Authors: Jack Baran
“She probably belongs to someone.”
“No tags, she was abandoned. Look how skinny she is. She’s starving.”
“Dogs get lost up here all the time, we should take her to the animal shelter, someone will be looking for her.”
“No one wants her.” Cleo fills a bowl with Wheaties, adds banana and milk and sets it on the floor for the ravenous dog. “What shall we call her?”
“A dog is a major responsibility.”
“My responsibility.”
“The Streamside is a place of business, we can’t have poop everywhere.”
“Do you hate animals?”
Pete kneels and scratches the puppy’s nose. She licks his hand. “My first wife was a cat person, I was allergic. It was an incompatibility we never worked out.” He rubs the puppy’s stomach. “My second wife hated pets, which was just as well because we were never home.” The puppy sits up, looks at him attentively. “Barbara, my last ex, grew up with a dog. We gave Annabeth, our daughter, a Golden Retriever when she was six. She called him Windy. I did the walking. She did the feeding and the dog slept in her bed. He was hit by a car chasing a squirrel, died in my arms, my fault. Windy was off leash and I thought I could control him. Yeah, I love dogs.” He cuddles the puppy. “Let’s call her Dicey.”
The Gypsy Wolf is a Mexican Restaurant where the guacamole is thick, the salsa hot, and the Margaritas generous. The walls are covered with brightly colored carvings and paper mache renditions of the wily coyote. Ingrid, Charles and Cleo polish off a round of drinks. Pete nurses a Corona, preoccupied with the roast speech.
Cleo is delighted to listen to Ingrid wax poetic about fjords and volcanoes. “It sounds fantastic. Thermal activity in your own home.”
Charles signals the waiter for another round of Margaritas.
Alcohol never played a big role in Pete’s life. Beer had been his beverage of choice since college. Occasionally he drank tequila or bourbon but his lifetime love affair was with weed.
“So what are you writing these days?”
Pete has been drifting. “Writing?”
“Don’t be shy, we googled you back in the room. Who would have thought Pete Stevens was my cousin?”
“We were big fans of
Nasty
.”
“That Bobby Fields was terrific.”
“We saw every episode.”
“Have you read Pete’s novel?” Cleo gushes, “It’s fantastic.”
Pete changes the subject. “You guys own a dog?”
“Two Terriers. What’s it called?”
“
Top of the World
.” Cleo puts her arms possessively around Pete. “Two guys, a young daredevil and an ex-con, work on rooftop water tanks. Very dangerous. Daredevil has a dream to climb the steel cables to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, wants the con to do it with him, says the stunt will make them famous. Con doesn’t want to be famous.”
“My novel was a long time ago.”
“Go on, go on.”
Cleo continues with intensity. “The con has a dark past, gets involved with the daredevil’s wife who reminds him of another woman. The story becomes a love triangle.”
Ingrid elbows Pete knowingly. “Very Icelandic.”
“Ends badly.” Pete says.
“I can’t wait to read it.”
“Long out of print.”
I’ll find it on the Internet. Maybe I’ll translate it into Icelandic.”
Back at the Streamside after exchanging email addresses and phone numbers and promising to stay in touch, Pete hugs Ingrid warmly.
“Christmas, we all go to Iceland for big family reunion. Bring your girlfriend.” More hugs all around.
Pete lets Dicey out to stretch her legs. The dog runs in wide happy circles, wants to play. Pete picks up a stick and throws it into the swimming hole. The dog jumps in after it. “You should do PR,” he says to Cleo. “The way you condensed the story was better than I ever could.”
“That’s why we’re a good team.” She kisses him. “Why do you think your book ends badly? The con finds salvation sacrificing his life so the daredevil can fulfill his dream.”
“I invented that, in real-life the daredevil threatened to kill the con because he thought the con fucked his wife. The con killed the daredevil first. He died in Sing Sing.”
“Your ending is way better.”
“Very Icelandic, right?” Dicey comes out of the water with the stick, drops it at Pete’s feet and shakes the water off her silky coat, drenching them.
The dog curls up on the floor. The recorder is on and there’s a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade. Cleo lies on the chaise as usual. “When I got out of rehab, Desirée went back to work for Roy. She was one of three girls who traveled to exotic places and had adventures. Supposedly they were looking for true love, but Desirée only found hard sex. Roy directed the films. His signature was acrobatic fucking in spectacular places. Occasionally he did a cameo but wouldn’t fuck Desirée on camera any more.”
