Earth Angel (20 page)

“Did you get over it?”

“Yeah, when I met Rachel’s mom in junior high. Kate and I dated for a couple of years. Then we found out we were more like
pals than steadies. That’s when I set her up with Zack. Rachel tell you about the accident?”

“Rock climbing.”

He nodded. “Apparently Zack fell and then Kate fell trying to rescue him. I was in Africa at the time, just about to cross
the desert with a tribe of nomads. I flew back as soon as I heard.” He shook his head and laughed. “It’s weird. I mean, I
know I was godfather and all, but usually that’s kind of an honorary title, like universities giving doctoral degrees to celebrities.
You can call her Dr. Whoopi Goldberg but nobody expects her to show up at
Harvard the next day to start teaching. When I’d agreed to be the kids’ godfather fifteen years earlier I figured all it meant
was the occasional birthday gift sent from exotic locations. But there it was, in the will. Congratulations, you’re a daddy.”

“You didn’t have to do it, did you? There were relatives.”

“Sure. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. They’re all wonderful people. I couldn’t have done it without them. They kept
an eye on me at first, and I’ll bet there were plenty of family debates about stepping in or going to court. But, in the end,
they did what Zack and Kate wanted.” He finished his beer and gestured to the waitress for two more. “Thing is, now I can’t
imagine having done anything else. This dad stuff isn’t all bad.”

“And the relatives don’t interfere?”

“They all live on the East Coast, so I don’t see too much of them. The house was Zack and Kate’s so I moved in figuring it
would be less traumatic to Rachel and Josh if they stayed where they had friends. I still maintain my affiliation with UC
Berkeley, but on a very loose basis. They throw me an occasional bone, like the grant to do this film. I’m sure it’s more
a favor than anything else. They’re a pretty decent bunch.”

“It must be hard alone,” I probed, still wondering about his ex-wife, Lisa.

“It’s tricky. There are times I’d rather be back eating grubs in the jungle than living with two teenagers.”

Subtlety wasn’t working. “Too bad you weren’t married. That would have alleviated some of the strain.”

A sadness tightened his mouth and I was immediately sorry I’d asked. The waitress plopped the two beers down. David handed
her three dollars, which she took without comment or change. When she was gone, he said, “I was married. We divorced before
Zack and Kate died. Actually, she moved in with us at first to help out. I don’t know if I’d have survived without her there.
But then she left.”

I sipped my beer and waited for him to continue. But he didn’t. Subject closed.

We waited in the van. David wanted to be ready with the camera when the boys were finished so he could get their first impressions—before
they discussed it among themselves and altered their stories to please each other.

“Isn’t this kinda silly?” I said. “These boys coming down here for hookers?”

He shrugged, fiddled with his camera. “Sex is weird.”

“Is that your anthropological observation?”

“Uh-huh.” He looked up at me. “I stayed with a tribe in Africa which doesn’t permit a couple who has had a child to have sex
together until the child walks. That’s why they have polygamy. If their child dies, however, they are required to have sex
that night in the presence of the person, usually an old woman, who has prepared an herbal wash for them. The Sambia tribe
of New Guinea isolates its young men from women. When a man marries he hasn’t been near a woman for over a decade. During
that time he and the other young males practice homosexual fellatio while having the dangers of vaginal intercourse described
to them by the elders. Once they marry, they are still in such fear of the vagina that the bride must perform fellatio for
several months. The women are taught that the ingestion of semen is necessary for them to strengthen their bones and fill
out their breasts, as well as provide the breast milk to feed a baby. This way the man is actually indirectly feeding his
own child.”

“A culture built around blowjobs. Male heaven.”

He laughed. “Ain’t it, though?”

I smiled. I liked his stories. They were interesting, but in a trivial way, like passing an accident on the freeway—fascinating
but not relevant to my life. The same way my own thoughts had lately been swirling through my head, useless tinsels of information
floating down rain-swept gutters.
“What about the boys’ parents? What happens when they find out you were along and didn’t stop them? I don’t know, couldn’t
you be sued?” The threat of malpractice suits had loomed over every decision I made as a doctor. Every act had to be correct
or judgment was swift and punishing. I’d never actually been sued, but I’d been threatened a few times.

