Perri O'Shaughnessy - Keeper of the Keys

He looked at the table, his hands. She became afraid for him. Not knowing what else to do, she examined the cake critically, then went to the pantry to find a jar of cherries and roasted pecans, which she used to stud the cake. “Now it looks as good as it smells,” she said into the tension.

“You tell him you’ll call the cops. He calls you a liar.”

She dropped the wire rack into the sink. The noise startled them both. Inserting clean beaters into her mixer, she whipped cream in a cold bowl, scooped some onto a piece of cake, and handed him the plate, which he took, both of them acting mechanically. The ordinary moves calmed her enough to say, “Some things parents don’t discuss with their children.”

“He scares you,” he said. “Did he hurt you, Mom?”

She slopped another glob of whipped cream onto his plate. “Needs a little more.” Why did he do it, come here like a child having a tantrum spoiling the day, the meal, the visit, trying to spoil his whole life that she, Esmé, had worked so hard to keep safe and happy?

The anger simmering in his voice attained full boil. “Was someone stalking you? Who was it?”

“I will not discuss this any further with you. Now, do both of us a favor. Don’t go looking for some magical answer to your troubles by digging up the past, trying to make our very ordinary lives into some big adventure! Don’t ruin your life, getting into trouble with those damn keys, either! You have a future-count your blessings and focus on making it good.” She shoved the plate in front of him again. “This is best when it’s fresh. Now you eat this cake I made for you. You eat a bite of this delicious cake.”

He shook his head, all the anger appearing to drain out of him. He sat down again, took up his fork, and chewed and swallowed with all the pleasure of someone swallowing bile.

She wiped her hands on her apron, disappointed, wishing she could do something, anything, to make things right for him. She said, “I’ll pack some up for you, okay? Freeze it and eat some later. Some people say it’s even better then. Do you know I posted this recipe on the Internet? I get comments from people who have tried it, mostly complimentary. It’s the fresh pineapple. I was right, I have to say.”

Ray jumped up, knocking over the stool. His uneaten cake fell to the floor. She heard the door slam and the cat springing off the couch, wondering what was going on.

Driving home from her sister’s place through a blessedly cool and empty darkness, Kat thought about Raoul and Jacki’s pick, Zak Greenfield. Only a year older than her, he had a confidence that she rarely came across and found quite attractive. He seemed to have a firm grasp on life, a plan. Guys like him with actual professions and that air of having figured things out always had friends like Jacki, offering unsolicited, sisterly advice on future prospects.

Zak seemed to like women. He had teased Jacki, did the man-to-man work-talk thing with Raoul, made them all perk up. And he had paid a lot of attention to Kat, touching her arm, asking a lot of questions.

He was interested. Unusually, Kat’s legs had first drawn his attention, which flattered her so much she wanted to lie down on the floor and expose their entire length to his inspection and evaluation. They had laughed and talked until eleven-thirty while the fans blew air that kept Kat’s hair moving, until Jacki’s eyelids dipped closed and Raoul put his arm around her.

Time to go, and they were leaving at the same time. Kat had just decided that the evening really ought to continue, when suddenly Jacki stepped in. Her bulbous tummy came between them at the door.

“Zak has an early day tomorrow, don’t you, Zak?” Jacki nudged him out.

Zak frowned slightly, but, unable to deny a woman with such an awesome and unassailable physical presence, finally agreed, saying, “Oh. Yeah, I sure do.”

How could Kat not feel drawn to such a man, one who instantly honored Jacki’s demented sisterly requirements in spite of the fact that Kat stood panting after him not three feet away?

Once home, Kat took her shower and put on a nightie several guys had enjoyed, the white cotton one with Victorian buttons. Her little brass Buddha sat on its stand and her Zafu cushion awaited. Thirty minutes a day, she had been told to meditate. She went toward it but somehow veered off into bed instead. She had two new men to think about, and what to do about Leigh huddled like a lump of dough in her craw.

Ray drove the Porsche straight from his mother’s to Stokes Avenue in Downey, a distance of about fifteen miles. He took it at a steady sixty-eight, not wanting to attract any official attention. It was almost ten.

The internal pressure that had got him onto the freeway made him feel fresh and energetic. He felt exultant, actually, because he knew that he was doing the one thing that would relieve his misery and need. His mother’s cake, far too rich, had left a metallic echo in his mouth. Pineapple always tasted that way to him, like someone had sprinkled aluminum shavings onto fruit. He never had the heart to refuse his mother’s food-she made the offerings with so much love. He didn’t even like sweets anymore, but he tried at her house.

He hadn’t expected Esmé to tell him the truth. Stubborn at times as she was about changes to her precious house, she had a temper as volatile as his own and the same sense of privacy. But now-the tape-

He burped several times, checked his mirrors for patrol cars, and sped up. They had lasted only seven months in Downey before he came home one afternoon from school to find his mother tight-lipped and packing. He packed his two allotted boxes and drove with her to the next identical place a couple of towns over. He went to another school a lot like the old school, and there was a new bully, messed-up math courses that repeated what he already knew, the usual mountains to climb.

Revisiting these scenes felt like playing with an aching tooth, painful but irresistible. Maybe if something made sense, if he could understand-what?

Was his life simply a random series of events strung together but ultimately unrelated? Or did the series add up to something meaningful?

This red-haired girl on his doorstep tonight-what a time she had picked to decide to make up with Leigh. He hoped she would go home and get laid and forget about them.

He turned on the defroster to clear the ocean fog off his windshield.

“So where is she now?” he had asked Leigh once, referring to Kat.

“No idea. Sometimes people you care about get lost,” Leigh said. She sat on the rug in front of the fireplace in the great room, drying her hair, wearing her pink satin robe. She had given Ray a present that day, a silver-trimmed comb from the thirties. They had been married three months, and he thought he knew her well by then. She had married him on the rebound and he didn’t care because he knew-knew in his gut as well as his head-that she loved him anyway.

“That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it, but-off-limits, Ray.”

Kat’s timing couldn’t have been worse. She had the look of a crusader. She hadn’t liked what Ray Jackson told her.

Well, what else could he have said?

He took the off-ramp he had noted on the map, got lost, and had to pull over to figure out his way, stopping on a street like a million streets in L.A., lined with a row of dingy lookalike tract homes built in the early sixties, one-story houses with one tree in front, a wide driveway, and a double-car garage like almost all the houses he and his mother had rented long ago. In the daytime, relentless California sun would keep the shrubs and lawns brown-tinged, and the few living trees struggling for height. At night, residents hid behind blinds, too tired to socialize with their neighbors after fighting the traffic home.