Authors: Gay Hendricks
Tags: #ebook, #book
A wave of profound and utter depression swept through me, followed by a sharp gust of grief-wind, accented by anger, and gone almost as quickly as it came. So painful, so human—all losses suffered over time, concentrated into a single sharp intake. It pierced like a whetted blade. I took a moment to honor his sadness and another to honor my own.
We are all as one, in joy and in grief, in love and in loss.
I slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind me. As I pulled on my shoes, I saw Manuel across the lawn, leaning against an olive tree. Watching. I gave him a little nod. He stepped back into the shadows.
For a man who claimed to relish privacy, Julius had an awful lot of people keeping their eyes on him.
My traffic-luck held. Even with a stop at Whole Foods, or as Martha calls it, Whole Paycheck, I was walking into my kitchen in under an hour.
Tank hovered by the door, dinner on his mind.
“Time to play Choose the Food,” I announced. I placed three different tins around him in a neat semicircle; salmon, chicken, and beef. I stepped back—everybody likes a little space to think. Tank deliberated, his tail curling and uncurling behind him. Like me, he takes his food very seriously. Finally, with great gravitas, he approached the salmon can and touched it with his nose.
“Salmon it is,” I said. I peeled open the can and forked the fish onto his plate. He was whiskers-deep in seconds.
I grabbed a cold ginger beer and stepped onto the deck. The spicy carbonation pricked my nostrils as I sipped. The canyon was winding down for the day. Lights blinked on here and there, as the lowering sun stained the sky in shades of peach and violet. Magic hour.
The hour of the seventh ray.
Heather answered on the fourth ring. “Hey, Ten.”
“I’m watching the sun set. It’s too beautiful not to share. Can you come over?”
“Can I come over? Are you serious?” she said. “This room smells of chlorine and stale Lemon Pledge. I’ve been sneezing for the last hour. When do you want me?”
“Now. Don’t eat. I’m fully stocked.”
Tank settled on the kitchen counter as I unpacked my groceries. I put away the yogurt and fruit, and took inventory of what remained. Never shop hungry—I’d bought enough for a small army. Containers of tabouli, babaganoush, salad greens, hot and cold soup, Indian samosas, and an assortment of raw vegetables lined up single file across the counter, a parade of temptations. I set aside the pint of rice pudding, plump with cardamom and raisins. The mango, lemon, and coconut sorbets got tucked in the freezer.
I rearranged the food into a fancy display, and rewarded myself with one veggie samosa. Tank leapt off the counter and rubbed against my ankles.
“All right. All right.” I put a tiny taste of the rice pudding on the end of a spoon. Tank’s eyes widened with pleasure. One tongue-flick, and it was gone. He cocked his head.
“Sorry, Tank. That’s all you get. I have a guest coming. We don’t want to set off the smoke alarms.” Too much dairy makes poor Tank fart like the night shift at a refried bean factory. Los Angeles has enough pollution problems as it is.
Heather’s car wound up the road.
“Good times, Tank,” I said. “Good times.”
I hurried outside. We hugged. Her damp hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I inhaled the clean scent.
We walked into the kitchen. “My favorite way of eating,” she said. “Little bites of lots of different things. Saves me from stealing off your plate.”
“It’s a lot easier being a hunter-gatherer if there’s a Whole Foods nearby. Are you feeling hungry?”
Heather gave me a mischievous look.
“I’m feeling frisky,” she said. “How about you? Are you feeling frisky?”
“Um,” I said.
“My mother taught me to never arrive at a dinner party empty-handed,” she said. “Now it may look like I’m empty-handed, Ten, but no one’s searched my pockets yet.” She put her hands in the air. “This girl needs to be searched. Is there a policeman in the house?”
I had no idea where she was going with this, but I played along.
“Ex-policeman,” I said. “Okay. Turn around, ma’am. Place your hands against the wall.” She spun and planted her palms, leaning.
“What about my legs,” she asked.
“Uh, okay, um, spread your legs, please. Ma’am.” I was feeling incredibly self-conscious. Heather’s game was pushing me right up to my edge of ease, if not beyond it.
Heather, on the other hand, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself. She adopted a limber, wide-legged stance, complementing all the right body parts.
“Okay,” she said. “Frisk away, detective!”
I glanced at Tank. He looked as befuddled as I felt.
