by Susan Dunlap
Money was tight. I played the clutch against the gas and inched forward.
"How many times—”
"Macomber—”
"Mac. It’s Mac. And don’t tell me to stop with the questions. People’ve been saying that all my life—”
"Slow learner?”
"Want to know why? ’Cause I got questions. That’s how come I’m where I am and—”
"My turn. You ready to answer?”
"Fire away.”
I turned to him. If he’d been a dog he’d’ve been one of those little yappers. But he wouldn’t have been bad looking if he’d ever been still enough to judge. Dark brown eyes, black hair cut short, obligatory jeans and black T-shirt, three of those colored bracelets for charity. His fingers were on the dashboard camera. In a minute he’d be messing with the lens.
I said, "Have you ever tried suicide?” It just came out.
For an instant he was still. "No.”
"You’re lying, aren’t you?”
"No.”
"But you’ve considered it.”
"Hell, who hasn’t? I bet you have, haven’t you? Am I right?”
"I’ll tell you if you answer me this.”
He gave a sharp nod.
"What is life?”
"Huh?”
"You decided you didn’t want to die. What is it you don’t want to give up? What is 'life’?”
"What kind of question—”
"This is how stunt doubles talk while we’re waiting.” As if! "So?” I’d asked to unnerve him, with luck to get rid of him. But now I was curious what he’d say.
He started to speak but didn’t. He felt for the lever and pushed the seat back. He glanced at the door, reached for the handle, and hesitated. He was wavering between options, both of which were going to reduce him in my mind and maybe his own. If he could come up with a good exit line, he’d be home free. But that kind of thing, either you’ve got it or you don’t. There’s no crafting it.
Clearly, he was in the don’t column.
His eyes had drawn back as if into a picture he didn’t want to see. He looked like ending his life was a reasonable option. My question had been serious, but I’d never intended this grim a reaction. He said, "Life? It’s better than death. At least with life you know what you’ve got.”
"The devil you know? That’s all?”
"Yeah. Now you? When did you think about suicide?”
He hadn’t answered me, not really, but I hadn’t expected him to. What he had done was stop jerking around. That was worth an answer. "At the end of college.”
"Why didn’t you do it?”
"I wanted to go to New Orleans first. I figured that meant I wasn’t real serious.”
"You’re lying.”
"You don’t know the lure of the Big Easy. I went as soon as I graduated, had the time of my life.”
"I still say you’re lying.”
Suddenly, I felt bad about my not-exactly-truth. "I came upon a jumper on the bridge yesterday and pulled her back.”
"So that’s it?”
I couldn’t tell what he meant by that. But I didn’t have time to worry about it. The cameraman signaled. I was twenty feet from the corner. I checked the street. All clear. Tomorrow there’d be a mocked-up wagon on the cross street. Today there was a big cardboard X. I hit the gas, made speed, punched the emergency brake, and pulled the wheel a quarter turn to the left. The car screeched into a controlled skid, the bread and butter of stunt drivers. We spun wide at the corner. Tomorrow I’d make the brake squeal loud enough to wake the dead. Right before I was headed onto the cross street I let out the brake. The tires caught. I gave the wheel a flutter, knocked down the X, and pulled up.
Before it came to a stop, Mac leaned and hit the horn. He shot me a gotcha grin.
"Stop! What’re you—” I shoved him into the door. He bounced against it, hit the horn again.
"Are you crazy?”
"Yeah! So?” He flung open the door, stumbled out, and stalked off the set.
The entire crew stood dead still, staring.
My phone vibrated.
I hesitated. Jed was charging after him. The phone shivered again.
Suddenly Jed was on his own phone. Dale kept on moving around the corner and was gone. With huge relief I pulled out my cell. The voicemail came from a number I didn’t recognize, but the voice I sure did.
Mike. "Two possibles. One’s a resale shop in the Women’s Building on 17th. But the other is L Young on Filbert.” He paused and for a moment I thought he was gone. But he added the Filbert address and cross street.
