Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(79)

“Everyone, hang on a sec—He doesn’t own—” I say.

Divine gives Disme the same chiding glare he gave the host at the restaurant. “What? You don’t trust my judgment now? A run of hard luck and all of a sudden you need to put your peepers on something I bring you before you’ll invest? I have producers lined up, begging me to take their money. But okay, seventy-five hundred cash. Because I like you. Final offer.”

“Jackie-boy.”

“Gentlemen,” I say, “we are not going to s—”

“Shhhhh,” Divine says to me, putting his index finger to his lips and then making a slow down motion with his palms. Then, back to Disme: “Five grand. Final offer.” He has a pleading, wheedling tone, all of his salesman bluster gone. “Come on, Wald. You know in your heart it’s the right thing to do. You know I’m due for the winds to start blowing warm again.”

“GENTLEMEN, BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER—” I yell. But Disme cuts me off.

“Uh-oh,” he says, squinting at one of the security monitors. “Oh, Jackie-boy, we got trouble. We got company.”

Fantastic. Now whoever’s after Divine is going to murder all of us. Which would honestly be like the third worst thing that’s happened tonight.

Divine goes volleyball-colored. “What? Who?”

Disme turns the security monitor toward us. A woman who looks to be in her fifties—with a mane of blond hair that puts Dolly Parton’s to shame, wearing a glove-tight snakeskin-print dress and thigh-high boots—is shrieking, crimson-faced, into the security camera. The camera doesn’t have sound, but no need—you can faintly hear her from inside. Veins are bulging on her neck and forehead. She has chiseled, thickly muscled arms and shoulders.

“Good gravy, it’s Ulrike!” Frantic sweat boils up on Divine’s forehead. “How did she find me?”

“Must’ve heard you were in town and figured you’d end up here,” Disme says.

“Who the hell is Ulrike?” I ask. She’s holding a lit cigarette lighter up to the camera and pointing at it furiously. Her nails resemble titanium claws.

“Ex-wife number four, seven, and nine, and Austrian Olympic women’s shot-put bronze medalist.” Divine moans. “Oh, she’s got the lighter. She’ll burn us out. Don’t think she won’t. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

“Can Yuri—” I say.

Yuri holds up his hands in front of him as if pushing me away. “No. Not this one. Strong like hippo.”

Lawson moves in protectively, our skin barely touching. I’m really glad he’s here.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Disme mutters quickly. “Here’s the plan: you four make a break for the back door. When you do, I’ll buzz her in the front. Once she’s in, you run around the side, get in your car, and burn rubber, okay? I’ll try to buy you some time.”

“Owe you one, Waldy,” Divine says.

“More than one,” Disme says.

I kick off my shoes and pick them up, and Lawson and I rush for the door, Divine and Yuri at our heels. On our way out, we pass a bewildered man who appears to be a clone of Disme. We make it out the rear just as we hear a livid roar in German from the front. We rush for the side of the strip mall, sweating and panting, coming back around the front. A yellow Hummer H2 is parked haphazardly next to the Escalade.

“Ulrike’s car,” Divine says, panting. “Alimony well spent. The alimony I paid, anyway. That may be why she’s here.”

We pile, helter-skelter, into the Escalade and peel out of the parking lot, the g-forces pressing us into our seats like we’re being sat on by a giant.





We stare silently at the empty plates in front of us. It’s not that we’ve run out of things to talk about. It’s that we have too many things that are too big to say out loud.

“We’re pretty near the ocean, huh?” I say finally.

“Yeah,” Dad says, clearing his throat. “About seven minutes away.”

“I’ve never seen the ocean.”

“Never?”

“You know how when you were around, we never took fancy vacations?”

“Yeah.”

“That situation did not improve upon your leaving.”

Dad grimaces and averts his eyes. “I guess it wouldn’t. So, never seen the ocean.”

“Not even once.”

“Want to?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Let’s go, then.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Marisol is sleeping. When do you have to be back to where you’re staying?”

“Dunno. Whenever.”

Dad pays, and we leave. Your dad just took you out to dinner. Like the day he took you to Cicis for your birthday. You never thought that would happen again.

In the car, Dad says, “I keep wanting to ask you to tell me everything that’s happened in the last ten years.”

“I keep wanting to tell you, but I wonder if I should.”

“I can handle it.”

“I was talking about whether you deserve it.”

He doesn’t answer, only nods. We drive on until we arrive at a parking lot. It’s dark. Up ahead, the sky fades to an inkier black, with no city lights to illuminate it. When I open the car door, I hear the rush of waves. It stirs something buried deep in me, something wondrous and briefly hopeful. It’s windier and cooler here, and the air smells like salt and seaweed. I pause at the grassy area on the edge of the beach to take in the scope of what I’m seeing. The waves crashing white on the shore feel like some organic machinery. Like lungs inhaling and exhaling.