by Hal Ackerman
Lila helped Stein to standing. His feet squished in his shoes. He could still barely breathe and the world was pixilating through the membrane of placental soap that still surrounded him. “I don’t mean to trivialize what you’ve been through,” Lila said, “but your hair looks absolutely lustrous.”
TWENTY
Stein was not an ardent observer of Nature but it always amazed him when the same kind of tree burst into blossom simultaneously all over the city. In late winter it was the heady mock orange blossoms. In spring the purple jacaranda flowers carpeted the streets. And all through the year, a bunch of other stuff whose names he didn’t know. He wondered how they all got the signal. What was the trigger? He was reminded of this phenomenon now as he drove across the city and saw one after another after another of newly exposed billboards for Espe New Millennium Shampoo.
Each was ingeniously comprised of a three-dimensional reproduction of the bottle, which in itself was a generation of Nicholette Bradley’s sumptuous body. As though she had been regenerated. Become a milkweed, seeds of her new life spread by the wind after death and desiccation. Being surrounded by all these pictures of Nicholette made it harder for Stein to let go of her. He didn’t want forgiveness. There was too damn much forgiveness in the world. Emotional pedestrian crossings. If we learn anything at all in this life it is through enduring the consequences of our worst mistakes. The moment Stein had stopped believing that one man could make a difference, Nicholette had died. He resolved never to forget what Shmooie the Buddhist always said, that we had to keep doing the best we could all the time, even if no one was watching.
What also pissed him off was that he had been yoinked once again-swallowing the whole story about Alex being the new Espe model when obviously she was not-and never catching even a whiff of the lie. At least he had been right (after how many wrong guesses?) about David Hart and Michael Esposito being the killers, so that was something. He had just come back from the homecoming of Goodpasture’s orchids, which had taken place at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest (which in Los Angeles resembles a forest as much as the Gobi Desert resembles a ski resort). The weed had been flown commercially from Amsterdam to Ottawa, Fed Ex’d to St. Croix, yachted to Santa Barbara, taken by HAZ-MAT truck down to L.A. and now, concealed amongst ten freshly cut California Spruces that were loaded onto the open flatbed of a lumber truck which would carry them up north, carefully swaddled in burlap so as not to disturb the cones of gorgeous green sin-semilla that hung from the branches like festive ornaments.
Stein watched the proceedings but had little to say to Goodpasture or Schwimmer, nor they to him. There was muted joy in the triumph. More and more, the fight was exhausting just to get back to even. Stein found it depressing that they were still considered outlaws for aiding people at the end of their lives. Maybe next year when Al Gore was elected president and we put all the Clinton blowjob stuff behind us, the country would get back on track and Stein would feel a part of something again.
Paul Vane was being discharged today from Cedars Sinai, the gunshot wound, as he had accurately self-diagnosed, a mere glancing blow to the heart. He was sitting primly on his hospital bed as Stein entered the room. It was filled with flower arrangements, beautiful, unusual, thoughtfully constructed poems of flowers. In his bright yellow shirt and brown silk pants, Vane looked very much the pistil of the flower. His weight barely made an impression on the hospital mattress. He looked his age. He looked beyond his age. He looked fossilized. He pretended not to have been looking at the newspaper strewn across his bed carrying the sordid tale of his two former lovers.
Stein put his arm around Vane’s shoulder. “You just bet the wrong horses.”
“Story of my life.”
“You only bet the wrong horses. They are the wrong horse.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel any different.”
A pudgy bespectacled man shaped like a bowl of mashed potatoes came into the room. He was wearing white, which even Stein could see was an unfortunate fashion choice. He had brought Vane a candy bar and Stein was glad to see the staff was caring and personable. “They didn’t have Twix so I got you Almond Joy. I hope that’s close enough.”
“My two heroes,” Vane announced. He introduced Stein to the man Stein first thought was an orderly but who was not an orderly at all, but the photographer Ray Ramos.
