. “It’s amazing, the impunity with which history gets rewritten.”

  For some reason, hearing him speak so nonchalantly of people I’d only read about in history books brought home more than anything the reality that he was much more than a mortal man. It was easy to forget when I sat across the table from him at a restaurant, or watched him drive a car, or even (or maybe especially) when I sat next to him on a crowded bus and felt his leg touch mine.

  “There was even some debate as to whether Edison should end up in Hell for his various nefarious acts,” Luke said, in tones so casual you’d think he was discussing whether to have soup or salad with dinner. “Unfortunately, God won that one.”

  “Uh, God?” I asked. Having someone mention God the way I’d off-handedly refer to a coworker in a conversation was a little disconcerting.

  “Most cases are fairly clear-cut, but every once in a while we have a difference of opinion.”

  “I’m guessing God has the final say,” I ventured, and Luke actually laughed.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice sounding ruefully amused. His face was in profile to me as he stared out over the drop-off and toward the shimmering lights of Los Angeles. The wind had picked up, and I saw it ruffling at his heavy dark hair. A few clouds began to blot out the stars; the forecasters had said a storm would be moving in over the weekend, and it looked as if they might be right.

  Luke and I had this little section of the viewpoint to ourselves. I supposed the night air was now cold enough that most of our fellow tourists had decided to stay indoors. Angelenos aren’t the most hardy lot when it comes to chilly temperatures. Maybe it was the isolation that gave me the courage to ask, “What’s it like?”

  He turned toward me then. “What?”

  “Hell.”

  With a shrug he replied, “It’s different things for different people.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Even in the dim reflected lights from the Observatory, I could see him smile slightly. “If you’re worried about ending up there, don’t be.�
��

  I hadn’t even realized I was worried about my eventual fate until he said that. Whatever else, if the Devil says you’re not going to Hell, then you probably aren’t.

  “Hell is actually far less populated than some might think,” he went on, the smile fading as he spoke. “Those who have killed, those who have willfully sought the destruction of others, or whose actions have brought about the pain and suffering of many — yes, those are the people who will end up in Hell. But taking the Lord’s name in vain, or telling lies, or any of the other thousand and one transgressions people commit day in and day out — no, it takes much more than that.”

  His words were obscurely comforting. Oh, there were some things in my past I wasn’t proud of, but at least it sounded as if the cosmic balance sheet was stacked in favor of the regular guy.

  “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” he asked.

  That one was easy. There were worse things than overstating the charitable contributions on your income tax or wishing that the person who just cut you off on the freeway would drop dead of a sudden thrombosis. “Standing up Anthony Whitman for the senior prom,” I said.

  “Tell me.”

  “Don’t you know already?” I demanded.

  “I know Anthony’s side of it,” Luke replied imperturbably. “I want to hear your side.”

  Was it just me, or had the temperature suddenly dropped about ten degrees? I pulled the coat more tightly against myself and wished I’d thrown on the cashmere muffler my sister bought me for my birthday a few years ago. I sighed, then said, “Anthony asked me to the senior prom — I assume you know what those are.”

  “Of course.”