Santa Monica

by Cassidy Lucas

  “Yeah,” Zack said, sounding exhausted all of a sudden, “she can be hard to deal with sometimes. Be careful with that one, okay?”

  “If there is a next time. Seems like Regina might want nothing to do with me and my rotund fanny anymore.”

  “Well, I do,” Zack said softly, leaning forward so his face moved into the strip of yellow cast by the streetlight. “Rotund fanny and all.”

  Her body went instantly hot and she stood up, slamming her head into the ceiling of the van. It hurt, and she dropped to her knees, felt the crotch of her leggings tear, heard the fabric rip.

  “Ouchy,” she said in between laughing. “Oops. Fuck. That was dumb.”

  “I’ve done that same thing a dozen times,” Zack said, massaging the top of her head. She knew she should push him away, remind him how inappropriate this was. But she didn’t want him to stop.

  “Well, I bet you’ve never ripped a hole in your pants at the same time.”

  “You didn’t,” he said.

  “I did!”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I’m scared to look,” she said. “I should get out and see.” She slid her hand across the side of the van. “Where’s the goddamn door?” Then, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “You’ll just have to stay in here with me.”

  “Forever?”

  She reached into the darkness toward him, finding his mouth, and tracing her fingers around it.

  “In aeternum,” he said, shifting his head side to side so her fingertips caught his lips.

  “Forever,” she translated. “You’re probably not going to believe me . . . but I took Latin for two years in high school.”

  He palmed his chest. “A girl after my own heart, indeed. Now,” he said, in his trainer voice, instructive and firm, “take my hand. And show me where this tear in your pants is.”

  He offered his hand and she took it, letting herself press into the hard wall of his chest. Then slowly, she guided his hands down to her inner thigh, where he began to move his fingers until he found the hole, drawing slow circles over the bare swatch of her inner-thigh skin. The crotch of her panties was wet, she knew. Thank God, she thought, and with genuine gratitude, she’d removed her maxi-pad after class.

  His mouth was at her ear, nipping at her earlobe, whispering, “In aeternum. Eternally. Always. Endlessly.”

  She remembered him back at the gym reception desk, red-faced and enraged, defending the Big Cheeto, of all people, high on his arrogance, but instead of feeling repulsed by the thought, she felt her clit harden under his fingers. Her libido was as alive and kicking as a sixteen-year-old virgin’s. Mel 2.0 was starting off her rebirth with a bang.

  “Jesus,” she moaned. Then, “Oops, sorry. I’ll stop saying that. I swear.”

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “I like it.”

  “Okay, then,” she whispered. “Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.”

  He was on top of her now. Both hands—she felt the calluses on his palms, thought of pressing her tongue to them—working over the hole in her leggings, and, in one quick movement, he tore the pants open with a rending that made her gasp.

  18

  Regina

  “LADY WOLFE!”

  Regina looked up to see Jensen Davis ambling toward her on Bay Street, a block from Color Theory, waving at her and grinning. She dropped from the brisk jog she’d held since leaving the beach to a slow walk, her chest clutching at the sight of him. She leaned over and rested her hands on her knees, gulping for breath. She hadn’t felt winded until just now. An animal urge to wheel in the other direction and sprint back to the beach rose inside her but Jensen was too near, closing the gap between them on the sidewalk with a brisk, scissoring stride.

  She straightened and watched him approach, feeling helplessly rooted to the spot. He wore slim black jeans, a white T-shirt crossed by the strap of the messenger bag he carried, and a close-lipped smiled that reminded Regina of a reptile.

  Breathe, she reminded herself. Stay cool.

  “If it isn’t my star client,” Jensen said, lifting his palm for a high five. “Fancy running into you here.”

  “Hey, Jensen,” Regina said, slapping his hand reluctantly.

  “You’re late for class, missy.” He feigned a stern look.

  “I skipped the gym today. Took a run on the beach instead.”

  “Nature instead of Color Theory? How granola. I take that personally.” He grinned at her, unsealing his lips to reveal teeth even whiter than the typical Santa Monican (Veneers? Regina wondered). “Kidding. If the Lady Wolfe needs a beach run, she needs a beach run.”

