“Why not? Your father doesn’t sound like a depressing guy. May I ask if he’s seeing anyone? Romantically? I know he’s had some tragedy, with his first wife dying and the mother of your younger sister deserting him.”
I didn’t answer. It was much darker now. Twilight had thinned away, and shadows found every vaguely lit place to invade and occupy. To me, it felt as if they were closing in on us. A sliver of the moon flashed between buildings and trees. For some reason, when the light from cars passing us in the opposite direction illuminated the inside of Buddy’s car, I looked at my reflection in the window and, instead of myself, saw the face of the woman who could be my mother. I imagined her whispering, How are you going to live with the sound of his scream?
When we made a turn onto Sunset, he asked me what street he should turn on to get to my house.
“Just keep going,” I said.
“Yeah, but with this traffic, I’ll need some heads-up. Don’t suddenly shout ‘Turn here!’” he warned.
“I don’t want you to turn. Just keep going.”
“If we keep going, we’ll be in Pacific Palisades, and then we’ll be at the ocean, Lorelei.”
“Good.”
“Good? I don’t get it. You were in a hurry to get home only a little while ago. Now, what’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
“I want to see the ocean at night.”
He shook his head but smiled. “Women,” he said. “Can’t live without them and can’t live with them.”
“You have no idea how right you are,” I said. I was thinking it and didn’t realize I had spoken.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Man, you’re like a tangram all of a sudden.”
“What’s that?”
“A Chinese puzzle. Pretty hard to figure out most of the time. It’s a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, always seven, called tans, which you have to put together to form shapes. You’re given a specific shape only in outline or silhouette, and you can’t overlap any of the pieces. My father likes to do them. He picked it up when he was stationed in Hong Kong. I’m not bad at it,” he said. “Makes Dad proud and happy that his son takes after him, I guess.”
“You sound like you have a very nice family, Buddy.”
“Good as any I know and better than most I know,” he said, nodding. “Which is why they’ll love you.”
No, they won’t, I thought, but this time, I didn’t say it aloud.
We drove through Pacific Palisades and came out on the Pacific Coast Highway.
“Where should I go?”
“Any place you can park where we can look out at the water,” I said.
“Not that easy around here.”
We drove until he found a place to pull over.
“Now what?”
“I wanted to see the moonlight break out over the water. Not that long ago, I walked on the beach in Santa Barbara with my father, and we stopped to look at the moonlight. It was a fuller moon, but this is pretty, too.”
“Why did you get so sad on me so suddenly, Lorelei?”
I tried to hide my face from the illumination of passing cars, because I could feel the tears on my cheeks, but he saw them and reached for me.
“Lorelei, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t take you to see my father, Buddy. Ever.”
“What? Why not?”