Jed's Sweet Revenge (20 page)

Noise. Confusion. Crowds. Mickey Mouse. Thena glued wistful eyes to the giant cartoon character, seeking comfort for her jangled nerves. He waved to the sweaty mass of humanity and smiled his manufactured, frozen smile as he paraded down the studiously quaint Disneyland street.

People bumped into Thena in their attempts to secure a good view of him, their cameras poking her arms, their drinks sloshing dangerously near her new outfit—pink twill shorts with a snug white belt, a blue polo shirt, and pristine white Reeboks. She wasn’t fond of the clothes, but the saleslady at the fashionable store had told her and Jed that they were just right for Disneyland. Her new bra, a necessity under the clingy shirt, was itchy and confining. She shifted nervously.

Confinement was a way of life on the mainland, it seemed. She’d never seen so many buildings crammed onto such small pieces of land. People liked to stay inside here; they preferred their air-conditioning to the outdoor air. She had to agree that the air smelled and tasted bad. In fact, if taste had a color, California’s air tasted brown. But the luxurious hotel suite Jed had gotten had no windows she could open, and after a few hours locked inside it, she craved air, even brown air, that wasn’t still and dry and cold.

On the mainland, pets were as confined as their
owners, and that upset her worst of all. Yesterday, as she and Jed were walking along a street near the hotel, she’d spotted a big dog that resembled Godiva, sitting alone in a parked car at the curb. Worried, Thena put her fingertips on the closed car window and looked directly into the prisoners eyes, and nothing Jed could say convinced her that the dog wasn’t tragically depressed.

In his quiet way, Jed had gotten angry at her stubbornness. She’d sensed that her whimsical notions about animals made him impatient, and she’d barely suppressed her disappointment. Oh, he loved and respected animals—he wasn’t a cruel man. But she realized for the first time that he wasn’t sentimental about them in the way she was. He was used to making his living from the servitude of animals, after all. They were a business.

The discovery that she didn’t know Jed as well as she’d believed had added to her silent melancholy. The discovery that California traffic was terrible had added more. Everyone secluded themselves in cars here, and everyone drove fast. The streets outside the hotel bustled in a way that panicked her, though she never told Jed.

During their first night away from Sancia, she’d suffered a horrible nightmare, the first in more than a year, about the accident that killed Nate and her parents. She awoke shaking, in silent tears, and crept out of bed carefully so she wouldn’t wake Jed. She spent the next hour huddled by their room’s big window, staring forlornly at the night sky. She would learn to like the mainland, but only for Jed’s sake.

Disneyland, oddly enough, was the most confining place of all. Did mainlanders enjoy waiting in long lines for everything? she wondered. They waited patiently, but as they waited, they gripped their cameras and umbrellas and handbags with a possessiveness she couldn’t fathom. Why, no one would steal from a person at Disneyland, would they?

Mickey Mouse fans closed in on her, blocking her line of vision, their colognes, perfumes, and suntan lotions a cloying combination. Suddenly claustrophobia and homesickness overwhelmed her. But she couldn’t leave this spot, because Jed, who’d gone to get them both a soft drink, would never find her again, and the idea of being lost from him in this crazy, frightening wonderland made her tremble.

She couldn’t, she shouldn’t—a large, thick-faced young man in a tank top and tight jeans leaned over and leered, “Hey, sweet mama, if you got the time, I got the place”—and she bolted.

Thena pushed her way through the huge crowd until she reached a water fountain. She clung to it, white-knuckled, as if an inanimate object was the only friend she could find.

“Thena!” She looked around frantically and spotted Jed easing through the crowd toward her. Even he wasn’t familiar, she thought in despair. Dark designer sunglasses hid his eyes, and he wore crisp white tennis shorts, a white Izod shirt, and white Reeboks similar to hers. Rich, sleek, incredibly handsome—he was all of those likeable things, but she wanted her dusty cowboy back.

He frowned as he reached the water fountain. “Woman, this ain’t the right time for you to get the itch to wander.” She relaxed a little at the sound of his low, teasing growl. Jed would always be Jed—loving, dear, and concerned.

“Oh,” she answered in a voice that strained for lightness, “I just felt a little too hot. I needed a drink of water.”

“You okay, wildflower?” He handed her a tall paper cup full of ice and soft drink, then slipped an arm around her shoulders.

“Sure.” Her head bobbed in something resembling an enthusiastic nod.

