“Hey, uh, just wanted you to know that we’re gonna be late, stupid plane has mechanical problems. Probably would’ve been faster if I’d just driven up, but hey, at least we won’t miss dinner tomorrow. Are you sure Ray’s not gonna be there? Okay, well, I really hope you check this before you come get us, or else I’m gonna find you tapping your goddamn foot but you better not be smoking, you hear me Julia? You hear me?”
“Phil, can you hand me that potato masher?”
“Sure Lee. Uh, where is it?”
“Christ, right in front of you.” Julia tickled him, making Phil squeal. Then she leaned close. “So, does Miss November ever ask you for a masher?”
“Shut up,” he whispered, handing the utensil to Julia’s mother. Phil never thought of Lee Penn as anyone other than Julia’s mom. Julia called her that just as easily as Liz and Diane did, and while the sisters looked nothing alike as Julia had first told him five and a half years before, they were as close as any trio of siblings, even if the eldest was a few years ahead.
Lee attacked a huge pot of steaming potatoes, adding salt, pepper, and butter, then an extra splash of milk. The kitchen was small but cozy, as was the family, all of Julia’s relatives, plus Phil and Sunshine. Julia’s boyfriend was working on that Thanksgiving afternoon, but if Phil had to make a guess, Ray Winston would travel across the bay to find leftovers waiting. Phil thought Ray was perfect for Julia, or at least he was patient with her.
“Julia, tell your dad we’re about ready in here.” Lee kept mashing, didn’t look at her daughter.
“Okay Mom.” Julia smiled at Phil, then walked through the doorway, down a darkened hall. Phil heard her make that announcement, then she spoke to Sunshine. If Ray was patient with Julia, Julia showered that virtue on Sunshine, which never failed to impress Phil. Occasionally Julia still referred to her as Miss November, but never to her face, which also amazed. Sunshine wouldn’t have been offended, well, not the first or second time. After that she might have pouted, but Julia hadn’t even let it get that far.
“Anything else I can do Lee?” In that small room Phil inhaled all that reminded him of home. His grandparents had been disappointed with his absence, but Sunshine had to work on Saturday, and they would fly east for Christmas. Phil had wanted to share this holiday with the Penns, as important for Chuck and Lee to meet his girlfriend as Helen and Daniel. It had taken two years for Phil to admit what Sunshine meant, which had nothing to do with her profession, only her habit. Like everyone else he knew in Los Angeles, Sunshine was an addict, but finally Phil was ready to overlook it. Everybody had some crutch, even Julia, who returned with Liz at her side. That younger sister wasn’t Julia’s problem, only a notebook containing so few words, Phil wondered if Julia would ever let them out.
Liz kissed his cheek. “She is so cute! God, I never would’ve thought she was a…”
“Dancer,” Lee smiled.
Phil nodded, then chuckled. “I guess she told you.”
“No secrets with that girl,” Julia laughed.
“Nope, not really,” Phil said.
He stared at Liz, red hair in a braid down her back. She was only six months older than Sunshine, but Liz studied engineering at San Jose State, while Sunshine still stripped at the same club where Phil first met her. The women’s occupations and physical make-ups contrasted, and of course, Liz was sober. Oh, she drank on occasion, Phil watching her sip a glass of white wine. Liz had turned twenty-one in April, and Sunshine would be that age in two weeks. Sunshine was drinking Pepsi, Phil having initiated that habit but it was minor compared to what he couldn’t quell, not her fondness for stripping, he didn’t give a shit about that. She didn’t need to work, especially not after the year Phil had lived. His album was still in the top ten, no matter how much he detested his first record. Yet the public loved it. Sunshine loved his music too, and her work. She also adored cocaine, and Phil was as helpless over that as he was about his music. Or the music; he wished to disown that record, but couldn’t do a damn thing to change it.
