Hard Rain Read Free Page B

one saw. The street was deserted.
    Jessie Shapiro’s watch said 3:30. The colon dividing hours from minutes flashed every second to remind her that time marched on. Flash, flash, flash. She didn’t need reminding.
    3:31. Jessie looked down Idaho, anticipating the sight of a blue BMW going too fast, a fair-haired man behind the wheel and little girl beside him. But there was no BMW. No fair-haired man. No little girl.
    No cars at all. Too cold for the beach, too early for going out. The massed boredom of fifteen million people was almost palpable. Soon they’d have to shop, but for now the traffic hum was no louder than beehives at a safe distance. The sky was the color of tin, and the sun hung at a strange low angle, small as a softball and drab white. Mid-November in L.A. Sunday afternoon.
    3:33. That made Pat thirty-three minutes late. Kate was due at the birthday party at 4:00. Pat knew this. Jessie had told him when she dropped Kate off Friday afternoon. Twice. Coming and going. The second time he’d gotten that look in his eye, the bugged teenager look, and said: “How many times are you going to tell me?”
    â€œTill I get some acknowledgment,” she’d wanted to say. But there was no point fighting with him now. Fighting was for the married. Divorce was peace.
    3:40. A mother went by, pushing a stroller. The mother was cracking her gum; her Walkman was turned up so loud Jessie could identify the song: “Sometimes When We Touch.” The baby had a runny nose; he looked like Buddy Hackett. They were the only signs of life.
    â€œDamn,” Jessie said, going into the house and closing the door harder than she had to. The house shook. She was strong. It was weak: small, pretty and frail, like an aging belle with osteoporosis. Jessie had drawn up plans to rebuild it from the bottom up. All she was waiting for were money and time.
    She went inside, under the only object of value she owned, a little Calder mobile that she’d taken as payment from a client, past a pile of tennis equipment, hers and Kate’s, and into the kitchen. There was no point in calling Pat: he’d told her that they were going sailing for the weekend and that he’d bring Kate back directly from the marina. Jessie picked up the phone and dialed his number anyway. “Hi,” said a woman’s voice she didn’t recognize and didn’t like. “No one’s here right now, but just leave a message and we’ll buzz you back. Promise.”
    â€œJesus,” Jessie said, putting down the phone, too, a little harder than she had to. Doubts about letting Kate spend every second weekend with her father popped up in her brain. She forced them down with the usual arguments—Kate liked spending time with Pat, a girl needs a father, what possible harm could come of it? Besides, she’d agreed in writing to the visits when she’d signed the divorce agreement, a document as important to their lives as the Constitution, and just as difficult to amend.
    She went back to the doorway, looked down Idaho. “Damn.” The party was in Beverly Hills. It would take at least half an hour to get there. She’d hoped to squeeze in a few hours of work. Instead she was standing in the doorway. In a bad mood.
    3:50.
    The phone rang. Jessie ran in and answered it.
    â€œHi, Jessie. It’s Philip.”
    â€œHi.”
    â€œDon’t sound so excited.”
    â€œSorry, Philip. I just thought it was someone else.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œPat, I mean,” she said with impatience she hadn’t meant for Philip. “He’s late bringing Kate back.” Now she was complaining to him; stop it, she told herself. “What’s up?”
    â€œIt’s finished.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œâ€˜Valley Nocturne.’”
    Jessie heard a car parking in front of the house. “That’s good. Listen, Philip, I—”
    â€œWhen can you come and see it?