Brian Garfield - Necessity

“I’ll be in San Francisco …”

“Fine. I know a little place near the Embarcadero. Not a tourist joint. The waiters are surly but if you like pesto they grow the basil themselves in window boxes.”

Instinct urges her to decline.

Keep your distance. Don’t be stupid.

But she hears herself say: “Where is it-and what time?”

A few minutes later she’s walking out to the car and she feels something like the beginnings of a jaunty bounce in her step and for a moment or two she enjoys it.

The car this time is a sand-colored Buick compact, five years old, a couple of dents and the paint chipped here and there. Drab transportation to go with the slightly frumpy style of the brunette woman she now portrays: thick sensible brown shoes, dull green plaid skirt, loose white blouse in need of ironing, pastel green scarf tied carelessly about the neck, hair drawn back from her temples with tortoise-shell combs. Nearly an academic look.

By the time she’s driven two blocks she has brought herself back down from the momentary high.

Face the truth. If you didn’t need him to fly the plane you’d have left him flat the same way you left Doyle and Marian; even as it is you’ll never see him after Tuesday.

So let’s don’t for Christ’s sake start looking forward to anything.

It can’t be any other way. Ellen has to come first. Doyle and Marian-and Charlie too-they know you as Jennifer Hartman.

And so does Graeme.

That’s the kicker. Graeme. Picture Graeme exchanging confidences with Ray Seale …

And by this time next week Charlie will know altogether too much about Jennifer Hartman and her daughter who’s just turned fifteen months old and the summer place they come from in the Adirondacks. If somebody like Ray Seale gets the bright idea to start questioning licensed charter pilots …

It’s the only way: after Wednesday, Jennifer Hartman must cease to exist.

The motel in La Jolla has become a welcome refuge. To reach the ocean she only needs to step out of her room and walk across the narrow street and climb down a steep worn little trail. There are bits and pieces of beach amid the massive dark eroded rocks.

At sunset she’s there barefoot in a tangerine sleeveless blouse and frayed shorts made of cut-off jeans, sitting on a folded blanket with her back against a rock, holding a drugstore steno pad against her upraised knees, checking off items in yet another of her lists of things to do, things to get right.

You could live in a place like this. A kid could grow up here. Mild sunshine all year round. Ocean, mountains, the San Diego Zoo.

Maybe you shouldn’t think that far ahead. Maybe you’d better not dare to hope.

There’s a bronzed teenage couple on a patch of sand beyond the next lump of stone; she had a glimpse of them when she arrived and once in a while she hears the energetic vocalizations of their love-making between strikes of the gentle surf.

It brings up the thought that she didn’t exactly have a celibate life in mind when she began all this but she supposes it could hardly be otherwise right now-it’s only that she never stopped to think about it. She recalls how she used to envy some of the other models at the agency their hedonistic capacity to luxuriate in extracurricular evenings with randy photographers or half-drunk ad agency men or conventioneering fabric and fashion buyers. An expensive dinner; drinks in a skyscraper lounge with a view of the park; a hundred dollars for the powder room and a few hours in a hotel. Strangers before, lovers during, strangers after.

That was long before Bert. She was young and not confident of who she was; it seemed best to be one of the gang, to look as they looked and behave as they behaved. She remembers one veteran’s acerbic counsel: “There’s forty or fifty of us for every job. Think about it. You go along or you go under.”

But she didn’t go along. After the first few print-ad jobs she went her own way and found it didn’t really make much difference. Maybe she lost a few shots here and there but mainly she still got the jobs, or got passed over for them-it depended mostly on what sort of face and body they were looking for. They’d make passes of course; that was part of the ritual; but most of them were grown up about it if you didn’t put out. That was up to you.

She has never been at ease with one-night stands. Sexuality has never seemed that casual. Nothing feels quite so vulnerably intimate as sharing her naked body with a man: it’s just not the sort of thing she can do comfortably with a stranger.

She’s thinking now of Charlie. His burly gentle power. No longer a stranger; a father, a flyer, a barbecue cook. A friend; and the sensual pull is strong-clearly he feels it as much as she does.

But she knows another thing as well: that in a few days she’ll be turning her back on him.

The thought stirs a restless unease. She should not have accepted his invitation. Dinner in San Francisco inevitably will lead to an invitation to his hotel room.

In the dusk she looks at herself in the mirror of her compact. The dark new coloring, the hairdo-is it enough? She’s been scanning the newspapers for two weeks now, looking for Graeme’s byline, expecting every day to see a blown-up telephoto picture of herself and a caption, Do You Know This Woman?

No one knows this woman, she thinks. Not even me.

But she knows someone else. Or at least she knows him this well: Charlie’s no more easy with one-nighters than she is.

Whatever we might do, it would mean something.

It wouldn’t be the kind of thing we could just forget.

I like you, Charlie. I really do. But I don’t know what the hell to do about it.

In twilight the teenage lovers depart. The temperature drops quickly. She is startled when several people materialize from various nearby hidden pockets and climb the few yards to the road.

With the shore to herself she begins to feel chilled but it takes energy to move. This is such a lazy place. A sense of peace: something she hasn’t felt in God knows how long.

Thinking reluctantly about stirring, she delays her ascent to watch ribbons of pink dwindle to grey, on the horizon.

She feels very tired. So many things to make sure of. What has she overlooked?

She holds the steno pad against her knee and moves the pencil down the margin.

The diamonds? Check them off the list. Transferred to a safety deposit box in Capistrano Beach. In the name of Dorothy Holder.

Previous car? Sold for cash in Calexico. If Graeme’s curiosity leads him that far perhaps it will give him the notion she was on her way out of the country into Mexico.

Back-up identity? Initiated ten days ago. Took an early plane to Salt Lake City. Obtained a birth certificate for Carole A. Fry. Applied the same day for a Social Security card and a Utah license.

She knows the drill now; she knows what lies to tell; they sound natural on her tongue-an advancement in glibness that pleases her perversely. She knows she ought to feel ashamed of herself. But it’s far down the list of concerns.

God help me now-how many times am I going to have to go through this? Is Ellen going to have to grow up in a new town every year-a new school and new friends every season and a new name to get used to?

Stop it. Got to assume there’s room for hope. Must behave as if it’s going to work this time.

Back to the list in the notebook: pay attention now. Hard to read in this bad light …

Jennifer’s two apartments? Check; check. Both landlords notified of departure. One security deposit forfeited.

Bills? Current and paid. Nothing outstanding.

All this is important because it would be stupid to attract the attention of bill collectors or skip-tracers.