Sunset City (9 page)

“Come on,” she said.

She ran to the swing set. I left our rolled dollar bill on the
slide and followed her. We each took a swing and soon we were breathless, pumping with our legs. Audrey's shoe flew off at the top of her arc and banged the merry-go-round with a metal clang. We waited to see if it woke any of the neighbors. No sign came from the houses.

“Swing, swang, swung,” Audrey chanted. I tried to get in sync with her. The chains of her swing ran parallel to the ground, she was that high.

“I love swings,” I said. “How come I never swing anymore?”

“Because,” Audrey said. “There's always fucking kids around.”

“You're right,” I said, laughing. “That's exactly it.”

“I bet I can jump past the sidewalk,” Audrey said.

“Be careful,” I said, but she was already airborne. She landed in a crouch, on her feet, a yard or two short of the path, and leapt up and did a cartwheel.

“I used to be a cheerleader,” she said. “Were you a cheerleader? Let's do cheers.”

“I never went to a game,” I said. “I smoked and listened to the Smiths.”

Audrey ignored me. She did another cartwheel. Her flared skirt fell up, revealing a lacy thong. On her feet, she began an elaborate series of motions, finishing with her arms outstretched. She chanted, “Win! Win! Wildcats! Whoo!”

“That's cute,” I said. I let my feet scuff the dirt. “Did you have a little outfit?”

“I had two,” she said. “Green and gold, and white with green and gold trim. And pompoms. I was very popular.”

I swung higher. I felt great.

“I never did coke except with Danielle,” I said.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. We got high.”

“I mean with you and her,” she said.

“We grew apart, I guess. She was different back then. You never knew her when she was doing heroin.”

“I've been around it, though, with other people. It's so gross.”

“Yeah. I wasn't into it and she was. It was like she just dedicated her whole life to getting high. She didn't care about anything else, and she wouldn't try to quit. I wanted to help her, but nothing I did seemed to make a difference.”

“I can't picture her like that,” Audrey said.

“It was such a long time ago. I'm glad I got to see her last week. She was doing great. At least it seemed that way to me.”

“She loved seeing you, too.”

“Really?” I said.

Audrey sat on the swing again. “Yeah, she was excited. She talked about you all through dinner, how you guys used to do everything together, and how you were super smart and such a good friend. She could not believe you wanted to give her that money.”

“I can't believe she didn't take it,” I said.

“I know, she's such a weirdo. She really hates her mom.”

“Yeah. Always has.”

“It was super nice of you. You didn't even have to get in touch with her. You went out of your way to see her.”

“Yeah. Well. I care about her,” I said.

I think we both realized at the same time that we were using present tense. Danielle was dead. It seemed so unfair and unbudging. I felt tears forming.

“Fuck,” I said, trying to breathe and not cry.

Audrey grabbed on to the chain of my swing, jerking us both in erratic diagonals. I put my feet down to stop the motion. Our swings finally stilled, and we sat quietly like that, each of us occasionally sniffling. We looked out at the moonlit park.

After a few minutes Audrey spoke. “What I don't get,” she said, “is why you quit doing coke. It's fucking awesome.”

I started to laugh. I had an urge to hurl myself off the swing like Audrey had done, for the pleasure of being in the air. We went to the slide and did lines, Audrey in one sweep, breathing it in like air, and me in stages, shuddering and gasping. The aluminum slide glowed like a piece of moonlight striped with snow. I looked at her long fingers, steady and precise, and her neck as she bent over the lines with the dollar bill. I lit a cigarette.

She said, “There's a guy who lives in one of these neighborhoods like this, with all new houses. Him and his wife. I think he had kids, too. You ever get involved with a married dude?”

“No.”

“I got tired of it after a while. Danielle always said, you deserve someone all to yourself. I liked him, though. He had a big dick.”

I giggled. She handed me the bill and moved aside. The coke made me twitch. It tasted like dirty dishwater. After I did the line, Audrey licked the flat of her palm, wiped it over the slide, and tongued the coke residue off her hand.

“Gross,” I said. “Little kids' butts touch that.”

“You're such a girl,” she said.

“Want to take a walk?” I said. The playground mulch hurt my feet, and I had begun to feel trapped inside the park. We put on our shoes and walked along the path until it met the street. Cockroaches flew around the lamps. The road curved along, tidy, lined with identical houses.

