I wedge myself into a space next to her stool, and we clink glasses. “Cheers, Donna.” I take a sip, the icy tartness of tequila and lime puckering my lips.
“Cheers yourself. I gotta say, life’s a lot more interesting with you around.”
“Wait, you’re the one who surprised me with the autograph signing. It’s my turn to surprise you. Let’s hope I can deliver.”
“Uh-oh.” Donna makes a face. “Any clues?”
“Nope. Just expect the unexpected.” I look around, taking in the ornate red bar and cracked mirror, the stained cream walls with giant photos of Marilyn Monroe next to framed snapshots of local fisherman. My eyes travel the length and breadth of the crowded saloon, but there’s no sign of Paul. Or Lucy.
The mariachis reach us, strumming guitars. We listen to a sweet, if ear-splitting, rendition of “Mallaguena Salle Rosa.” Donna drains her glass.
“Go ahead, have another. I’m driving.”
She nods to the barman, and he gives her a refill. A quarter of an hour later, after yet another refill for Donna, we make our way back onto the street. We blink in the bright sunlight, trying to spot a place to eat. My head is buzzing after only one margarita, and Donna looks less than steady. She grips my arm. “Just a taco. Something easy. Fast.”
“Coming right up. There’s a place on the corner.” We reel diagonally across the street toward a boisterous cantina. “It’s lively. Gotta be good.”
But the patio is filled, as is the ground-floor restaurant. We stumble toward a stairway to the second floor. A sign reads: 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER. We climb the steps, sucked forward by whooping cheers and screams of laughter.
There’s another bar at the top of the stairway, even more crowded than the first, but I spot an empty table in an alcove on the far side. A waiter struggles past me, balancing a tray of tacos and margaritas high over his head. Above the din and crush of people, I catch his attention and point to the table. “Tacos. Dos, por favor?”
He holds up two fingers. I nod. I pull some money out of my shoulder bag as we edge toward the table.
Suddenly the crowd swells back, jostling us against the bar. A young woman wearing a blindfold and a short bridal veil over her ponytail is hoisted up over the heads of the crowd. She shrieks as she’s flipped over and drops back out of sight.
Donna tugs at my arm and pushes forward. “What’s that all about?”
Standing on tiptoe I glimpse a young blond guy, his arms bulging in a red T-shirt, hoist the woman in the bridal veil up over his shoulders again. He buries his head between her legs before tipping her back on the table and grinding his pelvis into her crotch.
The audience screams approval. Several young women sitting together at the table cheer, “Yeah! Go, Betsy, go!”
“You don’t want to know, Donna.” But she’s already churning her way into the crowd for a better look.
One of the women, wearing a halter top that shows off a tattoo on her shoulder, waves money over the head of a buxom girl wearing a USC sweatshirt and shorts. The girl’s eyes pop in horror as the hunk in the red T-shirt grabs her upper arms. She shrinks back, gripping the table, grinning even as she shakes her head.
“No? You’re telling me no?” He pushes his face into hers. “Sure? Okay, then. Who else?”
A chorus of disappointment goes up as he turns away. He flexes his muscles, scanning the crowd. His eyes light on Donna, pushing her way to the front. He spots the money in my hand and grabs Donna by the waist, flinging her high over his head. He rips her handbag off her shoulder and tosses it to me. The crowd, mostly college kids and middle-aged cruise-ship tourists, whoops as Donna screams.
I glimpse her horrified eyes as he twirls her around, scoops his hand between her legs and flips her upside down, her legs straddling his neck. I reach out to stop him, but he snatches my money instead.
Then, as the crowd roars, he pulls Donna’s T-shirt up over her face. He grabs a can of Reddi-wip, shakes it vigorously, and sprays a mound of foaming cream on her crotch. Lifting her by her hips, he swings her legs back onto his shoulders and laps up the cream.
Above screams of laughter, he yanks her T-shirt over his head, burying his face between her breasts. Donna, her face flushed, looks wild-eyed at the bulging head bobbing inside her shirt.
In a flash it’s over. Donna’s off the table, gripping my hands, her body trembling as I wrench her out of the crowd.
“He licked me,” she whispers as we reach the stairway. “He licked my breasts!”
