All That Was Happy

by M. M. Wilshire

  She was back on Wilshire and nearly to her turnoff when she took a call on the hands-free from Lauren.

  “I’ve got a lot of material from the agency,” Lauren said. “We need to go over it very carefully. It may figure prominently into our strategy.”

  “Not anymore,” Beckie said. “The divorce is off. I’m back with Bernie.”

  “Oh?” Lauren said.

  “As of about 5 A.M. this morning,” Beckie said.

  “Wow,” Lauren said. “Talk about volatility. I’ve been glancing through the agency’s findings--are you sure you don’t want to go over them with me before you make such a big decision?”

  “I’m sure,” Beckie said. “The big decision was made twenty-nine years ago in Las Vegas when I promised to love, honor and obey until death did I part--no matter how rigorous such a vow might be to keep, or no matter how much of a guinea pig I might become.”

  “Where shall I messenger all this information?” Lauren said. “It won’t hurt you to take a look at the findings--that’s my opinion as a friend, not as your lawyer, since I assume you’ve just fired me.”

  “I’ll be home in a few minutes,” Beckie said. “You can send it to me there. I’m going to bed--just have them go around back and leave it on the stoop.”

  “I wish you luck,” Lauren said. “Call me if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Lauren,” Beckie said. “You can send your final accounting to my husband’s accountant at the warehouse. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’re a great lawyer.”

  “Don’t think of me as a lawyer,” she said, “but as a friend.”

  Beckie turned off Wilshire and cruised slowly down her street. It all seemed the same and yet smaller somehow, as though the neighborhood had suffered some kind of shrinkage in the prior 48 hours. She pulled into the driveway and shut off the motor before removing Mr. Boopers from his lair in the purse and dropping him onto the small, ornamental lawn. Something was missing--with a start, she realized what it was--her fountain. Somebody’d managed, in her absence, to rip it off.

  Chapter 37

  She awoke at 3 P.M. feeling drained, as though somebody’d come in while she’d slept and opened the petcock which allowed her bodily fluids to escape. Her mouth was covered with a patchy fur and her eyes were filled with sand. Fifteen minutes later, after a needle-hot shower, her teeth carefully brushed, and a half-cup of microwaved instant coffee consumed, she felt almost human.

  She checked the back stoop--Lauren’s package was there, a thick folio of documents with a five-page, closely typed summary prepared by the investigative agency. She wandered back to the living room and felt a pang--there, in the ashtray on the coffee table lay the remains of the two stogies she and Huntington had enjoyed together on their star-crossed first meeting. She clipped and lit a fresh cigar in his memory, enjoying the first few puffs in between sips of a decent Tawny Port. Her thoughts wouldn’t come together into any logical order about anything. Pacing about for a moment, she finally abandoned her feet in favor of sliding deep into the cushions of the overstuffed leather couch, where she fought to keep her emotions from veering out of control on the curves of her anguish.

  She pressed the TV remote--nothing much on--Rosie O’Donnell wading through one of her endless self-promos as Hollywood’s Best Friend--Jenny Jones, her inane smile focused on a couple of gross, lower-percentile humanoids announcing their setting of a new record in moral lows.

  She was lonely. The time unraveled minute by minute, as though in no hurry to proceed with bringing the future into the present. She checked her palms--they were cold and clammy. In spite of the fine Spring weather, she was shivering slightly. The phone rang. Leah.

  “He doesn’t deserve you back,” Leah said. “But I’m glad--not for you--but for me. Dinner tonight?”

  “Only if you let me pay,” Beckie said. “But can you come into town? I’ve got just enough energy to go maybe someplace local before I sock myself in with an old movie and a decent bottle of scotch.”

  “I’ll come in if I can stay over,” Leah said.

  “Sure,” Beckie said.

  “Beckie? Are you all right?” Leah said.

