“No. I just wish you could mind your manners. Play by their rules a little bit.”
“Like what?”
“Like quit growing marijuana, for example. That’s stubborn and stupid, wouldn’t you agree?”
Karen said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Nellie said, “Okay. What did you and Nick Renner talk about after I left? And what exactly is your relationship with Nick, anyway?”
“We aren’t going to talk about that, either.”
“This is sick, Karen. You’re putting us all in danger. You blew off the meeting with the health inspector, you’re risking our plans for the hotel with your illegal garden, not to mention your whole yellow community, and you’re stoned all the time, and I love you and I’m being a bitch and I’m so sorry and fuck it all, I don’t understand why, but I miss Joley!” Nellie lowered her face into her hands and blubbered.
Karen put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. Nellie’s flesh felt cold.
“I miss him too,” she admitted. “The little shit. Let’s get back into bath two and warm up before we call it a night.”
When they were up to their chins in the warm water again, Karen said, “There are a lot of things you shouldn’t worry about, Nellie. Renner’s not going to expose my garden, because the garden is half his. He gets half the crop. I provide the plot, the soil, the seeds, and the labor of planting and harvesting.”
“And what does Nick provide?”
“He keeps his mouth shut. Don’t worry, he won’t tell anyone. He needs the crop as much as I do. I don’t mean that. I don’t need the crop—”
“Yes you do.”
“I do not.”
“You do too. Wake up, Karen. Be careful. Our brother died from overdoing it.”
“That wasn’t marijuana. He was just drunk. On wine, your drug of choice.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Nellie? Would you shut up for a while? Please?”
“Okay.”
It had been quite a winter. Dealing with shit: the Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors, the sheriff, the fire marshal, the Health Department, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Tourism, everybody in the county who wore a suit or a badge wanted something from Karen Hope. As far as Karen was concerned they could tell their troubles to Jesus, because she wasn’t interested in a thing they had to say. Bunch of negative energy.
Worst of all were Joley’s asshole friends from Pacific Power and SoCal Development, who kept calling. They seemed to feel they had an agreement with Joley that was still binding. Fuck them. Hope Springs belonged to Karen now. Karen and Nellie. Karen hadn’t signed a thing with Pacific Power or SoCal Development, and she never would.
She took Nellie’s hand underwater and said, “They will never take Hope Springs away from us.”
Nellie squeezed back. “Damn right. And you know what, Karen? What I just realized?”
“What?”
“When we’re dressed like this, we look exactly alike.”
8. Eminent Domain
Casey smiled politely as he opened his Volkswagen door for his date. Yes, date. Casey could not remember the last time he’d been on an actual date. Usually the women had lined up for him, were hanging around the bar wherever he happened to be playing, and if he felt like company, there was company. A lonely life, full of plenty. Sometimes he’d been in love with this one or that one, for he tended to fall in love too easily, and he had pitched his share of woo, at the microphone and on the dance floor, in motel rooms and parking lots. Other times love had nothing to do with it, but Casey had seldom been at a loss for a friendly set of painted nails to scratch his back.
But a date? He wasn’t quite sure how this was done, and he wanted to do it right. Diana Pearson was the best thing to happen to him in moons. She was worth getting the teen-age willies over. She made him feel like spring had sprung.
He gripped the steering wheel, pretending to concentrate on his driving, not knowing what to say, smelling the perfume of the woman, this beauty in an Angora sweater, this girlfriend, sitting beside him.
“Diana, I really don’t know what I’m doing here,” he admitted. “What are you supposed to do on a date?”
“I think we should go on a slow boat to China,” she answered.
———
Maybe that was too forward. Diana did not want to blow this.
Casey was a sophisticated man, a professional musician, a romancer with a clever tongue, suave. Comfortable in the center of attention. He’d certainly been the center of Diana’s attention, ever since he came to Hope Springs, six months ago. And now, it appeared, he was beginning to pay attention to her. But if she wanted this romance to work, she’d better do it right. Not gush all over him. Not wear her feelings like a sandwich board. Not shout it from the highest hills.
