The Tiger Catcher
“Wait until you taste it. You’ll love it.”
“Okay—when?”
She laughed like he was the headliner at the Comedy Cellar.
Zakiyyah lived in a yellow house under a yellow streetlight. He pulled up to the curb and put the car into park. He debated turning it off. Julian wanted to come in. He wanted he didn’t know what.
“You’d like Zakiyyah,” Josephine said. “She’s in education, like you.”
“I’m not in education, Josephine. I’m in entertainment.”
“You literally teach people how to use vinegar. You call that entertainment? I’m in entertainment.”
“Anyone can make Oscar Wilde entertaining,” Julian said. “He did all the work for you. To make vinegar entertaining, now that takes talent.”
“Okay, so you’re an entertaining academic,” she said.
“See, where I come from, that would be considered a compliment.”
“Where I come from, too.” She stretched, her arms hitting the roof of the car. “Z and I are on the second floor. We have a balcony.” She pointed to the side of the two-story house. “We have flowers on it. Can you see them? Red azaleas. Yellow petunias.”
“You’re lucky someone doesn’t come up and steal them.” He glanced up and down the street.
She wasn’t offended. “I mentioned this about the balcony,” she said, “in case you wanted to stand under it and recite a life hack or a poem or something.”
Swaying from her, he had nothing in reply, nothing clever.
Slowly she picked up her bag from the footwell. “I’m just messing with you. Thanks for today. I had fun.”
“Me, too.”
She opened the door and turned to him. Julian was about to cry nonsense into the confused air, literally to open his mouth and pour forth on her his plans before getting lost, how much he had once wanted a different life, how it hurt to let it go, and how hard it was to make peace with it, but the upside-down longing for her that felt like plunging into orchards of roses, thorns and all, made it impossible for him to breathe and therefore to speak.
Her hand was still on the open door, her right foot already out.
Leaning across, she kissed him softly on the cheek, close to his mouth. She smelled of chocolate cherries, of palm trees, of fire. A sense of something helpless rose up inside him.
After he watched her wave and vanish, he sat in front of her house, staring at the crumbling yellow balcony with the wilting azaleas, his fists pressed into his chest. He opened the window so he could hear the Hollywood Freeway on the next block, lights of cars flying past, whooshing like a turbulent ocean. A mile north, at the end of the long, straight Normandie, rose the giant inky forms of the Santa Monica Mountains, and etched into them the HOLLYWOOD sign whitely lit against the high darkness. Normandie was a through street, and cars often sped by before climbing up the hill behind Julian and disappearing. Directly across from Z’s place stood a low apartment building behind a locked gate, like a halfway house, a cheap duplex, gated off. All the lights were on. It was loud. Barbed wire hung over the barred windows and the stucco balconies, draped down, dangled like icicle lights at Christmas.
Julian peered closer. No, it wasn’t barbed wire. How retro. How WWII of him. It was razor wire. That was the modern way, the L.A. way. When regular barbs weren’t deterrent enough, the straight-edge blades sliced your Romeo throat as you climbed up to sing a sonnet to your lover. Josephine, Josephine.
Why would a house need razor wire on its windows and balconies?
Julian didn’t want to think about his day. He wanted only to feel. When he was thirteen he had a mad crush on a girl in the schoolyard. The crush was so bad it had rendered him speechless. Every time he was within fifty feet of her, he would start to sweat and pant. In the middle of the school year she had open heart surgery and died on the operating table, and that was that. It was the last time Julian had felt this way. Since then, he kept in control of himself. None of the later women he was with, and some of them had been awe-inspiring, made him feel like that tongue-tied kid at recess. He tried to avoid it at all costs, the feeling of being out of control. It was so debilitating. He wanted a sane love life. He wanted a sane life.
And until today, that was exactly what he got.
6
Gwen
WHEN GWEN OPENED THE DOOR, AT TEN AT NIGHT, SHE stared at him like he was about to tell her someone had died.
Gwen was right to be worried. They had a weekly schedule from which they rarely deviated. They went out on Thursday nights, and she stayed over at his place. They went out on Saturday nights, usually with Ashton and Riley. The four of them had Sunday brunch together. On Wednesdays he and Gwen tried to grab lunch if Julian didn’t have meetings and she wasn’t swamped. She was a legal secretary for an entertainment law firm.
