Elsinore Canyon (10 page)

“Yes, answer.”

“Truthfully. Look, it’s no offense to your lying abilities, but I’m pretty sure my aunt and dad called you.”

“Why would they do that?”

“You tell me. I mean, the three of us have been friends forever, and it was always us kids versus the hypocrite fuckhead grownups. I can’t imagine the day I’d go all Hunger Games on you.”

No answer.

Dana snapped. “What, are the fuckheads smarter than us?”

Gale’s eyes traveled to Rosie’s. “Fuck this.”

Rosie shook her head at Dana. “They’re concerned. All right?”

“All right.”

“Oh, fuck. Listen, Dana, we’re sorry—”

“No, no,” said Dana.
“They’re
the hypocrite users. They’re on a campaign to turn my friends into snitches and bitches—so I’ll tell you what: I’ll game their game and out myself to you. Because—” She stopped, and looked at them curiously. “Do you really think they’re concerned about me?”

“Shit, maybe.”

“And what about you?”

“Yeah,” said Rosie. “I’m concerned. I was running for Stepdaughter of the Year and you’re ruining it.”

Dana laughed. “Sorry for that. Heck, I’ll give you the secret of my success. It’s my abysmal depression.” Her voice cracked, and she snorted back a sudden burst of tears—where had they come from, damn it? “I don’t like dancing anymore, I haven’t been down to the beach in ages.” She fled back to the window and looked out through wet, burning eyes. “There’s nothing for me out there. It’s a big, cheery-ass, go-along pep rally in hell. ‘Move on!’ My mother died and they treat me like I lost a five-dollar Lotto ticket. ‘It’s in the past, nothing to be done about it now. Pick yourself up and better luck next time!’ My
feelings.
My
memories.
And they’re all liars. They wouldn’t live that way themselves.”

She dashed to a fountain in the center of the solarium, and gripped a marble goddess with her fingers. “My mom was the model for this. She looked the same when she died. She could still be a sculptor’s ideal. Or a poet’s—but all along she was nothing but a box of ashes waiting to happen.” She pulled her phone out of an embroidered pouch that she wore at her hip, clicked the camera on, and stared at her face. “I treated her like one.” She hauled back and slung the phone into the fountain with all her might. The metal smacked the marble, the glass shattered. She stared sullenly at the delicate shards.

A sing-songy voice jarred the air. “Delivery for Miss Rosie Schrey-eyy.” Polly stood in the entry with his heels pressed together and an oily smile on his face. He held out a square envelope.

Rosie frowned at him. “What?”

“A certain DVD.”

“Oh. Yeah. I asked my dad’s assistant to bring it over. It’s a screener of
Second Generation.”

Dana stepped away from the sculpture.
“Second Generation.
How super awesome.”

“If you don’t want—”

“No, no, I do. Nice work, Rosie. I mean it.”

Rosie closed her fingertips over the envelope, but Polly held it fast. “There was a message,” he smiled. “The screener won’t be available until Saturday, so they sent a compilation of dailies instead.” He released the envelope.

“Right.” Rosie turned to Gale and Dana. “Dailies?”

“Dailies are good,” said Dana. She mugged at Polly. “So nice of you to deliver it personally.”

“Enjoy your Cooper-o-rama,” he said.

“Thanks,” Rosie said.

He bowed away.

“Jesus,” she whispered. The three girls watched Polly’s furry head bob down the hall.

“I bitched at him today,” said Dana.

Rosie aped him. “Cooper-oh-rah-mah.” She bent herself in his servile pose. “Cooper-oh-rah-mah for Miss Rosie Schrey.”

The three of them cackled. “God, it almost ruins it,” Dana said. “He’s probably going to hole up in his cottage and picture us watching it. With one hand on his joy stick.”

“Oh, stop!” “Heinous!”

Dana laughed. “Anyone got a spliff?”

Rosie had two. Town was out, dailies were in. They danced up the stairs to Dana’s room, pausing for fits of hilarity.

“Oh Jesus. Holy shit.” Sticky eyes—tears of laughter, dehydrated, gummed up in the corners. Two movies had been played. It was either forever ago or just now that they ended, but one of them lasted two hours, thirty-nine minutes, and the other two hours, seventeen minutes. Dana’s frilly dress lay on the floor. She kicked it across the room with her bare foot, whooped, and twirled, stopped by gravity as she faced the mirror: her almost-eighteen-year-old self, squeezed into a plaid skirt and a plain white short-sleeved blouse. Rosie and Gale in similar costumes—William of Bourges uniforms that had fit their thirteen-year-old bodies.

Gale lurched across an alpaca rug in her four-inch heels. “Is this a porno flick or what?”

Where was Rosie? Whoa, on the floor, was she—no. She did splits in the air. “I’m ready for my close-up!”

Dana shucked off her skirt. “Wait a minute.” Mountains of old clothes. She shimmied into a black skirt, tra-la! Then a black jacket.

“It’s backwards, you retard.”

