Been There, Married That, page 18
“Yeah, I do,” she said. “I need your ID.”
I just shook my head as she scooted out the door.
* * *
Minutes later, I heard a car in the circular driveway. Fin had already returned.
“What else could she possibly need?” I asked Pep, who was watching television in the living room.
“She needs a good man,” Pep said.
“Who told you that?”
“Auntie Fin,” she said.
Then someone knocked at the front door.
* * *
I opened the door to two men in matching gray suits with weary expressions that I’d come to know after years of being on the wrong end of my sister’s bad judgment.
“Agnes Murphy?” the older one, white, with a gray mustache to match his suit.
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Raskoff; this is Detective Gonzalez,” he said, regarding the olive-skinned, dark-eyed man beside him. They flashed their all-too-familiar badges, and I wanted to shield my eyes.
I felt my heart beating in my chest. Fin. Had she run over a Botox victim in carpool? Had she shoved a bottle of Two Buck Chuck in her pants and driven off? I flashbacked to all the things she’d shoved in her pants over her long, industrious thieving career. Raisinets. A plum. Stapler. Snickers. A brush. Slim Jims. Lip gloss. Other pants.
“What can I do for you?” I asked. And then I thought, Is it my husband?
Was it Trevor? A terrible, yet pain-free accident?
“We understand you’re in possession of stolen property,” Raskoff said. “We’d like to search the premises.”
“Stolen excuse me what?” I couldn’t have heard correctly.
“Stolen property.”
“I don’t have any stolen property,” I said. I felt my face redden. Since I was a kid, I had a knack of looking guilty, especially when I wasn’t. In fact, whenever Fin told a fib, I looked guilty. I’d never even seen her blush.
“That’s not what we hear,” he said.
“Do you have a search warrant?” I crossed my arms. I’d seen the TV shows. I know my rights. I think?
Pep had sneaked up beside me. “Mom?”
“It’s nothing, honey,” I said, turning to the officers. “So … do you have one of those thingies I just mentioned?”
“We don’t,” he said. “We’re just asking for your cooperation.”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Pep asked, her eyes dancing.
“Nothing, honey,” I said. “Go back to your YouTube program.”
“No friggin’ way! It’s boring compared to this,” she said.
“Go. Now. Penelope,” I said. I never called her Penelope; she held up her hands, then skittered away toward the kitchen.
“I haven’t stolen anything,” I said to Raskoff.
“We’re not saying you did,” Raskoff said.
“Have you?” Gonzalez asked.
“Missus?” Caster appeared behind me.
“Caster, can you make sure Pep stays in her room while I talk to these gentlemen?” I said. Trevor’s fingerprints were all over this. Trevor’s fingerprints were all over my unstolen stolen property.
What on earth was in our house that could be stolen proper—
Oh.
Fin’s mother effing Tiffany clock.
Goddamn it, he wouldn’t.
He would. Of course he would.
“That little shit.” I said. How convenient that he had to skip off to Argentina …
“Mrs. Nash? Are you listening?” Raskoff asked.
“I never should’ve moved the notepads,” I said under my breath as I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.
13
Caveat Sister
“Ma’am,” Detective Raskoff said as Detective Gonzalez’s black eyes bored holes in my tipsy defense. Intimidation game off the chain. “We’d like to question your sister.”
“Who … m?”
“Finley Caroline Murphy,” he said. “The sister who’s on probation.”
“Oh,” I said. “That sister.”
“You have another?”
I wish. “No.”
“When is she returning?”
“No idea,” I said, channeling The Wire. I wasn’t about to cooperate with the cops. Not when it came to my sister. They could cuff me, haul me off, tase me (been there, sparked that), and I wouldn’t say shit. Prison rules, bitches! Get to know me!
Blood is thicker than common sense.
“We heard she’s living here,” Raskoff said.
“Now where would you’ve gotten that idea?”
Raskoff snorted. Gonzalez stare-glared. I wondered if he could read minds. I thought, Fuck you, too, Gonzalez, and hoped he read that.
“I’m going to leave you with my card,” Raskoff said. “I suggest you call this number when your sister returns.”
“We’ll be back,” Gonzalez barked.
“Great, dinner’s usually around 6:00,” I said. “Don’t be late.”
They walked back up the driveway to their unmarked sedan, Gonzalez stiff and lumbering, Raskoff quick and officious. My heart pounded like a Rihanna song in a sticky nightclub. I turned to see Caster in the kitchen window, hands clasped, tears in her eyes. She crossed herself multiple times. At least she isn’t overreacting. Pep was next to her, smiling and giving me thumbs-up and making me think maybe I wasn’t her mother; Fin was.
* * *
Fin appeared on the deck, Trader Joe’s shopping bag swinging in her hand.
“You just missed 21 Jump Street,” I said from my deck chair.
“I know, I talked to Pep. She’s all excited,” Fin said, laughing. “I spied those jokers creeping around. Why’d you think I took so long?”
I sat back and watched the night descend over the hilltops.
Aren’t you pretty, I thought. I’ll miss you, show-offy mountain vista.
“They’re going to be back,” I said.
“What’d they want?”
