32. Out, and About

With Scott out of her life, Lana went right back to work on hitting the books and studying for the Bar. She reasoned that it would be a good idea to turn her attention to making her own money. In focusing on this, she let go of demons and blogging. Amy languished, unfed. Amy was not forgotten, far from it. She was being edited and proofed at Harper’s Monthly. Other editors at Harper-Collins were looking over captured blog pages that had floated up through the ranks. In meetings, the idea of turning that blog into a book was being discussed. It was pretty much agreed to; the question was how to approach Lana with an offer. She was technically unknown, but she came with a ready-made and sizeable following eager to buy. She was a good-looking woman and would be great, or at least look great on TV. The question was should she be approached as an unknown? Offer her the lure of publication only? Or should she be approached with an offer? If an offer of advance was to be made, how much should it be? How many copies of an “Amy Tells All” book did they think they could sell? One wag in a meeting said, “My daughter was obsessed with that blog while it lasted. I’d say, ‘sky’s the limit.’” “So, Frank, does that mean you want to advance her $50,000?” A shrug was the response.

With the winter break over, Julian and Dana went back to work teaching. Julian, fresh from the awakening any older man might feel when a lovely young woman falls in love with him, was really packing a punch in the classroom. He had his students take up Nabakov’s “Pale Fire.” He had them read the poem out loud. Nobody could tell him that this wasn’t literature. Dana was always good, but she was also in top form. Having romped her students through Kinsey and Berne, she now took up the topic of six current trends in psychiatry. These were 1.) “Earlier diagnosis and treatment;” 2.) “Developments in genetics;” 3.) “Targeting neuroplasticity;” 4.) “Neurostimulation, such as VNS, TBS, DNS;” 5.) “Psychopharmacogenics;” and 6.) “The intertwining of psychological and physical disorders.”
Her students looked at this list on the white board, and blanched. “Say what?” Their blank faces seemed to say. They had so little to go on that a discussion could not be mounted. Dana embarked on a lecture.

Bruce booked a flight to Oakland, and, hemorrhaging money, he flew the Skyhawk back to Parkersburg. He had much time to think things over in that four-day adventure. By the time he bounced down at the good old Scott Airfield, he had come up with a game plan that involved trying to rehabilitate Scott. He realized that some of this depended on Lana. He had come to the realization that without some softening from her, Scott was in deep trouble psychologically. Bruce had known Lana a long time. Since they had been in high school together, Bruce Sibley and Lana Andsersen had been close friends. He had always thought of her as a sister and a friend. He’d never put the moves on her, even though she was a well-acknowledged hottie. He contemplated the reason for this. She intimidated him intellectually. That was at the heart of his reticence, and it remained so. He could not imagine ever getting comfortable with her. Even as kids, she’d had an acid tongue. She could do much damage in two sentences or less. She had never done verbal damage to him, but he had seen her tear into others. She was, he thought, a very good person. She had a huge heart. She was a true friend, and easy to love. His wife and her friends all thought the world of her. The trouble came when she was mishandled. She took quite a bit of abuse, but at a certain point, she would stop, turn around, stand her ground, advance and strike. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen it happen. He thought that it had been between high school and college. That summer, she’d been going out with a guy named Brian. Brian was some sort of art guy. He painted, he drew, and maybe he also played guitar. He wasn’t in Bruce’s gang, the aviation crazed gang that included Scott. So who knew what all really went down? Apparently, Brian was into ‘free love.’ Lana was in love with this guy, and she sat at his feet at coffee houses and danced him up one side and down the other at the bars. He was older. She always liked older men. He probably smuggled drinks for her. She must have heard about the ‘free love’ thing, but when she discovered it for herself, caught him at it, she balked. Bruce remembered the party at which she’d lacerated him with a few nasty lines from her endless supply. There was not one curse word among them.
“I see your freedom, and I free myself from it.”
“Lana, wait.”
“Libertine, you are liberated.”
“You don’t understand…”
That was, as they say, that. It wasn’t just the words, though he always thought they were awesome. It was the about-face that followed it. She took up with Scott after that. Scott was no free lover. He regarded artists as some sort of pond scum. He was also a hottie. The sex those two had been legendary, or so Bruce kept hearing from those in the know, his wife included in that inner circle. This informed Bruce’s thinking on how likely Scott would fare by way of getting any conciliation from Lana, much less a rematch. Bruce was, himself, trepidatious about talking further with her about Scott. His last discussion had left the distinct hint of sulfur in the air.