“Did you get a good gander at the fake mouse?” He’d never admit to being fascinated by a cartoon
mouse himself, she thought with gentle amusement, and his cynical choice of words showed that.

“Yes, indeed. He’s very cute.”

“How about some lunch?”

“Is there … is there a quiet place somewhere …”

“Your face is white, gal. Are you feelin’ sick?”

Sick, scared, and depressed, yes. “I’m okay.”

“Thena.” His tone rebuked her gently. “Have you seen all you can take of this place? Tell the truth.” She nodded, looking defeated. “Come on, gal.” He steered her through the crowd, using his body to block a path for her.

Tenderness and gratitude mingled inside her. “I love you, Jedidiah,” she said fervently. “You’re trying so hard to take care of me.”

“Are you havin’ a good time, darlin’?”

“Oh, yes. But I think I’d like to visit Hollywood sooner than we intended. Could we drive up this afternoon?” She needed a dose of romantic glamour; she knew she’d feel better if she could just visit the source of all her beloved old movies.

“Anything you want, sweetheart. We’ll just pack up and mosey along to Hollywood, then.”

She smiled crookedly and sighed with relief. “Head ’em up and move ’em out.”

   Greer Garson and Barbara Stanwyck gleamed, but most everyone else, including her idol, Judy Garland, was dirty. Thena sadly studied the stars’ names on the sidewalk plaques, then looked up and studied Hollywood’s most famous intersection with even more sorrow. Hollywood and Vine, the place of her fanciful dreams, was tacky and run-down.

And the people who frequented it weren’t the stuff stars were made of, she thought, unless one was casting for bums, winos, criminal types, and loitering young women with an odd manner of peering
in the windows of stopped cars. Earlier she’d asked Jed what the women meant by such rude behavior.

He shook his head at her naïveté and surveyed her with mild astonishment. “They’re doin’ man business,” he said gently. “You savvy what I mean?”

“Ah. Ah, yes.” Her eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Don’t look at ’em like you just discovered a new breed of sea turtle and you gotta check it out,” he warned in a droll voice. “If you wander over there and talk to one of ’em, I’m not payin’ her twenty bucks—not even if she’s a Hare Krishna on the side.”

Thena shook her head wearily. She didn’t want to get any closer to mainland sadness than she already had. “I’m going to look for Rudolph Valentino,” she announced, and meandered down the sidewalk.

“Well, just don’t look in any car windows for him.”

There were 1,844 star plaques in the sidewalks, Thena’s tourist brochure said. Jed worked his way in the opposite direction from her, searching for John Wayne. Thena found Rudolph’s star and studied it earnestly. A whooshing sound caught her attention, and she glanced up.

Thena gasped, shocked to see a wretched-looking old woman down on all fours scrubbing one of the plaques with a soapy rag. Her stained polyester pant-suit looked like a good candidate for rag status itself. Her hair was cut as close as a man’s, and her scrawny face was an accordian of wrinkles. She was as impoverished and ugly as the buildings behind her. Thena walked over to the woman and knelt down, her heart overflowing with sympathy.

“Can I help you wash that?” she asked pleasantly.

Rheumy old eyes, suspicious and mean, glared up at her. “Beat it, you pandhandler.”

Thena blinked swiftly, and her face colored. “I don’t want any money. I want to help.”

The old voice rose to a curdling shriek. “Clark
Gable’s all I got left, and nobody washes his star but me!” Her shrillness stabbed at Thena’s senses. “Especially not a foreigner!”

Thena stood, mortified. Foreigner? Did her odd accent—Southern and slightly French—mark her as even more of an outsider? Footsteps hurried up behind her.

“What’s the problem?” Jed asked, as he angled himself between her and the woman’s violent glare. Thena looked around in chagrin. Other people were staring at her, and a pair of teenage boys with spikes set in their hair—wait a second, those spikes
were
their hair—snickered with unconcealed enjoyment as they strode past. Thena whispered urgently, “Give me some money, Jedidiah, please.”

He arched one brow in surprise, but handed her a twenty. She held it out to the woman. “Will you wash Judy Garland’s star for me?”

Jed understood Thena’s kind motive and quickly handed her another twenty. “And John Wayne’s too,” he said.

A bony hand snapped forward and snatched the bills from Thena. “Yeah. The Duke and Judy. Got it.” The voice was still loud and resentful.

