California Bored and Tourism (3 page)

Faith gave him a once over. “I think it’s
good you feel secure enough in your manhood to wear a yellow polo
shirt.”

“I think it’s good you don’t give a damn
about society’s perception of women and dress like you’re going to
capture Big Foot in the woods. I would never think you were
anything but a lady,” he said with a straight face.

She laughed, showing all her teeth for the
first time. Her smile cemented a little bit as he looked at her
lips and pretty teeth. She looked like the sweet girl next door, if
there was such a thing anymore. He also thought she looked like a
woman who didn’t take herself too seriously, open to adventure.

“Dinner. A walk on the pier, and I’ll even
let you ride the Ferris wheel,” he continued. “My treat, of
course.”

Kendra finally came out of the bathroom,
looking surprised to see Nick. “Hey, Nick. Did you change your mind
about the club?” They’d asked him to go but he had turned them
down.

“No, actually, I’m here for Faith.”

There was a thunderous knock on the door,
followed by laughter. Faith opened the door as the rest of the
ladies filled the room, all seeming just as surprised to see Nick
standing there.

“Hi, ladies. You all look very nice.” It was
true. They were all glitzed and glammed, ready to go. “Don’t forget
what I told you about safety.” He turned to Faith. “You ready to
go, Happy?”

Faith grabbed her bag off the bed. No one in
the room muttered a word as Nick held the door for her. “Don’t
worry, ladies, I’ll bring her back in one piece.”

“You do pretty well as a tour guide, I take
it,” Faith murmured as he held the door to his
Jaguar
open
for her.

“I do okay.” Nick glanced over and saw the
travel guide peeking out of her bag again. When he got in the
driver’s side, he carefully slid his hand over, grabbed the book,
and threw it in the back seat. “No reading tonight.”

“You’re just a regular literacy campaign,
aren’t you?”

* * * *

As he drove, she could feel them getting
closer to the ocean. The cool, salty air always made her think of
being stranded on an island. Surprisingly, Nick didn’t say much as
he made his way to the pier.
A tour guide who drove a Jaguar and
owned an Omega watch
, she mused. Clearly, he was a living
contradiction, but he was a nice, handsome, charming, smart ass.
She couldn’t help but enjoy the reactions from her pretty, preening
friends when he hustled her out of the hotel room. Kendra, who
after the tour expressed her lust for him, looked like she wanted
to implode.

“So what line of work were you in?” he asked
as they settled into their seats at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Nick
ordered a beer while she ordered a fruity drink.

“I was a receptionist for a linoleum
manufacturer. Exciting, right?” She laughed in spite of
herself.

“Just something to do to pay the bills?”

“Yep.”

“Which means you have a passion for
something else?” he said quietly.

“Why do you say that?”

“I think you are very self aware. I don’t
think being a receptionist fits you. I think you make a living
while something else fills your time. I just don’t see the
beginning and end of your day being at a linoleum factory.”

“I am a…jack of all trades. I am somewhat
good at a lot of things but have yet to find passion.” She coughed
and continued, “For something I would love to do for the rest of my
life.”

“There must be something you love to
do.”

“Read.”

“I figured as much. What else? What do you
do that brings you absolute pleasure?”

Faith thought for a few minutes. She thought
hard. “I like to cook.”

“Cook? You mean I sprung for a meal when I
could have had you cook for me?” He laughed.

“It’s not that simple. I like to cook but I
can’t cook for everyone. I’m not one of those people who will
volunteer to bring a dish to a party or something. To me, cooking
is…intimate. Eating well not only feeds the body but it also
nourishes the mind and the soul. All the different vitamins and
proteins keep your body going and your mind alert. The smells and
textures of the food are sensuous. I only cook for other people as
a way of expressing how I feel about them, I guess.”

“Very interesting. So, you are selective
about the people you cook for?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “I know it sounds weird
but I can’t just cook on command. It annoys me when people ask me
to when I know the last thing I want to do is feed them. It’s kind
of like kissing someone you don’t want to. It’s terrible.”

