“Yeah, well, that’s what I’d like to hope, too, but I’m sorry to say that’s not the case. My brother passed out this morning. They revived him but it wasn’t easy- some kinda problem with circulation and the kidneys. They’ve got him over in intensive care. The whole family’s over there. I just came back to get some things and caught your call.”
“I won’t keep you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Please tell Linda I called. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“I’ll be sure to do that, sir. Thank you for offering.”
Click.
Wrong reason to do it, but I did it anyway.
“Hello.”
“Alex! How are you?”
“Got a date tonight?”
She laughed. “A date? No, just sitting here by the phone.”
“Care to change your luck?”
More laughter. Why did it sound so good?
“Hmm, I don’t know,” she said. “My mother always told me not to go out with any boy who didn’t ask by Wednesday night.”
“Good old Mom.”
“Then again, she was full of shit about lots of other things. What time?”
“Half an hour.”
She came out of the front door of her studio just as I pulled in front of the building. She was wearing a thin black silk turtleneck and tight black jeans tucked into black suede boots. Lips glossed, eyes shadowed, curls full and gleaming. I wanted her, badly. Before I could get out, she opened her own door, scooted next to me, radiating heat. One hand in my hair. Kissing me before I had a chance to catch my breath.
We necked fiercely. She bit me a couple of times, seemed almost angry. Just as I ran out of breath, she broke it off and said, “What’s for dinner?”
“I was thinking Chinese.” Thinking of all the times we’d eaten takeout in bed. “Of course, we could call out for it and stay here.”
“Never mind that. I want a date.”
We drove to a place in Brentwood- the standard Mandarin/Szechuan menu and paper lanterns, but always reliable- and feasted for an hour, then headed over to a comedy club in Hollywood. A lighthearted place we used to enjoy together. Neither of us had been there with anyone else.
The ambience was different now: black felt walls, murderous looking bouncers with ponytails and steroid complexions. Calcutta level density, stale smoke, and hostility. Tables crowded with heavy-eyed night-crawlers and their significant others, coming down from one trip or another, demanding an entertainment-fix or else.
The first few acts were raw meat for that crowd- mumble-mouthed novice stand-ups reciting the stuff that had always cracked up their friends but didn’t make the transition to Sunset Boulevard. Sad clowns veering wildly, like drunks on ice skates- staggering between silences more painful than any I’d encountered doing therapy and stutter-bursts of manic word salad. Just before midnight, things got more polished but no more friendly: slick, trendily dressed young men and women who’d been shaped on the late night talk show lathe, spitting out the four-letter wit they couldn’t get away with on TV. Rage-laced relationship humor. Ugly-spirited ethnic jokes. Screaming scatology.
Had the city gotten meaner, or had I just lost my edge?
I looked over at Robin. She shook her head. We left. This time she allowed me to open her door. Pressed herself against it the moment she was inside and stayed that way.
I began driving. Reached for her hand. She squeezed mine a couple of times and let go.
“Sleepy?” I said.
“No, not at all.”
“Everything okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So… Where to?”
“Do you mind just driving for a while?”
“Not at all.”
I was on Fountain going west. Turning right on La Cienega, I crossed Sunset up into the Hollywood Hills, climbing slowly and steadily until I found myself on a series of narrow, hairpin residential streets named after birds.
Robin remained tight against the door, like a nervous hitchhiker. Eyes shut, not talking, her face directed away from me. She crossed her legs and placed one hand on her belly, as if it ached.
A few moments later she put her head back and straightened her legs. Despite her denial of fatigue, I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But when I switched on the radio and found a late night jazz show, she said, “That’s nice.”
I kept driving, with no idea where I was going, ended up somehow on Coldwater Canyon, took it all the way to Mulholland Drive, and turned left.
A bit of forest, then clearings that revealed sheer cliff above the incandescent grid of the San Fernando Valley. Fifty square miles of lights and motion, leering through night-haze and treetops.
Bright lights, pseudo city.
Being up here felt strangely adolescent. Mulholland was the quintessential parking spot, as consecrated by Hollywood. How many make-out scenes had been filmed here? How many splatter flicks?
I lowered my speed, enjoying the view, keeping my eyes out for drag-racers and other nuisances. Robin opened her eyes. “Why don’t you pull over somewhere?”
The first few turnoffs were occupied by other vehicles. I found a eucalyptus-shaded spot several miles from the Coldwater junction, parked, and killed my lights. Not far from Beverly Glen; just a quick southward dip and we’d be home- at least I would.
She was still up against the door, looking out at the Valley.
“Nice,” I said, setting the emergency brake and stretching.
She smiled. “The stuff of picture postcards.”
“It’s good being with you.” I made another reach for her hand. No return squeeze this time. Her skin was warm but inert.
“So,” she said, “how’s your friend in Texas?”
“Her dad took a turn for the worse. He’s in the hospital.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She cranked open her window. Stuck her head out.
“Are you okay?”
“Guess so,” she said, pulling her head back in. “Why’d you call me, Alex?”
“I was lonely,” I said, without thinking. Not liking the pitiful sound of it. But it seemed to cheer her. She took my hand and played with my fingers.
“I could use a friend, too,” she said.
“You’ve got one.”
“Things have been rough. I don’t want to whine- I know I have a tendency to do that and I’m fighting it.”
“I never thought of you as a whiner.”
She smiled.
“What is it?” I said.
“Dennis. He used to complain that I whined.”
“Well, fuck him, the churl.”
“He didn’t just leave. I kicked him out.”
I said nothing.
“I got pregnant and had an abortion. It took me a week to decide that was what I was going to do. When I told him, he agreed right away. Offered to pay for it. That made me angry- that he had no conflict about it. That it was so simple for him. So I kicked him out.”
Suddenly she was out of the car, walking around to the front and standing by the grille. I got out and stood next to her. The ground was thick with dead eucalyptus leaves. The air smelled like cough drops. A couple of cars drove by, then silence, then another headlight parade.
Finally, a stillness that endured.
“When I found out,” she said, “I felt so strange. Disgusted at myself for being so careless. Happy that I was able to- biologically. And scared.”
I remained silent, dealing with my own feelings. Anger: all the years we’d been together. The care we’d taken. Sadness…
“You hate me,” she said.
“Of course I don’t.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Robin, it happens.”
“To other people,” she said.
She stepped toward the cliff. I put both arms around her waist. Felt resistance and let go.
“The procedure itself was nothing. My OB-GYN did it, right in the office. She said we’d caught it real early- as if it were a disease. Vacuum pump and a receipt for insurance as a routine D and C. Later, I had cramps, but nothing terrible. The old Castagna pain threshold. Couple of days of Tylenol, then cold turkey.”