A Perfectly Purloined Pinot (Nikki Sands' Mysteries)

by Michele Scott

  How could I refuse after a plea like that? I tried one last time, for the sake of courtesy. “But my daddy—”

  Betty dabbed at her eyes with a kerchief. “He’ll get over it. And your mama is gonna secretly be cheering you on. It’ll be hard on them, but this’ll be the best thing for all of you.” She sighed heavily. “Especially you, Evie. Especially you. Trust me.”

  So I did. I trusted Betty LaRue.

  The next day I packed up my 1974 VW bus, a suitcase of clothes, my Rosewood Gibson acoustic guitar, and Cass. I pulled out of my parents’ driveway while Daddy waved his arms wildly in the air, yelling, “You’re gonna ruin your life out there, Evangeline (he’s the only one who ever calls me by my full name)! Los Angeles isn’t the city of angels. It’s a city of heathens and devils!!”

  I knew he was just scared. My leaving was breaking his heart. I’m pretty sure if I looked closer, I’d see tears in his eyes. God, I felt so heartless, so cruel, but…I knew Betty was right. This was something that had to be done.

  I could see tears for sure in my mother’s big hazel eyes, the same color as my own, as she mouthed, “I love you.”

  I rolled down the window, choking back my own sobs. “I love you, too. I’ll call. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I really will.”

  With blurred eyes, Mama Cass’s head in my lap, a Patsy Cline cassette in the tape deck (Thank God for eBay. You have no idea how hard it is to find cassette tapes these days), I headed west to the City of Angels. For the first time in sixteen years I felt like I could finally breathe again. I was leaving behind the only two people around me who I had never been able to heal even a little bit, and I didn’t think I ever could.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I am not a rebel by nature. Or who knows…maybe I am. Regardless, it’s never really been an option for me. Not after what my parents went through. I could never yell, lie, sneak out of the house, talk back. None of that. And those were not rules they made up. I did. Therefore, leaving my mother and father behind on that late April afternoon was by far the most rebellious thing I have ever done in my twenty-eight years, and honestly, it left me feeling cold.

  Poor Cass with her thick coat must have hated me on that fifteen-hundred mile trip, because I was freezing the whole way and I cranked up the heater in my van, even through Arizona at eighty degrees. It was the kind of cold you can feel on the inside—that only a real hot bath combined with a hot drink and a tuck between the covers can cure.

  I wasn’t sick. No sore throat. No aching body. Nothing like that. I was just cold.

  And then, after three days of driving and staying in cheap motels, I took the 10 West all the way into L.A., and the chill left as suddenly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

  The first thing I did was head to the ocean—Venice Beach to be exact. Yes, Los Angeles has plenty of tan, beautiful people and then some, but let me just say for the record that there are also a ton of freaks here, especially in Venice Beach. I saw one guy with hair I can’t even describe, kind of a pea green, baby food color. I shudder to think about it, because not only was the color bad, but his hair was almost down to his rear in twisted and gnarled ropes. Gross. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his shorts were well beneath his boxers. Not an attractive picture, especially when you considered the live iguana wrapped around his neck. Never seen that before. Cass went totally berserk, yapping at him and the lizard. I had to yank pretty hard on her leash to get her to move while the guy snarled, “Get your mangy piece of shit mutt away.” Um, excuse me? At least my dog has regular baths, which is certainly more than I could say about Mr. Mange and his lizard sidekick. I decided to keep my mouth shut and move along, tugging on Cass the entire way. I knew if I touched the green haired guy or even slightly brushed up against him that I would likely discover what had made him so angry at the world. I decided against it.

  Once we got past him, we reached the ocean. Color—silvery blue. Smell—fresh, oceany—minus the cigarette smoke and tanning oil that occasionally wafted its way toward us. The crashing waves and sandy beach like a picture postcard. We people-watched for quite some time. Cheapest entertainment in the world. All I’m saying is, bring a lawn chair, a bag of Tostitos, and a six-pack of soda, and you’ll find the movies have nothing on Venice Beach. When I need to get away from anyone famous—dead or alive—I head there. And the way I figure it, the best way to beat crazy is to go and see even more crazy.

