Sunset City (6 page)

“Is it worse if I knew him well or I didn't know him?”

“You tell me, Charlotte. He's your boyfriend.”

“He's not my boyfriend. I met him tonight. It was a mistake.”

Ash nodded.

“I don't have a boyfriend,” I said.

“You miss her?” he said.

“What? Who?”

“Danielle Reeves.”

“Please,” I said. “Do we have to talk about that right now?”

He shrugged. The waitress trundled over and filled our stained mugs. Ash's eyes were a rich blue, full of kindness. Until him, I had never seen anyone look attractive in House of Pies. I moved my gaze to the dark parking lot, but I saw only our reflection in the window. My blouse was wrinkled and dirty.

“It's just, I was thinking,” he said. “You told me everything Danielle said that day you met. Right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Even the tiniest details could be important. You might know something that you don't even know you know. You have to tell me every little thing you can think of.”

“I did,” I said.

“Good. I just wondered if you thought of anything else.”

“So you don't have any leads, then?”

“We're still in the information-gathering stage. We are talking to everyone she saw those last couple of days. Everyone she saw on a regular basis.”

“And?”

“And I don't know. There's some unusual things. Things that were not part of her routine.”

“Like what?”

“Like you, Charlotte.”

“I didn't do anything,” I said.

“I'm not accusing you. I'm just noticing what changed in
Danielle's life, what was different. She saw you for the first time in years, right? It's unusual. Anything outside of the regular pattern, I have to pay close attention to.”

“You think me seeing Danielle—you think I caused it?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Maybe not intentionally. What do you think?”

“Jesus,” I said. I felt more tired than I'd been in my whole life. “I can't deal with this right now.”

He looked at me over the Formica table. Studied me for a moment, then nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Let's get you home.”

He slid out of the booth. I unpeeled the tape from my thighs and stood. I fell asleep on the ten-minute drive to my place and woke with him leaning over me, unbuckling my seat belt.

“Come on, Charlotte, you're home,” he said.

I leaned into him as he walked me up the stairs. My head fit nicely under the curve of his collarbone. I searched for the key.

“Charlotte,” he said, “don't forget to lock the door.”

“Okay.”

He waited for me to go in.

“Detective?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“You're nice to me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Go get some sleep.”

I lay on the bed while the sun came up. Before I fell asleep I remembered this lamp we'd had, me and my mom. The base was thick frosted glass with a mountain scene painted on the inside. You could put a separate bulb inside the base to make the picture glow. I used to study that glowing landscape and imagine us there in the mountains, inside the lamp, and she would be healthy and strong, no one would be mad at us, and we would be together.

Things weren't always easy with my mom. She had been ill as long as I could remember, and the doctors never knew what was wrong. She mostly sat in her special chair, watching television or staring out the window, oblivious to her surroundings. That was fine. I took care of us. But when her pain went into remission she quit taking her pills. I would come home from school to a dark TV and an empty chair, and music playing. The apartment had an awake feeling and the sharp smell of cleaning products. She would call out from the other room, where she was scrubbing the bathroom or dusting her shelves full of knickknacks. She would say she was quitting the medicine, that she didn't need it anymore, and now she'd be a real mom and get a job, and we would eat at restaurants. I always tried to believe her. She looked so pretty and alive.

My mother hated the drugs, but she didn't know how to be sober. How could she? She'd never had a chance to learn. Without the meds, she'd go into withdrawal, and try to handle it with gin. She was a bad drunk, chaotic, angry. Her moods shifted drastically. Sometimes I would find her seething, pacing our apartment, pulling dishes off the shelves and shattering them. She often ended up cut and bloody.

One day the lamp disappeared. I came home from school and it was gone. I assumed it got broken. I knew better than to ask her. She was back on the meds, docile and clearly in pain. There was no point. It would only make her feel bad.

Outside, dawn lit the smog. I lay in bed, closed my eyes, and pictured the mountain scene, its purple frosted light and tiny cedars dusted with white. I drifted off among the trees.

