Damage Control: A Novel Page 16

  She told me the hospital had scheduled the PET scan at two the following day. Earlyn would accompany her. Mom said that was fine; she’d rather have me home when the doctor called her with the results.

  I told her to keep me posted and shoved my fears into a dark closet. It did no good to get worked up until we knew more. Instead, my thoughts toggled back to my anxiety over seeing Anabelle after all these years.

  She’d sure picked a pretty place to live, I thought, driving through the rolling hills and million-dollar homes of the Palos Verdes Peninsula that juts into the Pacific.

  It was a gorgeous afternoon, filled with that limpid afternoon light we get along the wild coast. The road undulated with gentle swells, reminding me of a time when Angelenos still enjoyed a leisurely Sunday drive.

  Then suddenly the smooth road grew cracked and buckled beneath my wheels. The terrain was unstable here, and magnificent sea-view homes in Portuguese Bend lay abandoned and condemned, victims of the shifting soil.

  CONSTANT LAND MOVEMENT NEXT 0.8 MILES, read the yellow street sign.

  USE EXTREME CAUTION.

  And here I was, doing the opposite. Driving straight into darkness. Straight into the past.

  Back to Anabelle.

  How would she have handled Dr. Turcotte, I wondered? Anabelle who’d already been so sophisticated and poised at sixteen, collecting friends as effortlessly as butterflies.

  And in the end, discarding them just as easily.

  It wasn’t only her blond looks, slender frame, and disturbingly pale blue eyes that captivated people. There was a mysterious radiance to her, as if she’d found the secret to life and might share it with you if you stuck around. Anabelle filled people to the brim with exhilarating possibility that paths would appear, doors open, chests unlock, treasure spill forth.

  But then one night, the box we opened belonged to Pandora.

  And there was no treasure inside, only demons.

  I checked the address and pulled up to a house of glass and steel that rose like a futuristic spaceship from the hill overlooking the ocean. A giant bird-of-paradise rose two stories high, splashes of blue and orange against dark green fronds. On the suspended steel balcony, a girl was waving. She wore a dress of gauzy white that set off her tan, and the rays of the afternoon sun illuminated the golden highlights in her hair, creating a kind of halo.

  Anabelle.

  “Maggie!” she called, in that deep, throaty contralto. “I’ll be right down.”

  My stomach clenched. I smoothed down my tailored skirt and made sure no buttons had popped on my silk blouse. I wanted to look sleek and professional, to impress Anabelle with what I’d become. For her dad’s sake, I had to project self-assured confidence and banish the hot jumble of emotions that roiled inside of me.

  And so as I walked up the path, I performed a little crisis management on myself and felt the Blair associate slowly gain the upper hand over the sixteen-year-old dork. My low pumps, tailored jacket, and amber teardrop earrings with matching necklace provided the finishing touches to the well-heeled young professional.

  When we were young, Anabelle and I wore clothes as fragile armor against the world, investing them with almost talismanic power. We really believed that beautiful things—pleated, ruffled, ruched, beaded, plaited, pearled, bias-cut, hand-crocheted things—had the power to hold back evil and keep the dark at bay.

  And for a while, they had.

  Inside, a door slammed. I heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. Then the door opened and Anabelle stood before me.

  “Oh, my God,” we said at the same time.

  There was so much to say, and so much we couldn’t ask. Instead I shuffled my feet and lowered my gaze, unable to bear the intensity of her pale blue eyes. Her hands hung at her sides, nails painted a lustrous seashell pink. The fingers of her right hand curled around the folds of her dress, clenching tightly, and I realized she was as nervous as I was.

  Reassured, I looked up and for a long moment, we stared at each other. Anabelle was more beautiful than I remembered. Her eyes were large and luminous, almost haunted. The plump fullness of her face had melted away, leaving high cheekbones and angular planes. The peachy perfection of the California Girl had given way to a more profound beauty, tempered by age and all she’d been through.

  “Maggie! I can’t believe it. You look great!” Anabelle said.