“You did the shots of Alex for the Espe box,” Stein said, recognizing the name as soon as Vane spoke it
Ramos smiled, while he went about the efficient scouting of all the hidden crevasses in Paul’s room where items might accidentally be left behind.
“What was that all about?” Stein persisted.
“That story is best left in the vaults of industrial secrecy,” Ramos said as he puttered.
“I think he’s earned it,” Vane purred.
The story was revealed, and as Penelope Kim so aptly observed, truth kicks fiction’s ass. The plan had never been to replace Nicholette as the New Millennium girl. The plan had been to leak a plan of disinformation that she was going to be replaced and generate the tremendous buzz around who the new girl would be. Of all people, it had been Mattingly who came up with the brilliant idea to make it a fake replacement and to stay with Nicholette. Whether that demonstrated tremendous imagination or tremendous lack of imagination can be debated. The results were that with the arrest of Michael Esposito, Mattingly was once again the only unindicted survivor and would now be sole owner of the franchise.
The last pieces of information came out, and it was as if a chiropractor had made one last crack, and the pain and chafing that had plagued Stein’s neck at last abated. At the time of the photo shoot for the New Millennium package, Ray Ramos was among the very few people who knew the secret plan. He knew that the shots he did of Alex would never be used, so to save money and not waste good stock, he had used film that had been degraded going through an airport X-ray scan.
“Imagine Ray’s surprise,” Vane elaborated, as he told the story with great relish, looking younger with each level of embellishment, “imagine his surprise when the next morning his gorgeous, eager, young assistant David Hart presented him with twenty rolls of perfectly shot, perfectly exposed images of Alex.”
“Which he knew could not have been perfectly exposed,” congratulated Ramos. “So you had to know something was up.”
“Something is always up,” Vane purred. The question is up whose?”
“Don’t you love him?” Ramos smiled
It was nearly time to pick Angie up at Lila’s. They were going to meet Hillary for lunch and attempt to mediate the standoff. Hillary would have full custody if she got her way. Stein would have full custody if Angie had her way. Both prospects terrified him. Lila had left a note for him on her front door saying that she was out back and that Angie was upstairs waiting for him. Stein punched in the code to her alarm system. She had given him the combination to her wall safe and her internet passwords.
She trusted Stein with everything she had. Inside the dark oak and stucco Spanish entranceway Stein called out Angie’s name. God forbid she should ever answer him without his having to climb a flight of stairs. He climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor. Angie had a funny look on her face when she opened the door.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing. Lila washed your clothes from Amsterdam. Look what else we found.” Sitting on top of the neatly folded pile of laundry was Yosemite Sam’s silver bud holder.
“It’s not mine,” he explained with lame sincerity.
“Good one, Dad. Very original.”
He told her to meet him out at the car.
“If you want to marry her it’s cool,” she said.
Stein nearly wept. She never said anything to him that indicated she thought about his life in any way. Maybe what Lila said about her in Palm Springs was true.
He combed his hair back and tucked in his t-shirt and came out of the house into the yard behind Lila. She was lying on th
e chaise alongside the pool, with her back to him. She was wearing a big straw hat tied under her chin with a ribbon, sunglasses, a pair of white shorts and a halter-top, sunning herself while reading a magazine and partially absorbing her Italian lesson on her earphones.
A wave of nostalgia for Lila swept over him. He thought about what life would be like with a woman who loved him unconditionally. No financial worries. A stable home for Angie. A strong role model. Lila did not hear Stein approach. He had perfect position two steps behind her. She was defenseless. He could do anything to her he wanted.
If only love was like unleaded gas, and didn’t matter whether you pulled into ARCO or Mobile. You filled up your tank, it ignited your spark plugs, torqued your engine and it got you where you had to go until you were empty again. But with love, all that matters is the pump. And because Stein did not love Lila the way we all yearn to be loved, deserve to be loved, believe that some day we will be loved, he did not swoop her off the lounge and hurl her into the pool, sending her magazine and tape machine flying out of her hands in all directions, her arms flailing at her straw hat, a scream of exultation caught in her throat, her eyes wild with glee.
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