by Mark Tufo
“I need gas,” Emma said. “I’ll pump and you slide over to the driver’s seat.”
“You’re actually going to let me drive your precious Bug?”
“It’s a special day. The Kings are going to kick Edmonton’s butt and I really don't feel like driving.” She pulled into the Chevron station and stopped in front of the premium pump.
Peter closed the album and put it on the floor of the passenger side. One by one, he fed his long legs over the center console and put the seat all the way back as he took the driver’s position.
“Let’s go,” she said, hopping in. She lifted the album from the floor and opened it up. “I love these old pics.”
Peter nodded and pulled onto Coast Highway and into the late afternoon Laguna Beach traffic rush.
* * * * *
Allyson pulled back the cover and stared down, a deep sadness overcoming her. The little boy’s body lay on the table, blonde hair the color of new hay, recently cut, probably just growing out to a length the child was content with when he shot himself.
Only five years old, crusted blood bonded to the skin around his right eye, pooling there after he accidentally discharged the loaded handgun into his own temple. His little eyes, probably once a bright, inquisitive blue, were puffy and forever closed now, the bullet wound surrounded by a dark, circular abrasion ring.
Allyson did not move. Instead, she stared at the boy for two full minutes before deciding she could not end the day like this. Gently covering him, she rolled the metal table back to number 217 and slid him into the refrigerated drawer. Tomorrow. Little Jerry Walton wasn’t going anywhere, the autopsy would probably not reveal any new information, and it would wait until tomorrow.
Allyson Newland finished her workday and walked lazily to her car. The Mazda fired up instantly on a quick turn of the key and when she left the parking structure, it practically guided itself to the Villa Rosa Cantina.
It was already busy as she made her way into a parking space a few hundred yards from the door. She got her purse, threw it over her shoulder, and walked inside, keeping her eyes straight ahead. The bar wasn’t as packed as it once would have been, before the California Legislature ruled that smoking would no longer be allowed in bars and restaurants. Now half the patrons were on the smoking patio. She found a seat easily.
“Help you?” the server asked, her gum visible at the corner of her mouth.
“Sure,” Allyson said. “Bring me a Lemon Drop and a Margarita.”
“Taking advantage of happy hour, I see.”
Allyson smiled and nodded as the waitress retreated toward the bar. What had she said again? She’d already forgotten. Her thoughts jumped back and forth between her father and the man she had met yesterday, Peter Webster. She liked him instantly, his size, his face. His manner was casual, a bit nervous maybe, which indicated he might have felt the same about her.
Well, she had done her part. Given him her number, even when he was too shy to ask for it. That was about as far as she would push it, though. Instead of taking the reins and just picking up the phone, she would do what was expected of her like a moronic fairy tale princess. She’d hang her hair down and wait for the bastard to climb up. If he didn’t call in a week, she would drop a hint to Emma Sandelli. If she had no reason to visit the trauma center, she would make one up.
“Here you go,” the server said, placing the drinks on the table. “That’ll be $5.50.”
Allyson put seven on the tray, and waved her off. “Thanks.”
Allyson placed the Margarita on the napkin in front of the chair beside her. If any men asked, it was her boyfriend’s drink and he would be right back. It was easier that way. She came here only because life was better than death, and though she loved her work, it was impossible for her to leave a place of death and go directly to an empty apartment. Coming here to people watch was interesting. Women getting too drunk and letting guys feel them up. All the testosterone-laden young studs keeping one eye on the ball game on television and the other on any woman who walked by. Young, horny couples and couples-in-the-works chatting and drinking and putting on a show worthy of any National Geographic special on mating rituals.
As fascinating as the field of Forensic Science was, death couldn’t compare to life, and too much silence sucked you in after a while. Some of her colleagues could ignore the fact that each lifeless body once had friends, parents, spouses or children, but Allyson could not. She saw beyond the science, contemplating the lives that were now over; who missed them, who they loved, what once made them happy and what could bring them to tears.
“I’m not obsessed by it,” she said aloud, startling herself.
“What’s that?” a man at the next table said.
“Nothing,” Allyson said. “I’m just practicing what I’m going to say to my boyfriend when he gets here. He’s late.”
The pimple-faced man smiled. “Let me know if he doesn’t show. I’ll gladly sit in.”
Allyson smiled, sucked down half of the Lemon Drop, and returned to her thoughts. Chalk up one save for the mystery drink.
Then, surprising even herself, she turned in her chair and leaned toward the young man. “My boyfriend’s name is Web,” she said. “At least I’m pretty sure it will be.”
He shrugged and she shrugged back, still smiling.
`
* * * * *
“I like this one,” Emma said. “Shows a couple of kids enjoying the simple stuff kids used to do. Beach cruisers, feet up on the handlebars.”
Peter glanced at the black and white photograph. “They weren’t beach cruisers back then,” he said. “They just didn’t have stingrays and banana seats yet.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Emma puffed on her cigarette and flicked the ash out the window. “Hey, this looks like it was taken right here. Well, back there.”
