by Paul Snyder
“I’m going down to the street.” Philip ended the call.
“No!” But it was too late, and when Philip ran into the street, Temple jogged to the beach to find Tom Clayton walking up to Meghan’s house. I posted Philip to witness Tom Clayton installing the Wi-Fi spy cameras. If I say something about the spy cams, I endanger Tom Clayton’s life. Now they’re screwed.
Desperate commands rang out in the distance. The cars exploded, and in the bright light flashing over the beach homes, Tom climbed up the ladder and went into Meghan’s bedroom. Temple returned to his black Toyota Highlander.
White-hot fire flew up from three vehicles and into a large tree in Meghan’s front yard. Temple grabbed his pistol and handcuffs and then put on his blue FBI windbreaker. It was a beautiful little park. Now flames, fueled by high ocean winds, rose thirty feet into the air. Neighbors gathered, and after sirens roared from fire trucks, Temple threw his hands up. “Look what they’ve done. Three vehicles and a huge tree in flames.” Jennifer and Steve Davis never cared about people. They only care about themselves.
Dozens of families observed. “The FBI’s fighting fires? Thanks, first responders,” a man said, his expression grew rigid and resentful. “This many people only come out during the Independence Day fireworks. It’s a shame.”
Temple turned it over in his mind. Thanks, first responders? To a disaster, I could have prevented. How could I have stopped it? I can’t stop time. I can’t prevent the future. Control’s an illusion. No one’s ever safe around me.
Anger over the sub-vocalizations triggered the past in his mind’s eye. The black smoke, dense like a coastal fog in Iraq when a man ran on fire. He squirmed on the ground, bursting into flames, screaming like the mother screamed while holding her baby.
The man and his wife and baby, ran out of their homes, all three set ablaze, sizzling, enflamed. The baby and the mom cried and squirmed with their hair and clothes and faces on fire, burning flesh. The mother’s face, her wild eyes begging me. I couldn’t do a thing. I’ll never be loved or trusted by anyone again. I just watched the baby burn, the black skin, smoke. Who in their right mind would believe in me after what I did in Iraq?
Temple was back in the United States, in Seal Beach, not Iraq, and the flames were being brought under control by the fire department while the blades of a news helicopter in the sky whirled through the noise of emergency sounds on the street.
Firefighters surrounded Meghan’s house with several police cruisers. Kids on bikes and skateboards filled the street as many others sprinted, smiled, and came closer to the firemen. A fireman outstretched his right hand, and a kid slapped the fireman’s palm.
The children jumped in circles and thanked the firemen while their parents sat on park benches where Meghan and Andrew stood.
16
Meghan shifted her gaze to the audience of concerned neighbors, from the closest child to the furthest parent. With stunned faces, in the darkness of night, they watched her burned and totaled cars, her burned and totaled life in the fire truck’s red flashing lights.
Her Bugatti was a twisted pile of metal with nasty smelling rubber and radiator water dripping onto small pieces of broken glass littered on the street. She looked out into the dark and undulating sea of shadows and faces and flashing red lights and then into the night sky. Why did I do this to my car? Everyone’s crazy. I’m a terrible person… They only made four hundred and fifty of my cars.
Andrew had been so routine, so cut-and-dried. It was strange how important he was to her after he went back into the house. He was always there to talk to if she needed. Life without him was unthinkable. It was hard for her to feel he’d always be the same now. He won’t be for long. These things will change him. I’ll never be given anything of value again. I washed and waxed the Bugatti today.
A small child ran through the crowd to Meghan. The child jumped up and down. “Thank you for our park. We love our park.” The child was so powerful and forceful through her words, but so tiny in size. “My name is Wendy, and I can’t wait to play on the swing when it’s ready.”
“Thank you, Wendy.”
The crowd began thinning, moving away into the darkness. “We’ll work on the park tomorrow.”
Wendy walked back to her parents. A loud voice hit her like a slap in the face. “Margaret!” Detective Davis stood at the entrance to her home. “You forgot your paperwork.”
