by E M Kaplan
“Hey, Mr. Obregon, it’s good to hear your voice,” she said when he picked up.
“Likewise to you,” he said. “What’s going on today?”
She began telling him what she’d recently discovered—and then, suddenly felt strange, as if the intimate details of Leann’s abusive past and history of abortions were too private…But to truly liberate the memory of the poor girl, maybe it was necessary. She would tell the truth, and all of it. Even the part about seeing Peter with Tammy Roberts in the swimming pool. Even the part about the bruises on Leann’s face in those earlier pictures. Mr. Obregon listened in silence. Then, at the end of it, he said, “All right.” And he paused. “So, you’re pretty sure about all that, then?”
“Yep,” she said.
“Then, Michael for sure. And what about Peter? What part did he have in it?”
She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know, Mr. Obregon It looks pretty bad for him, but I haven’t found anything out for sure.” She told him about her chat with Maria Garza. She did not, however, tell him that she suspected that it was Michael and not Peter who had fathered Leann’s three aborted babies. She didn’t see any way to confirm that suspicion.
“Okay, then,” he said. “You’re doing a fine job, Josie-girl.” Then, he filled her in on a couple of things that he’d been able to find out. He related one incident in which, when Leann was ten years-old she had once been stung by a bee and had had a terrible anaphylactic reaction for which she’d had to go to the emergency room. Since then, she’d always carried an Epi-Pen—a syringe of epinephrine that was easily self-administered. In fact, at the wedding, she’d even carried one hidden in the folds of her wedding dress. She’d been worried about how many bees were in the church garden, which is why they hadn’t had their wedding photos taken outside, never mind the sweltering heat.
Leann had been stung again at nineteen, during an outdoor class in college, and had successfully treated herself with the Epi-Pen. During that incident, another student in the class had called an ambulance on his cell phone. Apparently, an Epi-Pen was something that had to be checked and replaced every so often. Mr. Obregon was currently looking into whether Leann had used hers at the time of her last and fatal bee sting. Because he had an actual detective’s license, he would be the one to contact the company who had sent the ambulance out to the Castle Ranch. He told Josie that he would get back to her on that.
After a while, she hung up with Mr. Obregon, feeling somewhat bolstered by his progress and his encouragement. She still wasn’t feeling all that great about her progress with finding out what really happened to Leann during the last minutes of her life. More and more she was beginning to think that the only ones who knew what happened to Leann were the Williams brothers—and Josie didn’t have the cajones or wasn’t stupid enough to go knocking on their front door asking them. It wasn’t her job to do that—and if Greta Williams wanted to know the truth badly enough, then she could damn well ask her own sons what they did to Leann.
Josie had a couple of hours to herself before she was taking Patrick to the anniversary party. Time for a nap and a shower. She flipped on the FoodTV Network. Reruns of the Iron Chef. A brutal and slightly gory episode with squid. Before long, her eyes closed.
She woke up groggy and disoriented, kicking herself, with just fifteen minutes to get ready. At a quarter to six, there was a light knock on her door. Outside, Patrick was waiting for her, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, with his hair still wet from the shower. He shifted back and forth from foot to foot just like a kid, a crushed baseball hat sticking out from his back pocket.
“What are you so nervous about?” she chided him. Her brusqueness only caused him to smile, as usual.
“I haven’t been out in public for, like, a month now,” he said. She knew what that was like, having spent a good part of the summer holed up in her apartment with her aching stomach, watching the world from her couch.
“It’s no big deal. Just my aunt and uncle’s house.” she said. “And if it makes you feel any better, you don’t look like you’ve been imprisoned in the food gulag for a month.”
“Thanks. I feel so much better.” He ran a hand over his hair, and she lost eye contact with him as he stared over her shoulder into the wardrobe mirror far behind her. He certainly could obsess on his appearance. She figured it was an L.A. thing.
She led him out to the dun colored Honda and unlocked the passenger door for him. “Sorry about the classy wheels. But it runs.”
“My first car was a Subaru station wagon,” he said, grinning. “Of course, I wrecked it my third time out. I took it up to about 65 or 70. That was as high as it would go without starting to shake real bad. I was going around a corner out in the country and I wrapped it around a telephone pole. I was all right though. But the car was totaled. Good thing my friends were too embarrassed to be seen in a car like that—I was alone, and no one got hurt.”
“This one is a loaner from my aunt and uncle. Pretty close to the one they let me drive when I was in high school.” She made sure he was wearing his seatbelt and then cranked the key in the ignition. It sounded like a wind-up electric car. A remote control toy car that had been run over the curb a thousand times, all scratched and dented, held together with strapping tape. And for some reason, that made her think fondly of her aunt.
“So, you lived here when you were in high school?” he asked.
“Yep.” She didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell him about her mother or father, so she dreaded him questioning why she had been there for high school. But he didn’t ask.
“It’s funny,” he said, “But I always think of this place as being one that you escape to with the spas and the Jack Nicklaus golf course and the Arizona Biltmore up in Scottsdale. But if I went to high school here, it’d probably be the place that I wanted to escape from.”
