Necklace of Kisses

by Francesca Lia Block

  Max didn’t have to think about it. “She is,” he said.

  Ghost

  Maybe she was too drunk to notice, but no one followed her home that night. She took off her pink sandals and lay down on her bed. The room spun; not unpleasantly, like riding a carousel. Her fingers touched the stones in the necklace of kisses. One by one. The pearl looked like a little moon. The ruby reminded Weetzie of shining blood, and the emerald was leaves in the sun. The sapphire was a burning lake. The amethyst, flowers on fire. But each jewel was so much more than these things, too.

  Shelley. Heaven. Peri. Tristan. Pan. Her eyelids closed.

  There was a soft rapping sound at the French doors. But there was no wind tonight. More curious than afraid, though she didn’t know why, Weetzie jumped up and hid behind the curtains. Then she peeked out into the garden. A faint milky light was hovering over the plants—a dream of sleepy flowers. As soon as she saw it, Weetzie wanted the light to come into her room.

  “It’s me,” a voice said.

  She opened the doors and the light poured in. It hovered above the carpet, illuminating the flowers on the wallpaper, making them seem alive. Then the light began to take form, like a TV image swarming with static before it comes into focus—head, body, arms, legs, feet—the figure of a man.

  “I hope I didn’t give you the utzies.”

  But she wasn’t uneasy at all. She had been waiting.

  “Daddy?” said Weetzie. “Why did it take you so long?”

  “I can’t say that was the response I expected,” he said. His voice was the same—gravelly, cracking from cigarettes and booze—just fainter. “I thought you’d think you were dreaming.”

  “Not anymore,” said Weetzie. “It’s all a dream.”

  “I didn’t come because you didn’t call for me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d hear me.”

  He shrugged. His limbs were long and loose, like a marionette’s, in his dark suit. He had shadows beneath his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. Weetzie had imagined this so many times, for so many years. How he would return to her. How he would put his arms around her. She would feel his scratchy chin and smell the smoke in his jacket. But now she had no desire for him to hold her. Her hand went numb and she flexed her fingers to bring the heat and circulation back.

  “I didn’t call tonight,” she said. “Did I?”

  “No. Someone else.”

  Weetzie looked at her father’s ghost. She thought she saw a blurry X-ray of bones and organs beneath his clothes. Where the heart should have been was only light. She twisted the ring on her finger.

  “Max,” she said.

  “He’s been following you,” said Charlie Bat.

  Weetzie’s other hand went numb. She was remembering the sound of footsteps on the path. Had Max been there? Had he been watching her this whole time? Had he seen her kiss anyone?

  “Not his body. He can’t help it. He dreams of you and a part of his spirit follows you. He doesn’t mean to scare you, baby. He doesn’t know it, but tonight he sent me instead.”

  She imagined Max lying in their bed at home, dressed in his coat and trousers, curled up on his side. She could see his organs and bones through his clothes. His heart was still there—still beating—but he was turning into a ghost.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “He wants you to come home, Weetzie.”

  “Daddy?” she said. “Why did you leave?”

  He had left her twice, once when he fought with Brandy-Lynn and drove away in the yellow Thunderbird, his clothes soaked with the gin she had thrown at him, once with a handful of pills in a dark corner in his apartment in New York City. All she had wanted, both times, was for him to come back and hold her, as if that would take all the sadness away. But when he died it was Max who put his arms around her and tried to take her sadness into him, along with all his own sadness, the unfathomable sadness of the world.

  Charlie did not answer. He had left a third time. The room was dark, the garden beyond the French doors was dark, and there was a chill in the room.

  Morning

  The breakfast she had ordered the night before was sitting on her doorstep—fruit salad, a poached egg, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. On the tray there was also a small china mermaid figurine with big, surprised-looking eyes and long, green hair. Weetzie turned it upside down right away. There was a piece of paper tucked into the opening at the base of the figure. It read: help midnite xxx pamela.

  She ate, bathed, and dressed in her white tank over an orange French-lace bra, her orange zippered pants, and her orange sneakers. She was still wearing the jeweled necklace from the night before.

