by Anna Burke
Jessica grabbed the Buti bag off her dresser and headed to the kitchen, digging through her purse for her keys. “Shoot!” she said, remembering that Tommy and Brien had taken her BMW. She’d have to use her mother’s Porsche. A shiny little silver number, it had midlife crisis written all over it. Not her thing, but what the hell her life was in crisis. Maybe one of those “quarter-life” crises she’d read about in a pseudo-psych magazine during the endless waits in doctor’s offices while in baby-making mode.
The keys to the Porsche were in the kitchen, hanging on a hook near the door to the garage. Bernadette was so well-organized. Right next to the keys was a list of things they needed from the grocery store. Maybe helping out around here a little more would make up for her most recent display of bad behavior. Pretty basic things, she could easily pick up at Trader Joe’s on her way home. A local favorite Trader Joe’s offered a bit of adventure, unlike a more conventional grocery chain. A shopping adventure was just the thing to clear her head and earn some points with Bernadette after hearing what Laura had to say. Jessica snatched the list and jammed it into a pocket of her jeans as she headed out of the kitchen into the garage.
Like everything else in the Rancho Mirage estate, the car was kept in tip top condition. It purred to life instantly. A low growly sound came from the car, like it was ready to prowl. It didn’t get out much. The pint-sized Bernadette preferred to drive the massive Cadillac Escalade parked next to the Porsche in the four-car garage. There was room for Jessica’s BMW in a third space and the fourth was used for a golf cart and storage.
Jessica backed out of the garage into the large circular drive that flanked the front of the house. She took off driving a little faster than she should on the residential streets that led to the guard gate and out onto Dinah Shore Drive. This time of the year the enclave of larger estate homes within Mission Hills Country Club were mostly deserted. They remained closed up until the summer heat retreated and the “snow birds” came home to roost, escaping cold winters all over the U.S. and Canada. It was hard to say whether the valley was really “home” or not for these prodigal sons and daughters. Beautiful high end houses in the desert were often only one of the properties owned by those who could afford to pay a couple million and up for an estate home in the Coachella Valley.
When Jessica got to Monterey she took a left and headed for the on ramp to I-10. There was remarkably little traffic at 11:45 on a Saturday morning in June. She really opened up, letting the Porsche do what it was built to do as she merged onto “the 10” and achieved highway speeds in a matter of seconds. The Porsche growled approvingly as she headed to the Date Palm exit a few miles away.
Laura’s sister Sara lived in the Panorama neighborhood where Laura and Roger Stone had also bought a home. Panorama, a newer, more upscale part of Cathedral City, is still modest by comparison to sister cities with more ritzy addresses. “Cat City”, as it is sometimes called by locals, is sandwiched in between Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. Not more than 10 or 15 minutes away from Mission Hills, depending on traffic. Today it was ten, given her handling of the Porsche and the nearly empty roads.
Cat City was historically regarded as a raunchier counterpoint to the more genteel Palm Springs community. Unsavory but alluring activities, like illegal gambling and prohibition-era bars, had been nudged over the city line into the unincorporated area that didn’t become a city in its own right until 1981.
Now, one of the larger and more diverse of the seven desert cities in the Coachella Valley, about a third of the city is reservation land owned by the native Cahuilla. Although not as large a segment of the population as in Palm Springs, many members of the LGBT community called Cat City home. More than half of the city’s residents identify as Latino, and share the city with smaller cohorts of other ethnic groups: Armenians, Vietnamese, and Filipinos. Many are recent immigrants. They’re drawn to opportunities created by the influx of baby-boomer retirees into the Coachella Valley. Retirees are slowly transforming the entire area from a winter resort to a year-round community.
Cat City expanded rapidly while Jessica was living nearby in Rancho Mirage, and that growth continued during her absence. That is, until the economy fell off a cliff. Like the rest of the valley, Cat City was dealing with challenges left in the wake of both boom and bust.
