GIRL WITH A PAST
A Novel
Sherri Leigh James
This is a work of fiction although some places and events are loosely based on the author's unreliable memory. Names, most events and places are either products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Sherri Leigh James
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Kate James and David Oh.
Cover Copyright © 2015 Sherri Leigh James
All rights reserved.
www.SherriLeighJames.com
Smashwords Edition
This book is also available in print at most online retailers.
To my partner in all things,
my husband Michael
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
Berkeley, May 1969
The day I was murdered, I thought all I had to fear was being tear-gassed on campus.
With our faces covered in paisley bandannas, we looked like gangs of marauding outlaws swarming the campus instead of university students. We braved swooping helicopters and air filled with tear gas to get to class on the south side near Sather Gate.
I avoided that side of campus as much as possible, but I had one class in Dwinelle Hall, near Sather Gate. Just outside of the Gate, rows of bayonet bearing National Guardsmen with their faces hidden by gas masks, kept troublemakers off campus. Problem was they couldn’t tell just who the troublemakers were. All us hippies looked alike to them.
I crossed Strawberry Creek and was almost back to the relative peace of Northside when I heard the sound of slapping helicopter blades headed straight for my position. I pulled a damp bandanna over my nose and mouth, put my head down, and made a run for it.
Driven by the increasing noise of helicopters, I scrambled toward a grove of redwood trees. I had made maybe twenty feet when my throat and eyes began to burn, tears cutting my visibility. Almost there, almost to the North Gate, when my foot hit a pile of leaves and I slid, landing on my ass.
A strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
“You okay?” he muttered behind his handkerchief.
He towed me through the trees, into the nearest building. We stumbled down the wide hall to a drinking fountain and splashed our faces with cool water. My back to the wall, I slid to the floor and tried to breathe.
My rescuer plopped down beside me. We both gasped for air, wiped our eyes, and blew our noses. When I could see again, I noticed that even blood shot eyes and a running nose failed to lessen the attractiveness of my new friend. Dark chocolate brown hair curled around his ears and neck; blue eyes matched his faded jeans.
My breathing came easier, easy enough for me to speak. “I’m Lexi.” I rasped and extended my hand.
“Derek.” He took my hand and held it. “Are you hurt?”
I pulled my hand away and shook my head.
“You fell pretty hard. You didn’t break anything?”
“I’ll have an awesome bruise on my ass.” I drew blonde hair away from my face, tucked long locks behind my ears and into the neck of my fur lined jacket. “I’m okay. Just sick of this routine.”
“Yeah. I can dig it,” Derek said. “You would think we were causing the trouble.”
Certainly Governor Reagan thought we were dangerous criminals––or the enemy. Claiming that the Berkeley campus was “a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sexual deviants” Reagan had sent in the National Guard to deal with us.
How far things had disintegrated since December of 1964.
The party, later known as a “sit-in”, in Sproul Plaza had started four and a half years earlier when Mario Savio removed his shoes to climb onto the roof of the police car holding Jack Weinberg. Savio then invited students and faculty to sit down around the vehicle.
Military recruiters, industrial head hunters, and campus organizations set up tables lining one edge of Sproul Plaza just outside Sather Gate. Weinberg had been manning a table for CORE, Congress for Racial Equality, when university police placed him in the car. Thirty-two hours of peaceful sitting by three thousand people while Savio delivered rousing speeches ended with Weinberg being released and the crowd dispersing. The Free Speech Movement born that day on the Berkeley campus soon morphed into an anti-war, anti-establishment movement.
The People’s Park crisis that Reagan now responded to with a heavy hand had minimal participation by students or faculty until the National Guard started shooting people. The 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco had drawn thousands of young people to the Bay Area. Some of the ones who had wandered over to Berkeley from the Haight had camped on a vacant plot of land near the campus and owned by the university. Park inhabitants and local residents began protests when the university decided to clear the site of the campers and vegetable gardens in order to build a parking lot and athletic fields. Thanks to the governor, the National Guard not only brought bayonets, rifles and shotguns, they also filled the skies with helicopters spewing tear gas.
Some of us just wanted to go to class, and graduate.
I stood up and adjusted my book bag on my shoulder. “Thank you for the rescue.”
Derek scrambled to his feet, hurried to open the door, and walked beside me out of the building, through the North Gate.
