“But that’s not what we agreed.”
“You complaining?”
He laughed. “Okay, no. I guess not.”
“Besides, I know summer is tight. I need to keep you around.”
“And I need to pay tuition.” Nate was a grad student at Davis. He was studying something having to do with brain chemistry. He’d tried to explain it to me once, but I didn’t do well beyond monosyllabic words. “Thanks. Do you still want me to make deliveries in West Sac this weekend?”
“Yeah. What do you need?”
We counted out the leftover pills from the night before and separated what he would need for the weekend. I added some hydrocodone to his mix and he was good to go. I was running low on Xanax. Nate didn’t need it, so no big. Xanax was my territory.
“Hey, how did it go with the chick last night?” He grinned knowingly. Obnoxious.
“Good.”
“That’s it? Good? She was smoking and you say it was good?” He scoffed and went back to stowing baggies in the Thermos he used to hide drugs.
“We talked until the bar closed. It was good.”
“You didn’t get any? She was cruising you hard. Come on.”
“She was not. Get your head out of your ass.” I started putting away the detritus of our negotiations. Pills in the pantry. High shelf above Andy’s head. That kid was too curious. Money in the empty flour tin. I’d put it away properly later.
“Cash, she watched you from the moment you walked outside. She’s got it bad.”
“You think?” Man, I hoped he was right. “Should I text her?”
“And I’m the one with my head up my ass? You’re an idiot.”
“Whatever.” I knew right then that I was going to text her later. But he didn’t have to know that.
Nate shook his head. “Good luck. I’ll catch you later.” He clapped his hand on my shoulder and headed out the door. I locked it behind him.
I took the cup of coffee Nate had brought into my study. While I waited for my laptop to boot, I glanced over our notes. The revenue from the party had been entirely cash. No one used their credit card to buy drugs at a party. I entered the numbers into a spreadsheet. It tracked the sales as produce, which kept Braddock Farm’s accountant happy. When everything was entered, I shredded the handwritten notes. It didn’t matter than I was a low-level dealer. There was no need to be stupid about this sort of shit.
I went back to the kitchen and pulled the money out of the flour tin. I trusted Nate, but that didn’t mean I had to be naïve. I moved half the shit out of my freezer and pulled out the box of taquitos from the back. I shoved the stack of cash underneath the taquitos. As I was replacing everything in the freezer, there was a knock on my back door.
“Come in,” I shouted. Only Robin or Andy used the back door.
“Sounded like you were up. Can we fix the lock on the fence now?” Andy rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“Sure. Just a sec.” I put the coffee pot together. Nickels followed Andy into the kitchen and meowed at her.
“Nick, Nickels.” Andy sat on the floor. Nickels head butted her.
I hit the button to grind the coffee and Nickels ran out of the room. Coffee grinding was rude. Andy waited not so patiently.
“Your mom still sleeping?” I asked.
“Yeah. Figured I’d let her.” Andy got up off the floor.
“How big of you.”
I pushed aside the curtain under my sink and hauled out my toolbox. Andy leaned in past me and grabbed my tool belt. I tore into the lock packaging while she wrestled with the buckle on the belt. She stashed the screws I handed her in one of the tool belt pockets.
Andy followed me outside. And she only ran into one wall while adjusting the contents of her belt. I went to the gate. Andy huffed while I spaced out where I wanted to put the lock and marked the wood with a pencil. I handed Andy my drill.
“So I just put the screws in?”
“That’s generally how they work.”
Andy sighed disapprovingly and placed her first screw. I had one of those panic moments where I wondered if I should have given her safety goggles. But then I remembered that I didn’t have safety goggles. And if I had goggles, Andy still wouldn’t wear them. By the time I had figured all that out, Andy was done installing all four screws in the latch.
“Now what?”
“Now we install the bolt on the other side.” Again, I marked the placement. Andy fished the rest of the screws out of her belt and installed the bolt. When she was done, I swung the gate open and closed. The latch did its thing.
