by Linda Sands
He smiled, then kissed her gently on the forehead before reaching for one of the beers and raising it in a toast.
“Besides, we all know there are more than enough asses in the world, right girls?”
Chapter 22
TAKE A PICTURE, IT LASTS LONGER
Roxie had read enough books about men’s brains to know that the guy at the home improvement store would be thinking of her ass for at least three hours after she’d had to bend over that woodpile to find the measuring tape. She hated that the orange-aproned employee was old enough to be her grandfather. Wasn’t there a time when the sex thing just shut off? An age when it would it be safe for every girl to bend over?
Roxie thought she’d seen it all. Holding over seventeen jobs in a six-year period, sometimes three at a time, she wondered how she could ever have thought of her California days as fun and free. She was almost to the point where she could tell stories about living there, if she’d had a few glasses of wine, but never unless someone asked—she’d learned that nobody likes a bragger and that everybody likes to hear their own stories more than anyone else’s.
People liked to hear themselves talk. Roxie was cool with that. Cool with listening, unless the talker had an annoying voice like that seriously hot dentist she’d once dated. He’d had a voice like a gargle, sort of phlegmy, deep, and sad. Like the put-on voice of a pathetic cartoon character. It left Roxie clearing her own throat and swallowing all night long, until she finally she devised a way to turn the stereo up too loud for conversation. If he started to speak, she kept kissing him and kissing him so he would shut the fuck up.
Her listening and storytelling skills made the perfect combination for a job as a waitress in the tourist trap of downtown San Diego. She worked twenty hours a week at a restaurant called Johnson’s, where everyone was treated like some guy’s johnson, just slapped around a little more on weekends. Her boss gave her a piece of paper when she was hired entitled “The List of Appropriate Customer Insults.” He wadded it up and threw it at her. Roxie had nursed a paper cut for a week where it hit her on the chin.
It included such witticisms as: “You want fresh tuna? Go see your girlfriend. At Johnson’s, we fry your cod.” “You want your check? Around here we call it a bill. Heads up, duckie. (Server may then toss check folder at guest.)”
Roxie had no trouble being a smart-ass. Throwing wadded-up napkins and yelling across the room was nothing compared to the crap she’d pulled off in high school. The job was easy money, good hours for a girl who never slept, and a perfect place to meet fun people.
She went into work the first day wearing kabuki makeup, her hair in a high, tight bun, and a light-up Star Wars saber tucked into a sparkly belt. She pulled out a chair, hopped up on it, and addressed a table by saying, “I’m the Queen of Siam, motherfuckers. Now what the hell do you want?” The bartender applauded and the diners tipped 35 percent.
She’d appear at work wearing battery-operated Christmas lights around her waist and trailing behind her like a tail. She recited dirty limericks in foreign accents. She took all the guys’ phone numbers slipped to her in the check folder and pasted them to the ladies’ room wall, next to an arrow and the words: “Rich. Hung like a horse.”
On a typical night in June, Roxie had sat around the bar with the other servers counting out tips, winding down.
“What did you clear?” they’d ask.
“Ah, the usual bullshit, you know,” Roxie said, shrugging.
But they didn’t. The other girls were pulling a buck fifty, maybe two hundred on a Saturday, and that was if they hustled. The quicker you turned a table, the better chance you had to clear a nice bit of coin. But you still had to tip the kitchen and the bar, and sure as shit those bartenders knew what your tickets were. Most of the time the waitress could blame it on the customer, calling them cheap or saying somebody had walked, but if you said that too often it came out of your pocket. Like Janice. She had fucked up more than once.
“You aren’t pulling a Janice, are you?” the girls asked Roxie.
“Who me? Shit, I sold a thousand bucks and turned in two hundred in tips, okay?”
Roxie was getting pissed. She climbed onto the bar.
“Look, fuckers!” she yelled, waving a twenty. “This is for you, Rusty.”
Roxie crumpled the bill and threw it at the bartender.
“And you, and you, and you,” she said as she went down the line, tossing ones, liking how the staff looked scrambling on their hands and knees for the money. She didn’t care. She’d really cleared over four hundred and stashed most of it her bra.
“All right then? Are we okay? Now, can I have a fucking beer? Please.”
She drank her beer and passed on a shot when the only guy Roxie would ever wait for exited the employee locker room, freshly washed and changed.
“I’m gone,” she said, throwing some more bills on the bar though after hours they all drank for free.
“Show me.” She pointed to Rusty.
He grinned, then pulled up his T-shirt, displaying a perfect set of rippled abs.
“Nice.” She reached over and tucked another bill in his pants.
In the parking lot, he was waiting by his motorcycle. Roxie was still on the fence with the whole environmental-verses-the-cool-factor thing. What was better, a hot car or a speeding Ducati?
Not much, except maybe another Ducati.
Sitting behind Daniel, arms wrapped around his waist, the road whizzing by as they leaned in and out of turns, feeling the hum of the bike between her thighs, Roxie thought she had it all. In love, living a good life in a sunny place with her family a safe distance away, creating even more feelings of love.
