magichour

Bergini Entertainment still inhabits a cramped two-room office on Ventura Blvd. in North Hollywood. The abandoned Strike-a-Pose Bowling Lanes occupies the lot to the right, with massive splintering sheets of plywood haphazardly nailed across the front entrance. On the left, the window of a Vietnamese restaurant proudly displays a “C” rating by the Los Angeles Board of Health.
Mr. Cole pulls into the bowling alley parking lot and eases the rented olive Buick LeSabre to a stop. “Better not be late!” he says, his voice thick with counterfeit optimism. He hops out and motions for his students to follow. There are four of them, and they’ve come all the way from Phoenix for this.
Elliott leans forward and stares through the windshield. “You’re kidding.”
The car’s rear door opens, and Veronica steps out slowly, self-consciously, as if all eyes are on her. All eyes are on her. Sixteen years old with dirty-blonde hair, she is tall, developed, and proud of her midriff, a large slice of which she displays today like a Neapolitan: golden flesh sandwiched between pink cotton and blue denim.
Behind her, the Wakisawa twins, identical right down to their khaki slacks and light blue Polo shirts, glance around as if they’ve just boarded the wrong plane. “You used to work here?” one of them says.
“The bowling alley was open back then,” Mr. Cole says.
He leads them down the sidewalk to the building’s front entrance, a façade of red brick and molded concrete pillars, where he punches a sequence of numbers into a keypad. A rusted mesh curtain covers the wrought-iron gate.
“This guy is a major player?” Elliott says. He is lanky in the way that sixteen-year-old boys tend to be – with the grotesque shadow of a stick figure – and he’s the only one carrying a notebook.
“Don’t let the outside fool you. Mr. Bergini’s a great guy,” Mr. Cole says, tapping the keypad again. “He taught me everything I know.” He glances at Veronica, who smiles patiently, her arms crossed and her right hip thrown out to the side. The latch buzzes, and the gate swings open.
They walk through a small patio, past a dry stone fountain of a naked boy looking down as he pees, and ascend a wooden staircase. Before Mr. Cole can knock, the door swings open, so he steps inside.
Familiar movie posters cover the walls, all of them signed in black Sharpie, most of them framed, and none of them of films released in theaters. Above the rubble of Bergini’s desk is an autographed 8x10 action shot of the legendary freestyle wrestler Dan Gable, 1972 gold medalist and all-around ass kicker. It is Bergini’s most prized possession.
Darren Bergini himself has not changed. He is built like a fire hydrant, and his thick black hair shows no signs of graying. He wears a matching black moustache, and a powerful nose dominates his face.
“Kevin,” he says, spreading his arms as if to offer a hug. “Look at you!”
“Darren,” Mr. Cole says. He opens his arms as well, only to have Bergini extend his hand instead.
“What ever happened to ping pong? I thought we were going to see you in the Olympics.”
“It’s table tennis, actually,” Mr. Cole says, taking Bergini’s hand and shaking it once, firmly.
“Right, right. Of course it is. Come on in, kids. Come on in,” he says, ushering the four students inside and closing the door.
Elliott mumbles something about being glad to be here, and the Wakisawas nod politely. Veronica strides forward, shaking the hair from her eyes, and introduces herself. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Bergini. Thanks so much for meeting with us.”
“Not at all, Veronica. It’s my pleasure.”
Mr. Cole clears his throat, and Veronica pulls her hand away. She turns back to her teacher, surprise dancing across her eyebrows. “Ping pong?”
“Table tennis,” Mr. Cole says quickly. “Ping pong is what you play with your friends.”
The beginning of a nasty smile forms on Bergini’s lips. “They don’t know?”
“I’m a teacher now.”
“Tsk, tsk, Kevin. Keeping secrets does not engender trust.” Bergini turns to the students and whistles. “Boy oh boy, are you kids lucky. Mister Kevin Cole himself, molding the minds of the future leaders of our country. Kind of makes me want to move to Canada.”