She lived in a ground floor apartment with two other girls. All three had been watching Desperate Housewives. The other two waved to Julian, annoyed by the interruption. “What’s wrong?” Gwen said. “Were we supposed to go out today?”
“No, no.”
“I didn’t think so. Tuesday is not our day.” She smiled.
“Can we talk?”
Gwen glanced at the couch where her roommates were waiting. “Can it wait till tomorrow, Jules? Because we have fifteen minutes left of our show and then I gotta hit the sack. I have to be in at eight. Contract crisis. Can it wait?”
“No.”
Gwen grimaced.
He didn’t want to talk in the kitchen, and Gwen was already in pajamas. There was no way he was getting her into his car for a distressing heart to heart. “Let’s go to your room.”
Smiling and misunderstanding, she took hold of his wrist. “Girls, finish without me.”
In her room, she fell on the bed, while he took a chair across from her, his hands tensely threaded.
“Why are you all the way over there?”
“Gwen …”
Sitting up, she cut him off. “No. Don’t start any conversation with Gwen. Jules, I’m so stressed at work, I never work fast enough or long enough. Tonight I was there till eight-thirty. If I’ve been off, it’s because I’m overworked.”
“You haven’t been off.”
“I’m so tired all the time. I can’t deal with any bullshit right now, Julian,” she said. “Can’t this wait until I have more energy?”
“It can’t. I’m sorry, Gwen. I don’t know how to say it. There’s never a good time for this.” He stiffened his spine, took a breath.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands together. “Julian … are you … breaking up with me?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Please don’t be upset. Don’t cry.” He came to sit by her on the bed, tried to touch her. “You’re a great girl. You won’t be alone for a minute. And I hope we can stay friends—”
“You’re not serious!” she cried, slapping away his arm. “We can’t break up! We have brunch reservations at N/Naka this Sunday! We’ve been waiting three months for them!”
“About that—”
“And we’re going away to Cabo next month. You already booked the hotel.”
“About that …”
“Why are you doing this?”
What could he say? What could he say that would hurt the least?
“I did something wrong,” Gwen said. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m always having mood swings. It’s not you, Julian, it’s me. I have to take something. My therapist says I need something.”
He took her hand, held it despite her protest. “You’re not having mood swings. You don’t need to take anything. It’s not you. Honest. It’s me.” He took a breath. “I met someone,” Julian said. “And I don’t want to sneak around on you, or on her. I don’t want to end anything or begin anything like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect it, it’s not something I looked for, it’s not something I wanted.”
Wasn’t it, though? Wasn’t it something he looked for? As he meandered through the streets of Los Angeles, the city of angels, trying new bars, new cafés, new restaurants, new movie theatres, new stores, as he grazed the beaches and the boardwalks, sat outside eating and drinking al fresco, wandered the malls, the cemeteries, hotel lobbies, what was he looking for, what was he searching for? Yes, he was grabbing ideas for his newsletter, photographs, flowers, phantoms of life. But was that it, really? For ten years he’d been scouring L.A., in a roam not just of the body but of the soul. Was he searching for someone? Staring into the face of every woman he met, the question behind his eyes ever present. Was she the one?
One thing Julian knew for sure—and had known from the beginning. Gwen was not the one.
“We’ve been together so long!” Gwen said. “Don’t I deserve better than this?”
“You do,” Julian said. “Better than me.”
“But why waste three years of my life?”
“Sometimes,” Julian said, “when you’re on the wrong road, you have to get off, go back, start again.”
“You’re calling me the wrong road? Fuck you!”
“No. I’m the wrong road.”
“I thought your mother raised you better than this,” Gwen said.
“What am I doing?” Julian said. “I’m trying to do the decent thing, the honest thing.”
“The decent thing would be not to break up with me.”
“Not the honest thing.”
“The decent thing would be not to hook up with someone else!”
“I haven’t hooked up with anyone else. It’s brand new.”
“But you want to!”
“Yes,” Julian said. “I want to.”
7
Ashton and Riley
HAVING FALLEN OVERBOARD, JULIAN SWAM THE REST OF THE night in a sea of Josephine. His morning newsletter reflected this. It was a hodgepodge framed by an odd Joseph Conrad quote (was there any other kind?).
