Losing Clementine Read online

  “Hello?” she said.

  I hung up.

  Shit.

  I should’ve said something, asked some brilliant question that would let me know if I had the right number or not. Something really smart, like “Is Jerry home?”

  Shit.

  I couldn’t call back. She had caller ID. She had to have caller ID. It’s not even optional anymore. I had it, and I hadn’t asked for it.

  Shit.

  I sat down in front of the computer’s cross directory one more time and searched for a neighbor’s address and phone number. Better prepared, I called that.

  “Hello,” I said when a man, who sounded middle-aged and possibly stoned, answered. “I’m calling from the IRS. We’re investigating your neighbor, accountant Jerry Pritchard. Do you know Mr. Pritchard?”

  “Whoa. The IRS is doing an internal investigation? Seriously? Does this mean I’m not going to get a refund this year? Cause I told him those deductions were kosher.”

  I could feel my plan veering off the road and rumbling across open country, bumping over rocks and ruining the suspension.

  “Is Mr. Pritchard your accountant?” I asked, cradling the phone against my shoulder and madly typing “Kansas City” and “IRS” into my search engine.

  “I wouldn’t call him my accountant. I shovel his driveway, and he does my taxes. I mean, he works for you guys. What more do you want? Dude has a bad back anyway. Couldn’t leave him stranded in his garage not being able to get to work when the snow blows in, could I? That’s not why you’re investigating him, is it? He told me he couldn’t take any money for doing it, and I didn’t give him any. I would’ve shoveled his driveway anyway.”

  Hit after hit rolled up on my screen. Kansas City was one of the IRS’s largest hubs. I clicked on an archived news article and read the stub. Brand-new facility. Almost twenty-eight acres. Just shy of four hundred million dollars. About a bajillion employees.

  I rubbed the heel of my palm into my eye. Every accountant in four states must work there.

  “You there?” the man asked.

  “Thank you for your time,” I said and hung up.

  Smooth, Clementine.

  I got up, found the pretty glass apothecary jar of prescription pot, and crumbled some into a rolling paper. When it was good and tight, I scrabbled around in the same drawer for the translucent purple disposable lighter and sparked it.

  I held the smoke in my lungs and closed my eyes until it was time to breathe again. Then I let it out between my lips in a swirling jet stream.

  Repeat.

  Repeat.

  Ahhhh.

  I picked up the phone again, scrolled through the search results, and dialed. Twenty-eight acres of accountants somewhere in the Midwest. Twenty-eight acres of clean, gleaming floors and modern light fixtures. I pictured long, long hallways and men in ties at identical desks in huge rooms, rooms like football stadiums. I was transferred and transferred and transferred again, hopscotching my way from phone to phone across that grid of desks until it finally rang, and he picked up.

  “Good afternoon. Jerry Pritchard speaking.”

  I looked at the clock. It was well into the afternoon there, two hours ahead of me. If I were there I’d be two hours closer to dying. He was probably thinking about going home. Thinking about what his wife would make for dinner. Maybe Salisbury steak. They probably ate a lot of Salisbury steak in a place like Kansas City. Maybe he was thinking about stopping at the store on the way home. Milk, eggs, butter, salt.

  “Hello?”

  He sounded older. Old. I hadn’t been picturing him old. I’d been picturing him frozen in amber like a museum specimen. He wasn’t the man who had left more than thirty years ago.

  “It’s Clementine,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Clementine Pritchard.”

  “I… I don’t have anything to say.” His voice faltered and jumped, skipped like a warped record.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  He said it like a doctor might say, “I’m sorry. You have cancer,” except he skipped the “sorry” part. I took another drag on the joint, because I had it burning there between my fingers. I hoped it would soothe me, but it didn’t. I wished I hadn’t called, and I was going to cry, which made me feel like a little girl again. Wham. Just like that I was ten years old again, and the feeling of helplessness and dependence made me even angrier. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him some more.

  I went right for the big guns. “Mom is dead. Ramona, too. Did you know that? Did you know they died?” Take that, asshole.

  “I can’t talk about this. I’m at work.”

  Fuck him and his work.

  “I want to fly out there,” I said.

  “No, no. You can’t. That’s not a good idea. I have to go.”

  I heard the click and the line go quiet. I hung on, though, just in case he picked up again. I hung on until the second click and the dial tone beeped in my ear.

  Then I booked the tickets.

  13 Days

  The skin around my eyes had the texture of crepe paper. High-end crepe paper maybe, but I had some vague recollection of taut smoothness more like an inflated party balloon than a roll of colored streamers. I leaned in closer to the mirror, because who could resist getting a good look under the bright bathroom lighting. I stood back and then leaned in again.

  Near.

  Far.

  Near.

  Far.

  Crap.

  I shoved my feet into flip-flops and went out the front door wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around me like a very short terry-cloth party dress. I knocked on my neighbor’s door, didn’t wait the customary ten seconds, and knocked again.

  He answered the door looking like something Caligula would’ve wanted around for parties. His hair was dishwater blond and curly. The tan, I suspected, was augmented. He had biceps that stretched the armholes of his fitted gray T-shirt, which was tucked into the waistband of jeans that, if we can be frank, hugged his package like a stripper’s thong.

