Blue Twilight (6 page)

Terri quickly picked up on my line of thought.

“Vincent and I had a little tiff on the phone last night. Let him see what life is like without me for a while.” He sniffed. “You know how men can be, constantly taking you for granted. Well, I’ve decided it’s time to rock his boat a bit.”

I couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded. Terri had never let on that something might be wrong. Was I so wrapped up with my own problems that I could no longer tell when my best friend was going through a crisis? Talk about feeling remorse. If I were Catholic, I’d have won hands-down as the patron saint of guilt.

“Just don’t go getting any ideas about teaching
me
a lesson, chère,” Santou teased. “My boat’s already been rocked quite enough. I’d hate to have to go through another plane crash and crawl back out in order to prove how much I love you.”

“Very funny,” I retorted, still not used to Jake’s newly morbid sense of humor.

“Listen, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t the two of you join me? You could probably both use an evening on the town,” Terri suggested.

“Count me out. All I want to do is watch TV and get a good night’s sleep. But why don’t you go with him, chère? It would be good for you to blow off some steam. Don’t worry. I’ll be perfectly fine by myself.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, ready to kill myself if I spent one more night planted in front of the Sports Channel.

“Absolutely.” Jake chuckled. “Anything that’ll keep us from duking it out over the remote control.”

Ah, domestic bliss. Who’d have ever guessed it would come down to TV programming and bickering over who should have bought an extra roll of toilet paper?

“In that case, I’ll see you in an hour, Rach. Get yourself ready,” Terri said, and headed upstairs.

Terrific. I was being left on my own to perform a minor miracle. I walked into the bathroom and studied my image in the mirror. Who was I kidding? We were talking a major overhaul here. The weather had turned my hair into a mop of thick frizz, and I felt as though there were caterpillars crawling on my skin. That led to a flashback of the parasitic wasps, causing a shiver to race through me. From there it was an easy leap to the movie
Alien
. I tore off my clothes and jumped into the shower, half expecting a drooling monster to pop out of my chest.

A half hour later, my entire wardrobe was no longer hanging in the closet but thrown in a heap on the bed. It never seems to matter how many garments I have, or how recently they were bought. Murphy’s Law decrees that nothing should ever fit.

I finally settled on a pair of low-rider jeans and a brand-new top. However, my hair remained a sullen child that stubbornly refused to behave. I was still battling with it when
Terri walked in the room. I felt all the more fashion challenged as I caught sight of the million-dollar babe.

Terri could easily have given J-Lo, Sharon Stone, and Cindy Crawford a run for their money. He was dressed in a low-cut blouse and a tight leather skirt with a slit running halfway up his thigh. No wonder I secretly wanted to pattern myself after him. Even Santou sat up straight in his chair and took note.

“Holy mother,” he whistled. “Why don’t you try dressing a little more like that, chère?”

I threw Jake a dirty glance and he wisely clammed up.

“Don’t tell me that you’re not ready yet,” Terri groaned.

I didn’t admit that he was looking at the finished product.

“It’s my hair. It refuses to do a thing,” I complained.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rach. That’s easy enough to fix,” Terri scolded.

He took me into the bathroom and promptly set to work. Ten minutes later, even I was impressed. Terri had not only tamed my curls, but also transformed my top into a chic off-the-shoulder number. Then he put the finishing touches on my makeup.

“There. See how easy that was?” Terri asked, stepping back to admire his creation. “Your new mantra should be to spend less time playing with guns and more time fixing yourself up.”

“Yeah, except that a make-over won’t get me out of a tight spot,” I smartly retorted.

“Maybe not. But then again, a gun isn’t going to stop someone from thinking that you’re old enough to be Britney Spears’s mother. Meanwhile the proper hair, clothes, and makeup certainly will,” Terri wisely advised.

I considered that to be an exceptionally low blow, until I walked back into the living room and was greeted by Santou’s reaction.

“Whoa, chère! You’re going to have to use the Krav Maga you’ve learned to fight the guys off. Just don’t forget that I’m here waiting for you.”

