The Story of You and Me (14 page)

“Another great question. I personally am too busy working with clients to spend time marketing my program. However, as anyone knows, more people that need healing will be reached if we update our marketing. So yes, our healing techniques have advanced. The Quests are stronger. And we are actively looking to reach more folks who desperately need us.” Dr. Kelsey nodded at me, a curious look in his eyes.

* * *

His lecture continued for about another twenty minutes. I peeked at the time on my phone. I didn’t want to be late for Alex. I snuck out the door while the audience applauded Dr. Kelsey. I traipsed down the stairs, hit the boardwalk and realized I felt different: buoyant, hopeful. Almost high. I had to call my Nana and Mom and tell them about my latest discovery. Because this method might actually help my—

A thick, meaty, male hand grabbed my arm and stopped me in my tracks. “Dr. Kelsey requests that you stay and have a word with him.” I looked up into the red sweaty face of Meathead #1. He had an earpiece lodged into his ear and pushed on it.

“Thanks for your help,” I said. “Dr. Kelsey’s lecture was supreme. But I can’t stay. I need to meet some friends.” I tapped on Meathead #1’s arm until he released me. And I strode away.

“Stop!” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Dr. Kelsey says he wants to talk to you personally about your situation. No charge. He’s a busy man. He doesn’t do this very often.”

An unexpected opportunity to heal. I had to stay. I’d find Alejandro eventually or he’d find me. “Okay,” I said. “But only for five minutes. I’m supposed to meet my friends.”

He grunted and took my arm. I expected he’d lead me right back to the lecture hall. Instead he guided me toward the sparkly SUV.
 

A strange car. People I didn’t know. I balked. Practically ground my heels into the cement and imagined my legs were made of lead. “I have Dr. Kelsey’s card. I will totally call or email him tomorrow, and we can talk for as long as we like.”

“But Dr. Kelsey wants to speak with you now.” Meathead #1 gripped my arm a little tighter, and despite my metallic legs, practically dragged me closer to the vehicle.

I gazed at him. His eyeballs were wobbling in their sockets and his arms were twitching. Hell, I could appreciate the whole twitching thing, but truth be told, Meathead #1 wasn’t all there. Something had happened to him. He’d disappeared into a steroidy tough body, a determined mind, but also a brain that was a little Jello-y. Meathead #2 jogged toward us.
 

E-freaking-nough. “I plan on attending Dr. Kelsey’s next event.” I squirmed. “But right now I’m late and I have to go.” I yanked my arm free from his grasp and paced away, hoping to disappear into the crazy Venice scene.
 

“Dr. Kelsey doesn’t like people who walk away!” Meathead #2 caught up with #1 and yelled after me.

I plucked my phone from my purse and hit Alex’s number. It went straight to voicemail. I hung up. He was probably still hanging with his friends. I peered up at the side street and realized I wasn’t on Brooks and the boardwalk anymore. I was blocks south. How many, I had no idea.
 

I passed T-shirt shops, and a high-end surfboard gear store. Tourists and regulars swarmed passed me. I felt sunburnt, light-headed. I popped in a lemonade stand called Squeeze Me, bought a small fresh-squeezed lemonade and asked where I might find InkBaby. “Three blocks that way,” the clerk pointed, “on the left close to the basketball courts.”

The sun was nearly kissing the horizon when I found InkBaby, a small tidy tattoo parlor located on the eastern edge of the boardwalk in a dilapidated storefront. A twenty-something buff Latino man with multiple tats and piercings was pulling in his displays from the sidewalk. He seemed to be shutting down his shop.

I decided to catch my breath inside the store. I peeked around the place and checked out the designs displayed on plastic covered poster boards. “These are good,” I mumbled.

“Thanks,” the man said. “Most are stock, generic and boring. But I designed a few that aren’t half bad. What’s your name?”

“Sophie. Are you Javier?”

“Yes. Javier Sebastian. Do I know you?”

“Nick told me about you. He’s a Driver.”

“Nick’s my man. He’s been through shit, but he’s a good guy.”

“He said you did all his tats,” I said. “I read that Venice is home to a lot of artists. You’re the first one I’ve met.”

Javier smiled. “Not too many people call me an artist. I’ll take that as inspiration for the future.”

I pointed to one tat on a board: an elegant heart comprised of words. “What was the inspiration behind this?” I asked.

