At First Sight

Chapter 27

IT WAS TWO IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN MY DELTA FLIGHT from North Carolina landed at LAX. My overnight case had been a few millimeters too large to pass through the post-9/11 airport screening apparatus in Charlotte. I could have probably blasted it through with a well-aimed hiji-ushirate, but the woman on the screening machine snatched the bag off the conveyor and had it checked before I could perform my bad-ass elbow strike.

According to the e-mail I'd received from Chick, Evelyn's funeral was on Saturday at 10 A. M. at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills. I e-mailed him back before leaving for the airport informing him that I would be staying at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. I'd chosen Pasadena because Chandler's parents lived there. I didn't want to impose on my in-laws and just show up, bags in hand, but I certainly wanted to pay them a visit.

I was at baggage claim waiting for my luggage, admiring a beautiful, ninety-degree, smog-free L. A. day, when I heard my name being called.

"Paige! Paige Ellis. Over here."

I turned, and over by the door behind the ropes, saw Chick Best. He was dressed in a charcoal suit with a cinnamon-colored shirt and maroon tie. His sunglasses were pushed up on his head movie-star style. I certainly hadn't expected him to come to the airport to meet me. In fact, I didn't quite know what to make of it. I hadn't even given him my travel arrangements, so how had he known what flight I'd be on? Spooky. But there he was, just the same, so I smiled and waved.

I retrieved my bag, pulled out the handle, and wheeled it past the bored luggage-checker and out to the curb.

Chick hugged me. I could feel his breath on my neck.

"This is so sweet of you:' he said.

I had a vivid memory flash of the uncomfortable encounter after Chandler's funeral, when Chick had wrapped his arms around me and wouldn't let go. But this time, he quickly turned me loose and held me at arm's length. I was looking into sad brown eyes. He smiled weakly.

"These past few days have been an absolute horror:' he said. He had what looked like a fresh haircut. I could see white around the ears where he'd just gotten it trimmed. He reeked of aftershave-Aqua Velva, I think.

"Areyou holding up okay?" I asked, feeling awkward in his presence. In Hawaii, I was pretty much only focused on Chandler. Other than two dinners on Maui and a few moments at my husband's funeral, I hardly knew this man.

"Come on, we'll talk once we get out of here," he said and led me across the crowded terminal and into the parking structure. A black Porsche Targa was parked with its top down near the exit turnstile. He popped the trunk, took my bag, and dropped it inside.

"I made reservations for you at the Beverly Wilshire. It's close to Rodeo Drive, good stores. Evelyn shopped there all the time, and you won't have far to go by cab to get to my place, or you can rent a car if you'd rather not mess with taxies."

"I'm not much of a shopper, Chick. Didn't you get my e-mail? I'm already booked at the Langham Huntington in Pasadena."

He smiled as he opened the passenger door and let me in. "That's the old Ritz-Carlton, right?" I nodded. "Great hotel, but a helluva long ways away," he said, pulling down his wrap-around sunglasses and sliding them onto his nose. "It's all the way out at the end of the 110. Even if you use the 210 or try to go over Coldwater, you're gonna hit killer traffic most times of the day."

"I want to see Chandler's family and they live out there. Since Evelyn's funeral is at Forest Lawn in Hollywood, I figured I could just shoot right out the 210 to the 134 and hang a left on Forest Lawn Drive by the river and I'd be there."

I could see I'd surprised him with my encyclopedic knowledge of the L. A. freeway system. I got to know my way around out here pretty well right after Chandler and I were married. We'd spent a lot of time in L. A. while Chan was working with his family's attorneys, setting up the learning foundation.

"Okay," Chick smiled, "the Langham it is, then." He pulled out of the parking structure and drove onto the freeway heading east, toward Pasadena.

