Full Service Blonde

by Megan Edwards

  The man didn’t answer. He stopped wiping the mirror and draped the bandana over its bracket. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and extracted a cigarette using his teeth. Then he pulled a lighter out of his jeans. He did everything with his right hand. His left arm hung pretty much useless at his side.

  “Yeah,” he said, and he took a long drag on his cigarette. “What do you want?”

  It was a reasonable question, and I had no idea how to answer it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. A skinny teenage boy on a skateboard careened around the corner, a brown paper bag the size and shape of a six-pack tucked under his arm. He caught air going over the curb, flipped his skateboard up and caught it in his free hand. He peered at me from under the hood of a gray sweatshirt before he vanished through the front door. It slammed behind him, making the Christmas wreath almost jump off its hook.

  “God damn it,” Richard muttered under his breath. He threw his cigarette onto the concrete and ground it out with the toe of his boot.

  He turned and moved back into the garage. He poked his head out before he disappeared among the boxes.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Encouraged because he seemed to expect me to stick around, I stayed glued to my spot on the driveway and surveyed the scene. From where I was standing, I could see the pile of stuff next to the car’s back end. As I looked at it, I suddenly recognized Victoria’s big shoulder bag, the same one she had brought with her to the Silverado when I met her there with David. It was open. I inched a little closer. Inside the big bag was a smaller zipper bag, also open. Inside that was Victoria’s little tape recorder, which she also had with her the first time we met.

  What if I took it? I wondered. It would be easy enough. There might be useful stuff on it, maybe even whatever it was that Julia Saxon wanted. The thought was enough to add theft to my bold moves and sins. Hoping desperately that no one was observing me from behind any of the drawn shades in neighboring houses, I moved forward, bent down, and pulled the small zipper bag out from between a hairbrush and a couple of magazines. It was bigger than I thought, and there was more in it than just the recorder, but I managed to shove it into my backpack.

  I stood up, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief, a black sedan rolled up next to the opposite curb. The driver’s window slid down, and an arm holding a video camera emerged. I jumped out of range, but whoever was filming seemed more interested in Victoria’s car and the garage than in me, capturing Richard when he reappeared between the boxes. Richard paused when he saw the car and squinted at the camera. Then, without a word, he picked up his hose and turned on the spray.

  “Strike three on two counts!” a high-pitched man’s voice shrieked from the black car. “This tape is going straight to the board!”

  Richards said nothing. He just slowly raised his hose nozzle.

  “Son of a bitch!” the voice shrieked as the spray reached the car’s window. “You’re gonna be sorry, asshole!” Lurching into reverse, the car screeched backward. After a spastic turn across the lawn on the corner, it disappeared down Riviera Lane.

  Richard turned the hose back on the wheels of Victoria’s car. He glanced at me, and the look on my face was enough to make him smile.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’,” he said. “Just swattin’ a fly.”

  Richard shut off the flow of water.

  “He’s just one of my charming neighbors,” he said. “And here’s a piece of advice: Never buy a house that comes with a ho moaners association.”

  Ho moaners? It took me a second. Oh, duh! Homeowners. Richard dropped the hose on the concrete and moved a little closer to me.

  “Victoria loved the idea of a gated community, but I hate little twerps who make rules against washing your own car on your own property.”

  “That’s it?” I managed to ask. “You washed your car?”

  Richard nodded. “And they don’t think I should store boxes in my garage, either, or allow FedEx to pick up packages. ‘Conducting a business,’ they call it, but I say they should mind their own.” He paused. “What’s your name again?”

  “Copper,” I said. “Copper Black.”

  “And why—?”

  “Victoria’s funeral,” I said in a burst of inspiration. “I’d like to attend. I was hoping—”

  “Funeral?” Richard stared at me, his eyes hardening again. “You think we can have a funeral? It’d be a goddamn circus.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Richard didn’t say anything.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.” It was all I could think of to say, but I felt like an idiot repeating the most overused phrase on network television.

  “I really am,” I added.

  And I really was, but repeating it didn’t make it sound any more sincere.

