by Tess Oliver
“Barrett and Dray are heading down there for a week of surfing. It’s some small town along the coast north of Mazatlan. Clutch and I were just wondering how much trouble they could get into.”
Just hearing his name made me lose my train of thought for a second.
“Cassie? You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Well, it’s Dray and Barrett together. They don’t need to go all the way down to Mexico to find trouble. They could find it just going to the mall.”
Nix laughed. “Hell, if that isn’t the truth.” He paused.
“Your silence speaks a thousand words. What?”
He cleared his throat. “Feel free to say no, Cassie, but would you consider calling Dray and telling him that it’s a bad idea.”
“I don’t think I can. He’s not going to listen to me anyhow. And—” I got up and walked to the window. Many people were still trying to get home from work. “—it’s really hard on me to talk to him. A big part of my adjustment here is trying to keep him out of my head.”
“You’re right. Don’t know why I even asked that of you, Cass.”
“Because you’re a good friend, and you worry about Dray because trouble sticks to him like peanut butter sticks to bread.”
He laughed. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Scotlyn just took dinner out of the oven, so I’ve got to go. It was good talking to you, Cass. And if you figure out a way to clone yourself please send your doppelganger over to Freefall.”
“I will. Take care, Nix.”
I flopped down on my couch and stared up at the ceiling. Several long cracks ran along the yellowed plaster, and I wondered if the pirate had caused the damage. A shroud of homesickness weighed down on me like a heavy lead blanket. Hearing Nix’s voice was always hard, but talking to Dray was a whole other layer of sadness. As much as I loved Barrett, I wished that Dray hadn’t been so close with him. Together they seemed to be completely out of control when it came to partying, girls and having a good time.
Footsteps pounded the hallway again. I listened for them to storm past but then a thunderous knock on the door nearly took it off its hinges. I jumped up and stared at the door. My heart pounded in my chest. I tiptoed toward the door to peek out through the hole. Halfway to the peephole, a fist hammered against the thin wood again. I was sure it would fly open. I halted my journey to the peephole.
“Penny, open up, it’s me,” a rage-filled voice echoed through the narrow hallway.
I had no intention of opening the door, and I was fairly sure Penny wouldn’t have done it either. I had no idea who had lived in the apartment before me, but something told me her name might have been Penny and she might just have left because of the monster out in the hallway. He pounded on the door again. The windows in my tiny apartment rattled with the force of it. I reached for my phone with trembling hands, but I had a sinking feeling that the police wouldn’t respond any time soon. It was a huge, crowded city.
“Penny, damn it, open up!”
I decided my best option was to call through the door and let him know that I wasn’t Penny. For some silly reason I tiptoed again. I got as close to the door as I dared and cupped my hands around my mouth. “I’m not Penny. She doesn’t live here.”
There was a long moment of silence and then a much more subdued, polite tone came through the door. “Do you know where she is?”
“Sorry, I don’t know anyone with that name.”
“Excuse me, then. Sorry to disturb you.” The footsteps retreated. Even though the entire incident had ended rather comically, I stood in the center of my dismal apartment completely shaken.
I sat back down at the table, but the sandwich looked dry and unappetizing. My stomach had twisted itself into a knot with the sudden rush of fear and adrenaline. The entire time that I’d stood there waiting for the madman to break my door down, all I could think was that I needed Dray.
I stared down at my phone. Months ago, when my happily ever after seemed within reach, I’d had a picture of Dray as the background. I’d changed it at least a dozen times since, but nothing had worked and I’d settled for a plain blue color. I picked the phone up and pushed one. I’d taken his picture off because it had been far too painful to look at, but I’d never taken him out of the number one spot on my speed dial list. As hard as it was to talk to him, I suddenly had a terrible urge to hear his voice. Besides, I could at least offer some words of advice about traveling through Mexico. There was no way I could tell him not to go. I no longer had that kind of significance in his life. Then the call struck me as a huge mistake, and I lost my nerve. My thumb slid back over the phone and I hung it up. A few seconds later it rang.
I heard a giggle before I heard Dray’s voice. “Hey, Cass, did you call me?” More giggles followed and Barrett’s deep voice boomed behind the feminine laughter. God, did I regret pressing that one on my phone. My intuition had warned me, but now it was too late.
“Uh— uh, no,” I stuttered. “I must have accidentally pressed one.” I wanted to suck the words back the second they’d left my mouth.
“I’m still number one?” I could practically smell the beer on his breath through the phone. “Dray, hurry, we’re going to play strip poker,” a girl’s voice came through the phone next, and my stomach tightened more.
“Cassie,” he seemed to be moving. I heard a door open and shut and then the familiar sounds of the marina followed. “Are you there?”
I swallowed the hard knot in my throat. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m just trying to figure out how I can time travel back about three minutes to the time before my thumb pressed one.”
“So, you were calling me?”
“Yeah, no, I mean, what the hell does it matter, Dray? I’m sorry to interrupt your night.”
“You’re not. What’s going on? Are you all right?” For a fleeting moment there was enough real concern in his voice to make up for the giggle filled invitation to strip poker.
