Bread Alone (14 page)

Now we’re both sitting there crying in our salads.

“But he was dead,” I blurt out. “He didn’t dump you for some fucking bimbo.” Suddenly I realize I’ve just said the F word to my mother. I start to laugh. Then she laughs.

“Oh, Wyn.” She gets up and pulls two tissues out of the box on the counter. “I want you to do me a favor.”

I dab at my eyes. “What?”

She sits down in her chair. “Come to dinner with Ed and me tomorrow night. Please,” she adds, before I can get out my automatic no. “We’re going to a new place in Beverly Hills. Le Jardin. It’s supposed to be wonderful. Please come.”

“I can’t.”

“What you mean is, you won’t. Look, Ed’s a really nice, interesting man and I don’t think I’ll be seeing him much longer.”

“Why not?”

“He’s getting too serious, and I just don’t feel that way about him. I enjoy his company. He tells great stories. But he thinks he’s in love with
me, and I can’t let it go on. In fact, if you’d go with us, he wouldn’t be able to get all maudlin and romantic and it would be fun. Please? Come on, say you’ll go.”

At seven-fifteen Thursday evening, I’m squished into the backseat of Ed’s gold Camaro. My mother offered to let me sit up front, but Ed looked so crushed that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The rear speakers are blasting out Van Halen, and he’s thwacking his ring on the steering wheel in time with the bass.

So they’re up front yakking away and I can’t hear a word of it. I just sit with my knees up under my chin and stare at the back of his head. The super-short cop coiffure stands up in stiff little spikes above his collar, like my father’s old boar-bristle brush, and there’s a tiny bit of shaving cream stuck to the back of his earlobe. Just then he catches my eye in the rearview mirror and I realize he’s said something to which he’s expecting a reply.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you.”

He reaches for the volume knob. “I said, have you heard anything about this place, Le Jardin?” Except he calls it “Lay Jardeen.”

“No, I haven’t. And it’s pronounced ‘Luh Zhardanh,’ by the way.”

My mother doesn’t have to turn around; I can see her spine stiffen.

Ed laughs good-naturedly. “That’s right. Your mom said you spent some time in France. So it’s Le Jardin.” This time he hits it pretty close.

“That’s good,” I tell him.

“Anyway, ol’ Ruthie liked it.”

“Who?”

“Ruth Reichl.
L.A. Times.”
He looks in the mirror again. “And she’s pretty persnickety.” Like she’s a close personal friend of his. “Took me a couple weeks to get a reservation,” he continues. “It’s the new happening spot.”

He weaves through the traffic on Sunset Boulevard, one hand on the wheel, the other draped casually over the other bucket seat, with the
aplomb of a man who spends a lot of time behind the wheel and likes it. Every so often his finger brushes my mother’s hair.

I look out the window, eyes half closed so that headlights and tail-lights, traffic signals and neon signs run together in a river of multicolored light. Almost as many colors as Ed’s plaid jacket. I saw my mother carefully compose her face when she opened the front door to him earlier. His tie is paisley, in a totally different palette. I wonder absently if he’s color-blind. A lot of men are, I guess.

By the time we arrive at Le Jardin, I know I’ll never be able to uncoil my body. Ed gives me a hand, yanking me unceremoniously out, like a cork from a bottle, and the valet parking guy gets a nice flash up my skirt. Ed gives his name to the maître d’, who tries not to stare at the jacket.

He consults his black book and then looks at us down the full length of his long, pointy nose. “There must be some mistake. I have a reservation for two. Now there are three?”

Ed unbuttons his jacket, hooks his thumbs behind his belt buckle, and smiles. “It’s not like we’re trying to sneak her into the circus without a ticket, is it? Just drag up another chair. You can tell by looking at her she doesn’t eat much.”

I have to compress my lips to hold in a very undignified guffaw. Our poor maître d’ probably doesn’t have much experience with guys like Detective Ed Talley. He weighs the matter for only a few seconds before snapping his fingers at one of the busboys. “Chair,” he hisses.

