Dan Wakefield - Home Free

Gene asked if she dug the hooking.

“Better hours,” she said, “than the filing.”

More time for doing her ceramics. What with unemployment and a trick now and then, she got along fine.

He liked her attitude. Which was more or less Fuck It.

Thinking of her getting $25 a trick turned him on a little, and the next time they made it it was better.

She was just the kind of woman for him, the way he felt now. He wouldn’t hurt or get hurt. He wouldn’t have to feel anything. There would be no entanglement. If they wanted to do something they would. If they didn’t they wouldn’t. They saw each other two or three times a week. They didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other. That was all right, too. The whole thing between them was bland but safe. It was sort of like cottage cheese. Sometimes that’s all you want.

Gene answered the phone at the A&W one afternoon and it was Barnes.

“Hey, old buddy!” he said with what sounded to Gene like too much heartiness. “Guess what?”

“I can’t.”

“I’m your neighbor now!”

“In Venice ?”

“No, no. The Marina. I got a place over in the Marina.”

“Where? What street?”

He knew some of the phony-named nautical streets next to Venice. Near the border.

He could hear Barnes clearing his throat.

“Well, actually, I’m staying here at Single Shores.”

“You shittin me, man?”

“Listen, it’s not for that, the whole thing is I had to find a place real fast and this thing is all completely furnished. All you have to do is get your suitcase and walk in the door. In that way it’s like the Marmont. It’s convenient and saved a lot of hassle.”

“Sure, man.”

“Fuck you.”

“OK, man, I’m sorry. Couldn’t resist. What’s up?”

Barnes had split with Belle, for real, it was all over, the movie thing had been shelved but they paid him for the script, he was going to forget about all the movie shit now and get down to work on a new mystery novel. He might even set it there, have it take place in one of these huge singles apartment complexes. Anyway he was making a new start, he wasn’t just drinking and mooning over Belle, it had to end sooner or later so it really was better to have done now, he had already met a cute chick there at Single Shores and he wanted Gene to come over with a girl and the four of them would all go for dinner. Gene said yes. For old-times’ sake.

It loomed ahead of him, an ordeal. He would have to try to explain it all to Lottie, they would have to get dressed, Barnes would take them to one of those lobster and candlelight joints. Dinner and dates. Thinking about it was like preparing his head for an expedition to the Yucatán.

Lottie was appalled. She couldn’t believe that Gene had a friend who would actually live in a middle-class, fraternity house, organized fun and games, Miss American, nineteen fifties Cutesy-pie infamous supersquare place like the Single Shores.

Gene tried to explain. About Barnes. The background of the thing. Lottie looked suspicious. He told her to just relax and enjoy it, pretend you’re looking at a movie, think of getting the free booze and food.

She said she’d try.

When she came by his place that night to pick him up he at first didn’t recognize her.

She was wearing a platinum wig, a sheer see-through white minidress with black bikini underwear, and black vinyl boots.

“Like it?” she asked.

“What’s the idea?” Gene said.

“You said to try to think of it like a movie.”

“To see it that way,” I said, “not be in it.”

“Well, at least I’ll be a ‘conversation piece.’”

He figured it was no use to argue.

“Mymy,” she said, “aren’t you the hip young stud.”

He was wearing a jean-jacket outfit from his days working for Ray Behr. He was trying. Anything for a friend.

The Single Shores apartment complex was as big as a miniature town, and Gene had to stop and study the map to figure out how the hell to get to Barnes’s apartment. He was in building F-2, Hall 6L, Room 127J. While Gene was trying to trace this fucker on the huge map at the entryway, Lottie was reading announcements from the large, lighted bulletin board with cynical relish:

“Hey, you bridge nuts! Remember the C-block tourney is coming Wednesday in Low Tide Lounge”

“Single Shores victorious water-volleyball club takes on Bali-Hey Club Saturday at nine. Turn out poolside to cheer ‘our boys’!”

“OK,” said Gene, “OK, enough.”

He took her by the hand toward what he hoped was the correct building.

“There’s a luau Thursday night,” she said. “Don’t you think we should come to the luau? Maybe your friend will invite us.”

Just before they rang the bell to Barnes’s apartment Gene said softly, “Please. OK?”

She sighed, nodded.

Gene for a moment forgot to worry about Lottie behaving when he got a load of Barnes. He was wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing the first day Gene got to town and saw him at the Marmont, but they looked wrong now. Barnes had already lost what little tan he had, and was fast getting back the flab, the jowly look. There were deep circles under his eyes, and a lot of little red tracks in the white of the eyeballs. Gene had the distressing sense that the new clothes were on the old Barnes. The two didn’t go together.

Barnes only blanched slightly at the sight of Lottie, and got drinks for them. His date would be along in ten minutes or so.

“So how you doin, man?” Gene asked.

“Terrific. Got out of that Belle business just in time. Next thing you knew I’d have owned some damn house in Hollywood. What the hell business have I got owning a house? Anywhere. Much less Hollywood. The movie stuff is all crap. I’m back to books for good now …”

He went on explaining, justifying, endorsing what he had done and was going to do.

Lottie kept looking around the room, a little smirk on her face.

It had a Spanish motif. The lamps were supposed to look like lanterns. The wallpaper had bullfight scenes. Gene hoped Lottie didn’t comment.

Barnes’s date was named Bitsy.

Gene didn’t know people had that name anymore.

She was curly blond, bouncy, and full of enthusiasm.

Just the thing to drive Lottie up the wall, Gene figured. He started drinking faster.

They went to dinner at Charlie Brown’s, one of the fashionable steak-or-lobster and candlelight places.

Bitsy was thrilled.

She was from Indianapolis, had attended Butler University in that same city, had eventually moved to Los Angeles because she had gone to Disneyland on her vacation and fell in love with it so much she wanted to live here. Of course she didn’t mean she only fell in love with Disneyland although that was certainly wonderful beyond words, but it was all of Southern California she loved, everything about it, the weather, the people, the food, the water, the freeway. Everything.

She clapped her little hands together.

Even Barnes looked glum.

Lottie had been totally silent, every once in a while staring at Bitsy with a mixture of venom and disbelief, but holding her tongue. Gene was grateful. He threw in little comments as best he could, agreeing with and admiring Bitsy’s views. He wasn’t proud. Peace at any price. But Bitsy, no doubt worried about her own social responsibilities, thought perhaps she should try to draw Lottie into the conversation. Bitsy apologized about how she’d been going on and on about how wonderful her work was as secretary and assistant to the social director of indoor sports at Single Shores.

“What do you do?” she asked Lottie.

“I’m collecting.”

“Oh! Antiques?”