by Peter Prasad
“Cool.” Jake was learning the lingo. “Can you give me a cheese? It’s for a picnic with this woman I grew up with. Her mom was my dad’s friend.”
“What kind?” Sandy dried her arms and opened the glass door to the cheese cave. The inside looked like an air-conditioned sauna with rows of wooden shelves. Each shelf was stacked with different shapes and sizes of cheese. Jake knew Sandy turned and wiped each wheel once a week. Marco had a special shelf of wheels that he wiped with beer or whiskey. He had promised one to Jake for Christmas.
“Whatever you think,” Jake said. He watched Sandy cut a small cheese in half and slice wedges off two rounds. “So tell me what they are. Sonya or Tanya will want to know everything.”
Sandy laughed at that. “Keep it simple. They’re all cow’s milk. Light-yellow is aged one month; medium-yellow is three months; golden-yellow is six months. From lighter to nutty. Got it?”
“Bless your heart. Sonya was like a mother to me and Wally. Tanya is a wicked good cook. They’ll love this.” Jake trotted back to the cottage with three pounds of cheese in a brown paper bag.
Packed and ready, Jake settled into his favorite chair on the veranda, popped the cap on an IPA and propped his boots on the railing. He noticed a lazy curl of black dots in the pale blue sky, circling. He knew the sign. He wondered if it was another calling card from the goat-ripper.
He was distracted by the sound of screeching tires and billowing dust at the junction of the paved road up to the dairy. Against a swirling brown cloud the nose of a silver pearl 1967 Corvette convertible slithered toward him. The low rumble of the 350-horsepower motor snapped him from his reverie. He stared. He noticed the white-leather bucket seats and a powder-blue console. This was a collector’s car to covet. Damn, if this was Tanya, he was in love.
The ‘Vette halted in front of the cottage and Tanya, wearing black wrap-around sunglasses, waved from the driver’s seat. She opened the door and unfolded her long, lean legs. She wore silver water-shoes and he caught a glint of turquoise toenail polish. He feasted with his eyes. She waved and walked around to unlock the trunk.
She stood radiantly; a white sun visor kept her golden hair from blowing into her face. She wore a thin sleeveless silver pullover with a turquoise floral print bikini-top underneath. Her baggy white cotton painter’s pants were cinched at the waist by a black cowboy belt. The buckle glinted in the sun.
Her smile outshined the belt buckle. Jake wanted to put all of her in his mouth.
He jumped up, grabbed his gear, hopped down the two steps and steered the bag toward the trunk of the ‘Vette. He approached cautiously, wondering if he might explode.
Tanya placed both her hands on his chest for a short moment and pushed back gently, teasing. “Hey, Jake.”
“Morning, Tanya.” His brain rapid-fired a dozen one-liners that he discarded immediately. He decided to play it slow. “You look great. The kind of California girl the Beach Boys sing about.” He leaned in to kiss her. She moved back a half-step.
With both of her hands on his chest, she rocked back and forth. She slipped her finger into a loop on his jeans and tugged him toward her. “I get to be your babe at the bay. Scooter is running the tavern today, tonight and tomorrow. Okay?” Her frankness put a hammer-lock on Jake’s tongue. He managed to nod like a bobble-head trophy from the ball park.
He loaded his gear in the trunk and she shut the lid. He used both hands to caress the classic lines of the Corvette. He looked up at her. “You’re not going to let me drive, are you?”
“No way!” Tanya spun around on her thin-soled sandals. Her golden pony tail bounced across her neck and caught the light. Jake surrendered the issue of who would drive and headed for the passenger’s seat.
Without him asking, Tanya filled him in. “Sonya won the ‘Vette in a poker game. Her straight-flush to his four-of-a-kind. Colonel Hazard owned it before that. They’ve been dating ever since.” Jake looked forward to meeting this guy, and reminded himself not to play cards with Tanya’s mother or the Colonel.
They strapped themselves into the high-backed bucket seats. Jake’s fingers traced the white-leather interior trim.
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“The Colonel swears it’s one of a kind. Sonya’s never around now, always at the Colonel’s. So it’s my Sunday drive. Like it?” She patted the padded transmission and chrome stick shift that separated them.
“Nothing could be finer.”