Oh, well, screw it, she thought. Why not?
Diana Pearson: a Doris Day for the eighties.
“Casey,” she said, her hand on his thigh, “will we have rainbows day after day?”
She felt his thigh tense under her hand as he eased up on the accelerator. He pulled the VW over to the side of the road and stopped. “Que sera, sera,” he said.
They kissed. Moonlight through the windshield.
They grinned at each other and Diana said, “Do you think we can make this work?”
“The romance or the hotel?”
“Start the car.”
———
They walked into the Key of Sea lounge of the Key Western Inn just as Warren Roberts was getting started. “Ebb Tide.” They were the first customers in the bar, although the dining area was busy. Holding hands, they approached the piano and sat on stools right up near the piano player. Warren looked up from his keys, and his face lit with a grin.
“Casey!” His fingers played on; they didn’t need his brain. Any good piano bar player, and Warren Roberts was one of the best, is schizo anyway. The fingers play the music, while the rest of the brain handles the crowd, protects the cocktail waitress from abuse, listens to the cash register, jokes with the men, flirts with the ladies, welcomes the lonely, and sings an occasional song. “Welcome to Anacapa,” he said. “Gawd, haven’t seen you in ages. But I’d recognize that hideous Madras sport coat anywhere. How’ve you been?”
“Fine, Warren, fine. This is Diana.”
Warren smiled at Diana and said, “Charmed.” Warren could make one word sound like a comedy routine, as it trailed off into a giggle and ended in a hum.
“Likewise,” Diana said. “Casey tells me you’re the best.”
Warren said, “That’s nice to hear, especially coming from the best.”
“Wait till you hear Diana sing,” Casey told him. “You won’t believe your ears.”
Warren segue’d into “Wait Till You See Her.” Casey and Diana rocked back and forth to the waltz. Warren was one of those players who could have his hands all over the keyboard at once without it sounding like mud or like Ferrante and Teicher. More people came into the bar as he played, and by the time he had finished the tune, the piano was surrounded and the waitress was hard at work taking orders. Diana ordered a rum and Coke, Casey an old fashioned.
“So,” Warren said, between songs. “Casey, how’ve you been? I heard you quit show biz and are, what, tuning pianos? That right?”
“I dropped out for a while,” Casey admitted. “But I’m back in the game, or will be soon. Diana and I will be working at a hot springs resort up in the mountains behind Tecolote Valley. It’ll be like our own club. Diana will be in charge of food, I’ll manage the staff and the front desk, and she and I will provide musical entertainment in the evening, after dinner.”
“Sounds like a sweet deal,” Warren said.
“Weekends only.”
“Even sweeter. When will this gig start?”
“Few weeks. Maybe a couple of months. We still need a few permits, and City Hall is trying to make things difficult. How’s Biff?”
“Biff�
�s great,” Warren said. “You know Biff. He found a new chandelier for our dining room, so now we’re redoing the whole first floor. Blue this time.” He played the first few chords of “Mood Indigo.”
Diana sang along, “You ain’t been blue.…” Without missing a beat, Warren pulled a microphone from under the piano and passed it to her. By the time she reached the bridge, the people around the piano had hushed to hear her sing, smiles on their faces. Warren nodded at Casey and winked, meaning: I see what you mean. You’ve got a winner here.
Casey grinned and nodded back. He knew it.
———
There was absolute zero to do in this town. Zip.
Unless of course you were Mexican. They had this city to themselves, seemed like. Even the movies were in Spanish. Anacapa was the pits.
Jeff Cushman had made the Key Western Inn his temporary home for the past two months, courtesy of SoCal Development. On weekends he was able to get up to Santa Barbara for a hit of civilization, but all week long it was meetings in Anacapa and Tecolote, long meetings that challenged his skill as a mover of mountains. Meetings with SoCal Development, Pacific Power, the County Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors, the Water District, the County Road Department, the Board of Realtors, Environmental Review Board assholes, Historical Heritage assholes, the Chumash Tribal Council (wouldn’t want to disturb any dead Indians), the School Board, the God damn churches, banks, architects, landscapers, contractors, equipment people, writers, printers, yada yada yada. City, county, state, and feds. Yada yada.