  “Ha.”

  “You know what you can do to make it up to me?”

  She wanted to tell him to fuck off, that she didn’t owe him a thing, but her mouth was too dry. She reminded herself that Jensen couldn’t possibly know anything about the transfers—that was why she’d installed Zack as a buffer, given him the hands-on role—but she could not quell her rising panic.

  “Um,” she managed. “What . . . can I do?”

  “It involves your, uh, good buddy Zack. He was supposed to be at CT, in the back office, doing the number-crunching work he does for me.”

  Regina’s stomach lurched. Maybe he did know.

  “But the golden boy is MIA. Maybe out getting a bite to eat,” Jensen said with a shrug. He shifted his messenger bag to his hip and rummaged through it. Then he extracted a small, worn paperback book and handed it to her.

  She recognized the cover instantly: a black-and-white photo of a tiny nun in habit, head bowed beneath the title The Little Way for Every Day: Thoughts from Thérèse of Lisieux. Zack’s prayer book. It felt mealy and fragile, as if it might shed pages under her touch.

  “Found this on the bathroom shelf in the back office,” said Jensen. “Guess Z-man likes the company of a nun at all times.” He shrugged and arched an eyebrow. “No judgment, right? Anyway, I walked off with it by accident. And now I’m late for a thing. Do you mind popping your head in the office and giving it to him? He might not be able to say his bedtime prayers, otherwise.” Jensen laughed.

  “Heh. Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks. And I’d better see you at the studio tomorrow. No more of this running-by-the-ocean crap.” He winked. Regina tried not to blanch. “You have a good night, Lady Wolfe.” And he breezed off into the evening.

  Regina stood on the sidewalk, shaky with relief and adrenaline, and tried to collect herself. She was certain she’d been correct: Jensen knew nothing of the money Zack had been skimming from him. Carefully, she opened the cover of The Little Way for Every Day. Zack’s name and phone number were written inside, in tidy pencil. The sight of his handwriting gave her a jolt of anticipation—she was now on assignment to see him (maybe running into Jensen had not been so terrible)—and she broke into a jog again, crossing Main Street and turning down the alley that led to the parking lot behind Color Theory. Overhead, the last dregs of sun had drained from the sky, replaced with the soft gray of evening, the final minutes of dim light before darkness settled in. She reached the parking lot and saw Zack’s truck parked there, next to the customized Color Theory van, black with ultra-dark tinted windows and the yellow gym logo emblazoned across the sides, with Eat Pure, Train Filthy printed underneath.

  Zack’s Tacoma and the van were the only vehicles parked in the lot. The sight of them side-by-side gave Regina a sudden strange feeling in her stomach. She could not have said why. Nor could she have said precisely what moved her to veer off the sidewalk and cut through the parking lot to the gym’s entrance, or why, exactly, she chose a route between the truck and the van, instead of simply walking around them both.

  Spidey sense, duh! her daughter Kaden would have said.

  Regina stopped short when she noticed the van’s back window. It was cracked open a few inches, the opening one might leave for a dog to breathe. She stood a few feet behind the two vehicles and kept p
erfectly still. The sweat from her run had dried to an invisible scrim, making the skin of her face feel tight. She stood listening to her own breathing. Overhead, a seagull cawed.

  And then, from somewhere much nearer, a strained, groaning sound.

  Regina stayed perfectly still.

  The sound came again, this time more urgently.

  From the van. Breathy sighs. Feminine. Feline.

  Regina stepped forward, to the open back window, and lifted onto her tiptoes, just high enough to peer inside.

  Straight at the leg of Melissa Goldberg, thick and dimpled and startlingly white, hiked up against the back of the passenger bench, her black gym pants still partially covering her, though the fabric at the crotch appeared to have been ripped, exposing her thighs, her crotch, the stubbly landscape of her vagina, which appeared to have been—oh God—shaved.

  Between Mel’s legs was Zack’s head, his face obscured, but Regina would know his dark brown curls anywhere. Mel’s head was tipped back, her mouth hanging open, more moaning sounds wafting from her throat. One side of her layered shirts was pushed up to expose a large breast, cupped underneath by Zack’s hand. His face was hidden from Regina, nestled between Mel’s legs.