They looked at each other and slid into each other’s smiles. A deep moment passed between them. Each started to talk but stopped. Silently, they came to the same conclusion and sealed it with a lingering kiss, full on frontal, lips to lips. Tanya was first to ease back.
“I talked to Sonya. They’re bringing a salmon for the grille.”
“Sandy gave me three cheeses.”
“I packed a hamper. It’s in the trunk.”
“Let’s stop at a cove I know on the way up.” It was his favorite place to dive from the old days. He admired the Corvette’s interior. In his saddest voice he said, “Really? I don’t get to drive?” He sounded like he’d fumbled thirteen inches from a touchdown.
“Nope. You get to drink.” Tanya reached across his lap and pulled a cold beer from a canvas bag at his feet. Jake took it. “I’ll be the sober one until we’re on a sand dune.” Gracefully, she backed down the dirt track to a level turn around and rolled forward to the paved road.
Jake twisted the cap off the cold IPA. “You know me well.” He looked at the label.
“My mother trained me. Remember when we called you Shake-n-Bake?”
He laughed. “My senior year playing ball.”
“I was the tenth-grade girl you’d talk to. You’d carry my backpack and wait for the bus with me.”
“All elbows, knees and braces then.” Jake whistled. “Look at you now.” Tanya heard admiration as he studied the fine-line detail of her orchid tats. He rested his hand on her leg.
“Mmmm, don’t be naughty, not yet.”
Tanya slowed as she approached the freeway entrance and Jake spotted Tim Stoddard’s truck. In an open field off to his right, Tim and a co-worker were wrapping canvas around a goat carcass. Jake raised a hand and waved. Tim waved back. The look said it all. Jake made a mental note to call Tim later. For now, today was Tanya’s day, and tomorrow too, if she wanted it.
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CHAPTER TEN
The silver pearl Corvette rambled north up the freeway, then west to the ocean on a winding two-lane road through the towering redwoods beside the Russian River.
Tanya drove easily at the speed limit, tight through the curves. They listened to an Oldie Goldie station. If he didn’t like the song, he’d punch the button for a country station. At the end of the song, Tanya would punch back to the oldies. She liked Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, The Beatles, and this new kid, Bruno Mars. Their system for selecting the music worked without argument.
The ancient redwoods flashed past on both sides of the winding road. Through the deep forest shade, Jake spotted pebble-strewn beaches along the river with families at play, basking in the serene last days of summer. He and Tanya chatted about the Tavern, the dairy, high-school memories and funny little bits of their childhood, in no particular order. Jake relaxed, as they seemed to be having multiple conversations, following snippet-threads at the same time.
“I like your tats.” Jake traced his finger down Tanya’s arm from shoulder to elbow. Each of several orchids was etched and shaded in subtle, tasteful colors.
“Thanks. I’m either in the kitchen or the bar so don’t wear much jewelry. And a girl needs a little decoration.”
“What did Sonya say?”
“She’s jealous. My tats are better looking.”
Jake laughed. “Got more tats tucked away?”
“Maybe. Getting curious?” Jake’s fingertips moved to Tanya’s neck and rested there.
At the coast road, Tanya turned right and sp
ed on. Jake watched one rolling wave after another curl to a foam-top and slide against the rocks in a gentle shower of spray. He found an old pair of UV filter sunglasses in the glove compartment and slipped them on. He studied her face in profile, dusted with a few freckles and not a blemish anywhere.
On this strip of ocean and earth, his generation of California had come out to play. As they rambled north parallel the ocean, Jake caught glimpses of surfers, kite flyers, distance bikers and a hang-glider hopping between cliffs riding wind lift. The silver Corvette zipped over a hill and around a long sloping curve to rattle over a wooden bridge that spanned a creek. Jake tapped Tanya’s arm and she reduced speed.
Ahead was the cove that Jake had been hunting for. He pointed to a pull-over, cream-colored sand carved from the cliff. Across a wide shallow inlet, bright sunlight bounced off the water, tattooed by jagged black rocks ringed with seaweed. White spume-crested waves rolled across the inlet and stirred eddies in a rush to return to the sea. A pelican studied Tanya as she parked under a wind-blown cypress. “You’re going into that?”
“Yep. Mind if I change in the car?”