I
woke in the late afternoon, fuzzy and unsettled. I couldn't remember much of the night before. I checked my purse and my pockets for clues. My cigarettes were gone. I'd either lost them or smoked them. I checked my phone and saw a voice mail from Sally, plus the café had called four times. I had completely missed my shift. My manager would be gone by now. I'd have to go in and talk to him. I hoped I wasn't fired.

I listened to the message from Sally. I'd never heard her voice shake like this.

“Charlotte, honey, it's Sally Reeves. I guess you heard what happened. If you're free this evening could you stop over? We need to talk. It's important.”

I didn't want to see Sally ever again. But what could I do? Her daughter was dead. I showered and dressed, still feeling like shit. I went outside and discovered my car wasn't there. Okay, I must've left it at the bar. I rode my bike to the corner store for cigarettes and smoked one on my way to the Harp. My old Nissan sat alone under the magnolia at the rear of the lot.
I angled the bike into the trunk and drove to the Vietnamese deli on Travis for coffee and a banh mi.

Cars on Milam Street whirled light through the plate-glass window. I finished my sandwich, even the jalapenos, the heat of the peppers waking me. I smoked and flipped through the paper. Danielle's murder was on the front page and in the Metro section. They had printed a photograph of the motel where Danielle died, an old, shabby place. I wondered why she had gone there. Another photo of an interior had the caption, “A room in the Astro Motel similar to the one where Reeves' body was found.” It didn't look particularly special—a bed, a lamp, a mirror, a sink. No blood anywhere, no indication of the gore in those other photographs, the ones the detective showed me.

I turned to the inside of the Metro section and saw an old picture of Danielle that I remembered from high school. She wore my shirt in the photo, a thrift-store T-shirt with a silk-screened swing set on the front. She stretched it out—her boobs were bigger than mine, even before she got them done—so I had let her keep it. Next to that was a family photo I hadn't seen before, taken when Danielle was about twelve and already pretty in a sultry, grown-up way.

I left the paper on the table and stopped on Fannin to buy flowers, a white bouquet of lilies and some tiny round buds, I forgot their name. I spent a lot. It was Sally's money, after all. I wondered if Danielle would have liked them. If she even liked flowers. We never bought flowers, or talked about flowers. Flowers weren't exactly a part of our lives.

I took Montrose to West Gray and made my way to Sally's. The house rose behind a giant lawn with a walk that led straight from the curb to the front door. Before Danielle, I'd never met anybody who lived in River Oaks. Their house was a medium-sized mansion with a gray stone façade. As a kid I
was dazzled by it. The rooms appeared to multiply, another and then another; I couldn't retain the whole floor plan in my mind at once. A housekeeper came every day and kept the kitchen stocked with artisan breads, nice cheeses, and olives. The fridge always contained fancy leftovers from some catered party—duck quesadillas, wilted kale, smoked salmon. I wore Danielle's clothes, which the housekeeper washed and hung in the closet. I loved the food and how clean everything was. The art on the walls cost a fortune.

Now Sally answered my knock in stocking feet, no jacket, her blouse tucked into her suit skirt.

“Thanks for stopping by, sweetie,” she said. “Come on in.”

The house looked the same as I remembered it: huge and clean, a little sterile. And way too big for one person. How did Sally feel, moving around in her expensive house, alone? I handed her the bouquet.

“Oh, they're lovely, Charlotte,” she said. “I'll get a vase. Can I offer you a drink? I'm having wine.”

“Sure,” I said. I could use it.

“Sit down.”

She gestured into the adjacent parlor, furnished with antiques and a woven rug that matched the drapes. Danielle and I had never spent time in this room. We hung out by the pool, mostly, and upstairs. Sally returned with the wine bottle and handed me a glass. She sat opposite me in a wing chair, the coffee table between us. Her toenails were painted a red that showed through her stockings. For some reason the toes bothered me. It was too intimate, seeing her without shoes, like she was half naked.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said, and grimaced at the cliché.