“It’s about that fucking clock.”
“I didn’t steal that clock.”
My dubious stare is threadbare. Still, I used it on her.
“Someone gave it to me,” she said, pouring a glass. “In trade.”
“Translation: ‘Someone gave me stolen property in trade for drugs.’”
“You want to try the wine or not?”
I thought about big, splashy Hollywood divorces. Brad and Angelina, Gwyneth and Goop, or whatever his name was. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Did Katie end up arrested? Did Angelina end up doing time? Of course not. I mean, sure, I’d daydreamed about going to prison—who doesn’t? Before the Pep of it all.
Three meals a day.
An hour workout.
Tons of cunnilingus. (Receiving end. Trade for cigarettes and writing tutorials.)
Hours upon hours to read! I’d run through all the classics I pretended to read in high school. Maybe a few biographies.
I’d learn to knit.
I’d learn French!
I’d work in the kitchen, learning new ways to cook with blocks of government cheese! The girls would love me!
“Wine?” Fin handed me a glass.
“What do you think he’s going to do next?” I asked. “Where is all this going to end?”
“I don’t know,” Fin said. “But you didn’t see me here, and we didn’t have this conversation. I’m going underground.”
“Finja,” I said. “My ninja.”
She rubbed her hands together while I drained the Two Buck Chuck.
Fin was right, of course. Chuck didn’t suck. After a glass, you couldn’t tell the difference. After a bottle, you couldn’t tell the time.
* * *
Anne called as I was dropping Pep off at school, crouched like a thief behind my steering wheel.
“Are you sitting down?” she asked.
“I’m driving, so I’d better be sitting.”
“Guess what I just received?”
“A gift? From Trevor’s lawyer? They want to settle?”
“Ha,” she said, then paused.
The pause went on for a while.
“I received his declaration.”
“Of independence? He’s already independent.”
“Is Trevor home?”
“No. Flew to Argentina because Tom Cruise doesn’t Skype. Because the government. And aliens.”
But not before he had LAPD hounding my sister. Multitasker!
Anne sighed. An alarming, drawn-out sigh.
“Our Founding Fathers couldn’t have come up with this if they’d tried,” Anne said.
“What’s a declaration again?”
“He’s telling the court why he wants a divorce.”
“Can you give me his top three?”
Why why why.
Why why, skip the lies, skip the lies …
(Can’t wait ’til Taylor Swift gets married and divorced—I’ll sell her these lyrics.)
“You’d better come in,” she said. “I freed up my morning.”
I scrapped my plans for the day. What plans? Sitting at a desk with my favorite coffee mug and my laptop and tapping keys. I was desperate to get back to my writing schedule, but divorce had other ideas; divorce waits for no woman. I checked my watch, which I’d planned to sell to pay rent. I’d been eyeing everything I owned—Jimmy Choos? Forty dollars on eBay. Lightly worn Manolos? Sixty dollars? I’m already up a hundred bucks!
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” I said.
“I’ll have coffee and flask ready,” Anne said and hung up.
* * *
I was being followed.
No, I swear!
Me, Agnes Murphy Nash! I was being followed! And why was this exciting?
I smiled in the rearview mirror, where I could plainly see the guy following me.
I called Liz. She didn’t answer. Who else would appreciate this new and exciting development?
“What?” Fin.
“I’m being followed by a man driving a gray sedan,” I said. “Just like in the movies!”
“You’re big-time now,” Fin said. “Where does he think you’re going?”
I glanced in my rearview mirror. The sedan was one gardening truck and a black Prius back. I’d noticed the guy waiting outside Pep’s school, parked at the corner on Sunset. Ray-Bans, too young for his thinning hair. Suit jacket, tie, collared shirt. Dressed like an adult even though he was basically a kid.
He’d slipped into traffic after I passed him at Bundy. A little too quickly and herky-jerky. I’d noticed him because, get this, he’d waited at the stop sign for me to pass.
No one stops at a stop sign in LA.
You drift, or “California stop,” which is the same thing as not stopping. Or you ignore the sign because the law doesn’t pertain to you, Westsider.
The sedan looked blandly familiar yet out of place in the traffic heading east on Sunset, and that’s when I realized I’d seen it this morning. In the dead zone.
My hawklike senses picked it up! Maybe I was a worthy protagonist in the movie of my life.
“I’m kind of excited,” I said, a thrill in my voice. “I shouldn’t be excited, right? Am I worth tailing?”
“Does Trevor think you’re having an affair?” Fin asked. “Wait, are you fucking someone else?”
“No, of course not,” I said, and the camera in my head pitched Gio Metz. “Not that I wouldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re too scared. Scaredy-cat!”
“I would, too!” I said. “I’m a big cheater. I cheat constantly. Every day. The only time I haven’t cheated is never.”
“You won’t even cross a street unless there’s a crosswalk,” she said. “Do it. Go ahead, cheat. I dare you. I double-dare you.”
The sedan was one car back. I switched lanes.
“Now’s not the time.”
It switched lanes.
“Your husband left you,” Fin said, “for your house manager.”
“With,” I said. “Not for. For is the wrong preposition.”
“He left you, and you’re worried about grammar?”
