I didn’t think Beth would ever settle down. But I heard through friends not long after I started my third bid in the joint that she met some kind of rich guy, a banker or something, got married, and went Junior League. I had a good laugh over that one. Because I know Beth and I know that the last thing in the whole world she would ever want to do is bed down with some wrinkly old fart in a suit. Nope. Beth is just committed to the long con. She always did have more patience than me.
Aw, Beth. When I think of her, I still get a flutter in my heart. She was my equal. Maybe the only woman I ever truly loved. Together, we were unstoppable. We were so famous in North Portland that Mal Martin is still talking about us—thirty-five years later.
“No, man. I haven’t talked to her in years. She went straight anyway. Last I heard.”
I tried to write Beth once or twice from the joint, but she sent those letters back Return to Sender. She didn’t want a thing to do with me.
“Mm-hmm,” Mal says. He’s seen it all from behind this bar. “We gettin’ old, all right.”
“Too old,” I say. There. I told him. “Too old” is code for, I’m just here for a visit. I’m not here to do any business—as if bringing a teenager down here didn’t say that loud and clear already.
“Cody, what are you doin’ hanging out with an old fart like Ronnie Daniels?” Mal says. “Isn’t he boring you to death?”
“He’s okay,” Cody says, a little bashful, but playing along with the joke. “He lets me drive, so . . .”
Cody doesn’t even take his eyes off the bar, swiveling back and forth on the bar stool. Nicki would probably shit if she knew I took him down here, but I say it’s good for him. Boy is soft. He needs some exposure. Anyway, nothing’s going on here—not really.
“You’re a good-lookin’ son of a gun,” Mal says. “Nice work, Ronnie.”
Mal is genuinely happy for me. He might be an old-school Portland go-between in the drug world—but he cares. This is what people don’t get about people who commit crimes. We’re just like regular people.
“And how’s your daughter? She was a cute little thing,” Mal chuckles. As my sidekick, Nicki had fans from one side of Northeast Alberta to the other.
“She got a real estate–type company she owns. I’m staying with her. Things are real nice. Getting to spend a lot of time with my grandson here,” I say. “Like he said, teaching him to drive.”
“Oh yeah?” Mal directs another question at Cody. “What kind of ride you sporting, young man?”
Cody dares to take his head out of his Coke and make eye contact with Mal. “My mom’s BMW,” he says.
“We’re not going to tell her that, are we?” I say. Ha! “In fact, we better get going if we want to get that car home before she finds out we took it for a spin.”
Cody whispers in my ear that he needs to use the bathroom and I point him in the direction of the men’s room. He gets up off the bar stool, and the moment he’s gone Mal leans across the bar and asks me point-blank if I’m wanting any action.
“So you sure you’re not interested in a little something?” Mal says. I guess I can’t blame Mal for asking. It’s hard for people to believe it when the life of the party says he’s leaving before midnight.
“Why, you got a hookup?” I’m asking this more out of habit, I guess. It’s hard not to be just a little bit curious.
Mal wipes the bar in front of me. “You really wanna know?”
I know what he’s asking. I take a swig of my water. “Not really. I just came here to say hello to my old friend Mal. See what’s up. You know. Show my grandson my old stomping grounds.”
Cody returns from the bathroom. “You ready, Freddie?” I say.
“Sometimes you get in the car for bread,” Mal says, “and you end up getting a fifth of whiskey. If you know what I mean.”
“I gotchu,” I say. It’s really time to go now. “Let’s do this, Cody. You take care, Mal. And if you see anyone from the crew, give ’em my regards.”
“Will do,” he says. He knocks on the bar twice, the universal sign for acknowledging a tip—even though I didn’t give him one. I down the rest of my soda water in one gulp.
I gotta get out of here.
I drive the car home, and while I’m cruising down the road, the thought enters my mind that one deal would give me the kind of money I’d need to help Nicki with her escrow situation. I could pay back the money she’d lose on the deposit without even thinking about it. And have something left over for myself. Not that me solving her problem would make up for all the lost years between us.
But you never know. It might help.
17
* * *
NICKI
How is it that all I had to do was step across the threshold of a two-story colonial and instantly I’m able to breathe again? I don’t recognize the agent (thank God), a good-looking guy, older than me, but sexy in a twinkly, gray-haired, blue-eyed, J. Crew sort of way. Gray Crew, ha-ha, I think.
“You’re hot,” Peaches says to him, like she just found a dollar bill on the floor.
We’re supposed to be getting our nails done, even though it’s only Tuesday. I needed an emergency session, because I still own a restaurant I have no idea what to do with, I’m still buying a house I don’t really want, and my long-lost dad has become my wife. At least my son is going to school every day, and he’s putting together two or three sentences in a row—which he’s never really done before—so I can’t say it’s all bad.
