House of Smoke (6 page)

“Nothing wrong with a great set of mammaries,” Frank had remarked. “If God didn’t intend for women to have big tits, babe, He wouldn’t have endowed her.”

“That cow turns you on?”

“Keep your panties on, Laura. She’s in my line of sight.”

“If that’s what you want, feel free,” she’d informed her lover, trying unsuccessfully not to come off peevish and bitchy. She is small up top, less than the proverbial handful; when she was a teenager it had been her chief cause of anguish, fruitlessly waiting for the buds that never did bloom, particularly since her own mother is built like a goddess (Miranda’s figure, even at fifty-one, is legendary); the teenage girl’s insecurity recurring in a heartbeat, when she has to compete with the likes of a Morgan.

Laura has thought about going the plastic route, but her mother talks her out of it whenever she broaches the subject (“It’s a bigger decision than getting your ears pierced, anyway, you should wait until after you’ve had your children, so you’ll really know what you need”); on occasions such as now, though, watching Morgan parading around the deck with those cantaloupes pushed out, she wishes she’d gone ahead and done it, even if it would have incurred her mother’s wrath.

Laura is twenty-five. The night before last, lying on deck somewhere off the coast south of San Diego, stoned enough to overcome her inhibitions about prying into other women’s personal affairs—she has a natural shyness around people, especially people from a different social and economic status than her, which is almost everybody—Laura worked up the courage to ask Morgan how old she was, thinking with that body they had to be the same age; the answer—thirty-one, which probably meant thirty-three—was demoralizing, because Morgan’s tighter all around than Laura, who’s only three years out of Wellesley and already seeing the signs of age.

“What do you think?” Frank asks Rusty, the captain. “Are we gonna make it in time for the party?”

“What time’s the party?” Rusty asks back. He’s roughly forty, a hard forty to look at him, bleached out from all the years of living in the sun: blond hair, blond eyebrows, skin as hard as a turtle, a dozen melanomas cut off his back, he still goes shirtless almost every day. He’s a pro at this, he’s been doing it since he was a kid, over half his life, which would give him pause if he thought about it; he doesn’t.

“Seven,” Laura calls in answer. “Seven to whenever.”

“We’ll make some of it. The whenever part.”

The party is at Laura’s parents’. A major bash, a fête, one of the must-attends for the important people in town, the people who own the enormous mansions hidden in Montecito. Rich people with power. Rusty and Morgan and the other guy aren’t invited, but they don’t know that yet. Once they dock and secure the boat, Laura will take leave of their company. You don’t socialize with the help: it’s one of the family’s hard-and-fast rules (Frank, as management, is excepted), and in this instance Laura is happy to comply.

“Hey, there, Kate Blanchard. Looking good.”

“Thank you.” Kate smiles at him, a mask of a smile that doesn’t encourage. Whoever he is, she doesn’t remember. She’ll pick her own company, if she wants some.

Besides, she knows she looks good, she doesn’t need some middle-aged married come-on artist to tell her. She knows how to put herself together. She’d shaved her legs in the shower, smoothed AnneMarie Borlind Creme du Jour on her face, the tube that costs $46 for two ounces, an indulgence she’d felt delicious about allowing herself. After slipping on her sundress and waiting for the polish to dry on her toes she walked barefoot on her heels onto her small apartment balcony, which overlooks other similar apartments and a sluggish-flowing ditch, and plucked a flower from a pot for her hair, which she had done up in a long braid down her back; the prize gardenia now sits there, pinned at the top, the way Billie Holiday, her favorite singer, used to wear her hair.

Her hair has always been her best feature—dark brown like a mink’s, thick and silky. All the time she was growing up, her mother would brush it for hours while they sat with her little sister, Julie, eating dinner off trays in front of the television set. Julie’s hair was naturally curly, it was allowed to grow wild and free, she never had to endure the pulling and brushing. “Your crowning glory,” her mother would whisper to her as she pulled the brush through it, stroke after methodical stroke. “You must always take care of your crowning glories, Katherine Theresa.” Even though she had been jealous of her sister’s freedom from the brush, she still takes the time to burnish her hair, it’s her one indulgence from which she doesn’t slack off. Her mother had paid attention to her because of this head of hair.

