Belinda Chapter 12 - 15

"What this requires is a decision," she said. "I mean, a commitment. That you

want this, you want me here and I want to be here. That we are going to do

this now, live together, be together. And then it's settled."

"It's settled, then, it's decided."

"You have to see me as someone who is free, who is in control of what is

happening to her-"

"But let's be absolutely frank. You know what's bothering me. That someone is

grieving, that someone is going crazy, worrying about you. That they think

you're dead-"

"No. This will not work. This will not work. You have to understand that I

have walked away from them. I made the decision to go. I said to them and to

myself this will not continue. And I decided that I would leave. It was my

decision."

"But can a kid your age make that decision?"

"I made it," she said. "This is my body! This is me. I took this body and I

walked with it." Silence.

"You got it? Because if you don't, I walk again."

"I got it." I said. "You've got it."

"What?"

"The commitment. The decision."
[13]

On the third day in Carmel we started arguing about the cigarettes:

What the hell did I mean, die of cancer, all that rot, would I listen to

myself the way I sounded, like somebody's father for God's sakes, I mean, did

I think she was born yesterday? And it was not two packs a day and she did

not chain smoke or smoke on the street that much. Didn't I know she was

experiencing things, this was a time of life for going overboard, making

mistakes, didn't I understand she wasn't going to puff like a stove pipe all

her life, she didn't even inhale most of the time?

"All right, then, if you won't listen, if you want the prerogative of making

the same stupid mistakes everybody else makes, then there have to be ground

rules. I won't watch you poison yourself on a routine basis in either the

kitchen or the bedroom. No more smoking in the rooms where we take our meals

or take each other. Now that is fair, isn't it?"

Red-faced glare, almost slammed the kitchen door, obviously thought better of

it. Stomp of feet going up the ladder to the loft. Tape of rock queen Madonna

suddenly thumping through the cottage at deafening level. (Did I have to buy

her a Carmel machine as well as a San Francisco machine?)

Tick of cuckoo clock. This is awful, awful.

Creaking sound of her coming back down the ladder.

"OK, you really don't want me to smoke in the bedroom or the kitchen."

"Really don't. Really-"

Lower lip jutting deliciously, back to the door frame, cutoff jeans very

tight on her brown thighs, nipples two points in the black T-shirt with

ghastly logo of the rock group Grateful Dead on it. Quiet voice:

"OK, if it makes you happy."

Silk of inner arms around my neck, hair coming down me before the kiss like a

net.

"It makes me very happy."

The Holy Communion canvas was exploding. The whole living room of the cottage

was the studio, the easel sprawled on the rumpled drop cloth. New air, new

sky, even new coffee cup exhilarating. Nothing stood between me and this

picture. I painted until I literally could no longer hold the brush.

The argument about the booze erupted on the seventh day:

OK, now I was really getting out of hand, who did I think I was, first the

smoking and now this, did I think I was the voice of authority that I could

just tell her what to do, did I talk this way to Cecilia or Andrea or

whatever their names were?

"They weren't sixteen and they didn't drink half a bottle of Scotch for

breakfast on Saturday morning! They didn't drink three cans of beer while

driving the van to Big Sur."

That was outrageous, that was unjust, that was not what happened. "I found

the cans in the van! The cans were still cold! Last night you poured half a

pint of rum into your Cokes while you were reading, you think I don't see

this, you're putting down quarts of booze a day in this house-"

I was uptight, puritanical, crazy. And if I wanted to know, it was none of my

business what she drank, did I think I owned her?

"Look, I can't change being forty-four, and at my age you don't watch a young

girl-"

Just hold it right there. Was she supposed to join Alcoholics Anonymous just

because I didn't know the difference between two drinks and dipsomania? Well,

she knew the difference. She'd lived all her life around booze and people who

poured it down, boy, what she could tell me about booze, she could write the

book on booze, on cleaning up vomit and dragging drunks up to bed and lying

to bellhops and room service and hotel doctors about drunks, don't tell her

about drunks-She stopped, staring at me.

"So you're going to go through it all, too? What is that, loyalty or

something to this drunk whoever it was? Is this person dead that he or she

deserves that kind of loyalty?"

Crying. Saying nothing. Foxed.

