Sunset City (8 page)

“Who are these people?” she asked, nodding to a cluster of folks in expensive suits. Sally's colleagues, I guessed.

“Cops and robbers,” I said, thinking about Ash.

Brandon had turned to talk to a couple of guys standing near us. They opened their circle and took us in, one of those smooth drunken happenings, like a microscopic video of mitosis in reverse. They wore black jeans and tucked-in shirts. Like me, these people had no idea how to dress for a funeral.

Audrey made introductions—Kenneth, Anthony, Brian, George. I recognized George from the porn site and felt embarrassed. He pulled a flask from his pocket and handed it around. Audrey passed it to me. Vodka. It tasted like air-conditioning, crisp and clean. I could drink it forever.

“Man, I hated it in there,” Kenneth said, indicating the church.

“I guess it's not supposed to be fun,” I said.

“Sure, but, fuck. When I think about Dani, that's not what
I want to think about. I thought it would be spiritual or something.”

“Spiritual?” I said.

“Danielle and I talked about that stuff once,” he said.

“What'd she say?”

“She thought organized religion was bad, like it was commercial, and took advantage of people and stuff.”

“Right. The standard junior high philosophy,” I said.

“What,” he said. “Don't you think it's true?”

“Sure it's true. It's obvious. That's why children can figure it out. So what?”

“She said she believed in God, though,” he said.

I tried and failed to think of a more annoying conversation. How could Danielle have been friends with this guy?

“Where's Sylvie and Cass?” George asked.

“I texted Sylvie,” said Brian. “She's staying home. They're scared. I mean, it could be some stalker. They're talking about quitting, leaving town.”

“I don't blame them,” George said. “It could have been someone we know.”

“They could be here,” Anthony said.

Audrey's eyes jumped, and she moved closer to Brandon. He squeezed her to his side.

“I don't get it,” George said. “I mean, who the fuck would kill Danielle? It's crazy.”

“Yeah, I mean, Danielle?” Brian said.

“Seriously, dude,” George said. “She was sweet. Remember when she first came on set? She was like, professional from the beginning.”

“She was never one of those whiny bitches,” Anthony said.

“She was always cheerful. And, like, enthusiastic, even if she had a bad day,” George said.

“Yeah,” Anthony said. “She was always happy to fuck me. Like she
wanted
to. Remember that anal scene? The lube spilled and her hands kept slipping.”

A couple of them laughed, apparently having forgotten their concerns about the identity of Danielle's murderer. Maybe it was one of them.

“And plus,” Anthony said, “she seriously, genuinely loved to fuck. She loved to suck cock.”

“Yeah, dude,” George said. They high-fived.

“What a fucking waste,” Anthony said, shaking his head. He looked up, unfocused, and I saw he was wildly drunk. He threw his arms open, sloshing beer on the dirt. “Now who's left?” he yelled. “Who've we got now? Just a bunch of fucking cunts!”

He stopped abruptly when his gaze registered Audrey. She trembled beside me like a hunting dog.

“You fuckcock,” she said, her voice hoarse and whispery, full of pain.

Quiet came on like a thing fallen from the sky, in which we could hear the classic rock station playing the Eagles, Audrey panting in anger, and our feet shuffling in the dirt, uncertain. Anthony raised his hands to ward her off.

“Audrey,” Brian said. “Audrey, calm down. We're gonna miss her, is all. Right, guys? Nobody was close to her like you, we know that.”

“Yeah,” Anthony said. “None of us had to use a strap-on.” He grabbed his crotch and the rest of them giggled anxiously.

Brandon moved in with a quick blow to Anthony's face. The thud of his fist echoed. Brandon hit him twice more before anyone had a chance to react. You could see the punches hurt; the last one knocked Anthony into the person behind him, a grizzled lady with a lot of cleavage showing. She said, “Careful, darlin',” in a smoker's rumble. Her man shoved Anthony and
shouted. In an instant three of his buddies, big middle-aged bikers, were yelling and pushing into our circle. More people gathered at the periphery of their knot.