It was his turn to open the store, and Julian got to Magnolia Avenue before nine. To his surprise, Ashton was already up and inside. Usually on the mornings Julian opened, Ashton slept in. And granted, his friend looked barely awake and barely dressed, but still. Ashton kept a buzz cut so he wouldn’t have to fuss with his hair, but had not yet shaved, his dirty-blond stubble darkening his face.
Riley stood next to him. That was a bigger surprise. Riley tolerated the store like everything about Ashton—with fond resignation. But she didn’t show her face on weekdays when she had to be at work. Riley was the organic-produce regional supervisor for Whole Foods. Early morning was her busiest time.
Ashton and Riley both stood at the glass counter by the register, glaring at Julian, their arms crossed. Of course Ashton, who took nothing seriously, was glaring at Julian mock critically, and his arms were mock crossed. He was mimicking Riley to present a supposed united front and hiding from her his persistent yawning.
“What’s up.” Julian rattled his keys.
“Why don’t you tell us,” Riley said, her skirt suit without a wrinkle, her honey blonde hair blow-dried glass-straight, her makeup impeccable, her posture like a ballerina’s. She stood in fine contrast to her slumped, torn-tank-ripped-jeans-and-half-awake boyfriend. “Did you end it with Gwen last night?”
“Ah.” Julian should’ve known Gwen would call Riley immediately.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do I have to explain everything to you?” He was being glib. Gwen and Riley were best friends. He knew he’d have to explain himself. He just didn’t want to.
“Gwen’s very upset, Jules,” Riley said. “She says you wasted her time, made her believe things that weren’t true. She doesn’t understand what happened. She told me you were planning to propose in Cabo next month!”
Julian shook his head. That was Gwen wishcasting.
“Breaking up is bad enough,” Riley went on, “but why did you lie to her?”
“I didn’t lie—”
“Yes, you did. You told her you met someone.”
Ashton was shaking his head, too.
“What are you shaking your head for?” Julian said.
“Who could you possibly meet? I saw you Monday night, and you hadn’t met anyone,” Ashton said. “But suddenly yesterday you met someone?”
“That’s how it works,” Julian said. “That’s why it’s called meeting someone.”
“Yeah, ‘kay,” Ashton said. “Look, if you want to lie, fine, but why be so bad at it?”
Riley twisted to Ashton, her shoulder-length bob swinging. “Do you mean it would be okay for him to lie if he was better at it?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“Hey! This isn’t about me. He’s the one who’s lying and breaking up and shit. What are you getting on my case for?” Ashton threw Julian a wait-until-I-get-ahold-of-you glare.
Julian rubbed his chin with his middle finger in reply.
“Look, Jules,” Riley said. “I don’t have time for this. I was on the phone with Gwen until two in the morning and had to be at work today at seven. We have a shipment of uninspected cherry tomatoes coming in from Arkansas, and yet here I am with you instead of my tomatoes because of the mess you’ve made. Bottom line is, Gwen and I talked it over, and she said she’d be willing to make some changes—if that’s what you need.”
Julian shook his head. “It’s not what I need.”
“You know, Julian”—and here Riley used her slow, wise high-handed tone—“if you thought your relationship needed work, why didn’t you just talk to her? You two have been together a long time. You don’t think she deserved a conversation?”
“We had a conversation,” Julian said.
“But you didn’t have to make things up if all you wanted was to shake things up.”
“That’s not what I want, and it’s not what I did.”
“Really?” Riley stuck her hand on her hip in a kettle pose. “You didn’t lie when you told Gwen that you and Ashton flipped a coin—for her!—and you won? Why would you say a thing like that?”
“Yes, Julian,” Ashton said, now scowling for real. “Why the hell would you say a thing like that?”
“It’s not obvious why?” Julian said. “To make Gwen feel better.”
Riley swirled to Ashton. “Is it true, Ashton Bennett? That you and I only hooked up because you lost a coin toss? That I was your consolation prize? Because you know, sometimes that’s exactly how you treat me.”
