The Story of You and Me (13 page)

Alejandro and the guys looked at each other.

“Nah,” Nathan said.

“We’re in Venice,” Nick said. “The cheap porn’s shot in Chatsworth. That’s in the Valley.”

“Whatev. You all need to tone down the self-promotion right now,” I said. “Bragging about your this and that as well as how many people you sleep with makes you sound like dicks.”
 

“You’re getting the wrong impression,” Tyler said.

“Maybe I’m getting the wrong impression,” I said, “because you all are giving that. So—what’s it really like to be a Driver? Better question—why did you all become Drivers?”

Tyler shook his head and kicked one foot in the sand. He gazed at Nathan, who stared at Nick, who shrugged and tossed the gaze back to Alex like it was a puck in a hockey game during playoffs.

“Being a Driver is the best of the best, Sophie,” Tyler said. “When it’s not tough. Or humiliating. Or carving out a piece of your heart that you believed you already lost a while back.”
 

Nick rubbed his tatted arm. “None of us here became Drivers out of good will. We became drivers out of need.”

“Enough,” Alex said. “I don’t want to talk about the whys today. Just want to have some fun.”

“Hey,” Jackson said. “I’m not a Driver. I’m just friends with them. Got any cute midwestern friends who might be interested in a road trip?” He winked at me.

 
“Shut up, Jackson,” Nathan said. “Take your new baby out on the water.”
 

“Yes!” I said. “Gorgeous board. Take it out immediately.” I gave Jackson a thumbs up. “I’m dying to see what it does, how you do, you know, the whole shebang.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Sophie!” He strode toward the ocean, clutching his board. Waded into the surf, one hand on his new toy as he guided it through the choppy waters.
 

“Your Cheesehead doesn’t surf, does she, Alex?” Tyler asked.

I frowned. “Cheesehead has a name. It’s Sophie,” I said.

Alex pulled me even tighter into his side, if that was possible.

“They have lakes in the Midwest,” he said. “Besides, she’s taking Genetics with Schillinger this summer. And, researching a book on alternative healing.”

“Sophie?” Tyler tucked a stray curl of his light brown hair behind one ear. “Just one more question.”

“Sure.”

“You were checking out Jackson’s new board, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What color is it?”

Crap.
 

“Considering you all were huddled in front of it like the Wise Men at the baby Jesus’s manger, I could only see the very top of it.” I jutted my chin out. “Which appeared white.”

I prayed for a long hard second that the top of Jackson’s new board was white.

The sea of gorgeous men standing around me parted as Tyler, Nick, Nathan, and Alejandro turned and squinted at Jackson in the water. He was deep out in the surf, sitting on his board, which appeared multi-colored, patiently waiting on his wave.

“Lucky bastard got the top of the line again,” Nathan said.

“He ain’t a bastard. His dad can totally afford it,” Tyler said. “It looks red and blue to me.”

“Yeah,” Alejandro said. “But the top of it’s solid white.”

I said a silent prayer to the Saint of Confused Women Everywhere. “And that,” I jabbed my index finger in Jackson’s direction, “should be a God-given sign to stop testing this midwestern chick. I’m out of here, Alejandro,” I said. “I’m dying to see the boardwalk.”

“I’m coming with you.” He stared somewhat wistfully at Jackson bobbing out in the Pacific.

“No.” I pulled the list of healers from my purse. I knew there were a few in Venice. I’d find one to be a distraction and buy time for Alejandro to have some fun with his friends.
 

“My friend Javier has a tat parlor on the boardwalk called InkBaby,” Nick said. “He did all my work.” Nick’s tats were extensive and amazing. “He even did Alex’s tattoo.”

“You have a tat?” I asked.

“Just one,” Alex said.

“I’ve never seen it.”

Alex raised one eyebrow. “There’s a lot of me you haven’t seen.”

Tyler laughed but covered it with a cough.

Nick rolled his eyes and did the universal symbol for “zip it” across his lips. “You and Sophie should check out Javier’s shop.”

“I will, thanks,” I said.

Nick smiled at me. Was I really winning over Alejandro’s friends? Did I even want to be doing this? It just meant more connections that needed to be eliminated in the near future.