  “You do too, Anabelle.”

  We heard a slap, slap on the marble, then a small boy with anime eyes peered from between Anabelle’s legs.

  “Come in.”

  I stepped into a cool foyer of glass bricks and followed Anabelle into the living room.

  We hugged awkwardly, all elbows and colliding wrist bones and flying hair. I made to step back, but her arms tightened around me and she squeezed hard, and in that moment, through some strange alchemy, it was as if no time had passed and we were best friends again.

  The spell dissipated as we broke apart. Anabelle gave a deep, throaty laugh and tousled her son’s head.

  “This is Lincoln. He’s four. Sweetheart, this is Mommy’s friend, Maggie.”

  “How do you do?” Lincoln asked solemnly, offering his hand.

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Lincoln,” I said. “Did you know that your mother and I were friends when we were girls?”

  Lincoln’s skeptical look said he doubted his mother and I had ever been girls.

  “Hey, buddy, want to jump on the trampoline while Mommy talks to her friend?”

  The boy nodded shyly.

  “Inez will take you out back.”

  A young Latina stepped up. She’d been standing so still that I hadn’t noticed her.

  Anabelle caressed the boy’s face as she handed him off to the nanny, and a silent pang went through me.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” Anabelle said.

  I followed her, feeling clumsy and nervous. The woman moving with graceful ease through these beautifully furnished rooms had been my friend once. Did we still have anything in common besides memories? I was almost afraid to find out.

  We moved into a designer kitchen with a gleaming industrial steel stove. Shiny copper pots and braids of garlic and red chilies hung from the ceiling. Carly Simon played softly on the stereo, and I wondered if Anabelle had picked her to remind me of old times.

  “What would you like to drink?” Anabelle asked.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  Something carved and masklike slipped over her features.

  “I’ve been sober for eight years,” Anabelle said. “It took awhile, but I finally decided to grow up and became a productive member of society.” She smiled. “I have Randall to thank for that.”

  “Randall?”

  “My second husband. He’s a captain with the LAPD.”

  The thought of rebel child Anabelle married to a cop was mind-boggling.

  “Wait! Last I heard, you were married to a banker named John.”

  Anabelle’s face darkened. Her fingers stroked a bowl of peaches and plums.

  “John is long gone. And good riddance.”

  “I’m sorry. Henry didn’t tell me.”

  “It’s a long and sordid story.”

  “You don’t have to . . .”

  “But I do. It’s part of my recovery.” Anabelle sighed. “And really, you never know what the bad is good for. If I hadn’t gone through all that, I’d never have met Randall.”

  “Really, Anabelle. If it makes you uncomfortable . . .”

  “It’s okay.”

  She pulled a jar of sun tea out of the fridge.

  “John and I never should have gotten married. We were too young and too alike. But we did and he got a job in Berlin so we moved there after the wedding.” She laughed ruefully.

  “There was a lot of heroin flooding into the city from the Balkans because the war had disrupted the old trade routes. We got caught up in it.”

  A man walked into the kitchen and poured himself some iced tea. Tall
and well built, with black hair, ruddy skin, and brown eyes, this had to be Anabelle’s husband.

  Anabelle ran to him, twining her hand in his.

  “Randall, this is Maggie. We went to high school together. Maggie, meet my darling husband. I owe my life to this guy.”

  Randall thrust out his hand and almost mangled my fingers.

  Macho prick.

  With great effort, I restrained the impulse to kick him in the shins.

  Anabelle, I screamed inwardly. How could you marry this guy? The earth cracked and shuddered as the gulf between us widened.

  “Pleased to meet you, Randall,” I said.

  “Maggie is an old friend who was always a good influence.” She turned to me. “Remember that time we went to the Baked Potato to hear some jazz?”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  Randall edged away. “Wait, darling,” said Anabelle, tugging at him. “I’m telling a story. The waiter went around the table, taking our elaborate drink orders. And when he got to Maggie, guess what she ordered?”

  “Beats me.”

  “A glass of milk.”

