The Serial Achiever

“Looks like we’re stuck,” Claire said.

“Won’t last.”

“How do you know?”

“It won’t.”

“Couldn’t we get off at Sepulveda?” Claire said.

“Give it a moment.”

“Everyone else is getting off at Sepulveda,” Claire said.

“So?”

“Daddeeeee! We’ll be here all night.”

“No we won’t,” Mike said.

“Oh? And how do you know?”

“Watch.” Stomping on the accelerator, yanking the wheel to the right, he bounced the car onto the shoulder embankment, upshifted to second and bumped along just a shade faster than felt safe as Claire began to shriek.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Hang on now.”

“Shit. Shit! Slow down, you’ll kill us!”

“Not yet.” He eyed the solid line of standing cars to his left as the sound of a police siren welled up behind them.

“Shit! You’ll tip the car over!” Claire clutched the dash.

“Not yet.” Flashing lights appeared in the rearview while Mike waited for traffic to move. “Not yet. Not yet. Now!” He gunned the gas, upshifting again to third just as a space opened up in the right lane, jerked the wheel left and dropped the car with a bump into traffic. “There,” he said as the patrol car passed them, headed for some place up ahead. “Told you, didn’t I?”

“Told me what?”

“That we’d be moving soon and now we are.”

“Now why did you do that?” she said. He didn’t answer, unsure if it was impatience or the need to prove a point about what was possible if you really tried.

“But the cops!”

“What about them?

“What if they’d pulled us over?”

“Oh, hell, where’s your sense of humor? I would have fed them some bull story.” Already he was formulating something about a black Hummer with Arizona plates that was responsible for the whole episode. Arizona plates and a very attractive lady at the wheel. The cop would shine a flashlight in his eyes and ask him if he’d caught the plate number. He’d chuckle, then add, Sorry, I was staring at the driver to tell you the truth. The cop would chuckle back and the whole episode would be done for. Too bad he didn’t have a chance to try it, if only to watch Claire clamp her hand over her mouth, struggling to hold back her laughter. After the cop had gone she’d let it all out, shaking with laughter, choking with it, forcing him to join in for one delectable moment of celebration over the prank.

“Getting hungry yet?” he asked.

“I’m getting cold,” she said.

“I’ll put the top up.” Mike pulled over to the shoulder again. He got out and began tugging at the snaps that held the top in place. When he returned to the driver’s side, he found Claire fidgeting in the seat, trying to adjust her skirt. Instead of looking away, he stood with one hand on the door and stared, thinking about those elaborately framed blotches and daubs of paint that Claire’s firm charged medium prices to hang on peoples’ walls. No matter how much he hated it, that junk would be in demand because Claire had some unfathomable power to give it value. And somehow this power was tied up with, even grew out of, the things she held in such ignorant contempt: supply chain management, neuroscience, the right to your own life at 52. You didn’t build a business for money or security, you did it because you could, for the adventure of throwing it all away and doing something else. “So long, amigos, I’m out of here. Be seeing you. Going to be a scientist now.” One of his competitors, Travis Boyd at Fischer-Boyd Properties, retired the previous year at 56 to sail around the world in a yacht. He’d worked just as hard as Mike, made even more money. The man hadn’t been heard from again, might never have existed for all anyone cared. Idleness, exhaustion, contentment—these were things reserved for aging dogs warming their lazy bones in the sun. Mike viewed idleness with contempt. Claire didn’t have to know that, though.

Shivering a little as traffic on Wilshire roared by, he swung back into the driver’s seat. He knew she’d become aware of his presence because she turned her body away from him as she tugged on the waistband of her skimpy underpants, then flicked her skirt down with a brisk little wiggle.

“I’m not having a midlife crisis,” Mike blurted out and instantly felt like a fool. Claire had lit a cigarette as he eased the car back into traffic, leaving him to wonder if she were thinking about his remark.

After an interval, Mike said, “We don’t have to do the dinner-thing. I can just take you home.”

“No, let’s. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

He drove on, relieved to see traffic thinning out past the snarls around Westwood, the packs of nattering, movie-bound kids crossing the streets. They crossed Beverly Glen where he would normally have turned to drop her off at the one-bedroom where she lived, a few blocks to the south. The last time he visited, she buzzed him in the front door, but when he ran up the stairs and rang her bell, she inexplicably stuck her head out the half-closed door and told him to stay in the hall while she “picked up a few things.” Things he couldn’t help picturing.

“Why do I need to stay out here?” he said as she closed the door.

“I’ll only be a minute.”

“Claire, this is ridiculous.” Mike fumed, cracked his knuckles, and paced the hallway, trying to think of the words that would change her mind.   He caught a whiff of disinfectant.

“I’m your father. What do you have to hide?” A closet door slammed followed by the thump of furniture being moved and some kind of clothy flapping sound. He pictured a party the night before, full of medium-priced artists sipping medium-priced wine, discussing Picasso and Chuck Close. Arguments about art, other arguments about which of them was in Claire’s good graces (and therefore selling best), arguments about the wine. At ten thirty various parties paired off, disappearing into the bedroom, the kitchen, the coat closet. Lost in the hubbub, Claire hovered over the party in spirit, egging people on.

“Alright, you can come in now.”

He entered, looking around for he knew not what.

“Here.” Claire emerged from the kitchen, smiling, holding out a glass. “Coors, your favorite. I put in a dash of sriracha, the way you like it.”