A Small Matter (6 page)

The idea of a man in her life so generous set
Vickie’s heart vibrating. The sensation disturbed her. She realized
that, for some time, she had wanted Mulroney, but had finally
passed over into the reality of having him--this final
confirmation--over the price of pricelessness--made her feel faint,
as though she had somehow stumbled into the presence of a powerful
magnetic being.

“Kiss me,” she said. “And this time, I want
it all.”

He embraced her and what began as the
faintest touch proceeded to quickly push forward like a searing hot
fireball which blew them both away, releasing so much energy
between them that each fell back, stunned, as the massive
realization of who they were and what they were before the kiss
disappeared under the newfound evidence of what they had just
become.

“Nothing in my life before,” he said, “ever
prepared me for this moment.”

“It’s not going to be comfortable,” she said.
“It’s going to be raw and naked and moving fast. We’re going to
lose sight of everything else for awhile, but as far as I’m
concerned, everything else can wait.”

An enormous black stretch Lincoln limousine
slid up to the curb and emitted a uniformed chauffeur.

“That’s my ride for the next few days,” she
said. “We’re going to have to split up to get everything done in
time.” She entered the plush and spacious coach work. The driver
shut the door and she slid down the window.

“Tonight?” he said.

“I’ll see you at the bar,” she said.

He moved towards her.

“Don’t,” she said. “Our next trip into space
will be at the altar.”

“You’re the light of my world,” he said and
turned, Kilkenney in tow, walking toward his vehicle, intent on
future matters of solemn oaths and timeless doctrines, and the
spendings of new lives.

Chapter 9

“Run me down to the pier,” she instructed the
driver.

The Tibetans had the Himalayas, the Japanese
had Fuji, and the Africans had Kilimanjaro--but Los Angelenos had
the mighty Pacific Ocean as that which defined their central
nature, united them and drew them together. As they fought for
survival, for status, for a confusing range of an infinite number
of things in the nation’s largest city, everybody agreed on one
thing--the beach was the place to let it all hang out, to set aside
individuality for the mind-meld of sun, sand, wind and water. The
beach was the place to replenish whatever had been lost in the
vortex of ten million whirling lives. And the beach was accessible
to Vickie--she’d have given anything to return to the beauty of her
beloved canyons, but her present physical condition made that
impossible, hence her desire to stand at the edge of the world
instead.

The limo cruised by the largely undeveloped
bluffs, the so-called Palisades park, before turning sharply right
and descending down the Colorado Avenue ramp to the Santa Monica
pier itself. She hopped out onto the rickety, but hopeful structure
of wooden pylons strung together with wire and scanned the fast
food stands. It wasn’t quite noon, but the smells of tacos and hot
dogs already hung heavy in the air. She decided on a
churro--Mexican fried dough shaped like the trunk of a saguaro
cactus, the dough rolled in sugar and cinnamon--carrying her prize
to the southern railing. The air was still and the ocean was mirror
flat. There were few blankets or bodies scattered over the wide
sandy shore. The greasy, hot, sugary bread was a comfort to her
body as well as her soul, and she found herself free to marvel at
the changes occurring inside her.

Dear God, she prayed, It’s not that I hate
dying--it’s that I hate the thought of arriving in a place where
You are everything. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not
time for us to meet. We hardly know each other. We have no rapport.
I mean, I’m not ready for the big sit-down feast. I’m not even
ready for purgatory. I don’t especially want to be changed from
what I am now into something else. I don’t want to review my past
life. The truth is, I want a little more time so I can walk around
the planet a bit with Mulroney. We deserve a porch somewhere to
rest our tired bones awhile. Who do You think You are? You can’t
walk into my life and hand me my pink slip! There was a lot I still
wanted to do.

And I resent your methods, your cruelty, your
choice of death for me. Why couldn’t you serve me my Notice To
Evict The Planet some other way? Instead of the number-two killer
in the world, why couldn’t you simply have had a criminal shoot me?
I must say, You must have a discontented majority of Your people
complaining about your methods. Why heart attacks and cancer? Why
not one night we simply close our eyes and the next thing we see is
you?

