Blue Twilight (7 page)

“So is your friend here,” she added.

“And this dive is the Taj Mahal of bars,” Terri breezily retorted. “Just let me use the facilities and we’ll be on our way.”

Mei Rose pressed a buzzer under the counter and Terri pulled open a mesh wire door. The
click, click, click
of his high heels echoed as they went downstairs into the basement.

“I tell you once more only because I like you. Every girl need to know how to cook. Otherwise how you expect to keep that man of yours? You think you live on love alone? Pshaw!” She dismissed the idea with a brisk wave of her hand.

“Not all women have time to cook these days, Mei Rose,”
I patiently tried to explain for the umpteenth time. “They have other things to do. That’s why there are restaurants.”

“Look at me. I do everything. You’re young and strong. You should do it, too. All I know is you better be careful, or you’re going to lose that man of yours.”

Hmm. I wondered if she knew something I didn’t—especially after having heard about Vincent.

“Plenty other women know how to make chow fun and keep their man happy. You better learn quick, or some clever girl will come along and steal him away from you.”

I fidgeted on the stool, finding that the subject made me increasingly uncomfortable.

“You be smart and listen to what Mei Rose tell you. I take you shopping and teach you to cook. Otherwise, you end up alone in this world, or with that nutty friend of yours.”

I envisioned myself without Santou and nearly caved in to her demands.

What are you, crazy? Snap the hell out of it!
my inner voice ranted, saving me at the last possible moment from the Sergeant Bilko of Chinese cooking.

“That would be great, Mei Rose. Only I’m way too busy right now and don’t have the time.”

But Mei Rose wasn’t about to go down without a fight. She skewered me with a laser-sharp glare, until I felt like an enormous butterfly pinned to the wall.

“Then you better make time, missy. I know what I’m talking about.”

It made me wonder what Mei Rose, herself, might have been through. All that saved me was the sound of Terri’s heels coming back up the stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief as he shut the wire mesh door behind him. Even so, I could feel Mei Rose’s words trailing behind us as we walked outside.

“I finally figured out why the walls and floors of her dungeon downstairs are painted blood red,” Terri confided. “It’s
so Mei Rose can easily clean up the mess after knocking off those tenants that are late with their rent.”

“Thanks for the tip. Listen Terri, would you mind if I skipped the clubs tonight and headed back to Santou instead?”

Terri smoothed back my hair and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

“Of course not, Rach. I’d do the same thing if I were you. Everyone knows that clubs are mainly for people with nothing better to do.”

This time it was my turn to blink back tears. As long as Terri and I had each other, neither of us would ever be alone. Still, he deserved to find someone to love and make him happy.

“Then I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” I reminded him.

I watched as Terri strolled off. Then I turned and began to walk toward home.

I was deep in thought when a chill unexpectedly settled in my bones. I quickly looked up. Just ahead stood Old Saint Mary’s Church, famous for its brick bell tower. The time-piece on the tower’s front reported the hour to be ten o’clock. But it was the inscription chiseled in the bricks below that was darkly menacing:
SON
,
OBSERVE THE TIME AND FLY FROM EVIL
.

It was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I quickened my pace with the feeling that mischief was afoot, just waiting to pounce.

As if on cue, the sound of steps swiftly approached from behind. However, I wasn’t prepared for the hand that roughly latched onto my shoulder, nor the object that was thrust into my side.

“Hey, babe. What’s the rush? You look too good to be all by your lonesome.”

Something metal bit through my clothes and the world
changed gears, as everything began to move in slow motion. Even the streetlights flickered and blurred, just like the room lights in Krav Maga class. It was my nightmare all over again, except this time it was far too real. My pulse raced, fearing that the metal object pressing into me was a gun.

“L e t ’ s f i n d s o m e p l a c e q u i e t a n d d a r k w h e r e n o o n e w i l l b o t h e r u s.”

The words were drawn out and distorted as they reached my ears, like an old 45 record being played on 33 rpm.

“J u s t d o n ’t d o a n y t h i n g s t u p i d, a n d y o u w o n ’t g e t h u r t.”

The man pushed up against me. The rancid smell of his breath turned my stomach as his fingers bit into my skin and steered me toward an alley. At the same time, he removed the metal object from my side and reached for my purse. I glanced down and saw that he held a short bolt in his grip rather than a gun.

