The Story of You and Me

by DuMond, Pamela

  “Oh,” I said. “Smart on her part. Good technique.”

  “Right now, Bonita, I’m not seriously involved with any girl.”

  So—how many girls he was not seriously involved with? I stared at his chin because I couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I know about the Drivers. I know you all compare notes, compare chicks you rescued and have a—” I did the quotation mark in the air thing with my fingers. “—code of honor. I don’t know what goes on at your headquarters or if you even have one. ’Cause I don’t really know what you do or why you do it. I also don’t know if you record the girl, list your conquests on an Internet page and chalk them up on a board or whatever. But FYI? I am Not. That. Girl.”

  I walked away from him toward my apartment, which I now knew was only one block away.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Alejandro followed me. “I will cop to dropping daisies on your doorstep, as well as cookies. But if you think I put your name on a board, somewhere? Anywhere? Well, you’re just plain wrong. Wait. I did put your name on the ledger at the USCLA Emergency Room. Excuse me.”

  I glanced at Gidget and Cole who spied on me from behind the curtains through his open kitchen window. And I gazed at Alejandro who stood on my front lawn, a frustrated look on his face.

  “You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re different. I want to spend time with you,” he said. “Is that a sin?”

  “No.”

  “Then, why are we standing out here, again, on your front lawn, in front of your cookie-thief neighbor and his creepy dog while we try to figure out our next step?”

  “Uh!” Cole grabbed Gidget, slammed his kitchen window shut and then his curtains.

  “Do you have a next step in mind, Sophie? Because if you do, I’d really like to know what it is.”

  “Yes,” I took a deep breath. “I want to know, I want to ask…Would you drive me?”

  He frowned. “Why?” He leaned in toward my face, totally catching me off guard. His lips were an inch from mine. I bit my lip. Was he going to try and kiss me? But he didn’t. Instead he sniffed my breath. “Are you drunk?”

  “Are you high?” I pushed him away from me. He stumbled for a second and stared at me like I was a wacko. “Of course I’m not drunk. I had one beer.”

  “Some people can’t even drink one beer—”

  “That’s not it.” I threw my hands up in the air and paced back and forth on the sidewalk.

  How much truth should I tell him? How much should I keep secret?

  “You showed up at the Grill tonight. I understand the Lucina thing might have looked confusing. I hope I cleared that up,” he said. “Now’s the time for you to tell me what you really want. Because if you don’t want anything from me? Now’s also the time I need to move on.”

  I took the deepest breath I’d taken since I’d landed in L.A. “Look, Alejandro. I’m sorry if there have been misunderstandings. I don’t know how you all handle things here, on campus, in L.A. Whatever. But—”

  “But what?”

  “I want to hire you.”

  “For what?” He cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow.

  “For driving. People tell me you’re a great driver.”

  “That’s because I am. Which doesn’t answer my question. Why do you want to hire me?”

  “Because I can’t drive here. This place is too big, it’s too much. I get lost so easily. I don’t have a car. I took the bus yesterday to an important appointment. I mapped out the whole trip. I arrived on time. I thought I had it all figured out. But on the way back I got lost and it was kind of a mess and almost a disaster. I can’t do this on my own. I just can’t.”

  I felt my face shoved up against the chain-link fence while Oscar restrained and ground up against me.

  “You said I wasn’t completely honest with you.”

  “You’re not,” he said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m not just here for summer school. I’m here to…” My mind trailed off.

  I’m here to participate in a hospital study where they knock me out, inject stem cells cells into my spinal cord and the very best outcome is? Cells don’t proliferate next to my spinal cord. Malignant tumors don’t grow into my brain. Nothing shitty happens to me.

  Alejandro snapped his fingers. “Finish your thought.”

  “I’m here to research and interview alternative healers for a book proposal. My grandmother encouraged me to turn it into a non-fiction book that we are creating together. I need pages done by the end of this summer. I need an outline, chapters and a great pitch that we can send to lit agents.”

  I’m here to voluntarily be a guinea pig for any kind of healing. No matter how strange it is—I’m up for it—if that kind of healing could actually save a life.

  “I’m asking you to drive me to places in L.A. where these people are,” I said. “Because, after today, I don’t think I can do this on my own.” I gazed into his hazel eyes flecked with gold. Got lost for a moment before realizing I was me and he was him and we were two persons, not one. That I needed to pull myself out of a delusional fantasy and attend to the real reasons I came here.

  Alejandro reached out and cradled my face in his hands. Brushed his thumb over my cheek. “Half your face is healing. The other looks like some of your cuts broke open. What happened?”

  “I can’t…”

  “You can. Why won’t you tell me?”

  Because I wanted him to be part of my healing—not part of my fear.

  I shook my head and pushed back tears of frustration. “Can I count on you? Will you drive me?”

  He took my hand and held it between both of his. His touch was warm. Strong. My pulsed raced, but I felt safe. Like I was coming home.

  “Yes, Sophie Marie Priebe,” he said. “Yes, I will drive you.”

