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by Ron Koertge

  I close the door carefully, nod to A.J., and we head for her car.

  “Colleen not coming?” she asks.

  I point to the barely light sky. “Too early for her.”

  A.J. signals just coming out of the driveway. We make our way down Mission, past the park, with its spotless playground. Parents pay big bucks to live someplace they can take the kids to a teeter-totter and a sandbox and not have to worry too much.

  “Grandma says for you to tell your mom she’ll call her about the Congo.” And Colleen says for you to keep your f**king hands to yourself. What would A.J. say if I tacked that on? Laugh, probably. But what would I do if she didn’t keep her hands to herself?

  We cruise through the first two stoplights, but not the next one. Ten feet away, at a local nursery, a Hispanic guy in thrashed blue Dickies trundles two or three flats of pansies toward a big SUV with its back standing open like Moby Dick’s jaws. The driver, who’s pretty and clearly super-rich — since I’ve never seen the nursery open so early — is standing off to the side in a sun hat and dainty leather gloves.

  I ask, “Do you want to be rich?”

  She takes her eyes off the road just long enough to glance at me. “When I grow up?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She oozes around an Escalade waiting to park in three or four compact-car spaces. I notice she’s dressed for the racetrack. Not the jeans. Everybody wears jeans, even me. But boots and a shirt with snaps. I wonder if she’s got a cowboy hat in the back.

  “I either want to go to the International Film School in Paris or to the New York Film Academy. I’d work if I had to. Be a waitress or something.”

  “When we were talking down at that gallery, you said USC.”

  “I know, but my mom and I were online, poking into things, and Paris or New York sounds better.”

  “Then what?”

  “Make more movies. Better ones. And my father knows the Coppolas.”

  “Colleen doesn’t know where she’ll be sleeping two days from now.”

  “Are you worried about her?”

  “Sure. Wouldn’t you be?”

  We wind through the wide streets of San Marino. Shiny cars in a few of the driveways. A gardener or two. Huge homes, the kind my grandma would call “tasteful,” compared to the McMansions springing up in Monterey Park and Alhambra.

  The lawns are beautiful and huge. And there’s usually a pool with turquoise water that nobody but the grandkids use and when they’re grown, nobody at all.

  I tell A.J., “I’ve been in a lot of these houses. Grandma used to bring me along when she had meetings and park me in the den with the TV. Every now and then a maid would ghost in and ask me if I wanted anything.”

  A.J. asks, “Have you guys got a maid?”

  I shake my head.

  “Do you have somebody who comes in and cleans?”

  “Yeah, but I never see them. They do it while I’m at school.”

  “My mom works at JPL and cleans our whole house, too. Can you believe that? She’s really picky. If Merry Maids or one of those services comes in, it’s never good enough for her. So she just does it herself.”

  Huntington Drive is pretty much the main drag of San Marino. It’s named for Henry Huntington, a megarich guy whose name is everywhere in L.A. Like Huntington Beach and Huntington Hospital.

  The street runs east and west and eventually right into a mall. Just northeast of that a little is the racetrack. A.J. turns in and zips across an empty parking lot, scattering seagulls. She pulls up beside a guard shack on the west side of the huge, deco-green grandstand.

  While she talks, I look out the window. A few guys who are too big to be jockeys ride along a dirt path. Their horses look healthy and sleek and relaxed. The riders’ feet dangle out of the stirrups. They talk to each other and laugh under their breath. Off to the east, the sky is Technicolor red.

  Everything is muffled and low-key. Probably not like later on, when they run the races. I’ve seen the Kentucky Derby on TV, and it’s a madhouse. But not now.

  A.J. thanks the guard and aims for a parking space a hundred yards away. Then we amble — well, A.J. does — toward another guard shack.

  “I’ve got an appointment to see Blake Edwards,” she says.

  The guard points a big, pockmarked nose at a clipboard. He picks up a phone with one hand and hands us two passes with the other. “Tear off the backs and stick ’em on your clothes somewheres.”

