Our Town (4 page)

“I know, baby. You leave the tough stuff to me.”

“Even though I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“I like when you take control, baby. I like when you’re a man.”

And then he finally looked at her.

“I know, baby. I’ve got you,” he said, and he put his hand on her knee as his eyes traveled back to find parking.

THEY WALKED INTO
the foyer and Dale walked up to the podium and spoke with the hostess.

“Hi.”

“Hi there.”

“My name’s Dale Kelly. Table for two?” Hoping for recognition, the kind he’d sometimes begun to receive. But thus far it was just from young girls. Young girls were his demo. Girls, however, unfortunately, who were just too young, even by his standards.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, stepping sideways and turning her head and looking out onto the floor, “but I think it’ll be about forty-five minutes to an hour before a two-top opens up. If you have a drink at the bar and wait, I’ll come get you the second something becomes available. K?” Wink.

He frowned, looked at her in the eyes—red eyes—and squinted.

“I know Ron, you know?” he posed. “He’s an old friend of mine.”

She sighed.

“Sir, everyone that comes in here knows Ron. He tries to stay relevant. And we don’t really advertise much. Anyway, it’s New Year’s Eve, sir, you know? It’s busy.”

Dale looked the hostess up and down and then walked back to Dorothy. He might have gotten more upset if so much of the girl’s bosom wasn’t abreast.

They found a seat by the piano. Dale let Dorothy sit. The stool was three-legged and periwinkle-painted metal and its cushion was covered in cracked white leather. The piano, too, was white. Off white, actually, or ivory. But the bar’s ceiling was dark wood. Maybe cedar—aged and slatted—like an old farmhouse. Candles lit in highballs covered the tables and the marble bar top and were lined an inch apart on the floor along the wall. A colonnade tore the room down the middle—separating the bar from the floor—and a fire burned in a masonry stone hearth. The walls were covered in tarnished mirrors and
the various menus—Dinner, Dessert, Drinks—were scripted on them in white paint stick. The guests looked to be between sixty and senile. Dorothy liked to think of her and Dale as old already. She thought they’d always be together.

“Can I get you a drink?” Dale asked. He’d just come back from the bathroom.

“Yeah, honey,” Dorothy answered southern, like she did when she was having fun. “I’ll take a white wine.”

Dale had a whiskey. Cutty Sark, one cube. Then another. He had a few.

AROUND MIDNIGHT THEY
finished their dinner—two steaks and cheesecake. Dale paid the check and then they went back to the piano bar, where Dorothy preferred to be. The music gave her energy. When an elderly couple got up, the newlyweds took their two seats. The piano player stopped singing and sopped up her brow with her shirtsleeve. Now, in what seemed to be tradition, people wrote their names on pieces of handed-out slips of paper, then put the slips in a top hat that a waiter walked around the room. Then the ginger-red-haired piano player got to choose a name from its innards. If you were chosen, you got to sing. And everyone wants to sing. Everyone likes attention.

Her hand in the hat already, she pulled one out with glee. She uncrumpled it and read, “Bruce!” she shouted. “It’s Bruce’s turn to sing!”

Bruce had buck teeth and hair parted from the middle and a white suit, and he sang Sinatra. Then Enid, wearing a jacket with shoulder pads and gold jewelry—her earrings matched her bangles and were plated, too, it seemed—performed the Four Tops. When she was done, Bernard, in tweed and a beard, took off his porkpie hat, pressed his hair back, and did “Sea of Love,” without ever looking away from his slender wife’s angel orange eyes.

“They really love each other,” Dorothy whispered at Dale as she clasped her hands and craned her arms from his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I really love you, too.”

“I love you more, baby.”

Dale reached up and broke Dorothy’s grasp and held her right index finger with his right hand.

“I love you more, baby,” he said again and looked into her eyes and kissed her. Right then he meant it, he thought. The tawny port was helping, too.

A cocktail waitress in a black mini approached them from behind with a tray of half-full champagne flutes. They took two. A waiter then came from behind her, and he had black and white plastic bowler hats—inscripted
Happy New Year!
—feather boas, and kazoos. Dorothy took white, and Dale took black, naturally. He put a boa around his wife’s neck and felt the grain of the feathers on his fingertips. It was soft, and he thought back to the dog Dorothy had said she wanted. He, again, wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

Everyone cheered and kissed after midnight. Dale and Dorothy sipped on what was left of their drinks. A black man with clean white teeth in a baby-blue tuxedo took their picture with an Instamatic and then gave it to them. Dale let go of Dorothy’s hand and shook out the Polaroid. Then the piano player took back the mic. “Does anyone want to sing one last song?” she shouted, her head shaking, her red hair bouncing and alive.

No one responded for a moment. Then a cowboy stood up from one of the dinner tables, his checked shirt tucked into his jeans and belted in a silver buckle, hat down low over his eyes. Everyone seemed to know him. Everyone applauded. Local celebrity. Around here, a star. He emerged from the crowd at the front of the room, took the microphone, and then whispered in the piano player’s ear.

“I’m gonna do something we all know.” He closed his eyes. “Something yellow, for old time’s sake. So let’s all sing,” he said, his voice gruff and tired. And then, sardonic, “Let’s all sing. Johnny Angel, everyone! How I love him!”

And they all sang together. In harmony, together.

And I pray that someday he’ll love me

And together we will see how lovely heaven will be . . .

*
  
*
  
*

They were drunk when they got back to their room. Dale opened the door, and Dorothy walked in and fell toward the bed. She lay on her back. She’d had the most fun. She was just so happy.

“I loved it there,” she said.

“Yeah, baby. Me too.”

Dale’d brought another bottle of champagne back with them to the room. He’d stopped at a gas station. It was cheap, but he wasn’t finished.

