This One Is Mine: A Novel (4 page)

“Jew bandleader, huh?” Violet couldn’t tell if he was Jewish himself or some other kind of ethnicity.

“What,” he said. “Are you Jewish?”

“No, but I could be.”

“Come on, I was just saying that. You seemed cool.”

“I am cool.”

“Anyway, he’s a nigger. I just called him a Jew because he’s so cheap.”

“My God,” she said. “Did you miss the memo? These aren’t words people use anymore. Who raised you?”

“Wolves.” He sat down beside her. He had bloodshot eyes and lint in his hair. It was hard to tell if it was full of gel or in need of a shampoo. His clothes smelled like a Goodwill. “Really, though,” he said. “Are you okay? I’m a good listener.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nigger, please. What kind of future can we expect when you lie to me like that?”

“Future?” She felt mortified by how besotted she sounded and lowered her voice a register. “I mean it. I have a car that starts. That’s something to be grateful for, right?”

“Amen to that.” His pants were shiny and polyester. Neat rows of staples held up the hems. On his feet were stiff black-and-white shoes. He must have bought golf shoes without knowing it, probably at a thrift store. “My tires are the thickness of rolling paper, and when I turn on the engine, there’s a weird chugging. I think the axle is bent, because it pulls to the left. The whole thing’s about to die, I can feel it.”

Violet’s tunic was twisted so it exposed the elastic panel of her pants. She quickly yanked down her shirt. Jesus, Dot was almost two and Violet was still wearing maternity jeans. Last night, during the Clippers-Nuggets game, a horrifying fact had flashed on the screen: Allen Iverson weighed 165 pounds. In other words, Violet was one pound heavier than the NBA’s star point guard. She was completely disgusting.

“And if my car dies,” he continued, “I’m dead. I have no cash to fix it. I’d have to leave it on the street. No more gigs, because I can’t haul my upright around on a fucking bus. Then I’d lose my apartment, so I might as well be back in Palm Springs.” He ran his fingers forcefully through his hair. “Okay,” he said, talking himself down, “I have to stop thinking like that. I’ve got to have faith that God will take care of me.”

“Aren’t we full of contradictions?” Violet said. “Talking about God now.”

He gnawed at a cuticle.

“Stop biting your nails.”

“I know, thanks.” He leaned back and turned so he could get a square look at her. “So. Are your problems worse than mine?”

“My problems.” Violet stared at the three hundred dollars’ worth of chocolate nestled between her four-hundred-dollar loafers. “My problems are all problems I’m lucky to have. And I know it, so therein lies the rub.”

“You know what we say. If you’re alive, all problems are quality problems.”

“We say that, do we?”

“How about you and me trade? Your problems for my problems.”

“No, thanks,” she said.

“You didn’t even think about it!” he said. “You bitch!”

Violet laughed loudly.

“Wow, there’s a laugh,” he said. “Am I good or am I good?”

“You’re good.” Violet handed him the bag. “I can pay you for your services in chocolate.”

“I don’t eat chocolate.”

“It cost three hundred dollars.”

“Are you fucking high?” He rifled through the bag. “How do you blow three Benjamins on chocolate?”

“I got it for this salesman at Hermès. Ten years ago, I bought a hat at Hermès in Paris, which I absolutely cherished. But it blew off when I was flying in a small plane over the Pantanal. We were looking for tapirs. Anyway, I went to the Hermès here in Beverly Hills to replace it, but it had been discontinued. So ever since, the salesman, Daniel, calls me any time a similar hat comes in. Resulting in me not only buying hats that I never wear, but also feeling an insane obligation to get him this ridiculously overpriced chocolate that ironically only a salesman at Hermès would appreciate. And he’s not even French, but
Australian,
if you can believe it.”

“Okay,” said the bass player. “My price just went up for having the shit bored out of me.”

Violet gave him a shove. “Good-bye. We wouldn’t want you to be tardy for the light-headed secretaries.”

He laughed. One of his teeth was missing, not a front tooth, or the one over, but the one beside that. Still, it was a shock. Violet had never been this close to a grown person with a missing tooth. He stood up and looked in the mirror. Violet expected a gasp when he beheld the state of his hair. Instead, he gave himself a churlish smile. Then, without warning, he dropped to one knee and took her hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, milady.”

