HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout (37 page)

Lori and the coach walked into the night’s
air, each gasping slightly as they walked with their heads looking
up to a sky of stars brightly glowing above them.

.

Larry sat at his grandmother’s kitchen
table, watching Gina swish and circle through the kitchen,
preparing vegetables and a spiced sour cream dressing for Emma.
Each time Gina passed Larry, she would turn slightly, to smile or
acknowledge him. His phone rang.

“Hello, Lawrence,” said Larry. “You never
call me. Must be important.”

“It is, Larry,” I said, as I sat in my
parent’s living room, looking onto the ocean. “It’s something I’ve
needed to say for awhile.”

“That you want out?” said Larry.

“What?” I said, stunned. “How could you
know?”

“How about this,” said Larry. “You stay with
me for the next couple of months, long enough to fire Ed and go
with December and me for the swimming trials – and maybe London –
and I’ll give you a million dollars, and you can leave.”

“You would pay me… a million dollars… and
after London, I would be done?” I said. “The London Olympics will
be completely done by the middle of August….”

“Stick it out til Oct. 1, okay? The new
calendar quarter, for me, and for Lori, then you’re done, a million
bucks, okay?”

.

“I can draw up exit agreements,” said Emily,
mustard on her fingers and a glob of pastrami dangling from her
French roll. “But a million dollars? For what? How can that be
justified?”

“I don’t have to, right?” said Larry, eating
a pepper.

“If there is discernible labor, then an exit
agreement that includes severance has flexibility,” said Emily,
reaching for napkins. “If the figure is high and the work low or
non-existent, authorities are more likely to view the million as a
gift, and then you’d pay $350,000 in tax.”

“Still, I’d like them,” said Larry. “One for
a million, exiting on good terms; the other for a million, with no
way of knowing if I am happy or not. And then also the paper I hand
to Ed to fire him and also hand him ten or twenty grand to get rid
of him.”

“If he takes the money, he accepts the
terms,” said Emily.

Larry sipped his Diet Coke.

“Ideally, though, you still want a signature
showing the person accepts the agreement,” said Emily, picking up
an asparagus spear with her fingers and nibbling it to nothingness.
“This place is good,” she said, licking her fingers.

“Oh, and one other for a million, for
someone else,” said Larry.

“Lori?” said Emily.

“Yeh,” said Larry. “So she has something
waiting for when she gets out of the army.”

“You’re a pretty amazing friend,” said
Emily, waving for the waitress and asking for a box.

“So’s she,” said Larry, “but it doesn’t feel
like real money.”

“Believe me,” said Emily, “a million
dollars… that is real money.”

“Maybe, but it’s not real to me,” said
Larry. “I mean, only three actual dollars are real money that I put
in. And those actually came from Lori’s, so, really, it may as well
be hers….” Larry picked up the last piece of his pastrami sandwich,
as Emily sipped her soda. “So how are things for you and your
mom?”

“Interesting you should ask, as she just
sold her shop,” said Emily. “Some movie people came and offered to
buy her entire store. She didn’t believe it at first, but then a
director came with a bunch of money and bought everything.”

“Oh,” said Larry, “whats she doing now?”

“Nothing,” said Emily. “She’s totally bored.
She’s watches TV with my brother’s kids all day. Hope she finds
something soon. She’s driving all of us crazy.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emptiness

Gina Milani sat with her hands folded on her
lap, in a wingback chair pulled to the far side of the mirrored
main studio of the Scandinavian’s suite, as Lena Martins adjusted
the clip-on mic on Emma’s blouse and a second crew member applied
powder to Emma’s forehead.

“Great. Really great,” said Tres von
Sommerberg, standing beside a camera operator, near where Gina was
seated.

.

“It isn’t going well,” said Dr. Bosch, to
Larry, as the two stood alongside Calvin’s gurney. “He just is not
responding as I would hope.”

“W’ull,” said Larry, “just like with my
grandma, whatever you need to do….”

.

“Ready, old woman?” said the young blonde,
walking past Lori.

As eight swimmers stepped to their block for
a trial heat, Lori kept her eyes focused forward.

.

“Ewa Sonnet?” I asked, with my notepad and
pen in my lap, as Ed and I watched cable.