  Weetzie sat down at the yellow desk and added some notes to the list for Tristan Sable:

  The genie returns

  Meeting Zane Starling

  A diamond tear

  The ghost in the garden

  Be a hero!

  Then what?

  At the end of the list she wrote, “Call me and we’ll talk about these some more! Weetzie.”

  She put the notes into an envelope, addressed it to Dashell Hart, who had slipped her his card at their last lunch, got a postage stamp at the front desk, and mailed the notes to Dashell and Tristan. Then she walked to the row of shops. They were all open except for the jewelers; inside, it was completely dark. But Weetzie knew she didn’t need the genie anymore. Instead, she went to see Lacey at her Beautiful World.

  “I need your help,” she said. “How strong is your web? Can it catch very, very big flies?”

  “How big? How nasty?”

  “Big and nasty,” Weetzie said.

  Lacey smiled.

  Next, Weetzie went to the Cherub suite. She wasn’t sure who answered the door. The person was wearing an electric-blue kimono and headscarf—and needed a shave. Weetzie checked the feet to see if they would give her a clue. They were bare, with clear-polished toenails.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early,” Weetzie said.

  “It’s all right,” said Heaven. “Come in, sweetheart.”

  Weetzie went inside and sat down with Heaven on a settee with gold wings. Heaven handed Weetzie a small envelope.

  “What can I do you for?”

  “This may sound very silly,” said Weetzie.

  “Silly? I love silly! Where would we be without it?”

  “I just wondered if—this may be presumptuous—but I wondered if there was anything I could help you with.”

  Heaven grinned, coyly placed a hand between her own legs, and said, “That kiss wasn’t too bad. I could use a nice rock.”

  Weetzie’s eyes widened.

  “You know, a ruby earring! No, just kidding. I only kiss when I really know the person. Or if it’s a game of spin the bottle!”

  Weetzie said, “Because I realized that I’ve spent this whole time here indulging myself and I’d like to do something that matters a little. So if there’s anything you’d like…”

  Heaven reached out and touched Weetzie’s hand. She touched Max’s gold ring.

  “Are you leaving us?”

  Weetzie nodded. “Soon.”

  “Did you get what you came for?”

  “Almost,” Weetzie said. “There’s something else I have to do first.”

  “Come to my ball, tomorrow night,” said Heaven. “But besides that, what did you think you could do for me?”

  “I have no idea, really. I told you it was silly. I just wanted to try.”

  “Because you already have done something for me, sweetie,” Heaven said. “Congratulations. It only took you—what—about four decades, but still!”

  “What?” Weetzie asked.

  And Heaven said, “Why, Weetzie Bat, you’ve grown up, of course.”

  The Goddess

  On the way back from the desert, Max stopped at Weetzie’s store. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this; he knew she wasn’t there and he wouldn’t know what to say to Ping if she was working. But he just wanted to be inside.


  The salesgirl, Hilda, was talking to a guy with a goatee. Max walked around the shop. Everything was carefully and sparsely arranged on gleaming racks. There were forties satin slips; fifties party dresses and beaded sweaters; sixties minis; seventies bell-bottoms and print blouses. There were denim jackets and jeans appliquéd with silk flowers, wool coats embellished with jewels, and handpainted tuxedos. The wood floor, white walls, windows, and mirrors sparkled. The air did not smell of old clothing, only of Woolite and roses.

  Max chose a black tuxedo with a white rose painted on the lapel, a pair of gold pointy-toed pumps with very high heels, and elbow-length pink gloves. He went up to the counter and waited for Hilda.

  The goatee guy left, and Hilda turned around, not aware that Max was there. She had tears in her eyes, magnified behind her large, black-framed glasses.

  “Hilda?” said Max. “You okay?”

  She tried to smile and dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered cotton handkerchief. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Are you going to take that stuff?”

  “And I’d like to buy the dress up there.”

  Max pointed above the counter to a frothy white gown. It had a strapless, pleated satin bodice and a huge tulle skirt made of silk roses.