No sign of helicopters, but the smell of tear gas lingered. Masked students and faculty––after years of interrupted campus life––rushed by us attempting to go about their usual business in a war zon
e.
“Where’re ya headed?” He stuck close to my side as I rushed across Hearst Avenue before the light turned red.
Aw, for chrissakes. Yeah, he rescued me, but did that mean I had to be nice to him? Why couldn’t I be a bitch without guilt tripping myself? He was exactly the excessively handsome kind of guy I wanted to avoid.
“Thanks again. I do appreciate you helping me.” I forced a smile and waved. “Ciao.”
I lengthened my stride; maybe he’d give up. I glanced to my left; he was hanging in there. His legs were even longer than mine. I wouldn’t lose him easily.
He caught my eye and smiled that charming crooked grin. Oh man, those crystal blue eyes. And dimples.
I couldn’t help myself. I returned the smile.
He grinned. “Groovy.” He waved at the tables and chairs on the wide patio of the Euclid Café. “Coffee?”
I nodded and followed him to a table.
“Sit, please. Cream?”
I nodded.
“Sugar?”
I nodded again, dropped my book bag next to one of the chairs, and sat down.
He walked to the line of students and faculty waiting to order.
A newspaper left on the table headlined another Zodiac killing. A photo of his latest victim headed the front-page story, a copy of a letter purportedly from the Zodiac was next to the photo.
I couldn’t handle any more evidence of our fucked up world that day. I moved the newspaper to a nearby table.
Derek returned with two steaming mugs of coffee before I had a chance to reconsider befriending a stranger. Especially a handsome one. He placed both cups on the table and passed me a handful of sugar packets.
“So . . . where do you live?” he asked.
At least he didn’t ask me “what’s your sign?” Or “what’s your major?” But then the smears of acrylic paint on my bellbottom jeans might have given my art major away.
“Up the hill.” I waved up toward the top of the Berkeley hills.
“Headed home?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of work to do.” I rubbed dried paint off my finger.
“What’re you painting?”
“Kinda abstract nudes in landscapes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Like cubist nudes descending staircases?”
“I’m not Picasso or Braque. Landscapes, not interiors.”
He flashed that damn smile revealing dimples again. “I’d love to see them.”
That I ignored. “What’s your thing?”
“Architecture.”
“And you escaped the Environmental Design building?” I asked with a smile. “Don’t they keep would-be architects chained to their drafting tables? I see people working in there twenty-four hours a day.”
“True, too true.” He sipped his coffee, and then grinned. “Couldn’t hack it, had to get out and find a pretty girl to rescue.”
I drank the last of my coffee. “Thank you.” I forced a smile.
I wasn’t going to violate my new agreements with myself. No more handsome and charming men. Too dangerous for my bruised heart. Women throw themselves at men like this one.
“I really do have to get to work.”
He drained his cup and stood up. “May I walk with you?”
I shrugged an "if you want to" and picked up my bag.
The small talk continued as we headed up the hill to the house I shared with a group of close friends plus an assortment of guys who did not officially live there but hung around a lot.
My roommate Carol was about to graduate and already job-hunting. She was beautiful and talented so she would land a position in a fashion house quickly.
Jeff was a law student and my best friend since childhood when we had spent summers at the same camp, playing the same sports.
Dave, a Cal grad, commuted to a job in the city.
All three of them led busy, productive lives.
The others, the hang-arounders, needed to get a life. They used our place as their Berkeley base. All were graduates, and either trust fund babies or wannabes who managed to kill every day fucking around, tripping to the beach, hanging out in the Haight, going to Janis Joplin & Big Brother & the Holding Company concerts in Golden Gate Park or the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore.
Some days I was envious of their freedom. But once I started painting, I forgot everything but the music and the flow of my brush.
Two of the hang-arounders, preppie looking Jamie and surfer Ron, lounged on the front porch swing smoking a joint.
Jamie had actually attended prep school and was one of the trust fund beneficiaries.
Preppie wannabe Ron imitated Jamie’s mannerisms, dress, and accent, but his rugged face and his engaging smile charmed both men and women. Jamie’s relaxed manner was equally appealing. Both lit up with curiosity when we came up the front walk and climbed the stairs of the entry porch.
“Yo, Lex,” Ron said, “Who’s your friend?”