I didn’t stop to think, but acted solely on reflex. Dropping my head forward, I rammed it back as hard as I could, catching my assailant on the nose. His hand flew off my shoulder. I quickly whirled around and threw a punch to his solar plexus, followed by a painful jab against the temple. The next thing my attacker knew, he’d been thrown up against a wall.

Only then did I get a good look at him. Oh, shit. I was dealing with a street kid who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old.

He clutched his chest and struggled for breath, all the while glaring at me like some poor puppy that had been wrongfully kicked. My fear instantly disappeared, replaced by a whopping sense of guilt. More than likely he was a runaway in need of money.

“Are you all right?” I asked, and took a step toward him.

“Just stay the hell away from me!” he warned, and ran off as fast as he could.

Damn it. What the hell else was I supposed to do?
I thought.
Let him mug me, or possibly worse?

But no matter how I tried to justify it, there was no escaping that I’d just beaten up a kid—one with a desperate look in his eyes. The incident haunted me the entire way home.

By the time I walked through the front door, I wanted nothing more than to fall into Santou’s arms and forget what had happened tonight. However, when I got upstairs, the television had been turned off and Jake was no longer in the living room. I tiptoed in and found him fast asleep on the bed. He lay so still that I could have sworn he was dead. Then I saw the two bottles of painkillers uncapped on the nightstand beside him.

I listened to the sound of his breathing, while holding my own. Each exhalation was painfully slow, each inhalation excruciatingly shallow.

But that wasn’t all. An empty bottle of scotch lay like a passed-out drunk on the floor, and I knew that his recovery still had a long way to go.

I
awoke to a gray, foggy day, wondering if I’d ever get used to the Bay Area weather. Rolling over, I tried to snuggle against Santou only to find he was no longer under the covers. Then I heard the thrum of the shower. The pipes behind the wall squeaked in protest as Jake turned off the water.

Adding his pillow to my own, I stretched my arms and legs, luxuriating in the extra few minutes to remain in bed. Then I caught sight of the scotch bottle on the floor, and remembered how I’d found Santou stoked to the gills on drugs and booze last night.

Jake slowly limped back into the room wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. An angry scar snaked out from beneath the terrycloth and ran down the length of his left leg. He followed my eyes with his own, probably having already looked at it a million times himself.

“I thought maybe I’d tell people that I got it fighting the war in Iraq. What do you think?”

“Maybe so,” I said and smiled.

“Talk about a downer. Terri told me yesterday that my scar’s going to clash with the red Speedo I was planning to wear this summer,” Santou caustically joked.

“So, how’s your head this morning?”

“Still there, as far as I can tell. Why?”

“Because I thought you might have tried to kill off all your brain cells last night.”

Jake looked at me without a word.

“The pills and booze? It’s got to stop.”

“Maybe you’ve just got to learn to live with it,” Santou peevishly snapped. A second later, he hung his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, chère. It’s just that they help me get through the day. Believe me, you don’t know what it’s like.”

“What I do know is that it’s been nine months since the crash. You should be off painkillers by now. For chrissakes, Jake. Face it. You’ve become addicted. It’s time you change doctors, start seeing a physical therapist on a regular basis, and clean up your act.”

“And maybe you should let me handle this in my own way and try being a little more patient. You have no idea what I’m going through, and this sure as hell doesn’t help.”

“Fine. I just don’t want to come home one day and find you dead on the floor, because I damn well don’t intend to mop up the mess.”

Santou glared as he grabbed his clothes off the chair and stormed out, slamming the bedroom door behind him.

“That went well,” I muttered to myself, and headed into the shower.

I stood under the water and let it beat down on me, conflicted by two entirely different emotions. Part of me felt guilty that Jake was in this quandary, while the other part wanted to smack him hard across the head.

Okay, so maybe tough love
wasn’t
the way to go. I took a deep breath and decided to give patience a shot. Quickly drying off, I dressed, and opened the bedroom door, determined to make up.

“Don’t shoot. I’m coming out,” I joked. “How about if I make us some breakfast?”

But there was no answer. I walked out to find that Santou had already left the premises.

Maybe he’s complaining about me to Terri.

I decided to pop upstairs, knowing that Terri was expecting me this morning.

Though I knocked on his door four times, there was no answer. I finally resorted to using the key.

Terri was asleep in bed with his eye mask on. I sat on the edge and gently shook him awake.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. You don’t happen to have Santou under the covers there, do you?”

Terri lifted his mask and grudgingly opened one eye. “Why? Has he gone AWOL?”

“Let’s just say we had a little disagreement.”

