Hi.
Sorry no response. Been sick all week.
Oh God! So sorry I went off like
that. Can u forgive me?
Absolutely.
Its just that guys disappear on me
sometimes.
Wouldnt have left phone off so long
but it was a bad bug.
Better now?
Much.
“Is this the home of Audrey LaBrea?”
“Ohmigod!
Are you okay?”
“Yeah.
All better now. Well – tired.”
“I’m
so sorry! I told you to fuck off, didn’t I?”
“You
did.”
“You
don’t know how many places a woman’s mind goes when she’s not getting a
response.”
“Ha!
I do now. But you figured it out by the end. You get bonus points for that.”
“Good!”
“You
still have to take me to dinner, though.”
“How
about tonight?”
“This
is so sudden!”
“Yeah-yeah.
Drama queen. It’s just that I’ve got something special in mind. And it’s right
in your ‘hood.”
“Coolness.
When do you want to roll by?”
“How
about six?”
“Pigeons?”
“Nope.
I keep them home in the winter.”
“Okay
then. You and me. No birds.”
“Seeya.
Um, housemate around?”
“Nope.
Gone for the holidays.”
“Good.
I want to scream.”
“Mother!”
“Drama
queen.”
Jack
has just begun to dig in to the blessed numerals of C-Valve when Ben calls to
request an emergency meeting. He zips up in his Miata, hardtop thankfully
attached. When Jack hops in, Ben hands him a cup of coffee that turns out to be
fresh-brewed Peruvian.
“Suh-weet!”
“Good
listening requires wakefulness.”
“Confucius?
Gibrahn?”
“Haas.
Benjamin.”
The
comment turns out to be irrelevant, considering the lack of anything coming
from Ben’s mouth that Jack might listen to. He drives them silently into Santa
Cruz, silently up Graham Hill Road, past Roaring Camp Railroad and into Henry
Cowell Redwoods State Park. Then he walks them silently past the ranger
station, silently past the picnic area and into a small amphitheater built
around a fire pit. The benches are constructed of logs, a quarter of them
chopped out to provide a seat and a back support.
Ben
gestures Jack to the front log. He settles in at a reclining angle, feeling
like he’s at the dentist. Ben perches on a tree stump which seems to have been
placed there precisely for people to perch upon. Behind him rises an enormous
redwood. The base is hollowed out, its cave-like inner walls charred black, an
example of the tree’s remarkable ability to survive fires. Trying to ignore the
dampness seeping into his Levi’s, Jack decides that the irony is too obvious to
point out.
“Yes,”
says Ben. “I noticed the fire tree. Didn’t plan it that way.”
Jack
sees no need to respond, since the man can obviously read his thoughts. Ben
launches into his story sans prologue.
“She
talked me into a ride. It was inevitable. She was nice enough to give me an
aging mare, Christeltine, wide-backed and comfy like an old couch. Next to
Gina’s mount, an auburn jumping filly with the grand appellation of Fajamur’s
Rose, Christeltine looked like a horse made of mud, but still she was more than
I deserved.
“We
rode across Old Stage Road into Foothill Estates, full of ranch houses
interbreeding with McMansions, which is not as bad as it sounds. At the top of
the uppermost court there’s a path that cuts between two properties and through
a gate into the foothills. Gina reassured me that the landowner was a client,
and had granted free passage to all equestrians in the area.
“By
this time, my buttocks were really barking, but I was determined to keep going
until we reached some paradisiacal spot. Fortunately, it didn’t take long in
arriving. We crossed the face of the hills, all the grass turning that lovely
pure green from the rains, the trail cutting through in a strip of sandstone
blond, and then we boarded a ridge that seemed to extend from the hills like an
index finger. At the tip of the finger stood an enormous live oak, witchy
branches elbowing their way to the sky in all directions. We stopped underneath
to look out over the Salinas Valley, the broad swale of forlorn, plowed-over
rectangles, the frame of green hills at either side, a tiny slip of blue at the
ocean tip, a sky fanned over with horsetail cirrus. It was like a paragraph
from a Steinbeck novel, and I could hear the old rascal saying Now!
