I want to tell Tish to broaden her scope of friends. I adore Kim, but it’s not a good idea for them to get so attached to each other that one of them ends up hurt or lonely when the other has to do things independently of the relationship. It’s been, in my limited experience, a good idea to have a few back-ups, to have a crowd and not play favorites. Actually, it’s been my experience to know that it’s never a good idea to rely on one person, and one person alone, for anything.
That fact is being hammered home to me. I’m in the kitchen with Juliette this morning going through my mail. I had no idea that the mail doesn’t get delivered to the house. It goes elsewhere, where Julitette sorts it out and brings the pertinent bits to Alex when necessary. That now includes me. So I’m in the kitchen looking at the small pile of envelopes that are mine. And in one hand I’m holding a check; alimony and child support. The check is significantly smaller than agreed upon. In the other hand I’m holding a letter from the court, explaining WHY this check is smaller. Errol is unemployed. He’s requested, and been granted, a reduction in payments due to hardship.
I’ve gone through the stack and can find nothing, repeat, nothing, from my lawyer.
“He’s doing this on purpose,” I say out loud. I slide the check into its envelope. “It’s a good thing I don’t NEED this money.”
“What has that got to do with anything?” Juliette asks me. We’ve been having some coffee, waiting on Alex who is in no apparent hurry to come down to breakfast this morning.
“Well, everything. I mean, if I was counting on that for survival I’d be up the creek.”
“That’s not the point. He’s reneging on a contract. You need to go after him for that.” She sifts through my pile of mail one more time. “You need to go after your lawyer, too. You should have been notified. I’ll double check through A.J.’s mail, just in case it got mixed into it, but I’m sure it didn’t.”
“I’m not surprised, she wasn’t a very good lawyer.” She wasn’t, and I don’t even know that much about lawyers. I just thought that her approach was lackadaisical and that she wasn’t so much fighting my side of the issue as trying to wrap the whole thing up. I have no idea why I kept her, other than I thought a woman would be more sympathetic to my case. And she was economical. I now understand that I got what I paid for.
“I can get you in touch with some very good lawyers,” Juliette says.
“I can’t afford to pay more than I’m going to get out of Errol,” I tell her.
“We can work around fees. Probably get you a nice, women’s lawyer to do it pro bono.”
“Beg pardon?” I wonder why Sonny and Cher are involved.
“Free. Gratis.”
“Free?”
“Free.” She smiles at me like the rube I am. Free legal work. It’s been my experience that nothing in life is free, everything has its price. THAT point gets hammered home as Alex limps his way into the kitchen. He looks his usual disheveled self, but he’s more wide awake than usual.
“How are my lovely ladies this mornin’?” he asks.
“We’re fine,” Juliette answers. I get up to get coffee for him as he sits down. “How are you?”
“Not bad.” He yawns, then lights a cigarette.
“You’re looking rather... TAN,” she says.
“I’ve been workin’ on it.” He smiles with his teeth clenched on his smoke. He has extraordinarily white teeth, particularly for someone who smokes. “What’s up for today?”
“Nothing special. Bills, the usual things. You need to renew your driver’s license.”
“Oh, man...”
“It’s time. You have to do it. You’re a resident now, you have to go and take the test.”
“I don’t wanna take the test,” he says in an exaggerated whine.
“You need to take a test?” I ask, butting into their conversation. I hadn’t even given my driver’s license a thought, which is not like me. I usually have my ducks in a better row. I’m going to have to get my license changed. Sometimes I don’t bother, because I’ve lived in places where it didn’t matter, or where I knew I wasn’t staying very long, and it’s not worth the aggravation. But the more I’m here in Malibu, in Southern California, I feel that I’m here to stay. At least for a longer time than usual.
“Just a written one, it’s not a big deal unless you’re A.J.” Juliette ruffles his hair and laughs at him. “You just go to the DMV, get a book, look it over, memorize it, then take the test. They grade it right there. If you flunk, you can take it again, right away. It’s NOT a big deal.” She takes a sip of coffee. “But A.J.’s a familiar face. And he’s a bit paranoid.”
“Fuck off,” Alex says, but he says it in a joking way.
“You mean there isn’t a ‘Hollywood’ DMV out here, where ‘special people’ can go and be amongst their own kind?” I ask.
“Man, Shi, you got a case of smartass this morning,” Alex states, and he doesn’t sound annoyed, he sounds impressed.
“Actually, he can go right around here, it’s not that big a deal, he’s just LAZY.”
“Am not.”
“Alexander, please,” Juliette says, raising an eyebrow at him. “Anyway, you have no choice now, if you want to keep driving out here, you’re going to have to deal with this.” Then a big grin spread across her face. “Siobhan will go with you.”
No question, no request, just ‘Siobhan will go with you’. Maybe I don’t want to cart his behind to the DMV. Maybe I might like to go by myself and not listen to any whining. I’m whisking eggs together and feel like whacking Juliette with my spatula this morning.
“Yeah?” Alex has turned to look at me. Now what am I supposed to do with THAT look? Obviously, this idea suits him fine. He’s got an ingenuous look to him that I don’t trust one damn bit. But it’s very... compelling.
“Sure,” I agree. What the heck.
“And then you can take Siobhan to go see Grace.”
Alex’s eyebrows shoot straight up. He looks at Juliette, and then looks back at me. Before I can say anything, Juliette is talking.