Nor could he do much about Lee and Chuck’s tiny kitchen. He had offered to buy them a new house, but Chuck wouldn’t hear of it, not from Phil or Julia. Phil could have bought them a new place outright, Julia could have offered a sweet down payment, but Chuck wouldn’t take a single penny from either of them, which Phil respected and Julia lamented. Phil considered Chuck as a father-in-law, or an adoptive dad. As Helen and Daniel had taken in Julia, the Penns had absorbed Phil.
While Julia and Liz sipped their wine, their father lumbered into the room. Charles Penn stood nearly six foot three, strapping at over two hundred forty pounds. Liz had inherited her red hair from him, but now Chuck was gray, a retired cop, Julia having insisted. If her dad wouldn’t move to a new house at least he could quit the Oakland police force, but it wasn’t only a daughter’s pleading. Chuck suffered from emphysema, the early stages apparent in rapid breaths, a slow gait, and a hack that made Phil shudder. Thankfully Julia had quit smoking, in part from her father’s poor health, but Chuck still snuck out three or four times a day to which no one said a word. Diane would bitch if she was feeling out of sorts, but she was the only one to note that habit, as insidious as Sunshine’s. Phil’s girlfriend was behaving that day, and he hadn’t even needed to ask her. Sometimes she could go for two weeks without any blow, then it took all his self-restraint not to haul her to rehab. He knew the Betty Ford Clinic’s location, longed to leave Sunshine there, but unless she was willing, he was powerless. She stripped for money, but Phil would let her forever dance naked if she could just stop snorting her life away.
He never discussed it with Julia, hadn’t breathed a word of it to his grandparents. Phil hoped that Sunshine could be this clean in a month’s time; they were only going to Columbus for a week, then she could come home and do as she pleased. If she wanted to disappear for the beginning of 1986, Phil wouldn’t bat an eye. As long as she was clean for Christmas, and her behavior that day was promising. She had promised him, and so far, so good.
“Phil, you want some more wine?” Liz asked.
He nodded as Chuck sliced the turkey, coughing every few minutes, the electric blade still running. How he managed to slice the meat and not his fingers as he brought up a lung, Phil wasn’t sure. Breast meat piled on one side of the large platter, then dark meat accompanied, a nasty hack hack rumbling alongside the knife’s whirr, adding to the din throughout the cramped room. Lee scooped potatoes, Julia stirred gravy, Liz set down the bottle of wine, then opened the oven, the heady scent of marshmallows and brown sugar drifting into the kitchen. Phil closed his eyes, imagining the same fragrances in Ohio. Then he wondered about those cranks in Florida. Having met Claire and Arthur Riley, Phil had to keep his eyes shut, not wishing to mesh that residence with this one. Julia did have two families and they couldn’t be more different.
It was so warm in Oakland, but cold in Tampa; Phil had only been to Florida once, when Julia had left her notebook there. He was slated to tour America in spring, hitting Miami, Orlando, and Tampa Bay sometime in April. Those dates stuck in his head, three concerts he dreaded. Not that Claire and Arthur would turn up, but Phil had no desire to ever again step into that frigid state.
He had traveled alone, and hadn’t let them know he was coming, which had been for the best. They were too stunned to do more than hand over the journal, but in that one meeting, Phil realized everything Julia had ever stated was the absolute truth. For all her vacillating on that virtue, she had described them to a tee, and Phil had shivered in the cab, then at the Tampa airport, then on the plane. He caught an immediate flight back to Los Angeles, not wishing for Julia and her notebook to be separated any longer than necessary. Just pondering that trip to Florida caused him to chug his glass of wine. Julia’s laugh broke his concentration. “Shit Phil, slow down!”
He smiled, gripping the glass. Then he nestled it into the one free space, counters covered with serving bowls, dirty spoons, and saucepans. The sink was full too, and h
e would attend to those dishes after dinner, the least he could do. Chuck wouldn’t let Phil buy him a house, but Phil could wash pots and pans while Sunshine absorbed this family; they were her family too. They were all any of them had, Phil allowed, scooting out of the way as Chuck carried the platter toward the dining room, his shuffle accompanied by two daughters, a wife, and a rattling cough. Then Phil followed, breathing in a warm wave of togetherness, the opposite to what he had encountered three thousand miles to the east.
