California Girl

“And the paper was in French, too?”

“Yes. It was good.”

Beth was quiet for a while. She typed furiously, stopped, then typed furiously again. Andy was always amazed at how fast she could type with hardly any strikeovers.

Beth ripped the paper and carbon from the platen, straight up so it would make lots of noise but not tear. From the corner of his eye he saw her place the original in one tray and the copy in another.

“She’ll be fat someday, like her mother.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re sickening, Andy. When it comes to her.”

He shrugged, felt the cool spot down in his pants, but didn’t look up. Thought of Carol Thornton’s calves, the alarming bigness with which they disappeared into her skirts. And her arms above the elbows. Meredith looked nothing like that.

Andy found Gu

Andy watched him touch the keyboard, then saw the brass letter molds drop from the magazine to the travel belt on their way to the holder. Then the spacebands falling into place at Gu

Gu

They clicked the bottoms and sipped. “Andy, I liked the Garcia story,” he said. “He was a mean old man but you made him tolerable.”

“Thanks,” said Andy. He’d been worried about the Garcia obit, wondering if he’d gotten enough truth into it. “Maybe a little heavy on the creative writing.”

“You know, he advertised with us for twenty years, always paid his bills. We can afford to let you polish him up.”

Andy nodded and sipped more vodka. His father and mother were liberal drinkers and Andy felt at ease with the stuff, like it was natural for him to drink it. Actually liked the flavor. Never felt thick or out of control. Just stabilized. With a slightly lower center of gravity. Sometimes a little goofy. Though J. J. Overholt, the Times publisher, would fire them both in a heartbeat if he walked in on this. Overholt didn’t drink.

“Nixon was in again yesterday, talking with J.J.,” said Gu

“Amazing that the vice president of the United States has time for the Tustin Times,” said Andy.

“He wants to be president. Badly. He’ll do anything.”

“Stoltz with him?” Andy asked. “Stoltz is the guy who’s going to be president.”

“No, no. Stoltz just wants to make money and fight Communists.”

“Stoltz got Nixon this far,” Andy said with conviction.

Andy wanted to know things. He read the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Ana Register and every magazine he could get his hands on. Listened to the L.A. radio news while he did his homework. Liked the politics. Thought he was getting to know the way things worked.

“No, no he didn’t,” said Gu

Andy thought about this, sipped more vodka. The Linotype machine cycled through, fresh slugs cooling in the bin. Andy looked at the hard lines of type, wondered again how Gu

Upstairs Beth pounded on her Royal. Sounded like a machine gun. Gu

Then his smile subsided and he locked his cool gray eyes on Andy. “You haven’t heard about Alma Vo

Andy waited.

“Killed herself with gin and rat poison. Dead when the girls came home from school today.”

Andy thought of flying through the air and into Le

“I’ve never written a suicide obit,” Andy said.

“Some papers admit the suicide, and some cover it up,” said Gu

“Yeah, I know.”

Andy raised his glass and finished off the vodka. Wondered if J. J. Overholt and the Vo

Gu

Andy had grown up believing that written words were to be respected. That some were even sacred. An enthusiasm for words was in his blood but he didn’t know how it got there. The Beckers had a big bookshelf in the living room but his mother and father had never talked directly about writing. It was just something natural, like his taste for alcohol or his limitless desire for Meredith Thornton.

“It was great, Gu

Gu

AFTER BURGERS Andy parked on the street and took Meredith into the little orange grove not far from her house. The night had cooled sharply and she wore her long red overcoat. They came to their clearing and Andy spread the blanket. He lay down first, then Meredith arranged herself next to him with a kind of gentle formality. They could see the house lights of Tustin scattered below, and the black acres of the groves.

“I really like you, Andy.”

“I like you, too.”

“It’s nice to be up here with you.”

A meteor with a tail sailed across the sky, left to right, the tail dissolving behind it. Then another, in the opposite direction. Some were just short flashes, like sparks.

Andy watched the meteors drop and skate through the darkness, thought of Alma Vo

He was looking forward to writing this obit more than he’d looked forward to writing anything in his life. Alma Vo

“What are you thinking about?” asked Meredith.

“I don’t like it when you ask me that.”

“I know you don’t. But if we’re together I have a right to know.”

Andy wondered why thoughts weren’t private. Weren’t you just a prisoner if you had to surrender your thoughts on demand? “Alma Vo