“I’m fine,” the waver in my voice was hardly convincing. “It’s just that this big guy came pounding on my door looking for some girl named Penny, and it freaked me out a little.”
He didn’t respond.
“Dray? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, “don’t do this to me, Cassie. I don’t want to think about you being there alone and so far away that there’s nothing I can do to protect you.”
The door incident coupled with his angry plea pushed tears from my eyes. I sniffled into the phone.
“Don’t cry, Cass. I’m not mad. It’s just too hard for me to know that no one is there to look after you, and it’s a big, crappy city with all kinds of crazies.”
“I’m sorry I told you,” I hiccoughed, “but I was kind of shaken, and I thought hearing your . . .” I swallowed back the rest of my words. I pushed out a short laugh and took a deep breath. “It ended with humor and I was just overreacting. Go back to your friends and forget I called. I won’t worry you again.”
“Damn it, Cass, I didn’t mean that. I just wish . . .” A fog horn sounded in the distance. “ . . . never mind. What else is new?”
A subject change was desperately needed. “You guys will have to behave like saints down in Mexico to make sure you don’t get into any trouble. Something tells me that you two acting like saints would take a miracle.”
“Shit, Nix called you?”
Laughter and feminine voices mingled with the clanging of ropes and pulleys along the dock. “You know what, Dray? I’m going to go. You’re busy, and what you do in your free time is none of my business.”
“Hey, go back inside,” he snapped. “I’m on the phone.”
“Just be super careful down there. Have a good time.”
“Cassie,” he said abruptly, “don’t hang up.”
I bit my lip and took a breath to keep my voice steady. “Really, Dray, go inside and join your guests.”
“They’re just some girls that Rett brought over. I don’t even know their names.” He grew silent
. “How are things going there? Do you like it?”
“It’s all right. It’s crowded and noisy and someone is telling me which pictures to snap so I guess it’s not the dream job I’d hoped for.” Even as I was confessing the truth to him, my mind was telling me that I should just lie and tell him that I was having the time of my life. “Are you still working down at the harbor?”
He didn’t answer at first, and I knew what was coming next. “No, I got into a fight with someone. I’m back to looking for work.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Laughter came through his phone. “I’m going to let you go, Dray. Take care.”
“Hey, Cassie?”
“Yeah?” I had no idea what I was waiting for, but I held my breath nonetheless.
“It was good talking to you.”
I closed my eyes to relieve the aching sensation. I nodded as if he could see me through his phone. “Bye, Dray.”
Chapter 20
Dray
I grabbed up my duffle. “I sure didn’t see anyone else taking that long to go through security. Either we look sketchy or that burly woman with the metal detector just wanted to keep running her wand over you.”
“She did seem to be taking her time with that thing.”
“I think she wanted it to go off so she’d have an excuse to frisk you.” We walked down the long corridor to the exit. “This is a nice airport. Clean and really modern. And definitely less hassle than LAX.”
Barrett pushed open the glass door. “What were you expecting— a three sided cardboard hut with a gravel runway?”
“Yeah, sort of. I mean if they can build airports like this, why can’t they make their tap water safe to drink?”
“Good point.” The air felt like the inside of a steamy shower stall only the soapy smell was replaced by the smell of cow manure, green grass and something that was hard to decipher but was the complete opposite of soap.
There was a line of odd looking golf carts outside the terminal. The drivers eyed us like prey. “Those are the pulmonia Pete told me about. We can hire one to take us into Mazatlan. Then we’ll have to catch a bus the rest of the way. These guys just go from the airport to Mazatlan and back.”
“We’re going to travel to Mazatlan in a golf cart?”
“Yep.” Barrett patted the pesos in his pocket.
I shrugged and pulled my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m good with that. Probably some cool scenery along the way.”
We headed to the line of carts. “How much attention did you pay in Mr. Rivera’s high school Spanish class?” Barrett asked.
“What was Spanish class and who was Mr. Rivera?”
“That answers my question. Three of the cheerleaders had Spanish at the same time as me, so I learned absolutely nothing except that I preferred their winter uniform over the spring one. The winter skirts were a lot shorter and those tight sweaters— damn.”
“So we’re screwed on the whole communication thing?”
“Looks that way.”
One of the drivers hopped out of his cart to greet us. “Mazatlan?” he asked.
Barrett nodded. “How much?”
The man’s thick moustache twitched, and he seemed to be assessing just how easily we could be duped, which, considering our lack of language and knowledge about Mexico, was a fairly good amount. “Four hundred pesos,” he said with very little accent.
Barrett reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper that had a lot of notes scribbled on it. “Pete gave me the heads up about some stuff.” He looked over the paper and then up at the driver. “Two hundred pesos.”
The guy nodded and inclined his head toward the gold cart. We climbed in back. He looked up into his rearview mirror. “Your friend, Pete, must know Mazatlan,” he said in perfect English. He must have seen the surprise on our faces. “I spent my teen years in the states. Which hotel are you heading to?” He threw his cart into gear. I grabbed the seat edge as we lurched forward.