Phil sat between Sunshine and Diane, Julia across. Chuck sat at one end on the table, Lee on the other, and Phil chatted with Julia’s dad as Sunshine spoke with Julia’s mom. The three sisters traded a constant stream of inside jokes that he could interpret from his years with Julia, but a few pieces sat outside Phil’s awareness, which led him back to Chuck. Chuck saw things in black and white; the world, his former job, his neighbors. Living in Oakland, Phil assumed, lent itself to that view, perhaps Chuck’s age, maybe Laura’s death. Phil felt he knew Laura Riley, having read her novels since meeting Julia, then of course Julia; she was Chuck and Lee’s girl, also Laura’s. She was also Claire and Arthur’s grandchild, even if she hadn’t returned to Florida since the summer of 1983.
Then Phil paid attention to Lee as she asked Chuck something about one of their friends who lived down the street. Mona Washington’s grandson had come home for the holiday; Aaron went to school at USC, was a football player. The gist of it went over Phil’s head, but from the somber way Chuck nodded, grave details surrounded that young man’s homecoming.
“I just saw Aaron,” Diane said. “He looks good.”
“Been keeping his nose clean, from what Mona said,” Lee added.
Chuck grumbled as Sunshine gripped Phil’s hand under the table.
“He caught a break, most of them around here never catch a break,” Lee continued.
“As long as he catches a football.” Chuck scooted away from the table. “All right, time for pigskin.”
Phil had spent a few holidays at this house: Easter in 1984, when he and Sunshine were split up, then again over Labor Day later that year, a big barbecue Chuck and the next door neighbor always organized. Phil had met Neal Boggs and his wife Bunny even before meeting Chuck and Lee. Julia had insisted as if she had two sets of parents, or another set; how many adult figures did Julia need? Yet none of them seemed enough, as if Laura Riley’s shadow loomed over the entire state. If Julia had a hundred mothers and fathers she would still be as exposed as Sunshine on stage, or as she sat there with Phil. Her grip increased, and he sighed to himself. They were staying at a hotel in San Francisco, not far from where Julia lived with Ray. The foursome were supposed to spend Friday shopping, but now Phil wasn’t sure. Sunshine had packed some blow; she always had some on her. As her grasp loosened, he kissed her, told her he loved her. It was never enough to make her change her ways, but that night she seemed willing to overlook her usual tendencies. She sat up, smiled, then picked up Phil’s empty plate, gathering others. She stood to her full five foot five inches, without spike heels, then with a dancer’s grace she sauntered into the kitchen, where the sound of running water could be heard.
Lee went to move, but Phil waved her off. “No, no, you cooked. We didn’t do anything but arrive late. You all sit here and let us clean.”
“But, but…”
“No buts.” He smiled at Julia, who nodded along with Liz and Diane.
Phil collected more empty dishes, heard Julia easing her mother’s mind, that she would assist so Phil wouldn’t break any plates. Lee still protested, but her tone was affable. Sunshine was putting on rubber gloves as Phil set the bowls on the counter, Julia right behind him.
“You two, jeez! Making us girls look bad. Phil, go watch football with Dad.”
“No way. Gonna earn my keep, and some pie.”
“Sunshine, make him go watch TV!”
“Hell no Julia. He’s better at washing dishes than I am.”
Phil knew Julia wouldn’t argue; his house was a mess as Sunshine wasn’t domestic. Julia cleaned every time she visited, which wasn’t as often as before, not since she had met Ray. But she still traveled south, doing research for music articles written for Rolling Stone magazine. That she had witnessed Sunshine in various stages of temper also contributed to her infrequent visits.
