Sunset City (7 page)

“It's cool, isn't it?” Danielle said. We walked over the weed-cracked asphalt and tar seams still soft from the day. We stretched out on the hood of her car, leaning against the windshield, smoking a joint. We'd left the radio on. Contaminants laced the air.

“Too bad it smells so weird,” I said.

“My uncle used to bring me out this way, to the Ninfa's on Navigation. We'd get dinner the nights Sally worked late.”

“I didn't know you had an uncle.”

“Sally's brother. He moved to Colorado. I used to go to his house in the afternoons. He picked me up from school my sixth grade year, it was right after my dad left. They knew us there, at the restaurant. I always got the kids' meal. Fajitas and a queso puff.”

“I love queso puffs,” I said. “I could eat one right now.” I was high.

“I think Sally paid him to take care of me. She was always at work. He didn't have a job.”

She sounded strange, like her words came from far off.

“You keep in touch with him?” I said.

“He sends me a birthday card with twenty dollars in it every year. I always throw it out.”

“Even the money?”

“Yeah. I don't need his fucking money.”

“Shit, you should give it to me,” I said. “I'd take it.”

“Ha. Too late.” Her birthday was a month ago already.

“You're a spoiled brat.”

“Yep.” She laughed.

“Why do you throw the money away?” I said.

“He used to fuck me.”

“What?” I said.

She pointed at the refinery, the pipes interwoven, going every direction.

“I loved driving past here. You can see it from the freeway. I used to pretend fairies lived in it. They made the fires with their magic.”

“Are you serious?” I said. “It's not funny.”

“Give me a cigarette.”

She wasn't smiling. We sat smoking, listening to the car radio. I was shocked.

“Does Sally know?” I said.

“I told her, after he moved away,” she said. “It's weird, though. I don't think she remembers.”

“How could she not?”

“It was a long time ago. There was a lot going on.”

“Danielle, that doesn't make sense.”

“She was such a freak after my dad left. It would have upset her and caused problems. She didn't want me home alone. Without Uncle Alex I would have to take the bus home from school and be by myself in the afternoons.”

“But maybe if you'd told her sooner—”

“She wouldn't have cared, she was fucked up already. The divorce was bad. My parents were both such jerks. She worked late, she got drunk every night on her fancy bottles of wine. I basically stayed in my room and watched TV.”

“Danielle, my god. I'm sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? It should be her. She should apologize.”

“Well, he should,” I said. “Fucking bastard.”

“He came to visit, at Thanksgiving. I guess it was a couple of years later. We had a bunch of people at our house. And he showed up.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing. He ate dinner. I didn't talk to him, I was at the kids' table in the breakfast room. They gave us that sparkling apple juice that comes in a fake champagne bottle.”

“Why didn't she throw him out? Or call the police?”

“I don't know. I figured she must have forgotten. How could she invite him to Thanksgiving?”

She was crying then. I hugged her.

“God, I hate her,” Danielle said. “I fucking hate her.”

Later, after she started dancing, she talked about the abuse
openly, like it wasn't a big deal. She mentioned details, coloring books he'd bought her. He used to close the curtains and make her undress in the middle of the living room. He liked to sit in this big recliner while she watched TV naked. She liked this show, an after-school soap opera for kids called
Tribes
. I remembered it; I'd watched it, too. Danielle said a lot of the dancers at the club had been molested. She joked about it being a prerequisite for the job, that they might as well ask about it in the audition. The recliner, she said, was blue.

It was all such a long time ago. As I drove I thought, No one cares about that now.

I kept driving, longing for a silent, dark place, beyond the streetlights and the lights of the city. But the city never stopped, it reached and reached. There was no sky beyond the hovering, staining smog. I killed my headlights, as a test, and I could see the road easily, lit by the air. The grid stretched endlessly, inescapable. I made a U-turn on the wide road, headed to the center of town, wishing there was somebody who could help me, tell me what to do.

