All That Was Happy (11 page)

“
Beckie!” Leah cried.

“
Get out, Leah--take Ira and go home. I
can’t be with either of you now.”

When Leah left Beckie and entered the cool,
tile corridor outside the Banos Damas, the refreshing evening
breezes washed over her from the open back door of the restaurant,
reminding her that Spring had arrived, and with it the reminders to
every woman that the season of new life was bursting from the sleep
of winter. She retrieved her husband from the table and together
they bid their good-byes to Huntington who, like the former
investor he was, patiently waited to see the results of what he’d
put into the deal thus far and who, like every investor, hoped for
an increase in his fortunes and prayed, not disrespectfully--like
all men to whom the outcomes of casting their bread upon the waters
was unknown to them--to his personal God for a little luck with the
outcome.

Chapter
19

“
Where to?” Huntington said.

“
Anyplace,” Beckie said. “Just lets get
out of here, please.”

Having come to grips for the moment with the
anguish of her rejection by her husband, not, as she’d previously
thought, because of an actual child on the way, but because of its
opposite, to wit--the absence of any child on the way, and having
overcome the feeling of being unfairly judged by her husband enough
to leave the Banos Damas off the breezeway of Taxco Mexican
Restaurant, and rejoin the waiting Huntington, and after having
accepted his invitation to ditch her limo in favor of his personal
vehicle, a huge Chevy Suburban, which sat high in the air on big
mud tires, and the interior of which was long enough to accommodate
a couple of surfboards in the back, and a lot of miscellaneous
restaurant boxes, Beckie, sitting in the jump seat in her white,
silver-sequined tube dress, her hair cut short, and shining with a
platinum glow, she herself looking fabulous, a shimmering dream in
gray-suede spiked heels, watched the world around her go by as her
date for the evening guided the mammoth SUV with a light touch
through the evening Spring traffic, heading west on Vanowen, a
six-lane cross-Valley arterial which cut through the endless sprawl
of uncontrolled strip malls, apartments, and shopping centers gone
to seed as they approached Haskell Avenue and the connection to the
405 freeway from which they could quickly, traffic permitting,
access any point in the five-thousand square mile sprawl containing
the eleven million estimated denizens of the City of Angels.

“
I want you to see my place,” he said,
indicating his first choice among all the billions of possible
places available, piloting the Suburban up the onramp and stepping
on it, the humongous power plant surging them forward impressively
and competitively into the 10-lane engineering nightmare known, for
some reason unknown to anyone, as the San Diego Freeway.

“
No,” she said. “I know we kissed last
night, and I know from the dress I’m wearing, you probably think
something’s going to happen, but I should warn you, I’m not in the
same place I was last night. I think maybe it would be best, in
fact, if we simply called it a night. Besides, don’t you have to go
wait tables at your restaurant, or something?”

“
I have a manager who handles that,”
Huntington said. “Nobody there knows I own the place. Twice a
month, I wait tables so I can check up on how things are being run.
Last month, I had to fire the bartender after I observed him
skimming the receipts. The permanent staff just thinks I’m an actor
with a part-time waiter gig.”

“
My husband isn’t having a child with
another woman,” Beckie said. “Leah just told me.”

“
I’d really like you to see my place,”
Huntington said. “It’s right on the strand--the section of condos
just north of the channel at the Marina.”

“
You live there?” Beckie
said.

“
I’ve got a tri-level that overlooks
the strand and the beach,” Huntington said. “I surf every morning
right out my front door. Of course, it’s a shallow shore break and
if the waves are bigger than three feet they snap you in half, but
most mornings I can grab a few rides.”

“
I envy you,” Beckie said. “I used to
surf, back before you were born, of course.”

“
I’m thirty-seven,” he protested.
“You’re only forty-nine--twelve years is nothing.”

