California Girl

“Were you invited?”

“No. After that, she was off to see the other guy. Mr. Mystery Man. To tell him what was growing inside her and what she was going to do to it.”

Andy stood and went to the window. Drew in some cool sea air. Felt his nerves settle. Like the hackles of a dog going back down.

“What did Janelle do for money?” he asked.

“Modeling.”

“How often?”

“In the year I knew her I think she went out on one or two shoots,” said Jesse. “Up in L.A. Gleason/Marx Agency.”

“You don’t make a year’s worth of food and rent in two shoots. She had a car?”

“Nice little VW. Powder blue. Just a year old.”

Powder blue, thought Andy. The marijuana plucked him out of the guest cottage and set him down in the packinghouse. Light slanting through the wallboards. Wind huffing outside, shaking the metal roof. Pigeons rustling in the smell of old wood and creosote.

Powder blue sweater.

Black-red around the empty neck.

Janelle’s legs faint blue, too.

Unholy shit.

“She making payments on the car?” Andy asked absently. Hard to get his head back into this moment. Like a record skipping, taking him back, taking him back, taking him back…

“Free and clear,” said Jesse.

“How did she buy a new car?”

Jesse shrugged. “She had cash coming in, but I don’t know how or why. She didn’t offer and I didn’t press. She had some nice things. And she was generous. Bought me this. It was used, but it’s a fine instrument.”

Jesse ran his fingers over the strings of the white Stratocaster.

Andy wondered at the shattered complexity of Janelle Vo

“You told my brother Nick all this, I take it.”

“Hell no,” said Jesse. “Not the pregnancy or abortion. Not the dude she was with. Not the di

“Well, why not?”

“I don’t have a problem with the truth, but I do have a problem with who I tell it to. I don’t dig the pigs. Sorry your bro is one of ’em, but I have my reasons. I didn’t tell him, so I’m telling you.”

Then a light knock on the door and Jesse said, “Come in.” A young blond woman put her head inside, smiled at Jesse. “Hi, Jess.”

“Gail. Come on in.”

“You sure it’s okay?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

She giggled and came in, still smiling. Denim jacket with a bright rainbow embroidered on a pocket flap. Fla

“This is Andy.”

“Peace, Andy,” she said. “Hey, Jess, I got some knockout sinsemilla from Ro

“Roll one up.”

“Already did. And Dr. T. said there’s a thousand hits of Orange Sunshine on their way to Laguna.”

“You might not want to talk about that right now,” said Jesse. A mildly amused glance at Andy. “This guy here, he’ll put it in the paper. Or worse.”

Gail lit the joint and offered it to Andy.

“No thanks. See you at the funeral, Jesse.”

“Later, bro.”

JANELLE VONN’S casket was a deeply burnished Honduran mahogany with gold hardware. It was draped with one large arrangement of white roses. The coffin stand legs were solid with more white roses, as were the cross behind the pulpit, the altar, and the railing. Andy smelled the flowers the moment he walked inside the Grove Drive-In Church of God.

David eulogized Janelle to an overcapacity crowd. Even the folding chairs weren’t enough. His words were brief and powerful.

Andy listened to his brother. Heard the radiant strength in David’s voice. What a gift. Wondered if David had made it over to Janelle’s for di

But Nick’s mind would surely blow when he learned what Andy had learned. Mystery lover. Pregnant. Unless that was old news, too. The autopsy would reveal some of it.

Jesse Black performed “Girl of the North Country ” and “Imagine You.” The music was dreamy and pure and you could hear the crowd breathing. Then sniffing back tears. The audience wasn’t sure whether to clap, but when the applause began it mounted quickly and ran long. Black nodded once and walked out a front exit with wholesome Gail and orange-haired Crystal trailing behind him.

Andy sat with Teresa on his left and Nick on his right. As he looked around, what struck him most and hardest was how few of these people had even met her. She was a celebrity in death that she’d never been in life. An event. A symbol. An entertainment.

Journal stand sales had gone up 162 percent over the five days following her death, peaking with the Wolfman profile on Saturday. Subscriptions up, too. The Journal had capitalized. Janelle Vo

So, they had given the people what they wanted. They’d kicked ass. Andy had kicked most of it himself. And here they were, all those people, asses kicked and showing up at a funeral for someone they never knew. Because of his words on a page. And a picture of a schizophrenic with a hairy hand.

But if he hadn’t served up Janelle piping hot and fresh for them each day, someone else would have. Andy shook his head and looked down at his church shoes.

When it was over they joined the throng moving outside to their cars for the short drive to Angel’s Lawn and the grave.

Andy watched in numb silence as they lowered Janelle’s coffin into the hole. Only later, while he stood alone by Clay’s grave under a leafless sycamore, did the tears come heavy and hot.

THE BECKER family home stood pale against the trees in the cool October night. Andy parked next to David’s blue Kingswood Estate station wagon. Behind Roger and Marie Stoltz’s new white Cadillac. Nick wouldn’t be there, which was fine with Andy.

It wasn’t until after di

David mostly nodded his confirmation of Jesse Black’s story. Yes, Janelle had a secret man. No, David had no idea who he was or what they did. Yes, she was pregnant and pla

Of course he’d told Nick all of this.

“Did you see her that last night?” asked Andy.

David sipped the drink. Looked at Andy with a level expression. “We were going to have di

“Nick know about this?”

“If Jesse told you, he must have told Nick. I haven’t.”

“Why?”

David looked down, scuffed the old wool rug with the toe of his wing tip. Drank again. “I don’t want it known, unless it would help in some way. I don’t think it would put me in a good light.”

“Why?”

“Think hard, Andrew.”

“Proximity.”

“That’s all it takes. In my…calling.”

“Was Barbara invited to the di

“Of course she was. See, Andy, that’s what I mean. All I’m going to get from that broken di