Javier laid his hand on the design. He took a deep breath but seemed to forget to exhale. “Inspired by the first girl I fell in love with. I thought we’d be together forever. Now, I visit her grave a couple times a year. On her birthday. On the anniversary of the day we met as well as the day she died. I leave flowers and remind Tatiana that no matter who or what happens in my life, she will always live in my heart.” He wiped one eye.

I pretended not to notice and willed the tears welling in my eyes to just cut it out already. “She knows,” I said.
 

“You’ve lost someone?” Javier asked.

I remembered peeking through Mom’s barely opened bedroom door as I watched her crying alone in bed. I pictured my Nana who had struggled with MS for so long, had been through so many therapies, but still ended up in a wheelchair in a retirement home. I thought about my own mission to find healing. “Not like you. But in other ways, yeah.” My hand shook a little. I covered it with my other hand to spare us both the embarrassment.
 

“Death seems to hover around certain people, ready to exact its toll on them or someone they love at a moment’s notice.” Javier crossed himself. “God, I’m morbid today. Sorry.”

“No worries. You’re closing up. I’ll get out of your way.” I nodded at him and headed toward the door. “Great to meet you, soon-to-be famous Venice Beach artist.” We shared a smile before I left his shop.
 

Back on the still crowded boardwalk I passed a performance artist covered in silver makeup wearing silver clothes and moving in jerky motions like a robot. I circled around a kid spinning on his back in a break-dance routine while his father passed the hat to a small audience. When my phone rang. It was Alejandro. Yay! I picked up.

“Bonita, I’m on Brooks and the boardwalk but I don’t see you.”

“I just left InkBaby.”

“Javier’s place,” he said. “Do you see the basketball courts?”

“Hang on.” I wandered a few yards down and spotted them. “I’m right next to them.”

“Take a seat close by. Maybe on the bleachers. I’ll find you in five. I rode Jackson’s new board. Oh, crap, Sophie, it was amazing. You need to experience this. It could even go in your book. Certain types of exercise have transcendent, healing qualities associated with them.”

“Like yoga,” I said.

“Like surfing,” he said. “I need to get you out in the ocean on a surfboard. Let’s talk about this.”

I couldn’t help smiling as I made my way toward the courts. I felt like I was talking to a four year old who just dug up his first earthworm. “You went in the water without a wetsuit?” I reached the metal bleachers bordering the courts and climbed each rung until I hit the very top. I stood on the skinny bench that had a view of the Ocean, the boardwalk and the Ferris wheel on the pier in Santa Monica a couple miles away.
 

“That board was so hot, I didn’t need a wetsuit,” he said. “Actually, the water was cold, but, hell. It was still awesome! I’ll meet you in three minutes. You’ve got to try surfing, Sophie!” Someone mumbled in the distance. “Yeah sure,” Alejandro said and our call was disconnected.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe someday.”
 

Even though I knew that for me, getting in the water, getting up on a surf board and riding a wave—someday would never happen.
 

I hung up, put the phone back in my bag and ruminated about today’s events. Dr. Carlton Kelsey seemed like the real deal. He was powerful. Didn’t seem like a bullshitter. I didn’t like his bodyguards, though. But really, whose bodyguards were supposed to be likeable, hip and smart?
 

And I realized—mine was! Alejandro was kind of my bodyguard and he possessed all those qualities. He had to be the exception. My mind returned to spinning. Why did Lizzie Sparks cross Dr. Kelsey off my list? When I heard a familiar voice that squashed all my mental gymnastics like bugs hitting a windshield.

“Hurry up, you pussies. Not every day we score a game on these courts.”

I peered down from my perch and spotted a pack of bald young men with trousers hanging halfway down their butts, huddled around a park bench ten yards in front of me.
 

Oscar, aka Pintdick, jogged onto the court and passed a ball to one of his buddies. The rest of his pals poured onto the painted concrete and dove furiously into their game.

I froze. The asshole that attacked me and his skinhead friends were playing ball just yards away. I pulled my hat low on my head and tucked my body tight into a non-descript orb of a person. My heart raced, I started to panic but forced myself to think. Alex was close by, but not here—yet. If Pintdick or his friends spotted me? I was not only fair game—
I was revenge-worthy
. Maybe I shouldn’t have called him out. Maybe I should have just run away.

