Stumbling on the Sand

by Jenna Rae

  Moments later, Del stayed at the bottom of Lola’s steps and watched her ascend and unlock her door. She wanted to follow Lola up the stairs and push her against the wall and kiss her until Lola melted into her. But she didn’t deserve to do that. She hadn’t earned her way back into Lola’s heart. She searched for a way to prolong their contact.

  “Hey,” she blurted. “You and I have never really toured the city, have we?”

  Lola shook her head. “We’ve talked about it, but something always comes up. I went to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 with Marco and this whole group. The Meetup thing.”

  Del watched as Lola’s expression closed. “That’s where you met Sterling.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said on impulse. “Sterling. That was a setup, you know that, right? Janet set you up. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You make it all sound so simple,” Lola said, smiling strangely down at Del with the porch light flickering its inconstant halo behind her. The light was like a hundred things she knew she should have done and hadn’t. Now was it too late? She stared up at Lola, unable to speak her feelings. Then Lola was gone behind the door that suddenly seemed like an impenetrable barrier between them. Back in her own house seconds later, she expected to be up all night, worrying it over, but she dropped onto her bed and knew nothing until her alarm.

  Just before dawn, Del ran in the thick fog, feeling like the thoughts in her mind were weighing down her body. Each step was a struggle. She had to force herself forward one lunge at a time, and her breath scraped cold through her throat and mouth. She’d forgotten gloves, and her hands were numb.

  Why is this all wrong? She slowed to a walk, giving herself a block to rest before starting over. She opened up with a gentle jog for several minutes, keeping it slow and easy until she could feel the tightness in her muscles loosening.

  After several minutes, she let her body take off, blindly crashing through the seasonal November fog that hung nearly to the ground. The wildness of it and the feeling that she’d regained control of her body were intoxicating. She laughed aloud, startling a cat that darted across her path from under a nearby car. She went faster and faster, the world around her reduced to a damp cloud of nothingness and dark. She lost track of time and place, nearly falling over a rough spot on the pavement but knowing she would regain her balance in time. She ran until the sun was coming up and she could see the cars and houses and the few early risers around her. Her lungs burned, her thighs and calves were quivering, her still-recovering shoulder felt like a rock at the top of her arm, and her hands were sore and frozen. She didn’t care. She was alive and it was Saturday and she could do anything she wanted.

  After a long shower she did the housecleaning and bill paying, all the things she’d left up to Lola for months and mostly neglected since she’d left. It took the bulk of the morning. She pulled on her most comfortable jeans and a worn blue oxford, pulling on the low boots she seemed to choose nearly every day. She spent the afternoon at the station, taking another pass at trying to get some movement on Mikey’s case. He’d been dead for almost five days.

  She was surprised evening was already falling when she headed home and ate a frozen burrito over the sink, thinking of Sofia Gonzalez eating her toaster waffle over her sink in her white, bare kitchen. As if automatically, her gaze went to the window, through which she saw nothing more sinister than her overgrown rhododendron eating the fence. She wandered over to find Lola working in her backyard. The bright day was being slowly smothered by a rolling fogbank, and the diminishing light framed Lola eerily. Del got a chill as she saw Lola straighten up and watch her approach.

  “Hey,” Del called, “looking good!”

  “I think it’s crooked. Can you tell from there if it’s going wonky?”

  Del looked at the low wall of neatly arranged bricks. What, she wondered, had inspired this little project? The whole yard was tidy but mostly undeveloped. The planter border was a finisher, not a place to start. The drainage needed work, and there was paving that needed redoing, and the lawn was a mess. Del stifled the urge to suggest there were more important things to do than make some random little wall along the side. It wasn’t her yard.

  “Wonky? No, it’s perfect. Like you.” This she offered with the strongest weapon in her romantic arsenal, her daddy’s slow smile.

  Lola gave an absent smile and gathered her tools. Del trailed her into the kitchen and watched Lola wash up. Del wondered if maybe she’d already let the relationship die without realizing it. She tried to think of something to say, to bridge the gap she felt widening between them, but she could only stand helplessly by while Lola stood feet away, back turned to her. Out the back window, the fog devoured the last morsels of fading light. Del tried not to flinch when Lola spun around.

  “Del?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know how to say this.” Lola’s eyes searched her face. “I feel like we’re trying, sort of, but we haven’t been connecting especially well lately. We talked last night, and I felt like we were really hearing each other, but then I called you twice today and you never called me back.”

  Del glanced down at the pocket in which she’d stashed her cell phone. “I was busy.”

  Lola nodded, her lips pursed and her eyes hooded. “I figured.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I think I hate the phone because it’s the thing I use mostly for work. Plus I want to see your face and know what you’re thinking.”

  “Yes, okay. But you could text to acknowledge my call, right?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Hey, I’m here now. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “Uh-huh.” Lola chewed her lip. “I had a therapist, did I tell you that? After Orrin died? The peacock talked me into going.”

  Del shook her head. “The peacock?”

  “The lawyer. My lawyer. I didn’t particularly like him.”