It’s not fair, God. I’ve lived in a city
where I’ve spent most of my waking hours behind a steering wheel
stuck in traffic and waiting for the Big One. Is this my
reward?

Suddenly she laughed. Halfway through her
prayer, she’d been struck with the feeling of being someone else
who was watching herself pray. That someone else was laughing at
her ridiculous attempt to cajole God. God didn’t cajole or persuade
easily, if at all. The laughter coming from her carried with it the
realization that she simply wasn’t the same woman she’d been a day
ago--she knew she was dying, yet somehow, deep down, below where
her shallow prayer had generated, was a person who felt things were
going better than she had any right to expect.

The placid ocean and the empty sands before
her seemed somehow virginal, and she found herself feeling that she
should simply remain where she was, at the railing on the pier,
eating churros until she finally expired and tumbled into the arms
of the earth-sea-sky juncture surrounding her.

She remembered as a girl she’d come down here
with Dad to hunt the grunion. The grunion--small silver
fish--assembled themselves each year by the millions offshore,
waiting for precisely the right time and tide to wash onto the
beach and lay their eggs. When they hit--usually around
midnight--they carpeted the sands with their flashing bodies, and
people walked around, loading up their buckets in the same manner
the ancient Israelites must have done when they gathered their
daily heaps of miraculous quail.

The stupid fish, she thought. Doing the same
thing for millions of years and unable to tune in to the fact that
within the last seventy years, ten million people had gathered
along their shore to gobble them up. But perhaps they knew
something she didn’t. Perhaps they knew that in another seventy
years, the ten million people would be gone and it would be back to
the way it had always been.

She identified with the grunion, and realized
that they were smarter than she was--because the grunion knew what
they were doing. She herself had no idea whether to swim towards a
goal or simply float with the tide of recent events. Either way,
the tumor was waiting at the shore to toss her into its bucket of
death. True, the tumor had stripped her of her need to continue
clinging to her old life of work-eat-sleep-and-play--had in fact
propelled her into the present fiery furnace of pain. To her
surprise, she’d found that once inside the furnace, her perspective
had changed. For one thing, just like the three men in the book of
Daniel who’d been saved from being turned into toast by a
mysterious angel, she’d likewise found a life-giving friend in her
fiery furnace--Mulroney.

All her life she’d avoided pain and sought
comfort, but now her perspective had changed. Which was real, she
wondered, the world of pain or the world of comfort? She finally
understood the truth. The pain and the comfort weren’t separate
entities, but rather were, like the sand and sea before her, a
single reality. One always led to the other.

She pulled out her phone and hit the speed
dial and asked for Bob, her accountant.

“Vickie,” Bob said. “How are you? Ready for
Halloween?”

“You have no idea,” she said. “Listen Bob,
I’m in a big hurry, so I’m going to dispense with the amenities.
I’m converting all my assets to cash today. I want you to total it
all up and sent a third to the IRS. Then I want you to contact the
best Realtor in Santa Monica and have them sell my house in the
Valley and call me right now about finding a good property here in
town. Next, call Simonson Mercedes and let them know that I’ll be
in there later and I’m good for whatever I want and not to give me
any sales bull. Third, get hold of a decent lawyer and setup
everything so whatever I own or buy in the next day or so can be
transferred to my brother upon my death with a minimum of
tax-impact. Finally, put about a hundred grand in an account for
perpetuity to cover taxes on any property I own which is
transferred over to Dalk.”

“Is that all?” he said.

“This is no time to be funny,” she said.

“Vickie, why do I feel all of a sudden like
I’ve just boarded the Metro and asked Bernie Goetz for some spare
change?”

“I’m sorry, Bob,” she said. “And I intend no
insult.”

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“My life’s fortunes,” she said, “are at a
critical juncture--I’m quite ill--I may have only a few days or
weeks left. So forgive me for being brusque.”

“I’ll take care of everything you need,” Bob
said. “You can count on me. And it goes without saying, that after
twenty years of friendship, you have my deepest sympathy.”