  “Princess Grace?” Hilda said.

  “Is that what she calls it?”

  “Her. That’s Weetzie’s Princess. I’ll put it all in the book.”

  “I’m buying it. Her.”

  “Don’t you want to just take her?”

  “No,” said Max. “I’m paying. No discount, either.”

  “Okay.” Hilda went to ring him up. “How’s Weetzie?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her for a while.”

  Max said, “She’s taking a little time for herself.”

  “Oh,” said Hilda. She looked at him more closely. “Are you okay?”

  Max said, “Do you want the truth or the polite answer?”

  “The truth,” said Hilda. “Always the truth.”

  “Not okay.”

  “Me either.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She looked down at the cash register. “That guy who was here, that’s Ezra.”

  “Ezra?”

  “Yeah. He’s my boyfriend, I think. Anyway, he’s always on me about something. Like he wants me to lose weight and get rid of my glasses. He even wants me to change my name. He thinks Hilda Doolittle is a bad name for a poet. What do you think?”

  Max said, “There was a poet in the twenties named Hilda Doolittle. You don’t know her?”

  Hilda shook her head.

  “She wrote this spare, beautiful stuff and she saw a goddess in Greece.”

  Hilda’s eyes widened, behind her glasses.

  “And Ezra Pound changed her name to H.D.”

  “H.D. That’s cool. Who is Ezra Pound?”

  “He was a very famous poet. Anyway, I don’t think Ezra is necessarily the coolest name I’ve ever heard.”

  Hilda shrugged.

  “Why do you like this guy?”

  Hilda said, “I’m not sure. He seems to care, I guess. He cares that I am fat and that I have a bad name.”

  Max shook his head. “Hilda. You are not fat.”

  Hilda tried to swallow the sandy lump in her throat. “He thinks I should call myself Big H.”

  “Have you told him to change his name? Or I guess he already did. Ezra, my God.”

  “He also had this idea that I call myself Hot Dawg.”

  Max winced. “Hilda, the only thing you need to change is your so-called boyfriend.” He looked at her pale, sad face. “And get in touch with your inner H.D.”

  Hilda smiled. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I just wish I was that good with my own problems.”

  “Well, what would you say to you if you were me?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll have to think about that one.”

  He took the pink-and-silver bag she handed him and left the store. As he stepped out into the sunshine, he thought about Hilda’s question.

  Find the goddess inside yourself instead of looking for the god in someone else.

  He wasn’t sure if his advice was to Hilda, or to himself.

  Sunset

  Weetzie thought that Sunset Boulevard was the perfect Los Angeles street. It had a movie named after it. If you followed it from beginning to end, you would find most pieces of the city’s puzzle. For Weetzie, the boulevard told a little story of her life. She had even been born on it.

  It began near downtown, just after Chinatown with its cherry blossom–colored lanterns, its pagoda restaurants and stone dragons. Cesar Chavez Avenue—its sign printed in English, Spanish, and Chinese—changed into a boulevard called Sunset. This birth was marked by a sleazy motel called Paradise. What a perfect name, Weetzie thought. In a city that was partly paradise, or at least pretending to be paradise.

  In Echo Park, there were sparse, dusty palm trees, tiny neighborhood markets selling meats and fruits, panaderías, lavanderías. There were clues that artists were hidden in the surrounding hills—a green building with headless mannequins and Day of the Dead skeletons on the balcony, bright murals defaced with graffiti, little outdoor cafés serving guava pastries and strong coffee.

  At Alvarado, there was a sign announcing that this was part of the historic Route 66. Max once told Weetzie that it had been the main thoroughfare from Chicago before the Cold War, when Eisenhower built the interstate system, partly as an escape route in case of nuclear attack. Weetzie thought, Of course Max would have to bring nuclear attack into this. For her, Route 66 was just the song, full of finger-snapping cool and adventure. But there was something she loved about the fact that he knew things like that. Once she’d asked him why he couldn’t just put them out of his mind, and he’d said, “It’s the only way I know to take care of you.”