“No, sunshine, of course it’s not true,” Ashton said, putting his broad arm around Riley’s shoulder and drawing her to him. Riley was tall, but Ashton was taller. “You heard him, he only said it to make Gwen feel better.” Icy blue glare from Ashton’s ice blue eyes. “Right, Jules?”
Julian swore under his breath. “Ash is right,” he said. “I only said it to make Gwen feel better.” He closed his fist around his sharp keys.
“Julian, you’ve always had trouble talking through things.” Riley was using her calm, psychoanalytical voice. “You’re a little broody, you keep your emotions bottled up. That’s not good. You keep acting like nothing’s bothering you …”
“Nothing is bothering me.”
“And then, instead of working things out, you tell Gwen you met somebody.”
“But I did,” Julian said, “meet somebody.”
“Shut up,” Ashton said. “Stop making everything worse with your talking.”
“I already told you, Gwen’s agreed to make changes,” Riley said. “While she doesn’t condone your passive-aggressiveness, she’s willing to do what needs to be done to re-commit to you.”
“Let me get this straight,” Julian said. “My breaking up with Gwen to her face is passive-aggressive, but her sending a proxy to discuss our relationship, that’s facing the matter head on?”
The unflappable Riley continued; she had a list to get through on her way to the cherry tomatoes. “Gwen says she’s willing to go to a boxing match with you in Vegas if that’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“She will also,” Riley went on, “stop hassling you to get a real job.”
“That might be good advice not just for Gwen,” Ashton said.
Riley flipped up her exquisitely manicured hand to stop Ashton from speaking. “Excuse me,” she said. “I can’t deal with you right now. I’m trying to salvage their relationship.” She took an exasperated breath. “Gwen also said,” Riley continued, resuming her professional, no-nonsense manner, “that she’d be willing to do that other thing you want to do with her that she’s been saying no to.”
“That might be good advice not just for Gwen,” said Ashton.
“Ashton Bennett, this is not the time for your jokes! Jules, my opinion?” Riley airbrushed over her body. “It would help you spiritually if you had a mud bath. In the ocean flats at low tide, followed by apitherapy. Both will do wonders for your anxiety problem.”
Julian tried not to exchange so much as a blink with Ashton. “Apitherapy, Riles? Is that where I’m attacked by bees or where I’m stabbed by needles?”
“Not attacked,” she said defensively. “You are judiciously stung by bees to rid yourself of impurities, spiritual as well as physical.”
“I don’t need to be stung by bees,” Julian said. “I spend my days looking for hacks to prevent other people from being stung by bees. And also—I don’t have an anxiety problem …”
Julian’s cell phone rang. It was 9:07 a.m.
“Hello?” Josephine’s voice breathed into his phone. She could seduce the monks in all the missions in California with that liquored-up voice.
“Yes?” Julian kept it cool. He lifted his one-minute finger to Riley and Ashton—frozen in scolding poses by the counter—and turned his back on them.
“Who is this?” Josephine said.
“Who is this?” Julian said. “You’re calling me.”
“Well, I know I’m calling you,” she said, “but someone called your number from my cell phone at 4:49 p.m. yesterday and I know it couldn’t have been me because I was on stage. Yet there it is. Your number in my phone.”
What was Julian supposed to say?
“Good morning, Josephine,” he said quietly.
“Hi, Julian.” She giggled. “You could’ve just asked for my number. I would’ve given it to you. Listen, what are you doing right now?”
“Like today?” he said. “Or this minute?”
“Sooner. I have a situation. Can you come by? Hey, why are you talking so low?” She lowered her voice, too. “Who’s listening?”
Ashton appeared next to his shoulder. “What the hell? We’re not done.”
“Be right there.” Julian hung up and turned to his friend. The two men were alone in the store. “Where’s Riley?”
“She left,” Ashton said. “She couldn’t wait around for you to be done with your call. She said we weren’t finished with our conversation.”
“Oh,” said Julian, “of course not.” He jingled his keys. “Can you hold the fort for a bit? I gotta run out. Be back in a jiff.”
“How long is a jiff in Julian-speak, two days? It’s your day to open the store, remember? I’m supposed to be in bed. Slumbering. And why did you tell Gwen about the coin toss? What the hell, man. And who was that on the phone?”
“Tell you later. Move.” Julian tried to get around Ashton.