“Terrific. What about?”

“I came home last night and found him knocked out, having downed a hefty cocktail of pills and scotch. Not even an earthquake would have rocked his world. I told him this morning that he needs to get professional help, because I don’t intend to scrape his dead carcass off the floor.”

“Good going, Rach. That was very sweet, and a surefire way to win him over.” Terri snorted.

“All right, I probably could have been a bit more diplomatic. But I also wanted to get my point across.”

Terri yawned. “As if you ever have a problem doing that.”

He was right. I now realized I was an absolute dolt.

“So, are you still coming with me to Mendocino, or should I let you go back to your dreams?” I gruffly asked, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

“Oh, please. The Hulk is about the only one that ever shows up in them anymore. No, if I don’t get up now, I probably never will. Give me half an hour and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

I was sitting in my Ford, ready and waiting to go, when
Terri walked outside. To my surprise, he looked unusually subdued, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a charcoal gray shirt.

“Well, you certainly blend in with the weather today,” I noted as he sat down and strapped on his seat belt.

“Yeah, in more ways than one.”

“What do you mean?”

Rather than answer, Terri simply shrugged.

Great. That made two for two. Apparently, I was annoying everyone that I came into contact with this morning. I threw the Ford into drive and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.

The fog grew thicker with each passing mile, as if we were being sucked into a conspiracy of clouds. The haze could have enveloped the Ford and swallowed us whole, leaving no trace that we’d ever existed. No one would have known any different. Certainly not early on a Sunday morning, when it seemed as though the whole town was deserted.

Not a soul was around. That is, except for the troops of homeless wandering the streets like ghosts, their numbers having surged with the burst of the dot-com bubble. Materializing out of the fog, they tapped on car windows and begged for spare change at every red light. Then they floated back into the murk like flotsam, having been discarded by the world with no more thought than that given to garbage.

So far San Francisco had seen two gold rushes come and go, the latest being the Internet boom. But the good times were now gone, having taken a heavy human toll.

We sped up Van Ness, crossed onto Lombard, and the Golden Gate Bridge soon came into view. Shrouded in mist, it mystically floated between land and water as if held there by thin air. Its orange-gold towers rose forty stories high, beckoning in a siren song of suicide to all who’ve lost hope.

California has long been the last stop for many who fear
they’ll never make good; the Golden Gate Bridge their swan song.

Come all ye who have lost houses, wives, and jobs, experienced bankruptcy, or are flat-out broke and depressed. When everything else fails, there’s still one place left to go: the most popular suicide spot in the world.

The bridge offers the ride of a lifetime, providing a four-second dive to the bottom with speeds reaching up to eighty miles per hour on impact. It’s said that San Francisco is a city of dreamers and drunks. If that’s true, then the Golden Gate has come to symbolize the end of the trail for broken dreams. So seductive is its call that even the founder of Victoria’s Secret chose to make his final leap off this bridge.

Perhaps it was such thoughts that made me realize Terri had been exceptionally quiet so far this morning.

“How did things go last night?” I inquired, wondering if I’d done something wrong.

“Hmm, let’s see. How should I put this? I wouldn’t slow down while driving across the Golden Gate if I were you. It might prove way too tempting for me to jump.”

“What happened?” I asked in alarm.

“It’s what
didn’t
happen. None of those clubs would hire me,” Terri wailed.

That didn’t make sense. Not when Terri had been billed as the top female impersonator back at the Boy Toy Club in New Orleans. He’d nailed Cher, Madonna, and Liza better than they usually performed themselves.

“There must be some reason. Did any of them tell you why?”

“Oh, there’s a reason all right,” he bitterly replied. “Do you really want to hear it?”

“Of course,” I answered, though I suddenly wasn’t so sure.

“It’s because I’m a washed-up, out-of-touch, over-the-
hill transvestite who doesn’t have my finger on the pulse of the club scene anymore. In other words, I’m just too damn
o-o-o-old!
” Terri elongated the word in a long, drawn-out sob.

“That’s totally ludicrous,” I scoffed, feeling highly insulted. Neither of us had yet reached the age of forty. If they thought Terri was too old, what did that say about me? After all, I wasn’t that far behind him.

“Did you perform Cher and Madonna for them?”

Terri nodded. “That’s the problem. They’re looking for someone who does Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera these days. For God sakes, can you imagine? I’d have to appear in chaps and a thong, with a snake wrapped around my neck, and grind away like a cheap espresso machine. Very classy, huh? They suggested I add Carol Channing to my repertoire and audition at a club that caters to an older clientele, instead.
Carol Channing!
What do I look like? Chopped liver for the geriatric set?”