  They say BACKSTRETCH VISITOR, then there’s the date. A.J. puts hers on her shirt, and I do, too.

  “You all can go on in a ways,” the guard says. “Blake’s comin’.”

  Green barns stretch beyond where we are and off to the left and right. They’re a little like barracks, just with lots of doors. The Dutch kind, with a top half and a bottom half that can open on its own. There’s no concrete or asphalt, just raked dirt. Horses look out of their stalls or are led around by somebody. Guys mostly, but some girls, too.

  A.J. tells us, “My dad says this is your whole world if you want it to be. They’ve got doctors back here; you can go to the dentist, buy clothes, even take classes.”

  A lanky guy on horseback stops beside us. Black boots and jeans. A black muscle shirt, black leather vest. Black hair. All he needs is a mask, and he’s Zorro.

  “Pretty lady,” he croons to A.J. “You should never have to walk anywhere. Let me take you wherever you want to go.”

  She looks up at him. “I’m fine right where I am, thank you.”

  “You’re visiting,” he says. “I’m visiting, too. Maybe we can visit together.”

  “Go feed your horse,” she says. “He looks hungry.”

  He leans toward her, and all kinds of leather creak. “Just so you know — merely the sight of you has made this day special.” Then he clucks to his horse and spurts away.

  A.J. glances at me. “Let’s hope they’re not all like that.”

  Somebody — a kid about my age and for sure shorter than me — heads for us. He’s in jeans, too, and low-heeled boots. There’s a heavy, protective vest over a T-shirt. He’s wearing a helmet, which he takes off as he stops beside us and holds out his hand. I don’t know what I expected, but Blake Edwards looks like a ninth-grader. Smooth, round cheeks. Tan, bare arms but not all muscled up. He’s got bad teeth, and he knows it, because he pretends to cough a lot so he can cover his mouth.

  “I guess you’re A.J.”

  I shake my head. “I’m Ben. This is A.J.”

  “Oh.”

  I tell him, “You’re named after a famous movie director.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who’s that?”

  “Blake Edwards.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t know him.”

  A.J. points. “Can we talk over there by those hay bales?”

  Blake shrugs. “I guess.”

  A.J. explains her idea for the documentary. Different from that Jockeys show on Animal Planet. No romance. No rivalries. Just deep, probing interviews.

  Blake puts one heel in the dirt and grinds at it. “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?” she asks.

  He looks down at the ground and scowls. “I just don’t know.”

  I follow A.J. and Blake. She gets the background she wants (enough barn and hay, enough space for a horse to walk through the frame) and lifts the camera she’s been toting in a black bag. A camera bigger than mine. Pricier.

  “You’re leading rider out here, correct?” she asks.

  “Nope.”

  “I thought . . . My dad said you were.”

  “Nope.” He looks at me. “Leading apprentice rider.”

  “What’s that like?” A.J. asks.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Is it dangerous, riding Thoroughbred horses?”

  Blake snorts. “What do you think?”

  A.J. glances in my direction. She lets her camera dangle at arm’s length. “Is there a bathroom around here?” she asks.

  Blake p
oints. A.J. hands me the Sony. Her eyes — as they say in cheese-o novels — meet mine. Not in a romantic way, though. This is business. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  When she’s too far away to hear, Blake says, “She your girlfriend?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Have you got a girlfriend?”

  “Kind of.” I swing the camera up and point it. “What about you?”

  “Long as I’ve got five hundred dollars in my pocket, I’m six feet tall with a bright future. You know what rodeo is?”

  “Sure.”

  “In rodeo there’s girls called buckle bunnies. They only go with guys who win prizes. There’s like that in horse racing, too. Those kind of girls.”

  “Nobody you’d want to take home to Mama, I guess.”

  “Shit, my momma was like that.” He points to the camera. “Is that thing on?”

  I lie. “I’m just playing with the focus and the light and stuff.” I pretend to fiddle with the camera. “But you’re winning prizes now, right?”

