Fourteen
We have struck the jackpot:
a mountain retreat owned by the head of retail operations for Apple Computers.
Let’s call it the IPod Mansion. The place carries that modern propensity for
borrowing from several different styles, but the unifying factor is a pleasing
rusticity. The front walls are anchored by clumps of gray boulders, mortared together
as if they just sort of fell there. The garage doors employ dark varnished wood
with wrought-iron Gallic braces.
The
back deck is gorgeous, a broad spread lined by a pair of long benches, plus two
arbors over concrete porches. The view is a 270-degree cross-section of the
Santa Cruz Mountains, rugged slopes covered by blankets of evergreen, tony
homes peering out from ridges and bottom lands. In the distance, you can see a
tiny slice of Highway 17, and, beyond that, the gray silhouette of the Santa Lucia
Mountains overlooking Monterey. At times like these, I think I have the best
job in the world.
The
deck was custom-built a year ago with a hardy, fine-grained wood shipped in
from Brazil: ipé, sometimes called ironwood, and extremely distasteful to termites.
The gaps between the planks are perfect, the woodscrews pre-drilled and
perfectly placed. The contractor proceeded to cover this masterpiece with the
cheapest stain he could find. Twelve months later, it’s peeling so badly that
the pressure washer took the remainder right out.
The
next challenge falls to me. The deck’s design called for wooden railings with
copper verticals, which means we can’t do the standard mask-and-spray. Having
developed a deft freehand technique (Colin calls me the Dry Brush King), I must
now take my trim brush and work my way around a gazillion copper rods.
At
noon, it’s starting to heat up, so I head for my car, parked in the shade of a
mossy oak, to fetch an eight-pack of Gatorade. I pull my phone from the glove
compartment and discover a remarkable text message:
Call me! Urgent. Grassfire near yr cabin.
Evacuation.
Allison is at the top of my shit list, but
she has definitely given me a good reason to call.
“Hi. What the hell’s going
on?”
“Hi.” She’s driving. “It’s
all over the TV. Those dry brown hills across the canyon from you are blazing.
If it jumps the canyon it’ll climb right up the mountain.”
“Um… okay.”
“I know you’re probably
pretty far away, so I thought I would head on up before they close off your
road. So what do you want me to get?”
I don’t know if I’m more
befuddled by the news or the idea of Allison being so helpful. But at least my
list of valuables is small.
“Oh, geez, um… as much of
the computer as you can grab, any clothes you want to get, and… Oh yeah! Bottom
of the bedroom closet, there’s a long wooden box with a white handle.”
“Okay. Gotta talk to a cop.
They’re stopping all the cars. I’ll call later.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“No prob.”
I tuck my cell into my
shorts pocket, grab my Gatorades and head back to the railings. Work may be
dull, but life certainly isn’t.
There’s no sign of smoke at
the IPod Mansion, but the reports on the radio sound dire: thick clouds
covering the west valley, jumbo jets bombing the hills with retardant. Allison
sends a text at four, and we arrange a meeting in Saratoga Village.
Starbucks fought for a spot
in the Village for years, and once they finally got it they did a good job,
nabbing a former antique shop, setting the parking lot with pavers and keeping
the signage to a single mermaid logo above the door. You almost wouldn’t know
it was even there, but word gets out
quickly.
I pull in at six, feeling
sweated out, and find Allison outside sipping an iced coffee, looking as cool
as a cucumber despite her adventures. I come to her table, wiping my forehead.
“Oh my god!” she says. “What
an escapade. I had exactly a half hour to get down and back, so I just grabbed
and grabbed. And the smoke was pouring
through the trees, like a haunted forest in a movie. Then a chopper thunders in
over the trees, and it’s got one of those big buckets on a cable. I was just positive they were going to drown me.”
I sit down and cross my
legs.
“What was all that cell
phone shit?”
She squints at me. “Not sure
I gather your meaning.”
“You couldn’t let me have
one bit of happiness, could you? Allison isn’t happy, so no one else gets to
be!”
She looks around. “I’m
sorry. Joke? Hidden cameras? What the fuck
are you talking about?”
I am struggling to stay
calm.
“Fine. The princess wants
the full discovery process. That morning you snuck in and raped me in my sleep?
After I left the house in my pirate outfit, Allison drives back to the cabin,
sees my cell phone and says, Goody! One more way I can fuck with Mickey’s life.
I’m having a grand old time at the Ren Faire when Maddie receives a message
from my cell, complete with a nude
photo of me with some blonde chick. Blammo! Mickey’s happiness successfully
destroyed. You miserable cunt.”
The c-word hits her like a
slap. Which is exactly why I used it. She opens her phone and starts punching
the keys. This makes me nervous. She rises from her seat and hands it to me.
“Why look, honey. It’s me
and Elisbeth Challener at a luncheon at Villa Montalvo! Do a little
fast-forwarding and I think you’ll see what a total prick you’re being. I risk
my fucking life saving your trailer-trash knick-knacks and… God! You are such an asshole!”