  Randall rolled his eyes.

  “The waiter looked us over and promptly asked to see our IDs and that was the end of that. We were all ready to kill you.”

  I said, “He would never have served us. We were sixteen.”

  Randall pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and plopped it on the counter. “Just in case,” he said. Then he left.

  Anabelle and I looked at each other and collapsed into hysterical giggles, which gave me, at least, the much-needed opportunity to vent some nervous steam.

  “He arrested me,” Anabelle said, when we’d wiped the tears from our eyes and calmed down.

  “What?”

  “I was starting to tell you when Randall walked in. After my first husband left me for some junkie model in Berlin, I moved back to L.A. I thought the sunshine would help me get clean. Instead, I got busted at Fifth and Main, trying to score.”

  “By Randall?”

  “Crazy, huh? Dad hired a good lawyer and I did Betty Ford and got off with probation. When I got back to town, Randall started calling and coming around. I was so thick, I thought he was checking up on me, like a probation officer. Until finally one day, it was like, duh!”

  She crossed her eyes and slapped the heel of her hand against her forehead.

  She’d married her rescuer.

  I stared through the French doors at an azure pool whose tile reflected the sky. Bougainvillea and banana plants grew riotous. Tall, graceful frangipani hung over the water. A dog slept on a patch of grass, surrounded by toy cars, balls, a jungle gym, and a swing set. Lincoln jumped silently on the trampoline while Inez sat on a lounge chair, hands in her lap, watching. Did she have four kids of her own back in El Salvador, or wherever she came from, being raised by her mother in a concrete shack with a dirt floor? Did she ever imagine her own kids swimming in that pool?

  “We keep the pool at eighty degrees year-round,” Anabelle said. “It’s saline, with reverse ionization.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, trying to recall high school chemistry.

  “So what about you? Dad said you’re pretty high up at the Blair Company.”

  Should I tell her the truth—that I was just an associate vying for promotion in a firm of charismatic cutthroats? Would she think less of me?

  I paused. Anabelle had called Henry Dad. This was the girl who’d called her parents Henry and Miranda when we were still in high school! I’d been very impressed by such sophistication and resolved to try it at home. But my attempt to call Mom Olivia had been immediately shot down.

  “I’m not your friend, I’m your mother,” she’d said archly. “And that’s what you may call me.”

  Did Anabelle need a father more than a friend now that she was in her thirties and a parent herself? Had sophistication melted away with age, leaving a little girl lost?

  I explained that my life hadn’t been nearly as exciting or dangerous or glamorous as hers. As usual, I felt like a sand-colored tortoise next to a crimson fox. And I felt obscurely cheated. Because Anabelle had danced on the edge of the knife, then returned to the wealthy life of ease that was the Paxton birthright.

  “It’s not like my biological clock went off,” Anabelle was saying, “but Randall wanted kids so I went along. But now that I’m a mother, I understand, for the first time, why parents will do anything to protect their children. I mean, I could easily kill anyone who tried to hurt Lincoln. It’s like this dormant instinct that blooms, a pregnancy chemical. So I worry, because I know what’s out there. When I think back to some of the things we put our parents through . . .”

  She gave me a rueful smile and changed the subject.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous here? The house belonged to a disciple of Richard Neutra who was married to a 1950s Italian film star. She used to stare out at the ocean and mourn her lost beauty.”

  She laughed, but there was something forced in it.

  This house, with its aggressively modernist lines, its cold steel and glass geometry, was the polar opposite of Villa Marbella. It was an unambiguous statement that Anabelle had rejected the past. In a house like this, rigor and discipline ruled. All straight ninety-degree angles and man-made materials, where Villa Marbella sprawled and curved like a languorous courtesan.

  But the big house, the landscaped gardens, the pool, the toys, the elegant furniture, the full-time nanny. Surely it didn’t come from an LAPD captain’s salary? I wondered how Randall felt about relying on his wife’s money.

