Roll with the Punches (32 page)

I took a deep breath, but didn't cross my fingers. "Sure, Dad. I promise."
For the second time this week.
His memory really had left the building.

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*
      
*

At lunchtime, we visited Mom, who winced at me. "Honey, is your mirror broken? That red in your hair matches your nose, and those big circles under your eyes … Raccoony.”

The red dye had not washed out, like Harley had promised.

"And your dad told me about that awful brawl with those Anaheim Abalones. I don't think you should skate with them."

"Amazons, Mom. Not Abalones. And it wasn't their fault. Except for Hippo and Cleo. The crowd took their masks as a license to pillage. Then with the real strippers there …" Oops.

She gave me her old try-and-fool-yourself-but-don't-think-you're-fooling-me look.

"Mom, Yvette skates for the Irvine Iridescence in the same league. They can't be too bad." Right. "And anyway, this is only temporary until I …" What? Was there any sense continuing to fool myself that I could really find out who had plagiarized my book?

Later, I swung by my apartment with Dad to see if my manuscripts had reappeared with the 'ha-ha-fooled-you' note James had predicted. Nope. Nor had James returned my laptop. I realized I'd have to use my old backup disks holding early drafts of
Memory Serves
for the lawyer appointment on Thursday. I went to the drawer where I kept them. Empty. I looked in another drawer, and another. I got Dad to help me look in sock drawers and under my bed. I even checked the toilet tank.

Shit. All my backup disks were off to Cancun along with the paper copies. Why hadn't I checked for them when the hard copies had disappeared? I now had no concrete proof I'd written my own book except for the laptop. And I didn't even know where James lived to go get that.

That afternoon, I left several mean messages for James and called all my reader friends to try to track down a paper copy of even a chapter of my book. No return calls. Had they all been turned against me on the blogosphere?

Then Yvette called. "Rhonda, James had to leave town. He needs to cancel your Monday meeting. But I need—"

I laughed. "You mean
date
. We have a date." If crazy Yvette was now resorting to carrying dubious messages for James, I was certainly not going to give her the satisfaction of knowing how mad I was at him. "And I'll believe he can't come when he calls me himself. You know he and I are involved. And I'm not at all sorry I messed up your little witch dance the other night or your date with George, so just go call someone else and see if they fall for your lies and spiteful comments about me and Reynard Jackson. Get a life—"

"Oh, darling." the BBC accent purred, much louder, "You've got it all wrong. I'm on your side. You don't think I care about how that wanker George sees me? Or how ridiculous you looked on stage? I just pitied you for getting
exposed
like that. I mean, that's why our group had the jackets and hats, you know? So the crowd wouldn't want a piece of
us
. Didn't you get the memo? Of course, Manny was spitting tacks about the nasty brawl." Suddenly, her voice changed to an urgent whisper. "Rhonda, quick. About Reynard Jackson, I may know something. James—"

"Along with the rest of the country," I said. "Look, I already confessed. It's me. Or is it you?"

"Rhonda. Listen. I really need your computer password, as well as James's. I have—"

"Are you drunk?" I yelled. "Why would I give
you
of all people my password? After all the nasty stuff you spread about me, trying to make it look like I stole my own work!"

A male voice spoke behind her.

Her voice rose back to a tinny whine. "No, dear, James is completely off limits. In case you didn't get that memo either, he and I are engaged. That's why I joined the writers' group in the first place, to meet his little friends." Then she lowered her voice again. "Rhonda! I have your computer and I really need your—"

"Yvette," I said. "You should change your drugs."

Yvette said, brightly, "Have to run, darling.
Call me
.”

Click
.

Really odd.

And then the penny dropped. Engaged? No freaking way. After James had just subjected me to closet near-sex and I put up with it, he was engaged? I tried to call Yvette back, but her number wasn't listed and *69 didn't work. James still wouldn't answer, nor would the other group members.

I was still fuming when Cathy showed up at the door and flopped down by me on the plaid couch across from a dozing Music Man. I popped a can of bean dip, raided Dad's tortilla chips, and she wheedled the whole James saga out of me with Mayberry RFD reruns blaring as background music.

"Why can't James just give Yvette your password?"