“
I’ll tell you what I will do,” Beckie
said. “The truth is, I don’t dislike you--you’re very good-looking,
in fact. But I’m not interested in any kind of look-before-we-leap
relationship. We’ll go over to your place and you can show me your
view of the strand. We can have some hot chocolate, or whatever,
and we’ll lay out some ground rules for our being together that we
both can live with.”

“
Fair enough,” Huntington said. “I can
respect that--we can decide what’s important to each of us, and if
we have a conflict, we can try to find some alternatives--it’s a
way we can make the transition into something more
solid.”

“
You must have been a banker,” Beckie
said. “That was a very graceful analysis.”

“
Being on Wall Street isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be,” Huntington said. “My first year everyone
referred to me as “Peckerhead”. After that first year, I did okay
with my portfolio, so they stopped calling me “Peckerhead” and
elevated me to “Butthead”. It wasn’t until my fourth year of
continued success that the managing partner actually used my first
name.”

“
What drew you to Wall Street in the
first place,” Beckie said.

“
In a word--money,” he said. “I wanted
to make barrels and barrels of it.”

“
Did you succeed?”

“
You’d be amazed,” he said. “But I
finally had enough and I got out--I was one of the lucky ones--some
guys never do.”

“
Oh no,” Beckie said.

“
Oh no?” Huntington said.

“
You’ll never believe this,” Beckie
said, “but in all the confusion, when I dismissed the limo, I
forgot to take my big straw carryall out of the
backseat.”

“
What’s in the bag?” he
said.

“
Not much,” she said. “Just my
bathrobe, my gun and my dog--not to mention that I left the trunk
filled with about fifteen-thousand-dollars’ worth of designer
labels.”

“
You sure you’re not just wiggling out
of our evening?” he said.

“
No,” she said. “But may I borrow your
cell phone? I’m going to call my driver and have him meet me over
at my house--that way, I can set Mr. Boopers free and get him fed
and bedded down for the night before we head over to your place--do
you mind?”

“
Not a bit,” Huntington said. He was a
banker, and used to the changing variables inherent in any
investment of time and energy.

Chapter
20

“
What do you mean I’m not allowed on
the property?” Beckie said.

“
I mean just that,” the man in the
guard uniform said.

They’d arrived to find the limo waiting
curbside at Beckie’s off-Wilshire Santa Monica residence, the
driver standing by the trunk. But they’d found something more--a
uniformed, armed security guard, his cruiser blocking the driveway,
his presence there to prevent her from entering the premises.

“
But this is my home!”

“
I’m sorry, lady,” the guard said,
handing her a card. “Here’s a number you can call to discuss the
details.”

“
I’m calling the police and have you
arrested for trespassing!” Beckie said. “That’s my home--everything
I own is in there--my food, my clothes, my bed--everything! You
have no right to prevent me from entering!”

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I truly am--but
it’s my job to secure the residence--as to calling the police,
they’ll just tell you what I’m telling you--it’s all legal. The
paperwork has already been filed with the Santa Monica PD. However,
you’re certainly welcome to call them if it will help put your mind
at ease.”

“
It looks like the fight is
escalating,” Huntington said. “Your husband just upped the
stakes--he’s just putting the division of property into the legal
arena. Beckie, there’s nothing you can do about it tonight--I know
it’s hard, but we can get you through this. I know a good lawyer we
can call in the morning.”

“
What am I going to do?” Beckie said.
“Where am I going to go? What about Mr. Boopers? It’s past his
bedtime. He’s accustomed to sleeping at the foot of my
bed.”

“
We’ll go to my place,” Huntington
said. “I can put you up in my bed--you’ll be safe and comfortable
there.”

“
Oh no,” Beckie said. “I’m not sleeping
over at your place--we don’t even know each other. I’ll get a room
at the Westwood Marquis.”

“
You don’t want to go to a hotel,”
Huntington said. “Look, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll sleep
in the Suburban tonight so you can have the place to yourself--you
can lock all the doors and put the perimeter alarm on so you’ll
feel safe against any untoward advances you fear I might make. In
the morning, we’ll go out to breakfast and take a look at this
whole situation. Now c’mon, have you got any better
ideas?”

