A Killing in the Valley (5 page)

“Because…”
Because I don’t know you. Because you’re white and I’m Latina. Because I’m a virgin, and I’m not going to give myself to a boy I don’t know, the first time. To any boy I don’t love.
“I can’t. Not out here, in a place like this. Not with other people around.”

He sat back. “Okay,” he sighed in resignation. “I guess I understand,” he told her, although his body language said otherwise.

“Thank you.” She sat up and rearranged herself, pulling her brassiere back into place, smoothing her blouse out. “You need to take me back now.”

They drove down the winding road into the city. The silence was oppressive. Maria had blown up at Tina when the other boy told them they had to take Tina back. She and Tom hadn’t been able to do anything—the condom was still in the package, in his pants pocket.

Tina, sitting as far in the corner of the car as she could, was miserable. She could feel the anger rising from Maria like heat off a griddle. But she couldn’t help that, she had to be true to herself. If having sex with a boy she didn’t even know was what it took to be a friend of Maria Estrada’s, then she wouldn’t be her friend. She had never been Maria’s friend anyway, so it wasn’t like she was losing something important.

Still, she knew it was going to be a long year.

Maria wanted to go to Paseo Nuevo, the large shopping mall on State Street. They drove into town and parked half a block from the entrance. Tina got out of the car and walked away, back to where the boys had picked her up. Tom and Maria talked on the sidewalk for a minute, while Billy waited in the car. Then Maria crossed the street and disappeared into the mall.

A
GIRL’S VOICE CALLED
out from across the plaza: “Tyler?”

Steven and Tyler turned and looked as a cute, athletic-looking girl with short, red, wildly curly hair and a face full of freckles, came running toward them. She wearing running shorts, a
Property of UCSB Women’s Swimming
T-shirt, and Dr. Scholl’s clogs.

“Serena!” Tyler called back with the happy yelp of a puppy whose master just walked in the front door. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in…” He stared at her.

“Three years,” she finished for him. “I go to UCSB now. I transferred last year. They have a really good environmental studies program, which is what I’m majoring in.”

“I didn’t know that.” He stared at her with a dumbstruck expression on his face.

She grinned at him. “You can’t know where your old friends have gotten to
if you don’t keep in touch
!.” She gave him a bop on the bicep. “But now you do, so no more excuses.” She looked at Steven. “Who’s this cute guy?”

Tyler laughed at her friendly brashness. “This is Steven McCoy, my roommate at Arizona. Steven, Serena Hopkins. We went to high school together in L.A.”

“Hello, Tyler’s roommate,” Serena said nicely to Steven. Turning back to Tyler, she asked, “How long are you in town for?”

“Just till tomorrow. We’ve got to be back in Tucson by the weekend, for registration.”

“Too bad,” she said coyly.

This girl definitely liked Tyler, Steven could clearly see that. And Tyler liked her, that was obvious as well. What the hell. He hadn’t done his good deed for today. “Why don’t you two hang together for awhile?” he suggested.

Tyler, taken by surprise, turned to Steven. “What’ll you do?”

“I have a girlfriend who I’m sure would like to join us,” Serena piped up, smiling at Steven.

“Thanks, but I’m sure I can find something to occupy my time—or someone to do it with,” Steven drawled. He winked at Tyler. “You guys don’t need me horning in.”

Tyler’s hand rested lightly on Serena’s back. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, almost too eagerly. “How are we gonna hook up later?”

“We’ll meet back here.” Steven smiled at Serena. “Be nice to him. He needs some TLC.”

“I know how to do that,” she replied brightly.

“Okay, then,” Steven said. He gave Tyler a thumbs-up, and walked into the crowd.

Tyler sat on one of the heavy pine benches near the multiplex movie theater. The mall was packed with people out for an evening on the town. He looked up as Steven approached, walking rapidly. “Where have you been?” he asked peevishly. “It’s after eight.”

Their plan had been to meet up at seven. Steven was over an hour late.

“Around.” Steven slumped onto the bench.

“Wasn’t your phone on?”

Tyler had tried calling Steven on his cell. He had been sitting here for almost an hour by now, waiting for Steven to show up. A wasted hour he could have spent with Serena.

