It didn’t take long for my wandering mind to think of Tommy and Max. They had nothing in common and yet I didn’t manage to play nice with either.
I might be pregnant by the one who might have made a good partner. Maybe... maybe... I was the problem, not them. Me. And on that happy thought I found myself at the intersection of 40th street and Shea. The Great Dane knew the way to the mountain preserve better than a trained hound. Might as well go to the end, take a little jog and get back home. Plenty of streets lights and paved roads for an easy, safe stroll. It had been a while since I hiked the trails, and, maybe because of winter, even the parking lot at the trailhead felt a little spooky. To me I mean, not to crazy, happy Dior. He pulled on that leash like a freight train.
“Okay, boy, calm down, we are not going up the trail, it’s too late.”
We jogged around the circular parking lot that still had some vehicles, and of course I’d forgotten my water bottle. I headed toward the public drinking fountain in case Dior was thirsty, too. After all, I had no idea how long his water bowl had been dry. Maybe all day. And I also forgot to let Brenda know we went for a walk.
Damn. What if she got home and saw the house all messed up and her dog missing? Better call her. I moved closer to the public bathrooms so I could see what I was dialing. Before I even touched the screen, Dior leaped ahead, pulling me along. What the hell? What spooked him?
“Will you stop acting like a fool? Dior. Stop it,” I called to no avail.
I held tightly on the leash and he barked. What got him so riled up? I looked around, a car engine running, two hikers coming down from the number 8 trail, and a horse and rider approaching the parking lot from trail 100. The Great Dane was barking at the horse rider. And me? I mentally prayed for the ground to open and swallow me, but, please, spare Dior as he had nothing to do with my emotional shortcomings.
“Fiat? Is that you?” Tristan’s words seemed synchronized with the clippety-clop of the Appaloosa’s hooves. Is that why I came here? Hoping to run into him? If that was the case why was I wearing old sweats with a stretched-out bottom and why did I not put on at least a smudge of lipstick? Needed to have a serious talk with my subconscious.
Now Dior was in full performance mode, jumping and barking and running around me, hitting my legs with his powerful tail. You’d think he was having a full-blown affair with the mare. Could my secret wants be contagious? Could I be more idiotic than this? While my brain churned scenarios by a Baker’s dozen, my body didn’t budge, not even one iota. The day’s dramas, doubts and dreams stayed neatly stacked inside my chest, behind the faded fleece hoodie. Tristan dismounted his horse and walked her up to where I was trying to restrain my dog gone wild. It felt like déjà vu. He wore the same clothes and boots he had on the first time I ran into him on the trail, except for a denim jacket over the white shirt and minus the red bandana.
Tache, the appaloosa, lowered her head to sniff the dog. How about that? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Dusk wiped away the last traces of daylight, and I wished I could do the same with the disturbing thoughts galloping through my mind.
“They like each other.” Tristan pointed to the Dane and the horse sniffing and checking each other out. “Such an unexpected and pleasant surprise to run into you two.”
If voices were like cupcakes, his would be red velvet with butterscotch frosting. Yum. He was so close I could see his Adam apple and the amber specs dancing in his eyes. I must say something. “Yeah, well, it’s getting late, I need to head back.” Brava Monica, bravissima. What a great line. Even in the looming darkness his pained smile was hard to miss. I hated, hated myself for it. He had been so nice to me, not like Tommy, or Max. Well, better leave Max out of the comparison, at least for now. After all, this was not a competition.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s getting late. Let me walk you down to Shea where there are more lights and people. I would offer to escort you home but guiding a horse on a main street in the dark is not a good idea. Some drivers are too busy texting or worse.” He paused. “Is that okay with you?”
“Huh, okay. What?”
He cocked his head and smiled. “Oh, girl, what am I going to do with you?” And he laughed, an open, friendly laugh.
I returned a smile and tugged on the leash. “Let’s go Dior, these good souls are guiding us back to civilization.” Everything was going to be okay.
