Getting Warmer (6 page)

“If you’re sitting at the bar, you have to order your drinks from the bartender.”

When I rejoined Jonathan and Jill, his bottle of beer had arrived. The bartender was nowhere to be seen.

“Darn it!” I said. “Why is it so hard to get a drink in this place?” My eyes filled with hot tears, and my throat ached with the effort to withhold a sob.

Jonathan’s eye’s widened. “Are you all right?”

I nodded and started to speak but stopped because I was afraid my voice would crack. I took a couple of deep breaths and swallowed before I finally managed to squeak, “It’s been a rough day.”

It had been, too. Every time I turned my back on Jared, he made farting noises until I finally sent him down to Dr. White’s office. My victory was short-lived. Eyes downcast, Jared told Dr. White that he was having “stomach problems” and that I had “totally embarrassed” him in front of the class. She decided not to punish him on the outside chance he was telling her the truth. Next, my Adventures Class had uniformly failed their commas test. And a kid in one of my college prep classes told me that
Catcher in the Rye
was “boring.” That’s me: the teacher who made Salinger dull.

“A prisoner escaped,” Jill said evenly. “One of Natalie’s favorites. We really thought she had changed.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward Jonathan. “And then when Natalie went home after work, her mother didn’t recognize her.”

“She thought I was the dog,” I said, feeling marginally better.

“They had a dog when Natalie was growing up,” Jill said. “It was quite large, almost Natalie’s size, in fact.”

“A golden retriever,” I said sadly. “We called her Bucky.”

“Wow,” Jonathan said, gazing at me with sympathy. “You really do need a drink.”

“I don’t know who you have to know to get one in this place, though,” Jill said, relating our margarita quest.

When she finished the story, Jonathan looked up, caught the bartender’s eye and motioned him over. I expected him to order the margaritas successfully. I braced myself to feel simultaneously annoyed that Jonathan would command more authority simply by being a man and relieved to be able to sit back and let him take over.

To my surprise, he said, “Hey, is Teresa here?”

“Teresa Levesque?” the bartender asked with complete and nervous attention.

“Yeah, we go way back.” Jonathan smiled easily. “And what was your name?” He leaned forward to read the name tag pinned to the waiter’s Hawaiian shirt. “Travis?”

“Travis. Right.”

“Well, Travis.” He looked at Jill and me, then back at the bartender. “My friends can’t seem to get their drinks. I’ll have to razz Teresa about that next time I see her.”

The bartender’s nostrils flared with fear, and he would have turned pale if his “tan” hadn’t been applied so thickly. “Hey man, I’m really sorry about that. It was just, like, a misunderstanding. I’ll get them right now. On the house.” He scurried away out of earshot. We could see him pulling out a couple of chunky, blue-rimmed margarita glasses.

Jill stared at Jonathan with newfound respect. He took a long drink from his beer bottle and tried to look casual before he shot us side glances and broke into a grin.

“Who’s Teresa?” Jill asked.

“The general manager.”

“Are you close?”

“We, um, dated. A couple of years ago.”

“And you’re still friends?” Jill asked.

He scrunched up his nose for a moment, trying to find the right words. “Not exactly. We were never serious, but when I, you know, called things off, she snuck into my house and slashed my couch with a commercial grade knife. I call her The Slasher.”

“What if she’d been here?” I asked.

“I’d have run like hell.”

“Where’d she get the knife?” Jill asked.

“I’d sold it to her. Top of the line.”

Travis, all effusion, returned with two really, really, really big frozen margaritas adorned with skewered pineapples. “Like I said, these are on the house. Sorry about the mix-up.”

Jill squinted at her margarita. “Mine was supposed to be on the rocks.”

Travis froze for a moment before whisking the offending drink away. “Back in a jiff,” he said. “And again, please accept my apologies.”

Nicolette came over, her smile wide, her face flushed. “Me and Rodney are gonna go check out the gondolas.” Rodney stood behind her, a proprietary hand resting on the strip of exposed back that lay between her too-small shirt and too-short skirt.

“How long will that take?” I asked. The plan had been to spend just enough time with Jonathan to humiliate him and then leave abruptly.

