Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (14 page)

hen I moved into Levi's apartment in the converted motel on Placentia Avenue, the blue neon
"i" of the Placenta Arms sign was burned out. I
worried it was an omen, a feng shui gaffe. It made me think too
damn much of placenta, birthing, that whole entire mess
not a good thing when the sight of blood makes you faint. I've
grown used to most things, and I figured I'd grow used to the
sign, if I didn't leave Levi or go crazy first. But I hadn't grown
used to it, and I was still here. It was going on three months
and my feeling of foreboding had only increased.

The Arms, a chipping aqua U-shaped construction, was
clean enough, but Levi's apartment above the fray on the second story, right-hand corner, was growing smaller and duller
by the day. So was Westside Costa Mesa, once idyllic cattle
grazing land, then an agricultural haven. Now, about the only
things that grew wildly were the illegal immigrant population, low-income housing, and Latino gangs. So different from
where I was from. If I spoke the language it might be different,
or if I was brunette. But I was blond, the only gringa in our
apartment complex.

I pulled a folding chair onto the balcony and lit a handrolled cigarette, the only tobacco I could afford these days.
In the Arms' courtyard just below sat a square swimming
pool that had seen better days. Sorry little children with loser parents-why else would they be living at the Placenta
Arms?-splashed in its murky depths. Even the mourning
doves inhabiting the adjacent kumquat tree seemed weary of
the pool, but then Southern California was mired in a ubiquitous drought and the pool must've been better than nothing, I
suppose. Although you can make yourself believe pretty much
anything if your life depends on it.

At night, after a drink or two, as you watched the lights
beneath the water, all blue and tropical, it was easy to trick
yourself into thinking you were at some lush Orange County
resort and were one of the beautiful people. The reverie never
lasted long, though, because one drunk resident or another
would start singing off-key-Barry Manilow, Aerosmith, pop
Latino-reminding you that you were not in posh Newport
Beach, the next city over, or in Laguna Beach, just down the
coast, but in lovely Costa Misery. My sister Leonora, a nurse,
left home back east to work for a plastic surgeon-the perks
included discounted enhancements-and I followed when I
quit my teaching job, all because of Levi.

Levi was sixteen when we met, seventeen when we started
spending time together-backstage, on the football field, in
cars. I was Levi's drama teacher, thirty-three years old, but
young-looking for my age. My friends called him jailbait, this
sleek pretty boy with sea-foam green eyes and abs to die for.
I lusted after the kid, but when my soon-to-be-ex husband
caught us in my car in the parking lot outside Bob's Big Boy
and threatened to have me fired, I decided I needed my job
teaching more than I needed Levi, resigned, and moved here.
I saw what happened to other teachers who crossed the line,
who forgot they were teachers and not teenagers.

A year later, when Levi turned eighteen, he quit school
and found me. He was of age, but still too young for me. I was still living with Leonora and her three dogs, substitute teaching in Costa Misery, along bus routes. The trip cross-country
had killed my beater and I let my driver's license expire. The
better school districts never seemed to have an opening and I
didn't want a full-time gig at just any school. Levi had already
rented the furnished apartment at the Arms and I planned on
spending just a few days, thinking this would help to get him
out of my system. But he guilt-tripped me into moving in, said
he wouldn't even be out here if not for me.

"Mimi, the guy's a loser," Leonora said. "You can do better." But I was addicted to Levi's body, his skin that felt like
silk, and tired of being one of Leonora's pack.

My stomach growled. I lit another cigarette and looked
at my watch. Five o'clock. Levi would be home soon. I went
inside to throw something together for dinner.

Levi worked as a handyman. Ten bucks an hour, sometimes more. Not what he thought he was worth, but it paid
the rent, bought the beer. He told me stories about the rich
people's houses where he spent his days-brushing the walls
of a nursery with designer paint or retiling a hot tub. He described how, at one home, the outdoor pool connected with
the interior of the house through a manmade cave with faux
boulders you had to swim through. So Orange County.

Another client owned two houses side by side-one of
them they lived in and the other one was the kids' playhouse.
Playhouse! Homeless people lined up at church soup kitchens
and lived in parks and alleys around the town. Life was indeed
unfair. And I was a little envious. Some people in Orange
County had too much, while others had so damn little.

On the west side, everyone-the Latinos, the workingclass heroes, even the dogs-was, for the most part, lackluster.
There were artists who added color, I suppose, but every day I read the police files in the Daily Pilot, and so much of the
crime in coastal Orange County happened right around where
I lived. Here were the factories, auto shops, taquerias, and la-
vanderias, and so many of us were scraping by, but on the east
side that bordered Newport Beach, that's where the real money
was, that's where the Orange County life that I had imagined
and fantasized about resided. I'd been to Disneyland but never
got why they called it the Happiest Place on Earth, not with all
those screaming children and tourists with blue-white legs and
lunky cameras strangling their necks. But a house on the east
side, now that would make for a happy day, every day.

