Robbie used to tell stories about how when her family returned from vacations spent water-skiing on the Colorado river, her mother would, at two or three in the morning, begin to vacuum.

"She'd do anything to get out of sex with my dad. He started having affairs, but it just made him more of an asshole than he was before.

"He always used to prefer my company to hers. I think she resented it. I would have. I would have hated me. But she didn't. She was sweet. I hated her for that. Hated him too."

Each progressive year Robbie became more disconnected from her parents, and this became plainest at Christmas time.

"I told them they could come over if they wanted to, but they're crazy if they think I'm driving to Downy just to see them."



Robbie would be drunk or stoned or both by the time her parents got to her apartment. Bewildered and uncomfortable, in her living room decorated with taxidermied monkeys and snakes, they would try to engage her in light conversation.

"How's Gram? Why didn't you bring her?" was the only thing she wanted to know, and then she'd lapse into belligerent silence again.

They would glance at the TV set, covered with crayon squiggles from where Robbie and Janis had once drawn mustaches on talk show guests - and then at each other. They could not understand how they had produced this relentless offspring.

In the car on the way home they'd be silent. And that night in bed, they would hold each other with an intensity of need they had forgotten long ago.

Then Robbie had discovered Mexico. It was cheap and far away enough so that she couldn't be expected to even phone her family. Robbie had found her escape.

She listened, bristling with impatience at Janis' dread of the coming holiday.

"Dude, you're just so tied up with your family, you'll never get away. You even do your laundry at home still. Just tell them to fuck off. That's what I do."

But when Robbie headed south across the border, with whoever her current boyfriend was in tow, Janis felt like she was the one who had been left - with no alternative.



It had been Robbie who had come over drunk and glittering with expectation to initiate their first sexual episode. Janis had been with many women, Robbie with none. But her curiosity had been piqued by the exotic and somewhat fashionable idea. Bisexuality was just one of the things that went with black. To Robbie, Janis was something to conquer within herself.

To Janis, Robbie was different enough from her last lover to convince her that she was not still powering the same self-destructive treadmill. It was flattering to be seduced by a straight girl, and convenient too, since Janis would not have had the confidence to pull it off herself.

Robbie's excitement in the relationship came from near-public acts of sex - in dressing rooms and cars parked at Malibu beach. Her favorite aphrodisiac involved going to bars to see how many drinks she could get unsuspecting men to buy the two of them. Later, in bed, drunk and sloppy she would make painful, careless love.

"You know," she'd say catching her breath afterwards, "I'm not a lesbian."



Janis knew Robbie was still seeing men. Her friends would hint at it.

"Hey, I saw Rob the other night with the singer from the Heaters."

"You should have seen Robbie at the Zero. She was wasted and sitting on some guy's lap. I don't know. They disappeared later."

Sometimes Robbie herself would call on a Sunday morning.

"Dude, come get me. We can have breakfast and then go to the Philosophers Club. But I'm not at home. Let me give you the address.

"Where are we?" she'd ask, and Janis would hear the deep rumblings of her companion through the uncovered receiver.

Often Janis wouldn't see her for weeks and then one afternoon she'd call, tired, cautious, pleasant. She would come over, bring a movie and curl up on the bed like a wayward kitten retrieved from a unforeseen harsh storm. She would cook Janis Chicken Kiev, and bake homemade sweet potato pie.

Patting the crust into the pie pan, she would say, "Sometimes, my teeth get so tense".

Then, with wounds licked and heart lighter, she was gone.



It was predictably hot this Christmas Eve. Janis always marveled, on the few occasions she had come home, at how quickly she had replaced her Los Angeles wardrobe.

It had been natural to trade in shorts and tank tops, her light, insubstantial clothes, for the warmer, heavier wear she needed to survive up North. She'd always felt uncomfortable anyway with the near nakedness of Angelenos. Uncomfortable with her body that would not comply to fashionable norms, that would not tan quickly or forgive those chocolate chip cookies eaten furtively at her parents house on the weekends Robbie was not around.

It had been a relief to hide under layers. To buy longer, bulkier, coats. To eat without guilt because anorexia really was a mental disorder and not the expected shape for women's bodies. But now, sweltering in her car in December, she wished she had packed something besides sweaters.

Janis exited the Hollywood Freeway a few miles before she reached the city and took the long way in through the tail end of the San Fernando Valley. Driving down Laurel Canyon Boulevard was an irresistibly melancholy journey through her failed relationships.

First, through Studio City past the music store where Laura used to work. Laura with whom she had ended up because they were both in love with the same woman who didn't want either of them. Next past the apartment where she'd done so much cocaine with Kathy - alcoholic Kathy who she could barely remember after those two years together.

