All the Trouble You Need Page 6

  Daphne returned home surprised to see a number of unfamiliar cars in the driveway. She didn’t remember the party until it was too late to retreat to the library or café, anywhere sane. She heard laughter and looked into the living room and saw a bartender serving cocktails, but before she could slip away, her mother appeared, apron around her evening dress, and beckoned her into the kitchen.

  “Daphne! Where were you? I’m shorthanded, and the Ashbys are here!”

  “The Ashbys!” Daphne said, with alarm.

  She looked into the room again and saw Nelly Ashby with a plate of hors d’oeuvres on her ample lap and her husband/lapdog, Bill Ashby, a diminutive, gray-haired dapper-ass. Nelly Ashby produced a soap in Los Angeles and tried to live her life in Santa Barbara as though she were a character in one. A remarkably generous woman, she contributed a great deal to the museum, but it was only a matter of time before she exploded like a horny Roman candle. Daphne wished that Nelly had something underneath her jacket because inevitably she would let it fall open to show off her prodigious breast implants.

  “Make another tray of appetizers,” her mother ordered, and left to work the patrons.

  Well, at least she had a real excuse to give Jordan.

  The night, as she expected, grew weirder: The three couples she didn’t know treated her as if she were hired help. Perhaps they suspected that wonderful tan was really her natural coloration; brown like a Mexican, like a black? Even though her mother made quite an embarrassing flourish about her newfound status as a college student studying literature, just a month ago she would have introduced her as the daughter who screwed up her life. Anyway, who gave a damn about these people except for their pocketbooks, buying what little respect they had by having the good taste to throw money at culture? All their airbrushed youthfulness couldn’t conceal their essential tackiness. Anyway, the fun would start soon. Each of these girlfriends or wives of these titans of industry had a boob job; it would only be a matter of time before Nelly rose to the challenge.

  “Another apple martini,” the dark-haired professional wife said, holding up a glass.

  Daphne made sure to look straight into her eyes before committing to memory that this fish wouldn’t receive another drink from her hands in this lifetime.

  “Daphne! I haven’t seen you since you last jumped ship. When was that, last April? I thought maybe you were sold into a white slavery ring.”

  Daphne shrugged; would a white slavery ring have her?

  She decided not to turn to Nelly as she retrieved half-empty glasses.

  “I don’t know how to respond to that,” she finally said.

  “Oh, I’m just teasing, but it’s good to have you back because, like me, you hate these frosty dot-com bitches.”

  Mr. Ashby looked from his gin and tonic to pat his wife’s red face.

  “Don’t fly off the handle. No need for a scene.”

  “God, I’m hot in here,” Nelly Ashby said, and slipped her jacket open, revealing herself to the party.

  Daphne shrugged. Too predictable to be shocking, but her mother would have more than enough shock for everyone. The amusing thing was that Nelly seemed to expect a reaction, shouts of surprise, maybe indignation, but the couples continued chattering on as though the plump, sunbaked, toasted woman was invisible.

  Daphne admired her breasts; they stood firm and fake as a plaster Mount Rushmore. Through with it all, Daphne abandoned her mother downstairs to officiate the party alone.

  * * *

  She managed to get to class early on Thursday and found a seat near the door. Soon as he arrived, she stood to greet Jordan.

  “Jordan, I’m sorry. My mother had an emergency. I had to help with a party for the art museum.”

  She could see the hurt in his eyes as he thought of a response.

  “It’s my fault and it was wrong of me not to call you. Let me make it up to you. Dinner maybe?”

  He looked surprised and pleased but not entirely reassured.

  “Sure, whenever. But don’t feel obligated.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Sure, if you’re free. Maybe Japanese.”

  “That sounds fine.”

  Daphne turned to leave.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Seven?”

  “Sure.”

  She turned to leave again.

  “Your address?”

  She quickly wrote it down for him and returned to her seat. For the rest of the class she saw him looking at her, but she refused to meet his eyes, and when class ended she made a quick exit.

  * * *

  Norbert’s was her favorite restaurant in Santa Barbara. The restored California bungalow near the beach was crowded as usual with overdressed blue-haired ladies. She needed to have a drink on the veranda surrounded by wisteria and morning glory vines, watching the sunset over the ocean. She wondered if Jordan would like to have dinner here, would he feel comfortable? Maybe he would find it silly. Her mother waited at the usual table with two glasses of wine. Daphne kissed her, then sank into the heavily cushioned rattan chair and had a long sip of wine and sighed.

  “Rough day?” Mrs. Daniels asked.

  Daphne shrugged and had another even longer sip of wine. “I feel dehydrated.”

  “How’s Genji coming?”

  “We’ve finished that. Now it’s The Makioka Sisters, the Little Women of Japanese literature.”

  “Is that supposed to be a selling point?”

  “It’s better than that. Everyone gets diarrhea at the end.”

  Mrs. Daniels frowned, which surprised Daphne because her mother usually liked silliness.

  “Your father received a message.”

  “A message?”

  “Yes. It was Frank.”

  She slipped her hand onto Daphne’s.