“Who’s going to tell the parents? These guys aren’t going to blab that they went to Mexico to get laid by prostitutes. And
it’s doubtful they’ll ever see my film. It’s doubtful anyone will but a few people on the board that gave me the grant.”

“Then why make it?”

“I need the money. I’m raising two kids. There’s inheritance and insurance money that covers most expenses, but there’s always
something that costs more than you expected. Rachel wants to go to a Jewish summer camp in a couple of months. Josh wants
a car.”

“Don’t forget the water heater.”

“Exactly.”

Okay, I had a shopping list now. A car for Josh, summer camp for Rachel, a water heater for David. Buy these things—and get
David to accept them—and my job will have been done. My first true success! I had a goal, I had purpose now. I felt a warmth
wriggle across my skin, a surge of subdermal electricity buzzing through the wiring of my veins. My muscles twitched with
nuclear energy. I could lift this van if I had to. Run a marathon. Make an undercover drug bust. I felt supernaturally powerful.

I held up my fist. “Let’s do it again. I know I’m going to win.”

“You
know
?”

I nodded.

“Despite the empirical evidence of past experience, you know you’re going to win? That’s unscientific.”

“Afraid?”

He smiled. “What do you want to wager?”

“Why wager at all. Let’s just do it.”

“No, no. There has to be a bet. Every act must have consequences.”

I sighed. “I don’t care. Five bucks? Twenty? Be easy on yourself.”

He packed the camera neatly into the bag. “You’re sure you’re going to win?”

“Like Rocky Balboa in all the sequels.”

“Okay, Grace, we’ll test your resolve. We’ll play
strip
rock-scissors-paper. Loser removes an item of clothing after each loss. And to make it interesting, the first one naked has
to run outside to the lamppost and back.”

I looked out the back of the van. Twenty yards to the lamppost. I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Hey, I don’t have anything to prove. I’m the king, remember. Undefeated. Elvis!”

“Then why are you afraid to do it with me right now?”

“I’m not afraid. I’m making this an adventure.”

I sat there without saying anything. I had all this spiritual energy jittering through me as if I’d stuck my finger into some
cosmic light socket. Couldn’t he see the change in me? I wanted to prove it to him. But stripping was ludicrous. I didn’t
want to compromise the spirituality of my mission with him by seeing him with his penis bobbing up and down as he ran through
some Mexican street outside a whorehouse. “We’ll do it for a hundred dollars,” I said.

“I don’t have a hundred dollars to lose,” he said.

“So what, you never lose, remember?”

“I’m not going to lose. But that’s not the point. It would be unethical to bet more than I could afford to lose.” He grabbed
a string of licorice from the box Stu had left behind. “I lived completely naked for three months with the Somgoolis in Australia.
Nakedness doesn’t bother me.”

I’m a doctor, I wanted to tell him, it doesn’t bother me
either. I worked a rotation in the morgue, which may not be as exotic as Australia or Brazil or Africa, but you got used to
naked real fast. The naked and the dead, Tim used to call them.

“Let’s forget it,” David said. He was being solicitous. I hated that.

I put out my fist. “Okay, let’s go.”

I removed my blouse quickly, unbuttoning a couple of buttons, and pulling it over my head. I dumped it on top of my hiking
shoes. My white socks were already wadded and stuffed inside the shoes.

“Unless you’re wearing something unusual, my calculations indicate you can only lose three more times,” David said. “You want
to quit?”

The van was pretty dark except for the dim light from the lamppost filtering through the back window curtain. David had pulled
the curtains covering the windows and hung a blanket between the driver’s seat and the back of the van so that no one could
see through the windshield. Still, that little slice of dim lamplight managed to illuminate the white skin of my breasts like
lighthouse beacons.

“We can quit,” David said again. His voice was sincere.

But I still hadn’t proven my point, whatever point it was I’d had in my mind a minute ago. I shook my head and cocked my fist.
“Proceed.”

I lost again. I couldn’t decide which was worse, sitting there with naked breasts or keeping my bra on but removing my pants
and exposing my underpants. I tugged off my pants, gingerly easing the leg over my bruised shin, and draped them over my blouse
and shoes.

