Syrup (7 page)

“Yeah,” I say absently. I have started to wonder about the beach: about variations on a giant inflatable beach ball. I am thinking about this ball rolling through a major American city, with people running and screaming.

Cindy walks around the table to face me. There’s a strange expression on her face, and it’s so unfamiliar that it’s a second before I recognize it. Then it dawns: Cindy is looking at me as if she is impressed.

“Cindy—”

“
Scat
, ”Cindy says, her eyes shining.

“Whoa, Cindy.” I abruptly realize that this is going to turn very ugly very quickly. “I think ... we need to talk.”

“
I
think,” Cindy says, smiling, “that it’s past Scat’s bedtime.” She fingers the buttons on her uniform.

“Cindy—” I search for the words I need: words to tell her how much she’s helped me, how much I appreciate everything she’s done to rebuild me over the past three months, and how that means I don’t need her anymore.

“Cindy,” I say gently, “I’m back.”

By the time I get downstairs, most of my stuff is already strewn over the lawn. I try to catch the remainder as it sails down from the second-floor apartment window.

“Son of a
whore!”
Cindy screams.

“I’m
sorry!”
I grab my jeans before they drop into the gutter. Somewhere in the night a dog barks happily.

I look up, but nothing else seems to be on its way. I collect as many of my clothes as I can and wrap them into a manageable bundle. When I look up again, I catch a glimpse of Cindy peering through the blinds.

“I’ll call you!” I shout. It’s pathetic, but I can’t think of an alternative.

I’m halfway down the street and wondering where the hell I’m going when Cindy’s reply drifts to me on the hot night breeze.

“Okay ...”

So, once again, I am homeless.

 

I realize very quickly that I’ll have to call on 6’s assistance for accommodation. Since I happen to be doing her a tremendous favor at this time, I figure my chances should be pretty good.

However, since it’s nearly four, I decide to wait until morning to call her. I trudge around the backstreets of Santa Monica for three hours, past countless alleys, doorways and small inviting parks, all of which are already occupied by people with tight grips on bundles of clothes even smaller than mine. At dawn, I’m so exhausted and desperate for a shower that I can’t wait any longer, and I find a pay phone, dial 6’s number and hope.

She picks up on the fourth ring. “Hello?” Her voice is like honey smeared across velvet pajamas.

“6! It’s Scat. Gorgeous morning, huh?”

There is a pause. “Hello, Scat,” she says cautiously.

“6, there are some things we need to discuss,” I tell her importantly. “How about I come over?”

“You, come here?” 6 says, alarmed.

I quickly recheck my words in my head, to make sure they didn’t come out:
Let’s make mad passionate love.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t. “Uh, yeah.”

“No.”

“Oh.” This puts a dent in my plan: I had expected to get in the front door. I tremble briefly on the verge of asking her why I can’t visit, then chicken out. “Oh. Then ... somewhere else?” I look around. “How about a coffee on the beach? I’m at Watchers in Santa Monica.”

“Fine,” 6 says, and hangs up.

I put down the phone. “Okay,” I tell myself. “Okay.”

It feels good to be okay.

I decide to sit on the stone wall separating the sidewalk from the beach so I can see 6 drive up. I’m very interested in what sort of car she’s driving because I think it will reveal some insight into her personality. After all, I don’t have a car at all, and that reveals plenty about me.

However, when 6 arrives an hour later I’m surprised to see she’s walking. She’s also wearing cute white shorts and a thin black tank top so unnerving I have to grip the wall. She spots me and heads over.

“Hey,” I say. “Walking?”

“I like to walk,” she says shortly.

“How un-Californian of you,” I offer daringly. 6 ignores me.

We sit down at a small cozy café looking out over the ocean and order lattès. 6 slings her impressive satchel, which has again simply materialized, over the back of her chair. “So?”

“Right,” I say. “Well, I haven’t come up with the most brilliant ad in the history of marketing overnight, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Oh.” For a fleeting microsecond, she actually looks dismayed. “No. Of course not.”

“But I do want to talk about a couple of things. First, you have to get me inside Coke.”

“Yes.” 6 has obviously anticipated this. Almost every great ad ever written has come from research, and I’m certain she knows this.

“That’s not a problem?”

“No.”

“Oh. Of course not.” I can’t help myself; I’m homeless and I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. “Let me know when anything ever fazes you.”

6 stares at me, utterly unfazed.

“I mean,” I continue, a little hysterically, “when we’ve produced this amazing ad and you use it to destroy everyone who has ever threatened you, what are you going to do next? What could possibly turn you on?”

6 turns and looks out over the ocean. I abruptly realize how far I have stepped over the line of cool detachment and open my mouth to apologize. Then 6 says: “Success.” She turns back to me. “Just like you, Scat.”

During the second lattè, I begin my pitch to move in.

“You know ...” I say mysteriously. “There are some things you should know about me.”

6 raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t really have a Porsche,” I confess. “I just borrowed one for the dinner.”

“Oh,” 6 says, genuinely surprised. Her other eyebrow shoots up to join its sister.

“Were you impressed?” I ask sneakingly.

“No.”

“Just a little?”

“
No
, ” she says, crossing her arms. “An expensive car doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I say truthfully, “because actually, I don’t have a car at all.”

“Oh,” 6 says, sounding a little depressed.

“In
fact,”
I say, “I don’t have a place to live anymore. I’m homeless.” I try 6’s wide-eyed trick back on her, but she stares it down impassively. “So ... if you have any ideas, I’m open to suggestions.”

