We passed through Malibu and drove farther, passed Zuma Beach, and then beyond anywhere I had ever been before. There were no more houses, no more buildings. It was just brown desert hills and the highway curving around the rocky seashore. And the ocean, of course, with its perfect flatness, perfect blueness, sparkling in the sunshine.
Reese pulled over at an unmarked spot. Stashed in the back, she had an actual picnic basket and a big tote bag. She gave me the heavy stuff to carry and we crawled down through the rocks to a secluded beach she somehow knew about.
We got settled on the beach. I found myself talking about Ailis. “I have this friend. She’s a girl. I think we’re going to start a business together.”
“What sort of business?” Reese asked, moving behind some rocks to change into her swimsuit.
“Private investigating,” I said. “Finding people. Like what I do now, but on my own. And with Ailis…”
“That sounds like a great idea,” said Reese from behind her rock.
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course,” she said. “You can use your own life experience.”
“The finding people part I’m not worried about,” I said. “I just don’t know about the business part. I’ve never even had a job….”
“My dad always says you should work for yourself. And I’m sure you can figure it out. Is Ailis smart? Can she help you?”
“Yeah, she’s great. I mean we argue sometimes… you know… but she has good ideas.”
Reese detected something in my tone.
“Do you like her, this girl?”
“Ailis? No. Not at all. She’s… I mean… no. I don’t like her. Not like that.”
Reese watched me closely.
“I don’t. Really. I don’t.”
We spread out our towels. Reese lay on her stomach, reading a magazine. I found the food in the picnic basket, all of which was super fancy: grapes and olives and crumbly goat cheese and this delicious bread, which had a lot of holes in it.
Reese started telling me about her week, how she’d had some close calls with some of the men her father had hired. One guy had followed her into American Apparel in Beverly Hills and she’d had to persuade the girls who worked there that she was being stalked so they’d let her out the secret “stalker” exit. At other times, she’d worn a wig and changed her whole look. “You’re not going to tell on me are you?” she said.
“No,” I said.
She flipped through her magazine. “My dad even came down here. To check on the progress for himself.”
I hadn’t mentioned seeing her dad yet. But now I had to. “Yeah, actually, I saw him.”
She turned and blinked at me. “You saw my dad?”
“He was waiting for me outside Hope’s.”
Reese dropped her magazine and stared at me. “Are you serious? What did he say?”
“He said…” I didn’t want to tell her, but there seemed no way to avoid it. “He said that you sometimes had trouble knowing what was real and what wasn’t. That you made stuff up.”
Reese sat up and frowned into the ocean. “That’s what he tells everyone.”
“He wanted me back on the case,” I said.
“What did you say?”
“I said I would help you if I could, but I wouldn’t take any money. And I wouldn’t report to him.”
“Well, thanks for that anyway,” said Reese.
The tide was coming in, which was gradually making our little private beach smaller. Waves came in and spread themselves on the sand in front of us.
“So it’s not true?” I said. “You don’t make stuff up?”
“Well, I’m not crazy! Not like he says,” she said. “But I mean, how do you even know? I’ve had periods where things felt… disconnected. Who hasn’t?”
She pushed some sand around. I stared blankly at her smooth, tanned legs.
I said, “Do you know for sure that he killed your mom?”
She thought about that for a long time. She stared into the ocean. “I thought I did. Now I don’t know.”
“You seemed pretty sure before.”
“I was upset,” she said. “The truth is, I didn’t want to admit that my mother would do that. That she could be so unhappy. Because that meant I would never get better, either. Because I’m so much like her. We were so much alike it’s scary.”
“Huh,” I said.
“That’s why I wanted to see you again.”
“Me?” I said.
“Because even if my dad didn’t kill her, he’s still a bad person. I still can’t live with him. He hurts people. He likes hurting people. My mom said something about divorce once and he told her he would ruin her and make her a bag lady on the street. No offense,” she added, quickly, “to people who live on the street.”
“No offense taken.”
“And he lies to everyone,” she continued. “He was lying to you when he told you I was lying. That’s how it gets with him. He hits you from every side until you give him what he wants. And if you resist, or fight back, he destroys you. I could never live in the same house with him. Something terrible would happen.”
I watched her worried face. It was still beautiful, even when she was dealing with terrible things.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” she said quietly. “I want to run away. Like really run away. Like away from California. Somewhere he can’t find me. Off the grid. Someplace I can start over.” She paused for a moment, and raised her eyes to me.
“I want to be like you, Cali,” she said. “I want to disappear.”
TWENTY THREE
Reese still wanted to see my tree house, so we went there after the beach.
We parked several blocks from Hope’s, in case anyone was watching the house. It was dark now, so that helped. We cut through the alley and crawled over the metal fence of Hope’s neighbor and then climbed the wood fence to Hope’s. Reese was not the greatest fence climber but she was determined, even after she skinned her hand, and got her pant leg caught.
When we were safely in Hope’s backyard, I led Reese to the tree house. She seemed impressed. I went up first and turned on the light so she could see.
“Okay,” I said. “Come on up.”