“We’re not staying in Mazatlan,” Barrett said. “We’re going north for some Sinaloa surf.”
The driver looked up into the mirror, and the creases around his eyes deepened. “You should stay in Mazatlan. It’s more suited to tourists like yourselves.”
“We’re meeting friends up there,” Barrett continued.
The driver shook his head and then pushed earphones into his ears. We swung out onto a stretch of nearly deserted highway, and the open air concept of the taxi became really apparent. If you weren’t paying attention, one fast turn and you could be road kill.
The cool scenery I’d imagined quickly faded as we traveled along long stretches of weed covered fields with only the occasional rundown hovel to break up the scene. A different odor met at us at every turn making me wonder why they’d opted for golf carts as a way to introduce visitors to the country.
“A big contrast from that sleek airport we just came from,” I said.
Barrett stared out at the dry fields. “I think we’ll see a lot of the same, but I hear Mazatlan is really nice.”
I looked over at him. “You mean the place we’re just passing through?”
Barrett nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, I guess so, but if we stayed there it would cost too much money. We’re going on the poor man’s surfing trip, remember?”
“So, was Clutch still pissed at you for taking this trip?” We instinctively grabbed the edge of the seat as the cart hit a ditch at full speed. Our asses left the seat temporarily.
Barrett pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “Jimmy is always pissed at me, so I really couldn’t tell you for sure. I’ve got to get out of his house. I love the guy, but I need to be out from under his controlling eye. This next construction job is going to be up in northern California. They’re building some big mansion on a vineyard or something like that. I’ll be up there for awhile. When the job is over, I’ll have enough money to move out.” A cluster of chickens and roosters clogged the road, which had shrank from several lanes to one primitive path. The driver pressed the gas pedal harder, and we plowed toward the birds. In a cloud of feathers and clucks, they scurried off to the side of the road with all their wings and drumsticks intact.
“Still don’t know what I’m going to do once you leave. I refuse to be the fifth wheel.”
“You should call the guy I work with and see if you can get a job with his crew. They always need guys to haul in lumber and stuff.”
“Just what I need— another grunt position. Besides, I don’t really like construction.”
A small herd of underfed cows plodded across the road several hundred yards ahead, and Barrett and I both seemed to imagine the same scenario. We both reached forward and grabbed the seat in front of us, sure that the driver was going to floor it like he had with the chickens. But he slowed, and we relaxed back.
The cows meandered across the road like animals that had no particular place to be. A few stopped to stare at us for a moment. The driver just tapped his steering wheel to the music playing in his earphones. An old, hunched over man followed at a snail’s pace behind his herd. Our driver pulled out his earphones and yelled something to the man in what seemed like a friendly, familiar tone. The old man said something back, and the driver laughed and motioned his head back toward us. Then he said a long string of Spanish words, and I was sure I heard the word Sinaloa pass his thick mustache. Laughter followed. The cow farmer laughed too.
Barrett and I looked at each other.
“You should have stopped looking at the cheerleaders and listened to the teacher.”
The last cow had finally trotted off the road, and the golf cart lurched forward.
“At least I made it to class,” Barrett snorted.
“Yeah, a lot of good it did you,” I said. “At least we were able to give the driver and his cow buddy a moment of humor. I’m not sure what the exchange was about, but something tells me the words stupid tourist and Sinaloa were used in the same sentence.”
After a long stretch of unplanted fields and houses th
at looked as if they’d been built from refrigerator boxes, we reached a road that led down toward the beach. The white and pink plaster walls of hotels, nicely landscaped with palm trees and fountains, blocked the ocean view as the cart coasted down to sea level.
The sidewalks were crowded with tourists and locals. The scenery was better, but the sour odor still clung to the moist tropical air. Even the ocean breeze didn’t seem to have the strength to clear it.
The driver pulled over to the walking path.
Barrett pulled out his wallet. “He did say he was going to take us to Mazatlan. I guess he’s not going to take us even ten more feet into town.”
The driver pulled out his earphones and reached back for the money. “I don’t know many pulmonia drivers who will take you past the city.” He glanced at the tiny clock magnet on his dashboard. “You can catch a bus north in a few hours. Just look for the bus bench.”
“What time?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Could be anytime this afternoon.”
“Great. Thanks for the ride.”
We climbed out of the cart. The driver whipped the cart around and headed back up the road we’d just traveled.
Barrett pressed a hand against his stomach. “Fucking starved. Looks like there some good places to eat. Let’s get some food and then we can find a bench and wait for the bus.”
“Maybe we should call your friend Pete and ask him if he knows when the bus will come through.”
“Good idea.” Barrett reached into the side of his bag and pulled out his phone. “I’ll have to talk fast because I think the minutes are going to cost a fortune.” He listened and then left a message. “Hey, we’re in Mazatlan. Call me back once you pull your ass out of the surf.”
We walked down toward the coastline. The terraced hillsides overlooking the palm lined beaches were crowded with boxy houses and hotels. A hot, intense sun reflected off the bright white paint of the buildings. A blue awning stuck out over the sidewalk boasting of shrimp being served inside. We headed in.