That was enough to make me feel as seductively hot as one of Charlie’s Angels. My exhilaration overcame any remorse about leaving Jake at home. That is, until the door closed behind us, and my guilt kicked in. It was at times like this that I worried Santou might be tempted to take one too many pills, feeling lonely and depressed. Worst of all, it was my fault that he was in this situation. Terri had heard it all before, but I still had to vent.

“I don’t care what anyone says. I’m afraid Jake’s becoming addicted to painkillers. I can’t help it, Terri. Seeing him like this makes me crazy. The truth is, he wouldn’t have been on that plane if he hadn’t transferred to Savannah. I keep kicking myself in the rear over that.”

“Enough already. I know it’s natural for you to worry, what with being Jewish and the
oy veh
factor. But honestly, sweetie, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up over this. Santou’s not going to spin out of control, and he’s never going to do himself in. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have crawled out of that plane in the first place. Jake’s just impatient to get better is all, and he eventually will. But you’re both going to have to learn to relax and give it time.”

Here I was doing it again—worrying about myself when Terri obviously had problems of his own.

“Thanks, Ter. Now I want to know what’s really going on with you and Vincent.”

I must have caught Terri off guard, because his eyes welled up with tears.

“Oh, Rach. That bastard’s gotten involved with some beefy young wrestler. One of his students. Can you believe it? Christ, it’s like a bad plot straight out of an old Joan Crawford film. In fact, I’m identifying with her so much
these days that just the sight of a wire hanger sends me into a tizzy.”

“Are you certain about this, Terri?” I asked. Vincent had seemed head over heels the last time I’d seen the two of them together.

“Absolutely. I found a sequined jockstrap in Vincent’s drawer that certainly wasn’t mine, and it sure as hell wasn’t his size. I got so upset that I donned a brunette wig and followed the two of them after wrestling class one afternoon. Vincent took his hot new stud to a chichi restaurant in South Beach, where they drank martinis and fed each other oysters on the half shell. The only thing that stopped me from making a scene was that I looked more like Rosie O’Donnell than Madonna that day. After that, they went back to Eduardo’s apartment, where Vincent spent the next two hours.”

“What did he say when you confronted him?”

“Vincent lied of course. What else? Do you believe he had the nerve to tell me that they were working on a new wrestling persona for Eduardo? Naturally, I asked if that included hands-on training in bed.”

I laced my arm through his. “I’m so sorry, Ter. I thought Vincent was different than that.”

“Thanks, sweetie. Me too. I guess some men are just downright deceptive, no matter how decent they might seem.”

“You’ll meet someone who’s right for you,” I said, and gave his arm a squeeze.

He nodded and took a deep breath, as if to compose himself. “That’s what I want more than anything else.”

A tear meandered down his cheek and I dabbed it away. Terri took the worn tissue from my hand and finished it off by blowing his nose.

“It’s not as if I’m asking for the world. Then again, who knows?” He shrugged and tried to laugh, but the sound
caught in his throat. “What I want exactly is what you have with Santou. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a true-blue guy who loves you. Believe me, they’re difficult to find.”

He was right. I counted my blessings again that Jake had been saved, as Terri pulled out his compact and fixed his makeup.

“It’s a little too early to hit the clubs. Do you mind if we stroll through Chinatown for a while?” he asked.

“That sounds good to me,” I agreed.

We crossed Broadway, also known as the Marco Polo Zone, and were whisked into a foreign land without having ever set foot in a plane. This was the area of San Francisco that I loved best. All five senses clashed in an orgy of sights, sounds, and fragrances as we found ourselves surrounded by Chinese bookstores, produce stands, pagoda-topped lampposts, and movie theaters. The nasal singsong jabber of Cantonese droned in our ears, while the scrumptious scent of barbecued pork made me very nearly forget that I’d already eaten dinner.

Grant Street buzzed on this Saturday night, its energy a neon high. Signs enticed us to stop in front of every store window, where Terri oohed and ahhed over tacky souvenirs ranging from Tweety Bird watches to bamboo back scratchers and chirping metal crickets, all authentically made in Taiwan. Not to be passed up were the “must have” laughing Buddha figurines offered at a “one time” low price of $4.99 a pop. Meanwhile, sidewalk carts stood piled high with every plastic and rubber item made under the sun, each of which was going, going, gone for the bargain price of under five bucks. It was pure catnip for tourists, who eagerly scooped them up.

