Cheat and Charmer (57 page)

Dinah and Veevi drove down alone with the Lasker kids and Coco. Gussie had taken the week off to visit relatives in Marlin, Texas, and Claire had gone skiing in Mammoth with friends from school. Dinah did all the cooking and watched over the children, while Veevi parked herself on the patio, supposedly reading scripts and novels and writing synopses for Jake. Dinah noticed that she had become very quiet. Opening the sliding doors to invite Veevi in for lunch, she waited for her sister. As Veevi stepped into the house, Dinah said, “He’s not going to leave his w-w-w-wife, is he?”

“No,” Veevi answered, coming into the kitchen and sitting inside the breakfast nook. “But I never thought he would.”

Liar, thought Dinah.

“You’ll meet someone else, Vee. But he’s been great for you. You look wonderful. Got those roses in your cheeks again.”

Veevi laughed. “He’s not that great in the sack, if that’s what you mean.”

“But he loves you, doll. I knew it eighteen years ago.”

“A lot of good that does me.” She took a sip of iced tea. “Oh, stupid men and their dreary wives.”

Dinah was looking forward to Good Friday, when Jake was finally driving down for the weekend. After two or three days in the small, unprepossessing house, she regretted the decision to rent it and wondered why she had let Jake have his way with the fantasy of “camping out” in what to her was a thoroughly dull and unattractive place. She wished they had gone to Deep Well, where they usually stayed. But he had been anxious about money recently, despite the windfall of the directing assignment, and he was adamant: the children were growing up amid too much luxury, and they were beginning to take it for granted. She knew the real reason for his skittishness: he was about to dive into something he’d never done before, and when the movie was over, he’d go back to this new project, something exciting and scary—a Broadway show, which he was doing on spec. And it was crucial for them to economize, now that he had Veevi on the payroll and was supplementing the paltry sums Mike sent for Claire and Coco. With her own doubts about luxury, Dinah was glad when they weren’t spending money, or planning to spend money. But this house was a mistake—a charmless, cramped assemblage of concrete, plate glass, and synthetic-wood paneling in a development that had been thrown up now that the building shortages of the Korean War were over. The dull ocher sofas, bought, she imagined, from some department store in nearby Indio, depressed her. And there was only one bathroom—not nearly enough, she thought, to accommodate three adults and three kids.

The house was, moreover, in a small, anonymous neighborhood where year-round residents, needing relief from the heat and relentless sunshine that L.A. weekenders craved, lived in the long purple shadows cast by the nearby mountains. So the day’s swimming ended early. Lorna and Coco slept on cots in the dining alcove; Peter had agreed to share his room, which had twin beds, with Veevi. He was very fond of his aunt, and had no intention of sleeping with the girls. On Saturday, Jake and Dinah drove off to Tamarisk Country Club, where he played golf and Dinah had a lesson; Jake wanted her to learn the game so that the two of them could eventually
play together. At first, Dinah told him she couldn’t go, since there was no one to take the kids to the neighborhood pool, but Veevi had uncharacteristically volunteered to watch over them, adding quietly that anyone could see that Jake had had a hard week and obviously needed to have some time alone with her.

That afternoon, while Jake and Dinah were on the golf course, Veevi lay stretched out by the side of the small neighborhood pool, which was filled with kids. She read
The New Yorker
while they swam, occasionally clasping it to her chest to save it from cannonball splashes, or gazing up at the mountains as she smoked. Peter found her interest in his dives gratifying and asked her repeatedly to watch him when he did a swan dive or a jackknife, and she did watch, praising him and appearing to be altogether more interested in his diving than his mother usually was.

The sun shone clear and hot until three o’clock. Then the shadows tumbled down from the mountains in a violet avalanche. By three-thirty, it was no longer hot enough to swim and Veevi and the kids started the short trek home. There were very few cars in sight, but they walked along the desert side of the road, against traffic, just in case. Chilled by their clinging wet bathing suits, the kids, with towels slung around their shoulders, walked in their bare feet, feeling the sharp edges of pebbles in the newly laid asphalt road. The desert breeze raised goose bumps on their skin, which smelled of chlorine. Lorna and Coco were absorbed in comparing water wrinkles on the tips of their fingers. Peter walked slowly beside his aunt, his head down and his eyes riveted to the selvage of sand between roadway and desert.

