she’d undone the mortise lock, slipped the bolts, and opened the door as far as the chain would allow. She stared at me for a long time before unhooking the chain to let me in. She never says, How nice to see you, or anything. I always get the same treatment: she snaps her head around, so her long, straight blonde hair swings in my face, and calls over her shoulder, ‘It’s your father,’ in a voice marine color sergeants use to announce the arrival of incoming artillery fire.
‘Hello, Robyna,’ I said affably. ‘Do you mind if I talk to Danny in private?’ She shook out her skirt – a long cotton one with African tie-dye designs – slipped her feet into jewel-encrusted sandals, picked up her makeup box, tossed her head to make her hair shake, and strode past without looking at me. She didn’t even say goodbye. ‘Come back, Jane Fonda, you forgot your muesli!’ I called.
‘Drop dead!’ she snapped over her shoulder as she flounced out and slammed the door.
‘Is your girlfriend always so charming?’ I asked Danny.
‘I don’t know,’ said Danny. ‘I don’t tell her to get lost the way you do every time you arrive. She pays half the rent, you know.’
The TV was still going, and Danny was searching to find the remote control to turn it off. Eventually he grabbed a pair of jeans from somewhere and draped them over the screen. He just couldn’t bear to switch the damned thing off: he’d always been like that about TV; he just had to have it going all the time.
‘Robyna must have the remote in her pocket,’ he said apologetically.
There was a smell of burning incense in the room. It had a sweet flowery smell. I sniffed here and there. Although I looked all around, I couldn’t see where the smoke was coming from. ‘She’s not on drugs, is she?’
‘You always ask me if she’s doing drugs,’ said Danny wearily. ‘We’re vegetarians.’
‘So maybe she passes on red meaty drugs.’
‘She won’t even drink tea or coffee because of the caffeine. No, she’s not on drugs.’ His search for the remote finally forced him to get up on his feet. Under some schoolbooks he discovered two paper plates containing a half-eaten burrito and a squashed package of tofu. He gave up trying to find the TV control and sank back, dropping his weight into the sofa with spring-shattering force. He’d wrecked all the best chairs at home doing that, but I tried not to remark on it this time. I hate to fight with him.
‘Is your mother here?’
‘Betty?’ He always called her Betty. He never said Mom or Mother even when he was small. I blamed Betty for that. She never disciplined him. That’s why he was slouching here with a stubbly face, long unwashed hair, and a dirty T-shirt printed with the slogan Go away, I’m trying to think. ‘You can see Betty’s not here; I don’t know where she is.’
‘How would it grab you if I told you she just now forced her way into my office and climbed out onto the window ledge?’
Danny took the news very calmly. I mean, this was his mother. He nodded. ‘She did that with Uncle Sean in Seattle. He called the Fire Department.’
‘So did I. I called the Fire Department, but she made herself scarce before they arrived. So of course they prowled through the office trying to find ways to give me a bad time.’
‘Why?’ He was always unnaturally calm with me. Calm in a studied and exaggerated way so I sometimes wondered if it was an effect I had on him. With other people he always seemed more animated. Did I make him ill at ease or something?
‘Why did I call the Fire Department?’ I said to clarify the question.
‘Why did they want to give you a bad time?’
‘It’s a long story. The sprinklers never did work.’ The more I thought about it the more angry I became. ‘Soon after we first moved in, Denise – remember Denise, my old secretary, who used to send you those religious cards with St Daniel and lions on your birthday? – when Denise felt like celebrating, she used to buy those throw-away barbecue packs and grill some steaks for our lunch. It’s a wonder she never set the office ablaze. A couple of times she threw out the charcoal while it was still hot and set fire to the trash. Now I come to think of it, I remember those sprinklers never did work; the whole building is like that. Why pick on me? Those firemen were out to make trouble, and that Huth woman was no help; she said no one had ever told her where the fire exits were. I’ll have to get rid of her. Thank goodness she didn’t discover that Betty was my ex.’
Danny looked at me solemnly. He doesn’t like me referring to Betty as my ex. ‘What did she want?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Betty only came to see me when she wanted money for something.
He pulled a face and ran his hands under the cushions as if he was still trying to find the remote.
I said, ‘Have you been encouraging her?’ Yes, yes, yes, of course. I should have guessed it was Danny who kept sending her around to dun me for money. They both thought I had some kind of bottomless pit replenished daily with bullion.
‘She had to have two root canals done, and she needs clothes and stuff. She doesn’t earn any money working for that aroma therapy work shop.’
‘Look at me. Look at me. If you’re going to go to bat for her, look at me.’
He looked up.
I said, ‘Are you doing her accounts or something? Why doesn’t she get a paying job?’
‘The aroma therapy workshop is a charity. It’s for poor people. No one pays. She wants to help people.’
‘She wants to help people? She works for nothing and I give her money. How does that make her the one who helps people?’
‘She’s really a wonderful person, Dad. I wish you’d make a little more effort to try and understand her.’
‘It’s always my fault. Why doesn’t she make an effort to try and understand me?’
‘She said you’re getting millions from the takeover.’
‘You two live in a dream world. There are no millions and there is no takeover. You can’t buy a law partnership unless you are a member of the California bar. Petrovitch picked up the pieces, that’s all that happened. He simply retained our services, put in a partner, and absorbed nearly a quarter of a million dollars of debt. I told you all that.’
‘She clipped a piece about Zach Petrovitch from the Los Angeles Times Business Section. It said in there that he’d paid a hundred million—’
‘But not for my partnership. I’ve heard all that talk. He picked up a Chapter Eleven recording company with a few big names on the labels and sold it to the Japanese. That all happened nearly three years ago. There’s been a goddamned recession since then.’
‘Petrovitch only buys companies he has plans for.’
‘Is this something they tell you in Philosophy One-oh-one, or did you switch to being a business major?’
‘You can’t keep that kind of pay off secret, Dad,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows.’
‘Don’t
