But he knew the second he said it--the telephone suddenly cold against his ear. Jack saw that dazzling-blue glint of the Pacific, the way you see it for the first time--turning off Sunset Boulevard, barreling down Chautauqua. Below you, depending on the time of day, the dead-slow or lightning-fast lanes of the Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes a sea of cars, always a tongue of concrete--the last barrier between you and the fabulous West Coast ocean.
"Gone how?" Jack asked his mother.
He didn't realize he was sitting up in bed and shivering--not until Mimi Lederer held him from behind, the way she held her cello. She wrapped her long arms around him; her long legs, wide apart, gripped his hips.
"Leslie's already left for the airport," Alice went on, as if she hadn't heard him. "I should have gone with her, but you know Leslie--she wasn't even crying!"
"Mom--what happened to Emma?"
"Oh, no--not Emma!" Mimi Lederer cried. She was draped over Jack like a shroud; he felt her lips brush the back of his neck.
"Jack--you're not alone!" his mother said.
"Of course I'm not alone! What happened to Emma, Mom?"
"It looks like you should have been with her, Jack."
"Mom--"
"Emma was dancing," Alice began. "She met a boy dancing. Leslie told me the name of the place. Oh, it's awful! Something like Coconut Squeezer."
"Teaszer, not Squeezer, Mom--Coconut Teaszer."
"Emma took the boy home with her," Alice said.
Jack knew that if Emma had brought some kid from Coconut Teaszer back to their dump on Entrada Drive, she hadn't died dancing. "What did Emma die of, Mom?"
"Oh, it's awful!" Alice said again. "They said it was a heart attack, but she was a young woman."
"Who said? Who's they?" Jack asked.
"The police--they called here. But how could she have had a heart attack, Jack?"
In Emma's case, he could imagine it--even at thirty-nine--considering the food, the wine, the weightlifting, and the occasional kid from Coconut Teaszer. But Emma didn't do drugs. There'd been more kids from Coconut Teaszer lately. (Both Emma and Jack had thought the kids were safer than the bodybuilders.)
"There will probably be an autopsy," Jack told his mother.
"An autopsy--if it was just a heart attack?" Alice asked.
"You're not supposed to have a heart attack at thirty-nine, Mom."
"The boy was . . . underage," Alice whispered. "The police won't release his name."
"Who cares about his name?" Jack said. There'd been more and more kids who looked underage to him. Poor Emma had died fucking a minor from Coconut Teaszer!
As for the kid himself, Jack could only imagine that it must have been a traumatizing experience. He knew that Emma liked the top position, and that she would have told the boy not to move. (Maybe he'd moved.) If the boy had been a virgin--and Emma would have picked him only if he looked small--what would it have been like to have a two-hundred-and-five-pound woman die on you, your first time?
"The boy called the police," his mother went on; she was still whispering. "Oh, Jack, was Emma in the habit of--"
"Sometimes," was all he said.
"You must meet Leslie in Los Angeles, Jack. She shouldn't have to go through this alone. I know Leslie. She'll break down, eventually."
Jack couldn't imagine it, but he was uncomfortable with the idea of Mrs. Oastler alone in the Entrada Drive house. What kind of stuff would Emma have left lying around? The notion of Leslie discovering Emma's collection of porn films wasn't as disturbing as the thought of her reading Emma's writing--whatever Emma hadn't finished, or what she didn't want published. Jack had not seen a word of Emma's work-in-progress--her third novel, which was reportedly growing too long.
"I'll leave New York as soon as I can, Mom. If Leslie calls, tell her I'll be in L.A. before dark."
He knew that Erica Steinberg was a good soul; Jack assumed she would release him from his interviews at the press junket.