Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 04 - Silent Partner Page 9

Her arm around my waist was enough to make me hard. Thoughts of her trickled into idle moments and filled my senses. I put my doubts aside.

  But eventually it started to nag at me. I wanted to give as much as I was getting, because I really cared for her.

  On top of that, of course, my male ego was crying out for reassurance. Was I too quick? I worked at endurance. She rode me out, tireless, as if we were engaged in some sort of athletic competition. I tried being gentle, got nowhere, switched and did the caveman bit. Experimented with positions, strummed her like a guitar, worked over her and under her until I dripped with sweat

  and my body ached, went down on her with blind devotion.

  Nothing worked.

  I remembered the sexual inhibitions she'd projected in practicum. The case that had stymied her: communications breakdown. Dr. Kruse says we have to confront our own defense systems before being able to help others.

  The attack upon her defenses had brought her to tears. I struggled to find a way to communicate without breaking her. Mentally composed and discarded several speeches before finally coming up with a monologue that seemed minimally hurtful.

  I chose to deliver it as we lay sprawled in the back of the Rambler, still connected, my head on her sweatered breast, her hands stroking my hair. She kept stroking as she listened, then kissed me and said, "Don't worry about me, Alex. I'm just fine."

  "I want you to enjoy it too."

  "Oh, I do, Alex. I love it."

  She began rocking her hips, enlarging me, then wrapping her arms around me as I continued to swell inside of her. She forced my head down, smothered my mouth with hers, tightening the pressure of her pelvis and her arms, taking charge, imprisoning me. Arcing and swallowing, rotating and releasing, heightening the pace until the pleasure was squeezed out of me in long, convulsive waves. I cried out, gloriously helpless, felt my spine shatter, my joints come loose from their sockets. When I was still, she began stroking my hair, again.

  I was still erect, began to move again. She rolled out from under me, smoothed her skirt, took out a compact and fixed her makeup.

  "Sharon—"

  She placed a finger on my lips. "You're so good to me," she said. "Wonderful."

  I closed my eyes, drifted away for several moments. When I opened them she was grazing off in the distance, as if I weren't there.

  From that night on, I gave up hope of perfect love and

  took her selfishly. She rewarded my compliance with devotion, subservience, though I was the one being molded.

  The therapist in me knew it was wrong. I employed the therapist's rationalization to quell my doubts:

  It did no good to push; she'd change when she was ready.

  Summer came and my fellowship ended. Sharon had completed the first year of grad school with top grades in all her qualifying exams. I'd just passed my licensing exam and had a job lined up at Western Pediatric come autumn. Time to celebrate, but no income until autumn. The tone of the creditor's letters had turned threatening. When the opportunity to earn some real money presented itself I grabbed it: an eight-week dance-band gig back up in San Francisco, playing three sets a night, six nights a week at the Mark Hopkins. Four grand, plus room and board at a Lombard Street motel.

  I asked her to come north with me, spun visions of breakfast in Sausalito, good theater, the Palace of Fine Arts, hiking on Mt. Tamalpais.

  She said, "I'd love to, Alex, but I've some things to take care of."

  "What kinds of things?"

  "Family business."

  "Problems back home?"

  She answered quickly: "Oh, no, just the usual."

  "That doesn't tell me a thing," I said. "I have no idea what the usual is, because you never talk about your family."

  Soft kiss. Shrug. "They're just a family like any other."

  "Let me guess: They want to haul you back to civilization so they can fix you up with the local scions."

  She laughed, kissed me again. "Scions? Hardly."

  I put my arm around her waist, nuzzled her. "Oh, yeah, I can see it now. In a few weeks I'll pick up the paper and see your picture in the society pages, engaged to one of those guys with three last names and a career in investment banking."

  That made her giggle. "I don't think so, my dear."

  "And why's that?"

  "Because my heart belongs to you."

  I took her face in my hands, looked into her eyes. "Does it, Sharon?"

  "Of course, Alex. What do you think?"

  "I think after all this time I don't know you very well."

  "You know me better than anyone."

  "That's still not very well."

  She tugged her ear. "I really care about you, Alex."

  "Then live with me when we get back. I'll get a bigger place, a better one."

  She kissed me, so deeply I thought it signaled agreement. Then she pulled away and said, "It's not that simple."

  "Why not?"

  "Things are just... complicated. Please, let's not talk about this right now."

  "All right," I said. "But consider it."

  She licked the underside of my chin, said, "Yum. Consider this."

  We began necking. I pressed her to me, buried myself in her hair, her flesh. It was like diving into a vat of sweet cream.

  I unbuttoned her blouse, said, "I'm really going to miss you. I miss you already."

  "That's sweet," she said. "We'll have fun in September."

  Then she began unzipping my fly.

