The Starter Wife (36 page)

G
RACE WALKED
slowly along the back edge of the land-side Malibu Colony homes, which cost half as much as their more tony beachside companions.

The trail was thin; two people would have trouble walking side by side. The Colony side was protected by a chicken-wire fence topped with rusty barbed wire. On the other side, there was overhanging brush, pockets of trash—soda cans, beer bottles, slashes of paper.

Gracie suddenly spied the glint of something that felt familiar to her, although she’d never seen it before.

She had to get on her hands and knees and crawl in like Jaden at ten months, unaware of dirt and insects and skinned knees and discomfort, thinking only of … discovery.

There was a clearing in the brush. A neat six-by-six patch, covered by cardboard sheets. In the corner was a blanket, folded neatly over a rolled-up sleeping bag. There was a stack of books piled in the opposite corner, along with several T-shirts. A pair of orange shorts. And one pair of Dockers. Gracie stepped inside, under the brush, and reached for the Dockers, smoothing the material beneath her fingers. She pushed them into her face and smelled Sam. Sadder still, she could even smell her own perfume from the night before.

Her heart didn’t stop beating like she thought it should. Her breathing, ragged though it was, still struggled on.

She sat on that cardboard buried in the thicket, like a lost storybook character, and waited as tears began to roll down her cheeks. She had been made a fool of not once, not twice, but three times by men in the last few months. It had to be some kind of record.

At the very least,
Gracie thought,
I should get a medal. What was the saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

“Fool me three times,” Gracie said out loud. “I give up.”

She stood up, clutching at her stomach, and suddenly threw up what she hadn’t eaten the night before, right onto the trail.

As she wobbled toward the public beach, it occurred to her that Joan had tried to tell her the truth last night. But Gracie hadn’t wanted to hear it.

She was rounding the trail as it collided with Surfrider Beach when she turned and saw, inside the Colony fence, the red light on top of the black-and-white casting an intermittent glow on the Millionaire Row of beach houses.

“M
R.
R
IGHT
is Mr. Homeless,” Joan said. “I’m sorry.”

Gracie looked at her, eyes swollen and moist, then took another Kleenex from the box Joan was holding and blew her nose for the hundredth time. “I knew something was up last night,” Gracie stuttered, “but I thought you might just be jealous because I had a boyfriend who still uses a normal toilet.”

“I wish it weren’t true, Gracie,” Joan said, putting her arm around her. “Believe me. I would love to see you with the right man.”

Gracie burrowed into her friend’s shoulder.

“That’s not the only thing,” Joan said. Gracie looked up at her. Her face was so serious, Gracie drew in her stomach, physically girding herself against incoming.

“The rumor is,” Joan continued, “he killed a man.”

A cry emitted from Gracie’s lips. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

“With his bare hands,” Joan said.

T
HERE WASN’
t enough soap on the planet to clean out Gracie’s mouth.

“I can’t believe I kissed him!” Gracie screamed as soap foamed up in her mouth. “Did it have to be with his bare hands?!”

Gracie thought Joan must have hashed and rehashed the
discovery of the night before with the whole gang before going to bed.
Why wouldn’t they talk about it?
Gracie thought. Sam was interesting without the homeless/murderer factor—with it, he was practically
Time’
s Man of the Year.

“I let him massage my hand,” Joan pointed out. “It’s kind of sexy, really. The possibility of a handsome, refined psychotic in our midst.”

Gracie looked at Joan as a ray of hope emerged. “It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a bad person, right? People make mistakes.”

“Strangling someone is not a mistake,” Joan said. “It’s a life choice.”

“I’m such a loser,” Gracie said, looking at her lathered reflection in the mirror.

25
 
MAN ON THE RUN

“A
NY PARTICULAR REASON
why the cops are looking for you?” Lavender asked Sam without looking up.

Sam shrugged and hoped the shrug conveyed a sense of conviction. But he knew Lavender was too smart to depend on gesture. “I believe … alimony payments,” he said, smiling. “I’m owed about twenty years.”

