Anywhere But Here (39 page)

It was coming to me: we’d gone to Rodeo Drive and she’d bought a dress for her date with Dr. Spritzer, and now she was home late, and happy.

“How was it?”

She pulled on a T-shirt, then sat down. “Well, you won’t believe it, Ann. It was marvelous. Just marvelous. We met for drinks. Here at the Left Bank, we sat at the bar, and he was sort
of smiling, you know, and I smiled, and then he said, Hey do you feel like a couple of lobsters? I said sure, why not, and he took me to this place. Ann, we’ve got to go there sometime, you’d love it, you would ADORE it, but it’s expensive. It was RIGHT on the beach. And we got in and everybody knows him there. They all say, ‘Oh, hello, Dr. Spritzer, Hi Josh.’ And he’s short. I didn’t realize it before, but he’s this little itty-bitty man. It’s a good thing I wasn’t wearing higher heels. Boy, is that ever lucky, when I think about it. I almost wore the black. Even in these, I came right up to here on him.

“So we talked and talked and we just agreed about everything. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but we really clicked, you know? Sometimes that just happens, you just CLICK with someone. And here we were eating these lobsters and you know how they’re messy and the butter was dripping down my face, oh, God, I thought, here he’s going to remember me with a shiny, buttery chin.”

“What time is it?”

My mother went to the front window and pulled the felt curtain and let it close again. There was a damp spot where she’d been sitting on the blanket, darker than the rest of the wool. I rolled over and picked up her underpants from the floor. They were wet. I dropped them back, I didn’t want her to see.

“It’s pretty late. Almost time to get up. Should we jump in the car and ride down to the beach for a little? The sun will be just coming up. And I bet Alice’s would have a good breakfast.”

My legs still felt weightless and empty inside.

“I’ll just throw on some clothes and we’ll go.” My mother walked into the bathroom and the toilet seat clicked against the wall. “Should we do that, Honey?” She always left the bathroom door open; she liked to keep talking. The toilet paper roll creaked. “We can get some strong coffee. Come on, get up. We’ll have fun. Come on, Ann.”

She clapped her hands while I put on jeans and a loose, old sweater, warm clothes I’d feel ugly in at school, when it was light. But now I needed comfort and these clothes made me feel regular.

It was still dark when we drove up, out of the garage. We could just see the shapes of the trees and buildings in the weak street light. My mother turned on the heat. Bundled in soft clothes with my sneakers up on the dashboard, I was glad to be driving. I didn’t care how far we went.

My mother crossed Wilshire Boulevard, onto Arden Drive. She slowed and then stopped in front of a house. “This is where his kids live. And the ex-wife, Elaine.” The street was dark and empty. We could sit there and stare all we wanted. Beverly Hills seemed as small and innocent as Bay City, as anywhere.

“We should always get up early,” I said.

“He put a lot of work into that house. A lot of work and a lot of money. He did that whole hedge, he told me. He says he still goes over to do the gardening.”

“You don’t think he’ll ever want to go back?”

“Oh, no. I’m sure of it. He loves his kids, though. He’ll always see his kids, I’m sure. Apparently, he worries about Amy. About her weight. Apparently, she’s very insecure.”

My mother started the car again and we drove south. Even Wilshire Boulevard was empty.

“I’m going to drive you past his apartment for a second. It’s gorgeous inside, absolutely gorgeous. See, he had the big house with the garage and the pool and the yard and all, and he said to me, now, for the first time really ever, he’s living alone. So he wanted something small and neat, without a lot of stuff around.”

She parked across the street from one of the new Century City high rises and rolled her window down.

“He’s up there on the fourteenth floor. See his window?” She craned her neck and bent out.

“No.”

“It’s dark now,” she said, sighing. “He turned his lights off. He’s probably gone to bed. Sweet.” She smiled to herself.

The car rumbled softly and in the field next to us, already staked for development, light was beginning to come up from the ground. Down Wilshire, in the distance, the Veterans’ building gleamed like a knife. We turned up to Sunset and drove on the
wide, clean, loopy road for a long time. There’s a place where Sunset meets Pacific Coast Highway. You turn at a stoplight and then you’re there at the beach. We parked the car alongside the road and got out, to walk. The sand was still more gray than yellow. You couldn’t see a sun yet. But it was lighter than it was dark. The water looked choppy. There were whitecaps. It was cold, we kept our hands in our pockets.