She grabs her purse and
heads for the sidewalk, then stops and hurls her keys at me.
“Take your shit and go! I’ll
be across the street, drinking.”
I pick up the keys, then I
return to the cell phone, following the time-date stamps. Allison and Elisbeth
at 11 a.m., a half-hour after she left the cabin. A group photo at 12:30. A
string quartet behind the Villa at two, a curtain call at 3:30, then several
shots from a street festival in Saratoga Village, from 4:45 till 9:30. I try to
cram this information into my sweated-out mind, push it this way and that, and
conclude that not even the evilest of ex-wives could have concocted a way to
get to my cabin, send the incriminating photo and scurry back downhill for the
next event.
An enormous wall of smoke is
boiling over the western hills, drowning out the sun, and the air smells like
the biggest campfire on God’s brown earth. I take the keys, open the trunk of
my old BMW and begin my work.
Kendra has just gone south
to college, so I have an entire bedroom to myself (albeit with red and black
walls). Kyle has worn himself out on Guitar Hero, and husband Randy is off to
Phoenix on business, giving me the rare luxury of a conversation with my big
sister. We sit at the kitchen table, sipping root beers.
“Do you remember leaving an
opera tape in the station wagon?”
Carla scans the ceiling,
looking for a memory.
“Opera?”
“Yeah. Maddalena Hart.”
“Yeah! Oh, that’s funny. You
remember how Kyle used to sing my name like he was an opera singer?”
I answer with a contralto
burst. “Mom-mee! Mom-mee!”
“Ha! Yeah. Well I told my
neighbor about it. She was one of those Supermoms – very serious and
human-potentialized. She bought me this opera tape so I could encourage Kyle’s
interest. Funny thing is, the moment I stuck it in, that’s when the cassette player broke.”
“It wasn’t the cassette
player.”
“It wasn’t?”
“It was the fuse. When I
fixed the fuse, that tape came on.”
“And now you’re dating the
singer. Ohmigod! That is so weird.
You know what I call those? ‘Fate hinges.’ Tiny little things that completely
change your life.”
I am on the precipice of
disappointing yet another woman. So I don’t.
“That’s good!” I say. “I’m gonna
use that.”
I work the dreaded IPod
railings all the next day, consuming Gatorade by the gallon. At noon the radio
reports that the fire has been contained. God bless all fire-fighting personnel
everywhere.
At five, I take the chance
of driving home. I certify my local-resident status at the road block and
descend the dirt road, fingers of smoke drifting through the trees like
phantoms. The power is out, so I light a few hurricane lamps and I load up my
rescued possessions. I’m about to tuck the wooden box into the closet when I
change my mind and pull it back out. I grab a beer (still cold, hallelujah),
sit on the couch next to a lamp and take a trip through the contents: prom
pictures, graduation programs, wedding photos (Allison, stunning in white). Far
at the bottom, I find one of those deluxe-edition books with its own cardboard
coverslip, and I pull it out. Ulysses,
James Joyce, red faux leather binding with embossed gold letters. I see a faded
green bookmark and I open it to that page. It’s a twenty-dollar bill. I turn
the page. A twenty-dollar bill. I keep turning. A twenty-dollar bill, every
time.
The next day, I proceed from
work to the Saratoga Library, where I tell the story to Devil Diva.
M: I had a pal at the brokerage, Paulie. He was an
English grad, pretty snobbish, and obsessed with James Joyce. He was always
referring to Ulysses as “the world’s
most half-read book.” One day I said, “I’ll bet I can read it.” So I bought a
copy that night, and I devised an incentive plan. Every time I finished two
pages, inserted a twenty.
DD: I’m sorry. How is that an incentive?
M: It was a college fund for my kids.
DD: What kids?
M: The ones we never had.
DD: Oh.
M: Long story. But now I’ve got four thousand bucks,
given to me by my 31-year-old self.
DD: Awesome! But isn’t that thing 500, 600 pages
long? Am I missing the math?
M: I never finished it.
DD: Ah-ha!
M: Most pretentious piece of crap I’ve ever lain
eyes on. I think I’ll spend some of the money on my ex-wife.
DD: You have got
to be kidding me.
M: She made a pretty extraordinary gesture the other
day, and I pissed all over it.
DD: You were probably in shock.
M: This grudge-holding is an exhausting enterprise.
I think I’d like to reward any kindness that comes my way.
DD: You’re a good boy.
I return home to find the power back on, so I spend
a few minutes reassembling my computer. When I adjourn to the couch to watch
some sports, I notice the envelope on my end table marked Don José. I open it to find Maddie’s love letter blacked out by a
Sharpie pen cyclone. On the back of the card is a scrawled note: Fuck you, you bitch! The writing is
distinctly Katie’s.
Photo by MJV
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