“Beautiful day,” she said, one hand on the door handle, still scrutinizing, still wary. Meeting strange men up in the hills had to give a woman frequent pause.
I smiled, tried to look harmless, said, “Beautiful,” and looked at the house. In the daylight, the déjà vu was even stronger. My personal patch of ghost town. Spooky.
She mistook my silent appraisal for displeasure, said, “There’s a fabulous view from the inside. It’s really a charmer, great bones- I think it was designed by one of Neutra’s students.”
“Interesting.”
“It just came on the market, Doctor. We haven’t even run ads- in fact, how did you find out about it?”
“I’ve always liked Nichols Canyon,” I said. “A friend who lives nearby told me it was available.”
“Oh. What kind of a doctor are you?”
“Psychologist.”
“Taking a day off?”
“Half day. One of the few.”
I checked my watch and tried to look busy. That seemed to reassure her. Her smile reappeared. “My niece wants to be a psychologist. She’s a very smart little girl.”
“That’s terrific. Good luck to her.”
“Oh, I think we make our own luck, don’t we, Doctor?”
She pulled keys out of her handbag and we walked to the slatted front door. It opened to a small courtyard- a few potted plants, glass wind chimes that I remembered, dangling over the lintel, silent in the hot, static air.
We went inside and she began her spiel, all well-rehearsed pep.
I pretended to listen, nodded and said “Uh huh” at the right times, forced myself to follow, rather than lead; I knew the place better than she did.
The interior smelled of carpet cleaning fluid and pine disinfectant. Sparkly clean, expunged of death and disorder. But to me it seemed mournful and forbidding- a black museum.
The front of the house was a single open area encompassing living room, dining area, study, and kitchen. The kitchen was early deco-massacre: avocado-green cabinetry, round-edged coral-colored Formica tops, and a coral vinyl-covered breakfast nook tucked into one corner. The furniture was blond wood, synthetic pastel fabrics, and spidery black iron legs- the kind of postwar jet-streamed stuff that looks poised for takeoff. Walls, of textured beige plaster, were hung with portraits of harlequins and serene seascapes. Bracket bookshelves were crowded with volumes on psychology. The same books.
A bland, listless room, but the blandness projected the eye toward the east, toward a wall of glass so clean it seemed invisible. Panels of sheet glass, segmented by sliding glass doors.
On the other side was a narrow, terrazzo-tiled terrace rimmed with white iron railing; beyond the railing an eyeful- a mindful- of canyons, peaks, blue skies, summer foliage. “Isn’t it something,” said Mickey Mehrabian, spreading one arm, as if the panorama were a picture she’d painted.
“Really something.”
We walked out on the terrace. I felt dizzy, remembered an evening of dancing, Brazilian guitars.
Something to show you, Alex.
Late September. I got back to L.A. before Sharon did, $4,000 more solvent, and lonely as hell. She’d left without leaving an address or number; we hadn’t exchanged as much as a postcard. I should have been angry, yet she was all I thought about as I drove down the coast.
I headed straight for Curtis Hall. The floor counselor told me she’d checked out of the dorm, wouldn’t be returning this semester. No forwarding address, no number.
I drove away, enraged and miserable, certain I’d been right: She’d been seduced back to the Good Life, plied with rich boys, new toys. She was never coming back.
My apartment looked dingier than ever. I avoided it, spent as much time as possible at the hospital, where the challenges of my new job helped distract me. I took on a full caseload from the waiting list, volunteered for the night shift in the Emergency Room. On the third day she showed up at my office, looking happy, almost feverish with delight.
She closed the door. Deep kisses and embraces. She made sounds about missing me, let my hands roam her curves. Then she pulled away, flushed and laughing. “Free for lunch, Doctor?”
She took me to the hospital parking lot, to a shiny red convertible- a brand new Alfa Romeo Spider.
“Like it?”
“Sure, it’s great.”
She tossed me the keys. “You drive.”
We had lunch at an Italian place on Los Feliz, listened to opera and ate cannoli for dessert. Back in the car, she said, “There’s something I want to show you, Alex,” and directed me west, to Nichols Canyon.
As I pulled up the driveway to the gray, pebble-roofed house, she said, “So what do you think, Doc?”
“Who lives here?”
“Yours truly.”
“You’re renting it?”
“No, it’s mine!” She got out of the car and skipped to the front door.
I was surprised to find the house furnished, even more surprised by the dated, fifties look of the place. These were the days when organic was king: earth tones, home-made candles, and batiks. All this aluminum and plastic, the flat, cold colors seemed déclassé, cartoonish.
She glided around exuding pride of ownership, touching and straightening, pulled open drapes and exposed the wall of glass. The view made me forget the aluminum.
Not a student’s pad by a long shot. I thought: an arrangement. Someone had set the place up for her. Someone old enough to have bought furniture in the fifties.
Kruse? She’d never really clarified their relationship…
“So what do you think, Doc?”
“Really something. How’d you swing it?”
She was in the kitchen, pouring 7-Up into two glasses. Pouting. “You don’t like it.”
“No, no, I do. It’s fantastic.”
“Your tone of voice tells me different, Alex.”
“I was just wondering how you managed it. Financially.”
She gave a theatrical glower and answered in a Mata Hari voice: “I haf secret life.”
“Aha.”
“Oh, Alex, don’t be so glum. It’s not as if I slept with anybody to get it.”
That shook me. I said, “I wasn’t implying you had.”
Her grin was wicked. “But it did cross your mind, sweet prince.”
“Never.” I looked out at the mountains. The sky was pale aqua above a horizon of pinkish brown. More fifties color coordination.
“Nothing crossed my mind,” I said. “I just wasn’t prepared. I don’t see or hear from you all summer- now this.”
She handed me a soda, put her head on my shoulder.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said. “Not as gorgeous as you, but gorgeous. Enjoy it.”
“Thank you, Alex. You’re so sweet.”
We stood there for a while, sipping. Then she unlatched the sliding door and we stepped out onto the terrace. Narrow, white space cantilevering over a sheer drop. Like stepping onto a cloud. The chalky smell of dry brush rose up from the canyons. In the distance was the HOLLYWOOD sign, sagging, splintering, a billboard for shattered dreams.
“There’s a pool, too,” she said. “Around the other side.”
“Wanna skinny-dip?”
She smiled and leaned on the railing. I touched her hair, put my hand under her sweater and massaged her spine.
She made a contented sound, leaned against me, reached around and stroked my jaw.
“I guess I should explain,” she said. “It’s just that it’s involved.”
“I’ve got time,” I said.
“Do you really?” she asked, suddenly excited. She turned around, held my face in her hands. “You don’t have to get back to the hospital right away?”
“Nothing but meetings until six. I’m due at the E.R. at eight.”
“Great! We can sit here for a while and watch the sunset. Then I’ll drive you back.”
“You were going to explain,” I reminded her.
But she’d already gone inside and turned on the stereo. Slow Brazilian music came on- gentle guitars and discreet percussion.
“Lead me,” she said, back on the terrace. Snaking her arms around me. “In dancing the man’s supposed to lead.”