What if Mimi forgot Frank’s birthday? A kid needs cake on his birthday. “What kind of cake will she make?” I asked.
“Chocolate, of course,” Frank said. “Coconut is not the most delicious cake in the world.”
NOW I GUESS I should tell you what happened to that box from Xander.
In many ways I blame myself.
PART VI
THE FIRE
( 22 )
ALICE, WAKE UP.”
I opened my eyes and turned on my lamp. Frank. Wearing the zoot suit. In the house. I sat up. “What are you doing wearing that? I thought you didn’t want your mother to know you’d found it.”
“It’s okay. It’s my birthday.”
“It is? Happy birthday! What’s today?”
“February twelfth.”
“Abe Lincoln’s birthday,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“Also Charles Darwin’s. Also mine.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Three A.M.”
“And you woke me up at three A.M. to tell me it’s your birthday?”
“I woke you up because I need your help.”
That got my attention. “What’s going on?”
“It was raining a little bit,” he said. “And you’ll recall that the moon roof of the station wagon is stuck open.”
I swung my legs out of the bed and felt around with my feet for my tennis shoes. “I’ll go put it in the garage.”
“I did already.”
“You drove the car?”
“Xander showed me how. Up and down the driveway, remember? I don’t need a license to do that.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good, I guess.”
“Not entirely good.”
Oh, no. “Did you wreck it?”
“I think I may have. But not in the way you’d imagine.”
That’s when the explosions started. They sounded more like gunshots, really. Four gunshots. One, two. Threefour. I smelled something that wasn’t Nuit de Bel Air wafting through my bathroom window. Smoke. The Smoke That Thunders.
“What did you do, Frank?” When he didn’t answer right away I took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “What did you do?”
“I seem to have set the station wagon on fire.”
I ran down the hall. The sliding glass doors were wide open and I could see the station wagon in flames. Also on fire? The Dream House.
Frank bumped into me when I stopped running. “Oh,” he said. “It’s all burning now. I tried so hard to blow out all those birthday candles. I kept trying and trying but they wouldn’t go out and then I got scared because flames were coming out of the moon roof. I decided it wouldn’t hurt if I left a few birthday candles burning and I ran.”
“You found Xander’s box,” I said.
TO GET TECHNICAL, unless you open the gas tank and start a fire in that, cars don’t actually blow up like they do in the movies. Gas tanks are designed not to explode. Fire needs air to flourish, which it doesn’t get in a sealed-off gas tank. If, however, you aim a Roman candle at a cardboard box of clothing you’ve sighted through the open moon roof, the incendiary material in the candle will set those clothes on fire. The cardboard will catch, then the upholstery, next the foam inside the seat. Once all that gets going, the heat will shatter the windshield and expand the air in the tires until they blow. When tires explode, those explosions sound like gunshots. One, two, threefour.
A very gentlemanly fire captain explained all this to me after the worst of it was over. That was after Mimi had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance and Xander was handcuffed and shoved in the back of a patrol car. I was on the couch holding Frank wrapped tight in a blanket. The captain had carried him inside and laid him, still asleep, across my lap. He spoke quietly so he wouldn’t wake Frank up, but when Frank was out like that, it was more like a coma than sleep.
“You got lucky,” the captain said. “We’re still in the rainy season, and that big wall around the property kept the fire contained. Otherwise it might have run down the hillside and spread through the canyon. During fire season, we have to evacuate whole neighborhoods.”
“Lucky,” I said. “Yes.” The sun had been up for a couple of hours by then. Happy birthday, Frank.
“Do you have anyplace to go?” the captain asked.
“Can’t we stay here?”
“Most people want to leave after a fire, but you’ll be okay if you want to stay. The tree took down your exterior power lines but we extinguished the fire before it got in the walls. Your interior wiring should be okay. Have your electrician check it ASAP though, okay?”
“Okay.” Although the last time I saw our electrician, he was being shoved into a squad car. “I know this place is a wreck, but it’s his wreck,” I said, nodding at Frank. “He doesn’t like change.”
“Got it. Anybody you want to call to come and stay with you?” the captain asked.
“I did that already,” I said. “I told him to bring flashlights.”
“The DWP should have power up before the day is out. Let me know if they don’t.” He gave me his card. “Call if you need anything. I’ll close the gate behind me when I go to keep you safe.”