“Pete, I’ve been meaning to ask you all week,” said Veevi, “why you always keep your eyes on the road. Are you looking for rocks or something?”

“Well,” Peter said, giving her a quizzical look, as if he were debating whether to answer her. “I hate to say this, but I’m really scared of lizards and snakes. Especially rattlers.”

“Are you? I didn’t know.”

She reached over and took his hand. He didn’t like her taking it, although he liked her, and he let it lie limply in hers, as if it belonged to somebody else.

“They come out when it’s hot and lie on the road,” he said. “And there’s probably lots of them just a little ways from here. Out there.” He nodded toward the desert, which stretched out to his left the way beach turned suddenly into ocean.

“But have you ever actually seen one?”

“Yep. One time Mom took us to the Agua Caliente reservation and there was this huge yellow-and-black diamondback rattler curled up by the side of the road, ready to strike.”

He let go of her hand to form the size and shape of the snake’s head with his own. His face, too, became the snake’s face, his teeth the bared fangs. Then his frightened eyes returned to the black asphalt road, which was still warm underfoot.

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,” Veevi told him. “There are too many people here.”

“I saw two this week: one on the back porch and one just off the road.”

“Snakes, or lizards?”

“One snake, one lizard. The snake was a rattler. I mean, I’m pretty sure it was a rattler. It was in the sand—gliding really fast. The lizard was on the porch.”

“Well, rattlers
are
scary. But they’re scared of you, too. And lizards aren’t dangerous. Snakes can be dangerous, but not lizards. Why are you so afraid of them?”

“I don’t know,” he said, as if he, too, were puzzled by this. “There’s just something about them.”

“I used to see lots of desert creatures—lizards, snakes, Gila monsters—in Death Valley, when I went camping with Grandpa Milligan. Do you remember him?”

Peter nodded. “He had these false teeth, Veevi, and they were stained all black from chewing tobacco.”

“Pop was a real old-timey kind of guy,” Veevi said. “He loved the outdoors.”

Peter paused, because he could tell that he was supposed to say he loved it, too. “Actually, I don’t like the outdoors that much.”

“Oh, I know, you like music. You’re an artist. But you can like the outdoors, too. You don’t have to like just one and not the other.”

“Well, I like fencing. I brought my foil down with my clarinet. Did you see me practicing foil out on the patio?”

“Oh, I did, my love. Now, that’s an elegant sport. I like that very much about you, you know, that you’re a fencer.”

It made him feel funny when she called him “my love” or when she came into the living room to watch him practice the clarinet. She hadn’t done that for a while; lately, she hadn’t been there when he got home from
school. But now, here she was again, part of the family, and he found it pleasant, despite her endearments, to walk beside her while she listened so intently. “There was this kid at school,” he said. “He stepped on a lizard one day. It was on a brick patio right outside the classroom, and when the kid stepped on the lizard’s head its eyes popped out. They were all red. It was
disgusting
. My dad wants me to go to a psychiatrist because I’m afraid of lizards, and because I like fencing but not baseball, and also because I don’t like vegetables and having short hair. My mom says I don’t have to if I don’t want to, but he says I’m an oddball.”

He waited to hear whose side she would take.

“No,” she said, “you’re not an oddball. You’re special. You’re going to be a great musician one day. I can tell.”

“My father thinks the clarinet’s a weirdo instrument. He thinks I should play the piano. Or the sax. He says if I learn sax I can play in a band in high school and meet girls at dances.”

“Your father, if I may say so,” said Veevi, “is full of shit.”

He laughed out loud, free, for the moment, from his rattlesnake watch. But when Veevi reached for his hand again, he stuck it into the pocket of his wet bathing trunks before she could grab hold of it.

When they reached the house, they saw Jake’s moss-green Caddy in the garage, next to Dinah’s big Pontiac woody. Lorna dashed ahead to find Dinah, leaving Coco dawdling behind. But the bedroom door was closed, which meant, everyone knew, that Jake and Dinah were taking a nap, a situation that always made Peter feel uneasy, though he didn’t know why. Disappointed, the Lasker children each went their separate ways—Lorna into the shower and Peter to his bedroom to get out of his wet trunks and into something dry. Since his parents were sleeping, he couldn’t practice the clarinet. He stretched out on his bed and opened his Freddy the Pig book. Later, he’d go out and practice with his foil. Veevi was in the kitchen, getting Coco graham crackers and milk.