Detective Davis gave her the documents. There was something awkward about Jennifer standing in front of her, dressed in her black pants and white shirt. She looked up at Detective Davis, amazed by her silky green and red Christmas scarf. What does she want? Why is she staring at me with that blank look on her face?
“Why did Andrew break up with Julie Thomas,” Jennifer asked.
“They’re friends. She’ll launch Sun Coast Realty and have her own team of agents and brokers. Andrew’s deaf, not disabled. He doesn’t like to be called disabled just because he speaks a language you don’t know. Andrew’s language is signing and lip-reading. Andrew has a good sign language that’s easy to follow.” Her pulse sped. “And, he likes it when you look at him straight in the face when you talk with him and sign. It’s hard to lie to someone when you are looking at them straight in the face. Andrew likes the truth. Julie said they broke it off three years ago because of secrets.”
“You like the truth more than secrets?” Jennifer looked suddenly less riled-up. “That’s why you are looking at me, straight in the face?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should love me. I told you the truth. I looked right into your eyes, and I told you before it happened.” Jennifer folded her arms across her chest. “I told you to kiss your little Bugatti goodbye. And look at what happened.” Jennifer’s voice was soft, and her eyes smiled. “Go ahead, turn around, and look at your cute little car, kiss it goodbye.”
Refusing to budge, she stared at Jennifer. I love her hate, her uncaring hate. How long do we have to stand here and look at each other? It’s getting old.
“All tremble at my presence and beg for my good graces.” No one could reach through or dispel Jennifer’s dark mood. “All tremble before me but you because you’re this stupid woman who can’t figure it out. Go home to Big Bear, or I will kill you.”
She stayed silent.
“Okay, fine, you win.” Jennifer smiled as though she were playing a chess game, calmly stroking the queen and the rook, replaying the strategic moves in her mind. “But the game’s not over.” Jennifer looked at her in the face, slowly adjusting the Christmas scarf around her neck. “Go back to Big Bear now.” Jennifer pointed a finger at her front door. “Or I will go right into your house and kill you and Andrew.”
She knew something bad was going to happen. It was dicey, reckless, just standing in her own front yard. She wanted to fight to hold together her life with Andrew, but she refused to be tough and proud. I need to be kind. But how do you be kind to someone who wants to kill you and the man you love? She walked silently past Jennifer and into her home.
17
The last fire truck threaded its way towards the end of Ocean Avenue at eleven-thirty at night. Meghan sat in her bay window, looking at the television once or twice, if only to clear her mind and expunge the insanities. She only wanted to be close to Andrew, who watched a movie, alone with his thoughts, reading the captioning at the bottom of the screen. Philip came into the room, and Meghan began to relax.
A wealthy, seasoned, and powerful home builder, Philip was precisely the person Andrew needed to manage Sun Coast Properties. After her miserable confrontation with Detective Davis, Meghan felt suddenly safe with Philip in the room.
“Julie’s in the kitchen.” Philip leaned against the door frame. “She wants to talk with you.”
“I’ll go.” She left the front room, and after walking halfway down the long central hallway, the reality of losing her Bugatti saddened her. She gazed to her right, at the acacia wood dining table and her wicker basket, filled with
crimson poppies and corn. Dan felt the crimson poppies were an omen foretelling death and resurrection, while her mother claimed the flowers meant beauty and success.
Meghan knew they symbolized both and more. Dan and Julie had driven her white Honda Civic to her family’s apple ranch in Oak Glen. Meghan stayed behind in Seal Beach, unsure how her father would react to seeing her since she’d shacked-up with Andrew a few months ago. She hoped her father had forgiven her for Thanksgiving and found someone to fill her purchasing position.
She went into the kitchen, holding her basket of crimson poppies and corn. She filled a glass of water to drink before bed. Julie stood at the white granite countertop, looking down at a large red fruit juicing appliance. Julie chewed on a freshly sliced piece of pink grapefruit, rocking from side to side with an anguished, faraway expression as though she were an injured animal, ensnared in a trap, for a long time, and unable to escape.