Finally past the house hidden in the hills on Crescent Drive, where she'd lived with Valerie. The house she'd left about the time teenagers started coming to the door to buy Valerie's Quaaludes. The house she had moved out of six months before she met Robbie.

Lush Laurel Canyon climbed over the hills from valley to city. At its base it widened like a river delta, changed its name to Crescent Heights, and spilled out into Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica, Melrose, Beverly, each boulevard a possible outlet to the sea.

On the corner of Crescent and Sunset, where Schwab's drugstore had stood, a construction site now sprawled. Legendary Schwab's, where Lana Turner had been discovered at the soda fountain, where young Marilyn Monroe waited by the pay phone, holding her breath, to hear about the role that might finally change her life.

It had grieved Janis to watch the drugstore's slow demise over the years. First, the fixtures had been sold. Then it had been turned into a nightclub by transplanted New Yorkers. Thankfully, the humiliating concept of being picked out of the line on the street to be selectively admitted had not caught on in Los Angeles.

The club had closed within a month. New Yorkers consistently pushed their high-strung attitudes on Californians, but Californians would always reclaim their right to inertia. A lackadaisical shrug before they ambled back to their patios signaled the demise of many east coast schemes in the suburban sprawl.

The building had stood empty for years. Janis would drive by, relieved it was still there, if only its shell. Glad it had defied the nightclub promoters, land developers and realtors.

Until the 1930s, the Hollywood film studios had not thought to protect their product for posterity. They lost most of their early silent films when the celluloid deteriorated.

Coming soon, a sign read above Schwab's, Laurel Pavilion.



At Melrose Avenue she headed East. She had shopped here for years and still liked to come when she was in town. It was force of habit more than anything. She didn't really know where to shop up north, wasn't really comfortable there in the towering department stores. Here on this almost neighborly stretch, where everything was at eye level, she could relax.

Once, years before, she had worked on Melrose at a movie magazine. Robbie would meet her for lunch and they'd go to boutiques, where Robbie would model tiny black dresses that seemed designed for Mini-Mouse. They'd go to the thrift stores where Janis would try on military jackets. The sharp golden stripes on the sleeves made her feel solid.

The street was crowded today with last minute-shoppers, and as she circled the usual blocks looking for a parking spot, she noticed, that though many of the boutiques had changed names, the Golden Age retirement home, across the street from Johnny Rocket's hamburger stand, remained.

Golden Age was built in the 1960s in Janis most hated architectural style. To her knowledge, there was no name for this particular box shape, covered with glittering yellowish stucco, sprayed on from a high-pressure gun. She imagined the ceilings inside were the same, and the thought of growing old staring at yellowing cottage cheese depressed her unbearably.

She and Robbie used to joke that when they retired they would come to Golden Age. They would still shop at the girlish boutiques and thrift stores. They would watch the flashy, young kids on their Harleys across the street, and they would never get too crotchety to smile.

But to choose this type of exile now struck Janis as one step removed from being one of those ex-starlets haunting Hollywood Boulevard. They always looked ninety, and their hair, a wig usually, was matted into inadvertent blonde dredlocks. Their dresses were short, makeup thick.

Sweltering in balding fur coats draped around wasted frames they would walk the star-paved sidewalk. They were frightening apparitions with garish lipstick and grotesque smiles. These women, who had never made it, never lived their dreams, but never let them go, were a constant reminder to Angelenos of the shadows lurking at the periphery of the sunshine.

At least at the home someone would brush out the wig occasionally, Janis thought.



The Philosophers Club had become the only place where Janis could trust Robbie to be a safe date. At parties, or bars Robbie would leave Janis with a shrug and a sneer at the first offer of drugs or sex. But up there, with feet planted in the crumbling granite, and a million swimming pools glittering bluish below them, Janis had Robbie's undivided attention. There, with feet in the dirt and eyes on the horizon, Robbie did not attack, and Janis did not have to defend or justify.

The last time they had gone was a warm August night. They'd long before ceased dating, and now that they were not desperate to change each other into more acceptable reflections, their friendship had reached a level of acceptance if not satisfaction.

"C'mon," Robbie had said after her eighth beer in a Vine Street bar, "Let's cut out of here. I feel like philosophizing."

If it had been anyone else, Janis would have insisted on driving. But it seemed easier to let the car go off the side of the road, if that was their destiny, than to convince Robbie she was not in control. Robbie was like a tightly coiled desert rattler, weaving, myopic, waiting to strike any apparent foe. Exercising caution, her fangs could usually be avoided. But sharpened by alcohol, she could let loose her stinging venom with an alacrity unmatched in sobriety.

Tonight however, she was in a playful mood. They abandoned the car and made their way past the No Trespassing sign up the fire road.

