It’s Gonna Be the One for Us
It’s Gonna be the One.
Newp emerged in her vision as if bursting from a vase. “I told you it would be different.” He took her hand and dragged Frannie towards a booth where a group of four boys and a pair of girls all listened to the music and generally dug the scene. The boys all had that same surfer look that Frannie had to admit made her stomach flip.
One of the boys had black hair buzzed real short, and he pounded the table as Newp led Frannie over. A basket of fries near his fists jumped. The fries jostled and fell back to earth. “Hey, you bring us some fresh meat?” he called as Frannie sat in the space across from him.
“Lay off, T-Bone,” Newpup said. “This is Frannie, she’s a nice girl.”
“Speak for yourself, cha-cha,” Frannie said, trying on as wisenheimer a voice as she could manage. One of the girls—about eighteen and stacked in a lavender swimsuit—jostled the boy next to her over so Frannie could take a seat.
T-Bone laughed heartily and howled, and next to Frannie, another boy who had his hair bleached nearly white, like a lot of the sand bums did, slapped a high five with T-Bone. When he dropped his hand, he let it brush against Frannie’s shoulder, a little close like he was really reaching for a feel, and Frannie squirmed. She got up, making eye contact with Newp, who was coming back from another table.
“Thanks, Newp, but I gotta go.”
Newp threw the boy next to her a look. “Creasy, you hassling the young lady?”
“So who is this kid?” the girl next to Creasy asked.
Newp smiled. “Ah! She’s the new waitress, is what Saul said.”
“What?” Frannie looked at Newp. “What are you talking about?”
Truth to tell she wanted a job, but just like that?
“But not tonight,” Newp told her. “Saul wants you to get to know the place. Hey, have a seat. Sheila, get between Frannie and your animal boyfriend, all right? Jeez.”
“Who are those guys?” Frannie asked. In another booth were two gentlemen, both in their late twenties or so. They dressed square as Frannie’s pop and maybe squarer; they worse slacks and long-sleeve shirts, and though they had no ties on, they seemed to Frannie’s mind to be regretting it. They drank coffee.
Saul was setting a plate of fried pickles on the table and said, “That’s Mutt and Jeff.”
“Mutt and Jeff?”
Newp bent closer. “They’re undercover police officers. But it’s okay; they tip all right and they don’t make a scene. I think they like the place.”
Sheila turned to Frannie and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “So where are you from?” Her voice was high but full and warm.
“We live in Laguna Beach,” Frannie said.
“Born around here?”
“Nope, Germany. But I try not to tell people that because they like to ask if I was a Nazi.”
“People are maroons,” Newp said.
Frannie couldn’t stop looking around the room. Shadows danced off the sculptures and the paintings, the air pungent with fried clams and fried pickles and fried potatoes. She smelled vinegar and catsup, fish and suntan oil.
“Who’s the band?” Frannie asked, “They’re the most!”
“Mm,” Sheila said, pointing a languid hand past Frannie at the singers on the stage. “Okay, so Newp puts the band together and manages them. Sometimes he plays guitar. The blond girl in the nightgown, that’s Betty—she’s Newp’s sister—and the colored girl is Truly.”
“Newp’s sister?”
“Yeah.”
“She looks…” Frannie studied the freckled blond and tried to find the word.
“Odd? Don’t let the nightgown trip you up. She just… likes to wear soft things.”
“Like all the time?”
“Far as I know.”
“Likes to or has to?”
When the girl shrugged Frannie said, “I don’t know, I was gonna say she looks… sweet.”
Truly and Betty were in perfect harmony now, working their way through a Les Baxter song that Frannie had heard playing on some of the radios in the hospital.
O Sinnerman, where you gonna run to all on that day?
New music was full of a heck of a lot of this Christian judgment day talk, which was strange and exotic to Frannie. But God it was beautiful.
The Lord said Sinnerman, the sea will be a boilin’,
O Lord won’t you hide me all on that day?
Something caught Frannie’s eye—Uncle Saul was standing at the beaded curtain in the back, talking to a man in a tweed jacket and tie.
The room through the beaded curtains shimmered like a liquid pool for a second, an illusion that Frannie shook off. Over the door, a sign said BOOKS FR YR PLEASURE.
She rose, walking towards the back.
###
Frannie stuck her head next to her uncle’s shoulder and spoke softly. “What is this?”
Saul moved out of the way and Frannie looked past him to see what she expected from a book section: high shelves lining a small room. Books crammed in every corner, but less messy than some little book shops she’d wandered into.
The man in the tweed jacket was browsing and suddenly gasped, grabbing a book off a shelf that said Performing Arts. He held the book up. “Look at this.”
“What’d you find?” Frannie asked.
“This, my dear, is a novelization of Val Lewton’s I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. That’s a real rarity,” the man said, scratching his moustache and adjusting his thick glasses before continuing. “I haven’t seen this since—well, I did see one once.” He trailed off.
“Where?” Saul was trying to sound mildly curious, but Frannie could hear an insistent tone just at the edge.
Family. Every inflection tells a history. She didn’t know what it meant, why anyone would care deeply about someone’s random memory about something so minor.
The man thought for a second as he looked at the cover, which showed a woman walking through the woods in a billowy, shimmery dress like Frannie had never actually seen a person wear except in old movies. The man’s eyes searched the book and seemed to look past it, holding it as thought it might disappear into dust if touched incorrectly. “Paris,” he finally said. “I saw it in Paris. That’s funny because it’s in English, you know? I mean, there weren’t a lot of English bookshops in Paris. Not standing.”
The man looked up. “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, reaching out a hand. “It’s Forrest. How rude of me.”
Saul shook his hand. “You collect books, Mr. Forrest?”
“Forrest is my first name.” the man said. “But my friends call me Forry.”
“Are you from around here?” Frannie asked. She didn’t think so.
“No, gosh,” Forry said. “I come from back East.”
“What brought you to LA?”
Forry’s eyes twinkled. “All my friends are here.”
Frannie gasped. “You make movies?” Her pop was a screenwriter sometimes. She was fascinated by all that jazz.
“No, I do a little journalism here and there.” He waved his hand as though it were too complicated and wearisome to talk about. Frannie found this fascinating about adults. Ask a kid who they are, and they tell you; ask an adult and it’s all just too much.