I couldn't see much, only a globe of dust and shouting. Beer splashed on the dirt and turned to mud, covered in bootprints. The bartender and one of the regulars came over and separated the men, but the fight would've died down anyway. It was obvious none of them had the stamina. Audrey handed me her beer.

“Help me finish this,” she said. “Let's get out of here.”

A
udrey unlocked a red Honda Civic parked on the street. “You can throw that shit in the back,” she said. I shoved aside magazines, clothes, shoes, and CDs, and sat. She steered into traffic on Alabama.

“How can you stand those guys?” I said.

“I hate them.”

“I don't blame you. Jesus. What assholes.”

“Danielle hated them, too. She was just really good at separating that from work. She was way better at it than me.”

“Oh, god,” I said, realizing. “You have to have sex with them, don't you.”

“I'm done with those douche bags. Especially Anthony.”

Audrey took a left.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“Shopping expedition. How much money do you have?”

“Uh . . .”

“Do you have forty dollars?”

“For what?”

“Coke. You like coke?”

I hadn't been around coke since the old days with Danielle. I loved it and I hated it, same as everybody.

“I have forty dollars,” I said.

We sped north past the Loop, through neighborhoods and stretches of native forest. The cluster of pines and undergrowth gathered evening shadow. We passed subdivisions and people walking their retrievers in the twilight. The clouds glowed pink and purple in the sky.

“Fucking sunset,” Audrey said.

“You don't like it?”

“I like night.”

Who doesn't like sunsets? I thought. I studied her profile while she drove. She was agitated, her fingers moving on the steering wheel. She drove unsteadily, kept speeding up and slowing down.

“Where is this place?” I asked her.

“Almost there.”

The sky settled into streetlights and tree shadows. Gradually Audrey relaxed next to me.

“You and Brandon are close, huh?” I said.

“We hang out a lot. The three of us, me, him, and Dani.”

“That was very chivalrous,” I said. “How he stood up for you.”

“You mean the fight? He's not the first guy I've seen punch Anthony.”

“I can see why,” I said.

She turned into a parking lot flanked by pine forest on one side and a slapped-together apartment complex on the other.

“Come on,” she said. “Give me the cash.”

I handed it over. We walked across the asphalt to a set of stairs, and around a corner to a door where she stopped and sent a text message from her phone. Crickets sang from someplace close. She grinned at me. “This won't take long,” she said.

The door opened and Audrey grabbed my wrist and hauled me inside. It was dim. Central air blew from a vent in a wall. A switch clicked on, and after a couple of flickers, harsh light invaded the room. It wasn't much of an improvement.

Our host had a flat pale face and fauxhawked hair. His grin made him adorable in the way of children in cookie commercials and when it departed it left him bereft, with an assortment of random features that didn't quite add up to a face. Veiny muscles showed through his shirt.

“Audrey, great to see you,” he said, kissing her ear.

“Jacob,” Audrey said, “this is Charlotte.”

He took my hand and peered at us. “You could be sisters, couldn't you? Same eyebrows.”

I glanced at Audrey. We didn't look at all alike. She shrugged.

“Sit down, sit down,” the guy said.

He gestured to a couch in the corner, behind a wide glass-topped coffee table. On the table lay the fattest cat I'd ever seen. I skirted around it to take a seat on the couch. Cat hair grayed the green upholstery and flew out in a cloud as I sat.

“Jacob,” Audrey said, “we can't stay long.”

“I'll fix you a drink,” he said.

He left for the kitchen and Audrey scooted closer to me.

“Check this out,” she said. “It's amazing.”

She picked up an unplugged lava lamp from the adjacent shelf and balanced it on the cat. She took her hands away. The lamp listed slightly to one side, but didn't fall. The cat lay still as though stuffed.

“I always do this,” she said. “He likes it, I think. I put a bowl of cereal on him for an hour one time. He never moved.”

We heard the whir of a machine from the kitchen, and Jacob emerged with three dark gray smoothies garnished with parsley stems. He set one in front of each of us.

“New juicer,” he said. “It's amazing.”

“Jacob, what the hell is in this?” Audrey asked.

“Uh, carrot. Beet. Pear. Blue-green algae. And a splash of rum. I invented it.”

We took experimental sips.

“It's gross,” Audrey said.

