The Truth About Delilah Blue (12 page)

Victor spun around and surveyed his beloved kitchen as if saying goodbye. As if the staleness of cupboard doors that creaked and copper pipes that dripped had served him well and he no longer needed their backing. As if the front door no one could find and the windows that burrowed into the center of the earth had accomplished exactly what he’d hoped and he and they were sharing a private moment, a surreptitious wink wink, nod nod.

“It’s true,” he said. “I took you away from your mother.”

A fly landed next to what was left of the puddle of scotch, jerked itself closer, and washed its front legs in the pricey liquid. They both watched as the insect completed its toilette and flew away, satisfied.

Lila couldn’t react right away, so unashamed was Victor’s
admission. She dropped into a chair and tried to form a thought—any thought. When nothing came, she forced herself to stare at the one chipped red tile at the edge of the counter. Eventually, she whispered, “Why?”

Victor seemed to be preparing his reply, blinking and nodding his head as he was. Then, without warning, he up and walked out of the room. “It’s a rather long story.”

She hurried after him. “Believe me, I’ve got time.”

He headed out onto the porch, around the house, and down to the laundry room, where he tugged balled-up sheets from the dryer. After kicking the metal door shut, he marched wordlessly back up to the house. Once he was in his room, he spoke. “I’d prefer to discuss this in the morning. You know what I’m like at the end of the day.”

“How could you? I mean, that’s something a criminal would do. Something you read about and think,
How could he?
Regular people don’t abduct their children.”

“My stomach’s been bothering me all evening…”

“You should see her. She’s so sweet and loving and, oh my God, she’s lived through so much. My face was on milk cartons!”

He dumped his sheets on the stripped bed and rubbed his belly. “Bloat, I think.”

“I knew she was good.” Lila sank into a chair. “Even when I really hated her, like around Christmas or my birthday, I think, deep inside, I knew it was impossible for her to have walked away from me. It’s like I could feel her. That mother-and-child thing—you never lose that connection.”

He started tucking the fitted sheet over his pillow-top mattress. “I don’t know why they make these mattresses thicker than the sheets these days.”

“How can you talk about your bed right now? Why did
you do it? Was I being beaten? Abused? You must have had a reason. A pretty freaking big one.”

“I did.”

She waited.

He rubbed his eye sockets with forefinger and thumb. “Custody isn’t always a simple issue.”

“You lost custody?”

“No. Not quite.”

“Then what?”

He peeled the sheet off the mattress corner and started over. “Blasted thing’s sideways.”

“Put the stupid sheets down! I have a right to know what happened!”

He stammered, “I-I just—I need a minute to think.”

Her cell phone vibrated inside her pocket. She flipped it open to see a strange number: 213 area code, but whom? And it hit her. Her mother. Feeling enormous again, she dug through her pocket to find the napkin where she’d scrawled Elisabeth’s number and, sure enough, it was the same. How many times had she dreamed of this event? A phone call from her mother. She’d wished and wished. She’d stared at first stars of the night, she’d extinguished birthday candles, she’d blown dandelion puffs.

Eying Victor, she debated what to do. This was not the moment to bring Elisabeth into the room. Still. Lila had waited too long for this phone call to happen. She flipped open her phone and wandered into the hall. “Hi.”

“Sorry, sweetheart. I wanted to make sure I didn’t dream you. I’m going to seem crazy for a while.”

“Me too.”

“And Delilah?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something else. I need to give you the heads up before it happens. Baby, the police are going to be involved. My lawyer wants to bring them in before your father does something illegal, like hopping on a plane and fleeing the country. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you earlier—you’d already had such a shock. But the police could arrive as early as tonight.”

She peered back into Victor’s room where he was staring down at his mess of bedding. Her father, in jail? It would kill him. “Could we wait on that?”

“I know how upsetting it is, but you have to understand the gravity of the situation. Your father committed a very serious crime. There is no way for it to go unpunished.”