Spacious confusion, Ten. Do not resist.
I patted Heather down, starting at her shoulders, and working my way south. The curves at her waist and hips were warm and firm to the touch.
“You’re clean,” I said.
“Don’t forget my jacket pockets.”
I obliged. “Suspicious round object in your left jacket pocket. Permission to search that pocket, ma’am?”
“Permission granted.”
I came up with a small black plastic canister. I popped it open. A neatly-rolled joint nestled inside.
“Busted!” Heather said brightly.
Her delighted expression reminded me of Lola’s triumphant
Baw!
and it made me laugh
.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I might arrest you. Or I might let you go with just a warning. It depends.”
“Does this help?” She pulled a laminated card from her purse. “I’m street-legal. Exhibit A: one medical marijuana prescription card.”
“Did you write yourself a prescription?” I asked, amused. “How handy.”
“Nope. I just happen to suffer from a mild anxiety disorder, not to mention, I’m connected. Don’t you just love California?” Heather nuzzled against me. “Actually, I’m feeling a little anxious right now.”
We walked onto the deck, and soon the joint was traveling back and forth between us. The pungent herb flavored up my bloodstream immediately. My head filled with a light fizz.
“Wow,” I said. “Strong.”
“Got to love my local dispensary. You should try their Cannabis Caramels—like hash and childhood rolled into one.” Heather exhaled a stream of smoke and giggled. “Hmm. Floaty. Uh oh. I sense my first big confession coming on. My deepest, darkest secret.”
I smiled into the darkness. She pouted.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”
“Okay. What is it?”
Her smile was sly. “I guess you could say I was your opposite in high school. The oppo-monk. I was a cheerleader.” She peeked at me. “No mocking.”
“I can’t mock you, because I have no idea what being a cheerleader entails. Except pom-poms, I’m guessing.”
“Short shorts, push up bras, and a lot of wiggling. And yes, pom-poms, on occasion. Play your cards right and you might get a sample cheer later.”
She was such an interesting woman.
An owl hooted in the distance. We finished off the joint. Heather glanced at me.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to partake.”
“It’s been a while,” I admitted. I smiled, remembering the last time I’d smoked marijuana. That, too, was the direct result of a medical marijuana prescription, belonging to John D, an elderly cancer-stricken almond farmer with a heart as big as the Pacific. “I smoked dope in India, you know. Ganja, I should say.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol within fifty miles of our monastery, but we lived smack in the middle of a region that’s been producing ganja for centuries. There was this Hindu temple near us, totally rundown, but it was dedicated to some little-known ganja-smoking Hindu deity. A bunch of scraggly, bloodshot-eyed devotees lived there. They’d taken a vow to smoke weed every day until they reached enlightenment.”
“Ha! The original wake ‘n’ bakers. No wonder the place was rundown.”
“Exactly. Anyway, we were strictly forbidden to go anywhere near them. Naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“But somehow our elders forgot that the fastest way to get a teenager to do something is to forbid it.”
Heather laughed softly.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not at all what I expected.”
“Is that good?”
She patted my arm.
“Yes, Ten. That’s very good.”
It was getting cold. I tucked my hands in my pockets. Something crinkled. I pulled out the circular covering from Julius’s bathroom.
I showed it to Heather. “Do you know what this is?”
“Looks like the backing of a nicotine patch,” she answered. “You know, for quitting smoking.” She looked more closely. “Strange, though. Usually they’re well marked. So you know what you’re taking.”
“Huh.” I pocketed it. I was positive Julius didn’t smoke. Maybe Otilia was a secret, three-pack-a-day gal in her other life. I snickered.
The night sky shifted. “Is it getting darker out here, or lighter?” I said.
“Okay, that’s it. Time to get some food in us,” Heather answered. “Doctor’s orders.”
We weren’t a small army, but we were two people who had just shared one very potent joint. We mowed through the containers of food.
“Best for last,” I said, moving to the freezer. I lifted out the coconut sorbet and tossed it to her. “Sorbet!”
Heather’s palms flew up and she jumped back, as if I had lobbed a grenade. The container landed on the floor between us. I must have looked as startled as I felt. “Sorry,” Heather said. She picked the container up and handed it back. “I don’t do sorbet.” She craned her neck. “Hey, can you aim me toward your bathroom?”
