Deborah Shapiro - The Sun in Your Eyes

“Well, if it brought Viv and me closer together, it was a good thing,” Andy said. He looked in Viv’s direction, looked at her the way he had at the bar that one New Year’s Eve. Which had really been the first time Lee recognized something going on between them. Not the laughter behind the apartment door, but that gaze. Lee realized she’d been wrong. She had thought she was giving Viv away, but the truth was Viv and Andy were giving her away. They’d already done it and she just hadn’t known.

But now here she was, with Viv again, not wanting her friend to leave her. She thought of Flintwick, talking about Linda and the “freaky frisson” of the past and present dissolving into each other. Freaky Frisson sounded like a bad stage name.

“Let’s see if Patti’s information is still accurate,” said Viv. “But if it is, yeah, I would go with you to see Marion.”

Viv’s offer was a relief but it came with some deflation. Maybe Viv couldn’t face Andy yet and wanted more time. Maybe she wanted to meet Marion. For the sake of curiosity? For material, like Patti Driggs? A free trip to California, because of course it would be Lee’s treat? Maybe she knew that Lee didn’t want to do this alone. Maybe Viv thought: If I do this, I will never owe her anything again. There was something valedictory in the offer. As if they both knew this would be the last time. Andy would understand this when Viv called to tell him she would need a few more days. He wouldn’t be upset because he would know where things stood. It had always been Viv going along with her, surrendering to her, but this didn’t feel like surrender. It felt like a favor, and a bit like pity.

OLD PICTURES OFMarion Washington were all over the Internet, but only one image of Marion Morris lived online. Third from the left in a group of attendees at a mental health conference in 2002, she was obscured by a broad-shouldered man in a suit but her face was visible in profile. She would have been about forty-five then, and though she seemed to have lost some of her vivaciousness, she had retained all of the grace from the Haseltine photographs on Carnahan’s wall. She was clearly the woman they were looking for. It wasn’t difficult to find an address for her office along with a phone number.

“My name is Vivian Feld,” Lee said to Marion’s voicemail. “I was referred to you by a friend of mine. If you could call me back, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.”

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t the first time you’ve used my name like that?” Viv asked.

“I’ve never used your name like that.” Which was true even if it didn’t feel true because it had come so naturally to her.

“So, what, you’re going to set up a fake appointment under an assumed name and then head across the country and ambush her?”

“First, let’s see if she calls back.”

Marion did, the next morning. She wasn’t taking on new clients now but she could refer Vivian to an excellent colleague of hers. Marion had the same alto voice that Lee remembered, not from childhood, but from a few seconds of old footage repeatedly used in the various documentaries about Jesse: Marion answering the door to their hotel room while Jesse tunes his guitar in front of a cameraman. Marion is in the background, by the door, and you hear her say, “Excuse me?” and you can’t make out what the man at the door says but she replies evenly, “No, not right now.” Nothing coy or breathy about her. She closes the door, turns around, folds her arms, maybe thinking, This is what I want, but how many times do I have to listen to him tune his guitar?

“You’re going to think this is crazy,” Lee said. Marion didn’t laugh. She must have heard that lame line, in a professional capacity, who knows how often. She didn’t hang up when Lee told her who she really was. Marion grew quiet and then Lee thought she heard a faint sniffle.

“Lee?”

“Yes.”

“My god. You were just a little girl the last time I saw you. You would be amazed, or maybe you wouldn’t be, by the strange calls I’ve gotten over the years. People pretending to be other people in order to talk to me about Jesse. Nobody has called here yet pretending to be you. Only you, calling and pretending to be someone else. Although maybe you’re not even really you.”

“I am me. I don’t know how to prove it to you on the phone. I could send you a picture. I look like my father. My mother, too. We could video chat and you could see.”

“Video chat? I don’t video chat. But why don’t you go ahead and tell me why you’re calling. We can take it from there.”

“It’s about my father. I wanted to talk to you about him. I know you don’t remember a lot from that time. But I’d really like to talk to you.”

“Where are you calling from? Could you come see me? I think we ought to talk in person.”

“DO YOU REMEMBERthat guy we sat next to,” Lee asked, “the last time we flew to California together?”

“With the leather bag, and the book, and ‘ You laugh with your whole body ’?”

“Yes. That guy.”

“I remember thinking I ruined your chances with him, if you wanted a chance with him, but I couldn’t tell if you wanted a chance with him. I’m sorry — did I ruin your chances?”

“No. I don’t think I knew what I wanted. We were performing for him. What I remember most was his girlfriend, waiting for him, at baggage claim. She was so, I don’t know, she just looked so substantive. I don’t know how else to put it. I couldn’t stop looking at her. She made me feel out of my depth. Like she knew so much more, about how to go through life or something.”

“Well, how much could she have known? She was with a guy who hit on you for the greater part of the flight.”

“Was he hitting on me? I don’t know if that’s what it was. Maybe he was just a dick and she would figure that out sooner or later and move on. But maybe she was aware and she knew him in some more complex way that either justified his behavior or in some way accounted for it. I guess what I mean is that she made him more complex for me. It made me feel stupid. Thinking that I knew what it all meant.”

“Don’t you think that maybe you’ve been that girlfriend? Not that you’ve always dated douche bags, but that you’ve been that woman for a girl who was like you? That some girl has seen you in a room and thought how substantive you were?”

“It’s pretty to think so.”

She was waiting for Viv to correct her, almost as if she had laid a trap. Isn’t it. The line is “Isn’t it pretty . .” But Viv didn’t correct her. Viv just smiled.

DRIVING ALONG HIGHWAY1, Lee recalled the beige leather seats and the chrome ashtrays of the white Mercedes convertible Linda used to drive, with Roy or Stephen or Monty sitting shotgun (Monty — she had almost forgotten about Monty, with the spurs on his boots because he was a cowboy or because he was an actor, she wasn’t sure. When was Monty? Pretty early on. Maybe he was a cowboy. He never landed any roles). Linda always drove, and Linda’s boyfriends always came along for the windblown ride. Sometimes the boyfriend sat in back, and Lee got to sit up front with Linda. As she grew older, she was kind of embarrassed that she was in front and there was a man back there where there should have been a child or a dog.

It was easy to feel you were in a car commercial as you drove along this coast, maybe even the one set to Jesse’s “Whatever You Want.” The young couple who keeps driving, past the party they had set out for, because what party could compare to the air through an open window, climate, time, and fuel efficiency on your side? But no ad could capture the mythic drama of mountains pushing up into cliffs that sheared off into the Pacific, dark and vast beneath the rolling whitecaps. Looming, indifferent redwoods that dwarfed you and your tiny car. Marion had the right idea. To live by the ocean amid giant, primeval trees. Marion, it would seem, knew how to disappear into a different life.