“You’d better.” She shook her head and grinned. Jake found it easier to strip standing up, with the door open, and wiggled into his wetsuit. Tanya confirmed he still had the cutest butt on the planet.
“Be right back.” He grabbed his gear and walked down to the cove. At the water’s edge, he stepped into neoprene booties, spit into his diving mask, pulled on rubber gloves and slipped the crowbar strap over his wrist.
Twenty minutes later, shivering from the cold water, he walked back to Tanya in the Vette with three fresh abalone shells in a collection sack. Finding them was easy; the colony of mollusks thrived this far north of San Francisco. He had wrestled each abalone shell off the rock it gripped with a short, broad-headed crowbar—pleased that he still knew how to get the right leverage.
He knew the cove. He had collected there as a tow-haired kid in tennis shoes and cut-off jeans.
He scanned the road for other vehicles. Tanya’s was the only car. Jake did not want to see a Fish-and-Game warden. The penalty for getting caught without the $40.00 permit for abalone was a $500 fine.
On the other hand, once hammered flat, buttered and barbecued, abalone was considered the supreme local white-meat seafood delicacy of the California coast. It wasn’t Jake’s favorite, but he remembered that Sonya adored them. He considered abs to be big, fleshy clams.
Once cleaned, the single-sided shells became trophies of luminescent mother-of-pearl. Jake had satisfied his hunter-gatherer instinct and wanted to bring his share to the picnic barbecue.
Tanya watched her Shake and Bake return, wet-headed from the salt water. “Seaweed salad perhaps?”
“Much better, three abs.”
“Sonya will love you for that.”
With his face to the sun, Jake peeled off the wet gear and packed it into his bag.
Naked as a jaybird, he retrieved his clothes from the front seat and hopped into his baggy shorts, cotton shirt and jeans. He sat on the edge of the seat and brushed sand off his feet. He reached behind Tanya for a beer.
Their lips collided for a long, celebratory kiss. Tanya did not mind his wet hair or that he tasted of salt. Gladly, like a satisfied Cheshire cat, she was ready to lick the brine from the skin of her hunter-gatherer hero.
***
From his high perch camped atop a sand dune, eagle-eyed Colonel Harland Hazard heard the signature rumble of the ‘Vette engine when Tanya pulled into the gravel lot at the south end of Drake’s Bay. Legend held that five hundred years earlier, Sir Francis and The Golden Hind lurked here ready to fleece a Spanish galleon. After a bottom-stirring winter storm, beach-combers claimed to find shards of blue and white China trade porcelain washed ashore from the flat expanse of bay.
The tanned, silver-haired Colonel removed aviator sunglasses from the bridge of his nose and peered through binoculars. “There’re here,” he said to Sonya, who lay in the sun behind a temporary wind screen.
Smoke flowed from a small fire of wood chips into a metal box that held slabs of fresh salmon. A cooling breeze gusted in from the ocean, adding to the perfection of the 360-degree view. Behind them, the Pacific Ocean stretched ever westward to a new day.
“Damn. I’d better put on some clothes.” Sonya sat up and pulled an elastic sheath of gathered Balinese fabric over her head, a snug and exotic fit from chest to knees. Hazard dropped an ice-cube into a glass of white wine and handed it to her.
He still couldn’t get enough of looking at Sonya, who was fussing with her thick mane highlighted with henna. He could bury his face in those locks and be serene for the first time in his life.
Sonya looked forever thirty-nine with her muscular curves, boosted with a nip-and-tuck. In the Colonel’s eyes, she was generous and accepting, the perfect union of Earth Mother and co-pilot, love wrapped with lust. She returned his affection, dollar for dollar.
If great sex makes you stupid, he was waltzing down the road to dumb as an ox. He wanted to volunteer for a ring through his nose. He’d been married a few times despite an Air Force career that bounced him to hot zones. When pushed, he’d tell you about being the last chopper off the embassy roof in Saigon.
Not bad for a retired fly boy. He was busy with projects from high-tech to real estate to wine as an advisor and go-to guy. He excelled at ‘putting out fires’, he liked to say. He could start them too, mostly legal and often ugly. If you needed leverage, Colonel Hazard was your crow bar. He ran with a group dedicated to good times, sober until five in the evening and never on Sundays.