"Stop it!" I said. "Stop all of it, the Scotch, the wine with dinner, the

goddamned beers you think I don't see you putting down."

ALL RIGHT GODDAMN IT! THIS WAS THE BARRICADES. IS THAT WHAT I WANTED? Was I

telling her to get out of my house, was I?

"No, and you won't leave either, because you love me and you know I love you

and you will stop, I know you will. You will stop the drinking now!"

"You think you can just order me to stop!"

Out the front door. Off towards the ocean. Or to the highway to hitchhike to

GONE FOREVER?

I threw on the overhead light and looked at Holy Communion. If this isn't the

breakthrough of my career, then I don't have one. Everything I know about

reality and illusion is there.

But what the hell damn difference does this make? Never felt so much like

getting drunk myself.

Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, she's gone forever. I'm leaving notes for nobody

when I walk on the beach. Not a single figure approaching in the sugar white

sand is Belinda.

Ten thirty. The loft without her, lying there on the giant floppy mattresses

and comforters.

Front door opens down there.

Then she is at the top of the ladder, holding onto the sides, face too dark

to see.

"I'm glad you're home. I was worried."

Smell of Calandre, cold fresh air. Her cheek would smell like the ocean wind

if she came over and kissed me.

She sat near the top of the ladder, profile against the little window. Light

from the skylight milky and chilling. I can see the red of the cashmere

scarf. One of her black leather kid gloves as she pulls on the end of the

scarf.

"I finished the Holy Communion canvas today."

Silence.

"You have to understand that nobody ever paid that much attention to what I

did," she said. Silence.

"I'm not used to taking orders."

Silence.

"To tell you the honest fucking truth, nobody ever cared, I mean, they just

figured I could handle whatever I was doing, you know, they just didn't give

a fucking damn." Silence.

"I mean, I had teachers and all the clothes I could want and nobody bugged

me. When I had my first affair, well, they took me to Paris to get me on the

pill, you know, just nothing to it, like don't get pregnant and all. Nobody-"

Silence. Hair white wisps in the moonlight.

"And it's not like you're saying I can't handle it, because I can! I can

handle it perfectly. I always handle it. You're just saying it would make you

feel better if I didn't drink so much and then you wouldn't feel so guilty."

Silence.

"That is what you're saying, isn't it?"

"I'll settle for that."

Soft crush of her against me suddenly, smell of cold salt wind, her luscious

mouth, just like I knew it would be.

Eight A.M. the next morning.

Slices of apple, orange, cantaloupe on a china plate. Scrambled eggs, a bit

of cheese.

"This must be an hallucination. Are you actually eating real food for

breakfast? Where's the Coke and potato chips?"

"Honest to God, Jeremy. Get off my case. I mean, nobody can live on Coke and

potato chips." Don't say anything.

"And there's something else I want to talk to you about, Jeremy."

"Yes?"

"How about letting me buy you a couple of tweed jackets that actually fit?"

An innocent little remark like that in a place like Carmel can turn into a

shopping marathon. Which it did.

As soon as we came back into the San Francisco house, I had another picture.

Next step from Holy Communion. I knew it when I went into the living room and

looked at the dolls. Belinda with Dolls.

The mailbox was full of crap from Dan, New York, Hollywood. I dumped it on

the desk unopened, unplugged the answering machine, turned down the bell on

all the phones, and went back to work.

"Take off your clothes, will you?" I said to Belinda. We'd do it right here

in the living room on the Queen Anne sofa, the one that had been in all the

Angelica books. She laughed.

"Another one of these magnificent pictures never to be seen by anybody!" she

said, as she stripped off her jeans and sweater.

"Bra, panties, all off, please," I said snapping my fingers.

That brought another little riff of laughter. She pitched all the clothes

into the hallway, then pulled the barrette out of her hair.

"Yes, perfect," I said, adjusting the lights and the tripod. "Just sit in the

middle of the couch and I'll pile the dolls around you." She stretched out

her arms to receive them. "Do they have names?" she asked.

"Mary Jane and Mary Jane and Mary Jane," I said. I told her which were

French, German. This was the priceless Bru, and this smiling child, what they

had called the character baby. That made her smile, too.

She was playing with their matted wigs, their faded little dresses. She loved

the big ones, the girls with their long locks. Such serious expressions they

had, dark painted eyebrows. Stockings and shoes were missing here and there.

