Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery)

by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  Victoria cleared her throat. “This is Dolores—” She paused, realizing she’d never asked me my last name.

  “Actually, I go by Lola,” I said.

  “Let’s welcome Lola to the team,” Victoria commanded in a “do it or else” voice. “She’s taking Rochelle’s place.”

  A choir of scoffs spread through the women; it was the sound of a collective cold shoulder. Nice.

  I frowned, the coils in my gut winding tighter. It felt like high school all over again, the instant rivalry between the cheerleaders and the outsider. I had an urge to collect my stuff and escape to the library where I could read my favorite novel and be in my own world.

  I realized immediately that in order to solve Operation: Dance, I’d have to make a huge effort to get to know these women. That would be no easy feat. But there was no time for schmoozing and kissing cheerleader booty at the moment. I had routines to learn.

  Victoria, the slave-driving gazelle, clapped her hands and practice began. Less than an hour in, I knew I was in trouble. The routines were complicated, and the dancers’ talent and commitment were evident. I’d underestimated what it took to be a Courtside Dancer and overestimated my ability and endurance.

  My legs were already like boiled spaghetti; right now, even Miley Cyrus, in her younger days, could totally take me in an alley. Wearing sweatpants had been a bad choice. Sweat dripped between my cleavage and down my back. The dance shorts or leotards most of the girls wore would have been a much better option. I took mental notes so I’d be prepared next time around.

  Another half hour passed before Victoria finally let us break. Not a second too soon. My entire body felt like rubber, and I panted. I gulped from my water bottle, but the others sipped, delicately dabbing the sweat away from their foreheads and the backs of their necks. Show-offs. Seriously. Were they even human?

  The girls I’d met at Camacho’s managed to mask their amusement at my suffering—just barely—but the others weren’t so kind. I fought hard not to scowl. “I need them,” I muttered to myself.

  The last two-and-a-half hours of practice felt like an eternity. Or a traditional Spanish Mass at the pink Catholic church off of Broadway, which went on forever. And a day. I was beginning to feel the crack of the invisible whip Victoria used to drive the dancers into submission. I was all over the map, my legs and arms flailing in exactly the wrong positions a good part of the time. My head went right when it was supposed to turn left. Victoria clapped. “Stay with it, Lola! Oh, good God. Right. Right! That’s it.”

  I gritted my teeth through my panting.

  One of the dancers turned to Selma and said in a stage whisper, “Where’d Victoria find her? What are we, a charity? She’s going to make us look bad.”

  Selma shrugged. “She’s not that bad, Carrie. She’ll be fine by Friday.”

  “Hard to replace Rochelle,” Carrie said, clearly not convinced that I’d be anywhere close to ready by Friday.

  Victoria called for a break and I gulped another liter of water while straining to listen.

  Carrie and Selma continued their conversation. “Have you talked to her?”

  “Who?”

  “Rochelle.”

  My ears perked.

  Carrie dabbed her chest with a towel. “Larry did. Guess he saw her at some club they both go to.”

  “She’s definitely not coming back?”

  Carrie flicked her chin toward me and I quickly turned away. She dropped her voice and I heard her say, “Lance won’t let her. Fraternizing with the players. I heard he really laid into the players, too.”

  They walked farther away from me and I pursed my lips. Being undercover with a partner would be so much more fun. Reilly as a Courtside Dancer? If only…

  Not a single one of these dancers, including the ones I’d met at Camacho’s, had welcomed me. Where was the team spirit? Where was the camaraderie?

  Of course, with my red, blotched face and the sweat soaking through my shirt, I might as well have screamed, “I’m an amateur!” How could they not know I was just a poser? I couldn’t keep up and I was having a major #fail moment. Not a good first day on the job.

  After another run-through of the most difficult routine, Victoria clapped her hands together three times. “That’s it for today.”

  Finally!

  I doubled over, catching my breath, and managed to straighten as the dancers applauded. I collapsed onto a chair and watched as they chatted and trickled into the locker room.