  “You have no idea,” Richard said. “You better just go.”

  The weariness in his voice was unmistakable, and it made me feel even sorrier.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Mr. McKimber.”

  Clutching my backpack to my chest, I turned to walk back to my car.

  “Wait just a second.”

  I froze, then looked back over my shoulder to see Richard walking across the street to join me.

  “My kid and I’ll go out to the Sekhmet Temple someday and scatter her ashes,” Richard said. “It’s what she would have wanted.” He sighed heavily. “But I don’t know when. They haven’t released her body yet.”

  Guilt enveloped me as I climbed into my car. Richard seemed like a nice enough guy, and here I was, stealing Victoria’s tape recorder while pretending to offer my condolences.

  But I wasn’t pretending, I told myself as I headed toward the freeway. I really was sorry.

  :: :: ::

  By the time I got home around seven, I had actually managed to do some Christmas shopping at the Forum Shops. I got Daniel a pocket knife inlaid with lapis and malachite, but when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure it would be a good gift for someone traveling by airplane. Also, when I looked at it again, it seemed kind of feminine. Daniel was a lot of things, but feminine wasn’t one of them. God! Six more days. I wondered how I was going to survive.

  Anyway, when I got home, I decided to stop in the vicarage—that’s what I call Michael and Sierra’s house—just to say hello. The front door was unlocked, so I walked in. The living room was dark, but I was pretty sure Sierra was home because her car was in the driveway. A light was on in the kitchen, so I headed in there.

  Sierra obviously hadn’t heard me come in, because I surprised her when I stepped onto the linoleum and the floor squeaked.

  “Holy crap, Copper! Don’t you believe in knocking?”

  I knew the minute I heard “crap” that I was in trouble. Sierra does a good job of keeping her language finishing-school perfect except when she gets into one of her moods.

  Then I saw the cat food, a brand new box of Kitty Yum Yum. Then I saw the cat. My cat! She was curled up in Sierra’s lap, and Sierra was fastening a little jeweled collar around her neck. I didn’t say anything—I know from experience to shut up when Sierra’s demons are at large. But it pissed me off! She’d hijacked Sekhmet! It’s not like I really wanted a cat, but she was mine! She could have at least asked.

  “Delilah,” Sierra said. “That’s what I’m going to call her.”

  It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to say something a lot more colorful than “crap.”

  “I already named her,” I said, as evenly as possible. “Didn’t I tell you? She’s Sekhmet.”

  “Yeah, but Delilah’s a lot nicer,” Sierra said. “And she purrs when I call her that. You can call her whatever you want, but she’s Delilah as far as I’m concerned.”

  I’d like to call you whatever I want, I fumed to myself, but I kept quiet. I’m glad I did, because just then, Sierra bu
rst into tears.

  When Sierra cries, there’s nothing subtle about it. She doesn’t do a little quiet sniffling behind a tissue. She wails. She moans. She could hire herself out as a professional mourner. It’s the Greek in her, I guess. Her mother was a local, but her father moved to Las Vegas from some island in the Aegean and opened Nick’s Taverna on Paradise Road. Nikos Dendrakis died when Sierra was nine, but he obviously had already taught her everything she needed to know about being a Greek drama queen.

  It’s possible that Sierra’s mother contributed to her histrionic talents, but I never met her. She died about five years ago, not long before Sierra met Michael. From the pictures I’ve seen and what Sierra has said, she was half hippie and half go-go dancer in the seventies. Her name—or at least the name she went by—was Meadow, and she’s the one who insisted on giving Sierra her flower-child name. Her father wanted to call her Christina, but her mother wouldn’t agree to anything but Sierra Dawn. After Nick was killed by a drunk driving a stolen car, Meadow sold the restaurant. She disappeared into the Golden Gate casino on Fremont Street, where she parked herself in front of a slot machine, gained fifty pounds, and took a couple of decades to smoke herself to death. For all practical purposes, Sierra was parentless after her father’s death, although her mother did manage to pay off the mortgage on this house. Sierra calls it her dowry.

