A Girl Named Maria

He shot his agent a text, said he'd take another look at it tomorrow, then he heard a knock on the Rover's glass.

Louise was out there, half covered in snow and shivering. He opened the door and jumped out.

"What's wrong, Louise?"

"Nothing, señor, but I can't find the way in."

"Ah. Here, let me show you..."

He opened the door, got the seatbelt fastened around her tiny waist. Moments later her mother came out of the door, turning to look back at the squalid apartment building she had called home for five years. He could only guess what she was thinking as he ran around and opened her door, and as he helped Maria into the seat. He stopped, got her belted in, then he looked up at the shit-hole as he walked around to his door, and as he got behind the wheel. Soon they were on 82 headed back into town, but the vision of her room haunted him all the way back into town.
"Anyone hungry?" he asked as they crossed the high bridge over the Roaring Fork. He turned right, into town, still waiting for an answer. The two girls were stone quiet, and he looked in the rear view mirror at Louise. Her eyes were as big around as saucers, and looked more than a little nervous as she glanced around the interior of the Rover.

"You okay, Louise?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. I'm fine."

"What's wrong?"

"I've never seen anything like this car, sir. It's amazing."

"Call me Jack, would you? Anytime I hear 'sir' I think someone's talking to my dad."

"Okay."

"Now, are you hungry?"

She looked away.

"Louise, have you eaten today?"

"Yessir. I had some carrots and celery at school."

He felt sick to his stomach again. Of course.

"Well, let's get you to the house, then I'll cook up some steaks. Sound okay?"

"Yessir."

He shook his head. Maybe in time, he thought, he might deserve a 'Jack', but she must be in shock. Don't push her. It's gotta be rough for the kid, her world turned upside down in a heartbeat.

They came to his house and he hit a button on the rearview mirror that opened one of the garage doors. He pulled in between a Porsche 911S4 and an old Mercedes 300SL Gullwing, then got out and helped Louise with her seatbelt. Maria was already at the back of the Rover when he came 'round to fetch her, so he opened the tailgate and got their bags.

Maria looked down, obviously feeling ill-at-ease.

Maria reached for hers, but he said "I've got it" as he moved off toward the door that led into the house. He flipped on lights and walked them down the hallway to the door that led into their suite. He stopped, put the bags down and opened the door, turned on more lights and stepped inside.

He'd had the suite finished out to meet the needs of his Hollywood guests, whom he had expected to visit often. It turned out his agent had come up once, so other than that one time the space had remained empty for pretty much the last ten years.

It was finished to standards found in almost any house in Beverly Hills: gray-green walls, green slate floors, cypress ceilings stained light gray, gray-green granite countertops in the kitchen and baths. Sub Zero and Thermidor appliances, the best Kohler whirlpool tubs and sinks, elaborate tile work in both showers. The furniture: Danish, elegant. Sony televisions in every room, an elaborate Bang & Olufsen stereo in the living room, as well as a flurry of new iMacs everywhere you looked.

"Excuse me, but is this your room, Jack?"

"No, it's yours."

She gulped, staggered backwards, her eyes so astonished it was almost scary.

"No, no, no," she said. "This isn't right..."

"What? What isn't right?"

"Excuse me, but what do you expect me to do to you in return for all this?"

"Could you help me with the housekeeping? Maybe the laundry?"

"Who does this now?" she asked, incredulously.

"Me, most of the time. I take my clothes to the laundry, though."

"And you want nothing else from me?"

He looked at her, now feeling ill-at-ease, but more for the little girl than for himself.

"Maria? No! Now just make yourself at home, get unpacked. I'm going up to the kitchen, start working on dinner. Steak and a salad okay?"

"Yes, okay Jack."

"Louise, that okay with you?"

"Yessir."

"Maria, just come on up the stairs right over here," he said, pointing down the hall. "Kitchen is right up top, second floor. Come on up as soon as you get unpacked." He walked down the hall to his elevator and went up to the fourth floor, took off his coat and boots and put on some slippers, then walked back down to the second floor and into the kitchen. He pulled out some fresh romaine lettuce and the ingredients to make his own Caesar dressing, then pulled out three fresh porterhouse steaks, some lemon and butter, salt and pepper. He made the dressing, tossed the salad, then put it back into one of the Sub Zeros, then turned on the gas range and pulled out a huge black cast iron skillet and rubbed it down with sea salt before he put it on the fire. Next, he washed the steaks, patted them down with salt and, when the skillet was blistering hot, tossed the steaks on the iron and listened, satisfied, when they sizzled intensely. The room erupted in a rainbow of intense aroma and he looked at his watch. "Seven minutes a side, Jacko, and not a second more!"