Suddenly Cleo makes a shift, becomes petulant Desirée. “Roy only wanted Cleo, she’s the one he loved. What pissed me off was that all my scenes played in the worst locations. On
End Of The World
, we shot on the rim of a volcano. Sharp lava and sulfur fumes did not turn me on. Roy was a sadist.” She pulls down her shorts, shows Pete her thigh.
“That scar looks like an infinity sign.”
“Carlos loved my scar.”
“ Can I kiss it?”
“I want to work.” She’s back in Cleo mode, pulling up her shorts and pouring the lemonade. “Meyer lemons grew in Carlos’ backyard.”
“How did you meet him?”
“In Maui, Carlos was staying in a villa on the beach. He didn’t come on strong, he was very polite, cooked me dinner, his grandmother’s recipes.”
“You had no idea who he was?”
“There were bodyguards so I knew he was somebody important.”
“Did he know who you were?”
“Turns out it wasn’t a chance meeting. He had seen all of my films and hired a detective to find me.”
“Wasn’t that creepy?”
“Carlos always treated me with respect.”
“When did you become lovers?”
Another shift, Cleo becomes Desirée. “When I’m shooting, I don’t fuck offscreen. I save everything for the camera. Anyway, I was hardly speaking to Roy, Carlos was very angry about how he treated me. Roy is a very intimidating person, he’s been pumping iron since he was a teenager. Carlos put the muzzle of his gun in Roy’s ear. He pissed his pants.”
“You went off with a narco?”
“Desirée was a thrill seeker.” Cleo is back. “Mexico fascinated me.”
“Carlos Esparza was a stone cold killer.”
“He was brutally honest about himself. Drugs were his business and in his business people got killed. But Carlos wanted to end the drug wars. He had a plan to organize the cartels into a syndicate, make a deal with the government. ‘Killing is bad for business,’ he said, ‘especially when there’s a simple solution.’”
“Seems to have eluded the powers that be.”
“Legalize the product. It’s a huge industry, a vital part of the economy and it produces no revenue. ‘Legalize Marijuana,’ he said, ‘and the syndicate will pay taxes like any other legitimate business. Killings will stop and tourism flourish.’”
Pete is amazed. “I never read a word about Carlos Esparza renouncing violence in favor of legalizing drugs.”
“He was very smart, self taught, especially in economics.”
Pete wants to believe her. “How did you survive his assassination?”
“His people saved me, got me out of the country.”
“I read that a rival element in his own cartel killed him.”
“You read the story they want you to believe. The US government didn’t want Carlos to organize a syndicate to legalize marijuana. CIA contractors took him out, made it look like a gang execution.”
“Fascinating hypothesis.”
“In a weird way you remind me of him. He never stopped asking questions until he understood how things worked.”
“Carlos was a murderer, I don’t even own a gun.”
“Your violence is suppressed.”
“How was he in bed?”
“We didn’t sleep together until Mexico. They had an ancient Mayan ceremony, old women rolling tortillas, a pig roasting in an open pit, drums, and everyone dressed in white, dancing. He carried me up the mountain to a thatched hut. It was incredibly romantic. Three guitars serenaded us as we made love for the first time. He was incredibly gentle.”
Pete’s not buying that. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”
“I loved Carlos and he loved me.”
Pete goes to the window, listens to the insects singing. “I’m jealous.”
“He’s dead.” She turns off the recorder. “That’s enough.”
“Okay.”
“Do you mind if I sleep with you, sex not included?”
“You sound like my ex-wives.” Actually he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to take another blue pill because the headache from the first one is finally gone.
“Can I borrow a T?”
“Dresser, top drawer.”
An archive of faded cotton to choose from. “I’m sure they all have special meaning.” She holds up a worn yellow shirt with a Hopi design.
“Taos, New Mexico. Fathers Day. My daughter gave it to me before she had a melt down with her mother and ran off. We spent the afternoon looking for her. The police found Bethy in the park hanging out with a gang of Chicano skateboarders like nothing happened.”