“I
managed to sidle old Christeltine up to Rose’s vastly superior frame and wrap
an arm around Gina’s waist. She leaned over and gave my cheek a feathery kiss.
“Here
I wax poetic. Quoth I: ‘I would never, ever have dreamed this in a million
years, me and the impossibly beautiful Gina Scarletti on top of the world.’
“‘Especially
not on horseback,’ she said, and laughed that husky laugh that turns
sexagenarians into adolescent butter.
“And
quoth I: ‘Gina, I know I’m tempting fate by attempting to extend a miracle, but
do you suppose we could make this last a little longer? Perhaps until the ends
of our lives?’
“Having
no other safe way of doing it, I had placed the ring on my pinkie finger, and
then secured it in place with an utterly phony bandage. For the previous hour,
in fact, said ring had been digging into said pinkie with great enthusiasm,
helped in great part by my amateur death-grip on Christeltine’s reins.
“All
worth it, of course. As I unwound the bandage and revealed that rock, Gina fell
right to pieces. Her eyes angled up at the corners with great delight, but then
they filled with water, her face folded in on itself and she began to sob.
Naturally that set me off, old sap
that I am, and we just sat there for the next ten minutes, leaning our heads
together, crying our eyes out.
“Eventually
I managed to capture a breath and force out some words. ‘Do I take that as a
Yes?’ She gave me her answer with all the subtlety of an umpire calling strike
three: ‘Yes!’ Then quoth I, ‘We are so
pathetic!’ Which sent us into uncontrollable laughter. And if you’ve ever
sobbed and laughed at a run like that, you know how exhausting it is.
“I
wouldn’t have blamed the horses if they had bucked us off and run for their
freedom. But we had stopped over some lovely deep grasses, and they seemed
quite content to stand and nosh. We eventually recovered our senses, I managed
to get the ring onto Gina’s finger, and we straggled home. When we arrived, we
settled the horses into their stalls, collapsed on Gina’s couch and shared a
brief smile before falling asleep. When I awoke – full darkness blanketing the
windows – it occurred to me that I might have dreamt the whole unlikely
episode. But then Gina came to, and gave me a big fat kiss.”
Ben
is a gifted storyteller, and by the end Jack is feeling a little teary-eyed
himself. The only thing he can think to do is to hop over and give Ben a
high-five (something he was never very good at) and then to give him a manly
bear hug. He manages to say, in a Jewish mother’s voice, “My little boy,
getting married!” which cracks them up good, and then they drive into Felton
for a pizza.
So what r u up to? Seeing anyone?
Yeh. Shes erratic, but never boring.
What about u?
Me 2! Sort of an old flame. Hes very
kind.
Im so glad we both have someone. I
hate it when these things get unbalanced.
Not that these things happen much!
I hope not! Would give me a heart
attack. But it sure was fun.
It was smashing, honey.
I love when u text in Brit.
Its me first language. Yank.
Jack guides Thompson’s
Porsche into a parking garage, and he and Audrey descend to Cedar Street. A
block east, the shops along Pacific Avenue are fairly booming with commerce,
the Christmas rush fully underway. Audrey wears a long scarlet coat to go with
the tiny scarlet dress, to go with the hair, the candy-colored lipstick, the
high FM pumps. She is RED, and Jack, in a black suit and red tie, takes her
hand, hardly believing that this package of lusciousness is allowing herself to
be seen in his possession. When they stop at the intersection, she spins to
plant a kiss firmly on his lips. He is a figure in a fashion commercial, the
lights of traffic teasing the periphery of his vision. A man in a pickup lets
out an old-fashioned hoot and Audrey breaks off, laughing.
“I’m
sorry. I’m just… All that radio silence last week. You scared me, honey, and
now I’m afraid I can’t control myself.”
“That’s
very unfortunate,” says Jack, not meaning a word. He takes her elbow and guides
her across the street.
