“What’s up buttercup?” said Mr. Fariz in his charming Persian accent. He always said this to her and she made a point of trying to come up with a new rhyme every time. But she was running out of ideas so she’d started repeating herself.
"Doin' fine, Clementine!" she said with a giggle.
“Rebecca, I’d like you to keep an eye on things while I run to the bank. Darius should be here soon to take over the cooking.” Maria, the daytime cook, had left promptly at 3 p.m., and since Jeremy was ‘sick’, Mr. Fariz had been behind the stir fryer since then.
“Righteo!” she said, with a salute. She liked to reward Mr. Fariz for his kindness to her by at least being cheerful and entertaining. Never mind that she hated—absolutely despised—the frying part. The wok was okay, just a few splatters here and there, but she prayed she wouldn’t have to touch the deep fryer basket between the time Mr. Fariz left and Darius showed up. Where was he? Debate team practice? She couldn’t keep track of his extra-curriculars anymore.
She watched her boss back out of his parking space, and had a sudden urge to go into his office and look through the job applications to find Jeremy’s address, thinking maybe she’d drop by and see how sick he really was. Where does he live? She knew it wasn’t at Vivian’s. That lady was weird enough to be his mom, but she was a total loner.
An order sprang up on her computer. She started slopping chow-mein, beef with broccoli, and fried rice into containers, and Billy got the bag ready with chopsticks, forks, soy sauce, fortune cookies and napkins. She slid the containers down to Billy, then said “Bathroom break. Real quick.” She had her apron off and hung on the hook before he could say anything.
Down the hallway, past the staff bathroom, to the office. She hesitated, but darted into the small fluorescent-lit space, opening a file cabinet drawer to look for job applications. Not even daring to pull out the folder all the way, she thumbed through the papers, looking for the name at the top. No Jeremy. She flipped through them again, more carefully this time. No dice.
Getting nervous, she kept searching through the other employment records. She imagined Jeremy’s employment future, probably a series of dead end jobs and a drawerful of HR complaints for sexual harassment. What a loser. A plain manila folder marked ‘W-4s’ sat in the front of the drawer. Bingo. You can’t escape the IRS. She flipped through it, and there it was, Jeremy White. 45609 Orfila Road. Was that down near Pleasant Hollow? She slid the file drawer shut, and it clicked closed, like a tongue scolding her.
She ran back to the kitchen and slipped her apron on. A customer had walked in, and since Billy was at the drive-thru window, she went to the register. The man had a nice suit on, slightly European looking, expensive. He held a shopping bag from the shoe store next door.
“Welcome to WokChikaBok!Bok! How can I help you?”
The guy stood for a second before replying, looking past her into the kitchen. She didn’t blame him. You should always watch your fast food being prepared. “We do have some healthy choices. The green beans are pretty good,” she said, wanting to help him make up his mind, and avoid anything deep-fried.
“Green beans it is. And a Coke.” So much for healthy, she thought. He had an accent she couldn’t place. He looked Hispanic, but the accent definitely wasn’t Mexican.
“For here or to go?”
“For here.”
She rang up the order. “Are you the only one working?” he asked.
“Me and him.” She pointed at Billy. “But don’t worry, your food won’t take long. We’re not exactly crawling with customers right now,” she said, and then regretted it. Probably sounded like the food was bad.
He paid, and she went back into the kitchen to stir-fry his green beans. “Billy!” she called over to the order window, where Billy was—you guessed it, gazing at the sky, his face resting on his hands. He jumped to attention and started filling a drink cup with ice and Coke. As she stir-fried, she committed Jeremy’s address to memory. 45609, 45609. Orfila. She’d have to look it up when she got home.
The man was still peering into the kitchen. She didn’t get a pervo vibe from him, so she wasn’t worried about that. But was he some kind of alien? Never been to a fast food joint before?
She called over her shoulder, “Sir, you can sit down, I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Darius showed up, and she felt a stab of guilt for snooping in his dad’s office. She normally wouldn’t do that, but something about Jeremy didn’t add up, and besides, she hadn’t taken anything. Just information.
