Loser's Town (25 page)

‘Ingrid.’

‘Excuse me, please,’ Ingrid said and left the room. Potts had no idea who Brahms was.

Ingrid brought Mrs Carlson into the living room. She looked like a perfectly normal old lady to Potts. She was nattily dressed and had a string of pearls around her neck and her gray hair was done up neatly. She had lipstick on
and her eyes were bright and she greeted Potts with a smile and her hand extended palm down. She looked kind of regal and Potts wondered for a second if he was supposed to kiss it but, no, it was for shaking. Potts shook it.

‘Mother, this is Mr Potts. He’s having dinner with us. I told you about him.’

‘Potts?’ repeated Mrs Carlson.

‘Yes, Mother, I told you about him. He’s staying for dinner.’

‘Oh good.’

Mrs Carlson went over and turned on the television. There was a show about something called a meerkat. Mrs Carlson was immediately absorbed in it.

Ingrid gave Potts an apologetic look. ‘Can we turn this down?’ she said to her mother.

‘What?’

‘The TV, Mother. Can we turn it down a little?’

‘I can’t hear it.’

‘You can hear it, Mother.’

‘There’s never anything on,’ said Mrs Carlson. ‘I never like anything they have on anymore.’

Ingrid turned down the TV volume to almost nil. The old lady didn’t seem to notice and kept watching the screen.

‘Would you like a glass of wine, Mr Potts?’

‘Thank you.’

‘I can’t keep calling you Mr Potts.’

‘Just Potts is fine.’

‘It still doesn’t work for me,’ Ingrid said.

Ingrid left the room. Potts watched the old lady, who appeared to have forgotten he existed. Her lips moved, as if she were talking silently to someone. Ingrid returned carrying glasses of wine for herself and for Potts. She handed him the glass.

‘Red okay?’ said Ingrid.

‘What?’

‘Red wine. I got it to go with the pot roast.’

‘Oh, I don’t know anything about wine.’

‘Red usually goes with red meat. White wine with fish.’

‘Yeah? I usually just drink beer.’

‘I’m sorry, would you prefer a beer?’

‘No, the wine is fine.’

Ingrid held up her glass in a toast. ‘Especially mine,’ she said, and it took Potts a second to realize she’d made a rhyme, a joke. Ingrid took a sip of her wine. Potts laughed nervously and took a sip of his. He didn’t like wine.

‘Maybe this was a mistake,’ Potts heard himself saying.

‘No.’

‘I don’t know about the wine, I don’t know which fork to hold, I don’t know any of that.’

Ingrid said, ‘There’s only one fork. One fork, one knife, one spoon. A plate, a glass. This isn’t a test. I invited you here because I wanted you to be here.’

‘Angelo,’ said Mrs Carlson. She was looking at Potts.

‘Who, Mother?’

‘Angelo. You remember Angelo.’

‘No, Mother, I don’t remember Angelo.’

‘Your father hated Angelo. I almost married him.’ Ingrid gave Potts a surprised look.

‘Well, this is something new. You almost married Angelo?’

‘You’d better get him out of here. Henry will be angry when he comes back,’ she said with some gravity.

‘This is Mr Potts, Mother.’

‘I can’t see you anymore,’ Mrs Carlson said to Potts. ‘I’m promised now to Henry.’

‘This is Mr Potts. Mr Potts, Mother, not Angelo.’

Mrs Carlson became agitated. ‘He’d better leave, I’m telling you! Henry has threatened to shoot him!’

‘All right, Mother. Don’t worry.’

‘Oh lord,’ said Mrs Carlson, ‘I don’t want to make him mad! I hate it when he’s mad!’

Ingrid went over to her mother. She took her hand and helped her up out of the chair.

‘It’s okay. Why don’t we just go to your room, you can watch TV in there.’ She started to lead Mrs Carlson from the room.

‘Tell Angelo I’m sorry, will you?’ Mrs Carlson said.

‘I’ll tell him.’

‘He was good to me. You tell him.’

‘I will, Mother.’