  In Silverlake, there was a Mexican restaurant strung with red chili pepper lights, a Spanish restaurant with flamenco dancers in the courtyard, and a bar called Akbar—after the fez-headed comic-strip character—in a triangular wedge of a building. Weetzie, Max, Dirk, and Duck spent many a happy happy hour drinking beers or having margaritas and chips on this part of the street. Every year they went to the Sunset Junction street fair to hear bands and eat greasy food. When Weetzie was very young, she had too many beers and ran around the fair with Dirk and a group of other people she couldn’t remember, except for the odd-looking, skinny member of a seminal, now-defunct New Wave band who was gnawing on a giant, greasy turkey leg. “What a goat-rope this place is,” he muttered when the rickety portable Ferris wheel they were riding got stuck in midair. The ornate, deco Vista Theatre stood on the corner where the street angled back around toward Hollywood.

  Weetzie was born at Kaiser Hospital and went to Hollywood High School on Sunset. When she was little, her daddy took her to see Mary Poppins at the Cinerama Dome and he spent the whole second half of the movie chasing her in circles around the aisles. They liked to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory, slurping up huge plates of noodles with marinara sauce in red-velvet Victorian train car seats. When Weetzie was older and Charlie moved to New York, she searched for someone to run through theaters and eat spaghetti with. She wore butterfly wings to the Palladium and stood alone in the darkness, listening to the band, hoping to find him. She played billiards next to rude eighties TV heartthrobs at the Hollywood Athletic Club. She drank martinis on the patio at the Cat and the Fiddle pub and ate cheap vegetarian Indian food at Paru’s, but if he was there, too, he didn’t recognize her. He did not discover her eating strawberry ice cream sundaes with marshmallow topping at Schwab’s, but she did find her prom dress at the vintage clothing shop that opened up in its place, before that became the Virgin Megastore.

  The Strip was lined with giant billboards. Weetzie saw a guy sleeping up on one once, in the eighties, staying there for as long as he could, to advertise something; she’d forgotten what. She remembered him, though, with his greasy eighties hair, handsome, grimy face, and c
old eyes, joking with the crowd below. Doing anything to get some attention. That was what Sunset Boulevard was like. Big show-off street with its nightclubs blaring. Whiskey. Roxy. Rainbow. Starwood. Weetzie thought about all the bands she had seen here when she was young—the Weirdos, the Cramps, the Go-Go’s, Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, the Unknowns, Suburban Lawns, the Adolescents, Fear, the Circle Jerks, the Screaming Sirens, Gears, X. Stepping into that world of music and darkness and smoke and beer, where you could forget who you were because you hadn’t been it for that long anyway, where you could be a real artist, a stranger, dead movie star, broken doll, ghoul, gay boy, devil, princess, warrior, imagining you had found your muse, best friend, healer, beloved. Going home alone.

  Just a few miles away, a palace belonging to a sheik had once been entirely surrounded by nude white statues with pubic hair painted on them. It was now just an ominous-looking black gate and a field of brown weeds. Everywhere else the street was lined with rolling green lawns, mansions, and signs advertising maps to stars’ homes. Marlene Dietrich. Charlie Chaplin. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. If you purchased one, you could even find the Brentwood apartment where Marilyn died.

  The farther west you went, the more the street succumbed to nature. Clusters of happy palm trees decked with strands of their own pearls; banana trees; eucalyptus with peeling bark; white-blossoming magnolia; the odd exotic willow; fir and jacaranda; banks of ivy; and the pale blue flowers that Weetzie used to stick in her hair with their own juice. The trees had a secret; behind them were lovely homes or smaller streets leading to hidden parks and wild canyons. And then Sunset dipped down—past the lake shrine trimmed in azure and gold—down, down went the street, seeking the ocean like a lover—just as Weetzie would, tonight.

  Ocean

  Weetzie hadn’t been able to sleep all night because of the sound of her heart—tick tock tick tock; she lay awake in her clothes, watching the clock. At eleven forty-five, she got up and went outside. The air had an odd scent, and she realized it was a salt sea breeze. She had never smelled the ocean from the pink hotel before.