“You been looking long?” The agent is twinkling straight at me. Normally I find it easy to ignore such overtures, but right this second, it actually feels nice. I could use a new fan, even if it’s just for the next ten minutes. Of course Peaches jumps in. She can’t help grabbing all the attention for herself, that’s just her way.
“Oh, we’re not together,” she says to the agent. “If that’s what you were thinking.”
It’s obvious he wasn’t thinking that, but this is how Peaches flirts: she suggests something sexual out of whatever it is you just said—whether it was sexual or not. Then she touches your arm.
“We’re just stopping by,” I say. I give the agent an apologetic glance. Gray Crew twinkles some more. I’m hardly going to tell this guy I’m already in escrow on something and that, in fact, I’ve already removed the final contingency, despite having been left by my boyfriend, not to mention the shocking and unwelcome appearance of my incarcerated father at my doorstep. I can’t tell him that. So I just say something benign. “We’re neighbors. We saw the sign.”
Peaches wants more eye contact and face time with Gray, so she mounts an explanation no one asked for or cares about. “This is what she does to relax,” she says, meaning me. “Goes to open houses. We’re supposed to be getting our nails done right now.”
“He doesn’t need to know that, Peaches.”
That gets Gray’s attention. “Your name is Peaches?” Yes, her name is Peaches. This is an exchange I’ve had four million times in the years I’ve been friends with Peaches. Someone overhears me saying her name and the next thing I know, she’s taking her clothes off. Not quite that dramatic, but almost.
In this case, the guy’s doing me a favor, though. Secure in the knowledge that Peaches has now found something to occupy her attention—such is the life of an emotional toddler—I wander toward the dining room, a boxy affair that has good light and the kind of six-over-one original windows any die-hard real estate lover can appreciate, whether or not a Monterey Colonial is your personal jam. Nothing, but nothing turns me on like original glass. Okay, chevron parquet floors turn me on like original glass, but those are usually in Paris, so forget it.
There is something about disappearing into someone else’s kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and guest bedroom that takes me further and further away from myself—or maybe it’s just further from the painful parts. I can lose myself i
n someone else’s family photos, someone else’s wall coverings, someone else’s choice of hand soap. By the way, who paints a bathroom the color of wet cement? It’s hideous and it’s making me look even more washed-out than I already am.
For the moment, at least, I don’t want to have to think about my life, and now I don’t have to.
“Let’s go,” Peaches says. Gray Crew has moved on to some other potential clients, a young couple who clearly have the kind of jobs where you don’t have to wear a name tag. “I’m bored,” she says. Right, because if she doesn’t have some sort of plaything to occupy her attention, she’s bored.
We say good-bye—I wave extra-cute on my way out, because that was flattering—and we head for the car.
“When are you gonna have me over to meet your dad?”
“Never.”
“I was thinking you should have Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Are you going to make the turkey?” I say, knowing that would never happen.
“I will if you want me to,” she says. “But I don’t think you want me to.”
I start the car and pull away from the curb. “You still have time for nails?”
“Absolutely,” Peaches says, going back to Thanksgiving dinner. “What about your dad? Make him cook it.”
“Oh, he’d be the happiest man on the planet,” I say. “But I don’t know if I’m ready to be that nice to him.”
“You’re such a punisher,” she says.
“No, I’m not. But if you had a dad who disappeared on you seventeen years ago, you might go slow, too,” I say. “I think I’m being an extremely nice person even just to let him stay at my house.”
“Yeah, you’re right. If I had a dad, I might.”
Peaches has a dad, but he’s lived in California our whole lives. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” I can be really self-centered sometimes. “I’m just trying to say that I don’t have to fling open the doors to my heart just because Ronnie Daniels needs a place to stay or he’ll go back to jail. Let him earn it.”
“He could always earn it by cooking,” she says. Then pops a bubble with her gum.
Maybe. Last Thanksgiving Cody, Jake, and I ate dinner at a friend of Jake’s house. It was all restaurant people, so the wine list was amazing, but the gathering lacked any sense of family, or for that matter, soul. I knew it was time to leave when I got the feeling that people were doing coke in the bathroom. Some restaurant people—especially the ones who work at cool places like The Echo—are like that. It’s just part of the culture.
“Perfect! It’s done, then!” Peaches flips down the mirror and starts digging through my makeup stash, refreshing her lips and eyes. “I’ll bring the tequila.”
“Maybe, Peaches. I’m not committing to that. But I’ll think about it.” She’s destroying my favorite brown eyeliner, dragging it across her lower lid like the former goth girl that she is. “Could you go easy on that thing? It was expensive.”
“Damn! Calm down, sis.” She plugs the cap back on the pencil and puts it away. “It’s just an eye pencil.”
“Yeah, but it’s my favorite one,” I say. It can be really hard for Peaches to care about something as much as you do. If you point something out to her that she’s doing, she feels so bad she has to keep doing it. If that makes sense.
Peaches looks at me. “You’re right. And you’ve been having a really hard time lately. I’m sorry.”