Since he’d been back, it’d been a thrill just to hear his voice. But this time I wished he’d shown up here in person, with a car. It was after seven o’clock. If she was a government employee, L Young could be leaving for work any minute. If her job was at the stock exchange she was already there. Would I have to wait till evening to find out? Evening, when she could be back on the bridge?
7
Filbert was across town. I needed to think about how I was going to get there. But now, suddenly, there was plenty to occupy me in this second run-through of the gag.
Jed had managed to convince the police rep to extend our permit time. But the negotiations took a kalpa—in Sanskrit, the time during which water might, drop by drop, reduce Mt. Everest to Lake Everest—and though I didn’t see money changing hands, I heard the name Declan Serrano mentioned. I knew he did nothing for free.
Meanwhile, everything that had not gone wrong on the first run now began to. The drive on the camera cart locked. The light shifted, bounced off a shiny metal sign into my eyes and, more importantly, into the dashboard lens. It took a minor kalpa to roust the building owner and get the sign covered. And so on. By the time we finished it was almost nine o’clock and the chances of finding L Young at home had plummeted. Still, you don’t try to kill yourself and trot into work the next morning. With luck, she was in bed, still stunned by her close call with death.
Right after Mike disappeared, twenty years ago when I was in high school, food lost any flavor, every step was a trudge, and any word of comfort an intrusion. I’d never made a suicide plan, but Macomber Dale was right—I’d thought about it.
Now, for the first time, I wondered if my brothers and sisters, if Mom herself, had had that seductive urge to just end the pain of missing him, of picturing him dead—of wondering what they might have done to cause it.
"Darcy!”
When I looked up, Jed was almost at the window. "The city shut us down!”
"I thought we had a permit?”
"We did—until you leaned on the horn and woke up the neighborhood. How many calls d’you think it takes to the cops—”
"Hey, wait! That wasn’t me hitting the horn. That was that ass Macomber Dale.”
"But you—”
"Me nothing!”
"You—”
"Stop! Just stop it now. Just—” I was inhaling, focusing on it for the length of that breath. If I were the second unit director—"Who the hell is Macomber Dale anyway? And why are we stuck with him on the set?”
Jed looked about to snap at me, then he just sighed. "He’s . . . what he seems—a loose cannon. He’s been on the fringes for years trying to get a foothold in production.”
"I can see why he failed, but how come we—?”
"He got enough money from Aaron Adamé’s wife—”
"Oh.” No need to ask if that mover-and-shaker loot was what was keeping us afloat. "So, then, what do we need to pay—give—Serrano?”
"Zip. If it was just one call, he could ignore it. A couple, he could drag out the response till the weekend. But not the whole fucking neighborhood.”
"He can do what he wants; that’s what I’ve heard.”
"He doesn’t want. It’s already been a big hassle; makes him look bad in the neighborhood and downtown, too. We’re not getting any favors from him, now, thanks to you—thanks to the horn. You know if you’d—”
"Yeah well I didn’t, and neither did you. The next time you see that jerk you can tell him he’s screwing us. What about Berkeley?”
Jed stared. "Berkeley?”
"The marina. We could do this scene there.”
"And redo half the story line?”
I took another deep breath. And in that time I missed my turn in the argument.
Jed was so into the flow he picked up the other side. "We haven’t shot the lead up. It’d take some adjusting, but it’s not impossible.”
"This week? Just the negotiations—”
"But if we’re clear and crisp on the parameters—”
"We don’t have parameters.”
"We can get them.” He paused. "You can get them. I’ll call you with the contact in Berkeley. Get me the stats today.”
Today!
"By three. I don’t want to be calling over there when the only people picking up the phone are on their way home.”
Impossible! I stuck out my hand and said, "Done.” Stunt work was scarce and getting more so. No way could I blow off this job, or Jed Elliot, not if I ever planned to be stunt coordinator.