“Well, you lost her, too,” Sally said. “It's a difficult time.”

“Yes,” I said.

I wanted to gulp my wine but I wasn't sure she'd refill it. I sipped it, replacing my glass on the coaster.

“I'm glad you came,” she said. “There are a couple of issues we need to discuss.”

I wondered if she wanted the money back. I didn't have it all; I'd spent a lot on drinks.

“Charlotte,” she said, “how did this happen?”

“I have no idea.”

“You must know something. Who did this, Charlotte? Who did this to her? She's dead now, you can tell me.”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You girls always kept secrets from me. I'm not an idiot. She must have brought this on herself.”

I gaped at her, heard the disgust in her tone. She hated Danielle, even dead. She always had.

“I deserve to know the truth,” she said. “I'm her mother.”

“No,” I said, louder than I meant to. “I don't know what happened, I wasn't involved.”

She glared at me and I looked back, unblinking. I imagined her business rivals crumbling under that gaze. She was nothing but a bully.

“I need a cigarette,” I said.

I stood and carried my wine towards the door. I closed it behind me and stood under the enormous lantern to smoke. In a minute Sally came out, carrying the bottle.

“Charlotte, forgive me,” she said. “That wasn't fair. I can't believe she's gone.”

She looked broken now, confused. I wished I hadn't raised my voice.

“I can't believe it either,” I said.

“Let's go around the side,” she said. “There's the outdoor living room. It's new, I don't think you've seen it.”

We walked through an iron gate to a courtyard she'd had built, a copper fire pit surrounded by cushioned wicker couches. I lit another cigarette.

“Would you mind?” she said, gesturing towards the pack.

“You smoke?” I said.

“Not normally.”

She lit the cigarette and took a few inexpert puffs. She held it carefully. Her feet were still in stockings and I kept thinking the tiles would snag them and make a run. Holding a cigarette, her hands reminded me of Danielle's. I thought, Danielle is gone and Sally is the ghost.

“I needed you here because I have a favor to ask,” she said. She sounded so vulnerable, struggling for composure. I felt guilty now.

“What can I do?”

“Are you aware that this matter is getting a lot of media attention?”

“I saw the paper today,” I said, thinking,
This matter?
Is that what we were calling it?

“There are elements that Danielle would have preferred to be kept private. It's important that we respect her memory. You more than anyone can understand that.”

“Elements? What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Charlotte. What she did for a living. Lord knows what else she was involved in. Imagine that splashing all over CNN.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I would appreciate it if you didn't talk to any reporters.”

“I see.”

“I'm glad you understand.”

“Did the cops tell you?” I said.

“Tell me what?” she said.

“That Danielle made porn.”

“I'd rather not talk about that,” she said. “I don't think Danielle would want us to.”

“She never was good enough for you,” I said, angry. “You never cared how she felt or what she wanted, only how things looked.”

Sally paled. Amazed, I watched the color sink from her face. I'd scared her. How often did anyone scare her? It made me feel reckless and powerful.

“Charlotte, please. You have to understand. She's dead. My daughter. I'm asking you this favor.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know she's dead. You don't have to keep saying it.”

“Think of all I've done for you,” she said. “I took care of you, all those years.”

“And now you're cashing in,” I said.

“Charlotte, I don't mean it like that. Please. I'm sorry, I'm not myself.”

She was bad at begging, bad at needing help from other people. I could tell she hadn't had to do it much in her life. She struggled to keep the frustration out of her words. Her phone rang from inside the house, and she tossed her cigarette in the fire pit.

She looked tired and old, and I felt sorry for her, disgusted at my cruelty. I hated how Sally always tried to spin everything, always tried to manage Danielle. Still, I remembered Danielle's embarrassment about the porn, her reluctance about telling me. She hadn't even wanted
me
to know. Sally went in to get the phone and the outdoor lights came on—lanterns along the path, a garland of golden bulbs strung on the trellis to my left. It was getting dark.