I
slept terribly and woke too early, with echoes of Danielle's voice in my head. I couldn't believe she was gone, right when we were going to be friends again. I was pissed at Sally, too, for all the ways she hurt Danielle over the years. And then, two days after I put them in touch, Danielle wound up murdered. It had to be coincidence, but I felt uneasy. I wished I'd never gone to see Sally in the first place.

My thoughts turned to Michael. What right did he have to break up with me just when I needed him? I hated feeling this angry. To distract myself, I called work and asked for the manager, hoping he wouldn't be there.

I waited a few minutes, sipping coffee and listening to the hold music. Andrew came on the line.

“Charlotte,” he said, “where were you yesterday?”

“I'm sorry, Andrew. I know I screwed up. This has been the worst week of my life. Please don't fire me.”

“Charlotte, it was two days in a row. First you're late, then you don't show up at all, no phone call, nothing. I had to come in on my day off.”

“I'm so sorry, really. Look, my friend was killed on Tuesday.”

I didn't mention Michael dumping me, or going to jail. I told him about the murder, and about Detective Ash, and that I'd been held by the police the whole night before I missed my shift. He listened. I think he believed me.

“I've already made the schedule for next week,” he said. “You're not on it.”

“I understand.”

“Charlotte, take the week and get yourself together, okay?”

“Okay. I have to go to the funeral, anyway.”

“Come in and talk to me if you want back on the schedule.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I mean it. Take care of yourself,” he said, and hung up.

The kindness in his voice made me start to cry. I paced from window to window, surveying the street, the side yard, the dusty vase on the neighbor's windowsill. I trimmed some unraveling strings on the rug. I wished I could talk to someone about going to Sally's last night. There was no one I could call. I hated Michael for not being there. For leaving me alone. Even if we were still together it would have been too much to explain. Nobody besides Danielle would understand.

I poured whiskey into my coffee mug and flipped through some old pictures of Danielle. I found one taken in my apartment right after graduation. Pot smoke mingled with the light coming through the living room windows, obscuring her hair, making it even more blond. The cloud of light touched her down one side as she smiled at the camera, her heavy-lidded eyes blinking at the smoke. I wished I'd taken more photos, gotten in touch with her sooner, seen her more. It seemed impossible that she was gone.

On my laptop I opened Danielle's website and paid the eighteen dollars with my debit card. I wanted to see her, that was
all. I watched a video of Audrey and Danielle together in a room with dark walls. Danielle wore garters and black stilettos, her blond waves held with a shell clip. She stood and spoke, and I muted the volume—her voice was more than I could stand.

Audrey's body draped along a red upholstered bench. She wore a simple loose dress of some nearly transparent fabric. Her feet were bare, her toenails unpolished. Danielle bent at the waist to kiss her, displaying her ass for the camera. She pushed Audrey's dress up her tan thigh. The next shot showed Audrey kissing Danielle's tits, Audrey's hands everywhere on her. Danielle closed her eyes in a simulation of pleasure. Their bodies writhed and panted.

The camera zoomed out to show them on the bench, moving together, groping one another, and cut to the doorway where a man stood. He was shirtless, muscled. He pulled Danielle by the arm, attached her mouth to his cock, which she sucked automatically. Another guy came in, yanked Audrey's dress over her head and tossed it aside. I lit a cigarette and fast-forwarded to a close-up of Danielle. She pulled a lock of hair behind her ear. The lines of her fingers, the grace of her movement—I'd seen her perform that same gesture, thoughtlessly, a million times. I rewound the video and watched again as she tucked her hair behind her ear. She died and left this, of all things.

I didn't want to go to the memorial service, but I knew I had to. I wished Michael were with me. I had to figure out what to wear. To my mom's funeral I'd worn a dress I'd borrowed from Danielle. My closet contained a bunch of crappy work clothes and sundresses, nothing appropriate. I finished my drink and went shopping.

I tried the vintage stores on Westheimer, a row of brightly colored old bungalows with piles of dusty clothes crammed in
every room. In the first shop a limping orange cat chased me into the dressing room. It sprawled on the floor and batted at the dressing room curtain, blue polyester that clung to its fur. I needed to look subdued, respectable. I had no idea how. I tried on a few dresses, but they weren't right. The place gave me allergies.