“Your order’s ready sir.” She slid the tray onto the pick up counter, but to her surprise the small dining room was now empty.
“Ghost customers?” asked Darius.
“More like confused. Where is he? And where have you been?” she said angrily. Darius blinked, startled. But now she had a new order on her screen, and as if a tap had opened, the after school, pre-dinner, and dinner rush had started, and the next four hours flew by.
Around 8:30, Rebecca took her break. She had saved the abandoned green beans and gave them a quick heat up in the wok, then took her plate out back where she could watch the evening sky. A couple of plastic milk crates served as the smoking break area for the employees. Nearby was a dumpster enclosure, surrounded by dry weeds. The property managers would have to do weed abatement soon or else get fined for the fire hazard.
The mini-mall contained a mani-pedi salon, a cell phone store, an expensive European comfort (read: ugly-ass) shoe store, all closed for the evening, and a few other empty retail spots. It was surrounded by undeveloped rolling hills, but it was on one of the major roads cutting through North County and they got decent traffic.
A rustling sound disturbed her and she turned to see Darius walk outside, a clipboard in hand. He looked sad, or distracted, and she chalked it up to her meanness earlier.
“Sorry about snapping at you.”
“Oh, whatever. Who knows women. They love you one minute and the next it’s, like, rowr.” He made a screwy face and claws with his hands, like a cat. His dark eyes twinkled. Yeah, you know women, she thought sarcastically. He wasn’t bad looking, what with the black hair, brown skin, and those long thick lashes. Boy those lashes. Girls would kill for those. But Darius wasn’t what you’d call cool, so he didn’t have much luck with the ladies. Yet. Ten years from now would be a different story.
He sat on the milk crate next to her.
“Did my dad mention anything about your raise?” he said, looking serious again.
“No, why?” she asked. She was coming up on six months at the job, and looking forward to a fifty cent increase in her hourly wage. The Farizes liked to reward longevity.
“It’s just that….” He trailed off. For a long time they sat and looked at the night sky, stars visible towards the east, where there were fewer houses, less light pollution.
“Well, rent’s going up.” he said finally. “And, we’re not doing as well as we used to. The Panda Express down in Vista Mar really cut into our business.”
“Oh,” she said. She tried to hide her disappointment, but then felt selfish for worrying about fifty cents when her friend’s business was struggling. “Well, no hard feelings if it doesn’t happen.”
Darius looked somewhat relieved.
She said, “No doubt that loser Jeremy doesn’t help. His second day on the job and he calls out sick? Huh. How did he even get hired?”
“Maybe we’ll put you in charge of screening applications from now on, Miss Bossy!” he said with a laugh.
“Do it! I’ll weed out all the drug addicts, assholes, criminals…”
“And we’ll be left with no employees,” he finished with his usual wry humor.
But, she thought, Jeremy didn’t fill out an application. So how do you screen that?
“Yeah, Jeremy’s dad got him the job here. A last ditch effort before military school I presume,” said Darius, almost reading her mind. The guilty feeling came back, but she shoved it down.
As they stood up to go inside, Rebecca jokingly pressed her body up against Darius’ backside and put her arms around him. He was tall, so her arms wrapped around his waist. “Hey baby, wanna go for a ride in Fairy Glen tonight?”
“If you mean can I give you a ride home,” he said, turning around and separating their bodies a little too quickly to be casual, “the answer is ‘As you wish.’”
Friday, October 5
AT 10 A.M., DEIRDRE stood outside of Bonnie’s arena, wearing the unfamiliar tall boots and Bonnie’s high tech helmet. She mounted Scarlet and settled into the borrowed dressage saddle, feeling as if this horse she’d known for less than three months was a thousand pound stranger beneath her.
They entered the arena at a trot. Scarlet tossed her head every few strides, flipping her silky auburn mane that was almost blonde at the tips.
“Focus, Deedee,” Bonnie called from her director’s chair.
She was trying to give the mare impulsion. A “working trot” as it was known in dressage. So far it was having the opposite effect. Scarlet grew increasingly sullen and sluggish the more she pushed.