A hearty laugh emanates from the second room, and out steps the next big thing. His hair perfectly tousled and with the chiseled features and athletic build of an action hero, he’s the kind of guy who can walk into a room and make everyone both at-ease and self-conscious at the same time.
“Kevin, this is Phillipe, my assistant. He’s doing a lot of the same stuff you did.”
“You’re a script reader?” a Wakisawa says.
“He’s the master,” Bergini says. “Why don’t you all come have a seat?” He guides them into the second room, where they position themselves around a small, glass-covered film reel that serves as a kind of coffee table. The Wakisawas perch on opposite armrests of a shabby leather Lay-z-Boy while Mr. Cole sinks, with Veronica on one side and Elliott on the other, into Bergini’s black couch.
Bergini sits in a director’s chair facing the tour group, and Phillipe leans casually against the doorjamb.
“Mr. Bergini,” Veronica says, her hands laced professionally across her lap, “what does a script reader do, exactly?”
Mr. Cole starts to answer, but Bergini has already cut him off. “What a fantastic question, Veronica.” He leans forward, legs spread and elbows on knees. “There’s no way I can read all the scripts that people send me – agents, producers, you know – so that’s where Phillipe comes in. After he reads a script, he types up a short plot summary and comments about the script’s characterization, plot, dialogue. Box office potential.”
Mr. Cole clears his throat. “I used to—”
“At the bottom,” Bergini says, “He writes ‘pass’ or ‘recommend’. And I read all the ones he recommends.”
Veronica seems impressed. “That’s really how it works?”
Bergini leans back. “Yep.”
“You don’t read any of the ones he says ‘pass’ to?”
Bergini smiles at Mr. Cole. “Nope.”
There is a long pause before Mr. Cole smiles back.
“So, this is the guy?” Phillipe says. He does not speak with an accent. His voice is oily and disarming. “Pirates of the Caribbean?”
What makes an ambush an ambush – rather than simply an obstacle you can avoid – is that you’ve passed the point of no return by the time it happens. Mr. Cole tries to force a laugh but instead makes a sound like a fart. High-pitched, squeaky, unintentional.
Bergini shows his teeth. “Did you see the latest figures, Kevin? Up to over seven hundred mil domestic for the first two. One point seven billion worldwide. And another sequel on the way. Not bad for a crappy script with horrible dialogue, eh Kev?”
“I didn’t think the dialogue was that bad,” Elliott says, diligently opening his notebook. Mr. Cole shakes his head. Sixteen years old and already positive he knows what he wants to do with his life.
“Neither did millions of Americans, kid. But, when you’re a professional script reader like Kevin here, what the fuck do you care about millions of Americans?”
Mr. Cole flinches at Bergini’s profanity. The students look at one another and smile.
Elliott leans in closer. “What do you mean?”
Bergini, his eyes fixed squarely on Mr. Cole, pays the boy no attention. “So, what do you teach, Kevin? Not screenwriting, I hope.”
Mr. Cole clutches his hands to keep them from shaking. Shame has dug a hole in his stomach, and he tries unsuccessfully to fill it with a deep breath. “I wasn’t the only one who passed on that script, Darren.”
“But you did pass on it, didn’t you?”
An agonizing silence covers the room. Phillipe re-crosses his arms and shakes his head slightly. Veronica clears her throat. Mr. Cole feels her hip against his. He fights the urge to search her eyes for a clue as to how to respond. Instead, he does nothing but listen to his own heartbeat.
Mr. Cole is not a bad teacher. He will give you an extra day on your homework. He will chaperone dances and root for your basketball team. He is patient and dedicated, but this hasn’t translated into positive feedback on his class review forms, and because Sacred Heart of the Divine places great importance on student evaluation, Mr. Cole needed to do something bold. Noting the popularity of teachers who spent time with the students outside of the classroom – the Spanish teacher who led a yearly summer trip to Europe, the choir director who took the singing group to Hawaii – Mr. Cole managed to convince the Board of Directors into authorizing a spring break field trip to Los Angeles. He had promised a studio tour, meetings with executives, even a visit to an actual movie set.
