The Informers Read online

  "Someone snapped off my windshield wipers today, for some reason," I say after a while, taking the control box from him and changing the channel. "They left a note. It said 'Mi hermana."'

  "Biff," he sighs, and then, "What did you do? Rip off a Taco Bell?"

  "Biff snapped off my windshield wipers?"

  Nothing.

  "Why didn't you tape the newscast tonight?" I ask softly, trying not to press too hard.

  "Because Ricky's dead."

  "But you taped 'The Jeffersons,'" I say accusingly, trying not to lose patience. I turn the channel to MTV, a lame attempt to please him. Unfortunately, a Duran Duran video is on.

  " 'The Jetsons,' " he says. "Not 'The Jeffersons.' I taped 'The Jetsons.' Turn that off."

  "But you always tape the newscasts," I'm whining, trying not to. "You know I like to watch them." Pause. "I thought you've seen all 'The Jetsons.' "

  Danny doesn't say anything, just recrosses long, sculpted legs.

  "And what was the phone doing on the hook?" I ask, trying to sound amused.

  He gets up from the bed so suddenly that it startles me. He walks over to the glass doors that open onto the balcony and looks out over the canyons. It's light outside and warm and beyond Danny it's still possible to see heat rising up off the hills and then I'm saying "Just don't leave" and he says "I don't even know what I'm doing here" and I ask, almost dutifully, "Why are you here?" and he says "Because my father kicked me out of the house" and I ask "Why?" and Danny says "Because my father asked me 'Why don't you get a job?' and I said 'Why don't you suck my dick?"' He pauses and, having read about Edward, I wonder if he actually did, but then Danny says, "I'm sick of having this conversation. We've had it too many times."

  "We haven't even had it once," I say softly.

  Danny turns away from the glass doors, leans against them and swallows hard, staring at a new video on MTV.

  I look away from him, following his gaze to the TV screen. A young girl in a black bikini is being terrorized by three muscular, near-naked masked men, all playing guitars. The girl runs into a room and starts to claw at venetian blinds as fog or smoke starts to pour into the room. The video ends, resolved in some way, and I turn back to look at Danny. He's still staring at the TV. A commercial for the Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest. David Lee Roth, looking stoned and with two sparsely dressed girls sitting on either side of him, leers into the camera and asks, "How about a little 'oyride in my limo?" I look back over at Danny.

  "Just don't leave," I sigh, not caring if I sound pathetic.

  "I signed up for that," he says, sunglasses still on.

  I reach over, disconnecting the phone, and think about the window wipers being snapped off.

  "So you signed up for the Lost Weekend contest?" I ask. "Is that what we were talking about?"

  I'm having lunch with Sheldon in a restaurant on Melrose. It's noon and the restaurant is already crowded and quiet. Soft rock plays over a stereo system. Cool air drifts from three large slowly spinning silver fans hooked to the ceiling. Sheldon sips Perrier and I wait for his response. He sets down the large iced glass and looks out the window and actually stares at a palm tree, which I find momentarily distressing.

  "Sheldon?" I say.

  "Two weeks?" he asks.

  "I'll take one if that's all you can get me." I'm looking at my plate: a huge, uneaten Caesar salad.

  "What is this week for? Where are you going?" Sheldon seems actually concerned.

  "I want to go somewhere." I shrug. "Just take some time off."

  "Where?"

  "Somewhere."

  "Where is somewhere? Jesus, Cheryl."

  "I don't know where somewhere is, Sheldon."

  "Are you falling apart on me, baby?" Sheldon asks.

  "What is this, Sheldon? What the fuck's going on? Can you get me the week off or not?" I pick up a spoon, stab at the salad, lift lettuce to my mouth. It falls off, back onto the plate. I put the spoon down. Sheldon looks at me, so bewildered that I have to turn away.

  "You know, um, I'll try," Sheldon says soothingly, still stunned. "You know I'd do anything for you."

  "You'll try?" I ask, incredulous.

  "You lack faith. That's your problem," Sheldon says. "You lack faith. And you haven't joined a gym."

  "My agent is telling me that I lack faith?" I ask. "My life must really be a disaster."

