Hydraulic Level Five

by Sarah Latchaw

  “If you get kicked out early, you can’t come back here.”

  Just then, the guest of honor walked through the door and a dozen shrieking women rushed her. Danita was as lovely as ever, but a deep glower was etched in her features as she scanned the room. Samuel looked in her direction, distressed.

  “I suppose we better hit the road before it gets too wild.” He gave Caroline’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “You going to be okay?” he asked her.

  Panic flashed across her face, then retreated. Begrudgingly, I knew I had to play the good hostess.

  “Caroline, follow me and I’ll get you one of those ‘Hello, My Name Is’ stickers. You don’t mind wearing one, do you?”

  She grimaced and smoothed a hand over her soft Angora sweater. “That’s fine.”

  I started to walk away, but Samuel caught my eye. The cold blue from the book signing was entirely gone, replaced by nothing but warmth. “Thank you,” he mouthed.

  I narrowed my eyes, and he got the message. I wasn’t doing this for him, or for Caroline. I was here for Danita, and I was going to give her a perfect bridal shower if it killed me.

  Whatever made Danita so sour when she first arrived dissipated, and soon she laughed with the rest of her guests. The bridal shower went well, despite the near-disaster with the sheet cake, the glares Molly sent toward Caroline, and my spilling a glass of punch down the junior bridesmaid’s back. Angel’s little sister was nice about it, but she was not pleased with the red stain streaking the zipper line of her lavender blouse.

  Caroline was quiet, aside from the occasional name-dropping or comment about how she saw the same gift in Fifth Avenue’s such and such culinary boutique, and how divinely it whisked eggs, brewed coffee, cooked a seven-course meal. I tried not to notice how impressed the other ladies were with her high-class exterior, how they emulated the refined way she crossed her ankles. It didn’t bother me in the least when Molly’s stepmother—who was so tan she’d nearly turned to leather—asked Caroline what it was like to date a famous author and have her name appear in gossip mags. Then my own mother, for Pete’s sake, asked about the hype surrounding the movie. Thanks, Mom. After Caroline finished expounding upon the dreariness of having one’s life become tabloid fodder, no one asked her anything more.

  We played your typical shower games, ate cake (everyone commented on the precious strawberry hearts), and fawned over Danita with all the attention due a bride-to-be. She loved it, and I was in high spirits. When I drove back to Boulder that evening, I felt rather proud of myself. I’d given my friend her dream bridal shower and managed not to gouge out the eyes of my ex-husband’s new girlfriend, all in the same day. This was progress.

  Of course, that progress might collapse like Jericho after I met with Jaime Guzman Tuesday night. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if involving Jaime was a mistake.

  Chapter 7: Punching

  Heavier, larger rafts cannot avert hydraulics like

  canoes or kayaks are able to, and the paddling crew

  must speed up and punch directly through

  the hydraulic to avoid ensnarement.

  I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN when I left the TrilbyJones mansion to find that my Jeep’s battery was dead, it wasn’t a good idea to meet with Jaime Guzman.

  My nerves were already a mess. For the past three days, ever since I read the part in The Last Other where Samuel wrote about Neelie’s lack of peripheral vision, I tried to pay attention to all of the little details going on around me, rather than focusing straight ahead. But enough was enough. I’d stumbled over a fire hydrant. Missed my mug when pouring tea. Shook a loosely-capped ketchup bottle and splattered it all over Molly. I decided to take whatever cryptic passages Samuel wrote with a grain of salt.

  I arrived at five after seven. The smell of burnt grease stung my nose and eyes when I entered the nearly empty Lyons Café. Jaime waited for me, already pissed. Tucked into a cracked faux-leather booth, she had shoved a cup of coffee to the side, half finished. Her lips were pursed tightly, fingers drumming the table to Roy Orbison and rattling the chrome napkin holder and table tents.

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, car trouble.”

  Jaime snarked. “Right.”

  With her sharp Latina features and round eyes, Jaime was naturally beautiful. If she ever decided to don lipstick, skirt, and heels, she could probably bring a courtroom to its knees. But like me, Jaime was a little rough around the edges. Okay, a lot. Her sleek black hair was tucked under a pageboy cap. In fact, her entire body was hidden in the baggy cargos and snarky T-shirts she favored. Another winner tonight: a mustard yellow one with “Illiterate? Write for Help” scrawled across the front.

