Happy Family Part 17

"Potatoes," he says, lifting a lid on a cast-iron pot. "Not much you can't do with a grate and fire. Can you pa.s.s me those tongs?" He puts the meat on. There's a way that he fully inhabits his body that makes her think he'd be good at just about anything he did with it. It makes her a bit nervous. The flames surge, then die down with a spit and sizzle. "So...how's our shroom friend doing?"

"Glad you warned me about what to expect in the litter box. Other than that, he seems fine."

"Animals and kids. Down one minute and up the next."

"Oh, no. I forgot to bring your cat carrier."

"No worries," he says, "I can pick it up later."

"Are you always so helpful?"

"This is an aberration. My family has accused me of being a selfish p.r.i.c.k. They weren't always wrong."

"Packing up your sister's house sounds pretty selfless to me."

"It's payback. She's let me crash here since I've been between houses, so to speak. You like the wine? It's cheeky. Got that cherry bite, a bit of pepper." He holds up his gla.s.s.

"To cheeky wine," she says. His s.h.i.+rt grazes her arm and she feels her hair stand on end.

"You're cold, let me run inside and get you something. If it flares up again, just move the meat to the side."

"No, really, I'm good." He's disappeared behind the sliders. The air is a combination of sea, grilling meat, and damp night air. Delicious. She closes her eyes and listens to the lapping of the waves.

"You do smile," he says, returning and draping a blanket over her shoulders. She watches him press the steaks with his finger to test if they're done. "Almost there."

"So what exactly is it that you do?" she asks.

"Well, I guess you could say I'm in hiding."

"Hiding as in out? Like from the law or the IRS?"

"From myself, mostly. But I'm getting better at that. I'm a Valley boy. Grew up in Van Nuys-went to high school with Dr. Rick. Dropped out of Cal Arts with a half-finished degree in sound engineering and worked my way through the music business. Last seen as a manager. Lived most of my life out of suitcases, catering to overblown egos, fueling my own sense of self-importance, and popping, snorting, and drinking anything that came my way. Until I crashed. I quit drugs thirteen months ago. And you, just-kind-of-visiting lady, what are you hiding from?"

"I didn't say I was hiding."

"You didn't have to."

They eat themselves into a meat coma spiked by wine and easy conversation. Although Sonny managed rappers, he knows his punk rock. He tells her stories about being a roadie for the Circle Jerks and about his first engineering gig, for the d.i.c.kies' Killer Klowns. "The d.i.c.kies were a bubblegum Ramones rip-off," Cheri says, and they debate West and East Coast bands. They both extol the virtues of Klaus Nomi, and Sonny goes online and finds a video of his performance with David Bowie on SNL. It's not quite as great as either one of them remembers. They easily confess to the trivial-she has never heard of In-N-Out Burger, and he admits to owning and wearing, on occasion, a kilt. "The last perk," he says, cracking open a collector's Macallan. He wipes out their winegla.s.ses with a napkin. "G.o.d, did I love the liquor sponsors, especially these folks. I gave this to my sister and her now-soon-to-be-ex for Christmas one year and found it shoved in the back of a closet behind his third-best set of golf clubs. Can you imagine?" The taste, with notes of chocolate and tobacco, has her in a leather armchair in front of a fire. "It's pretty f.u.c.king good, isn't it?"

Pretty f.u.c.king good. And, wow, the moon is bright. It has an otherworldly halo that s.h.i.+nes bright against the ocean's blackness. They sit on the bottom step of the wood deck with their feet in the sand getting cold. He lights two cigarettes and pa.s.ses her one. She feels the warmth of whiskey and smoke in her chest. "You miss it?" she asks.

"Miss what?"

"What you used to do," she asks, thinking of her career, what she may be in the process of giving up. "It sounds like you were good at it."