"What?"

He turned, saw Louise staring at him.

"I cook these steaks seven minutes a side. Medium rare every time."

"I've, uh, I don't think I've ever had – steak."

"Oh, uh, it's like Carne Asada?"

She shrugged her shoulders, looked around the room. The glass walls in this part of the house were two stories tall and looked out on the ski slopes; the man's house was jealously regarded as one of the finest in the country, and as the one that had the best view of the mountain, bar none. He was justifiably proud of it, but the little girl was apparently stunned speechless by the sight of it.

He looked at his watch: three minutes to go.

"Come here, Louise. Give me a hand, would you?"

She came over. "Get that fork, okay?" He pointed and she did. "Now, in about a minute, I want you to stick that fork into this steak, and right about here, then turn it over on the other side. Got it?"

"Yessir."

They both watched the steaks sizzling away on the skillet, then he said "Okay, let's do it!"

The girl flipped the first one hesitantly, but with a little praise did the next two expertly.

"Way to go, Louise!" he said, and the girl beamed. "Okay, seven minutes, then we take 'em off and put 'em on some plates." He went and got three plates down from a glass-fronted cabinet, then took the salad from the refrigerator and divided equal portions onto each.

He looked at his watch: three more minutes. He saw Maria out of the corner of his eye, saw her watching him, watched her watching Louise. He went and got the butter and lemon ready, kept an eye on his watch, and an eye on Maria, as well.

"Okay, Louise, it's about time. Maria, there's some stuff to drink in that fridge," he said, pointing to the closest Sub Zero. "Could you fix us something to drink?"

Maria moved to the fridge, then asked where he kept the glasses.

"There," he said as he pointed at a cabinet to her right. "Alright, Louise. Pick that one up and put it on this plate." He held a plate out for her, and after she got it onto the plate he put it back on the counter. "Alright, next one." When they were served, he turned down the fire and spooned a large dollop of butter into the skillet, then the juice of a whole lemon. He added some soy sauce, some ground ginger and whole peppercorns, that stirred some bourbon into the sauce until it was brown and delightful smelling. He picked up the skillet and poured the sauce on the steaks, then grabbed a plate and some knives and forks and headed over to the dining room table.

"Y'all grab a plate, and come on over!"

He sat, waited for them to come, then started to cut his steak...until he noticed mother and daughter deep in prayer. He stopped, waited, and when they were finished he resumed cutting away.

And they joined him. He watched, expectantly.

"My, this is excellent!" Maria said.

He smiled, then he watched Louise, and the way she attacked her plate was gratifying. It was a huge steak, he noted, yet she finished it. The salad, too.

"Who wants ice cream," he said after the girls finished.

"I do!" Louise almost shouted.

Smiling, the man got up, ambled over to the freezer and took out a tub of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, doled out three heaping bowls and carried them to the table. He passed them around, sat down and looked out the window at the mountain.

He never tired of this view, night or day, only now he saw Maria's and Louise's reflections in the glass, superimposed inside and within this view of the mountain – and his own face. There was something about this juxtaposition of souls that moved him, that caused him to choke up a little, then his eyes met Maria's in the glass, and her eyes held his for a moment, before he looked away.

"We'll do the dishes," Maria said.

"We'll do 'em together," the man said, and she didn't argue.

No, in point of fact she smiled, and his heart began to sing.

+++++

After he had given them both the "nickel" tour of the house, showed them where key items were located and how to use the whirlpool pubs and showers, he noticed their clothing, or rather what meager clothing they possessed, and he shook his head once again. He told them 'good night' as he closed the door to their suite, then he took the elevator up to his floor, took out his cellphone and called Mike, the pilot of his G5.

"Mike, I want to go down to L.A. tomorrow – Yeah, stay one night – Uh, two people with me, total weight less probably than two hundred pounds – About eight in the morning okay with you? – Fine, see you there."

