The After Wife (38 page)

“There’s an abandoned lot down the street from our house,” Billy said.

* * *

We reached the empty double lot just as the fog rolled in.

“Remember John Carpenter?” Jay asked. “This fog is creeping me out.”

“Is that the dude who sang background on ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’?” Billy asked. “That was our wedding song.”

The fog surrounded the palm trees, choking them as they swayed, tentative in the gray. A chill set in. A house on one side of the lot, a single-story wood-frame, had a
FOR SALE
sign planted in its front yard. Dee Dee Pickler’s Photoshopped face smiled out from the clapboard as it rocked on its hinges. The retouching on her pic was so extreme, she looked like Carrot Top. We peered through the wire fencing surrounding the huge lot. A really rich person, not just vanilla rich, was going to build here; double lots were rare and coveted.

“See anything?” I asked Jay. Aimee came up behind us.

Just then, I saw movement in the corner, behind the single California Oak that had been left behind. The tree had a mournful cant, as though saying, “What happened? Where’s my home? Where are those kids who used to climb me?” and … “When are they coming for me next?”

I spotted Chloe beside the tree, on her knees. A shotgun lay in the weeds in front of her.

Billy saw her, too.

“Chloe!” he said, making a run for the fence, attempting to hop over. And another. And … one more.

“Chloe!” I called. Jay and Aimee shouted, “Chloe!”

Jay knitted his hands together to give Billy a boost over the fence. I went next. “Stay here,” I said, turning to Aimee, “you’re being sane for two.” I hopped the fence (pulling a muscle I didn’t even know I had) and stumbled over to Chloe and Billy.

Under the brush, Angel was nursing her pups in a makeshift den. Chloe put her hand out to ward me off.

“She has pups,” I said, hushed. “They’re still called pups, right?”

“Coyote infants?” Jay said, jogging up from behind me. “I can’t look it up, I’m Google-handicapped. No service in Santa Monica.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Chloe whispered.

Jay and I knelt down beside her.

“Oh, my Lanvin tennis shoes,” Jay lamented. “I’m not an empty lot person.”

“Of course you couldn’t do it, Chloe,” I said. “You’re not like the rest of us. You can’t just randomly shoot things.”

“Don’t get too close,” Chloe said, her eyes never wavering from Angel. “She doesn’t want anyone else near her.”

As if on cue, Angel growled.

“She trusts me,” Chloe said. “Someone trusts me. My friends don’t trust me. My kids don’t trust me. My husband thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Chloe, baby,” Billy said, “don’t say that.”

“Don’t you
baby
me,” Chloe said. “How did my life come to this? Everything was so perfect. I had erected a careful construct of cooler-than-thou domestic bliss, from our half-Asian children who were supposed to be highly gifted and musically inclined, to my sniveling liberalism and your snarling conservatism. And then, I’d take pictures and blog about it and eventually appear on
Good Morning America
.”

“This all sounds like torture,” Jay said.

“Billy, our kids aren’t even smart, let’s face it.”

“They’re smart enough.”

“They don’t play piano or violin. They’re tone-deaf.”

“But they are photogenic,” I said. “And who always has the best Christmas cards? Who?”

“Hand me the gun, Chloe,” Billy said.

Gaping NoMos were starting to gather outside the fence. They were the usual suspects: dog people, stroller people, dog-and-stroller people, bicyclists, serious bicyclists, skateboarders (these are adults), runners, joggers, walkers, serious walkers … all of them enjoying an after-dinner Pinkberry.

“I don’t even know you anymore, Billy. And I’m not sure I even like you,” Chloe said, sighing. “I wish I could just start my life all over.”

Billy stepped toward Chloe, and Angel growled. Billy backed up.

“Honey, you do like me,” he told her. “You like me despite everything,
and I like you despite everything. We’re stuck with each other. It’s a life sentence. Besides, we can’t afford a divorce. That option closed in 2008. So please, hand me the gun. Carefully.”

“Promise you won’t run off and join another militant group.”

“Not even the Boy Scouts. Now, come on, baby, let’s go home before someone actually gets shot.”

