Rumours

by Alison Tyler

  ‘I thought Sheila looked awesome.’

  ‘Which one was she?’

  ‘The left curve of the “O”. Alden must be gnashing his teeth.’

  ‘Are they off-again right now?’

  ‘You better believe it. And Sheila’s been seen with Zeppelin –’

  ‘Which Zeppelin?’

  Gossip seemed to be the main hobby of the town and, although I was intrigued, I followed the story with difficulty since I didn’t know any of the players, although I did gather from the statement that there were two Zeppelins in town. When it was my turn in line, the lady behind the counter handed over a form for me to fill out. As I started writing, a second woman made her way to the counter from the back, obviously curious to see the newcomer in town. ‘You staying a while?’ she asked.

  ‘Three months, at least.’

  ‘Odd time for a vacation.’

  ‘I’m taking some time off,’ I explained.

  ‘From where?’

  ‘It’s not so much where I’m from,’ I replied in as Zenlike a manner as possible, ‘I just needed a break.’ I glanced at the woman and from the kind look in her violet-blue eyes judged her to be sympathetic. ‘From a guy.’

  ‘Ah.’ She grinned at me. ‘I know what that’s like.’

  Behind me in line, a man started to laugh. ‘Yeah, Sue? Well, any time you want to take a break from Ellis, you come on over to see me.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Sue responded, and then I noticed the badge on her shirt read ‘Sukie’. I found myself staring at her breasts, recalling the conversation I’d heard earlier at the Cowpie, and then I got hold of myself and looked away. She found out quickly enough that I was from LA when I filled out the information for the box, and I ended up having to go through the whole ‘LA as a gaping pit’ philosophy for a third time of the day. I would need a better cover story if I wanted people to see me as anything other than ‘that poor girl from down South’.

  On the wall next to the boxes hung a huge bulletin board. After adding my second new key of the day to my chain, I went over for a closer look. Completely filling every bit of the corkboard were pamphlets featuring free kittens, A A Meetings, OA Meetings, a women’s vocal group, a call for deejays for the local radio station, an ad for a band called Noah Sweet and the Sweethearts, and information about a group called NUDE. Underneath the name of this organisation were the words: Nymphets Use Desperate Endeavours.

  ‘You ought to check them out,’ Sukie said, catching my interest.

  ‘Which?’ I asked, staring at the picture of Noah Sweet. He had a face like Jim Morrison’s, dark and brooding, and a body like an underwear model’s. In his jeans and no shirt, you could see the rippling muscles of his bare stomach.

  ‘NUDE. You look like you’d fit in.’

  I glanced at the flyer again, recognising the name from the picture in the middle of the Levee Road News.

  ‘We’re a women-only group, and we get naked to try to change the government,’ the lady explained. ‘We’ve even had our picture up on CNN.’

  ‘Impressive,’ I said, wondering why she thought I’d fit in. Yes, I agreed with her politics, but did she think that people from LA were more likely to whip their clothes off to join in protests? I didn’t pose that question. Instead, I asked if she could recommend a spot for lunch.

  ‘The Daisy Diner,’ she told me without hesitation.

  ‘It’s good?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. It’s also the only restaurant in town open today. The Cantina is closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

  After walking next door to the feedbarn to snag a schedule for the yoga class, I headed to the diner and sat at the counter. The waiter quickly set a glass of water in front of me along with a menu. ‘My name’s Zeppelin,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be your waiter today.’

  Zeppelin, I thought. Which Zeppelin was he?

  ‘That’s how they do it in LA, isn’t it?’ he continued.

  I looked up at him, startled.

  ‘My mom works at the post office. She said you’d probably be by.’

  ‘Talk travels fast out here,’ I said, smiling. ‘You have no idea.’

  I remembered what Johnny had said about small-town living. So far, everyone had been extremely helpful. Besides, I had no problem with people knowing my business, as I didn’t have any real business to know.

  ‘What do you hear about Noah Sweet and the Sweethearts?’ I asked. ‘I saw that they’re playing on Saturday night.’