Some people go home because they fail and there’s no place else for them to go. Some return to spread the wealth of their success. The town gives them a key and they reunite with old friends and marry someone’s sister and build hospital wings and host charity parties in their gardens each May.
Roxie had gone home because someone died.
She went backward because “forward” wasn’t in her vocabulary yet. Without Daniel, San Diego wasn’t the same and sunny wasn’t enough anymore. Sadness is the kind of cold that sunshine can’t heat.
Working at Flannigan’s was her salvation. Destiny led her to that corner bar and introduced her to James Smith. Destiny, and also her car broke down right outside.
As James said, “Sometimes lives collide. And it’s a beautiful thing.”
“Weather sucks today,” Roxie said, easing onto the bar stool that she’d claimed from day one.
“You sound surprised. Forget where you live?” Cress said. “It’s another typical shitty day in Central New York. Good morning!”
Roxie yawned.
“Did you sleep at all?” Cress asked.
“Few hours. It’s enough.”
Roxie hated wasting her day in bed. She couldn’t understand people who complained about insomnia. To her, not sleeping at all would be great. She imagined how much more people could do if they didn’t have to sleep, how much more they could accomplish.
Cress said, “Whatever, Roxie. I don’t care how much you want to quote the napping Einstein or Benjamin Franklin. You’re supposed to sleep eight hours a night. It’s good for your skin. It’s healthy.”
Chamonix poked her head into the bar from the kitchen. “Healthy? Who the hell cares about healthy? Shit, how old are you, Cress? I’m with Roxie on this one. I’m gonna sleep when I’m dead.” She slid onto a bar stool and took a long slug from her coffee mug. “Got any Red Bull back there?”
Most mornings it was like this. They’d all come together from whatever place they had been the previous night and share a morning moment. It was like a modern version of the family breakfast, the office water cooler, the morning carpool catch-up. And it meant something different to each of them.
Chamonix needed the ruse of normality that she found with these girls, in this bar, on this street. This was her constant. A piece
of life she could count on everyday. Something she could cling to. She needed it as much as she needed her daily horoscope, her morning tarot card reading, her afternoon phone psychic call, and her early evening astrological alignment chart.
Cress needed these mornings too. For the comfort, the belonging, the acceptance. Things she had never been able to claim before. These girls—no, she reminded herself, these women—had created a family, one that celebrated individuality, but one that was stronger together.
They were a team. Like Charlie’s Angels—with their own Charlie, in James. That was how Cress saw it anyway. Not that they were saving the world or running around with gold revolvers or anything. Though that would be cool.
Cress would be the pretty angel, the one who never had to do the dirty work, could simply rely on her looks. Vanity wasn’t a bad thing. It was supersized self-confidence. Using beauty wisely meant getting seated at VIP tables in restaurants, being able to return the fancy whosamajigger at the hardware store for cash without question. It meant extra attention when you needed it and never having to wait in line and, sometimes, the ability to go places other girls couldn’t—for free.
But it never meant selling out. It never meant degradation or acceptance of rudeness. All it took was one look toward James, holed up his glass office, and the offending guy would be in the street before the current song ended. Families watched out for one another.
In their family Roxie was the leader, the level-headed one, the kind of person you think is older than they really are just because they seem to know a lot about everything.
Chamonix said Roxie was the most normal one of them. Roxie had been embarrassed by the observation, almost apologetic. She knew the others wouldn’t understand why she needed them, which piece of her puzzle they completed. She could hardly understand herself. They certainly didn’t fit her usual MO for friends or lovers.
They made her think of what-if’s, and that was dangerous. The other day on the way to work, she’d passed a group of kids waiting for the school bus. If they hadn’t been holding backpacks and lunch bags she might have guessed them to be seven years older. Maybe it was from all the hormones in their milk and the stuff sprayed on their lawns. Puberty was arriving earlier and earlier, and kids grew taller than their parents. Girls were having periods at nine, sex at twelve—just like what happened in the Colonial days, except instead of getting married and moving out West to conquer land, build railroads, find gold, or make a little house on the prairie, they were becoming movie stars or running the streets ripping off strangers, doing drugs, pissing in alleyways, sleeping in abandoned buildings, and figuring out how long they had until they died or got pregnant or picked up or just couldn’t take it anymore. Total despair at fifteen.
Roxie knew how that shit felt. Though for her, when she lost Daniel, it was never an option to get addicted to substances, or to become fat or lazy. She wasn’t a quitter. She didn’t believe that good things came to those who waited, she thought they came to the person who was first in line, the one who not only had a hand out but was yelling, “Hey! Over here!”
She didn’t leave anything to chance. It didn’t mean she wasn’t superstitious or religious or any of those “-ious” words, but she had a strong sense of real in her “-iouses.” She would not be the girl who was caught sitting in the corner on her prayer mat when the bomb struck, or the one tossing her baby out the window during the flood.
“Check it out,” Roxie said, scanning her phone screen. “This guy says he can tell everything about a person with just a glimpse inside their refrigerator.”
“Get out,” Chamonix said.
“Think about it. What’s in your fridge?”
Cress said, “Right now? A whole lot of empty space.”
Chamonix and Roxie laughed.
“All right, very funny,” Cress said. “What about you, Chamonix? Would you let this guy look in your fridge?”