  “We took care of it. I called back and told him I had no idea where you were. That you haven’t been home since the holidays.”

  Daphne smiled to reassure her mother.

  “He doesn’t care. He has other girlfriends. He’s too lazy to come the distance.”

  “We can get a restraining order.”

  “Really, it’s okay. It’s over.”

  “Yes. He probably called blind, hoping you might answer.”

  “I’ll screen my calls for a while.”

  Mrs. Daniels finished her wine and asked the waiter for another glass.

  “I debated not telling you. The last thing in the world I want to do is worry you. We love having you home.”

  “It’s good being back.”

  Frank knew she was back. Her parents couldn’t lie worth a shit, and he had powers, mind control, ESP, whatever; he had it.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out,” she said, in her brightest voice for her mother’s sake. That’s what she learned all those years of running away; the devil may be on his way to claim your soul, but you still need new stockings and to be able to lie with a straight face.

  CHAPTER 6

  “A new suit? Who’s this white girl that has you so sprung?” Ned asked Jordan, as Jordan admired himself in the bathroom mirror.

  “She’s not white. She’s something. I haven’t asked her.”

  “Man, man, man. That’s interesting. You got women crawling all over you. Poor little Trisha’s given up on you, and that other chick, freak-mama Mary, calls looking for you, and you don’t got a minute for none of them.”

  “Trisha knows I’m working on my thesis.”

  “Yeah, you busy. Had the car washed, your hair styled, a new suit, flowers . . . please, you busy in love.”

  “Ned, as usual, you don’t know what’s happening.”

  “All right, then you don’t mind if I ask Trisha out?”

  Jordan stopped primping long enough to cut his eyes at Ned.

  “That’s . . . up to you. If Trisha wants to go out with you, what can I do about it? I don’t have papers on her.”

  “Cool! Soon as you out th
e door I’ll call her up. What’s the number?”

  “F-U-C-K-Y-O-U!” Jordan said.

  “See, you really think you’re Don Juan. All the women are yours.”

  “Here, I’ll give you Mary’s number. She’s got needs bigger than all outdoors.”

  Jordan quickly scribbled a number and tossed it to Ned.

  “You know I can’t use that.”

  “Suit yourself. Just remember with her it’s a sex thang.”

  Ned waved him off and Jordan headed for the door, but he turned and darted back in and caught Ned peering at Mary’s number.

  “Busted!” Jordan said.

  Ned shrugged in defeat.

  * * *

  After driving lost on the poorly marked and badly lit roads of Hope Ranch, he found her house through dumb luck; a posting with an address for a house for sale saved him from calling for more directions. He drove up a long driveway to a Craftsman mansion, concealed almost completely by a grove of eucalyptus trees. Though he usually tried to put a price on Santa Barbara real estate, this time he just shook his head. Daphne’s family was just plain rich.

  Jordan parked and walked up the pebble path, annoyed at the crunching underneath his feet, as though it would draw attack dogs who’d appear snarling and frothing. He was nervous, so nervous that his stomach churned like he had had a bad burrito at lunch. To add to his nerves, he reached the porch to see a clear glass oval set in a wooden frame. He knocked and waited, hating being robbed of the few minutes he thought he would have to himself. Then he saw a woman hurrying down the stairs, but it wasn’t Daphne rushing to meet him; a thin white woman smiled at him through the glass door as she unlocked it. She was attractive even in a dour dress you’d expect to see on a nun.

  “Jordan? Come on in. I’m Denise Daniels, Daphne’s mother,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, smiling awkwardly.

  “She’s just about ready. She speaks so often of you I feel we’ve met.”

  This was new to Jordan. In his circle of university friends, everyone was from somewhere else; now it seemed all the women he felt strongly about had too much family. She led him to a couch in the jungle-theme living room, green walls and plenty of plants, even a lemon tree with lemons; horrifying Indonesian wooden busts lined the mantel above the fireplace; and a frightening freestanding fanlike sculpture, five feet high, nothing but eyes and fangs.

  “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Water would be nice.”

  Jordan watched her walk away, thinking that she seemed at ease and friendly. She returned with a goblet of sparkling water with a slice of lemon.

  “Now, let me hurry Daphne. She just runs late.”

  She didn’t have to. Daphne came down the stairs in a burgundy dress, wearing a pearl necklace, her hair cascading down in curls along her shoulders. He watched her with unbroken attention as she made her way to him.

  “Ready?” she asked, smiling as though he was running late.

  “Yeah, how about the Tokyo Inn?”

  Daphne seemed surprised at the suggestion.

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “We don’t have to go there.”

  “No, I insist.”

  Jordan shrugged.

  A door unlocked behind him and he saw a red-faced, slump-shouldered man stumble drunkenly into the house. He ducked into the kitchen, and both mother and daughter ignored him like he was some kind of ghost.

  Daphne kissed her mother good-bye, and as she and Jordan walked to the door, she smirked.

  “That embarrassment is my father.”

  Jordan nodded, feeling awkward at being present to see the family dirty laundry; but one thing was clear, she didn’t look a thing like either of her parents.

  * * *

  At first they rode in awkward silence. He was too nervous to make small talk but he knew he had to if the night wasn’t going to die early.