“Wait. Just another day. Please.”

“Delilah, I really don’t think—”

“I’m begging you. I need to hear his side before things blow up.”

Silence. Then, “Okay. Only because I love you so much. But don’t let him talk you into anything foolish, like jetting off to Belize or something.”

She looked at her father, a twisted sheet now wound around his lower half. “No. I think we’re safe on that front.”

“All right, baby. I love you. Sleep tight.”

She snapped the phone shut and returned to the chair.

“Was that Elisabeth?”

Lila nodded.

He said nothing for a moment, just allowed his eyes to search his daughter’s features while his own face drooped so low she nearly didn’t recognize him.

In reality, there was a great deal about her father she didn’t know. That he was an abductor, for one. A man willing
to do something most people would never even contemplate. And once he’d succeeded with that, he was perfectly fine with telling his daughter her own mother rejected her and letting her grow up feeling unworthy of any love that wasn’t his love.

“Dad, you really need to start talking.”

“Mouse, I think it’s best we put an end to this discussion. I’m not quite prepared to talk about the past just now.”

Her fury came out in a half gasp, half cough. “Oh. Okay.” She backed toward the door. “Sure. I mean, why muck up a perfectly lovely night with something as bothersome as this? It was only a kidnapping. A onetime thing. I should just move on, right?”

“I know how it seems. All I can ask is that you trust me.”

She stared at him in stunned silence, too many emotions swirling around inside of her to think straight herself. Trust him? Trust him?

“Besides, it’s getting late,” he said. “You know I don’t think clearly this far into the evening…”

“Yeah. Right. By all means get into bed. Lose yourself in a good book.”

“Now, now. Let’s not get sarcastic.” Victor unwrapped the sheets from his torso and threw them onto the mattress. He looked at her, pleading. “I’m going to need help with this bedding.”

All the years of living with him, being cared for by him, being fed and clothed and shod by him, did none of it count? How many times had he made her bed when she was young? Or gotten up in the middle of the night to soothe her from a terrible dream? Was it not something like deposits
of goodness into an account—was he never allowed a withdrawal?

Maybe. But this one was so big it left him damn near broke.

“Mouse?”

Her lungs felt small. Miserly sponges with little room for trivialities like oxygen and lifeward impulses. “You know what?” She forced herself to her feet and walked away. “Make your own bed.”

S
HE WANDERED OUT
into the night and up to the road. After a few moments she dropped to the ground and arranged herself cross-legged in the dirt. A mosquito settled on her leg and she swatted it away. Incidences of West Nile had been increasing in California in the past few summers, and reports kept insisting autumn was the wrong time of year to get bitten. Though this year’s numbers were nowhere near 2005’s—there’d been nearly eighty cases in Los Angeles County alone that year and mosquito samples had nearly doubled from the year prior.

Or something.

It was wrong to have a head full of statistics at such a time. To be worried about a disease she’d never catch. There was something almost minuscule about her, despite being eleven feet tall whenever her mother appeared. Why did her mind do that—cloud the brain with minutiae the moment her world started spinning backward on its axis?

She heard a snuffling sound from across the road and looked up to see an overturned trash can, its useless bungee cord flung into the middle of the road. Behind it, Slash stood staring at her, his platinum legs splayed wide to accommodate
the refuse at his feet. The look on his face was one of sarcastic triumph. He stood perfectly still as he gazed at her, determined that she not threaten the decomposing bounty spread out before him.

In spite of her best efforts to remain motionless and unthreatening—the front door was, after all, a good distance away and the animal could easily overtake her should he so desire—she felt a tingle in her nose. Holding her breath didn’t ward off the sneeze. It was fast, ferocious, and echoed off the canyon walls like the Basenji’s yelp.

The sound spooked him. Slash dropped down and crammed half-eaten drumsticks and chicken wings into his mouth. She could smell the barbecue sauce. He didn’t stop at two or three, but attempted to hold some ten to twelve bits between his teeth. Then he loped off into the darkness without leaving a single scrap of rancid poultry behind for the other creatures of the night.