"Dude," Robbie shouted from above her on the embankment, "hurry up. What are you? Afraid of the dark?"

"Shut up," Janis stage-whispered, gesturing in the direction of the homes only a dozen yards away.

Robbie laughed and reached down her hand. Janis grabbed it and scrambled up.

Obscured by darkness and cloaked in its twinkling overcoat, the city waited below. Like an unfaithful ex-lover whose memory grows more appealing as time wears away the harsh reality of the experience, from this distance Janis could be in love with the idea of the City of Angels.

Robbie was still holding her hand.

"Its beautiful up here."

They stood in silence for a moment. Then suddenly Robbie ran a few feet away, threw her arms out and began to spin.

"Hey, I'm a speck. I'm a floating particle in the universe. And I'm all alone," she shouted. "I'm all alone."

She laughed and spun and finally, crumpled into a dizzy heap. Janis offered her hand. Robbie reached up, grabbed it and pulled Janis on top of her in the dirt. All around them, Janis could hear the timid rustling of bright-eyed kangaroo rats and California quail hiding in the chaparral. She could smell the night blooming jasmine that grew wild all over the city, perfuming the summer nights until the sun withered it away.

But all she could feel now, was Robbie insistent beneath her.

The next morning Janis realized she had lost her wallet some time the night before. As she made her way up the hill, the sky was already yellowish with the early fog and auto exhaust that typified summer mornings. On the crest where they had made scratchy, unexpected love, her leather pouch lay undisturbed among the rusty beer cans and broken bottles - a silent witness of the previous night. Beyond, the city swam in brown soup.

She picked up the wallet and stood for a moment rubbing her inflamed eyes. She knew that the next time she saw Robbie, a day or a month from now, they wouldn't speak of this. It would be a secret they would keep even from each other.



The sky was blue above Melrose Avenue. As a child Janis had rarely seen blue skies except when her family went camping in Northern California. For a long while after she'd moved, she had unconsciously felt as if she were perpetually on vacation.

Janis put on her sunglasses and strolled down the street, postponing her inevitable return home. She was relieved to mingle unnoticed in the holiday crowd. And she was elated to discover that the secret shame she'd always felt here had finally disappeared. Her fear - that she was not slender enough, or attractive enough - that though she assiduously studied the uniforms everyone wore, she would still awkwardly pull together exactly the wrong combination. That she would show herself to be different, give herself away, open herself to the silent ridicule she saw in the face of each sleek passerby - those fears had evaporated.

Janis hummed softly. From here she could see the Hollywood sign leering down at her from Mount Lee. She grinned back.

After that night in the hills she and Robbie had not gone there again. It had become somehow tainted, and the definition of the Philosophers Club was broadened to include a variety of substitute locations that could similarly pass for nature in the city. The Santa Monica mountains divided the town from the center of Hollywood to the sea, and there they found many places that captured the same mood.

Lake Hollywood, a wooded reservoir tucked in the hills above the town became a favorite place to escape. Or sometimes they'd climb to Errol Flynn's ruined estate at the top of Runyon Canyon. There they'd dangle their feet in the green waters of the abandoned swimming pool and talk through the afternoon and into the salmon twilight. In those moments they were almost content.



As her friends settled into homes and careers, Robbie maintained her bleak singularity. She would not settle. Despite her protests, she was infected with the hometown obsession to find the golden dream - to discover the elusive lifestyle promised on the faces of kids who hawked maps to Movie Stars homes alongside the green lawns of Beverly Hills. If you had the right tools, the right connections, the right looks, you could navigate your way there too. Her friends compromised, but Robbie continued, frustrated, to bang the bars of her cage.

"What's wrong with you? With everybody? You don't ever want to go out. No one wants to have fun anymore. All anyone talks about is having babies and buying houses. Its so mediocre. Its so bor-ing!

"Everyone's turning into my fucking parents."



They had finally planned a trip to Mexico together that last year: Robbie, her boyfriend John, and Janis. By then, Janis had stopped caring about the boyfriends. Anything that diluted Robbie had become welcome.

They set the date, chose the Yucatan and drank margaritas at Mexican restaurants in anticipation. Robbie instructed Janis in basic Spanish, having her repeat phrases to her satisfaction.

"Dick!" she roared. "You just said, I would like to fuck you and your brother in my hotel room. You'd better be careful what you say down there."

Her blue eyes glinted, round with innocence.



Janis didn't know how long it had been since she'd fallen out of love with Robbie. But she realized she had the night John had cozied up to her on the patio at El Coyote. They'd become friends, exchanging understanding looks above Robbie's head. Their camaraderie was rooted in the unspoken shared experience of having lain in the bed of nails.