In less than an hour Macomber Dale had managed to piss off everyone on the set, residents all around, and the main cop in the Mission district. Amazing.
As for me, I was livid and, at the same time, desperate to get to Filbert and talk to L Young. Still, I could scoot over the bridge now and scope out the site enough for the paperwork. I’d lived in Berkeley all through college. I knew the marina. It’d be less than two hours before I swung back by Filbert Street. Two hours really wouldn’t make any difference, I told myself, and I could not just ignore my job. Why do you even care about her now? my oldest brother’d demand. You saved her, isn’t that enough? Let it go!
But I couldn’t, not yet, anyway. I couldn’t even explain why. But it didn’t matter because soon I’d be face to face with her—or at least someone she’d intended to phone—and, maybe, I’d see that she was okay.
"Okay, I’m off,” I said to Jed.
"Not so fast. Nellen needs to do some work on the car.” He nodded at the camera crew guy over by the lunch wagon.
"How long?”
"Hour, he says.”
I didn’t bother to ask what that meant in real time. Filbert now; Berkeley Marina after.
I passed Nellen the key and the garage location, snagged a donut from the lunch wagon, considered another coffee and, sadly, admitted that the point of no return had already come. Normally, I’d’ve bemoaned the rest of the day spent in the bland and arid land of no coffee, but right now I didn’t have time.
Cabs do exist in San Francisco, but you wouldn’t know it unless you’re at a hotel. I turned to Nellen. "Did you drive here?”
A couple minutes later I was saying I owed him, sliding into his Jeep Cherokee, and thinking luck was with me.
It was. Crosstown traffic was light and, miracle of all miracles, I found a parking spot on Filbert. Better yet, the address was not one of those apartment buildings set up to keep out strangers, but a duplex with doors at the top of the stairs and L Young’s name big as life on the mail slot. I hesitated a moment, trying to tamp down my hopes, to ignore the fear that she’d be gone, on her way to carry out her threat, then braced myself and pushed the bell. It wasn’t just a question of whether she was home. After all, L Young could be a man—a single initial in the listing often meant that—or—
But she wasn’t. Louise Young was a middle-aged African American woman in her bathrobe, a woman who eyed me, realized I was not the UPS driver, and was disappointed.
Nowhere near as crushed as I was. Before she could close the door I said, "Do you have a roommate? I’m looking for a white woman about my height, dark hair, chin-length, thin. She bikes. She—”
"I wish I had time for friends.”
"She had your phone number. Are you a therapist or—”
"I’ve got a one-year-old and a three-year-old. They are my work.” A screech came from inside. She shot a glance back. "Your friend could be next door and I wouldn’t notice her. Sorry.” She shut the door.
I walked back to the Jeep, got in, and slammed the door. A full hour wasted and I was no closer to my jumper. I—
"Don’t complain!” Leo once told me that, not as a chide but as an instruction. His intention hadn’t been merely to save my companion from a rant or a whine—he’d meant: Don’t complain in your mind. Don’t underwrite illusion.
So, I focused on getting the vehicle back to Nellen before he finished with the Honda I’d be taking to Berkeley.
But the Honda wasn’t ready.
This was turning into one helluva day—a day that made not complaining a challenge.
Without much hope I headed on foot for the resale shop.
The Women’s Building is a hundred-year-old Mission Revival–style former gymnasium, built by German exercise enthusiasts. It boasts rounded windows, great, colorful murals on the exterior walls, and rental space inside. Women Re-entering was on the ground floor.
Inside two women were sorting clothes. Me, I love secondhand shops. Each one has its own style. My preference is vintage, theatrical, or just weird. But this one looked more conservative—good clothes, the kind worn by the steadily employed.
"We’re closed. Unless you’re donating.” A large blond woman in a sweatshirt she couldn’t have given away even here nodded toward a table.
Women Re-entering! Now I remembered hearing about this place. "So you help women prepare for job interviews?”
