Sierra Hearts (Part One) (2 page)

She pictured Max, her ex-boyfriend. Max, the
photographer. The man who would always order the same meal for
lunch in that tiny café Jenn waitressed near her crummy studio in
Venice Beach. Pastrami on rye with a side of fries. Max, the man
who one day left a fat tip with the note.

Dinner sometime? No pastrami I swear!

He took her to a sushi place, something Jenn never
would have picked, and showed her how to hold chopsticks for the
first time. He taught Jenn about the Magic Hour, that special time
in LA when the sunlight was just right to photograph
everything.

Max, who would take her on long walks at the beach
and just hold her hand, taking her picture when she wasn’t paying
attention. The man who was such a romantic he explained she was
more beautiful that way, when she was just in the world and not
posing or mugging for the camera. After a few whirlwind months, he
asked her to move in with him. Jenn had agreed, her lease was
almost up on her studio anyway, and she dreaded the idea of having
to pay even more in rent. Still, she had never lived with a man
before. The way he kissed her, though, he must have been for
real.

Max, the charmer. He could take such beautiful
pictures, so beautiful in fact, a magazine asked him to do a spread
on the latest beach fashions.

Jenn laughed.
How LA!

Max, who eventually spent more and more hours away
from home on photo shoots.

But sweetheart, they want pictures at dawn on the
beach. It is for work.

I thought the Magic Hour was in the
afternoon,
Jenn would say.

You’re right, but that is just what they want.

Max, the man who would be gone all night without an
explanation.

For her birthday, Jenn’s friend Dominique took them
both to get their nails done. Dominique, always the rascal, wanted
complete control.

Trust me. I am French, am I not?
she would
say in her deep, accented voice.

She picked out the nail polish for both of them. For
herself, Dominique picked a deep maroon that she said would make
her black skin radiate. Whatever that meant. For Jenn, she picked a
fire engine red color—a garish color that seemed way over the
top.

It will photograph well
, Dominique teased.
It’s the same color as your hair.

Max, the man who said he had to work during the day
but would take her to a nice Italian restaurant for her birthday
dinner, promising red wine and candlelight. They could meet at the
restaurant. He would come straight from his latest photo shoot. But
then, when he arrived, he was in a sour mood. He complained about
work and about how nothing went well. He asked if maybe they could
just take it easy tonight and skip the pressure of being romantic.
She understood, didn’t she? Jenn did, of course. She was of course
a little disappointed. It was her birthday, but he had had a rough
day. That was why he forgot to wish her a happy birthday. It wasn’t
a big deal.

When they had lived together for a little while,
there were some hiccups at first, but those were normal, right?
After all, even the best couples are allowed to sometimes get
irritated at each other from time to time. Max would sometimes
forget to do his share of the housework. Dishes piled up in the
sink. Dirty clothes accumulated. Max said he was never good at
those sorts of things. Plus, he worked irregular hours compared to
Jenn’s predictable schedule at the café. When he got home he was
just too tired. Could Jenn take care of them? When Jenn said maybe
they should talk about dividing up chores so Max could maybe do
grocery shopping or something, he said sure that sounded fair. And
Max did do the grocery shopping, a few times anyway. But he
complained that he wasn’t the one who cooked so he wasn’t ever sure
what to buy.

You work in a café
, he said to Jenn,
you
know more about cooking than I do. Besides, I’m usually too
exhausted from my job
.

But when Jenn said she was a waitress, not a chef,
and that she was on her feet all day and exhausted, too, when she
got home, Max wanted to change the subject.

There were a few other things. Jenn couldn’t
remember a time when Max agreed to watching a movie she wanted to
watch. She had seen plenty of shoot-‘em-up action movies, though.
It was boring. It always came down to a fistfight between the good
guy and the bad guy. Didn’t matter what else was happening. It
would always look like the bad guy was about to win, until at the
last moment the good guy would punch or kick or stab his way to
defeating the bad guy.