I navigated lunchtime traffic to the Village, full of high-fashion boutiques and trendy local designers. My favorite, Imperial Palace, was housed in an old Chinese buffet restaurant. Mannequins in the windows sat at lacquered tables, chopsticks tied with ribbons to their hands, or they stood holding trays of fake egg rolls. One wore a garland of fortune cookies strung together with a length of yarn. The store still smelled greasy.

A guy wearing a women's military-style blouse with lace epaulets asked if he could help.

“I need a dress for a funeral,” I said.

“Ooh,” he said. “Sorry.”

I held a blue jersey dress with appliquéd butterflies at the hem. “What do you think of this one?”

“Maybe. Let's see what else we have.”

“It's in an hour.”

“Goddamn, girl!” he said. “A challenge. Tell you what. We have that one in black with black butterflies, let me go get it.”

He raced to the stockroom, the old kitchen. I collected every black and blue and gray item in the shop. The clerk returned with piles of layered viscose, chiffon, and vintage lace. He showed me a red gown with a Chinese collar, sheer with a floral print underlay covering the torso.

“I like that one,” I said. “Is it an old Hawaiian shirt?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thank you. It's mine.”

“You designed this?”

He nodded, beaming. “I'm Luis.”

“Charlotte,” I said and we shook hands.

“The Chinese wear red for mourning,” he said.

“I don't think that will work. This is a white girl.”

I picked out one dress, black with a pink printed belt that tied around the waist. I stepped out of the dressing room.

“Oh, shit,” he said. “Not everybody can pull that off. It's fantastic on you.”

“Do you think people can tell it's guns on the sash?”

“No,” he said. “No one will notice, it looks like an abstract pattern. And the pink isn't too much, either. People think you have to be conservative at a funeral, but that's not the case anymore.”

“Really?” I said.

“You should take off your bra, though. It's showing here.”

I did, and he tugged on the bustline of the dress.

“See, it's supposed to fit this way. There. Oh my god, I love it. Let's cut the tags off.”

At the counter he bagged my other clothes and I paid. I was late. I sped over to the church and had to park in the unpaved part of the lot they reserved for Easter and Christmas services. My heels sank into the ground. I hurried to the entrance, dodging between media vans and luxury SUVs.

The church was a long gray building striped with stained glass and flanked by a bed of pansies. The neatly mulched flowers seemed too flimsy, out of place, penned in by a monkey grass border. Everything was too loud, too hot and bright—the traffic whizzing by and the damp steaming gutters. What did any of this have to do with Danielle? I wished I could disappear. I already regretted the stupid dress.

Arctic air-conditioning flooded the hall. The floors and walls, even the air, seemed polished to a sheen. Three sets of windowed double doors led into the chapel or the sanctu
ary, whatever you called it. I took a seat near the exit. People packed the place. They had decent clothes, refined bearing—Sally's friends. They weren't anybody Danielle would hang around with.

The minister lady read prayers and went on for a while about Jesus. Her voice sounded flushed, excited. The whole place felt wound up. Men tapped their knuckles, fidgeting. Women adjusted their clothes, patted their hair. It was because of the murder, and Danielle's youth, her beauty. They were delighted to be there, to be sad and outraged, a little afraid. To wonder who did it. To be part of it.

I couldn't shake the sense that this funeral, the murder, the cops, it was all some practical joke, that Danielle would walk in at any moment, laughing at us for being so serious.

For some reason I kept thinking of the difficult times with her. Once I'd slept at her house on a school night and we were smoking a joint by the pool. She was in a bad mood, mad at Sally, probably, and taking it out on me. I'd been reading García Márquez, and I read a line aloud to Danielle. Halfway through I could tell she thought it was lame. I finished the sentence anyway, and she said, “Yeah, that's
really
interesting.” Sarcastic. She stubbed out the joint and dropped it in her pocket. “There's a Marilyn Monroe movie on cable.”

