Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

“What did you think when you first saw the Cathedral by the Sea?” I asked.

“Thought it was plug ugly. It’s certainly no mansion on the sand. Why?”

“I just had the thought that Reggie built that mansion. Somewhere. I can find it, but it might take time. It would depend how good he is at secrecy. How many layers between his name and the bricks and mortar.”

Another long stare from her. “For him and Daley?”

“For himself and his fantasies.”

“Why not just rent a damned mansion? See, that’s what I do.” She gestured to the little beach rental, her hands open.

That was a very practical idea, and I said so.

A blink and a stare from her. The ever-judging, ever-assessing, ever-appraising eyes of Penelope Rideout.

“Let’s hear Daley’s second CD,” she said.

I’m back!

Turns out Pastor Atlas’s Cathedral by the Sea isn’t much more than a cut-off hilltop and some cement with those spirally metal rods sticking out. You can see all the way to the ocean, though. It’s out between Encinitas and Rancho Santa Fe, I think they call it, lots of twisty roads. Anyway, Pastor Atlas didn’t send a car and driver to get me at the corner of Myers and Seagaze at EXACTLY five fifteen. No, he came himself, driving this crazy motor home, all red and silver and shiny. And down the road we went. Just us. I sat up front and it was like being a copilot in a jet. Pastor Reggie started talking about Jesus like he always does, but He’s not really my thing, Jesus isn’t, though I don’t have any problem with Him. That I know of! I tuned Sirius to this oldhead band I totally love, Huey Lewis, rather than the Four Wheels for Jesus channel, which seemed to annoy Pastor Atlas. By the way, I got the Martin Backpacker guitar from Penny for my birthday, EARLY! and I took it with me to see Reggie’s church because my story to Pen was I went with Carrie to play guitars in the music room at school with our music teacher at Monarch, Mr. Bob Dillon, that’s his real name! And so Carrie’s mom would drop me off at home and don’t worry. So I had the Backpacker in the motor home and this big window right in front of me and I was playing along with Huey Lewis and the News. Watching the world out the window was more like the world was watching me! I don’t really want to be famous, but for a minute it felt great. Everybody looking at me. Reggie trying to tell me how to play the music. Says he’s good on guitar, but I’ve never heard him play a single note.

We walked around the cathedral construction site. I met one of the security guards, Adam, and Reggie said to call Adam if I ever needed anything. Adam would handle it. I thought maybe I could tell Adam that Nick was getting more and more aggro, and maybe he could maybe get Nick to chill. Then I thought, don’t be a coward, girl, if Nick is dissing you, then get in his face yourself. Inside, he’s a sweet guy, but I frustrate him with the no-sex-until-next-year-when-I’m-fourteen thing. He’s all, what about handjobs? But I’m stubborn and have almost no interest in that with him and I don’t owe Nick anything. I carry my own weight, except he drives everywhere because I’m too young. Which in the papillon van gets us lots of laughs, but some business, too. Half of what we do I pay for, gas included. If Pen knew how much of my allowance I spend on Nick, she might not be too happy.

Pen made me promise no sex until I’m eighteen, but I renegotiated with myself in case I meet someone better than Nick. Someone who makes me feel more that way. I mean, I do feel that way, and if you judge menstruationally, then I’m all grown up. I mean, someone who makes me really, really feel that way. Like an authentic connection. Physical, yes. But a soul thing, too. Soul mates? I don’t know. Out loud it sounds so sappy and dumb.

Inside the construction trailer he showed me the drawings for his new church. We sat on a couch and he spread the plans across our laps. Arms touching. Hmm, I thought. I’d never been that close to him. The architect cost one hundred thousand dollars. It will look very modern, kind of a mash-up of glass and wood and steel with big cables connecting things. Reggie said the architecture was supposed to symbolize the fractionalized world and the cables are Jesus, holding everything together.

Gotta go now!

Penelope gave me a sickened look.

Daley played some of her songs, accompanying herself on guitar. Her voice was a soprano, bell-clear, with a girl’s sweetness in it. She didn’t hold her notes any longer than necessary, giving the lyrics a moving simplicity. The songs were grounded in the wonder of physical things: the ocean, which was new to Daley; seagulls contesting food scraps thrown by a child; the loud power of an Amtrak train rushing north from San Diego to L.A. Her guitar picking was simple and timely.

“She has talent,” I said.

“She didn’t get it from me. Reggie plays beautifully. At least, he used to. So the talent is more circumstantial evidence that he is Daley’s father. Since my eyewitness accounts are not enough.”

“I’ll plod into the truth on my own time,” I said. “That’s just the way I do things.”

She came and sat at the far end of the couch.

“Give me your hand.”

With both our arms extended, our hands met, palm to palm, hers on top.

“I want you to believe me, because what I’ve told you is true,” she said. “I want you to like me in spite of it.”

“I like you very much. You’re smart and funny and easy on the eyes. You brought me some thoughtful gifts that night. And some home nursing. It all meant something to me, Penelope. Really.”

“But you look at me like I’m a pathetic victim,” she said. “An oversexed, low-IQ girl with eyes for a preacher man.”

“No.”

“Then how, exactly, do you see me? I’ll accept nothing but the truth.”

She squeezed my hands. Stronger than I’d have thought.

“You know how to put a man on the spot.”

“We’ll sit here until you answer me.”

I imagined different answers, each true and each leading off the same cliff. “A bright young woman with a troubled heart and a tough problem to solve.”

“How craftily you avoid my past,” she said. “I need you to see it clearly. It’s who I am.”

“Only partially. Once upon a time. Which marches on.”

“Do you believe me or not?”

“I want to believe you.”

The hand squeeze again.

“But if you are proven wrong, would you still like me on a go-forward basis?”

“Okay.”

Penelope Rideout, peering at me through clouds of doubt. Then a gradual change. Subtle but apparent. A thin ray of sunlight. Another. Willpower? Hope? Acceptance?

“Hmmm. Okay? Okay.”

She let go of my hands and aimed the remote.

Daley’s voice filled the room again, no songs, but snippets from her days at Monarch, her first time at Alchemy 101, ups and downs with Nick.

Followed by ruminations on what made Penny so afraid of her own shadow, like every window in every place we ever lived had something bad waiting outside it. When I ask her why, she says don’t be silly. I think it’s probably something to do with Mom and Dad. Like everything is. When I look at pictures of them I don’t feel very much. I hope that doesn’t make me a sociopath. I remember them only a little, and unclearly. Mom was pretty and talkative. Dad was quiet. They both seemed huge. There. I just exhausted my memories of them.

Toward the end of the sixty-minute disc, Daley introduced her new song, “Mansion on the Sand.” It was brief.