“Yeah, right,” Roxie said. “She won’t even let us in her house. She’s not going to let some stranger scope out her refrigerator.”
Chamonix brushed imaginary crumbs from her lap. “I never said you guys couldn’t come over.”
Roxie said, “Well, you’ve never invited us.”
“Why is that?” Cress said. “Aren’t we good enough?”
Chamonix slid off the bar stool, took her time pushing it back, then said, “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it. You guys see me all day. Isn’t that enough?”
“But we’ve never seen where the magic happens.” Cress poked Roxie and winked.
“Magic?” Chamonix stared at her.
“You know, like they say on Celebrity Cribs. They take you on a tour through some rich asshole’s mansion and when they get to the bedroom they open the door and say, ‘This is where the magic happens.’”
“Oh. Right.”
“Shit!” Roxie jumped up, eyes on the clock. “I gotta go. I told James . . . anyway, I’m freakin’ late. See you guys later.”
When the door closed behind her, there was a silence in the room, partly uncomfortable and then, nice. Like the mother-in-law had gone to bed.
“Did she say James?” Cress asked.
“That’s what I heard,” Chamonix said.
“Strange.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what are you doing today?” Cress asked.
“Not much, got some errands. Just boring stuff.”
“Want some company?” Cress asked.
“Um, sure.” Chamonix turned away before Cress could see her face.
Chamonix led the way to the parking lot, then stopped short. “Crap.”
“What?” Cress looked around.
“I forgot,” Chamonix said. “I walked to work today. I guess we’ll have to do it another time. So—”
“No problem. I can drive. Look, I’m right there.” Cress pointed to a metallic blue bullet car. She pushed the remote in her pocket and the car whistled at her. “I’ll play chauffeur. Just tell where you need to go.”
For a tiny thing who seemed so perfectly put together all the time, Cress was a dichotomy behind the wheel. Chamonix almost expected her to pull on a pair of worn leather driving gloves, or some wraparound sport shades by the way she revved the engine and pushed then pulled levers and buttons like they were preparing for takeoff.
They were.
Cress zipped out of the parking lot, merged into a lane of moving cars, switched lanes with a glance and wrist flick, then turned toward the highway. She drove her Audi like the Germans had designed it to be driven—fast and with confidence.
Chamonix took in the interior. This was one of the downfalls to having an artistic side. She analyzed everything. Clean black leather, chrome accessories, upgraded stereo, not a speck of dust anywhere.
“Nice car.”
“I like it. What do you drive?” Cress sped up and passed a chain of minivans, then zipped in between a pickup and a roadster without a blink.
“Normally, I ride my bike.” Chamonix forced herself to stop gripping her thighs, willed herself to relax her jaw.
“I love motorcycles,” Cress said. “I had a Fatboy once, and a Kawasaki for off-road.”
“That’s nice. But my bike is a bicycle.”
“Cool. You have the legs for it.”
Cress reached over and touched Chamonix’s thigh, gave it a little squeeze. Chamonix jumped. Cress laughed and put her hands back on the wheel.
Chapter 23
EVERYBODY HAS A STORY, SOME PEOPLE HAVE THREE
Chamonix grabbed her bags from the trunk of Cress’s car. “Thanks again for driving. See you tonight.”
She held her breath as Cress pulled away. Not until the door to the apartment closed behind her did she let herself exhale.
She tried to shake off the feeling she’d been wearing a too-tight shirt, or an uncomfortable bra, something she could finally pull off and toss on the floor, giving her body sweet release.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like the gir
l. Hell, she was better than most of the chicks Chamonix had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. There was something damaged in Cress that appealed to Chamonix, something she thought she’d like to paint someday—which reminded her that she owed three canvases to the gallery in Vegas, and hadn’t started any of them.
“Nothing like a little pressure to get the creative juices flowing,” she mumbled.
The guy upstairs, the one she’d seen when she came back from her last forty-mile ride, was playing his guitar. At least she hoped it was him. For all she knew it could be his gay lover or a really good sound system pumping out a crystal-clear recording.
She found a blank canvas and set it on the easel, adjusting the stand so her back was to the open window. She opened three cans of paint at random. Yellow, turquoise, and tangerine. The guitar player slowed, changing from a classical ballad to a twangy tune, then a syncopated flamenco beat.
Chamonix smiled. “That’ll do.”
Three hours later, two canvases were almost completed.
Chamonix was hungry and had a small headache behind her eyes. There was silence from the apartment upstairs, but if she’d been asked when the music had stopped, she wouldn’t have been able to say. She lost track of everything when she was in “the zone.”
She called her agent in Seattle.
“Guy, it’s me. I got your messages. All of them.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you hate to be bothered when you’re working. You are working, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I am. I can have two of the three pieces ready to ship by the end of the week. But I need some money. Have you moved anything out there? Or through Vegas?”
“Honey, you are selling just as hot as ever. You sure you only have two for me?”
The guitar music started up again. Chamonix looked toward the ceiling. “Two for now. We’ll see. I’m feeling . . . productive.”
“Good. Good. Productive is good. Anything else you need? Besides the money?”