  He smiled. He had dimples. Of course he did.

  “Did you lock yourself out?”

  The lisp gave him away and broke the hearts of women all the way to Santa Barbara.

  “I have old eyes. I need bangs.”

  “You are beautiful, as always, but you’re lucky I specialize in crisis makeovers. Who’s the boy?”

  Brandon stepped aside so I could come in. He had lived next door for two years and had really prettied up the place. His decorating was okay, too. He was a hairdresser/dancer/sometime bartender.

  “No boy.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He steered me over to his dining room table, pushed me into a chair, and then grabbed it by the two front legs and rotated it to face him. It was quite the manly show of strength, and I felt like I should fan myself with something.

  We were in front of his bank of windows, which looked out on more or less the same view I had. The layout of his place was the same as mine, but it looked entirely different. His wasn’t a work space at all, which left an extravagant amount of room for tables and chairs and sofas. He’d used double-sided bookcases to block off his bedroom area, which was three times the size of mine.

  “Every woman gets a haircut after a breakup. Fresh start.”

  He kept his shears in a zippered black leather case, which he set down on the polished wooden table and unzipped. He took out his comb and spritzed my hair with water.

  “Fun and wispy or china doll serious?” he asked.

  “China doll.”

  “Oh, my. Some boy.” He combed a hank of my hair down over my eyes, so I looked like Cousin Itt.

  “There may have been two.”

  He paused in the middle of his separating and combing. “Two boys?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Well, china doll it is.”

  The sound of shears through hair is a very
specific sound, and I’d always hated it. Something between a crunch and a scrape. Shrrrap. Shrrrap. Shrrap. He combed and spritzed and trimmed, and when he was done he steered me into his bathroom, which had much kinder lighting than mine. My shoulder-skimming black bob now had a triangular segment of fringe that peaked at a perfectly straight part and widened out across my forehead, stopping just barely above my eyebrows. I looked as if I needed a scarlet silk kimono and a cigarette holder. I looked as if I had secrets and men, plenty of both.

  “I love it and you,” I said, turning and kissing his cheek, and I meant it. “How much?”

  “Not a dime. This crisis is on me.”

  I went back to my own poorly lit bathroom, glowing with transformation.

  I took a black dress out of the closet. It was sleeveless and cut high in the front and plunging in the back. I dropped it over my head and wiggled so it slinked down my body. I took down the shoe box into which I’d thrown little clutch handbags and other rarely used accessories. On top was a white silk spider mum as big as my fist with wisps of white feathers sprouting out in all directions. I blew bits of fluffy gray dust off of it and took it into the bathroom.

  With the alligator clip, I pulled back a lock of hair and attached the big showy flower over my ear. It was almost enough to distract from the stubborn bits of paint staining my cuticles.

  A photographer snapped my picture in the living room. I hadn’t seen it coming. It was like being ambushed. I blinked in the dim light, trying to get my stunned pupils to readjust.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked my host.

  Annabelle shrugged and took a sip of the rose champagne bubbling in her flute. I had a matching glass and was one good-size sip away from draining it.

  “The Times society section sent someone.”

  “He should have a bell around his neck.”

  Annabelle has a way of laughing at your jokes that makes you certain you are much funnier than you really are. It’s a sharp political skill, which she deploys often on her husband’s behalf. She is older than me and looks younger, thanks to some very subtle surgery. It was her house that I and several hundred of my closest friends were milling about in.

  The house sat up in the Hollywood Hills on one of those impossible grades where you have to drop your car into first gear to make it up the driveway and everything at the top costs at least five million dollars. That night there were valets to meet guests by the side of the road. Four Hispanic men in orange vests and black pants grabbed keys and drove off into the residential neighborhood, running back uphill for the next car. They did it again and again until sweat dripped into their eyes and they had to wipe it away with the backs of their hands before going on the next wind sprint.

  All the blinds were open, making each windowpane glow yellow against the navy sky and matching monochromatic hills. Voices had trickled down the driveway as I’d walked halfway up the hill, cursed, pulled off my high heels, and made the rest of the trip barefoot. The calm, modulated buzz made it clear even from a distance that this party would never get out of hand. For a moment I wondered if I could just watch from outside, looking into the glowing panes getting brighter and brighter as the sky darkened. I wondered if one of the uniformed waiters would bring a drink to me out in the bushes and maybe a blanket to sit on.

  Inside, Annabelle was talking, and I wasn’t listening. She was wearing a silky, bright printed dress that dropped into a deep V in the front and swished loose around her knees. Her skin had the same dark tan as Aunt Trudy’s with none of the wrinkling and speckling. I wondered if she had it sprayed on with an airbrush gun, and if so, did she do it naked?

  My brain dropped back into the conversation.

  “I see someone I must go say hello to,” she said. “Kiss me.”

  I went for her cheek, but she caught me on the lips and then slipped off, leaving a trail of vanilla perfume behind her.

  “Clementine.”

  I turned, saw who had spoken, and then did drain my glass. “Director.”

