Tell him were going to trade off the felony and plead the two misdemeanors, Leonard said into the telephone.
Warren and Polly Orben would be good, Charlotte said.
And tell him I dont want any of that boom-boom shit at the hearing. Leonard hung up the telephone. Speaking of Warren he says you wont see him. He says you misunderstand him.
The fuck I misunderstand him.
Felicitously put, Leonard said after a while. In any case I told him to come by.
Tell him Im in Hollister. Tell him Im in Hollister and about how theres no telephone on the ranch.
There are eight telephones on the ranch. On three separate lines.
He doesnt know that.
For Christs sake, Charlotte, go to Hollister if you dont want to see him. Go now. Go right now.
I cant actually go to Hollister.
Why cant you, besides the fact that it might entail getting dressed.
She could not go to Hollister because she was afraid Warren might find her there, alone at the ranch. She could not go to Hollister because if Warren found her there alone at the ranch something bad would happen. This seemed so obvious to Charlotte that she could not bring herself to say it. I cant go to Hollister because you have people coming to the house for lunch tomorrow.
Tell me who I have coming to the house for lunch tomorrow.
Coming to the house for lunch tomorrow you have She could not think.
Coming to the house for lunch tomorrow I have the leaders of two dissident factions within the Haight-Divisadero Coalition. You got a whole lot you want to say to them?
Charlotte picked up a brush and began attacking her hair in abrupt chops.
On the subject of day-care versus guerrilla theater? Maybe we could get Dickie and Linda up from Hollister and get their thinking?
I dont know why you put all those telephones on the ranch anyway.
I dont know, Charlotte. Communication?
Nobody in my family ever found it necessary to keep three different calls going on that ranch.
Nobody in your family ever found it necessary to pay the taxes on that ranch, either. Tell me again why you cant go to Hollister.
The hair Charlotte pulled from her brush was dry and wiry and faded.
When Marin was small she had played a game with Charlottes hair and called it gold.
I feel so old, Charlotte said.
Tell me why you cant go to Hollister.
I keep remembering things.
Most of us do. Tell me why you wont see Warren.
You dont know what he wants.
Most of us do. Tell me why you wont see Warren.
You dont know what he wants.
Of course I know what he wants. He wants you back. You think I make my living being dense?
Then why did you ask?
Leonard lifted a mass of Charlottes hair and let it drop through his fingers. Because I was interested in whether you knew it. You dont look so old.
16
WHO CAN SAY WHY I CRAVE THE LIGHT IN BOCA GRANDE, who can say why my body grows cancers.
Who can say why Charlotte left Leonard Douglas.
Maybe she thought it was easier.
Maybe she believed herself loose in the world, maybe she was tired, maybe she had just remembered that people died. Maybe she thought that if she walked back into the Carlyle Hotel on Easter morning with Warren Bogart Marin would be there, in a flowered lawn dress.
Its too late, she said to her gynecologist the morning he confirmed that she was carrying Leonards child. It didnt happen in time.
Somebody cuts you.
Where it doesnt show.
I have no way of knowing about the cuts that dont show.
I know only that during the fifth week after the release of Marins tape Charlotte woke early every morning, dressed promptly, and immersed herself in the domestic maintenance of the house on California Street. She made inventories. She replaced worn sheets, chipped wine glasses, crazed plates. She paid an electrician time-and-a-half to rewire, on a Saturday, two crossed spots on the Jackson Pollock in the dining room. She was obsessed by errands, and she laid it to her pregnancy.
Leonard did not.
So entirely underwater did Charlotte live her life that she did not recognize her preoccupations as those of a woman about to abandon a temporary rental.
Leonard did.
17
PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE LAST EVENING CHARLOTTE SPENT with Leonard Douglas appeared a year later in Vogue, Charlotte showed them to me.
There was Leonard, standing with an actor at the party in Beverly Hills, standing with his head bent, listening to the actor but looking somewhere else.
There was Charlotte, sitting with an actress at the party in Beverly Hills, Charlotte smiling, her eyes wide and glazed and in the end as impenetrable as Marins.
She had not meant to go with Leonard to the party in Beverly Hills at all.
She had not even meant to go with Leonard to the airport.
But on the fifth day of the fifth week after the release of Marins tape she had opened the door of the house on California Street and found Warren standing there.
I guess you can give me a drink.
Actually Im just about to drive Leonard to the airport. She followed his gaze to the limousine idling at the curb. She had not until the moment intended going to the airport. I mean Im not exactly driving him to the airport but Im driving with him to the airport.
I guess theres room for me.