Maybe she was working at a disadvantage. The short-coupled, compact body of an Arab was generally disdained in dressage. The fashion favored giant warmbloods that moved like graceful dinosaurs.
“Good, now remember what to do?” Bonnie called.
“Walk at X?”
“So why didn’t you?” Bonnie’s girlish voice was taking on the shrill authority of a drill sergeant. All three of them were nearing the breaking point.
After another few frustrating minutes, Bonnie regained her patience and called her over to the side. “It’s a bit like choreography. Think of it as dance steps to remember.”
“I dropped out of ballet when I was a kid, so I could ride. Remind me again why I’m doing this?”
“Because I talked you into it,” Bonnie said. She laughed, and her twinkle was back. “It’s a good foundation. Scarlet’s young enough that this will influence her muscle development, her carriage, possibly prevent osteo-skeletal problems….And, most importantly, it develops the partnership between you and your horse. Call it getting off on the right foot together.”
“I think I have two left feet. You won’t hate me if I quit will you?”
“You can’t quit.” Bonnie laughed. “Dressage is life-long learning.”
“But you said this show is no big deal, right?”
“Well, it’s a schooling show. But any show is…sort of a big deal.” Bonnie wasn’t letting her off the hook.
“Okay—trying this again.” Deirdre went back out the entrance and came in again at a trot.
After a few more times around the arena, she gave up again. “Can I watch you do it once? That might help me visualize it,” she said, secretly plotting how she could get out of going to the show.
Bonnie put a bareback pad on Gatsby, climbed the fence, and scrambled up on his back. With nothing but a dressage whip with a frayed end, a hackamore, and a plastic helmet, Bonnie rode Gatsby, who sprung into the arena in slow motion like a well-oiled carousel horse. Solid and muscular, his white socks accentuating his dark bay coat, his long black tail swinging elegantly. Suspension with each step. Hovering above the ground.
They made a large, perfect circle, maintaining the same mechanical rhythm throughout, Bonnie sitting deep to his trot on his wide muscled back.
Deirdre stood straighter. She really should go to the show. After all, she could use the practice hooking up her trailer—and driving it too, it had been a while. And Scarlet definitely needed trailering practice, especially for fire weather.
The day they’d brought her home from the bankrupt ranch in Rialto, she had put up a fuss getting in. Bonnie had been prepared to work with her calmly, as long as it took, but the impatient owner grabbed Scarlet by the ear and pulled her into Bonnie’s trailer, which had set Bonnie off. She screamed at him, letting loose a flurry of rarely heard profanities, but he didn’t care. He had worse problems, like the creditors repossessing his farm equipment at that very moment.
But going to the show this Saturday for trailer practice was one thing. It didn’t mean she’d have to perform there. She was an adult after all, capable of making her own decisions. She shot a glance at her boots. Unfortunately, it was too late to return these. They were covered in dust and forming folds at the ankles.
When Bonnie finished, Deirdre broke out of the spell cast by the beautiful movements. She’d been so enchanted she hadn’t paid any attention to memorizing the moves.
“Wanna go on a quick ride?” she said to change the subject. It was turning into a hot but spectacular fall day.
Bonnie’s cool blue eyes evaluated her, and not for the better, she thought.
“What?” Deirdre asked.
“What’s with you today?” Bonnie said. “You’re driving me batty.”
“She’s driving me batty!” She pointed at Scarlet. “The weather’s driving me batty. I can’t stand being cooped up here on a day like this.” She gestured to the chaparral covered hills. A light breeze picked up, clattering the eucalyptus like maracas overhead. “Come on, let’s go. Maybe we could sneak over and ride the Seeker’s Sanctum trails."
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. It’s October, no wonder you’re crazy.” Bonnie pulled up next to her. “You feel free to go sweetie, but Lina’s coming over any minute now. I want both of you to do well on Saturday. And Seeker’s Sanctum, seriously, Deirdre? They busted us last time. No matter how nice that man was, I was so embarrassed—I mean we’re locals, we know better.”
“They keep the best trails to themselves.”