Ingrid led her mother from the room. She came back a minute later.

‘Sorry about that.’

‘No, it’s okay, said Potts.

‘She seems like a real sweet lady.’

Ingrid sat back down, picked up her wine.

‘She is. She was the best mother in the world. The gentlest woman you ever met. It’s sad, all this. To watch this. It’s so unfair.’

Potts didn’t know what to say, sipped his wine. Which he despises.

‘So it’s just you and me for dinner. I’ll take a plate to her room.’ She stood up. ‘Well the pot roast is done. We can eat now, if you’re ready. I hope you’re hungry. I made enough for an army.’

‘Yeah, I could eat,’ said Potts.

They sat in the dining room, at right angles to each other at the end of a long table. In spite of his nerves, Potts was hungry. Maybe it was the wine, which was tasting better by now. The food was excellent and Potts chowed down pretty heavily.

‘Is it okay?’ Ingrid asked.

Potts realized he was gobbling the food down too fast.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just . . . Yeah, it’s real good. I don’t know the last time I ever had a meal like this. I guess not since I left home. My mama could cook. Nothing this good though.’

‘You come from a large family?’

‘Just me and a sister.’

‘Are you close?’

‘We don’t talk. Leastways not unless we have to.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ingrid said, and meant it.

‘I don’t miss it.’

‘No, I mean that family is important. Everyone needs somebody. I have Mama, for instance. Even the way she is now, it’s something. Maybe the mind is going but it’s still the same heart, isn’t it?’

Again, Potts had no idea what to say. He stared down at the food.

‘I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’

Nothing. Potts wants to say something but can’t. What the hell are you supposed to say?

‘I wanted you to meet her,’ Ingrid said. ‘She’s not always like this. Sometimes she’s worse, sometimes she’s better.’

‘She seems like a real nice old lady. I’m sorry she’s ill.’

‘I wonder if we’ll ever know about Angelo? It sounds racy. This is the first I’ve heard of him. Maybe Angelo is the great love of her life. I don’t think my father was. He was a good man, but I don’t see him as anyone’s great passion. But Angelo. Ah, my mother and some dark Latin lover, some torrid affair carried out under the noses of her puritan family. They were bluebloods, and bluestockings, old back East family. Oh yes, Angelo would have driven them crazy.’

She looks at Potts, who’s watching her talk.

‘I’m sorry. Maybe it’s the wine. And I rarely get to talk to grown-ups. Not for a while, anyway.’

‘I like hearing you talk,’ Potts told her.

‘Oh I’m a talker,’ said Ingrid. ‘I’ll talk your leg off.’

Potts shook his leg. ‘Still attached.’

‘Oh my, Mr Potts, you made a joke.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Could it be that you’re actually relaxing a little?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I guess.’

‘Would you like some dessert? Apple pie. I made it myself, and I’m not shy about accepting compliments on it.’

‘Yes, ma’am, that sounds real good. You want me to help you with these dishes?’

‘Thank you for the offer, Mr Potts, but we have this amazing new invention. It’s called a dishwasher. But you can, if you don’t mind, bring the rest of that pot roast into the kitchen. I’ll wrap it up before it dries out. You’re taking some home. I insist on it.’

‘Thank you, yeah, that would be real nice.’

Potts followed her into the kitchen carrying the pot roast. He sat it on the counter and watched Ingrid scrape the plates into the garbage. When she bent over the front of her dress opened and Potts could see the thin nylon bra with a tiny bow near the top and the darkness of nipple through the fabric. Potts watched her rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She moved as if he wasn’t there, or else had been there all her life.

‘
Voilà
. And now for some coffee and that pie,’ she said.

She started the coffee in the machine. She sliced the pie and licked some apple filling from her finger. She was aware that Potts was staring at her, watching every move she made.

‘I’m sorry, Mother always taught me I should never . . .’ Potts had no idea what she was going to say. She let the sentence just end and hang there. She and Potts stared at each other.

‘I better go,’ said Potts.

‘What do you want to do?’ she asked him.

‘I best be going,’ Potts said again, but didn’t move.