Sara’s house was on a street that had obviously taken a hit from the housing crash. Well-kept homes and yards were interspersed with homes that were no longer occupied. A few had for sale signs on the lawns, and several had the telltale notices posted on the garage doors or in windows, indicating they were in some stage of foreclosure. There was a lot of deferred maintenance even in some of the homes that were occupied. People in these middle-class neighborhoods had been hit hard by the triple whammy of falling home prices, mortgages with screwy adjustable rates, and job losses in a local economy heavily dependent on homebuilding.
Folks could only hang on for so long and it had been more than 5 years since the economy hit an iceberg. Jessica had watched it all happen up close in the areas surrounding Cupertino. That included Stockton and Modesto to the east; Oakland to the north; and Salinas to the south. It was agony watching the slow motion sinking of Titanic dreams. The housing market in California had only recently started to get off its knees as inventory shrank and prices slowly began to rise again.
As Laura’s friend in high school, Jessica knew Sara, of course. For Sara, two years older and at that about-to-be-dumped-into-the-real-world developmental stage, a younger sibling and her friend barely registered on her radar. Sara had gone off to college at a Cal State, somewhere, and returned to the valley with a teaching credential in early childhood or special education. Jessica couldn’t remember which.
Jessica vaguely remembered sending a wedding present when Sara got married and had seen her a couple years later when they were both part of the bridal party at Laura’s wedding. Sara had married Dave Patterson, a high school coach and math teacher. They had been married longer than Laura and Roger, maybe 10 years now. Dave and Sara had introduced Roger to Laura.
Roger Stone was Dave’s friend in high school. Dave and Laura contracted with him to do some work on their house right after they moved in. The work went on for weeks. During that time, Roger and Laura were both at the house on several occasions. Casual conversations led to “hanging out”, and eventually a romance and marriage. Laura and Roger were married shortly after Jessica and Jim took the plunge in 2004.
That had been a happy time. She and Laura compared notes, laughing about the craziness involved in planning a wedding; sharing excitement and nervous anticipation as well. Laura had the advantage that her family, especially her mother and sister were there to help. Jessica and Jim pretty much did all the planning themselves. Mostly Jessica, since Jim really would have been perfectly happy to run off to Maui after getting married at the courthouse. Of course, Jim and Jessica did have plenty of money. That allowed her to hire people to do the things Laura and her family members did for themselves.
More recently, Dave and Sara had taken the leap into parenthood and had two young children in quick succession. Jessica couldn’t remember Laura saying she and Roger wanted to have kids any time soon. She and Jessica had certainly talked about it, because getting pregnant and having a baby was an obsession for Jessica for nearly three years. Perhaps, Jessica had so dominated the conversation Laura couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She’d done the same thing in the last few months, droning on about the end of her marriage.
As far as Jessica could recall Laura and Sara seemed to get along like most sisters. They were sometimes at odds over any number of things but at other times shared a bond unique to sisters. Perhaps Laura spent more time confiding in her sister than in Jessica about the status of her marriage and her plans for having children.
Jessica pulled up to the curb in a sleek, easy motion. She hopped out of the car, locking it behind her with a couple beeps of the electronic key. When she knocked, Laura’s sister answered
the door. A little older and a couple inches taller, she had the same athletic build as Laura. Her shoulder length brown hair was cut in an almost identical bob to the one worn by Laura. She possessed the same brown eyes that exuded a penetrating intelligence accompanied by a disconcerting ability to size you up in an instant. Whether from the extra couple years, the two kids in tow, or the stress of her sister’s current circumstance, a deep weariness haunted this sister’s face.
“Hi Sara, how are you?” She knew instantly it was a stupid question.
“I’ve been better,” she answered grabbing the hand of the older of the two children who was trying to get past Jessica and out the door.
“How’s Laura holding up? She’s expecting me. I told her I’d get here as soon as I could.”
“Come on in. She’s in the kitchen making peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. You want one?”
It was lunch time and Jessica hadn’t had anything other than toast and coffee. She realized she was hungry.
“Sure,” Jessica replied, “sounds good. Lead the way.”
