Screen Kiss

by Ann Roberts

  “I had no idea,” Addy said. “Sexual harassment must’ve been really bad in the past.”

  “Oh, yes, but we didn’t call it that. It was just boys being boys.” She winked and added, “You did the right thing by Bianca. Just remember that.”

  “I will.”

  The bus pulled up and Addy motioned for Kit to get on first. Addy climbed the steps behind her, and Kit announced, “Look who I found!”

  The whole bus cheered, including Addy’s substitute driver, Wilma. She stuck out her hand and Addy shook it. “I’m praying for you, Addy. I’d love to take this route permanently, but you’ve earned it.”

  “Thanks, Wilma. Everything going okay?” she asked.

  “It’s fine, but every regular who gets on asks, ‘when is Addy coming back?’ I always tell ’em soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  She scanned the passengers and saw Mazie waving at her. Kit approached Mazie, who sat next to Weather and held Coda and Huxley. Kit asked for the seat and Mazie moved to a row near the back with two empty seats. Addy quickly joined her and gave her a hug.

  “What are you doing on the bus?” Mazie asked.

  “I was playing croquet.”

  Mazie raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.” She bit her lip, unsure how Mazie would react when she learned Addy saw a shrink. Mazie continued to stare expectantly, so Addy whispered, “My therapist and I play croquet at her house.”

  Mazie’s surprise was evident, and Addy wished she could take back the words until Mazie said, “Wow, your therapist plays croquet with you? How cool. I wonder if mine would consider something like that.”

  “You have a therapist?”

  “Actually two. I had one back home and I started seeing a new one when I moved here. She’s over on Jefferson Street.”

  Addy gasped. “My therapist is on Jefferson Street. What’s your therapist’s name?”

  “Dr. Tingle.” They both laughed and gazed at each other. Mazie looked concerned and said, “How are you doing? Is it weird to ride the bus?”

  Addy sighed. “I like Wilma, and she asked me if I do anything special, so I told her about dropping off Weather and the kids wherever they need to go.”

  “That’s good.” Mazie looked toward Kit and the kids. Huxley was reading a book to Kit. They couldn’t see Kit’s reaction, but Addy was certain it was a look filled with love. “Why does everybody move so Kit can sit with Weather and the kids?” Mazie asked.

  “Those are her grandchildren.”

  “They are?”

  “Uh-huh. Kit and her wife aren’t welcome in her son and daughter-in-law’s house, so Weather arranges times for them to meet on the bus. Sometimes they get off together and sometimes they don’t.”

  Mazie looked astounded. “This is the only way she sees her grandchildren? That’s horrible.”

  “Shh,” Addy said as Mazie’s voice turned shrill. “It is horrible, but for now it’s all they have.”

  “Why?”

  “Kit came out much later in life. After her husband died in the eighties, she fell in love with another female professor at Cammon. Her fifteen-year-old son didn’t take it very well. He got a lot of grief in high school. He went away to college and fell in love with this ultra-religious woman. They ended up coming back here because he’s a religious studies professor. Kit got him a position at Cammon. But the wife won’t see Kit or allow her in their house. Kit’s son is a wuss and goes along with it.”

  “Does he know Weather is secretly bringing the kids to see her?”

  “I think so, but I’m not sure.”

  “How awful that must be for her.” She turned to Addy and planted a kiss on her cheek.

  Addy felt the butterflies and knew she was blushing. “What was that for?”

  “Because you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, Addy Tornado. I’m very proud to know you.”

  Addy sat up straighter. “Thank you, Mazie Midnight.”

  Mazie took Addy’s hand and squeezed it. They stared at each other and Addy suddenly went to a different place. She saw the two of them in a field. A puppy ran toward them. They were on a blanket having a picnic. The puppy jumped into Mazie’s arms and licked her face. Addy laughed and threw her arms around both of them.

  “What are you thinking about?” Mazie asked. “You looked far away.”

  Addy blinked. “Yeah, but I wasn’t. Not like other times. I was…just imagining the future.”

  “And that was different?”

  “Completely.”