Terri contained himself as we passed by two competing music shops, one of which blasted “Jenny from the Block”
while the other offered the more traditional, all-time Chinese favorite, “Respect 4 Da Chopstick Hip Hop.”

It was only as we came upon a Hong Kong–style dress store that Terri finally lost control.

“Just remember, shopping is always the best way to get rid of the blues. It would do you a world of good to follow that philosophy,” he advised.

By the time we walked out, Terri had shed his leather and in its place donned sequins and silk. He now wore a tight-fitting, high-collared, pink cheongsam dress with a hot-to-trot dragon embroidered down the front. Being the Madonna of quick fashion change, Terri looked nothing less than absolutely stunning.

We soon found ourselves at the corner of Washington and Grant, standing in front of a tiny, dark dive. Above the door was a weary neon sign bearing the single word
BUDDHA
.

“I should have known this was where we would end up. What is it with you and these kinds of places?” Terri asked, crinkling his nose.

“They’ve got character,” I replied with a grin.

“
Characters
are more like it—primarily the creepy four-legged kind. All right. Let’s go in and get this over with,” he acquiesced.

We stepped inside the hole in the wall and entered a room that was dusty and dank.

“Mmm, yes. I see what you mean. There’s something truly charming about a bar where the service is surly and there are rarely more than two customers at a time, neither of whom usually speaks English. Then, of course, there’s the background music. It’s always either Kenny Rogers croaking his way through ‘Ruby’or Frank Sinatra crooning ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,’” Terri summed up. “Hand me a stack of those cheap paper squares that pass for napkins, will you?”

He placed a few under the leg of a wobbly stool and spread the rest across its seat. “What this place has is all the charm of an opium den, Rach.”

Okay. So he was right about that. But then there were also no tourists.

We sat under a dilapidated canopy that threatened to topple upon us at any moment. But that was nothing compared to the diminutive eighty-year-old behind the bar who wore a T-shirt that read,
GO AHEAD
.
MAKE MY DAY
.

“Wouldn’t you know? It’s Saturday night and look who I get: the female John Wayne and Suzie Wong, herself,” she needled in a thick Chinese accent.

“How do you like that? I’ve never been compared to John Wayne before,” Terri wryly commented.

“Actually, I think she meant me,” I responded.

“Okay girls. What will it be?”

“Make mine a Campari and soda,” Terri replied.

“And I’ll have an Absolut martini with an olive.”

“Coming right up.”

The old woman set a couple of Buds on the bar, flicked off their caps, and slid them toward us.

“There you go.”

“Perfect,” I retorted.

She poured herself a Coke, and we all clinked drinks.

Mei Rose Chang was a one-of-a-kind piece of work. Aside from bartending, she used to regularly appear as an extra on the now defunct TV show
Nash Bridges.
However, we knew her best as our landlady.

“Tomorrow I cook a big meal and you watch. That way you learn to make good food,” she informed me.

“I can’t, Mei Rose. I already have other plans.”

“What other plans?” she asked suspiciously.

Mei Rose had been attempting to teach me to cook for months. So far, I had managed to find a convenient excuse to
escape. I’d already told her that my idea of cooking was takeout, but she stubbornly refused to give up. She must have viewed me as her ultimate challenge.

“Terri and I are driving to Mendocino tomorrow. Have you ever been there?”

“Mendocino? That’s one place I don’t want to go. Grandmother was sent there as a mail-order bride soon after the Gold Rush. She sailed from China on a sampan that took over a year and a half to arrive. Grandfather had come to this country thinking he would find gold and strike it rich. But when the Gold Rush ended, he still hadn’t made a dime. Chinese people in Mendocino, they labored as water-slingers and cooks in lumber camps for little money. Grandfather, he worked his fingers to the bone cooking for loggers, while Grandmother took in sewing and laundry and raised eight kids. It was a hard, hard life,” Mei Rose related, with a sad shake of her head. “What you want to go there for, anyway?”

“I’m looking for a man that’s searching for butterflies.”

Mei Rose eyeballed me. “You one strange girl.”

Terri finished his beer, stood up, and smoothed the wrinkles from his dress.