She'd have to fix them up. Get them new hair ribbons.

Actually they were just fine without their shoes and stockings, most of them,

rather bashed and ancient-looking in wilted tulle, but I didn't tell her.

I watched her delicate fingers struggle with the tiny buttons.

Yes, this was what I wanted.

I started snapping. She looked up startled. Got it. Now the big blue-eyed

long-hair Bru doll pressed to her naked breasts, both of them staring at me,

yes. She gathered them all onto her lap, got it. Then rolled over slowly,

stretching out on the couch, the dolls tumbling around her, little bonnets

and feathered hats fluttering, her chin resting on her elbow sunk into the

puce velvet, her naked bottom baby-smooth, got it.

She rolled over on her back, knee raised, picking up the biggest doll, the

German Bebe with the red curls and the high-button shoes. And all the dolls

around her glared with their brilliant glass eyes.

I saw her fall into the usual trance as the shutter kept clicking.

And then, as she eased down off the couch onto her knees and turned to the

side with the Bru in her arms, the others all heaped behind her, I knew we

had the picture. It was in the dreamy expression of her face.

This and the brass bed picture were the future. Go away, world.
[14]

She popped up early the next afternoon, on her way out to see a new Japanese

film. "Nothing is going to get you away from these pictures that nobody will

ever see, right?"

"I can't read all those subtitles. Go on."

"You're incredible, you know it? You fall asleep during the symphony, you

think Kuwait is a person, you can't follow foreign movies, and you worry

about me getting an education. Good grief."

"It's terrible, isn't it?"

She zeroed in on the doll photos.

"The one where you're kneeling," I told her. "And the brass bed series, I'm

going to do six panels, like the page of a comic book, all different angles

of you through the bars."

"Terrific." She popped her gum, hands on hips, black sweater tight over her

breasts. "And all this goes in a vault somewhere, or do you burn it finally?"

"Don't be a smart aleck. Go to the movies."

"You're crazy, you know it? I mean it this time, I do, I do."

"And what if I did show them?" I asked. "What if the whole world saw them?

What if they were plastered all over Time and Newsweek and the papers, and

Artforum and Art in America, and the National Enquirer and you name it, and

they called me a genius and a child molester and the reincarnation of

Rembrandt and a kidnapper? Then what would happen to you? Miss Belinda with

no last name, no family, no history? With your picture in every newspaper in

the country? And make no mistake. It would be like that. It's that kind of

story."

That steady look, that serious look. I'm not sixteen. I'm old enough to be

your mother. Except when I pop my gum.

"Would you have the guts to do it?" she asked. Not a mean voice. Just on the

line.

"What if I said I knew it was just a matter of time? What if I said that no

artist works like I'm working on paintings he never intends to show to

anybody? What if I said it was like walking closer and closer to a cliff,

knowing at some point, when you weren't looking, you'd go over? I'm not

talking tomorrow. I'm not talking next week or next month, maybe not even

next year. I mean, there is a whole lifetime of work to be undermined here, a

whole lifetime to be destroyed, and that takes guts, yes, guts, but sooner or

later-"

"If you said all that, then I'd say you have more guts than you let on

sometimes."

"But let's keep the focus on you. What happens if these parents or whoever

they are open Time magazine and see your picture there, painted by Jeremy

Walker?"

Sober, reflecting.

"What could it prove?" she asked. "That we'd met? That I'd posed for some

pictures? Is that a crime, to pose for pictures? They wouldn't have anything

on you unless I supplied it, and I will never never supply it."

"You're still not understanding me. What happens to you? Do they come to

collect their little girl posthaste from the dirty old man who's been

painting her pictures?"

Eyes narrowing. Mouth getting hard. Looking at me, then away, then back at me

again.

"A year and a half." A voice so low it sounds like somebody else inside her

body. "Less than that, actually, until I'm eighteen and then there is

nothing, absolutely nothing, they can do to me! And you can show those

pictures! You can hang them on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, and

there is nothing, absolutely nothing they can do to either one of us!" They!

who are they? Who are they and what did they do to you?

"Show them!" she said. "You have to show them."

Silence.

"No. I take that back. If it's falling off a cliff, then you have to make

that decision. But when the time comes, don't use me as an excuse!"

