Reef Dance Read online

  “Pheobe’s a big hit in the Far East,” I said, complimenting the proud dad on how well his daughter was doing with her modeling (her print ads were an apparent smash in the Asian motorcycle market). I was half-expecting a brief, commiserate “Yup,” followed by another long, awkward silence, but Bill Davenport surprised me.

  “A calculated hit,” he replied. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to call in a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “I know every man on their board of directors by his first name.”

  We regarded each other unsmilingly. “You’re saying it was you who got her the Suzuki work?” I asked.

  “My firm’s won five huge product liability cases involving Samurai jeeps in the last year. That certainly hasn’t hurt her career.”

  “Oh, so it’s you and the firm.”

  “That’s the reality. But we can be kind about it.”

  There was something terribly unfatherly about the way he told me this. I didn’t believe him, either. He was on some kind of power trip, showing off his control over his daughter, pointing out my own insignificance, by comparison. When he grinned, I could see specks of black pepper lodged in his teeth.

  “You know,” I said, “I think you’re overestimating whatever string-pulling you’ve done. Phoebe’s really a bit of a sensation in Asia.”

  He was not used to impertinence. “Suzuki makes a stellar product. Those jeeps sell themselves in Japan.”

  “Well, Mr. Davenport, I really think it goes beyond brand recognition. Don’t tell me,” I said, “you’re not taking credit for her calendar deal too, are you?”

  “She hasn’t done any calendar.”

  “Not yet, but she will, and I for one can’t wait to see it. Twelve months of no one but Phoebe, twelve different swimsuits. Can’t wait to see the Korean Coke commercial that’s coming up.” I’d gotten his full attention now. “Did she forget to tell you about the Coke ad?”

  He glared at me as if I was peddling pornographic glossies of his mother. “I started her modeling with the Suzuki ad,” he said. “It got her out of that . . . funk.”

  “You mean her mother’s death.”

  “That’s all there is to this new modeling thing.”

  I looked toward the jamming musicians and tapped my fingers in time on the table. “Maybe,” I said as calmly as I could manage, “but in that part of the world, most women tend to be dark-haired and diminutive. A blond Amazon like your daughter, she’s the Asian everyman’s erotic fantasy, and fantasy sells product.”

  No doubt, Bill Davenport was not pleased by the notion that he himself had put his little girl’s sexuality into play with a million unseen male consumers. “Why are you here?” he asked me.

  I summoned the courage to shoot him a small, phony smile. “I’m your daughter’s date.”

  Soft jazz floated in the air. Phoebe sliced a string bean but left it on her plate. “I missed you while you were in Japan, Pheebs,” I said. “What are you doing tomorrow? Keen on hitting the beach with me?”

  Across from us, her father hacked into his baked potato as if he bore a personal grudge against it. “We’re broken up, remember? And what just happened between you and Daddy?” she said.

  “Nothing. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you said, you know, about me not being as accessible as I should have been.”

  She put down her fork and folded her arms. “Really.”

  “Really. For starters, you’ve never even seen me surf.” She nodded. “Why don’t you stay at my place tonight so we can get an early start? You know, give me a chance to slide a few peaks before the wind starts howling.”

  “Dawn patrolling, eh dude?”

  We both laughed. “Where did you pick that up?” I said.

  “They have surfers in Japan. You should know that.” She paused. “There needs to be more to this than just going surfing.”

  “There is. Just give me a chance. And promise me you won’t say ‘dude’ again. It’s cheesy.”

  “All right. I don’t mind if you want to be up early,” she went on. “Just wake me gently.”

  After four months of chivalry and respectful distance—too much distance on my part—there it was. We were still alive. My hand shook as I reached for the last dinner roll on the table.

  Dessert was served. Phoebe was coming home with me later tonight. Life was beautiful. I was sitting in my own warm little bubble when a wrinkle-free maven seated with her husband at the table turned her full attention toward Phoebe and me. She introduced herself as Betty Forrester, “of the First Savings and Loan Forresters.” I was tempted to announce myself as J. Shepard of the Student Loan Shepards.