Lavender cocked an eyebrow. “You were married?” she asked.

“Why? Don’t you think I’m old enough?” Sam Knight asked, and then, “So, what’d you tell ’em?” He looked off past Malibu Road, feigning disinterest as he focused on a spot somewhere above PCH.

“They showed me a picture of you in uniform,” Lavender said. “I said they don’t let ugly like that in here. We got regulations.”

Sam allowed a smile. He’d been chased by the cops before, wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last. Happened all the time to people with his type of “undeliverable as addressed”
location. Only, there wasn’t a reason he could think of this morning. Had he done something wrong? Or was this his past, catching up with him, like the stubborn child who eventually overtakes his father on the tennis court, the basketball court, in life.

“I told him I hadn’t seen you,” Lavender said, forcing a casual tone as her eyes pored over her latest book, “but if I did run into you, I’d turn you in.”

Sam looked at her. Lavender was smiling, her mouth closed in a quarter moon, turning the page.

Sam gave her a little wave and started to walk away.

“I’m graduating, you know,” Lavender said, soft as a passing cloud.

“What’s that?” he asked, turning back. He wasn’t sure he had heard her right.

Lavender pulled up her head, facing him. Color had risen in her cheeks. “I’m graduating. I’m getting my AA—the degree, not the other thing.”

Sam hesitated for a moment—he was filled with the type of pride he would feel for a child. He put out his hand—which she accepted, breaching the awkward moment. They had never touched before.
Years,
Sam thought, as they stood facing each other.
Years, I’ve known her, and this is the first time I feel her skin.
Her hand felt dry and warm and pleasantly full, like a mother’s hand should feel.

Lavender suddenly pulled him back with her arm, yanking him into the station. The sheriff’s car was rolling up slowly, silently. Lavender motioned for Sam to crouch behind a tower of boxes haphazardly stacked, with labels like
COLONY,
1997.

Sam saw Lavender touch her finger to her forehead and flip her hand out, a good-bye gesture to the men in the car.

“It’s okay,” she said to him. He stood up.

“They said this was the last place you were reported seen,” she said, as though talking to the air. “They said it was a personal matter.”

Sam just nodded. “Could be, could be.”

“What’d you do?” Lavender asked, though he could tell she was afraid of any possible answer.

“I don’t know,” he answered. And this time, he didn’t.

She flipped a card over to him. “I wanted you to …” Lavender said, faltering. “It’s this thing. Next week—I know you probably can’t make it, but, I figured, you know, we’re friends …”

Sam was looking off toward the brake lights of the sheriff’s car as it rounded the corner and sped onto Malibu Road.

It was only when he was walking away, toward Mrs. Kennicot’s, when he looked at the card Lavender had given him.

It was a graduation announcement. Lavender had invited him to her graduation. Sometimes, Sam thought, you had to leave a little window open in your soul for the element of surprise.

L
ATER IN THE
afternoon, Joan was still in the kitchen, staring out the window, the sport of choice in a place where the view cost upwards of $1,000 a day.

“The masturbator,” Gracie said as she walked in. “He’s gone.”

She gestured toward the green blanket, lying there on the sand, between the house and the lifeguard station.

“Wow,” Joan said. “Do you think Sam took care of him? That would make him some kind of hero.”

“There were cops inside the Colony,” Gracie said. “I thought someone might be looking for him.”

“You are getting carried away,” Joan said to Gracie.

“You’re the one who told me he may have killed a man,” Gracie replied.

“I was thinking about that,” Joan said. “And two things: One, that was years ago, ancient history. And two, it’s probably not even true. Suburban legend.”

She went to light a cigarette. Gracie remembered when Joan had quit, years before. It had taken a long time and a lot of accessories—NicoDerm patches, Nicorette gum, the works, to kick the habit. Gracie stared at her as she brought the lighter close to her face.