  Cass and I shared a couple slices of pizza and a Coke (yes, Cass drinks Coke, too, but none of that diet stuff), and I figured we needed to find a place to stay for the night, because we’d spend the next day apartment and job hunting. Frugality is something my father prides himself on and it’s sort of worn off on me. I knew five-thousand dollars was probably not going to go far in the land of glitz and glamour.

  I found a motel a few blocks from the beach. It was fifty-five bucks for the night, which seemed like a lot but we were tired and I thought being close to the ocean might be cool because I could take Cass for a walk in the morning. Problem was, they had a no animal policy.

  “You gotta stay in the bus girl,” I told her. She thumped her tail slightly and looked at me with her big dark eyes. I whispered in her ear, “Just kidding. Only for a little bit. Soon as the coast is clear, I’ll come get you.” She thumped her tail even harder. I know the dog gets me. I may sound a bit biased here, but Cass is the smartest dog ever. She is. “You be a good girl and I’ll be back.” And I was, after a shower and a change of clothes. I snuck in my half-coyote, half-lab, possibly some border collie pooch into the dingy motel room that smelled of stale cigarettes, bug spray, and mildew. She jumped on the bed with me and we fell fast asleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A week later, and Cass and I were still at Motel Venice without any future prospects. We had driven around the city a few hundred times, only to find that fifty-five bucks for a motel room was cheap, and luckily no one had caught me sneaking Cass in and out. I had applied for a variety of jobs from Subway, Gag in the bag (take your pick as to which fast food joint to fill in here), to a receptionist at a variety of nail salons. I even went out on a limb and applied for a position at Nordstrom in the cosmetics department. I figured what the heck—Mama is a beautician—and I did sell Mary Kay for two weeks.

  Then Betty LaRue’s words played over in my mind. “Go live your dream. Go sing wherever you can.” I sighed and thought of Betty LaRue and the baby she had lost when she was only seventeen. Her trauma. The pregnancy that had been caused by a boyfriend who didn’t take no for an answer one night and impregnated her. When I touched her I could see what had happened to her, what had caused her world to change. I caught only glimpses of it, but I knew all about it when I had taken her hand on Easter sixteen years ago to show her the new kitten my mama had brought home for me—trying so hard to ease the pain I had been feeling for months back then. It has now been years.

  Betty had been one of my first trauma reads. And, I also knew how to make that memory of Betty’s less difficult to bear. I had started being able to receive glimpses of people’s traumas from the time I was twelve when I endured what not only changed my life forever, but also my parents’ lives. I had also discovered that I could lighten the load so to speak. I could touch someone or sometimes when people touched me I could see the most painful event they had ever suffered—the kind of events that seriously changed people and usually not for the good. In some strange way, and trust me I so do not even get out, and frankly I don’t exactly enjoy it, I can take the trauma and through just a touch, I can put a filter on that trauma. Say for instance, someone lost someone they loved more than anything in the world and it was unexpected. That kind of pain is so hard to deal with. I know. I can see how the loved one died, I can see and feel the person’s pain that is still here and then I can put my hand on theirs and add some kind of light where there was dark. It’s as if I can put a band-aid on it but it is a permanent bandage. The pain is still there but it’s less. It can be lessened by a lot or by a l
ittle I’ve noticed, and I am not sure why that is either. Trust me, it may sound kind of callous, by much of the time I avoid touching people and vice versa. I’m cautious who I touch and I also make a conscious effort to put some kind of barrier in place via mittens or whatever might be handy if I know my fingers may graze someone else. My hands are the main conduit and they are what heals. If someone touches my arm or I touch theirs, I can get glimpses, but the hands by far carry the strongest current for me to receive the visual and in turn heal that person in some way—even in a small way.

  Believe me it is difficult. You don’t know how many times you touch people—even people you don’t know, until you have to become extremely conscious about it.