  Anabelle grabbed the remote and Carly Simon’s voice grew louder, the aching melancholy of “Boys in the Trees.” Back in high school, Carly Simon had pierced to the heart of my confusion about boys and sex. I felt guilty too, “though no one was at fault, frightened by the power of every innocent thought.” Sex was like some kind of powerful, uncontrollable magic, whereas I wanted to kiss and pet and be held. But my fantasies mostly faded out after second base.

  “We damn near wore the grooves off that record, didn’t we?” Anabelle said, her eyes turning inward, far back in time.

  Carly sang:

  Last night I slept in sheets the color of fire

  Tonight I lie alone again and I curse my own desire

  As the last chords died away, Anabelle muted the sound and we stared at the black slate tiles, surprised at the intense emotions the words still aroused.

  “How’s Luke?” I said at last. “I saw him at the house, but it was late, we didn’t get to talk much.”

  My very own boy in the tree.

  “He’s okay,” she said. I got the feeling she was waiting to see if I’d inquire further.

  When I didn’t, Anabelle said, “He had to sell some stocks recently, got caught in the upside-down market. And he broke up with a girlfriend not too long ago and it’s hit him hard.” She gave a short laugh. “I guess she left him, and Lover Luke isn’t used to that.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  But somehow, I couldn’t work up much sorrow for Luke’s lost love. In fact, it was great timing, as far as I was concerned. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Do the police have any idea who killed Dad’s aide?” Anabelle asked.

  Just then, Randall appeared again. The LAPD captain stopped in his tracks.

  “Emily Mortimer?” he said.

  Anabelle nodded. “Dad’s hired Maggie’s firm to represent him until this blows over. She’s a crisis consultant.”

  Randall gave a short, tight nod, as if this news reinforced his negative impression of me. He leaned against the granite counter.

  “So you’re the meddlers who are making it hard for our detectives to do their jobs.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Randall,” Anabelle interrupted, “this is my friend. And since when is that case even in your jurisdiction?”

  She turned to me. “Randall’s a captain out at Devonshire. The Valley’s a whole different ballpar
k.”

  “When I found out that murdered girl worked for your dad, I started asking around,” said Randall. “Unofficially, of course.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Anabelle said with forced brightness.

  He shrugged. “That’s because there’s nothing to tell.”

  I felt the word “yet” hovering in the air.

  We watched with rapt fascination as Randall shook pretzels into a bowl. Tucking it under his arm like a football, he said, “Have a nice visit,” and left.

  “Randall and my father don’t always see eye to eye,” Anabelle said. “You’d think being vets would have brought them together—Randall was among the first U.S. troops into Afghanistan after nine/eleven and Dad was a pilot in Vietnam. But I guess it doesn’t work that way.”

  Unsure of what to say, I focused on the designer kitchen, the Sub-Zero fridge.

  “And it’s not because my parents paid for all this,” Anabelle said, misinterpreting my gaze. “LAPD captains actually make good money, and Randall’s been consulting for an upcoming cop show, Rookie. Mom and Dad helped us with the down payment, but Randall doesn’t want to take any more money from them. He says we need to pay our own way.”

  “That’s just terrific,” I said, walking to the French doors that opened into the backyard.

  Something was wrong. Anabelle was too eager to convince me of her marvelous life and wonderful new husband.

  The sun was setting in tangerine-lavender–red licorice sherbet. I suggested we sit outside to watch the dusk come on. Anabelle followed me out without looking at the sky—it must be like wallpaper to her by now. The dog, a Lab mix named Bangs, wandered over to say hello.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” I pulled a glass vial out of my purse. “Chergui, my new favorite. I made you a sample. You’ve got to try it.”

  Anabelle flinched. “What is it?” she said guardedly.

  She thinks I’m offering her drugs.

  “It’s ’fumes, honey,” I reassured her. “Just like old times. Remember how we’d raid your mom’s vanity table, spraying and dabbing until we smelled like a punk rock bordello?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “And that old Guerlain I loved so much, Vol de Nuit, that I wanted to snort up my arm?”