  ‘This Saturday night, last Saturday night and every Saturday night. They’re the house band.’

  ‘Are they any good?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but I have to say that. My sister, Willow, is one of the Sweethearts.’ He motioned to a perky blonde serving a table in the back. And then he waved to a new customer entering the restaurant. ‘And that’s Noah, the lead singer.’ I watched as the musician headed over to the waitress and put his arms around her waist. He gave her a kiss on the nape of her neck, then patted her comely ass in a proprietary fashion before taking a seat at a nearby table. When he looked in my direction, his dark eyebrows raised inquisitively, and I looked away quickly, swivelling around to face Zeppelin again. ‘But I’d say they were good even if Willow wasn’t one of the background singers and Noah wasn’t one of my best friends.’

  ‘You and your sister have such interesting names,’ I observed.

  ‘Well, there are actually two Zeppelins in town, and then there’s Bijou, Merlin, Olema, Mesa, Cedar, Alhambra, Odessa, Geneva …’ He ticked off the names as he spoke. ‘And what’s your name?’ he asked with a flirtatious grin.

  I took in his boyish good looks, and I smiled back as I told him, imagining him ultimately adding my name to the list of locals. ‘Charlene Mitchell, but you can call me Charlie.’

  I spent the following few afternoons taking in the fashion of the area. More than anything, I didn’t want people to think of me as ‘the fancy redhead from Los Angeles’. Within a few days, I found that I could pick out the tourists from the locals. Often visitors to the area were considerably overdressed – like me – but soon I could identify them solely by looking at their shoes. High-heels were an instant giveaway, as was anything dainty, frivolous or not made for mud.

  I dress in a combination of modem and vintage. Faded jeans – often broken-in Levis from the 70s – thin white T-shirts or camisoles and vintage sweaters are my standard uniform when I’m working. But I tend to glitz things up when I go out. Now, I found that, if I spent too much time with my hair or make-up, I’d inevitably be asked where I was going by one of my few acquaintances. When Sukie saw me wearing red lipstick, she automatically assumed I was headed to San Francisco. I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that it was the colour I generally favoured for day, and that my nighttime lipstick was of an even deeper wine hue.

  Soon my at-home gear became my go-out gear, and I bought a pair of black leather clogs and a pair of heavy-soled boots to replace my expensive footwear. I didn’t want other people looking at me and playing the same tourist/local game that I was playing with them.

  Yet, despite my best intentions, I still managed to give away my outsider status. One morning, when I went into the post office to pick up my mail, I discovered along with a flyer for NUDE a yellow slip in the box with the initials BFP. When I handed the slip across the counter, Sukie informed me that BFP stood for ‘Big Fucking Periodical’. She hefted over the September issue of Vogue, adding, ‘I think you’re the only one in town who got one.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ This was the Fashion Bible in LA. Mia had forwarded it for me.

  Sukie glanced at the ball gowns on the cover. ‘Yeah, we’re not really “in Vogue” out here, I guess.’

  ‘That’s ’cause she’s always stripping down for NUDE,’ Milly chimed in.

  Sukie gave me a wry smile. ‘It’s not that we don’t care. It’s just that local women have their own tricks for buying clothes that have nothing to do with magazine fashion.’ She ticked items off o
n her fingers: ‘There’s Ebay, and mail-order and the Dolores Free Box –’

  ‘Don’t forget the clothing exchange,’ Milly interrupted.

  Sukie nodded. ‘Every month or so women get together at the community centre. Everyone brings items to donate and people take what they want. It’s as much a social gathering as a method of recycling. There’s even wine.’

  I remembered the item about the clothing exchange from the paper. That was something I’d definitely have to check out for myself. ‘What’s the Dolores Free Box?’ I asked. ‘Is that a store?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s a box. Literally. A box where people leave items they don’t want. But mixed in with the hippies at Dolores Beach are a lot of really rich people, and you can find amazing things. One of my friends found a Prada shirt, and another got a real Hermes scarf.’ She pronounced it with a hard ‘h’ and a ‘z’ at the end, like ‘Hermeeez’, but I didn’t correct her.