“What?” Joan said. “You’ve never seen a cigarette?” She lit it and, with much effort, opened the German window, sticking the lit side out.-“Don’t worry, never in front of the baby.”

But now Gracie was thinking about Sam. She wanted to approach the issue of her homeless, perhaps murderous boyfriend in a methodical, logical manner, taking into consideration every aspect of his being.

Mostly, she was curious to see if her need to have sex with him outweighed more practical considerations—like the fact that he may have killed someone.

Suddenly Gracie understood why the Son of Sam and that guy who terrorized Los Angeles in the early eighties (not Rick James, the other one) had more than their fair share of possible booty calls. She was fighting something primal—the brute caveman who clocked the pocket protector-caveman and dragged off his woman by the hair survived. Who was she to fight off thousands of years of biology and evolution?

Gracie grabbed a pen and a pad of paper.

“What are you doing?” Joan asked, taking a drag off her cigarette, then peering over at her. Gracie took note on her morning walks of just how many cigarette butts were left on
the beach—it was a wonder to her that people came to one of the few places left on earth that had clean air and proceeded to light up.

“Deciding my future,” Gracie said.

Gracie consulted Joan on the benefits of dating a homeless man—one who may or may not be homicidal. They divided the major categories into home, work, play, family, with various sub-categories for each.

Over coffee, they discussed Gracie’s possible future and compared it to her past (with the horrible Kenny the Pig). Joan wrote:

A. HOME

1. Pro: Not underfoot. No early-morning comparisons of “the numbers.” No searching the
   L.A. Times, New York Times, USA Today
   and
   Post
   for bad news about your friends. Very little complaint about the size of Scott Rudin’s swimming pool as compared to yours. Not a lot of time spent on the Exercycle watching countless hours of Tivo’d Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. Perhaps more interested in sex than in resting heart rate. Not big on fixtures. Could make own meals out of neighbor’s trash. GREAT kisser.
   

2. Con: Tough living with homicidal maniac. Violence a key factor in marital happiness. Also … what does he eat? Would he sleep outside? Would he insist on showering from the hose? Who are his friends? Do they have teeth and are they clean enough to sit on furniture? Would have to hide all sharp objects (see: homicidal maniac, above). Would have to monitor daughter’s use of the
   word “homeless” (perhaps by substituting the word “apple” for “homeless,” as in “why can’t that ‘apple’ get a job like everyone else?”).
   

3. Questions for Future Reference: Sports fan?
   

B. WORK

1. Pro: Not a big upside here. However. Is available for babysitting. And sex. Doesn’t have to entertain work “friends.” Doesn’t scream epithets into the phone in front of three-year-old when the script “isn’t right.”
   

2. Con: No visible means of support. Could get old.
   

C. PLAY

1. Pro: Heavily available for all activities. Movies, theater, sex, long walks, and sex. Tennis not a major priority. Also, there’s the matter of lots of sex.
   

2. Con: May not like enclosed spaces. Have to check.
   

D. FAMILY

1. Pro: Not much of a problem with mother-in-law issues. Or any family issues, for that matter.
   

2. Con: Can’t have homicidal maniac around three-year-old daughter. Tricky.
   

“A
LL IN ALL,”
Joan said, taking a look at the list, “I’d say it’s a tough call. Care for a Bloody?”

“No,” Gracie said, “I’m fine. The last time I had a drink in the morning was the last time I had a drink in the morning, if you get my meaning.”

“I think every day should be like a vacation, don’t you?” Joan asked, without needing or expecting an answer. So Gracie didn’t bother answering her back. She just stood and watched Joan take tomato juice from the refrigerator and vodka from the freezer and proceed to mix them in a tall, slim glass, all the while squelching the terror seizing up in her stomach. Gracie’s stomach was the most dependable measure of her emotions. Though her stomach lately resembled a shopping bag more than a body part, she still trusted it like an old, seen-better-days friend.