“That’s not all. He went for the whipped cream, too. Are you okay?”
“Whipped cream? You’re kidding me.” She looks down at her khaki pants, caked with white sticky stuff like Elmer’s Glue. “Omigod!”
“Good news. I didn’t have a camera.”
“How could you let him do that to me?” She turns Garfield eyes on me, a new horror dawning on her. “Please, God, tell me you have my handbag!”
“Right here.” I swing the smart leather bag off my shoulder onto hers. She immediately snaps it open to check the contents. I decide now would not be the best time to mention the money the young guy took from me, obviously a tip he considered lavish enough to warrant the full Monty. The waiter scurries up, two paper baskets with chicken tacos on his tray, plus cups of margaritas.
“We’ll take it here,” I say, dipping into the side pocket of my shoulder bag for more cash. “Just the tacos, please. No margaritas.”
“Not so fast,” Donna says, whipping the cups off the tray. “Never needed this more.”
I pay the waiter, giving him a healthy tip just for locating us, and take the baskets of food. Hunched in a corner, balancing the baskets on our cups, we down the tacos.
Donna, her face still flushed and sweaty, sluices through both margaritas in record time. “Yowza!” she shouts as the blond guy flips the USC co-ed, stripped of both her sweatshirt and shorts, over his shoulder and spanks her.
Donna tilts her head, her mouth crooked, and gives me a bleary look. “He’s cute. Gotta say… sh’cute, you know?” The words slur. She tries again: “Sh’cute.”
“You ready for another go?”
“You betcha! Sh’cute,” she slurs with a leer that sobers me right up. “He got me sorta turned on, y’know?”
I nod, wondering how much the girlfriends of the USC co-ed tipped the hunk. At least Donna was spared being stripped and spanked.
“Time to hit the trail, pardner.” I grasp Donna firmly under the arm and half-walk, half-slide her against the handrail to the bottom of the steps. She’s limp and rubber-legged. It’s slow going to the car, but I manage to keep her sufficiently ambulatory even as her head lolls like a rag doll.
I ease her into the passenger seat and buckle her up, then roll down the windows. Her khaki pants and T-shirt are sticky and rumpled, smelling like booze and spit-up milk. But her face wears the smile of a child enjoying sweet dreams. I wonder if this in any way makes up for Alex Trebek. I shouldn’t have let her get manhandled, or wasted on margaritas. She’ll hate me when the hangover kicks in and she remembers her Girls Gone Wild fling. Moreover, I don’t know what lies ahead, and she’s in no shape to fend for herself. I should have come down here on my own and not risked involving her.
I let Donna sleep it off while I spend some time with the map, the guidebook, and a cocktail napkin printed with the word Coop’s.
Two hours later, driving south on Highway One, I pass several shops, a gas station, a power plant substation, and a restaurant before slowing for a turnoff. I roll down the window and pull onto a gravelly shoulder. A rough-hewn sign with a faded red arrow reads: HARBOR QUEEN LANDING. SPORTFISHING. CHARTER SERVICE. Below it, a second sign dangles from chain hooks: COOP’S BAJA CANTEEN. CERVEZA. ALMEJA.
If the words blinked in neon they couldn’t be more electrifying. I glance around, expecting—what? Sirens? Flashing lights? A loud hailer telling me to turn back? Instead I hear twittering birds and the rippling sigh of tall grass. I turn onto the unpaved se
rvice road, feeling queasy. I put it down to apprehension, the stage-fright variety that comes with an equal measure of jittery anticipation.
The tires rock into deep, hard-packed furrows, as though locking into sprockets. A grassy hump running down the middle of the narrow lane brushes against the undercarriage with a persistent whisper that sounds a lot like foolish, foolish, foolish.
Maybe. The road to the bay is more isolated than I expected. I glance at Donna curled against the passenger door, her fleece jacket balled up under her head. Her short gray hair curls damply on her forehead. A gentle whiffling escapes her slightly parted lips. I don’t want to disturb her. Nor do I think I could. She’s dead to the world.