I eyeballed the edge of the bleachers. But I was too high up and would definitely break bones if I jumped from this height. That left only a few escape options. The best one seemed to climb down five rungs, edge to the side, jump off and walk away. Slowly. Calmly. Quickly.
 

I gathered all my courage, stood up and pulled my hat as far down on my face as it would go. I slunk down the steps.

Pintdick and pals were hitting baskets, working up a sweat and shouting at each other. “You hit a basket the same way you hit your toilet,” one skinhead said.

“That’s because I was too busy hitting your sister.”

“Dude, if you ever hit my sister I’ll take you out.”

“I meant nailing your sister, creepers. Do I have to explain everything to you?”

I made it all the way down to the fourth rung on the bleachers. My pulse raced. I looked over the edge, down at the ground. Technically I was only about four feet from the earth. Hell, even I could survive a four-foot jump. I just had to time it when the jerks were in the middle of a scoring drive on the court, so they wouldn’t spot me.

“And score! Take that, Pintdick!”

“I told you never to call me that.” Oscar’s voice grew cold.

I scooted to the edge of the bleachers and gathered all my courage when I heard a small cry. I glanced down and spotted a little boy crouched in the dirt directly under my escape route. Snot bubbles escaped from his nose as he patted the remnants of a popped balloon lying on the ground next to him.
 

My heart went out to him and at the same time I felt frustrated and confused. If I jumped now, I’d probably land on the kid and flatten him. I had no problem deflating the egos of guys my age, but flattening an actual child was not in my repertoire. “Psst!” I whispered. “Go back to your mom. She’s probably looking for you.”

     
He gazed up at me and sobbed even louder. One of Oscar’s buddies turned and eyed the boy. I glanced down, tried to hide my face under my hat and my arm. I prayed he didn’t make me. It was past time to jump. I aimed away from the boy, catapulted off the bleachers and landed on my feet on the ground. I managed to walk about a yard away when someone grabbed my shirt and spun me around.

Chapter Thirteen

“Well, well. Still looking for the dead president?” Pintdick clutched my wrist and stared at me. A cruel smile spread across his ugly face. “All those little cuts healed up real nice.” He ran his finger across my cheek.

“No thanks to you,” I said. “You attacked me right after I got them. You made them bleed again. What kind of man does that to a woman?” I looked him square in the eyes as I broke out into a sweat.

He pinched the hat off my head and flung it onto the sand. “The kind of man whose nose you broke.” He seized my shirt’s neckline and jerked me toward him. “We have unfinished business.” He clamped a hand around my neck and pulled me after him, away from the courts toward an alleyway in the near distance.
 

I screamed but he pressed his hand over my mouth, and my cries were muted.
 

“Oscar,” a friend of his said. “Think about this, man. Do you really want to do this?”

“Oscar. Dude!” another friend said. “If the bitch talks? Parole violation board will be all on you like superglue. You’ll end up back in jail.”

“That’s why the bitch ain’t going to have an opportunity to talk.” Oscar pulled a dull knife from his pants pocket and flashed it for a heartbeat.

No. A thousand times no.

I raked my fingernails across his hand and drew blood.
 

“You cunt!” He dropped his hand and I screamed. That caught the attention of a bunch of folks who stared at us, fear growing on their faces. The majority quickly gathered their belongings, their kids and raced away. But one guy pushed his way through the crowd twirling a baseball bat like it was a baton.

“Oscar Fuentes, you son-of-a bitch.” Javier held the baseball bat high in the air and slammed it down on a metal picnic table then continued to race toward us.

“Back off, Javier!” Oscar exclaimed.

“Fuck you, Oscar.” Javier bolted toward us. “You are not hurting that girl.”

I elbowed Oscar repeatedly. Most of my efforts connected with air. But a few jabs nailed his ribs. He grunted and slowed down for one long second.

I spotted Alejandro about fifty yards away with Nick right behind him. They raced like hell toward me. “Take care of my girl, Javier,” Alex hollered then jabbed his finger in the air toward Oscar. “I can see you, skinhead prick, and I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt one hair on her head.”

Basically after that all I heard were roars and grunts and thuds, the sounds of fists hitting flesh, a baseball bat hitting bodies, and concrete and bones cracking. Someone slugged Oscar and he released his grip on me.