“Sorry to lay it on you like this,” Vickie
said. “I couldn’t think of any better way to do it. I guess it’s my
way of adapting to the none-too-distant moment when I will be
leaving this world.”

“I’ll call you,” he said, “and let you know
how it’s going.”

“Thank you, Bob,” she said. “Please hurry--my
time is running out.”

She realized that while talking to Bob she’d
managed at the same time to finish up the churro. How she’d
accomplished both actions simultaneously and unconsciously was
beyond her. She needed another churro; she made the buy and admired
the form of it, the way it’s ridged, sugar-coated body projected
itself from the paper bag as if to say, “bite me”. She did, and was
surprised to find this second helping not as good as the first, as
was the manner of all things of its kind which began, like the
universe itself, with a rush of heat and molding.

Chapter 10

“My background,” Mary-Jo said, “prior to Real
Estate, was in Advertising. After graduation from USC, I went out
and did my bit for the Ad industry, but I got out seven years ago
when I grew tired of being covered in slime. My last advertising
gig was pushing gourmet popcorn for a certain famous old geezer who
couldn’t keep his buttery fingers off me. I repelled his advances
and he complained--next stop--Real Estate.”

Vickie and Mary-Jo, her new real estate
agent, sat talking over drinks on the patio at Chillers on Santa
Monica’s Third Street Promenade--a large European-style open air
mall, wherein the City of Santa Monica had simply closed off a
street, added a few topiary dinosaurs and a couple of fountains,
and rented out the whole thing to an eclectic assortment of
eateries and shops. The trendy eatery had been chosen by Vickie
based upon its featured hit-list of over thirty kinds of frozen
drinks which ascended in appeal as the October day heated up
briefly during a lull in the Santa Ana breezes. A nice mix of oldie
rock-n-roll overlay the conversational buzz in the background.

Mary-Jo, in a basic blue power suit, bore a
striking resemblance to Pamela Anderson. Vickie mentioned the
resemblance as, she knew, countless others must also have.

“I get that a lot,” Mary-Jo said. “Especially
from the tourists. Mine are real, by the way.” Mary-Jo worked in a
town and in a profession where she had to maintain a certain level
of appearance which required the help of a strong hairdresser, a
good physical trainer, and a staff devoted to making sure everyone
was paying attention and nobody was taking anybody to the cleaners.
With her styled, short blonde hair and muted makeup, she presented
the essence of class, grace, and a certain psychic dexterity
demanded of those who spent their working hours assisting wealthy
home buyers on and off the financial roller coaster of the Santa
Monica real estate market.

The waiter took drink orders--a White Russian
for Mary-Jo, and a Strong Buzz--a frozen slush of tropical punch
spiked with vodka--for Vickie. Mary-Jo flipped open her notebook
computer and brought up a clever electronic picture-book of
available properties.

“So tell me--,” Mary-Jo said, “--what are you
looking for?”

“As Bob, my accountant probably told you, I
need you to sell my home in the Valley and help me find a suitable
place here in Santa Monica.”

“My people are already working on your Valley
house,” Mary-Jo said. “We’ve already got it listed and a sign will
be in the yard by late this afternoon. If it doesn’t sell for top
dollar in ten days, my company will buy it from you at five percent
back of appraisal. But what I want from you now is to get an idea
what your dream house looks like.”

“My accountant probably told you I’m dying,”
Vickie said. “It’s funny in a way, because I had always planned on
retiring someday here at the beach. My dream after my husband died
was to keep myself busy until I hit my early sixties, at which
point, I’d buy my dream beach house and live near the water and
spend many idle hours in pursuit of happiness. But yesterday I
found out that a nasty little tumor has made other plans for me.
So, to make a long story short, I’m buying my dream beach house for
my brother. It’s probably my way of seeing my dream come true
through him.”

“Tell me about your brother,” Mary-Jo said.
“Does he have a family?”

“He’s single,” Vickie said. “He’ll be the big
4-0 this February.”

“Will he be working with us on this?” Mary-Jo
said.