As soon as he was gone, she raced down the hill to the safety of her cellar, with its buzzing fluorescent light, ancient washer and dryer, and dirt floor. It was cool inside, and smelled like moist earth, rot, and water. Like Tide with bleach, and rags soaked with turpentine, and every color of oil paint imaginable. Like cobwebs so old they’d blackened and solidified and become a permanent part of the ceiling beams.

She stared at the canvas stretched out on the floor—about nine feet wide and nearly seven feet tall, a rhythmical splattering and pouring of barely controlled chaos, into which, if one looked carefully, could be seen the fragile profile of a helpless woman—and thought the four months she put into it may have resulted in the first piece of work she wouldn’t destroy.

She planned to photograph it, buy one of those black portfolios real artists carry, and haul it around to a few galleries in the vain hope of securing representation one day. Make up for time lost. Another surge of fury washed over her. Victor took that too, the art career that might have started years back. There’d been a collector in the barbershop that day so long ago. He’d wanted to buy Lila’s doodle—the one she’d been working on while her father had his hair buzzed off. But Victor wouldn’t hear of it. He ushered her out into the parking lot with the doodle tucked beneath his arm. Which now made sense. He couldn’t have an art prodigy bringing the “Mack” family under the microscope of the L.A. media, hungry to report on the next sensation. Serious art talent at eight years old was something the world took notice of. But now too many years had passed. Talent at twenty didn’t cause quite such a stir, did it? She was one of thousands of artists with big dreams and little cash.

How much different might her life have been?

Then again, maybe nothing would have come of it. Big things didn’t happen to people like her. Wait, strike that. Big things
did
happen to her. After all, thanks to her father, she was now the victim of a kidnapping! How many people could claim such a thing? It was the kind of incident you read about. The kind of happening that transforms regular people into those who leave you squeamish, those you secretly congratulate yourself for not being and vow never to get too close to lest the misery soil your existence like graphite smudged on the heel of your hand.

One thing was certain: No one could ever find out. She didn’t want her photo to be in the
L.A. Times
—God, no. A story like this could travel.
USA Today
, maybe even
O
magazine. Tabloids, newsmagazines, publications in Canada. She
actually
looked
like the victim of some horrific crime, a bigeyed twerp, prey, all pathetic and leggy, circles under her eyes as if Victor kept her chained to the water heater in the cellar. It would be easy to believe, given her lack of dermal melanin.

Her painting gazed up at her, unimpressed with the transformation that had taken place. Tiny, jagged hyphens in cerulean blue yawned and turned away, nudged cadmium yellow light in the ribs and jeered. The mixture of alizarin crimson and manganese violet and phthalo blue she’d worked so hard to get right and smeared across the lower right side of the painting in an effort to show the cold (but not too cold—if you looked closely there was hidden warmth) world this woman inhabited actually got up and marched off the edge of the canvas and under the dryer like a never-ending trail of ants.

Lila couldn’t take the disinterest. Not from her own creation. Not today.

Forget the portfolio.

She reached up to the shelf behind her, flicked open a paint-spattered Swiss Army knife, and dropped down onto her knees. She crawled to the top of the canvas, stabbed the knife through the linen and into the dirt, and slowly, precisely, slashed her painting into ribbons.

Going to a dance club the same day she learned she was kidnapped turned out to be a colossal error in judgment.

Back in the damp of the cellar, with curls of shredded canvas at her feet, Lila had decided that she, her father, and the stainless-steel blade in her hand all needed a bit of distance. She’d changed into a miniskirt and off-shoulder sweater—red for the feeling of having been infused with a quart of someone else’s iron-rich, heated-to-boiling blood—swapped her new cowboy boots for the comfort of her doodled pair, and driven along Sunset to the Cathouse—a gritty little club a few blocks away from L.A. Arts that the students had pretty much claimed as their own, even going so far as to strike up a deal with the owners to paint the interior as they saw fit. Ceiling, walls, tables, chairs, and ductwork were spattered, graffitied, crosshatched, and finger
painted. Rumor had it that one wall had been stamped with bare torsos, and if you looked closely, you could see the imprints of navels, nipples, hip bones, and chest hair.

