Blame: A Novel (29 page)

Patsy knew all this, of course, through Burt. She’d been the one to tell Sarah.

And Lewis’s book hadn’t been a bestseller; it had only received many good reviews. Very good reviews.

Not that we could hire a white male anyway, Georges said. Not with this committee. The chair told us flat out, We want a woman of color, preferably a lesbian, ideally with a not-too-noticeable disability.

The fire snapped, and a ribbon of smoke curled into the room, which was in fact two-thirds of the ballroom. The partition had been in place since right after Sarah and Henry’s wedding and, with so many couches and bookshelves shoved up against it, seemed permanent. Patsy glanced idly at the high coved ceiling and clad beams above. She’d been so envious of the ballroom!

Maybe when one of Sarah’s daughters married, the dividers would be folded back and the room returned to its former glory.

Patsy looked up from a term paper on Friday morning—she’d finished the finals—to see Forrest’s crated boat delivered on an airbrushed candy pink flatbed truck such as transported high-end custom race cars. Couldn’t Cal at least have hired a mid-priced boat hauler?

Forrest had rearranged the garage.

The truck and trailer left, and the house grew quiet. The family had gone to the zoo. At noon Patsy took a break and went out to cut some lettuce for lunch. It had rained in the night and now the sun was out, so the world glistened and smelled of sage and eucalyptus and clean, wet granite.

Since Christmas, rain had been frequent. The fattened little stream filled the canyon with its boisterous crashing, and all the hedges and shrubs had grown leggy and lush. The lettuce leaves were wide and vivid in their greens and bronzes, also tender and given to inhabitants; she had to examine each head for slugs and the thin, lively worms that hid in the Bibbs.

When the phone rang in the house, Patsy paused. Cal probably had his headphones on and couldn’t hear it, and Bob never answered. At the third ring Patsy set down her knife and ran.

Caller ID read Joey Hawthorne. Patsy hesitated, not because she wasn’t happy to talk to Joey, but because March was out, and Patsy didn’t have time for a greet-and-catch-up session, not with thirty-odd term papers yet to grade.

What the hell, she said, and picked up. Joey Hawthorne!

I hate caller ID, said Joey. How are you, Patsy?

Good, fine. But you missed March. She won’t be back till late.

I didn’t even know she was down, Joey said. I called to talk to you.

Me? said Patsy. How nice. Where are you, anyway?

Here. West Lost Angeles, Joey said, but just back from Toronto. I flew in this morning. But something came up there that I need to talk to you about. Are you home?

Yes, said Patsy. But I’m deep in grading hell. If it can wait till tomorrow, you can see March and the kids too.

That’s okay, said Joey. And I don’t think it can wait. Seriously.

Only then did Patsy recall some vague ill will between the two younger women. The last couple of times March was down, Joey hadn’t come around.

Okay, then, said Patsy. Come right now and I’ll make us a little lunch.

You don’t have to do that.

I need to eat, so it’s no trouble.

Okay, then, said Joey. I’m leaving right now.

Patsy finished picking lettuce. She had some idea what Joey wanted to talk to her about. Until a year ago, Joey had been living alone in the little house in Altadena her father had left to her, and trying to write a screenplay. Then she rented out the house and moved to New York—for a job or a man, perhaps both, Patsy wasn’t sure. But she was back within months, this time settling in West Los Angeles. Brice was in touch with her, and he kept Patsy updated.

At thirty-two, Joey was a Hollywood freelancer—a producer, whatever that meant. She worked long hours when jobs came her way, and Brice said she was good at what she did. But nothing more ever came of it, no studio job, no leg up, no movie that made her reputation. Waiting for the next paying gig, Joey got by on catering jobs and, recently, the rental income from her Altadena house.

Only days ago, Brice told Patsy that Joey’s house had been trashed by its tenants and, coincidentally, was about to be seized for back taxes. The entire ten or twelve years she’d owned it, Brice said, Joey never paid the county a cent.

Washing the lettuce in the kitchen sink, Patsy picked out a thin, active worm and tossed it outside into the rose bed.

Joey probably needed money or a place to live, or both.

These young women from wealthy families, Patsy thought, who wobbled on the edge, never quite functioning fully . . . Look at March, with Forrest chronically unemployed, a staggering mortgage, two kids in diapers.