“That’s it?” Andy asked.
“Too anticlimactic?”
“I guess. It just seemed like it would be more complicated.”
“I’ll try and break something this week, okay? Maybe something involving a motor.”
“But you don’t know anything about motors,” Andy said.
“Neither do you.”
“So what’s the point?”
“I was kidding. I’m not breaking something just so you can fix it.”
“Oh. Asshole.” Andy handed back the drill.
Yep, that broke my heart.
I went back inside to put away my drill. Andy followed to put away the very necessary tool belt. I poured myself a cup of coffee. Andy stared at it longingly.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Oh. Okay. I guess. If you’re having one.”
One day, I planned on not indulging her. One day.
We took our coffee outside. Andy told me about the three girls she’d been flirting with. One lived on the East Coast, and Andy only knew her online, so she didn’t count. But I didn’t tell Andy that. The other two were from Sac. One went to McClatchy High with Andy. The other was a private school kid. I managed to gather absolutely no detail about any of the girls. Probably because I missed their names and that made it a bit hard to follow. Also, Andy wasn’t great with specifics. One of them played water polo and another was into art and one of those two had big tits. I didn’t bother reprimanding the use of tits because I was reasonably certain that I’d taught her the word when she was far too young to talk about tits. Her mother was clearly a tolerant woman.
“So what are you doing today?” Andy asked when she realized I wasn’t listening. Perceptive.
“Drinking coffee. Then I might text the chick from last night and agonize for the rest of the day about why she isn’t texting me back.”
“Agonize?”
“It means—”
“I know what it means. I just like it. Agonize. You always use random words.”
I had no fucking clue if she was being sincere. “Thanks?”
“So get on it.”
“On what?”
“Text her. What’s her name? Why wouldn’t she text you back?”
“I can’t just text her. It’s only been like nine hours,” I said.
“You’re a pussy.”
“Dude.” I glared.
“What? You are.”
“No. Don’t say ‘pussy.’ It’s degrading to women.”
Andy laughed. Hard. “Okay. I won’t say pussy. You’re a pansy. Now text the chick.”
“Her name is Laurel. And I’ll text when I’m ready.”
“You know I’m gonna steal your phone and do it if you don’t, right?”
“You do and I’ll tell your mom.”
“Tell me what?” Robin asked from the doorway behind us. She opened the door and sat in the big Adirondack across from us.
“The usual. Andy is a bad seed. And,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “I think she might be a lesbian.”
Robin laughed. “It’s good you told me. I’ve got to nip that right in the bud.”
“Cash met a chick,” Andy said.
“Well done, Cash.” Robin nodded at me.
“But she’s too much of a pansy to text her.” Andy put way too much emphasis on pansy.
I decided to ignore Andy. “Robin, you want some
coffee?”
“Thanks. I’ve already got some brewing.”
“Cool. I’m just going to go top mine off.” I went into my side of the duplex. As soon as I was in the kitchen, I pulled out my phone and texted Laurel.
CHAPTER FOUR
The restaurant was crowded as hell. Saturday night in the early days of summer. Not surprising. I leaned against a wall and tried to look cool while waiting. Not sure if I pulled off cool, but Laurel seemed happy to see me when she showed up. The host put us at a little table on the back corner of the patio. Just far enough away from the crowded interior that we could hear each other speak. She handed us menus and left.
“I didn’t expect you to text me this morning.” Laurel leaned back in her chair and grinned.
I smiled back. “I wasn’t planning on it, honestly. I was going to be cool and wait a couple of days.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“Shame.”
“Shame?”
“And fear,” I said.
“Shame and fear?”
“I have this neighbor. Fifteen-year-old. When I got home last night she was out back texting her girlfriends.”
“Girlfriends like girl friends? Or like girlfriends?”
“The second one. I’m pretty sure she’s dating like three other baby dykes.”