Close to the shore, the water seemed clear. The boom of waves crashing and the plate of green water, washing up on the sand, seemed to wipe out what we said and start the world over, new and clean, every minute.

Farther out black figures of surfers moved, appearing from where we were like letters of the alphabet.

“Look at how early they come out. That’s great. Can you believe we really live here now?” Our hair blew in front of our mouths. “I’d love a house on the beach someday, Josh says that’s what he wants, too. He’s had the house in Beverly Hills with the kids, he’s done that. Now he’d like something else,”

“What about my school?” Beverly Hills kept a strict district. That was why we had to live where we lived.

“There must be a school out here somewhere.”

“Do you think he’ll want to get married again?”

“I don’t know, Ann. We’ll have to wait and see. We’ll just have to see. He’s already paying alimony and child support, you know. And those two will have to go to college, too, still. So I don’t know. It was just a first date. Let’s hope.”

We walked north, against the wind. Sand blew up on my jeans, making a ripping noise.

“He did say, though, at the end, he walked to his balcony and he leaned back and said, Adele, I have never had a first date like this in my life. This was more dynamic and more, close, you know, than any first date in my whole life.

“And I said, I was thinking just the same thing. And it’s true. Really, Ann. I never, never really feel anything on a first date. I told him, it usually takes me a long time to get to know someone. But this man really, really cares about me.”

“Did he say he loved you?”

“Oh, no, Honey, he couldn’t. Adults who’ve been married before just don’t say that to each other right away. That takes a long time.”

“A month?”

“Even longer. A year, maybe. That’s almost like an engagement, saying that at our age. You might not even say it until you just went, Say, here, I bought a ring.”

That made me remember Lolly and her shall-we-say-ring. My mother never got a ring from Ted. They’d decided to put the money towards the house on Carriage Court.

“But he did something. He did something last night that grownups do sometimes that shows you really, really care about someone.”

“What?”

“Oh, Honey, it’s something adults do in bed. But not many people ever do it. It means you really, really like the woman. You’ll know when you’re older. It just means they’re really, really serious about you. They wouldn’t do it with just any woman.”

“How will I know if you don’t tell me!”

“Well, I hope you’re not planning to go to bed with anyone for a long, long time, Little Miss. Because, let me tell you, it wouldn’t be a good idea with boys your age. The men really still want you to be innocent if they’re going to marry you. They may say they don’t, but they really do. It’s different with me, Honey, because I’ve already been married.”

“So when I’m married, how will I know?”

My mother laughed. “You’ll just know. No one ever told me. The way you know never changes. It’ll just happen. And you can tell. You really can.” She sighed. “Boy, can you.”

Farther up, a line of surfers in black wet suits walked towards the shore. In the shallow waves, they rode one hand on the boards, which bobbed ahead like dogs on leashes.

“So whatever this special thing is that Dr. Spritzer did, my dad didn’t do that?”

“Oh, Ann, your father. Honey, your father loved me and he
loved you, too, but he’s an irresponsible man. It wasn’t just us. He left his jobs, everything. He’s a selfish, selfish man.”

The waves broke huge, about ten feet and rounded like perfect glass.

“But, don’t worry, because there’ll be other men in our lives. I’ll catch another father for you, you just wait. Who knows, maybe it’ll be Josh Spritzer. Wouldn’t that be fun to have a doctor and a doctor like him, who looks like that? Everybody likes him, Ann.”

“Even if you marry him, he won’t be my father, though.”

“I don’t know. I think he would. I’ll tell you, a father is someone who. DOES for you and GIVES to you. Not just take, take, take. I mean, what makes your dad your father? Just a little sperm. And genes. What did he ever do for you?”

I shrugged and pulled my collar up. She was right. I couldn’t say anything to that.