They hadn’t called each other much in the past year, not since Sunshine moved into Phil’s bungalow, or since Julia started living with Ray. Somehow those with whom they dwelled muted what could be left as messages, and neither Phil nor Julia were good at writing letters. Occasionally a postcard was received, Phil better than Julia at correspondence, but over the last six months they had hardly shared more than hello, why this dinner had been important. That Phil and Sunshine hadn’t reached Oakland till late last night had curtailed some of the visit. Now Phil’s girlfriend washed dishes, an odd sight, and he smiled, trying to allow this as normal, like meeting Julia’s grandparents, as if Julia had actually spent time in Florida. She had, under duress, like Sunshine mucking gravy from a bowl.
“Here, let me do that,” Julia said, trying to muscle Phil out of the way.
“Not on your life,” Sunshine giggled. “But Phil, you go watch TV. God forbid you see too much of me doing this.”
The women laughed and Phil smiled, willing to allow this false face. Julia thrived on a mix of truth and fiction, and Sunshine also preferred smudged edges. Maybe that’s why they got along so well; both needed a blend. Gazing at the women he adored, Phil accepted truth was a precious commodity. He kissed each of them, then walked toward the blare of football announcers.
“You want more pie?” Julia asked, standing between Phil and the television.
“You wanna get your fat ass outta my way?” Chuck said.
“I am not in your way,” Julia giggled.
“But your ass’s still fat,” her father replied.
“Screw you Daddy.”
“Julia…”
“No, that’s okay Lee. Her ass is fat. She eats too much pie.”
“I had one piece.” Julia then stood between her father and the television.
Phil laughed, then stood, not needing any more dessert, only waiting for Ray to arrive. Then Phil would make an excuse; Sunshine was hanging by a thread, but it was thick, like steel. She understood Phil because like his family, she too only had grandparents. But they weren’t like Helen and Daniel. They weren’t even like Claire and Arthur. They were Betty and Dick, living in Pasadena, where Sunshine had been raised. Phil couldn’t compare Betty and Dick Galveston with any of the retirees he knew. Maybe they were like the old fat broad Julia had complained about once, a message that Phil had kept on tape, but hadn’t needed to; that call was embedded in his brain.
Betty Galveston was probably a cousin to the pubic hair-exposing woman Julia had encountered on the beach. If he had wondered how Julia held it together with Claire and Arthur’s quirks hovering every summer, he never questioned Sunshine’s existence. To ponder that meant psychosis.
From a very young age, Sunshine had lived with her grandparents, all the while molested by her grandfather. She had remained with them until she was twelve, running away to San Diego. She informed a police officer what had happened, but hadn’t pressed charges, convinced by her grandmother that to do so would mean damnation. Sunshine spent the next four years at various Southern California foster homes, dropping out of high school at sixteen, beginning her career with a fake ID provided by an erstwhile boyfriend. Phil had spoken about those issues with Julia, needing somewhere to put them all, but they hadn’t discussed it over answering machines. Those conversations had occurred face to face, and once Phil released it, he set it aside, like they had chatted on machines, then had burned the tapes. Better to destroy what Sunshine had known.
Julia sat beside him, grasping his hand. “Ray should be here anytime. Traffic can’t be that bad getting over the bridge.”
Phil nodded, then stared at a long pass thrown.
“Too bad Ray had to work tonight,” Lee said.
“Someone’s gotta spin discs or Mr. Famous here won’t get another royalty check,” Julia smirked.
“How’s that album selling Phil?” Chuck asked, not looking away from the TV.
“Fine, just fine.”
“The reviews good Phil?”
He smiled at Lee. She looked tired, a long day spent cooking in a tiny kitchen. Phil saw Diane in her eyes, Liz in her smile, but nothing of Julia. He squeezed that eldest daughter’s hand. “Too good. They’re expecting the next one to sound just the same.”
“Will it?” Julia said, her voice quiet.
“Nope,” Phil said. “Not a thing.”
“Is that okay?” Lee asked.
He looked at her, not expecting anyone but Julia to have heard him. “You know Lee, I don’t give a crap if it’s okay or not. I didn’t get to write a single…”
“Shit!” Chuck yelled at the television. “Goddamn bastard dropped the fucking ball!”
“Daddy, it’s just a game,” Julia sighed, gripping Phil’s hand.