Beckie was exhausted. The day from Hades had
taken its toll. She was simply too tired to wrestle with it
anymore.

“
Have you got any brandy?” she said.
“If you do, some brandy in a glass of warm milk would be nice about
now--I’m just too tired to react to any more of this.”

“
Driver,” Huntington said. “Give the
lady her straw bag and load everything else into the back of my
Suburban and that’ll be it for tonight.”

The driver opened the rear door and Mr.
Boopers sprang out, running to Beckie and whimpering excitedly.

“
Awww,” the driver said. “I didn’t know
the dog was in there! Oh man, it stinks in this backseat! What’d he
eat, a rat taco or something?”

“
For your information, he doesn’t like
Mexican food,” Beckie said, scooping up the tiny, quivering bundle.
“Oh, Mr. Boopers, I’m so sorry I forgot you--I’m so sorry I let the
bad man drive off without you.”

“
Hey,” the driver said, after he
finished loading the Suburban, handing Beckie her straw purse. “I’m
sorry about your dog--but I can’t hear a thing back there when the
glass is closed and I’m blasting the Bose. I had no idea your
little dog was trapped back there--you’ve got to admit, he doesn’t
make much of a profile, him being not much larger than a rat and
all.”

“
No harm, no foul,” Beckie said. “C’mon
Huntington, let’s go before this thing gets any further out of
control.”

“
I’m sorry about your troubles, lady,”
the security guard said.

“
It’s not your fault,” Beckie said.
“Just be a prince and keep the house secure for me while I’m
gone.”

“
You got it, lady,” he said. “By the
way, your boyfriend’s a lucky man.”

Beckie found herself flushing--in all the
excitement, she’d forgotten how she must appear to the guard, with
her new geometric platinum cut, gray-suede high heels and white,
silver-sequined tube dress. Embarrassed, she fished her bathrobe
out of her straw carryall and slipped it on.

The Suburban idled slowly down the street,
crossing Wilshire completely and heading south before turning west
on Colorado. Huntington took his time, working his way over to the
Marina, cruising slowly down a long condo canyon, whereupon he hit
the remote and pulled the Suburban into a clean, unobstructed
garage.

“
I had to have the garage lengthened to
hold my car,” he said. “They trimmed about three feet off my
kitchen to make it work--the contractor called it a man’s
compromise.”

“
He was right,” Beckie said. “No woman
would give up kitchen space for a car.”

“
I mostly eat out anyway,” he
said.

“
You’ve got the neatest garage I’ve
ever seen,” Beckie said. “Are you sure you really live
here?”

“
I’ve got another place across town,”
he said, “where I keep all the usual kinds of junk that most people
have in their garage, you know, the rear-bagger, the blower, the
bicycle with the flat tire--but how much stuff do you really need
at the beach? All you need is your board, your wet suit, your
bicycle for cruising the strand, your in-line skates for doing the
same, your telescope for checking out the action on the sand, and
your hibachi for whenever you feel hungry. Besides, if you let your
life get all cluttered up with stuff, it’s just a built-in excuse
not to do what’s important to you. Too much stuff creates
chaos.”

“
You said you’ve got another place
across town?” Beckie said. “Where?”

“
I’ve got a little place in San
Marino,” he said. “But I don’t spend much time there.”

Beckie did the math. A little place in San
Marino, which happened to be the most expensive little neighborhood
on the planet, plus a tri-level at the edge of the Marina waterway?
She could only conclude that Huntington, if he was for real, must
have a net worth of a size somewhat roughly equal to about half the
U.S. monetary supply.

“
You have a wife and kids somewhere
else, don’t you?” she said. “That’s why you keep this beach
house--so you can have your fun, too. I’m calling a cab and going
back to Westwood.”