The Elizas: A Novel(10)
A figure parted the curtain. “Mommy?” Dot cried. It was a nurse in bear-print scrubs. “Your mother will be back,” she said.
Tears spilled down Dot’s cheeks. She felt scared. Why wasn’t her mother here?
A few minutes later, the curtain to her little bed parted, and Dorothy burst through. She wore a beautiful silk wrap dress, but the ties of its belt trailed behind her, unfastened. A slash of lipstick sloppily decorated her mouth; her Chanel purse bumped against her hip, its clasp undone. She reached toward Dot and pulled her to her chest; Dot smelled her Dorothy scent, orange blossoms and Indian bunchgrass. “My girl,” she said, cradling Dot’s head close. “My sweet, sweet girl. I’m here now.”
Dot nuzzled her nose against the soft, smooth skin of Dorothy’s neck. Her aunt’s pulse was so calm—usually, it chugged swiftly and industriously, like a giant nineteenth-century machine. She stroked Dot’s hair. “We’re going to beat this. I’ll be here, always. I’ll help.”
And she was. And she did.
ELIZA
BLINDED BY THE sun, I am granted a few blissful seconds of imagining—daydreaming—what Desmond Wells must look like. Rugged, wavy hair, olive skin, and squinty eyes with baked-in crow’s feet. A rough-looking sort of fellow; the human version of a pickup truck, but sensitive, too, the kind of man who shyly brags about the yield from the fig tree in his backyard. Big hands, big muscles, a man who is strong enough to pick up a girl and spin her around on his pinkie. Not normally the type of guy I go for, but definitely the sort of person fit to pull me out of a pool.
Then he steps out of the direct sun. “Eliza,” he says in a tenor tone. “Hello.”
He’s no taller than I am, with thick black hair that’s cut in a pageboy at his chin. His eyebrows are woolly, and his nose ends at a comical point. There is something oily about his complexion, and he has a puzzling configuration of facial hair on his upper lip and chin. He looks like Guy Fawkes. He’s wearing an Oxford shirt and a tapestry vest. His shoes are very shiny and narrow. His arms look thin. I can’t imagine this person skimming a pool for bugs, let alone pulling a person from it.
My shoulders droop. It isn’t fair to be disappointed. Maybe I should have suspected this sort of person, since the text message response I’d gotten from him included a Game of Thrones–themed gif.
“H-hi,” I say tentatively. “Thanks for coming.”
Another awkward pause. I can feel him looking at me. I feel grimy and puffy from my hospital stay, and the Lakers shirt reeks of sweat.
“Anyway,” I say, leading him toward the back of the house. I’m not sure I want to let him inside. I’m funny about letting in people I don’t know, especially people who look like this guy. “Let’s talk in the back.”
The backyard has a natural water stream and a guesthouse so small it can barely fit a bed. There’s also a shed out back that can hold two horses. When I moved in, I heard a cacophony of whinnies, and the air smelled like manure. Who knew people in Burbank kept horses? I don’t have any, but there is one mare down the road that I like to visit—Beauty. She always pokes her nose out of her stall when she hears me coming, as if she knows my scent. Her eyes are so dark and limitless. She seems like she could keep a secret. There are times when I press my face to her muzzle and just stand there for a few moments, hoping no one will come around the bend and catch us.
The patio has a lot of dead plants and a nonworking fountain that’s full of sticks and seedpods. I grab an empty Zywiec porter beer bottle that was resting atop one of the lounge chairs and throw it into a spongy bush. Desmond narrows his eyes at the miniature carousel wedged between the guesthouse and the wall. I found it on eBay; it’s a replica of an Allan Herschell from the 1950s, except it’s got psychotic zebras, a pissed-off looking swan, and a lion without a head.
“That’s quite a piece,” he says with what seems like true admiration.
“Thanks. It works, if you want to ride on it. The song it plays sounds like ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.’?”
His chuckle is a half-avuncular, half-creepy heh heh heh. His gaze drifts to the papier-maché rat sculpture I’d bought at a flea market. The rainbow rodent is smoking a joint and giving the finger. “Same to you, my friend,” he says to it, elaborately bowing. I try not to grimace.
“So!” I say impatiently. “Thanks for coming.”
I offer my hand to shake. His hand is calloused, and his grip is stronger than I expect. “Charmed,” he says, holding my gaze. “I feel like I already know you.”
“Well, you pulled me out of the water. So I guess you sort of do.”
There’s a flicker of something across his face. “Actually, milady, that’s not what I mean.”
My eyes narrow on the paisley brocade on his vest. He’s got an amulet around his neck that looks like the same ones this shaman I once visited in the desert, post-tumor, was selling in his gift shop. There is a crawling feeling up my spine, and I recall the residual sense of fear I experienced just before dropping into the water at the Tranquility. Maybe it was a bad idea to invite him here. I glance around the high walls that surround my house from everyone else’s. It’s hard to know if anyone is home in this neighborhood. The houses are smashed together, but they’re eerily quiet and sequestered.