The dining room really is a garden. Palm trees and ferns, climbing vines, boldly colored bromeliads and delicate, pale orchids are cunningly arranged to screen most of the tables from each other. White lights twinkle everywhere, like fireflies reflected in the crystal. A harpist plays in one corner, and it’s quiet enough that you can actually hear her.

My mother smiles. “Oh, Ed, this is lovely. It’s like fairyland.”

Ed beams and orders a bottle of Taittinger Brut Rosé, which he pronounces “Tatenjer.” I don’t bother to correct him.

The plates I can see on other tables look more like works of art than food, but that’s L.A. for you. Bread appears, rustic and flecked with
herbs. I nibble a piece while I read the menu. Warm rabbit ravioli with tarragon butter. Charred rare ahi. Angel-hair pasta with three caviars. Salmon sashimi with cucumber spaghetti. Baby vegetables. Precious little duck taquitos with mango salsa. It’s probably all wonderful, but not what I want right now. Maybe what I want isn’t on any menu.

After the waiter brings the wine and announces the specials like they were handed down on stone tablets, Ed holds up his glass and says, “To the two prettiest ladies in the room.”

My mother smiles graciously and I take a large gulp of champagne. Then she pushes back her chair and stands up. “Excuse me for just a moment.” And disappears in the direction that looks most promising for the ladies’ room. I can’t believe she’s left me alone with him. I drink some more champagne and study the menu and pretend an interest in the few other tables I can see.

“Johanna told me about your husband.” This must be his interrogation voice, calm, quiet. In the good cop/bad cop scenario, he’d be the one to lay his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder and say, “How ‘bout a cup of coffee, son?”

I continue to read the menu, but he won’t give up. “I just want to say I’m sorry. I know how hard it is.”

I look up sharply. “I thought your wife died.”

“My second wife. The first one left me.” His expression of neutrality never falters. Jesus Christ, how much did she tell him?

I make my mouth curve up. “I’d really like to talk about something else.”

“Sure. I understand.” He smears a whole pat of butter on a piece of bread. “It’s hard, though, when that’s all that’s on your mind. So if you want, I’ll do the talking. I’m pretty good at it. You can just relax.”

“Fine.” I lean back in my chair. “Tell me about some of your exciting adventures with the Encino PD.”

When he laughs, it sounds like a roar in the jungle. Heads turn. He doesn’t notice. “Not too many with the Encino PD. But before that, I was with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Now there were some interesting times. Like the Sunday morning we got a call to the
Bartholomae place on Balboa. You should’ve seen this place. Imagine six hundred feet of waterfront property on that peninsula. Moored out front is this ninety-eight-foot ketch called the
Sea Diamond.”
Shake of the head. “What a beauty.” In spite of myself, I lean forward.

What happens next is very quick. It’s not one big thing, but a series of small actions like a scene in a play. The waiter materializes to take our order. My mother returns from the powder room and Ed stands up to pull out her chair. The maître d’ sweeps by with two couples in his wake. One of which is David and Kelley. It’s almost comic, the way everybody sees everybody at the same instant and the action stops.

Fortunately, I can’t see my own face, but I feel the way I felt one time when I was pitching for a coed softball team and I got hit in the stomach by a line drive. My mother assumes the stance of a momma grizzly whose cub is endangered, glaring at Kelley. The waiter has his bored hauteur look on, probably expecting us to start doing air kisses and chitchat. Kelley’s benign smile sharpens into a feral grin. David has the grace to look a teensy bit flustered. Then his glance falls on Ed and the plaid jacket, and he actually looks at me with the suggestion of a smile and raises one eyebrow. It’s a look we’ve shared countless times, laughing at something or someone we considered beyond the pale.

As if on cue, the maître d’ turns around to look for his lost ducklings. Their friends look impatient. David and Kelley resume their flight plan. My mother sits down. I start breathing. It took all of ten seconds and no words were exchanged, but everything is suddenly, unmistakably clear.

The waiter says, “Have we made some decisions here?”

Somehow I order. When he’s gone, Ed looks at my mother, then at me, and smiles wolfishly. “Should I have his car impounded?”