  Lola’s late husband had been under investigation at the time of his death, and Del recalled the way the peacock, as Lola called him, had worked to shield Lola from potential accusations of complicity in Orrin Beckett’s alleged embezzlement. However obnoxious he may have been, the guy had done his job. He’d apparently sussed out the nature of Beckett’s abusive marriage and had tried to lay the groundwork for her defense, should it become necessary. Del considered sharing her perspective on the peacock. Eyeing the closed expression on Lola’s face, she decided against doing so.

  Del took a long breath. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of going to therapy. We can work things out on our own without some stranger telling us our own business. Please don’t ask me to go see some couples’ shrink with you.”

  “I know.” Lola looked away. “I figured you wouldn’t want to. Actually, I was thinking about some advice she gave me, it might be helpful. Maybe it’s stupid. Never mind.”

  “Just tell me.” Del forced a small smile. The little manipulations were definitely getting old. They weren’t deliberate, she knew, but they were annoying. She wondered what Lola found irritating about her and realized this was something that should have occurred to her sooner. She also realized she wasn’t sure about much of what Lola thought. “Sorry, I really want to know. What did she tell you? What is it you want to tell me?”

  “Well, she suggested writing letters. To Orrin, my birth parents. Anyone I couldn’t talk to.”

  “So you want us to write letters to each other?” Del worked her jaw. “Is it really that hard to talk to me? You think I’m like your abusive husband and your parents who dumped you?”

  “No!” Lola seemed flustered. “No—that’s not—I just, it’s hard, sometimes, to say things clearly. When you write, you have time to think about what you really want to say. It’s just easier. For me, at least.”

  “Hmn.” Del pushed her hair back. “Well, let’s think about it, okay? I don’t know, seems like we could just talk.”

  “But we don’t. Not really.” Lola’s eyes filled with te
ars, and she rubbed at them. “I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me since you came back from seeing Janet. And you won’t. I don’t understand why, I don’t even know if you still love Janet, even though you say you don’t.”

  “I—”

  “Or if you were ever not in love with her. If we—you and I—are just something you’re doing to distract yourself from her. Is that what we are? Del? Or should I say were? I don’t even know if we’re together. Sometimes I think we are and sometimes—”

  “Do you really think I’m just using you? Is that what you think of me?”

  “I—no. I’m sorry. That’s not what I was trying to say.” Lola was looking down, clearly worried she’d pushed a button that would make Del turn into a monster. Would she ever stop worrying about that?

  It’d help if I wasn’t always snapping at her.

  Del took a deep breath and changed tactics. “Hey, how about going out to dinner? Maybe we could talk, like you said. Make a fresh start.”

  “Really?” Lola’s smile was brilliant, though her eyes still shone with tears. “You know we’ve never gone out on a date, right? Like, out to dinner, to a movie, whatever? I think a dinner date is a great idea. Talk to each other. Listen. Great!”

  “Haven’t we?” Del shook her head. “Yeah, we just sort of moved in after James—”

  “Yes. I was too scared to go home, we got together, that was it. And then Janet—anyway. Yeah, no, we’ve never been on a date or whatever.”

  Del was appalled. Had she truly never even taken the woman out for a single meal? She remembered waxing nostalgic about all the fun she and Janet had, once upon a time. She’d wooed Janet, though, hadn’t she? And she hadn’t bothered with Lola. “Okay, we’re long overdue for a romantic evening, aren’t we? Let’s go someplace really special, my treat.”

  “Really? Do you want to?”

  Lola’s excitement was infectious and Del grinned. Now, she thought, please don’t let the phone ring. I’d like to actually keep a promise to her for once. As though she’d summoned the sound, the phone’s ring sang out. As she listened to the dispatcher’s message, Del’s grin faded. Now she’d have to deal with Lola’s disappointment and resentment and hurt feelings.

  “It’s okay,” Lola said, apparently reading her face. “We’ll go another night. It’s a bad night for driving, anyway, in this fog.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not fair, but it’s the job. You knew I was a cop when we—shit.” Del shook her head. “Listen. I know I’m being touchy. I don’t even know why, sometimes it feels like there’s been too much bad shit.”

  “Between us, you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Del shook her head. “I really don’t. Sorry, I gotta go.”

  “So, dinner tomorrow night?”

  “It’s hard to plan, with these cases. Let’s play it by ear, okay? I don’t want to make a promise I’m not sure I can keep.”

  “Maybe you could make sure you keep it.” Lola’s voice held an edge.

  Del ignored this and leaned forward to give Lola a kiss. Driving away, she realized she’d kissed Lola’s forehead instead of her lips. She slapped at the steering wheel.

  Pretty much every time things were winding down with a girlfriend, she caught herself doing things like not answering their calls, staying away more and more, and generally withdrawing until she was treating them like houseguests who’d overstayed their welcome. The forehead kiss was usually the death knell. She’d never really dumped anyone, had she? She’d just sort of disappeared, one little step at a time.

  She felt heavy and slow, like the laden November air was slowly drowning her. She’d hoped things would be different with Lola. She loved Lola, didn’t she? Del watched her little truck’s headlights push against the thick mist ahead, thinking about how small and insignificant she felt in the wide, unknowable world. A sea turtle on an endless, danger-strewn beach she might never learn to cross.

