Sideways (23 page)

“What’re you talking about?”

“I wasn’t planning on drinking last night. But when I caught you and your small-town paramour in flagrante delicto, it just set me off,” I said, raw annoyance throbbing in my voice.

Jack avoided my stare and pretended to look over the menu.

I raised my voice slightly to draw his attention. “I mean, what the fuck were you doing screwing her in my bed?”

“It just happened. I didn’t have time to choose
beds
. Fucking chick jumped me. Besides, what do you care? The maid puts new sheets on them every morning.”

“Not at the Windmill they don’t!”

“How do you know?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh, what
is
the point?” he asked sarcastically.

“I don’t like witnessing sex. Except in movies. Even then, it usually embarrasses me.”

Jack cocked his head to one side, perplexed. “I’m learning all kinds of shit about you, Homes.”

“Check it out from my POV. There you are, my best friend, flagpole to the ceiling, your newfound lover flashing her dark luxuriant bush—which you know I have a fondness for—now, do I want to see this in my current eremitic state?”

“Current
what
state?” he demanded.

“Monastic. As in alone, without a bush of my own.”

“Maybe we
should
get a bottle,” Jack said half-heartedly. “You’re starting to go Webster on me.”

“Nope. We’re staying sober today. It’s the only way this nonsense will end.”

A teenaged waitress wearing a pink short-sleeved dress finally approached, holding an order pad and a poised pen. She had a small turned-up nose, blond hair braided back in a ponytail, and eyes that sparkled with innocence. “Are you ready to order?” she asked in a high voice.

“I’ll have the swordfish,” I said.

“Don’t get the swordfish,” Jack reproved. “You’re killing dolphins.”

I pretended to give his eco-warning serious thought. “Then I’ll have the dolphin,” I said.

“We don’t have dolphin on the menu, sir,” the waitress replied ingenuously.

“Oh. Then I’ll have the sea otter. Medium rare. Pelt on the side.”

She raised her eyebrows and focused her gaze above my head. “Should I come back when you’re ready to order?”

Jack tented his face in his hands and shook his head disgustedly.

“No, I’ll have the halibut,” I said in an apologetic tone, closing my menu and handing it to her. “It’s been a long week.”

She didn’t care to hear me elaborate about my
long
and wordlessly shifted her attention to Jack. Jack took his hands away from his haggard, unshaven face, manufactured a smile, and said politely, “I’ll have the fish and chips.”

The waitress, thoroughly uncharmed, turned and threaded her way through a jigsaw of empty tables in the direction of the kitchen.

“Okay. Let’s get a bottle of Muscadet,” I said. “Low in alcohol. Basically Kool-Aid.”

“Kool-Aid. Give me a break. Let’s just ride it out. Relax.”

“Shouldn’t have come into a restaurant. That’s the problem.” I picked up my glass of water and banged it down on the table. “I’m on vacation. I can’t just drink fucking water. I feel like St. Francis of Assisi.”

“I’m the one who should cave in because I’m the one with the cracked rib.”

I pointed a finger at him. “A glass of wine will soothe that thing like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Do you really want to go to the Hearst Castle?”

“Sure, why not? What else are we going to do?”

“So, what do you know about William Randolph?” Jack asked. “Fill me in, Mr. Know-It-All.”

“Well. He was a fat fuck involved with a beautiful woman who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Made millions with tabloid papers dishing daily drivel, bought a movie studio so his girlfriend could get parts without falling all over her face in auditions, fucked over our great national treasure, Orson Welles, by ordering
The Magnificent Ambersons
to be edited into an incomprehensible mess in retaliation for being skewered in
Citizen Kane
. Then he erected a monument to his ill-gotten wealth and

Jack sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “So, why do you want to go?”

“I’ve heard it’s a pretty cool crib.”

Jack suppressed a laugh, but a smile broke through.

“No, seriously, I’m interested in seeing the product of his demented hubris.”

“Did your agent ever call back?” Jack asked.

“No.”

“What do you think’s happening?” he asked sincerely.

“No idea. Was supposed to have a decision some time this week. Obviously, the decision is not an easy one. Ergo, the book isn’t being deemed commercial. Or they think it’s a piece of shit, and I can just kiss off two years of my life.”