Now I look at her. “Are you serious?” It’s not like her to just drop something. She usually has to tug at it for a while. Fight about it. She’s scrappy.
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Because for a second there it sounded like you were making fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” she says, with a heavy emphasis on the youuuuuu. Everything Peaches says sounds like a pit bull is saying it. “I’m worried about you. Your life is falling apart.”
“Thanks a lot,” I say. It’s true, though. My life is falling apart. “Jake called me.”
“Of course he did,” Peaches says. “Let me guess, there’s some kind of explanation. Please don’t tell me you’re buying it, Nick.”
“I’m not!” Oof. That was a little too much protest. “I mean, I’m not. Really. Trust me.”
She eyes me. “You know what you should do?”
“What?”
“Start dating.”
“Oh please.” Dating is possibly the last thing I need to do right now. It would be down there with having another baby and starting a third business. “It’s only been ten minutes since I was buying a house with someone.”
“So? Where is that someone now? You know what they say: the fastest way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“Who says that?”
“Sexy people.” She’s grinning while wiggling in her seat. “You know.”
“I’m not a sexy person,” I say. I personally think I’m sexy, but I know Peaches doesn’t, so sometimes I like to play into her version of me. Because compared to her, I’m not.
“You could be, though. You’re just afraid to go there.”
Peaches thinks sex is the solution to everything. “There’s more to life than sex,” I say.
“Just think about it,” she says, checking her lipstick. “It’s a good idea.”
It’s definitely not.
“I think maybe you have a hard time letting people in, Nicki,” she says. She really thinks she’s having some kind of insight here. Which is annoying. “You don’t want to get close.”
“Those are called boundaries, Peaches,” I say. “You wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“You call them boundaries, but we all know what they really are—you’re a scaredy-cat. You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared.” I say this like skeered. I’m making fun of her idea that just because I don’t have sex with strangers I’m a scaredy-cat. “I let you in.”
“That’s different,” she says. “Because I’m awesome.” She does her little booty dance in her seat and laughs out loud. “No, but really. I’m all that’s left. Everyone else you kick out.” Then, like she knows what I’m about to say: “Cody doesn’t count.”
“Jake left all on his own,” I say. “I didn’t kick him out.”
“I think if you look real close, Nicki, you made him leave.” She’s so damn certain of what she’s saying right now. She’s got this smug look of, mm-hmmm. Ugh. I want to wipe it right off her face.
“Whatever, Peaches. Just because you’ll let anyone set up a tent in your life. Look around. I have two businesses, I’m a college grad, I’m a good mother, I own a home, and I did all that—by myself. I’m comfortable with my choices.”
Every once in a while I have to say something like this to remind Peaches that our lives are not equal. Even when it’s in a shambles, my life is a palatial estate compared to her one-room shack. I use this fact as proof of why I don’t need to listen to her, why her instincts suck, and why my way of living is better than hers—because it results in a better life. Obviously. Sure, I know no one’s life is actually better than anyone else’s—we’re all right where we’re supposed to be, blah blah blah—but I’d way rather be where I am than where Peaches is.
“Wow, Nicki,” Peaches says. “You’re not a true bitch very often, but when you are, you bring it.”
“Can we please just go get our nails done?” I want to put my feet in soapy water and have a chair be my boyfriend for an hour. Hold me and make me feel safe. “Please?”
“Yes, we can. But you have to tell me what Jake said. Every second of it.”
“He—”
“Is this the very beginning?” She wants every single detail.
“Okay. First off, I was on my way home from work.” I pull into a parking space outside Nail Station. “Be careful getting out, I don’t want you to
scratch my car door again.”
“Fine,” she says. She throws open her car door, even though I just told her to be careful. “Then what happened?”
“I answered it.”
“Shit,” she says.
“And right away, he sounded sad. I can’t explain it. He just sounded . . . the way I’ve always wanted him to sound.”
My mind floats back to the first time Jake said he loved me.
We’re sitting on the sofa after dinner, drinking cabernet, talking about the Oregon coast. We both agree it’s one of the most special places in the world. “I would love to take you there, Nicki.”
Jake sets his glass down, takes my hands in his, inhales deeply. I have to stifle a nervous smile, because I know he’s coming close to telling me he loves me, and as much as I long to hear him say those three little words, it also makes me feel exquisitely vulnerable to look into his eyes and let him really see into mine.
“You know, when I was younger,” he says, “I used to wonder what it would feel like.”
He stops. I’m not sure whether I should prompt him, or not. I decide I should. “What what would feel like?”
He looks almost misty. “Falling in love,” he says. “I never knew.”
I’ve never had a guy say something like this to me before. Usually, they just say it, “I love you,” then I say it back, and from that moment on, you say it to each other all the time. Not really that big a deal. More like a relationship milestone that you just have to get out of the way, like cutting your toenails in front of each other. But this is different. Jake is saying he’s never been in love before. At all. With anyone.
Multiple Listings Page 18