Kind of exciting, actually. Turning nothing into something. Making things happen. Today was a winner. But the evenings were a drag.
Jeff Cushman looked forward to the day, in June probably, when things finally got rolling, and he’d be finished. He would move back to Santa Barbara, to the home office of SoCal Development, with a million reports to write and a monster bonus to collect. Beamer City.
In the meantime, he was working his tail off all day, and at the end of every day he would come back to his hotel and shower and then dress up a bit and go down to the Key of Sea for a cocktail, put it on the tab, then go into the dining room for a steak rare, put it on the tab, bottle of halfway decent wine, put it on the tab, then back to the bar to see if he could hustle up any action. Also on the tab. He deserved it. He worked for it.
This bar ate shit.
Limpwrist goofball playing corny old songs on the piano, everybody laughing and singing along like Cub Scouts and Brownies. Not hardly. The average age in this dive was room temperature. There were single women here all right; every night two or three would come in and the fruitcake would make a big deal over them and they’d order their white wine by the glass and listen to him play their favorite cornball songs. Looking around, ready to be hit on. Easy pickings.
But lord. In their forties, at least.
Jeff could have gone to other places, but that would mean he’d have to drive and he couldn’t drink as much as he wanted, and it wouldn’t be on the SoCal tab, so he stuck with the piano bar at the Key Western, figuring if you fish in the same pond every day, someday you’re going to hook one.
And here she was. The one he’d been waiting for. The blonde in the fuzzy sweater, singing across the piano. Nice voice. Nice face. Tits. Nice tits.
Get ready, sweet thing. He willed her to look across the piano at him, and she did. He smiled at her, and she smiled back and tipped the microphone to him as she sang. “That feelin’ comes stealin’.” Yes.
Jeff snapped his fingers at the menopausal cocktail waitress and whistled. The waitress hustled to his side and said, “Another double Dewars?”
“Yeah. And that blond girl singing? Give her another of whatever she’s drinking. On my tab.”
———
The waitress set a rum and Coke in front of Diana and said, “Compliments of Mr. Cushman.”
Casey said, “Who?”
“The dapper Dan across the piano, with the expensive jacket and the bushy mustache,” The waitress said. “His muff-scrubber, as I’ve heard him call it more than once. He’s a piece of work, that one.”
Casey looked across the piano and identified the piece of work, who was flashing Diana a grin that said Your move. Casey put his arm around Diana’s shoulders and told the waitress, “Thank Mr. Cushman for us, and tell him his next drink’s on me.”
But Diana shrugged out of his embrace and slipped off her stool. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll go thank him myself.”
Casey said, “Oh?”
“This could get interesting,” she said. “I’ve seen that man before.” She put her purse on her stool and added, “Save my seat.” She gave Casey a chaste kiss on the cheek and slipped away.
Casey turned to Warren and said, “So who’s this Mr. Cushman? He come in here a lot?”
“Every night,” Warren said, shaking his head. “Every blessed night. He lives in the hotel. I’m thinking of bribing the maids to pie his bed so he’ll move out. If that doesn’t work, I might just spring for a couple of plump tarts to file down his horns. He treats my piano like a meat counter. Hits on a different woman every night—to no avail, I might add.”
“I hope Diana doesn’t end up his first score.”
“I think Diana has better taste than that,” Warren said, his hands pushing chords around the piano as if he were sautéing something tasty.
“I don’t know,” Casey mused. “Look at the cat she came in with.”
“Stop that. Sing me a song.” Warren handed him the mike.
Casey said, “E-flat.” When Warren’s chords settled into the key, Casey spoke the first two notes of “Hey There.”