  Mazie leaned closer. “Was I in it…your future?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Since Addy couldn’t go to work, Mazie invited her to help at the Bijou. They found Almondine sitting in her office chair, her hands clenching both sides of her head—and groaning.

  Mazie knew she couldn’t be upset by the financials because she’d already had her red-bottom-line migraine for the current month. This had to be something else. “What’s up?” she asked nonchalantly. Mazie had learned the best way to pull Almondine out of a funk was to ignore her dramatic urges.

  She raised her head and said, “Just listen.”

  She pushed the message button on the oldest answering machine Mazie had ever seen. After much whirring and clicking the mechanical voice said she had two messages and the first one had come in at two-fourteen in the morning. When the recording began, Mazie heard the obvious sounds of traffic. The caller was in a car.

  “Hey, this is a message for Mazie Midnight. Like your name, girlfriend. This is Tarina. You called and asked if I could do my premiere at the Bijou, where, apparently, the woman who walked out of my life without any warning, without a note, a fax, a singing telegram, or any facsimile of a goodbye, is the owner.”

  “She’s so dramatic,” Almondine interjected, and Mazie had to stifle a laugh.

  “I’ve thought about your proposal for the last few weeks, and I’ve spoken with my manager as well as the film’s producers. My manager knows if it’s something I want to do, I’m gonna do it anyway, so he was chill. But the producers said no way in hell—until I explained who owned the theater, and if they want me to be in the obvious sequels to this movie, they needed to comply. Because if I don’t want to do something, no amount of money, prestige, or promises is gonna move my ass. Tarina has other options.”

  Almondine waved her hand and leaned back in her chair. “Always so stubborn,” she muttered.

  Mazie’s heart started to pound. Tarina was going to say yes!

  “So, I’m gonna say yes,” she continued, “but I’ve got some demands. I—”

  The tape automatically cut out and a long beep sounded. “End of message,” the mechanical voice said.

  “Wait!” Mazie cried.

  “Don’t worry,” Almondine said. “Tarina will always have the last word.”

  More whirring and clicking and the traffic sounds returned. “I got cut off, probably because Almondine is too damn cheap to use real voice mail. You’ve still got that ancient answering machine, don’t you Deenie?”

  “Deenie?” Addy asked.

  Almondine frowned at the nickname.

  “Anyway, here are my demands before the freakin’ thing cuts me off again.” Mazie immediately grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. “I want a room at a nice place for two nights. I expect a bottle of pinot gris from a great Oregon winemaker—you pick—and most important, what I want…is an apology and an explanation. From you, Almondine. Mazie, let me know if this is gonna work, and then my people will reach out.” The mechanical voice told them it was the end of messages.

  Addy and Mazie looked at Almondine. Her eyes were closed and she was pale. “I cannot do this,” she said with a long exhale. “This is too much.”

  “What’s too much?” Mazie asked. “Apologizing? Explaining yourself? What if it saves the Bijou?”

  Almondine swiveled so her back was to them. “It was so long ago.”

  Mazie marched behind
the desk and stood in front of her. “I get that, Almondine, and I imagine between now and when Tarina visits, you have some reflection to do. But she’s an A-list celebrity who’s agreed to premiere her movie at our little theater. Here. At the Bijou. We’ll have people from all over Oregon coming for that. Everyone will know about us. As a historic landmark, we can accept donations, we’ll get bigger films, and we will, once and for all, solve the financial difficulties.”

  Almondine said nothing, despite Mazie hovering over her, arms crossed, for nearly a minute. She looked shell-shocked, and Mazie imagined whatever had happened to their relationship had devastated both of them, perhaps in different ways. But they were stuck. Almondine was alone, and as far as Mazie knew, Tarina didn’t have a significant other. Mazie felt a knot in her throat. She never wanted this to happen to her. She glanced over at Addy, who stared at her with an odd expression.

  “You think about it,” Mazie said. She stormed away, grabbing Addy’s hand and pulling her out of the office.

  Once the door was closed, Addy said, “Wow. This is just a wow day for a lot of things.”