When the Skyhawk hit the ground and then bounced back up, finally settling down a third of the way done the strip, Bruce had an audience. It was a watchful audience, but it remained seated in its swivel chair, doodling with a pencil. A pair of brown eyes watched the rest of the roll, watched the overuse of the brakes to come to a full stop just shy of the edge of the smoother grass, watched the gunning of the engine to pivot the plane on its tricycle, and get it bouncing back towards the hangar. Bruce was a rusty pilot, and the several landings he’d made lately were perhaps better than this last one. He was tired and anxious. Among the ideas that had swarmed in his mind was the one that accused Scott of letting him get rusty as a pilot by forcing him to do the paperwork while Scott flew all the sales trips. That was now going to change, Bruce thought. He got her stowed, and headed for the office. As he opened the door, he was shocked to see Scott sitting in his chair.
“Scott!”
“Bruce. Bouncer Bruce.”
Bruce shot Scott a hard look.
“How’d ya get out of the slammer, dude?”
“I did as you said. I got me a lawyer, and he got me out on my own recognizance. The pre-trial judge cut me some slack as a ‘first offender and as a low flight risk.’”
“Low flight risk. They do know you fly, don’t they?”
“No. The lawyer, a fellow named Bart Moscowitz, told me not to volunteer any information. I was sort of thinking that meant that I’d get to meet this judge. But it was all just paperwork. The hardest part was getting those dickwads at that prison to let me find an attorney, to let me use a phone. I had to enlist the aid of the nurse.”
“Well, great. You’re free. What a story, man. What did you need to see a nurse about?”
“Long, pointless story. You forgot to tell me that Lana got a restraining order against me.”
“I was trying to soften the blow.”
“So the moment I got out of the lockup, I got served.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m getting a legal education the hard way. A suit comes up and puts an envelope in your hands and says, ‘Are you Scott C. Andrews?’ I stupidly nod and he hands me the envelope. It’s not the Publisher’s Clearing House. It’s a restraining order and notice to appear. It’s a love note from my wife.”
“Scott, I’m sorry…”
“Yeah, yeah. Me too. I’m hanging out here until I can get a place. Perhaps you could go over to the house and see if she’ll let me have my car. If she will, maybe you could drive it back out here.”
“I could try that. But then how do I get back to my car?”
“I’ll drive you, you idiot.”
Bruce looked at Scott hard again.
“You can quit calling me an idiot while trying to get me to help you.”
He left out the word ‘asshole,’ which had been in his first draft.
“If you don’t help me, we can’t do business.”
Scott was up a point. It was almost refreshing to note that fresh out of the pokey, the man had gotten his edge back. It almost made him feel a slight tremor of optimism.
“Alright. Alright, but if you break the restraining order, that won’t be good. How close can you get to her?”
“The papers don’t say. There’s a lot of legal bullshit in there. I should run it by Bart, but that gets pricey. I’d say if I park down the block aways that should satisfy the court. I own that home. There’s something fucked up about her kicking me out. She’s gonna have to let me get some access to stuff that’s in there.
“I’ll talk to her. I was planning to anyway.”
“Glad to hear it.”

Bruce’s sense of optimism was short-lived. When he arrived at the office the next morning, he found Scott passed out on the floor. Scott had never been much of a drinker. He liked his cans of Foster’s, who knew why, but this was evidence of a different sort of investigation. He’d gotten into Lana’s stash of booze. She kept a supply of martini makings out there for those times when she and Scott had done some flying together. She liked to unwind afterwards. Scott had finished the martini makings, but it wasn’t clear whether he actually mixed up a drink. Both the gin and the vermouth bottles were overturned and empty. There was some evidence of staggering around; the trashcan was overturned and a shelf of papers had been upended. Scott was on his back, his arm over his eyes. He was sort of writhing around when Bruce entered the scene.
“Fuck.”
“Jeez, Scott. What happened here?”
“I figure if she can stand this shit, I can stand it.”
“It looks to me like you can’t.”
“I’m OK. Just let me go puke.”
“OK, you do that.”
He did that, a few times. When he emerged from the bathroom, he flopped down in his swivel chair and slumped.
“As you asked me to do, Scott, I called Lana about the car.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that you could have the car. She said she’d put anything she could think of that you need in the car, and then you could follow the stay away clause to the letter. She said she’d otherwise address you through the courts.”
“She’s being a bitch about it.”
Bruce shrugged. He was losing interest in playing the old games with Scott.
“So later, after you get your shit together, we can go get your car.”

Lana went though the house looking for stuff that shouted ‘day to day life with Scott.’ She put toiletries, aircraft brochures, bank books, checkbooks, clothes, shoes, belts, coats, and all sorts of miscellaneous Scott related stuff into boxes, and took the boxes out to his car. She spent about two hours on this purge in her afternoon. At the end of this labor, she sat down with Tory and Mea. It had been a few days now since she’d last messaged Julian. It seemed possible now to get through whole days without thinking of him. Perhaps that was a sign that the end was in sight. Had she finally sailed out onto the sea of solitude? She thought it might be fun now to go out again with the ‘evil sisters.’ She picked up the phone and set up an evening of fun and frolic. She only had to wait for the car pickup operation. If she put the keys under the flowerpot, she could even automate that. That’s what she did. She made a quick call to Bruce to clue him in. Then, all dressed up, out she went.