The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(65)
“Is that a promise?”
Raspanti laughed bitterly. “Ciao, Ms. Severy.” He shut the door, and the taxi pulled away.
Hazel watched until it was out of sight, and when she stood, her legs were shaking. She took a moment to steady herself before returning to the eighth-floor room to stare at the now-empty wall. She paced the carpet, ears alert, hoping wildly that she would hear the elevator open and Alex’s footsteps in the hall. She imagined opening the door to find him standing there, shaking his head and explaining that this had all been a hilarious misunderstanding. But no one came.
When she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was starving, Hazel ordered Thai food from down the street. Gobbling it on the patio, she looked out at the lights of Hollywood and wondered how the hell she was going to right her mistake. But the more she reviewed her options, the more her situation seemed maddeningly beyond repair. Even if she wanted to run away from her problems—just get on a plane back to Seattle—there was hardly anything to go back to. She had no store, no boyfriend, no life.
Now, at nearly four thirty in the afternoon the next day—practically sunset—Hazel kicked off the covers and forced herself out of bed. Still fighting queasiness, she stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the shower full blast. She shivered as she undressed and climbed in. The cool spray felt remarkably good, and she let it beat down on her while she waited for the hot water to kick in.
What if Raspanti was wrong? What if she could find Alex? What if she could exploit his weakness and snatch the equation right back? But then, what was Alex’s weakness? She thought back to the stories he had told her that night, of his past, of his uprooted life, of his father and mother. She wondered how much of it was accurate and how much had been a ploy to get her to feel safe with him. The part about his mother, anyway, she knew was true. You couldn’t make that woman up. Wait: his mother. Even if Alex was estranged from Paige—and even if the mere thought of seeing her made Hazel sick all over again—the woman was still a possible lead.
After toweling off, she felt steady enough to dress, make a cup of tea, and eat a few bites of last night’s leftovers. She took it on faith that the Thai wasn’t at least partly to blame for her indisposition, but putting noodles in her stomach seemed to lift her nausea. Feeling well enough to venture outside, Hazel took one last look at the empty wall, grabbed her things, and headed to the door. As she made her way down the narrow hall to the elevator, Raspanti’s fatalism was still loud in her ears: “If you think they’re just going to hand it back to you, you’re delusional The equation is gone.”
The elevator doors opened. We’ll see.
*
It was dark by the time Hazel left the hotel and drove to Venice Beach. No one was rushing to get to the ocean on a Sunday evening, and the Santa Monica Freeway was wide open.
Paige Severy lived in a bungalow a block from the Venice boardwalk, an odd location for a cloistered intellectual who probably hadn’t owned a swimsuit in years. Yet there she was, stuck in the middle of this vibey surf community, reportedly working on a book of infinite length. Hazel found her way through an overgrown yard to the front door. The porch light was out, but she could detect an incandescent glow from somewhere within. Finding the bell painted over, she rapped on the lopsided door. Within seconds, there was the scrabbling of paws on hardwood and the barking of two dogs of very different sizes. Mild scolding followed, the sound of which set Hazel immediately on edge.
“Come now, Hodge. Let’s see who it is. Podge, dial it back.”
The door cracked open, revealing half of Paige’s face as she eyed the shadowy stoop. Hazel tried to inject some confidence into her voice: “Aunt Paige, it’s me. Hazel.”
Paige pulled the door wider and peered out, her fuzzy head crowned with bejeweled reading glasses. She looked down at her niece and smiled blandly. “So it is, an orphan on my doorstep.”
Hazel wondered how many more reasons she needed to dislike this woman.
“Is it a bad time?”
“A bad time for what? Roses? Dysentery? I guess I’ll have to let you in. Hodge, Podge—hush.”
Hazel entered the house, where the cool, salted air gave way to the warm smell of wood and paper. She was greeted by a large Weimaraner of an intense gray-blue.
“That’s Hodge. The mutant is Podge.”
Yapping at the Weimaraner’s paws was a delicate thing with scant hair and confused breeding. Hazel feared it would bite, but she bent down anyway to pat its tiny deer skull.
“I found this guy outside, just before a storm hit. Yes, you’d have blown to Catalina if it weren’t for me, isn’t that so? I hope you’re a tea person.”
“Oh, don’t bother. Really.”
“You’re already a bother,” Paige snapped. “My work was interrupted the moment you put your knuckles to my door, so I may as well share my hot water.”
Hazel didn’t argue. A tea kettle was beginning to whistle, and the dogs followed their waddling mistress into the kitchen.
“You can have a seat in the back room,” Paige called above the sounds of china.
Hazel moved down the dim hallway, discerning that the living room to her left was indeed inhospitable. She couldn’t see much, but the strong whiff of boxes and mildewed paper told her that this was a repository for books. The smell instantly reminded Hazel of the Guttersnipe. It was a dark, pulpy scent she had loved for so long, but for the first time, she wanted to run from it. It seemed to hold all that had betrayed or hurt her: her store and the grueling business of peddling unwanted objects to unwilling people; and Bennet, a man she realized only now approached the world with a kind of stylish indifference. Was it any wonder she didn’t fit into the chic lines and curves of his existence? Someday she hoped to no longer associate this smell with the ruination of her life in Seattle, and that once again the aroma of slowly rotting paper might be irresistible.