Jack eyed me thoughtfully, but was at a loss for words.

“Obviously, a drink would help mask this rising tide of self-loathing.”

Jack laughed. But the laughter quickly turned into a wince, as he clutched his side in pain.

“Obviously, I’m going to have to figure something out pretty soon.”

“What about Maya?” Jack asked.

“What about her?”

“Woman’s beautiful, man.”

“I know,” I admitted. “I just …”

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said peevishly.

The waitress returned with our salads. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked innocently.

I banged my fist histrionically down on the table, clattering the cutlery. “No!”

“He’s trying not to drink today,” Jack explained.

“Oh,” she replied as though it were an aspiration of trifling consequence. “How about you? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” Jack said, wincing in response to another shooting pain from his cracked rib. “But I think it would be unfair to my good friend here if I ordered a glass.”

“Okay,” she replied, moving off.

We ate our lunches in a hurried silence, tipped outrageously to compensate the waitress, whose composure was admirable, then got back into the car and back onto Highway 1 bound for San Simeon. The road ribboned scenically along the Pacific, where large waves slapped against the black, seaweed-garlanded rocks, enveloping them with a brownish white foam. Stretching to the horizon, the ocean was a navy blue, still blistered by glistening whitecaps whipped up by a cold strengthening wind. Bordering us on the right, fields of tall emerald grass unfurled over gently rolling slopes that climbed steeply into craggy, gray spires that notched the bottom of the sky. Tenting the magnificent whole was an unstained, vast dome of infinite blue. Truly one of the most beautiful highways in the world.

In the seashore town of San Simeon we went into Hearst Castle’s main office and picked up our tickets. After a long wait, we were herded into a bus with a gaggle of tourists. Most of them were elderly, potbellied, and wreathed with photographic gear. The bus roared to life, and an audiotape recording came on giving us some background information on the Hearst Castle. I tuned out. As we lurched slowly up the steep grade to The Enchanted Hill I felt less like Clark Gable or Marion Davies or another luminary making an ascent to the fabled mansion, and more like some middle-aged loser marking time

When we reached the top of the hill, we pulled into a parking lot with a few other tour buses. Looking down from its great height, the view from the summit was heart-stopping. The castle ruled over a sweep of unspoiled topography ending in a dramatic stretch of one of California’s most pristine coastlines. I could probably see for sixty miles. The man who built this place clearly had godlike delusions of his corporeal worth. If money alone could buy an entry into heaven, he had tried his damnedest.

A middle-aged male guide, who wore an expression of worldly disillusionment and who spoke tonelessly as if he had recited his informational spiel thousands of times, led us on a perfunctory tour of the magnificently lavish grounds, eventually guiding us inside where additional treasures were to be found. Though the opulence of the castle was impressive—stately outdoor swimming pool, every surface carved or tiled—the place felt spectral, haunted by a history that seemed both unreal and unfathomable. As we paraded from one high-ceilinged room to another, walking over priceless Italian terra-cotta, floating past decadent Baroque artworks, our group finally ending up encircling the fabled, mosaic-inlaid indoor pool, I reached the prosaic conclusion that one could be unhappy anywhere. Or was I just projecting?

As the afternoon dragged on, our tour companions snapped pictures and filmed away, embalming the fantasy chateau into a complete state of lifelessness while the guide stuffed us with useless historical tidbits. All that mattered, I thought selfishly, irritated by my clearheadedness, was that I wasn’t going to get to travel back in time

Jack, naturally, drew a different lesson from his visit to San Simeon. To him the place was magnificent, a sultan’s majestic pleasure palace, an ultimate expression of one man’s brilliantly hedonistic vision. Worth every penny if you could afford it.

“I don’t deny the place is beautiful,” I said as we bounced along in the bus heading down the hill back to the real world. “But is that how you would spend your millions if you had them? What’s its ultimate value except to impress others?”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “The man was a lonely motherfucker. Probably didn’t have a lot of friends. This was a way to meet people.”

“What a hollow aspiration. All facade.”

“No, it’s not. The people came, didn’t they?”

