Bad to the Bone (21 page)

At the moment, Audrey was sprawled across one of the couches, and Lydia across the other. It was a short ride to the theater from Kat's estate—south through the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills to Sunset Boulevard, then east to Highland and north to the Kodak.

“Giving those guitars to my cousins. That was amazing,” Lydia told her.

“Nothing to it,” Audrey said modestly. “I quite like kiddies, as long as they belong to someone else,” she added with a grin. “Care for a coldie?” She reached into the minifridge and pulled out a beer.

Lydia shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Audrey popped the top and took a long swallow. “I've had a blast staying at your place, ducks. So much better than some stuffy hotel.”

“I'm sorry it had to end,” Lydia said. “But now that my aunt and the kids are back…”

“No worries,” Audrey insisted. “I'm leaving on tour in a few days anyhow. Five cities in Europe, then five cities in Asia.”

“Seeing the world, staying in five-star hotels, screaming fans … sounds like a dream,” Lydia said wistfully.

Audrey ran her thumbnail under the label on the beer bottle. “Actually it gets damn lonely.” She grinned. “Now there's a bloody cliché for you, eh? Superstar on tour, surrounded by people, admits that she's lonely.”

Lydia peered out the dark glass window—she could see out, but no one could see in. They were stuck in a traffic jam just down the street from the Kodak Theatre. Outside the window, she saw Grauman's Chinese Theatre. As usual, the street was full of tourists and eccentrics. There was a man on stilts in an Uncle Sam constume; another in black leather chaps, shirtless, with pierced nipples connected by a silver chain. A gaggle of Asian tourists was snapping his photo.

Audrey reached into the minifridge for another beer.

“It doesn't bother you to drink before you go onstage?” Lydia asked.

“Nothing bothers me,” Audrey maintained. “I've got the constitution of a moose.” She took a drink from the bottle. “So, love, I was thinking. About my tour. What would make it so much more fun is … if you came with.”

Lydia wasn't sure she'd heard right. “Did you say … say it again.”

“I'm inviting you to come on tour with me.”

“But … what would my job be?”

Audrey laughed between swallows of beer. “No job, ducks. Just to hang out, have fun, make sure I have a few laughs. I'd pay for everything, of course. You'd get to see the world, and the inside of all those five-star hotels you were talking about.”

“I have a job,” Lydia reminded her. “And I'm still in high school.”

“Yeah, well, if that's what you want. But you struck me as a free spirit. Kindred sisters. All that.” The rock star's eyes bored into her own. “C'mon. I could use the company.”

Whoa. Did she care about Bel Air High? Hell, no. She skipped school more than she went, and she didn't really care
about going to college, so she couldn't see how it mattered much. As far as taking care of her cousins, another nanny could do the job for a while. Surely Aunt Kat would understand. Surely she wouldn't begrudge Lydia taking the opportunity of a lifetime….

“But if you can't, you can't,” Audrey concluded.

“Hold up,” Lydia said. “Who said I can't?” She knew it was impulsive. But if you weren't impulsive when you were a high school senior, when would you ever be? The day she turned down an offer like that was the day she had to turn herself in to the psych ward. She threw her arms around Audrey. “When do we leave?”

As Friday night slipped into Saturday morning, and the moon rose high in the Los Angeles sky, Esme couldn't sleep. In fact, she didn't even try. Her parents had been incommunicado since Wednesday, even though Junior had reported that the transfer in Calexico to the coyote had gone without a hitch. Esme knew they wouldn't try to cross the border there, to Mexicali on the other side. Instead, they'd be taken out into the desert, past the new security fence between the United States and its neighbor to the south. There, they'd play a cat-and-mouse game with the border patrol under the guidance of their coyote, waiting for a propitious moment to cross southward.

That fence made things infinitely more complicated. Yes, the saying was that if you find a fifteen-foot wall, you just need a sixteen-foot ladder to get over it. On the other hand, you'd be sixteen feet up, there'd be no ladder on the other side, and
you still had to get the damn ladder to the fence in the first place. Plus there were helicopters, jeeps, and cameras. Just to get back into Mexico without getting caught. Loco.

She'd called everyone. Junior had done his best to reassure her. So had Jorge and his father. Steven and Diane had told her to take the night off, that Diane would watch the girls while Steven was at rehearsal for the show. Esme thought that was a good thing—the twins still didn't spend much time with their mother unless someone else was there to help. Esme appreciated that all these people cared and were trying to look out for her. But the inactivity was worse than being busy. She'd even rescheduled a tattoo for the drummer of a band that currently had the number-two CD in the country, because she didn't feel she could concentrate well enough to do her best. Instead, she'd gone online to pass the time, and found herself eating pistachios and reading firsthand accounts of harrowing border crossings, and newspaper stories about the border fence and heightened security. It made her so sick to her stomach that she knew she should quit. But somehow she couldn't.

It was when she was going to her cupboard for her third helping of pistachios—even though her stomach was saying she'd eaten more than enough already—that her cell rang. Caller ID was restricted, but she still opened it breathlessly. Maybe, just maybe …

Please, let it be my parents
.

“Hello?”

“Hola, Esme, Papa aquí.”

Hello, Esme, it's your father
. Esme nearly fell over with relief.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she made no effort to wipe them away.

“Are you safe? Papa, are you safe?”

Her father's words were comforting. “We're in Mexico. We're safe. We weren't safe for a long time in the crossing, but we are safe now.”

“Mama, too?”

She heard her mother's voice in the background, in English. “Hi, beautiful daughter! It's your mother!”

Now, she finally relaxed, stepping over into her bedroom and sagging onto the red antique quilt. Her muscles ached—every muscle ached. She realized how tense they had been for the last day and a half.