———
As she rounded the perimeter of the piano, people swiveled on their stools to greet her and compliment her on her singing and welcome her to their midst. She smiled back, but kept moving until she was standing before the knees of the man who had bought her a drink. “Mr. Cushman, I presume?” she said.
“You got it,” he answered, parting and pressing his mustache with thumb and forefinger. “And you are?”
“Diana Pearson.” She offered her hand.
He smothered her hand in two large paws and looked her in the eye and nodded. “Diana Pearson. I’m Jeff. Buy you a drink?”
“You just did, thank you very much.” With her left hand, she rattled the ice in her rum and Coke.
“So I did. So I did. You’ll have to forgive me, I just couldn’t help buying you a drink. I mean, I don’t usually do stuff like that, but my God, what a voice you have.”
“Thank you. Are you a singer?”
“Nah. Just an appreciator. I like piano bars, you know? I mean, they’re friendly places, you know what I mean? People talk to each other in a piano bar, and a guy like me can buy a drink for a good-looking woman like yourself without her having to worry that he’s hitting on her, right?” Jeff Cushman stood up and offered her his stool and said, “Here, sit down. I’ll stand.”
“That’s gallant of you, but why don’t we just go to a table? I could stand to sit in a real chair for a change.”
Jeff nodded. “Yeah. What about the guy you’re with? You with that guy over there? The Madras jacket?”
“Casey?” Diana chuckled. “Casey’s ‘with’ Warren. I’m just along for the ride.”
“With Warren, huh?”
“The piano player. They’re both piano players. Good with their fingers.”
“It figures,” Jeff said, laughing. “Shall we?” He took her elbow and guided her away from the piano to a small table on the darker side of the room.
———
What the fuck is going on, Casey wondered. Is this a test? What? What do I do now?
He watched them dodge their way across the room, lost them in the dim light.
Am I supposed to go over there like Tarzan? What?
He turned to Warren and said, “It never entered my mind.”
———
This is going to be so easy, Jeff thou
ght, as he drew back her chair for her and watched her swivel her nice round tail onto it. Yup.
“I want you to know,” the lady said, as they eyed each other over the table, their faces lit by the candle in the little red cup, “that I’m not hitting on you, either.”
He chuckled. Yeah, right. “That’s a relief,” he said. He offered her a cigarette and she shook her head. He lit up, dragged deep, and blew a cloud high over their heads. He kept the smoke out of her face. They like it when you’re considerate.
“No, really,” she said. “I’m not. But I wanted to talk to you. I’ve seen you before, I think.”
Jeff nodded. “Seems like I’ve seen you before, too,” he said. “I can’t figure out where. Are you from around here? This is the only bar I’ve hung out in for weeks, and I know I’d remember if you—”
“Little Lulu’s Cafe, in Tecolote. Across the street from City Hall. You were having lunch with the mayor. Maybe a month ago?”
“Yeah, I eat lunch up there a lot. You’ve got a good memory for faces.”
“For some faces.” She smiled.
Jeff took another drag and pushed his knee forward under the table in order to accidentally touch hers. He felt her knee retreat. He watched her eyes. He blew the smoke slowly out one side of his mouth. Come on. Come on. Felt her knee return to touch his. Now the other one. Yes.
Contact.
———
“How about ‘Don’t Take Your Love From Me’?”
“Nah,” Warren said. This was beginning to be a drag, he thought. Casey was inflicting a first-class downer on the room. “Come on, Casey,” he pleaded. “That’s the fourth sad song you’ve asked for in a row. We’re going have them all crying in their drinks. We need something up.” He took the mike, seated it in the stand in front of the keyboard, and sang, “When you’re smiling…”
A few bars of that and the audience was with him again, singing along, the whole world smiling with Warren.
Except Casey. Casey was chatting up the cocktail waitress, ordering himself another old fashioned.
———
“So do you work for the city of Tecolote?” Diana asked.
Hot Springs Eternal Page 12