  “Great,” I said. My voice echoed, the arena sounding hollow now that the eleven other dancers were gone.

  Victoria came up next to me, folding her arms over her chest. “I didn’t think you could do it, but you held your own.”

  I arched a brow at her. “Ha! I’m not even close to being in their league.”

  Her harsh expression softened. “They’re a hard group to please. You’d be surprised if you saw yourself. You have a natural rhythm. You were right in there. By Friday you’ll be perfect.”

  I dropped my head between my knees. “I can’t feel my legs and I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Tomorrow will be better. You’ll see. I’ll see you then at two thirty. Be ready to work. And trust me.”

  Trust her. Maybe after my head stopped pounding and I could stand again. But I found myself believing her. Despite the fact that I thought she was completely crazy, her compliment buzzed around in my head. I knew I had natural rhythm with salsa. That was sultry, sexy, and I felt the music in my core. But this type of dance was bold and extreme and athletic. It wasn’t me.

  Only, apparently, it was.

  “I’ll have your outfits by Friday’s game. Size six, right?”

  I shook my head. “Eight. Medium shirt.”

  She scanned me, arching a brow. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I had been a six once upon a time—when I was, like, twelve years old.

  Victoria cleared her throat. “Bra size? Thirty-four?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cup?”

  I peered at her through my lashes. My dog didn’t know this much about my underclothing. This woman was Mensa good. “C.”

  “See you tomorrow then,” she said, apparently committing my measurements to memory.

  I lifted my hand in a wave. After another few minutes, I managed to haul my carcass toward the locker room to see if I could talk to Selma, all the while not sure I ever wanted to see Victoria and the rest of the Stepford dancers ever again.

  …

  The dancers still weren’t in a reach-out-and-touch-the-new-girl kind of mood. I didn’t learn a thing, except that, after a long, hot shower, I could feel my legs again. By the time I was coherent, I was also alone in the locker room. No Selma. So much for starting strong out of the gate.

  Perfect. I changed into my restaurant uniform, which consisted of black pants and a gauzy white blouse with brightly embroidered flowers across the front, and proceeded to do a thorough search of the lockers—and found each one empty. I rummaged through the garbage cans and found used tissues, tampon casings, a Hostess Twinkies wrapper, paper towels, and a slew of other personal hygiene items. But no clues. No mysterious letters. Nada.

  I hurried into the hallway and ran smack into a custodian and his giant yellow cleaning cart.

  “Con permiso,” he said quickly.

  “No, no,” I said, waving away his apology. “Está bien.”

  Was he the regular custodian? Could I get any information from him? “Me llamo Lola,” I said.

  A deep frown pulled the skin of his face downward. “Mucho gusto.”

  His tone didn’t seem particularly pleased, though he’d given me the polite response. I tried again, asking him if he was the regular custodian here.

  “Sí,” he said, his expression wary. Probably because I looked like a murderer in my waitress outfit.

  “Bueno,” I said, but my teeth clenched. Only it wasn’t actually good. I was getting nowhere. Which meant I had nothing
to lose. I asked the only question I could think of: Did he have a letter for me?

  His frown deepened and his eyes turned to slits. “I don’t have any letters,” he said in Spanish. “I know nothing.” He shoved his cart forward, forcing me into the locker room.

  Oh, he knew something, all right. With my hands on the edge of his cart, I pushed back, stopping him. “You know nothing about what?”

  He clamped his mouth shut. “Nada.”

  “Mira,” I said. Then I told him one of the dancers had gotten a letter but didn’t know who it was from. “¿Me puede ayudar?”

  He screwed up his face, concentrating. “I no help. I know nothing about nothing,” he said, this time in broken English, then he shoved his cart forward.

  I made a show of taking my hands off his cart and sidestepping out of his way. If this man was anything like my grandparents, the fact that he’d spoken in English meant what he’d said was final. I knew better than to push.

  “Gracias,” I said. More flies with honey and all that, but inside my head I added, Thanks for nothing.