Today’s picnic was his last intimate sand-dune-soiree of the summer with Sonya. Next month, the party moved from one manicured winery lawn to another. He might take Sonya to chase the sun in Sri Lanka after Christmas.
The Colonel reached for his glass of sipping Scotch in a tumbler of ice he set on a square wicker basket that served as a bar. He buttoned his linen shirt and rubbed his belly. He was proud of doing 100 sit-ups and 25 push-ups every morning. “Fit To Lead, When Asked” was his motto.
Tanya waived to the couple on top of the sand dunes and opened the trunk of the ‘Vette. She grabbed a basket of food and beverages and left Jake to haul his abalone, beers and a blanket. Tanya kicked off her sandals. Jake followed her lead barefoot through the sand and sea grass.
“Sonya is going to love seeing you again. Mom’s getting crusty. She swears like a sailor now. I blame the Colonel.”
Jake laughed. “She taught me how to spell cuss words.”
Jake crested the dune and dropped his gear on the blanket. Sonya and Tanya kissed, and Jake hugged Sonya like a long-lost mother. They had a history and Jake’s real mother had been Sonya’s friend.
Sonya kissed him, tugged at his hair, squeezed his arm and turned to introduce him to the Colonel. “Colonel Harland Hazard, please welcome home Sergeant Jake Knight, our Bronze Star hero.”
“Hey, soldier. Just call me Hap.” The two men shook hands.
“Get it?” Tanya said. “Colonel Harlan Hazard, as in Hap Hazard. Huzzah!”
She looked at her mother and laughed; Jake and Hap laughed as well.
***
“Being a private investigator… that’s an interesting career change,” Hap said.
He’d been born in Georgia. Jake heard echoes of peanut in his voice. They sat by the salmon smoker sipping scotch. They exchanged war stories and their respective Sonoma histories. Fortified by chardonnay, Sonya and Tanya stretched on blankets by the glowing embers in the fire pit. The picnic ‘fixings’ were reduced to crumbs of cheese, salad shreds, a few bones and empty abalone shells.
Hap spoke in a gentle, commanding voice. “Hell, I did it. I decommissioned out of Travis, moved to Windsor and set up a security service. You meet interesting people and snatch their bacon out of the fire.”
“Oh hell, Hap, all you do is make phone calls. You make more money running air charters than investigations.” Sony
a teased him.
“Too true, darling. All the right people keep calling me back.”
Turning toward Jake, he added: “You have to be scrupulously honest with clients. Your reputation is everything. Have a specialty in mind? You can get work from insurance companies, investigating fraud and workers’ comp claims. From divorce attorneys, especially the pre-nup busters. People keep bumping bellies where they shouldn’t. It’s human nature so get a surveillance van and shoot high-def video.”
Hap looked at the ladies and in a mocking tone added, “Your honor, may we dim the lights.” Both women laughed. Jake shook his head and let the relaxation thaw his being.
Hap speared the last piece of abalone on the grille. “There’s corporate work. Find a corporate raider or a hedge-fund guy, borrow their shovel and dig for dirt. Information is gold to them. You’ll root though some trash too.”
Hap cleared his throat. He looked hard at Jake. “I have a couple of questions. You ever killed anyone?”
Jake looked into the distance. “Only in Afghanistan.” Tanya moved closer to Jake and wrapped her arms around him.
“You carry a gun?”
“Not since Afghanistan. Do I need one in Sonoma?”
“Always good to be prepared. Get a carry permit before you get convicted of a felony. Even a small bore snub-nose says ‘piss off.’ And make friends with the local cops. They’re the front line for Roto-Rooter duty. If you’re vegetarian, shoot knock-out darts.” Jake smiled at that. “The best Pee-Eyes never get that close. Learn to be a shadow in the dark.”
The setting sun began to kiss the ocean in a final blaze of golden orange across the dunes. Hap reached for his cell phone, punched a key and spoke. “Ready for pick-up.” He turned back to Jake. “You got your bond money pulled together?”
“Not yet.”
Hap leaned forward and extended his hand. “Well, Knight, Hazard Security needs talent—freelance, contract, whatever. I’ll take care of the bond. You can work it off.” Jake reached out and shook Hap’s hand. He felt another piece of his life, post-Afghanistan, fall into place.