  I reached my hand over to pat Cass on the head, her big eyes staring at me—I don’t read animal trauma, but I know for sure my dog has not had any trauma. I’ve raised her since she was a pup for the past three years. “What do I do, Cass? What should we do?” I’d already gone through almost a grand between the gas, food for the two of us, and the motel. Time was running out.

  “I need a singing gig,” I said. Cass lifted her head and studied me. “What to do?” I clucked my tongue. We came to a red light cruising north on La Cienega. The cross was Fairfax, close to The Beverly Center where I’d applied for the Nordstrom job. Decent area.

  Cass whined. I looked over at her. “What? What would you do?” She tucked her head under her paws. And as if lightening struck and my daddy was standing up on his pulpit in front of me, I got it. “Pray? Right! Why didn’t I think of that?” I smirked. Thanks to my Southern Baptist minister dad, a lot of praying went on at my house. As a kid, I was all about prayer and miracles and trusting God knew best.

  But when you’re twelve and your fifteen-year-old sister, who you adored, sneaks out for a night and is never found, and you prayed and prayed for three months for God to bring her home and He didn’t, well, losing faith in the power of prayer just sort of happens. And then you receive the gift of trauma healer that you didn’t exactly ask for. I’m not sure at this point if I believe in God, prayer or “gifts.”

  Cass kept her head tucked under her paws and whined again. “You’re serious? You have really been listening to Daddy way too much. Great. I got a little Billy Graham in my dog.” She lifted her head and glared, then tucked it again back under her paws. “Okay. Fine. I get it.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. Hi, God, Evie Preston here…” I was feeling very much like Margaret from back in the day in Judy Blume’s young adult novel “Are You There God? It’s me Margaret.”

  “Yeah, so anyway. You must know what’s going on with me. You know everything, right? At least Daddy says you do. So, the singing thing…yeah, I could really use a break right about now. I don’t want to disappoint Betty LaRue and I honestly don’t think You would either because, well, you know Betty, so could you help me out a little? Thanks. Amen.” I know it was weak, but like I said, it’d been some time since I’d prayed.

  Cass sat up and as we rolled up to the next light at La Brea, she let out a yelp. “What now?” She was looking out the window. A chalkboard sign on the sidewalk read “Two dollar tacos and beer.” I licked my lips. The place didn’t look like much, considering the area. A big green neon sign in the dark window on the building read “Nick’s.”

  “Lunch time,” I announced. I found a meter and parked the van, cracking the windows and rolling back the sun roof. “Stay put girl. Doubt dogs are allowed.” She gave me her offended look, ears pinned back and head cocked to the side. “I know. It’s stupid. I’ll bring you back a taco and a Coke.”

  The atmosphere inside Nick’s was, needless to say, lacking. The place was a dive, which didn’t bother me because as a Texan, I knew a little something about dive bars (only out there, they usually served up some mighty fine barbecue and let folks walk around with guns). God forbid my father ever found out. He’d probably disown me. Mick Jagger was belting out “Waitin’ on a Friend,” from a corner jukebox. The carpet was the color of reddish mud with black smudges here and there. I’m sure at some point it had been true red. The bar itself was long and narrow, a row of stools covered in cracked, brown vinyl, facing a mirror lit up by dim light bulbs across the top (with a few burnt out) covering the back wall. Liquor bottles sat displayed on the back counter. A handful of patrons who looked as if they’d been glued to those chairs for a number of years sat in silence nursing their woes. On the other side of me were four rows of booths with the same cracked, brown vinyl seating. A younger couple sat in one of the booths playing grab-ass and giggling while downing a couple of beers and tacos.

  A middle-aged guy—tall and skinny—who looked older than he probably was, walked towards me. He had longish, graying blonde hair that skimmed his shoulders, and wore a worn pair of too-big jeans and a red polo. The name “Nick” was stitched in black across the right side of his shirt. He semi-smiled and his green eyes, although sad, cast a little light in them through wire-rimmed glasses. “Welcome to Nick’s.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Here for lunch?”

  I nodded. “Two-dollar tacos and beer can’t be beat, but I think I’ll have a Coke instead.”