  Anyway, what was I supposed to do when a full-grown woman started sobbing for no apparent reason? It’s not like I’d had an exactly easy day myself. It would have been nice if my sister-in-law had said something like “How are you?” instead of “Holy crap!” Not to mention asking permission before appropriating my cat.

  “What’s wrong?” I managed to ask in between her bellows. “Are you okay?”

  “What does it look like?” Sierra wailed. “Does this look like ‘okay’ to you?”

  “No. What’s wrong?”

  More shrieks. More sobs.

  “Please just go a-wa-a-a-y.”

  That was enough for me. I figured I’d call Michael on his cell phone and let him know Sierra was having a meltdown, but his Jetta was just pulling into the driveway as I stepped outside.

  “Hi, Copper,” Michael said as he got out of the car. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, but your wife isn’t.”

  “Be nice,” Michael said. “Sierra’s under a lot of stress right now.”

  “Why don’t you tell her to be nice?”

  Michael sighed heavily, retrieved a grocery bag from the trunk of his car, and headed into the house. I climbed the stairs to my apartment, and when I got inside, I opened the window that looks over the garage roof. It was chilly, but it would be worth it if Sekhmet showed up. Sierra herself said it’s the cat who decides.

  I was exhausted, but I forced myself to empty out the contents of Victoria’s zipper bag onto my coffee table. In addition to the little tape recorder, I found three beat-up tampons, an American Beauty lipstick, a bottle of Claritin tablets, an old point-and-click camera, a handful of Canadian change, two condoms in gold foil wrappers, a few crumpled-up store receipts, and a tube of something called Wet Willie. By the time I was finished, I wished I had worn latex gloves.

  I told myself I should listen to the tape in Victoria’s recorder, but after I’d changed into my sweats and had a beer, I was just too fried. Instead, I logged on to check my email and see if Daniel might be around. One nice thing about Costa Rica was that there was only a two-hour time difference. Another nice thing was that Daniel’s landlord had a high-speed Internet connection, so we could actually talk instead of just instant messaging.

  Daniel was online, so I rang him up.

  “Danno!” I said.

  “Babe!” he said.

  “I miss you!”

  “Six days!”

  “Can’t wait!”

  “What’s up?” Daniel asked, and that’s when I made my giant mistake. I told him how I had turned myself into a thief.

  “You’re insane,” he said as soon as he learned that I had visited the McKimber house and stolen Victoria’s bag.

  “I am not insane, Daniel,” I said in as restrained a voice as I could manage. “I am concerned. I am diligent. I am thorough. I am determined. I am—”

  “You’re hot,” Daniel interrupted. “You’re sexy.”

  “Shut up!” I said.

  “I miss you. I want you.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “What’s the subject?”

  “My investigation into Victoria McKimber’s death. I think I’m really making progress.”

  “You’re really making me crazy.”

  Ordinarily, I would have played the game. I missed Daniel. I lusted after him. I couldn’t wait to rip his clothes off. I had even reserved a room for us at the Golden Nugget. My parents were going to stay in the house with Michael and Sierra, and my apartment was way too nearby for Daniel and me to enjoy ourselves. And we were definitely going to enjoy ourselves.

  “You don’t take me seriously, do you?” I said.

  “Sure I do, babe,” Daniel said. “I’m sitting here totally naked. And—um—ready.”

  “I am, too!” I was supposed to say, but “I’m really tired, Daniel” is what came out. “I guess I’m going to have to get some sleep.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Whatever,” Daniel finally said.

  I logged off and drank another beer while watching a terrible version of A Christmas Carol where Scrooge is a woman who owns a pawn shop and the Ghost of Christmas Past looks alarmingly like Richard Simmons. But I still wasn’t ready to fall asleep. Part of the problem was that the room was too cold, but I was still hoping Sekhmet would show up.

