Jonathan Kellerman - When The Bough Breaks

It was a faded color photograph of a man and woman. The woman was Bonita Quinn in younger, but not much prettier, days. Even in her twenties she had possessed a sad mask of a face that foreshadowed a merciless future. She wore a dress that exposed too much undernourished thigh. Her hair was long and straight and parted in the middle. She and her companion were in front of what looked like a rural bar, the kind of watering place you find peeking out around sudden highway curves. The walls of the building were rough - hewn logs. There was a Budweiser sign in the window.

Her arm was around the waist of the man, who had placed his arm around her shoulder. He wore a T - shirt, jeans and Wellington boots. The rump of a motorcycle was visible next to him.

He was a strange - looking bird. One side of him - the left - sagged and there was more than a hint of atrophy running all the way down from face to foot. He looked crooked, like a piece of fruit that had been sliced and then put back together with less than full precision. When you got past the asymmetry he wasn't bad - looking - tall, slender, with shoulder - length shaggy blond hair and a thick mustache.

He had a wise - guy expression on his face that contrasted with Bonita's solemnity. It was the kind of look you see on the face of the local yokels when you walk into a small - town tavern in a strange place, just wanting a cold drink and some solitude. The kind of look you go out of your way to avoid, because it means trouble, and nothing else.

I wasn't surprised its owner had ended up behind bars.

"Here you go." I handed the photo back to her and she carefully put it back in her purse.

"Want to take another run?"

"Naw. I'm kinda tired."

"Want to go home?"

"Yeah."

During the ride back to the apartment complex she was very quiet, as if she'd been doped up again. I had the uneasy feeling that I hadn't done right by this child, that I had overstimulated her, only to return her to a dreary routine.

Was I prepared to play the rescuing good guy on a regular basis?

I thought of the parting lecture one of the senior professors in graduate school had given our graduating class of aspiring psychotherapists.

"When you choose to earn your living by helping people who are in emotional pain, you're also making a choice to carry them on your back for a while. To hell with all that talk of taking responsibility, assertiveness. That's crap. You're going to be coming up against helplessness every day of your lives. Your patients will imprint you, like goslings who latch on to the first creature they see when they stick their heads out of the egg shell. If you can't handle it, become an accountant."

Right now a ledger book full of numbers would have been a welcome sight.

I drove out to Robin's studio at half - past seven. It had been several days since I'd seen her and I missed her. When she opened the door she was wearing a gauzy white dress that accentuated the olive tint of her skin. Her hair hung loose and she wore gold hoops in her ears.

She held out her arms to me and we embraced for a long while. We walked inside, still clinging together.

Her place is an old store on Pacific Avenue in Venice. Like lots of other studios nearby, it's unmarked, the windows painted over in opaque white.

She led me past the front part, the work area full of power tools - table saw, band saw, drill press - piles of wood, instrument molds, chisels, gauges and templates. As usual the room smelled of sawdust and glue. The floor was covered with shavings.

She pushed open swinging double doors and we were in her living quarters: sitting room, kitchen, sleeping loft with bath, small office. Unlike the shop, her personal space was uncluttered. She had made most of the furniture herself, and it was solid hardwood, simple and elegant.

She sat me down on a soft cotton couch. There was coffee and pie set out on a ceramic tray, napkins, plates and forks.

She sidled next to me. I took her face in my hands and kissed her.

"Hello, darling." She put her arms around me. I could feel the firmness of her back through the thin fabric, firmness couched in yielding, curving softness. She worked with her hands and it always amazed me to find in her that special combination of muscles and distinctly female lushness. When she moved, whether manipulating a hunk of rosewood around the rapacious jaws of a band saw or simply walking, it was with confidence and grace. Meeting her was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It alone had been worth dropping out for.

I'd been browsing at McCabe's, the guitar shop in Santa Monica, looking through the old sheet music, trying out the instruments that hung on the walls. I'd spied one particularly attractive guitar, like my Martin but even better made. I admired the craftsmanship - it was a handmade instrument - and ran my fingers over the strings, which vibrated with perfect balance and sustain. Taking it off the wall I played it and it sounded as good as it looked, ringing like a bell.

"Like it?"

The voice was feminine and belonged to a gorgeous creature in her mid - twenties. She stood close to me - how long she'd been there I wasn't sure; I'd been lost in the music. She had a heart - shaped face topped by a luxuriant mop of auburn curls. Her eyes were almond - shaped, wide - set, the color of antique mahogany. She was small, not more than five - two, with slender wrists leading to delicate hands and long, tapering fingers. When she smiled, her upper two incisors, larger than the rest of her teeth, flashed ivory.

"Yes. I think it's terrific."

"It's not that good." She put her hands on her hips - very definite hips. She had the kind of figure, small - wasted, busty and gently concave, that couldn't be camouflaged by the overalls she'd thrown on over her turtleneck.

"Oh, really?"

"Oh, really." She took the guitar from me. "There's a spot right here - " she tapped the soundboard " - where it's been sanded too thin. And the balance between headstock and box could be better." She strummed a few chords. "All in all I'd give it an eight on a scale of one to ten."

"You seem to be quite an expert on it."

"I should be. I made it."

She took me to her shop that afternoon and showed me the instrument she was working on. "This one's going to be a ten. The other was one of my first. You learn as you go along."

Some weeks later she admitted it had been her way of picking me up, her version of come up and see my etchings.

"I liked the way you played. Such sensitivity."

We saw each other regularly after that. I learned that she had been an only child, the special daughter of a skilled cabinetmaker who had taught her everything he knew about how to transform raw wood into objects of beauty. She had tried college, majoring in design, but the regimentation had angered her, as had the fact that her dad had known more about form and function intuitively than all the teachers and books combined. After he died, she dropped out, took the money he left her and invested in a shop in San Luis Obispo. She got to know some local musicians, who brought her their instruments to fix. At first it was a sideline, for she was trying to make a living designing and manufacturing custom furniture. Then she began to take a greater interest in the guitars, banjos and mandolins that found their way to her workbench. She read a few books on instrument making, found she had all the requisite skills and made her first guitar. It sounded great and she sold it for five hundred dollars. She was hooked. Two weeks later she moved to L.A." where the musicians were, and set up shop.

When I met her she was making two instruments a month as well as handling repairs. She'd been written up in trade magazines and was back - ordered for four months. She was starting to make a living.