I lean out the window and breathe in cool, briny air. The ocean can’t be far ahead. I slow up, almost missing a narrow turnout cutting into the grassy verge. With a soft thump, I ease the tires out of the ruts and manage a tight U-turn. Glancing back through marshy reeds, I glimpse a curving expanse of water and a tile roof glittering in the sun. How close have I come to pulling up at Paul’s doorstep, my inebriated passenger still out cold?
I glance at the guidebook open in my lap. Following directions, I turn right at the first road, go one mile, and bear left at the fork in the road. After driving past several small shacks along a strip of land separating the bay and the Pacific Ocean, I come across Ed’s Land’s End Motel. The pavement stops abruptly at a gray shingled building with a blue door marked OFFICE. Beyond a cluster of weathered cabins, gray with faded blue trim, a broad stretch of empty beach runs south from the mouth of the bay as far as the eye can see. I pull up and park.
Careful not to awaken Donna, I ease myself out of the car, leaving the door unlatched. I walk a few steps, my feet settling into the sand, and gaze out at the vast, unspoiled view of the bay. Silence, broken only by the distant lap of water, fills my ears. I breathe in the musky tang of salt water and lift my face to the sun. Slowly my stomach stops jumping, my shoulders relax.
I size up the Land’s End, taking in a late-model station wagon and faded red sedan parked near two cabins at the far end. The place looks clean enough. There’s a VACANCY sign on the office door. I see someone move behind one of the open windows, the ocean breeze whipping the gauze curtains like trailing veils.
I step carefully onto the rotting boardwalk and pull open the snap-spring screen door. Inside, the air is cool and musty. A young barrel-chested Mexican, warm-eyed and toothy, lifts his forearms off the counter as I enter. The door clatters behind me, shaking the timber frame.
“Oops, sorry about that.” I look into the kid’s ruddy, smiling face. “Have you got a room available?”
He shrugs. I look at the Diet Coke on the counter, sweating in a damp puddle on a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated.
“Se habla Inglés?” He shakes his head. “Ed? Ed aqui?”
His smile dims. So does mine. Aside from guacamole and hasta la vista, I’ve pretty much exhausted my Spanish. I point out the window to a cabin, then to myself.
“Si,” he says, then hands me a plastic sheet encasing a page printed in English. Clearly I’m not the only gringo to pass this way. My eyes light on the words CASH ONLY. NO CREDIT CARDS. NO TV. NO TELEPHONE. NO ELECTRICITY AFTER 11 P.M. No mention of mints on the pillows.
I pay the twenty-five-dollar rate and fill out a registration card with Donna’s name rather than my own. I smile and hand him the card. He smiles and gives me a key.
I head back to the car, shivering in a chill sea breeze, and drive down the narrow strip of cracked tarmac to the third cabin. Donna is still sound asleep when I open the trunk to get our luggage, the two Discount Mart shopping bags.
The salt air has corroded the lock, but the flimsy door shudders open when I lean into it. I flip a wall switch, and a light flutters on inside a tin shade dangling from the ceiling. The room, small and spare, comes equipped with twin beds, each with a white towel folded at the foot of a blue chenille coverlet.
A toilet is visible behind a partition, with a shower cubicle in the corner. There’s no sign of complimentary toiletries on the washstand. A weathered orange crate serves as a night table between the beds. I push up the sash on the window, hoping Donna appreciates the beach shack simplicity.
I hear a groan and turn to find her standing on the threshold. She’s slumped against the door frame, her face pale and puffy. “Where are we anyway?”
“A little south of Malibu. Nice, huh?” I smile brightly. “How’re you feeling?”
As if in answer, Donna turns abruptly, cupping her hands over her mouth. She disappears around the corner of the cabin. There follows all the sounds associated with barfing up a taco and a pitcher or two of margaritas. I soak the corner of one of the bath towels in cold tap water. When Donna reappears slumped in the doorway, I hand her the towel.
“How about a shower?”
“How ’bout surgically removing my head?” she says, her voice thin. “I feel awful.”
“You can shower later. You’ll feel better.”
Donna looks down at her trousers. “Promise me you’ll burn these. I don’t ever want to see them again.” She glares at me. “And not a word, okay? If you ever bring it up—”
“Suits me. I’m sorry, Donna—”
She holds up a hand, palm toward me. “Not a word… ever.”