“I turned it off when I went to the movies. Sorry,” Steven apologized. “How did it go with your cute little friend?”

“Nice.” Tyler couldn’t hold back a shit-eating smile.

“Dude!” Steven grinned back. “You got laid!”

Tyler put up his hands like he was under arrest, but he didn’t stop smiling. “A gentleman doesn’t divulge such intimate happenstances.”

“You fuckin’ got laid, you dog!” Steven clapped Tyler on the back. “So what, you’re getting married tomorrow? I didn’t pack my tux.”

Tyler laughed self-consciously. “We had fun, that’s all. What’d you do?”

Steven shrugged. “Nothing as good as you.” He turned away to look at the streaming pedestrian traffic. “Went down to the beach for awhile, had a few brews, went to a movie. Very unbig deal.”

Tyler looked at him sympathetically. “Too bad. I thought you’d try to…”

“Meet the girl of my dreams and fall in love, like you? No such luck.” Steven stood up. “Let’s go. I could eat a bear and two of her cubs.”

They sat at an outside table at Brophy’s, scarfing down oysters on the half shell, clam chowder, fried clams, fish and chips. Several bottles of Sierra Nevada slackened their thirst. By the time they drove into the valley and got back to the ranch, it was almost eleven. Steven pulled off the county blacktop onto the gravel road. He drove through the open gate, stopped the Pathfinder, got out, swung the gate closed, and slammed the lock home.

“Did we forget to lock the gate behind us when we left earlier?” Tyler asked as Steven got into the car again. “I thought we did.”

Steven shook his head. “Guess we didn’t, obviously.” He grimaced. “Don’t tell my grandmother on me, okay? She gets uptight over ranch security. Like anyone’s going to come in and steal anything out of this old place,” he said cavalierly. “If you didn’t know it was here, you’d never find it.”

They drove up the narrow, dark road, parked outside the house, and went in. Steven gave Tyler the nickel tour. They navigated by the light of their flashlights, but it was too dark to see very well.

“Are we sleeping in here?” Tyler asked, when they reached the back bedroom. He stared at the old, massive furniture. “This is like out of
Gone With the Wind
.”

Steven hoisted himself up onto the edge of the high bed. This had been his great-grandparents’ room, way back when. He had slept here a few times when he was a little boy. The mattress felt like sleeping on a cloud, he remembered, as he laid back on it for a moment.

“Nah,” he said, pushing himself back up. “Too stuffy. And we can’t smoke in here.”

He took a long, slow piss into the high porcelain toilet in the bathroom. Too much beer, he thought, as he pulled the flush chain. The old pipes banged as the water circled down the bowl.

Back outside, they unrolled their sleeping bags on the grass under the gazebo and fished fresh beers from their cooler. Steven lit up a blunt. He toked deeply and passed it to Tyler.

“This shit could paralyze an elephant,” Tyler wheezed as he coughed out a lungful of smoke. “Somebody didn’t have a tolerance for it, it could knock them flat on their ass.” He took a pull from his beer. “Hell, I’ve been smoking it since we’ve been on the road, and it’s
still
wasting me.”

Steven didn’t answer. He was in the moment, enjoying the sensation of being high. It was a clear night; the black sky was a blanket of millions of tiny, shimmering lights. They passed the joint back and forth, lying on their backs, staring up through the vines covering the gazebo to the stars over their heads.

By the time the boys woke up the following morning, Juanita was already cooking pancakes and frying bacon on the wood-burning stove in the old kitchen. The oilcloth-covered table was set with heavy ranch plates, flatware, thick coffee mugs.

The boys staggered inside, barefoot in jeans and T-shirts, hair unkempt, mouths dry. She placed two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice in front of them, and two cups of steaming, tar-black coffee.

“You two look like you had quite a night on the town,” she commented, not disapprovingly.

“Have the belly dancers left yet?” Steven said, yawning and scratching his stomach. “And the mariachis?”

Juanita hovered at his shoulder. “Did you have a good time?” she asked, eager to share any part of his life. It had been a long time since she had been around young people. She enjoyed their company, their carefree enthusiasm.

“He did,” Steven said in a mock-grouchy voice, cocking his head toward Tyler.

“I met an old friend from high school,” Tyler explained to Juanita.

