Sombody

      Some things you can’t get out of your head. You dream about them even when you’re awake. Even after thirty years. Mine started with a phone call from my friend Tony.

“Cory, there’s a party at Sal’s place. Casual. Pick me up at eight.”

He hung up before I could refuse. Parties and crowds were not my scene, but he said ‘casual’, so I put a clean t-shirt on with my shorts and sandals and drove to his apartment.

He came out in a navy blazer over a pale blue polyester disco shirt printed with pictures of palm trees, white denims and loafers. “I thought you said casual,” I said, thinking my picture of swigging beer and passing a couple of joints around on an apartment balcony was all wrong. “Do I need to go home and change?”

Tony looked at his watch, then shrugged. “You’re okay.”

He popped a cassette into the car’s tape deck with some new tracks that his brother’s band had cut.

           Between songs I asked, “Who’s Sal?”

           “A guy. He’s been to the bar where Joey’s band plays. He said he might be able to do something for them.”

           Tony directed me out to the beach at Malibu and said, “Here,” at a gated driveway where a uniformed guard checked Tony’s name off a list. At the house a car jockey handed me a ticket and hopped into my car. Valet parking and a Malibu Beach mansion. “Wow!” I said, as we walked through the front door.

“You might want to close your mouth before you start drooling,” Tony told me.

The dozen people in the foyer when we entered looked like they had stepped out of the pages of a glossy fashion magazine. One guy was round as Humpty Dumpty, wore rings on all of his pudgy fingers and had three gold chains around his neck. “Sal,” Tony mouthed to me over the chandelier rattling din of Megadeth before he slapped hands with him and one of the other men there. He air-kissed three of the eye candy women who were standing around. I smiled and nodded at them. They all looked me up and down and went back to their champagne cocktails. No one else was in shorts and sneakers. I looked as out of place as I felt.

I grabbed a drink from a snooty waiter and searched for someplace to be inconspicuous. The curved staircase to the second floor looked promising as a way out of the crowd. No one was up there and I peeked through the open door of an opulent bedroom, trying to work out how many years’ salary it would take to pay for the Oriental rugs on the floor.

There was a den at the end of the hall bigger than my entire apartment. Aside from a bit of bass vibration, the heavy metal music didn’t penetrate the room. Solitude. I could hang out there and not have to deal with any party people. There was an awesome array of electronic gear on one wall – tape decks, reel to reel, camcorders, turntables, amps – and when I went to examine it more closely, I heard her.

Initially I thought it was the hum of some piece of equipment that had been left on and unattended. As I searched for the component to switch off, I saw a girl curled up in a wingback chair in the corner, her long red hair concealing her face. She was the source of the noise - a low pitched moan.

My first impulse was to bolt. A strange upset girl was the last thing I wanted to deal with, but I had nowhere else to go.

“Sorry for intruding. I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

No response. Heavy silence.

“I can leave if you like. I was just trying to get away. From the crowd. Downstairs. And the noise. It’s not my…. It’s too, I don’t know, not my, my style.” I’d begun stuttering. My hands were getting clammy. My normal reaction to interacting with girls. “I - I didn’t mean to intrude. I was just looking at the stereo. I’ll leave.”

While I was blathering on a hand came up from the curl of the girl’s body and pulled her hair back behind her ear. One gaunt green eye focused on me.

“Stay,” she ordered.

It was a command, the kind that demands obedience, whether from a small lap dog, a snarling Doberman or someone out of place at a party. Her voice was raspy, and it pinioned my legs and sucked my mouth dry.

“Who are you?” The words slithered out from between taut lips. She lifted her chin, rested it on her hand and stared, her red hair covering half her face, her one green eye unwavering.

“Cory. C-Cory Alexan – ” I started.

“No. Not your name. Who. Are. You.”

As I began stuttering my name again the girl’s eye began to cloud over in dismissive disdain. I swallowed, tried to breathe and said, “Just somebody who doesn’t belong here.”

She sat up and pushed her hair back with the fingers of both hands. Two eyes now appraised me, the second as gaunt as the first, but blue, cobalt blue, deep and shimmering. “Well, Somebody, if you don't belong, why are you here?”

“I drove – ”

“Drove? You have a car? Keys?”

I nodded, unable to take my eyes off her. L.A. was full of pretty girls. They were in the store all the time looking for radios or tape decks. But they only saw me as a store fixture. None had ever looked at me the way this girl did.

She stood and brushed the creases out of her short black dress, slid her bare feet into black heels and said, “Let’s go.” She picked up a small handbag from the chair and walked to the door. The mirror on the wall beside it stopped her. “I look like shit,” she said to her image. She pulled a hairbrush from her purse and ran it through her hair, then dabbed half-heartedly at the mascara that her tears had carried down her cheeks. “Fuck it,” she told her reflection, snapping her bag closed. “Come,” she said to me and I followed her out with barely a thought as to how Tony might get home.

           We were four steps above the crowded foyer when she stopped. “Have a valet bring your car around, Somebody. I’ll be there in a minute. Be ready.”

           After handing my ticket to the parking captain at the door I turned back. She was still on the staircase, fumbling through her purse. Then she put the bag under her arm and walked with deliberate strides right toward Sal. He must be the reason she’s upset, I thought. Sal was holding court, gesturing dangerously with a left hand encumbered by both a cigar and a full champagne glass while his right hand rested carelessly on the ass of a stunning blonde in a backless red halter dress.