She thought about it. “Your high school experience sounds like it was different from mine.”
“What, prep school? Maybe the academics were tougher,” he said.
She slapped the steering wheel. “Now, why would you say that? Why do people persist in knocking the intelligence and worldliness of this place and the people who live in it? It’s a crap point of view.”
“Whoa,” he said holding his hands up. “Hit a nerve there. But you really can’t expect me to believe, with the way the economy is around here, that these kids are getting the same kind of education that I got. It’s nothing personal. But did your English teachers have Ivy League advanced degrees like mine did?”
She rolled her eyes. “As mine did,” she corrected.
“Yours did?” he said, completely oblivious to the fact that she’d been correcting his grammar. “All I’m saying is that if you come from a place like this, your world view just has to be smaller and more narrow than if you come from, say, New York. There’s no way you could argue with that.”
“So you’re saying that your world view is necessarily broader than mine because your teachers went to Harvard and you spent time on the East Coast?”
“Exactly.”
“Well your expansive ‘world view’ should allow for the fact that a person such as myself might possibly be able to see beyond her meager, hovel-like upbringing and have just as worldly an outlook as a person like you.” She was beginning to feel as though she were arguing with her freshman roommate back in her dorm room. A tedious conversation, but here she was, enclosed in a tiny, moving car with this antagonistic person. And when trapped, she felt obligated to return fire.
He was silent for a split second. “Well, obviously, I don’t mean you. Plus, you’ve lived in other places.” She let it drop, rolling her eyes.
He cleared his throat and tried to shift the conversation. She let him. She wasn’t here to argue with him after all. “So, the people who loaned you the car are the ones who are having the golden anniversary party?”
“The same ones. They have some amazing cars, actually. My uncle will probably be out in the garag
e showing them to people. You might be interested.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, noncommittally. “But 50 years, that’s hard to believe. I don’t know anyone—especially in L.A.—who has made it that long. One little fight, and it’s over for most couples out there. Of course, I barely know anyone who’s that old.”
“I’m sure my aunt and uncle have had their ups and downs, too. I don’t know how much they have in common with each other, come to think of it. I hardly ever see them in the same room. He plays poker with his buddies almost every night of the week. She has her own volunteer activities and her circle of friends. It’s kind of weird.”
“It sounds like one of those repressed 1950’s marriages that seems great on the outside, but at home at night, they sleep in separate single beds.” He groaned. “Don’t disillusion me. I thought tonight I was going to witness something magical in a relationship that would change me for the rest of my life.”
She shrugged. “People are the same wherever you go. A small town doesn’t necessarily mean a whole new set of values. It might mean more stubbornness is bred into you. Maybe. Maybe not. You can judge for yourself.”
#
They turned up the road to her aunt and uncle’s house and found rows of cars parked along either side, starting from about a half mile out. There weren’t any sidewalks here, so the cars covered what was normally a dusty, uneven shoulder with the mesquites and prickly pears defining a natural curb. Josie knew what it was like to brush too closely by a cactus. She’d done it many times walking home from the school bus stop before she’d gotten a driver’s license. She’d pushed through some thick brush and before she’d known it, a dotted line of blood crossed a calf where a thorn had caught and tugged unevenly across her skin. The scrapes would heal white against her tan.
She drove the car up the drive, noticing with some amusement the lighted luminarias winking at them from all over the front of the house. Libby had lined the entire driveway, as well as the front walk, and the front windows of the house. It almost looked like some kind of el Dia de los Muertos celebration. Black streamers had been looped in the front windows of the house. Macabre, yet festive.
She parked the car in the only open slot of the carport and chuckled as she led Patrick, who had crammed his baseball cap on his head, to the front door. The decorations here were even more plentiful. Libby had covered the place with streamers and balloons. Some of the balloons were black, clearly intended for “over the hill” birthday celebrations, but they did say “Happy 50th” just as Libby had promised they would. Josie hung her gift basket over one arm and pushed the front door open, totally unprepared for the ruckus that their entrance was about to invoke.
Patrick’s entrance, actually. There was an instantaneous hush, then a pause, and then a muffled yelp, distinctly female in origin. Josie watched as the female half of the crowd moved quickly to surround him, though maintaining a polite distance. The crowd stood more or less speechless in a circle around him and Josie, who was trapped in the center with him. A few of them held cocktail naps and pens out to him.
Libby pulled her aside. “Wow. Did he come to wish us a happy anniversary, too?”
“Who?” Josie said. The whole scene was taking its time registering in her brain. She thought they were mistaking him for someone important.
Libby laughed and gave Josie a playful thud on the back with her heavy hand. “Yeah, right. Quit joking. That guy is Rod O’Connor. The movie star.”
Patrick was signing autographs. Josie scratched her head in confusion. His L.A. hair and clothes were starting to make more sense to her now. This underfed guy with poor posture was a Hollywood heartthrob? He looked up and gave her a wink. And somehow, he looked more attractive with a throng of female admirers around him. For some reason, Drew popped into her head, and she had a weird twinge of anxiety that she was so far away from him and might never see him again. Stupid. But there it was.