I walk over to the plastic cubicle and turn on a faucet. It spins in my fingers. I turn the second knob. A thin stream, rusty and cold, spatters from the showerhead. “Maybe we should go for a quick swim before dinner, okay? I promised you lobster tonight—”
Clearly the wrong thing to say. Donna disappears, and I hear more retching. I fiddle with the faucets, praying for clear, warm water. By the time she reappears, the last of the rust has chugged out of the showerhead, and the water is marginally less frigid.
While Donna strips off her party-animal outfit, I busy myself emptying the shopping bags. I lay out her Pepto-Bismol pink nightie on the washstand and dispose of her khaki pants in a tin wastebasket, all the while sorting through my options. I can’t abandon Donna, but I can’t take her with me, either.
I look out the window, giving her as much privacy as a small room without a bathroom door can provide. The sun is still high, but the sky over the bay has taken on a milky cast. I catch sight of the swarthy young desk clerk ambling down the beach, then lose him from view as he disappears behind one of the other cabins. I rest my arms on the window ledge, my eyes scanning the water foaming on the shores of the bay. The young Mexican comes into sight again, farther down the beach, trailing three horses, one black and two roan, their halter ropes slack in his hand.
I straighten up with a jolt, banging my head on the window sash. I sprint for the door, grabbing my shoulder bag off the bed on the way.
“Be back in a minute. I’m just going to stretch my legs on the beach,” I call back to Donna.
I hear a faint “okay” as I pull the door closed. I slog across the sand toward a shed and small corral about fifty yards behind the office. I have no idea what the Mexican word for horse is, but I’m determined to get one.
The desk clerk sees me and stops just inside the corral gate, waiting. I wave and quicken my slog.
“Hello, again,” I begin brightly, then run my hand along the flanks of the black horse. Nodding, smiling, and pointing, we manage to work out a deal that sets me back twenty dollars for the use of a saddled horse until the sun sets. I spot an ice chest inside the shed and negotiate four Cokes for another five bucks.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m back in the cabin. Donna, wearing the fleece jacket over her nightie, lies on the bed, both pillows propped under her head. When she sees me walk in clutching four cans of Coca-Cola, her eyes light up. She reaches out, fingers wriggling.
“Sorry, but I could drink ’em all.”
“Be my guest.” I pop the tab and hand her a Coke. “Listen, I don’t suppose you’d be up for a horseback ride, would you?”
“Are you nuts?” She gives me a look, th
en glugs half a can before coming up for air. “Where in the world would we go horseback riding? And why?”
“On the beach. They rent horses here. I thought it’d be fun, but I understand if you want to rest a bit. Why don’t you take a nap while I go for a ride?”
Donna eyes the three cans of Coke I place on the orange crate next to her bed. “Maybe a nap’s a good idea. But don’t be gone too long. And be careful. You’ve got your cell phone?”
“I do. Have a good sleep.”
I grab my fleece jacket and head back to the corral. By the time I reach the shed, Prieta is saddled, her reins tethered to the wooden gate. The desk clerk gives me a leg up. Like riding a bike, I assure myself, settling into the saddle. It’s not, of course, despite a spate of lessons back in my contract player days. The last time I was on a horse was years ago while on location in Phoenix.
Prieta has already surmised that. She takes charge, bumping back and forth a few times, stomping and shaking her coarse, black mane. The desk clerk gives her a smack on the rump and leans into her. With a bit more of that sort of encouragement, Prieta and I eventually rock and roll out of the corral, heading toward the firmer wet sand along the shore.
My sense of direction isn’t great, but I’ve studied the map carefully enough to have a sense of the inner bay. I slide the guidebook out of my shoulder bag and flip to the earmarked page that caught my eye back in Ensenada.
Touted as one of the largest protected waterways on the coast, the long, narrow strip of sandy beach extends several miles south along rugged coastline until opening up into the main bay. A bridge used to cross over to the other side of the bay, but washed out some twenty years ago. A natural access road runs west toward the ocean before entering the majestic Harbor Queen Landing, a locale affording miles of fantastic scenic views, solitude, and adventure from the mouth of the bay down to the marshes. Is there a new resort on the horizon for this area?
Down and Out in Beverly Heels Page 27