Actually you dont want to drive to the airport, it could take hours. She had not in fact spoken to Warren since the nights he called from the Beverly Hills Hotel on Bashti Levants bill. This time of day. The traffic.
Ive got time.
Hours. Literally.
Youre swimming upstream, Charlotte.
In the car Charlotte had sat on the jump seat and fixed her eyes on the drivers pigtail.
While you were upstairs Warren was telling me about this ninety-two-year-old Trotskyist he drinks with in New York, Leonard said. This Trotskyist lives at the Hotel Albert. Naturally.
Charlotte knows Benny, Warren said. You remember Benny, Charlotte.
Charlotte had not remembered Benny. Charlotte had not even thought that she was meant to remember Benny, whoever Benny was. Benny was only Warrens way of reminding her that he had a prior claim.
This Trotskyist drinks Pisco Sours, Leonard said.
Sazeracs, Warren said. Not Pisco Sours. Sazeracs. Benny always asks about you, Charlotte. You ought to go see him, hes not going to live forever.
Charlotte kept her eyes on the drivers pigtail.
Neither is Porter, Warren said. In case you forgot.
Neither is Charlotte, Leonard said. You keep this up. Something Ive never been able to understand is how you happen to know more Trotskyists than Trotsky did.
You know more Arabs, it evens out. What am I going to tell Porter, Charlotte?
All of them ninety-two-years old, Leonard said.
I said what am I going to tell Porter, Charlotte.
All of them sitting around the Hotel Albert drinking Pisco Sours, Leonard said.
Sazeracs. What do you want me to tell Porter on his deathbed, Charlotte.
Personally I want you to tell Porter about this ninety-two-year-old Trotskyist, Leonard said. Youre overplaying your hand, Warren. Youre pushing her too hard while shes still got an ace. Ill lay you odds, shes going to see her ace. Shes going to say shes coming with me.
But I am. Charlotte looked at Leonard for the first time. I am definitely coming with you. I always was.
No, Leonard said. You were not always coming with me. You see, Warren? Bad hand. You didnt pace your play.
But I always wanted to go with you, Charlotte said.
Definitely you always wanted to go with him, Warren said. You havent met enough Arabs.
Hes going to Los Angeles and Miami, Charlotte said.
Or enough Jews, Warren said.
Because Charlotte had gotten on the plane with no bag and because Leonards presence was required at the party where the photographs were taken, a $250-a-ticket benefit in a tent behind someones house in Beverly Hills, Charlotte was wearing, at the time she was photographed, a dress borrowed from the wife of the record executive who had organized the evening, a dress made entirely of colored ribbons.
You shouldnt have told Warren to keep the car, she had said as she put on the dress. Hell keep it all night. I look absurd.
You wouldnt if you had a tambourine, Leonard said. Hell keep it all week.
Charlotte sat down. She was very tired. She did not think she had ever been so tired. She did not see how she could finish tying the ribbons on the dress.
Sometimes I wish, Leonard said after a while. He began tying the ribbons Charlotte had abandoned. I dont know.
Sometimes you wish what.
Sometimes I wish you could just fuck him and get it over with.
I dont want to.
Charlotte. Shit. I know you dont want to.
A stage had been constructed over the swimming pool of the house in Beverly Hills and several entertainers auctioned their services, singing and dancing and placing surprise telephone calls to friends and relatives of high bidders. Leonard raised five hundred dollars by dancing the limbo under a pole held by the record executives wife, a young woman with pale blond hair like Marins and a Brahmin caste mark painted on her forehead, and, at Charlottes table, an actress who had visited Hanoi spoke of the superior health and beauty of the children there.
Its because they arent raised by their mothers, the actress said. They dont have any of that bourgeois personal crap laid on them.
Charlotte studied her wine glass and tried to think of something neutral to say to the actress. She wanted to get up but her chair was blocked by three men who seemed to be discussing the financing of a motion picture, or a war.
No mama-papa-baby-nuclear-family bullshit, the actress said. Its beautiful.
Charlotte concentrated on the details of the financing, the part to be played by the Canadians, the controls exerted by the Crédit Suisse.
I know why youre crying, the actress said after a while.
Morocco would lend its army. Spain would not. Two-eight above the line.
And Im sorry, but thats exactly the kind of personal crap I never saw in Hanoi.
The flash bulb blazed.
Charlotte smiled.
The flash bulb dropped on the table.
Did you know I spent a night once with Pete Wright, Charlotte said to Leonard as he led her from the table. Did you know I did that and forgot it.
You didnt forget it at all, Leonard said. You told me the first night I met you.
I am so tired. I am so tired of remembering things. Leonard. Tell me its because Im pregnant.