Between Us Girls (5 page)

A man stepped around Liv. He nodded at her, talking into a cell phone. “I'll put her on.” He handed the phone to her.

It felt hot and too large in her hand. It was a newer model than hers, one of the smart kinds that always made her feel dumb. She put it to her ear, hoping it was right side up. “Hello?”

A kind female voice replied, and Jasmyn wondered if everyone in California was nice. She had yet to meet a grump.

The woman's straightforward questions put her at ease, helping her to rattle off all the car information. Her knack for details was why she never wrote down customer orders and why her friends called her the queen of trivia. Names, numbers, and directions were always at her fingertips. She never lost her keys.

No way on earth could she have forgotten where she parked her car. No way could she have forgotten the time she had parked it; its make, model, or license plate number; or the name and location of the rental agency.

She ended with, “Why on earth would anyone want to steal a plain little white two-door rental?”

The policewoman chuckled. “You'd be surprised.”

When the conversation ended, Jasmyn stared at the phone. “I don't know how to turn it off.”

The man called Keagan took it from her. “Your car is a rental?”

She nodded and thought about standing up. But seriously. Was there any reason to stand up? She had nowhere to go and no way of getting there.

“Jasmyn, dear, where are you from?”

“Illinois. Valley Oaks, Illinois.”

“Oh! Then you're here on vacation?” Liv sounded surprised.

“Yeah.”

“Is someone traveling with you?”

As Quinn would say,
Uh-oh, red flag
. She'd say that California had earned its nickname, the Land of Fruits and Nuts, for good reason, and it wasn't because of agriculture. Friendly did not mean trustworthy, and Jasmyn should always be on her guard against weirdos.

If Quinn could see this guy Keagan, she'd tell Jasmyn to hightail it out of there ASAP.
He was friendly enough to make the phone call, but come on,
Albright, give me a break. Scary. No expression whatsoever. Have you seen him smile? No. I am not even going to mention those two mirrors hiding his eyes. Check out the hair. Hair? What'd he use? A brown marker? That's one bona fide kook for sure.

Liv said, “Can we call someone for you?”

Jasmyn shrugged, not wanting to give personal information, and she wondered why such a nice woman would hang out with the likes of Keagan. It was probably all an act. The two of them were in cahoots.

Liv went on. “You said you were living out of your suitcase. Are you staying in a motel?”

Jasmyn's neck ached from looking up at the strangers. She bent her head and focused on shoving the towel back into the beach bag, trying not to cry again. If she didn't shove Quinn's imaginary voice in the bag with the towel, she'd be sitting there all night in the grass because really, she was beyond frazzled.

She had no choice but to trust these kooks.

“I'm here by myself. I checked out of a motel this morning.” She got to her feet and smoothed out her cover-up dress. “That's why all my luggage was in the car. I was leaving from the beach to go to…to go to…” Her breath caught. “To Disneyland. I had a reservation at the resort.”

“Oh, honey.” Liv reached out and squeezed Jasmyn's arm. “You'll get a chance to go there and you will love it. For now, though, we'd better get you settled in. You'll want to cancel credit cards and reservations. You need food and a place to sleep.”

She blinked away fresh tears. It was too much to think about. “Any motel is fine. Whatever is close. I'll pay you back, I promise.”

“Now, now, no worries about money. And no motel room for you. I live right through that gate over there, and we have a room with your name on it. As a matter of fact, we have an entire cottage. Come on. Let's go home.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

A cottage with her name on it?
Uh-oh.
Should Jasmyn follow? Was she being kidnapped?

Quinn's voice again.

But Quinn had not met this woman.

Liv was tall and large-boned. Probably in her sixties. She wore sandals, khaki capris, and a brightly colored floral print blouse. Her twinkling eyes and quick smile were the stuff of fairy godmother tales. In a deep voice
on the verge of a giggle, she had made the car issue disappear like a puff of smoke and offered to take Jasmyn home.

Home.

Could Liv McAlister be Hansel and Gretel's hag in disguise?

Keagan moved beside her. “Olivia's the real deal, Jasmyn Albright.” Without another glance or word, he trailed after the woman.

Jasmyn watched their retreating backs. What should she do? Spend the night on a park bench or follow the bighearted woman and her mind-reading friend?

Her heart thumping in her throat, she picked up her beach bag.

Quinn would have a cow.

Jasmyn walked toward the wall she had noticed every day she had parked in her spot. It was impossible not to notice it. At least half a block long and probably twelve feet high, it was covered with green vines and gorgeous hot pink papery blossoms.

In the center of the wall was a wide archway with a gate—more like a solid door—that, unlike now, had always been shut. To its right was a small sign made of tiles painted with flowers and lettering that read
Casa de Vida, 157 Westwind.

Jasmyn approached the doorway, now open, where Liv waited alone. Keagan was nowhere to be seen.

The woman spread her arms wide and grinned. “Welcome to the Casa de Vida.” She pronounced it
casa day veeda
. “The House of Life.”

Uh-oh. House of Life?
Jasmyn was walking into some wacky cult place.

“Come into the courtyard and meet my other neighbors.”

Cringing at the image of herself as Gretel, Jasmyn followed Liv through the gateway, stopped in her tracks, and gasped.