Tristan laughed again, this time softly, took my hand, intertwined his fingers with mine, sending electrifying waves up my spine. We walked out of the nearly deserted parking lot, Tristan holding his horse reins, while I dragged a disappointed dog.
We headed toward Shea Boulevard, because the only other way was to the dark mountain.
“Fiat,” he said slowly, “I understand your feeling uncomfortable being too friendly with me. And I respect your strong work ethic.”
My strong work ethic? Was he poking fun at me?
“Soon the Horse Ranch escrow will close and you’ll no longer be my agent, which in this case, makes me very happy as I would like for us to be more than that.”
I could see the light at the intersection turn red, a good thing because he couldn’t see the crimson tide overtaking my cheeks.
“More than what? Aren’t we forgetting a small detail?” Keep moving, Monica. Don’t stop. Don’t look at him.
Keep walking.
I quickened my pace, felt his fingers slowly slip away, letting go of my hand. He took my elbow instead and forced me to stop. The light went from red to green. We were feet from reaching the main road. Soon he would turn around, walk his horse home. Please let me go. I can’t handle more heartache, not today.
“A small detail? Can you be more specific?” No more butterscotch frosting.
“You’re a married man.” The words hung in the night air now, turning amber-colored, like his eyes, like the traffic signal. Stop!
He stepped squarely in front of me, still holding Tache’s reins. The shift confused Dior, who moved back a bit. Tristan, a head taller than me, bent a little, getting closer. Perhaps trying to look into my eyes? Tache snorted impatiently.
“I explained all that to you in my message.”
The message. I bit my lips hard. Some things you don’t forget. The memory of the messages appearing next to each other on my phone. Tristan’s and Max’s. My heart yearned for Tristan’s, my conscience settled on Max’s. And Tristan’s message was deleted, unread, to avoid further temptation.
“Remember? After you visited me, when I was bedridden?”
I couldn’t look at him. Even in this changing light I recognized the hurt mantling the face I so adored.
“I wanted everything out in the open between us.” Hurt and disappointment threaded through his words.
I lowered my eyes. He straightened up, tall and proud again. Stepped back next to his mare. “You never read it, did you? You never cared to.” A whisper. And he was gone.
The light turned green. I crossed the street on the marked walk and let the tears free fall.
Trifecta, I repeated furiously, pulling Dior along. Tommy, Max, Tristan. Trifecta. The screeching of brakes snapped me out of my self-imposed slide to hell.
“What are you two night owls doing on the streets so late?”
Brenda!
“Hop in.”
And hop in, we did. As usual Dior sat in the back for all of twenty seconds. The minute the Honda moved, he crept forward and soon his snout rested on the center console. Both Brenda and I pretended not to notice. Dior, our lovable, invisible Dane.
“Where have you two been?” she asked.
“I took Dior for a walk. I don’t think he had been let out all day. I cleaned up and gave him food and water, and really you can’t blame the dog.”
“What are you saying?” By her side glances I knew she was trying to read my thoughts. If only she could.
“I’m saying Tommy must have left the house in the morning and didn’t come back, at all.”
“Don’t tell me. I bet he never finished setting up the equipment.” Again, glancing at me.
“I’m not getting involved. It’s between you two. I felt sorry for poor Dior.”
“Just how sorry did you feel? I can tell you’ve been crying. Did that son of a...” (she swore so ladylike it sounded like B***H) “do something to you? I swear I’ll kill him.”
“No, Brenda. Haven’t seen Tommy at all. Relax.”
“So, why the crying?”
“It’s — hormonal — you know.”
I shut up, tears crowding to run free again. That didn’t stop Brenda, of course.
“I heard you mumbling something when you got in the car, trifecta? Please don’t tell me you’ve been betting on horses. That’s Tommy’s department.”
“Brenda, listen. No horses, no betting. I’m depressed over my own mistakes. Hormonal, I told you.”
