House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  Her hair has always been her best feature—dark brown like a mink’s, thick and silky. All the time she was growing up, her mother would brush it for hours while they sat with her little sister, Julie, eating dinner off trays in front of the television set. Julie’s hair was naturally curly, it was allowed to grow wild and free, she never had to endure the pulling and brushing. “Your crowning glory,” her mother would whisper to her as she pulled the brush through it, stroke after methodical stroke. “You must always take care of your crowning glories, Katherine Theresa.” Even though she had been jealous of her sister’s freedom from the brush, she still takes the time to burnish her hair, it’s her one indulgence from which she doesn’t slack off. Her mother had paid attention to her because of this head of hair.

  She eases her way in as a spot opens at the bar, catches the bartender’s eye.

  “Something with bubbles,” she asks him. “No sugar.”

  “Perrier okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Lime?”

  “Please.” A nice touch; she appreciates that.

  She pays for her drink and eases away from the bar, looking around to see if there’s anyone here she knows. She enjoys being alone, mostly these days she prefers it, but an unescorted woman in a bar, especially during Fiesta, is fair game. She’s seen it for years from the other side, she knows where that can go—usually down, too often ugly. Before she moved to Santa Barbara, on the occasions when she was in the company of women, they would go out in groups or pairs; but she doesn’t have a woman friend here close enough to do that with. In her line of work you don’t easily meet other women you can relate to.

  As she surveys the crowded room she sees Garrison French standing at the far end, talking and laughing with some people, loud and boisterous, a cigarette in one hand and highball glass in the other—a tall, semibalding, good-looking WASP with the beginning of love handles, dressed casually in wash pants, faded Polo shirt, Top-Siders without socks; not her type at all, even with all the changes she’s gone through in the last two years. It goes through her mind that he’d be doing himself a favor by joining a gym.

  Of all the people in the world she doesn’t want to see right now, Garrison is at the top of the list. He’s a partner at one of the big law firms in town; they’d met at some pretentious party, and had dated, on and off, for about three months; on her part, more out of boredom and convenience than anything else. Upon awakening one morning she’d come to her senses and realized he was a tiresome asshole, someone she didn’t want to see anymore, but she hasn’t gotten around to telling him. Big mistake; the town’s too small to duck people for very long, especially people in your line of work. She should’ve been honest with him up front. She doesn’t like him, she never did, but she hates hurting anyone’s feelings.

  Like radar, he spots her before she can turn away, pushes through the throng towards her.

  “Kate, hi. What’re you drinking?” he asks, feigning good-naturedness. The drink in his hand is not the first one.

  “Club soda,” she answers. Go away, please. Just go away.

  “Haven’t seen you lately,” he informs her, his voice lawyerish with insinuation.

  “I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “I called a few times. Left messages on your service.”

  She kind of shrugs. Do you need me to draw you a picture?

  He gulps from his drinks. As casually as he can: “Who are you with, Kate? I don’t mean—you know what I mean—now. This evening. You here with anyone?”

  “Just myself.” He’s beginning to piss her off.

  “Why don’t we have dinner? I’m not with anyone, either—no one I can’t lose,” he throws in, an attempt to flatter her.

  “I can’t,” she says, the lying coming easy, not even the slightest undercurrent of remorse, “I’m meeting up with somebody. Later, in a little while. Soon.”

  “Well.” He’s at a loss. “I thought we had fun together. …” He tails off.

  “We did. Don’t make more of it than it was.”

  “We’ve been dating half the summer,” he protests, his voice gathering heat.

  “I’m not dating anyone, Garrison. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Just like that? You break off a relationship just like that?”

  “I don’t want a relationship, so yes. Besides, what we had was not a relationship.”

  Saying that, she drains her drink, sets it on a waitress’s passing tray, and pushes past him, out onto the sidewalk.