“Pink grapefruit juice looks good,” Meghan gave a slow smile to lighten Julie’s mood. “I’m thirsty.”
Julie grabbed the electrical cord to the fruit juicer and yanked the plug from its socket. She picked up the fruit juicer with both hands and held it above her head. Julie seemed lean and forceful enough to take on the world. “You let everyone but me, your best friend, break your stuff, smash up your cars, and set your whole front yard on fire.” Anger flared in her eyes. “Why can’t I destroy something? Why don’t I just throw this fruit juicer across the sink and straight through that kitchen window?”
Meghan had seen her like this in the past and knew if Julie got angry enough, she’d do it. “After my front yard explodes like a bomb.” Meghan dared her. “All you want to do is break that little kitchen window.” Meghan snapped. “That’s pathetic. You broke two glass shower doors while fixing the bathroom on Third Street. If you want to break something, why don’t you go big? Destroy something more expensive than my little kitchen window.”
“How careless of me.” Julie gave a fake smile and laughed it off, placing the juicer back on the countertop. She grabbed a yellow kitchen rag and polished the juicer. “Perhaps if I were a police officer or FBI, I would be more talented at the destruction of property.”
Meghan let out a sigh of relief and relaxed back into her earlier sense of sadness over losing her Bugatti. But she really did love this place. The kitchen was her favorite place in the house. It was immense and always reminded her of her family’s apple pie restaurant in Oak Glen, where she learned to make from scratch the pies and pastries that made everyone’s mouth water.
She knew precisely how much baking powder to place in the flour to make the crust nice and flakey. And, one day, while showing Julie how to bake those pies, they looked out through the window and across the beach to see perfect waves at low tide on a west swell. It was early evening. They put on their wetsuits and surfed perfect waves for hours. Living here was a daily adventure.
If things were going from bad to worse, she could make them right. In the past, she’d done things wrong, and she’d made them right. Right now, she imagined she could make things right. I can do this. I can get past my spending of the bank robbery money and my hiding of the cash and the Lamborghini and Bugatti's totaling. I just need more time. “I know I’ve failed everyone.” She looked hard into Julie’s eyes. “But I’m changing my nature. I am changing who I am. I am going to be a better person.”
“You think you can solve this by changing.” Julie smiled but just a little. “You can’t.” There were hundreds of questions in Julie’s voice, and Meghan nodded in assent, willing to listen. “Evil erases good.” Julie looked into her eyes. “You are good, and evil works every day, each and every night, to erase you.”
“Just now, outside, in the front yard, Jennifer claimed responsibility for the blowing up of the cars, and she’s promised to kill me, and then she promised to kill Andrew. She said it, right to my face, like she was taking candy from a baby. And she smiled the entire time.”
“Those people out there, outside your house, the FBI, the police, are evil. You must fight evil with evil, or they will kill you.” Julie whirled around, picked up a large and white ceramic vase, and threw it into the sliding glass door. They backed away from falling glass shattering into smaller pieces on the floor. “You need to start breaking things not just here, but in all of Seal Beach. Break Seal Beach before Seal Beach breaks you.” Julie plugged her ears with her fingers as more substantial glass pieces crashed on the floor, making loud, splintering sounds on the kitchen tile.
Meghan cheered, and Julie nodded. “I should take lessons from the police and FBI and burn down Seal Beach, like real brave first-responders.”
“We’re adults. Act your age.” Philip shook his head in wonderment at the broken glass after entering the kitchen. “Why does Andrew always pick you girls to do his work?” Philip complained to Julie. “Let me explain a few things to you.”
Meghan looked to the other side of the kitchen and then followed Julie into the dining room.
“I can’t believe this.” Philip’s dark eyes studied Julie from head to toe. “You destroyed a sliding glass door and an expensive vase. What’s your excuse?” Moments ago, Julie held her head high, so excited and proud. Now, she seemed nothing to anyone, especially Philip. “Explain yourself.”