I excuse myself to the ladies’ room, walking as if the floor were carpeted with ball bearings. I lock the door behind me and sink down onto the rose-print slipper chair in one corner. I just sit, as still as you can sit when you’re shaking. I pull a tissue out of my purse and blot the sweat off my forehead and upper lip. When I stand up to wash my hands, I feel nauseous, dizzy, so I inhale, exhale, deeply, slowly. I put on lipstick
even though I don’t need to, and I unlock the door and step out. On my way back to the table, I hand the maître d’ a ten-dollar bill and ask him to call me a cab.

It’s a very long taxi ride back to Encino. For once, I’m thankful the driver doesn’t speak English. I sit wedged into the corner of the seat and think about Kelley. It’s funny that David would choose someone who looks the way I always wanted to look—almost as if he’d consulted me on his selection. She’s the kind of woman who stops traffic wherever she goes. Tall and lithe, perpetually tan, but not too dark. Just enough to set off her mane of straight, gleaming blonde hair and perfect smile. Kelley Hamlin is what everybody thinks of when you say “California girl.” Actually, she’s from Wisconsin or Minnesota or one of those other whole-milk states. Watching her blaze through Le Jardin in her body-hugging blue dress and three-inch heels, I could understand how David would be smitten. What man wouldn’t be? And I sat there, squirming inside my chalky-white skin, brown hair curling like old Easter basket grass, dark hollows under my eyes. With Ed and his carnival coat, my mother in her Encino-matron silk finery.

Nothing left to do but slink home to my clean sheets and my books. Maybe I’ll get wild and crazy and have a glass of wine.

While David and Kelley enjoy a leisurely dinner with friends. Or knowing them, probably clients. And then they go to her house? Our house? How silly of me. I mean,
his
house. Maybe they’ll have a fire in the fireplace, a little cognac. Laugh about the clownish trio at the restaurant. While the laughter is winding down, their eyes meet. His hand brushes her bare shoulder. He kisses her neck lightly. He’s good at those little teasing moves. I really don’t want to think about this, but once I’ve started imagining …

I’m her. Kelley. I feel the tip of his tongue dip into the hollow at my neck and shoulder. He unzips my dress, easing down the top. Am I wearing a bra? Maybe a blue lace demi. It fastens in the front, but he knows all about those. One little click. My breasts tumble out and his
mouth chases them, teasing the nipples, making me crazy. We’re on the floor now. Well, only if we’re at my house. If we’re at his house, he won’t want to get stuff on the sheepskin rug. My beautiful golden hair billows around my face like backlit clouds in a movie. His hand skates up my thigh to that place he knows will make me scream if he touches it just right and he’s so close. Oh god oh god oh god. I bite my lower lip. I lurch forward, banging my shins on the back of the seat.

“Dis de house?” says the driver.

About ten-thirty, my mother comes in and sits on my bed. Wasting no time on pleasantries, she says, “Wynter, don’t let that Barbie doll run you off. Fight for what you want.”

I drink some water from the glass on my night table. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

She takes the glass from my hand and finishes the water. “You’re too quick to let go. David’s acting like a jerk, but most men do at some point. He’s also gorgeous and smart and talented. He’s taken good care of you for a long time. I think he’ll come around if you don’t abandon him.”

“Mother, I believe he’s made his choice.” I pick up my book. She takes it out of my hands and lays it on the bed, just out of my reach.

“I saw him look at you, Wyn.”

“Yeah, and don’t I look terrific.”

“You look wonderful.”

“I look like the undertaker’s daughter.”

“You just look sad. It didn’t hurt for him to see that.” She sighs, closes her eyes in the expression of frustration I know so well. “I realize you think I don’t know anything about anything, but I’m telling you, wait it out. Don’t make any sudden moves. The odds are in your favor. And if he persists in being an idiot, you’ll still end up a very wealthy young woman.”

I put an index finger at each temple and massage in a circle. It’s quiet for a minute and then she says, “I told Ed I couldn’t see him anymore.”