  “I’m just wondering if I answered the questions correctly,” Beckie said. “You know which ones I mean. The first question is, Is It Better To Leave? The second question is, Is It Better To Stay? I chose to stay. I wonder if I chose correctly.”

  “It’ll take time,” Leah said. “What Bernie put you through was a sin--the main thing is, you need to give yourselves both a chance to get to know each other again. You’ve got to give it time.”

  “We talked a little bit about my having a baby,” Beckie said. “They have the technology to do wonders for a woman my age.”

  “There’s no rush,” Leah said. “Bernie has a lot of groveling to do first--don’t let him get away with taking you for granted.”

  “We may try Paris when he gets back from Japan.”

  “Paris could do wonders for you both. My best tip? Don’t be too considerate to him for awhile--play hurt for as long as you can milk it.”

  “That won’t be hard,” Beckie said. “Because I won’t be playing.”

  “I’ll see you around 7,” Leah said.

  She had a few hours to kill before Leah got there. She set aside the stogie and the port and opened her glass hutch to examine the variety of ceramic figurines on display. Center-most was a statue of the Blessed Virgin, her right foot pressing firmly on the head of the snake, whose twisted, sin-warped coils covered the blighted earth at the Virgin’s feet. She took the statue from the hutch, setting it atop the fireplace mantle before kneeling and making the sign of the cross.

  “It’s been a long time, Blessed Mother,” she said. She wondered if she had the right to just start in praying without making some small act of penance first, but decided that in the long run, even a small something with sincerity was better than the twenty-nine years of nothing she’d accomplished thus far.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” she began. She’d say a rosary in memory of Huntington--a rosary dedicated to helping him find his true vocation in life.

  “Blessed art thou among women,” she said. The doorbell rang. She hurried to answer it. A delivery man with a clipboard, his mini-truck with its camper shell parked behind the Roadster. Her stomach knotted at the sight of the object protruding from the open back window of the camper shell.

  The Robert August surfboard.

  She instructed the man to bring the board inside, to the living room, where he carefully laid it out across the arms of the big leather easy chair before accepting a generous cash tip and a couple of the Macanudo cigars, after favorably commenting upon the ripely scented air of the room’s interior. After she was alone, she worked up the courage to run her hands along the surfboard’s rails, as if by so doing, she could resurrect, somehow, a tangible memory of the man to whom, only a day ago, she’d first given her true passion in the form of an explosive kiss. Her hands reached the end of their journey along the rails and came upon the discovery which broke her down to her knees, convulsed with sobs for that which could never be, for what was once alive, and now fading to a distant memory.

  Huntington had waxed the nose.

  Chapter 38

  “I wanted him,” Beckie said. “When he lifted me up in front of all those people, and I could see the entire city spread out below us like a jeweled carpet, I wanted him more than life itself. I wanted him deeply, and forever--and when he proposed to me, I felt a completeness I’ve never known before. But now, it’s over and done. I’m back with Bernie. He called me from the plane just before you came by. We’re definitely doing Paris when he gets back from Japan.”

  “You did the right thing,” Leah said. “I know it can’t be easy on you, coming back the way you did, but in time, you’ll adjust and be glad you didn’t throw away your marriage. And if its passion you two need, well--you’re going to Paris in the Spring--what more can I say?”

  Having
made the short hop up Wilshire to Westwood Village--a decaying pocket of upscale shopping urbane which had declined markedly since the advent of the more successful Third Street Promenade--which Beckie, this night, was trying to avoid--the two friends impulsively took a table at Eurochow--a splashy place resembling, from the outside, a lunatic’s back lot fashioning of the Dome of the Mosque--their table for two being far enough away from the large communal table to afford some privacy, but close enough to the 25-foot marble, light-emitting obelisk to risk being crushed by the thing should an impromptu earthquake decide to shake the place.

  Beckie, finding her appetite somewhat grief impaired, picked apart a somewhat unappetizingly gluey Veal ravioli.

  “I don’t know why we eat here and pay these prices,” Leah said, examining minutely a sad, greasy pork sparerib. “You can find better Chinese at any mall.”