  “For the record,” she said, “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I’m on the clock.” I froze, menu half open. “Relax. I’m not charging you exorbitant legal fees. Just a little pocket change to save face.”

  I exhaled. “Please don’t ever volunteer for a children’s charity.” I nodded to her T-shirt.

  “Unless it has to do with Labradors, this—” she motioned between us “—is as charitable as I get.”

  I scowled at her implication.

  “Qué tan burro eres, Trilby, don’t get your little feelings hurt.”

  “I’m hardly a charity case.” I sniffed indignantly.

  Jaime gave me a dubious look. The waitress came—neither of us was hungry, so we just ordered more coffee. We talked about a pot bust over by Platteville, then a Lab she had begun to train (she nearly had me convinced to get a furry, slobbery friend), until a respectable amount of time had passed.

  As I blew on my steaming cup, Jaime dug into her messenger bag and slapped a black leather binder on the table.

  “What’s this?” I reached for it, but she kept a firm grip.

  “Research. I’ve done homework on your gal Caroline, and she’s a piece of work. Did you know she’s a beauty queen?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know much about Caroline Ortega, save for her involvement with Samuel.

  “Runner-up Miss North Carolina, 1998,” she said, opening another sugar packet into her mug. “Hispanic Daddy’s a fast-tracked VP at a diversity-conscious 401(k) company in Raleigh, even though his Ortega line was in the US a hundred years before the CEO’s granddaddy munched rotten potatoes in Ireland. The company got hit really hard three years ago. Mama’s become a Stepford wife, but she used to be a painter in Mexico City. Daughter was a champion equestrian and member of the varsity cheer squad. Total suburbia ‘keeping-up-with-the-Joneses’ types. But Caroline’s smart and hardnosed. She was guest editorialist for the local weekend paper…in middle school. She earned her way into NYU. And Samuel obviously sees something in her that’s attractive, so don’t underestimate her prowess.”

  “I already know she’s on a different playing field. Why do you think I called you in to deal with her?”

  Jaime clanked her spoon in her coffee. “Whatever. From what I can tell, Caroline’s whole life is about appearances. What certain people think of her. She’s a publicist lamehuevos.” Evidently, she forgot I was something of a publicist, too. “So if there’s one thing Caroline’s afraid of, it’s…”

  I stared dumbly at Jaime. “Looking bad?”

  Jaime rolled her eyes. “Not just looking bad. Hell, if she worried what everyone thought of her, she wouldn’t have gone ape shit on your iced chai latte. That’s low class. So’s Starbucks, but to each her own.” I hoped Jaime never visited Seattle, for her sake.

  “So…” I motioned for her to continue.

  “So, Caroline’s afraid of looking bad in front of the right people.”

  “Samuel.”

  “Samuel, the Cabrals, Hollywood, New York somebodies, the media. Now we come to killing two birds with one stone.” She slid the folder over to me. I pushed my empty mug aside and flipped it open. It was filled with print-outs of articles, paparazzi pictures, financial contributions, public records, even both Samuel’s and Caroline’s N
YU grade transcripts. Son-of-a-shrew, how had she compiled all of this? Divorce lawyer, of course. Woman was in the right profession.

  “Not everything is in there. I’m still digging up stuff. But it seems as though your boy had quite a wild time after your separation.”

  I shifted in the booth, uncomfortable with where this was going. “I know. Alonso and Sofia had to go out to New York for a year.”

  “After that his record is squeaky clean, except for his asinine romantic blurbs on Page Six.”

  “Yeah, I know about those, too.”

  Jaime continued. “As a publicist, Caroline’s worth her weight in gold if she’s managed to keep these post-divorce hijinks buried. I suppose he’s still fairly new on the tabloid scene, so it could only be a matter of time before an enthusiastic reporter finds out. It’s a PR nightmare waiting to happen…” She looked at me pointedly.

  Anger and fear churned up my throat. This is what she meant by two birds? I slammed the dossier shut and slid it back to Jaime. “And you won’t help the media. You are not to use his arrest record in whatever little Machiavellian scheme you have cooking, do you hear me? Stick to the trifling stuff.”