“Well, if they’re gonna get paid like professions, better damn well play like it, not like a bunch of goddamn losers.”
Lee caught Phil’s eyes, nodding her head. He smiled, then stood, heading for where his girlfriend waited.
Phil found her in the bathroom, the door open. Sunshine was applying lipstick, but her hands shook. “You okay?” he asked.
She gazed his way, but her thin smile made Phil shiver. “Ray here yet?”
Phil shook his head. “Soon baby. You, uh, wanna leave?”
“No, it’s okay.” She glanced into the mirror, her hands still trembling.
Phil stepped into the room, closing the door. He set the lipstick on the small vanity. “Baby, we can go, it’s okay.”
“They’re so nice, just like you described them. I really like Liz, sounds like she’s gonna do really well.”
That sister was the only one to attend college, unless beauty college counted. Diane lived in Union City, a few miles down the east side of the bay, working as a hairstylist. Neither sister lived at home anymore, not even Liz during summer. She preferred the South Bay, what they called it. There was the East Bay, the South Bay, the Peninsula, then the City. Julia lived there, in San Francisco, with her twenty-seven-year-old disc jockey boyfriend. Ray was a late night DJ at KFOG, but on holidays he filled in earlier slots.
The Penns were a real family, and while Phil easily mixed in, Sunshine considered them an anomaly, even if Lee was Julia’s stepmother. Phil steadied Sunshine’s shaking hands, then he kissed her cheek. Then he pulled her close, sensing a need for more than he could suffice. He had flown to Florida on a moment’s notice for Julia, but for this woman, going to the moon wouldn’t be enough.
“Baby, let’s go. Ray’ll understand.”
“Phil, I can’t do that to them.”
“Honey…”
She stared at him, eyes brown, hair blonde, a body as if sculpted by a physician. But her boobs actually were a thirty-two DD, her waist an honest twenty-four inches. Her hips were an ample thirty-four at their widest; at five foot five she looked like a short Barbie, Cokehead Barbie. Fondled By Her Grandpa Barbie. Ran Away From Home at Twelve Barbie, Trashheap of Southern California Barbie. At times Phil felt like Ken, nothing to do but stand there and look good. He hadn’t felt any differently while recording his album, only his name had mattered, some reminder to the past, his name and green eyes, but who he was had disappeared beneath bland pop and a marketing onslaught. In a decade dominated by Prince, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Jackson, Phil Gideon was as insipid and washed-out as Stripper Barbie, with whom Phil stood.
He stroked her face, but Sunshine Evelyn Galveston was turning from a human being to no more than a shell in the Penns’ bathroom. How would she be next month, Phil wondered, then he felt guilty. She was falling apart and all he could consider was Columbus. “Baby, let’s go. Won’t take more than half an hour at the most.”
“No, Phil, I can’t.”
“Sunshine…”
“What’re you gonna do at Christmas, huh? Tell your grandparents we need to go out for soda?”
He shook, then held her. They rarely spoke of it, but Sunshine’s secret was more noticeable than Chuck screaming at football players.
All night Phil had watched Julia’s sisters exude kindness to a young woman right between Liz and Diane in age. Those sisters were very different in looks and desires, but when compared to Sunshine, they might as well be twins. Phil had felt akin to Julia since they met, still carried that sense of family, had hoped Sunshine would usurp Julia’s place. Not because he needed Julia moved aside, but only to complete him, and to offer Phil one more place of solitude. But Sunshine wasn’t any different than all the rest of those Phil knew down south, all of them hooked on something. If not drugs, then it was alcohol, sex, notoriety, plastic surgery, you name it, they craved it. Everyone in LA needed something to uphold the façade; it was demeaning, artificial, so, so… Damning and damaging and Phil swallowed, but his throat was scratchy. If he spoke, he would probably sound like Chuck, a shell of himself. Chuck’s issue was too many cigarettes, and a lot of booze. Chuck had downed four or five beers that afternoon, then stuck to stealing Phil’s Pepsis. After those first couple of glasses of wine, Phil had Pepsi, Sunshine too. It calmed his nerves, but for her pop was a placebo. She needed the real deal.
