I spotted the back of a big sign on the lot. I drove past and craned my neck. Habitat for Humanity, it read. I couldn't help smiling. Somebody did me wrong, and now somebody was doing someone who needed it right. Of course, even nowadays I supposed the houses must be available to all "minorities." I doubted we'd ever see the name changed to Habitat for Unhumanity, though.
Still smiling, I decided to wheel out to Sunset City and look for Lili West's extended-life address. I'd been a reporter, right? Maybe it was high time to "report" my own backyard.
Chapter Eleven
ALL THE SUNSET City "retirement" homes had the owners' customized look and a matching mailbox with their name out front. Security was constant and universally electronic, no visible gates and guards needed.
Despite the open look to the curving streets, no one quite knew what kept these elderly residents "living" on. Rumor was that a good part of their physical presence was virtual and expensively maintained by only the very wealthy, as cosmetic surgery used to be.
Caressa Teagarden, who'd either moved to the Las Vegas Sunset City about when I'd left town, or had followed me there, was a Golden Age film actress originally named Lilah, who'd had a twin, Lili, she was estranged from long before I was born.
I had been an abandoned infant named after my foundling location. Delilah Street. Not in Wichita, Kansas, thank you. No biblical bad ladies name streets here. I also had a double, if not a twin. Lilith Quince was my sister shadow, glimpsed in my mirror after I'd seen her on TV. Lilith. Delilah. Yeah. Do the word game. Lili and Lilah all over again.
I was curious to see if Eddie's "Lili West" really lived here and would somehow fit into the complex crossword puzzle of my life and times.
Caressa, formerly Lilah, was unusual for this post - Millennium Revelation era in that she actually allowed herself to look old. That was a choice nowadays, and I don't know if I'd have the starch to make her decision forty years hence. Assuming I had another forty years. After anonymous docile years in Wichita group homes and educational institutions, I was suddenly finding the long, curved life-line in my right palm facing serial, sudden-death overtimes. The left-hand lifeline is the one you inherit. The right line is the one you make.
Speaking of sudden, I glimpsed an ornate wrought-iron "Lili West" on a mailbox pillar formed from pebbled stones in concrete.
Dolly eased to the opposite curb like a well-trained greyhound, hardly requiring my hand on the steering wheel. And why not? Any superior automobile would be privileged to park outside 240 Knot Way.
When you didn't know whether you'd been born in a house or a hospital or just next to the nearest Dumpster, you tended to fantasize about the perfect residence. Mine were always vintage, and this was a lovely 1920s creation, not a squat bungalow like I'd actually rented in Wichita, but a two-story brown stucco affair with a pine-top-high pointed roof promising numerous lofty attic gables to explore, and a towering brick chimney to match.
My home-longing imagination was already decorating this giant dollhouse.
Inside would be built-in glass-fronted bookcases flanking a tiled fireplace, cozy window seats in every bedroom, a mirror-topped built-in buffet in the dining room, which was big enough to seat twelve, many cozy closets under stairs and in gables for the inventive child to hide in.
It would be so different from the bland, one-story group homes I'd called prison.
I got out of Dolly and slammed her front door shut, knowing that solid, secure sound would be echoed here by the big wooden front door with the giant black wrought-iron hinges.
I could almost smell warm apples and cinnamon, the Realtor's favorite lures, wafting down the curving walk as I headed for the massive front door. Every town in the country had a neighborhood of homes this vintage - except Las Vegas.
True, I lived in the Enchanted Cottage on Hector Night-wine's estate, but that was a 1940s movie set made real. This house was another twenty years older, and, although not enchanted, it mesmerized me. Caressa's Sunset City residence near Las Vegas was so lakeside cottage compared to this.
I waltzed forward until I was eye-to-eye with the big iron knocker, paused, picked up the heavy striker in the shape of a W and let it fall back with a thump like thunder. I'd grown up in Wichita hoping to be invisible, but