By the time the trip came around, only four of the twelve spots had filled – and worse, he had been unable to schedule any meetings of consequence. Rather than cancel the trip outright, which would have virtually ended his tenure at Sacred Heart, he begged his former boss for help, and Bergini promised to set up other appointments when they arrived.
And now Mr. Cole closes his eyes, his pulse slamming against his eyelids as he understands, far too late, that Bergini has no desire to set up anything.
Suddenly, Bergini jumps to his feet, slapping his thighs twice, the sound like the cracking of a whip. “Well, then. Water under the bridge, right? No use crying over spilled milk and all that shit. Who wants to see a movie?”
*****
Bergini leads them across Ventura to a grey building, ushering them through the door and into a small screening room with about twenty high-backed seats upholstered in red tweed. The aisles are black carpet, and the screen itself is about the size of Mr. Cole’s rental car.
“It’s not much, but it’s mine,” Bergini says. “Have a seat wherever you like, and we’ll get started. I thought this film would be particularly appropriate, considering it takes place at a high school. Enjoy!”
He stalks up the aisle and closes the door behind him. The lights fade, and the projector clicks and whirrs into action. There is no popcorn.
The film is about a voyeuristic young quarterback and his deranged infatuation with a rival school’s drill team squad, and Mr. Cole falls asleep before the end of the second scene. When the lights come on, he snaps his head up and wipes a trail of drool from his left cheek.
“Nice nap?” one of the Wakisawas says with a mischievous grin.
“I told you this guy was good,” he says, covering.
“How much of it did you see?”
“The first couple of scenes, I guess. But wow, the camera angles. Right?”
Elliott shakes his head. “It was, like… a porno.”
Mr. Cole stares at him. He glances at the Wakisawas, who both shrug. “Did Mr. Bergini go already?” he finally says, looking around the small theater.
“He said he had work to do,” Elliott says. “We’re supposed to turn out the lights when we leave.” He stands and closes his notebook. “Are we going to talk to real producers this week, or what?”
“Where’s Veronica?”
Elliott throws up his arms and leaves the theater. Mr. Cole gets on his hands and knees and peers under the seats.
A Wakisawa kneels down next to him. “What are you doing?”
Elliott pokes his head back inside. “She’s not out here.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“She was talking to that guy, Phillipe. The script reader,” the Wakisawa says. “They were sitting in the back row.”
Mr. Cole stands. Though anger has entered his voice, it pales in comparison to the humiliation already there. “You guys were supposed to stay with the tour group at all times.”
Elliott dials his phone and puts it to his ear. Seconds later, a trilly “I’m Too Sexy” fills the room. Mr. Cole follows the sound to the back row and Veronica’s purse, which is small, pink, and wedged between the armrest and the seat. He pulls out her phone and turns it off.
Suddenly, his own phone vibrates in his pocket. He snaps it open. “Hello?”
The voice on the other end is both frantic and relieved. “Mr. Cole, it’s Veronica.”
“Where the hell are you?” The adult in him asserts itself. “We’ve been looking for you, worried out of our minds. You know you’re not supposed to leave—”
“Please come get me!”
He stops yelling.
“Please!”
Elliott and the Wakisawas shuffle closer to Mr. Cole, who turns away from them and shields the receiver. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know… At a gas station… Chevron …” She is becoming hysterical. He can hear her breathing, whining.
“Veronica! Where are you?”
“A payphone. Please come get me… I don’t want to be here.”
Mr. Cole paces up and down the aisle, trying to control his own breathing. “Look at the street signs, okay? What’s the nearest intersection?”
This task seems to calm her slightly. “Sepulveda and… Burbank.”
Mr. Cole maps the intersection in his head. “Are you sure?” She is sure. “What the hell are you doing in Van Nuys?”