  “Nice home you have.”

  “My grandfather left it to my mother. I have a great bedroom that opens to the ocean on one side, the mountains on the other. I miss it when I travel. My grandmother was an actress, and she lost a great role because she was ill. Clark Gable came to pay a visit, and they had tea in my bedroom.”

  “You travel a lot?”

  “I haven’t been home for more than a few days in the last eight years.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “My old boyfriend is a concert promoter. We went everywhere.”

  The boyfriend. There had to be one lurking in the wings.

  “I ran away at fifteen with my girlfriend. I had one of my parents’ cars, and we pretty much lived in it until they caught up with me and took it.”

  Jordan nodded, waiting for Daphne to continue.

  “We ran away because we wanted to do wild things. We spent more time trying to keep wild things from happening.”

  “I ran away to college,” Jordan added.

  “I was too possessed with my own idea of the world to do that.”

  Jordan waited for Daphne to elaborate, but she didn’t.

  * * *

  Inside, the restaurant was near empty. This was just what he wanted, the quiet serenity of slow business. The waitress seated them next to a fifty-gallon aquarium, a convenient seat to watch the brightly colored saltwater fish.

  “Dinner,” he said.

  She smiled, but it was so slight, he couldn’t be sure.

  “So about this boyfriend, you still seeing him?”

  “No,” she said. This time he was certain she smiled.

  “Good. I thought all beautiful women came equipped with jealous boyfriends.”

  The waitress appeared and Daphne suggested they order the large bottle of sake, and oddball sushi he had never been inclined to eat, like uni, quail egg, and octopus, but it was only the octopus he had trouble eating. It seemed like potent, fish-flavored bubble gum that lasted longer than he could stand.

  “How do you like being a student again?” he asked, deftly shooting the octopus from his mouth to the napkin.

  “I like it. I was working downtown as a secretary, and that wasn’t any fun.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not . . . the kind of person who should have jobs like that. I can’t be counted on. If it’s not life or death I don’t care very much. Being fired isn’t the worst thing. I sort of like it.”

  Things were sure different for her, Jordan thought. If he stopped working, by the weekend he’d be living in a refrigerator box with a pet rat and a bottle to piss in.

  “How do you like the sushi? The food is good. I’ve always liked the Tokyo Inn. It’s not loud like some of the other sushi bars,” he said.

  “I used to come here often but I stopped.”

  “Why?”

  Daphne smiled oddly.

  “My old boyfriend liked to come here when we were in town. He reserved one of the private rooms, and I brought along my girlfriend. I had to go to the bathroom. When I returned, they were making love, right there on the floor just like in Genji.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I backed out and shut the sliding door,” she said.

  Jordan didn’t know what to think. She told the story as though she was talking about the weather.

  “You must have been pretty mad.”

  “I was hurt, but he had great powers of suggestion, mind control, something. I think he was a hypnotist. He said I shouldn’t get upset. Jealousy is stupid and a waste. The expression of love in whatever form is what life’s about.”

  “You believed him?”

  “Yes, at first. But later I became depressed. I thought I was flawed for being jealous and undeserving of his affection. I thought about my soul a lot. No matter what happened to me, at least I could keep that pure.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t like to say it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “It’s Frank,” she said, almost in a whisper.

&nbs
p; “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Thirty something.”

  “I would have killed him,” Jordan said flatly.

  “What?”

  “See, if I had a daughter and someone like that decided he was going to spend his time dogging her, I’d wait until he came home and drive my car over him a few times.”

  She grimaced. Then she was silent for a long moment.

  “My mother tried talking to him. At that time I was so mesmerized that my girlfriend smuggled me back to my parents, knowing that if I saw him again, I’d be as pathetic as before. My parents immediately sent me to stay with relatives in England. Somehow, he found out about the plan, and he was determined to follow me and tried to badger my mother into giving him my number. She tried to talk him into leaving me alone. She tried threatening him with the police, but by the time she finished talking to him, she was almost seduced into telling him to come pick me up. She hung up and refused to answer the phone for weeks.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Last I heard he was in New York getting rich and fat.”

  “Maybe he’ll have a heart attack.”

  “You must trust me or something to tell all this,” Jordan said.

  “I do . . .”

  Suddenly awkward, she paused as if she were searching for the next word.

  “A walk on the beach?” she asked, almost blurting it out.

  “Yeah, sounds great.” Jordan took out a few twenties to pay the bill but she shoved the bills into his shirt pocket.

  “Let me,” she said, and put her own bills onto the table.

  At the beach the night was warm. After reaching the pier, they continued on to where the big waves broke against and over the seawall. She stopped and pointed to the waves.

  “The water is glowing.”

  Every time a wave broke, the foam glowed bright green.

  “I think they call that bioluminescence, something to do with plankton. It only happens once or twice a year. I think I read that in Believe or Not!”

  So near, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. Farther up behind the pier, the tide was out. They hopped down and walked to where boats were stranded in sand, near the wooden seawall. Jordan again tried to find the nerve to kiss her, sensing she waited patiently for him to do something.