  “Oh fuck no.” The phrase tumbled from Regina’s lips. She could not move.

  Mel’s eyes snapped open.

  “Shit!” She bolted upright, struggling to unprop her leg from the back of the seat. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

  Slowly, Zack turned to face Regina. His eyes skated over her. His curls were pasted to his forehead with sweat. His tanned face, the clean slopes she knew so well, had imagined holding between her hands so many times, was fixed in a look of pleading. He blinked several times, quickly, as if willing her to disappear.

  “Regina,” he said, his voice sounding different than usual. Thick and muted. Dead serious. “Please go.”

  She did not move. Kept her eyes locked on to him.

  “Now,” he said and flicked his wrist. Shooing her away.

  Regina’s body went numb. Her mind wiped clean.

  She forced herself to look at him. Then at her.

  “I hate you both.”

  Regina whirled around and sprinted across the parking lot toward home, crushing The Little Way for Every Day in her hand.

  Thursday, March 28, 2019

  COMMUNITY MOURNS LOCAL COLOR THEORY COACH

  A well-known local fitness coach, Zacarias Robert Doheny, known as Zack to friends and family, passed away on March 24th.

  A funeral mass has been scheduled for three P.M. Friday at St. Anne Catholic Church, 2011 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica. Doheny will be buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

  News of Doheny’s passing hit hard at the Color Theory gym on Main Street where Doheny was a popular trainer and administrative assistant.

  Born August 27, 1987, in Ocala, Florida, Doheny attended Sacred Heart primary and secondary schools; interned at his father’s real estate development firm, Doheny & Jackman; and went on to earn an associate’s degree in accounting from Central Florida Community College.

  A devout Catholic, Doheny spent a year at the Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Orlando, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and personal fitness.

  “He was the real deal,” Bri Lee, a fellow Color Theory coach and actor said. “Zack oozed faith, and inspired it in everyone around him.”

  “Zack brought so much joy,” said Color Theory patron Lindsey Leyner. “He’ll be remembered as pure sunshine.”

  Wednesday, October 31, 2018

  19

  Leticia

  LETTIE AND ANDRES, THE LITTLE BOY DRESSED IN HIS COWBOY COSTUME, stood on the corner of Georgina and Twenty-Second, waiting—like always, she thought—for Zacarias to appear.

  Lines of trick-or-treaters paraded past. Superheroes, ninjas, and pirates in all shapes and sizes; too many Disney princesses to count. A gang of grown men dressed as clowns whooped as they ran down the sidewalk, each carrying a red balloon, like in that scary movie, making Andres lean into Lettie as if he wanted to crawl back into her womb.

  She dug her phone out of her purse and sent a text: Where are you, Zacarias?

  A noisy group of teenagers wearing rubber Trump masks rushed past, the likeness so real in the dim street light, she startled, pulled Andres into her body, his cowboy hat tumbling to the grass.

  “Mommy, you pushing me!”

  “I’m sorry, cariño. Mommies get scared too sometimes.” She smoothed the lapels of the black suit jacket she’d borrowed from a friend—a size four for six-year-old Andres. His doctors at the UCLA Children’s Hospital had explained how an injury, like the accident, could stunt a child’s growth.

  “How much longer ’til Tío gets here?”

  “Soon, soon.”

  She rose to her toes searching the crowd, turning Andres to face the other direction as a bunch of werewolves, blood dripping from rubber snouts, crossed the street. The crowd grew more frightening as the sun fell. Damn that Zacarias. He, of all people, should think of his nephew’s bad leg, making him stand on the corner like that. And after that mess he made at Andres’s school meeting. Making Lettie clean up after him, like usual, not even thinking to warn her, so she’d been surprised by a call from that son-of-a-dog vice principal who combed a few pieces of hair over his head like the whole world was too stupid to know he was bald. She’d had to stop comforting poor Melissa, who’d been crying like a brokenhearted teenager over that bastard Adam, and spend twenty minutes apologizing to Vice Principal Waldron.