  "You should work out." Sheldon sighs. "I don't lack faith, Sheldon. I just need to go to Las Cruces for a week." I start to pick at the salad again, making sure Sheldon notices I've picked up a fork. "I used to work out," I mutter. "I used to work out all the time."

  "I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to Jerry. And Jerry will talk to Evan. But you know what they say." Sheldon sighs, looking out at the palm tree. "Can't get water from the sun."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" I say, then, "Are you on dope or something, Sheldon?"

  The check comes and Sheldon pulls out his wallet and then a credit card.

  "You still living with that pretty boy?" he asks with what sounds like definite disdain.

  "I like him, Sheldon," I say and then, with less confidence, "He likes me."

  "I'm sure. I'm sure he does, Cheryl," Sheldon says. "You didn't want dessert, did you?"

  I shake my head, tempted, finally, to eat the rest of the unfinished salad, but the waiter comes and takes the plate away. Everyone in the restaurant, it feels, recognizes me.

  "Turn that frown upside down," Sheldon says. He's putting his wallet back in his pocket.

  "What would that get me—an upside-down frown, what?” From the way Sheldon is looking at me, I try to smile and put my napkin on the table, mimicking a normal person.

  "Your phone has been, um, busy lately," Sheldon mentions softly.

  "You can get hold of me at the station," I say. "It doesn't mean anything."

  "Talk to William lately?"

  "I don't think I want to talk to William."

  "I think he wants to talk to you."

  "How do you know?"

  "I've seen him a couple of times." Sheldon shrugs. "Around."

  "Jesus," I'm saying. "I don't want to see that creep."

  A young Mexican boy clears away our water glasses.

  "Cheryl, most people I know will speak to their ex-husband if their ex-husband wants to speak to them. It's no biggie. What is this? You can't even talk to him on the phone?"

  "He can get hold of me at the station," I say. "I don't want to talk to William. He's pathetic." I'm looking out the window again, at two teenage girls with short blond hair, wearing miniskirts, who are walking by with a tall blond boy and the boy reminds me of Danny. It isn't that the boy looks exactly like Danny—he does—it's more the apathetic shuffle, the way he checks himself out in the window of this restaurant, the same pair of Wayfarers. And for a moment he takes off his sunglasses and stares right at me even though he doesn't see me and his hand runs through short blondish hair and the two girls lean up against the palm tree Sheldon was staring at and light cigarettes and the boy puts his sunglasses back on and makes sure they are not crooked and turns away and walks down Melrose and the two girls leave the palm tree and follow the boy.

  "Know him?" Sheldon asks.

  William calls me at the station around three. I'm at my desk working on a story about the twentieth anniversary of the Kitty Genovese slaying when he calls. He tells me that my phone has been busy lately and that we should have dinner one night this week. I tell him that I've been busy, tired, that there's too much work to complete. William keeps mentioning the name of a new Italian restaurant on Sunset.

  "What about Linda?" I realize I should not have said this, that it will give William the idea that I might be considering his offer.

  "She's in Palm Springs for a couple of days."

  "What about Linda?"

  "What about her?"

  "What about Linda?"

  "I think I've missed you."

  I hang up the phone and stare at pict
ures of Kitty Genovese's body and William doesn't call back. In makeup, Simon talks about a screenplay he's working on about break-dancing in West Hollywood. Once the news begins I stare straight into the camera and hope that Danny is watching since it's really the only time he ever looks at me. I smile warmly before each commercial break even if it's grossly inappropriate and at the end of the broadcast I'm tempted to mouth "Good night, Danny." But at the Gelson's in Brentwood I see a badly burned little boy in a basket and I remember the way William said "I think I've missed you" right before I hung up on him and when I come out of the market the sky is light and too purple and still.

  There is a white VW Rabbit parked next to Danny's red Porsche in the driveway, which is parked next to a giant tumbleweed. I drive past the cars and park my Jaguar in the carport and sit there for a long time before I get out and carry the bag of groceries inside. I set them on the kitchen table, then open the refrigerator and drink half a Tab. There is a note on the table from the maid, written in broken English, about William calling. I walk over to the phone, unplug it and crumple the note up. A boy, maybe nineteen, twenty, with short blond hair and tan, wearing only blue shorts and sandals, walks into the kitchen, stopping suddenly. We stare at each other for a moment.