She’s close to tears. “Can we talk about this when you get here? Please?”
“Don’t go anywhere!” He snaps his phone closed and jams it in his pocket, hurrying for the exit. Elliott and the Wakisawas are right behind him.
“Is she okay?” Elliott says.
“What about the lights?” a Wakisawa says. “We’re supposed to turn them off.”
Now outside, Mr. Cole shields his eyes from the sun. “Fuck the lights, Matt.”
“I’m Ryan.”
Elliott steps next to him. “Is she going to be okay?”
Mr. Cole digs into his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash, half of what’s supposed to last them for the rest of the trip. “Take a cab back to the hotel.”
“Motel,” Elliott says. “And we’re going with you.”
“I want to make sure you guys are safe,” Mr. Cole says, wrapping Elliott’s hand around the money. “Get in a cab, go to the motel, and wait for me in your room. As soon as I find out what’s going on, I’ll call you, okay?”
“But—”
“I’m calling your room, Elliott. You’re responsible now.” He leaves them on the street corner, Elliott and the Wakisawas, and sprints across Ventura to the rented LeSabre.
“How are we supposed to get a cab?” Elliot shouts.
*****
Mr. Cole and Veronica sit, parallel parked on Burbank Blvd., listening to Hip-Hop and R&B on the radio. Mr. Cole enjoys neither Hip-Hop nor R&B, but the songs are all about bumping and grinding and doing it to you all night long, and he doesn’t want to call attention to his discomfort by changing the station or turning down the volume.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he says.
Veronica stares out the window, twirling a strand of hair between her fingers and then painting the tip of her nose with the unsplit ends. Outside, a middle-aged woman rollerblades past them and down the sidewalk, her legs stiff and uncertain.
“Are you going to tell my parents?”
If he tells her parents, he’ll also have to inform the school. That means next week he’ll be sitting before the Board of Directors, trying to convince them it wasn’t his fault that a student on his field trip almost became a porn star.
“They’re going to kill me,” she says.
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you—”
“You’re not my father.”
The silence returns. Technically, he is now violating the rules his lawsuit-conscious department head so strenuously laid out for him. At no time are male Sacred Heart faculty permitted to be alone with female students. Not in a classroom and certainly not in a car.
Mr. Cole clears his throat. “Did you…?”
She still hasn’t looked at him. “Did I what?”
“Never mind.”
“I didn’t do anything, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her tone suggests that he is an idiot – no, an asshole – for even considering she would ever do something as stupid as that.
“That’s good,” he says.
A silky-voiced DJ spins the latest jam. “I'm not gonna stop til' you scream my name and say, ‘Ooh Kelly, you make me holla. Keep on jumpin' like an Impala.’ You slidin' that sexy ass down the pole…”
He imagines photos of her on the Internet. He imagines explaining them to the Board. “What about pictures?”
She whirls her head around. “You want to see? Is that it? Well tough shit. All they took was Polaroids, and I wasn’t even totally naked.” There is spite in her eyes and spittle on her lips. “You want to see my tits right now?”
Mr. Cole turns away, his voice a squeak. “Veronica.”
She begins to cry. Mr. Cole grips the wheel so tightly the blood leaves his hands. This situation was not covered in Faculty Orientation.
“We can’t stay here forever,” he says to the steering wheel.
“Like you’ve never done anything stupid?” she says through sniffles. “Phillipe said I could be back with the group before the movie was over. He was going to pay me a thousand dollars.”
“You don’t need the money.”
“I wasn’t doing it for the money.”
“…now feel a knot down in my pants while you breakin me off with a lap dance –”
Mr. Cole shuts off the radio and puts the Buick into gear. “We should never have come here.”
He pulls onto Burbank, only to be stopped three feet later by the screech of tires and the low shudder of twisting metal. Shards of glass and plastic sprinkle onto the pavement. Mr. Cole stares through the windshield, across the mangled fender and hood, at the undamaged tail end of a white Ford F-350.
