Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 04

"See, while I take in a few simple facts and observations about Mary when she walks in the door in the blink of an eye, you take in a hundred of them, complicated ones at that. You're doing so much more work, so much more processing than I am. And so I have plenty of time to say hello while you're still working on all that stuff, and you just say uh, uh, uh and then you manage to say 'Hey,' or something equally inarticulate, because you haven't finished processing everything. So you're programmed simply to say 'Hey,' just to stall for time until you get around to actually responding. You follow?"

Shane nodded.

"So that's what I think is happening to you, Shane. What you interpret as the noise in your head really isn't noise, per se, because you admit you don't actually hear anything. But what you think you're hearing is simply your brain whirring and thinking and processing and analyzing and recording and taking in data, and having feelings and vibes and hunches and insights. It's the humming sound of the Shane brain doing its marvelous, extraordinary thing that so few of the rest of us can do nearly as well. And the price you pay for this hyperacuity, this hyper awareness, is that you're always a beat behind everybody else. It's not because you think slower than other people, it's because you think so much more. And it just takes you longer to get to the same place, to get back into real time. Am I making this clear?"

Shane nodded. "I guess."

Carol looked at Shane, sat back in her chair, took her glasses off. "Yeah, I know. It's a lot to take in, a lot to understand. And even then what do you do with it? All your life experiences tell you one thing, and then psychology comes along and tells you all the bad things you think about yourself are wrong."

Shane didn't say anything, and just looked at the wall.

"What?" Carol asked.

"But I'm still fucked up, though. The rape. My mother. My father. The way I've been living."

"You want to know if you're ever going to get better. If you're ever going to be happy instead of miserable."

"Yes."

"You want to know if the pain will ever go away."

"Yes."

"I don't know, Shane. No one knows. You're at a major transitional period in your life, you're in the process of entering adulthood. You're growing up. You've suffered a major life trauma, and you're still recovering from it. With Harvey's help, you're off the streets and you're getting some career training, you're about to start living as an adult in the world with a job, a career. You're entering this new world dragging a helluva lot of baggage and history with you, and I'm here to help you carry some of that. You're always going to be carrying it, that's a given. But maybe we can lighten the load a little. It's going to take time, and you're going to have to work at it. Basically, Shane, you've got to want to get better. That part I can't do for you. And I can't tell you what the future holds. I can't tell you if you're going to find success, or love, or contentment or happiness. All I can do is tell you that you are a good person, a nice person. Someone I'd be proud to know, and someone I'd want on my side, on my team, in my corner. Yes, you've been hurt, yes, you're a little fucked up, as you like to put it, but so what, we are all of us a little fucked up. But you're lucky: you've been given a fresh start. It's up to you to make something out of it."

Carol glanced at the clock on the wall. "Same time next week. 'Kay, sweetie?"

"'Kay," Shane said.

***

Late one afternoon three weeks before Shane was scheduled to graduate from her eight-month hairdresser course, she came home from school to find two police cruisers at the house, one parked at the curb and one in the driveway. There were two uniformed officers, a man and a woman, coming down the walk toward the driveway. They'd obviously been to the front door, and Shane knew no one was home because Harvey's car wasn't parked in front of the garage. She parked her pickup next to the cruiser and got out.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asked as the officers approached.

"Good afternoon, Miss," the woman officer said. "Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"Are you related to a Mr. Harvey M. Platt?"

"No, not exactly related. Why? What's happened?"

"Are there any relatives living here?"

"No," Shane said. "There's just Harvey and me."

"Are you his girlfriend?"

"No, I'm kind of the live-in help. Harvey and I are just friends. I guess he's my landlord. Please tell me what's happened. Is Harvey okay?"

"Miss, I'm very sorry to have to tell you this. Mr. Platt was killed this afternoon in a car crash on the 101. A tractor-trailer coming the other way locked up its brakes, lost it and jack-knifed across the road. Mr. Platt never had a chance."

Shane felt her knees going. The officer caught her and gently helped Shane sit down on the driveway. Shane looked up at the officer as her eyes filled with tears. "Harvey?"

"I'm very sorry, Miss," the officer said. Her partner walked a few steps away and unclipped his radio mike from his shoulder epaulet, and spoke into it. In a moment, the squad car at the curb pulled away.