  Chapter Four

  In the kitchen at Abuelita’s, my father worked the stove. Sauces simmered. Meats sautéed. One by one, he constructed burritos, enchiladas, gorditas, and tacos. “Hola, mi’ja,” he said as I came in.

  “Hola, Papi.”

  The knife my brother, Antonio, had been using to mince green onions stopped its rapid chopping. He scowled the second he saw me. “You’re late.”

  I was so not in the mood for him playing boss. I was tired, starving, sore, and anxious about seeing Jack. I scowled back. “I have a new case at my real job.”

  “Good for you.” Antonio tossed the green onions into the vat of guacamole, squeezed a lime into it, and stirred. “Pero, you need to be here when you’re scheduled. Somos tu familia.”

  “Yes, but the restaurant is yours,” I said, “not mine. I’m here now.” I tried to end my sentence the way my mother did, with an implied punto.

  But my punto fell short because he kept pushing. “It’s all of ours.”

  I really had to start paying more attention to Mami and how she made things so final with her tone.

  I flicked my chin toward the swinging door that led to the dining room. “It’s all good, Tonio. Sylvia’s still here.”

  My brother grumbled, but he knew I was right. He went back into the dining room, the obligatory harassment over. Appealing to my father, I smiled sweetly, rubbing my rumbling stomach with one hand. “¿Papá, por favor, puedo tener una enchilada?”

  His leathery face relaxed into a thousand lines, his salt-and-pepper hair aging him beyond his fifty-three years. “Sí, pero”—he wagged a wooden spoon at the kitchen at large—“stay behind the cooking line.”

  I waited while my father crafted two cheese enchiladas, filling them with minced onions, a mix of shredded cheese, and sliced black olives. He topped them with a ladleful of red chili sauce and slid the plate across the stainless steel warming shelf.

  I covered the plate with a paper towel, popped it in the microwave for a few seconds, then lopped a dollop of sour cream and a healthy spoonful of chunky guacamole onto the enchiladas. I returned the plate to the warming shelf. “¿Arroz y frijoles, por favor?”

  My father took the plate, heaped on rice and beans, and handed it to me just as Antonio came back into the kitchen, his arms weighted down with dirty plates.

  I took a bite, muttering a blissful, “Gracias.”

  “Por nada,” Papi said.

  Antonio sighed in exasperation, shaking his head. “Hurry, would you? Chely can’t make it tonight.”

  Oh, man. That meant I’d be filling salt and pepper shakers, refilling hot sauce bottles, and cleaning the pint-sized flower vases to get them ready for tomorrow. “Why?”

  “She has cheerleading practice.”

  I whipped my head around. “Since when is she a cheerleader?”

  “Uh, since the beginning of the school year.” Antonio waved a hand in front of my face. “What’s going on in there?”

  I forked a piece of enchilada into my mouth. Wow, I was too out of touch with la familia Cruz. Then a thought struck me. I could get private cheerleading help from my fifteen-year-old cousin if Victoria couldn’t get me up to speed muy rápido. Pero, no. Chely couldn’t keep a secret.

  “What are you mumbling about?” my brother asked.

  I swallowed and took another bite. “Nothing.”

  “You better watch it,” he said, still peering at me as if I’d done something wrong. “You’re gonna pack on the pounds if you keep eating like that.”

  “More to love,” I said, my mouth full of enchilada. I swallowed and readied the next forkful. “Busy day. Lot of running around,” I said.

  He grabbed the plates my father slid onto the warming shelf, backed out the swinging door to the dining room, and left me to finish my dinner.

  When I was done, I stopped in front of the mirror by the In door, ran my tongue over my teeth and my fingers through my hair, pulling it into a bulky ponytail. Streaks of copper shot through the dark brown like shards of light. I liked the effect, even if my grandmother constantly reminded me that it was unnatural and indecent to have dyed hair.

  Of course she didn’t believe in painted fingernails, either, something I’d embraced at ten years old. The fact that nail polish was forbidden but earrings on infants were commonplace was something she could never give me a satisfactory explanation for. If I ever have a daughter, I know my grandmother will be the first in line to make her scream by piercing her tiny lobes.

