“He’s gone,” Lefty said. He worked the International but he knew it all, everything that went down on the strip. “You don’t want to know a lot more.”
I never found out what happened, although I suspect I knew. He was killed, dumped the way they all were. There were no news stories that would come out, no cell phones. I had nothing but a name.
I told myself if I didn’t hear from him in a month, I’d use it. I’d turn the clock back and I’d be with him again. I’d tell him I’d make sure we never parted. But a month went by, and then I felt her kick for the first time—my feisty, fiery, fierce baby.
I went to Los Angeles. I didn’t know where else to go. Bobby had been generous, in those few brief months, and I had a nicestash of cash. What was left in the room—plenty, more than you can imagine, for those days—I took, too.
I was pulled out to Malibu—by fate or destiny or just the smell of the ocean, I’m not sure. There was nothing much along Point Dume then—a couple of houses. The Colony was already buzzing with movie stars, and Gidget was riding the waves at Surfrider Beach.
I had enough for the down payment in cash. An architect had built the home two years prior and had never intended to keep it. The house was too big for me—I knew that—but I needed somewhere to be, somewhere to put myself and this child—and the beach seemed as good a place as any.
Marcella came screaming into the world at home the following summer. She had a mess of curly straw-colored hair at birth and Bobby’s bright green eyes, and I loved her with a ferocity I knew I’d never feel for a man, had never even felt for her father, who came close.
I put the ticket in a lockbox under my bed and swore that I would never use it, that with every new and painful turn I’d remember this child, this product of marching forward, and I would let time continue to unfold.
It still sits in that box—now not under my bed, but somewhere else. I rarely think about it anymore, except when my daughter brings it up—still, even as an adult, demanding to know.
She is not a foolish woman, and yet—it has never occurred to her that maybe it remains.
After all, my dear—who would take back a night with Kennedy?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The doctors do their best to explain. “His heart is weak,” they tell us. “This last cardiac arrest took its toll.” We are—were, as it turns out—on borrowed time. We discuss the surgery. It’s an option, but it’s risky—due to his age and the fact that the capillaries pumping blood are very small. What has kept him alive is now a detriment to his healing.
We sit in my father’s hospital room—a bright and north-facing square box that looks out over Beverly Boulevard. From up here we can see cars coming and going, entirely unaware of what is happening in these towers. A jealousy wells up in me that feels almost like rage.
Visiting hours end, and although my mom will stay, I drive back to Malibu to get more supplies. A new pillow for Dad, a change of clothes for my mom.
I pull up to 31382 Broad Beach and kill the engine. I sit with my hands tucked under me in the darkness.
I don’t think about Stone down the street, and Bonnie inside. I don’t think about Leo in New York. My mind is wrung out, dry. I remember nothing about the drive out here, the winding miles along the coast from the hospital.
Instead, I feel the past two months like a dream—the winding impossibility of ending up back here. All roads lead to Malibu.
The outside light switches on. Sylvia stands in the doorway—a small figure shadowed in darkness.
She makes a gesture toward me—somewhere between a wave and a beckon.
I open the car door.
“Come on, honey,” she says. “Let’s go inside.”
I let her lead me—in the doorway, through the living room, and out to the back porch. It’s not warm, not by a long shot, but neither one of us seems to care. It feels good to let the ocean breeze tear through me. I want it to carry me far away from everything this day has attached to me.
Once I’m seated, Sylvia hands me a warm patchwork blanket. Then she disappears into the kitchen, and when she returns she carries two tumblers of Scotch.
“There are occasions for the hard stuff,” she says. “This is one of them.”
I take my glass and tip it back. It burns on the way down.
“So,” Sylvia says. “How’s it going over there?”
“Terrible,” I say. It feels good not to pretend. “He’s…” I just shake my head because I can’t bring myself to say it, the words. I can’t bring myself to tell her what we all already know. My dad’s time might be up.
“Your mother wants you to save him,” she says. It’s not a question.
“I can’t,” I tell her.
