Losing Clementine (23 page)

My brain dropped back into the conversation.

“I see someone I must go say hello to,” she said. “Kiss me.”

I went for her cheek, but she caught me on the lips and then slipped off, leaving a trail of vanilla perfume behind her.

“Clementine.”

I turned, saw who had spoken, and then did drain my glass. “Director.”

He stepped sideways to slip between guests and made his way around a white couch and an end table holding a reproduction Ming vase.

“You look very nice this evening,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Apparently keeping me locked up in the employee break room put us on friendly terms.

“Your piece was brilliant. Did you see the story in the paper?”

“No, not yet.”

“I'll send you a copy. It's very complimentary. Lots of great photos. Almost the whole front of the arts section.”

It already seemed like a long time ago.

“I think it worked out for everyone,” he said.

“Please excuse me,” I said. “I see someone I have to say hello to.”

Without leaving a wake of vanilla behind me, I slipped out the sliding glass doors onto the wide flagstone patio that surrounded the pool. I was still barefoot, having dropped my shoes by the front door when I came in, and the stones were warm under my feet. The air had given up its afternoon heat much more quickly than the stones, and propane lamps stood ready to be lit at the first sign of a shivering guest. To my left was one of several bars, and I made my way to it, holding up my empty glass. By the time I got there, the bartender had pulled the champagne bottle with its white napkin bib out of the silver ice bucket and was holding it aloft, waiting to pour.

I brought the full glass to my lips, but before I could take the first sip, a young man stepped up beside me. He had the first three buttons of his white dress shirt open.

“I saw you talking to Director Kirby,” he said.

It's an advantage to have an accent, in his case a musical Irish lilt. It keeps you from having to start by saying something interesting.

“Actually, he was talking to me.” I finished tipping the glass into my mouth. The champagne was lip-puckeringly dry. I liked it. Maybe too much.

The air up here was clean and still and the night darker above the ambient glow that kept Los Angeles from ever really getting dark. I looked up. You still couldn't quite see the stars, but I imagined it might be possible on another night. I took another sip.

He ordered a gin and tonic, which in my opinion tastes far too much like gin.

“Then you have an excuse,” he said. “I'm William.”

“Clementine,” I said and took his hand, which was no bigger than mine. Nothing about him, in fact, was bigger than anything on me. I was looking down at the part in his hair.

“Men must stare at you all the time,” he said.

I cocked my head and felt my bangs shift and tickle my forehead.

“You're a six-foot-tall doll come to life. Even”—he looked down—“barefoot.”

Men should tell all women they're beautiful and stop. Details always ruin things. The small girl feels too small. The tall girl feels too tall. And no one wants to be told she looks good in glasses. I had the sudden feeling my limbs had been stretched another foot and that perhaps I should duck to avoid ceilings.

“And you're a leprechaun,” I said.

He threw his head back and laughed in the way you're supposed to at your own expense, just to show you're a sport.

“I had that coming,” he said.

He did, and we fell into silence. I waited for him to wander away like you do at parties. My stomach growled. I kept an eye out for a waiter.

Out past the pool there was a wide landing strip of grass that ended abruptly where the top of the hill dropped into a ravine. A white movie screen had been set up to one side, and pillows the size of coffee tables were spread out on the manicured lawn. A few young women, who reminded me of ponies, stretched out lanky brown limbs on the cushions and laughed. I felt as if someone should come by to rinse down their withers and feed them sugar cubes. Someone, metaphorically, no doubt would.

William watched them, too. And I watched him watch them. He was about their age, young enough to still be in college or just graduated from college. Maybe he was on his postgrad world tour, backpacking through the Hollywood Hills.

He took another sip and turned away from the horse barn.

“So are you here because of your abiding love of independent documentaries?”

“I'm here because Annabelle let me sleep on her couch for three months when I moved to L.A. from New York, which turns out not to be the sort of debt that's easily paid in a mere fifteen years.” That should've given him some idea of how old I was.

Annabelle was throwing the party in honor of a friend's husband's new movie. Before this, the husband had been a sous-chef in one of those red-hot-for-five-minutes fusion restaurants near La Brea. Now he was a director. The wife did and still does work for Disney, which provided the sort of dental insurance and 401(k) necessary to support a spouse with career ADD.

The film was about genocide in Darfur, which was probably more timely when he started shooting than when he finished. Rumor had it George Clooney was in it, and that the director's wife had arranged that.

“Tom and I were in film school together at USC,” he said.

In L.A., that was a throwaway brag. USC is to film school as Harvard is to law.

“If you're a cinema brat,” I said, “how do you know Kirby?”

“He's my dad.”

That was the funniest thing I'd heard in days. I put the back of my hand to my mouth and snorted, which turned into a guffaw, which sent champagne up into my nasal cavity, which made my eyes tear up, which made him laugh, which is funny in an Irish accent, and soon my cheek muscles ached and I had a stitch in my side and people were staring.

When we settled into snickers, William wiped his eyes. “It's true. I mean sure he's a kiss-ass wanker now, but twenty-five years ago, he was stud enough to knock up my mum on holiday.”

That answered the question of his age, but the trials of a single mother were less amusing. We both settled into a postgiggle valley of conversation.

“So,” he went on, “I didn't much know him until I came to the States. He sent checks for my schooling but never came for a visit or anything. Then I showed up in Los Angeles, and we started having lunch on campus.”