Laurel laughed. “Three? So you got shown up by a teenager?”
“There’s that, but no. I bragged a little that I had been on a date. This morning she threatened to text you if I didn’t.”
“So that wasn’t you who texted to say I was hot as fuck?”
I had a moment of panic before I figured out she was screwing with me. “I don’t think she has figured out the passcode on my phone yet. I’m sure she will soon enough.”
“So maybe we should come up with a codeword.”
“Totally. Like, if you think I sound weird, ask me something only adults would know.”
“Like who is president?”
“No, she’s smart. But if you ask her what political party Al Gore belongs to, she won’t know,” I said.
“She could Wikipedia that.”
Damn, she was right. “Good point. Ask about The Cranberries. She thinks music started about five years ago.”
“She doesn’t know who The Cranberries are? That’s wrong. You have to educate her.”
“I’m doing my best.” I held up my hands in surrender.
“That’s admirable. So. Very important question.” She gave me a look that suggested she was serious.
“Yes?”
“Favorite Cranberries song?”
“No way. You can’t pick a favorite Cranberries song. It’s like picking a favorite book. You need like a multi-tiered system.”
Laurel laughed. “Okay, books at the top of your multi-tiered system?”
“I’m assuming you are talking like desert island scenario here.”
She pursed her lips. Which was hot. “No, top twentieth century poets.”
“Sylvia Plath and Ani DiFranco.”
She nodded. Also hot. “Playwrights?”
“Does it have to be twentieth century? Because Wilde, obviously.”
“Modernist? Literature, not art.”
“Djuna Barnes, but I’ve only read Nightwood. Modernist for you, but art not literature.”
“I see your point about narrowing. Art is too broad.” Laurel pushed her hair off her forehead again. Yep, just as enticing as it was the night before.
“Painter, then,” I said.
“Picasso, but only because he’s the only one I can think of right now. I had an art history class junior year. Did spectacularly bad. Lowest grade I got in college, but the professor was obsessed with Picasso and she was absolutely brilliant.”
“Are you a fan by default then?”
“Totally. Of course, I only have opinions on the pieces we discussed in class.”
I laughed. I didn’t know if it was the honesty or the self-deprecation, but it was working for her. “Okay, I’ll admit that I just like to say Djuna Barnes. Great mouthfeel. I had to read Nightwood like twenty times to get it and I’m still not sure I do.”
“I’m impressed you got through it. It was assigned in queer lit, but I couldn’t bother to finish it.”
“I’d tell you it’s worth it, but I’m not really sure.”
“Except for the mouthfeel of saying Djuna Barnes,” she said.
“Well, yeah. Except for that.”
The waitress arrived, but we had to send her packing. Christ, we hadn’t even ordered drinks yet and had covered art, literature, and music. This chick was fantastic.
*
I walked home from the restaurant. It was later than I’d planned, but Laurel didn’t seem in any hurry so I’d figured it was smart to follow her example. We hadn’t talked about anything, really. Or anything of substance. No, that wasn’t right either. We had talked about everything of substance except for ourselves. Maybe that was my fault. I’d avoided anything that might force me to lie. Most of the time, I liked what I did. It suited me. But somehow I didn’t want Laurel to think less of me. Maybe that was why I let her veer so sharply from anything personal that couldn’t be found online.
Now, in the retrospect of twenty minutes, I realized how distant she had actually been when it came to herself. I knew what kind of beer she drank and that she wore vintage ties. I didn’t know what made her get out of bed in the morning. I did know that she had eyes the color of the sky at dusk. There was a scar on her left hand that she traced when she was nervous. She liked to read. Maybe that was all I needed to know.
I knew I wanted to call her. I knew that was a terrifying thought.
When I got home, Henry’s newest Mustang was parked out front. This one was electric blue. Very discreet. I wasn’t sure if the flashy car or the fact that he got a new one every year was worse.
