The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Fucking thing stinks,” Hans said.

  “That’s the biggest fucking smelly thing I’ve ever seen,” Luis squeaked.

  “You’re the biggest fucking smelly thing I’ve ever seen,” Topher mumbled.

  Everyone looked at Topher for a second. It appeared that no one could believe he was that dumb. Then Luis and Hans folded Topher into the trunk, on top of the bird. Jorge slammed the trunk and turned to Allie.

  “We’re going to find your father first, sweetheart, then we’ll get the coke,” he said. “People before things or money.”

  “Okay, Dad first.” Allie wondered if Frank would save her or his restaurant first. Penny definitely wouldn’t save Allie first. Allie had asked to be saved and her mother had responded by trying to steal the coke.

  Before they left, Allie stepped into the garage office to use the phone. She wanted to check in on Beth, see if there was any new information on Vice Versa and let her know the Prelude was okay.

  Allie had memorized Jorge and Consuela’s long-distance code and she used it. Beth answered on the seventh ring.

  “It’s me.” Allie looked around the garage office. There was a naked Asian girl calendar on the wall with Chinese writing printed on it. Someone must have bought it in Chinatown. The desk was metal, just like the filing cabinet. Everything was tidy, organized.

  “I totally figured it was you. No one else has been calling me lately.”

  “Rosie still there?”

  “Yeah. We’re so in love it’s sickening. The guy actually licks between my toes he loves me so much?”

  Allie couldn’t bear to hear anything else about Beth’s and Rosie’s deep and abiding love. “Listen, your car’s all fixed up and I’m headed over to my dad’s house now. Is there anyone there that you know of? I mean, is there like a gang there with machine guns or something?”

  “What do you mean, my car’s fixed up?”

  Allie remembered that Beth hadn’t been listening when she had told her about the bird, and she didn’t feel like going into it now. “It’s clean,” she temporized.

  “You’re calling to tell me my car is clean?”

  “Beth! I’m on the lam here with a hundred thousand dollars worth of coke and you’re being held hostage, remember? I’m calling to find out if there’s anyone at my dad’s house with him!”

  “If I ask Rosie, he’ll know I’m talking to you. If I ask Jonas, he’ll definitely know I’m talking to you.” Beth sounded irritated, like she had better things to do than chat on the phone with Allie.

  “Is Jonas still there?” Allie cringed at the thought. How could Beth spend so much time with Jonas in her apartment?

  “Yeah, he’s kind of on a bender. He locked up the dress shop and he and Rosie and a couple of other guys, I think one of them might even be Vice Versa, although I’m not really sure, have been hanging around the last two days? Jonas is sleeping on the couch right now. He’s been so sweet, Allie. Are you sure he whipped out his dick? ’Cause he’s been, like, a perfect gentleman?”

  “What about when you did that crazy baby food–jar coke!” Allie was enraged. She wanted to dive through the phone lines, pop out of the mouthpiece holes like spaghetti, and strangle Beth. “Remember you were dancing and he was trying to get you to take off your clothes?! Remember, he was perving out on you?!”

  “Oh my god!” Beth laughed. “I totally forgot about that!”

  “How could you forget about that?! Are you high?!”

  “Well, yeah, I have been high, like, ever since Rosie and I started falling in love. It’s like, sex, coke, sex, pot, sex, alcohol, sex, coke, sex, pot, sex—”

  “Yeah, I see the pattern.” Allie had a flash of understanding drug use as the ultimate narcissism: feeding oneself something in order to feel a heightened and altered sense of only oneself. She forgave Beth for this, but wished she’d snap out of it so she could look beyond her mattress. “But listen, have you overheard anything about my dad?”

  “No. They always seem to talk on the phone when I’m in the bedroom or something. I haven’t heard anything about anything.”

  “So don’t tell them I called, okay?”

  “Rosie just walked in. Now he knows I’m on the phone with you.”

  “He’s right there? Is he listening in?” How could Beth be so clumsy?! Though Allie knew she herself was the only one to blame for her troubles. As Wai Po had said, EAT SALTY FISH, MUST ACCEPT BEING THIRSTY.