  She motors on down the street in the direction of Kris & Jerry’s Bar, where she might run into one of the secretaries she knows from the courthouse. There’s still plenty of light out. Men like Garrison don’t set foot in bars like Kris & Jerry’s. She’ll have one margarita, to celebrate the end of Fiesta.

  That’s bullshit. The drink is to calm her nerves, Barbara Stanwyck time from the classic movie channel. Might as well fire up a Virginia Slims while she’s at it, go whole hog. Got a light, big boy? She’ll stick to beer. A woman’s drink for a real woman.

  “That’s it, up ahead,” Frank tells Rusty, pointing. “Home sweet home.”

  It’s not your home, it’s mine, Laura thinks, but she holds the thought to herself. The trip is over now, she can bottle her resentment for the fifteen minutes it’s going to take to dock and tie up. Holding on to a line, the ocean spray stinging her face, she watches the coast come at them, the old dock and the beach and the dense growth leading up the cliff. Her family’s property, to the horizon and beyond.

  “What time’ve you got?” Rusty asks Frank, squinting against the low-lying sun as he peers down into the murky water lapping at the dock, which he’s never seen before. He’s taken the helm from the other guy, he’ll bring it in himself; this is an expensive vessel they’re sailing, and their cargo’s even more expensive.

  “Quarter after seven.”

  “After we tie up we’ll have to sit tight,” Rusty informs him in a low voice, making sure Laura’s out of earshot. He holds three fingers up between the sun and the horizon. “An hour at least.”

  “This is private property, man,” Frank protests heatedly. “There isn’t anyone around for miles. We’ve got a full-time security service, we don’t even allow surfers.”

  “That’s not a problem?” Rusty queries. “The security?” He’s been reassured several times, from the opening conversations about this enterprise, but this is explosive shit they’re sitting on.

  “I’ve told you: no,” Frank answers, exasperated. “I gave them all the day off, ordered them to go into town and party. Not a soul will be around—they don’t question the boss’s orders.”

  Laura would grind her teeth if she heard him talking like this, although technically they do work for him, because he works for her parents.

  Actually, the real reason she never confronts him on issues like this is that he can have a vicious mouth on him, and she never knows when it’s coming—he’s lashed out at her before for voicing her opinion, even though he’s the hired hand.

  He’s a man, he’s older, and he’s her lover. That gives him the power, and they both know it.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Rusty answers laconically. “You hire me, you play by my rules. What’s the hurry, anyway?”

  “Laura’s parents are expecting us.”

  “You said to whenever.”

  “But not forever.”

  “I hear you. We’ll wait anyway.” He turns his back on Frank, ending the conversation.

  The reason they don’t want Laura to hear them is that she doesn’t know about the cargo they picked up in Ecuador, two days before she joined them. This old buddy had called him out of the blue, Frank told her, he hadn’t heard from the guy in years, he was going to sail south to the Galapagos Islands for some serious scuba diving, then come back up north. He wanted Frank to join him, relive the bad old days.

  Laura had wanted to make the trip with him; but that wasn’t feasible. Rusty (the old friend) wanted a few da
ys of just boys hanging out. She could fly down to the Panama Canal and meet them there, there’d be plenty of good diving as they made their way up the coast.

  The first two days after she’d met up with them had been great, the diving as good as anywhere she’d ever been. Frank had been all over her, showering her with affection and passion. Then Morgan had joined them, which, as far as Laura was concerned, sent the trip south. It wasn’t Morgan’s body that pissed Laura off, it really wasn’t. It was her brains, or lack thereof. Laura hates dumb broads. It reflects on her, on all women of intelligence.

  “Rusty’s horny,” Frank said when she protested. “Besides, it’s his boat, he’s the captain.”