  Damn. Things really weren’t going the way I’d planned, but I had decided one thing. Instead of a Christmas dress, I was going to get some Christmas “club wear.” Las Vegas is packed with stores that sell stuff to make you look like a sex machine, and I was going to need some assistance in patching things up properly with Daniel. He would definitely prefer something skimpy and stretchy to something taffeta-stiff and demure.

  Las Vegas was creeping up on me. Now that I’d lived here a few months—and been to a brothel—I felt far more capable of breaking commandments. I’m not talking about the Big Ten. I mean all those awful little ones that had kept me from showing more cleavage and saying “fuck” every once in a while.

  Chapter 9

  Sunday, December 18

  Sekhmet came home! And she wasn’t wearing the jeweled collar! The cat was on my bed when I woke up. She was really back, and after I got up she stretched out on top of my TV as though she’d been doing it for years. So there, Sierra, I couldn’t help thinking. Eat your sorry heart out.

  I made some coffee and thought about going to church. When I do, I go to St. Andrew’s, my brother’s church in North Las Vegas. It’s not that I really like going to church or that I get anything spiritual out of it, but when I first moved to Las Vegas, it was church or no social life at all. So I went to the eleven o’clock service a few times, even though I was the only one of my kind in attendance. Most of the people who go to St. Andrew’s are ninety and white, forty and Filipino, or homeless. I have to give Michael a lot of credit for shepherding that flock. He does a lot more than hand out wafers and wine. He’s always looking for housing, finding medical care, and rescuing abandoned babies. This is no exaggeration. About a week after Thanksgiving, somebody left a little boy in a shopping cart on the church doorstep. Really, sometimes I think Michael is a saint.

  But that didn’t make him a great landlord. And he was definitely my landlord, not my host. I’d been paying rent since the day I moved in. I think if you pay rent, you should get to do what you want. I would never have agreed to being a long-term houseguest. I don’t always like to make my bed, and I also like to share it with a naked man from time t
o time. Shouldn’t rent give me the privilege? It was fair-market rent, too! Sierra works for a real estate company and would never have agreed to anything less. I was paying the same goddamn rent they would have gotten if they’d advertised in The Light. But even so, I could never convince them to keep a landlord-like distance. They truly believed they had my best interests at heart when they checked up on me and reported on my activities to Mom and Dad.

  I decided to skip church. There was film in the camera I found in Victoria’s zipper bag. I decided to take it to the one-hour film place at the drugstore on Charleston and see if there were any pictures on it. Then I’d go to the Starbucks at the Howard Hughes Center, commandeer a whole big table, and set up shop with my laptop and Victoria’s files. I needed to get a better handle on all the stuff she had given me, and I couldn’t do that without serious coffee. Also, I’ve always liked working in public. I don’t know why. I just do.

  When I walked outside with all my stuff, Sierra was just walking outside, too. Michael had to get up in time for the eight o’clock service, but Sierra always slept in and joined him at eleven.

  “Delilah is gone,” she said. “I guess she decided not to adopt either of us.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, deciding to take the high road and not gloat.

  “I’m really sorry,” Sierra said.

  I couldn’t tell whether she was disappointed because Sekhmet had disappeared or whether she was apologizing for crying yesterday, but I didn’t ask for clarification.

  “Will you go to church with me?” she asked. I looked at her. I was pretty sure she’d been crying again, even though her makeup was perfect. It’s hard to disguise puffy red eyes. Her shoulders drooped a little, and she looked like a puppy whose owner had just walked out the door.

  “Okay,” I said, glad that I’d slipped into black pants instead of torn jeans. “But I’ll take my own car. I’ve got errands to do afterward.”

  “Okay,” she said. “See you there.”

  Driving up to St. Andrew’s, I actually found myself looking forward to the service. Advent is my favorite liturgical season. I like the anticipatory feel of it, and I like the purple candles on the advent wreath. All four would be lit today, which meant Daniel’s advent was nigh—only five more days! The church was fuller than usual, too. I’d say there were close to eighty people there, which for St. Andrew’s is a mob. The soup kitchen gets swarmed every day, but even a sip of wine isn’t enough to get the chow-line folks into a room where a collection basket is passed.