  How many times, she wondered, did the words I’m sorry leave her mouth each day? Too many to count. I’m sorry to her bosses. I’m sorry to her son’s teachers and therapists. I’m sorry to the angry white man on the bus whose lap she’d fallen into on her way to work. Anyone could be a cop, an ICE agent, a proud citizen willing to stick his nose in her business and report her for deportation, doing his part to Make America Great Again. Everyone had more power than she, and so she apologized.

  There was just one person she did not need to apologize to—Zacarias.

  The vice principal had called her half-brother many things, words Lettie did not understand, but she knew one too well. Angry. She hadn’t bothered to text Zacarias after the call, nor had she punished him with Oaxacan curses she knew he’d have to Google translate. Instead, she had waited for tonight, even looked forward to it, imagining all the ways she would make him squirm out here in rich-people land. Zacarias’s land. Maybe she’d wait until they saw one of the women they worked for and show the truth, expose him for the lying half-Mexican mutt he was. If only she didn’t need his money. If only one of these palaces, their many windows lit gold against the dusky sky, were hers and Andres’s. If only she were a different woman. If only, if only.

  She disliked crowds and had tried to convince Andres to spend the night trick-or-treating in Sunset Park, the southern side of the city, where there would be fewer people. Not that the Sunset Park area was that much different—rich is rich, as Lettie’s mother said—but the fancy north of Montana Avenue neighborhood where Melissa and Regina lived was filled with three- and four-story homes designed to look like the clay-shingled villas back home in Oaxaca, but one hundred times bigger, and owned by wealthy people who worked in what Lettie had heard her employers call the industry. That meant Hollywood. Not that she knew exactly what they did beyond make TV shows and movies. And money. Enough to hire other movie people, the worker bees—makeup artists and set designers; electricians and prop men—who, every year, a few weeks before Halloween, transformed half of the homes north of Montana Avenue into haunted houses.

  Andres had insisted on going to the “movie people’s houses,” and she couldn’t help but smile—her smart boy knew more about who made up Santa Monica’s rich and poor, and everyone between, than her no-good, clueless half-brother. She had warned Andres, It will be scary, my love. She reminded him of last year—after only twenty minutes of going door to door, they’d come
upon a scene straight out of a horror film. A front yard full of zombies, one chomping on a bloody leg like it was an Easter ham. Andres’s eyes had gone so big Lettie had feared her sensitive boy might pee the pants of his Batman suit. But children, Lettie knew, forget easily, and here they were standing on a crowded corner waiting for her always-late brother, who was probably at the gym flirting with his skinny rich clients, the very women who lived in this storybook-neighborhood-turned-movie-set-hell one night of the year.

  Melissa had taught her the word sensitive, explaining there wasn’t anything wrong with Andres, like all those smarty-pants therapists and teachers at his school said, making Lettie sign paper after paper giving them permission to help Andres with his words, his body, his feelings. They had a problem ready to attach to every part of her beautiful boy.

  Lettie had confessed her worries to Melissa one cleaning day. Why she’d told Melissa these shameful things, she still didn’t know. There was something about Melissa that set her apart from the other women Lettie cleaned and babysat for in Santa Monica. Melissa, who was always calling her my Mexican sister, which Lettie didn’t mind as much now. She remembered the sobs that had broken poor Melissa in two when she’d told Lettie about that sack-of-shit husband of hers. Lettie had been wrong about Adam, whom she’d imagined all muscles on the outside, sugar and cream on the inside. He was a no-good dog with a hungry penis. Melissa had been in pain—Lettie had known it as she rocked her boss in her arms, wishing the pain away, even if she had to swallow it herself. She knew how even the rich women suffered. It was this knowing that made Lettie’s jobs bearable.

  Melissa had helped Lettie change Andres’s life for the better, signing the paperwork that said Lettie worked for her full-time, a lie that allowed Andres to attend John Wayne Elementary, where the children of her bosses attended school. How fancy! Auntie Corrina had crowed when Lettie shared the good news. A rich child’s public school with all the special services Andres needed, and, a bonus for Lettie, a bilingual staff. Un milagro. Not that Lettie believed in miracles. It was hard enough to believe in God. Why would He punish her like this for one stupid mistake—threaten to take away her boy?