“So, cooking for you is like finding a
‘sponge worthy’ man.” He smiled a wicked smile.

Faith laughed. “
Seinfeld
fan,
eh?”

“Guilty as charged.” He smiled back, looking
slightly amused that she got the reference.

“I never thought about it like that.”

“You take your time before you know they’re
worth the effort and intimacy you obviously attach to cooking. You
associate cooking with love.” His shining eyes accompanied a lazy
smile.

“I guess so.” Faith watched the water
rolling onto the beach under the night sky from her patio seat.

“You haven’t cooked for a lot of people,
have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“So why don’t you try your hand at being a
chef? Learning the trade?”

“I don’t know ingredients. I am a Food
Network fanatic and love watching the chefs and challenges, but I
don’t think my brain could learn all the nuances. I have a short
attention span.”

“You could learn then figure out what you
want to do with it. You could become a personal chef, being a chef
doesn’t mean having to open a restaurant. Learn the craft then turn
it into what you want. Make your own destiny.”

Faith hunched her shoulders, trying to feign
indifference. She hoped he couldn’t sense her vulnerability and
that she was on the verge of collapsing.

“So what do I have to do to get you to cook
for me?” Nick asked as he paid the bill.

Faith thought about it for a moment. Based
on the meal he ordered, she thought of the great pasta primavera
she knew he would devour as soon as she put the plate before him.
The thought of doing that for a relative stranger, no matter how
sexy he was, rattled her a bit.

“Don’t hold your breath, Dimples.”

* * * *

Nick made his way into the hotel lobby to
meet his band of zany women. He’d gotten to know them over the last
few days, and he had to admit, they were a great group of girls.
However, he spent his nights showing Faith the California he loved.
Seeing her was the best part of his days. He managed to break past
the first wall of defense, and she actually looked like she enjoyed
the private tours. She even agreed to put the book away and allow
him to
show
her the things she’d been reading about. They
agreed to table any talk of the problems awaiting her at home.

“My friend, Tia, wants to meet you,” he told
her when dropping her off last night.

“Your friend, Tia? Wants to meet me?”

“Yeah. She’s very…spiritual. I stopped by
her and her husband’s house last night after I dropped you off, and
she said she could feel a lot of tension and stress.”

“This involves me how?” She raised an
eyebrow.

“She said it wasn’t mine directly, it had to
come from the last person I was in contact with, that I was sharing
your stress.”

“And what does Tia need to see me for?”

“She offered,” he said with an amused grin
on his face, “a free spiritual cleansing.”

“Does she sell herbal cleanser or
something?”

“In a manner of speaking. But she does not
charge. So what do you say? Are you up for it? She’s having an
evening session tomorrow.”

“Sure. Okay.” She laughed nervously.

The journey to Tia’s spiritual cleansing,
the next evening, began with a two-hour car ride to a secluded
beach at sunset. From the parking lot, Faith spotted a group of
people gathered around a fire, chatting and eating. She and Nick
played musical twenty-questions on their walk, and she even managed
to get him to stop a few times so she could take a few scenic
coastal pictures. The sea breeze caught her sweater, blowing it
back before she could wrap it around her. Nick caught it and put it
around her, his hands lingering on her shoulders, making her
smile.

“Nick, you old dog, where have you been?”
someone yelled.

“Hey, Marty,” Nick responded as he shook the
man’s hand.

“Everyone. This is Faith. Faith this is,” he
started on the left, “Mischa, Terry, Sapphron, Emgoene, Elizabeth,
and Danny.”

“That’s Tia meditating on the blanket over
there, and this is her husband, Marty.”

“Hello everyone,” Faith said shyly.

* * * *

They all smiled back at her, seeming
genuinely happy to meet her.

“We just want to thank you, Faith, for being
here tonight.” Emogene, a short, sleek haired woman stepped forward
and shook her hand while Nick continued talking to Marty.

“Why do you want to thank me?” she said
curiously.

“Tia hasn’t done one of these in a while.
She said she was waiting for someone to complete the next cleansing
circle and apparently it was you.”

