I let my gaze eat the world. My wolf-sharpened sense of smell caught the scent of ice-cream cones, of asphalt, of churning ocean, of swirling beer, of first kisses and last kisses. The diagonal street parking was full of rust-free cars that had never existed outside summer. The girls were all legs, and the boys were all teeth. That moon was closer than before. The empty shops were still bright with aqua and pink and yellow paint. I tripped on the curb, my eyes on a pair of guys flying a kite on the night beach, its tail rippling silver in the moonlight. My chest felt full with the images.
There was no place for a wolf to hide here.
“You aren’t from here,” Leon said, and I knew he was watching me watch everything else. I knew he knew I liked it, but I didn’t mind.
This whitewashed place sang my name to me, over and over.
“New York,” I replied. And added, “State.”
I couldn’t remember when I’d first clarified state, not city, but I remembered the distinction had felt a lot more important then. Where was I from now? Not here.
“You aren’t from here, either,” I reminded him. “Cincinnati.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
He had brought us to a café that reminded me of the restaurants in Italy — a small, dark interior, most of the dining space underneath an open-air awning. Although I hadn’t expressed any concern over being recognized, Leon stood in front of me, blocking my face from the hostess, and said, “Two, please. By the sidewalk, maybe?”
I felt intensely validated. I’d judged him right. Decent was decent.
The hostess sat us at a tiny table. Across the sidewalk was the beach, and beyond it, the black ocean. I felt dreamy and drunk.
We nearly knocked heads as we sat, and I thought about writing some lyrics down in my tiny notebook (Like lovers or lawyers/biting and smiling). Instead I watched some skateboarders sail by us. “Do you like it here?”
There was too long of a pause, and when I looked at Leon, he smiled ruefully and cut his eyes down to the table. He gently unfolded his napkin. He had sturdy hands, blunt and sure.
“I’ve been here a long time.”
“Did you like it when you first came?”
Leon said, “What is it you see when you look at it?”
“Magic,” I replied.
He pushed the menu toward me. “If you tell me what you want, I’ll order for you. While you enjoy the ocean.”
He meant so that I wouldn’t have to talk to the waitress with my famous voice, or look at her with my famous face. Now I really looked at him. He must’ve been a handsome bastard when he was my age. He’d still be handsome, now, if he squared his shoulders and acted like he had some testicles. “You drive around a lot of famous people?”
“A few.”
“You didn’t even know who I was when I got into your car, and now you’re protecting me from waitresses?”
Leon said, “I Googled you after you got out.”
It was warming to hear I still had some currency on the Internet.
He continued, “The news stories about when you disappeared were . . . Do you mind me mentioning it?”
I shrugged. Everything was cool as long as he didn’t say Victor’s name. As long as he didn’t ask me where Victor was.
“Well, it caused a big fuss.”
“I’m really not that famous,” I said, although I was a little all that famous. “Most people can’t recognize me on sight. And if they do, they either think I’m just someone who looks like me, or they don’t have the guts to talk to me, or they don’t care that it’s me.”
Really, it wasn’t exhausting to be recognized. It was exhausting to feel alone in a crowd.
Leon studied me pensively. I could tell that he, in any case, did not like being recognized as Leon the driver. He dreaded the supermarket line chitchat. He waited until the postal service lady had knocked on the door, left the package, and gotten in her vehicle to open his door. His dog dying had been bad, I could tell, but the worst part for him had been trying to figure out how to handle the pity of the vet assistants.
“I know what you’re saying,” I told Leon, and by you, I meant your face. “You hate small talk. It makes everything seem irrelevant. I agree. It’s ridiculous. We should only talk about big things, you and I.”
“I’m not good at small talk.” Leon downgraded hate to something slightly kinder, but didn’t disagree. “Do I have big things to talk about?”
“You told me your life story in the car. That’s big.”
“You asked me for that.”
“Did I? That doesn’t sound like me.”
The waitress returned. I ordered a BLT without incident.
Leon ordered a milk shake without incident. When his shake arrived, he cradled it in his hands, savoring it. He seemed to regard it as a guilty indulgence, something only permitted in the middle of the night with a stranger.
He looked glum, which wasn’t the point of this exercise, so I asked, “So, Leon. I know you’re not a fan of this city, but where would you tell me to go, as a tourist?”
“Haven’t you been here before?”
I had been here before. “I was on tour.”
“No time to explore?”
There had been time to explore. I’d explored a few streets in Koreatown and one in Echo Park and another in Long Beach, and then I’d explored a Rite Aid for some syringes, and then I’d explored my hotel balcony and my hotel floor and, finally, the tile of the hotel bathroom. Then Victor had come got me out of my own puke and cleaned me up for the show.
I’d been in Los Angeles before, but it hadn’t mattered.
Really, I’d never left my own head.
“The Pier, I guess,” Leon said, but dubiously, like he was repeating advice he’d heard from someone else. “That’s supposed to be nice at sundown. Malibu? That’s about forty-five minutes up the coast.”
“Malibu is not L.A., Leon,” I said sternly. I looked out at the purple-skinned beach. I imagined running on that sand with paws instead of feet. It would be just as good on my own feet, I thought. “I think you should visit your own city.”
“Maybe I will,” Leon said, in a kind way that meant that he wouldn’t. Our food arrived. Leon accepted the tomato from my BLT.
“Seems strange to order a lettuce and bacon sandwich. But she would’ve held the tomato if you’d asked.” He shook salt on the slice. He looked as happy as he ever had as he put it in his mouth.