Cleo puts the shirt on, curls up, closes her eyes and falls instantly asleep. It’s been a long time since a woman shared Pete’s bed. Samantha liked to watch telly while he read. In summer they slept naked wrapped in each other’s arms. In winter she preferred a hot water bottle to warm her tummy, a major insult. Heidi spent an inordinate amount of time preparing, using rare and expensive creams on her delicate skin. She also spent astronomical sums on sexy lingerie that Pete rarely had the pleasure of removing. By the time she lay down beside him he was asleep. Barbara and he had the most adventurous approach to bed, in their case a queen, which kept them in close proximity. No designated side was her innovation, sleeping in the nude preferable, a hot water bottle unnecessary because they generated so much heat they were never cold. Never.
Pete spoons into Cleo’s back. She moves away. When he rests his hand on the slope of her thigh, she pushes it off. Fine, no touching. He rolls over and stares at the familiar shadows on the ceiling. The sound of Cleo’s steady breathing lulls him to sleep.
Mary Ann’s attic bedroom shimmers in the moonlight. Pete, naked, lies on the hardwood floor. When he looks up he is outside on the ground under a Meyer lemon tree in the backyard of Carlos, the man who would unite the drug cartels of Mexico. The narco sits on a limb watching Desirée straddle Pete in tantric bliss.
B
eads of sweat glisten on Jackson’s hairless chest as he works alongside José, blowing the Streamside’s landscape clean of fallen leaves. Only Jamie’s family name, Hightower, appears on his birth certificate. At sixteen she finally told him about his dad, Sonny Jackson, murdered so the story goes in Las Vegas. He’s trying to not let the record his father made in Woodstock - funky, far out stuff - influence him.
Jackson doesn’t like physical labor, even if it makes Pete and Jamie feel good to see him working his ass off. Healthy and honest they call it. Dealing weed was so much easier and way more profitable. Unfortunately, getting busted in a speed trap while making a local delivery was not cool. Pete says he subconsciously wanted to be caught, but Jackson knows it was stupidity.
A Dodge Charger pulls into the parking area and a tan blond with a dazzling California girl smile springs out of the car, iPhone in hand. Charmed by the setting, she captures a panorama of images, ending with an angle on the two story wood frame house. She’s the same age as the sweaty, skinny boy who steps into her frame, his long hair tied back with a colorful bandana. He’s cute.
Jackson misdirects the blower, covers California girl with leaves. Another flustered young man succumbs to her charms.
Pete’s daughter Annabeth is running away from UC Santa Cruz intending to never go back. Feeling guilty about not visiting her father, she decided to surprise Pete in his new life. Her mother thought dad had an unacknowledged breakdown but there was no actual confirmation. “Hi,” she says to the young man who covered her with leaves.
“Sorry.” He starts blowing them off her.
“I always wanted an authentic fall experience.”
Jackson kills the blower. “Indian Summer, it’ll be warm enough to swim later, cold tonight. Perfect time to be here.”
Steadily acquiring boyfriends since she was twelve, Annabeth lost her virginity in middle school because all the cool girls were having sex. Always open with her parents, she liked to shock them but wasn’t as promiscuous as she led them to believe. Pete was hypocritically uptight, while Barbara listened and wrote everything down in her journal. Her parents real concern was that she had no goals. Annabeth made a show of not caring but secretly obsessed about her lack of direction.
“Checking in?”
“One night. I’m on my way to Paris.”
“Paris, France. Wow, I never been further than Brooklyn.”
“Ever drink absinthe? They say it’s hallucinogenic. Gaugin was addicted, killed him. They outlawed it, like grass, but you can get absinthe in Czechoslovakia. That’s really where I’m going, Prague. You know where Pete Stevens lives?”
“In the house. You can call from the office.”
“No, I want to surprise him. I’m Annabeth, his daughter.”
Jackson resumes bagging leaves. Pete hardly ever talked about her and the only picture he’d seen was of a sassy eleven year old dressed in some wild costume. He watches her knock on the front door staring brazenly back at him. She impatiently turns the handle and enters.
Cleo, wearing the Hopi T-shirt over red panties, is at the stove clumsily pouring a huge amount of oats into a pot of boiling water.
Dicey barks and wags her tail when the girl enters. The familiar T stuns Annabeth. “I’m looking for my father,” she stammers.
Cleo stares at the girl petting the dog. “He’s still asleep.”
The shirt really irritates Annabeth. “You live here?”
“I work with Pete.”
“Work?”
“We’re writing together.”