The Vanishing Half(42)
In the bathroom, he wrapped a towel around Reese’s neck and reached for his clippers. He gently pushed Reese’s head forward, and Reese closed his eyes, trying to remember the last time another man had touched him so tenderly.
* * *
—
BY DECEMBER, the city had finally cooled but the sun still hung high and unnaturally bright; it felt wrong to even call it wintertime. In the catering van, Jude stuck her arm out the window, enjoying the breeze. She’d picked up a last-minute shift to work a retirement party in Beverly Hills, and the money was too good to turn down even though Reese had sulked watching her slip out the door.
“I wanted to take you to dinner,” he said.
“Tomorrow, baby,” she said. “I promise.”
She’d kissed him, already imagining the tips she would pocket once the night was over. A company party was always good money. Big wigs, Scooter told her, as they coasted into Beverly Hills. The van glided up winding roads that grew more secluded until they finally reached a black iron gate. Scooter snorted.
“Big money they pay to live like this,” he said, the gate slowly creaking open. “Can you imagine?”
The next century would be like this, he told her. The rich moving away from cities, locked behind giant gates like medieval lords building moats. They drove slowly down the quiet tree-lined streets until they reached the house—a white two-story hidden behind Roman columns. Carla let them in. She rarely appeared during their jobs but the party was important and she was short-handed.
“The Hardison Group is a very loyal client,” she said, “so on our best behavior tonight, yes?”
Her mere presence made Jude jittery. She could feel Carla appraising her as she chopped celery and pureed tomatoes, as she swept through the party balancing trays of rolled prosciutto or mixed cocktails at the bar. The retiring man was Mr. Hardison—he was stocky and silver-haired, wearing a gray suit that looked expensive, his young blonde wife hanging on to his arm. The crowd, all white and middle-aged and moneyed, toasted his career and raised a glass afterward to his successor, a handsome blond man in a navy suit. A girl lingered by his side. She looked eighteen maybe, leggy with wavy blonde hair, and she wore a shimmery silver dress cut scandalously above her knees. Halfway through the party, she stepped away from the man and sauntered over to the bar, tilting her empty martini glass.
“I’m not supposed to serve anyone under twenty-one,” Jude said.
The girl laughed, pressing a hand against her collar.
“Well, I’m twenty-one then,” she said. Her eyes were so blue, they looked violet. She tipped her glass again. “This party’s a drag anyway. Of course I need a drink.”
“Your dad doesn’t care?”
The girl glanced over her shoulder, back to the handsome man.
“Of course not,” she said. “He’s too busy trying to distract himself from the fact that Mother isn’t here. Isn’t that something? I came all the way in from school because he got some big promotion, and she couldn’t even bother to show up. Now isn’t that a bitch?”
She wiggled the glass again. She clearly didn’t plan on leaving until she got her way, so Jude poured her a fresh drink. The girl turned toward the party, slipping the olive through her pink lips.
“So do you like being a bartender?” she asked. “I bet you get to meet all sorts of fascinating people.”
“I’m not a bartender. Not all the time. I’m a student mostly.” Then Jude added, a little too proudly, “At UCLA.”
The girl raised an eyebrow. “How funny,” she said. “I go to Southern California. Guess we’re rivals.”
It wasn’t hard to tell which part seemed funny to her: that a stranger happened to attend her crosstown rival or that the black girl serving drinks had, somehow, managed to attend a school like UCLA. A white man in a tweed jacket asked for wine and Jude uncorked the bottle of merlot, hoping the girl might leave. But as she began to pour, she heard exclamations filtering in from the foyer. The girl turned to her glumly.
“Fun’s over,” she said, and drained her martini in a gulp.
Then she set her empty glass on the bar and started toward the entrance, where a woman had just walked in. Mr. Hardison was helping her out of her fur coat, and when she turned, passing a hand through her dark hair, the bottle of wine shattered on the floor.
Part III
HEARTLINES
(1968)
Seven
The night one of the lost twins returned to Mallard, a notice was pinned to the front door of every house in the Palace Estates, calling for an emergency Homeowners Association meeting. The Estates, the newest subdivision in Brentwood, had only called one emergency meeting before, when the treasurer was accused of embezzling dues, so that night, the neighbors gathered in the clubhouse, whispering hotly, expecting the hint of a scandal. What they did not expect was this: current president Percy White standing in front of the room, his face beet red as he delivered regretful news. The Lawsons on Sycamore Way were selling their house and a colored man had just placed an offer to buy it. The room sputtered to life, and Percy threw up his hands, suddenly finding himself in front of a firing squad.
“Just the messenger,” he kept saying, although no one could hear him. Dale Johansen asked what the hell was the point of having a Homeowners Association if not to prevent such a thing from happening. Tom Pearson, determined to outbluster him, threatened to withhold his dues if the association did not start doing their jobs. Even the women were upset, or perhaps, especially the women were upset. They did not shout like the men but each had made a certain sacrifice in marrying a man who could afford a home in the most expensive new subdivision in Los Angeles County and she expected a return on that investment. Cath Johansen asked how they ever expected to keep the neighborhood safe now, and Betsy Roberts, an economics major at Bryn Mawr before she’d married, complained that their property values would plummet.