  “No, he’s licking my toes.” Beth laughed in a squealy sort of way. And then Allie heard shuffling and conversation through Beth’s thin hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Allie?” It was a big voice, thick as tar.

  “Rosie?”

  “The one and only. Listen, my dear, no one’s out to extinguish your life. Why don’t you bring back Beth’s car, return the bread bag, and we’re all good. Okay?”

  “What about Vice Versa? I thought he was looking for me.”

  “Jonas called him off. I love Beth so much, I told Jonas I’d kill him if anything happened to her best friend.”

  “So Vice Versa’s not in L.A. anymore?”

  “No ma’am. He started partying here around oh-two-hundred hours.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Indeed. Hold on a moment.” There was more shuffling and whispering in the background. Allie looked out the glass window into the garage. She hoped Rosie wasn’t playing with Beth’s affections in order to make his shift as hostage-holder less tedious than the usual hole-up. And she really hoped he wasn’t lying to Allie in order to lure her to her possible death. It was so hard to know who people really were past their shiny hair and toothy faces. Or, in Rosie’s case, past their tumbling words.

  “Hey,” a second man grunted. His voice was like gravel.

  “Hey. Did you see my dad?”

  “Saw him, said hey and left. Just bring the blow back. It’s all cool.”

  “Okay. Can I talk to Beth?”

  “She and Rosie are in the bedroom doing it again. They do it ten, twelve, fourteen times a day.”

  Of course, Allie thought. At the moment, in her druggy-love-dream, Beth was about as helpful to Allie as Penny had been. But unlike with her mother, Allie saw Beth as her responsibility. She was the one who sluiced Beth into this, after all. “Okay, well, I’m going to drive back now. So I’ll see you in seven hours or so. Sound good?”

  “Take Highway 5 and I’ll see you in six hours. Don’t take 101. And whatever the fuck you do, don’t take the Pacific Coast Highway.”

  “All right. See you in six hours.” Allie hung up and stared at the phone. She deeply wanted to believe that everything would, in fact, be okay. But could you ever really trust a drug dealer? Or three of them?

  Allie dialed her father’s number. He picked up right away.

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  “I’m watching my show,” Frank said. “What do you need?” He was back to his laconic ways. There was no way Vice Versa was still holding a gun to his head.

  “We’re coming over now,” Allie said.

  “Good,” Frank said, and he hung up.

  Allie drove the Prelude with Hans beside her, his gun out on his lap. Jorge and Luis were in the van. Topher was rolling around the trunk or kicking it with his bound merman feet. He was making a constant ruckus that was often so forceful Allie could feel the car rocking. “At least we know Topher’s not suffocating back there,” she said to Hans.

  “Would be more quiet if he was,” Hans said noncommittally.

  “Have you ever killed someone?” Allie asked. She was following Jorge, who had claimed he knew exactly where the address that Allie had written on the magazine subscription card was. They were going about thirty miles an hour down strip-mall streets filled with karate studios and nail salons. Everything looked grimy and faded.

  “Luis and I have been working for Roger for six years and in that time we’ve never had to kill anyone.”

  “Are you guys lovers?” Allie asked.
r />   “Who? Me and Roger?”

  “No, you and Luis.”

  “He’s my twin,” Hans said.

  “Seriously? But other than your hair and how you dress, you don’t look alike. And your names are so dissimilar.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, yeah. If I had one kid named Hans I’d name the other Piet or something.”

  “Never thought of that,” Hans said.

  A police siren wailed behind them. Allie pulled the car over and waited. The banging from the trunk increased to an earthquake-like fury. Once the police had passed, Allie pulled out into the road again and searched for the van. Jorge had pulled over with his hazard lights on, waiting for her. They realigned and moved back into traffic.

  “Where’d you guys grow up?” Allie asked.

  “The valley. Our mother worked for Roger before we were born. She doesn’t know who our dad is.”

  “Oh! Was she a porn star?!” Allie loved this. Finally, someone who had a mother who seemed more far-out than her own mother, the tambourine girl.