“Thank you,” Thena murmured. She pivoted and grabbed Jed’s arm, her eyes glistening with tears. “Can we go back to the hotel?”

He surveyed the disillusionment in her eyes and winced at her pain. He knew that the first few days of their trip had been a stressful, unpleasant experience for her. “It’ll get better, sweetheart,” he said with quiet, desperate firmness.

Her fingers dug into his arm. “Please. Please, can we go back to the hotel?”

“You’re not bein’ fair, Thena.…”

“If you won’t take me,” she said emphatically. “I’ll go on my own.”

She saw the exasperation and worry rising behind
his hazel eyes, as well as the annoyance. His voice was low and tight. “Fine. We’ll go hide, if that’s what you want.”

That hurt, and she shot him an accusing, wounded look. They turned silently, not touching, and walked toward the car.

They had a plush hotel room near Beverly Hills. It was late afternoon when they arrived there, and low rays of sunlight angled through a pair of magnificent louvered windows to make patterns on the king-size bed.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Thena murmured. She lay down on the thick, satiny coverlet and looked over her shoulder at Jed, her heart twisting with unhappiness. Except for a few quiet, neutral words, they hadn’t spoken since walking to the car. Anger hung in the air, bitter and black. Jed lowered himself into a fat, contemporary-style armchair and opened a copy of
Tom Sawyer
, one she’d given him.

Weary and depressed, Thena put a hand out and closed it around the patterned, golden sunshine that washed across the bed, thinking of the way the afternoon rays always turned Sancia’s western shores into a blaze of color. She drew her hand next to her face as if she were bringing sunshine and hope close to her. Comforted, she dozed.

Jed sat very still, his eyes burning as he considered her wistful gesture. She hurts, he thought sadly. She wants to go home. What the hell am I going to do? A minute later, he went over to the bed, lay down close to her, and cupped his body to her back and hips. He curled an arm around her waist and gently buried his face in her hair. She sighed softly and snuggled against him in a way that made the earlier anger evaporate from his thoughts.

“I love you,” he whispered. Even in sleep she must have heard, because her hand sought his and snugly intertwined their fingers. One corner of Jed’s mouth
lifted in a pensive smile as he fell asleep beside her in the sunshine.

Thena awoke an hour later. She ruffled Jed’s hair and kissed his mouth tenderly. He stirred. “Hmmm,”

“Jedidiah, I’m going downstairs to the gift shop and look at the magazines. I’ll be right back.”

“Hmmm.” He nodded groggily.

Downstairs, Thena wandered idly along an arched, marbled hallway that fronted expensive boutiques, eyeing the colorful and bizarre clothes on the window mannequins.
“Sacrebleu!”
she said out loud.
“Dispendieux et laid comme un crapaud!”

A high-pitched male laugh startled her. Thena looked down the hall to a shop entrance several doors further. A lanky, fair-skinned man in designer jeans and a feminine-looking, canary-yellow shirt smiled at her warmly.

“Expensive and ugly as sin!” he echoed, in English. “My dear, I adore your description of those tawdry rags!”

Intrigued because he looked so different from any man she’d ever met before, Thena smiled back. A gleaming art nouveau doorway in black and gold framed him. Above his head, scrawled in ornate neon letters, a sign said simply, Tresses. She looked back at the man, who was still smiling.

“Oooh,” he sighed slowly. “That lovely, unstructured hair of yours. What miracles I could work with that.” Another man, just as feminine-looking and just as friendly, poked his head out the door and studied her. A long cigarette was posed elegantly in the man’s fingertips.

“Remarkable,” the second man crooned. “What texture. What thickness. She reminds one of an unstructured Kathleen Turner, doesn’t she?”

Thena touched her shaggy brunet hair. What was this “unstructured” business and why did it sound vaguely uncomplimentary? She wanted to make Jed
happy. She wanted to fit in on the mainland. Perhaps by becoming structured she’d have a better chance. “You cut hair?” she asked politely.

Both the lanky man and his companion laughed. Thena puzzled over them, then decided she liked them. They were exotic. She was exotic, too, and they seemed to appreciate that fact. The lanky man swept into a low bow.

“Monsieur Markus, the proprietor, at your service, mademoiselle.”

“Merci,” she answered, and curtsied. More laughter.

“Mademoiselle, I do, as you say, cut hair. But don’t tell anyone. My clients expect to have their hair ‘designed,’ not cut.”