It was as if an enormous gallery boasting art of every style and method and talent level imaginable, exposing motivations good, evil, and depraved, had been gathered in a vessel and held over a flame, shaken like Jiffy Pop, then poured over the nightclub and left to cure.

Lila had wandered inside a few times before working at the school, but she’d felt like an impostor and quickly skittered back to the dismal acceptance of her cellar. It wasn’t as if there was a rule about who could or could not enter the club. But still. Now she felt qualified to walk past the humping cherubs that decorated the doors and into the frenetic interior.

The intention was to swathe herself in music that would thump against her flesh and through to her organs. To sip alcohol from a badly washed glass and vanish into a herd of people who thought they needed an escape from their own existence. Of course, the need to escape was subjective. These kids might be running from schoolwork, lousy jobs, or money stress. Dating complications, maybe. Lila felt fairly confident in her status as sole abductee in the room.

Refusing to be held back by California lawmakers, Lila waited next to a group of rowdy girls at the bar, and watched the bartender set their drinks one by one on the counter. When no one was looking, she picked up the tallest glass—one filled with clear bubbly liquid and ice—and slapped a ten in the puddle where the drink had been.

It wasn’t in her to steal.

Armed with what turned out to be vodka and 7-Up, Lila
wormed her way through thrashing, grinding bodies on the dance floor to a rickety staircase—more of a fire escape, really—that led to a loft, and found an unoccupied table with a view of the action on the main level. She sat, settled her bag by her feet, and tipped carbonated alcohol down her throat, loving the way her head started to whirl almost immediately.

Staring up at the dusty pipes that snaked across the ceiling, she thought for a moment. Her last name. Mack. It couldn’t possibly be legal. Come to think of it, weren’t they living in the country unlawfully? She was smuggled in with a fake ID, for Christ’s sake. Would she be deported if she went back to Lovett?

Who the hell was she now?

She watched human shapes move around in the dark down below. Every single one of those lurching bodies had a name. No matter how abandoned, dejected, wasted, broken, slutty, drunk, or otherwise messed up, they all had names. Tears blurred her vision and she scrubbed them away with her sleeves.

Two beers clunked down onto the small round table to her left, followed by a male body.

Adam Harding. Lila looked away fast.

“Lila. Is that short for something?”

She shrugged, praying he would sense her mood and go sit elsewhere.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Actually, I’m not staying—”

Too late. The beers were on her table and he was already pulling a stool way too close and straddling it. He grinned and slid a beer in front of her. “The other day. Wow. I’m so sorry.”

She shifted away. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, here you are having this huge drama with your mother and there I am stuck in the closet. I didn’t know what to do. If I stay in there, I’m a creep who’s listening to this totally emotional reunion between long lost relatives. And if I come out, I interrupt, and very possibly annihilate, the moment.” Before sipping his beer, he pulled the NyQuil from his jacket pocket and took a few big gulps that stained his lips greenish black. “But then I tripped over an easel and fell on my ass.”

“Seriously. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Anyway. I apologize.”

“What’s with the medicine? You’re sick?”

“Allergic to paint fumes. I’ve been on this stuff for three months now and I’m much better. Forget antihistamines. The ’Quil is all you need to keep the air passageways open.”

“So you take it all the time? Even when you’re not painting?”

“The way I see it, I can take the NyQuil and live. Or not take it and probably live.” He shrugged. “I can’t take that kind of chance.” He tilted the bottle in her direction. “Want to try?”

“Nah.” She shook her head and stared down at the crowd. “I don’t care much if I live.”

“You always this cheery?”