I scanned my list of healers, but the only one had three big black squiggly lines that Lizzie Sparks had drawn through the man’s information. The address on Venice boardwalk was still visible through her scratchings.
 

“Let’s go,” Alex said.

“You stay. I’m going to knock down another thing on my to-do list.” I said. “Meet you in an hour?”

“You sure?” he said, but didn’t release his hand from my side.

I leaned into him and planted a kiss on his body part that was closest to my lips—his tan, very muscular shoulder.

He jumped and for a second loosened his hold on my waist. Exactly the response I was looking for.
 

“I’m positive.” I extricated myself from his arm and walked away from him and his friends.

“Kissing a man’s shoulder has consequences, you know,” Alex called after me.

My back was to him when I smiled, attempted to wipe that smile from my face and in a moment of gloriousness, realized it was okay to smile. It really was.

* * *

I walked down the Venice boardwalk. It was the most amazing group of shops, eateries and little kiosks run by folks selling tarot readings, sunglasses, funky art and jewelry. The people seemed to be of all ages, cultures, and socio-economic groups. There were sunburnt tourists and dogs dressed up in clothes. People should not dress their dogs up in clothes.

It was stranger than the Mall of America and had more tourist shops than the Wisconsin Dells. It was kind of what I imagined the funky section of Amsterdam was like but without the legal hookers. Which most likely meant that Venice had illegal hookers. But I really couldn’t be sure. They just might have been tourists wearing super high heels who didn’t realize their shorts were too short. Frankly, I didn’t care because I wasn’t on a hooker quest.

I was, however, looking for Dr. Carlton Kelsey, vision quest master, guru for more than four decades to the masses, author of at least seven best-selling books. Dr. Kelsey, the mid-sixty something, former USCLA professor who experimented with a wide variety of psychedelics back in the day and purportedly cured himself of cancer. He was donating a free lecture tonight in a meeting hall somewhere above a store on the boardwalk.

I squinted at the address through Lizzie Sparks’ thick black scratchings. When I spotted a spit-polished, sparkly brown Mercedes SUV with two behemoth bodyguards standing next to it. They wore plain khakis. Their steroidy muscular arms crossed against the front of their blue short-sleeved T-shirts while their purple veiny head-necks popped out of the necklines. The bodyguards looked almost exactly like attack dogs: thick around the chest. Serious. Complete with a reputation to rip you open if you messed with them.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m trying to find Dr. Carlton Kelsey’s lecture. You all appear… informed. Do you know where this event might be taking place?”

They regarded each other and nodded. Meathead #1 opened his mouth. “There.” He pointed to a turquoise building in front of us. It had a Vegan Delight fast food joint and medical marijuana clinic on the lower level. A tall concrete staircase was built into the side of the building. “You’re late,” he said. “Dr. Kelsey doesn’t like late.”

“Story of my life. Thanks.” I waved at the both of them as I climbed the stairs.

“Dr. Kelsey really hates late,” Meathead #2 said.

“Then he’ll love trying to convert me.”

* * *

I stood at the back of a smaller, weathered lecture hall and took in the surroundings. It was a plain, faded, off-white space with a few windows, creaky old ceiling fans that wobbled like they might spin off the ceiling at any given moment and decapitate someone. There were no posters, or prints, or art of any kind on the walls. Ancient, convention-styled folding chairs lined up in rows in front of a small unassuming stage.
 

If you were a wannabe speaker, upcoming author and/or aging guru—this was the perfect space to attempt to re-create yourself on a blank palette.

The lecture room was full—not packed—but definitely not hurting for people of all ages and many races. Some appeared healthy. Some appeared sick. Some appeared dying. Everyone clutched their Complimentary Welcome Package handed out by one of the two greeters. They stood at the back of the hall with spiffy stick-on nametags on their “KELSEY VISION QUEST: Give Life a Chance!” T-shirts.
 

I glanced up at the wobbling fans, located the one that appeared the least deadly and took a seat in the back of the hall a few feet away from it.

Dr. Carlton Kelsey paced back and forth on a small stage in front of his audience. He was a big man, tall and thick, probably in his late sixties. His full head of hair was silver and pulled back in a ponytail that landed just above his shoulder blades. I sensed Dr. Kelsey was used to larger stages as he almost fell off the edges of the platform and more than once wobbled for a millisecond when he reached its borders.