  Chapter Four

  “He just stared at me.” Donette Williams sat shaking in the metal chair.

  Del nodded, distracted for a moment by a faint, high sound. It was barely audible, a tiny bell ringing incessantly. Then she placed the source. The victim’s tremors were vibrating the chair very gently into the edge of the interview room table.

  “Donette, is there anything about his appearance that stood out to you?”

  The victim shook her head. She was thirty-five, an attractive African American marketing manager at one of the Silicon Valley startups. It had been an hour since Del had come in to the station to take her complaint. She looked flattened and empty. Her tawny skin was sallow, her dark eyes sunken, her arms crossed protectively over her slender torso.

  “Hey, wanna get out of here for a few minutes? I hate this room.”

  Donette laughed. “God, I thought I was the only one. I feel like a prisoner in here.”

  Del smiled and nodded. She’d thought as much. Walking in, seeing the victim hunched over at the table, Del had been reminded of Mikey Ocampo and how he’d huddled on the floor. She led the way out of the confines of the small interview room and chucked her chin at her partner.

  “We’re going to grab a bite, want anything?”

  Phan smiled and shook his head, pointing at the paperwork on his desk. He clearly understood what she was doing, softening up the victim before continuing the interview. Del appreciated how frustrating it had to be, getting called into work in the middle of dinner, only to sit and wait while your partner got the victim to relax and remember. When the victim had requested a female detective take her statement, Del had been called. Loyal Phan was here in case she wanted any assistance.

  The two women chatted about Donette’s job and family as they strolled to the taqueria across the street. Del told her a handful of short, funny stories, the ones she trotted out when she wanted to relax a victim. She also used them to deflect the usual weird questions people wanted to ask in social situations when they found out what she did for a living. It all worked. Fifteen minutes later, Del and the victim were back in the interview room, with Del winding up a silly anecdote about a drunk driver.

  “Thanks,” Donette said, her huge brown eyes filling. “You made me feel like a human being again.”

  “Good. That’s one of the frustrating things about a guy like this,” Del noted. “He takes a whole person—smart, funny, interesting, kind—and he reduces her to body parts. Less than that, images of body parts. Then she feels like she’s nothing.”

  “Exactly!” Donette hesitated then smiled at Del. “You’re good at this. Getting people to open up.”

  Donette had finally started to look like what Del imagined was her real self. The willowy beauty was sitting up straight. There was some light back in her eyes and a square set to her bony shoulders. Her silk blouse and wool trousers looked fresher somehow. Her short, natural hair even seemed springier, her tight curls refreshed. Even her fine features looked revitalized. It was amazing, Del thought, how the slightest change in emotional state was so clearly reflected in a person’s appearance. Was that, she wondered, a chemical thing?

  Del waggled her head. “Being scared, being shamed. These things shut people down. Then they can’t remember anything, they can’t think.”

  “I feel like I’m overreacting,” Donette admitted, her gaze dropping to the scarred surface of the worn interview room table. “All that happened was, this guy looked in my window through the blinds. I almost didn’t come here. I was going to call, but then I couldn’t make myself do it. What if you didn’t believe me? What if you said—I don’t know.”

  “You did the right—”

  “I was raped,” Donette cut in. “In college. I never reported it. I figured they wouldn’t believe me. Or they’d say it was my fault.”

  Del waited, keeping her expression neutral and receptive.

  “I still feel guilty about that. I think I was right, they wouldn’t have done anything. But he probably raped other girls. Maybe he wouldn’t have, if I’d reported h
im.”

  “You were in a tough spot,” Del said. “Especially at school, victims tend to get the brush-off. I hope you got some help.”

  “Well, yes, thanks,” Donette said, sitting back and taking a deep breath before meeting Del’s eyes again. “I did. I went to the rape crisis center and got counseling. Which really helped a lot, I think. But this guy, just looking at me like that, like I was an animal or something, that brought it all back. I felt like a helpless teenager all over again.”

  Del nodded. She’d heard the same sort of thing from dozens of victims of rape and other sexual predation, most recently from targets of this particular peeper. Idly she wondered how many had been victims of sexual assault or child sexual abuse or both. Once a victim of sexual violence, she knew, a person was more likely to be victimized again. Why this might be, Del wasn’t sure. Again she wondered about body chemistry. Did fear, or posttraumatic stress or some chemical signature of trauma leave a trail that caught the attention of predators? She thought about Sofia Gonzalez almost not calling in about the peeper because of her bad first experience with SFPD. Was the guy going back to the same women over and over? Was the peeper sniffing out women who were fearful? She pushed the question aside for the moment and asked Donette to walk her through the experience again.

  “I was at my mom’s all day, helping her organize her garage. She lives in Daly City, and it was actually nice there, not too cold, not too hot. We got done and skipped dinner. I almost stayed the night because it was so foggy. Mom was trying to get me to stay, but I didn’t want to have to go to church in the morning.” Donette made a rueful face, and Del gave the obligatory smile that let her move forward.