Chapter Text
Find the soundscape here.
August, 1965
Hawaii
He isn’t expecting her to be waiting up for him. In fact, Jay isn’t really expecting to see her again at all, aside from the whole business of having to fly back to Los Angeles together, elbow-to-elbow, in what Jay graciously considers to be a tin can. That’ll be a pleasant flight, he’s sure. In true teenager fashion, Fauna is quite adept at giving the cold shoulder.
Which is why it comes as a complete and total surprise when he pulls up in front of the hotel and finds her sitting outside, perched on the edge of the little patio outside the door, bathed in the sticky orange light thrown out from the uncovered bulb above the room number.
For a minute, Jay stays where he is, listening to the ticking of the engine as it cools and the beginning taps of the rain on the roof of the car. The further he’d gotten from the leafy forest surrounding Tamar’s humble abode, the further, too, he’d gotten from Tamar, the less eerie the approaching storm had seemed. Without her wide-eyes, her resigned smirk, her campfire tales, it had been easier to think of the rumble of thunder and the drizzle of rain as exactly what is was: daily life in Hawaii.
Jay is certain Fauna knows that he’s watching her from the driver’s seat, certain that she knows, too, that he’s trying to figure out how to face her. She looks so like her mother, here in the artificial light of the only bungalow in the row with illuminated windows. It’s late, but even still Jay doubts this place sees a lot of business. He also doubts that Fauna would be all that flattered by the comparison that his mind makes.
Sighing, he goes to open the door, reaching for the camera on the passenger seat. It’s his most treasured possession, now. Or, at least, the roll of film inside is. The roll loaded with the photos of the paintings that Hodel had sent his daughter, macabre little souvenirs of dead women. Jay figures he shouldn’t be surprised. What else should he expect from a man who raped his own daughter and chased her off to Hawaii?
The rain is picking up and Jay figures it’s probably now or never. It’s a bit of relief, seeing Fauna awake and sitting outside. He’d been debating for the entire drive, trying to figure out where it was worth it to try and creep into the hotel room, purely for the purpose of using the bathroom and changing out of his clothes in a space bigger than the backseat of the car. He hadn’t quite been sure how he’d felt about sneaking in and out of her room in the dark, not with stories of the boogeyman running through his mind, but now it seems like he might not have to do any sneaking at all.
Assuming she doesn’t start throwing her shoes at him, or something.
Not that he thinks she’s the type to be waiting up just for the purpose of hurling footwear.
Jay carefully tucks the camera under his arm, ducking his head against the insistent tapping of the rain drops on the back of his neck. He quickens his pace, the gravel crunching under his feet as he steps up the path toward the edge of the porch. He stands, uncertain, a foot from where Fauna’s own bare foot is nosing around absently in the bleached rocks.
“Can I…” Jay isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. The rain is like a finger down the back of his spine, slipping underneath the collar of his shirt, and he holds the camera tighter to his chest.
Fauna just nods, not looking at him as he steps up onto the porch and around her, more delicate in his steps than he can remember being in quite some time. He’s reluctant to touch her, even quickly, even by accident, even with her sitting directly in his path.
He’s kept his suitcase in the room, reluctant to leave it in the trunk of his car, and it sits beside Fauna’s worn, cheap case, the buckles tarnished, the handle frayed from so many hands. Not that he thinks his own luggage or the stuff inside it is hardly anything to write home about. Jay ignores Fauna’s things, taking the film from the camera and wrapping it carefully into a pair of socks. Just in case. It had worked out well enough with the photos of Janice Brewster, after all.
Jay straightens, glancing back over his shoulder, to where he can see Fauna silhouetted in the doorway. The last time he’d seen her, hours before, it had been before he was getting ready to drive back to Tamar’s home in the midst of the forest and he’d asked, like an idiot, “Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Like they might still somehow have a sort of mother-daughter bonding experience on the heels of the bombshell Tamar had dropped earlier.
And, anyway, what would he have done if Fauna had said yes? Needled Tamar into talking about George Hodel with Fauna sitting right there?
But Fauna had only looked at him, a familiar expression on her face. Familiar in the sense that Jay was used to seeing it on the faces of many people before her. Disappointment. “You’re really going to talk to her.”
Not a question, not really, but Jay knew he was going to give the wrong answer anyway.
“I have to.”
Fauna had looked at him and he’d felt like he’d messed up, somehow, because Jay had no idea what he was supposed to read from her expression. So he’d just left, hurrying to the car and wishing for a drink, even if it would have made the twisting roads more difficult to navigate.
So what is he supposed to do now? Join her on the porch for a little heart-to-heart? The idea makes him want to laugh out loud, though it would likely do little to endear him to Fauna. When has he ever had anything heartfelt or meaningful to say to anyone?
Still, it seems better than the alternatives. Maybe not the heart-to-heart part, but the part where he stops standing in the middle of this room like an idiot or the part where he just ignores her and goes out into the car and tries to sleep like he hasn’t just been given the proof that he’d always wanted and even more. Oh, so much more.
Jay just goes back outside and he leans against the door frame, trying to look anywhere but Fauna. The rain is picking up intensity, drumming against the tin awning overhead, sluicing off the corrugated edges and into the gravel and grass below. By morning, he figures, the rain will be gone, the sky beautiful and blue again. Tourists will get their perfect vacation. And Jay figures they’ll have clear skies for flying.
“Well.” Fauna says finally and Jay is surprised, not just because he’s starting to come to the understanding that Fauna is a girl of few words anyway, but because she’s the one to break the silence in the first place. “Did you get what you needed?”
He feels guilty, but he nods. “Yeah. I did, actually.”
“Then I guess it was worth it.”
Jay isn’t sure how to respond to that particular statement, though it doesn’t seem like Fauna really expects him to anyway. Her back is still to him and her dress, with all its bright colors, the one that had seemed so hopeful a few days before, now looks slightly ridiculous here, on this porch in the middle of the night with the rain beating down overhead.
Even worse is the feeling in his chest, the certainty that, yeah, it was worth it. The voice in the back of his mind, the one telling him that all he’d had to sacrifice to get to talk to Tamar, to get the photos, to get the truth, was this girl here in front of him. He rubs at the building headache, a hollowness in the center of his stomach.
“Did she ask about me?” Her voice is quiet, her tone agitated, annoyed, though Jay figures the brittleness isn’t for him at all, but to conceal her own embarrassment.
Jay clears his throat and the hollowness grows. “Uh. Yeah. I think she was hoping you might have changed your mind and wanted to see her.”
Fauna looks over her shoulder, unamused. “Still a liar.”
Jay doesn’t even have a good lie to change her mind.
Thunder rumbles in the distance, the trees shaking in the wind, shedding water droplets. For a beat, two, the only sound comes from the rain overhead. Then Fauna gets up, her bare feet soundless on the square patio. “We’re still leaving tomorrow, right?”
What could he get, with one more day? What could he accomplish? Or, maybe, he could even do what he’d promised he would: create some sort of charming reunion, bring mother and daughter together for some ridiculously overpriced pancake breakfast where everything is somehow okay in spite of, well, everything.
But Jay doesn’t think he can stand to have told her even one more lie. So he nods. “Yeah. Tomorrow. Our flight is in the afternoon.”
Fauna nods, satisfied, and steps past him and into the room. She leaves the door open, an invitation, Jay figures, to use the sink, the bathroom, to make himself as comfortable as possible before he has to stretch out in the backseat of the rented car. But, for a moment, Jay stays where he is, trying to ease the tightness in his chest, the throbbing in his head. Suddenly, he can’t wait to be back in L.A., putting down the first words in the story that will change everything.
At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself, anyway.