  ‘Where’s Dolores Beach?’ I asked.

  A woman behind me in line laughed. ‘If you don’t know, you’ll never find it.’ When I turned to face her, I saw that she was young, although her hair was prematurely grey. In LA, she’d have dyed her corkscrew curls in a minute. Out here, people seemed much less inclined to mess with Mother Nature. ‘It’s called “No Tourist Beach”, by the locals,’ she explained. ‘They’re a little crazy out there. Any time the county gets around to putting a new sign up, the residents immediately take it down.’

  I thought of the items I’d read in the Levee Road News. All of those attributed to Dolores Beach appeared to deal with rowdy homeless people or drunken parties or drunken parties of rowdy homeless people.

  ‘See you, Charlie,’ Sukie called out to me as I left.

  Her farewell made me feel as if I were a real local. But I knew that, even though people on the street were starting to recognise me, years might pass before I was considered one of them. It took a lot to break into the inner circle. But that wasn’t going to stop me from trying.

  Chapter Five

  I didn’t miss LA at all. That was my first revelation as I put my cabin into order. Yes, life was different out here. Definitely slower, and almost excruciatingly quiet, but, all in all, I felt happy, if somewhat adrift. Down South, my days consisted of work, lunch with clients or co-workers, dinner with friends, yoga early in the morning or late at night, drinks with Johnny, kissing Johnny, fucking Johnny.

  Now, I felt as if I were an explorer who had discovered a new world. One that moved at a pace much slower than life in La-La Land. The most difficult thing for me to get used to was the lack of noise – from city traffic to the sound of my own phone ringing. At work in my old office, the phone had rung all the time. Here, with my laptop computer set on a counter in the sunlit kitchen, I had as much quiet as I could possibly need to work on a project I’d won before leaving LA, a big job for a New York firm.

  And, even if I’d wanted to chat, I couldn’t. My phone service wasn’t hooked up yet, although I’d tried several times to follow up with the telephone company. Apparently, one man serviced the entire region and, although he promised to make me a priority, I wasn’t yet at the top of his list. This was another lesson to me in what Donny had referred to as ‘West Marin time’. Things happened at a slower pace out at the end of the road. I would just have to learn to deal with that.

  Until I could receive phone calls in my cabin, I used my cell phone from different parts of the area, calling Mia and talking with clients.

  ‘When are you coming home?’ Mia asked every time she heard my voice.

  ‘I like it here.’

  ‘What’s to like?’

  I thought before answering. ‘It’s slower and quieter.’

  ‘Sort of like an old folks’ home?’

  ‘Not really,’ I told her. ‘There’s a lot going on under the surface. You should hear the way people talk about each other. One big gossip stew.’

  ‘Make sure you don’t become one of the ingredients,’ she warned me.

  ‘I know. But I’m out of range right now. On the fringe, looking in.’

  ‘What’s the best story you’ve heard so far?’ Mia quizzed me. I thought about it for a moment before telling her about the woman who was keeping her lover in a trailer parked behind the house.

  ‘True definition of “trailer trash”,’ Mia noted, just as the locals had. And then our conversation was cut short as my phone went dead. Cellular service out here was unpredictable. ‘Works in pockets,’ Elsa at the Cowpie explained to me. ‘If you find a pocket, you need to pause where you are and finish your call.’

  As if to prove her point, I would occasionally see people standing absolutely still on Main Street, talking animatedly into their cell phones but obviously afraid that one step in any direction would end their connection. This is why, when my cell phone finally rang one night in my cottage, I didn’t immediately recognise the sound. It had been that long since I’d heard the bells signifying a cell phone call. (My landline had been hooked up earlier that day). I sprinted for the phone, and snatched it off the blue-tiled counter.

  ‘Hey, pretty baby, you ready to come home yet?’

  It was Johnny. I stood totally still in the centre of the room, knowing that, if I took a step, I might lose him.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I told him honestly. ‘I’m here. That’s all I can say.’

  ‘You’re there, and you’re all by yourself. But I’m coming to town to see you.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘In six weeks. Can you wait that long?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For me to fuck you.’

