“She’s looking for someone,” the bartender says.
“She’s not here.” The woman winks at Dorian. “You buying?”
“Excuse me?”
“Most people who sit there buy me a drink.”
“That’s okay,” Dorian says.
“You nervous? This your first time?” The woman slides her stool closer. Dorian can smell her perfume and something else—maybe someone else, a musky, murky odor. “Come on, baby, buy me a drink.”
“You have a drink,” Dorian says.
“Damn, lady, you don’t know how the game is played.”
Dorian sips her cocktail. “I’m not playing.”
The woman runs her hand down Dorian’s thigh. “Then get the fuck off that stool.” The bartender snaps his fingers, directs the woman’s attention to the other end of the bar, where two young guys are appraising her like she’s a test car at an auto show. She slides off her stool and heads their way. Dorian watches her slip between them, somehow commanding the attention of both at once.
“A woman’s got to work,” the bartender says.
The back door becomes a turnstile. Women and men in together. Men out first. Then the women. Dorian keeps her eyes on it in case Julianna appears.
“Hey, lady, you still taking up space?”
The woman with claw tattoos is back. “I’m having a good night,” she says, “and it’s barely night. So I could give you one on the house. Ramon will let it slide.” She winks at the bartender. “Come on,” she says, slipping an arm around Dorian’s waist, “when was the last time you got a little something-something?”
Years and years. Decades. Time beyond imagining.
“Bet it’s all cobwebs up in there,” the woman says. “Bet you need someone to shake you loose.” She pulls Dorian tighter. “Come on, what do you say? What are you waiting for?”
Dorian feels her body tense in the woman’s half embrace, as if by stiffening she can increase the distance between them. “I’m not waiting for anything.”
“Don’t tell me that. Everyone is waiting for something.” She’s breathing into Dorian’s ear. “Come on, you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”
“I’m not—” Dorian begins. But then she realizes the woman’s right. She has been waiting. Waiting for something, anything, to release her.
The woman puts a hand on Dorian’s chin and pivots it so they are face-to-face. “I’m right,” the woman says. Her voice is baby soft, deceptive and slippery like black ice. “I know I’m right. I know what you want better than you do.”
And then her mouth is on Dorian’s. Her lips are a wet crush, her tongue—all muscle.
It takes a moment for Dorian to realize what’s happening. Then she springs back, jumps off her stool, crashes to the ground.
“Get the fuck out,” the woman says. “You ain’t interested in shit.”
8.
FRIDAY NIGHT—NO WOMEN SHOW AT DORIAN’S BACK DOOR. Saturday the same. It’s as if someone warned them off.
Even two days after her experience at the Rabbit, Dorian can still taste the woman’s mouth. Still smell her. The taste lingers—salty, liquor-sweet. But something else too. Her words.
What are you waiting for?
Dorian takes another swallow of tea to erase this woman and her question. But it won’t go.
The fish shack is slow.
When the clock hits five, Willie ducks into the kitchen.
“I know,” Dorian says, “time to get the big one going.”
She’s pulling down twenty Styrofoam containers when the front door opens.
She hears Willie’s voice. “Anneke, right? You here to pick up for Roger?”
“No.” The reply is curt.
Dorian looks through the kitchen window and sees Roger’s wife. “I want to talk to Dorian.”
Dorian pokes her head out. Anneke’s standing in the doorway, as if she can’t bear to enter the restaurant.
“Can I help you?”
“Not anymore,” Anneke says. “I’m here to cancel Roger’s order. We won’t be needing your food at his game.”
Dorian sighs and takes off her apron. “You could have called,” she said.
“I just want to be clear.” The corner of Anneke’s eye is twitching. “I’m canceling it permanently.”
“I always said fried food doesn’t travel,” Dorian says. “But it didn’t seem to bother you for more than a decade.”
“Tastes change.” She has an accent Dorian can’t place. Clipped and pinched.
Dorian dips into the kitchen and switches off the fryer. When she returns, Anneke is still there.
“Anything else?” Dorian says.
Anneke is craning her neck, staring into the kitchen and through the back door. “It’s a health hazard. Those women. The ones who eat back there. Everyone knows.”
“Do they?” Dorian asks.
“If they don’t, they will. People are trying to clean up this neighborhood.”
“I bet they are.” Dorian holds Anneke’s stare, watching her eyelid flutter like an incensed butterfly. Finally, Anneke turns. “Nothing for the road?” Dorian asks.
The door shuts without a reply.
She puts her hands on the counter. “Bitch.”
“Go on,” Willie says. “Get out of here. I’ll clean up.”
She doesn’t argue. There’s no sense in waiting for the girls. If she passes any of them, she’ll reassure them that they’re always welcome at her back door.
The wind has picked up again, sending more desiccated palm fronds down to the street with a loud rip and rustle. Empty cans and bottles are rolling down Western. They’re in for another wind event—a dangerous, dry howling gale that will send sparks into the arid hills and ignite a wildfire if folks aren’t careful.
Dorian figures there’s still about half an hour of light left, which gives her just enough time to walk to the Rosedale Cemetery up on Normandie and Washington if she hurries.
Western is slow. Light on traffic, low on girls. Maybe it’s the incessant wind from the desert or maybe it’s the threat of cold that’s keeping the girls away. But the street is empty. Only Dorian is on foot. At Twenty-Eighth she catches the bus that takes her to Washington. From there it’s a ten-minute walk east.
It’s a shame about the streets surrounding the cemetery—dirty, trash strewn, smeared with pepper tree buds and dog shit, and more often than not now home to a scattershot collection of homeless.
But the cemetery is pleasant. Fifteen years on and Dorian’s still surprised each time she walks up the slight hill from Washington to find her daughter’s spot. The place is carpeted with a well-maintained lawn even in the dry summer months. Towering palms line several of the wide, circular drives ringing the main lawn, offering shade and secrecy—a refuge from the city.
There are uniform rows dedicated to soldiers from the Spanish-American War with life-size angels bowed over ornate headstones or standing atop looming columns. There are two family mausoleums in the shape of pyramids as well as obelisks and a jumble of neoclassical structures. Look closely and you can find the names of Los Angeles’s vanguard families—Slauson, Glassell, Burbank, and Banning. Dorian used to linger there but now she makes straight for Lecia’s grave, closer to Venice than Dorian had wanted, but still sheltered from the street noise.