  “We’re here because they have valet parking and otherwise there is no parking in Westwood--there hasn’t been for years,” Beckie said. “The prices are so high because it’s in a historic building. I admit it’s really just a tourist trap, the way everything in L.A. seems to be going these days--this isn’t the real Mr. Chow’s anyway, it’s a sort of a fake one--the young Hollywood set still eats at Chow’s original place in Beverly Hills. But to be fair about the food, you’ve got to admit you can’t get fresh lychee nuts at the mall.”

  “There’s rumors they’re putting in a Gelson’s in the Village later next year,” Leah said, referring to a supermarket legendary for its shelves laden with upscale, overpriced gourmet items. “You’ll be able to get your Lychee nuts there without the hassle of a forty-five minute wait for a table.”

  “I might as well face it,” Beckie said. “My heart is broken--nothing’s going to taste good ever again. I just can’t get over the feeling that I’ve failed, somehow, in some very important way. Maybe I shouldn’t have given in to Bernie so easily--it’s just starting to dawn on me what he did to me--the man has been seeing another woman for the past six months. How could I have simply surrendered to him just because he’s through with her and wants me back?”

  “It doesn’t make you a wimp,” Leah said. “There’s no need to beat yourself up for what you decided--remember, it was you who decided what to do, not Bernie--you’re holding all the cards. As far as his affair with Nolene goes, I know it’s hard for you to stomach that, but we often have to bend a little and make compromises.”

  “I feel dirty about being with Bernie again,” Beckie said. “When I walked into the house, the whole place felt dirty to me--I needed a nap, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie down on the bed--instead, I slept on the couch.”

  “It takes time,” Leah said. “You feel violated by what Bernie did. That’s why you two need Paris--you need time to walk and talk and cry together--you need time to heal.”

  Beckie sipped her wine, an oily red which had been served too warm. “Ugh,” she said. “Forget the Lychee nuts--we’re getting out of here.”

  “Maybe we can stop by Baskin-Robbins on the way home,” Leah said. “I think maybe some of their Rocky Road will clear the taste of this place out of your system.”

  “If I’d had any backbone,” Beckie said. “I wouldn’t be where I am today. Last night, in Huntington’s arms, I felt like a whole person--I was on top of the world. Tonight, I feel like I’m sitting in solitary confinement awaiting execution.”

  “Just stop at 31 Flavors,” Leah said.

  The big Roadster shot beneath the massive Wilshire/405 Freeway underpass and wound it’s way past the palm-studded park-like grounds of the VA Hospital--a reminder to all that life in the lap of luxury often came with a price--before plunging into the morass of clamoring high-rises and upscale strip malls of the eastern section of Santa Monica wherein one might find, if nothing to satisfy the soul itself, at least the answer to many things concerning touching, seeing, tasting, smelling, and feeling--things which in their own right had to be satisfied, and usually were in Los Angeles--by any means available.

  “This whole thing’s really taken its toll,” Beckie said, wheeling into the requested parking lot of the three-story strip mall where the best ice cream on the planet was sold.

  “You’ll bounce back,” Leah said.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Beckie said. “Maybe I’m spending too much time feeling sorry for myself.”

  “Sometimes,” Leah replied, “whenever I’m down about myself, I’ve found that all it takes is a dish of Rocky Road to get things started in the other direction.”

  They headed into the brightly lit store to negotiate the purchase of said directions, finding themselves in good company, as they did so, with a lot of other people who obviously had come to the same conclusion regarding the best and fastest way to obtain a sure sense of equilibrium.

  “What’ll it be?” the server said.

  “I wish I knew,” Beckie said. “I really wish I knew.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to decide,” he said.

  “That’s truer than you know,” she said.

  Chapter 39

  “I’m sending you home,” Beckie said. “I can’t do the old-movies and popcorn routine tonight.”