           She walked right up behind the blonde, who was trying to manage a plate of shrimp in one hand and a glass of bubbly in the other, and she put both her hands on the girl’s bare shoulders. The blonde yelped in surprise and Sal turned to look. She leaned in and enunciated carefully over the din, “Fuck you, Sal. And you too, Sugar.”

           She stepped back. A brief flash of silver in her right hand quickly melted into the purse under her arm as the red dress toppled over the blonde's breasts and slid to the floor, leaving Sugar shrieking in her red stiletto pumps and nothing else.

           I was staring at the scene in disbelief when the redhead grabbed my arm and hustled me out the door. “Move.”

           She didn't say another word until we were in the car and past the gate and the guards and driving down the road. She didn't make a sound. Then she laughed. The laughter exploded out of her. She was convulsing on the seat. Her head banged into the window on a sharp turn. She held her sides to keep from bursting. “Did you see her face? Tell me. Tell me,” she demanded, chortling and then guffawing again, unable to control herself.

 “When the dress fell over – it happened so fast – she – her face. She turned the same shade of red,” I chuckled, her laughter infectious. “She tried to use the plate to cover herself, so the shrimps hit the floor and then Sal bent down, I guess to pull her dress back up, but she spilled her drink on him and, I don’t know, but somehow they both wound up lying on the floor, screaming. And then you pushed me out the door.”

“I wish I’d had a camcorder. We should have grabbed one out of the den,” she sniggered.

“What did you cut the dress with, anyway?”

    “Me? What makes you think I did anything?” Her eyes were wet with laughter, liquid pools that kept pulling my eyes off the road.

“Where would you like me to take you?” I asked.

“Wherever you’re going. So long as it's away from there.”

"I live in Venice.”

“Great,” she said, and then reclined her seatback and closed her eyes for the rest of the drive.

“It’s n-not much,” I said, as we walked up to my door. “It’s only –”

  “I’m not looking for much. I’ve had much.”

   “And it’s a bit mess. I live a-alone and unless I’m expecting company, I don’t –”

   “Stop apologizing. I’m not – ” she started. “One thing, Somebody.” She grabbed my arm for emphasis. “I am not going to fuck you. Thanks for the ride and all, but if you think that’s going to happen tonight, it’s not. So, if that’s what you’re thinking, then I can go now. Right now.”

“No. No. That’s cool. I-I’m not – I mean I won’t – I’ve got a couch. It’s not a problem. No.”

I opened the door, unsure whether I was disappointed or relieved.

   This is where my dreams kick into overdrive. Where we sit together on my couch drinking wine or maybe coffee and we talk and I tell her about me and she tells me about herself and what she was doing at that party and why she was crying and maybe she puts her head on my shoulder and maybe her resolve wanes. Or maybe not, but before you know it the sun has come up and we’re still together.

That’s not what happened. What happened was that a ball of fluff scampered across the floor.

  “What’s that? A rat?” she cried.

  “No. No. It’s a cat,well, a kitten,” I answered.

“You’re a cat person?”

“No. Well, yes. Not really.”

Her eyes demanded an explanation.

“This cat kept hanging around my door a few weeks back, trying to sneak in every time I opened it. One day I wasn’t fast enough, and she darted in and started nosing around and that was when I saw she was pregnant. Her belly was practically dragging on the floor and, well, she went into the bathroom and there were towels on the floor and she made a sort of a nest in there. I didn’t have the heart to kick her out. When I woke up the next morning there were six kittens.”

“Kittens? Where?” Excitement was building in her voice.

I pointed to the bathroom and she disappeared inside. I followed and watched her sitting on the floor, cooing over the mewling mass of kittens. The hard rasp in her voice had melted away.

The mother cat eyed her suspiciously, but decided she wasn’t a threat and didn’t complain as she picked up each of the kittens in turn, cuddled it, nuzzled it and let it suck on her fingers.

“What are you going to do with them all?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It happened so fast. I don’t know if the mother belongs to anybody. She has no collar. I put a sign up to see if anybody will claim her. When they’re big enough I’ll see if anyone wants the kittens.”

“Won’t you keep any of them?”

I stopped myself before I said ‘No’ and instead said, “Well, maybe I’ll keep one. Or two so they’ll have each other for company.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet. I’ll come and visit them.” And she leaned over to where I was sitting beside her and took my left hand in hers and gave me a hug with her right arm and kissed me with her lips and we sat holding hands watching the cat nurse her kittens. Life was good. I could have stayed there forever.

But then her purse beeped.

“Shit,” she said. “My pager.” And the spell was broken. She went out to the hallway, paced back and forth cursing under her breath, and asked, “You got a phone I can use?” The rasp was back in her voice.

I heard only her part of the conversation.

– I don’t even know why I’m calling you back after what you –

– You can’t fucking treat me like –

– What do you care where I –

– No. Why should I come –

– And what about her?

– Fine.

And she slammed the receiver down.

Then she stood in the door frame. Her eyes were moist. “Look, I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, I’ll get my keys.”

“No. No. I’ll grab a taxi.”

“But it’s late.”

“No. There are always cabs.” She smiled. “Thanks for the kittens, Somebody.”

“My name,” I started, “It’s –”

She put her finger to my lips. “You’re Somebody,” she whispered, and she turned and left.

The cat and all of the kittens stayed. She never came back to visit them.