Luckily at that point she pulled into her garage. Okay, she tried to get into the garage. Once the automatic door went up it displayed a whole assortments of boxes, furniture, even clothes, strewn all over the floor. She killed the engine while muttering about killing her nephew. I could only imagine her reaction once she saw the inside of her house. She headed to the back door and I firmly held Dior’s leash. I wanted to give Brenda enough time to assess the damages before Dior joined in and maybe got blamed for something he didn’t do.
She cussed. Loud and clear. A rare happening. Good for her. Lights came on. The brighter the lights, the louder her frustration. I followed her in; even with my cleaning there was no way of ignoring the smell of dog poop.
“Wait until I get my hands on him,” she howled as she looked at the devastation to her beautiful home. “You just wait.”
She noticed the drinking glasses on the kitchen counter, one with lipstick on the rim and instinctively turned to me. I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, could only shake my head in commiseration.
“How about I help you clean up?” I offered.
I noticed an open folder on the coffee table, next to the couch where Brenda usually sat. Pages had slipped out of the folder, and I could see colorful pics of dishes and what looked like recipes. “Are you working on a cookbook?” I asked.
“Oh, that? No. Lois Thomas, Angelique’s assistant, asked me to take a look to see how hard it would be to modify some of the recipes to less fat and lower calories. In other words, make them more senior-friendly.”
“Interesting. So, is it hard?”
She shrugged, walked over and slid the pages back into the folder. Then, without a word she got the bottle of Pinot Grigio from the fridge. Along with clean glasses, she brought everything to the coffee table, set it next to the folder, poured some wine and nodded me over. Brenda kicked off her shoes and slumped down on the couch. After she lit a cigarette she said, “Let’s drink to life without men.” We did.
SIXTEEN
THE CALL CAME in as I drove south on Tatum, on my way to the office. The kind of call I’ve dreamed of since receiving my real estate license. A prospect, a completely unknown-to me- human asked to see my brand new listing; the one with the walk-in tub. Okay, the caller never mentioned the walk-in tub, but that had become my personal, secret nickname for my adult community property. As instructed by Kay, I didn’t ask the caller’s age nor anything else personal, just a name and phone number — in case we got disconnected. Another clever hint from Kay. Mental note to myself, get a thank you gift for Kay and a very, very special gift for Tristan.
Aye, big mistake, just the thought of his name sent me plummeting into despair once again. What did he share about his marriage in that message? How could I find out? Can you retrieve deleted text messages? Who should I ask? And why? He probably will never want to talk to me again anyhow.
I drove like a distracted driver, except in my case I was my own distraction. The appointment with the caller was in ninety minutes. If I managed to stay focused, I could stop by the office, grab a cup of coffee, print out the most recent stats of the neighborhood and still get to my listing with enough time to turn on all the lights, open all the curtains, make the place look light and bright. I could hardly contain my excitement, and for an instant even my strong work ethic, as mentioned by him, made sense. Okay a fleeting instant. Then that went south (still trying to figure out why Americans use south instead of, you know, east, or west) as soon as I stepped into Desert Homes Realty. For one thing, Kassandra’s desk was empty. I heard voices coming from the kitchen. So I headed that way. That’s where the coffee was to be found anyway.
“Would you have the nerve to do that?”
Kassandra spoke with her mouth full of eggs on a muffin? Actually that looked good, I thought as I watched her stuff the last piece in her mouth.
Scott, Kassandra’s audience, shrugged, picked some breadcrumbs from the corner of his mouth. “Don’t know. Depends on the reason. What’s there to gain?”
Neither acknowledged my presence. What? Had I become invisible?
“What are you guys talking about? And is there anything left of what you two are, or I guess have been, eating?”
“That creep who stole my bra.”
Kassandra wiped her mouth first, then her hands, and tried to make a hoop into the trashcan with the scrunched up napkin; she missed.
“The cops checked out the address I gave them, you know, where we had the séance. Turned out he didn’t even live there. He was housesitting for someone else. And, he was using someone else’s identity to get a house-sitting job. Yeah, I think that’s what the cops said. And no, no food, all gone. Scott bought some breakfast stuff from the beloved Golden Arches drive through. Well, you look perky this morning. Got your visitor?” she asked me.