“And I’ll tell you, if we play it smart with Josh Spritzer, he may end up being THE adoring dad. Just watch. He told me last night that his kids give him OODLES of trouble. You can’t even imagine, Ann. These kids really have problems. After dinner, we were having coffee and we talked and talked and talked about how worried he is with Andy. He doesn’t even know if Andy can get into college, with his grades, Ann. Can you imagine, with a school like Beverly High and money? You’d think he’d have everything going for him. And he can’t even get the grades. Not even for UCLA. But don’t say anything to any of your kids. Even to Amy. They’re trying to keep it quiet. I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this, because he hasn’t even told Amy. But he thinks Andy may be on drugs.

“Then, at the end, we were just going to leave, he looked at me and smiled—he’s got this huge, bright smile—and he said, I’ve been talking and talking about my kids, and you haven’t said a word about yours. You must have problems with Ann, too.’

“And I said, ‘Well, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t.’ He said, ‘You don’t?’ And he looked at me, like this, you know, and said, ‘You don’t worry about drugs or her getting in with the wrong group of kids or anything?’ And I said, ‘Well, actually, we have
pretty good communication. When she has a problem, she tells me and we work it out together.’

“And let me tell you, he was impressed, Ann. He was thinking to himself, Why aren’t my kids more like her? You can bet.”

We kept walking. She had no idea. I didn’t tell her my problems. But I just jammed my hands farther down in my pockets. I wasn’t going to fight now. I liked Dr. Spritzer.

She yawned. “I’m getting hungry. Should we trek up and see if Alice’s is open?”

The pier seemed a long way off, but we could see the restaurant, with its shingled turret, from where we were. We started diagonally up the sand.

“Wouldn’t you love a dog on the beach? Maybe we should get a dog!” My mother’s voice boomed loud. The ocean always made her optimistic.

The sand became darker and dirty, when we got up near the restaurant. We stood and looked until we found our car, more than a mile down, by the side of the road.

My mother slapped her thigh. “Well, we can eat whatever we want and the walk back will work it off. We need that little exercise.”

She grabbed my hand, right as I turned from the water, to follow the pebbled path to the door. “You know, we made the right choice, coming here. It was hard at first, but look at us now. Look at you. You’re getting braces. With your teeth straight, your face will be just perfect and you’re in Beverly Hills High with the richest and the smartest kids in the world. Really, Ann. The very top, top kids in this world. We never could have had any of this in Wisconsin.”

She stood looking down at my face, waiting for something.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

“You’re really going to be somebody some day. These kids you meet now will be your connections, your milieu, for the rest of your life. I only wish I’d had the chances you’ll have.”

Where we walked in there were overturned chairs stacked on tables. A broom was pitched against the wall. At the front, farther
down on the pier, a waitress walked between tables with a coffeepot. Her thongs flapped loudly on the floor.

We took a table next to the window. There was one surfer, far away. “He shouldn’t be out there all alone,” my mother said. “Do you see another one? They’re always supposed to have a buddy.”

The waitress came to give us coffee. She didn’t ask, she just slapped two mugs down and filled them. The skin on her face seemed tight and her toes looked old with wrinkles. But her hair was bleached white and her legs and arms were downy. She probably wasn’t much older than I was. Her name, on a plastic pin, was Dawn.

“Isn’t this great being up early? It’s just seven now. We’re not usually even up yet. Look at that. Did you see that wave? Absolutely amazing.”

We ordered huge, sloppy omelettes that came with herbed potatoes and raisin wheat bread.

“We’ll get a good breakfast and start the day with protein,” my mother said. After one date, we already felt richer.

“So, when are you going to see him again?”

“Next Saturday night. He’s going to take me to the opera.” My mother sighed. “I’m going to need clothes for all this.” She started biting her hand. She did that when she was nervous. It made her look terrible.

We felt rich for about as long as it took us to eat our food. Then the dread came back. All we’d have to do. Our plates lay almost empty; only crusts and the rind of a pineapple slice. It would be light in Dr. Spritzer’s apartment now. He would be up, moving around. Loose.

“I’m going to have to have clothes and get my nails done. Let me tell you, Ann, there are plenty of women who’d give an arm and a leg to go out with this man. And they can spend all day in the beauty parlor with the manicures and the hairdressers and the leg waxes. And I just can’t.”

“But he liked you.”

“I know. But let’s face it. He saw me in my best thing. The green. And that’s really all I have that’s new.”