“Then I have the same thought I always do as I sweat, staring into the mirage. What a fucking waste.”
I don’t expect him to commiserate, but he does. “Same as I feel when I walk by a pool and can’t jump in. I’m a swimmer. I know the feeling.”
“Good to know.”
He snorts when I say, “Now, back to me. I’ve always wanted to get in that fountain, Mason. From the time I was little, and stood on the edge. I always wanted, just once, to jump in. The only thing that ever stopped me then, was my mom physically restraining me. Even when I tried to sneak in, her mom senses would zero in and she’d grab me around the waist, sometimes barely catching me, and give me a solid, shake of her head.”
“A plan started to form. What were they gonna do, arrest me? I stupidly thought. Before I did anything, I looked around the circular pool. I didn’t see anyone official. What I did see was moms. All around me with death grips on jumping, squirmy, crying kids. Holding them back from just diving in. One mom was actually leaning precariously out over the water, holding her toddler’s toe up just so she couldn’t touch it. It was all so pointless. I felt like rapture could be achieved if those moms would loosen the reins a little.”
He eyes my water bottle as I take a sip.
“Aquafina, 24 ounces. Human sized.”
He smirks. “More like thimble sized.” Which makes me snort.
“Ass, it almost came out of my nose.”
“Go on, ass lover.”
Rolling my eyes, I continue. “Somebody had to be first. I kicked off my shoes, swung my legs around, and planted my feet in holy water. Everyone, including the jumpy toddlers, stopped what they were doing to gape at me. I moved a few coins out of the way with a toe, and a young mother actually gasped.
“Fed up, I began making snow angels with both feet, moving the money out of the way. When I had a butt-sized spot, I slid off the edge into the coolest, most refreshing water on this green planet.” I close my eyes, remembering. “It felt so good, Mason. Like I was stealing a dip in the Fountain of Youth. I leaned my head back against the concrete lip and felt truly content. Why had I waited this long?
“That’s when I heard the first splash, the beginning of anarchy. A grip was loosened, someone else beside me had a fuck it moment. Before long, I was bombarded as kid after kid jumped in. Moms with their feet dangling in, ready to jump in at the first sign of trouble. As I looked around, I felt proud. This is what this damn fountain should be.
“Fun, giggles, yells. It was a moment. Just one, stuck in time, that I’ll never forget. Even now, it has the ethereal glow around the edges, like angels were watching from somewhere and blessing the moment. Either that, or I was just really high. I was so deep in the warmth of a community bonding, just loving all the people around me for sharing this with me. I didn’t feel the first tap on my shoulder. I was blissed out.
“‘What’s going on here, miss?’” I mimic the cop with no emotion whatsoever.
“Shrugging, I opened an eye and peered up at his face, a shady spot. I squinted, but all I could manage to make out was that he was super official. ‘I was hot.’
“‘Can you take off your glasses please?’” I turned up the watts on a real Chloe, melt-your-heart, beaming smile, but my shenanigans and I did not affect him.
“‘Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to step out of there. I’m gonna need some ID, too.’” He reached to help, but I was already using the side of the fountain to hoist myself up. See, I didn’t want to taint my moment any further by being dragged over the side, probably kicking and screaming, by some officer. So I made a graceful exit.
“‘I got it, I got it.’” I told him to grab my wallet out of my portfolio bag, which was leaning out of my reach on the dry side. He’d need my pot card, too, once he saw my bloodshot eyes.
“I removed the glasses. I knew better than to ignore a command from the police, but I did make my eyes as wide as they’d go, like this.” I turn toward him and try to push my eyes out of their sockets.
He laughs and waves me away. “Chloe, stop that. You’ll lose an eye.”
“But I look sober, right?”
“No!” he laughs and shakes his head. “All your faces look the same, cute.”
“Aww, Mason. Okay, so, as I was making my way over the side, I noticed I was the last one actually inside the fountain. All my other community bathers had turned into lookie loos outside the pool. I was the only one caught in the actual act.
“I turned to a dripping wet kid standing in front of his mother, and whisper out the side of my mouth. ‘You couldn’t give me a heads up?’ He shrugs and looks up at his mother and that’s all the answer he needs to give. I’ve got a mother, too.