He flipped off the phone, put it on his bedside table beside Mr Bellow's manifest cynicism, brushed his teeth and slipped under the covers.

He had a hard time falling asleep, perhaps because he kept going over the evening in his mind. It wasn't so much that he wondered whether or not he had done the "right" thing so much as he began to question his own motives. He truly felt like helping someone who had been nice to him for a long time, but after doing something as frivolous as buying the Segal property he had felt trivially useless in what should have been the afterglow of a modest victory. Maybe helping Pepe out of the jamb he'd found himself in had been a 'good' thing, and maybe that should have helped somewhat, but no, that simply wasn't the case. Sure, he was attracted to her, but screwing her, taking advantage of this wondrous soul would be the most vile thing he could ever do. And still, he was convinced his motives were pure, and if that was so, why did he feel so conflicted?

He turned on a lamp by the bedside, sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Just what the Hell am I doing?" he said to the wall of glass by his bed. He got a bottle of water from the little fridge in the bathroom, then walked over and stared at the glass, and the mountain beyond.

Then he saw Maria and Louise in the glass, but the reflection he saw inside the pane was of the two girls. The two of them, together. He wasn't there. He was alone, the way he had always wanted it. He kept coming back to that, and the image he saw of himself tore at his soul, forced him to confront the basic realities of his life. To, in effect, take stock of himself then and there, deep within the coming midnight of his life.

Those girls.

So many like them.

So many eyes. So many haunted souls. So quietly we push them into the shadows.

"What am I doing this?"

The reflections were silent; they had no answers to share.

He got back in his bed, turned out the light again and tried to sleep, but it was useless.

Because what troubled him as he tossed around the bed was an image of himself he really didn't care for.

Money, he saw again and again, as he always had in his nightmare. Money everywhere, money all around him. He bought people, just like he bought feelings. Experience didn't spring up organically around him, he manufactured custom made realities and peopled them with willing supplicants. He began playing that song, that symphony of the grotesque over and over in his mind, until he began to see the last twenty years of his life as some sort distorted Fellini landscape...and absurd, irrational images of this witty, balding self-parody of himself, dressed like a clown and prancing around throwing money into the air, filled the mind's eye of this sickening landscape.

Then suddenly he knew he was dreaming, he knew it because there was a dime on an old, worn-out wooden floor. It was the floor of his bedroom, the room he had grown up in as a child. He watched with dread in his heart as the dime began to grow. To grow bigger and bigger, so big it began to break things in his room, so big it pushed through the walls of his room, then the walls of the house. So big the house ruptured. Soon it was pushing on his body, then the bodies of his parents, then the air was being crushed out of his lungs, and he watched as his parents died before his eyes, crushed by this huge dime, this dime that was fast growing so large it would crush the earth...then the universe...

And then he heard the door to his bedroom open, and light from the hallway pierced the darkness of his room.

He sat up, turned to see Maria coming into the room.

He half expected to find her naked, but she had on a nightgown of some sort, and she walked with purpose to the side of his bed.

"Were you expecting someone, Tio?" There was an edge in her voice. Unexpected. Dangerous.

He shook his head. "No, not really."

"Not really?" she said tauntingly. "I see."

He stared at her. At her eyes.

"I'm bought and paid for, aren't I, Tio? So, do you want to fuck me now?" She pulled back the sheets and got into his bed, laid on her back while she continued to look at him. Now she was naked, moaning while she fingered herself, imploring him to get on top and enter her. "Fuck me, Tio. Fuck me...fuck me..."

He shook himself awake and looked at the alarm clock by his pillow, then at the faint band of light gathering along the eastern horizon. He sat up with his head in his hands, and began to cry.

+++++

After he'd showered he took the elevator down to the ground floor; he found their door open, and the two of them wide awake, already dressed.

"Breakfast, anyone?" he said as he poked his head in the door.

"Si, Tio," Louise said, a smile on her face as she jumped up off the sofa and ran to him.

Stunned, he hugged her and smiled.

Maria stood and came over to him, smoothed down the disheveled collar of his Polo shirt, then smiled at her own domesticity. And his apparent shyness.

"Well, let's go then!" he said, but he was definitely off balance now.

Maria headed for the stairs that led up to the kitchen...

"Nope, we're going out today. Follow me!"