‘No,’ she said to him. ‘Do what you want to do. Do what is in your mind.’

Potts put out his hand and touched her face. She took the hand and slid it beneath her dress, his hand enveloping the nylon and the tiny bow and the tip of her breast growing hard beneath his palm. She raised the skirt and put his hand between her legs. Potts let it rest there, cupping her, felt the moist warmth of her fill his hand. Ingrid leaned against him, her hands around his waist, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. She led him slowly out of the kitchen and down the hallway, past the room where the old lady sat watching television, mouthing words to herself, and into the bedroom. Ingrid undressed slowly and allowed Potts to watch. Now, she was saying to him, this is who I truly am, and he finally felt the two versions of her in his head come together. She crossed to Potts who held her naked and then she began to undress him. He let her do whatever she wanted and she pulled him into the bed and slid beneath him and Potts was lost, oh so lost, put one arm beneath her neck and the other hand beneath her hips and tried not with just his cock but his entire body to enter her, to pass through flesh and into
her core. He buried his face in her neck in a dimple where sweat gathered and he inhaled her, tasted her and ended with a violence that left him weak and helpless and not a little frightened. Potts lay on his back, her hand on his chest, head on his shoulder, and can feel the burning lines on his back from her scratches and the place at the base of his neck where she bit. She is warm and soft and he can feel every inch of her along the side of his body. Jesus.

‘I’m not beautiful,’ she says. ‘I know that.’

‘I think you’re beautiful,’ Potts said. ‘I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘I’ve been with other men. Too many, I think. I’ve done things with them, because of them, that I’m ashamed of. But I’ll tell you, if you want to know.’

‘I don’t need to hear it.’

‘I don’t want you to think I’m something I’m not.’

‘I already know what I need to know.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

Potts propped himself up on his elbow and looked her in the eyes. ‘That you’re a good woman. Neither one of us is an angel. I’ve done time, for one thing. I did five years in Texas for armed robbery. That make a difference to you?’

‘No.’

‘You think you’ll want to see me again?’

‘I don’t want to let go of you now,’ she said.

Potts heard the sound of his old man’s voice. He pushed it away.

Seventeen

Bobby Dye was having a barbecue at the top of the world.

It seemed like it to Spandau anyway. It was a crisp sunny day, and from the deck of Bobby’s pool, LA stretched out forever and could be tolerated because you were one of the gods and above it all. Two budding culinary geniuses manned the giant grills, food was brought round by acting students going through their obligatory waitress phase and who were nearly as pretty as the models who disported themselves in and out of the water. The males were all friends of Bobby’s – a few minor actors, some musicians, drinking and drug buddies from the old days. No one from the film cast or crew. It was the weekend and Bobby was letting his hair down. This was about relaxation, the kind of down-home event where you could say what you want. You couldn’t, really, but Bobby enjoyed the illusion that you could. The models were friends of Irina Gorbacheva, Bobby’s girlfriend, and to the utter joy of Bobby’s pals were competing to see
who could shove the most body into the least amount of cloth. A few had already given up and abandoned the top half. Rock music blared from the speakers and, while booze was everywhere, many were bright-eyed from other sources.

Irina was tall and blonde and perfect. She knew this as well as anybody and was generous about being stared at. She was far and away the most beautiful woman there, and had planned it that way as well as Bobby had planned his own superior presence. Only an idiot sets a stage to their disadvantage. Spandau felt guilty about watching her, but so was everybody else, and anyway she liked being watched. Irina wanted to be a movie star and as long as people couldn’t help staring there was hope. She hadn’t an ion of talent and sounded like a fluffier version of Natasha in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, but then so did Arnold Schwarzenegger and look how he turned out. Spandau was standing off to one side drinking a beer when Irina drifted over. She took the beer from his hand and took a pull of it and made a face.

‘Russians like vodka,’ she said.

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘A nice life, huh?’ she said, sweeping her hand around in a grand gesture. ‘Shitload better than Petersburg.’ She was from Minsk but someone had told her that Minsk didn’t sound as good.