The Starter Wife (26 page)

H
OW MANY TIMES
can a person walk back and forth in front of a house until someone notices? Gracie thought. Not long after her meeting of the minds with Baxter, Gracie had donned new tennis shoes and her most fetching smile and had walked Helen and Jaden, in her stroller, down the Colony past #191 so many times that Helen had finally sat down in the middle of the street, refusing to budge. Gracie had to carry her back to the house, pushing the stroller with one hand.

Number 191, on the land side of the Colony, spanned two lots. On half the double lot stood the house, the other half appeared to be a faded tennis court. Any net that had been there had been taken down long ago. Grass popped up inside cracks drawn like a child’s scrawl all over the court. She wondered when anyone had last played there. Not for decades, perhaps.

The house was old and modest—perhaps one of the original homes built in the Colony. It was a one-story wood structure
with white paint that was peeling off in places. Gracie had stood and stared at #191 until Jaden finally screamed for her to keep pushing; she wondered why she, who was sensitive to wallflowers of all stripes, human and otherwise, hadn’t noticed the place before.

For all its lack of gloss, she found it charming. And it heightened her interest in Baxter’s low-key master.

“R
ELATIONSHIP
Q
UESTION
number 2,489. When does flirting become something more serious?” Gracie asked. “When does it cross the line?”

“If you have to ask, you haven’t done it yet,” Will said. His eyes were closed, his pug nose pointed toward the sun.

“I flirted boldly,” Gracie said. “I flirted until it was uncomfortable.”

“Flirting is always uncomfortable. Are you planning on sleeping with this man?” Will asked. “If you are, it may be important to get a name. This isn’t the eighties.”

Will was joining Gracie and Cricket at Joan’s house to celebrate the Fourth of July—which to Malibu is what Bastille Day is to Paris. Gracie had awakened that morning to find yellow tape strewn across the fire lane in back of her house where everyone parked and no one was supposed to.

She’d stopped Lavender that morning as her security pickup truck made its turn, skirting the fire lane. “What’s with the yellow ribbon?” Gracie asked.

“Parties,” Lavender said, “up and down the Colony—we don’t want people parking here—we’ll get fined.”

Gracie just nodded her head.

“It’s the Fourth of July,” Lavender said. “Hot dogs, corn on the cob, beer—Gracie, where have you been?”

“Of course it’s the Fourth of July,” Gracie said, looking
down the road. Here was a catering truck, there a party rental truck she’d seen at the house she shared with Kenny. Already she could see valet stations were being set up.

“Oh, shit, it’s the Fourth of July,” Gracie said. “I should have people over, right?”

“There’s going to be fireworks,” Lavender said. “Just like they have every year. Didn’t you get your notice?”

“You already sound tired, Lavender,” Gracie said.

“You have no idea,” Lavender said. She tugged on a pack of cigarettes in her breast pocket. “You check out number 152 yet?”

Gracie, her mind somewhere else, took a second to respond. “152?” Gracie asked. “Yeah. Turns out I know number 152. For a number of years.”

“So?” Lavender asked.

“So,” Gracie said. “So, I’m not sure.”

“So, it’s your funeral,” Lavender laughed, and waved as she drove on.

Gracie ran back into her house to call Will and Cricket—it couldn’t be the Fourth of July without them.

L
AVENDER DROVE
slowly down the Colony, toward the north end, the knot in her stomach growing as it always did this time of year, this section of the Colony. She would always try to talk herself down, tell herself to relax. She would chide her nervousness, the way her voice caught in her throat, the way her heart beat faster.

“It’s just one family,” Lavender repeated to herself. “One out of fifty. Come on now.”

She rounded the dead end of the Colony, in front of the fence, which was padlocked. She didn’t see the car. Good news, she thought. Good, good news. Maybe the kid wasn’t
going to be here this summer. Maybe the family had sent him away. He was probably in Europe. Somewhere in France—where was it where rich people went in the summer? The south of France.

She exhaled her anxiety. Here she was, a grown woman, afraid of a sixteen-year-old. Her grandmother would’ve chided her. She could hear her voice in her head, Granny E—“Child, what are you afraid of? A boy, he’s jus’ a boy,” she would’ve said.