Fifteen minutes later the Rover pulled into a parking lot beside a row of private jets, and he helped them out of the Rover, then guided them through a small, well appointed building and outside again onto the ramp where all sorts of jets were parked. They followed along behind him, their wide eyes looking from jet to jet, until they came to a large aircraft at the far end of the ramp. As if by some sort of magic, the door to this jet opened and lowered, revealing steps that led up inside the aircraft, and just as they approached. There were seven steps to reach the inside of the Gulfstream, and he led them up, held Louise's hand as she stepped inside. Tracy, who once upon a time had made a somewhat respectable living as a porn actress, was his "Flight Attendant", and she guided the girls to seats over the wing.

The man went forward to the cockpit, opened the door and stuck his head in. "Morning, Mike. What's the plan?"

"We ought to be in Santa Monica a little after ten. You going to the house?"

"No, not right away. I want to take the girls shopping first."

Mike had been Jack's pilot for almost ten years, and as such he was used to the man's peccadilloes – at least where younger women were concerned. "That's Maria, isn't it? From Pepe's?"

"Yessiree! And her daughter. They've moved into the guest suite downstairs."

Mike grinned salaciously. "Well, alrighty then, Boss. I guess we're ready to get this show on the road? Best get strapped in... there's a bit of turbulence just west of here..."

The man went back, noticed that Tracy had already served the girls Cokes.

"Perrier for me, after takeoff," he said to Tracy as she helped him get fastened-in.

"Yessir."

The engines started, and the jet taxied down the runway and circled at the holding area, then lined up facing northwest. A huge, overwhelming roar, then the jet sped down the runway and leapt into the sky, pushing them back into their seats as the Gulfstream climbed at an impossible rate up into the clouds.

"Asshole!" the man shouted toward the cockpit, clearly not amused. Then he turned to face two stunned girls; Maria was crossing herself, though Louise was grinning, apparently enjoying the ride.

"Sorry. Mike was a Navy pilot. F-14s. He still likes to show off every now and then."

Maria nodded. "I know Mike very well," she said. "He's a show off with tequila, too."

"Swell," he said. "I coulda gone the rest of my life not knowing that..."

Maria laughed, a small, constricted laugh, anyway. She was still quite nervous he saw, and when the Gulfstream banked left sharply her knuckles went white as her fingers tore at the armrests.

"Tell him to knock it off," he said to Tracy, who instantly got on the intercom. Then he opened his laptop and started reading that new script. It was just about as bad as he thought, but seventy-five million for three months work would be hard to turn down.

The ride settled down, and they landed in California two hours later.

+++++

A limo carried them down Wilshire Boulevard to Rodeo Drive; they got out and walked up Rodeo to Little Santa Monica, then back down the other side of the street, then back up Wilshire to Neiman-Marcus. When he called the limo to pick them up – four hours later – they were carrying literally dozens of sacks and boxes of clothing, shoes, and toys for Louise. The limo carried them up to the 800 block of Foothill, to his house, and a housekeeper came out to help them carry their goods inside.

He asked the girls to take a swim because, he said, he needed to talk on the phone for a while. They disappeared with the housekeeper, an elegant older woman from France named Teresa, to another part of the house to get their new swimsuits on.

The girls, it turned out, had never been swimming before, and though the water was warm they were tense and never left the shallow end. When the man came out he could sense their unease, so went inside and popped on some old trunks and went back out to the pool. He dove in and slipped easily into a sidestroke, then swam over to the girls.

"So, who wants a swimming lesson?"

"I do, I do," they both cried.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Well, age before beauty. Louise, you're up first. Give me your hands. Now, I'm going to pull you along through the water and I want you to let your legs just trail out behind."

He started pulling her along by the hands, fascinated with the curious mixture of anticipation and fear on her face, in her eyes, then he told her to start gently kicking her feet as he pulled her through the water. "Now, if you ever start feeling like you're going to sink, just take a deep breath. Your lungs will fill up with air and become just like a big life jacket!"

He carried her back to the edge of the pool, then asked her to hold on to the ladder.

"Now, I want you to watch me," he said as he began to move around the pool using a breast stroke. "You take a deep breath when you stroke along with your hands, and you hold your breath when you glide along. If your lungs are full of air, you won't sink. Okay, got it?"