“You
didn’t help matters any, driving me here in a Porsche. Are you trying to make
me uncontrollably hot?”
“You
are already uncontrollably hot, honey.”
“Why
thank you. You got some kinda blackmail on this dude?”
Jack’s
feeling brazen. “I witnessed Mr. Flores receiving a blow job last week from
some blonde coed. He…”
She
puts a finger to his lips. “Not right now, honey. Save the nasty for later.”
Says the Queen of Nasty. He’s feeling
oddly impatient. Perhaps it’s the constant stage-direction, the constant
randomness. Wasn’t he ecstatic just three minutes ago?
They
arrive at Audrey’s choice, a cozy little bistro called Café Limelight. The
walls are high and burgundy. A kitchen counter runs the length of the room. A
blonde in a yellow dress is setting up her keyboard.
“Suzanne?”
“I
looked up her schedule on the Web,” says Audrey.
They
rush over and clog up the kitchen traffic by giving Suzanne boisterous
Monkey-style hugs.
“What
a treat!” says Jack. “You sing, we eat.”
“You’re
rhyming!” says Suzanne. “I hope I last through dinner. I just drove up Highway
One and boy are my arms tired.” The lack of laughter sends her down that
dreaded path of joke-explanation. “You know, because of the windy… roads.”
“Oh
yeah,” says Jack. “Yeah, that’s a workout. We’d better find a table and leave
you to your work.”
“Thanks.
And thanks for coming.”
The
café is run by a married couple, genuine foodies who invest their dishes with
small, thoughtful touches. Jack gets a focaccia sandwich with salmon and red
peppers, with a side of pickled mushrooms. Audrey gets a Caesar salad with
locally caught anchovies and parmesan cheese grated right at the table. They
follow with key lime tarts topped with custard, and meanwhile find their
occupation in starting the applause at the end of Suzanne’s songs (dinner
crowds being not always attentive to their musicians).
In
her charming, off-beat manner, Suzanne introduces the next song. “I think it’s
time for me to play you a Christmas song, but I really only know one. So if you
don’t like this one, you’re out of luck.”
It’s
something called the Christmas Waltz. Jack’s never heard it, but it seems to
register with Audrey, whose emerald eyes get big with recognition. She turns to
Jack and says, “Dance with me.”
Jack
wonders how they’re supposed to waltz in such a small space (and how he’s supposed
to waltz at all), but Audrey seems
content to sway on the one and the three, in a few square feet next to
Suzanne’s amplifier. Jack moves his hands to lead Audrey into a spin, but she
stops him, resting her head on his chest and holding him tighter. He brushes
his face against her hair, which smells like vanilla and cinnamon, and kisses
her at the end of the song.
After
that, Audrey is strangely silent, holding Jack’s hand under the table, kissing
him on the cheek, sipping from a glass of dessert wine. Suzanne finishes her
set with the anti-romantic “Hallelujah,” takes Jack’s check for another CD
(this one headed, almost treasonously, for Portland) and hugs them both
farewell. She is driving the next morning for Eureka, working up the coast to
spend Christmas with her family in Seattle.
As
they exit onto the sidewalk, Audrey stops, pregnant with words she cannot
speak, her eyes flashing with mad thought.
“Where?
Where? Have to find… Oh! I know. Come.”
It’s
yet another ride on the Audrey Express. She pulls Jack south across Mission,
then a block east to the town clock, which looks so traditional it ought to be
on Disneyland’s Main Street. She leads him onto the ledge around its perimeter
and gives him another of her devastating kisses.
Audrey
pulls back and smiles, looking at him so intently that he feels a little
hypnotized.
“This
is shocking news, Jack. Jack. I love you, Jack. I’m in love with you.”
He
marvels at the ease of his response.
“And
I’m in love with you.”
“Are
you? Are you really?”
Jack
smiles, and kisses her on the tip of her nose.
“Of
course.”
“Thank
God!” says Audrey, and slings her arms around him.
Jack
peers over Audrey’s shoulder. It’s nine-fifty-two, December 16.
Photo by MJV
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