“If I told you my twin died yesterday, would it make you feel like a jerk?”

“Holy crap.” He put his hand on her back. “I’m so sorry.”

Again, she moved away. “Are you always this pawsy?”

“I wasn’t making a move on you, Lila,” he said, carefully
enunciating each syllable. “I was expressing sympathy for your loss.”

“Well don’t. I don’t have a twin.”

He blinked at her, silent.

She felt her boot stick to the floor and examined the underside. “Perfect. I stepped in gum.”

“I can fix that.” After a long swig of beer, he pulled a package of Clorets gum from his pocket and popped a few pieces into his mouth, chewing hard. He motioned for her to give him her boot and, after she set her still booted foot on his thigh, he spat out his gum and pressed it into the flattened bubble gum. “It’s the best way to remove anything gummy from a surface. Fight sticky with sticky.” Once green and pink had morphed into a pebble-spackled brownish gray, he attempted to peel it off, only to have small wads crumble to bits in his fingers.

“Nice,” said Lila, pushing her hair out of her face and leaning forward for a closer look. “You’ve made it thicker. And uglier.”

“Yeah. We’re going to need some peanut butter.” His eyes locked on to the miniature silver pen drawing Lila had scrawled on her heel a few weeks back. A man’s head, in profile. In spite of the unusual canvas, the diminutive size, the complete lack of shading, there was no mistaking the man’s sorrowful expression. Adam looked up at her. “Wow.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Believe me,
that
is not nothing.”

“Just some guy on the bus.”

He crossed his legs in front of him. Tilting his head up toward the ceiling, he said, “Draw me.”

“Can’t.”

He laughed. “You can draw some guy on a bus but not
the guy who puts this kind of vain effort into liquoring you up, insulting you, and wrecking the sole of your boot? Come on. A little respect for the underdog.”

“Sorry. No pen.”

“And if I were to pull one out of my pocket?”

She shrugged.

“Okay.” He looked at his watch. “Whatever.”

“Did you actually have one? A pen?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“No.”

Adam drank again. “Is it hard for the guys you date? They take you out then drop you off to strip for a bunch of other guys?”

“My boyfriend doesn’t mind me stripping for other guys. He kind of gets a sexual charge out of it.”

He grimaced. “Sounds like a keeper.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He stared at her a moment, leaning back in his seat. “See now, I don’t take offense. You’re feeling tender. You’ve had a major upheaval in your life with your mother showing up like that. Who wouldn’t lash out? You’re deflecting and I actually think that’s healthy. Feel free to have another go.”

“Nah. You’ve taken all the fun out of it now.”

“Had you had much communication with her before she showed up like that?”

She pushed her beer toward him. “I don’t want this. I’m more of a Boone’s Farm kind of girl.”

“Seriously?”

“No.”

“My mom died when I was six,” he said. “So I know all about growing up without one. It sucks. The worst is the week before Mother’s Day at public school. All those flowerpots
and poems and paper hearts kids have to make. And, like, halfway through the week, the teacher remembers you have no mother and suggests you address yours to a grandmother or an aunt. You’ve been there, am I right?”

“I should go home now.” She rooted through her bag for her keys. “My father wasn’t feeling well. I never should have left.”

“You know, the school can probably recommend someone for you to talk to. There are ways you can get free therapy. I can get some information for you, if you want. I help out in the office now and then.”

“I don’t need therapy, okay?
Jesus
.”

“I’m just saying.” He leaned over the table. “And I’m always around if you ever want to talk.”

She cast him a sardonic glance. “Or draw you nude?”

“Should the need arise. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“I’m confused. Are you trying to hit on me or be my BFF?”

His mouth twitched. “I appear to be striking out in the therapist-cum-friend arena. I might make more headway as a letch—at least that draws a smile. So I’m totally open at this point.”

“Good to know. What else you got?”

“That’s about it. The ’Quil, the gum remedy, the odd kindness-gone-ugly.”