“‘Ma’am. Over here, ma’am.’” Like I’m trying to escape or something. I’m just turned away from him, from everyone, because I suddenly remembered the white gauzy dress I was wearing. A wet, clingy, now-transparent dress. He waited, and when my eyes were on him, he opened my bag of tricks, and looking inside he says in a louder voice meant for his partner, “You said it was okay for me to get your wallet out of your bag, right, ma’am?”
“Well, I didn’t know what was happening, but I said, ‘Yes’ and watched his partner start quarantining us. Moving the good citizens of Gotham away from Chlo-zilla, I guess. I turned back to the kneeling cop, the ma’am-er, and watched him sift through my stuff with a pen like he doesn’t want to leave fingerprints.
“‘Pete.’” He said his partner’s name like I’ve got an Uzi in there.
“I sank down onto the concrete wall, my feet planted on the legal side, and know I’m in trouble. Not only is there more than a misdemeanor of marijuana in there, I’ve got about four pipes, two vape pens…and pills.
About a felony’s worth, I’d imagine. I didn’t know if I’d get a longer sentence because they’d been smuggled across the border or not, but I was toast. I’d really got myself in deep, no pun intended.
“Pete got me off the edge, makes me stand, dripping, on top of my leather sandals, which will never fit right again, and headed over for a quick look in the bag. He strode back over to where I was dripping. I hadn’t even taken a breath-I was so nervous.
“‘Are you high?’ he says while peering into my pupils with a penlight. Maybe he didn’t call me ma’am, but I still sang like a canary.
“‘As a kite, sir.’” My mom always said never lie to the police.
Mason blows out a breath. “Wow Chloe…respect.”
“Right…just wait.
“He motioned to the back of the car, where criminals sit. ‘Have a seat, miss. I’m going to need to see your pharmacy license for the bag of loot you got there.’
“I had held it together up to that point. But the heat, not enough lunch, the stress, ah, cancer, just everything, made me dizzy. I went to reach for the bench, but it wasn’t there any longer. ‘She’s gonna pass out!’ the same dripping kid yelled, and I swear, there was actual glee in his voice, like maybe he was going to get to see something good for a change. My head split open like a watermelon on the pavement.
“Officer Pete grabbed me and flung me like a nose missile—” I wiggle my eyebrows at Mason, “—into the back seat of their patrol car.
“My communal bathing buddies had now turned into my jury. Through a filthy rear window, I saw them, clutching their kids, pointing, accusations in their eyes. She’s the ringleader. That’s her. Thank God, you got her. You know, she smiled at my kid. Her feet were naked!”
I start to laugh as Mason joins in. “We didn’t want to get in. She made us!”
I nod. “The usual crowd versus one mentality. I couldn’t look for long, couldn’t stomach the Judas crowd. Still wet from their own frolicking, pointing dripping fingers at me.
“I did the only thing I could think of. Just what this situation called for. I stuck my tongue out at the lot of them, hoping the one who felt the need to call five-o on a sick girl gets a glimpse, and blow a raspberry as Pete stands in the open door
, blocking me from view.”
“That a girl.” Mason’s impressed.
“‘Do you want to tell me about all this?’” The one kneeling with all my baggies of pills asked, snapping pictures of my crimes, carefully laid out on the pavement. I was sure by tonight, it would be in the paper, that I was some kind of kid-crazed drug dealer.
I shake my head. “What a waste. Paul…”
I turn to Mason, feeling the need to explain Paul. “He’s my boyfriend, or was my boyfriend, till I got sick.” I Vanna White my whole body. “I mean really sick, and broke up with him. Well, not broke up, because he’s still my sex slave—no that’s racist—more like my fuck puppet, but nothing more. I’ve gotta wean him off of me so he doesn’t go cold turkey when I kick the bucket.
“Oh, and that’s another thing, Mase. This friendship?” I motion between us. “It’s on the Netflix plan. You can borrow me, enjoy my company for a while, perhaps share me with others.” I smirk. “But not on the F#ck It List website, please. I just found out what MelissOphobia is, and I’m allergic to bees.”