He slams his hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
The truck’s door opens and out hops a little guy with a big beard, wearing torn jeans, an olive muscle shirt, and tan work boots. His scowl is at least half his size.
“You should probably,” Veronica says gently, “you know.”
Mr. Cole pushes himself out of the car and walks toward the man, offering his palms in a gesture of peace and goodwill. His kneecaps shake uncontrollably, and he has to lean against the car for support. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you coming.”
“It’s a goddamn truck!” the guy says. He storms over and reaches up, grabbing Mr. Cole by the shirt with both hands. It happens so fast that Mr. Cole just goes limp. His nerves are gone, and he doesn’t have the strength to resist. Plus, he isn’t convinced this is actually happening to him.
Suddenly, Veronica is at his side, screaming, clawing. Fierce. She kicks the guy in the knee. “Let go of him!”
The guy stumbles into traffic and is almost hit by a silver hybrid before staggering back behind his truck. He bends over, grabbing his knee with both hands, and screams in pain. “You little bitch!”
“Don’t talk to her that way,” Mr. Cole says.
“She kicked me in the knee!”
Veronica makes another move, but Mr. Cole snatches her arm and pulls her back. “Look at your truck, you fucking leprechaun,” she screams. “There’s nothing wrong with it.” Her breath comes in great, chest-heaving spurts.
The little guy hops over to his rear bumper and inspects it closely. Finally, he limps to his front door, glances back at Mr. Cole, who has his arm around Veronica in case she attacks again, and snarls. “You better get that daughter of yours under control before she gets herself in trouble.”
“Veronica,” Mr. Cole says evenly, his eyes still on the little man, “get in the car, please.”
“Whatever.” She walks back around to the passenger’s side and flashes the guy both middle fingers from behind the windshield.
“You’re lucky I can drive with my knee like this,” the guy says, lifting himself into his truck. He slams the door and stomps on the gas, and his rear tires send up twin clouds of white smoke as the rubber squeals against the pavement.
“Yeah.” Mr. Cole slumps toward the car and drops into the seat. He closes the door. He shifts into reverse and eases back into his parking spot.
“Thanks for your help,” he says without looking at her. Adrenaline makes his neck muscles twitch.
“My pleasure.” She giggles. “Dad.”
“You got him pretty good.”
“I was aiming for his balls.”
Mr. Cole can’t help but smile. He breathes deeply. “God, I could use a drink,” he says to himself.
“Me, too.”
He looks over at her. She shrugs. “Veronica,” he says, “we’ve already—”
The low vibration of his cell phone interrupts him. He holds up a hand to Veronica and answers the phone. “Hello?”
Elliott’s voice on the other end is high-pitched and frightened. “Mr. Cole? You said you were going to call me!”
Mr. Cole thumps back against the headrest and winces his eyes closed. “Hi, Elliott.”
“Is Veronica okay?”
“She’s fine,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “She’s right here.”
“Hi, Elliott,” she says loudly.
Mr. Cole nods. “See? She’s just fine.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“We got into an accident.”
“An accident?” Elliott’s voice cracks pitifully.
“We’re okay, Elliott. Nobody was hurt. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
“What are we supposed to do until then?”
“I don’t know. Watch TV.”
“There’s nothing on.”
“What about Spectravision?”
“You had it disconnected, remember? You didn’t want us watching porn.”
“Jesus Christ, Elliott, I don’t know… Write in your journal or something. Just don’t go anywhere.” There is a long pause. “Elliott? Are you still there?”
“Did you really pass on The Pirates of the Caribbean?”
He takes a deep breath and counts to ten, and his hand stops shaking.
“Mr. Cole?”
“It was a different script then, Elliott.”
“Are you coming back now?”
Mr. Cole studies Veronica for a long time – she twirls her hair again, looking back at him and waiting. “It’s going to be a while,” he finally says. “We have to, you know, figure out the insurance and everything.”