  At ten-forty, I left to meet the real estate agent. The mild summer had finally begun to wilt, surrendering to high eighties' temperatures and air that smelled like oven exhaust. But Nichols Canyon still looked fresh—sun-washed, filled with country sounds. Hard to believe Hollywood—the grifters and geeks—was only yards away.

  When I got to the house the lattice gate was open. Driving the Seville up to the house, I parked it next to a big burgundy Fleetwood Brougham with chrome wire

  wheels, a phone antenna on the rear deck, and plates that said SELHOUS.

  A tall dark brunette got out of the car. Mid-forties, aerobics-firm and shapely in tight acid-washed jeans, high-heeled boots, and a blousy, scoop-necked black suede top decorated with rhinestones. She carried a snake-skin purse, wore large onyx and glass costume jewelery and hexagonal, blue-tinted sunglasses.

  "Doctor? I'm Mickey." A wide, automatic smile spread under the glasses.

  "Alex Delaware."

  "It is Dr. Delaware?"

  "Yes."

  She pushed the glasses up her forehead, eyed the coat of dirt on the Seville, then my clothes—old cords, faded workshirt, huaraches.

  Running a mental Dun and Bradstreet on me: Says he's a doctor, but the city's full of bullshit artists. Drives a Caddy, but it's eight years old. Another phony putting on the dog? Or someone who once had it and lost it?

  "Beautiful day," she said, one hand on the door handle, still scrutinizing, still wary. Meeting strange men up in the hills had to give a woman frequent pause.

  I smiled, tried to look harmless, said, "Beautiful," and looked at the house. In the daylight, the deja vu was even stronger. My personal patch of ghost town. Spooky.

  She mistook my silent appraisal for displeasure, said, "There's a fabulous view from the inside. It's really a charmer, great bones—I think it was designed by one of Neutra's students."

  "Interesting."

  "It just came on the market, Doctor. We haven't even run ads—in fact, how did you find out about it?"

  "I've always liked Nichols Canyon," I said. "A friend who lives nearby told me it was available."

  "Oh. What kind of a doctor are you?"

  "Psychologist."

  "Taking a day off?"

  "Half day. One of the few."

  I checked my watch and tried to look busy. That seemed to reassure her. Her smile reappeared. "My niece wants to be a psychologist. She's a very smart little girl."

  "That's terrific. Good luck to her."

  "Oh, I
think we make our own luck, don't we, Doctor?"

  She pulled keys out of her handbag and we walked to the slatted front door. It opened to a small courtyard—a few potted plants, glass wind chimes that I remembered, dangling over the lintel, silent in the hot, static air.

  We went inside and she began her spiel, all well-rehearsed pep.

  1 pretended to listen, nodded and said "Uh huh" at the right times, forced myself to follow, rather than lead; I knew the place better than she did.

  The interior smelled of carpet cleaning fluid and pine disinfectant. Sparkly clean, expunged of death and disorder. But to me it seemed mournful and forbidding—a black museum.

  The front of the house was a single open area encompassing living room, dining area, study, and kitchen. The kitchen was early deco-massacre: avocado-green cabinetry, round-edged coral-colored Formica tops, and a coral vinyl-covered breakfast nook tucked into one corner. The furniture was blond wood, synthetic pastel fabrics, and spidery black iron legs—the kind of postwar jet-streamed stuff that looks poised for takeoff. Walls, of textured beige plaster, were hung with portraits of harlequins and serene seascapes. Bracket bookshelves were crowded with volumes on psychology. The same books.

  A bland, listless room, but the blandness projected the eye toward the east, toward a wall of glass so clean it seemed invisible. Panels of sheet glass, segmented by sliding glass doors.

  On the other side was a narrow, terrazzo-tiled terrace rimmed with white iron railing; beyond the railing an eyeful—a mindful—of canyons, peaks, blue skies, summer foliage. "Isn't it something," said Mickey Mehrabian, spreading one arm, as if the panorama were a picture she'd painted.

  "Really something."

  We walked out on the terrace. I felt dizzy, remembered an evening of dancing, Brazilian guitars.

  Something to show you, Alex.

  Late September. I got back to L.A. before Sharon did, $4,000 more solvent, and lonely as hell. She'd left without leaving an address or number; we hadn't exchanged as much as a postcard. I should have been angry, yet she was all I thought about as I drove down the coast.

  I headed straight for Curtis Hall. The floor counselor told me she'd checked out of the dorm, wouldn't be returning this semester. No forwarding address, no number.

  I drove away, enraged and miserable, certain I'd been right: She'd been seduced back to the Good Life, plied with rich boys, new toys. She was never coming back.

  My apartment look dingier than ever. I avoided it, spent as much time as possible at the hospital, where the challenges of my new job helped distract me. I took on a full caseload from the v/aiting list, volunteered for the night shift in the Emergency Room. On the third day she showed up at my office, looking happy, almost feverish with delight.

  She closed the door. Deep kisses and embraces. She made sounds about missing me, let my hands roam her curves. Then she pulled away, flushed and laughing. "Free for lunch, Doctor?"