Patsy washed and spun the lettuce dry, and tried to recall what had passed between Joey and March: not an out-and-out rift, but hurt feelings. Joey hadn’t come to a baby shower, or hadn’t sent a gift or paid due homage to March’s reproductive achievements.

Cal wandered in and opened the refrigerator, his way of signaling hunger. Patsy made him a tuna sandwich. You may want to eat it somewhere else, she said. Joey Hawthorne’s coming for a tête-à-tête.

Haven’t seen hide nor tail of her in ages. How is she?

We’ll see. You want some salad with that?

No,
gracias
, said Cal. She still trying to make movies?

She just made one.

Tell her to poke her head in, say hi before she leaves.

Patsy took out some cold salmon and roasted beets—another dud meal in March’s opinion—and arranged them on a plate. Outside again, she dried off and set the patio table. On her return to the kitchen she found Joey Hawthorne in the doorway. Cal or Bob must have let her in.

Joey had lost weight and was lashed into a cropped wraparound brown blouse, and cargo pants, with glimpses of enviably smooth midriff in between.

You look like a movie star! Patsy hugged Joey, felt how thin she was.

You’re beautiful as ever, Joey said, lifting a hank of Patsy’s long hair.

Together they carried out the food and sun tea. A baguette.

Oh, Brice told me about this patio set, Joey said.

The rusty wrought iron table and chairs were French and old. Brice had found them for her at a yard sale. One strand of Patsy’s ongoing friendship with him involved Brice finding ingenious ways to spend her money, since he so rarely had any of his own.

Cal thinks they’re ramshackle! Patsy said. Here, sit.

Joey frowned at the loud scraping her chair made. She wore her fine hair in a stringy, streaked blunt cut; her glasses were odd trapezoids of a bright, grassy green, kooky and severe at the same time.

Thanks for going to all this trouble, Joey said, rocking her silverware with her hands and bouncing a little as she sat. But Patsy, I have something to tell you, and you’d kill me if I didn’t say it right away.

Let’s just get started here, Patsy said. Settle in a bit, and then I’m all ears.

Patsy was hungry, with only coffee since waking. If Joey was going
to ask for money or a room, surely it could suffer the loading of plates, the tearing of bread. Patsy poured the iced tea. Before anything else, she said, tell me a little bit about how you are, what you’re up to.

I’ve been in Toronto, working on a film, Joey said. That’s always fun.

I’ve heard films are the most fun. Patsy spooned beets onto Joey’s plate, a tumble of red, orange, and pink cubes. At least try these, she said. I grew ’em.

I love beets now. Thanks. But Patsy . . . Joey said.

Patsy’s mouth was full. Joey did look about to burst. Patsy nodded, waved her fork—Go ahead.

It’s just that I heard something in Toronto, said Joey. About you. And I have to warn you, it’s big. Not bad—but brace yourself, because it’ll be a shock.

Joey’s bossiness amused Patsy, who swiftly considered what Joey might find shocking. Some voluble old college boyfriend claiming to still love her? Or maybe Joey ran into Lewis. More likely, somebody told Joey a salacious tale from her drinking days, some outrageousness she wouldn’t even remember.

Ready? said Joey.

Let’s have it.

The thing is, Patsy—Joey rubbed a drop of water on the rusty table edge and looked up. Her eyes were a beautiful olive green and full of excitement.

You know those people you hit with your car? she said. Those Jehovah’s Witnesses? Well, I found out that you didn’t kill them. It wasn’t you. You weren’t driving. I’m not kidding. Someone else was driving your car. And I found out who. A woman I met in Toronto knew all about it.

Toronto? said Patsy.

A man was driving, a guy you’d been drinking with. His name was Bill Hogue. Does that ring a bell? Bill Hogue?

No. Patsy had begun to tremble. Although she had spoken openly about the accident over the years, nobody had ever brought it up to her so bluntly, in such a peremptory way—not even Cal, her sponsor, or therapists. Lewis had been interested, but tactful. Only Gilles was so direct, so long ago.
Those people you hit. Those people you killed.

You met him at the Hilton, said Joey. In the bar.

What was the name again? Patsy asked. And just how did this come up?