“How do I lose this guy?” I asked.
“Stop the car and talk to him,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “I can do that?”
Fin had the simplest solutions to life’s problems except those that would keep her out of prison.
“Those tight-ass detectives came by again. Las hermanas pretended not to speak English, then Gonzalez spoke his broken Spanish ’n’ they just looked at him like he’d crapped his pants. I love ’em.”
“They’re going to get you eventually,” I said.
“To get me, they’ll have to find me,” she said. “We didn’t have this conversation.”
She hung up.
* * *
I pulled onto one of those side streets in Beverly Hills above Olympic that makes you want to live there. Today. Wide, tree-lined streets, Spanish homes and duplexes, clean, walkable sidewalks. The sedan pulled around the corner.
I stepped out and stood in the middle of the street, blocking him.
He stopped. I walked over to his driver’s-side window and tapped it. He waited a moment. He looked even younger close up. I tapped it again. Finally, he lowered the window. I noted a yellow pad in the seat next to him.
“Hi,” I said. “Why are you following me?”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” I said. I leaned in, folding my arms against the base of the window. “I’m heading to my lawyer’s office. I’ll be there for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Why don’t you go eat something? Then you can catch up with me back at the house.”
He stared straight ahead. His ears were small, like a child’s.
“You probably need to pee,” I said. “I promise, I’m not going anywhere except to the lawyer’s. I’m sure you have the address.”
He took a moment.
“You’ll be there how long?” he asked, still staring straight ahead.
“At least until 11:00, maybe 11:30.”
“I could use a coffee break.”
“There’s a Starbucks around the corner,” I said, rapping my knuckles on the car door. “See you back at the house.”
* * *
I sat in Anne’s office and read Trevor’s declaration, and even though she’d shoved a tissue box in my hand, I couldn’t cry. Every part of my body was in shock, even my tear ducts. The beautiful, motherly receptionist came in and put her arm around my shoulders. She smelled like pineapple. I loved her.
“I can’t feel my fingers,” I whispered.
“Reading about what a horrible mother you are can do that,” Anne said, seated at her desk, her hands clasped in front of her.
“You know this is all…”
“Lies,” she said. “Trust me, I know.”
“Why would he…”
“Divorce attorneys rip their opponents to shreds. Especially in Hollywood. Then we meet at our book club, act like everything’s fine, and make a deal right before we walk into court.”
“No deal,” I said. “I can’t unread what I’ve just read.”
“You’d be surprised what you’re capable of,” she said, looking at her calendar. “We have a deposition scheduled for the tenth. In the meantime, you are obligated to respond in two days.”
“I’ll just write VOID across the whole thing,” I asked. “This thing isn’t worthy of a response. I won’t do it.”
“Of course you will,” she said, pushing her reading glasses up her nose. “Pep is depending on you.”
* * *
The sedan was parked on the street when I arrived back in the dead zone. I nodded to the young man, then drove down my driveway. Through my open window, I heard what sounded like a child wailing. I circled the courtyard to find Gabriela crouched on our front doorstep, clutching her sides. Fin was embracing her as she rocked back and forth.
“Shit,” I said. “Shitshitshit.”
I ran over, tripping across those damned pebbles.
“Gabriela—”
Fin was softly speaking Spanish into Gabriela’s ear; she paused to squint at me, the sun catching her eyes. “TMZ is what’s wrong. Trevor’s declaration—it’s all over the internet!”
“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” I said. “We were supposed to fly under the radar! We’re Anonymous v. Anonymous. I’m Mrs. Anonymous!”
“His lawyers leaked it, and people will pick up anything that’s filed in court. I know, I’ve got friends in the circuit.”
“We’re on the divorce escalator all the way down to the bowels of divorce hell, aren’t we?”
Fin handed me her phone. “Goggly-eyed motherfucker.”
I focused on the screen.
HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS PRODUCER TREVOR NASH FAT-ASS RACIST NANNIES CORRUPTING MY KID
The headline screamed above an unflattering close-up picture of Trevor looking like a skinny, wet rat.
Legendary producer Trevor Nash wants his soon-to-be-ex-wife to fire their nannies (plural), claiming they’re fat slobs and their racist attitudes have rubbed off on their child. Nash filed the declaration in legal separation docs this morning claiming, among other things, that their nannies are the worst possible influences imaginable. According to the docs, the nannies (plural!) are ill-educated, disrespectful, and use extremely foul language.
“He’s lucky he’s in Argentina,” Fin said. “I got one more prison term in me. I’m happy to use it.”
I squeezed in next to Gabriela and put my arm around her.
“I’m so sorry, Gabi” I said. “Everyone knows this is all lies. Everyone.”
“I’m not fat!” Gabriela said.
“Not at all,” I said.
“And racist?” Gabriela asked. “No! I love the blacks.”
“He’s a mentiroso,” Fin said.
“Of course you do,” I said.
“I don’t like Mexicans,” Gabriela said.
I coughed, shielded my eyes and read further:
In addition, Nash claims that his soon-to-be-ex-wife, writer Agnes Murphy Nash, often leaves their daughter alone to party and claims that she hangs with “undesirables.”