“Ideas?” she says, as if she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about.

“For places to live. I need somewhere to live.”

“Oh,” she says, looking out at the sea again.

“Do you know anyone? Anyone who might want a boarder?”

“I don’t think so,” she says, as if the entire subject is vaguely distasteful.

“Anyone ... such as yourself?”

6 turns back to me, her eyes wide and outraged. “Absolutely
not.”

I reach out for her hand. She starts to move it but I snare her before she can get away. Her fingers are cool and smooth, and this would be a tremendously passionate moment if she wasn’t twisting them in my grip. “6, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. You’re my last hope in Los Angeles.”

“No. ”Her eyes shift. “I live with a girl.”

“You’ll hardly know I’m there.”

“No.
”

“6,” I say. “If I can’t find somewhere to live, I can’t work with you at Coke.” I suck in a breath. “I’ll quit.”

6’s dark eyes scrutinize me. “No you won’t.”

I blink. I check to make sure I’m serious. I am. “6—”

She must see it in my eyes. “Don’t you have
parents?”

“Iowa,” I explain quietly.

“Oh.” Another look of distaste flits across her face.

I decide that this is a good time for a goofy, shit-happens grin, so I let one leak out.

“Oh, Christ,” 6 says.

“This is how it will work,” 6 says. “Today is Sunday. You can stay five nights, and
only
five nights, which will take you until Friday, when we complete the project. Then you’re out.”

“Okay.”

“You won’t get a bed. You’ll sleep wherever suits me. You’ll have whatever blankets and pillows I give you. It might not be comfortable.”

“Right,” I say, secure in the knowledge that anywhere in 6’s apartment has to be more comfortable than a doorway in Santa Monica.

“You will assist in daily activities, including but not limited to cooking, cleaning and washing. You will make a proactive effort to ensure the harmony of the household.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Privacy,” 6 says. “You will not intrude on my privacy. If I want you out of the apartment for a while, you’ll take a walk. If I want to play loud music at two in the morning, I’ll do it.”

“Hmm,” I say. “I guess.”

“And,” 6 says, eyeing me menacingly, “you’ll leave the toilet seat
down.
I don’t
ever
want to see the toilet seat up. If you leave the toilet seat up, our arrangement immediately terminates. Understood?”

“6,” I protest, “that’s an instinctive action. I may not be able to consciously control that.”

“If the toilet seat is left up, you’re out. Understood?”

“I can
try
,” I concede.

“You can do it,” 6 says.

I say nothing. If this ever becomes a problem, I’ll protest that I never explicitly agreed.

“And Scat—”

“Yes?”

She hesitates. “There are some things you should know about me.”

BASE YOUR ADVERTISING AROUND THE INSINUATION RATHER THAN THE CLAIM THAT THE PRODUCT IS HEALTHY. HAVE SLICE-OF-LIFE ADVERTISEMENTS DEPICTING SLIM MODELS EXERCISING AND EATING THE PRODUCT. WHEN DONE PROPERLY, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LIE.

6 quietly takes my arm and we stroll along the beach to where she is parked. It’s a low-slung Ferrari—powerful and feminine—and I silently approve. I slip inside and we roar down the PCH. We have witty, sparkling conversation, and 6 smiles at my jokes all the way to her beachfront apartment in Malibu. I can tell from the outside that this is possibly the most stylish apartment I’ve ever seen, but when the elevator opens on to her floor I am stunned at how amazingly cool it really is. It is a huge, airy, open-plan shrine to taste, money and sheer funkiness. I voice my approval and 6 smiles demurely and offers me a scotch. That night, when we’re both a little giggly, 6 looks into my eyes and says, “You know, Scat ... you may as well bunk in with me tonight.”

This is so not true.

6 is mostly silent on the bus to her apartment. There is an annoying child sitting behind me who keeps kicking the seat, so I’m quietly stewing, too. I keep my bundle of clothes on my lap, and 6 very successfully avoids looking at it the whole trip.

We disembark at Lincoln and Oak in north Venice. I look to 6 for directions, but she’s staring at the ground.

“6,” I say sensitively, “it’s cool that you aren’t rich. I’m not rich, either. I’m carrying my worldly possessions in my hands here.”

6 takes a deep, slightly unsteady breath.

“I don’t think less of you for this. I know it’s important to look the part for the people we deal with, but it’s not important to me. I’m a marketer, too.” 6 abruptly starts walking, and I hurry to fall into step beside her. “You’re very cool, and you don’t need the image.”

“I don’t have an
image
,
”
6 says.

“Well, 6,” I say, a little startled. “Of course you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“6,” I say. “You have an image. The young, independent, hot-shot lesbian—”

“I
am
a lesbian,” 6 says. “I don’t want to have to keep reminding you.”

I’m about to say something stupid like, “Oh, crap,” but 6 stops at an apartment block and I am stunned into silence.

Take a small, stupid infant. Blindfold him. Make him draw a building.

Take the drawing and rip it in half. Give each half to a different construction company and don’t let them talk to each other. Insist on materials that will crumble and accumulate vast quantities of mold.

Paint it a light putrid green, except the window trimmings, which may be done in a thick oppressive brown. Use paint so cheap that sunlight will peel it off in great slabs.

Don’t let anyone repair it, maintain it, renovate it,
touch
it, for a good twenty years or so.