Julie stepped toward Philip, waving a hand at him. “An hour ago, you were outside in the front yard talking on a walkie talkie with law enforcement.” Julie looked up at Philip. “Now, you’re in this house, for what reason, to hurt Meghan?” Julie shoved her hands on her hips. “Earlier, you hurt Meghan and destroyed her property, and if lives were lost, you would have gotten away with homicide. All those kids were out there, in our front yard when it blew up. They had their parent's permission to help us with their park equipment late at night. It’s their park, a Christmas gift from Andrew to the children of Seal Beach. And you firebombed it and robbed us of Christmas.”
Philip seemed to suffer, Meghan thought. I’ve never seen him like this. This is weird. Philip’s afraid of Julie. She’s turned him into someone to be despised, hated for his evil like the police and the FBI. Philip knows he’s done something bad but won’t admit it.
“But now you’re in Meghan’s house, in front of me. Now, you will answer me. Why’d you drop a bomb on my street?”
“Something’s wrong with me?” Philip replied, denying further comment. “You’re spoiled little girls wanting to play with the kids in the park.”
Meghan found Philip to be in denial. Now Philip’s the ensnared, trapped, confused, the cornered animal.
Philip stared at Julie. “Something’s wrong with me.”
“Oh… I’m not a doctor,” her expression bordered on mockery. “Like a psychologist.”
“I have a geologist friend.” Meghan had been quiet long enough. “She’s a doctor of rocks. You must be surprised she’s a doctor since she’s a girl. Tell me, since she is a girl, is she a doctor, or is she a doctoress of rocks?”
Julie pointed to a rock near a tree in the backyard. “Even that rock has a doctor, a geologist, which is who you need since you have rocks for brains. I’m going upstairs and going to sleep.” Julie pulled Meghan’s car keys from her pocket. She faked friendliness to get close to Philip and exploit a weakness. “Here, Philip, take the keys to Meghan’s Bugatti for me, please.” Julie tossed the keys into the air.
Philip reached high in the air with both hands. Julie walked to Philip with her fists clenched and kicked Philip in the nuts. Philip doubled over as Julie threw her right fist into Philip’s face. Philip winced in pain but held his head high. A look of sadness washed across his face as he stared at Meghan. “Why did she hit me?”
Meghan felt the anger rise. “You called us girls when we asked about your involvement in the firebombing.”
Julie slammed into Philip. He couldn't stand straight. Philip stumbled in a half-circle, hitting the long dining room table and tripping among the chairs. Philip backed away in jerky steps, holding on to Ju
lie to stand, but she threw a hard punch and pushed him, harder, to the ground. Julie stood over Philip’s crumpled body. “Don’t call me a girl again.”
“Why did she hit me?” Philip’s face paled.
Julie started to kick Philip.
“No,” Philip struggled back from her. “Stop, please.”
Julie stopped as Philip had begged.
“What did I say to you?” Philip’s eyes darkened.
“It’s not what you said.” Julie replied in a low and composed voice. “It’s what you didn’t say.”
18
When Meghan was surfing in the ocean, hoping for a wave to come to her, her physical life faded, and there was only her mind waiting on a wave, and the waves were without conscience. Waves didn’t care about who she was, how she was born, genetics, and lifestyle.
Waves were for everyone to surf regardless of their gender, family, and money. The ocean was the ultimate equalizer, and when she went into the cold and blue water to surf, she felt restrained, but hours later, when she finished surfing and came out of the sea, she was refreshed and free.
This morning after her mix-ups with Philip and Jennifer, and especially after losing her car, she wanted to step back into the cold, foamy waves, to feel the freedom of surfing in her life. But she didn’t go to the beach. She stayed at home, in her bedroom, finding herself trapped behind her roll top desk, looking at the library, the paperback, and the leather-bound books, trying to tell herself that she was a good person, and her heart pounded hard after she locked herself in her bedroom and went into her walk-in closet, and took down the wall.
All her problems would end when she found the person who put the money in there. She’d make him get everything out of her home, and then she wouldn’t have to go to prison. She found the bales of cash, two rows, stacked three high, all six, the same way she left them.