Shane cried. The woman officer squatted down next to her and Shane turned to her, weeping, as the officer comforted her. Sobs wracked her body. The officer let Shane cry for a few minutes, and when she started to slow down the officer said, "When you're ready, we'd like to go inside and ask you some questions about Mr. Platt, for our reports and paperwork. Would that be okay?"

Shane nodded, sniffling. The officer gave Shane another minute, and when she seemed ready helped Shane to her feet. Shane led them into the house and into the kitchen.

"Please, sit down," Shane said. "I'm going to make some coffee. Would you like some?"

"That'd be fine, Miss ...?"

"McCutcheon. Shane McCutcheon. Please, sit down." Shane looked at her hands, which were trembling.

The two officers sat at the large table and admired the house and the view while Shane went into the cabinets and got out the coffee supplies and made coffee. She didn't want any; it was simply something to do. And it was hospitality. Harvey had taught Shane all about good manners and hospitality, and how to treat people who come into your home. Gay, drug-abusing street prostitutes weren't too good about that sort of thing. Harvey had once joked that he was Pygmalion and that Shane was his Galatea. He'd then had to explain who they were, and how Goethe had changed Galatea's name to Elise, and that George Bernard Shaw had written a play about them, calling Pygmalion Professor Higgins and making Elise into Eliza Doolittle. Then he had to explain the musical and the movie My Fair Lady, which Shane was dimly aware of. The next day Harvey went to Blockbuster and rented the movie, and they'd watched it that night. They took turns identifying which actors were gay and which weren't. Shane got a crush on Audrey Hepburn.

Shane confirmed that Harvey drove a silver Mercedes 450SL; she didn't know the year. She told the officers they'd had breakfast that morning before Shane left for work. She told them her hairdresser school had sent the students out to intern in beauty shops and salons, and she was working at a salon called John James. Harvey had some errands to run, was going to have lunch with somebody Shane didn't know, and then was going to rehearsal at the Hollywood Bowl. She told them he played second violin; it was evident in her voice that she was very proud of that fact. She explained to them that it was a pretty important position in the orchestra.

They asked about next of kin, relatives, whether Harvey had an agent or a lawyer. He did. Shane went to the kitchen counter near the telephone and opened a drawer. She took out a large address book Harvey kept there. She found the name of Harvey's lawyer, a man named Bernie McFadden, who had been to the house a couple of times, and his agent, a woman named Vicki Saperstein, whom Shane had also met. The policewoman asked if she could use the phone to call them; Shane said sure, go ahead. Neither were in, so the officer left messages to call her station.

"Is there someone we should call for you?" the woman officer asked. "Will you be okay here?"

"I'm all right," Shane said. "I'll be fine." The officer could see Shane was trying hard to keep it together. She had doubts about leaving Shane this way.

"How about this," the officer said. "My partner and I will stay for a little bit and have that cup of coffee, and you can call whoever you need to call, okay?"

Shane nodded, and got cups and saucers and spoons and put them on the table, along with a container of half-and-half and a bowl of sugar and a container that held packets of artificial sweetener. She poured the coffee for the two officers and then absentmindedly left the pot sitting on the table while she went to stare out the window at the valley. The officer quietly got up and put the coffee pot back on the stove and turned the heat off.

Shane went to the phone and dialed Carol Beringer's office. The receptionist said she was in with a patient and couldn't be disturbed. Shane asked the receptionist to tell Carol that Harvey had been killed in a car crash, and would she please call. Ten minutes later, she did. "Shane, I'm coming right over. I'll be right there," was the first thing she said.

"Okay. I'll be here," Shane said.

After Shane hung up the officer asked about next-of-kin.

"I don't know," Shane said. "I know he had a lot of relatives, but they're all in New York somewhere. He didn't get along with them."

"Why not?"

Shane shrugged. "He was gay. They are very religious. Also very rich." Shane gestured at the house itself. "All this ... he once said he had a trust fund. This house didn't come from his salary with the orchestra. It was family money. And I guess there might have been hard feelings over it. He almost never talked about them."

"He was gay, you say?"

Shane nodded.

"And you and he ...?"

"No," Shane said firmly. "Never. It wasn't like that. Anyway, I'm gay, too, so ... ." The "never" part was factually incorrect, but in Shane's mind her handful of trysts with Harvey more than eight months earlier were completely erased. She was unaware she had told a lie. In her mind, "never" meant "never since the day he'd rescued me." Some things were just true, even when they weren't.