Liv chuckled. “Everyone does that the first time they come inside. Isn't it lovely?”

Lovely did not begin to describe the festive paradise before her. It looked like a movie set. Actors would have Italian accents.

Plants grew everywhere, absolutely everywhere she looked. There were green leaves, from tiny to huge jungle-like. There were palms, tall and squat, strung with patio lights. There were pots of every size and color.
There were blossoms of every size and color, up high and down low, giving off scents so sweet and thick she tasted honey.

Several people sat or stood near a trickling fountain or at patio tables shaded by red umbrellas. Everyone talked and laughed.

Almost hidden behind the garden and the people were the cutest little cottages she had ever seen. They were connected side by side, each one white and flat roofed with colorful window boxes. They sat in a crooked circle around the courtyard.

Oh, she hoped it wasn't a cult. “What is this place?”

Liv laughed. “An apartment complex.”

“An apartment complex? In Valley Oaks that's a three-story brick schoolhouse built in 1926.”

“Is that where you live?”

“Sort of.” Yes, she did live in that building where everyone in town over the age of seventy had gone to middle school when it was a middle school. The building still smelled of chalk dust and glue and musty books. But it wasn't where she was supposed to live. It was not her house. Not her home.

“Sort of?” Liv asked.

Jasmyn shrugged, her throat too tight to speak.

“Well, dear, it sounds full of history, like this place. The Casa was built in the 1920s too by a one-armed World War I veteran. All sorts of people have lived here. War heroes, television stars, movie stars, world champion surfers, a senator's mistress, a gangster on the lam, an admiral with amnesia—well, the list goes on and on. Are you hungry? You arrived just in time for our Labor Day potluck picnic. Let's put your bag on this bench here for now.” She lifted the bag from Jasmyn's shoulder. “We'll get you settled into number Eleven in a bit, okay?”

Jasmyn glanced over her shoulder. The gate was still open. It could be her last chance to hightail it out of there.

Suddenly it didn't matter. She had no idea what she was walking into, but she sensed that with Liv McAlister, everything was going to be all right.

And she hadn't felt that since the morning of St. Patrick's Day.

Seven

Sam groaned under her breath, a trick she had learned within the first week of moving into Casa de Vida.

Much as she liked her home—okay, after her summer stint at Berkeley in a two-window studio apartment above a Vietnamese restaurant, she could admit that she probably loved her home. And, yes, Liv's cooking was an added perk. But despite her homemade meals, the matriarch of the Casa was…

Well, she was impossible to describe. Something about her bugged the living daylights out of Sam. If they had to speak on a daily basis, Sam doubted she would have lasted for the past four years. She might have smothered to death by all the groaning under her breath.

There Liv was now, dragging in yet another stray off the street, introducing her to everyone at the picnic, handing her a bottle of water, and ignoring the poor woman's deer-in-headlights expression.

Sam set a box of cupcakes on the serving table and uncovered it. Purchased bakery items were her typical contribution to the Casa's occasional potlucks. Who had time to cook? Well, not counting the other residents who were either retired, unemployed, or worked part-time, nowhere near the sixty-plus hours she usually put in during a week.

She watched Liv make her way through the courtyard, the stranger in tow. Sam guessed her to be a little older than herself, maybe around thirty-five and, judging from the deer eyes, in dire straits.

Of course she was in dire straits. Liv did not pull in well-adjusted, happy people.

Sam sighed again. In all honesty, she included herself on that one.

Four years ago, desperate for an apartment or condo that was located no more than three freeway exits from her new job, she had wandered the streets of Seaside Village, the last possible choice and nowhere near her first. Its laidback, beachy culture felt shallow. Hemmed in by the freeway and ocean, it felt confining.

She'd sat in a coffee shop, drawing thick lines with a black marker through listings that had sounded hopeful on paper but turned out to be positively putrid, nearly sick to her stomach at the thought of returning to the dingy motel room she had lived in for three months. Why hadn't she taken that job in Los Angeles rather than the one in San Diego? Was it too late to change her mind?

Someone nearby had kept clearing her throat until finally Sam turned and saw a stranger, tall and large-boned, with glasses and fluffy silvery-brown hair and a smile.

“Excuse me, dear. You need a place to live.”

Right off the bat, Sam sensed comfort and safety. But, Sam being Sam—socially inept—she bristled at the tender vibes.

Liv had rattled off the pertinent details. Two bedrooms, hardwood floors, charming but updated, crazy unheard-of low rent, and one block from Jitters, the coffee shop where they sat. An hour later, Sam had signed a lease.

True, she had not been happy or overly well adjusted at the time, but she had presented herself as if she were sane. This newcomer appeared fragile, a waif in imminent danger of a major meltdown. What was Liv thinking?

Sam continued to watch as Liv introduced the woman to the residents and their families and, good grief, even to Beau, the handyman, who looked like a linebacker but had a Gentle Ben personality.

Sam referred to herself and these neighbors of hers as the Detainees. Why such a mismatched band of people had come together baffled her, but they were now smiling at the newcomer. Typical.

Inez and Louis Templeton, Cottage Eight, were great-grandparents and had that role down pat, dousing everyone under the age of seventy with parental adoration. Naturally, Inez greeted the total stranger with a hug.