  Bringing Morgan along for the ride had been Rusty’s idea, which Frank, once he understood the logic of it, had wholeheartedly embraced. Another woman, so Laura would have a member of her own sex to hang out with (that went over like tits on a boar, which Frank suspected would be the case); that was the so-called “official” reason; in reality, Morgan was a beard, a true innocent, because like Laura she really thought a cruise was a cruise was a cruise. If they ever did get busted—a one-in-a-million shot, but still, the possibility had to be acknowledged, they all knew that the risks were worth the rewards—Morgan would be an inviolable backup to Laura’s claims that she, Laura, didn’t have a clue about what was going on.

  They secure their vessel, both bow and stern tied firmly to the dock so the boat can’t bang against the pilings and make a $5,000 dent. Rusty and his helper work easily, efficiently. They’re the best in the business at what they do; Rusty’s been taking out charters for twenty years all up and down the Pacific Coast, he’s sailed as far north as the gulf of Juneau and halfway down the Chilean coast, not to mention countless trips to Hawaii, Tahiti, and points west and south.

  In all those years, Rusty had never lost a boat, either to the elements or the authorities. His hang-loose surfer looks and attitude are only surface-deep; he’s conservative, cautious to a fault, which is the main reason (after months of exhaustive research) Frank hired him. That and the fact that Rusty will haul anything anywhere, if the price is right and the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in his favor, which this voyage, after a lot of careful planning, was.

  Laura, having gone below while they tied up, now comes up onto the deck from the main cabin, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder, a T-shirt and plaid Big Dog bermudas pulled over her bathing suit.

  “Do you have all your stuff?” Franks asks her. “You check through the lockers, bathroom, storage bins?”

  “Yes, Frank,” she promises, soothing his anxiety, which she doesn’t understand. If she did forget something on the boat she could call the people Frank chartered it from and they could mail it to her. Sometimes he can be too much of a mother hen.

  “Okay, then,” he says. “I’ll see you …”

  “Whenever. Don’t take too long.”

  “I’ve got to stay until they’re gone,” he tells her, his voice also low. “I trust Rusty, but it’s your family’s dock and I feel responsible.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Against her better judgment, she had given them permission to put in at her family’s private dock north of Santa Barbara, because it was Fiesta, and during Fiesta the harbor’s a zoo, there’s no mooring for miles; with the clear understanding that they’re leaving tomorrow at first light for points unknown to her. She had wanted to say “no,” but she would have felt like a snob. Besides, Frank already promised them, she could feel his unspoken pressure.

  He kisses her neck. “I won’t be long.”

  She kisses him back. He can be a prick at times but she loves him, that’s the way it is. He’s a man, a man among the boys she’s known all her life. “And keep your hands off Sheena,” she adds, directing her stare at Morgan, who’s striking a pose on the dock.

  “If that’s the best I can do, I’m pretty pathetic. I’ve got you, babe, and that’s more than enough woman for any man.”

  Which is a crock of shit, but he’s her man, you put up with it.

  She calls out in false bonhomie to the others: “See you later, guys. It was fun. Thanks for everything.” Then she starts walking the length of the dock (uttering a final “and fuck you” under her breath) towards a dusty Jeep Grand Wagoneer which is parked alongside a couple of ranch pickups, both of which are adorned with camper shells.

  “Hey, wait up!” Morgan calls as she emerges from below deck, wrestling a Samsonite valpack behind her. “I’ll ride in with you.” She’s pulled on a pair of skintight shorts over her bikini, the two-inch-wide top barely concealing her nipples.

  “You’re not going in till I do,” Rusty informed her curtly.

  “But why do I have to wait around here?” Morgan pleads. “I want a real shower, I want to wash my hair.”

  “Because you’re with me, not her,” Rusty answers with finality, putting his body between Morgan and the dock.

  “Don’t bother Laura,” he orders her. “And get your silly suitcase out of our way.”

  Laura gives Morgan a bemused smile, as if to say “your problema, sister, not mine.” Tossing her bag into the back of the Wagoneer, she starts the engine and takes off up the private hard-pack dirt access road that winds through the hilly overgrowth to the highway. After waiting a moment to let the dust settle, she gets out of the car to unlock the security gate, swings it open, then turns and looks down the bluff, at the boat.