  Chapter Seven

  “U of W, Whitewater?” Alejandro asked. “Why not Madison?” He drove his black shiny Jeep down Pershing Drive lined with squatty apartment buildings, gas stations and tall palm trees with more dead fronds than live ones. We were on the way to my appointment in Playa del Vista.

  “I’d planned on Madison, but Whitewater was closer to home.”

  “Lots of people go even farther away for college. Why did you want to be close to home?”

  “Maybe I get homesick easily? Besides, you said you’re from around here, right? And you’re going to USCLA.”

  “Point taken. What’s your major?”

  “I keep waffling. I was thinking about pre-Law. But then didn’t think I’d be up for law school after.”

  “That kind of kills the pre-Law thing.” He pulled into a turning lane and flipped on his signal.

  “So I’m shooting for a B.S. and see where that leads me.”

  Probably back to another surgical room and a cold, hard operating table.

  “You’re thinking about transferring here in the fall, right? USCLA isn’t that easy to get into. But if you have a good GPA and applied right away—it could happen.”

  “Nah. I’d miss the fall weather and Green Bay Packers’ football and frost on the windows and all the leaves turning gold, orange and red.”

  “We have an awesome football team.”

  “They’re not the Packers. I’m only here for the summer.”

  * * *

  Alex maneuvered his vehicle into a small parking space at a tiny strip mall. In the distance you could hear the planes rumble as they took off and landed at LAX, L.A.’s behemoth airport.

  “Thanks.” I stepped down and out of the passenger door and walked toward the curb. “I’ll be about an hour. What are you going to do?”

  He looked up at the signs topping the small shops assembled in the mini-mall. There was a Spot-Out Dry-Cleaner, a Fresh Water Station, Airport Chinese Foot Massage, Sergeant Washington’s Kung Fu Zone, Pete’s Chicago Pizzeria and a door with mysterious markings but no name.

  “You’re not going to the Kung Fu place?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Y
ou Kung Fu-get about it.”

  “Dork.” He laughed. “I like that in a pretty girl. I’m going to check it out.” He hopped out of the Jeep, jogged across the parking lot and up the concrete stairs to the martial arts studio located on the second level.

  * * *

  I laid back on a long, beat up reclining massage chair in a dark room with soft lights and heavy closed curtains. There were busts of Buddhas and Chinese lucky bamboo plants located on little plastic tables adjacent to ten massage chairs. My treatment area was far from private. Across the room from me an older Caucasian woman with helmet hair wearing large earphones lay with her feet in a tall bucket of water. Her eyes were closed but she smiled as a young Asian woman deftly massaged her forehead.

  An earnest middle-aged Chinese man massaged my feet. He hit sweet spots, scary spots, sexy spots and incredibly tender spots that I had no idea my feet possessed. I moaned. I groaned. He dug his fingernail directly next to the top of my big toenail. Waves of energy, fear and something like ecstasy pulsated from my feet up into the rest of my body.

  While I’d never experienced an orgasm before that was not self-induced, I think I might have just had my first one—all due to a Chinese man who had been introduced to me by the manager as Lao.

  Lao stopped massaging. “Is too strong?”

  “No it’s great. Thank you.” I gave him a thumbs up.

  He nodded. “My English not good.”

  “My Chinese is not good either.”

  He hit some exceptionally tender areas on my ankles and legs. I assumed the most painful ones were reflex points that might actually make a difference in my immune system. Or, perhaps boost my co-ordination. At least that’s what I read about Chinese foot reflexology. And Lao at Airport Chinese Foot Massage was supposed to be one of the best healers in L.A.

  Yes, I knew this was all a crapshoot. But at the very least the relaxation part of today’s therapy would do wonders for me. Soothe out the stresses from the past couple of days. Calm my worried mind.

  When thuds and screams, grunts and yells pierced the ceiling and interrupted my Zen. The sounds of someone kicking a wood wall or cement bricks and pounding up and down on the ceiling above my head interrupted my healing experience.

  The female manager waddled up to me and waved a pair of headphones in the air. “I am sorry,” she said. “We had no idea it would be so loud during the day. We are here for you to feel better. That man upstairs….” She frowned. “That loud man does not care that our clients need healing and relaxation. He leaves at five p.m. The nighttime is quiet. Next time, you come back for Chinese reflexology at night. I am so sorry. Headphones? Yes? All clients say headphones make Chinese Foot Massage during the day much better.”

  “It’s okay.” I heard a muffled familiar laugh and a thunderous bang resounded directly over my head. It sounded like Alejandro was bursting through the ceiling and going to land on top of me at any moment. I might have welcomed that in the past but now I flinched and my shoulders tensed. I didn’t know if it was from the bedlam or Lao’s thumb pressed like a nail into the arch of my foot.

  Forty minutes later I put my hands together at my heart and bowed to Lao and the manager. I paid for my massage, tipped Lao and wondered if my feet would be able to walk across the parking lot, let alone ever feel the same. I hobbled outside the joint just in time to see Mr. Loud, a middle-aged, tall, muscular African-American martial arts instructor, trot down the cement stairs next to Alex who followed him with adoring puppy eyes.

  “You’re a natural, kid. I’m happy to train you. You got spare time this summer? Want to learn more moves?”

