Misfit

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Also by Adam Braver

She's going to Lake Tahoe to get away for the weekend. It's that simple.

 

Sitting in the living room, one hand gripped around the handle of her suitcase and the other on her make-up case, she waits to be picked up and driven to the airfield. The room is sparse, with a small leather cocktail table, a long Italian bench that serves as a couch, and a hearth screen covering the never-used fireplace. The only other furnishings are two folding benches, which, in the dim room, look bony and ordinary, caged by the bars of sunlight streaking around the curtains. Nevertheless, the wood floors gleam—her housekeeper, Eunice, waxed them earlier, then moved on to the
master bedroom, where she's making the bed. When she's finished, Eunice will gather the dirty glasses and dishes to wash in the kitchen; before leaving, she'll crack open the bedroom window, enough to let in some fresh air.

 

She's impatient for this weekend to get under way. When Frank invited her to the Cal Neva Lodge, his hotel on the lake, he said,
Sometimes you need to get away
, and there was no argument there. He promised to look out for her. Keep her protected from those industry clowns who are suing her and hassling her over her latest movie. Frank will watch out for her with no strings; he's probably the only person on earth whom she can trust to provide her with such a sanctuary. No press. No studio. No concerns. Just her usual cabin. And the lake, which always brings her peace.

Quickly, for assurance, she inventories everything Eunice helped her pack—from her clothes to her cosmetics to her pills. But before she can get through her mental checklist, she considers what's not being taken, what's being left behind. Almost nothing. She's hardly furnished the house; what little furniture she's bought (mostly in Mexico) is stored on pallets, still wrapped in shipping plastic. And each room has been appointed with only the bare minimum, just enough to be functional. She imagines seeing the house from a field anthropologist's perspective, moving among the few artifacts to understand how a life was lived, and finding
nothing but shards that support vague assumptions of a shifting culture.

 

Checking her watch, she stands up and walks to the window. She parts the curtains and peers down the driveway. The bright green shrubs and the sun-soaked palms make the living room seem even darker. And that much more empty. She can't wait to get out.

She calls down the hall to Eunice, asking if she knows when the car is scheduled to come. “Wasn't it supposed to be here by now?”

Eunice answers, “It should be arriving any minute.” Her voice echoes, along with the rattling dishes she's carrying into the kitchen. “We have to give the driver some breathing room at this hour.”

“That's what worries me. It might take forever to get to the airport. I don't trust the traffic on Sepulveda this time of day.”

Eunice steps out of the kitchen, staying at the end of the hallway. She has her cat-eye glasses off and wipes the lenses with her apron. “It's a private plane,” she says. “Mr. Sinatra won't let it leave without you.”

“I know,” she says, her voice sounding tinny. “I know. It's just that . . .”

Eunice tells her it will be okay. There is no need to worry. She puts her glasses back on; they gleam brightly in the dark corridor. Then Eunice heads back to the kitchen, repeating that there is no need to worry. Her tone is oddly definitive.

She's anxious to get to Lake Tahoe, away from all the dramas and the systems that reinforce her being Marilyn Monroe. Anxious to get into the cabin and let her troubles evaporate over the lake. She knows how to disappear for a while. She's been doing it her whole life. But the timing has to be right. There are certain forces that will line up, waiting to collide. And when you sense they're coming, and you're ready to jump, it's critical that you're in that exact space the moment just before the collision, like being present for your own private big bang theory.

But it's not that complicated. In fact, it's kind of simple.

And the best place for it is just above your bed, but the walls are bare, and there are no marks on them, not even pinholes, and you don't want to ask because you don't want to bring anything up, this being your first day here and all, although you do get the feeling that you'll never want to bring anything up, no matter how many days pass. So you take the copy of
Time
with Clark Gable on the cover and stick it under the lining in your suitcase, where it always will be whenever you want to see it. You've had the issue for nearly a year already, carrying it between addresses. It was a gift from the Goddards' neighbors after they said they'd read it and too many newer issues were piling up by the week. You couldn't imagine how anybody would part with
something so special. It makes you feel safe to know he's always there. Head cocked and looking right at you with a slightly concerned smile.

You've been back and forth between your mother's house and the Bolender foster home since you were born, and then the Goddards in Van Nuys, and then to the Los Angeles Orphans Home, and back to the Goddards, and now here. And you're only eleven! But this should be a better situation. In Compton. Not far from Hawthorne, where you lived longest. But a little far from Norwalk, and your mother's hospital, which might have its plusses, as she won't be able to just show up and maybe do something to humiliate you. And at least you're with family: Mrs. Martin, her daughter, Olive, and Olive's children. When you were first informed you'd be going to live with Mrs. Martin and her family, everybody referred to your great-aunt as Aunt Ida. But when you walked into the bungalow, and she was standing there, firm in stance, with the crucifix on the wall looking like it could ghost forward all on its own to hang right over her head in thin air, you realized she would never be Aunt Ida but always Mrs. Martin. And though she'll insist on you addressing her as Aunt Ida, and you'll force it out of your mouth, your head will always keep saying Mrs. Martin.

At the orphans' home you lived under a set of rules. Here you feel as though you live under a single rule: the Bible. As with all the other homes, being in your
bedroom with your few belongings is manageable, the one place you have a sense of solitude. But the moment you step out into the house, you turn light-headed and forgetful and must appear to be feebleminded. The goal is always to get through the chores and meals and duties, and then scamper back to your room, where you can dig out that
Time
cover. Stare into it, believing it's a portal into something better.

 

You're on the edge of his bed. Your cousin Buddy invited you to hang out in his room, as though it were some kind of honor. You've been trying to avoid him since you got here. Maybe because he seemed too welcoming, and one thing you've learned after so much shuffling around is not to trust the people who are too welcoming. Especially the boys. But his invitation is presented as something special: he can now trust you being in his home. His talk is clever, and after a sentence or two he makes you feel you've earned his attention, and you get a sudden swell of pride. For just a moment you forget that you never wanted to be around him in the first place. Even though he's a teenager, Buddy's dressed in the clothes his grandmother lays out for him—khaki pants and a button-down white shirt. Always ironed. You're in a dress, one that reaches past your ankles. Mrs. Martin says the only use for any other hemline is to tempt the devil. Although you're not convinced the devil wouldn't, Buddy will never go in your room. It's for a child. Too spare and unworldly.
His is for a young man. Still, it smells of boy, a stale, salty stink, so thick that even an open window can't clear it out. Initially, his room looks clean. Mrs. Martin wouldn't have it any other way. And several times a day she passes by, looking in through the cracked door, commenting that cleanliness is next to godliness. But from your vantage point on the bed, the little messes begin to reveal themselves. A pile of dirty socks. Balls of dust. Crumpled pages. They're in the corners, where no one ever looks.