“These kinds of neighborhoods always weird me out,” I said.

“I think they're great. Not dirty yet, or broken. I always wished I could live in a place like this. Perfectly clean and new.”

At this hour, under the soft streetlights, we strolled along
the center of the smooth blacktop. The garish façades and silly gardens stayed in shadow, the whole street tucked in, safe. I could see what Audrey meant. We circled around the neighborhood and arrived again at the little park. My head hurt from the coke and whiskey. I wanted to go home.

In the car Audrey turned the way we came and entered the freeway.

“Where do you live?” she asked me.

“You should take me to my car. I left it at the funeral.”

“Jesus, the funeral. Was that today?”

“Well, yesterday. Technically.”

The sky softened into dawn around the buildings, and more cars filled the freeway. I felt tired of being so awake. We got on 59 and exited at Shepherd, making our way to the church. She parked next to my car in the overflow lot, empty now.

“Thanks,” I said. “We should do this again.”

“Yeah, definitely,” she said.

We exchanged phone numbers and I hugged her. I felt good, almost, for the first time since all this started. I realized I hadn't thought about Michael once. I drove home and fell asleep in the morning sun.

I
didn't wake up until late afternoon. I sat at the window overlooking the street. A dog who lived by the roadside gnawed on some garbage, and the neighbor girl sat on her stoop talking with her girlfriends, occasionally calling to her kid inside watching TV. I opened a beer. I felt peaceful, dampened by alcohol and drugs, and less alone after the night with Audrey.

I slept again and woke early the next morning, energy surging through me. I went for a long run, sweating as soon as I stepped outside. A night rain had washed the city and it gleamed in May's sun and sharp shadows. The mornings were a few degrees cooler, but the dew hadn't burned off yet, leaving the air dense and wet. Mallards with their iridescent necks dotted the pond. I couldn't see any of the little dark ducks, the ones I liked. I guessed they were still tucked in their nests. I kept going.

I did five miles, barely noticing—I never felt like stopping. I crossed Main near the roundabout and had to sprint to avoid a car. At the other side I fell into a rhythm, a phrase repeating in my head. Danielle is dead Danielle is dead Danielle is dead.
I couldn't understand the transformation from beautiful Danielle to that bloody mess in the motel room. Somebody did that to her, and now he was out driving around, eating sandwiches or whatever. She must have met someone there at the motel. A john. Or maybe Anthony or one of those porn guys, models or whatever they called themselves. She'd walked into that room, thinking she was safe. Maybe it was random—wrong place, wrong time.

Danielle and I used to play mermaids in the pool, a game she'd made up as a kid, long before I knew her. You had to swim with your legs together as though you had a tail, and try to be sexy. Not much of a game, really, just something silly to do if we were bored. She used to surprise me like that. One minute working out a plan to score drugs, or talking shit about some poor kid at school, and a minute later she'd say, “Let's play mermaids!” Excited and sincere as an eight-year-old girl.

Light poured through the leaves over the shady path surrounding Rice University, yellowing and weakening the green. I passed a few people on the trail. Usually I smiled at the other joggers, acknowledging the folly of running in ninety-degree weather. Now I couldn't meet their eyes. I picked up speed until I didn't have the breath to cry. I got off the path and turned into the street, where people would be safely in their air-conditioned cars and houses. I ran, pure speed and rhythm: Danielle-is-dead-Danielle-is-dead.

I fantasized about a sip of water, and I wanted it so bad it blocked out all my other thoughts. I headed home, in a state of consuming thirst, aware of an ache in my left heel. At home I didn't drink at first because I feared when the thirst disappeared that I would, too. I lay on the floor to let my body cool down, listening to my heartbeat.

I drank some water and tidied each room, scrubbed and
dried the kitchen floor. I sorted my dirty laundry by color and pulled out the clothes that needed to be hand-washed. I cleaned the sink and filled it with Woolite and water, let the pieces soak. I relaxed seeing my clean apartment draped in drying lingerie, sweaters, and skirts. I showered and dressed, put on makeup—I had a way of doing it where I didn't have to see my whole face—one eye, then the other, cheekbones, lips. I looked like my mother and I couldn't deal with that today.