Peter glanced at it, but could not see the detail. Laguna Canyon Road was busy, and an old Pontiac LeMans lumbered along in front of him traveling under thirty-five miles an hour. Peter wanted to ram it, but the Volkswagen would take the worst of it, and Emma would beat him with the junk parts afterward. Definitely not worth it. He would have to wait until the passing lane reappeared.
“Those hills definitely look like the canyon, over by Big Bend.” She gave him the picture.
Peter held the wheel with one hand. “Yeah, it is. See that formation of rocks . . . .” Peter’s hands trembled and blackness swirled around his head. He felt himself being drawn away, downward, as though inside the image in his hand.
“Peter?”
He heard the voice as if through fog, the vortex in his mind drawing him away from her, though he had no idea to where. His legs began to move uncontrollably and the car surged forward as a new world swam in around him.
“Peter? Peter! Chris!”
“Hey, Chris!” the voice shouted. “You can’t beat me, you goof!”
Chris returned his feet to the pedals and laughed, practically jumping on them to make the bicycle go even faster. “I could beat you with no legs, Stanno!”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m ahead of you!” Stan pedaled as fast as he could, then cranked the handlebars to the left, making a huge U-turn in the street before once again heading up the canyon road toward PCH.
“I only let you get ahead 'cause your mom was taking that picture of us. Now get out of the street, brainless, before—”
As he looked behind him, the words lodged firmly in his throat. The huge black Cadillac came from nowhere, going impossibly fast, bearing down on Stanley and his bicycle.
“Stanno!” Chris shouted. “Ditch it! Ditch!”
But it was too late. Stanley Ross, Chris’s best friend in the world, turned his head around in time to come face to face with his death sentence. Chris saw the fear in Stan’s eyes as the huge, gleaming chrome bumper of the speeding black Caddy lifted him up, propelling him fifty feet through the air like an unlucky farmer caught in a tornado alley nightmare.
The Caddy sped away
with out so much as a wink of a brake light. Chris saw a face peer into the rear view mirror, then black smoke poured from the tailpipe as the car accelerated away.
As he dropped his bike and walked slowly toward the still body of his friend, Chris recalled the reflection in the rear view mirror of the Cadillac. Not the whole face, just his eyes. Even from that distance they were clear, as though another light shone through them. No shock, no fear. No sorrow touched those eyes.
Pleasure twinkled in that rear view mirror. Pleasure and excitement.
Chris would find them again . . . find the eyes again . . . find the eyes . . . again.
* * * * *
When the world twisted back into focus, sirens screamed in the far distance. Peter’s head spun like he’d just gotten off the Disneyland teacups, and something hard dug into his chest.
Peter tried to push whatever it was away, but soon realized he was pinned between the low-back seat of the Bug and the steering wheel. As he struggled, it became clear why he could not free himself.
The Bug’s front end was buried in soft mud at a forty-five degree angle to the ground, the rear of the car pointing toward the sky. Peter’s eyes focused and he saw Emma, limp, hanging by her waist in her seat beside him, the seat belt the only reason she wasn’t crumpled on the passenger side floorboard.
“Emma!” he shouted, his heart pounding faster. Thick, green shrubbery pressed against the car and through the open window on her side, poking against Emma’s head as she hung unconscious and unmoving. Peter reached over and frantically pushed the branches away, as if it could possibly make any difference at all to this woman—his best friend—who might be dead already.
What happened? Think! What happened? Images of children on bicycles swirled through his mind, but how did that make sense? Peter looked behind him and saw the box of photos scattered all over the floor of the car, and as he looked through the steering wheel at his lap, he saw it there. The boys. The Cadillac.
He had been there.
Emma’s head had come to rest against the metal dashboard, the spider web crack on the windshield in front of her telling part of the accident’s story. Her head had whipped forward and broken the glass, the waist-only seat belt more than inadequate. After, she had gone limp in the belt as the car sank into the mud.
The steering wheel had been there for him, his chest taking the majority of the impact.
Peter tried to move again, but a sharp pain ripped through his ribcage. He looked toward Emma again as the setting sun shone through the rear window, its orange light dancing off the bloodstained glass particles, creating a strangely beautiful amber glow that was entirely at odds with the scene in which they both were trapped.
Peter reached over and felt her neck for a pulse, whispering, “Emma. Wake up, Em.” Blood streamed from an angry gash in her forehead, and Peter tried to stop it with shaking fingers. Her eyes still did not open.
As the paramedics broke through the shrubbery and headed down the slight embankment toward the entrenched Volkswagen, Peter stroked Emma’s hair and broke down into tears.
* * * * *
CHAPTER THREE
Peter was by Emma’s side, along with her mother, when she awoke.
She tried to lift her head, then thought better of it. “Mum?” She turned again, and saw Peter. “Web? Where am I?”
Yolanda Sandelli lowered the rail and sat on the edge of the bed. “Baby,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re awake. You’re in the hospital.”
Waves of relief washed over Peter. “Considering it’s my fault, I’m extra glad you’re awake.”
“What day is this? What’s your fault?”
“Thursday night, eight o’clock. You’ve been out for a full day.”
Emma let out a sigh and closed her eyes, raising her hands to her face. The IV tubes stopped her and she stared at Peter, then at Yolanda. “Will one of you tell me what the hell happened?”