"I'm sorry, I was just asking, that's all," the officer said.

"I understand."

"Would you mind looking through the address book for relatives?"

Shane turned first to the P page. There were names, but no one named Platt.

"Nothing," Shane said.

"May I see the page?"

Shane turned the book toward the officer.

"Here they are," the officer said, "bet you a dollar."

Shane looked: There were half a dozen people named Platinsky, all in area codes Shane didn't recognize. Three of them also had street addresses in New York or New Jersey.

"Do you mind if I call some of these people?"

"Help yourself," Shane said.

The officer dialed. "Good evening, this is Officer Lauren Hancock of the Los Angeles Police Department. I'm trying to reach anyone who may be a relative of a man named Harvey Platt. Would that be you? ... Could I have your name, please? ... I'm afraid I have very bad news about your brother, Mr. Platinsky."

For the next half hour Shane sat and listened as Officer Hancock broke the bad news to a series of Harvey's relatives on the East Coast, taking notes and writing details down in a small notebook. Several times she told whoever she was speaking to that Harvey had a tenant who was here at the house and who would look out for the place. One of them asked to speak to Shane.

"Hello?" Shane said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Who is this, please? I mean, what is your name?"

"Shane. Shane McCutcheon."

"You live there, with Harvey, is that right, Shane?"

"Yes."

"So you and he ... "

"Oh, no, sir, no. For one thing, I'm a girl. And Harvey--"

"Yes, we know all about Harvey. So. You are just a tenant, then, is that right? You rent a room or something?"

"Well, sort of. I'm kind of, like, a live-in assistant. I run some errands, clean up around the place. Sometimes I cook. When I'm not going to school."

"You're a student?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty. I go to hairdresser school. I graduate in three weeks. I'm going to be a hairdresser soon."

"I see. Well. Good. The world needs hairdressers. Especially out there, I suppose."

"I guess."

"Ah, I'm trying to think. This was such a shock. We have to start making funeral arrangements. And we have to have the body flown back here for the funeral."

"Um ... Harvey didn't want that."

"Didn't want what?"

"He once told me he wanted to be cremated, here, and his ashes scattered out here into the Pacific."

"He told you that? When?"

"One day. We were talking, and he said that's what he wanted. There was somebody he wanted to be close to, he said."

"Harvey's Jewish," the man said. "We're Jewish, his family. Jews don't get cremated. We get buried in cemeteries. But never mind, that's not your worry, dear. Harvey's dead. We'll fly him back here."

"I'm just telling you what Harvey said," Shane insisted.

"I understand. Thank you. You've done your duty. I appreciate it. Listen, you live there, right? Would you continue to stay there and take care of the place, until we make arrangements, and then you can find a new place, okay?"

"Okay," Shane said.

"Good. Can I talk to the officer, please?"

Shane handed the phone back to Officer Hancock. She said a few words, and hung up.

"Asshole," Shane muttered.

"What did he say?"

"They want to fly Harvey's body back east for the funeral. Harvey wanted to be cremated here, and he wanted his ashes scattered in the Pacific. And he called me 'dear.'"

Office Hancock smiled. "Well, yes, I get that a lot, too. But don't let it worry you, Shane. Besides, you've got to remember, these people are in shock now, they're starting to grieve. They say a lot of things they don't mean."

There was a knock on the kitchen door. Instead of going to the front door, Carol Beringer had come around the house to the patio door, and when Shane let her in she immediately took Shane in her arms and hugged her tight, rocking her. There were tears in Carol's eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry, Shane," she said. "I know you loved him. I loved him, too. He and I have been friends for many years. He was such a good man."

When they broke out of the embrace Shane introduced Carol to the police officers, who now that they had made contact with the next of kin were ready to leave. Officer Hancock left Shane her business card, just in case, and said she didn't know if the police would have to get in contact again, but someone would let them know about the body, which was being held for autopsy, which was routine and required in all cases of accidental death. Officer Hancock said there would almost certainly be a lot of phone calls and questions regarding insurance questions about the traffic accident.

