by Billie Jones
He walked our order to José the short-order cook, a rotund Mexican guy who always wore an apron covered with what looked like blood, but I hoped was tomato salsa. He stared at everyone with a murderous look in his eyes and when the restaurant was quiet he practised his knife skills, which consisted of throwing them at balloons twenty metres away, blade first. It was totally unnerving when you were sitting under said balloons.
Looking anywhere but directly at José, JJ pierced our order onto the spike, making sure to hold his breath, and tiptoed back to our table. JJ was a trifle terrified of him after the last time we were here – the short-order cook told JJ he was going to have to wait for a delivery of jalapeños to arrive before we could have our poppers and JJ said, ‘No way, José!’ We all laughed ’til we cried, until José came out with his knives and started shooting them over our booth. We were a little confused because there weren’t even balloons there. One of the waitresses approached us and told us never to speak to José again. It’s not that he wasn’t friendly, it was just he had some sociopathic tendencies, so if we knew what was good for us we’d avoid looking directly at him, speaking to him, eating his food and patronising this restaurant for a while. We did as we were told and only felt safe coming back five kilos heavier with a different hair colour.
JJ returned to the booth and took up where he left off, ‘So about the curse. What’s the plan?’
‘I’ve hired a private detective called Zane. He’s only available at night because …’
‘Oh, no.’
‘It’s fine, most scary things happen at night …’
‘No, not the night thing. The Zane thing.’
‘What Zane thing?’
‘What’s Zane’s last name?’
‘Oakley. Why?’
‘I distinctly remember his name on the chain letter email. Does the name ring a bell to you?’
‘No, I don’t think so. What did he write on the email?’
‘Let me see if I can remember … something along the lines of “you’re a narcissistic, materialistic, claustrophobic monster who doesn’t understand poetry”.’
‘Wow, that’s specific. I mean, I have no idea what those words mean, except for poetry, if that counts?’
‘I don’t think it does. He’s friends with Charlize and moonlights as a self-published poet, and that’s about all I can garner from the email.’
‘Hang on. Friends with Charlize. A Poet. You don’t think he’s that weedy skinny guy from The Wasteland, do you?’
‘He also said you tried to slap the sad off his face.’
‘Oh, God. Yes, that’s him.’
‘Looks like you need a new plan.’
‘Well he’s definitely a suspect now. These so-called detectives are a waste of time, JJ. We’re going to have to do it ourselves.’
‘So, step one. Find a Bruja to reverse the curse, like Inez said.’
‘I guess. Do you think we can Google them?’
‘Of course. Yellow Pages should list them too. We need to be careful though. We don’t want to do it wrong and the curse reverse back to you.’
‘God, what a lot of mumbo jumbo. Fine. Let’s discuss something else, I’m over talking about me.’
José called out our number, so JJ walked over to collect our jalapeño poppers and taquitos. I had decided to forgo the red colour diet. To be honest, I had a pretty fast metabolism and, just between us, I was fairly certain Kylie had gained weight on it. Plus, I didn’t like to go on any fad diet per se, I looked at it more like a lifestyle choice. Instead, I thought I’d try the diet where you eat whatever you like, but you divide everything into two and only eat half. It worked out perfectly since JJ was here.
We ate in companionable silence. I could imagine JJ and me growing old together. We both liked great food and nice wine. Once our metabolisms slowed down, like in our forties, we’d move to the countryside where it’s OK to be fat. We’d grow corn, have chickens and sit on our porch like Southern Americans do. When I thought of Southerners, I started thinking of BBQ’d ribs and potato salad. God, who chose Mexican? There wasn’t much I could do about it now, so I dipped my jalapeño poppers into the mild chilli sauce we ordered. It took, I’m guessing, three seconds flat before I was blinded. I lost the vision in my eyes as sweat dripped into them. The dipping sauce was so spicy all I could taste was pain. I looked over at José, in a state of excruciating agony, to see him with a droll lopsided grin on his face. I began to think our different hairstyles hadn’t fooled José for a second. He knew exactly who we were.