“I’m gonna go get some ice,” he said.

“Okay,” she replied. “Wait, what do you need ice for?”

“I like it,” he responded. “Hot champagne’s disgusting.” And the door slammed closed as he left.

When he returned, Dorothy had undressed to her underwear, and she was laid back with her hands behind her head and her legs crossed at the knee. He handed her a plastic cup and poured champagne to its brim. Then he poured some for himself. He put an ice cube in each glass and hers overflowed. He’d already started sipping. He sat down on the bed. She swung around behind him and straddled his back. She began to unbutton his shirt. But, with her glass in her hand, filled all the way up, she spilled some. Champagne soiled his pants—new pants—and he felt it in his boxers. He got angry, and he pushed her off. When he did so, she fell back, and, in attempting to catch herself, her plastic cup flew from her hand. It struck Dale in the side of his head and now the bed was soiled, too. And Dale got angrier.

He took his shirt off and walked to the bathroom with brut in his hair. As he stood before the mirror angry, he decided he had to pee. Hanging his wet shirt around his neck like a scarf, he unzipped and went and then felt better. But he was still mad. As he went to flush,
he stumbled back and, trying to catch his balance—trying to right himself—he knocked the car keys, which he’d placed on the sink when they’d arrived home, into the toilet. He tried to catch them, but they were already in the bowl. The water stayed yellow. It didn’t go down. Dale stared for a while at the calm water. Then he went back to bed with crunchy hair. Went back to bed with crunchy hair more angry.

THE NEXT MORNING
, before noon checkout, Dale called a local plumber—Allen’s Plumbing. It was nine thirty. The plumber promised he’d be there by ten. In the interim they tidied the room, and packed, and got ready to go back to Hollywood. Dale stuffed his clothes in his duffle. Dorothy folded and pressed and placed hers in her overnight bag. She wore a long-sleeve turtleneck to cover her bruises.

There was a knock at the door. Dorothy turned off the TV. Dale went and got it. He unlocked the chain lock, then turned the doorknob and pulled it open. Before him, with a grin, stood a tall, white-haired, white-bearded plumber in blue overalls over a white T-shirt, tight on his biceps. Handsome, which Dale hadn’t expected. Straight silver fox. He raised up his leathery paw. And Dale shook his hand hard, trying to impress him.

“How are ya, big guy? I understand you lost your car keys in the toilet?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, then. Let’s see here what we got.”

Dale ushered in the plumber and he strode forward into the room.

“How are ya, ma’am?” he spoke at Dorothy.

“I’m okay,” Dorothy looked up and replied but then went back to folding. “I mean, as good as I can be, I guess.” A pause, with her head on her chest. “Under the circumstances.”

The plumber sniffed.

“Thanks for comin’, though,” she said and looked up again and smiled.

“No problem, ma’am. Everything’s gonna be all right. You called the right guy,” he said, and he smiled, too. “I promise.”

He made his way to the bathroom and pulled open the door.

“Oh boy,” the plumber crowed. “You’ve got one of these old guys, huh?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Dale said as he walked up behind him. “We’ve only been here a few. But I guess it’s not the best I’ve seen, no.”

“Well that’s an understatement,” he laughed, then sighed. “But I’ll figure something out.” He got down on his knees and dropped his tool bag beside him. “Always do, big guy. Always do.”

AT ELEVEN THIRTY
, Dale walked back over to the closed bathroom door to check on the plumber. They only had thirty minutes ’til checkout. Do was getting restless. And, now, again, becoming scared.

He pushed open the door and its unoiled hinges squealed.

“How we doing in here?”

“Well, it’s funny that you’re comin’ in now,” the plumber replied, seemingly exhausted, but with a piss-wet set of keys dangling from his thumb and forefinger as he stood up from his knees. “’Cause I just got ’em.”

Dale put his hands on his thighs and dropped his head. From behind him his wife started clapping. They were so happy. They might be okay.

“But I’ll tell ya,” said the plumber. “These fuckers weren’t easy. I used my closet auger for a while but then the damn oar got stuck. So then I had to take the damn thing off at the hinges. But, of course, some asshole decided to cement it down to the ground. So I’ve been chippin’ away at the thing the last half hour, until finally I could pull the bitch up. But then,” he dangled the keys before Dale, and they jangled. And Dale smiled. “But then I got ’em. I got the fuckers. Man against mechanism, I guess. And you know what?” More dangling and jangling. “We fuckin’ won.”

It was fifty-seven dollars. Dale gave him one hundred in twenties. He saved them. They had won.

The plumber gathered his things, victorious.

“Every day’s a new adventure,” he said, and winked, before he left them.

THEY DROVE BACK
home to Hollywood in the rain. Dale drove, and Dorothy slept most of the way. Dale had given her something for sleeping, and a headache, while he took something to stay awake. He’d drive the whole way. She wasn’t much of a driver. And, anyway, he needed some time to himself.

DALE GOT HUNGRY
, later, driving. While Dorothy slept more—curled in on herself like a puppy—he saw a sign that read
MADONNA INN
as he continued down the 1, which he’d heard of, he thought. Maybe he’d read about it in the trades. Maybe it was just one of those places. Those places they put in brochures about California.
California: Find Yourself Here!
A real, true landmark. The only place to be. Dale took the right exit, at Madonna Road—exit 201. But it wasn’t on the right. And it wasn’t on the left. They pulled into a desolate shopping area—a sign read
In-N-Out Burger
,
Obispo Community College—Go Pelicans!,
and
Lou’s Handsome Thrift
—but it wasn’t there either. Walls looked fake, like they were only an exterior. Light and empty. Overly described and under-important. Like cardboard. A set.