"He promised to keep it secret. Course, he promised me a Venice Beach date, too." I shoved a handful of chips in my mouth. "Anyway, she’s delusional. He’d never let her near my laptop or get engaged to her. She must be seriously disturbed."

"That tiny-ass cabrita," she said. "She’s probably a hacker. I bet she took your book. Too bad you can't get back at her.”

"Well, I did memorize her credit card number." It just slipped out. Honest.

"Oh, my God!" Cathy gleefully jumped up and grabbed my purse. She fished out a handful of business cards. "This is gonna be fun!" Cathy dialed, pushed the speakerphone button, and was rewarded by a cheerful hello.

"Do you sell Veggiegreat Vitamins?" Cathy asked.

"Certainly, luv," the woman crooned, very Britishy. Must have been the company Harley had referred me to for my split ends and dull nails.

In no time, Cathy ordered eight hundred dollars' worth of assorted vitamins and gave Yvette's name, then gestured for me to write down Yvette's MasterCard number. Okay, I'd done the mass pizza delivery prank in high school, but this was real money. The cool green and blue credit card number was dancing on my tongue, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.

Saved in the queen's tones by the woman on the phone. "Yvette? Darling! I didn't recognize your voice. Working on your Mexican accent for another play?"

Cathy and I clapped our hands over our mouths.

"That business card was Yvette's, not Harley's!" I mouthed.

Fresh from my Monty Python Fest, I took the phone, pinched my nose and spoke in my best Yvette impersonation, with all the Britishisms I could muster. "Sorry, that was my assistant. I just—uh—have a—a biscuit stuck in my throat. Got a new tin for Guy Fawkes Day. Had a dismal day—tear-arsing about from the Waitrose to the barrister's to the chemist's when my lorry bonnet and boot just popped open at the same time, causing me to stop dead on the motorway with a pack of daft motorists all round making faces like puckish bulldogs chewing wasps. One threw a benny and called me a mad chicken for making him sit in a tailback. I felt as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. Ha-ha-ha. Then a copper, thick as pig shit, took my driving license, sent me packing, and now here I am, safe as houses, ringing you."

Pause. "Ha-ha! You little dickens, Yvette! Been at the sherry again? Playing cockney? But darling, this is such a large order. The Manly Man Vites? Oh, of course. For you-know-whom!" She tittered. "And this bowel cleanser—after all that cleansing last month, are we already back to our cement-like movements already, dear? Insufficient fiber clogging our poo chute? Wouldn't you prefer a bit of magnesium to that bowel flushing stuff? I mean only anorexics—"

"Send me five bottles." I choked out before covering the phone with my hand to laugh.

"Lovely, dearie. That'll be $85.80 more." She nattered on, "Still using Winkler? I guess one week isn't much time to get used to Connors. Such a sweet wedding. I loved your mum. And James.”

Huh? Yvette really was married? To a Connors? To James Connors? I sat down hard.

"And, my dear. You ordered Mommy-To-Be Vites! That's grand! And so early in the marriage, too. If I promise not to count on my fingers, will you whisper the due date?"

Cathy ran out of the room, howling.

The woman went on. "Is that a cat? Well, don't change the cat litter if you're preggers, dearie. But imagine, between your gorgeous red tresses and emerald eyes and James's chocolate locks and blue sapphire eyes, you're sure to have one bonny baby, as Grandmama used to say!"

My chest collapsed. "James?" I croaked.

"Better put that sherry away, Yvette. I'll just pop this in the mail to your home address, okay? 97 Foxglove Street in Irvine, right? What's the zip again?"

I had Yvette’s address! "90210," I lied.

"Fantastic, luv. And say hello to that
very
special author who's keeping you trapped in L.A.! His last book was ab fab! TTFN, darling!"

*
      
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*

"Damn!" I drank half a beer and burped. "At least one thing is sure. Either Yvette's looney tunes or she's working for Jackson. Or both." Cathy and I had gone to the Mulberry Street address in Irvine to find Yvette, and had found no one home. "I can't believe she has my laptop! And she got my guy. Well, kinda my guy. Then Harley got the other one. Damn! My life is a rat hole. Just when I'd decided I could maybe take care of a guy, at least part-time, I’ve got zero.”

"Is that only your second beer?" Cathy licked her fork. We were plowing through a pan of lasagna and two six-packs of beer. "This is orgasmalicious."