  “Trilby—”

  “Absolutely not! I’m not going there. Besides, do you think he’d give me the answers I need once he found out I leaked this to the media?”

  “Geez, just a week ago you were after both of their cajones! You really suck at revenge, you know that?”

  I held firm. “Then I suck at it.”

  “I could take care of everything in one swoop. But you don’t want to play dirty, I guess.” She shrugged.

  “Nope. Thanks for your time.” I tossed a few dollars on the table and began to slide out of the booth, but she grabbed my forearm.

  “Fine, fine. I have a Plan B.”

  Oh crud. Had she dug up his library fines and parking tickets, too? I set my purse down and tentatively settled back into the bench. “I’m listening.”

  “Okay. Your main goal here is to get Caroline out of the way, right? Keep her busy while you get a chance to, ah, work Samuel over for answers. Press him for information.” She smirked at me.

  “Don’t be crude, Jaime.”

  “Not my concern. It’s just my job to clear out Caroline and get in a little jab at Samuel.”

  I nodded. “Nothing cruel.”

  “I can work with that.” Apparently she had been working with that. She slid a paper from the back of the binder—a large flow chart, complete with color coding and footnotes. “Tell me, close personal childhood friend and former spouse of a famous author, did Samuel Cabral have any pets?”

  I frowned. “Yes, a guinea pig named Mickey.”

  “Seriously? He named a guinea pig ‘Mickey’? This guy is screwed up.”

  The corners of my mouth quirked at the memory. “Actually, he let me name it. And it was ‘Mickey’ for Mick Jagger, not for Mickey Mouse.”

  “That’s not…in Ireland it means…” She shook her head. “Never mind. And what happened to poor, poor Mickey?”

  “He developed enteritis. Samuel gave him radish leaves that had bacteria. Guinea pigs are really sensitive to bacteria, I guess, and…he found the little fellow all curled up, dead. He was only twelve…” Wait a second. “Why does this even matter?”

  Jaime pointed to number one on her flow chart: The Los Angeles Guinea Pig Charitable Fund. I snorted. It seemed she’d already learned about Mickey, probably from Hector—he had a big mouth.

  “You make a donation in Samuel’s name, hefty enough to get big-time notice.” My eyes followed her finger down to the dollar figure, then bugged out. Sweet Mary, for guinea pigs! “We’ll tip off the LA press, they love bizarre human-interest stories like this. And believe me, the LAGPCF—está cabrón, that’s a mouthful—will eat up the attention. They’ll want Samuel to tell Mickey’s sad story at his upcoming events.” She tapped her finger on a calendar—Samuel’s public appearance schedule. “If he doesn’t, it will make him look like a stuck-up asshat who’s unwilling to go to bat for this poor little animal charity.”

  I laughed. A few café patrons turned around, and I covered my mouth. “Caroline will hate this. It’s great, but this won’t keep her busy for long—maybe a day or two.”

  An evil spark glinted in Jaime’s eyes. “Not when you hit Caroline and Sam with everything else on the chart, one after the other—you’ll have to help me fill in some of these blanks. Remember, Caroline’s all about keeping up appearances. Embarrassing press for Samuel is embarrassing press for her. And if Samuel has any pride, he’ll just want the publicity punches to end. You’ll get your answers, one way or the other.”

  “Jaime, I like Plan B a lot better. But some of this…It won’t take Samuel long to figure out where it’s coming from.”

  She gave me a strange look. “Don’t you want him to know it’s you who’s screwing with his life?”

  “Well, yes and no. I like the idea of spilling trivial skeletons-in-the-closet since he already crossed that line with Neelie Nixie. But…”

  “You’re chicken shit,” she scoffed. “I don’t believe this. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you like blaming Cabral for your inability to move on, because it’s easier than blaming yourself. You actually prefer being stuck. Total avoidance technique, see it all of the time in divorced couples.”

  “Says the woman who hates all men.” My hackles bristled.

  Jaime’s mouth twisted into a warped smile. “It’s not just men, it’s everybody. I’m your classic misanthrope. But I know it and I embrace it. You, Trilby, are in denial.”