  Alex looked at me and winked. “Thanks, Sergeant Washington. I’m pretty busy this summer. I’ve got a couple of part time jobs. Here’s one of them.” He smiled and gestured to me.

  I smiled at the loud man and stuck out my hand. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Washington. My name’s Sophie Priebe.”

  He shook my hand. “Pleasure to meet you too, Sophie.”

  “Oh, please. Just call me Miss Part Time Job.”

  Alex and Sergeant Washington stopped smiling and shot each other a knowing look.

  “Not to go all fourth grade school teacher on you,” I said, “but the tenants in the space below you are real people, running a legitimate business. Maybe you all should have a conversation on how you can both run successful businesses when you share a common floor and a ceiling.”

  “That’s a good idea, Sophie,” Sergeant Washington said.

  Alex’s face blanched. “Thanks for the awesome lesson!” He shook the man’s hand and then grabbed my arm. “I’ve got your card, Sergeant Washington.” He practically dragged me to his Jeep “I’ll be in touch!” He opened the passenger door and practically hoisted me inside.

  “Calm down,” I said. “Did he mainline you on sugar before you turned into the Karate Kid?”

  “You don’t know who that guy is,” Alex said.

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  He strode to the driver’s side, hopped in and buckled up. He backed the Jeep up, turned and sped off into traffic on Pershing Boulevard. “He’s a black belt as well as a decorated Purple Heart veteran from the Persian Gulf War. Sergeant Earl Washington was a radio operator who watched his squad blow up just feet in front of him during an IED incident in Iraq. He had a breakdown, ended up at Walter Reed, became homeless, but found his way out of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder through martial arts. He was featured in the L.A. Times. On Fox News, CNN, 20/20 and there was an article in Vanity Fair. The rights to his life story have been optioned for a movie. And you confront him in a parking lot over a Chinese foot massage place?”

  “The Chinese foot massage people need to make a living, too.”

  “He’s a decorated veteran who nearly lost his mind.”

  “And they’re in this country legally trying to find the American dream that we all sell to the world in little sound bites and big action-packed movies. They have as much right to succeed at their business as anyone. They just need to talk to each other.”

  “How do you know they’re here legally?”

  I frowned and crossed my arms tight across my chest. “I don’t.”

  “What have I gotten myself into?” Alex slapped his forehead with his hand.

  I stared away from him, stony-faced out the passenger window. “It’s not too late. Drop me off, now,” I said. “I’ll find a way to do this on my own. It’s California, after all. Home to dreamers and wishers and lovers of all things that seem impossible. And you all have the Pacific Ocean with all its beautiful beaches. Maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe I should go back to Wisconsin. After I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean.”

  He grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it.

  “Hey!” I said.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have introduced you that way. I was an asshole. It was stupid of me.”

  “Glad we can agree on something.”

  Alex smiled, released my hand, and made a sharp right onto a side street.

  “This isn’t the way we came. This isn’t the way back to campus?”

  “Detours can be interesting.”

  * * *

  Alejandro and I sat on a large faded Mexican blanket on chewed up grass in a small park in Playa del Rey. It featured some swing sets, a jungle gym and a few picnic tables next to a sloped hill. But the best part was its location: squatted next to a four-lane thoroughfare that lined a wide sandy beach that bordered the Pacific Ocean.

  “Wow. All the photos and videos don’t really do it justice,” I said. “This is the first time I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Technically it’s the Santa Monica Bay.”

  “Which the Pacific Ocean feeds into.”

  “Just ’cause you saw it doesn’t mean you get to leave. There are too many things you need to experience for that book you’re writing with your grandmother.” He pulled some cardboard containers from a paper bag and placed them on napkins on top of the blanket. “Wisconsin
has a lot of lakes, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But nothing quite like this.”

  Alex had stopped at a hole-in-the wall Mexican restaurant on the way here and ordered take-out. He dipped a chip in a plastic vat of guac and held it in front of my lips. “Here’s another thing you never experienced. Homemade chips and the best guac in L.A.”

  I graciously accepted and sunk my teeth into his food offering. I crunched down and decided that this must be heaven for taste buds on earth. “More,” I said.

  “Salsa?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. My brain can’t handle that amount of deliciousness.”

  He fed me another guac-loaded chip.

  “Holy guacamole, this is good. Why does it taste so different?”

  “From what? Taco Swell? Frozen Mexican food?”

  I nodded.

  “Paco’s only makes their food from fresh ingredients. They’ve been doing it for fifty years. They’re the shit.”

  “You’ve ruined frozen burritos for me forever.”

  He grinned. “Another reason you need to stay here for fall semester.”

  The Bay was dotted with small sailboats and behemoth tankers. There were a few surfers in wetsuits trying to catch a wave. A couple of families with their kids hunkered down on the beach: the parents sitting on brightly colored beach blankets squished into the sand while their kids ran screaming with joy in and out of the low surf. The sun arced down above the water on its journey toward the horizon.

  “I like it here.” I glanced around the park. There weren’t that many people hanging out. “Seems like everyone prefers the beach.”