“Her ex is ripping her off. She needs to get that straightened out. Grace can take care of it. Gratis,” Juliette says.
So there’s my business out on the street. Not what I had in mind. Too late to do anything about it now. Alex is looking at me again as I start to soak bread in the egg mixture and fire up the pan. I really don’t want him looking at me. I don’t want pity. I felt pity from him yesterday evening, when he offered to loan me money to send Tish to camp. Not every kid in America gets to go to camp. Not even crap camp. Some people are poor. Some people are...
“Everything okay?” Juliette asks.
I realize that I’ve been slamming things: the pan onto the stove, the whisk onto a trivet, the refrigerator door. I shouldn’t be angry, these people are trying to help. In fact they’ve been some of the most helpful people to me that I’ve ever had in my life, Alex included for giving me this job in the first place. This is no time to be ungrateful. No matter what.
“Burnt my finger,” I tell her, and put it in my mouth.
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I think I insulted Siobhan. I didn’t mean to, and maybe it wasn’t even me, maybe it was Juliette, but something crawled up her ass there for a minute. She’s cool now, she’s makin’ breakfast and humming to herself under her breath. I don’t think she knows that she does that, that humming thing. But it’s cool.
Only, she leaves us in the kitchen. Goes to make the bed, do whatever upstairs. Not much, the cleaning people come today, but she leaves and I know, you know, just KNOW, that she wanted to leave, to not be around us.
“I think I shouldn’t have told you about her problem,” Juliette says, once we know that Shi is long gone.
“Maybe not.” Probably not. I’m sensitive about shit like that. My problems have been printed up for half the world to see. My problems make it into dentist’s offices everywhere. They’re in tabloids and magazines. I don’t like it, it’s fucking humiliating sometimes, but that’s a part of being who and what I am. But I don’t like it. So I know why Siobhan did her little fryin’ pan slam dance. Guess she doesn’t like it much either.
“I can take her to see Grace.”
Grace is a great lawyer out here. She’s a good one for smoothing things over and keepin’ it on the down low. I know for a fact that one of the guys from the group, Kevin, who drives like a fuckin’ maniac, I know that he’s used her for smoothing over the tickets and traffic school and shit. So whatever Shi needs, Grace’ll do it for her.
“I’ll take her,” I tell Juliette.
“Soon, then. This week. Want me to call and make the appointment? Never mind, I’ll call and I’ll do it today.”
“Better make sure it’s not late in the day, though. I got meeting. Shi’s got Tish comin’ home from school.”
“Sure.” Juliette says the word slow. Funny. I just shrug at her and keep eatin’ my breakfast. It’s good today, like it’s good all the days that Shi makes it. I’m gonna get as big as a pig.
“I think I might talk to Grace myself,” I say out loud.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Juliette is ready to jump.
“Nothin’ special.” It isn’t, but it’s somethin’ I want clarified. Somethin’ I may want to make formal. NOTHING I want to talk about. “When we go over expenses, I want to talk to you about somethin’.”
“Talk now.” She’s done. She’s eaten one piece of toast to my four.
“As far as I know, nothin’s happ’nin’ this summer for me, you know, it’s gonna be pretty much more of the same...”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, Alex.”
“I know, I’m not talkin’ about that right now. I’m just saying that this is how it’s lookin’ like being. So, I’ll need Shi here for all the usual stuff. But her kid is out of school, and ....”
“That’s not convenient.”
“Could you maybe not interrupt me?”
“Sorry. Go on.” She sees I’m serious.
“And she wants to go to camp. But I think Siobhan is holdin’ back about it, ‘cause of money. I offered to loan her some, and I think she took it wrong, I don’t know, but I know that she’s not gonna take it without a good reason. And I meant loan, not gift. I was thinkin’ she could, you know, pay me back over time, or we could take it outta her check, whatever. By the way, you got her check?” And I pick up an envelope that I think is her check, look inside and see that it’s A check but it’s not her check from me, it’s some crap ass coupla hundred dollars from some guy named, whatthefuck? Errol?
“That’s not it,” Juliette says, and snatches the dam thing outta my hands.
“I hope not. Is that hers?”
“That’s what she needs to see Grace about. She can tell it to her, you don’t need to know anything about this.”
“That’s her alimony?” I’m stunned. I pay more than that to Sarah and it sure in hell ain’t alimony. Fuck, I pay that much for her friggin’ nails every week.
“This is none of your business, Alex.”
“Then why did you bring it up, Juliette?”
“My mistake. You were saying something about camp and money?”
“Never mind, lemme think about this a little more.”
“Alex, I’m not going to let you go berserk with the checkbook anymore. Remember? You pay me to be this way with you about it.”
“I remember. Don’t sweat it.” I go back to eating and Juliette goes on droning about economizing. Boring. I have millions, I don’t need to be that tight. Besides, Shi is saving me a fortune with all this home cookin’ and everything. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, my mind is elsewhere. For whatever reason, I woke up pretty crispy this mornin’, and I’ve been thinkin’ about Shi and Tish and camp and bein’ a kid and all sorts of things, which is weird enough anyway. But I think I want to do somethin’ about this camp thing, even if it’s just smoothing something out, even if it’s just so I won’t be up a tree without things the way they are right now, ‘cause things are pretty okay at the moment and I want to keep it that way.
So maybe I’m selfish, but is it so bad if it ends up bein’ selfish for a good reason for everybody? So that everybody’s covered? For once?
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