Jessica followed Sara into the kitchen. The two kids took off in opposite directions. Laura was standing at the counter, her eyes even more weary than her sister Sara’s. They were puffy and red-rimmed from crying. At this moment, a stranger would have guessed she was the older of the two sisters. Laura dropped the knife she was using into the jar and rushed over to give Jessica a grateful hug. She smelled like peanut butter. Jessica hugged her friend tightly and patted her on the back before releasing her.
“Thank God you’re here, Jessica. I know all you need right now is my problems piled on top of yours but I didn’t know who else to turn to.” Her bottom lip started to tremble ever so slightly as she stopped speaking and went back to the task of shoveling peanut butter onto bread.
Before Jessica could say anything, Sara spoke up. “Jessica wants a peanut butter sandwich too.”
“Sure. Is grape jam okay?” Laura asked. “I think we have honey if you prefer. It’s pb & j for the kids, though, one of the few things they’ll eat.”
“Grape jam will be fine.” Jessica said. “Look, Laura, like I said on the phone, I’m no defense attorney but I am your friend and I’m here to do anything I can to help. Let’s eat and then we can talk and see if we can sort things out. I’m glad you feel you can count on me. I just don’t want to let you down.” Jessica’s eyes filled with tears as a wan smile appeared momentarily belying the deep lines etched on her friend’s face by grief and worry.
“Thanks Jessica, you are a good friend.”
Jessica poured sippy cups full of milk for three year old Jenny and two year old Jack, and then filled glasses with iced tea for the adults. Fruit and chips were served along with the sandwiches. In no time the toddlers seemed to be coated in peanut butter and jam.
“More on them than in them, as usual,” Sara said as she pleaded for them to stop smearing their food on each other. Somehow, despite shrieks from the kids, the clanking of spoons on Dora the Explorer dishes, and the clatter of plates, spoons and cups repeatedly hitting the floor, the subdued and sparse conversation of the adults made it seem like a quiet lunch.
As soon as lunch was over Sara left to hose the kids down and put them to bed for a nap. Jessica watched her leave the room with a mix of relief and regret that she wasn’t in her shoes. Mostly, she felt relief given the current condition of her soon-to-be-terminated marriage. What would she and Jim have done if they had child custody issues to deal with? Worse yet, what if they had to continue to see each other because they shared a child?
Jessica sighed deeply as she got up from the table to help Laura clean up the lunch dishes. Laura refilled their glasses with iced tea and they sat down on the sofa in the great room off the kitchen, stepping over a kid’s toy or two. The room was large, with high ceilings and an airy feeling. A wall of windows and sliders opened to a large backyard enclosed by a sepia colored cinder block wall with magenta bougainvillea climbing up and over it.
A covered patio overlooked a grassy play area, with a swing set at one end and a barbeque pit at the other. There were more kids’ toys scattered about. Jessica felt a little flip-flop somewhere in her gut. Maybe it was her traitorous biological clock tick-tocking now that the kids were sleeping like angels rather than screaming like banshees. More likely it was just a bit of indigestion from peanut butter served up with a lingering hangover and a heavy dose of stress, given the current circumstances.
Setting her glass down, Jessica leaned forward. “Okay Laura, start at the beginning and tell me everything that’s happened.”
Laura took a deep breath. “There’s really not that much to tell. I came home and found him in the hallway.”
“What time did you get home?”
Laura reddened and looked down without answering Jessica’s question.
“Laura?” Jessica prodded.
Laura struggled to speak through a whole lot of misery. “We haven’t been getting along very well ever since Roger’s business got so bad. I mean we were still okay moneywise because I have my job at the hospital, but Roger’s been miserable. His business depended a lot on home sales. People who bought new homes and didn’t want to pay for builder upgrades would hire him to give them the kitchen of their dreams or a deluxe master bath. Practically overnight all that work was gone. He was doing some work for banks and realtors on foreclosures. They hired him to put things back together after pissed off homeowners trashed their homes when the banks took them back, or after the neighborhood kids broke in and used the place as a party house. But it wasn’t that steady and it didn’t pay nearly as well as the upgrades and remodels he’d been doing when the real estate market was so hot.”