I pointed her in the right direction. Tank, who detects people’s anxiety spikes better than a Geiger counter, lifted his head from his bed, the tip of his tail flicking.
“I know,” I said. “And we were doing so well.”
When Heather returned a few minutes later her eyes were slightly reddened, as if she’d had a quick cry.
“So, no sorbet then,” I said, trying for humor.
“I’m sorry. It’s a sore point for me.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to . . . “
“No. I kinda do.” Heather sat at the table. “Confession number two. I was the chubby kid in the family.”
“Really?” I said. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, eventually I grew out of it. I mean, I look at pictures from my childhood and all I see is a happy, slightly chunky little girl. But my Mom was pretty plump herself as a child, and apparently her classmates teased her mercilessly. I guess it kind of scarred her, and she decided to spare me the same fate. So she put me on a low-fat regime pretty early on. Skim milk. Steamed vegetables. And no second helpings for Heather!” Her bright little laugh hurt my heart. “When I was eleven, Mom and Dad took the three of us kids to England. We’re Anglo-Saxons up and down the genealogy tree, and they decided it was time for us to connect with our roots.” Heather shook her head. “Big Ben. Changing of the guards. Winchester Cathedral. Do you know the only thing I remember about the trip?”
I waited.
“Everywhere we ate, my older brother got to finish with a Knickerbocker Glory—this fabulous tower of ice creams and syrups. My younger brother would order an enormous banana split. And me?”
“Sorbet?”
“Fucking sorbet. One scoop.” She laughed that brittle laugh again. I felt a surge of anger toward her parents.
Heather checked my expression, and her smile wavered. I let the tightness in my neck dissipate.
“In that case, how do you feel about rice pudding?” I asked. She relaxed.
“Bring it on,” she smiled.
Dessert devoured, we moved into the bedroom, and climbed under the covers. We lay side by side, still fully clothed.
“The second bowl of pudding may have been a mistake,” Heather murmured to the ceiling.
“Unh,” I answered.
We drifted off to sleep.
I was awakened by the insistent buzz of my cell phone. I grabbed it off the table.
“Hello?” I croaked. I heard labored breathing. “Hello?” I said again.
“Lossssht.” The voice was slurry, and familiar.
“Julius? Is that you?”
“Lossssht,” he repeated. “No point.”
“Who’s lost?” I said. “Sadie?”
“No,” Julius breathed into the phone. “Me.” He hung up so gently it took me a moment to realize he was gone. I checked my watch: 3:20
A.M.,
the witching hour. Heather had slept right through the whole thing. I pushed “return call,” but Julius didn’t pick up.
I stripped down to my boxers and climbed back into bed, pulling the duvet over both of us. I nestled against Heather and was asleep in an instant.
I woke up at dawn to a delicious sensation: Heather’s warm hand circling me in its clasp.
“Lean to the left,” she chanted softly, illustrating. “Lean to the right. Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!” I groaned with pleasure. “Give me a
T,
” she continued, squeezing lightly. “Give me an
E
. Give me an
N
, give me a . . . “
I rolled on top of her miraculous, naked body, cutting her off mid-cheer with a deep kiss. Tank thunked to the floor and padded out the bedroom door. I pulled away.
“Are you . . . is it safe?” I asked.
She nodded. Then her eyes seemed to darken. “Define safe,” she whispered, and drew me to her.
Afterward, there we lay, side by side on our backs, as if nothing, instead of everything, had changed. Heather reached for my hand.
“Oops,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now, I don’t know,” I answered, honestly.
“Me, neither.”
I gave her hand a squeeze.
“Coffee,” I said.
I served up two French-pressed Sumatras and two bowls of rough-cut oatmeal, drizzled with honey, and topped with sliced banana and Fuji apple. We avoided any heavy heart-to-hearts, by mutual agreement. Instead, as we ate, I told Heather of my concerns about Julius. I wanted her professional take on my employer’s extreme mood and energy swings, not to mention last night’s mysterious call.
“How advanced is the Parkinson’s?”
“I can’t really tell. Like I said, sometimes he’s razor sharp, others, he’s pretty loopy.”
“Well, everything you’re describing could be caused by the PD. I mean, it’s a brain disease. The slurred speech. The freezing and lack of affect. And some people, especially in the later stages, do develop memory problems and a loss of mental clarity, though at his age, that can happen anyway. With PD, the main thing is to keep on top of the medicine.”