“He almost had me fired, Granny E,” Lavender would say.

“‘Almost’ doesn’t get it,” Granny Eva would reply. “Ain’t nothin’ ‘almost’—it is or it ain’t.”

Actually, Lavender thought, Granny E would’ve used “isn’t”—she wasn’t the “ain’t” type.

But the rest of it, Lavender knew she had right.

Just at that moment she saw the car. A black Range Rover with trademark tinted windows bore down on her, emerging out of nowhere, like Death itself. Big piece of steel flying over speed bumps like they were gum wrappers. And then at the last split second, the wheels spinning, the smell of rubber burning. The sound of laughter. “Ha-ha,” she could hear him. She could feel him thinking—Ha-ha, did you see the look on her face? Scared the bitch half to death.

Ha-ha.

Lavender continued down the road, her hands shaking at the wheel, saying a silent prayer that the day would pass quickly.

L
OU WAS PLANNING
on spending the Fourth of July by himself—difficult to do on the most crowded stretch of beach in California during the most popular national holiday. He had rented in the Colony during the summer for years—always the
same house and always at higher prices—and he knew the score. People he didn’t know would be all over his deck, drunk, loud, from morning until all hours of the next morning. People he
did
know would be all over his deck, drunk, loud, from morning until all hours of the next morning. He was fucked either way, but for his plans, the Fourth of July mayhem would figure in perfectly.

Since his date with her, Lou had been thinking that if there were one person, one civilian, besides his psychiatrist, that he should tell about his plans, it was Gracie. He knew he shouldn’t tell anyone on the outside, really. There was the unwritten law that if you tell one person a secret, that person will of course tell one person, and so on and so forth. But he felt as though she would understand his compulsion—maybe even forgive him. Was that what he was looking for? Lou thought. Forgiveness?

His child was away in Europe, on a boat trip outside of Greece with his ex-wife. He couldn’t tell his ex-wife—she never had much of a sense of humor—and besides, she would use the information against him—for more money or threaten to cut off joint custody. His child and his ex-wife were unreachable for the next week or so—all he needed was three days to pull this off.They would never find out.

He had told his psychiatrist about his fantasy. “I want to die,” Lou said.

“You need antidepressants,” the doctor had told him, reaching for his pen and his pad. “Don’t sweat it. Everybody’s on ’em.” Then he pointed at Lou. “And don’t worry, the way they make ’em these days, they don’t interfere with your hard-on. Thank God, right?”

“No, no,” Lou said, “I don’t really want to die. I want to have a funeral. I want to be … a participant … at my own funeral.
An observer, if you will.” The doctor looked at him. “I have to see what people really think of me.”

“What do you care what people think of you?” the doctor asked. “It’s none of your business. You’re over sixty years old, for Christ’s sake. I keep telling you that.”

“I don’t know. It’s an obsession. I’ve been in Hollywood too long. I’ve been to every bris, every bar mitzvah, every graduation, every engagement party, every wedding, every funeral.”

“So wait until your kid hits thirteen.”

“No,” Lou said. “There’s something about death that brings out the truth in people. I went to a guy’s funeral last year—”

“Lonnie’s?”

“No.”

“Murray’s?”

“No, no—anyway, this guy was beloved—”

“Gordon’s.”

“Yes, Gordon’s,” Lou said. “And you know Gordon. Everybody loved Gordo. Oh, the stories they told, up there on that podium. What a dear friend, what a wonderful husband, loving father, expert storyteller, consummate professional.”

The doctor nodded.

“But I’m sitting in the pews, I’m down there with the people, waiting my turn to kiss the ring of the dead guy”—Lou leaned forward—“and all I’m hearing is shit. There’s no muffled tears, no choked-back emotion. I’m just hearing shit. ‘What do you think of Eisner’s chances?’ ‘I gotta get out early—you going to the Lakers today?’ ‘This guy should have died before he made that last picture.’”

Lou sat back again. “Shit like that.”

“And?” the doctor asked. “What do you expect? It’s a Hollywood funeral. I keep telling you, people here would run over
their own mothers for a two-picture deal. You’re over sixty years old, Lou. You’ve got to grow up.”