He used to joke to his friends in front of her that
she didn’t like music. He would tease that when they were driving
around in the car, she would ask him to turn down the radio, no
matter what song was on! But it wasn’t true. She did like music. He
always left out the part that he only ever listened to the same
radio station that played classic rock. And even then, it only
played a handful of artists. Jenn was tired of hearing the same
songs over and over. She liked music. She just didn’t like the
music he liked. When she was in the car alone, she would listen to
whatever she wanted. Top 40 pop hits. R&B and disco oldies.
Something with a hook and she could sing along to.
That
was
her kind of music. She wouldn’t worry about how bad her voice was,
she just
sang
. Max would ask for her to change the station
if he was riding with her. And Jenn would quietly comply. That was
how she found herself dealing with Max.

When he climbed into bed and asked her to get him a
glass of water, she would slide out from under the warm, cozy
sheets and get him one without saying a word. When Max was happy,
he was a great guy. It just took a lot to keep him happy. She
rationalized it. No one was perfect, right? So putting up with his
fussiness was worth being with him, right?

The worst was a few month’s later for Dominique’s
birthday. Jenn had to work a double shift during the day, but she
promised to meet up with Dom for drinks. Max was invited, too, but
he didn’t want to go. Dominique was Jenn’s friend, not his, he
said. He wasn’t obligated to go. Jenn had to be at work earlier
than normal, so she asked him to deposit her paycheck for her. She
didn’t have time to. He promised he would. It was his day off, so
he should have time. No problem. He just wanted to chill out and
watch some TV first. You know, relax. Jenn went to work. It sucked,
working a double shift always did. She met up with Dom, had a few
drinks. Enjoyed herself. A lot of the stress of the day started to
not matter at all. Until her phone buzzed.

It was Max:

What’s for dinner?

She wrote back quickly:

Out with Dominique for her birthday

Max replied just as quickly:

OK

How late are you going to be?

Could you pick up some beer on the way home?

Fast forward to Jenn at a late night liquor store
apologizing to the cashier that her card has been declined.

She shot off a message to Max:

Did you deposit my paycheck?? My card was
declined

He responded:

Sorry, forgot

Don’t you have any cash?

Jenn was furious. She was livid. And more than
either of those, she was sad. By the time she got back home, she
was crying.

“Max!” she called out.

“Jenn, everything alright?” Max asked.

“No, I’m upset, obviously.” She could feel her face
start to puff up from crying.

“What’s wrong?” He cocked his head like a dog did
when seeing something unfamiliar.

“Why didn’t you deposit my paycheck? I asked you to
this morning, and you promised.”

He sighed. “Calm down, calm down.” He moved to hug
her, but Jenn took a step back. “I’m tired. Do we need to talk
about this now?”

“Yes! We need to talk about this now.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. I forgot about the
paycheck, OK? It isn’t a big deal?”

“I’m the one who does the housework. Does the chores
and goes grocery shopping. You don’t do any of that. And on the one
night I go out, I ask you to do one thing, and you don’t do it.
That isn’t fair!” The words escaped from her like air out of a
balloon.

“You’re just better at all of those things. I’m not
good at any of those,” he said.

“I’m your girlfriend!
Not
your maid!” Jenn
heard her voice crack. She was shaking. “Do you expect to be waited
on just because I’m the woman?”

Max’s face tightened into a scowl. “I need a lot
more independence than you. I need a partner to
respect
that,” His tone was matter-of-fact. “If you don’t think you can do
that then…” He let the rest of the sentence hang.

“Then
what
?” Jenn asked. She was so angry she
heard her heartbeat ringing in her ears.

“If you don’t think you can do that, then maybe you
should leave.”

Jenn was stunned. “You want me to leave?”

“I don’t think it is a good idea for you to stay
here tonight,” he said. “Maybe we should take a break from each
other. Take some time apart.”

Max, the asshole. The ex-boyfriend.

Later, Dominique had gone to the apartment for her
to gather her clothes. She didn’t have the strength to do it
herself. That was all there was of her belongings in the apartment,
really, because everything else was his. She didn’t have any
furniture. Toothbrush and makeup could be replaced, Jenn thought at
the time. I don’t want the ones from that apartment anymore. There
were a few books and some movies, too. Dominique put those in a
shoebox.