"Price of admission ended up being too high. At first I barely noticed how much of myself I gave away. A little cut here; it's just a flesh wound. That's nothing. I'm still in it for the right reasons. You rationalize the things you do and the people you do it with as being the cost of doing business. After all, drugs and the industry go hand in hand. And when you're up, you're master of all that exists. Limits? That applies to other people. When I partied, I pushed the edge farther and farther. I actually broke in and stole doggie morphine from Dr. Rick. And people followed me, thinking they could hang. Until crazy s.h.i.+t happened." He looks at the ocean and then turns and looks at her. "Someone I actually cared about-not that I had done a great job showing I cared-a young, talented kid I was working with got killed. Ran into the middle of a busy intersection, high on drugs I gave him. And, somehow, I stopped myself before I went over the cliff. My toes were hanging off. I was doing one of those backpedal things with my arms, but I stopped. Other people were like, 'I'm fine...aaaahhhh.' They went over."

Cheri wants to say, I understand. More than you think.

"That's tough," she says.

He stops to stub his cigarette out in the sand. "Mistakes, I've made a few. But do I miss making music? Every f.u.c.king day." In the moonlight, with the smoke in his eyes, he looks like a damaged priest. Why is it that the broken are drawn to each other, grasping at one another like drowning swimmers?

"Here's some trivia for you: Did you know that whiskey comes from the Gaelic uisge beatha?"

"'Water of life,'" she says. He looks shocked. And pleased.

"Didn't take you for a Gael."

"I've got a knack for languages. Especially ones n.o.body uses anymore."

"And do you use them?"

"Sometimes."

"Other than to impress me?"

"You impress easily."

"No," he says, "I don't." He lights another cigarette and takes a deep drag. "My last vice. Really good whiskey and really good wine don't count."

The wind blows her hair in her face.

"Do you mind, I wouldn't presume to know to tuck or not to tuck." She goes to push it away and she's trapped in his eyes. He puts his hand on the side of her face to brush back her hair. The kiss is inevitable. Lips have memory. She feels the first parting then the surge from entwining tongues, gentle and deep. Her hand grasps the perfect dome of his head; it is, as promised, silken, cool from the night air. His lips, soft as ripe plums, kiss her neck. Her body s.h.i.+vers in compliance. When they've made out until they're breathless, and sand is in their hair and jeans from buckling to the ground, rolling on top and then beneath, he holds his hand out. She lets herself be pulled up. Feels the curve of his biceps as he holds her like he means it, no hesitation, no fear.

He leads her into the empty cavern of the house, their footfalls echoing. Everything that is on comes off. They explore each other's bodies like blind people. Each touch is a revelation of hard and soft, wet and cool, smooth and rough. His body is taut and more sculpted than she'd thought. He traces his tongue down her belly. Her animal body is awakened; she can leave her mind and rise in reaction. Their urgency makes them rough. She bites his shoulder as they grapple on the floor, first him on top and then her. Knees and backs chafe from the carpet. They rise together; her legs wrap around him; his hands cup her a.s.s. He carries her like this, lips and hips locked, and releases her onto a platform bed minus the platform. His hand covers her face, his fingers redolent of her. Then they are in her mouth. She's in the curl of pleasure, riding it, no hands on the rail. He says something like, "G.o.d, you are lovely." Later she will think she imagined it. Time stands still or moves so fast they can't grab hold of it. It is as if their bodies have reached a singularity and everything else is left behind.

They end crumpled, damp, on the floor beside the bed, a sheet one of them must have dragged down snared around her leg like seaweed. His arm is draped over her shoulder. She can see the veins rising beneath the shadows of lines and ink on his arm. He tickles her shoulder with his fingertips; she s.h.i.+vers. It's raining. Hard. She listens to it tip-tip-tip, tip-tip-tiping against the roof. He yawns and stretches his arms over his head. What was it about the over-the-head stretch, the casual display of biceps and forearm that was so masculine it made her feel like Olive Oyl? "You got me good here," he says, touching his neck.

"Oh, sorry," she murmurs.

"Why? I'm not. I don't know about you, but I'm thirsty as f.u.c.k." He goes to the kitchen in search of an oasis. She hoists herself into the bed. She thinks: I'll just close my eyes for a minute. Just for a few seconds.