She eases her way in as a spot opens at the bar, catches the bartender’s eye.

“Something with bubbles,” she asks him. “No sugar.”

“Perrier okay?”

“Sure.”

“Lime?”

“Please.” A nice touch; she appreciates that.

She pays for her drink and eases away from the bar, looking around to see if there’s anyone here she knows. She enjoys being alone, mostly these days she prefers it, but an unescorted woman in a bar, especially during Fiesta, is fair game. She’s seen it for years from the other side, she knows where that can go—usually down, too often ugly. Before she moved to Santa Barbara, on the occasions when she was in the company of women, they would go out in groups or pairs; but she doesn’t have a woman friend here close enough to do that with. In her line of work you don’t easily meet other women you can relate to.

As she surveys the crowded room she sees Garrison French standing at the far end, talking and laughing with some people, loud and boisterous, a cigarette in one hand and highball glass in the other—a tall, semibalding, good-looking WASP with the beginning of love handles, dressed casually in wash pants, faded Polo shirt, Top-Siders without socks; not her type at all, even with all the changes she’s gone through in the last two years. It goes through her mind that he’d be doing himself a favor by joining a gym.

Of all the people in the world she doesn’t want to see right now, Garrison is at the top of the list. He’s a partner at one of the big law firms in town; they’d met at some pretentious party, and had dated, on and off, for about three months; on her part, more out of boredom and convenience than anything else. Upon awakening one morning she’d come to her senses and realized he was a tiresome asshole, someone she didn’t want to see anymore, but she hasn’t gotten around to telling him. Big mistake; the town’s too small to duck people for very long, especially people in your line of work. She should’ve been honest with him up front. She doesn’t like him, she never did, but she hates hurting anyone’s feelings.

Like radar, he spots her before she can turn away, pushes through the throng towards her.

“Kate, hi. What’re you drinking?” he asks, feigning good-naturedness. The drink in his hand is not the first one.

“Club soda,” she answers. Go away, please. Just go away.

“Haven’t seen you lately,” he informs her, his voice lawyerish with insinuation.

“I’ve been pretty busy.”

“I called a few times. Left messages on your service.”

She kind of shrugs. Do you need me to draw you a picture?

He gulps from his drinks. As casually as he can: “Who are you with, Kate? I don’t mean—you know what I mean—now. This evening. You here with anyone?”

“Just myself.” He’s beginning to piss her off.

“Why don’t we have dinner? I’m not with anyone, either—no one I can’t lose,” he throws in, an attempt to flatter her.

“I can’t,” she says, the lying coming easy, not even the slightest undercurrent of remorse, “I’m meeting up with somebody. Later, in a little while. Soon.”

“Well.” He’s at a loss. “I thought we had fun together. …” He tails off.

“We did. Don’t make more of it than it was.”

“We’ve been dating half the summer,” he protests, his voice gathering heat.

“I’m not dating anyone, Garrison. Don’t take it personally.”

“Just like that? You break off a relationship just like that?”

“I don’t
want
a relationship, so yes. Besides, what we had was not a relationship.”

Saying that, she drains her drink, sets it on a waitress’s passing tray, and pushes past him, out onto the sidewalk.

She motors on down the street in the direction of Kris & Jerry’s Bar, where she might run into one of the secretaries she knows from the courthouse. There’s still plenty of light out. Men like Garrison don’t set foot in bars like Kris & Jerry’s. She’ll have one margarita, to celebrate the end of Fiesta.

That’s bullshit. The drink is to calm her nerves, Barbara Stanwyck time from the classic movie channel. Might as well fire up a Virginia Slims while she’s at it, go whole hog.
Got a light, big boy?
She’ll stick to beer. A woman’s drink for a real woman.

“That’s it, up ahead,” Frank tells Rusty, pointing. “Home sweet home.”

It’s not your home, it’s mine, Laura thinks, but she holds the thought to herself. The trip is over now, she can bottle her resentment for the fifteen minutes it’s going to take to dock and tie up. Holding on to a line, the ocean spray stinging her face, she watches the coast come at them, the old dock and the beach and the dense growth leading up the cliff. Her family’s property, to the horizon and beyond.