“It could use some salt,” Jacob said. “I've also been making a meat drink for Oliver. He loves it.”

He bounced into the kitchen again and returned carrying a ceramic salt shaker shaped like a fried egg, with two holes poked in the yolk. The condensation on the outside of my glass had attracted quite a lot of cat hair.

“J,” Audrey said. “Do you have what you gave me before?”

“Right. Yes. Oliver, come on, old man. We need the table, here.”

Jacob scooped his arms under the giant blob of cat and set him on the carpet. Oliver's head flopped to one side, but he seemed otherwise unaffected by his new location. After a minute he scooted towards the hall, surprisingly fast, his belly swaying between his legs. Meat juice.

“It's not what we had,” Jacob said, “but it's good, very good.”

He wiped the table with a wet rag and brought out a little bag of white powder. Audrey saw the damp swipes of cat hair on the table and dug in her purse for a tissue, which she licked and wiped across the glass. She dried the table carefully with the sleeve of her sweater, leaving a clean patch the size of a dinner plate.

“An oasis!” Jacob said.

He tapped the coke out. The harsh light made him look waxy. I could see Audrey's pores. She snorted a line and handed me the rolled bill. I did my line and let the rush creep and build, like fluorescent light in my bloodstream. The dim apartment,
Jacob and Audrey, everything took on a strange cast, refreshingly unfamiliar. I relaxed into it, waited to see what might happen. I could leave the past behind, make new friends. I felt better than I had since Michael dumped me.

Audrey was telling some story about this rich dude she knew who kept a polar bear cub for a pet in a climate-controlled room, and when the cub got too big he'd trade it in for a baby one.

“That's awful,” I said.

“That's awesome,” said Jacob. “A motherfucking polar bear?”

“What happens to the ones he gets rid of?” I said.

Audrey snorted another line and flipped her head up, blinking.

“Fuck,” she said. “Don't ask me. I never met the bear.”

“Who is this guy?” Jacob said.

“This asshole I met.”

“An asshole who likes polar bears,” Jacob said, impressed. “So it would have to be, what, ten degrees or some shit?”

“What?”

“The room, the room, the fucking room. For the motherfucking polar bears! The room. For the bear. Shit, y'all are high.”

“I hate the cold,” I said. “I hate air-conditioning. I don't even like fall.”

Jacob said, “Anyway, polar bears aren't actual bears. It's a myth.”

“They are, too,” Audrey said. “You're thinking of panda bears.”

“Or koala bears,” I said.

Jacob looked dejected, then brightened. “Did you hear they discovered a new animal?” he said.

“The rich dude?” I said.

“Not the dude,” Jacob said. “Scientists.”

“What kind of animal?” Audrey said.

“It's a, like a lobster, except it's white. And it has hairs on it.”

“Huh,” I said.

“It's albino,” Jacob said. “And blind.” He lit a cigarette from my pack on the table.

“Where'd they find it?” I said.

“On the ocean floor someplace. It's supposedly ancient.”

“Then it's not new,” I said.

“Well, new to us,” he said. “To people.”

“It's vintage,” I said, giggling.

Audrey stood and stretched. She picked up a CD and set it down.

“I can't sit still,” she said, pacing the stained carpet. I was having the opposite problem. My pulse was racing but I felt sort of paralyzed on the couch.

“Do you have any more of this stuff?” I asked, holding my glass.

“You're really cool,” Jacob said, and took the glass into the kitchen.

“Uh, thanks,” I said.

Audrey wandered down the hall and I peeked in the tiny yellowed kitchen, where Jacob was banging around. An old brown stove held a board piled high with appliances: blender, food processor, juicer, an espresso machine, a couple of gadgets I didn't recognize. Jacob stood at the sink.

“You cook a lot?” I said.

“I like machines,” he said. “That's awesome you came over.”

I wondered if he sold drugs as a way to get people to hang out with him. I leaned against the wall and immediately stood upright; it was sticky. Jacob wrestled with an oversized carrot, thick and long as my arm.

Audrey appeared in the doorway. “We have to go,” she said.

“Not yet,” Jacob said. “Stay.”