“As long as an aria,” Rodney cooed.

“Come right back when you’re done,” I instructed, as teacherly as possible. But they were already halfway to the door.

“How long was she in for?” Jonathan asked, watching Nicolette and Rodney leave.

“Who? Um, Chartreuse?” I licked my lips. “Two years.”

“Wow,” he said. “That seems kind of long for forgery.”

“What she means is, it’ll be two years when Chartreuse has finished her probation,” Jill said. “She was only incarcerated for nine months. But let’s talk about you. Natalie tells me you’re in the restaurant business.”

“Restaurant supplies,” he said. “Pots, mats, cooking utensils, dinnerware, cutting boards.”

“Knives,” Jill added.

“Yes, knives. All very glamorous.” He smiled.

I looked anxiously at the door, though it was far too early for Nicolette to return.

We settled in for the wait, moving to a table and ordering chicken quesadillas and another round of margaritas. A half hour passed. An hour. Jill grilled Jonathan, who said, as before, that he was thirty-three years old, never married, born and raised in Phoenix, a graduate of the University of Arizona. He had his story, and he was sticking to it.

We told Jonathan more about the prison: the battered wives who’d shot their husbands, the cafeteria brawls, the lesbian gangs. We dredged up every prison cliché and convict stereotype we could think of, and still, Nicolette did not appear. We ordered the nacho grande platter and Diet Cokes. Jonathan tried to hold my hand under the table. I didn’t let him, even though he continued to be easy-going and funny and not like a philanderer at all.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m getting worried about Chartreuse,” I said, thinking: I could kill that little tramp.

We left the bar and trudged out to the self-park lot; we were too poor to spring for a valet. Nicolette’s car was gone. We hiked back to the hotel, where Jonathan handed a ticket to the valet, who magically produced a monstrous blue pickup truck.

“Wow. This is a big car for a single guy,” Jill said as the valet opened her door.

“I need to haul a lot of stuff for work,” Jonathan said casually, stepping up to the driver seat.

Jonathan drove us to the Hyatt. What a difference five minutes made. The place was all glass, slate, wood, soaring ceilings and warm lighting. I immediately felt like an imposter. The back wall was open, with misters cooling well-dressed guests like a field of tropical flowers. We stepped down into a bar full of comfy chairs clustered around candlelit tables, then walked across manicured lawns and past lit swimming pools until we reached the landing, where a gondolier from Fresno informed us that the girl with the blond hair and the guy with the big muscles had left at least a half an hour ago. “They seemed really in love,” he added helpfully.

We tried Nicolette’s cell phone, which, predictably, was turned off. We returned to the bar on the off chance that she had simply dropped Rodney at his hotel and returned to pick us up. She hadn’t.

“You let her drive?” Jonathan asked. “I’m surprised she still has a car.”

“It’s her mother’s,” Jill said. “By letting her drive, we were trying to send the message that we trusted her.”

“I’d be happy to drive you home,” Jonathan said.

“We’ll take cabs,” I said, just as Jill chirped, “That’d be great!” She and I locked eyes. I blinked first. Jill and I lived in opposite directions, and neither of us lived near here. A cab would cost a fortune.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said.

As we left the resort and turned onto Scottsdale Road, the thoroughfare that divides Scottsdale and Phoenix, Jill casually asked, “So, Jonathan, do you live far from here?” I sat sandwiched between them on the bench seat.

When he said not really—ten or fifteen minutes—she said, “Why don’t we go to your place for a cup of coffee, then?”

My face burned in the dark. I felt suddenly, hotly angry. I stared straight ahead at the taillights in front of us.

“Sure. I can make you cappuccinos.” Jonathan sent me a brief smile before blinking in surprise when he saw my expression.

“We wouldn’t be disturbing anyone?” Jill asked.

“Nope. I live alone. Don’t even have any pets.”

 

 

With a few exceptions, the Valley of the Sun has two basic house styles: Spanish and territorial. Spanish houses are white or beige stucco with peaked red roofs. Inside they have high ceilings, open floor plans, fancy kitchens and tiny bedrooms. Territorial houses look completely different from the outside, with flat roofs, wood beams and front courtyards. But inside? High ceilings, open floor plans, fancy kitchens and tiny bedrooms.