  "Uh, hello?" I say.

  "Hi," the boy says, starting to smile.

  "Who are you?"

  "Um, I'm Biff. Hi."

  "Biff" I ask. "You're Biff?"

  "Yeah." He begins to back out of the kitchen. "See you around."

  I stand there with the note about William still crumpled in my hand. I throw it away and walk up the stairs. The front door slams shut and I can hear the sound of the VW Rabbit starting, backing out of the driveway, moving down the street.

  Danny is lying under a thin white sheet on my bed, staring at the television. Wadded-up pieces of Kleenex are scattered on the floor by the side of the bed, next to a deck of tarot cards and an avocado. It's hot in the room and I open the balcony doors, then walk into the bathroom, change into my robe and move silently over to the Betamax and rewind the tape. I look over my shoulder at Danny, still staring at the TV screen I'm blocking. I press Play and a Beach Boys concert comes on. I fast-forward the tape and press Play. There isn't anything on it except for the Beach Boys.

  "You didn't tape the newscast tonight?"

  "Yeah. I did."

  "But there's nothing there." I'm pointing at the Betamax.

  "Really?" He sighs.

  "There's nothing there."

  Danny thinks about it a moment, then groans, "Oh man, I'm sorry. I had to tape the Beach Boys concert."

  Pause, then, "You had to tape a Beach Boys concert?"

  "It was the last concert before Brian Williams died," Danny says.

  I sigh, drum my fingers on the Betamax. "It wasn't Brian Williams, you moron. It was Dennis Wilson."

  "No, it wasn't," he says, sitting up a little. "It was Brian."

  "You've missed taping the show two nights in a row now." I walk into the bathroom and turn on the faucets in the bathtub. "And it was Dennis," I call out.

  "I don't know where the hell you heard that," I hear him say. "It was Brian."

  "It was Dennis Wilson," I say loudly, bending down, feeling the water.

  "No way. You're totally wrong. It was Brian," he says. He gets up from the bed with the sheet wrapped around him, grabs the remote control and lies back down.

  "It was Dennis." I walk out of the bathroom.

  "Brian," he says, turning the channel to MTV. "You are wrong to the max."

  "It was Dennis, you little asshole," I scream at him as I leave the room and walk downstairs, flip on the air-conditioning and then, in the kitchen, open a bottle of white wine. I take a glass out of a cupboard and walk back upstairs.

  "William called this afternoon," Danny says.

  "What did you tell him?" I pour myself a glass of wine and sip it, trying to calm down.

  "That we were dry humping and you couldn't make it to the phone," Danny says, grinning.

  "Dry humping? So you weren't exactly lying."

  "Right." He snorts.

  "Why didn't you just leave the goddamned phone unplugged?" I scream at him.

  "You're crazy." He sits up suddenly. "What is this shit about the phone? You're crazy, you're . . . you're . . ." He trails off, unable to find the right word.

  "And what was that little surfer doing in my house?" I finish one glass of wine, a little nauseated, then pour another.

  "That was Biff," Danny says defensively. "He doesn't surf.”

  "Well, he looked real upset," I say loudly, sarcastic, taking off my robe.

  In the bathroom I ease myself into warm water, turn the faucets off, lie back, sipping the wine. Danny, with the sheet wrapped around him, walks in and throws Kleenex into the wastebasket and then wipes his hand on the sheet. He puts the toilet seat down and sits and lights a joint he's holding. I close my eyes, take a large swallow of wine. The only sounds: music coming from MTV, one of the faucets dripping, Danny sucking on a thinly rolled joint. I'm just noticing that sometime today Danny bleached his hair white.

  "Want some weed?" he asks, coughing.

  "What?" I ask.

  "Some weed?" He holds the joint out to me.

  "No," I'm saying. "No weed."

  Danny sits back and I'm feeling self-conscious, so I roll over onto my stomach, but it's uncomfortable and I roll over onto my side and then onto my back but he's not looking at me anyway. His eyes are closed. He speaks.