His skin was so rough. Violet turned her hand up so his rested in it. His nails were savaged, the cuticles stained black. “Do you garden?” she asked.

“Listen to you. Do I garden.”

There was a calm in his face, an invitation to linger. She lowered her eyes. His hand, scarred with worry. Hers, plump from herbal-infused creams. The only way people like them were meant to meet was across a counter. She wasn’t supposed to be alone with him in a lavishly appointed men’s room, a black American Express card in her wallet, a month’s rent worth of artisan truffles at her feet. If the chatty docent came upon them and caught the foul-mouthed bass player from Palm Springs holding Violet Parry’s hand, it would be within reason for her to call security.

Violet placed her other hand on top of his, cupping it as she would a cricket that had made its way inside the house and she had to return to the safety of the wild. The bass player looked up. She met his green eyes, daring him to do something. But he looked down. She quickly let go of his hand. “Blood,” she said.

“What?”

“There, where you were biting your nails.” A poppy seed of blood rested on his cuticle. Violet went to wipe it off, but he jerked his hand away before she could touch it. Violet was momentarily confused, then it occurred to her: he must have just noticed her five-carat diamond ring. “I’m married,” she said.

He rose to his feet. “Stay happy,” he said. “You twinkle when you’re happy.” A blast of sunlight blinded her, and the bass player was gone.

S
ALLY
pulled up to the gate off Mandeville Canyon, early for her one o’clock, a private ballet class for three-year-old twins. She got out of her Toyota RAV4 — her “truck” as she liked to call it — with the
CORE-DE-BALLET
placard in the window and picked up the newspaper. She had made sure to arrive early because Jeremy White’s column ran Tuesdays in the
Los Angeles Times
and she wanted to appear informed when she finally met him tonight. Sally scooched the paper out of its plastic so she’d be able to return it undetected. The parents were super-nice and would have let her read it if she had asked, but one of the things that made Sally so successful as a private instructor was knowing her boundaries.

She opened the sports section and found “Just the Stats” by Jeremy White. Jeremy’s column had started running last fall, and since then he’d predicted the winner of some amazing number of football games. So amazing, apparently, that Maryam, a producer for ESPN, was giving him a segment on their Sunday-morning show beginning next month. That’s why tonight was so important. Sally had to get a ring on her finger
before
Jeremy became famous and started earning the big bucks. That’s how they never leave you. Because no matter what happens, they know you loved them for them and not for their money.

Her phone rang. She recognized the number as David’s office and wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of another unpleasant exchange with his secretary. “Hello.”

“Hey, Sal, it’s me!”

“Oh — David — Hi!”

“Happy birthday. I’m sorry we didn’t connect yesterday.”

“That’s okay,” Sally said, unable to resist the surge of love her brother’s voice always triggered. “I know how super-busy you are.”

“Thirty-six,” he said. “That’s a big one.”

“Yeah, I went out with friends. How are you —”

“You’re good?” he asked. It was more of a statement than a question. “Health’s good? Work’s good?”

“Yeah, fine. What are you up to?”

“Same old — Violet, Dot, my bands. Hey, I saw the Bolshoi is coming. I thought you’d like to go.”

“Wow, I’d love to. When is it?”

“April something,” he said. “I’ll be out of town, but I’ll get you tickets —”

Caw! Caw!
A screech echoed through the breezy canyon. Sally covered her free ear.

“Well, sounds like you’re busy,” David said with a laugh.

“No, I’m not, it’s just —”

“Call if you need anything.”

Then —
splat!
And
another
splat.
Out of nowhere, the hood of Sally’s truck was freckled with white. And in the tree overhead, parrots! A whole flock of them! “Aaaah!” Sally shut her phone and shielded her hair with the
LA Times
.
Splat-splat
.
Splat-splat. Splat-splat-splat-splat.
Wet bird poop machine-gunned the flimsy newsprint. She jumped into her truck, turned on the engine, and drove into the clear. She opened the door and ditched the gross newspaper on the driveway. Always one to learn from her mistakes, Sally resolved to never again park under a tree without first looking for parrots.