“When was the last time you had a…cleansing
circle?”

“Five years ago. We had one a year after
Nick’s wife died. He really needed it.”

“His wife?” Faith said, dumbstruck.

“She died from cancer, and he almost died
from losing her,” Emogene quietly stated.

Faith thought she sensed something, a dulled
pain in him the day she met him. It was very subtle and as soon as
she tried to hone in on it, he tucked it away. Nick had a beautiful
smile and was indeed very charismatic, but he had a way of steering
you where he wanted you to go. She thought maybe that’s why he was
such a good tour guide. She glanced at him, looking like one of
those typical happy-go-lucky, California people she’d seen on
television and in the movies, never once looking like a man who’d
lost the woman he loved to a debilitating disease.

Nick must have sensed something change in
her mood because he suddenly turned from his conversation with
Marty and walked over to her. “Are you okay?” He smiled. “I promise
you won’t be bathed in blood or anything.”

“I’m fine.”

“Faith,” a pleasant, soothing voice said
behind her.

“Hello, you must be Tia.”

“Are you of clean mind, body, and
spirit?”

“Come again?”

“Think of it as a vision quest around a
bonfire on the beach,” he quipped.

“And you believe in this?” Faith mused.

“I’ll admit, I did it once and once was
enough.”

“Are you of clean mind, body, and spirit?”
Tia repeated.

Faith had no choice but to smile at Tia’s
words. She looked like an angel wrapped in a long skirt, flowing
silk top, and a matching scarf wrapped around brown curls.

Nick interjected, “Are you under the
influence of any medication? The stuff she’s going to give
you…let’s just say, it’s best not to mix it with anything.”

“No. I haven’t taken anything.” Her eyebrows
scrunched together.

“Ok then. Faith, welcome to the group. I
must say I like your name. You’re a walking advertisement for
positive thinking.” Tia beamed.

If Tia only knew that Faith was all out of
faith
right now. There were six other people sitting around
the fire, talking, while Tia prepared for the ritual. Nick sat on a
rock nearby. Everyone received a cup and instructions to drink a
liquid that looked like it had grass at the bottom of it. Tia
started chanting, asking everyone to keep an open mind and
encourage their emotions to surface. Then the real fun began. Tia
lit and passed around something that looked like a joint. Everyone
took a few puffs and passed it to the next person. Faith didn’t
know what to do when it was her turn.

“What’s in it?” she asked Nick.

“I don’t know but it’s pretty strong. You
don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Am I going to grow hair all over me and bay
at the moon?”

“Only if you want to. Tia is right, that
herb has a way of bringing the truth out of a person.”

“Are there any side effects?”

“It may sound strange but I wouldn’t listen
to the song
Strawberry Letter 23
by Brothers Johnson for a
week or so.” He laughed.

“What?”

“Just a warning.”

Faith raised an eyebrow. “And why aren’t you
partaking in this event? I’d love to ask you a few questions.”

“I don’t need to inhale Tia’s truth herb to
answer your questions honestly. Maybe you need to inhale it to ask
them,” he said slyly.

What the hell. She took a drag, looked at
him, and offered but he refused.

“Seriously, I’ve done that stuff three times
in my life. Even Tia says that’s two times too many. That’s not
something recreational and there is a good chance of killing
valuable brain cells, so I can’t smoke it.”

As she mulled over whether or not she should
take any of this seriously or if she should have smoked the mystery
contents of the homemade cigarette, a weird feeling came over her.
It was a surreal moment that had her wondering if she was waking up
from a dream or walking into a nightmare. Tia danced around the
bonfire, tapping a tambourine, asking the negative energy she could
feel among all the participants to leave. As Faith’s mind swirled
about, she looked over to see Nick still sitting quietly on the
rock.

“You know I didn’t come to California to get
hit with a narcotics charge.” She giggled.

“Nobody’s going to jail.” Tia laughed. “So,
Faith, tell us what’s on your mind.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” Faith said
quietly, wishing the ocean waves could sweep her away.