Cowabunga Christmas (13 page)

“Dios mìo, Jessica, que te pasa? Are you
okay? Esta bien?” Bernadette asked with a mix of fear and reproach in her voice
and on her face. Reproach won out as she took in the scene.

The woman who stood in the doorway was
not five feet tall. Her short-cropped black hair had begun to grey and her face
to wear beyond her 60-something years. Jessica knew, without a doubt, she had
contributed to that wear and tear.

Bernadette, whom Jessica sometimes
referred to as St. Bernadette when she thought she could get away with it, had been
hired as the family’s housekeeper before Jessica’s birth. She had become much
more than that over the years. A confidant when Jessica was at odds with her
parents and her most formidable opponent in her teen years. Bernadette
possessed an eerie sixth sense for when Jessica was up to no good and had
caught her many times doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

Bernadette stayed on as manager of the
Rancho Mirage estate even after Jessica and her family moved out, one by one. First,
Jessica’s father, who, by the time she was 8 or 9 spent less time in the desert
and more in L.A. near his real estate development firm headquartered there.
When Jessica was in 7
^th
grade, he divorced her mother and moved to
their Brentwood house full-time. Then Jessica went off to college at UC Irvine,
on to law school at Stanford, and to married life in Cupertino. Her jet-setting
mother received the desert estate as part of the divorce settlement. After
Jessica left for College, her mother took off too, returning only when she was
not with, or in pursuit of, yet another husband. She was with number four somewhere
in the Mediterranean. Her mother’s absence was the main reason Jessica had
allowed the family home to become a place of refuge as her adult life collapsed
around her. She loved her mother a lot more from a distance than when they were
in the same room together.

Bernadette put her hands on her hips.
That was a bad sign.

“What’s going on in here, Jessica?” she
asked.

“Nothing,” Jessica replied feeling like
a 15-year-old again.

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me.” Spreading
her elbows out, like a mother eagle’s wings, Bernadette puffed herself up so
she looked twice her size. Her black eyes blazed; her nose beaklike. “You going
to ‘splain it?”

“It, it... it’s okay Mrs. B,” Tommy
said, trying to sound reassuring in the midst of a terrified stutter. He’d
known Bernadette almost as long as Jessica had.

“Oh, it is definitely not okay,” she
said shaking her head. As she continued to speak, she pointed at each one in
the room. “Not for you, Tommy, or for you, Jessica, or for you, Brien Anthony
Williams.”

“Uh oh,” Jessica muttered. When she used
all three names, you were in big trouble.

“Hey, be cool, Mrs. B, please. I can explain.
It’s not what you think, honest. I need this job. I’m saving for a surf safari
to the north shore.” Brien looked even younger than Jessica first thought as he
pleaded his case. “Honest, nothing really happened. She’s not even my type,
Mrs. B. No offense, Jess.”

Jessica shot him a dirty look, not his
type, huh? “Nobody calls me Jess, Brien.”

“Uh, sorry, Jessica,” he said with
emphasis on the “ca.”

“He’s right, Bernadette,” Tommy
interjected. “Jessica had a lot to drink at her divorce party last night. We
all got carried away celebrating her, uh, liberation. We ran into Brien at
Costa’s and he joined the party. When it was time to go, he helped me get
Jessica back into the limo and home. We didn’t want to wake you up.” He shrank
back a little farther from the door under the pressure of Bernadette’s gaze.

“Divorce party, bah! Dios dame
paciencia! What about all this mess? And why don’t you have any clothes on?”

“We were hungry, so we brought food
home, and then we had a little more to drink when we got here. Who could let
chilled Cristal go to waste? We cleaned out the limo and came in here to finish
it. Jessica tore her own clothes off, honest. That’s all that happened, I
swear, Bernadette. I’m not Brien’s type either.” Tommy’s head slumped back down
on the edge of the bed.