Veronica smiles.
There is another long pause before Elliott’s voice returns, deflated. “We’re not going to meet Steven Spielberg, are we?”
*****
Mr. Cole leads her to the entrance of The Evening News, a small dive bar on Ventura about ten blocks from Bergini Entertainment. As he pulls open the heavy, cracked, wooden door, Veronica grabs his arm.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “they never used to card here.”
She ducks under his arm and inside. The lighting is dim, coming mostly from various bare orange bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Six wooden tables with mismatched chairs are arranged haphazardly in the center of the room, and an old jukebox squats near the rear hallway. At one point there was a journalistic theme at play, with network paraphernalia and framed front pages of famous events, but now over half the frames are empty. Nobody is here but the bartender, who busies himself behind the chipped wooden bar, drying highball glasses with a damp washcloth.
Mr. Cole leads Veronica to the table farthest from the door. The bartender lets them settle for a minute before tossing down his washcloth. He is broad-shouldered and handsome under what must be a perpetual five-o-clock shadow, and he’s used just the right amount of gel to keep his black curls under control. Mr. Cole fights the urge to ask him what his screenplay is about.
“Welcome to The Evening News,” he says, his voice deep and rich. “ID please?”
A moment’s hesitation, and then Mr. Cole laughs loudly and pulls out his wallet. “It’s been such a long time since someone asked.”
“Not you.” The bartender looks at Veronica, waiting.
She and Mr. Cole share a quick glance. He detects resignation. Instead, she flicks her hair back and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. Don’t be such a dork.”
“Right,” he says quickly, averting his eyes. “Sorry.”
“Can I have the keys?” she says, her look now demanding that he be cool. “I left my wallet with all my textbooks.”
While Mr. Cole fumbles in his pocket for the keys, Veronica leans her elbows on the table and gazes up at the bartender.
“Where do you go?” he says.
“UCLA. Dad came out from Phoenix to keep me company for the week. All my friends went to Cancun, but I have to finish my thesis.”
Mr. Cole’s instinct is to stall for time, but he doesn’t have enough pockets to make it believable. He pulls out the keys and lays them gently on the table.
The bartender crosses his arms. “That sucks. What are you studying?”
“Film,” she says, looking him right in the eyes, “You know, producing, directing, that kind of stuff.”
“You don’t want to be an actress?”
“Oh, hell no. I don’t want to be told what to do all day. I want to make the decisions.” She grabs the keys and stands up, and she’s almost to the door when the bartender stops her with his voice.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She spins around, one hand on her hip and the other nonchalantly twirling the keychain. The bartender waves her back, and Veronica half skips to their table and drops the keys in Mr. Cole’s lap.
“What can I get you?” the bartender says, leaning forward on an empty chair.
Mr. Cole orders a Bud bottle for himself and a wine cooler for Veronica.
She laughs. “God, Daddy, I haven’t had those since high school.” She turns to the bartender. “Cosmopolitan?”
“You got it.”
The bartender leaves them alone, and Mr. Cole stares at her. A smile dances across her face. “What?”
“Cosmopolitan?” He clears his throat again. “Have you ever… I mean… do you…”
“I’m sixteen,” she says.
Mr. Cole whips his head up, but the bartender is busy mixing her Cosmo. “Not so loud!”
“Oh, relax. He can’t hear me.”
“Relax?”
When the bartender returns with their drinks, Mr. Cole gives him a Visa card. They’ve started a tab.
“You think Sacred Heart will let me expense this?”
She smiles and brings the martini glass to her lips. A slight chill has formed on the outside of the glass, and it gives the pinkish liquid inside the look of a fairytale potion. She sips and, though she tries gamely to hide it, almost starts coughing. Her mouth puckers up and her eyes begin to water. Mr. Cole says nothing as he takes a pull from his own drink. Veronica tries again. She’s a fast learner.
“You like it?”