"No, I'll just go on using you, period," I said.

"Using me? You? Using me?"

"That's how anybody in his or her right mind would see it," I said. I glanced

at the canvases surrounding us. And then I looked at her.

"You think it's all cut and dried?" she asked. "You think you're grown-up and

everything, and so I've got to be the one who's being taken advantage of?

Well, you're nuts."

"It scares me, that's all. The way I accept your word for it that it's OK

you're with me-"

"And whose word could you accept!"

Silence.

"Don't get mad," I said. "We have years to argue about it."

"Do we?"

I didn't answer.

"Stop talking about being a kidnapper or a child molester. I'm not a child!

For God's sakes, I'm not."

"I know-"

"No, you don't. The only time you don't feel guilty is when we're in bed or

you've got the paintbrush in your hand, you know it? For God's sakes, start

believing in us."

"I do believe in us," I said. "And I'll tell you something else. If I don't

fall off that cliff, books or no books, I'll never be anything." Steady from

her.

"Never be anything? Jeremy Walker, the household word?"

"That's right. That's what I said."

"Then let me tell you something," she said. But she hesitated; then: "I can't

explain it, but just remember. The people who are looking for me? They

wouldn't dare try to do anything to you."

What the hell did that mean?

The day they came to install Andy Blatky's sculpture she did a disappearing

act. I didn't know she was leaving until I heard the MG pull out.

Andy's big-shouldered work looked good on the back patio. It seemed to be

reaching up towards the decks and the house, the fluid lines of the piece

accentuated against the dark bricks beneath it, the plain whitewashed fence

on three sides.

Andy and I took an hour or more to rig up the small nighttime spotlights.

Then we sat at the kitchen table, talking, drinking beer. "How about showing

me that new work?" he said.

I was so tempted. I just sat there, thinking soon, very soon.
[15]

Three days later Dan came banging on the door.

"Where have you been? Why the hell aren't you answering my messages?"

"Look, I'm working," I said. I had the brush in my hand. Halfway through the

brass bed canvas. "I don't want you coming in right now."

"You what!"

"Dan, look-"

"Is she here?"

"No, she's out riding, but she'll be back any minute."

"That's terrific?"

He came storming into the front hall.

"I don't even want to come in this house with her here."

"So don't."

"Look at this picture, idiot!" he said. He took it out of a manila envelope.

I shut the front door behind him, then turned on the hall light.

It was Belinda most definitely. A Kodachrome five by seven of her in a white

dress, leaning against the stone railing of a terrace. Blue sky, sea behind

her. Shocking to see her in another world. I hated the sight of it. "Turn it

over," he said.

I read the small clear felt-tip writing on the back: her height, weight-age,

sixteen. No name. "Have you seen this girl? She's wanted for an important

part in a theatrical feature. Reward for any information leading to her

whereabouts. No questions asked. Contact Eric Sampson Agency." A Beverly

Hills address.

"Where did you get this?"

He took the picture and returned it to the envelope.

"Halfway house in the Haight," he said. "This guy Sampson flies up here,

passes these out at the youth shelters, on the street. Anybody finding Miss

Up-and-coming gets a reward for it. Just call his number. I called his

number. He says a big studio wants her, she tried out for a part, then

vanished. He doesn't have a name."

"I don't believe it."

"Neither do I. But he's tough, this guy. And he knows a lot about her, that

much I can tell you. I tried a couple of phony possibilities on him

immediately. No, his kid is quite educated, trilingual, as he puts it. And

her hair is definitely not bleached. And I'll tell you something else. Couple

of calls to New York turned up just what I thought they would. Sampson's been

on the East Coast passing these out too."

"What do you make of it?"

"Money, Jer, lots of it. Maybe a big name. These people want her back bad,

and they're spending a bundle on it, but they won't go public. I checked and

rechecked with missing persons, missing juveniles, absolutely zilch."

"Crazy."

"They aren't about to hang a sign on her that says 'Kidnap me.' But that

doesn't mean they won't pour their money into hauling you into court on every

conceivable morals charge from-"

"We've been through that."

"And I checked out this Sampson by the way, and he's not an agent, he's a

lawyer, in the business affairs end of the agency. People like that don't

scout."

"The funny thing is-"

"What?"