“Where are you going?”
“To see a man about a horse.”
Ashton didn’t budge. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Nobody. Move.”
“Make me.” Ashton bumped Julian.
Julian pushed him back, not hard. “Do you want me to make you?”
Ashton’s light blue eyes blinked merrily. He kept trying to grab the phone out of Julian’s hands. “You blew me off for lunch yesterday,” he said. “Was that when you met this somebody, who’s now calling you at all hours of the morning? Are you ever coming back, or do I have to call Bryce?”
Bryce was one of their college friends who thought he was Ashton’s other best friend. “Don’t threaten me with fucking Bryce,” Julian said. “I’ll be back.”
“By the intense horny look on your face, I don’t think you will, no.”
“Drama queen,” Julian said. “We have a wardrobe appointment at Warner.”
“Yes. At eleven.”
“Probably won’t be back by then,” Julian said. “Can you push it to this afternoon? Ashton—can you please—” They continued to bump and deflect, a well-rehearsed pantomime of friendly combat.
“Jules, please don’t tell me you met some chick yesterday and after one afternoon with her broke up with your long-time girlfriend and are now racing off like you’ve been summoned for a breakfast booty call.”
“So stop cockblocking me if you’re such a genius.”
“Wait!” Ashton said. “I have one very important question—”
Impatiently Julian waited.
“What does she look like?” Grinning, Ashton finally let Julian pass. “You know she’s only using you for your body.”
“I should be so lucky.” Julian didn’t glance Ashton’s way, not wanting his friend to see even a reflection of the wet impression the girl had left on the dry sponge that was his heart.
8
The Red Beret, Take One
AT NORMANDIE, JULIAN TOOK THE STAIRS TWO AT A TIME, though he still managed to glance at the maximum-security house across the street. It didn’t look right, even in daylight.
“Good morning, Julian,” Josephine said, opening the door. She’d just stepped out of the shower and was flimsily dressed in a tank and sleeping shorts. “Isn’t that what they say in Hollywood, no matter what time of day it is—good morning?”
“Yes,” he said, “but it’s actually morning.” They hid their smiles.
Zakiyyah’s apartment was small and clean—an open plan kitchen/living room with three half-open interior doors, one bathroom, two bedrooms. A small Formica round table, an old light beige sofa, a couple of bookshelves. A TV. A treadmill. A guitar in the corner. Magnets on the fridge, a stack of bills and magazines on the counter. The apartment of a working girl who was never home. It was sunny and quiet, except for the constant hum of the freeway.
“Who plays guitar?”
“Zakiyyah. I have a favor to ask you.” Josephine tilted her head.
Julian would’ve done it without the head tilt.
“So the good news is,” she said, “I got a callback for Dante. Shocking, I know, given yesterday’s Shakespearean debacle.” But the bad news was, the callback was for the part of the narrator, an old man in a historical wig and glasses.
“You’re an expert at the old man part,” Julian said. “Just channel your inner Housman.”
“It’s the wig that’s the problem. Callback’s at eleven. How do I become a gray-haired old dude in an hour?”
Looking over her pink scrubbed face, Julian agreed it was not the easiest of tasks.
She held out a can of aerosol. “Can you spray paint my hair?”
Shaking his head, he stepped back. He didn’t like to do things he’d never done.
“Come on, I need your help. You can do things other than sit in front of a computer, can’t you?”
“I do plenty of those.” He wished that hadn’t sounded as suggestive as it did.
“Is one of them color a girl’s hair?” She flung around her damp dark mane for him to see. It smelled of foamy coconut. “Do it, do it,” she said. “And afterward, I’ll take you to the top of the mountain to amaze the crap out of you.” Her body smelled freshly washed of foamy coconut, her arms and throat glistening with lotion. The muscles in Julian’s legs felt liquid.
He had another idea. “Why don’t we just get you a wig? Seems a lot simpler.”
“Audition’s in an hour.”
“I know a place.”
“I’m broke.”
“It’s free. Can you get dressed in five minutes?”
“What do you mean? I am dressed.”
No makeup, tiny shorts, ripped gray crop top, no bra (do not think about that) bare feet, hair all over the place. She looked dressed for after-sex waffles, not a callback. He said nothing.