She licks her lips and rubs them together. And licks them again. “Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe it would be best if you didn’t.”
“Do you even like being a teacher?”
Mr. Cole has been a waiter and a carpenter, and he spent two seasons on the grounds crew of a minor league baseball team. If you were lucky enough to attend Carlsbad CaveRobbers home games during the Miguel Maldonado era, you may have seen Mr. Cole between innings – he was just Kevin then – sprinting across the infield, dragging a giant piece of chain link fence behind him to smooth out the dirt.
He played competitive table tennis for three years, but the constant training, the travel, the squabbles with sponsors, took a toll on him, and two summers ago, he quit. When people asked why, Mr. Cole simply replied, “I’ve always wanted to teach.”
When he was three, Mr. Cole wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex. At various other points in his life, he wanted to be a major league hitting coach, Superman, a biochemist, rich, and a physical therapist.
He presses his arms against the table, pushing his chair onto its back legs. “It’s a powerful responsibility,” he says, “I don’t take it lightly.”
She stares at him through the glass of her drink.
“You can’t plan things.” He relaxes his arms and leans forward, taking a swig of his beer before meeting her gaze. “You do what you can.” He laughs. “Sure, I like it.”
“What do you like about it?”
He says nothing for a while. “I like being called Mr. Cole.”
“That’s it?”
“I like the fact that students don’t know things unless I tell them.”
“Did you really used to play ping pong?”
“Table tennis.”
“Whatever. How come you never told anyone about it?”
“Because I knew you’d call it ping pong.”
“I’m serious,” she says, but he only shrugs. “Okay, how come your wife never comes to the dances any more?”
He snorts a laugh. “Did you turn three when I wasn’t looking? What’s with all the questions?”
“She came to the Winter Formal last year, but that was the only one. Does she not like kids? Is that why you don’t have any?”
He waves his arm, signaling another round, and drains his beer. He stares at the table until the bartender comes over with another bottle and a fresh Cosmo. Mr. Cole thanks him and drains half his new bottle. “Tell you what,” he says once the bartender is back safely behind the bar. “If you can keep a secret, I can keep a secret.”
Veronica bolts up. Her crossed arms lift up her chest as she leans toward him, but her face holds the wide-eyed expression of a small child. “You won’t tell my parents?”
Mr. Cole shakes his head. “It’s up to you.”
She contemplates him for a moment before taking a long sip from her second drink. “Okay.”
“I’m not married. I don’t have a wife,” he says dispassionately. “That’s why I don’t have kids.”
“Who was that at the formal? Who’s in the picture on your desk?”
“Just a friend.”
“You invented a wife?”
“Sacred Heart is an extremely conservative organization, Veronica. I don’t have to tell you that.”
They sit in silence for the next few minutes and nurse their drinks. At one point, Mr. Cole’s cell phone rings, but he ignores it. The bartender comes over with the damp rag slung over his shoulder.
“Can I get you another round?”
Mr. Cole checks his watch. “We really shouldn’t—”
“Come on, Dad,” Veronica says. She seems to put too much effort into forming her mouth around the words. “Live a little. You came all the way from Tucson—”
“Phoenix.”
“FEE-nix!”
The bartender cocks his head to the side as if he’s adding a large bill without a calculator.
“How about a couple coffees,” Mr. Cole says quickly. “And the check.”
The bartender gives Veronica one last look before shaking his head and going back to the bar. “You got it.”
Veronica puts the glass to her lips, but Mr. Cole stops her with his hand. “I don’t think you should finish that.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
He watches her take another sip and put the glass neatly down onto her cocktail napkin. “Tell me why. If it wasn’t for the money.”
Her shrug reveals not an ounce of shame. “Guys like that stuff.”
“Do you really think that’s true?”
She doesn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she tilts her head back and finishes the Cosmo in one final gulp. A drop of pink falls to her bottom lip, and she licks it off. “How old were you the first time you did it?”