She climbed the ladder. She got to the top and I helped her in. I was suddenly embarrassed, though, as it occurred to me that she probably lived in mansions her whole life, while I lived in a box made of scrap wood, in someone else’s backyard.
But she was having so much fun, it made me forget about that. She crawled around and looked at the sleeping area and the little shelves with the radio and my notebooks. I’d stuck some drawings to the wall, including my ideas for the name of our business: MISSING PERSONS INCORPORATED, or MPI for short, and a logo I’d been working on.
I lit some candles to get more light, and pulled in my bag of oranges and offered her one.
“Oh my God,” said Reese. “You keep your food outside, hanging from a branch!”
“Just the oranges,” I said.
So then, since she liked it so much, I opened up the top hatch and we crawled onto the roof and lay down,, face up, like I did with Ailis that time. We stared up at the black sky above us and the passing planes and the glow of downtown Los Angeles to the east.
Reese loved it. She started talking about wanting to be on the road, traveling across the desert, away from her dad and California and all the superficial crap she had known all her life. She didn’t need money. She didn’t need credit cards or Range Rover SUVs. She wanted to throw herself into the world and see what happened. To live by her wits. To struggle and suffer and find her own way.
I found myself getting swept up in her vision and wishing I could go with her, wherever she was going, and I remembered what her dad said, about how “dreamer” partners are the best. If you have someone like that by your side, you feel like anything is possible.
When we crawled back inside, I waited for her to say she had to leave. But she didn’t. So I
set up the little hot plate and made us both hot chocolate. We sat and drank it in the candlelight. By now it was pretty late and she smiled at me and said, “Has anyone ever slept up here with you?”
“Uh…” I said, trying to think of a way to explain about Ailis and her abusive dad and the time she freaked out.
“Ailis tried to,” I said. “Once.”
“Can I sleep here? Tonight?”
My body froze up for a second. I said, “Are you sure you want to?”
“Are you serious?” she said. “Of course I want to. We can spoon!”
I had heard of spooning but I wasn’t sure what it was exactly. But whatever it was, I’d be doing it with Reese. So how bad could it be?
So that’s what we did. We sat up and arranged the pad and the blankets and the sleeping bag. Then we took off our shoes and turned off the lights and there we were, under the covers, which was kind of like dying and going to heaven for me, mainly because Reese smelled so good, and her skin was so nice to be next to. Also she was giggling and excited by the whole thing: sleeping in a tree house, feeling the tree sway and the wind rustle the leaves around us.
Then a cat got on the roof, which happened sometimes. Usually it was Nibbles, the neighbor’s cat. Reese didn’t know what it was and got scared for a minute, but I told her it was okay, it was just Nibbles, from next door.
She thought that was funny. She said, “Nibbles.”
And I said, “Nibbles.”
And she started laughing.
And I started laughing.
“Nibbles the Cat…” she said one last time, and I could feel her warm breath on me and it felt so good to be there, so close to her face and her eyes.
Eventually, we stopped talking and she turned her back to me and we “spooned,” not with my arms completely around her or anything, but just fitting together like spoons do.
I woke up early. Much earlier than normal. Reese was still asleep. I realized my left hand had somehow ended up completely around her waist. And my chest was snug up against her back. No wonder everyone talks about spooning. It’s the best thing in the world.
I closed my eyes again, but there was no way I was going back to sleep. So I lay there, in the early dawn light, with the first birds chirping and the tree silent and still. I moved my face slightly closer to her, so I could breathe her hair and smell her and feel her softness. I got the idea then, that if I concentrated and held her just right, I could meld a part of myself into her. She had such a tough road ahead, maybe I could transfer some of that survivor part of me, into her. And then if she got into a tight spot, it would be there and it would help her.
Eventually, she woke up. I pretended that I’d been asleep the whole time. We both got up and put our shoes and hoodies back on and climbed down from the tree house. She yawned and stretched in the yard, and I worried she hadn’t slept so well. “You okay?” I asked.
“I’m great!” said Reese, grinning. “That was soo fun. Thank you.” She took my hand and pulled me to her and kissed me shyly on the cheek.
When she let go, she was blushing and she immediately bent down to retie her shoe. I blushed too and fiddled with my hoodie zipper. That was when I noticed that Hope’s back door was open. Someone was standing in the doorway, watching the two of us there in the backyard, having just climbed out of the tree house where we’d obviously spent the night.
It was Ailis.
Reese left soon after that. Ailis did not. She was there to have breakfast with Hope, at one of Hope’s big communal breakfasts. We both joined Hope’s friends at the big table. Ailis didn’t eat. Mostly she sat across from me, holding a cup of coffee and staring at me with laser death eyes.
Finally, she asked if we could talk. We went outside and stood in front of the house. “Can you please explain what I just saw?” said Ailis, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Reese wanted to see the tree house.”
“And?”
“And it was late. She wanted to see what it was like to sleep there.”
“And that seemed like a good idea to you?” Ailis said, staring at me with double-strength laser death eyes.
“What?” I said. “You slept up there.”
“Yeah, except there’s a couple small differences between me and her,” she said. “For starters, I am not one of the people you were hired to find. Second, I am not on Amber Alert across the entire United States. And thirdly I am not… I am not…“ She was really getting mad now. “I don’t look like that!”