After her shower, Lorna bounded into the living room, her hair in a dripping ponytail, and plopped down on the rug with several members of the Doll family and a box of clothes for them. Ignoring Veevi, she handed a baby doll to Coco. Veevi sat on the sofa with her legs tucked up underneath her, reading
The New Yorker
. Then she yawned, gazed blankly out the plate glass window, and got up and went into the room she shared with Peter.

She let her pool slippers drop to the rug and lay back on her bed on the
other side of the room with her arms folded over her chest. “You don’t mind if I have a li’l nap, dear, do you?” she said.

“No, it’s okay,” he said, getting up and putting his sneakers on.

“You don’t have to leave, dear.”

“That’s okay,” he said. He didn’t mind it when she slept in his room at night, but there was something about being awake in a room with a sleeping grown-up that made him feel strange, and he took his book and his long, gleaming foil and slipped out as quickly as possible.

No sooner had he settled himself on the sofa than Veevi padded back into the living room. “Can’t sleep,” she said almost apologetically. He was lying full length, the book propped up against his knees, but he sat up to make room for her.

“Oh, don’t get up, Peter,” she said.

“That’s okay.” He liked her, but he wished she wouldn’t always pay so much attention to him.

“When are Mom and Dad gonna wake up?” he said to no one in particular.

“They’re resting for a party tonight,” said Lorna importantly. “At George Joy’s.”

Lorna raised her eyebrows dramatically, as she did whenever she spoke of the famous people her parents knew.

“He has a house down here, too, huh?” Peter asked, not especially interested.

“Of course,” said Lorna. “Don’t you read the movie magazines?”

“No, birdbrain, I don’t. But you do. They’re written for birdbrains like you.”

Lorna replied with dignity, “Don’t call me a birdbrain. I hardly ever read movie magazines.”

“You do, too. You give your allowance to Gussie and you get her to buy them for you.”

“I do not.”

“Liar. You do, too.”

“I dislike you intensely,” she said, turning away from Peter to concentrate on pulling a formal white tulle ball gown, a pair of tiny white satin high heels, and a little white fluffy fur stole out of her box of doll clothes.

“I dislike you intensely,” Peter retorted.

Although she didn’t want to talk to Veevi, Lorna needed to check the plans. “Who’s coming to baby-sit for us tonight?” she asked, all business.

“No one.”

“Aren’t you going to the party, too?”

“Heavens, no. I can’t stand big parties. I’m staying home. So I guess I’m the baby-sitter.”

“Why?” said Peter. “We don’t need a baby-sitter. I’m the oldest and I can do it.”

“I can do it, too,” said Lorna.

“We’ll have lots of fun!” said his aunt. “We’re going to dye Easter eggs. Your mother got me all the equipment. We’ll do it tonight!”

“Why can’t you stand them?” Lorna probed.

“Why can’t I stand what?” Veevi said.

“Big parties.”

“Because I can’t, that’s why.”

Lorna persisted. “Didn’t you like them when you were a big star, in the olden days?”

“No. I never went to that many even then. I’ve always loathed them.”

Lorna eyed her aunt skeptically, disbelieving every word. Moreover, the thought of having to dye Easter eggs under her aunt’s supervision didn’t thrill her.

“What does ‘loathe’ mean?” Peter shouted out excitedly. “You and Mom always use that word. ‘Oh, I loathe him,’ ” he mimicked.

“It means hate,” Lorna said. “Anybody knows that, birdbrain.”

“Fuck you,” Peter said.

“Fuck you, too,” Lorna said.

“I dislike you intensely,” Peter said.

“I dislike you intensely, too,” said Lorna.

“You think you know everything, but you don’t, moron,” said Peter.

“Actually, Peter, Lorna’s right,” said Veevi. She was smiling at him, as if to say, “Lorna
is
a birdbrain. You and I both know that, of course. But sometimes even a birdbrain knows something we don’t.”

Lorna caught it all—the looks between them and everything they implied. She began taking off the ball gown in which she’d dressed one of the dolls. “She’s changed her mind,” she said. “She doesn’t want to go to the big, fancy party. She’s going to go to
college
. ’Cause she’s so smart.”