I imagined PR-conscious Kirby trying to smooth things over with his long-lost love child. I wondered if he'd gotten William any coverage in the
Times
.

We hit the low point in the valley. “So,” he said, breaking the quiet, “what do you do?”

“I go looking for appetizers on a toothpick,” I said. “Thanks for the giggles.”

I snagged a couple of pork
shumai
from a passing tray, left my empty glass on an inlaid sofa table, and turned my attention to finding the bathroom. The one I found was occupied, so I wandered up the stairs, which were tiled and curved along with the wall. At the top, I could see down to the crowd below. I leaned over the railing and watched Annabelle glide from group to group. Her husband was standing in a corner, talking seriously to the one man in the crowd wearing a suit.

Annabelle and I had had a fling during my couch-surfing months. It was the midnineties, and everyone was doing something to show they were cool. I had been Annabelle's something. As far as I knew, her husband didn't know. She had been a painter for a while. That's how I'd met her. Now she was a wife and a patron, which suited her better but still seemed a letdown.

I pushed off the rail and continued down the hall.

I put my hand on the levered doorknob and turned. It moved less than a quarter inch and stopped. Locked. I hadn't yet removed my hand when the door pulled back, and Elaine Sacks looked out at me.

We both froze. Her curly hair was pulled back in a loose knot that let small ringlets curl around her face. She looked like the cover of a Jane Austen novel, which is false advertising if I've ever seen it.

“Sorry,” I said, which came out over her words, “Congratulations on the Walton show,” so the whole thing was “
Garble-garble
—ations on the Walton show.”

It took a second to know what to do with that.

“Thanks,” I said.

She stood for a moment as if there might be more to say. Then again, maybe she just couldn't get around me.

I stepped aside, and she slipped out and quickly down the hall. I watched her go. I couldn't believe I hadn't punched her. I couldn't believe Annabelle had invited her. I couldn't believe Elaine hadn't screamed about her painting and the gallery window and the article in the
Times
. It was an unexpected retreat, and I didn't like it. It was unsettling.

I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see what she saw. The giant flower looked ridiculous, like I was posing for a Hawaiian Tourist Bureau poster. I took it out and tossed it in the trash can, tucking the ends of my bob behind my ears before lifting my skirt to do my business.

Back downstairs everyone was drifting out to the pool, and a projector had been set up. I picked up another glass of champagne from a waiter and stepped off the flagstone patio and into the grass, which felt soft and tickly on my bare feet.

“Clementine.” I looked down, and Irish Eyes was looking up at me. He patted the empty spot beside him. “I've been saving it for you.”

I doubted that, but the long-limbed fillies were all still grouped together several rows ahead, so what the hell?

I gathered my skirt under me and sat, careful not to slosh out any of my drink. The bottoms of my feet were so dirty they looked like they'd been fingerprinted. A waiter slid over and offered us paper cones of popcorn, which, because it was Hollywood, had been sprinkled with some kind of herb.

I scanned the crowd. Elaine was sitting on a chaise by the pool talking to an older woman I didn't recognize.

“Where's your dad?” I asked.

“He's always the first to leave a party.”

The outdoor lights dimmed, the projector flickered on, and everyone but me clapped. My hands were full of champagne and popcorn. The ground was too uneven to set the flute down, and I had to use my lips and tongue to fish out the kernels.

I sat cross-legged, while William lounged back on his elbows, one leg out straight, the other bent and lying flat on the ground like a homoerotic underwear ad. The screen flickered with images of burning Sudanese villages and militia members riding camels and horses. A well-known black actor was doing the voice-over. William put his hand on my bare back. On-screen, the body of an old woman was being wrapped in brightly colored cloth for burial. William used the tips of his fingers to trace circles on my skin. Goose bumps popped up on my arms. Girls in flowing skirts and rubber flip-flops went in search of firewood while the narrator's voice warned of the rape and torture—as though those were two different things—they faced. William let his fingers drift under the fabric, and I felt the panel of my underwear dampen. Aid workers were being interviewed.

William tugged on my arm, and I leaned over.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked.

His apartment turned out to be a bedroom with a hot plate and a stand-up shower near Hollywood and Highland, where the stars get down on their hands and knees in cement.

“I have a refrigerator, too.” His lips were still pressed to mine, and his breath and words went straight into my mouth.

And so he did. It was the sort of fridge that comes standard in dorm rooms—two feet tall and just big enough to hold a six-pack and some yogurt. His had a microwave balanced on top of it. There were dirty socks on the bed, and I was lying on them with both of his hands up under my dress.

The truth was I had liked this better at the party. When we were talking, I could feel mature and urbane. Now I wondered if he had noticed that my butt was dimply and my upper arms were losing their elasticity. I was not a long-legged filly. I was more like glue fodder.

For obvious reasons, I'd soaked my brain in two manhattans after leaving the party and before lying down on a pile of unwashed laundry. I was drunk enough that when I closed my eyes the room would spin, so I left them open while he pulled down my underwear and settled himself between my legs. His tongue was warm and soft, and he used it gently at first as though he was asking permission.

I looked up at the ceiling and then over at the dresser while he worked. There was a stereo and a pile of CDs. I squinted in the dim light to read their spines. Tupac was heavily featured. Next to that were a few bottles of liquor, including the three wise men, Johnnie, Jack, and Jim. A photo of William with a blond pixie of a thing was framed on the nightstand. I was guessing not his sister. On the far wall hung a large flat screen television worth more than everything else in the room combined.