I had this impulse to be around the people who knew Danielle. They were the only ones who could understand what this was like. I called Audrey but she didn't pick up, so I looked up the address of Houston Mediasource, where Brandon worked. Its offices were in a big old house on a cul-de-sac under the downtown spur of 59. I realized I'd passed by it a million times and never realized what it was. I drove there and parked in the lot, a yard that had been asphalted over. Dandelions and grasses struggled through its many cracks. Dirt blossomed over the white stucco, and dusky blue paint peeled from the window frames. I stepped into a tiny room containing a large desk and shelves with a mess of coiled wires. The place showed its dust and age. A girl sat behind the desk, untangling some cables. I told her I was there to see Brandon Young.

She led me into the living room, which had been carved into offices. The tiny space had kept the original ceiling, high above us. It was like standing in an elevator or a deep well. We walked through a hallway, a kitchen, a breezeway that had been added to join the house to a double-wide trailer. I knocked on the open door. Brandon glanced up from his computer screen.

“Hi,” I said. “We met—”

“Charlotte. I remember.” His eyes were red.

“Could we talk?” I asked. “If you're not busy?”

He shrugged and gestured to a chair in front of his desk.
The furniture looked like it had come from a surplus store. Light from the windows emphasized the plasticky walls, the clutter everywhere. A broken staple glinted in the industrial carpet. Brandon slumped behind his desk, a pen in one hand.

“This place isn't quite what I expected,” I said.

“Everyone says that,” he said. “People think it will be a slick studio.” He patted the desk in front of him, in apology or consolation. “What are you doing here?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I wanted—I wanted to talk to somebody who knew her.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“I can't believe she's dead.”

He rubbed one hand over his face. The phone on his desk rang. He stared like he didn't recognize it. We listened to it ring and then stop ringing. He said, “I need a fucking drink. You can come if you want.”

We caravanned to the Spanish Flower and parked our cars side by side. He took a booth and we ordered frozen margaritas. A black-haired girl wearing a flamenco costume dropped off our basket of chips.

I said, “That fight at the icehouse—that was dramatic.”

“Anthony. Jesus. Not my best moment.”

“It was perfect, actually. He was being a dick.”

“I bruised my hand.” He showed me his knuckles, swollen and healing a greenish-blue. “I had to make him shut the fuck up. He's got no sense of decorum.”

“Didn't he work for you?”

“Not after that. Those guys are dispensable.”

We both winced at the word. I thought, That's two he'll have to replace. Our drinks came. He fiddled with his straw, threw it on the table, and gulped a third of his glass.

“Do people at your job know you make pornography?” I asked.

“I don't think so. Even if they did, I think most of them would be okay with it. I've been there a long time, and they're fairly open-minded. They're artists, or they think they are. And they respect me. They're very supportive of my other films.”

“What are your films like?” I asked.

“Experimental. Like collages. I'm working on one now that incorporates audio from drivers' ed instructional videos and images from video games, plus a bunch of macro footage of an ant farm that I shot last year. It's close to being done.”

“Cool,” I said.

“I've had films in a few festivals. And Mediasource is great—I get to use their equipment. Plus I believe in community television. A lot of it's crap, but it's an important vehicle of expression for students and young filmmakers.”

“I wish I had something like that,” I said. “Art, or something I cared about.”

“What do you do?” he said.

“I'm a barista,” I said. “Impressive, right?”

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said.

“I guess. I might go back to school, I don't know. I should try to save up and take some classes.”

“The porn is how I'm paying off my student loans. That's why I got into it. Not a lot of money in experimental film. Or community television.”

“What's it like, making porn?”

“It's easy. Anybody can build a website. And it's fun. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Well, the people aren't always the most stable group, emotionally. Or, like, showing up for work. Personalities to deal with, egos, drugs, shit like that.”

“How did Danielle deal with being around drugs? I got the impression she avoided all that.”

“It didn't bother her. She smoked weed a little. She never did meth, like some of them did. I had to make a rule, no meth on set or you're fired. It's tough for them—I understand it, why they want to get high. But when they're spun they act like a bunch of three-year-olds. Complaining, demanding attention. Danielle had a sense of humor about it. You have to, basically, to stay in it for long.”

“Could any of those guys have hurt Danielle?”

“I've thought about it and thought about it. I don't think so. They're pussies, when it comes down to it. They never tried to stand up to her. I mean, she was so confident, and sweet. They respected her. I have no idea who could've killed her.”