  Mazie touched the wall as the room spun, or at least she thought the room might be spinning. Addy moved beside her and rubbed her back.

  “Are you okay?” Addy asked.

  Mazie shook her head. “I don’t ever want to be Almondine. I don’t ever want a love that strong to die.”

  Addy pulled them together and kissed her deeply. “Me either.”

  Mazie knew she could say important words and mean them, but she worried it was too soon. Both of them had issues lying on their respective tables—Addy’s color issue and Mazie’s stage fright. They needed to finish working on themselves before they could be good together.

  A knock sounded at the Bijou’s front door. Mazie checked her watch. It was ninety minutes before the first show, which meant thirty minutes before the doors opened.

  “Who could that be?” she asked.

  “Maybe it’s FedEx?”

  Mazie shrugged and headed for the door, which was equipped with an old-fashioned peephole. She twisted the level and a tiny door opened. It was Nadine. Shoot! She’d forgotten Nadine was coming back this morning to play with the footage and see if she could retrieve Bianca’s audio of Pratul. She’d naturally invited Addy to the Bijou, forgetting her clandestine meeting with Nadine.

  “Good morning,” Nadine said. “We’ve got to talk.”

  Addy stuck her head up near the peephole. “Hey, Nadine. What are you doing here?”

  Nadine looked surprised, but Mazie just sighed and shrugged. There wasn’t any way to keep this from Addy. Nadine had a box in hand and headed straight for Theater One. “We need to view this in private,” she said.

  They followed her to the small stage at the front of Theater One. She opened her laptop and connected an external drive and a thumb drive. Once all the cables were connected and the laptop was powered up, she turned to Mazie and Addy and said, “I think you’re about to get your job back.”

  “I am?” Addy jumped up and down and fist-pumped the air. Then she looked quizzically at both of them. “How? Why?”

  Mazie put an arm around her shoulder. “Well, I wasn’t going to share this with you until I was sure it would help… Bianca and I did some surveillance yesterday. We got on Pratul’s bus separately, and I taped him making sexual advances to her.”

  “That’s great!” Addy cried.

  “No,” Nadine disagreed. “That’s not so great. That part didn’t[ go well. Something happened to the audio, and it went into the great vortex of unexplainable technological problems. Mazie, what Pratul said wasn’t captured on the audio, so basically we have a silent movie.”

  Addy sighed and leaned against the stage. “Well, it was worth a try. I’ve been thinking about other things I can do—”

  “No, no.” Nadine waved a hand. “I didn’t say the whole effort was a bust. No, no, not at all.” She tapped her keyboard and the movie started.

  After thirty seconds of Pratul looking at his cuticles, Addy said, “Why isn’t he driving? Why is the bus sitting at Stop Two?”

  “So that is weird, right?” Mazie asked.

  “Definitely,” Addy said. “He’s got a schedule to keep.”

  “When I got on, he said some flirty things to me, and I took my seat, but the bus didn’t move. I thought maybe he was waiting for a regular, but then this Pontiac Firebird pulled up next to the bus.” The film showed the man with the backpack climbing up the steps. Mazie pointed and said, “That guy got on and it was strange. He mentioned being lost and needing directions.”

  “Watch closely,” Nadine instructed.

  The three of them saw the man set his backpack next to the console while Pratul opened a map and pointed at locations. The man thanked him and left. Pratul closed the door and started to drive.

  “He didn’t take the backpack!” Mazie exclaimed.

  “Ding, ding, ding,” Nadine said. “We have a winner.” She paused the film and pointed to the backpack that sat next to Pratul. “He left it.”

  “Why?” Addy asked.

  Nadine held up a hand. “Oh, all will be made clear, young Skywalker.”

  Addy chuckled at the reference. Mazie could tell she was giddy at the prospect of keeping her job.

  “Now,” Nadine continued, “I’m fast forwarding to two stops later. Pratul left the backpack alone, Mazie, probably because you were the only one on the bus, and he was worried you’d get suspicious if he moved it. I’ll tell you, this guy is good. But watch what happens three stops later.”