Jonathan’s house was Spanish style. It looked like a Taco Bell. Well, a Taco Bell with a garage. So did the one on its right. And on its left. And across the street.

“How do you know which one is yours?” I asked.

He laughed. “It’s the one with the cactus out front.” Jonathan’s cactus was a nicely formed saguaro, far superior to the saguaro across the street or the chollas and prickly pears on either side. A concrete driveway took up most of the front yard; the remainder was landscaped with gravel. Grass does not do well in the desert.

He clicked the garage door opener on the truck visor, and the beige door magically slid upward, revealing a tidy two-car garage lined with cabinets and a pegboard covered with hanging tools. He slid his truck into the center of the space and left the garage door open.

“I have to get either a smaller car or a bigger garage,” he said. He was right: his truck stuck out a good foot beyond the door. “I just got a letter from the homeowner’s association. I’m not allowed to leave my garage door open. But parking in the street is an even greater sin. Maybe if I parked diagonally . . .” He squinted at the wall.

My mind was whirring. On the way over, I’d decided the house probably belonged to a friend who was out of town. But if that were the case, would Jonathan really make up the stuff about the homeowner’s association? How good a liar was he? Maybe this really was his house. He could be separated. Why would he tell me he’d never been married then? Of course, I had no right to object to a blurring of the facts. So he neglected to mention an ex-wife. So I told a colorful tale about life among the inmates. Perhaps some day we’d have a good laugh and live happily (and truthfully) ever after.

I was all set to be reassured by a standard-issue bachelor pad, complete with white walls, an enormous TV and recliners with drink holders when Jonathan let us into the kitchen. There were Indian pots and hanging ivy on the towering plant shelves. Custom-made cushions sat atop Mexican bar stools. Tailored valances hung from wrought iron curtain rods. A woman had been here.

“You’ve got quite an eye for decorating,” Jill said. “What would you call that paint color? Mustard? Ochre?”

“I call it yellow,” Jonathan said. “If I call it anything at all. My latest stepmother wants to switch careers from real estate to decorating. Once she finished my father’s house, she moved on to mine. She keeps showing up to take more pictures for her portfolio.” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. It’s better than anything I could have done.”

I had a sudden image of his stepmother: the perfect silver hair, the trim figure, the tailored, sherbert-colored clothes and matching shoes. She would get her hair styled weekly, her manicure done twice a month. Her makeup would be flawless. I had seen his stepmother—well, others just like her—a thousand times since moving to Scottsdale.

“How many stepmothers have you had?” I asked.

“My mother was my father’s second wife. There have been two since.”

“So your father has made it down the aisle four times, and you haven’t managed even once?” Jill asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Think there could be a connection?”

I stared at him. If he was lying, he was frighteningly good at it. But what about the blond woman in the paper? Was she merely a date who had been misidentified by some champagne-guzzling society reporter?

Jonathan made cappuccinos from an enormous stainless steel model. “My post-adolescent rebellion against the stepmonster,” he said. “She says the espresso maker dominates the space and that a sleek home model would be much more appropriate. But I like it.”

His answering machine sat on the counter, the light blinking. “You have a message,” I said.

“It can wait.”

We took our cups into the great room, a high-ceilinged space open to the kitchen. It had a built-in entertainment center, built-in bookshelves, a ceiling fan and a gas fireplace. The couches were soft brown leather and strewn with Indian blankets and southwestern print pillows. The walls were a paler shade of the kitchen’s ochre/mustard/yellow.

Jill stroked the leather couch. “Is this the couch the Slasher attacked?”

“No, that was beyond repair.”

As I sipped my cappuccino (which was delicious, with just the perfect amount of froth), I noticed some framed snapshots over the television set (big screen, plasma). “Family photos?” I asked casually, wandering over.

“Yup,” he said.

I spotted her immediately. It was a group shot. She was wearing khaki shorts and a sleeveless pink polo shirt, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked more relaxed than in the newspaper photo. She looked prettier.