Ed flipped the station, pausing at ESPN, for
a soccer match. “Just don’t get the soccer thing,” said Ed, under
his breath. “She’s on for a meeting, but prefers New York or
Europe. I could take that one, to feel things out.”

I jotted “NY/EU” next to her name. “Just
email the contact and I will follow up.”

Ed kept flipping, stopping at a Humphrey
Bogart film. Adopting a stiff lip, Ed attempted to impersonate the
voice. “Don’t prefer doing things that way.”

“This may be odd work, Ed,” I said, “but
this is still a job, okay. If anyone is representing themselves on
Larry’s behalf, I need to know who’s saying what to whom.”

“Do you know how to whistle? Just pucker up
and blow.”

“Odalys Garcia?”

.

Emily sat on a tall stool and her mother on
a low chair, as they each worked their way through several take-out
cartons from East-West Xpress. Inside Kashabara’s, the place was
nearly empty, with the two women gathered around an atomic-theme
coffee table heaped with food, two purses, keys and a pack of
cigarettes.

Ms. Kashabara poured chicken panang over her
rice, and picked up her chopsticks.

.

Larry stood at his father’s gurney side.
Calvin lay motionless.

Two nurses lifted and adjusted the father’s
splayed frame, checked monitors, and exited.

Neither Larry nor Calvin reacted to any of
it.

.

Lori stared ahead, as she gripped a pull-up
bar in her dorm bathroom. She regularized her breathing and slowly
descended and rose.

.

Tres, his index finger lightly touching his
lips, listened intently, as Lena held the camera and posed
questions. Gina, upright in her wingback chair, watched the
filmmakers circle Emma, who sat on the center sofa of the
studio.

“It is right that Harald Lander sat where I
sit now, and my mother danced for him, as I wound the Victrola and
my father placed the discs. We had many visitors and for each, it
was the same. On such nights, my mother seemed happy. The maestro
stayed most of the spring one year, but many visitors stayed a week
or more. The King sent emissaries, but they stayed only for the
single meal. The Ambassador dined with my parents whenever he was
in California and asked that my mother to serve as hostess for
receptions in the studio, when he took up space near the Banning
Residence, and would motor by water across the harbor, from
Wilmington to Treasure Island. None of these great men saw it as
their duty to take Astrid Ullagård as a secret lover, so I am
unwilling to believe that the Maestro impregnated my mother. She
may have been sour, but she wasn’t rotten.”

.

“I do nothing,” said Emily’s mother, as she
swept the empty floor of her shop.

“You don’t have to ‘do nothing,’ mom, but
why take on more debt?” asked Emily.

“Because the banks will give it to me,” said
Ms. Kashabara. “Before I paid the balance with the movie money, the
bank wouldn’t look twice at me. Now, I have a million-dollar line
of credit.”

“Mom, you cleared everything you ever owed,
and you could do something for your future,” said Emily.

“I am! I am capitalizing on my credit,” said
the mother. “Do you know how rare it is for a woman my age to have
a seven-figure credit line? Access to capital, my daughter, is what
equals, ding – opportunity,” said Ms. Kashabara. “The bank speaks
only one language, but a banker is proud for making the greedy feel
comfortable, and the earnest feel safe.”

.

I closed my notebook, notes and doodles next
to each of the names of Larry’s models.

Ed stopped at “Lonely Island.” We both
watched in silence as a shark circled in the clear water.

.

Larry stepped into the Lincoln and Ralphie
closed the door behind him. As the car pulled away from Long Beach
Memorial, Larry lay back in the leather seat and looked at the
ceiling.

His phone buzzed, “Lori,” read the
screen.

“Hi,” said Larry, putting the call on
loudspeaker.

“Hey,” came Lori’s voice.

“Doing okay?”

“Yeh, okay,” said Lori. “You okay?”

“Yeh, okay, I guess,” Larry said. “I miss
you.”

“Yeh,” said Lori. “Me, too.”

“Not like you to miss anyone,” said
Larry.

“This isn’t like normal,” said Lori. “People
crack here.”

.

“Be right down, hunny,” said December, over
the intercom.

Larry stood outside her building, with its
single-tone paintjob. December came outside, and a moment later, he
and December stepped into the Lincoln, which had drawn a small
crowd of kids as spectators. Ralphie closed the passenger door.
Larry rolled down the window and was handing cans of soda to hands
reaching towards the window, as Ralphie got in to the drivers
compartment.