  ‘Are you really coming?’ I asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t tease you if we weren’t. We have a Halloween gig in the city. You’ll drive into the city to hear the band play, won’t you, Charlie?’

  As always, the way he said my name did something to me, and immediately my decision to move out to the middle of nowhere seemed ill thought. I remembered our most recent tryst in the hotel, and I wondered why I always believed each time we were together would be the last time. Would there ever really be a last time with Johnny?

  ‘It’s not so far to San Francisco, right? That’s what you said before you left.’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ I told him.

  ‘You sound funny.’

  I explained the phone situation.

  ‘Ah, that’s why I haven’t been able to get through. So you can’t move?’

  ‘No. If I do, I’ll probably lose you.’

  ‘Don’t move then. Just imagine that I’m with you in the room.’

  ‘Johnny –’

  ‘Sh, baby. I’m right there with you. And you can’t move a muscle. You can’t even lick those gorgeous rose-pink lips of yours. God, I miss your lips. I especially miss them wrapped around my cock –’

  I giggled. I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘It’s like bondage without the bindings,’ he said, ‘you’re stuck in place, mine to use however I desire. My frozen little sex statue.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a thing for fucking inanimate objects.’

  ‘Did I say you could talk, statue?’

  ‘I can talk,’ I said, ‘I just can’t move.’

  ‘Well, pretend you can’t talk, either.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Good. That’s perfect. You’re a fast study, aren’t you, baby?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘I’m in the room with you, and I’m slowly taking off your pale-blue cardigan sweater.’

  I caught my reflection in the window. I had on the exact sweater he was referring to, my favourite one out of the multitude in my collection. The vintage cardigan is a robin’s egg blue made of cashmere soft as gossamer. Some people eat comfort food when they’re sad or lonely. This sweater always works to perk my spirits. I bought it at a flea market on Fairfax for less than the price of a cup of gourmet coffee, and it was the best buy of all time.

  ‘N
ow, I’m raising your arms in the air and pulling off your sheer little camisole.’

  Again, he’d nailed my outfit perfectly. Two for two.

  ‘Oh, and you don’t have a bra on, do you, baby? Your breasts are perfect. Just big enough for a handful. I think I have to kiss them.’

  I trembled as he spoke, and then closed my eyes, visualising everything he was verbally doing. Suddenly, I felt hopelessly lonely. Hearing Johnny’s voice made me homesick in a way I hadn’t felt before. I’d been in Raysville for several weeks, and I hadn’t really spoken to anyone since then. Just a few calls in to Mia to let her know that I was doing OK. Calls that were invariably cut off.

  ‘I’m taking down your faded old cut-offs,’ he said, knowing that I always wear old Levis shorts as my kick-around clothes, ‘and what’s this? My naughty girl doesn’t have any panties on. Was it laundry day?’

  I giggled again. He’d been right about the sweater, camisole and cut-offs, but I always wear panties. I couldn’t imagine going bare beneath my denim. Not when I was all by myself with no prospect of getting laid. What would be the point?

  ‘No talking, baby,’ he said again, ‘and no laughing either.’ But I could tell he was grinning. In the background, I heard soft music and realised that he was gently strumming his guitar while he spoke to me, creating his own seductive background melody.

  ‘You don’t have on any panties, and now you’re totally naked and I can do anything I want to. I can nip at your collarbones, or suckle your stunning tits. I can trace my fingers along the outline of the cherry tattoo on your ass and remember what it was like to watch you get that.’

  I remembered, too. After a great deal of contemplation, I’d decided I wanted to sport a bit of ink. But I wanted the tattoo to be in a private spot, a sort of secret that only I – and a few carefully invited individuals – would ever see. For moral support, I’d brought Johnny with me to the tattoo parlour up on the Sunset Strip, but he’d ended up taking charge. He was the one who undid my jeans and slipped them down my thighs. He was the one who pointed possessively to the curve of my ass and told the extremely inked tattoo artist named Chester exactly what I wanted. And he was the one to lean against the scuffed cement wall in the back room and watch my face as the man tattooed me.