California Dreaming: Four Contemporary Romances (8 page)

“Thanks, Randy.” She put her hand on the doorknob.

“Annie? One more thing. I know doing interviews is tough, but you can handle it. You know your field and you’re good at what you do.”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck.” The click of the computer keys restarted.

When she got to her office, she took out her list, carefully crossed out “Randy” and put in “NJ Director Jim … ” She glanced at the papers Randy had given her. “ … Borzetti.”

She plugged in her hot pot for tea, brought up a browser on her computer and searched for “Common Criteria.” A quick scan of the organization’s website told her why the project was a problem. Documentation was needed — lots of documentation. And one thing that programmers hated to do was documentation.

Ugh.

While the tea brewed, she composed an e-mail introducing herself to Jim. She finished it and read it over and over, making minute corrections until it was as perfect as she could get it. She pressed Send.

She put a squiggle next to item Number 3 on her list. Started, but not finished. She spent the rest of the day cleaning out her office, tying up loose ends of the project that was ending and going to meetings. At the end of the day, there was still no response from Jim.

David wasn’t home when she got there. A note on the refrigerator said, “Out with Larry. Be back later.”

Her stomach gave a queasy lurch. She had a bad feeling about Larry. He hadn’t been able to look her in the eye when they’d met. Instead, his eyes had darted everywhere, as if he were on the lookout for an opportunity — or trouble. Should she forbid David to see him? What reason could she give — that she didn’t like the way he dressed? He had shifty eyes? And would forbidding him really change what David did when she wasn’t around? She sighed. Time to start dinner. She’d make spaghetti
carbonara
, another of David’s favorites.

The pasta water had started to boil when the phone rang.

“Mrs. Renquist?” a male voice asked.

“Ms. Gerhard, but yes, I used to be Mrs. Renquist. Who’s this?”

“This is Detective Ramos at the Costanoa Police Station. We have your son in custody.”

• • •

Annie found the police station with no problem.

“You have my son, David Renquist,” she said to the woman in the glass information booth.

The woman flicked a look at her computer and hit a few keys. “Have a seat in the lobby. Detective Ramos will be out to get you.”

In the background she could hear the sound of steel doors opening and closing. At every clank, her stomach turned.

A middle-aged Latino in a light brown jacket and slacks bustled into the lobby. He ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar, loosening it against a constricting tie as he walked toward her. “Ms. Gerhard?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Detective Ramos.” He thrust his hand out and she shook it quickly. He gestured toward the door in the rear of the lobby. “Let’s go in the back.”

“What’s my son supposed to have done?”

“He stole some liquor and CDs from a drug store.”

“David wouldn’t do that.”

“We’ll discuss it further in the back, Ms. Gerhard.” He thumbed a button by the side of a solid metal door. A loud buzz and click signaled a lock release and he pushed the door open.

The detective led her to a small room with a metal table and four chairs. He waved at a chair on the far side of the table and she sat down, her muscles clenched.

“I’ll be right back,” the detective said, closing the door behind him.

Alone in the room, she tried to gather her wits about her. What was she going to do? What had David been thinking?

The door jerked open and David came into the room. She leapt to her feet and took a step toward him.

“Sit down, Ms. Gerhard,” the detective said. She obeyed.

David sat, gave her a brief glance, and then focused his eyes on the table between them.

“I understand you and David’s father are divorced,” Ramos said.

She nodded.

“Do you have sole custody of your son?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re legally and financially responsible for him.” The detective opened a folder he had in front of him and perused the papers. “David was caught shop-lifting from the L and L Drug Store by the store manager shortly before five
P.M.
Your son had a small bottle of vodka and a couple of CDs in his pockets.”

She started to protest, but the detective held up his hand.

“We have it on the store surveillance camera,” he said. He turned to David and said, “You want to tell us about it?”