"Fourth. I guess one weepy tattoo date plus one closet attack do not a happily-ever-after make." I belched, feeling maudlin. "I want my laptop! It never betrays me!"

"Closet attack? You got him in the closet? Orgasmatastic!" She looked dreamy. "Almost as good as when I ran over that caca-brain Cisco's Harley Davidson with my car after he slept with my friend Ana." She belched. "Broke his leg in five places.”

We clinked beers in a reverent toast to sweet revenge, though I hadn't really had mine on James yet. It was just a matter of time, though.

Then she said, "You'll be there to help us beat up the Irvine Irregulars this Thursday, right? It's gonna be a big bout. Orgasmatronic!"

I slept even worse on even more pillows that night. My sister claimed milk products produced excess mucus in humans. Well, all that lasagna cheese was working overtime, rolling around in my gut and clogging all my arteries and airways. I woke ten times to cough, blow and hack. In my drugged state, men as a subspecies felt equivalent to cheese and excess snot—each of them made me queasy. At about 3:30 a.m., I decided to go celibate for good.

Then I sat up, tossing covers aside. A picture came to me from Thursday's debacle. Hippo calling Shiny Zone about her cleaner. What had her name been? Ah. Maria Elena. She worked for Shiny Zone, and so had Manuela. Could they have been friends? Could they have each stolen a manuscript from unsuspecting clients for some third party who they both knew, or maybe cleaned for? Ahh. The wonders of cold medicine for lateral thinking.

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I woke Monday morning to see the back of Music Man escaping from my room with all the clothes from my bedroom closet. I had to get free of the blankets and cough up a lung before I could finally take off after him. I caught him just as he was lifting the lid on the big trash can in the side yard, trying to shove my clothes in. I had to fight him to get the clothes back, but I finally got them, just a bit torn and smudged with something brown and mushy. Eeeyuuw.

I called to get locks installed on the Acorn Street bedrooms. Then I got my flashlight and Dad's hip boots and fished my watch out of the trash. Then I called Shiny Zone and asked about Maria Elena. They wouldn't tell me much. Privacy laws. So I hung up and called back, using my British accent, and tried to book Maria Elena's team to come and clean for me. But she'd been fired. So I expounded on the cleaning virtues of the great Maria Elena as she'd been described by many of my friends, asking them to rehire her just for me. They said they'd try.

And it still rained, flooding parts of the county. The TV news showed mudslides in Ladrona Beach, just north of Laguna Beach, where brushfires had reigned just days before. Those fires had killed all the foliage on its famous hills with their ocean views. Without live plant roots to anchor it, the top soil had become undermined like a thick blanket, ready to peel off. Then in this heavy rain, this blanket had started moving downhill quite fast in some places. Wickedly cool, those mudslides. Three homes had already slid down steep hillsides, right into neighbors' yards, causing havoc and messing up property lines. More homes were threatened. Crews were working around the clock to shore them up.

At lunchtime, Mom prompted me for the fourth time about the doctor James had recommended for Dad. I tried to remember the name of the guy. It was Dr. M-something. Purple, green, blue, and yellow. I found a list of Dr. M.'s online. The color match was
Dr. Madden. I booked us an appointment for the next day, then took a long nap.

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In the late afternoon, the sun finally came out as I slouched on the plaid couch, propped up with many pillows, in my giant, ratty sleep sweatshirt with the ancient gold crocheted afghan covering my legs. Dad was puttering around, and I was having trouble starting a new chapter on a yellow legal pad. Computers were so much easier. How had Shakespeare and Tolstoy managed before the
delete
key?

The door opened and I heard Dal's voice.

"Well, look what the cat—" I stopped at the sight of his purple-and-yellow-ringed eye and bandaged nose. Oh, man. And his foot cast and crutches. Guilt shot through me.

His good eye was dull gray. "Don't start, Rhonda. I just came for my stuff. It's too dangerous living around you. I'm moving—"

"In with Harley?" I said dully. "I knew it. Have fun, but remember she has vaginal warts and a trick knee."

Music Man looked up from moving food into the CD shelves. "Somebody beat you up, son? You been out with the wrong crowd?"

"Yeah." Dal looked straight at me, then turned and hobbled down the hall.