“That’s totally the truth, Mrs. B,”
Brien added with great sincerity. “Not that Jessica isn’t bangin’, I mean, for
an older babe. I’m not denying I had some feelings when I saw her in that black
dress, but she was doke, you know, whacked? She was out of it by the time we
got her home. I don’t take advantage, and I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
He shook his head emphatically with that last remark, reaching up to push back
the lock of blond hair that had fallen in his face.

Bernadette still looked skeptical but
let it go. She took another look around the room and asked, “Who do you think
will clean this up? Me? Not me, I’m finishing my coffee. The maid? Uh-uh.
Jessica you’ll fix this, right? Go home Tommy. Go home Brien.”

Jessica nodded in agreement. Nodding her
head reminded her that the world had not yet receded from spin mode.

Bernadette stepped out of the room
mumbling in both English and Spanish. Jessica could make out the words “Sodom
and Gomorrah” but little else as Bernadette crossed herself and closed the door
behind her. She didn’t slam it, but shut the door with enough force to make the
three of them pay. They all winced. Once Bernadette left it was as if the oxygen
had returned to the room. Released from her grip, they all moved, although not
too fast. Tommy pulled himself up off his knees. Like Brien, he too was wearing
only his boxer shorts. Unlike Brien, Tommy’s shorts sported colorful firework
patterns set against a navy background.

You have to love a guy like that
, Jessica thought. She did.

Tommy was the younger brother of
Jessica’s closest childhood friend, Kelly Fontana. During high school he was
always around, doing all the things younger brothers do to be annoying. Not too
long after Jessica went off to college in the OC she learned that Kelly died in
a hit-and-run accident. Her death left Tommy and his parents devastated. He
stayed on to care for his parents and still lived in their casita, a tiny but
nice guest house. At some point, during her visits to the desert and his visits
to the OC, she and Tommy had sort of adopted each other. He became the little
brother she never had, and she stepped in for Kelly. It wasn’t always clear who
looked out for whom, but they had forged a strong bond.

While the guys searched for missing articles
of clothing and dressed, Jessica pulled on a robe. Then she picked up the
garbage and straightened the room. She still wobbled on her feet, and those food
containers brought on a new wave of nausea, but she kept moving. Jessica wanted
to be alone and get out of the frigging Spanx that were riding up her ass every
time she bent over. She needed a shower and coffee. Or, maybe she should just crawl
back into bed and pull the covers up over her head for at least a week.

Jessica knew better. First, she had to
set things right in the room or there would be hell to pay from Bernadette. Who
was she kidding? There would be hell to pay no matter what. What else could you
expect when you move back home and act like a delinquent?

The “older babe” comment still stung because
it was true. At thirty-three Jessica was no kid. It wasn’t like she had one
foot in the grave, either. As if on cue, a stabbing pain shot up her spine and
rattled her brain as she bent over to pick up her ripped dress. Jessica stood
up, stretched her back, and stuffed the dress in the trash can she had
retrieved from a corner of the bedroom.

She needed to change her ways. No more
bar hopping. It was time to get serious about swimming and working out. Her
shrink in Cupertino assured her exercise would help with the panic attacks.
She’d look better the next time she got caught in nothing but her Spanx. Not
that such a thing was likely to happen again. In fact, she still wasn’t sure
how it had happened this time.

“Hey, how
did
we all end up with
so few clothes on?” Jessica asked.

Tommy looked up as he pulled on his
t-shirt. “At first we were all sitting on the floor, stuffing our faces with
nachos and downing the Cristal. We each had our own bottle.”

“Yeah, it was awesome,” Brien added.

“You slopped something on the dress,
Jessica. At first you giggled, and then you just went nuts. Saying all kinds of
crazy stuff, like how disgusting it is to be a luxury slut. I wasn’t sure if
you were talking about me or you. Ranting about designer clothes and shoes
being a rip off, you picked up one of those divine shoes and hurled it across
the room,” Tommy explained.

“Yeah, I ducked just in time,” Brien
said.

“Then you stood up and ripped at the
hooks on the front of your dress until it dropped down around your ankles. We
laughed until you pointed at us saying ‘take it off or I’ll tear it off.’ It
was sort of psycho and sort of like you were about to cry. So we stripped down
to our boxers,” Tommy added.