Henry was on my front porch. He was splayed on the stairs projecting an air of cool, but I knew he was pissed. He didn’t like to be kept waiting, and he definitely didn’t like to be kept waiting on the porch of a drug dealer. Not that he would ever say anything. He had a whole good guy thing going on. Perfect smile with perfect teeth, perfect mustache on his perfect face. Perfectly blond hair combed into place even after a twelve-hour shift in a sheriff car. He knew the perfect thing to say to charm anyone at anytime. Women loved him. Old ladies especially. Basically, a Boy Scout. The surface looked good, but underneath was a whole lot of fear that someone might notice that he was a petulant little boy.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, man.”
“Hey, no worries. I just got here.” It was nearly one. I was willing to bet that he’d been waiting for twenty minutes. He took his time standing. Nope, nothing untoward going on here. Just a couple of high school buddies hanging out.
“Cool. Come inside. You want a beer?”
“Sure. That would be awesome.”
If I’d offered him Tang, he would have said it was awesome. I once saw him graciously accept a bologna sandwich from an elderly woman as payment for helping clear her yard. And he was a vegetarian. But then, Henry was polite. I had never mastered that skill. Or wanted to, for that matter.
We went into the kitchen. I opened two beer bottles and set them on the table. Henry proceeded to unpack an assortment of pills from his designer backpack. Elongated yellow pills. Round, white Tylenol #3. Thick beige circles mixed in with shockingly white pills.
“Ambien, Codeine, Xanax, and—I know you don’t usually have a market for it, but—Molly.”
I pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “You know I can’t sell that.” Can’t was relative. Clive would be pissed, but I’d lied about the business to him plenty of times. Which Henry was well aware of. He was also quite aware that ecstasy wasn’t my territory.
“I know you don’t usually, but we busted a rave last night. It’s so pretty. Look at it. You should have seen the kid I stripped them off. It looked like The Craft and Can’t Hardly Wait had an aw
kward child. Did you know the nineties are the new eighties?”
“I’m aware.” That was why I hated the party scene. Street drugs—and the people who consumed them—were so crass. “But that doesn’t mean I can sell Molly.”
“You can and you will.” It was an order. Henry didn’t have the weight to enforce it, though. “Summer is starting. Ecstasy will be a big seller. I know it’s not our agreement, but I’ll take a ten percent cut on my profit.”
“What if I sell them for half price?” It was a bluff.
“Your call. Your risk.”
I had an unsettling feeling that he wasn’t talking about my risk on the street. “Fine. But don’t pull this shit again. I don’t care how many raves you bust.”
“Cash, man. You don’t get it. Raves are cool again. Nineties, hello?”
“Here’s the deal. I’ll sell this batch, but never again. Or, I can not sell this batch and also never sell Molly.” Nate could unload it in Yolo. Somewhere far enough away that no one would notice. Probably.
Henry sighed. “Fine. Just this batch. But promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“If it goes well, be open to it in the future. That’s all I ask.” He put his hands up in surrender.
If I wasn’t so set on shielding Nate from Henry, I would make him take these meetings.
“If it sells easy, I’ll tell you.” Not if it sold for a grand a pill.
“That’s my boy.” Henry leaned back and sipped his beer. “You hear the reunion is coming up?”
“Reunion?”
“High school? That place we graduated from ten years ago.”
“Oh. That. I think I blocked out most of it.” I drank my beer and pretended I was catching up with a buddy.
“Come on. You had a great time in high school. The cheerleading squad was never the same when you were done with them.” He raised a sculpted eyebrow.
“I never slept with a cheerleader.” Student body president, yes. Cheerleader, no.
“Right. I forgot. Never touched ’em.” Henry grinned.
I really didn’t want to relive my teenage years. “So you can see why I don’t want to go meet the husbands of all the chicks who broke my heart.”
“Hey, I heard Amy Becker came out. So she won’t have a husband.”
Cash Braddock Page 3