  He nods. “Money, yeah. But I’ll tell you, man, it’s not if I’m gonna go down and break something. It’s just when and how bad. Every now and then some poor son of a bitch in a wheelchair comes back here, and I think, That could be me.” Blake steps closer. “I’m goin’ thirty miles an hour on an animal that weighs about two thousand pounds. All around me is six or seven other guys who’d just as soon put me over the rail as look at me, ’cause every race I win is food off their table.”

  “Sounds tough.”

  “Between you an’ me? It’s a total nightmare. Get up at four a.m., eat half a piece of toast, drive out here and work horses for guys who might or might not ever give you a leg up. Sleep a little, then put on some stupid-lookin’ silk shirt and get on a horse that’d just as soon step on me as look at me.” He points, and I know what he’s pointing at. What everybody always, sooner or later, points at. “What happened to you, anyway?”

  “Something went haywire in my brain right after I was born. You can’t catch it.”

  “You sound like your brain’s okay.”

  “It is, but not the rest of me.”

  “Are you gonna be all right?”

  “I’m all right now.”

  “You go to school and all that?”

  “High school, yeah.”

  He nods. “I’m stupid. Everybody always told me I was, so I guess I am. I’m lucky I can do this. You don’t have to be smart to hold on.”

  “It takes more than just holding on to be leading anything, and you’re the best apprentice, right?”

  He coughs and puts one hand over his mouthful of bad teeth. “Lookit,” he says, “I got to work a horse for this guy. This interview thing isn’t goin’ anywhere. I just did it ’cause a guy who knows a guy told me I ought to. I’m gonna tell him it just didn’t work out, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  We shake hands again, and he hurries away.

  A.J., who’s been lurking around the nearest corner, starts toward me.

  “I didn’t have to pee,” she says. “I thought maybe he’d open up to you.”

  “I know. I got a couple of minutes’ worth.” I hand her the camera. I watch her watch until she says, “Wow. How’d you do that?”

  “A guy thing, probably. But that’s all we’re gonna get.”

  “Are you sure?” She taps the camera. “This is great.”

  “He’s kind of a miniature chauvinist. He won’t talk to you.”

  “That’s okay. You talk to him. You get, like, tons of footage, and I’ll edit it. We’ll put both our names on it.”

  I help her pack up the camera. I like talking about this. She’s not just a cute rich girl from the right side of the tracks, and I’m not just a spaz. We’re filmmakers with problems that filmmakers have. Problems we can probably solve. The minute I picked up the camera, I stopped thinking about anything else.

  We trudge toward the stable gate. I’m tired and my hip hurts. Big pickups driven by little men filter out of the gate.

  In the parking lot, the seagulls she’d scared driving in are standing around her car.

  “All we need is Rod Taylor,” she says.

  “And Tippi Hedren.”

  “And Suzanne Pleshette.”

  “And let’s not forget the great Jessica Tandy.”

  We’re talking in shorthand about Hitchcock’s The Birds.

  As she unlocks a back door and we stow the gear, she says, “My dad’s kind of like Rod Taylor was in that movie.” She looks at me. “His name was Mitch, right?”

  “Mitch Brenner.”

  “A little cold. No funny business: Let’s board up those windows and block the fireplace. So Mom and I are Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette, just hanging around, waiting for crumbs of affection.” She fiddles with her keys. “Too much information?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  She loops around to the driver’s side. I climb in and put on the seat belt. But when it looks like we’re good to go, she doesn’t start the car.

  “This is none of my business, Ben, but . . .” She studies the speedometer. “Are you and Colleen together?”

  Was that a snowman driving that bus?

  Did that nun just drink a bucket of brine?

  That’s the line reading she gave her question: Stupefied. Amazed. Maybe even impressed. She can barely get her mind around it. That Colleen would like me. Would want to be with me. Or that I would want to be with her, maybe. Or that I even could.

  I tell her the truth, some of it, anyway. “She’s just staying with Grandma and me a couple of days.”

  “But are you together?”

  “Sometimes.”

  A.J. puts the key in the ignition. Her key chain has a little LED light on it for those dark nights outside the mansion. That, and a little two-inch bear. She leans against the steering wheel. Puts her head on it like she’s sleepy.