Ailis started to hyperventilate. “Did it ever occur to you that this is the kind of thing that breaks up businesses?” she said. “That you are jeopardizing everything we’ve worked for?”
“Why would this break up our business?” I asked.
“Because you’re not treating it like a business! You’re not treating me like a partner. You’re doing whatever you feel like. You’re not being responsible!”
Ailis began to pace back and forth on the sidewalk. Then she plopped down on the step. She made a fist with her hand and bounced it against her forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think about it that way.”
Ailis didn’t respond. But slowly, she began to breathe normally again. She calmed down.
“Do you like her?” she finally asked me.
Now she was back to being Ailis my friend. She just wanted to know what was going on.
“Yeah, I like her,” I said, kicking at a rock on the sidewalk. “She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known before.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“What?”
“You heard what I said.”
I kicked some more rocks. “I don’t know,” I told her. This was the honest truth and Ailis could see that it was. “How do you know if you’re in love with someone?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never been.”
“Me, neither,” I said.
We didn’t speak for a while. We both felt ridiculous, I guess, and like we’d revealed more about ourselves than we wanted to.
Then Ailis became agitated again. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I yelled at you like that,” she said. “I sound like some stupid jealous girlfriend.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
She covered her face with her hands. “It was just the shock of it,” she said. “That’s all. What you do on your time has nothing to do with me.”
“Hey,” I said. “We’re friends too. I understand.” I jammed my hands in my hoodie pockets. Ailis looked miserable. And tired. I noticed then that her hair was dirty, like she hadn’t had a shower in several days.
Which meant her dad was home again. Which explained why she’d shown up at Hope’s for breakfast. She’d probably been sleeping in her mom’s car.
TWENTY FOUR
MMMMM—Kucha—MMMMM—Kucha—MMMMM—Kucha rolled the wheels of my skateboard on the sidewalk. I turned a wide, slow right and hit the boardwalk, weaving through a group of old-people tourists. A layer of fog was creeping in off the ocean and the sand was damp and the water had that smooth glassiness it gets sometimes, when it looks like a silvery liquid ocean on an alien planet.
I hopped off my board and walked onto the knoll to get a better view of the water. There were surfers beyond the breakers, sitting on their boards, staring out to sea. A large, growing wave appeared and several of the group came to life, turning in place and paddling furiously, in hopes of catching it.
I wanted to be out there. I thought about how simple my life had been just two months ago. And how complicated it had become. Which was the better way to live? Working hard, going to school, dealing with complicated people and difficult situations? Or living like I had before. No classes. No job. Surfing. Hoops. Eating oranges and day-old veggie burgers from the Dumpster behind Greens-N-Things?
Which was better? I couldn’t say. Maybe a little of both.
I went to the basketball courts and played in a game with two guys from Brazil who couldn’
t speak English. They weren’t the best basketball players, but at one point they started kicking the ball around and they were really good at that.
Then Diego showed up on his tiny BMX bike and we got a real game going. Diego and I were on the same team and we were tearing it up, doing our special moves, communicating with our eyes, just a look between us, and a cut to the basket and the bounce pass for the layup.
Later, Jax came by and we cruised to the Pizza Slice to say hi to Strawberry but she wasn’t in her normal place on the curb. That was unusual, so we asked Dimitri, the guy who runs the Pizza Slice, where she was. He didn’t know. Then Diego got a call from his cousin and we all had to go help push somebody’s car to the mechanic.
Strawberry still wasn’t around that night and Jax came to the basketball court to ask if anyone had seen her. We all went over to the Pizza Slice and asked Dimitri again, but he didn’t know where she was, and he didn’t like being bothered about it. He never liked us street kids hanging around. But his wife had been orphaned in her home country, in a war, so she was the one who made him be nice to us.
Jax was still worried. So we looked around. I checked the rusty oil drum where Strawbs stashed her backpack. It was still there. So wherever she went, she was planning on coming back.
Jax wanted to look inside the backpack, so I lifted it out of the oil drum. We opened it up. There was a dirty T-shirt, a sweater, a pair of socks, a little plastic thing for her toothbrush and dental floss. There was an old, beat-up copy of the book Winnie the Pooh that had come from a public library in Louisiana. At the very bottom were some coins and a couple of mangled bills, one of which was a twenty, possibly the one I gave her weeks ago. I checked the other pockets of the backpack. There was nothing there of any help. No phone. No ID. Nothing with her name on it. One thing Strawberry knew how to do: not exist.
“How long has it been since you saw her?” I said, lowering her stuff back into the oil drum.
“Two days,” said Jax, a look of worry on his face.
“Two days?” I said back.
That was a long time.
Ailis, meanwhile, was working on a website for our business and that night I went over to her house to look at it. Her dad was gone but her mom was there, camped out in front of the TV with a cocktail in her hand. She got right up though. You could tell Ailis had told her about me and she wanted to see what my deal was. She chatted me up, asking me questions, where I lived, where I was from. I was polite but avoided saying too much. I told her I was from the Midwest. She said, “Yeah, I can tell.”
The Prince of Venice Beach Page 13