  She took me to the hospital parking lot, to a shiny red convertible—a brand new Alfa Romeo Spider.

  "Like it?"

  "Sure, it's great."

  She tossed me the keys. "You drive."

  We had lunched at an Italian place on Los Feliz, listened to opera and ate canolli for dessert. Back in the car, she said, "There's something I want to show you, Alex," and directed me west, to Nichols Canyon.

  As I pulled up the driveway to the gray, pebble-roofed house, she said, "So what do you think, Doc?"

  "Who lives here?"

  "Yours truly."

  "You're renting it?"

  "No, it's mine!" She got out of the car and skipped to the front door.

  I was surprised to find the house furnished, even more surprised by the dated, fifties look of the place. These were the days when organic was king: earth tones, homemade candles, and batiks. All this aluminum and plastic, the flat, cold colors seemed declasse, cartoonish.

  She glided around exuding pride of ownership, touching and straightening, pulled open drapes and exposed the wall of glass. The view made me forget the aluminium.

  Not a student's pad by a long shot. I thought: an arrangement. Someone had set the place up for her. Someone old enough to have bought furniture in the fifties.

  Kruse? She'd never really clarified their relationship___

  "So what do you think, Doc?"

  "Really something. How'd you swing it?"

  She was in the kitchen, pouring 7-Up into two glasses. Pouting. "You don't like it."

  "No, no, I do. It's fantastic."

  "Your tone of voice tells me different, Alex."

  "I was just wondering how you managed it. Financially."

  She gave a theatrical glower and answered in a Mata Hari voice: "I haf secret life."

  "Aha."

  "Oh, Alex, don't be so glum. It's not as if I slept with anybody to get it."

  That shook me. I said, "I wasn't implying you had."

  Her grin was wicked. "But it did cross your mind, sweet prince."

  "Never." I looked out at the mountains. The sky was pale aqua above a horizon of pinkish brown. More fifties color-coordination.

  "Nothing crossed my mind," I said. "I just wasn't prepared. I don't see or hear from you all summer—now this."

  She handed me a soda, put her head on my shoulder.

  "It's gorgeous," I said. "Not as gorgeous as you, but gorgeous. Enjoy it."

  "Thank you, Alex. You're so sweet."

  We stood there for a while, sipping. Then she unlatched the sliding door and we stepped out onto the terrace. Narrow, white space cantilevering over a sheer drop. Like stepping onto a cloud. The chalky smell of dry brush rose up from the canyons. In the distance was the HOLLYWOOD sign, sagging, splintering, a billboard for shattered dreams.

  "There's a pool, too," she said. "Around the other side."

  "Wanna skinny-dip?"

  She smiled and leaned on the railing. I touched her hair, put my hand under her sweater and massaged her spine.

  She made a contented sound, leaned against me, reached around and stroked my jaw.

  "I guess I should explain," she said. "It's just that it's involved."

  "I've got time," I said.

  "Do you really?" she asked, suddenly excited. She turned around, held my face in her hands. "You don't have to get back to the hospital right away?"

  "Nothing but meetings until six. I'm due at the E.R. at eight."

  "Great! We can sit here for a while and watch the sunset. Then I'll drive you back."

  "You were going to explain," I reminded her.

  But she'd already gone inside and turned on the stereo. Slow Brazilian music came on—gentle guitars and discreet percussion.

  "Lead me," she said, back on the terrace. Snaking her arms around me. "In dancing the man's supposed to lead."

  We swayed together, belly-to-belly, tongue-to-tongue. When the music ended she took my hand and led me through a short foyer into her bedroom.

  More bleached, glass-topped furniture, a pole lamp, a low, wide bed with a square, bleached headboard. Above it two narrow high windows.

  She removed her shoes. As I kicked off mine I noticed something on the walls: crude, childish drawings of apples. Pencil and crayon on oatmeal-colored pulp paper. But glass-framed and expensively matted.

  Odd, but I didn't spend much time wondering about it. She'd drawn blackout drapes across the windows, plunged the room into darkness. I smelled her perfume, felt her hand cupping my groin.

  "Come," she said—a disembodied voice—her hands settled upon my shoulders with surprising strength. She bore down on me and lowered me to the bed, got on top of me, and kissed me hard.

  We embraced and rolled, made love fully clothed. She, sitting, with her back against the headboard, legs spread and drawn up sharply, her hands clasping her knees. I, kneeling before her, as if in prayer, impaling her while gripping the top rim of the headboard.

  A cramped, backseat position. When it was over she slid out from under me and said, "Now, I'll e
xplain. I'm an orphan. Both of my parents died last year."

  My heart was still pounding. I said, "I'm sorry—"

  "They were wonderful people, Alex. Very glamorous, very gracious and courant."

  A dispassionate way to talk about one's dead parents, but grief could take many forms. The important thing was that she was talking, opening up.