Josie squeezed her cousin’s arm. “Lib, can you tell Aunt Ruth that we’re going to hang out in the atrium?”
Libby was staring at him with a worried look, her forehead furrowed. “He’s still not as good looking as that doctor friend of yours, right?”
“Huh?” Still unused to the idea of Patrick being good looking, Josie glanced again and said vaguely, “I don’t know.” Then, she made her way back toward him.
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked him. He was answering a question from a young girl. Something about when shooting on his next movie would be starting.
“Yes, please,” he said. He took her hand, which caused another audible gasp. She realized that she’d fueled the neighborhood gossip fire for a good couple of weeks just with that one simple move.
“Okay, ladies. Say goodbye to Mr. O’Connor,” she said, trying to keep from feeling silly, but the young women in the room—her aunt’s living room—were threatening to swarm him. He did seem like he was in need of some rescuing. At the sound of her firm voice, they parted and let the two of them through.
She led him into the atrium, a courtyard with star jasmine and bougainvillea-covered walls. During the day, the vines had bright pink flowers. It was dark now, with only the night sky and some strings of white Christmas lights that Libby had strung up for light. As Josie turned to ask him about his ruse, his phony name, and not filling her in, he planted a long kiss on her mouth. His breath had been carefully flavored with mint. Probably those powerful tongue drops that came in a tiny squeezable bottle.
When they finally broke apart, she said, “What was that?” She struggled with her confusion, the feeling that she should be attracted to him, and the feeling that actually, she wasn’t.
He shrugged, still holding her hand. “It was a nice scene, I guess.” He looked around at the moonlit vines. “I figured that I had to take advantage of my star power. Otherwise I’d never get anywhere with you.”
“So you know me that well, do you?” She was still close enough to see the freckles on his nose in the dim light.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, causing her to blush, “But you’re a damned prickly woman. It was pure luck that you didn’t punch me in the nose.”
“Not now anyway,” she said. “You pass with a warning this time.” She studied him, all the while asking herself if she wanted to kiss him again. While she was trying to decide, her body leaned in and gave him a kiss back. When she came away, his eyes were still closed. He looked a little silly, absorbing the moment by himself while she watched him. She felt…nothing. It was kind of nice, but there wasn’t much to it.
“You were pretty good,” he said.
She squinted at him, still wrestling with her lack of attraction. It would have been exciting to have found herself genuinely into him. But since she wasn’t, well, no big deal. “Thanks. I like to practice kissing in the mirror. Sometimes I use the palm of my hand.”
He laughed loudly. “No. I meant in the room in there. You protected me from those girls. Maybe I ought to hire you as a handler. You’re tough.”
“Your throng of admirers? Ah, I think I babysat some of those girls when I was in high school. They were probably just waiting for me to tell them what to do.”
“No, seriously,” he said. “I think you’d be a good PA—personal assistant. If I hired you, I might actually show up at the right places and on time for once. Probably even well-rested and well-fed. Almost like a normal person.”
“Are you trying to tell me I’m bossy? Or that you want me to serve you?” She scrunched up her nose, feeling relaxed now that she’d allowed herself not to feel bad about not lusting after him as, apparently, most of the planet did.
He laughed again. “I think I’d better plead the Fifth.” He was laughing more and a different side of his personality—more flip, less anxious—seemed to have come out. He seemed more in his element, not hunched over in pain by the pool.
“Want a drink?” she asked. She wanted to get a little break from him. Plus, she hadn’t seen her aunt or uncle yet.
“Back in a second,” she said.
Her aunt was sitting in the kitchen laughing with three friends. Josie recognized Janice Ruiz, a principal at a local parochial school. She had a daughter named Benita who was about ten years younger than Josie. Benita, with her straight black hair and slight build, looked as though she could have been Josie’s cousin—a lot more than Libby did. Lisa Gerard was there, too. She ran the Dean’s office for the college of fine arts at the U of A. The women were all in jeans and t-shirts—the Tucson uniform—though a couple of them had a heavy hand with the silver and turquoise accessories. Aunt Ruth was being goaded into telling the story of how she and Uncle Jack had first met. She launched into the old narrative that was both familiar and still amusing to Josie. She listened in while she looked for cups and something to drink.
“My best girlfriend Lana Mitchell and I were walking around the school yard together one day during lunch. She was a real looker of course. Blond, blue-eyed, boobs out to here.” She gestured a considerable distance with her hands. “Later, she went to Hollywood trying to get into the movies. Ended up as a dancer in Vegas. Married some rich old guy. Now she lives with her dogs and millions in Reno. I still get a Christmas card from her every year. Sends a card with a picture of her dogs.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “We were walking around the school yard one day. This was in high school. Back then, not many girls went to college. Course, I planned to myself. I’d been working my whole life and saving money to go. So, along comes this skinny fellow with his friends. And he’s all eyes for Lana. Tongue hanging out and everything. So I says, ‘You catching flies with your mouth hanging open like that, Jack?’ Because I knew his name already. After that, his eyes were always on me. And that’s pretty much how it happened.” She sat back amidst the hoots of laughter and smiles.