  He laughed. “Sit anywhere. Take your pick,” he replied, his voice husky and a bit guttural.

  I chose the back booth away from the couple and settled in to think a little more about my predicament. I noticed photos of various celebrities lining the walls, many of them autographed personally to Nick.

  Five minutes passed since I’d last seen Nick. He apparently was host, owner, cook, and bartender. He appeared and sat three tacos and a beer down in front of me. “Oh no. I haven’t ordered yet. And I wanted a Coke.”

  He sat down across from me. “You’re not from here.”

  I shrugged. “It shows that much?”

  He laughed warmly. “Look, I serve two-dollar tacos every Tuesday and hands down, I know I make the best in town.” He pointed down to my plate. “You got chicken, steak, and my specialty—fish—there. You have to have a beer with it. Tacos without beer is, like, sacrilegious. Especially with the fish taco.”

  Now I laughed. I don’t think my daddy would’ve agreed with Nick, but to each his own. “You must be Nick.”

  “That obvious?”

  “The name on the shirt sort of gives you away.” I decided to walk on the wild side for a moment and try the fish taco. I’d never had one before (we didn’t get a lot of fresh seafood in landlocked Brady). Mouthwatering. “Oh, my gosh. This is amazing!” I looked at the taco, and then back at Nick, and took another bite.

  “Told you,” he said, winking. “I am actually planning on opening a taco bar. Two in fact. One in Santa Monica and one in Hollywood.”

  “No kidding? Well, I’ll be your top customer,” I said.

  “It’s not fair for me to keep a world-class fish taco from everyone. That is my secret recipe right there.” He pointed at the taco and smiled.

  From the other side of the room, a slurred voice called, “Wonder what your buddy George thinks of that. He has a different story.” A peroxide-blonde woman seated at the bar spun around in her bar stool and looked at Nick and I. Her brown eyes were glassy and hazy with drink.

  “Ah come on, Candace. You know George is full of shit. I don’t even know why you listen to that guy,” Nick said.

  “I thought you two were partners,” the middle-aged woman replied.

  Nick waved a hand at her. “Honey, you believe what they print in The Enquirer for God’s sakes. Go back to your Candace Special. I’m visiting a new customer here.”

  Candace gave me a little wiggle with her fingers and spun herself back around. She shouldered the guy next to her. I had noticed he wore an eye patch covering one eye. She whispered something in his ear and they both started laughing.

  “Don’t mind her. She loves to stir the pot. Where you from?”

  I set down the taco and wiped my hands. “Sorry. I’m Evie Preston. I’m from Brady, Texas.”

  “You don’t have
much of an accent.”

  I shrugged. “My father is from the Midwest. He’s never had a Texas accent and my mother, well, she definitely has a drawl, but I guess I take after my father.”

  “I can hear it a little. Not much. What brings you west, Evie Preston? Let me guess—actress or singer?”

  I took a sip of the beer. He was right. Tacos and beer were a perfect match. Especially the fish taco. “You’re good. Singer and guitar player.”

  “Really?” He pointed to the lime on my plate. “Squeeze that into the beer and sprinkle a little salt in there.” He smiled.

  “Okay.” I did the lime-salt thing and continued to be impressed. “Really. Why the surprise?”

  “I dunno. I thought actress for sure. Woulda put money on it actually.”

  “Nope. Have no desire to act.”

  “What kind of music do you play? Sing?” He stood and went behind the bar, grabbed himself a beer, and sat back down.

  “I like it all. I’m partial to the blues…I like folksy, kind of, I don’t know, I think Sheryl Crowe is great. I love Stevie Nicks if you’re going for some old school rock and Heart is awesome, too. Um, Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Ellie Goulding definitely inspire me.” I realized he was older and might not even know who the last few singers were.

  “Love that Rumor has It. Reminds me of old school jazz in a way.” He was up on his music. Of course, this was L.A. where people of all ages were surrounded by famous musicians. “Evie Preston wants to be a singing star, huh?”

  I nodded, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. “Yeah. I guess I do.”