“I didn’t want you to trash my Gucci
botanic pants or this gorgeous poplin shirt you bought me.” As he spoke he
gathered his clothes strewn about and held them close. “I thought maybe you
were out to kill anything with a designer label so I got out of my clothes
quick.”

“I just did what Tommy did. It was kinda
whacked, but I didn’t mind getting rid of a few clothes,” Brien added.

“Whacked sounds about right,” Jessica
whispered. “Sorry guys,” she said in a louder voice. “I will really try to get
it together.”

“It’s okay,” Brien said. “We all go
whacko once in a while. Do you think I still have a job?”

“If you still want to be pool boy to the
madwoman of Mission Hills, I’m sure I can square things with Bernadette. Just
lie low for a day or two, then pick up your regular schedule like none of this
ever happened.”

“That’s cool. Thanks, Jessica.”

“No problem, Brien. You and Tommy better
get out of here.”

“Sure, Jessica,” Tommy said. “How are we
going to get home? We got here in the limo you hired. You want us to call a
cab?”

Jessica thought for a moment about last
night. She had planned what she hoped would be a great evening. A well-stocked
stretch limo shuttled her, Tommy, and a few other friends around town. Dinner
had been great at Lulu, downtown in Palm Springs. Then there was Judge Judy
Bingo and drinks at Toucan’s nearby, followed by dancing and more drinks at
Costa’s.

She had a vague recollection of Tommy
asking if he could, “please, please, please” bring Brien along when they ran
into him at Costa’s. She must have said okay. The plan was to go next to the
Agua Caliente Casino to play some slots, and she was sure there would be more
drinking. By that point things grew sketchy. It was like she had blacked out. Jessica
strained to remember what happened, making her head hurt more, but there was
nada, zip, zilch. There was no memory at all of arriving at the casino or
returning home after that.

“Tommy, I don’t get it. I can’t remember
much of anything after leaving Costa’s. Brien, you were there by then, what
happened? I am so sorry you guys, maybe I can’t hold my liquor anymore. Did I
make a scene or pass out?”

It should be no surprise if she was out
of practice drinking. She spent most of the last three years of her marriage
trying to get pregnant, pregnant, or recovering from a failed pregnancy. Despite
her love of good wine, and an appreciation for stronger spirits occasionally, she
had quit drinking alcohol. Still, she had done her best to get back up to speed
in the last few weeks though.

“Did everybody else get home okay?” she
asked.

“Sure, Jessica,” Tommy replied. “Everybody
was having a great time at your divorce party except you.”

“I wasn’t the life of the party, but I
was doing okay until I flamed out on all of you,” she said, shaking her head in
disgust. “How much do you have to drink to black out like that? Maybe I should
book a stint at Betty Ford’s.” She shook her head in disgust.

Brien gave Tommy an anxious glance.
“Dude, you’d better tell her.” Tommy whipped his head in Brien’s direction and
shook his head no.

“Tell me what, Tommy?” Jessica asked,
assuming the hands on hips posture that worked so well for Bernadette.

“We tried to make the experience more
spectacular for her, Tommy, that’s all.” Then to Jessica he added, “You were bummed
out, Jessica. I could tell that right away when I saw you all at Costa’s.”

“Tommy, I’m asking you for the last time.
What did you do?”

Tommy wore a sheepish look on his face
as he spoke. “We sort of gave you something.”

“What the...?’’ Jessica’s voice rose in
volume.

“Shh, shh, hush,” they both said in unison,
cutting her off and looking over their shoulders at the bedroom door. “You
don’t want to get
HER
back in here do you?” Tommy asked.

“Tell me what you did and then I’ll
decide whether St. Bernadette comes back in here. Tell me, now.” Despite her
bravado, she lowered her voice since she wasn’t ready for another round with
Bernadette either.

“We slipped you a roofy, okay?” Brien
blurted out. “We talked it over and thought you might have some fun if you
could relax a little more.”