I wanted to tell him that Frank, code name Jeopardy, was the disaster magnet and that Mimi was collateral damage. I just couldn’t frame it in a way that wouldn’t make Frank sound like a criminal or a maniac. “Only part of it burned,” I said. “The guesthouse. Her office. It was an accident. Could have happened to anybody.”
The doctor paused so long that I wondered if he was writing down what I’d said or considering what to make of it. “What I’m trying to say is that events like these are red flags. The kind of self-destructive urge that took your uncle can run in families. Things that get written off as accidents—car wrecks, drownings, ‘accidental’ fires—aren’t always accidents. Have any other relatives died under questionable circumstances?”
Banning. “My mother’s mother,” I said. “She drove her car into a fence.”
I’d gone outdoors with the phone so Frank wouldn’t hear me but kept an eye on him through the glass. He was wrapped in a comforter and rolling around on the living room floor. It didn’t make me feel great about my “parenting” that Frank turned to a comforter for comfort instead of me.
When would this kid’s real mother come home? My own mother said she’d often thought that when she walked the floor with my infant self in the middle of the night. Was it easier to be a parent when you could carry the kid around without breaking a sweat, or did that lightness make it too tempting to throw it out a window when it wouldn’t stop shrieking?
A horrible thought occurred to me then. Had Mimi picked a guardian for Frank? She must have done that, right? But who? According to Xander, Mimi had nobody but him. Xander, and her few billion fans outside the stucco wall. I hoped she hadn’t chosen Xander. For all his charms and handyman skills, I wouldn’t ask Xander to housesit a cat.
THE DAY MIMI went into the hospital, the second massive blizzard in a week hit New York City, a climatic double whammy that media wags alternately tagged “Snowmageddon” or “Snowpocalypse.” Mr. Vargas managed to get a flight out somehow anyway, and called from the Los Angeles airport to say he was picking up his bags and rental car. He’d be in Bel Air within the hour. I told Frank we’d wait for Mimi’s old friend and mine outside the gate so he could find the house. The truth of it was that I didn’t want Mr. Vargas to meet Frank for the first time in front of a pile of smoking rubble. That’s the kind of first impression that’s hard to shake.
Besides, it was so lovely outside the wall that it seemed a shame nobody was out there enjoying it. A soft, warm breeze was already shaking loose petals from the ornamental pear trees on Mimi’s block that had erupted into blossoms overnight. I was tempted to try to catch a petal on my tongue as it drifted to the sidewalk, but held my right hand out palm up until one settled there instead. So this was February in Southern California. No wonder the silent movie guys threw over New Jersey to come out here, where most days were warm and the desert and ocean and snowcapped mountains and the gardens of Shangri-la were all within easy reach. But how was a normal person, me for example, who’d grown up with the usual up-and-down cycle of seasons supposed to keep track of the passage of time? Who learned to handle adversity when every day was more intoxicatingly gorgeous than the one before it? What mind could grasp that anything could go wrong in a place like this? I could see why so many people who came out here expecting easy fame ended up losing their grip.
“Alice. There.” With the petals wafting down around him, Frank looked like a child inside a snow globe, one wearing a glen-plaid Clarence Darrow suit, leather aviator’s cap and goggles, looking for a yellow biplane come to scoop him up. “In the Lamborghini.” He pointed. “That must be your friend.”
“No pointing, Frank. That isn’t him. Hold my hand please. I don’t want to lose you.”
Frank clutched my fingers so tightly that I winced. After that I didn’t correct him when he pointed at every Italian sports car or English luxury sedan that tooled down the street because I was grateful for the chance to flex every time he dropped my hand.
Finally a nondescript sedan with Arizona plates that screamed “rental car” turned onto our block. I knew right away that it was Mr. Vargas. I let go of Frank, waved and shouted. As soon as the car nosed into the driveway, I ran to open the driver’s side door.
While Mr. Vargas fumbled with his seat belt, I looked over my shoulder to summon Frank to meet him. No Frank. Wait. Yes Frank. Flat on his back on the sidewalk, eyes squeezed shut and hands balled in fists.
I abandoned Mr. Vargas and knelt alongside the kid. “What’s wrong, Frank?” I asked.
“You rushed that car like one of my mother’s fanatics, Alice. The man inside must be terrified.”
“Look at me, Frank,” I said. The kid cracked one wary, begoggled eyelid open. “The man in that car knows me, remember? We’re friends, so it’s okay for me to be excited to see him.” I don’t think I’d been more excited to see anybody in my life.