She wakes with the where-the-h.e.l.l-am-I panic of a one-night stand. Sour breath, dry mouth. Sonny's on his back, one leg swung nearly off the side of the bed. She checks him out in the gray morning light: no drool, no snoring. His face looks younger at rest. She can't believe she pa.s.sed out like that; s.e.x was one thing, but actual sleeping with someone? She sees a bottle of water left on the floor for her; she grabs it and guzzles quietly so as not to wake him. She settles back into bed and realizes what's missing. For the first time since Michael's death, she didn't awaken to a sense of dread.

Sonny sighs and rolls over, his hand finding her breast, rousing her and himself into the half-life of not-quite-awake desire. They go easy; he enters her spoon-position, his fingers cheerleading her into the collapse of o.r.g.a.s.m. She drifts, dissolving into vapor. When she wakes again the room is dark and she's alone in bed. She levers up a blind he must have closed. The ocean is whitecapped, the sky is gloomy, spitting rain.

She checks herself out in the bathroom. It definitely looks like she was f.u.c.ked all night. The only thing she sees to put on is a sweats.h.i.+rt hanging on the back of the door. It's missing a zipper. She dons it and pads to the kitchen, searches the s.p.a.ce for her missing clothes. He's gotten a fire burning in the fireplace and proffers a mug. "Be warned: it's instant. I'd have done a Starbucks run but it's pretty gnarly out there. What-are you crus.h.i.+ng on the djellaba? You are, aren't you?" He's wearing a white-and-blue-striped cotton tunic. It's not uns.e.xy.

"Looks like a caftan to me."

"I got it in Morocco. Stole it from a hotel room. Admit it. It's turning you on." He's funny and knows how to build a fire, but where is her underwear?

"Have you seen my clothes?"

"I've got another one of these if you want," he says, referring to his caftan. "Super-comfortable. Although that's a good look," he says, taking in her near-nakedness. She runs a hand over her hair and feels sand.

"You're not good at accepting compliments." Michael always used to say that to her, but she tries to put that thought out of her mind.

"Not my strong suit," she says, sipping her coffee. Instant makes her nostalgic, something about astronauts and Tang and simpler times.

"Don't tell me you're shy? You weren't last night-"

"I'm autistic before I've had coffee."

"Got it. Look, can we cut past the awkward part now we're sober? You have anywhere you've got to be anytime soon? Because I'd like to hang out with you some more."

"Are you always this direct?"

"I'm not always anything." He's moved next to her and traces her neck with his finger. "You're cold. Get ye by the fire, la.s.sie. That and a shot of uisge beatha will warm you right up."

They toast and drink standing by the fire. He moves behind her, his arms around her waist, and she wonders how he can still smell so good after a night of s.e.x. She's seduced by the fire, relaxing into his steadiness. She can feel her lids getting heavy when it hits her: she's forgotten about the cat.

"If he was going to die, he would have done it already. It's true. If there were toxins left in his system, he's either purged it or is four-paws-up. In any case, there's no point rus.h.i.+ng back."

"Says the volunteer vet?"

"You thought I was the vet? More like vet tech. If you're going to be facetious, at least get your semantics right."

"I should see for myself. Clothes, please?"

"Ah, what the h.e.l.l, I'll drive you. We'll stop and get some food on the way. I'm jonesing for something ethnic. You like Indonesian? I know a place that makes killer crab lada hitam."

"Where do you get Indonesian food around here?"

"Well, it's not exactly around here. In case you haven't noticed, Malibu is a whole lot of bland and blander. I'm starving, aren't you? You have to be hungry-it's two o'clock. Your clothes..." He opens the door to the living-room closet, where they're hung on a peg. "Didn't want them to dry all wrinkled." Did she look like someone who cared if her jeans were wrinkled?

"I thought you were an animal lover."

"I love a lot of things. Spicy food isn't totally top of the list, but close. It's all about balance; I learned that the hard way. Come on, let's do this. It looks like the rain is slowing down for a minute. We'll take it to go. The faster we get there, the faster we get back to check on the kitty."