“Sorry,” I told him. I grabbed my sweater and bag and we
went out to the car. Now that I was outside I realized how depressing it was in there. Audrey drove back the way we'd come, took a right onto the feeder road, and gained entrance to the freeway. I was still thinking of the sticky wall.

“How do you know that guy?” I said.

“Jacob used to go out with a girl I used to dance with. I never understood why she liked him. Let's get a drink.”

“Yes,” I said.

We stopped at a beverage mart with plate-glass windows, half of them covered in plywood. We bought whiskey, cigarettes, and two Diet Cokes. Audrey guided the car around the building, away from the security lights, and we did a couple more lines. Her eyes glittered. I was aware, looking at her, that I had never been in this particular situation before. That whatever was happening was happening for the first time. She leaned back and stuck her feet out the window. Her legs were slender and tan. She looked like a fantasy of carefree summertime, and I remembered why we were there: Danielle was dead. I guess Audrey was thinking the same thing.

“Last week,” she said, “we were hanging out at Brandon's looking at magazines. Watching cable. We got some takeout Chinese. She always ordered this slimy eggplant. It's her favorite. And now she's—” Audrey took a long breath. “Now she's nowhere.”

“I know,” I said.

“So where the fuck did she go?” Audrey said.

“It makes no sense,” I said. “Shit like this, it doesn't just happen. Not to Danielle.”

“It did, though,” she said.

“Who do you think did it?” I said.

Audrey shuddered. “I can't think about that. I get too freaked out.”

“Aren't you scared?” I asked her. “Like those girls who weren't at the service?”

“Those girls hardly knew Danielle. They're being all dramatic. They're probably glad she's dead because she was way hotter than them.”

“You don't think it could be some stalker who likes your videos?”

“Shit. Now you're
trying
to scare me.”

“No,” I said, “I'm sorry.”

We watched a mosquito brushing the windshield.

“It wants to get out,” Audrey said. “It's tired, it's not even biting us.” With her thumb she mashed the bug against the glass. “I hate this,” she said. “Let's drive.”

She took a swig of whiskey and handed me the bottle, then brought her legs in the car and shifted it into gear. Drunkenness rolled over the edges of my body.

Audrey fiddled with the radio. “Come on, where's a fucking song? I can't stand how these DJs talk. Why can't they talk like normal people?”

I took over the dial and found some music. We cranked it loud and floated along the freeway. Smog cushioned the air, cradled us.

“I feel bad,” Audrey said. “I never went in the church. I was going to. I just couldn't.”

“I don't think she'd care,” I said. “It wasn't exactly her style.”

“You're trying to cheer me up. You're sweet.”

“I mean it, too, though,” I said. “That was her mom's deal, completely.”

I thought of all those people—adults with money and suits. I wondered how many of them actually knew Danielle. Then again, maybe I didn't know her, either. Not really, not anymore.

We exited the freeway and rolled through a neighborhood
of quiet houses, clean and well lit, the buildings set close to the street inside high fences. Audrey glanced at me and smiled. Tears had smudged her eyeliner. It made her look more tangible somehow.

“Where are we?” I said.

She shrugged.

“You're good at driving around,” I said.

“What?”

“I can't do it, I'm always too anxious, like I have to know the next turn.”

“There's not much to it,” she said. “If you don't care, you can't make a mistake.”

This seemed profound to me and I was quiet. She took a left down a street that ended in a cul-de-sac. We turned around and she tried a different street, and another. They kept circling and we saw more quiet townhomes, more gates, more fake old-fashioned oil lamps on the fences. I felt jangly, disconnected, like where we were had nothing to do with me. I watched us like a commercial, because it was on.

“Hey,” she said. “A park.”

Up the block lay an expanse of green, a stone table, a swing set and jungle gym. The playground looked enchanted, marked by white light from the lamps along a paved path. My face ached from the coke. We walked on brown mulch, twisting our ankles in our high-heeled shoes, and huddled on the ground by the metal slide. The night was warm and windless. Audrey measured out two fat lines on the flat part of the slide. Her lips curved up at the corners, setting her dimples in shadow. She pulled her hair back with one hand, eyes shining black in the sodium light. We snorted the lines.