“I crashed your car on the way to the Kings game, Em,” Peter said. “Might as well get that out of the way.”
“You’ve drifted in and out since they brought you here,” Yolanda said. “From the medicine. Thank God you weren’t in a coma.”
“You crashed my car?”
“You’re both alive,” Yolanda said. “That’s all that’s important. Your father was here all night. He had to go get some sleep, baby. I told him you’d understand.”
Emma closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “My God, I remember. The Kings game. Web, you were looking at that picture.”
“Yep. The kids on the bikes.”
“Who won?”
“What?”
The Kings. Who won?”
“Edmonton.”
“Glad I missed it. I shouldn't have handed you pictures to look at while you were driving the canyon.”
“There's more to it, Em,” Peter said.
“Shit,” she said, memories apparently worming their way back into her brain. “No, it was my fault. I distracted you on the canyon road. Worse place in the world to be distracted.”
“Don’t worry about anything else, baby,” Yolanda said. “Nobody else was hurt. A towing bill and the damage to your car, that’s it. Peter’s okay and it looks like you are, too.”
Emma looked at the cast that encased her leg. “Great. I’m out of work for a while, too.”
“For what it’s worth, it was a clean break, Em,” Peter said. “Should heal fast.”
“I’ve got to go now,” Yolanda said. “I’ll be back this evening. Peter, are you staying or do you want to walk out with me?”
“I’ll walk you out. Em, I’ll be right back. Feel like talking a bit?”
“Sure. See if you can find my doctor while you’re out. I want to ask about my condition.”
“You got it.”
After walking Yolanda out, Peter returned to Emma’s room and waited outside until the doctor was done. When he came out, Peter asked, “How is she? Going to be okay?”
Dr. Babcock nodded. He was an older man, balding with bushy grey eyebrows atop dark-rimmed glasses, a disarming smile. “She’ll be fine, Mr. Webster. Already wants to go home, and I’m going to let her. First thing tomorrow morning.”
Peter thanked him and went back into Emma’s room. He sat in a chair beside the bed, held her hand and apologized again.
“Don’t. Tell me about Allyson instead.”
“You don’t want to hear—”
“I do! I told you I thought she was wonderful. Did you like her? Did we already talk about this?” Her brow furrowed.
Peter shook his head. “We didn’t get a chance. Crashed the car before we could.” He leaned forward. “I have to talk to you about that, though. Not Allyson.”
Emma’s expression grew serious. “I remember some things. Your face . . . you were somewhere else. Like having a hallucination, right?”
“I really don’t know, Em. It was like I went inside that picture you had. It took me right in, like I was one of those kids.”
Emma looked at him, her eyes concerned. “Did you get them?”
“What?”
“Did you get the box of pictures from the car?”
“No, I was—”
“Get them, Web. Get them. I’ve had a feeling about them since I first saw them. Where’s the car?” Her eyes were panicked.
“Relax, Em. I had them tow the car to your house. It’s in the carport.”
“Get the pictures out and bring them to my house tomorrow after you get off work. We’ve got to talk. We need to look at some more.”
“Something weird happened to me in that picture, Em,” Peter said. “There was a Cadillac that bore down on this poor—”
“Later,” Em interrupted. “Dr. Babcock gave me another sedative and I’m drifting already. We’ll talk about it tomorrow night at my house. God knows I’ll be bored enough until my leg heals.”
* * * * *
Emma’s house was a rental in north Laguna Beach, away from the congestion
of downtown. It was a wood-frame, single-story home many referred to as a Laguna Charmer; a quaint, typically small dwelling with polished wood floors, a fireplace, a real front porch made for sitting and waving to the neighbors, and two-prong electrical outlets entirely devoid of ground-fault interrupt switches. The homes were individually constructed by the original owners, and were generally built with actual handcrafted woodwork within, simple as it may be.
The homes were so popular among tourists that inevitably a Laguna Charmer tour was established, whereby visitors would crowd on a bus and be driven through the winding streets around the town, stopping long enough to take pictures, and in some cases, tour the interior.
Most of these homes were built in the 1920’s, during Laguna’s heyday as an artist colony. Though Laguna still liked to represent itself as an artist colony, the rent for shops and storefronts on Ocean Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway ensured that only established, highly successful artists could afford to set up shop there. And while Laguna certainly had its share of those, the actual artists were rarely seen in their shops. They did their colonizing in absentia.
“Em, I’m telling you, I was inside the picture living the scene, but I wasn’t me,” Peter said. “I was someone named Chris, and I was twelve years old. The kid on the other bike was my best friend, Stan. Em, he was killed right after this picture was taken. A black Cadillac purposely hit him.”
Emma looked at him, her eyes squinted, her mouth twisted in disbelief. “Wait a minute, Peter. I think this stuff might have happened right after the accident. You hit your head, right? Your chest? You might’ve gotten knocked out for a few, right? And how would you know you were exactly twelve years old?”
“No, no, and no. I’m telling you, that was the reason I crashed. Not a result of the crash. And I know I was twelve because at that age you are very conscious of your age. The next year I would have been a teenager, so that’s a big deal”