“They obviously don’t know what they’re talking about,” I tried to console him.

Terri pulled the visor down and examined his face in its mirror. His fingers probed every little wrinkle.

“I can’t even afford a face-lift these days. Not with that lawsuit hanging over Yarmulke Schlemmer’s head.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need one, anyway.”

However, I snuck a peek in the rearview mirror at my own face. How long would it be before I broke open
my
piggy bank, hoping to scrape up enough for a few nips and tucks?

“I’m sure there are plenty of other clubs where you can work.”

“Yeah. I hear they’re having a cattle call for mature transvestites to perform at a local senior citizens center,” Terri morosely responded. “Between Vincent, the lawsuit, and now this, I don’t know what I’m going to do, Rach. I need
something solid to hang on to in my life or, I swear, I’m going to float aimlessly along, just wasting time.”

Time.
There it was. That terrible word. I could feel it ticking away inside me like a bomb ever since my mother’s death. It was a constant reminder that there was only a finite amount left, and I had damn well better make the most of it.

I looked over at Terri’s expression and it nearly broke my heart. “Remember what you told me about having patience, Ter? Don’t worry. Things will work out.”

He half-heartedly patted my arm and gazed out the window, appearing to be deep in thought.

The San Francisco skyline faded into the fog behind us, much like an aging movie star taking refuge behind a thick, gauzy veil. Soon a tunnel came into view, its mouth painted in candy stripes like a colorful rainbow. Upon entering, we were magically transported into a California never-never land. We exited to find ourselves in Marin County, home of New Age consciousness, granola bars, wealthy stockbrokers, and aging rock stars. The headquarters for Birkenstock sandals loomed off to the west like the Emerald City, making me feel rather like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
.

We continued north on Highway 101 through a landscape of rolling hills bedecked with gnarled oaks. Three huddled together in the mist, their contorted limbs transforming them into a trio of scheming witches from
Macbeth
.

From there we sped through wine country, bastion of the good life, with its carefully tended vineyards, gourmet restaurants, and stylish homes, all paid for with great gobs of money. A quick turn onto Route 128 brought about yet an entirely different change of scene.

A rural two-lane road wound through verdant mountains, its path so serpentine that my car squealed in delight rather
than sensibly slow down. Soon the Ford was
shush
,
shush
,
shushing
from side to side with the proficiency of a downhill skier, twisting and turning in perfect unison with each hairpin curve.

Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, look out. I drove with the giddy exhilaration of a newbie race car driver. The only thing that kept me in check was the sight of Terri’s chalk white knuckles gripping the sides of his seat.

We were next ushered into what could best be described as a redwood tunnel, with a canopy so dense it obliterated the sky. The remains of an ancient forest, the trees soared above us. Some reached up to three hundred and sixty feet in height, with hefty trunks that were twenty feet in diameter. Each redwood base was surrounded by a network of Medusa-like roots spilling over into a lush fern-filled grove. All this shadowy old growth was caressed by a ghostly fog that provided the forest with droplets of moisture. Looking around, I realized this could very well have been the prototype for Jurassic Park.

I reveled in the fourteen-mile stretch, aware that less than four percent of virgin redwood forest still remains today, and only half of that is protected. The throaty rumble of logging trucks rolling past helped bring the message home.

What took me by surprise was the whiff of salt breeze that unexpectedly tickled my nose. We reached the end of the Navarro River and turned onto a stretch of ocean road. But I had little time to appreciate its beauty as the Ford was pulled inside a dense pillow of clouds. I drove on instinct alone, aware of the precipitous drop onto the rocky cliffs and pounding surf below. The road was dangerous enough during the daytime. At night it could prove to be deadly.

A shaft of sun broke through the haze as we continued our approach, its light so bright as to be nearly blinding. It took a moment before my eyes could adjust and I was finally able
to see. What appeared to be a New England village lay stretched along the bluffs, staring out toward the ocean. Perched on a craggy coastline, Mendocino was nestled in the curve of a cove, wrapped on three sides by the Pacific.

The ramrod-straight spine of a church marked the town’s entrance, its razor sharp spire perforating the sky. Its stark primness was offset by a cluster of Victorian houses, all punctuated with steep gable roofs, bay windows, fanciful filigree, and porches trimmed in gingerbread.