He went into the bathroom then (later she would try to fix in her mind the exact circumstances of his leaving the bedroom, would try to remember if he took the pail with him, later that would seem important to her) and by the time he came back the contractions had stopped. He gave her one envelope of tetracycline capsules and another of ergot tablets and by six o'clock of that hot October afternoon she was out of the bedroom in Encino and back in the car with the man in the white duck pants. The late sun seemed warm and benevolent on her skin and everything she saw looked beautiful, the summer pulse of life itself made manifest. As she backed out of the driveway she smiled radiantly at her companion.
"You missed a pretty f air movie," he said. "Paula Raymond." He reached into his pocket for what
seemed to be a cigarette holder. "Ever since I gave up smoking I carry these by the dozen, they look like
regular holders but all you get is air."
Maria stared at his outstretched hand.
' Take it. I noticed you're still smoking. You'll thank me some day."
"Thank you."
"I'm a regular missionary." The man in the white duck pants resettled his soft bulk and gazed out the car window. "Gee, Paula Raymond was a pretty girl," he said then. "Funny she never became a star."
26
"I WANT A VERY LARGE STEAK," she said to Les Goodwin in a restaurant on Melrose at eight o'clock that night. "And before the very large steak I want three drinks. And after the steak I want to go somewhere with very loud music."
"Like where."
"I don't know where. You ought to know where. You know a lot of places with loud music."
"What's the matter with you."
"I am just very very very tired of listening to you all."
27
SILVER WELLS was with her again. She wanted to see her mother. She wanted to go back to
the last day she had spent with her mother: a Sunday. She had flown out from New York on Friday and then it was Sunday and Benny Austin was there for Sunday dinner and after dinner they would all drive down to Vegas to put Maria back on the airplane.
"Your mom's O.K., don't worry about your mom," Benny muttered when he and Maria were alone for a moment at the table.
"Believe me it's nothing."
"What's nothing? What's the matter with her?"
"Nothing on God's earth, Maria, that's what I'm telling you.
You might say she's a little depressed, naturally your father doesn't want to talk about it."
"Depressed," Maria repeated.
'Nothing, Maria, believe me. Here they come, we're talking about the zinc boom." Benny cleared his throat. "I've been telling Maria about the zinc boom, Harry."
"You into zinc?" Maria said finally. She was watching her mother but her mother looked just as she always had.
"We've been buying a few rights." Harry Wyeth began whistling through his teeth.
"Meal fit for the Queen of Spain," Benny said. "Francine, you could make a fortune in the take-out spare-rib business."
Francine Wyeth laughed. "Maria and I can always open a hash house. When we get sick of you all."
"Hash house on 95," Harry Wyeth said. "Pretty picture."
"Not on 95," Francine Wyeth said. "Somewhere else."
Maria closed her eyes.
"I'm talking about a quantity operation. Franchises, you rent out your name and your receipt." Benny Austin talked as if nothing had happened at the table. "Franchised services, that's where the future lies."
"I don't want to go back," Maria said.
"That's natural." Harry Wyeth did not look at his wife or daughter.
"That's only natural. Don't think about it, you'll be out again in a month or two, plan on it now."
"She's too thin," Francine Wyeth said. "Look at her, see for yourself."
"She can't win if she's not at the table, Francine." Harry Wyeth threw down his napkin and stood up.
"You wouldn't understand that."
That night as the plane taxied out onto the runway at McCarran Maria had kept her face pressed against the window for as long as she could see them, her mother and father and Benny Austin, waving at the wrong window.
28
"HELENE'S GOING UP to Pebble Beach to spend the weekend with BZ's mother," Carter said when he called from the desert. "Why don't you fly up and meet her there."
“I can't."
"Too busy, I suppose."
Maria said nothing.
"Or maybe you're afraid you might have a good time."
"I said I can't."
"Why can't you, just for the record."
"She's not my mother," Maria said.
29
THE BLEEDING BEGAN a few weeks later. "It's nothing," the doctor on Wilshire said when she finally went.
"Whoever did it did all right. It's clean, no infection, count your blessings."
"The pain."
"You're just menstruating early, I'll give you some Edrisal."
The Edrisal did not work and neither did some Darvon she found in the bathroom and she slept that night with a gin bottle by her bed. She did not think she was menstruating. She wanted to talk to her mother.
30
"I'VE GOT NEWS," Freddy Chaikin said after the waiter had brought her Bloody Mary and his Perrier water. "I didn't want to break it until it was set. Morty Landau, I predicted it, he's in love with you. You've got a guest-star on a two-part Interstate 80."
"That's fine, Freddy." She tried for more conviction. "That's really fine."
He watched her drain her glass. "It'll get you seen."
"Actually I'm not feeling too well."
"You mean you don't want to work."
"I didn't say that. I just said I wasn't feeling too well."
"Maria, I empathize. What you and Carter are going through, it tears my heart out. Believe me, I've been through it. Which is why I know that work is the best medicine for things wrong in the private-life de partment. And I don't want to sound like an agent, but ten percent of nothing doesn't pay the bar bill." He laughed, and then looked at her. "A joke, Maria. Just a joke."
31
THE BLEEDING CAME AND WENT and came again. By late afternoon of her third day's work on Interstate 80 there were involuntary pain lines on her forehead and she could not stand entirely upright for more than a few seconds. She sat back in the shadows on the edge of the set and prayed that the cameramen would be so slow with the set-ups that the day's last shot would be delayed until morning. At five-thirty they got the shot in three takes and later in the parking lot she could not remember doing it.
By midnight the blood was coming so fast that she soaked three pads in fifteen minutes. There was blood on the bed, blood on the floor, blood on the bathroom tiles. She thought about calling Les Goodwin — it would be all right to call him, she knew that Felicia was in San Francisco — but she did not. She called Carter.
"Get the doctor," Carter said.
"I don't exactly want to do that."
"For Christ’s sake then get to an emergency hospital."
"I can't," she said finally. "The thing is, I'm working tomorrow."
“What do you mean, work ing. What in fuck does work ing mean.
You just told me you were dying."
“I never said that."
"You said you were afraid."
Maria said nothing.