“Even if they were cranked up? Even Anthony?”

“It's hard to imagine . . . any of it. I keep thinking she'll walk through the door.”

I looked towards the door. It was easy to imagine her there, her hair shining, a smirk on her face. Brandon picked a cold tortilla chip from the basket and dropped it. It broke in half on top of the other chips and settled in, camouflaged among its brothers and sisters.

“You know,” I said, “I hung out with her one time in the last two years. Two days later, she was dead.”

“Jesus.”

“I keep thinking it's my fault, somehow. I know that doesn't make sense.”

“Well, did you kill her?”

“No. Of course not.”

“There you go, then.”

“How long were y'all together?” I asked.

“About four months. But it's not like she was my girlfriend. We fucked. Everybody fucks everybody.”

“She liked you,” I said.

“Yeah? What'd she say?”

“That you're a good guy. You're talented. She told me you're going to be big, you're going to make real movies.”

“She said that?”

He leaned forward, eager for this little piece of information. I nodded. Tiny details became so important when nothing else was left.

“It's crazy,” he said. “One day she was there, and the next day, cops are everywhere, her makeup's still all over the bathroom like she's coming home any second, they're telling me she's . . .”

He stopped speaking, let his sentence collapse.

“Yeah,” I said. “It's impossible to get a handle on it.”

“I miss her,” he said. “But that's not the worst. How she died—it's horrible.”

“Let's get another round,” I said. I signaled to the waitress.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said. “Are the cops talking to you?”

“That detective did,” I said. “Ash.”

“They keep coming to my house and the office, and calling me. They think I fucking killed her. They keep asking me, where was I, had we fought, they keep talking about old shit.”

“Like what?”

“This bar fight I got into a long time ago. I was twenty-two. It was dumb. Some fratty assholes were picking on this kid, this friend of mine. I threw a punch and the police showed up. One of the dudes had a knife and they arrested everyone.”

I thought of the other punch, that I had witnessed. He caught my look.

“I have a temper,” he said. “I admit it. But I've never hit a woman. I could never hurt Danielle.”

I sipped my drink, keeping my eyes on him.

“Do you believe me?” he said.

“Yeah.”

He smiled at me and I smiled back. His sorrow gave me an odd sense of comfort, and it felt good to be there, drinking.

“You and Audrey been hanging out?” he said.

“Only once, the other night. I met her before, with Danielle.”

“They were best friends. The three of us hung around together a lot. They were great to work with, too. Their videos are popular.”

“I like Audrey,” I said.

“Yeah, Audrey's okay. I like her, too. I don't think she'll stick around, though. I mean the guys were douchey to her, you saw it. Except when Danielle was there. Now . . . it will be different now.”

“Everything is different now,” I said.

“I keep remembering random things. One night I stayed late to finish a project at work, and I didn't get home until nine o'clock. She'd ordered a pizza for me. She kept it hot in the oven. Shit like that, that's nice. Most people, you get to know them, no matter how normal or cool they come off at first, underneath they're needy, or crazy, or delusional. D, she was always smiling, doing her nails, whatever. You could trust her.”

“That's great to hear. She really was doing okay, wasn't she?”

“Yeah. She didn't talk to me much about her past. I had the sense things were bad.”

“It
was
bad. I mean, she was still Danielle, she could make everything seem fun, and like you were the most amazing person. But with the drugs, she was angry a lot, and she didn't really care about anybody. She was just kind of checked out all
the time, didn't pay attention to anything. It sucked. I'm so glad she got clean.”

“I just can't imagine her like that,” Brandon said.

“You're lucky you got to spend time with her when you did,” I said. “Maybe you saw her at her best. I never had the chance to get to know her again.”

Brandon reached out his hand, the bruised one, and rubbed the sweat from his glass across my knuckles. At his touch, tears came to my eyes. He slid out of the booth and sat next to me. I leaned against him, and he held me. He looked tired, his forehead marked by fine wrinkles, like pencil lines that had been erased. We sipped our margaritas, huddled together, stunned by grief.

“What time is it?” he said.

“Seven,” I said, glancing at my phone.

“Fucking happy hour's over,” he said. “Let's go to my place.” He rose and tossed a bill on the table, downed the rest of his drink standing up.