  In monotone: "Biff was down on Sunset today and he came to a stoplight and he told me he saw this old deformed woman with a totally big head and long puffy fat hands and she was, like, screaming and drooling, holding up traffic." He takes another hit off the joint, holds it in. "And she was naked." He exhales, then says, benignly, "She was at a bus stop way down on the Strip, maybe near Hillhurst." He takes another hit off the joint, holds it in.

  I picture the image clearly and, after thinking about it, ask, "Why in the hell did you tell me that?"

  He shrugs, doesn't say anything. He just opens his eyes and stares at the red tip of the joint and blows on it. I reach over the side of the tub and pour another glass of wine.

  "You tell me something," he finally says.

  "Like, trade information?"

  "Whatever."

  "I . . . want a child?" I say, guessing.

  After a long pause, Danny shrugs, says, "Bitchin'."

  "Bitchin'?" I close my eyes and very evenly ask, "Did you just say bitchin'?"

  "Don't mock me, man," he says, getting up, going over to the mirror. He scratches at an imaginary mark on his chin, turns away.

  "It's no use," I say suddenly.

  "I'm too young," he says. "Duh."

  "I can't even remember when I met you," I say, quietly, then I look up at him.

  "What?" he asks, surprised. "You expect me to remember?" He drops the sheet and, nude, walks back to the toilet and sits down and takes a swig from the bottle of white wine. I notice a scar on the inside of his thigh and I reach out and touch his leg. He pulls back, takes a drag on the joint. My hand stays there, in space, and I bring it back, embarrassed.

  "Would a smart person make fun of me for asking you what you're thinking?"

  "I have—" He stops, then slowly continues. "I have been thinking about how awful it was, losing my virginity." He pauses. "I have been thinking about that all day."

  "It usually is when you lose it to a truck driver." A long, hateful pause. I turn away. "That was stupid." I want to touch him again but sip Chardonnay instead.

  "What makes you so fucking perfect?" His eyes narrow, the jaw sets. He gets up, bends over, picks up the sheet, walks back into the bedroom. I get up out of the tub and dry off and, a little drunk, walk into the room, naked, holding the bottle of wine and my glass, and I get under the sheet with him. He turns channels. I do not know why he is here or where we met and he's lying next to me, naked, gazing at videos.

  "Does your
husband know about this?" he asks, a tone of false amusement. "He says the divorce isn't finalized. He says he's not your ex."

  I don't move, don't answer, for a moment I don't see Danny or anything else in the room.

  "Well?"

  I need another glass of wine but I force myself to wait a few minutes before I pour it. Another video. Danny hums along with it. I remember sitting in a car in the parking lot of the Galleria and William holding my hand.

  "Does it matter?" I say once the video ends. I close my eyes, easily pretend that I'm not here. When I open them it's darker in the room and I look over at Danny and he's still staring at the TV. A photograph of L.A. at night is on the screen. A red streak flies over the neon landscape. The name of a local radio station appears.

  "Do you like him?" Danny asks.

  "No. I really don't." I sip the wine, easing toward tired. "Do you like . . . him?"

  "Who? Your husband?"

  "No," I say. "Biff, Boff, Buff, whatever."

  "What?"

  "Do you like him?" I ask again. "More than me?"

  Danny doesn't say anything.

  "You don't have to answer immediately." I could say this stronger but don't. "As if you're capable."

  "Don't ask me this," he says, his eyes a dull gray-blue, blank, half closed. "Just don't ask me this. Don't do this."

  "It's just all so typical." I'm giggling.

  "What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?" he asks, yawning.

  "What?" I'm still giggling, my eyes closed.

  "Here come the elephants over the hill."

  "I think I've heard this one before." I'm picturing Danny's long tan fingers and then, less appealing, where his tan line stops, starts again, the thick unsmiling lips.

  "What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants come over the hill with raincoats on?" he asks.

  I finish the wine and set the glass on the nightstand, next to an empty bottle. "What?"

  "Here come the elephants over the hill wearing raincoats." He waits for my response.

  "He . . . did?" I ask, finally.

  "What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants come over the hill with sunglasses on?"

  "I don't think I really want to know this, Danny," I say, my tongue thick, closing my eyes again, things clogged.