O
VER
the past several hours, Violet had found many excuses to wander the streets of Beverly Hills, the jazz music beckoning her through the mash of traffic. At one point, she had stood across from the park and watched him. The song was “My Funny Valentine,” whose lyrics always broke Violet’s heart.

Your looks are laughable,

Unphotographable,

Yet you’re my fav’rite work of art.

The bass loomed over the bass player. His stance was wide, aggressive, and his arms snaked around the instrument’s neck as if trying to wrestle it to its death. But the bass was surely older than the musician who slapped it. It would survive long after he was dust. Between songs, the wizened black drummer said something to the bassist, who in turn laughed. His same laugh from the bathroom. Violet had felt jealousy, stacked with the preposterousness of such jealousy. She had shaken it off and headed to her car.

Yet here she was again, an hour later, pulled toward the park and the dismantled health fair. She didn’t realize it until her heart quickened. There he was, getting into a car across Santa Monica Boulevard. Violet hustled through traffic, then flat-out ran up the block to the fenderless Mazda hatchback.

“Fuck! Fuck!” He pounded the wheel with both hands.

Violet tapped on the window. Still looking down, he smiled, then cocked his head and met Violet’s eyes. He nodded, as if he’d been expecting her. She motioned for him to roll down the window. He turned the crank with one hand and hooked his finger over the top of the glass.

“Push down,” his muffled voice instructed Violet. She flattened both hands against the window and pushed. Their combined effort lowered it six inches. “Did I fucking predict this?” he said with a great big laugh. “My car won’t start.”

“Can I give you a ride home?” she asked. The passenger seat was fully reclined. On it rested the upright bass in a black bag. Violet imagined him tenderly laying the instrument on the tattered seat, and blushed.

“I need this fucking car,” he said. “I have a champagne brunch gig in Agoura Hills on Sunday, and the rest of the band lives in Ventura, so if someone comes to pick me up, I’ll have to give them gas money, and I’m only making fifty bucks for the gig.”

“Oh my God. It’s like every other word out of your mouth is gas money.”

“Excuse me if my biggest concern in life isn’t chocolate and hats.”

“I have a great mechanic,” she said. “I can have your car towed there. He’ll arrange for a rental and make sure your car is fixed in time for your gig.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Really.”

“That’s the way it’s going to happen?”

“That’s the way it’s going to happen,” Violet said, “because I’m going to pay for it.” She felt as though she had just hurled herself off a cliff. He looked away, unable to see she was falling, falling. He started chewing his nails. “Stop that,” she said, eager to change the subject.

“Thanks.” He pulled his finger out of his mouth. “Why are you doing this?”

“Noblesse oblige?”

“Heh?”

“Never mind. It was — it’s just my way of saying thank you. For cheering me up in the men’s room.”

“Don’t let your rich husband hear you say that.”

“Whatever it’s going to cost, it’s an insignificant amount of money.”

“Say that again.”

“What?”

“Insignificant amount of money.”

Violet did. The bass player looked off and thought about it. “I might never be able to pay you back,” he said.

“Think of it as me
miracling
you.”

“
Miracling
me?”

“It’s a Deadhead thing,” Violet said. “At Grateful Dead shows, there’d be all these nasty hippies walking around holding up one finger, saying, I need a miracle, which was meant to take the form of someone giving them a free ticket.”

“You’re a Deadhead?” he asked skeptically.

“I was.”

“I feel less guilty accepting your money knowing you have such shitty taste in music.”

“I’ll call our car service to pick you up,” she said. “The mechanic will take care of you.”

“Do you think one day
I’ll
ever say, Our car service?”

“Most likely no.”

“Man, as hippie chicks go, you have one hell of a mean streak.”

“The best ones always do.”

He got out of the car. His black shirt was wet and stuck to his back. Violet resisted the urge to peel it off.

“You do know how to get shit done,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not a cokehead, too?” He had changed into flimsy flip-flops. His feet were small and delicate, with black hairs sprouting from the tops of his toes.

Violet fumbled for her cell phone. “What’s your name?”

He pulled out a stiff leather wallet chained to his belt loop and removed a business card.

TEDDY REYES

BASS PLAYER

11838 Venice Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90066