“Hooold on.” Dana plunged into a dresser—success, a white beret, which she pulled low on her head. She pinched her face up like a piece of dried fruit. “Now! My name is Sister Matthew Mark Luke John.” Pinched voice. Hurricanes of laughter. How did she keep that face? “I will be your substitute teacher while Sister Betsy is recovering from being hit by a car, struck by lightning, falling off a cliff, stabbed by a porcupine, and catching leprosy and pneumonia. God has blessed her greatly.”

“Siiissssterrrr! Rosie put her tampon in wrong!”

Dana pinched on. “Ex
cuse
me. Sister Betsy has been thinking of you, and she wanted me to bring you this gift. She has.
Made
you. This
love
ly.
Skirt.”
She flourished the plaid one she had shucked off.

“No!” “God!”

Dana peered at her plaid-clad audience sternly. “Young. Lady. In. The plaid.” And then it was too much. She wiped off the beret and felt around for something to eat.

Project Video happens tomorrow: shoot, post, and burn a 3-min music vid. One camera. Prize $10k, good pay for cast (2 female, one male) and crew. Script attached. Bonus: you’re the only entrant. E-mail or skype me, do not call as my phone is effed.

Dana tapped Send and shoved the tablet out of sight. Exhausted. Nothing like a messy bed with a million pillows and the lighting just right. One hour and forty-seven minutes of dailies had played, and she and Rosie and Gale were lolling in their favorite state of dress, the clothes-collage. Also a carrot cake, a pan of lasagna, and a box of pears lay by, partially destroyed. The three girls all stared straight at a large screen on the other side of the room.

A British actor with tangled black curls and a flowing cravat turned slowly towards the camera. Fiery eyes blazed against an early morning sky. “May she wake in
torment!”
he thundered. “Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there,” he smoldered, looking up, “not in heaven, not perished.
Where?
Oh, you said you cared nothing for my sufferings. And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens.” His eyes reddened and his body shook with rage. “Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you.
Haunt
me then!” The screen went blank.

“That’s a single shot,” said Rosie. “Those tears are real.”

“Go to the next track,” said Dana.

Rosie pressed a remote. Once again, the fiery-eyed actor filled the frame. “The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe,” he said huskily. “I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always,” he said, looking through a stand of damp trees. “Take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” He raked his head. “Oh, God! it is unutterable! I
cannot
live without my life! I
cannot
live without my soul!”

The screen went blank again. Dana nudged Rosie. “You can get the screener for sure on Saturday?”

“That or something better.”

“Ah, fuckit,” said Gale, throwing her legs down to get off the bed.

“What’s the matter with you?” said Dana.

“It makes me think of my ’Vette. Now
I’m
going to cry.”

“Get a grip,” said Rosie. “You could see the edge of the matte painting in that last take.”

“But my parents taking my ’Vette away is real.”

Dana wanted them to spend the night, but they didn’t have clothes or facewash or makeup, so Dana offered them hers, but they wanted their own brands, but Dana didn’t think they were okay to drive, but they assured her they were, and they all ate some more and drank some water and thought again about staying and decided not to, so they went to get dressed for real and discovered their actual clothes had somehow disappeared in the massive donate pile so they gave up and put on some of Dana’s donate things and laughed their heads off about that, and finally made plans for Saturday and went outside and called it a night at Gale’s crappy used Porsche. She could barely get the top to close—lame car should have been drunk-proof.

“And one last thing,” Dana said as the engine vroomed. “My parents are only half-right about my psych sitch.”

In the passenger seat, Rosie leaned over Gale’s lap and looked up at Dana. “Which half?”

“I’m only nuts on odd days. On even days I do, in fact, know the difference between water polo and playing polo in the water.” Rosie’s eyes sank, and she sat up slowly as Dana drummed goodbye on the top of the car and scampered back to the house.

The sky was blue-black over Elsinore Canyon, with a few clouds spread over it like white shadows. In its waxing crescent phase, with 46 percent of its visible disk illuminated, the moon had set at an azimuth of 246 degrees east of north at 11:27 p.m. Light pollution from the cities of Southern California along with the heavy marine layer blotted out all but the most powerful heavenly bodies. The solarium’s planters, carvings, and wicker provided mere hints of their presence and shape to the eye. A blink, a glance away, and they would be gone, moved, resized, or restructured. A flutter would destroy the silence, first with itself and then over and over with its echoes, and betray its source. Something, in fact, was in the room. It bustled into a corner, then went still. Less than thirty seconds later, soft footsteps at the door broke the silence again. They were a man’s footsteps, big-soled, slow and careful.

Over in the corner where the bustling had happened, between a wall and a sofa, Dana hunched like a griffin, her arms compacted against her chest and her eyes wide. She tried to damp the beating of her heart. The footsteps drew nearer. Closer, closer, just a few feet away. Close enough now for her to hear their owner’s breathing. And for him to hear hers if she dared exhale.

The beam of a flashlight lit the fountain. “Hm.” A man’s voice, disappointed. A click, and tiny lights danced on around the fountain. “What?” Fingers picked around the drain. “Hnh.” The flashlight’s beam scoured the base of the fountain and the floor nearby. “Hnh.” Another click, the dancing lights were gone. The footsteps shuffled this way and that, the spot of the flashlight darted around, and then all died away as the intruder walked out of the room.