  “I understand,” Leah said. “You need to collect yourself--you’ve been under a lot of pressure.”

  The ladies were finishing up their Rocky Road, having elected to do so while standing on the sidewalk in front of the store to take advantage of the distractions of lights and people moving in and around the various levels of the tiny tri-level strip on Wilshire Boulevard, a habit held my many Angelenos, who, when in doubt, unlike their country cousins in the rural regions to the north, could always simply step outside to avoid their loneliness by watching the passing parade.

  “You’ll be okay alone?” Leah said.

  “I have Mr. Boopers,” Beckie said. “He’s more company than most.”

  They returned to the house and Leah bid her good-byes before setting a course for Agoura. Upon entering the house, and while playfully batting at an overjoyed Mr. Boopers with her foot, mimicking an excitement he obviously felt but she did not, Beckie noticed once again a dry, empty smell, as though the house was no longer fresh, and had decided to return unto the dust a bit earlier than anybody had expected. Likewise, the place seemed dark, and Beckie, on an impulse, as though to offset the darkness within her soul, made the rounds, turning on every light in the place until the interior resembled more a movie set than a home. This accomplished, she furnished herself with a square tumbler of Bailey’s on ice, the choice of chocolate liqueur being made to further the intrusion of chocolate into her veins, the better to attempt the suppression of the dark mood she was currently falling under. It remained but to move the Robert August board to a leaning position on the wall beside the living room entryway before finding a comfortable spot on the leather couch whereupon she clipped and lit yet another Macanudo bomber in Huntington’s honor and blew a single, sad ring into the center of the brightly lit room, the ring hovering over the heavy glass-topped coffee table before breaking up and fading like the last of her hopes.

  To try and close the gap between accepting Bernie’s offer to start their marriage over again and really accepting, inside herself, the starting over of the ruptured bond between them, she quaffed the Bailey’s quickly and poured another, this time mixing in a shot of vodka into the liqueur to further power the chocolate to new levels, at which point she felt the beginnings of release deep down in her guts and sat back to await some sort of peace, however temporary, from the gloom inside her.

  The statuette of Mary atop the fireplace mantle caught her eye, and she remembered her attempt to say the rosary earlier, an effort cut short by the arrival of the Robert August board. Not bothering this time to kneel, nor to extinguish her cigar, she made the sign of the cross and started gamely back in.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” she said.

  The phone rang. She stretched to pick up the receiver.

  “You bitch,” the voice said. �
��You’ve ruined me.” Bernie’s voice--badly slurred, perhaps from the effects of too much rice wine or whatever it was they drank in Japan. Brought to her clearly, without a trace of trans-oceanic fog by the miracle of satellite technology.

  His words, delivered point blank into her right ear canal, rocked her backwards onto the couch.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the papers,” he said. “You’re front page news with your society boy, Huntington--the two of you posing like Tarzan and Jane in front of every important financier in the world--did you plan that little stunt to purposely destroy me, or were you just being your usual fat stupid self? Whatever it was you did, you did it good. The Jap bankers just threw the L.A. Times in my face and laughed me out of their office. Needless to say, they weren’t impressed with my ability to lead the consortium--apparently--according to them--I can’t even control my own wife.”

  Beckie idly rubbed her swollen right eye as the hole she’d dug for herself was slowly filled in with further poisonous accusations and epithets which spewed from Bernie’s mouth with a venom any Western Diamondback would have envied.

  “Bernie!” she finally shrieked.

  There was a pause--her shout across the oceans had contained sufficient power, if not to kill, at least to stun.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” he said.

  “I have just two words for you, Bernie,” she said. “Just two words, and then I’m hanging up the phone.”

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  There were a lot of things she could’ve said, things which perhaps she was expected to say, or things which, in the combative environment she currently found herself in, she could have said and it would be understood why she said them, but what she finally elected to say was lost on him, and was something he’d have had to get up a lot earlier in the morning than he did to fully understand. But to her, what she said, said it all.