Chloe handed me the shotgun, and fell into Billy’s arms.

Now, you know how guns go off accidentally in movies, in nightclubs (if you’re a professional athlete), or anywhere in Florida, and you wonder how people could possibly be that stupid?

Well, judge not lest ye be judged
.

As I took the shotgun from Chloe, the damn thing kicked and went off, blasting a hole into the side of the empty old house next door. I screamed, dropping the weapon. I didn’t hear anything else until after everyone around me stopped screaming. Only then did I hear it.

Someone else was screaming, from inside the house.

“Oh my God,” I said, “I just killed someone.”

The Turk ran out of the old house, tripping over his pants, which were around his ankles, and clasping his shirt to his chest. The Turk’s chest hair skipped his bald head and continued down his back. His ample stomach, adorned with a bunny trail, hung over his shorts.

“Bear sighting!” Jay shouted.

There was more screaming, then Dee Dee emerged from the house, her hands clutching her ass.

“Call a doctor,” she yelled, “and a plastic surgeon! This is going to leave a scar!”

From out of the crowd, a woman who gave every appearance of being the Turk’s wife grabbed him, yelling at him in a foreign language that required no translation.

“I’m still getting commission!” Dee Dee bellowed. “I’ve got a signed contract!”

“Dee Dee,” I said, “an ambulance is on its way. Are you okay?”

“My butt is bleeding,” Dee Dee said, as she looked over at me. “I just got shot in the ass. Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Ever the businesswoman. I had to give her respect, however grudgingly.

“Dee Dee, here, let me help you,” I said, taking my sweater off. “Calm down and press this against your bottom.”

“I can’t calm down, I’m in pain,” Dee Dee said. “You want to upgrade?”

Meanwhile, the Turk’s wife slapped him across the face, and was dragging him off by his ear.

I hooked my arm around Dee Dee and was holding her up when a middle-aged woman appeared at Dee Dee’s side, hovering just above the ground. She looked like Dee Dee but with original parts.

“Tell this bitch I know what she did at my funeral,” the apparition said.

“Oh, no,” I said. “What happened?”

Dee Dee looked at me, confused. “What do you mean what happened?” she asked. “I just took a bullet in the ass.”

“My own sister tries to give my husband a blow job at my funeral!” the apparition complained. “Tell her Janie says hello. Then tell her to go fuck herself.” She turned to Dee Dee, who was staring at me. “You’ll always be the fat little sister—all the lipo in the world won’t fix your personality! I hope you get nose herpes!”

“Dee Dee,” I said. “Janie says hello …”

“Janie who, for God’s sake?”

“Janie, your sister.” Dee Dee’s eyes widened as a police car drove up, sirens blasting. Detective Ramirez got out of the car and rushed over.

“Are you the only cop in this city?” I asked. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Ramirez flipped off his Ray-Bans and grumbled. “Can’t you stay out of trouble?”

“It was an accident,” I said, as the paramedics placed Dee Dee facedown on a stretcher. “Hold on,” I said.

I turned back to Dee Dee, and bent down close to her. “Like I said, your sister, Janie, says hello,” I said. “And she hopes you get nose herpes.”

Dee Dee screamed as the paramedics maneuvered her into the ambulance. I watched it drive away.

Finding your friend before she commits coyote-cide? Fifty bucks
.

Watching your friend’s marriage being saved? A thousand dollars
.

Hitting Dee Dee Pickler in the ass with a shotgun pellet? Priceless
.

I put my hands up for Detective Ramirez.

“Go ahead,” I said, “cuff me. I could use a vacation.”

“If you served mai tais, Santa Monica jail would be the Kahala Hilton, Detective,” Jay said. “Cuff me. I’m ready and curious. I was holding the gun.”

Aimee stepped forward. “I don’t need you to take the fall for me, Jay.” She looked at Ramirez and swung her hair around. “I’m guilty, Detective. Guilty as hell.”

She was milking it. This was Aimee’s Glenn Close moment. Screw David Mamet.

“Oh, great,” Ramirez said. “This is cute. Your friends are really cute.”

“They kind of are, aren’t they?” I said.