“Kelsey Vision Quest,” Carlton Kelsey said, “is the most powerful mind-bending healing experience you can go through in your entire life. We here at Give Life a Chance have been helping folks do this for almost forty years now. We open doors. We open lives. We open your… mind.”

A few folks in the audience applauded.

“Life is hard,” he said. “because we make it that way. We worry about things that we have almost no control over. We stress about people who basically give a shit about us. We live small tiny existences watching the years roll by as we develop conditions that are ticking time bombs like heart disease, depression, rheumatoid arthritis and cancers that stem from bad chemicals, bad water, bad genes, as well as all the restrictions and rules that we’ve placed upon ourselves.”
 

Dr. Kelsey paused in the middle of the stage and gazed at the audience. Dear God, I could swear he was looking straight at me. I glanced down toward my knees, cleared my throat and ducked my head into my hand.
 

“When is it time, people, to heal your disease, or nurse your loved ones back to health? When is it time to reclaim your life? What are you waiting for? A new drug? An experimental surgical procedure? A miracle?”

I wanted all of the above.

Chapter Twelve

A few people in the audience applauded. Some stood up. One man shouted, “Amen!” I wasn’t sure how I felt, so I just stayed silent, butt in chair and watched.

A middle-aged African-American woman a few rows in front of me slowly stood up. She had no eyebrows, no eyelashes and wore a bright yellow bandanna tied around her head.
 

Her nearly look-alike companion, dressed in the same gear but with a turquoise colored bandanna, poked her in the shoulder repeatedly with her index finger and whispered, “You can do this, Betty. Ask him. Go ahead. Just like we practiced.”

“I’m not waiting, Dr. Kelsey,” Betty said. “I was diagnosed with stage two ovarian cancer about eighteen months ago.”

Folks in the audience turned toward Betty and eyed her. One woman sighed and dropped her forehead into her hands.
 

“I’m not going to say, ‘I’m sorry’,” Dr. Kelsey said. “Because that means I perceive you as a victim. And I don’t. You’re still alive. You must be doing something right. What are you doing right?”

“I’m exploring all my options. I had the surgery, chemotherapy. I enrolled in a clinical trail. I admit, however, I am still hoping for a miracle.” Betty’s friend squeezed her hand. “How can Kelsey Vision Quest help me, my friend, and others like us? Why is what you offer different than all the other alternative treatments?”

 
“I can’t guarantee the Quest will cure your cancer. But I can guarantee, your mind will be opened to healing in a way that no other healer, including western medicine’s traditional therapies or alternative therapists have offered you.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Betty said as her friend put a hand on her arm and steadied her as she sat down. A smattering of applause rose from the audience.
 

Dr. Kelsey cracked a small smile and then turned back to a small table, grabbed a bottle of water, twisted the top off and guzzled some.

My legs seemed to have a mind of their own and I popped out of my seat. “Dr. Kelsey,” I said.

He turned around and faced me. Something shifted in his eyes. “Yes? Your name is?”

“Sophie Marie Priebe,” I said. “I’ve read a couple of your books. I’ve looked at your videos on YouTube. You have so many followers. Fans. Testimonies from folks who swear the Quest helped them break through problems, ranging the gamut from mind to body. From carb craving and binge-eating to types of arthritis, autoimmune diseases and even certain cancers. Would you elaborate on that for a moment, please? Thank you.”
 

Now all the eyes in the audience flickered between Dr. Kelsey and me. In a perfect world I would have kept quiet and not asked anything. But my world was far from perfect.

“What an absolutely splendid question, Sophie. Years ago when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, I went on a quest to find healing. Those journeys lead me to many places, techniques and teachers. When I finally tripped through a rudimentary vision quest, I realized my answers were already there. Always had been. I was just too stubborn to accept how simple it all was. After the quest, I desired to understand life and the world at such a profound level that I was able to release many of my pre-programmed and pre-conceived notions. Let them go. And that’s when I found my healing.”
 

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ve watched your videos on YouTube. Your methods appear dramatic, but your videos seem to be from a long time ago. They’re old. Have you made changes to your program? Do you have more recent, advanced techniques? Testimonials?” I sat down.