  “I’m kind of with Conrad,” she says. “I don’t know why. We never have any fun. And he’s either just mean or super-careless and totally self-absorbed. Like, he’ll call me on Friday and say he wants to do something. I’ve got plans but I cancel them. Then he doesn’t show up. So I watch anything on TV and eat bag after bag of Cheetos.” She turns my way. “How stupid is that?”

  She leans toward me, one hand out. I start to give her my gimpy one, the runty one, the ugly one. Then I remember that only Colleen touches me all over. So I bring my right hand across.

  A.J. half whispers, “You and I just made kind of a good team in there, that’s all.” She puts her other hand on mine, covers it up with both of hers like it’s a little fire she’s trying to keep alive. And then she leans some more and kisses me.

  Thanks to Colleen, I know how to kiss, but it’s nothing like that. It’s okay, though, and I’m flattered and curious. Somebody else’s lips — amazing!

  But this kiss never goes anywhere. It doesn’t get warmer or messier. It’s the kind of kiss that would just put Snow White into a deeper coma.

  There I am with a cute girl who likes me, at least a little. We’re into some of the same things. Or at least the same big thing — movies. I don’t have to worry about getting arrested; she’s not going to run off with some stranger and smoke a joint. A.J. swears about once a month, and her skin, at least what I can see of it, is a perfect, blank canvas. And when Grandma sees her, she doesn’t make a face.

  So why am I thinking about Colleen?

  WHEN A.J. DROPS ME OFF, it’s about ten. Grandma’s car is gone. Colleen isn’t outside, but she’s not in her bedroom or the bathroom or any other room. I’m just about to call her cell when she bursts through the front door.

  “Big news!” she says. “Huge news. I found your mother!”

  All I can do is stare.

  “And I’m staying with Marcie for a while, but that’s nothing.”

  “My mother is at Marcie’s?” I gasp.

  “No, she’s in Azusa!” She holds an envelope right in front of my eyes, and I read
Grandma’s address and then, up in the left-hand corner, hers:

  Delia Bancroft

  111-D Magnolia

  Azusa, CA 91702

  “Where . . . ?” I’m having trouble catching my breath. Colleen takes my face in both hands and kisses me. Breathes into me. Makes me breathe. It’s not sexy; it’s resuscitation. Finally I can wheeze, “Where did you find this?”

  “In your grandma’s bedroom.”

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “Snooping around. You don’t look in people’s medicine cabinets when you go to their houses?”

  I point the envelope at her. “This wasn’t in Grandma’s medicine cabinet.”

  “So it was on her desk.”

  “She doesn’t leave stuff on her desk.”

  “In a drawer, then. Jesus. What’s the difference? Now we can find your mother and beat her up.” She grabs my good hand and tugs.

  “Now?”

  “Sure.”

  “We can’t just go out there.”

  “Why not?”

  “We just can’t.”

  “Do you want some guy in gold pants and a trumpet to announce your arrival?”

  “She doesn’t know we’re coming.”

  “We’ll catch her off guard. See the real her.” She pulls at me and I let her.

  “This is crazy.”

  “I don’t know about you, Ben, but I can’t wait to see the heartless bitch who left you on Granny’s doorstep like a sack of flaming dog shit. I’ll leave Grandma a note.”

  “Since when are you so concerned about my grandma?”

  “Since we had breakfast together about an hour ago. She’s kind of a cool old lady.”

  Colleen crosses the double lines and gets into the carpool lane of the 210 freeway. I tell her, “I don’t feel too good.”

  She glances over, a cigarette dangling from her lips. Colleen smokes like somebody in a gangster film, the tough chick who gets killed in a shoot-out so the misunderstood hoodlum can marry the pretty librarian.

  I take a few deep breaths as we whiz past Monrovia. I want to think about anything except where we’re going. “So how did you end up at Marcie’s?”

  She takes one last drag on her cigarette and flicks it away. It carries and makes an arc of showering sparks. Robert Mitchum couldn’t have done it better.