But there was nothing real about her pain relief; coke didn’t ease her, only wound her tighter, as if she needed to be any more unhinged. She had started snorting to loosen up to strip; she had been stripping since in possession of that fake ID. She claimed five years that didn’t exist, and while Phil was five years her senior, according to that first piece of identification, they were the same age. Sometimes she forgot, said she was twenty-six, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t even twenty-one years old.
Phil had just turned twenty-six on Halloween, had a gold record that was a piece of crap and a cokehead girlfriend to match. Suddenly thinking of taking her to Columbus for Christmas was absurd. She wouldn’t last three days, not in the middle of Helen and Daniel’s regular life. Cokehead Barbie could only exist on the West Coast, she wouldn’t survive the snow that was icy, but not as harmful as what went up Barbie’s delicate nostrils. Phil caressed Sunshine’s temples, skin that felt so thin. She didn’t know anything about his father, for which Phil had been stunned, then relieved. She only knew that Stan Gideon had died two weeks before Christmas, a date that had little bearing on Phil, but had troubled his mother. It hadn’t caused her death, but going to Columbus might just do in Sunshine’s head.
“Baby, I’m gonna call a cab. I’m beat, so are you.”
“Oh Phil, no!”
Unlike Julia, Sunshine would face the truth, even if it meant seeing herself straight. She could look at herself for brief moments, accepting reality. Julia couldn’t do that, and Phil was grateful. Julia dealt with truth in a way that didn’t harm her, but Sunshine sought out the facts, then dulled them. Stan had done the same, and suddenly Phil was curious as to how much of his father was like this very young woman, not even twenty-one. Phil’s dad had reached that age, but no further, and Phil would be damned if Sunshine died on his watch. He loved her, and like for Julia, would do anything for her, even take her away so she could snort coke. All they had to do was get to the hotel, take the elevator, reach their room. Phil would set the chain or dead bolt, whatever Sunshine needed. She needed far more than he could give her, sex and a home not even considerations. A quiet, dark place was where she could slip from that hard plastic exterior. As Phil held her, feeling her cool tears along his face, he shut his eyes, thinking about the interior of Claire and Arthur’s house. He’d had to force his way into the kitchen, from where he saw the plastic-covered sofa. He’d been adamant, wasn’t leaving without Julia’s notebook, her heart withering in that frosty, entombed domicile. Now Phil ushered Sunshine from the bathroom into a slightly s
tuffy home full of memories that pricked his skin. They prickled because of how warm they were, homey and pleasant. He hoped no one would freeze their ass off, needing to take a piss.
He sat on the suite’s sofa, hearing her ingest life back into her body. That sound, so hollow and wretched, punctured Phil’s eardrums, ringing alongside the hushed goodbyes as they had left Oakland. Lee had stood on the small front porch, gripping herself, Liz and Diane at her sides. Chuck had shaken Phil’s hand in the house, only saying so-long to Sunshine.
Phil stared into the room, lit by the muted television. He should have turned it up, that would have masked Sunshine’s activities. Did he need to acknowledge if not in person then at least through noise? She said nothing, inhaling line after line. It was good stuff; Sunshine bought pure shit, in so many ways, but Phil wished for a Pepsi. That was harmless, well, it might rot his teeth. Helen teased him about that, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to excuse their absence at Christmas. No way in hell could he take Sunshine to Ohio, no fucking way.
He wouldn’t use that tone with his grandmother, would have to come up with something. He could enlist Julia, say that Chuck wasn’t well, that Chuck needed them. Phil’s grandparents liked Julia’s family, what they knew of them. Helen and Lee exchanged Christmas cards, and Phil would even go so far as to ask Lee to mention that Chuck had been sick, just some offhand sentence only for Helen and Daniel Reese. One small untruth would save Phil so much in the way of his grandparents’ heartache and the mountain of despair hunched over a mirror in the bedroom. Sunshine had packed her special mirror just for this purpose.