David looked at his hands, glanced at the detective, and looked back at the steel gray table. “I was with these guys. They said it would be really easy for me to get something out of L and L ’cause I was a kid.” He paused. “They said they’d give me money to get a bottle of vodka. It’d be easy.”

“Who were they?” the detective asked.

“I don’t know,” David replied. “Some random guys I met downtown.”

“I thought you were with Larry,” she interrupted.

“I ditched him. He got into playing chess in front of Starbucks. It was way boring, so I took a walk.”

“And then you met these guys … these strangers,” the detective prompted.

“They weren’t exactly strangers. I’d seen ’em with Larry. They knew my name and everything.”

“Why?” Annie asked. “Why did you do this?”

David shrugged.

She hated it when he shrugged. “Why?” she repeated.

“I dunno. I guess I wanted to see if I could do it. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“I guess not.”

David opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.

She looked at her son in bewilderment. It was as if she were seeing a stranger; someone she didn’t know at all.

“Is there anything else you want to tell us?” Detective Ramos asked.

David looked down at his hands and shook his head.

The detective shuffled the papers in front of him. “Because your son is a juvenile and this is his first offense, we’re going to release him to your custody. You’ll need to bring him back to court in two weeks at four
P.M.
on the twenty-first.”

He scribbled on one of the papers in front of him and pushed it across to David with a pen. “Sign there. You’re not acknowledging guilt. You’re saying you’ll be in court at the appointed time to face the charges against you.” He looked at Annie. “His signature’s a formality. Because he’s a minor, the only one that counts is yours.”

David signed the papers and pushed them over to her. She scanned them and signed.

Detective Ramos put the signed papers into his folder and stood up. “I’ll take David back for processing and then he’ll be released to you in the lobby.”

They left the concrete room and she went to wait.

Now what? Would it be worth hiring a lawyer, or should she use the public defender? Waiting for David to sort things out on his own hadn’t turned out well. She wished she had someone to talk with. A man’s point of view would be nice.

Forty-five minutes later, David walked through the door with the detective behind him.

Ramos handed her the release papers and looked at David. “Stay out of any more trouble.” He turned and walked away.

She stared at her son.

“Let’s go, Mom,” he said and walked out the front door. She followed, her mind racing as she tried out all the things she might say.
Were you out of your mind? This could go on your record! You could have been hurt!

She said nothing.

When they got home, David slammed into his room. She went right after him.

“No you don’t,” she said, her voice cold with anger and fear. “You aren’t going into your room and closing the door without having a conversation with me first.”

“What do you want me to say, Ma?” he asked. “Fine. If you want to lecture me, get it over with and let me get some sleep. I’m tired.”

“I don’t care if you’re tired, young man. I want to know what you think you were doing.”

He continued to glare at her with his arms crossed for another minute before slumping onto his bed. His skin had a gray hue and dark circles underscored eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Annie felt the tension begin to seep out of her body.

“I’m sorry, mom. I don’t know. I feel crazy. When we lived with Dad, you were angry all the time. You split us up and it was better, I guess. But now you want us to move to nowhere New Jersey. If I don’t go, I lose you. If I do go, I lose everything else. It’s not fair.”

She sat next to him on his bed.

“No, it’s not fair. I know you want to stay here. I wish we could. But I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of the money it’s going to take to get you through Berkeley. Even living here is expensive.”

“It’s always about money with you. What about our lives? What about my friends? I don’t have to go to Berkeley if it means I can stay here.”

She started to stroke his head, but he pulled away.

“Honey, I’m trying to keep you safe. I worry about you. No matter how big you get, you’ll always be my kid. What you did is bad — it could screw up your future. Promise me you won’t do anything this stupid again.” She hugged his stiff body and said, “You’re grounded, you know. Probably for the rest of your life.” She smiled at him, her heart aching.

“Okay. Can I sleep now?”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

The sooner they moved, the better.

She trudged up the stairs and thought of the next item on her list.

Call Fred.