He pushed aside his empty bottle and sipped from hers. “Is it working even a little bit?”

“No.”

“Good. It’s a system that rarely fails me.” He shifted his weight and nearly fell off his stool. Righting himself, he said, “Whoa. Dizzy.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Not on one beer.” He leaned against the table, swaying. “I’m no lightweight. You should know that. Don’t want to scare you.”

She pulled her bag from the floor and set it on her lap. “I’m really just hoping you don’t vomit in my purse at this point. Anything else would be a bonus.”

He smiled, rocking back and forth. “I think you’re developing quite a thing for me.” He stood up and staggered to the right, reaching for the wall to stop himself from falling. “I’m going home before I say something you regret.”

She pulled him back to the stool and leaned him on the table. “Adam, you’re completely plastered. How did you get here? Did you drive?”

He nodded.

“Well, you can’t drive home.”

“I can. Car’s electric.”

“Yeah, that helps. Do you have a friend we can call? A family member?”

He laid his head on his arms and smiled, eyes closed. She liked the curvy line of his mouth, like a flattened-out W. “See? Already you want to meet my family.”

Jesus. He was a mess. She reached into his backpack and pulled out the cold medicine. Right there on the bottle it said,
MAY CAUSE MARKED DROWSINESS; ALCOHOL MAY INCREASE THE DROWSINESS EFFECT.

No wonder he was wasted. She helped him to his feet and wiggled herself beneath one of his arms. “We’ve got to get you home before you pass out. Where do you live?”

“On a futon in my divorced sister’s sunporch. If you can call that living.”

“Address?”

“It’s the house we grew up in. My sister and her ex bought it from my mother before she died. After the divorce, Wendy rented out my bedroom to a computer student who’s never home. Until I make it in New York and start sending home the bucks. And I will, believe you me.”

“Adam, focus. What’s the address?”

“3414 South Pomona.”

“I’m taking you home.”

“Geez.” He put his arm around her for support. “You got it real bad.”

T
HE COOL NIGHT
air sobered him enough that he was able to lift his weight off Lila’s shoulder and walk upright. Yawning and swaying, he followed her up a hilly side street.

“You should come with me,” he called out. “My cousin has this third-floor walkup in Soho. She’s going to Europe for a year and said I can stay for free if I take care of her sphynx.”

They entered a gravelly parking lot dotted with weeds, beer bottles, and chirping crickets. Lining the lot were a series of dejected storefronts: a variety store, a Laundromat, and a porn shop—all with barred windows.

“What’s a sphynx?” she asked as they wound their way through the parked cars.

“You know, those grayish-pink cats—all skinny with no hair?”

She made a face.

“I know. Scary-looking at first, but you get used to it.”

“What’ll you do there—besides not brush the cat?”

“There are zillions of little galleries everywhere. In New York, they’re way more open to new faces in the art scene. And if I can’t get signed to a gallery, I can still sell my stuff
on the street. You just set up a little stand on Prince Street and watch all the tourists scramble for your work. That’s how my cousin made it. She does nothing but bare tree branches and she had them screened onto T-shirts. They sold so well, her oil paintings started to take off. ”

“Cool.” She pulled out the keys to Victor’s car and opened the passenger-side door. “It’s my dad’s car, so promise you’ll shout if you get nauseous.”

“You should come with me. We could be roommates.”

She helped him lower himself down into the seat, covering his head so he didn’t concuss himself on the way in. Still, he bumped his forehead. “I’m thinking guzzling that stuff every day isn’t such a great idea,” she said. “Maybe you should switch to DayQuil.”

He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Never. They put uppers in it. That’s the difference. Day-Quil makes your heart race.”

She closed the door and went around the front of the car. When she climbed in, he was gone. She spun around to see him lying in the hatch area, knees touching the roof, staring up at the sky. “What are you doing back there?”

“I need to lie flat. I swear to God I’ll hurl if I have to look out the window.”