Levi came home from installing shelves in what he said
looked like the kitchen of a TV cooking show: marble-not
granite-countertops, Viking stovetop, a fridge the size of our
bathroom. He rambled on about how the homeowner didn't
even have a wife. I was standing at the stove, stirring Arborio
rice, adding vegetable broth every few minutes, to make risotto. What you pay for at a restaurant when you order risotto
is not the ingredients, but the time it takes for some sadly
underpaid restaurant worker to make the rice swell all plump,
like. Biscuits, which I had flattened with my marble pastry
roller-my most prized kitchen implement-and baked in
the dollhouse-sized oven with a stovetop that only had three
working burners, were cooling on the rack.

Levi could see I was down, so he kissed my cheek hard
and wrapped his arms around me from behind. After a day
among kids who treat substitute teachers like dog doo, Levi's
touch was heaven. He snaked his hand beneath my skirt and
found my sweet spot. I wanted to shoo him away-you can't
leave risotto for one minute-but once Levi got on a certain
track, there was no stopping him.

Levi liked to give me pleasure, or maybe he knew this was the main thing he had to offer, so he got on his knees and buried his face down there and I about went nuts, but kept stirring
until I just couldn't take it anymore. I let the spoon clatter
to the counter and dropped to the aqua and white linoleum.
I pulled Levi down with me. It didn't take us long, which is
another thing I liked about Levi-he wasn't one of those guys
who needed to linger and stretch it out.

We finished, and I washed my hands before returning to
my risotto, but it was too late. The pot of rice was one sticky
clod. I dumped it into the sink. Levi cracked two beers and ordered a pizza. While we waited, we went out onto the balcony.
We drank our beers and watched the pool where a lone pink
inner tube floated.

"Get this, Mimi," he said. "The house I was at today, it
also has a three-car garage. Three fucking cars! And there's
just one dude who lives there, with his kids."

"Where's the wife?" I asked, taking a swig.

He shook his head. "Died from cancer or something-and
not long ago. There's fucking art all over the place and expensive dishes are stacked in a monster cabinet the length of
our living room wall. His brats have these little motorized cars
they drive around the neighborhood. They live on this dead
end-a cut de sac. Old money Costa Mesa, looks like. People
have got serious funds over there. More than they need."

"Some people have all the luck."

"We deserve that kind of life," he said.

"Everyone thinks they do."

"But we really do. His fucking housecleaner knows more
about his stuff and what he has than he does. He has so much
crap he wouldn't miss a few things disappearing."

"I hate it when you sound stupid," I said. "You think you
can just help yourself? Is that what you're saying?"

Levi shrugged, took a long pull off the bottle, and slipped
out of his red leather cowboy boots, setting them inside our
apartment doorway. He pulled off his T-shirt. He was still
that sleek boy, a beauty. His curly brown hair was streaked
blond and he had just the right amount of growth on his face.
His teeth were white-white and his bare feet were perfect.
He could be a model, that's how handsome he was. Feet and
teeth, I always say, have got to be superior. His physique made
me overlook the fact that he wasn't the brightest bulb in the
room.

"Shepard needs a nanny for his kids, pretty much right
away," Levi said. "Someone smart enough to tutor. He's running an ad but says he can't find the right person."

"I'm a teacher," I reminded him, "not a nanny."

"But you could be a nanny ... for a time. Then we'd both
be working there."

"You think he'd go for a fricken handyman and his older
girlfriend both working for him? Please."

"Don't call me a handyman," he snapped.

"That's what you are, babe."

He looked hurt. "I aspire to more."

"Sure you do," I said. "I just don't like where you're headed
with this." I stroked his chest and tickled his nipples, which
always put him in a good mood.

"Shepard would like you, Mimi. I told him about you. He
seems lonely. I mean, who wouldn't be, your wife up and dies
and leaves you with little kids? But once he sees a pretty young
thing like you, his day's suddenly gonna seem a lot brighter.
Don't you want to brighten up a widower's day?"

"I'm not that young."

"You're the sexiest thing going," he said, running his fingers along my collarbone. "We could both be working there."

"And then?"

"Who knows? But you deserve better'n this," he said, his
hands describing an arc about him, his voice going low. "You
think all the rich fucks in this town work for what they have?
A lot of them got old money. Inheritances. Bank accounts
handed down. Or they have great gigs, businesses that haul
ass. We weren't lucky that way. Shit, Shepard has an entire
goddamn library! He's old, Mimi, but he has money."

"Levi, you're scaring me."

"Don't be scared, baby. How about I just introduce you
to him?" He put his hands on my shoulders and looked down
at me with his seawater eyes. "C'mon, Mimi. As long as you
don't like him that way, and why would you?-he's not me-it
could be fun."