Tomorrow would be soon enough.

• • •

Annie shook coffee beans into the grinder and whirled them into submission. Too bad her problems couldn’t be ground into tiny bits as easily. While her coffee brewed, Annie’s thoughts scattered.
Maybe I should repaint before I put the house on the market.

I could put David in a boarding school while I’m in New Jersey. A military boarding school.

Should I go out with John?

I need to clear out the garage.

She shook the untidiness from her mind and dug her original “to do” list out of her handbag.

✓ Tell David

Tell Fred

~ Find out details from
Randy
NJ Director Jim Borzetti

Connect with new boss in New Jersey

Start transfer process

Call realtor

Contact corporate housing for help to find an apartment in New Jersey

Hold a garage sale

Pack

Move

Pay parking ticket

Hopefully, she’d hear from Jim today. She could call him to make sure he received her e-mail, but that might make her seem desperate.

Who was she kidding? She
was
desperate.

She looked at the clock and listened for the shower. No noise. She padded down the stairs and rapped on David’s door.

“Get up. You’re going to be late for school.”

“Stop nagging, Mom. I’m on it.”

“Just do it,” Annie said and stomped upstairs. She hadn’t slept well last night, images from every prison movie she’d ever seen haunting her. What would David get as a first offense? Realistically, he’d probably get community service.

The coffee pot gurgled as she pulled two cereal bowls and a box of cereal from the cupboard and a carton of milk from the refrigerator. Would David have a record? Weren’t juvenile records sealed? Too many questions. She needed to call the public defender.

Grabbing a cup of coffee, she added Number 12 to the list: Call public defender. Her eyes traveled back up to the second item: Call Fred.

Ugh.

She looked at the clock again. Good. He was already at work so she could put that off until later. Everything else, except Numbers 11 and 12, needed to wait until she heard from Jim. She’d call the lawyer later.

Although if she was going to have a garage sale, she’d better clean the garage. Carefully, she added Number 13, “Clean garage.”

A mockingbird jabbered on a tree outside her window. Maybe she’d have time to take a walk today, enjoy nature. A horseback ride might be even better. She flipped her list to the blank side, drew a line down the middle of the paper and wrote PROS on one side of the line and CONS on the other.

Under PROS she wrote: get exercise, admire a good-looking man, have fun.

Under CONS: don’t want to lead him on, might not like him if I get to know him.

The fantasy was always better than reality, wasn’t it?

On the other hand, John would be someone to discuss David’s problem with. She added that to the PROS side.

She took a sip of coffee and stared at the chart, knowing she wasn’t being entirely honest with herself because she’d left off the biggest CON of all.

She was afraid.

The downstairs shower went on. David was up — good. Time to get moving. She’d get him off to school, and start to work on the presentation for the project wrap-up.

Four hours later she was tired of trying to get graphs, statistics, and bullet points to behave. Her son was easier to control. And she
still
hadn’t gotten a return e-mail from New Jersey.

She needed a break.

You could clean the garage
, the puritanical voice from her chorus said.

Leave one ugly chore for another? No thanks.

Bread. She’d bake bread. Rye bread would be perfect — sticky and difficult to work with — like the rest of her life. The pungent combination of yeast and caraway seeds would clear her head.

She looked in the freezer for her stash of rarely used flour. Packages of whole wheat, spelt and kamut stared back at her. No rye. The spice drawer revealed a lack of caraway seeds. A dilemma.

Five minutes later she was speeding north on Highway 1 toward Grenaldi’s Market. She flicked on the classical station and thought of the curried chicken salad she planned to buy for lunch. Traffic was light, the sun was shining, and the tension left her body.

As soon as she walked through the old-fashioned market door, the distinctive scent hit her. Chain groceries smelled sterile. Here, ripening fruit and yeasty flour tantalized her nose. Sweet and spicy odors wafted from the other end of the store from the deli and bakery sections.