“Anytime you want to quit,” he said. “I’m leaving it up to you.”

“I’ll let you know.” It was mathematically impossible for him to keep winning. I knew that with every molecule of
my body. That was science. To prove my faith I had to be willing to sacrifice my body, just as I had done earlier when I’d
taken that tumble down the stairs.

I raised my fist. One… two… three…

Rock. Scissors.

I unfastened my bra and shrugged it off.

Up to that point, David had avoided looking at me anywhere but in the eyes. But now they flicked down at my breasts, then
away.

“I know,” I said, “you’ve lived with a tribe in Bora Bora where all the women were naked and they worshiped breasts and you
were their shaman who got to inspect all the breasts for spiritual worthiness.”

“Ah, I told you that story?”

I held up my fist.

He shook his head and wearily raised his fist.

One… two… three

Paper. Scissors.

David reached for his camera. “You mind if I film this?”

“You mind if I beat you over the head with that camera?”

He laughed and nudged the camera bag away with his foot.

I took a deep breath and looked at David. He stared back without expression. Screw it, I lost. Pay up, Season. Like poker.
I quickly squirmed out of my underpants, dropped them on the pile, threw open the van door, and ran. The pavement was warm
as my bare feet slapped against it. Gravel gouged my soles. The lamppost was only about twenty yards away. There were no people
on this side of the street, so I was lucky there. But the two men who’d spoken to David earlier looked over from where they
were sitting in front of the hotel and pointed. They spoke in rapid Spanish and laughed. One of them stood up for a better
view and applauded. The other whistled. I was back in the van within ten seconds, slamming the door behind me. I huffed as
I reached for my clothes.

“Exhilarating, wasn’t it?” David said. “We used to do that when I was a kid at camp. You know, in Kenya there’s a law that
requires any foreigners who are caught running naked to be deported, naked, on the next plane out.” He leaned back against
the wall of the van, crossed his arms, and watched me get dressed. Whatever shyness he’d had before about looking at me naked
was gone. He studied me thoroughly, as if I were a lost tribe he’d just discovered. “Well,” he said, “am I the king or what?
Am I Elvis?”

I turned my back to him and pulled on my underpants and pants at the same time. “At least now tell me how you do it. You owe
me that much.”

“Magic. An ancient spell from a big-breasted shaman in Bora Bora.”

“You’re starting to annoy me.” I fastened my bra and slipped on my blouse. Oddly, I didn’t feel embarrassed or stupid as I
thought I would. My skin was warm from the run, and I felt a little buzzed, though that could have been from the beers. Also,
having never done anything like that before, I felt kind of bold.

“I’m impressed,” David said.

With what, I wondered. My body? My daring? My foot speed?

I brushed the dirt and gravel from my feet with one of my socks before putting on socks and shoes. “I can’t believe I did
that. I must be drunk.”

“On two beers?”

“I shouldn’t have mixed beer and licorice.”

He pulled a sock out of my shoe, flicked it open, handed it to me. He was leaning very close to me now. I could smell the
coconut suntan lotion, the beer, the ocean. I took the sock and pulled it on over my foot.

He watched me intently. “That’s the sexiest thing you’ve done tonight.”

“I’m not trying to be sexy.”

“That’s what makes it work.”

I didn’t know what to say. Putting on a sock is sexier than seeing me running naked down the street. Was I being flattered
or insulted? Was this poetry or pornography?

“Why’d you do it?” he asked as I laced up my shoe. “Why’d you come along with us to Mexico?”

“Because it’s there. Like bowling.”

“I’m serious.”

I scooted back against the hull of the van. I was sitting on the car seat on one side of the van, David was sitting on the
floor on the other side, leaning against the seat. “Why’d you let me come along?” I asked.

“You’d taken a fall down my stairs. In some cultures that means I’m responsible for you for the rest of your life.”

“In our culture it means either I’m terminally clumsy or you’re criminally negligent. Neither one is the basis for taking
a trip to Mexico together.”

“Still, you came,” he said.

“Don’t read anything into it. I was bored.”