  He stepped sideways to slip between guests and made his way around a white couch and an end table holding a reproduction Ming vase.

  “You look very nice this evening,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Apparently keeping me locked up in the employee break room put us on friendly terms.

  “Your piece was brilliant. Did you see the story in the paper?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “I’ll send you a copy. It’s very complimentary. Lots of great photos. Almost the whole front of the arts section.”

  It already seemed like a long time ago.

  “I think it worked out for everyone,” he said.

  “Please excuse me,” I said. “I see someone I have to say hello to.”

  Without leaving a wake of vanilla behind me, I slipped out the sliding glass doors onto the wide flagstone patio that surrounded the pool. I was still barefoot, having dropped my shoes by the front door when I came in, and the stones were warm under my feet. The air had given up its afternoon heat much more quickly than the stones, and propane lamps stood ready to be lit at the first sign of a shivering guest. To my left was one of several bars, and I made my way to it, holding up my empty glass. By the time I got there, the bartender had pulled the champagne bottle with its white napkin bib out of the silver ice bucket and was holding it aloft, waiting to pour.

  I brought the full glass to my lips, but before I could take the first sip, a young man stepped up beside me. He had the first three buttons of his white dress shirt open.

  “I saw you talking to Director Kirby,” he said.

  It’s an advantage to have an accent, in his case a musical Irish lilt. It keeps you from having to start by saying something interesting.

  “Actually, he was talking to me.” I finished tipping the glass into my mouth. The champagne was lip-puckeringly dry. I liked it. Maybe too much.

  The air up here was clean and still and the night darker above the ambient glow that kept Los Angeles from ever really getting dark. I looked up. You still couldn’t quite see the stars, but I imagined it might be possible on another night. I took another sip.

  He ordered a gin and tonic, which in my opinion tastes far too much like gin.

  “Then you have an excuse,” he said. “I’m William.”

  “Clementine,” I said and took his hand, which was no bigger than mine. Nothing about him, in fact, was bigger than anything on me. I was looking down at the part in his hair.

  “Men must stare at you all the time,” he said.

  I cocked my head and felt my bangs shift and tickle my forehead.

  “You’re a six-foot-tall doll come to life. Even”—he looked down—“barefoot.”

  Men should tell all women they’re beautiful and stop. Details always ruin things. The small girl feels too small. The tall girl feels too tall. And no one wants to be told she looks good in glasses. I had the sudden feeling my limbs had been stretched another foot and that perhaps I should duck to avoid ceilings.

  “And you’re a leprechaun,” I said.

  He threw his head back and laughed in the way you’re supposed to at your own expense, just to show you’re a sport.

  “I had that coming,” he said.

  He did, and we fell into silence. I waited for him to wander away like you do at parties. My stomach growled. I kept an eye out for a waiter.

  Out past the pool there was a wide landing strip of grass that ended abruptly where the top of the hill dropped into a ravine. A white movie screen had been set up to one side, and pillows the size of coffee tables were spread out on the manicured lawn. A few young women, who reminded me of ponies, stretched out lanky brown limbs on the cushions and laughed. I felt as if someone should come by to rinse down their withers and feed them sugar cubes. Someone, metaphorically, no doubt would.

  William watched them, too. And I watched him watch them. He was about their age, young enough to still be in college or just graduated from college. May
be he was on his postgrad world tour, backpacking through the Hollywood Hills.

  He took another sip and turned away from the horse barn.

  “So are you here because of your abiding love of independent documentaries?”

  “I’m here because Annabelle let me sleep on her couch for three months when I moved to L.A. from New York, which turns out not to be the sort of debt that’s easily paid in a mere fifteen years.” That should’ve given him some idea of how old I was.

  Annabelle was throwing the party in honor of a friend’s husband’s new movie. Before this, the husband had been a sous-chef in one of those red-hot-for-five-minutes fusion restaurants near La Brea. Now he was a director. The wife did and still does work for Disney, which provided the sort of dental insurance and 401(k) necessary to support a spouse with career ADD.

  The film was about genocide in Darfur, which was probably more timely when he started shooting than when he finished. Rumor had it George Clooney was in it, and that the director’s wife had arranged that.

  “Tom and I were in film school together at USC,” he said.

  In L.A., that was a throwaway brag. USC is to film school as Harvard is to law.

  “If you’re a cinema brat,” I said, “how do you know Kirby?”

  “He’s my dad.”

  That was the funniest thing I’d heard in days. I put the back of my hand to my mouth and snorted, which turned into a guffaw, which sent champagne up into my nasal cavity, which made my eyes tear up, which made him laugh, which is funny in an Irish accent, and soon my cheek muscles ached and I had a stitch in my side and people were staring.

  When we settled into snickers, William wiped his eyes. “It’s true. I mean sure he’s a kiss-ass wanker now, but twenty-five years ago, he was stud enough to knock up my mum on holiday.”

  That answered the question of his age, but the trials of a single mother were less amusing. We both settled into a postgiggle valley of conversation.

  “So,” he went on, “I didn’t much know him until I came to the States. He sent checks for my schooling but never came for a visit or anything. Then I showed up in Los Angeles, and we started having lunch on campus.”