Five minutes after they left, Harvey's lawyer, Bernie McFadden, arrived. Ten minutes later Vicki Saperstein arrived. Then Dr. Cranshaw, who'd been to the house a handful of times for cocktail parties and such. Shane made more coffee and served as hostess as they sat around the kitchen table talking. McFadden took the lead. Within minutes McFadden, Saperstein and Dr. Cranshaw were all on phones in three different rooms, making calls, notifying people. Saperstein called some of Harvey's colleagues and superiors with the orchestra, breaking the news. Barbara called the coroner's office and tried to learn when the body would be released. McFadden called a funeral home he knew and began making arrangements. And then throughout the rest of the night the house phone began to ring as word spread around town. The fatal crash was the lead story on the 10 o'clock news, as it had been during the dinner hour, but now that next-of-kin had been notified Harvey's name and his occupation as a violinist with the SoCal Pops were released and were part of the story. One of the stations had even sent a gofer out to the house to obtain a photograph of Harvey, which Shane had given after extracting a promise it would be returned.

It was almost midnight when things died down and they met around the kitchen table again, exhausted. After he'd arrived McFadden had asked Shane to call for some take-out, and handed her his credit card. They'd all picked at dinner throughout the night, no one especially hungry, but people need to keep up their strength.

"Okay, let's talk about the funeral," Saperstein said. "Gotta be Forest Lawn, right?"

"Shane says the family wants to fly the body back to New York, hold the funeral there," McFadden said.

"What!" Saperstein said, angry. "Are they nuts? Christ, the entire classical music community in this town's gonna be there. There's gonna be five hundred people! Maybe a thousand, I don't know. A goddamn lot. They're not gonna go to New York. You gotta talk to the family, have them come out here. This is ridiculous!"

McFadden agreed and said he'd call them in the morning, discuss it with whoever.

"There's another problem," Shane said quietly. She hadn't spoken in a hour, had just let things roll over her.

"What's that?"

"Harvey wanted to be cremated. He wanted his ashes scattered into the Pacific. No burial at Forest Lawn."

Carol and Barbara looked at each other. "Jack," they said in unison.

McFadden frowned. "He wants to be with Jack," he said. Saperstein nodded.

"Well, that pretty much settles that," Saperstein said. "Bernie, did Harvey have a will? Would that request have been in it?"

"Yeah, he had one. Our firm handled it for him, but I don't remember the details. Harvey was in a few months ago, in fact, but one of my assistants handled it. Some codicils and stuff. I handled Jack's affairs, too, when he died. I don't remember the details of Harvey's will, but first thing in the morning I'll pull the file and have a look. That was a good call about the ashes, Shane, thanks for bringing it up."

"Is it going to be a problem with the family?" Carol asked.

"Oh, shit, sure it is. But don't worry, I can handle it. If it's a clear provision of the will there's not too much they can say. And as it happens, I'm the executor of the estate. So they have to deal with me, not the other way around. I'll take care of it."

Carol turned to Shane. "Come on, baby, you look all wrung out. Let's get you to bed. Barbara and I will clean up the kitchen, and I think I'll stay the night in the guest bedroom and I'll be here all day tomorrow to help Shane. There will be a ton of things to do."

Shane let Carol lead her down the hall to her bedroom. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

***

The next day, a Thursday, the phone was a demented child, never stopping its craving for attention. Many calls were from friends and well-wishers who knew Harvey but not well enough to know he lived alone, or that Shane was a tenant. There were calls from the media, which Carol handled as a friend of the family; she never identified herself as Harvey's former therapist and grief counselor, which she was. Shane, too, simply identified herself as a friend of the family. McFadden or his office called a couple of times to relay information that he'd contacted the family and that they were coming out today and tomorrow. His assistants gave Carol and Shane updates on family travel and accommodation plans. There was a question about whether any family could or would or should stay at Harvey's house. Carol and Shane talked it over with McFadden and decided the answer was no. It was still Harvey's estate and Shane was its live-in caretaker. If relatives were let free in the house there would be no telling what valuable items might disappear before being inventoried. McFadden was able to feed Carol enough legal mumbo-jumbo about the sanctity of California estate law so that the house would remain unoccupied except by duly appointed representatives of the executor, and that would be Shane and Carol. McFadden had a young associate lawyer in his law firm named Mattie Shepherd, plus a couple of interns, and would send them out in a day or two to begin a formal inventory for the estate.