‘JJ,’ I whispered, ‘I think I’m going to have some serious complications from this chilli. José is onto us. What should we do?’ JJ squinted at me, with a confused look on his face. ‘JJ. Are you listening? What should we do?’ I looked over at José again, who was sharpening his knives. Holy fuck, that was not a good sign.
‘Sorry, baby, I literally lost my hearing for a minute there. That chilli is definitely not mild like we ordered! I’ve got half a mind to go over there.’ JJ looked at the short-order cook and promptly shut his over-confident mouth up. ‘No. I’m actually not very hungry any more, Sam, since that chilli just burned the taste buds off my tongue. What about you?’
‘Yeah, I lost interest a few minutes ago. I have a hankering for ribs now, anyway.’
‘Right. Well then,’ JJ waved over the waitress and handed her some cash. ‘We’ve had a death in the family, so we’ll be unable to finish our meal. Please pass on our thanks to José and tell him we are sorry we won’t be able to finish. I’m happy to pay for it all, though.’
The waitress counted the money and said, ‘You’re a hundred short. The Tex Mex plate is ninety-nine dollars.’ JJ glared over at me while I donned on my most innocent expression. I didn’t want that busybody waitress tweeting how much I eat. Have I mentioned I have a super-fast metabolism? Don’t hate me for it.
Chapter 16
Communists and Suspects
We escaped from the gloomy Mexican restaurant as fast as was socially acceptable. JJ held my hand as we crossed the busy street. It was only midday and already I was exhausted.
‘I guess you just want to hide out somewhere until this YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and email thing blows over. Not much chance I could forget with him bringing it up every five seconds.
‘What are you saying? Are you ashamed to be seen with me?’ I asked.
I hate to admit it, but I’m pretty sure I saw him blush for a second. He was worried about people seeing us together. ‘Oh, you love me, hey? Want to make a life with me, hey? What – you only love the good parts? The long-haired, white-eyed, clean teeth part?’
‘Those are all good qualities,’ he said. ‘I’m not ashamed at all. I’m just remembering last time you had a social disgrace and I stood by you. You broke up with me for it. You said if I was happy with second best, then I wasn’t good enough for you.’
‘That would be implying that I was second best.’
‘Yes. I was just as confused at the logic at the time.’
‘It makes sense to me. If you’re happy going out with some crimp-haired stoner, then fine! I prefer my men to have higher expectations than that!’
‘What? You’re doing it again!’
‘Look, I need some time alone. I need to put pen to paper and work out if we’re mutually viable. I’ll text you later if I feel the urge to go out for dinner.’ I kissed his unnaturally soft cheek.
I could taste his paw paw moisturiser on my lips and smell his fairy floss perfume on me. Everything JJ wore smelled edible, which made him seem edible.
‘What about finding a Bruja to reverse the curse?’
Goddamn it to bloody buggery. The curse, with its suffocating shadow-like presence was starting to get me down. ‘JJ, I’m in no mood right now to trudge around town looking for a Mexican witch. At the moment, as you can imagine, I’m a little over Mexicans. Maybe once my vision is restored, things might change.’ Despondency was beginning to win. A girl could only take so much.
I decided to pay my electricity bill, go home and watch Oprah on Foxtel. A good cry at other people’s misfortunes always made things seem a little brighter.
‘You’re sure you want to go home alone?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just need some time to think things over.’
‘OK, baby. I’ll do some research on Brujas and call you later and see where you’re at.’ He kissed me and turned to cross the quiet street, leaving me in his fruit-scented hair product wake. As soon as I wasn’t near him, I lusted after him like a nymphomaniac. He had some hold over me and I wondered what I could do about it. Timothy also had a particular hold. How could I love two people equally? It didn’t make sense.
Ambling away from JJ, I took out my iPhone and paid my electricity bill online. I wasn’t happy about it. Not one little bit. How could something as simple as power be so expensive. It was highway robbery, a monopoly, communism even.
I suddenly remembered I shouldn’t be showing my face around town. Not because I was ashamed. God, no. More likely there were more of those evil paparazzi lurking around every corner looking for their next unhappy snap. I hailed the first taxi I saw.
I sat down and opened my phone to text my mum the driver’s details. Argh. What are the chances?