"Not exactly around here" is twenty minutes away in a strip mall off Pico in Santa Monica. Sonny's truck is filled with boxes so she has to maneuver to get in and out. He holds up an umbrella and they dash through a tiny market back to an even tinier restaurant. Who would even know this place existed? As a child she'd a.s.sociated the scent of c.u.min with dirty underwear, but now the spicy smell makes her ravenous. The woman behind the counter recognizes Sonny and leaps up to help. She brings out a hot tray of banana-leaf wraps for them to try while they wait. They're like little Asian TV dinners. Melt-in-your-mouth, pop-of-spicy deliciousness.

"I told you it was worth it," he says.

Because you're worth it. Was that a shampoo commercial, some bulls.h.i.+t statement that was all Go, woman, go, but at the same time saying, As long as you cover those grays? You're worth it. Something Taya might say once Cheri tells her she hooked up with a random guy she met at her vet's. A guy who belts back the booze despite being self-proclaimed sober. She may be hungover but she doesn't miss a beat.

Skipperdee, it turns out, is exactly where she left him, curled up on a white pillow on the white couch, shedding gray fur. He meows when they call his name but doesn't get up. They peel off their wet jackets and Sonny sets about building a fire in the living room while she putters in the kitchen, putting food out for the cat. Funny how jobs divide up in coupledom. How much was in Michael's column that's now in hers? One of his last sentences was "Remember to call the chimney sweep!" She has not yet followed through.

"Where are you?" Sonny says, handing her a beer.

"I'm here." As soon as the food is opened they plate it and carry everything they need to the table by the fire in the living room. Cheri eats ravenously-this was definitely worth the trip in what's now pouring rain.

"Okay, I can't eat another bite," she says, pus.h.i.+ng her plate away, feeling relaxed.

"There it is again."

"What?"

"Your smile. It's crooked, but it's there."

"I smile. It's not like I don't smile."

"You've got a lot of looks, but it's hard to know what you're thinking. I bet you've used that to your advantage." She purses her lips into a bit more of a smile. Sonny eyes what's left on her plate. "You going for that or can I?"

"All yours," she says. He stabs a shrimp with his chopstick. Cheri looks out the window; the sky is dark and foreboding; the rain is starting to come down harder. "It's getting apocalyptic out there. People in LA always seem to be putting sandbags out or fighting fires or dealing with earthquakes. Why do people pay all this money to live where the land is most unstable?"

"Unpredictable is more interesting," he says with his own crooked smile.

"I thought we were talking about weather."

"Are we? Then bring on the zombie apocalypse. If it's going to end, might as well go out raging against the dying of the light. Unfortunately, all my end-of-the-world provisions are in storage," he says.

"Don't tell me you're one of those guys with a homemade bomb shelter..."

"Let's say I have good survival skills, thanks to my second stepdad sending me away to wilderness training for f.u.c.ked-up kids. You think cooking over a fire pit is roughing it, this was hard core. We had to eat rattlesnake and bugs, whatever we could find. Or starve. You know how hard it is to skin a rattlesnake with your bare hands when you're ten?" She wonders if that's even possible. "After the quake in '94 I got a bit extreme, I'll admit it, with the freeze-dried food and emergency generators."

"So you're saying you have sandbags."

"Correct. But if there was a tsunami or major disaster I'd be way unprepared. Bad news about being homeless means you can't carry generators and stockpiles of munitions around with you."

"You don't need stockpiles."

"Depends on how many zombies we're going to be fighting. That's why you have this?" He puts his hand on the top of her gun tattoo.

"That's kind of personal," she says.

"I think we veered into the realm of personal when my tongue was on your p.u.s.s.y," he says. "But I don't mean to pry."

"I got it in a former life."

"Former life, former boyfriend. You got f.u.c.ked up and got matching tattoos. I know the drill."

"We were cops." She cracks open the Macallan she's glad she remembered to bring.

"Unexpected."

"That's what a lot of people said at the time," she says, pouring them each a whiskey.

"So back up. You said you taught religion. Was that before or after being a cop? Was this in Chicago or New York?"

"The eighties, New York. In the housing projects. On the Lower East Side."

"You are definitely an interesting woman. I don't trust anything linear. Why did you become a cop?"

She considers what to say. "Probably because I knew it would p.i.s.s off my parents. I wanted to get as far away from them and their world as possible."

"And did you?"