“They came the way people come if you bust open your wine cellar and uncork your finest Burgundies. That doesn’t mean they’re your friends. They probably laughed behind his back when he went to fetch more Beluga.”

“And kissed his ass,” Jack said.

“The guy was supposedly monogamous.”

“So? Wouldn’t you want to live there?”

“No,” I insisted.

“No?”

“No.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Because I have a sneaking suspicion I would go mad living the life of an eternal sybarite?”

“This from a guy who takes intense pleasure from good wine.” Jack broke into laughter. “You’d live there.”

“Yeah, but what would I write about?”

“What do you write about now?”

“Failure and redemption.”

“Okay, so you would write about wealth and power. Something people might like to read about. Instead of your desperate little pathetic antiheroes.”

“I think they ought to tear it down,” I said, folding my arms petulantly across my chest.

“It’s pure Americana,” Jack countered.

“They’ve got hundreds of places like that in Europe. And more impressive.”

“Exactly. But only one here.”

“True. But it’s just such a fucking eyesore.”

Jack leapt to his feet, whirled around, and addressed the rest of the bus: “Does anyone on this ship have a cocktail? My friend here needs a drink.”

The tourists stiffened with alarm and sat stony-faced, exchanging clouded looks with one another.

“Sit down, Jackson,” I said, tugging at his shirt.

“Wine cooler?” Jack tried again, arms outstretched in supplication, the frustrated actor on his movable stage.

The bus driver, watching the scene in his rearview mirror, turned around and shot Jack an admonitory look. “Sit down,” he said sharply.

Jack sank back into his seat, sagging in mock defeat. “Oh, well, I tried.”

“I appreciate the effort,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Great improv.”

“Thank you.”

Back at sea level, the bus lurched to a halt with an earsplitting squeal of brakes. We filed off, tour-drugged and stiff. For a few minutes, we admired Hearst Castle one last time. In the high distance, shrouded in a light mist, it shimmered like one of those three-dimensional postcards, bewitched by wind and ocean smells. A replica of a monument to a forgotten civilization of shallow hedonists. Disgusting.

I glanced at my watch, hatching an idea. “We’ve still got time to make Babcock.”

Jack stared at me for a delayed moment with a mock glower. He wagged a finger at me, then broke into a broad grin, clapped his hands together and said, “Let’s hit it, brother.”

We sped down Highway 1 in an ebullient mood and made it to Babcock Winery fifteen minutes before the tasting room closed. The affable pourer, a young man who told us he was studying to be a vintner, quickly broke us in on their Riesling, a dry Alsatian-style wine that was surprisingly complex. We continued on pro forma through the Sauvignon and Chardonnay, the less than impressive Pinot, until we arrived at the monster Black Label Cuvee. It was an inky, almost biblical, 100 percent Syrah with truckloads of ripe fruit and brambly tannins. I adored it, and so did Jack. We had abandoned the subtlety of Pinot for the pure unadulterated lust of Syrah.

When we’d finished the sampling, the glow had returned to our faces and we were once again, however ephemerally, elevated out of our individual morasses. Wanting to demonstrate his appreciation to the pourer for keeping the

We drifted outside and parked ourselves on a lone picnic bench. Situated on a gentle rise, Babcock is at the western end of the Santa Ynez Valley in the midst of an extensive network of vineyards which seem to unfurl in every direction as far as the eye can see. I did the uncorking honors and filled us both up with the perfectly chilled Riesling. The knockout Syrah, though tempting, would have been too heavy in the warm, early evening air.

“This was an
excellent
idea,” Jack said, the heaviness and pertubation lifed from his voice.

I held my glass of wine to the sun and examined the color. “Riesling’s perfect right now.”

“Babs would like this wine,” he said, taking a sip.

“She likes fruity whites, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jack’s face clouded for a moment. “Something wrong with that?”

“No. Not at all. I used to think it was indicative of an unsophisticated palate, lack of taste, but not anymore.”

Jack narrowed his eyes and examined me for sarcasm. “But for you it has to be Pinot?”

“I like all wines, but Pinot’s my favorite, yeah.”

“What’s Victoria’s grape preference?” Jack asked.