“An old
girlfriend
,” Steven clarified. “I had to practically throw him into chains to dragoon him back here with me.”

Tyler laughed and shook his head. “Who was waiting on who?” he countered.

“As long as you both had fun,” Juanita said, enjoying their repartee. She lifted the pancakes off the griddle onto two plates, added several slices of thick bacon, and put the food down in front of them. From her apron pocket she produced a bottle of maple syrup, which she put on the center of the table.

“What about you?” Steven asked her, as he doused his flapjacks with syrup.

“I ate hours ago,” she said airily. “Come on, dig in. I’ve got a bowl of batter that’ll go to waste if you two don’t finish it up.”

Too soon, as far as Juanita was concerned, the boys had finished their breakfast, packed their car, and were ready to go.

Steven hugged his grandmother. “Thanks for everything, Grandma.”

Her goodbye hug was firmer. “Don’t be a stranger, Steven,” she admonished him.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised her.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said. She took Tyler’s hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Tyler. I hope you’ll come back, too.”

“That would be great, Mrs. McCoy. It’s a beautiful place you’ve got.”

She reached up on her toes and kissed Steven on the cheek. The boys got into their Pathfinder and started down the road, throwing a cloud of dust in their wake. She stood in place and watched until the dust had settled and the sound of their engine could no longer be heard.

K
ATE BLANCHARD LUGGED
the last bulky carton of books up the stairs to her daughter Wanda’s second-floor apartment and dumped it in a corner of the living room. I’m too old for this pack-mule routine, she thought to herself. She was sweaty, dirty, and hungry. She wanted a shower, a mixed drink, something to eat that wasn’t takeout. A foot-rub would be divine.

None of those pleasures were going to be afforded her tonight. This forty-eight-hour block of time was for settling Wanda in, making sure the basics were covered: the gas, water, and electricity functioning properly, Wanda’s clothing, furniture, personal belongings secure in her new digs. The first night in a new place was a special event. It would set the tone for Wanda’s new life. She wanted her daughter to feel good here, because Wanda was going to have enough stress in her daily existence without being anxious about her living space.

The apartment was in the Haight, a few blocks removed from the heavy street action. It had been a lucky find, a last-minute vacancy. Kate, Wanda, and Sophia, her younger daughter, had spent all day yesterday cleaning up the previous tenant’s accumulated dirt and grime. This morning they’d hung curtains and lined the kitchen shelves.

The day after tomorrow, Wanda was starting classes at UC San Francisco Medical School. Kate still had a hard time believing the daughter of a working woman and an abusive, absent father, had pulled it off. A girl who during most of her teenage years had been raised (to Kate’s burning shame) more by her aunt and uncle than by her own mother. A girl who had won a scholarship to Stanford and graduated with honors, who had worked nights and weekends at a pizza joint to pay for her other expenses, so she wouldn’t be a burden to her mother.

When Kate would wake up from the recurring nightmare of her daughters living with her sister and brother-in-law, because she was unable to be there for them during the years when she was going through a brutal divorce while at the same time being fired from the Oakland police department, she would be awash with the sweat of contrition. And yet, despite having been absent on a day-to-day basis during some of the most important years of their lives, her daughters had never questioned her desire to do the best she could for them, an act of charity, forgiveness, and unconditional love that still amazed, humbled, and brought tears to her eyes.

All that was in the past (knock wood). After that series of debacles she turned her life around. She became a private detective in Santa Barbara, which earned her a decent living, restored her confidence, and allowed her to take charge of her family again. Sophia had moved to Santa Barbara last spring, in the middle of her junior year of high school. By then, regrettably, Wanda was in college, so she and Kate had never lived together during her high school years. Kate had never seen Wanda dressed up for a prom, hadn’t helped her with her homework, hadn’t talked to her about boys, drugs, teen angst, her future.

Yet through all the separation, mother and daughters had stayed emotionally close. And now, they were together again. It had been a long time since Kate had been this happy and content with her life.

“I’m ordering in pizza, Mom,” Wanda called from the bedroom, where she and Sophia were putting her clothes away. “What do you want on it?”

“Anything,” Kate called back. “Except anchovies.” She sagged into a fold-open director’s chair. “Can they deliver beer?”