“It’s my gun, Detective,” Chloe said. “I’m responsible.”

“Honey, no,” Billy said. “Detective Ramirez, my name is Billy, Marine Corps Infantry. Well, I would have been, except for the climbing wall.” He shook Detective Ramirez’s hand. “Sir, this gun belongs to me. I’m the guilty party. And I’m a former banker, I probably deserve some jail time, anyway. If you’ll have me.”

Detective Ramirez contemplated our motley crew. He gazed at me with those dark, piercing eyes. I don’t know why, but I heard a Julio Iglesias song in my head—and you know how it is, once Iglesias happens, it’s impossible to get rid of.
There’s no cure for Iglesias
.

“No more guns,” he said. “You people shouldn’t be anywhere near guns. May I ask what happened?”

“Well,” Chloe said. “See, I adopt dogs.”

“She adopted a coyote,” I said.

“Which ate her Pomeranian,” Jay said.

“Ate her what?” Ramirez asked.

“The coyote just had pups,” Chloe said. “You want one?”

Detective Ramirez widened his eyes. “White people really are crazy.”

“They really are,” I said.

“How you coming on those files?” he asked me.

“I just started this morning.”

“Maybe you’d get more work done downtown.”

“This is Santa Monica,” I said. “There is no downtown.”

He sighed. In this light, I thought, Detective Ramirez looked a bit like a Latino Bob Hoskins.

Something you don’t know about me?

I’ve always had a secret crush on Bob Hoskins.

24

The Happy Medium

After the shooting incident, life began to settle down. Ellie is happy in school, and has grown about three inches. Her legs remind me of her father’s. Her laugh, I recognize as mine. Recently, she and I witnessed a “NoMo mad mover” crossing San Vicente, a skinny middle-aged woman covered head-to-toe in white, from her visor and face shield, to her tennis shoes, pumping her arms like there was money in it. The two of us burst out laughing; I looked in the rearview mirror and caught my daughter’s eye. An appreciation of the absurd? That, she got from me. Brandon, meanwhile, is close to getting his degree, and already has a job lined up, working with Special Ed kids at the local public school. Aimee is on self-inflicted bedrest; Greta Garbo’s fatal illness in
Camille
has nothing on her pregnancy. Chloe and Billy are adopting a baby from the Congo, which seems like a bad idea because they’re just getting to know their own children all over again. The good news is, Chloe is no longer adopting dogs. Since she integrated a coyote into a new feeding ground, i.e. NoMo, she’s on the pet adoption shit list. Meanwhile, Billy found a job he loves: teaching both high school math and yoga classes at a Venice charter school. Chloe and Billy are selling their home through Dee Dee, and are moving into a condo in SoMo. They’re putting the kids in public school and are weirdly happy and in love. Dee Dee’s recovered from her ass-hap (mishap),
and is in a serious relationship with the ER doctor who patched her glute.

Early this evening, Jay and I had a meeting at Casa Sugar with She-Devil. Remember her? Turns out, she’d been thinking about how to market me since that disastrous network meeting. She couldn’t get me out of her mind—which is both flattering and disturbing. She had Todd the Reality King make the call a couple days ago. (He also made an appointment later this week to communicate with his dead brother, the teenaged skateboarder with the Mega-Death fixation.)

This afternoon, I threw in a little session with She-Devil’s dead grandmother; yes, I can be a show-off. Anyway, She-Devil wants
moi
to host a show—a lifestyle/communicating-with-the-dead hybrid. She loves Casa Sugar, and thinks we should tape in the house. The network likes that I am “real.” In other words, I’m chubby, at least in the opinion of a TV camera and media execs. Oh, Jay and I are producing.

“I’ve finally gotten over Hidalgo,” Jay said, as we skewered chicken kabobs in the kitchen after our successful meeting. We had planned our first summer barbecue that night. Tom and his daughters were coming over, along with Chloe and her brood, and of course, Aimee and Brandon. I’d even sent along an invite to Detective Ramirez.

“You’ve given up on love completely,” I said, ignoring the gray-haired Malibu stoner sitting on my stool who was trying to get me to light a bud. He died snowboarding, forgetting that it was July.