He didn’t ask how she had managed to smuggle the drugs, but no one had searched her bag. She had survived her childhood, then had lied about her age for five years, so what was a little blow shoved into luggage, up her nose, into her bloodstream? Phil ran his tongue along the rim of the soda can, sharp but not lethal, not like what was happening in his bedroom. That wasn’t as immediate as some methods, and he squeezed closed his eyelids, thankful he only needed to lie to his grandparents. If Jo-Jo was alive, what would Phil say to her?
That he could ask Lee to fudge the truth was one thing. That he would openly deceive his grandmother, even his grandpa, and Phil pressed his tongue against the metal edge, but he wasn’t the first Gideon to flirt with disaster. Then Phil set down the can. He stood, stepping toward the bedroom. She was done, the suite silent. He could hear his breathing, wanted to hear hers.
He said nothing, only peering around the doorway. She wiped drops of blood from her nose, nothing like the gushers that occasionally followed, but she had been snorting cocaine for five years. She had kept it from Phil for what he felt was an age, or maybe he had been so in love with her he hadn’t wished to see. For six months he hadn’t realized her habit, until a bassist with the same craving pointed it out. Phil had nearly been sick, calling Julia, leaving an aching message. He hadn’t called Sunshine until her absence was as debilitating as what he had learned. Looking at her lying on the hotel bed, he wondered how he had allowed her to get under his skin. Maybe it was genetic; Gideon men weren’t able to withstand a damsel in distress. Yet Stan had gotten off lightly with Jo-Jo, Phil felt. Or maybe he had quit while he was ahead.
“You ready for bed baby?” Sunshine giggled like she was sixteen again. She exposed her breasts, small rose-colored nipples that shined against smooth, pale skin.
Initially Phil had been attracted to her generous bosom. That they were real had been a surprise, nothing fake about Sunshine except her age and her smile. She flashed a grin that dug into Phil’s heart, and he shook his head. He never could make love to her after she’d snorted, it seemed the most cruel idea.
But she was too high to note that, which was probably for the best. Phil sighed, watching her smile, then toss back her head. She would be up for most of the night, bad timing, as all he wanted to do was sleep. “I’m going for a walk,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Don’t wait up for me.”
She seemed chastened, as she nodded. Phil grabbed his wallet, a key, then chugged what remained of the Pepsi. Then he left their suite.
“Hey, I know it’s late. God, I hope you’re still in Oakland. Julia, I don’t care if Ray hears this. I gotta ask Lee if she’ll do something for me, and I’ll need you to back me up. Grandma’s gonna shit a brick, but there’s no way I can take Sunshine to Ohio. Christ, I love her, you know I love her, but I can’t save her, shit! I’m standing in a phone booth, thank God this’s a local call. And I’ve got lots of change, gonna just chuck dimes in, one after another, ’cause I need to talk. I need to, shit. I know what I need to do, but how? Not like I can get on a plane and make it all better. But I can’t take her to Columbus. I can’t take her home for Christmas. I can’t even, just a minute. Okay, you still there? I don’t know anymore. I love her, but I feel like no one hears me, not her, not anyone buying the fucking album, only you.” Laughter. “But you won’t hear this for a while. And even when you do, what the fuck? Not like you can fly to Ohio with me.” More laughter. “Julia, I, uh, dunno. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me, to her. I, uh, don’t worry, okay? I mean, shit. I don’t wanna make you worry. I’ll be fine, I’ll, uh, figure it out. I’ll do something. So yeah, I, uh, I’ll call you, uh, tomorrow. Not sure about tomorrow. It’ll probably be okay. If she can sleep some, but shit. She’s not gonna sleep for hours, fuck! Well, okay. I’m gonna go back now, but don’t call me there. I’m exhausted. Gonna sleep on the sofa. Sofas are nice, I like sleeping on sofas. Okay, well, yeah. I’ll, uh, talk to you later. Tomorrow. I’ll, uh, see you sometime tomorrow. ’Night Julia, you too Ray. Goodnight.”
Chapter 4