  “You don’t know what happened.”

  “So tell me. You certainly didn’t during divorce proceedings, left me blind in the batter’s box. It’s a good thing Samuel didn’t want to clean house because you definitely didn’t stand up for yourself. After looking over those public records, I’m willing to bet you knew a lot more than you told me.”

  I banged my fist on the table, rattling the saucers and silverware. “I was barely twenty-one! Most people haven’t even met their spouses at that age, you know that? I’d already married the love of my life, lost him, and I was only just old enough to cry over a drink at happy hour. What do you want me to say? I failed at love. Even if he’s the one who left, I failed, and I wasn’t about to start airing our dirty laundry for the world to see. Especially to you.”

  Jaime let me rant, simply pursing her lips until I finished. “Does this mean you aren’t going to tell me what happened in New York?”

  “You’re a ruthless bitch, you know that?”

  “Yes. Feel better?”

  I took a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

  “Good. That means I don’t have to play your shrink and remind you how you started your own business, managed to keep your friends, learned new hobbies—none of which you failed at, blah blah blah. So, Plan B. Are you in or not?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry for calling you a bitch.”

  “Shut up, Kaye. Welcome to the club.” She raised her cold cup of coffee to me and threw the last drops down her throat.

  I wondered to which club I’d just gained membership.

  I wrote a check to the LA Guinea Pig Charitable Fund. My hand quaked the entire time—I could buy a beach-front property for the same amount I’d just scrawled across the line. Jaime had the check couriered, along with a letter explaining the anonymous donation given in Samuel Cabral’s name. The letter also told the sad, sad story of Mickey Cabral—the ill-fated family pet who’d been poisoned by tainted radish leaves.

  It actually felt relieving to get rid of some of that insane alimony stockpile, knowing it was going to a (sort of) good cause and I wondered if Jaime had stumbled onto something here.

  We made plans to meet at the café again Friday night, when I was back in Lyons, to hammer out post Operation Mickey-gate. She wanted to do lunch, but I had a lunch tradition that I wasn’t about to forgo.


  Every Friday at noon, my group of friends gathered at Paddler’s Outdoor Adventures to kick off the weekend. Our Friday lunches were a convenient way to make plans and let off steam. We originally started eating lunch together years ago on Saturdays, the summer after Samuel, Danita, and Angel graduated from high school. I was sixteen and worked next door at the Garden Market, saving up for college. When college was over and Saturdays often booked, we switched to Friday lunch.

  So much of our lives were encapsulated in that hour spent hunched over kayaks spread with carryout and sodas.

  Cassady introduced us to the joys of eco-sneakers at a Friday lunch a year ago, when Paddler’s shelved a trial stock. I fell in love with a pair of green and white Veja slides, made from reclaimed rubber and plastic bottles of all things, and never looked back. Molly never looked back, either—that was the first time she met Cassady.

  It was during Friday lunch that Danita first confessed her love to Angel, who was home on two weeks’ leave for our Glenwood Canyon trip.

  Then there were the weekends Samuel came home from college. When he rolled into town, he’d go straight to Paddler’s, pull me away from my lunch, and kiss me soundly. Sometimes that kiss continued in the Garden Market back room with tangled tongues and frantic groping. That is, until Audrey Wexler’s elderly mother caught us behind crates of whole grain bread, rounding second base and heading for third. After the word “underage” passed her lips, we tried to be more discreet.

  Though life shifted and changed, the tradition continued.

  When I pulled up to Paddler’s around noon, I was already beyond frustrated. The morning had been spent calmly arguing over the phone with a ski rental client about why “Going down with you since 1973” was not a family-oriented business slogan. Then our webmaster called the minute I hung up, telling me that one of the TrilbyJones servers crashed and we were on back-up.

  Everyone was already there, crowded around an overturned kayak, when I entered. Warm pine paneling covered the walls, lined with wet suits and helmets, colorful kayaks and canoes, oars, and mountain bikes. Framed eight-by-ten photos were scattered between outdoor rentals, our faces bright behind ski goggles, whitewater helmets, or rappelling gear. There were six Shoshone rapids pictures—one for each year Angel and I tried to surf the unconquerable hydraulic.