He had known she would be from the moment he first saw her. Seven years ago, well past three o’clock in the morning on a hot summer’s night, at a gas station on Westwood Boulevard. Bill supposed he would forget his own name before he forgot that night.
He had been uneasy, at loose ends. It wasn’t insomnia: it’s only insomnia when you’re trying to sleep. He had been trying to write. It was his best kept secret then, his writing. None of his professors at UCLA, who knew him as a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, would have ever guessed it. Well-written papers and a flair for creative problem-solving didn’t make him stand out as more than a good student. His friends, although from varied backgrounds and majors, held the same prejudices as the few women he had dated: they assumed that engineers were unlikely to read novels, let alone write them. His father, who expected him to come to work for the family company in September, was also unaware of Bill’s literary aspirations.
In those days, Bill thought that was for the best. If he was going to fail, he preferred not to advertise it. And while he had faith in the basic idea for his novel, he had to admit it wasn’t working out. Frustrated when he stalled in that place in the manuscript where he had stalled no fewer than ten times before-where the boy ought to get the girl back again-he stood up and stretched. He needed some fresh air, he decided. At least, the freshest he could find in L.A..
And so he had restlessly made his way down to Westwood Boulevard, head down, his hands shoved down into his pockets, his long-legged gait taking him quickly past record stores and restaurants. He glanced up just to keep from running into parking meters and lampposts, glancing at but not really seeing the boutiques and movie theaters closed for night. The gas station was closed, too, but the sight that greeted him there made him slow his stride.
A lithe young woman was tugging on one of the water hoses most people would use for filling radiators. She was using it to wash a gold Rolls-Royce.
He came to a halt on the wide sidewalk, fascinated. She looked up over the hood, used the back of her hand to move her bowl-cut, thick, dark hair away from her eyes. Big brown eyes.
“Want to go for a ride?” she asked him.
He nodded, but didn’t move forward.
“You’ll have to give up hesitating if you’re going to ride with me,” she said, opening the driver’s door. But Bill was distracted from this edict when he saw an elderly man sleeping on the front seat.
“Wake up, Harry,” she said, gently nudging the old man, who came awake with a start. “We’re taking…” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m Ellie. What’s your name?”
“William. William Gray.”
She turned back to the old man. “We’re taking Bill here for a ride on Mulholland Drive. You can sleep in the back.”
The old man reach for a cap, rubbed a gnarled hand over his face and quickly transformed himself into a dignified chauffeur, moving to hold the passenger door open for Bill, waiting patiently as Bill finally moved toward the car. Harry gave a questioning look to Ellie, now behind the wheel.
“No, you need your rest.”
Harry nodded and climbed into the back, asleep again before Ellie had started the car.
They had traveled Mulholland and beyond that night, climbing canyon roads that twisted and turned.
She was a good driver; calm and assured, not crazy on the winding roads. At first, he was afraid, wondering if he had made the biggest-and perhaps the final-mistake of his life. He started envisioning bold headlines: “Missing UCLA Student Found Dead,” or “Still No Suspects in Topanga Canyon Torture-Murder Case.” Perhaps he wouldn’t be missed much. Maybe he would only rate a small article on a back page, near a department store ad: “Boy Scout Troop Makes Grisly Discovery in Canyon.”
“Either you just had a big fight with your girlfriend or you’re a writer,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road. “I’m betting you’re a writer.”
He hesitated, then said, “I’m a writer. Or I want to be one. How did you guess?”
“The time of day, the way you were walking. You looked frustrated, I suppose.”
“Anyone can be frustrated. Why would you think I’m a writer?”
She shrugged, then smiled a little. He waited, hoping she would answer, but she startled him by saying, “You’re also a bit of a romantic.”
He laughed nervously. “That’s an odd thing to say.”
“I am odd. But there’s nothing odd about knowing a romantic when you see one. At three-” She glanced at the clock on the dash. “At approximately three-twenty-five in the morning, you agreed to get into a Rolls-Royce with a sleeping old man and a woman you had never met before.”
“Perhaps I just needed an adventure.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps both. So, what’s your favorite movie of all time?”
“Rear Window,” he said without hesitation.
“Wonderful!” she said, laughing but still not taking her eyes from the road. “Whose work in it do you admire, Hitchcock’s or Woolrich’s?”
He smiled. Many people knew that Hitchcock directed Rear Window. Fewer knew that it was written by Cornell Woolrich. “Both, really,” he answered. “I’m a fan of both. I’ve seen every Hitchcock film, with the exception of a few of the very early British ones.”
Soon they were discussing Hitchcock and Woolrich, and Bill forgot all about Boy Scouts and headlines. She had seen most of the films he had seen, read more Woolrich.
He eased back into the passenger seat, studying her. She didn’t make a move toward him, didn’t reach across the seat, didn’t even look at him much. Every so often, finding a vista she liked, Ellie would stop the car. The first time she stopped, Bill expected her to turn her attention to him. But she didn’t do more than glance at him. “Just look at it,” she said, gesturing to the carpet of city lights below. Soon he realized that was all she would ask of him-just to look at it.
At one of these turnouts, she kicked off her shoes and rolled down a window, resting her bare feet on the sill. She drove barefooted the rest of the night.
She asked him questions. He talked more that night than he had ever talked in his life. About his writing, his family, his childhood, his love of Woolrich stories and Hitchcock films and chocolate and on and on, even describing the furniture in his apartment.
“And you?” he asked. “Where do you live?”
“Somewhere in these hills. Perhaps I’ll take you there someday.”
As many questions as she asked, and as few as she answered, somehow she still managed to make him feel that he was of vital interest to her, not in the way some questioners might-as scientist studying an insect-but as if she cared about him from before the time she had met him. He was wondering at the trust he had placed in this stranger just as the sun was coming up over the hills. She had parked the car on a ridge. Harry was snoring softly.
“I’ll take you home,” she said.
“I’m not sure I want to go home,” Bill answered, then quickly added, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be pushy. You’ve been a great listener. You’re probably tired and-”
She reached over then, and laid a finger to his lips. She shook her head, and he stopped talking, unsure of what she was saying ‘no’ to.
She took him back to his apartment, leaving Harry asleep in the car.
“Do you want to come in?” he asked on his doorstep.
She shook her head, an impish smile on her lips. “I know exactly what it looks like-I’m sure you’ve described it perfectly. Besides, you’re very busy. You’ve got to get a little sleep, and then you’ll wake up and write your book. It’s going to be terrific, but no one will ever find that out until you write it.”
She turned and skipped back to the car.
“Will I see you again?” he called out.
“Stop worrying,” she called back. “Write!”