Joan Didion - Play It as It Lays

"That's not healthy, you're morbid enough. Do me a favor, come on over after. Lenny's suite. A lot of people you know."

"I'll see."

"Maria. A personal favor. You owe me one, O.K.? I 202, that's in the new building."

"Could you tell me how to find I 202," she asked the man at the desk in the hotel. When she had called up from the lobby there was too much noise to understand Freddy's directions.

She waited. The desk clerk did not look up.

"I'm looking for 1202."

He lifted his eyes only slightly. "No," he said.

"You don't understand. I don't know how to get to the new building."

"I do understand, honey. I understand very well. No dice. If they want you up there they'd tell you how to get there. Freelance some place else."

When she got back to the Sands she looked at herself in the mirror for a long while, then called room service and asked for a double bourbon. When the boy came he looked at her.

“Pretty early still," he said.

She poured a few drops of bourbon over the ice and watched it coat the glass. It seemed to her now that she had been driving all week toward precisely this instant. "I don't know anyone," she heard herself saying.

"Lots of guys around."

"I don't know any."

“I could make an introduction."

She looked at him. "All right," she said. "In an hour."

After he left she waited five minutes and then walked into the corridor and out onto the burning floodlit parking lot and an hour later she was deep into the desert, driving west at eighty miles an hour.

Early in the morning she called Freddy Chaikin from Los Angeles and asked him to pay her bill and bring back her clothes.

"What happened."

Maria did not answer.

"I don't even want to know," Freddy Chaikin said.

"Don't forget my dark glasses," Maria said.

"WHAT DO YOU WEIGH NOW? About eighty-two?"

Maria opened her eyes. The voice was Carter's but for an instant in the bright afternoon light on the sun deck she could not make out his features.

"I didn't know you'd be here today," she said finally.

"Helene told me you were coming out."

"Helene is a veritable Celebrity Register."

"Just calm down. I want to talk about something." He looked back toward the house. BZ was on the telephone in the living room.

"Let's walk down the beach."

"We can talk here."

"Have it your way, we can talk here." He kicked aside her sandals and sat down. "I've been trying to get hold of you for two weeks."

"I know it."

"No games, Maria, O.K.? I came all the way out here, I walked out of a meeting, a meeting with Carl Kastner, just to—"

She reached for his hand and put it over his mouth. She was absurdly touched by the detail about Carl Kastner: Carter was still Carter. "I haven't wanted to see you because I didn't feel good.

That's all. Talk to me."

Carter took out a cigarette, crumpled the package, then smoothed out the package and replaced the cigarette. "You know I'm starting the new picture on the desert in ten days," he said finally. "You knew about that." He was not looking at her. "Which means this: it means—"

"It means," she prompted after a pause.

He looked at her. "I want you out there."

Maria said nothing.

"We could do it."

"Why should we."

Carter looked uncomfortable. "It just might be better."

"You mean you don't think I can take care of myself.”

"No." Carter stood up. "I do not, I do not think you can take care of yourself. Things I've been hearing,

things I—"

"What things."

"You know goddamn fucking well what things."

He stood over Maria with his hand frozen in air. He had been about to hit her.

"Go ahead," she said. "You can't hurt me.

"Fantastic day," a clear voice said, and Carter dropped his arm. A girl with long tangled hair and a short chemise nightgown stood in the doorway, yawning and shaking out her hair. "You suppose there's any coffee?" The girl examined what seemed to be a bite on her arm and walked out into the sun. "I mean I could die for some."

"I don't know," Maria said.

"BZ honey?" the girl called. "Is there coffee made?"

"No," BZ said from the house. "There is no coffee. There is not any coffee."

"Honey, there must be instant," the girl drawled. From the doorway she smiled back at Carter. "I'm Jeanelle," she said.

"Who the fuck was that," Carter said after a moment.

Maria sat huddled in a towel. "I guess that's Jeanelle."

"Who's she for?"

"How should I know."

Carter looked at her. "Stop it," he said finally. "Stop crying.

Baby, listen. Stop."

"I don't know what to do."

“You're going to come to the desert with me."

"Just as a point of interest, you going to be fucking Susannah Wood out there?"

Carter pulled her to her feet and kissed her. She stood without moving and after a while he let his arms &op.

"What's the matter now," he said.

"Nothing."

"It's all gone with you," he said. "It used to be there but it's gone."

"Listen," she said as if by rote. "I love you."

"You know what I wish it was tonight?" the girl in the nightgown was saying when Maria came inside at four o'clock. "I wish it was New Year's Eve. Most people think New Year's Eve is a bore but I love it."

Helene lay on a couch staring at the ceiling. "You do," she said.

"Helene," BZ said. "Maria's going to the desert with us, isn't that interesting?" BZ smiled at Maria. I said Maria's going to the desert, Helene."

"I heard you."

"I also love Christmas," the girl said.

"Jeanelle," BZ said, "there's some coke in the bedroom if you want to go get it. Some Merck."

"You've been holding out," Jeanelle said.

BZ watched the girl leave and then turned to Helene. "Get her out of here," he said.

Helene stared at him. “You started it," she whispered.

"YOU TOLD ME YOU'D come,"

Carter said.

"What for."

"I want you out there."

"It's all gone, you said so yourself."

"All right," Carter said. "Stay here and kill yourself. Something interesting like that."

Carter and BZ and Helene left for the desert. Maria found a doctor who would give her barbiturates again, and in the evenings she drove.

"Who is it," she whispered when she saw the lighted cigar in the dark living room. She had just let herself into the house and locked the door behind her and now she leaned against it. "I said who is it."

The cigar moved. She closed her eyes.

"Who do you think it is," Ivan Costello said. "Maybe if you'd call your answering service once in a while you'd know when I was in town.

"What are you doing in my house."

"Come here."

She turned on a light.

"I said come here."

"No." She could see that he was drunk. "I'm going out."

"You aren't going anywhere. Don't tell me no."

“No.”

"All right," he said. "Fight me. You'll like it better that way anyway.'

"What did you come here for," she said at three or four in the morning.

"What I got."

"What did you come here for," she repeated.

"I didn't come here to hurt you, if that's what you mean."

She said nothing.

"Oh Christ," he said. "Baby. I just came to make you remember."

"I can't remember."

"You remembered all right the last three hours."

She wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders. "That hasn't got anything to do with me."

"Baby, it used to."

"Get out of here," she said, and this time he did.

In the morning he came again. She answered the door and went back to the couch where she had spent the rest of the night.

"You don't have to crack up over this," he said. "You used to tell me you'd do it for me until you died. You