It was one of those L. A. days that made you want to move here. The Santa Ana winds were blowing and had swept the basin clear of air pollution. The few flags I saw stood at right angles, rippling and snapping in the stiff breeze. In honor of the day, convertible tops were down, sunglasses flashing, blonde hair flying. A regular Pepsi commercial. It was November, but it felt like springtime. The grass at home was already beginning to freeze at night, turning brown with the first chill of winter, so despite the circumstances, it felt liberating to be here.

"They caught the guy," Chick said, not taking his eyes off the road. "Black kid named Delroy Washington with a long record of car-jacking and gang violence. Cops think it was random. He saw her car, went over and shot her so she wouldn't be able to identify him later. Took the Mercedes and ran."

"That's awful," I said.

"Y'know, sometimes I just sit and think what if she hadn't gone to the Valley to get her hair done? What if she'd canceled her appointment, which she often did? Or what if her hairdresser had moved the time, told her to come a half-hour earlier or later? What if she hadn't been in Van Nuys at that exact moment, and had never run into this angry, screwed-up kid? I keep trying to make sense of it, but what it comes down to is Evelyn was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and hit the double zero. Even so, I still can't keep from thinking, what if?"

He looked over. I couldn't see his eyes behind his wrap-around sunglasses, but I could imagine what was reflected there. I had asked all the same unanswerable, self-torturing questions. What if I hadn't gone running that evening? What if my back hadn't flared up? What if I'd decided to just tough it out with no Percocet, instead of calling Dr. Baker and getting him to prescribe Darvocet? Then Chandler wouldn't have gone out to pick up my medicine. He wouldn't have been in that drugstore parking lot, wouldn't have been crushed by the hit-and-run driver.

"There's no answer to the what ifs, or the whys," I finally told him, "any more than there's an answer for why some people get cancer and others don't. It is what it is. It's just life."

That sounded like a lame platitude even as I said it, and if he was like me, he was probably still too close to Evelyn's death to deal with it philosophically.

He nodded slowly but seemed unconvinced. "It's just… being at home without her… it's like punishment. Did you feel that way?"

"Exactly that way," I said. "But where else can you go? How do you hide from your feelings?"

"Exactly," he said. "And then, there are all the funeral arrangements. I've been trying to handle that. It's so hard to even know what to bury her in. I keep thinking, does it really matter? She's dead. Does it make a difference if she's in her pink summer dress, or the green A-line she liked so much? What about jewelry? I know it's silly, but some part of me wants it to be exactly right. It's sort of like the final communal gesture I'll ever make for us."

I was surprised at that one. Chick had never seemed very metaphysical to me. More of a business accounting type. But he was absolutely right. I'd felt all the same things he was feeling.

"Somebody actually suggested that we bury Chandler in his football jersey," I said.

"Ridiculous," Chick said. "Evelyn liked to work out. Maybe I should bury her in a sport bra."

We were both suddenly smiling-laughing at the idea of what other people thought was the essence of a person's life.

"Part of me just keeps looking for answers," he went on. "Part of me is looking for a place to stash all this anger I have for Delroy Washington. Sometimes I pray he'll get the needle and I'll be standing behind the glass watching. But I also know that's not going to help me get past this. I can't bring Evelyn back by punishing some angry kid who's just a violent product of our own societal mistakes. Suffice it to say, I'm confused. Sometimes I sit in my backyard and look at the trees, see the wind blow the leaves away, and wish I could just sail away with them, get out of here on a gust of air. Does any of that make sense?"

"Perfect sense." I reached out and squeezed his hand in a gesture of support as we were swept along in the flow of sixty-mile-an-hour L. A. traffic.

Chick pulled his hand away so he could shift into a lower gear. The Porsche growled and buzzed around a Vons produce truck.

"Is there anything I can do to help you with the funeral arrangements?" I asked.

"Just being here is help enough. Having somebody who's been through this to talk to… it's all I need."

I looked over at Chick's profile. His eyes were still hidden behind those trendy glasses. I wondered who was really inside there. I decided one way or another, I would do everything in my power to help him get through this.

Big mistake.