Shit. I’d planned to say good-bye and close the door in his face if I had to, but these two guys were going to make it awkward. To make matters worse, another of their group, Tom pulled into the driveway and climbed out of his jeep. Tom, who had actually grown up in the city, affected a cowboy look with boots and a fringed leather vest.
“Can I see your paintings?” Derek asked.
“Ah, shit man, you gotta see her work. It’s far-out.” Ron jumped up from the porch swing, opened the door, grinned in answer to the scowl I shot his direction, and invited Derek into my house before I could think of how to get out of this one.
One of my recent canvasses, a colorful abstract landscape hung above the fireplace in the living room. I followed the four guys into the entry hall and groaned as I watched Ron point out the painting.
“Wow. Cool.” Derek directed a nod of appreciation to me.
“I really gotta get some stuff done. Thanks again.” I ducked down the hall toward my room as I heard the men introducing themselves. Jeff was exiting his room.
“Hi,” I said to him. “If you see Carol, please tell her I need to talk to her.”
Jeff nodded his strawberry blonde head. “Sure.”
In my room, I dumped my bag on my bed, grabbed a new brush from my desk and headed out to the garden shack I had converted to my studio.
Through open green house windows, I could hear Derek, Tom. Ron, Jamie, and my housemate Jeff in the living room, yukking it up and talking in those low, guttural voices that told me they were passing a joint. Any minute now they’d start discussing the relative merits of Acapulco Gold versus whatever they were smoking.
I loved those guys, but that dope story was getting old.
I closed the rusted, metal-framed windows, slid a Beatles record out of the album cover and set it on the turntable. “In Penny Lane there is a barber––” The sweet sounds took the edge off my tension.
Carol cracked the door enough to poke her dark head in. “Jeff said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I went to the library after I saw you on campus.” I motioned for her to come in. “Know what the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are?”
She shrugged, pulled her long black hair back from her pale face. Seeing how white her face was made my heart ache with concern for my best girlfriend. Carol did her best to hide her soft heart and anxious nature, but I saw through her tough shell.
“Vomiting,” I said, “diarrhea, abdominal cramps.”
“You’re still on that subject!” She walked out; the crooked hinges thwarted her attempt at a door slam.
* * *
Two male voices sounded as though they were on the brick patio right outside my studio and they weren’t discussing dope.
“You asshole, why did you bring that girl to the ranch? A complete stranger, for god’s sake?” I recognized Jamie’s voice coming through the cracks in the wall. “How could you violate our agreement like that?
“Hold on, you didn’t mind her bein’ there when she had your dick in her mouth.”
I didn
’t want to hear about their sexual adventures, I turned up the volume. “Penny Lane is in my ears and in . . ."
“You didn’t mind havin’ her then.” That had to be Tom’s voice raised in anger. I remembered how Tom’s brown eyes flashed sparks when he was pissed off. Tom was another member of the clique of four who lived on a ranch in Marin County; the ranch that Jamie’s family owned.
Something, maybe a body, slammed against the thin exterior wall of my makeshift studio. “ . . . Penny Lane––" I turned the music down. What the hell was going on out there?
“Get over it. Question now is how the hell do we get rid of her?” Tom lowered his voice, but continued with a hiss, “Found a guy who’ll help us with our problem.”
What were they talking about?
“What exactly do you mean?” Jamie’s voice lacked his usual insouciant charm.
The tension level out there was far from the usual for these guys. They were normally laid back, joking and teasing.
“Met this guy at the Monk. He’s nuts, but hell, if he gets caught he’ll get the blame,” Tom said. "I tol––"
“Hey, guys. What’s going down?” I smelled tobacco smoke and, because he was the only one of the guys who regularly smoked tobacco, even before I heard his voice, I knew my housemate Dave must be out there too.
“A-ah, not much.” The anger in Tom’s voice had disappeared. Whatever they were talking about, they didn’t want to share it with Dave. That didn’t surprise me. Dave had never been an accepted member of the clique, but had he been listening to them?
Maybe I didn’t want to know what they were up to. I pulled the windows of the studio shut tighter, cranked up the volume, “beneath the blue suburban skies . . .” and set to work determined to get the shade of blue right.
* * *
The layer of blue paint I had added to my canvas would have to set up before I continued so I headed into the house just before sunset.
“Lex, that Derek’s an okay guy,” Jeff called out from the living room as I headed down the hall. I turned around to where the gang had congregated on the sofas in front of the fireplace.
“Definitely, he is cool,” Jamie said.
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