He looks away.
“Oh come on, Mr. Cole, I’m sixteen years old. You think I haven’t done things?”
“What difference does it make what I think?”
“You think I’m a slut.”
“Honestly, I try not to think about it at all.”
Veronica is wearing a thong. He knows this not because he wants to, but because she seems to want him to. Earlier, when she bent down to get into the car, he couldn’t help but notice the tiny green satin triangle at the small of her back, the straps leading around her hips and disappearing under low-cut denim. He looked away a moment later, but now the image is seared into his mind.
She waves her arm around as if to remind him of where they are. “You already told me you made up your wife.”
In faculty meetings, Dean Wilson always stresses the importance of modeling good behavior. But she wants him to be cool – he can tell.
“Whenever it happens for you, Veronica, I hope it’s with someone you truly love.”
“Whenever it happens?” she says, her derision harsh and piercing. “What is it with you teachers? Do you really think abstinence is even an option?”
According to the Sacred Heart Faculty Handbook, there is only one answer to this question.
“You have no idea,” she says, shaking her head almost in disappointment. “Most of the girls in my class think you can’t get STD’s from oral sex. They don’t even think it is sex. So even if they haven’t gone all the way, they’re still sucking off everyone they can get their mouths on.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that. We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“If I don’t give head, someone else will. If I don’t give it up, someone else will. I’m not a slut, you know. It’s just the way the world works.” She scoops her index finger into the bottom of her empty glass and then brings it to her lips. There is nothing sexual about it. “It’s not like when you were in high school, you know. You can’t just tell a kid not to have sex until marriage and have them listen. Maybe back then it was no problem, but the media—”
“That’s bullshit. You’re in control of your own life.”
“Just like you, right?”
“I was eleven,” he says, though he doesn’t know why. He finishes his beer and places the bottle back on the table. He burps through his nose. “My babysitter was a senior in high school.”
A long silence follows. She twirls her hair. “That’s fucked up.”
The bartender comes over with the check and a couple coffees. “I went to film school, too,” he says. “USC. No matter what they tell you, there’s no substitute for real-life experience.”
Veronica nods politely but says nothing.
The bartender returns to the cash register, leaving the two of them to drink their coffees in silence. He takes his with cream and three sugars. She takes hers black, wincing with each sip.
When they’ve finished, Mr. Cole adds a hefty tip to the total and scribbles his name. “It’s hard not to wonder what people think of you.”
He feels her eyes on him, but when he looks up, she glances away. She bites at a tiny piece of skin from the corner of her lip while she gathers up her purse. She takes a deep breath and places the purse gently on the table. “We should probably get going, huh?”
*****
The drive back to the Reel Comfy Motor Inn is marked by a smothering silence. They pull into a parking space, and Mr. Cole turns off the engine, leaving the keys dangling from the ignition. The early evening sun has dipped below the smog level, enveloping the motel in that warm, golden glow known in Hollywood scripts as the magic hour.
“You going to be okay?”
She nods.
“What are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know, Daddy,” she says with a melancholy smile. “I’ll think of something.”
“I’m sure.”
She opens the door and swings her legs out, and the soles of her shoes thump against the pavement. “Coming?” she says without looking at him.
“In a minute. You go ahead.”
She pulls herself out of the car, the green satin sparkling momentarily before disappearing once again under the cover of denim. The door slams shut, and her footsteps fade into the distance.
In the rearview mirror, he watches her cross the parking lot and climb the steps to Elliott’s motel room. She knocks twice and waits, her hands perched atop her hips. She starts to look his way, but the door opens. Elliott steps out and grabs her by both shoulders, shaking her gently back and forth as if making sure she’s still alive, and she nods her head, then tilts it back and laughs. Elliott gives her a warm hug, which she returns. Then the Wakisawas emerge from the room and pat her awkwardly on the back. He can see her lips moving as she follows them inside and shuts the door behind her.

© Coert Voorhees 2006