  Both Mrs. Forrester and her husband, Neil, were instantly charmed by Phoebe. Naturally, they wanted to know more about me.

  “I’m a lawyer,” I told them, noticing that Bill Davenport was listening now.

  “And what type of law do you practice?” Betty Forrester said.

  Oh, boy, here we go. I launched into my standard spiel on dependency, making myself sound more like a social worker interested in safeguarding the institution of family than helping deficient parents regain custody of their damaged offspring. Nelson Gilbride would have been proud of my rhetoric.

  Phoebe wasn’t falling for it. I know she finds my line of work distasteful, a waste of some hidden talent I have yet to even identify myself.

  “What kind of ‘issues’ do you mean?” Mrs. Forrester said, cocking her head like a lovely china doll.

  “Physical abuse,” I said. “Emotional abuse.”

  “Sexual abuse,” Phoebe added, her eyes on her empty plate.

  Betty Forrester gulped. “Oh, my.”

  “You know,” Neil Forrester said, “I saw the damnedest story on the six-o’clock news tonight, just before we came down here. There was a woman in there today—I think it was the dependency court—who’d sold her baby.” The others gasped. He then did a decent job relating the basic thrust of Holly Dupree’s one-sided report to the whole table. “Sold the child to the highest bidder, then stole him back when she got the money.”

  “That’s not true,” I said without thinking. All eyes were on me.

  “Why not?” Phoebe said. “He heard it on the news. Holly Dupree did the story.”

  I held up a hand in protest. “Holly Dupree. The woman did a piercing segment on talking orangutans last month.” Mrs. Forrester laughed nervously.

  Phoebe looked offended. “I suppose you know better, J.”

  “I believe I do,” I said. “That woman—the baby seller—is my client.” Painful silence.

  “It must be hard representing people like that,” Betty said. “I mean, people so . . . confused. How did you get into this line of work?”

  When someone inquires about my life to this extent I instinctively fall into an evasion mode, but I knew that if I was going to keep Phoebe, I had to show her I was willing to peel back a few layers. “Student loans,” I said, “and I needed to pay my property taxes. It was the best job I could find at the time. I thought it would be a way to get some trial experience.” Phoebe was trying to act cool, but I could tell she was hanging on every word.

  “What are your future plans, as a lawyer?” Neil asked. As if no one could imagine doing dependency work on more than a temporary basis. Actually, he wasn’t that far off base.

  My conversation with Nelson Gilbride came back to me. “I’m considering working for the District Attorney’s office,” I said.

  “Deputy D.A., huh?” Bill Davenport said. “That’s a sought-after position these days, isn’t it?” Was he subtly taunting me?

  “I suppose.”

  “May help if you know someone who could give you a leg up on the competition,” Davenport said. Everyone knew he was Mister Connected. If you needed help wiping your ass, Bill Davenport could arrange it. But no offer of assistance from Big Bill followed.

  I smiled at all of them. “You’re quite right,” I said, “and as a matter of f
act, I do know someone.” I studied the centerpiece of gold and ruby-red poppies.

  Phoebe slid her arm beneath mine. She looked relieved. “That’s wonderful, J. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  I thought of what I might do, what words I’d have to say to convince Sue Ellen Randall to give her baby back to the Danforths. I started to speak, but Phoebe leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, her eyes the freshest green, like wild, shivering grass. Suddenly we seemed closer than ever. Perhaps she would stay with me, after all. Perhaps tonight, at my place . . .

  Four

  Ahead of me, Phoebe’s white BMW whipped through the empty streets past rows of darkened mansions fronted by sloping lawns and mature trees carefully pruned into horticultural works of art. I followed in my Jeep wagon, struggling to keep her taillights in view, relieved when I glimpsed a freeway overpass slicing through the treetops.