He laughs. “An allergy to bees is called Melissaphobia?”
“No, fear of bees. Do you doubt me? Look it up. Oh, and it’s meliss-oh-phobia.”
“But just keep in the back of your mind: I gotta get that Chloe back, she’s due soon. You got me?”
“I got you, girl.”
“Okay, because I don’t want any complaints from you when I disappear.”
He nods.
“That’s it? No explaining it to death till my eyes bleed out of my head, just…” I mime a dopey nod.
He grins, popping a heaping spoon of Apple Jacks and orange milk in his mouth. “That’s it.” And he dribbles milk down his chin.
“Mason, I can’t take you anywhere! Is it possible to keep your mouth…? What’s this? Is that? Second lunch? Are you a hobbit? How the hell are you so thin? Do you have a tapeworm?”
“Swimming,” he dribbles out and slurps milk from his bowl. “I got hungry. You’ve been talking forever. Consider me weaned. Are you gonna get back to the cartel bust or not?”
I smile. He’s too much…like my brother, who’s off serving, defending my right to die any old way I want in the good old US of A. Thank you lord for this replacement, Ronny. I beam. “Cartel…who, Paul? Oh my God! Please, when you meet him, can you please…ask him that? He will love it! My cartel guy, ha!” I laugh.
“Paul is a student at the Universidad of CLA. As in UCLA. He’s completing his doctorate. He’s more American than you! Plays Hacky Sack daily on the lawns of UCLA when he’s not catching waves. He’s Mexican, but a total surfer, which I love! He’s sooo muy caliente with a tan. Every sentence ends with ‘brah.’ Not kidding. It’s his thing. I love it.
“He was my dream come true. Now he’s slowly being shown the door. I love him, and that will never change…but I don’t want him jumping in the hole with me or anything. Hence the weaning process. But, yes, straight-A student or not, he did mule my drugs in—most likely shoved inside that guitar of his. I prefer to think of them smuggled up his butt, or maybe in a donkey piñata! But more realistically in the trunk of his father’s car. Very posh. Because it drives on the smooth road of immunity.”
“What’s his father do?” he asks. I detect a note of caution in his tone.
“Don’t worry, he’s not in the cartel or anything sinister like that. He’s some diplomat for Mexico. Paul and his family are filthy rich. They live on this side, but I think he’s—” I have to think for a minute. Paul explained it, but only once. “He doesn’t like to talk about his father. Feels like he’s rubbing it in or something. I don’t know. I guess the best way to describe it would be to say…he’s the Ambassador to Mexico. Lives in the Mexican Embassy and everything.”
He scratches his head, but nods.
I blow out a breath. “Anyway, no matter how they got here. Paul went to a lot of trouble to get them for me. Mostly experimental drugs that have shown promising results in Mexico. There were at least, like, a thousand pills in those baggies, so it was a waste.
“Despite my damp clothes and the chilly air conditioning the squad car’s cranking, I was sweating bullets. By the time they both got in, I was shitting a literal brick. I was going to the big house. I’d be labeled as a mule and they’d probably put their whole hand in all of my orifices to find my hidden stash.
“Once it’s real and the doors shut, my cute act goes out the window. I squawked like a parrot through shivering teeth.
“‘I’m sorry, sometimes I just don’t think. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been dying to sit in that fountain. Make snow angels in the piles of coins. I didn’t know it was illegal to fulfill my life’s wish.’ Really laying it on there. And when all else failed, I whispered, ‘I’m sick. No, not sick, dyiiing. Can you let me off with a warning? Please, Mr. Officers?’”
They didn’t even acknowledge me. We weren’t moving, Officer No Emotion was running my name through his system, looking for warrants or other nefarious dealings, most likely.
I turn to Mase. “I’m clean, no record, I promise.” And then cringe when I remember the picture.
“A giant picture of my license popped up before I could look away from their screen. I didn’t want to see pre-sick me from my driver’s license. When I took it, I hated it. Thought I looked like Shrek. Fat cheeks, bubbling green eyes, looking like I was going to burst out laughing. And I was. My best friend, Lola, hid behind the privacy screen and said, ‘Say five to ten.’ Right as the camera clicked. I begged the lady, but bureaucrats will not be budged. I didn’t get another picture.
