that?”
“Well, maybe she is doing something.”
She glared at me. “Nothing she could be doing is more important than the boys’ needs! She knows that! Maybe Rosario can do it.” Still clutching the phone, Nora ran after the van, which was pulling away from the curb, her arms waving furiously as she shouted, “Stop!” Rosario pulled back against the curb and rolled down the passenger side window. I was able to hear Nora asking her if she could take the boys somewhere, and Rosario answer that she had to get the costumes back to the rental house before six or else pay for another day. “Shit!” Nora screamed, turning back and letting Rosario drive away. “Everyone’s against me! I don’t fucking need this!”
“Um, Nora, I have a car,” I said. “If the boys have to get home, just give me your address and I’ll drive them there.”
All of a sudden the world turned Technicolor. The sun came out, the scent of jacaranda filled the air, birds flew by singing sweetly, the atmosphere warmed up, a rainbow filled the sky, and the flowers, if they could have uprooted themselves and danced, would have. And it was all due to Nora Frost. “Ohhhh,” she moaned, placing a hand caringly on my arm and all but tearing up. “Do you know what you are, Dave? A contributor. The first moment I saw you, I could tell you were going to be part of the team.” It was the most remarkable transformation I had seen since Fredric March took his first drink in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Could you also stay with them until I get back?” she asked.
“I could do that, yes,” I said. “Just give me a moment to lock up my office and I’ll be right with you.” I turned away from her my hero gesture—both hands clasped and held up beside her face, in the best Lillian Gish style—and dashed back inside and up to my office, where I grabbed my laptop and switched off all the lights before locking up and leaving.
When I returned to the parking lot, she handed me a business card for Alpha Enterprises. “The address is on the card,” she said, smiling. The zip code was for Los Feliz, an old Hollywood area of Los Angeles whose aging mansions once housed the likes of Cecil B. DeMille and W.C. Fields. “Thank you so much, Dave.”
“No problem. Are you going to be long?”
“No, no, I just have to run to the bank.” She winked. “You know why.”
“Oh. The boys can’t go with you to the bank?”
Instantly, the sun went back under a cloud and a couple of the singing birds got caught by stray cats. “I don’t want them to know what the money’s for,” she managed to say in a low voice, without moving her lips. “They’d ask, too. They’re so inquisitive.”
I looked over at the twelve-year-olds, who came across about as naturally inquisitive as moss.
“Boys,” Nora called to the twins, “Mr. Beauchamp is going to drive you home. You show him what gentlemen you can be.”
Taylor’s mouth cracked into a grin that would rate the Guinness prize as World’s Smallest, but at least it was an expression.
“I’ll see you in no more than two hours, Dave,” Nora said. “Make yourself at home while you’re there.” She turned and started striding toward a silver Lexus.
“Wait, Nora,” I called, running to catch up with her. “You didn’t give me a key.”
“Oh, God! What a space brain.” I doubted that sincerely, but said nothing as she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a key on a ring that had, unsurprisingly, a photo of the twins encased in plastic. “Here you are. It goes to the bottom lock on the door.”
“All right. See you later.”
After watching her pull out of the lot, I led the twelve-year-olds to my Toyota, which was only a year younger. I had gotten it for my twenty-first birthday, and was managing to keep it going. It was nothing fancy, but it moved. The two looked at it with disdain before crawling in the backseat. “You may have to dig the seatbelts out. I don’t often have passengers.”
“I can see why,” Burton sniffed. “When was the last time you had this thing washed and vacuumed?”
I didn’t answer, mostly because I couldn’t remember. I pulled out and headed down Ventura Boulevard toward the first freeway access street, figuring the 101 East to the 134 East to the 5 South was the quickest way to get to the Los Feliz area, which was just northeast of Hollywood. “You guys want the radio on?” I asked.
“No,” they said in unison.
“Okay.”
We had driven no more than a mile, when I could hear hushed conversation between the two. It sounded like variations of, “You want to ask him?” followed by “No, you ask him.”
“Ask me what, guys?” I volunteered.
Taylor was the one who asked, and my foot involuntarily stomped on the gas pedal, which resulted in my nearly rear-ending the car ahead of me. I stomped on the brake and screeched to a halt. Maybe I’d heard wrong. I must have heard wrong.
No, sport, Errol Flynn’s voice said, you heard right. By the way, he went on, if you’re not doing her, I will!
THREE
“Did you just ask me if I was fucking your mother?” I said, driving ahead cautiously.
“Seems like an easy question,” Taylor commented.
“How can I be fu…having se…I just met your mother a few hours ago!”
“Yeah, but if you want to, it’s okay with us,” Burton said. “I think she can use it.”
“Um, guys—”
“She’s kinda uptight,” Taylor interrupted. “Of course, if you did start to fuck our mother.…”
Burton picked up the thought. “That would make you.…”
“A motherfucker!” they cried in unison, and then snickered.
I got it; a carefully rehearsed routine. “Very funny,” I said. “You two should be on the road.” Flattened by a logging truck, W. C. Fields added. I decided to change the subject. “I’m sorry to hear about your father. I understand he was a hero.”
“We don’t like to talk about our father,” Taylor said.
“All right.”
We drove for several more miles before I tried breaking the silence again. “So, what do you guys like to eat?”
“Food,” they replied in unison.
After several more miles, I said: “You guys like to watch television?”
“If it’s not retarded,” Burton offered.
“Or gay,” Taylor elaborated.
At that point I gave up. No further words transpired between then and the time we pulled into the driveway of the Frost home on Commonwealth Avenue in Los Feliz hills. It was a quasi-Tudor brick house, probably from the 1920s or ’30s, and while not perhaps fully qualifying as a mansion, was