My visitor? What was she talking about?
“Kassandra, Tommy was staying at Brenda’s, not my place.”
“Tommy? What the hell do I care where that big jerk is staying? I mean, you know.”
She rubbed her hand on her belly. OMG! She asked about my period? In front of Scott? Suddenly my need for coffee evaporated. I turned on my heel and rushed over to my cubicle to look up my comps and get out of there. Noooo. Someone had shut off my computer. It takes forever to get it going. We were the only three souls in the office. Make that two souls. I grabbed my briefcase and left without saying goodbye.
Now I wasn’t driving distracted, I was driving mad. Mad as hell. I couldn’t believe Kassandra. What else did she tell Scott? Did she show him my test kit? What test kit? I never got it. The nightmare continued. Clear your mind Monica, clear your mind. Strong work ethic, remember?
Meantime, in my hurry to get away from the office, okay, from Kassandra, I didn’t do my comparables. But lucky for me I had all that material J.S. had set up and left in the kitchen. Okay then, show time. I parked and got into the house. I flew from room to room getting the place ready, opening a few windows to get the stale air moving, flushing the toilets, wiping imaginary dust from the kitchen counters with some tissues I had in my purse. Found an empty plastic cup in the sink, smelled of cola and had lipstick on the rim. Did someone show the listing?
And then I waited. After a while, tired of pacing I sat on the toilet. Note to myself, bring a folding chair and leave it in the garage. Also bring a roll of paper towels because you never know when they may come in handy. My prospect was now forty-five minutes late and then it hit me. I didn’t give her the gate code. How was she going to get past that? Noooo.
How could I be so careless? Strong work ethic, yeah! She could have called me? Did I miss her phone call? I checked my messages, voice mail, and texts. Nothing. What if she called my broker, told Kay what a careless agent I was? After playing all kinds of what ifs in my mind, I punched in her number. It rang four times before someone answered. “Yes?”
Didn’t expect that, “Hi, it’s Monica, Monica Baker, the realtor? We spoke earlier.” Nothing, so I said, “You were interested on checking out my listing at...”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I forgot, I had this — thing. C
an’t do it today. Don’t call me again, I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Whaaat?
Well, I’ll be. What a rude B***H. I wasted my whole morning, like I had somewhere else to go. So much for my first prospect. I sat on the john for a long time. Suddenly being a realtor didn’t feel so good or appealing or promising. Maybe it was time to pack it up and go home.
I had money coming my way and Christmas was around the corner. I’d heard you could get last minute plane tickets cheap. And those pool pics made especially for my family, I could deliver them in person. Images of myself dressed as Santa Claus, Babbo Natale, bringing gifts from America, flashed through my mind and made me feel oh, so weepy. Screw this!
I flushed the toilet in a gesture of defiance, went around to close the house and found a note by the stack of fliers. From the sellers. “Great job Monica, we come by from time to time, hope you don’t mind.” Oh, that explained the stain in the sink, I sighed. Good. One less worry. All good. Twenty minutes later I was on my way back to the Desert Homes Real Estate office. But the taste of the breakfast food had been lingering somewhere between my brain and my stomach, so when I spotted the yellow arches, a quick sharp turn got me there. Breakfast in the afternoon. Only in America. God, I love this country!
By the time I parked my Fiat, I counted five cars in the office parking lot. Okay, one was Kassandra’s Kia. Scott’s truck wasn’t there. Sonny’s Cadillac occupied her assigned spot but I didn’t recognized the two black, imposing sedans. Not like money imposing, more like ‘official something’ imposing. I checked my lips and teeth in the side mirror. The last thing I needed was left over egg yolk on my teeth; I fluffed my hair and tried to walk as professionally as possible. I have no idea how a professional real estate agent of the female persuasion walks, but one could give her own spin. On that thought, I almost got knocked to the ground by someone opening the office door on me.
Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic Page 10