‘Hey, love, sorry about this morning. I … ah … don’t usually go there during the day …’
‘Enough, Bob. I don’t want that image popping back up again, I’ve just had half a bottle of absinthe to try and remove it.’
‘Well, I’d like us to be friends, if that’s possible.’
‘Uncle Bob. Have you wondered what my dad would think? Sleeping with his wife so soon after he’s gone?’
‘I know it seems that way but your Mum reckons she’s spoken to your dad and he’s given us his blessing. There’s not much he can do where he is.’
‘She got him on the God line again, did she? Called Jesus and asked to be put through, hey?’
‘God line? What? Samantha, your Mum told me the whole story…’
‘She did, did she? My dad is no concern of yours. Here we are,’ I said pointing to a car bay out the front of Mai Ling’s. ‘Just pull up there, Bob.’
He pulled in and said, ‘Six bucks thirty, love. Just make it six.’
‘What? You’re going to charge your own niece slash step daughter? What kind of money-grabbing monster are you? No wonder you and Kylie got on so well!’ I stomped away from the taxi in a rage. (Well, maybe a fake ‘get out of paying’ rage.) I glanced at the dry-cleaner’s shop as I went past. Mai Ling’s son, Sam, was sitting inside reading a magazine. Instead of staring at him with my best ‘hot for you’ look like I usually did, I narrowed my eyes and appraised him. Was he responsible for the curse? Looks aside, he had an air of hostility hovering around him. What the hell did he have to be so angry about? Could he be the leader of the hate campaign against me? I noticed he never smiled. That was weird. Who didn’t smile? Ever? Now Kylie was sort of seeing him (another weird fact), why would he go out with her and not me? It didn’t make sense, unless he was doing it to get information, from her, about me.
Hmm. He just moved up the suspect list to number one spot. I was going to have to be careful around Kylie, too.
The Jaws theme song ringtone started playing as I walked into my apartment. ‘Hello, Mother,’ I said.
‘Darling. I’ve got some bad news.’
‘Great, Mum. Let me guess. You’re pregnant?’
‘What? Darling, no! Bad news about you.’
‘What now? Am I pregnant?’ I asked, suddenly a little worried.
‘What? Darling? I hope not! I’d thought you’d abstained recently?’
‘Mum, seriously, do we need to discuss this? I think you’re violating your parental boundaries.’
‘Yes, darling, I meant the kimono. My friend who is a medium had a dream about you. The kimono is actually Mexican. You’ve been cursed by a Brujo, a Mexican wi—’
‘Yeah, yeah. I know all that already. JJ found out yesterday.’
‘Darling, this is very serious. This is black magic at its worst. You need to get rid of that thing now and reverse the curse.’
‘I’ll find a way to reverse the curse but that’s it. I want to pour a glass of champagne and dance around in the kimono for a little while!’
‘Don’t do that, darling! Heed my warning. This is black magic, you can’t mess around with it!’
Why didn’t the chilli affect my hearing instead of my vision?
‘You seem to know a lot about this black magic for a so-called “white witch”. Can you explain that?’ Mother dear was starting to sound fishy.
‘Darling, don’t be ridiculous! I’ve looked into the matter, of course. You’re my daughter, for goodness’ sake! I’m worried about you. Deeply concerned,’ she said. The over-emphasis seemed a bit trumped up and fake in my eyes. Like she was performing for me. Very dodgy.
‘Look, Mum, I love you and all, but I don’t trust you right now. I’ll call you later. When I’m ready. Any money I need to borrow can be direct deposited into my bank account.’
I was going to hang up on her until I heard her gasp. I wasn’t totally devoid of feelings you know, but I needed to put my life and safety first. She wasn’t usually the type of mother who would put some random Mexican curse on her daughter, but she’d been hanging out with a bunch of weirdos lately, I must admit. People looking into my future by holding my handbag?
I could see that scam a mile away, but my innocent (maybe) mother was too naive to understand.