  Pratul opened the door and quickly moved the backpack from his right side to his left, which was obstructed by the wall that separated the driver from the passengers. He occasionally looked over his shoulder and greeted some of the passengers, but he remained hunkered down, his back to the front door, at least thirty seconds after the last passenger boarded.

  “He’s not moving again,” Addy said. “I know I probably shouldn’t talk about being late, but he’s just as bad.”

  Mazie leaned closer. “I remember thinking something similar, wondering who he was waiting for.”

  “He wasn’t waiting for anyone,” Nadine said. “Watch.”

  Pratul sat up straight, and he set a water bottle and an apple on the console next to him.

  “He’s making it look like he reached into his lunchbox,” Nadine commented. “But he didn’t just get out his lunch. Watch what happens at the next stop.”

  The ride continued uneventfully to the next stop. Five passengers stood to disembark. As they left, Pratul shook each hand.

  “Watch this last man,” Nadine said, tapping a figure on her computer screen. “The short guy.”

  Just before the young guy reached him, Pratul turned away and coughed. The young man slowed, as if he wanted to shake Pratul’s hand. When Pratul turned back, he clasped the young man’s hand in both of his before the young man disembarked.

  “He gave him something,” Mazie said. “It was a handoff.”

  Nadine smiled proudly. “Mazie, darling, I’d love for you to be my assistant. Between your steady videotaping skills and keen eye, we could make a great team.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She pointed at her. “Think about it.”

  Mazie glanced at a grinning Addy. She’d never considered a career as a private eye. Then she remembered this wasn’t about her and turned serious. “So what did he give the guy, and how does this help Addy?”

  Nadine minimized the video, tapped a few keys and three pictures appeared on the screen. “I won’t bore you with the other twenty-six minutes of footage you captured, Mazie, but Pratul’s coughing fit and the two-handed handshake happen thirteen more times. Here’s what we know.”

  Nadine expanded the first picture to full screen. It was a picture of the guy with the backpack. “I took this movie to the narcotics division of the Wilshire Hills Police Department, who immediately involved Portland PD. This man,” she said pointin
g at the photo, “is Gus del la Cruz, a known drug supplier.” She tapped on the second photo, a close-up of the short, young man. “This is Bill Wambucher. His street name is Jump. He’s a dropout and a user. He’s also already got two strikes against him for possession. Detectives picked him up early this a.m., and not so surprising, he was high and holding. He was more than happy to work a deal, rather than get a third a strike. Here’s how Pratul’s scheme works. Every Wednesday Gus meets Pratul at Stop Two.” Nadine looked at Mazie. “You were a surprise. They didn’t expect you to be there, so Pratul improvised as a helpful bus driver giving directions to a lost citizen. Del la Cruz leaves the backpack, which has Pratul’s order for all of his customers.”

  “So Bump was right,” Addy said.

  “Who’s Bump?” Mazie asked.

  “He’s the guy who told me Pratul was dealing.” She sighed. “This is just unbelievable.”

  “I know, honey,” Nadine said sympathetically. She clicked the third picture, a blow-up of the apple sitting on the console. “According to Jump, this is Pratul’s signal that he’s open for business. His customers know that when they disembark, they shake his hand. They give him cash folded into a tiny square—no more than two bills—and he gives them a baggie of Oxy, all under the guise of extraordinary customer service—a handshake.”

  Addy stamped her foot. “He actually got a commendation for that stupid handshaking. Made it sound like he knew his regulars better than anybody else.”

  “Oh, he knew these people,” Nadine interjected. “But it didn’t have anything to do with customer service on the bus.”

  “What happens next?” Mazie asked.

  Nadine checked her watch. “I imagine right about now they’re checking Pratul’s bank records. About lunchtime he’ll be quietly relieved of duty and taken to jail. They hope he’ll roll over on Gus. It’s always about the big players. If we don’t cut off the supply and just put the low-level scum like Pratul in jail, we never stop the cycle. I’m sure he’ll cut a deal for Gus to get a more lenient sentence.” Nadine beamed at Mazie. “You and Bianca are freakin’ heroes.”