Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“Yes of course!” she said contemptuously. “Marcus’s folks!”

“You look so lovely!” said Ruth.

“Beautiful, beautiful!” said Harry. For some reason, everyone was shouting.

“Mother,” said Trinnie. “Some of us are trying to diet. What evils have you brought to tempt us with?”

“No one says you have to have any,” said Bluey.

A server went to relieve her of the heavy tray, but Louis did that instead, setting it on the table with Harry’s valiant, if tottering, help.

The old woman approached the couple, who received her as subjects would a dogaressa. Leaning over, she whispered: “My daughter — in case you haven’t already noticed — tends to think she’s the center of the known universe.”

Why is it that, in lull or interlude, we so often turn to Dodd Trotter?

Well, why not? As someone once said, attention must be paid. Besides — no one close to our story is going anywhere, at least not for the moment.

William Marcus is in jail for the weekend, at minimum; and Trinnie has made amends, so all’s well with her world. The detective is in turmoil for a number of reasons, but so be it — his discomfort won’t last. Toulouse and Pullman are at rest, the former reading a book, head propped on the pinkish mottled bellows of the belly of that loyal beast. Bluey is well fed, well loved and unafraid, the briny waters of dementia having mysteriously receded; Mr. Trotter is in her good favor again and sits upon the Duxiana duvet cross-legged, helping with the mordant scrapbook after having packed Winter off to the movies. At Stradella House, Joyce has just received a curious call: the dumpster baby she’d been forewarned of and whose burial she had already begun to plan — the first for the Candlelighters’ Westwood site — the soul she had named Isaiah — wasn’t dead at all. Rumors of the castaway’s demise were deemed exaggerated enough to make page three of the California section of the Times (the article said a police dispatcher had jumped the gun). Joyce thought it a wonderful omen. She celebrated with a rubdown at Aida Thibiant, followed by a smattering of Restylane to smooth the facial furrows.

So: no one is going anywhere, and all is relatively well. Even Amaryllis is being looked after, or at least looked into . Then why not follow Dodd into a hastily organized luncheon? It is one of the last events on his calendar before pressing business swallows him up.

A casual reunion of sorts; he walks the few short blocks down Cañon to Spago. Marcie Millard held the last — the official — coming-together, Beverly Vista’s twenty-fifth, at her home in Benedict Canyon. Grade-school reunions are uncommon, but attendance was surprisingly high. They barbecued and the Vistonians sang Christmas carols once belted forth in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel; a few graying alumni who won the fertility lotto brought their newborns. Marcie made hilarious I.D. tags from yearbook photos and everyone had a high old time. (Just recently she sent Frances-Leigh a newsletter with photos and funny captions of the event; the note that accompanied said, “Call me stupid, but I literally did not know how to get in touch!”)

There had been a flurry of excitement surrounding the Vista re-build, and Dodd Trotter’s felicitous participation only added to the buzz. Marcie said a decision would be made by the Board any day now; meanwhile, his agents had already made a number of quiet bids on property surrounding the school. They were batting a thousand, with over twenty separate units bought and fifteen more in escrow.

Marcie thought it timely for the Vista Vets to meet and greet the new crop of movers and shakers, whose children were current enrollees — and it couldn’t hurt to informally invite some of the Board and their spouses. Dodd shook a lot of hands, and was gratified to meet the well-shod, multiethnic parents of kids who were flowering in the greenhouse of a new millennium. Only one of them commented on the school being named after him and Dodd brushed it off, not wishing to call attention. He’d been pillow-talking with Joyce lately and had decided (Marcie’s cheerleading aside) that if renaming BV was going to be a deal breaker, then he’d simply accede to the Board’s wishes and forge ahead as planned. They could call the thing George W. Bush Elementary for all he cared — this wasn’t about ego; this was about the children. This was about tradition, values, education. Joyce said, you know you’re sounding more like a politician each day. But she reveled in her husband’s newfound serenity, not knowing whether to thank God or the psychopharmacologist.

“Are you Dodd Trotter?” asked a bald, portly man. This time, Marcie hadn’t made I.D. badges.

“Yes, I am.”

“My God. I’m Val DeWitt!”

As the billionaire pumped his hand, a memory flooded back. Val DeWitt was the once-hardbodied boy who got him in a playground headlock that lasted almost twenty minutes. Other students artfully encircled so the P.E. instructor couldn’t see; Dodd had almost blacked out. He’d often dredged that image up through the years as a symbol of what he had managed to overcome — he saw the two of them in stone, timeless victim and oppressor, a frieze of everything unjust and unexpected that the world had to offer.

“I just wanted to congratulate you on your amazing success,” said Val. “I’m kind of a geek freak — I guess I was into it more before the bubble burst. I’ve read about you the last few years and saw the article in Forbes —I think everybody saw that article. It was seminal! You guys became a hobby of mine. But this is actually the first time I’ve ever met a billionaire! Well, now wait a minute — that’s not true: I just saw Marvin Davis inside, sitting on his special chair. But he doesn’t count. And I didn’t actually go up to him. I don’t even think he’s in the top hundred anymore — you’re still way up there, no? Quincunx is holding its own. I guess you and Gates and Ellison and all those guys’ll do OK no matter how low the Nasdaq goes. But I’m being a bore! I hope you don’t mind! Thanks for letting me say hello.”

He started to edge away, and Dodd grabbed his arm. “No, not at all — and what are you doing these days, Val?”

“I own a restaurant — two, really — in Northern California. I’m afraid I operate on a slightly smaller scale than you.”

“Restaurants: that’s a very difficult undertaking. Super — high risk. What are they called?”

“DeWitt’s — not very imaginative. We’re actually pretty well known in the Bay Area. I’m only in L.A. today to sample the goods; they have some amazing wines here. Spago’s has a master sommelier. Not too many people know that — there’s only around forty in the whole country. Do you know Mike? He’s the sommelier. By the way, you should try the La Tâche. It’s only about a grand per bottle — you can afford it!”

“Have you kept in touch with Marcie?” he asked perfunctorily.

“Who?”

“Marcie. Marcie Millard.”

“Now, that’s a name from the past …”

“She organized the luncheon.”

“What luncheon?”

“You mean, you didn’t know this was a Vista event?”

“Vista?”

“Beverly Vista — we’re having a bit of a precelebration.”

“For what?”

“I’m rebuilding the old school. All the people here”—he nodded at the patio—“they’re all BV alumni.”

“Now wait a minute. Hold on. You went to Beverly Vista?”

“Oh come on, Val.”

“No way.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember the headlock.”

“Headlock?”

“Yeah, the damn headlock. The mythic fucking headlock. Bruised my damn windpipe.”