  The men are lounging on deck, drinking an end-of-the-journey beer. Morgan, apart and alone, stares up at the car. Even from this distance Laura can see the pathetic look on Morgan’s face.

  “Hasta la vista, baby,” Laura sings out gaily. She shuts the gate and slams home the combination lock, twirling the dial and pulling it hard to make sure it’s secure. Then she jumps back into the car and eases onto Highway 101, disappearing in the flow of the traffic as she heads south towards the Queen Mission city.

  “Okay, everybody who’s done this before, I want you on this side, the rest of you, over here with me.”

  They are in what used to be, seventy-five years ago, the gymnasium of an exclusive all-girls high school, decades defunct now. Located in the center of town (a block from the bus station, making it especially convenient to seniors), the county appropriated it by eminent domain a couple of decades ago and brought it up to speed, serving now as a multicultural center for a multitude of gatherings: “The New Woman: Empowering Her Liberty Through Non-Competitive Sexuality”; Craft Gatherings: “Pottery for Seniors”; and this evening’s dance class, “Introduction to Western Swing with Ron and Gloria.”

  Kate is clustered with the other rank amateurs, wondering what the hell she’s doing here. It seemed like a good idea a little while ago, when she spotted the poster on the bulletin board of the Venezia Cafe, a local coffeehouse where she had repaired to escape the meat-market frenzy of Kris & Jerry’s. A break in the action; to sit in a quiet, comfortable spot, listen to some jazz coming over the CD system, peruse this week’s issue of The Grapevine, the weekly alternate newspaper, while sipping a double latte, so as to better fortify the body and soul for one more plunge into public revelry before going back to blessed solitude. But no! Like a brain-damaged girl-scout she had to check out the poster, remember that she’d been wanting, on and off, to learn how to dance country; and here, a foot in front of her face like a small gift from the gods, she spies a sign promoting an absolutely introductory lesson two blocks down the street, starting in less than half an hour. How could she resist?

  “Okay now,” instructor Ron tells Kate and the other stags, “you and you, you and you, you and you,” all down the line. Boy-girl, boy-girl, near the end running out of boys, so some of the girls become boys for now, don’t worry, they’re reassured, partners are changed after every few dances, everyone will have the chance to dance their own sex’s part.

  “I guess it’s you and me,” Kate’s partner says to her.

  “Guess so,” she replies, looking up at him. />
  “Lucky me,” he says with a grin; a nice grin, for real.

  She could have done worse, she thinks. She could have done a lot worse. Fairly tall, hard and athletic; rough as a cob, that’s her immediate impression, but with the kind of lived-in face that’s sympathetic rather than off-putting. Dressed like a cowboy; a real one, not the drugstore kind. Jeans, old scuffed boots, short-sleeve western shirt. About her age, she guesses, give or take a few years one side of the ledger or the other. In fact, she realizes, looking around at the other men in here, this fellow is the pick of the litter.

  “Have you ever done this before?” he asks her politely, as they wait for the lesson to start.

  “No. You?”

  “A couple times, informally. You know, in a dance bar where they’re playing something by Garth Brooks or someone.” He smiles. “I’m pretty much a left-footed dancer, so you’ll have to be patient with me.”

  “I’m no great shakes myself,” she tells him. Which isn’t true; she dances well enough, particularly the slower ones, she likes them when she’s with a man she cares about, being held close and feeling a man’s body pressed up against her own.

  “We should introduce ourselves,” the man says with old-fashioned formality. “My name’s Cecil Shugrue.”

  He holds his hand out. It’s callused, cracks around the nails. Maybe he is a cowboy. She’s never met one.

  “Kate Blanchard.”

  They shake hands. He knows how to shake a woman’s hand; nice and strong, but not hurtful. Big hands—hers is lost in his, and she isn’t petite.