  “Well, I don’t know if she was a star. But she was a porn actress. Roger sort of took us in while she kept working. He sent us to college in Fresno, and when we graduated he hired us and we moved back in with him.”

  They had pulled up in front of a row of Spanish-style condos. The units looked brand-new. Each had a red tile roof, orangey-red stucco, and a long arched window beside the front door. The yards were a glowing green with flowers planted along the edges of each walkway. It was definitely the nicest place Frank had lived since their house in Pasadena when Allie was small. His last apartment had had bars over the windows and a refrigerator in the bathroom.

  Allie and Hans got out of the car and stood with Luis and Jorge in the driveway. Then, without speaking, as if they already knew the plan, Luis and Jorge walked around the side toward the back and Allie went to the front door while Hans crouched down just to the right of the door, away from the window.

  Allie knocked. The door opened, and there was Frank, his massive thick body filling the door frame. His hair was shaved against his head, just like Jonas’s, but with speckles of gray. His eyelashes were so thick they looked wet. Allie thought her father had never been more handsome than this moment when he was standing there staring at her, one hundred percent alive.

  “What happened to your forehead?” Frank said.

  “Oh, Dad!” Allie stepped in and tried to hug him. He held her back with one hand, pulled out a napkin that was tucked into his polo shirt, wiped his mouth, and then hugged Allie in a way he never had before. He even kissed the top of her head. And then they pulled apart.

  “Did a person do that to you?” Frank pointed at the lump.

  “No,” Allie said. “I was on the 405 and—”

  “And where in the world have you been?!” he asked in his usual barking voice. “I have been waiting for you for two days!”

  “Can my friend come in, Dad?” Allie looked over to Hans, who stood up. Frank nodded at Hans, who nodded back. Frank stepped away from the door so they could enter.

  “Let me watch the showcase finale,” Frank said, “and then we’ll talk and you can tell me about that thing growing out of your head.”

  The TV was on in the living room, and there was a plate of couscous with asparagus sitting on the coffee table. Frank sat, tucked his napkin into his shirt, looked up at The Price Is Right, and continued eating. Allie sat beside him. Hans walked to the window and waved at either Jorge or Luis.

  “Dad,” Allie said. She felt buoyant, relieved. It seemed that Rosie had told her the truth and they were all fine now. “I’ve got a couple friends in the back. Can they come in, too?”

  “Leave them,” Hans said to Allie. “They’ll make sure no one else shows up.”

  “I don’t think that’s a problem anymore,” Allie said. She turned to Frank. “Dad, can you just tell me if Vice Versa stopped by?”

  “He did.” Frank picked up the pad of paper and pen that sat on the coffee table and started writing down numbers as each item in the final showcase was being shown.

  “I love this part of the show,” Hans said, and he stepped into the center of the room so as to better see the TV. “Is this the first or the second showcase?”

  “Second,” Frank said. “The first was before you got here.”

  “I say eighteen thousand,” Hans said.

  “Twenty-two thousand, three hundred and nine,” Frank said, and he looked toward Hans.

  “Thirty-two thousand,” the egg-shaped woman on TV said, “nine hundred and thirteen dollars and seven cents!” The audience screamed at her. Bob Barker held his microphone and laughed.

  “Now, Darlene,” he said. “You told me you’re a fan of the show, so you should know that we don’t do cents here.” The audience howled.

  “You’re way over, Darlene,” Frank said.

  “Way, way over, Darlene,” Hans said.

  They both stared at the TV until it went to a commercial break.

  “What did Vice Versa say, Dad?” Allie asked. “Did he have a gun?”

  “Allie,” Frank said. “I’m eating my lunch and enjoying my show. When the show is over we can talk.” He forked up more couscous. Allie and Hans both watched him eat.

  “Is that Moroccan or Israeli couscous?” Hans asked.

  “They only sell one kind at Ralph’s,” Frank said.

  “The Israeli takes longer to cook but it’s worth it,” Hans said.

  “Are you hungry?” Frank asked, without looking away from the TV.

  “I’m not,” Allie said. Consuela’s breakfast was still warm in her belly.

  “I’m a little peckish,” Hans said, as he eyed the couscous.