“What time’ve you got?” Rusty asks Frank, squinting against the low-lying sun as he peers down into the murky water lapping at the dock, which he’s never seen before. He’s taken the helm from the other guy, he’ll bring it in himself; this is an expensive vessel they’re sailing, and their cargo’s even more expensive.

“Quarter after seven.”

“After we tie up we’ll have to sit tight,” Rusty informs him in a low voice, making sure Laura’s out of earshot. He holds three fingers up between the sun and the horizon. “An hour at least.”

“This is private property, man,” Frank protests heatedly. “There isn’t anyone around for miles. We’ve got a full-time security service, we don’t even allow surfers.”

“That’s not a problem?” Rusty queries. “The security?” He’s been reassured several times, from the opening conversations about this enterprise, but this is explosive shit they’re sitting on.

“I’ve told you: no,” Frank answers, exasperated. “I gave them all the day off,
ordered
them to go into town and party. Not a soul will be around—they don’t question the boss’s orders.”

Laura would grind her teeth if she heard him talking like this, although technically they do work for him, because he works for her parents.

Actually, the real reason she never confronts him on issues like this is that he can have a vicious mouth on him, and she never knows when it’s coming—he’s lashed out at her before for voicing her opinion, even though he’s the hired hand.

He’s a man, he’s older, and he’s her lover. That gives him the power, and they both know it.

“I don’t give a shit,” Rusty answers laconically. “You hire me, you play by my rules. What’s the hurry, anyway?”

“Laura’s parents are expecting us.”

“You said to whenever.”

“But not forever.”

“I hear you. We’ll wait anyway.” He turns his back on Frank, ending the conversation.

The reason they don’t want Laura to hear them is that she doesn’t know about the cargo they picked up in Ecuador, two days before she joined them. This old buddy had called him out of the blue, Frank told her, he hadn’t heard from the guy in years, he was going to sail south to the Galapagos Islands for some serious scuba diving, then come back up north. He wanted Frank to join him, relive the bad old days.

Laura had wanted to make the trip with him; but that wasn’t feasible. Rusty (the old friend) wanted a few days of just boys hanging out. She could fly down to the Panama Canal and meet them there, there’d be plenty of good diving as they made their way up the coast.

The first two days after she’d met up with them had been great, the diving as good as anywhere she’d ever been. Frank had been all over her, showering her with affection and passion. Then Morgan had joined them, which, as far as Laura was concerned, sent the trip south. It wasn’t Morgan’s body that pissed Laura off, it really wasn’t. It was her brains, or lack thereof. Laura hates dumb broads. It reflects on her, on all women of intelligence.

“Rusty’s horny,” Frank said when she protested. “Besides, it’s his boat, he’s the captain.”

Bringing Morgan along for the ride had been Rusty’s idea, which Frank, once he understood the logic of it, had wholeheartedly embraced. Another woman, so Laura would have a member of her own sex to hang out with (that went over like tits on a boar, which Frank suspected would be the case); that was the so-called “official” reason; in reality, Morgan was a beard, a true innocent, because like Laura she really thought a cruise was a cruise was a cruise. If they ever did get busted—a one-in-a-million shot, but still, the possibility had to be acknowledged, they all knew that the risks were worth the rewards—Morgan would be an inviolable backup to Laura’s claims that she, Laura, didn’t have a clue about what was going on.

They secure their vessel, both bow and stern tied firmly to the dock so the boat can’t bang against the pilings and make a $5,000 dent. Rusty and his helper work easily, efficiently. They’re the best in the business at what they do; Rusty’s been taking out charters for twenty years all up and down the Pacific Coast, he’s sailed as far north as the gulf of Juneau and halfway down the Chilean coast, not to mention countless trips to Hawaii, Tahiti, and points west and south.

In all those years, Rusty had never lost a boat, either to the elements or the authorities. His hang-loose surfer looks and attitude are only surface-deep; he’s conservative, cautious to a fault, which is the main reason (after months of exhaustive research) Frank hired him. That and the fact that Rusty will haul anything anywhere, if the price is right and the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in his favor, which this voyage, after a lot of careful planning, was.

Laura, having gone below while they tied up, now comes up onto the deck from the main cabin, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder, a T-shirt and plaid Big Dog bermudas pulled over her bathing suit.