"It's not impossible. She could be some kind of movie star. I mean, it

wouldn't be out of the question at all."

"Then why doesn't he have a name for her? No, it's bullshit all the way."

"What about the director I mentioned, that Susan Jeremiah?"

"Dead end. Oh, she's hot, real hot, did some arty thing that got raves at

Cannes, turned in a good TV flick, so she's the genius of the week down

there. But she's got no missing sisters, cousins, nieces, or daughters. Big

Houston family. Just plain folks with loads of real estate money. She's

Daddy's girl, drives a big shiny Cadillac, if you can believe it. She's

really on her way."

"But nothing-"

"Not a thing."

"OK. You did your best. Now we should drop the whole thing."

"What? Are you out of your head? Get out of this mess, Jeremy. Give her some

bucks, send her on her way. Burn everything she leaves behind her. Then get

on a plane for Katmandu yourself. Take a nice long vacation where nobody can

find you. If the shit hits the fan and she tells all, it's your word against

hers, you never heard of her."

"You're getting carried away, Dan. She's not Mata Hari. She's a little girl."

"Jer, this Sampson hands out hundred-dollar bills to anyone on the streets

that gives him even a clue to this little girl's whereabouts."

"Does he have clues?"

"If he did, you'd be dead in the water. But he's been here twice this month!

All he has to do is connect with the kids in that Page Street address or the

cop who put your name in his little book-"

"Yeah, but that's not as easy as it sounds, Dan."

"Jer, the cops down there saw her with you! They wrote down this address.

Pick another runaway, Jer, some waif from the sticks that nobody ever wants

to see again. The police don't even bother picking them up unless they can

nail them for shoplifting. There's lots of free kids out there for the

taking. Just go down to the Haight-Ashbury and stick out your hand."

"Look Dan. For now I want you to call it quits."

"No."

"You like working for nothing? I'm telling you it's closed."

"Jeremy, you aren't just a goddamned fucking client to me, man, you're my

friend."

"Yeah, Dan, and she's my lover. And I can't sneak behind her back again on

this. I can't. I don't even want to know this much and not tell her, but how

can I tell her that I snooped?"

"Jer, this guy may very well trace her to your door!"

"Yeah he might. And if he does, well, she's not going anywhere with him or

anyone else unless she wants to."

"You're flipping out! You've fucking lost your mind. I ought to have you

committed for your own sake. You think this is one of your storybooks,

you've-"

"Look, Dan, you're my lawyer. I'm saying you're off the case. Tear up the

picture and forget everything I told you. When she gets ready, she'll tell me

herself all about who she is. I know she will. Until then ... well, we've got

what we've got just like anybody else, I guess."

"You're not hearing me, old buddy. Your agents have been trying to get you

all week about this Rainbow Productions deal for Angelica and you're blowing

it. Blowing everything. They don't make animated cartoon movies of books by

kidnappers and child molesters."

"I am hearing you. I love her. That's what matters to me right now." And what

is happening to me matters, the painting that is up in the attic right now

matters, goddamn it, and I want to get back to it.

"Don't give me this song and dance, Jer! My God, is this kid a witch? What

are you going to do next, the plastic surgery routine, dye on the [bad scan

shirts open to the waist and gold chains and hiphugger jeans and doing

cocaine 'cause it makes you feel as young as she is?"

"Dan, look, I trust you, and I respect you. But you can't change what's

happening here. You've done your duty. You're off the hook now."

"Like hell."

He was really steaming. He glanced around at the hallway, the living room

crowded with toys. His eyes were moving critically over stuff he'd seen a

thousand rimes before. "Jer, I'm going after this guy Sampson, I'm going to

crack this little story of his, if I have to go down south to do it in

person."

He opened the front door. Blast of traffic noise from Seventeenth Street. She

might be coming around the corner any minute.

"Look, Dan. I realized something a long time ago. I don't really want the

truth about Belinda. I just want to hear something that will make me feel OK

about having her with me."

"I'm hip, Jer, I caught that the first time around."

"Well, Dan, when you can handle only one kind of answer to a question, it is

really better not to ask."

"When I find out something else, I'm calling you," he said. "And you answer

your damn phone. And you call your agent, for God's sakes. She's been trying

to reach you for three days!"