Lou looked down at his hands. His elbows were on his knees. He felt suddenly vulnerable, a feeling he wasn’t used to and usually squelched with a quarter bottle of Seagram’s finest.

“I gotta know how it’s going to go down,” Lou finally said. “I have to know. Who’s going to be taking off to see the Lakers? Who’s going to go after my studio? Who’s going to say I was a stupid sack of shit?”

Lou wondered why he was tearing up. Maybe he really was depressed. Maybe he needed one of those pills that wouldn’t mess with his hard-on.

“You already know all the answers.”

“You don’t understand,” Lou said. “You know I never had a family—”

“You do now.”

“Barely.”

“You have a child,” the doctor pointed out.

Lou thought about his kid. The kid he thought he never wanted. How could he have been so stupid? How much time had he wasted avoiding women who wanted children with him? How many abortions had he had a hand in? He rubbed his face. He didn’t want to even think about it. He hadn’t even seen his own child being born. He had denied fatherhood up to the day the doctor called him with the facts, that this boy had his DNA. That Lou had a son.

What a son of a bitch he was.

“He’ll never know,” Lou said. “Besides, he’s too young to understand.”

The doctor just shook his head. “You are the ultimate malignant narcissist. And I’ve seen ’em all. So that’s saying something.”

Lou smiled. “So, what do you think I should wear?” he asked, leaning his body back against the couch, his arms sweeping outward.

T
HE PARTYING
started at 9:01 in the morning. Gracie and Will were out on the deck, awaiting Cricket’s arrival. Cricket was packing her three kids and a nanny to haul over to the Colony; Jorge was busy filming a show that week in New York. Gracie and Will lay on chaise longues while Jaden played in her plastic tub as Ana sprayed her with water from the hose. Ana had told Gracie a week ago, in no uncertain terms, that she was going to babysit Jaden today. Gracie was convinced that Ana thought Gracie would lose Jaden to the crowds.

Will and Gracie looked at each other as Mexican wedding music suddenly started to blast from underneath the deck.

“What is that sound?” Will asked.

“I believe it’s ranchera music,” Gracie replied. “Ana?”

Ana nodded.

“Please make it stop,” Will said. “Cinderella needs her beauty rest.” He patted his chest and closed his eyes.

Gracie shrugged and walked down the steps to the beach. The house was up on thirty-year-old pylons covered in noxious black tar. The shade underneath the house was a magnet for all kinds of interesting life forms—men posing half nude for
International Male
magazine, women in neon bikinis posing topless for
Muscle & Fitness,
couples making out, kids playing with cigarettes. And now, several Latino families out to enjoy the Fourth of July, celebrating Independence Day with a boom box and a cooler full of Coronas.

Gracie stood there for a moment, wondering if she had the heart (or guts) to inform her “guests” that they were sort of,
really, absolutely trespassing. Their boldly colored blankets with Pepsi and Coors logos were spread out. The kids were already making use of the large pieces of driftwood jutting out of the ground at various angles, half buried in sand and rocks. Babies were already piling sand into their gaping, precious mouths, the grown-ups were sitting back on the palms of their hands, taking in the surf and the first beer of the day with equal enthusiasm.

Gracie took one look and they took one look at her, and there was a crucial moment, a moment when all manner of decisions were made. Then Gracie waved and smiled, and the families all waved and smiled back, and then she walked right back up the stairs.

“No luck?” Will asked.

“They said they’re very sorry, and they’ll turn it down,” Gracie lied.

“I can see that,” Will replied, his voice loud over the ranchera music. Ana was now dancing with Jaden on the deck. “I want you to rest up. According to Internet estimates, there are fifteen parties between here and the twenties.” ( The “twenties” being the houses at the other end of the Colony.)

“Do you think he’ll be at one of these parties?” Gracie asked, expertly changing the subject.

“Every person in Los Angeles is going to be in the Colony. Of course he will,” Will said. “Now work on your tan. Everyone looks better with a little color.”

Gracie, with her paper-white skin, situated herself back under an umbrella watching while Jaden and Ana spun to the beat of the boom box and laughed.

Finally Will and Gracie leaned back in their chaise longues and closed their eyes in an attempt to rest up for the big day.