  “Pot in the kitchen,” Frank said, and he nudged his shoulder behind him toward the kitchen.

  “You cooked at home?” Allie asked.

  “Well I haven’t been able to make it into the restaurant,” Frank said, staring at the TV.

  Hans returned with a filled plate just as the first showcase’s actual retail value was revealed as $16,982. Frank looked down at his pad and then pumped his fist. “You see that,” he said, pointing at a number on the pad, “I was within twelve hundred dollars.”

  Next Darlene’s showcase’s value was revealed at $22,619.

  “She’s ten thousand dollars over,” Hans said. He was delicately feeding himself couscous and asparagus as if he were in a candlelit restaurant on a date.

  “Yeah, but you’re four thousand dollars under. Look at this.” Frank held up the pad with his estimate. “Only three hundred and ten dollars under. That’s almost unheard of on this show!”

  “Do you watch this often, Dad?” Allie couldn’t remember her father ever being home in the middle of the day.

  “It’s a terrific show, Allie, and you should watch it, too.” Frank put down his fork, picked up the remote control, and clicked off the big, boxy TV. He pulled out his napkin, turned on the green couch so he was facing Allie and Hans, and crossed his legs. “Are you helping my daughter or holding her prisoner?” he asked Hans.

  “He’s helping me, Dad. He’s on my side.”

  “And what, pray tell, did you do, Allie, that requires you to show up here with this man on your side?”

  Allie figured since Vice Versa had already appeared, there was a good chance her father knew exactly why Hans was sitting beside her. It seemed foolish at this point to give anything but the entire truth. Wai Po had often said, HALF-TRUTH IS LIKE WHOLE LIE.

  “I stole a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine,” Allie confessed, and she started crying. Suddenly she felt like she was ten again.

  “Get yourself together, Allie,” Frank said. “If you’re old enough to steal a bag of cocaine then you’re old enough to deal with the consequences.”

  Allie sucked in her breath, sat up straight, and started from the beginning. She told Frank the whole story, including the visit with her mother and Jet, the bird, and the lump on her head. She left out an
y mention of the fact that she lifted her shirt for Jonas (she doubted her father would want to hear that truth) or hung out with Billy Idol. (Frank had no interest in rock stars or celebrities. When they came into his restaurant, he didn’t give them special service and admonished any of the staff who did.)

  When she had finished, Frank straightened himself on the couch again. He moved his head from side to side as if he were getting ready to do something physical. “Jonas,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Allie said. “That’s the guy’s name.”

  “I know his name, Allie. I’ve known him for thirty-three years.”

  Allie shook her head. “No, Jonas was the dealer I was working for at the clothing store.”

  “Allie, do you think that job just fell in your lap? When I sent out holiday cards last year, I wrote on Jonas’s card that you were in the Bay Area and would be a good employee for him. Then he called one day in June and said that he had met you in a restaurant and had hired you. I didn’t say anything to you because I wanted you to feel like you got that job on your own. I thought it would be a good confidence booster.”

  Allie was silent for a moment. She tried to rearrange the events of the past four days in her brain with this added knowledge. The only thing she could think to say was, “Dad, you send out Christmas cards?”

  “I send out holiday cards.”

  “Why didn’t you send one to me?”

  “Because I sign them from me and you, so it would be like you sending yourself a card.”

  “I never knew you sent out holiday cards. I didn’t think we were a family who did that sort of thing.”

  “I guess you don’t know everything, now, do you.” Frank nodded his head as if to put a period at the end of the sentence.

  “Can I see the card you sent?”

  “Go to the second drawer in my desk and lift up the bills. The cards are there.”

  Hans looked up from his plate and watched as Allie went to the desk pushed against the window in the living room. Frank placed his desk by a window wherever he lived. Allie opened the second drawer, lifted the bills, then pulled out a stack of holiday cards. The one on the top had a picture of Allie and her father standing together at the hostess podium in his restaurant. The photo had been taken last summer by a waitress who had been working for her father for as long as Allie could remember. In the photo, Allie was looking straight at the camera, while her father, upright and enormous beside her, appeared to be staring off toward the kitchen.