.

“Been nice hanging, dude,” said Ed, ”but
I’ve got a date.” He quickly stood, gave a wave and left my
apartment, seconds after the hour-long second-to-last episode of
“Lonely Island” wrapped up.

.

Lori lay, eyes wide open, on the narrow bed
of her dorm room, moonlight streaming onto the pillow from the open
window. A white, fuzzy hand-puppet of a lamb lay limp on the
pillow, next to a tiny stuffed pumpkin.

Lori reached to her cell phone, alongside
the Lambchop puppet, and dialed, setting the phone on the sheep. A
woman’s voice answered over speaker

“Hi, mom,” said Lori.

Part Five – Chapter Twenty-Five

Troubled Waters

“Dis is da boat you bought, Larry?” asked
December, as she and Larry walked towards the dock in front of the
family mansion. Before them was the motor yacht Larry had chased in
his whitehall, a mountain of white standing forty feet off the
waterline, capped with its single-person pilothouse.

“Yeh,” said Larry.

.

Now felt as good a time as any to call
Lori.

I’d been thinking about her almost
constantly since she re-entered my life, as part of this crazy turn
in Larry’s world, and even though he was going to cut me loose, and
she was going into the army, I could still at least try this one
last time.

“What?”

“Hi, Lori,” I said, again inexplicably
nervous, as I always am talking to my ex-wife, unable to think of
what next to say.

“Lawrence, I got a lot going on,” said Lori.
“Unless it’s something important, I gotta get back….”

“Lori, I can’t stop thinking of you,” I
blurted out. “I’ve never wanted you more than I do now.”

There was silence on the line.

“Ever since I saw you again, I can’t get you
out of my mind,” I said. The light of the moon burned like fire, as
I looked out to the ocean. “Larry’s going to let me out of this
thing, and so I’m closing up books, and I know you’re closing
things up, too. Can I go with you?”

More silence, broken finally by a simple
question. “What do you mean, ‘go with me?’ ”

“Wherever you’re going,” I said.

“Lawrence, I am going into the fucking U.S.
Army,” said Lori. “I doubt there’s tag-along quarters in Kandahar
or Kabul or Iraq....”

“Please, Lori, I just want to be back in
your life again,” I begged. “Larry’s giving me a million bucks. We
could create a new life somewhere, anywhere.”

A burst of anger followed Lori’s silence, in
that same tone she had used when she first left me. “Is that all
anybody wants now, is a tit to suck on?” she said. “Lawrence,
you’re nuts if you think that I’d let you take a bailout from my
best friend, so you can ditch him for whatever hope you have about
me, which I can promise is definitely
not
gonna happen.”

“Lori, please,” I begged, feeling with
absolute clarity the fullness of the definition for “pathetic,” as
I said each word. “You’re all I can think of.”

Lori hung up.

.

“Gina!” yelled Ed, from the sidewalk that
separated the van der Bix mansion from the docks.

Gina Milani stood on the top floor at the
stone railing, in the moonlight, looking out at Larry’s enormous
motor yacht, with its single cabin aglow.

“I miss you, baby!”

“Go away, Ed,” she yelled.

.

December, wearing only a bikini bottom, set
a small boom box on the plush couch built into the bulkhead of the
main cabin. She pushed play and Frank Sinatra began crooning. “I
thought we’d go old school for tonight’s dances,” said December.
Larry had stripped down to briefs and a tee-shirt. He held a remote
and dimmed the lights, prompting a cooing sound from December.

A single lamp in the far corner of the cabin
glowed, as December straddled Larry, holding the back of the couch
for support, as she brushed her breasts lightly across his face.
“Thanks for letting me dance for you, hunny. I prefer to work for
my money.”

A phone vibrated on a small counter just
above the couch. December looked, climbed off Larry, whispered
“Lori” and answered her phone. Using Larry’s torso as a cushion,
December rested again him as she took the call. “Yeh, baby?”
December’s spare hand had dug into Larry’s briefs and pulled out
his enormous, limp penis, which she held as she talked on the
phone. “Naw, just hanging out with Larry. He got a big boat. He’s
showing it to me. Yeh, a boat. Big,” she said, squeezing his penis.
“Like, crazy big.”