She always decided what was cool and what was not. To me it seemed arbitrary. I tried to keep up, but I was always missing some important, supposedly obvious detail. Why did we like Marilyn Monroe movies and not
One Hundred Years of Solitude
? I had no idea. What could I do except follow her. She grinned at me and poured us drinks from Sally's liquor cabinet. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, stretched under a blanket in the air-conditioning, and she took my foot in her lap, absently, staring at the screen. I nearly cried in gratitude for
the smile, the touch. I watched the movie and pretended I was fine. I laughed when she did. She had so much power over me. I used to get scared by how much I loved her and needed her.

The congregation stood for a hymn and I snuck out the door. I was freezing. I stepped into the hot afternoon. Reporters and camera people lined the steps. They glanced at me and away. I stood on the sidewalk and smoked.

Soon the church doors opened and the men and women in their somber clothes came down the steps, past the flower garden. The group of news people mobilized, jostling and craning their microphones. Sally emerged in a trim olive and cream suit. She looked flushed, younger. She accepted the hands of her friends, nodded, leaned in for air kisses.

The reporters flocked around her. She patted her hair and turned to the cameras, a mournful and brave expression mounted on her face. She wore the same glinty eyes I had seen in the framed photographs at her office, of her with George Bush, with the mayor and the Rockets coach.

Detective Ash stood off to the side of the reporters. He wore a gray suit. Mourners filed past him to their cars. He saw me walking over and nodded, continued scanning the crowd.

“Hi,” I said.

“Charlotte,” he said. “Nice dress.”

“Thank you,” I said, not sure if he was making fun of me.

“Listen,” he said. “About the other night. I don't want to get a call like that again. You need to take better care of yourself.”

I didn't know how to respond. His attention fastened to someone near the throng by the side entrance. All the energy in the air surged into his body.

“Excuse me,” he said over his shoulder, already weaving between cars and people. He stopped near a group of guys and singled one out, a curly-haired man, slightly built. I couldn't
hear what they were saying. The guy looked tense and twitchy. He kept glancing towards his friends.

I walked next door to the West Alabama Ice House. Regulars, bikers and neighborhood people, crowded the picnic benches, along with other funeral goers. The bartender reached into the deep cooler in front of him and pulled bottles from the slushy ice. I ordered a beer.

“You get a lot of overflow from the church?” I asked him.

“Weddings and funerals. We have to bring in an extra fridge. The wiring's a nightmare.”

He pointed to an orange extension cord that ran from the refrigerator across the pavement and up the trunk of a Mexican birch, where it connected with another extension cord. I lit a cigarette and drank half my beer in one long sip. Dust covered the afternoon. I perched on the end of a picnic table, checking first for splinters that could snag my new dress.

I spotted Audrey and waved. She came over with her beer and hugged me.

“Is that guns on your dress?” she said to me. “Don't you think that's in poor taste?”

“I thought it was subtle,” I said, worried.

“Oh well, she wasn't shot.”

People packed the yard as the afternoon wore on. Sally's entourage and the members of the press dispersed, their cars clearing the lot. Everyone else seemed to be drinking. The curly-haired man who'd been talking to Ash sat down with us.

“Hey,” Audrey said to him. “Charlotte, meet Brandon Young.”

“Hi,” I said.

“I saw you at the church,” he said. “How did you know Danielle?”

“Charlotte went to school with Dani,” Audrey said.

“That was you,” he said. “Her friend she went to meet.”

“She told me about you,” I said. “You make the movies, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Audrey invited me to your screening. It sounded cool.”

“I'm not doing it now,” he said.

“Do you have any pot?” Audrey asked.

Brandon shrugged and I said no.

“Fuckin' shit,” Audrey said. Her comment seemed to refer to a greater lack, an acknowledgment of our total unpreparedness for this situation.

“Fuckin' shit,” I agreed. The three of us clinked beers and drank.

Audrey looked weary and despondent for a second, before taking up her smile again. The transition on her face, I'd seen it before, in her movies. I blushed.