Part 13 (1/2)
She was hoping it was Casey, and she took the wide stairs quickly, lightly, two at a time. But when she pressed the b.u.t.ton to talk to the driver he said, ”I got a Angela here. Angela Stern.”
She almost said Oh no right then. But instead she sighed, buzzed open the gate and went out front to meet them.
”Does she know where you are?” she asked Angela, as soon as she stepped from the taxi.
It could mean Merced's job, she was thinking.
”She fell asleep,” Angela said.
”We have to call. She'll be worried sick by now.”
Angela walked slowly, peering down through the dark at her footing as the taxi's headlights swept back. She was wearing a long winter coat, a coat she'd never have a use for in L.A., over a sheer lacy nightgown.
”So what went wrong?” asked Susan, a hand on her arm to steer. As they drew near the house again the motion sensors were triggered and the outside lights flicked on.
”It wasn't safe. It was unsafe,” said Angela, and shook her head.
”Unsafe.”
”What if she stepped on you,” said Angela. ”Those shoes-those shoes would be like daggers. They could stab me.”
”Uh-huh,” said Susan.
It took her a moment to register the words. And then she found Angela was standing there stricken. Her face looked white.
”I'm so sorry,” she said, exactly as a person might who wasn't insane at all. ”I shouldn't have said that.”
”Don't worry. It's all right,” said Susan.
Inside she sat Angela down in the kitchen, gave her a gla.s.s of water and called the apartment, where Merced picked up the phone right away.
”She'll stay with me,” Susan told her, resigned. ”She'll stay till Vera gets back. So have them call me as soon as that happens. Would you?”
She looked over at Angela, who was sitting very straight on her kitchen chair under a fish and holding her water gla.s.s carefully, with two hands. She put her to bed in North American Birds.
When the children returned, Angela was still there. They showed up at the big house one evening around dusk, while Susan and Jim and Angela were eating Thai on the patio beside the pool-though Angela was not eating. After the food arrived she'd decided she distrusted food of any ”ethnicity” and had requested instead a Tom Collins.
Casey was brown from the sun and T. wore faded jeans. The three-legged dog loped along beside them.
”Oh, dears, dears!” called Angela joyfully. ”How was the Mexican wedding?”
Susan rose as they approached the table, rose and put down her napkin.
”Good,” said T., and rested a hand lightly on Casey's shoulder. ”It was good.”
7.
She wanted to show she was happy about the wedding news. And for the most part she was, or she would be when she a.s.similated the information-she felt a kind of rising antic.i.p.ation on Casey's behalf-but there was also petty confusion. Her pride was injured as much as her feelings. She would have been grateful for anything-the most nominal warning, the most casual tip of a hat.
”I didn't tell you because I didn't know,” said Casey.
They'd gone to get a bottle of white wine from the kitchen. Susan didn't keep champagne in the house, so it would have to serve.
”But Angela did,” she said, rummaging in a drawer for a corkscrew and trying to contain the seed of resentment. No whining; keep it pure and simple, be remembered well.
”Oh yeah?” asked Casey. Give her credit: it sounded like real surprise.
”She told me you were on your honeymoon,” said Susan.
”Huh. Not exactly,” said Casey. ”In the first place, I only went along for the ride. At the last minute. I wasn't planning to. It was Baja-the Sea of Cortez. A whale stranding.”
”A whale stranding?” asked Susan, looking up from the wine.
”A ma.s.s stranding. There were over twenty of them. Beaked whales, which is a kind that dives deep, I guess? They look like dolphins to me, they have those kind of long noses. Anyway the biologists inspected some of the dead ones and said they had these hemorrhages around the ears. They think navy sonar caused them. You know, the navy does this sonar in the ocean? It's for detecting diesel submarines, or something. So anyway the whale guys think the sound waves hurt whale brains. They get confused or they're in pain and it disorients them and then they beach themselves. They lie there baking in the sun and dying. It's one of the worst things I've seen. You wouldn't believe the smell.”
”So what did you do?” asked Susan.
”We helped get some of them back in the water. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. Answer: I sat on my crippled a.s.s behind a folding table and handed out bottled water to the volunteers. Tame s.h.i.+t like that.”
”But it's good,” said Susan softly. ”I'm glad you did.”
”T.'s idea, he got on some kind of emergency phone tree for marine mammal rescue. He's on a bunch of lists now. Your basic Good Samaritan s.h.i.+t. Some of it's just giving out money. Like with the foundation. He just paid a bunch of poachers in Africa to stop shooting rhinos. They sell the horns to make into, like, fake Chinese aphrodisiacs. Now they're getting a salary for guarding the rhinos instead of killing them. Who knew?”
”That sounds like a great idea,” said Susan drily.
”But with the whales I kinda got into it,” said Casey. ”It was a life-or-death thing. It had-I don't know. It wasn't nothing.”
”You take the wine, OK? I'll take the gla.s.ses,” said Susan, and handed down the bottle. She put five goblets on a tray and they started out of the kitchen, toward the patio. ”So where did, you know, the getting-married part come in?”
”Spur-of-the-moment,” said Casey behind her. ”That was his idea too.”
”You going to have a reception? At least a big party?”
”f.u.c.k if I know,” said Casey happily. ”Haven't thought about it. He's moving in, though. He likes my place better than his.”
”I like it better too.”
”He does things,” said Casey. ”You know. I miss how walking on sand used to feel. I was telling him that, after the whale thing was over. We were on our way out of town, we'd driven down to the sh.o.r.e to look at it one more time. So he picked me up and carried me down to the waterline and put me down and he got down there with me. And then we kind of crab-walked. We walked on our elbows. There were waves, you know, and I can't go fast on my elbows, I'm not built in the shoulders like Sal or someone. Anyway, I'm not going to say it was some romantic s.h.i.+t, because actually it ended up sucking. I mean after three minutes I was soaking and s.h.i.+vering, I had these scratches on my knees from dragging them, because there were pebbles in the sand too, s.h.i.+t, there were probably syringes, what the h.e.l.l would I know. And then the finer sand, for like days after that, was killing me. It got way down in my G.o.dd.a.m.n ears and I couldn't get it out of there. I was afraid it would do some damage, if you want to know the truth. To the ear drums or whatever. Then I'd be crippled and deaf. So finally I had to go to a Mexican doctor, on our way back up here, in some s.h.i.+tty border town crossing into Arizona where the doctors make most of their salaries selling Ritalin prescriptions to American turistas. For snorting, not for the hyperactive kids. I had to go to one of those guys and get my ear ca.n.a.ls irrigated. It was actually disgusting.”
They pa.s.sed through the French doors, saw the other three talking and laughing at the poolside table.
”The guy tried to sell me a scrip for Ritalin just as an extra bonus. After he squirted six gallons of warm water into my ears.”
”Sounds like T. showed you a really good time,” said Susan.
”His heart was in the right place, though,” said Casey.