"And jobs. Gotta wear something to work before the first check, you know. No one thinks of that.”
"Looks like you did.”
"Times like these, it’s tough. Thought we might . . . but no. That’s a nice jacket.”
My standby black jacket. I laughed. "Lucky, huh? What do you do—guilt people on the street?”
"We get the word out. You don’t work in this neighborhood or you’d know. You’d be planning to give us that jacket. You’re wearing it with jeans—worn jeans. It’s not your only jacket, like it will be to the woman who gets it. Other people’ve given a lot more.”
"Really? Recently? Like this week? Did a woman about my size give you a lot this week?” My jumper went to the trouble of writing down their phone number! Why else would she do that?
The blond woman looked at me quizzically.
"I’m taking that as a yes.”
"Okay. A big honking yes. See that table, one woman gave us the whole lot.”
I started toward it.
"Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?” She all but tackled me.
"I’m not trying to take it. I just need to find her.”
"You can’t root through her stuff. There’s a reason women want to give us their clothes and it’s not because we let strangers go through their pockets. You ever give us anything? Would you if you thought someone off the street would be pawing through it to see if you’d forgotten a credit card receipt, a note from a lover who’s maybe not your husband, a—”
"Whoa! I get your point. But look, I’m not nosing into her private life; I’m trying to find her.”
"I don’t—”
"It could be a matter of life and death.”
"Could be? Is it?”
I hesitated. "I can’t take the chance of it not being.” For the first time she seemed unsure. I said, "Tell me her name.”
Still, she didn’t commit.
I unbuttoned my jacket.
She grinned, put out a hand for it, and said, "Tessa.”
"Tessa what?”
"We don’t require last names here. She didn’t care about the tax receipt, so no need. Anyway, you’re not going to find her. She gave us the clothes because she was leaving town.”
I eyed the pile. "Looks like her whole closet.”
"That’s what she said; said she had nothing but the clothes on her back.”
"Which were?”
"I don’t know. Nothing that stood out.”
"White T-s
hirt and black slacks?”
"Don’t remember.”
"Red jacket?”
"Not a chance.”
I slipped off my own jacket. "Tell whoever gets this that it may not look like much but it’s my good luck garment. I got my first job back in town wearing it.”
The woman smiled. "You know, most people come in here with a bag or two. They’re concerned about a tax write-off or they’re not. They’re happy to help, or just glad to dump. But she looked at that brown dress over there, like she was dropping a puppy at the pound. She held on to it so long I said—and this isn’t like me—I said, 'We’ll still be here next week. You’ve got time to think it over.’ She said no, she didn’t. But she was still holding it. Then she said, 'I was wearing it at the happiest moment of my life.’”
"Surely you asked . . . ”
"I make it my business not to pry.”
"But this time?”
"Well, yeah, okay. I could tell she wanted to tell me or I wouldn’t have pried, you understand.”
Thank God! "And?”
"What she said didn’t make sense. Except to her. I mean, that dress, it’s nothing special, right? It’s a wear-to-work-on-Wednesday kind of dress, right? But something happened that Wednesday—”
"When?”
"Last week, maybe the week before? Meaning, recently. Something happened in that dress. What she said was that up till the call she never really believed it would happen. Then she smiled the way you do walking down the aisle, put down the dress, and left.”
"Do you have any idea—”
"None. Look, I hear so many hard stories, I’m just happy to have a moment like that. More power to her wherever she is.”
"Which is where?”
"Dunno.”
"Didn’t she give you some clue? Mention the street she lived on? Her job? Something?”
"No. Like I said, I don’t pry. Don’t want to know.”
"It’s important. Life and death, really. She had your phone number in her pocket. Do you remember a call?”
She shook her head. "The phone’s just for giving out information. We keep the phone ringer off. Don’t take messages. You call here, you get our address, our hours, if we need one type of garment, like winter coats. That’s it. But listen, I hope you find her. I really do.”