Picture this: the ‘medium’ tells Mum to bring my handbag in to ‘read’, then says ‘now let’s close our eyes and picture a white light surrounding us’ and, boom! She’s searching frantically through the handbag for money, jewellery and JJ’s phone number.(It’s unlisted, he’s semi-famous, remember.) Next thing you know, I get my expensive handbag bag back, except now it says Guci instead of Gucci. She’s robbed me and done the old bag switcheroo.
‘So, JJ told you yesterday it was a Mexican curse?’ Mum asked.
‘Yes, he did. You claim to be able to “see” the future, yet he knew before you!’
‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘How did he find out so quickly?’
Wow, she had a good point. ‘Good point.’ How the hell did he know? Who knew what the symbol of a Brujeria looked like anyway? He lived in Paris and that wasn’t even close to Mexico. Very suspicious. Mum instantly tried to backtrack. ‘Oh, darling, I didn’t mean it like that! JJ has one of the nicest auras I’ve ever seen.’
‘Aura Schmora. He’s on the list. I have to go. Love you.’ I hung up dejectedly. I’d have no friends left if I didn’t sort this out soon. I wandered into my apartment taking in the view of the Swan River through my open curtains. I was momentarily lost in the beauty of the shimmering water so I didn’t notice my old friend the kimono lying flat on the kitchenette floor. I could have lived with that, since it had spent the last few days moving from room to room. What did alarm me was the fact my Stay Sharp knives were embedded in the linoleum around the place where my head would be if I were wearing it. That was creepy. I bent down, pulled the knives out of the floor, and put them back into the knife block. I gazed into the dark recesses of my handbag and found the knives I’d inadvertently taken from ‘Banging Senorita’s’ when José wasn’t looking. They had been sharpened so many times that they looked like darts.
Amazing what a homicidal Prozac addict can do to a piece of stainless steel.
It was obvious someone had it in for me and the Mexican kimono. I picked it up and draped it across the dining room table. The gem-like colours reflected off the glass door and again I was caught in its beauty. I couldn’t get rid of it. It was so fragile, so delicate. I loved it. OK, I’ll admit the dark little Brujeria symbolism along the bottom wasn’t ideal, but I was old enough to realise this wasn’t a perfect world.
The red light on my answering machine was flashing, so I pressed play as I hunted around the kitchenette for a
clean wine glass. Random voices queried my whereabouts, but nothing that couldn’t wait. The stress of the day had me hankering for a nice crisp white and maybe a selection of Margaret River cheeses, followed by some petit fours. A well-known fact is that if you’re stressed and have been through the wringer, for example, when you’ve had a day like mine, you can eat whatever you like and not worry about putting on weight. Kylie reckons when you’re stressed your heart rate speeds up and you begin to sweat. It’s exactly like jogging. So an hour of stress, while not the most fun you’ll ever have, is easier than running ten clicks.
I figured I had been worried for at least three hours today, so I was in credit in the food and alcohol department. I found a Guinness pint glass and poured my wine into that. Probably better, in the long run, as such a big glass meant I wouldn’t have to get up to refresh it so often.
I kicked my heels off, pushed the pizza boxes and chip packets off the lounge, and sunk into its deep softness. Ah, finally. Peace. Almost immediately, I fell into a dream-like sequence. JJ was kissing my neck causing me to shiver in anticipation. I could feel his warm breath in my ear as he whispered all the things he wanted to do to me. We crossed to the bedroom and took off our …
‘Msss Bevilaqua! This is the fifth and final warning! I saw you arrive in the CCTV footage so don’t pretend you’re not home. I’d like to see you in my office immediately!’ Jesus, that old harridan belting out of my answering machine. What a way to ruin a nice fantasy.
The only person that called me Msss Bevilaqua was Mrs Dingleberry, the property manager in charge of the apartment block I lived in. She was a short, plump woman with unruly, frizzy, grey-blue curls that snaked around her big ears and thick neck. She always smelt like carpet cleaner and her face was stuck in the same permanent scowl. I don’t know why she had summoned me to her office like she was some kind of principal, but I felt like those petit fours now and her office was downstairs next door to the Jean-Pierre patisserie. It seemed like a win-win situation. I downed the rest of my wine and went to see what the dingle, as we called her, wanted.