"Robbie told me she treats us the meanest because she loves us the best," John had once cheerfully told her.

From their table they watched the crowd. Despite the limp, mediocre fare, like prop versions of real food, El Coyote was always crowded. But this was not a place to eat. It was a place to be seen.

To Janis, this would always be the restaurant where actress Sharon Tate had last eaten before she went to her Benedict Canyon home to become immortalized by the Manson Family. Gaseous from bad Mexican food and the advanced stages of pregnancy, Sharon was murdered by psychotic amphetamine freaks, dressed all in black. There were many random paths to fame, Janis thought finishing her second or third Margarita.

She could see the residual fear still frozen on the faces of the canyon residents two decades later. Fingers poised just above security buttons, they would watch her and Robbie from behind their gates as the two walked the dusty roads behind their mansions into the hills.

"Robbie told me everything about you guys," John began, "and I think its beautiful. Maybe in Mexico the three of us could, you know, share a room. I don't mind if you guys want to - do anything."

Janis just smiled and licked salt from the rim of the glass. After three drinks she didn't have the inclination to explain to John what offended her in his ignorant proposition. More surprising to her, however, was that she didn't feel repulsed as much as she felt weary.

Janis had been sleeping with Robbie on and off for years now. Sometimes months would pass in between. It had been more than twelve months now, and Janis hadn't thought much about it. Didn't care anymore - wasn't interested. Disinterest wasn't something John had considered.

Robbie hadn't considered it either.



It was Thanksgiving and Janis had caught the phone just as she was walking out the door in route to her parents house.

"Dude, you should come over. I've got the turkey in the oven and everyone's going to be here."

Janis could hear the first stages of liquor in Robbie's voice.

"I don't think so."

"Oh right, just crawl home to your Mommy and Daddy."

"Did you call just to taunt me?"

"No, look, we have to change the trip to the week after Christmas. Remember that leather jacket we saw on Melrose? Yeah, well, I bought it, and now I won't have enough money for the trip until the following week."

"I already got the time off for Christmas. I can't just change it now."

"Oh, I forgot I was dealing with Miss Uptight."

"I'm serious. If that's when you're going, I can't go," Janis' voice was cold. "And I can't believe you just changed the plan without asking."

"Come on. Just deal with it," Robbie demanded. "You are being such a dick, you are breaking the Dick-O-Meter."

Janis could feel the muscle in her jaw contracting, bearing down the way it did when she slept.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't know if I want to talk to at all anymore."

It had been simple. An accident really. With just a few words she had steered straight into the fatality. Unplanned, but inevitable. The crumbs of Robbie's humanity had never been enough for Janis. She was through waiting.



Afterwards, on the freeway to her parents house, she'd felt light-headed, flushed and dizzy with the heat of finally released anger flooding up her spine, into her head. She was almost drunk with the power.

Almost as drunk as her mother who greeted her at the door.

"I'm so glad you're not going away for Christmas. Now you can come home. You know how much your father looks forward to having the family together."

"Shut up, Mom."



It was Robbie walking toward her. Janis was certain. Swinging her shopping bag off pointed elbows, her chin jutting out as she talked with her companion, Robbie was all angles. Still severe as always.

Janis unconsciously held her breath. Here it was. The moment she had thought about for five years. Janis had never regretted the harshness of the goodbye, just its finality.

And what was there to say after this long silence? Sorry was not exactly what she felt. Sad maybe, that so many years had dissolved into a morass of selfish petulance. But, nothing weak. Robbie would attack if she smelled sentimentality.

Janis knew she could not wait passively for Robbie to notice her. That had been the whole timbre of their relationship.

She would make the approach. Why not? They had been friends and lovers for years. Surely something survived of the feeling that had held them together. Janis felt it. Janis remembered it every day. Just seeing her like this, she was overwhelmed with the desire to hang in Robbie's arms and cry.



Janis had called her once before she moved away.

"Oh, San Francisco. Well, you always did like those old hippies."

Their call was interrupted and after the third day had gone by Janis stopped thinking Robbie would really call back, as she'd promised.



Robbie looked up. She was wearing sunglasses. For a moment her dark lenses met Janis'. All eyes obscured. Janis smiled. Robbie turned her head, gestured to her friend and then disappeared into a thrift store.

Robbie had always been nearsighted, Janis remembered. Too vain for glasses. She hadn't even seen her.

Later in the car as she drove down the street for one last look, she spotted Robbie in an outdoor cafe. She had her legs up on a table, and was leaning back with a beer in her hand. Her friend was talking animatedly, but Robbie's head was turned away.

She was looking up at the Hollywood sign.

One of Us © Suzanne Rush 2001 - First published in "youtalkingtame?" #2 "Totally Made-Up Stories"