“It’s their land. If they wanna make it so only gurus and yogis or whatever they are can walk barefoot without stepping on horse poop, that’s their prerogative. Why don’t you go out by yourself again? Somewhere else, I mean. There’s no shortage of trails in Fairy Glen.”
Lina was riding over from next door, looking nervous as usual, and before she could stop herself she called out “Lina! We’re all doing a trail lesson today. Sound fun?”
“I swear to god Dee!” Bonnie said, shaking her head, but laughing.
Lina lifted her legs and banged them into Walker’s sides to urge him the last few strides toward the arena.
“Hey, lay off him,” Deirdre said, but shut her mouth when she saw Lina up close. She looked extra pale, almost like she might get sick. “What’s wrong with you?” she blurted out, then bit her lip. Why couldn’t she have said “Are you okay?” or even “What’s wrong?” It had to come out like a confrontation?
Lina pulled off her cowboy hat, and in her vampiric accent said, “Nussing. I’m fine.” Lina’s eyes shifted to where her husband Mike, in his fatigues, was walking down their driveway. Why was he home in the middle of the day? He put a duffle in the trunk, got in his beige sedan and backed out.
“Anyway, we’re going out on the trail. You coming?” She didn’t leave room for a response.
Lina complained that she needed to practice for the show tomorrow, even though she was only competing in Western Pleasure walk and trot, where a huge arena full of riders circled around a couple of judges at the center of the ring. Piece of cake, you could blend in with the crowd, the horses all liked to move with each other anyway.
Not like Deirdre’s dressage test where two judges—and any curious lookyloos—would be watching her every move for embarrassing mistakes as she tried to force an unwilling Scarlet to pirouette around the small rectangular arena.
“A relaxing trail ride is just what you need, Lina,” said Bonnie, who Deirdre could tell was tired of arguing. “Let’s go.”
They took the manicured trails through the neighborhood, down Suerte del Gitano towards the open space.
“The key to a good show is a combination of preparation and relaxation,” Bonnie said. “Besides, I’m allowed to call the moves out to you. How was your trail ride the other day?”
“Well, not disastrous at least. Except I ran into this man lurk
ing out there…”
“Lurking? Oh Deirdre.” Bonnie stifled a laugh.
“He was, and I think he had a gun, like a shoulder holster—”
“Was he a cop?” Bonnie asked. A reasonable question.
“I don’t know—I didn’t ask, and I didn’t remember he had it until after—look it’s a long story—I was trying to get to that ledge where I could see the golf course, and he was there. Then, the weirdest part was, when I turned to go home, Vivian was watching with binoculars—” In the distance, a siren traveled east on Fairy Glen Road, then a second one, accented by an airhorn. She talked louder. “I tried to ask Vivian about it yesterday, and boy was that a disaster.” Vivian’s last words to her had sounded like either a threat or a warning.
But the sirens were getting closer, too loud to continue her story. “They must be coming this way,” Bonnie yelled over the racket. The women scooted their horses off to the side of the street.
As the ambulance and firetruck raced by, Scarlet whirled on her haunches and half stood on her hind legs. Deirdre stayed on. Guess muscle memory really is a thing, she thought. She’d ridden plenty of squirrelly horses as a teen after graduating from the stubborn smart ponies. Crafty, barn-sour mares that wanted nothing less than to wriggle out from beneath you and run home. Rich people’s horse’s who had grown indolent from lack of riding. She even earned some money at it, when she was still too young—or at least looked too young—to work in the bar.
“Whoo, nice levade!” Bonnie hooted. “You know that’s an advanced move, it won’t be in the test.”
“Hope it’s not a fire. Let’s check it out,” Deirdre said. Scarlet read her mind and started cantering in place, trying to follow the retreating doppler of the sirens, neck bent like a bow as Deirdre held her back.
“Go ahead,” Bonnie said. “We’ll catch up to you.”
Deirdre let Scarlet’s energy unfurl from the restraint of her hands. The horse bounded forward, chasing the ambulance, and it was such a graceful natural feeling that Deirdre went with it. Until they had to cross the street. Asphalt is way too slippery and hard to run on. She slowed her to a walk.
October's Fire (Fairy Glen Suspense Book 1) Page 6