Laura looked at Jessica for a moment and said, “we really were straining to hold it together, financially, you know? We fought all the time. The neighbors called the cops on us once or twice.” Then she looked down again, wringing a tissue in her hands
“Laura, I know this is a little embarrassing, but we’ve all taken our lumps from this housing debacle. That’s taken a toll on a lot of relationships, too. Did the fighting get physical?” Jessica asked, speaking softly.
“No, no, it was nothing like that. A lot of shouting and I threw a few things, but never hit him with anything. And he’d never dream of hitting me. He never would have done that,” her voice trailed off so Jessica could barely hear the last couple words.
“The thing is, I didn’t go straight home last night. In fact, I didn’t get home until this morning. I called Roger and left a message. I told him you were in bad shape and I was going to stay with you at your place.” She looked directly at Jessica and the blush started to return to her face.
“Okay so why’d you tell him that?” Jessica asked puzzled by the story she was hearing.
“You remember that waiter, Eric? The cute one we were sort of flirting with all through dinner?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Jessica said nodding her head.
“I sort of ended up at his place,” she said, the words tumbling out in a rush.
Jessica paused for a minute to take in what she was saying.
“So how did that happen?”
“I’m not sure how it happened, Jessica. It just happened. We were all having such a good time. When we got to Costa’s I was feeling pretty good, it could have been the booze but I felt better than I had in weeks. Then Eric showed up at Costa’s. Remember, I brought him over and said, look who’s here? You said you were glad to see him again so soon or something like that. But you didn’t seem like you were, happy to see him, I mean.”
Jessica struggled to recall events at Costa’s but that was the point at which things had started to come apart for her. She loved to dance but the whole bar scene had never appealed to her very much even before she was married. Last night she had tired almost immediately of worn out “pickup” lines being used on her and other women around her.
Even more aggravating were the squealing young women, some probably not
even of legal drinking age. Those piercing sounds slashed their way into her brain if there was even the slightest pause in the throbbing pulse of the high volume dance party music. The guffawing and braggadocio of the twenty-something men was no better. From what she could tell, most had learned their social skills from “Jackass the Movie”.
Jessica got plenty of attention, but she felt a million years older and way more jaded than the crowd gyrating on the dance floor. She just didn’t have the hormonal drive to put up with all the frog-kissing she’d have to do to find a frigging prince among that rabble. That must have been the point at which Brien and Tommy decided to intervene. She could not remember much of the conversation with Laura and Eric or anything after that, really. Nothing more until she woke up this morning.
“Laura I was pretty much out of it by then so I don’t remember. I don’t think I stayed around longer, did I?” Jessica asked, almost as embarrassed as Laura at this point.
“No, you left a few minutes later. Tommy asked if I wanted to go. He said he and Brien were taking you home and they’d drop off the rest of us along the way. Eric offered to give me a ride, so I stayed. We hung around for a little while, had another drink, then Eric asked if I wanted to get out of there. The minute I got into the car with him, that was it. We were all over each other, and I let him take me to his place. On the way I called Roger and told him I was going to stay with you, Jessica.” Laura began to weep softly, covering her face with her hands.
“Maybe if I had gone home I could have stopped somebody from murdering him, Jessica. We weren’t doing so well. I knew we were about done as a couple, but I didn’t plan to cheat on him. I never wanted to hurt him, and could never have imagined finding him dead like that. It’s a nightmare.” Jessica got up and moved to the couch to sit beside her, pulling Laura toward her and letting her sob on her shoulder for several minutes.
“It’s okay Laura. I get it. I had no idea things were so bad for you and Roger. I know that’s my fault. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own crap. I am so sorry. We don’t know what happened to Roger, or when, but I doubt it would have made any difference if you’d gone home sooner. Whoever did this to Roger might have hurt you too, Laura, if you had walked in when this happened. Have you thought about that?” Jessica said, wondering what time it was when Laura left that message. It must have been after midnight, when Brien and Tommy had hauled Jessica out to the limo. But not too much later than that if Laura and Eric left when she said they did. According to Laura, Roger hadn’t answered the phone so he was either asleep or already dead by the time she called. A coroner’s report would tell them more about when and how Roger was killed.