That’s the amazing thing, said Joey. In Toronto our company has this liaison to the city, a woman named Lucia Robinson, who gets all our permits and police. She’s completely friendly and professional, so great to work with. At the wrap party—god, to think that was just two nights ago—we finally got to talking about something other than work. I mentioned that I had a house in Altadena, California, and she said she’d heard of Altadena, that her ex-husband had been there, and actually, she had a strange question to ask. Her question was, Had I ever heard of a hit-and-run accident involving Jehovah’s Witnesses there? I said, No, not exactly, but I did have a friend who’d killed a couple—

Joey! Patsy cried out.

Sorry. Joey cringed in her seat. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk.

It’s just . . . Patsy sighed, gave up. Go on.

I told her the accident that I knew about was a long time ago, back when I was a girl, and it wasn’t exactly a hit-and-run, and that my friend—you—went to jail because of it. And Lucia immediately was like, Oh my god, how long ago, can you tell me her name? Was it Patsy?

She said that?

Even before I told her! And when I said, Yes, Patsy, Patsy Sharp, I thought she was going to keel over. It was like someone hit her in the face.

Joey leaned forward and lowered her voice. I guess her husband—her ex-husband—only ever knew your first name. You guys met at the Hilton bar—do you remember any of this?

No, nothing. I was in a two-day blackout.

Anyway, it seems as though you were too drunk to drive, so her ex drove, and
he
ran over those people.
He
killed them. And he walked! He left the scene of the accident before the cops came. He told this to Lucia the night before they got married, in this big truth-telling session. That was his big confession, that he’d left the scene of an accident. Though he had no idea anyone died. And he said he hit a woman and a boy. I thought it was a girl, right?

Right, Patsy said, and thought, Okay, boy, not the same, wow, false alarm.

But the boy’s the only discrepancy, Joey said with authority. And Hogue didn’t stick around to get a close look. Maybe the girl was in jeans or something.

Yeah, Patsy said. She was, I think. Her father told me she was. I thought she was wearing a skirt and had long hair, but I was making it up, trying to fill in the blanks. The father said she was wearing jeans and had a pixie cut. So she probably did look like a boy.

Well, see? So this guy Hogue swore he never meant to leave, but—Joey stopped and squinted at Patsy. Were there some bushes along your driveway?

Oleander. A hedge of them.

Well, he’d veered off into that, and then he had to squeeze out of the car and fight his way through branches, and I guess it wasn’t so easy. When he finally got through, he came out in this alley—would that be right?

Yes, Patsy whispered. Exactly right.

So he found himself in this alley and started walking. He got to a main drag, which had to be either Fair Oaks or Lake, and took a bus back downtown. Nobody came after him, so in the morning he flew out as planned.

Where to? said Patsy.

Toronto, I guess. I didn’t ask. But you can ask Lucia. She wants you to call.

I’d like to talk to
him
, Patsy said.

Yeah, Joey said, except he’s dead. He died like six years ago. They were already divorced. He got some rare cancer. So thank god he confessed everything to Lucia, or we never would’ve learned the truth. We both wanted to call you right away. Lucia couldn’t believe you went to prison. She says she’ll go to court, do whatever you need to clear your name. Then we thought I should break the news in person because you and I are old friends—

Yes. Patsy scanned Joey’s flushed, animated face. That was right.

So here’s her card.

God, Joey, Patsy said, and took the ivory card imprinted with
LUCIA ROBINSON, MEDIA CONTRACTOR, CITY OF TORONTO,
and the city’s tiny round seal. Lucia herself presumably had handwritten a home number and
call anytime!
in pen.

Patsy set the card half under the rim of her plate. She was thinking of a long beige room with low mauve couches, tall mauve drapes, and, at one end, a mirrored bar lit so that the bottles gleamed with a clear white light, as if heaven itself shone through them. Bartenders wore crisp white shirts.

I did use to go to the Hilton, she said. It was a good place to drink alone, because so many hotel guests were by themselves and it didn’t seem so pathetic.

See? said Joey. So will you call her? I talked to her on the way over. She’s expecting to hear from you.

I’ll call. In a bit. I need to get a grip first, said Patsy. Look.

Her hand trembled in a frenetic little wave.

Joey took Patsy’s hand between her two cool palms. It’s so exciting, she said. God, after all this time, the case gets solved. And you’re innocent! Innocent!

We’ll see. It’s a little strange she asked you out of the blue like that.