Jenn shifted her wait in bed and shifted her gaze to
a different section of ceiling. The memories hurt. Her body felt
heavy. She felt a tear run down her cheek.

Max
, she thought,
the asshole
.

She let herself cry.

Chapter 2

The next few days weren’t so much as a blur as they
were just unmemorable. Jenn would rise out of bed in the morning,
slowly. A certain spiritual heaviness made her deliberately, pacing
herself for an unseen shove or push. Being back in her childhood
room didn’t bring the warmth and comfort she wanted. Instead of
feeling like she was in a safe place buoyed by happy memories, she
felt like everything was off just a tad, as if someone had dusted
all of the furniture but hadn’t put it all back exactly were it had
been.

Growing up in Bear Lake hadn’t been the easiest of
childhoods. A girl from the mountains had to be part tomboy part
beauty queen because there weren’t enough girls around to simply be
one or the other. Then again, being a beauty queen from Bear Lake
was as good as being from another planet compared to beauty queens
in LA. Having her dad in charge of the General Store was a blessing
for a precocious, curious girl, though. When she was old enough,
she could pick out toys or clothes or makeup from any catalogue ole
Mick MacKenzie would order from, and he would get it for her. At
the time, her dad seemed like best dad in the whole wide world.
When Jenn finally got to LA, she realized that there was a
different universe of quality and cost outside of those crummy
catalogues. Window shopping in for clothes in LA took her breath
away sometimes. She couldn’t fathom how or why someone would spend
the equivalent of two month’s income on bathing suit that you
wouldn’t even bother wearing while you swam. But that was LA for
you, and Jenn would always be a mountain girl from Bear Lake at
heart. Splurging was fun, don’t get her wrong, but splurging wasn’t
splurging if it became a way of life. Plus, a waitress at a café in
Venice couldn’t exactly afford to splurge as a way of life.

In the morning, Jenn woke to a chill in the room.
Even underneath all of her blankets, she could sense that the
temperature had dropped.

Storm is coming
, Jenn thought.

This was the first sign. Jenn closed her eyes and
pictured the dreaded weatherman from the local news in front of his
big map indicated the front coming in from the west, bringing with
it moisture and precipitation. Snow, in other words. Lots of snow.
Then, he would invariable make some corny joke about this being the
perfect time to stay inside and make some hot cocoa. Jenn pulled
the sheets over her head and shook the image out of her head.

Even underneath the sheets, she could make out the
sunlight flooding into the room from the window. No point in
fighting it any longer, she thought. Might as well face the music.
Jenn pulled the sheets down. She took a deep breath, grabbed the
corner of the sheets and flung it back, swiveling her legs out
under her so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Slowly, she
stood up and made her way to the window, clasping her hands on her
arms for warmth. She couldn’t decide if her fingertips or if her
biceps were colder. At the window she could see the overcast sky
promising a storm to come. The clouds were a bright grey. The trees
outside swayed a little from an easy breeze. Everything looked
peaceful and still. Jenn looked at the ground for any paw prints in
the snow left by any critters in the night, but couldn’t spot
any.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Jenn turned
around to face it, seeing that whoever had knocked hadn’t bothered
for a response to open the door. Instantly, Jenn knew it had to be
her mother, Rose MacKenzie. Loving mother or angry mama bear,
depending on the mood. Sometimes both at the same time. Dad would
have at least waited for a “Come in,” before entering.

“Jenn?” her mom asked, hesitantly. “Oh, good you’re
up. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Mom,” Jenn said.

“Look Jenn, I know you’re going through a rough…”
her mom searched for the right word. “…patch, right now, but that
doesn’t mean you should be sulking in this room for days on end.
You need to get out. It will be good for you. Besides, now that
you’re home, your dad and I could really use the help. There is a
storm coming in, and we have a lot of things to do before it gets
to the point where they close the roads,” her mom said.