  With a half-apron tied around my waist, I tucked my order book into the pocket and pushed out the swinging door into the dining room. Antonio was right. It was a busy night. Three-fourths of the tables were occupied with diners and I got right to work filling baskets with chips, spooning homemade salsa into molcojetes, delivering water, and bussing tables. Sylvia waved as she grabbed her purse and ran out the front door.

  “Where’s she going?” I asked Antonio as he headed toward the kitchen to pick up an order. Sylvia had been taming my brother’s philandering ways ever since they’d started dating a few months ago, so I knew he’d have the scoop.

  “Meeting with the social worker. She’s supposed to get her son back next week.”

  I felt a surge of joy for Sylvia and I suddenly didn’t mind pulling the shift at Abuelita’s; Sylvia had spent too long thinking that her infant son was dead and now she was getting him back. That was more important than my aching thighs.

  I worked steadily for the next hour and a half. Finally, there was a lull and I leaned against the hostess counter, running through one of the dance routines I’d learned in my mind. My eyes opened at the ding of the bell above the door. And blinked when they registered Jack coming into the restaurant. He had his laptop tucked under his arm and his ever-present journalist’s notepad clutched in his hand. God, he made my insides turn to goo. Tousled brown hair, dark skin, the faintest hint of a dimple gracing his cheek, and eyes just for me.

  My gaze had started to travel down his body, but it screeched to a stop at his torso. Oh no, not eyes just for me. He had eyes for Sarah, too. Or some crazy sense of responsibility toward her that he couldn’t explain to me for some reason. Which made him honorable. Damn it, this was too complicated.

  “Working hard?” Jack’s question interrupted the reality check I was giving myself.

  I brought my gaze back to his face. “Always.” Absently running my hand over my hair, I fed the ponytail through my fingers. Then I took a slow yoga Ujjayi breath to get some balance in my thoughts. “Do you want a table?”

  A slow smile spread onto his lips. “In your section.”

  I frowned. If he kept looking at me like that, I might have to kick him out. “My section is the whole restaurant. This way.” I led him to what was fast becoming “his table” and pulled out the chair that faced the wall. I didn’t want him spending the entire evening watching me. We’d come too close to making love t
oo many times. He wanted it. I wanted it.

  But I’d had a few too many years of crumbs in bed with Sergio, and I wasn’t about to give myself to a man who wasn’t fully committed to me.

  No way, no how.

  I was not a one-night-stand kind of girl.

  He set his laptop on the chair I’d pulled out for him. “Thanks.” Then he sat down on the other side of the table, facing the dining room. And me.

  Damn. So much for that plan. “Do you know what you want?”

  His dimple enticingly etched itself into his right cheek. “I know exactly what I want.”

  A slow tingle burned its way through my body. ¡Dios mío! If I wasn’t careful, Jack’s charm would wear me down and my grandmother would be saying rosaries to save my heathen, wanton soul. Again.

  I swallowed and regrouped. “From the menu. To eat.”

  His smile took on a hint of wicked. This wasn’t going well.

  I breathed in through my nose. Constricted my throat. Out through my nose. “For dinner,” I added.

  He picked up his menu. “Not sure yet.”

  I waved my order pad around. Other tables needed service. Hot food waited in the kitchen to be delivered. “Okay!” Way too perky, Lola. Get a grip. “I’ll be back. Take your time.”

  We did our own seductive dance from that moment on. I took his order, and he flirted with me. I refilled his water. And he flirted some more. I brought him his food, and he tried to get me to sit with him.

  “I have other customers,” I said, weakening from repeated exposure to his pheromones.

  “Yes, but will they tip you like I will?”

  “What, are you going to give me the answers to the Sacramento Bee’s Sunday crossword puzzle?” He could do it, too, being one of the paper’s most popular columnists.

  “Not quite what I had in mind,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” I grinned, un poquito seductively. Two could play at this game. I put my palms flat on the table and leaned toward him. “Just what do you have in mind?”