Authors: Deborah Shapiro

The Sun in Your Eyes (31 page)

they could've asked
Lee, 1996

Viv said, “Let's do
something sort of touristy.” So Lee took what she thought of as the scenic route and drove them up along Mulholland Drive, winding east and down into the flats of Hollywood, along Franklin to Vermont and into Griffith Park. They parked by the Observatory, took in the requisite views of the city below, the ocean to the west, the Hollywood sign, and then they set out to walk along a fire road.

The trail was full, at first, with groups of hikers, charged with resolutions, to be fit, to be social in the new year. Neither Lee nor Viv minded the crowd. A welcome distraction in a way. It was day five in their seven-day stay here and though they weren't exactly tired of each other, they'd already grown accustomed to each other, to the sameness of the weather, the unchanging pace. Linda, her house, her pool, were no longer new to Viv. Neither were palm trees, celebrities, the first-rate fast food unique to this place.

Lee knew about a certain turnoff that led to an emptier stretch. More secluded, wilder. A bit more work for your legs. Too much talk would have left them winded so they stayed quiet as they climbed. Eventually the trees gave way to patches of scrubby chaparral. She'd once seen a coyote here on the way to the summit. This time, she
saw a large mutt, with its owner, starting back down just as she and Viv reached the crest. There was no one else in sight. Only the two of them, standing silently in the sun for so long that it was almost a non sequitur when Viv said: “I used to be so scared of dogs.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

“We never had pets. My dad was allergic. That was the story anyway. So I was never super comfortable around animals. And when I was in elementary school, at recess once, a black Labrador got onto the field. He was huge, at least he seemed so big to me at the time. I must have been six or seven. I have this memory of being out there with all these kids, no adults, and the dog bounding toward me. I didn't know that if you run, they think you're playing, that you want them to chase you. I was terrified and I just remember running around in a big circle and all the kids standing there and yelling but nobody doing anything to stop it and I didn't see any end to it. It felt like forever and then finally I fell. I want the story to be that the dog came to my side, licked my hand or something. But really he just ran past me, into another group of kids. And I was just there in the mud, in this light blue corduroy dress. Usually I wore, like, sweatsuits. But that day, I don't know why, I was wearing this dress and I thought my mom was going to be really upset to see it all dirty. But if she was, she didn't say anything. And I didn't mention anything about the dog. I never mentioned it to anyone really. Except you. Now.”

“That sounds awful. The whole thing. But mostly that you were so alone.”

“But I could've told my mom. I could've told anyone.”

“They could've asked.”

“True,” said Viv. And she turned to Lee: asking.

What to tell her? Lee thought of what so often disturbed her
lately: Andy and the last few months. Not as a sequence of events, not this happened, then this happened, then this and here's what it means. It was all still sensation for her. She didn't know how to explain that to Viv. But Viv didn't push for anything more. She just put her arms around Lee, a side hug, and kind of hung there, her chin on Lee's shoulder. Lee searched the skyline, the mountains, the basin of building after building, street upon street, that stretched out before them, the cluster of towers in downtown Los Angeles rising like a derelict Emerald City in the distance. How vast it seemed, but also, from up here, how shimmering and ephemeral. To steady herself, she held on to Viv, and soon enough they were breathing together, rising and falling, at the top of the trail.

Acknowledgments

Jesse Parrish is an imaginary, impossible combination of a number of much mythologized icons, but his background is particularly inspired by that of Gram Parsons and I drew on some details from the following biographies:
Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music
by David N. Meyer,
Gram Parsons: A Music Biography
by Sid Griffin, and
Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons
by Ben Fong-Torres. I'm also indebted to the works of Eve Babitz, which, sadly, had been out of print until recently. A lot of what Andy knows about the Garden of Allah, and a good deal more about Los Angeles in the seventies, I learned from Babitz's wonderful
Slow Days, Fast Company; Eve's Hollywood;
and
Sex and Rage.
And I couldn't have conjured Elise Robin without some help from Pamela Des Barres's memoir
I'm With the Band.

Huge thanks to Kate Garrick and Margaux Weisman. Kate, your vision and your unwavering belief mean the world to me. Margaux, you made this happen and your superb skills made it all the better. I've been so lucky to work with both of you. Thank you to everyone at William Morrow/HarperCollins who helped turn this into a reality, especially Ashley Marudas, Lauren Jackson, Mumtaz Mustafa, and Julia Meltzer. Thanks also to Colin Farstad and Cathy Jacque. I'm so grateful to Lauren Acampora, Carlene Bauer, Sarah Bowlin, Stephanie Feldman, and Caroline Kepnes for all of your insight and encouragement. This book took shape over a number of years and it wouldn't really exist without the friendship of Alex Abramovich, Nida Alahmad, Kathleen Andersen, Jessica Berman Boatright, Coco Culhane, Jim Drain, Carrie Gabriel, Monica Khemsurov, Sam Lipsyte, Carole Obedin, Kelly Shimoda, Nicole Walker, and Rita Zilberman. Thank you to my friends and to my family, especially Renee Peppercorn, Phil Shapiro, Rebecca Shapiro, Reba and Hal McVey. And to the greatest of hearts, Lewis and Callum McVey.

About the Author

DEBORAH SHAPIRO
has published short stories in
Open City, Bridge,
and
Washington Square Review.
A graduate of Brown University, she has worked at
New York, Elle,
and
Self
magazines. She lives in Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and son.

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Credits

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

THE SUN IN YOUR EYES
. Copyright Â© 2016 by Deborah Shapiro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-243558-3

EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN 9780062435606

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