  We blew down the fast lane along the wall of eastern foothills that so effectively hem the city’s smog in on stifling summer days, then headed south through the vast strip-mining holes of Irwindale, where huge piles of discarded car tires glowed in the moonlight at the bottom of tapped-out pits. The drive quickly became dull and lonely. I regretted having let Phoebe take her own car.

  I’d wanted her to ride with me, but she convinced me she needed to get home Saturday afternoon for a hair appointment. No point making me backtrack to San Marino the very next day. I’d conceded, but not without noting that Phoebe Davenport had never, on even a single occasion, allowed me to drive her anywhere.

  Twenty-five monotonous freeway miles later we reached Christianitos. We followed Pacific Coast Highway down to Main, where I honked and pulled up alongside Phoebe’s car.

  “Follow me into the alley. We can put your Beemer in the garage.”

  I had to swerve to miss a foaming beer can as we rounded the end of my street and started up the alley. My side window was still down, and I could hear music with a deep-bass, tribal thump coming from the direction of my house. One of my neighbors was apparently hosting a little weekend rage.

  We double-parked across my garage door in time to hear Bob Marley’s distinctive Jamaican phrasing drowned out beneath a chorus of intoxicated wails: “Let’s get to-ge-ther and feel all right!”

  Christ. The reggae was playing on the stereo in my living room. My chance to be alone with Phoebe had just been blown by someone who knew where I hid my spare key. The state of affairs between Pheebs and me was tenuous enough already. I didn’t need any pals crashing on the couch, plying me for a surf at an uncomfortably early hour, manufacturing small talk at the breakfast table while I whipped up an omelet especial for my special guest.

  The gate rattled open and two tow-headed blond kids who surf Northside every day before and after school staggered out into the alley. “Hey, J.,” one of them said, “crankin’ party, man.”

  “You little chuckleheads are drunk,” I said, which made them laugh sheepishly. “It’s way past your bedtime, boys, so run along or I’ll get your mommies on the phone.” Conceding, they nodded as if all was cool, hopped on their skateboards and kick-turned down the unlit alleyway.

  Phoebe shook her head. “I thought you said we’d be alone.”

  I sighed. “Trust me, this wasn’t part of the master plan.”

  “Shouldn’t you call the police?”

  “No. They’re probably just friends . . . I mean, some people I know.”

  Phoebe’s stare was pure confusion. “What difference does that make? They’re in your house, J.”

  “I know a lot of people in town on a pretty casual basis,” I said, which was true.

  My answer seemed to disappoint her. “I see. So this is how you do things at the beach, let your friends wreck your house while you’re gone? No wonder you’ve never said anything good about home.”

  I took Phoebe’s hand and led her through the gate and along the narrow path, past the garage and into the small backyard. The porch light was off and the kitchen door was ajar. A shaft of yellow light angled through the screen door, illuminating the brick steps like a sci-fi entrance into another dimension. Across the dark yard I could see several figures outlined against the white brick wall in the far corner, under an overgrown pepper tree. One slender, silhouetted male dangled his thumbs in his front pockets in a casual slouch I immediately recognized.

  “Britt,” I called out.

  “J., what’s the haps?” Britt Baker stepped clear of the others and met us with his usual air of exuberance, his straight white teeth and lively eyes glowing beneath a thick mat of brown hair tipped with sun-bleached red. He was dressed in old blue jeans torn at the knees and a Mexican serape woven from deep cords of blue-and-white rough cotton, a pair of green thongs—the kind you buy at Thrifty Drug for three bucks—on his nicked-up feet. Britt despises shoes. “I called earlier but got your recorder,” he said. “My truck’s having mixture trouble again. Shop teacher, Mr. Flagly—remember, faggy Flagly—he thinks my carb’s shot.”

  “The man knows his carburetors,” I concurred.

  “Well, hello,” Phoebe said. I’d waited too long to introduce her.

  “Right. Britt, this is Phoebe,” I said. “Pheebs, meet Britt Baker.”

  Britt held out his hand in a shy gesture of chivalry. His lack of confidence seemed to expand Phoebe’s sense of her own presence. She cocked her wrist delicately and laid a knee-knocking smile on him.