I had a flash of memory from the night before, of Ash bend
ing over me in the car. Suddenly the whole night resurfaced—the holding cell, that woman screaming in the corner, the girl who pulled my hair. I felt sickened, and sickening, like I was a poison I couldn't stop swallowing. Paralyzed by shame, I stared at the floral pattern on the cushions until my focus went soft. I gulped my wine, lit a new cigarette, and sucked the smoke deep inside. I wanted anything that came from outside myself. Any foreign substance.

Ash. I had never let another person see me that pathetic. Not since middle school, anyhow, when everybody knew my mom took drugs and my clothes were always wrinkled. Fury at myself brought on a sudden vertigo, a starting and stopping, as in a dream of falling. I imagined myself in a car crash, a violent death, going over a cliff. Through a barrier and into empty air, to shatter on the rocks below. Not that there were any cliffs in Houston. This place was so flat you could see the curve of the earth.

I looked at my hands in my lap. With my nails I pinched the webbed skin between my thumb and forefinger. A tiny crescent of blood grew. I licked it. The skin on my hands had always been thin, fragile. Like my mom's. She complained about it. If she was feeling okay, she was diligent about moisturizing. She kept tubs of cocoa butter in the kitchen, the bathroom, by the bed and the TV. When the pain increased she took the Oxy and it knocked her out for days in a row—sometimes weeks. Her hands would get scratchy and dry. She lay there and gazed at the ceiling until it was time for her pills. The smell of cocoa butter always made me miss her. Made me nervous.

Sally appeared, the phone in her hand. She had slipped on a pair of ballet flats. I stood.

“You don't have to worry,” I said. “I'm not going to talk to reporters. I wasn't going to anyways.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I can't tell you how relieved I am,” she said. “Thank you.”

I shrugged.

She said, “The memorial service is tomorrow. You should be there. Will you come?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Good. It's at the Episcopal church on Alabama. Three o'clock.”

“Okay.”

“I'm glad. Lord have mercy if her other friends show up. I can't imagine what they'll be wearing.”

“What they'll be wearing?” I said. “You're afraid the other porn stars will embarrass you.”

Her face crumpled and she made an involuntary sound, the beginning of a sob. I watched her regain control, and she stared at me, smooth and full of rage.

“I don't deserve this,” she said. “Not any of it.” Her voice was icy.

“Neither did she,” I said.

We watched one another for a long moment. Her hands shook, I noticed. I was shaking, too. Finally she turned away, to face the pool and the privacy fence beyond.

“I'm going,” I said to her rigid back.

“Wait,” she said, turning. “One more thing, please.”

“What?”

“I know you saw her, you spoke to her.”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything about me?”

“Not really,” I said.

“What does that mean, not really?”

“She asked what you wanted,” I said. “That's pretty much it.”

I could have told her about Danielle refusing the money, but I didn't want to get into it. I walked around the house and let
myself in to get my purse. I drove and got lost in the curvy River Oaks streets, then headed west on Memorial, past the park and the Loop, through subdivisions. I kept driving, hoping to dislodge the film of sorrow and anger that clung to me, clutched at my heels, my hair. Hoping to get away from the difficult world. I drove until I didn't feel anything anymore. I drove and drove, the radio silent, the windows open to the soft wet air.

The air had a sound as I moved my car through it. I listened and thought of physics, the behavior of sound in outer space. It must be different, faster or quieter, maybe. If sound had no atmosphere to travel through, did it arrive more quickly or did it simply die? Maybe the emptiness trapped it so it couldn't go anywhere, forever stuck at its source. I couldn't remember how it worked, though I'd surely learned it in school. The question was like a koan, except that it was science; I had simply forgotten the answer.

This one night—it was maybe junior year—Danielle and I took some pills, I don't remember what, and cruised around. I'm surprised we didn't wreck. We were on the east side, near the ship channel, a part of town I never went to. Danielle turned on a side street near a big refinery and we parked facing it, watching the flames atop the towers. It looked like a miniature city, futuristic and menacing. Its smoke lit white in the sky before fading into general smog.