“Where are you? Why did it take so long for you to call me? What happened?”

“I'll let your mother tell you. No matter what she tells you, know that we are fine now.” Her father was emphatic.

She heard her father give her mother the phone, and then listened in stunned silence as her mother told the tale of how they crossed the border. For whatever reason, the coyote had led them into an area swarming with border patrol. They'd had to hide out in a crude cave for all of Wednesday night and half of Thursday. Their water had run short, and there were scorpions. They could hear the helicopters and jeeps in the desert, and even loudspeakers telling any illegals in the desert to freeze where they were.

“They were looking for people coming from Mexico to America,” her mother said. “But that didn't mean they would not have swept us up, too.”

“I should have been with you,” Esme exclaimed, still regretting that she hadn't thought of this before they'd left.

“Your papa never would have let you come,
m'ija
. And there was room in the cave for only three people,” her mother explained. “If you had come we could not have hid there and we would have been captured.”

Esme had no idea if this was true or if her mother was just saying it to make her feel better. And she never would know, because neither parent would ever tell her.

For Estella Castaneda, that was a long speech. But the upshot of it was clear. Estella was reminding Esme of her parting words on Wednesday, when she and Esme's father had told Esme they wanted her to finish high school. Esme understood.
Sometimes your mother knows things that you do not
. She understood, but wasn't sure she agreed. No matter what, this wasn't the time or place to launch into that discussion.

“What's next?” Esme asked.

“We go to Puerto Vallarta,” her mother replied. “We should be there soon. I hope that we can start work at the resort on Monday. We will send Steven and Diane a letter of thanks. But I want you to thank them again for us in person. Will you do that?”

“Of course, Mama.”

“And what about you,
mi estimada?”

Esme knew what her mother meant—was Esme going back to school as her parents wanted. She sidestepped the implied question and simply assured her mother that she was fine.

The conversation went on a while longer—it was hard for Esme to say goodbye. Finally, with the promise of another
phone call on Sunday, Estella said they had to get going—they wanted to sleep in a real bed this evening instead of under the stars on a “mattress” made of endless sand.

“Goodbye, Mama.”

“Goodbye,
querida
. Make good choices.”

That was it. The call went dead in Esme's hand.
Make good choices
. But what if what Esme thought was a good choice for her was not her mother's choice? She had no answer to that. Still, she was overcome with relief just to know that her parents were all right.

Tomorrow night was the Rock Music Awards, and Esme knew her day would be insane. But even though it was after one, there was no way she could sleep. She knew she shouldn't call anyone that late, but…

She called Kiley, then Lydia, and quickly gave them the great news about her parents. They were, of course, delighted. Then she hung up and called Jorge. He was up reading the end of John Edgar Wideman's
Philadelphia Fire
, which had been assigned in his freshman literature class.

“It's great news, Esme,” he told her softly. “I guess Junior came through for you.”

Jorge had never been a fan of Junior's, had always thought his best friend could and should do better than a high school dropout and former gangbanger.

“Yes, he came through for me,” she agreed. “And for my parents.”

“I'll tell my father first thing in the morning,” Jorge promised. “He'll be happy.”

“I guess it's too late to go out. I'm too jazzed to sleep so I thought maybe…”

She left the rest of the question unsaid. There was silence on the other end of the phone. Esme could feel the heat rush to her face.

Finally, after what felt like forever: “Esme, you askin' me out?”

“Yes, I'm asking you out,” she confirmed.

“Like on a date?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“A friend date or a date-date? Because I need some clarification here.”

“Depends,” Esme began, because there was only so far she was willing to stick her neck out. “You want it to be a date-date?”

“Oh no, I'm not letting you get away with that. You asked. You decide.”

She exhaled slowly. “Fine. A
date-date
. You happy now?”

She felt as if she could hear his smile over the phone. “Yeah. I'm happy.”

They agreed to meet at Hector's, a new club in Los Feliz that stayed open until three. Jorge had a friend who worked there.

Esme hung up and stared at her phone. She was going on a date with her best friend. That could ruin everything.

She left her car with the valet on Los Feliz Boulevard and walked into Hector's. It was cozy, dimly lit, and still full of patrons even though the neon wall clock said it was 2:15 in the morning. A bar with orange and pink leopard-print stools ran the length of the rear wall. Midnight blue velvet love seats were placed in dark corners here and there. On
a small stage near the front, a lone guitarist played classic Spanish love songs.

She was relieved to see that Jorge had arrived before she did.

“Hello,” he said softly as he approached her in the doorway.

He wore a blue button-down shirt untucked under a khaki cotton blazer Esme had never seen before, and jeans. Back at her guesthouse, flying on the good news of her parents' safe arrival in Mexico, Esme had put on a short, tight black skirt and very high heels. But just before leaving, she decided it felt ridiculous to meet Jorge in such a getup. That was the kind of outfit Junior had loved. He'd loved for all the men, no matter where they were, to look at her and to know that she was all his.

With Jonathan, she'd also changed her style. She made an effort to dress classy, to fit in with his rich, white show-business friends. But with Jorge, she knew she didn't have to put on any kind of artifice. He'd see right through it, and then call her on it. So she'd changed into jeans and a magenta cotton sweater that was neither tight nor low-cut. It felt right.

“I got us a table,” Jorge said, and led her to a love seat nestled in a corner. The table already held a pitcher of something dark and two glasses.

“Dark beer?” she guessed, settling onto the love seat.

“Coke.” Jorge chuckled and poured her a glassful. “But if you wanted to get me drunk you should have just said so. There's plenty to celebrate. Like you being here with me, for instance.”