  “Nice to meet you, Phoebe,” he said, his voice cracking. “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Thank you. I believe you’re the first friend of J.’s I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting,” Phoebe murmured. “You’re in high school?”

  “I’ve known Pam and Grog—Britt’s mom and dad—since he was in diapers,” I said, not wanting her to corner him about his age. Grog Baker had been there when my father died. He and Pam had spared me from foster care in the months following my mother’s disappearance, taking me in until I turned eighteen and became a legal adult. The Bakers were the closest people to family I had.

  The languid scent of reefer wafted over. “Something’s burning,” Phoebe said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “They’re smoking marijuana in your yard?” Phoebe’s tone was grave.

  “No problem,” I assured her. “They’ll be heading home in a minute.”

  She sniffed the air. “I’ve never used illegal drugs.”

  “Listen, Britt,” I said, “I don’t mind you having a few friends by once in a while, but you should have cleared this with me. As you can see, I have company.” The shattering of breaking glass resounded high above the branches of the pepper tree. A noisy pack of revelers was on the upstairs balcony that ran along the side of the house and faced west, toward the sea.

  “Who, them?” Britt said, nodding at the house. “This? Oh, no, this wasn’t my idea. Didn’t you know? Jackie’s back. He called my mom, asked her if she could pick him up at the airport this afternoon. She told him to get a cab—and stay away from me.”

  No, I thought, not Jackie Pace. Not now. Tonight’s party suddenly made sense. Jackie was the one man I knew who could spark an offhand happening in no time. It hardly mattered that I hadn’t heard from him in six months. He’s the only friend I have who always seems to slide back into my life through a side window.

  “Who brought him here?” I said to Britt.

  “Said he met some African dudes at the baggage carousel. They were headed somewhere else, but he conned ’em into giving him a ride. When they got down here, they stopped in for happy hour at the Captain’s Galley and the Africans flipped out on all the free food. It was a scene!”

  A group of girls in sleeveless, Hawaiian-print dresses pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch. They peered into the darkness at us but quickly lost interest. One of them was barefoot and waved a white sandal in her hand at her friends. “No, we can’t leave!” Drunk. “My . . . foot, is . . . naked!” Her companions burst into breathless, high-pitched gasps
of laughter.

  “How did this thing get started?” I said.

  Britt grinned. “We all got tossed. Jackie kept dreaming up these Olympic events. One of the Africans lost his lunch right after the chicken wing marathon.”

  “So you all just popped over.”

  “Nobody really thought about it. Didn’t know you gave Jack a key to the house.”

  “I forgot I loaned him a spare, that time he came back from Peru with food poisoning,” I said. “He bailed for the Islands before I could ask for it back.”

  “Maybe this is your chance,” Phoebe said.

  I gave her a small hug with one arm. “I thought you said you wanted to see some of the beach life.”

  Her face was tense. “I was thinking more along the lines of palm trees and cool ocean breezes.”

  I turned to Britt. “Help me get them all out of here.”

  Britt began dispatching those outside while Phoebe and I went indoors. The small living room looked mostly intact. No one was sitting down. The room was packed with tanned young faces, some that I knew, most of them at least familiar. The guys wore mostly jeans and T-shirts adorned with airbrushed surf scenes or manufacturer logos. A few nodded and said “Hey” to me as we pushed by. A smaller contingent of girls were sprinkled here and there, enjoying the males’ undivided attention. Bob Marley had given way to the Sex Pistols, and people standing next to each other had to shout over Johnny Rotten screeching “Pretty Vacant.” No sign of Jackie.

  Phoebe’s entrance seemed to change the temperature in the room. Guys stopped talking and turned to look, which at least got her smiling again. She threaded her way through the pack of bodies, her lips tart and pouty, her delicate swirls of amber hair glowing in the room’s soft lamplight.

  “Look, it’s Barbie,” a tall girl with white braids and a peeling red nose said.