“Now, the last official picture of me looks like I’m ready to crack up. That will go over great with the coroner. I wish I looked even half as good now as I did in that picture.”
I pause. Mason’s not in the screen. “Mason!” I yell.
There’s a flush and he turns me back to face him as he washes his hands. “Inside voice please. Go on. I want to see your license, by the way.”
I get up, pull my wallet out, and hold it open against my laptop screen. “Not so close, Chloe. Take it off the screen, please.”
I do, and he takes a good long look, moving from my ID to me and back. “Hmmm. It’s hard to tell…but I think you’re way more beautiful in my computer.”
“Liar,” I say, but feel a blush creeping in.
“Especially when you blush.”
I purse my lips, trying not to smile, but I can’t stop it. “That’s the best thing anyone’s ever said. To me.” I flutter my lashes. “That I look better than my driver’s license.”
“Well, you do.”
“Ah ah ah.” I waggle a finger at him. “Don’t get too attached, remember.”
I do. “Netflix. Is that a rule or something? Should I be listening?”
I look him right in the eye. “No, Mason. Netflix is a way of life. Treat everyone like they’re going away soon in a red paper envelope, never to return.”
I shrug. It’s basic really. “Now, back to my arrest.
“Pete held up my bag. “‘I’ve got your bag, ma’am.’”
“‘It’s Chloe.’” I picked at a piece of fossilized gum that was stuck to the back of the seat.
“‘Chloe,’” the driver, the ma’am man, owner of the probing pen, sounded my name out. Uh oh, he’s getting ready to read Miranda’s to me, and I feel like I’m going to swoon again!
‘“There’s a city ordinance against swimming in there.’ He thumbed over his shoulder. ’So what’s the real reason you did it? Did you get in to steal dope money? Maybe drop a stash of drugs?’
I shrugged. “I was hot,” I sighed. That’s it. I don’t have anything else. We are in the midst of a drought, and we’ve got the Taj Mahal right in the middle of downtown with about 50 signs that say no hands in the water. No swimming.’ I snorted. ‘It’s like, a foot deep.’ He watched me in the mirror. Time to shut it and ask for Lola, my one phone call. She’s better than my lawyer, Mason. Lola’s my
personal fixer.”
He nods, but doesn’t look like he’s getting what Lola is to me.
“Ahem. Fun fact, Mason.”
He makes the most ridiculous face and claps excitedly in front of his face. “Yeah! Goody, another fun fact!”
“Settle down over there.”
He smiles. “Lay your fun fact on me.”
“Lola isn’t just my friend. She’s my fixer. She saved me from a life of peeing for show down in Mexico. I owe her my life.”
“I think it’s you that needs to settle down and eat. You’re talking crazy. Speaking of, I’m starving. What about if you let me come over and pick you up, take you to a nice restaurant, where we can continue to talk about your rap sheet face to face?”
“I can’t. I’m post-chemo, remember? Germs? Cooties? I’ve got to stay in. And how are you starving?” I make a big display of looking at my watch. “It’s only been an hour since the Apple Jacks. Mase, you gotta slow it down.”
He picks up the computer and moves me into the kitchen. We go through his very well-organized fridge. “If I was there, I’d have to knock something over. Like that stack of Laughing Cow cheeses. Yep, that’s it. Knock that wheel off the top. That’s it.” He hesitates for a minute, then he does it! He flicks the top wheel right off the stack and slams the fridge door shut. “Yeah Mason, you rebel!” My turn to clap.
“There. You happy?” he asks. “Wait.”
“Don’t fix the cheese, Mase! Leave the cheese alone!”
He pops his head back, mouth full of cheese.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m hungry,” he says around a mouthful of spicy pepper jack wedge.
Then it hits me. He wants to get off.
Go out among the living, not stay here trapped in cyberspace with me.
I yawn, “Mason, you should go out. Call one of your fluffy kitties and go out on the town.”
He looks…hurt. “Chloe, if you need to go, just tell me. Don’t try to pawn me off on poor, defenseless kittens.”
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