The Leaves 03 (Nico) (12 page)

longer lift the corner of my mouth in a Billy Idol Rebel Yell like I used to. I only thought of it because she was staring at it.

“What happened to your face?” Her eyes never left my lips.

“Are you sure that’s all you’ve had to drink? You’re kind of my hero right now since you’re still talking and not puking everywhere.” I was avoiding talking about my own drama so she could share hers. It seemed like she needed an ear. Well hell, it was the least I could do for a beautiful woman. Especially since, given the opportunity, I would have liked nothing more than to kiss her.

“No,” she said firmly.

“No, what?”

“I’m not discussing anything with you unless there’s an exchange of information.” She stared at the roof and bundled herself up again.

“What would you like to know?” I asked.

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In a small voice, she asked, “Why didn’t you knock?”

I pulled the beanie down over my ears. It was pretty fucking cold sitting there in the wind coming off the ocean.

“Because… I wanted—”

“You can tell me inside. I have to go throw-up now.”

I jumped down first and lifted her and her many blankets from the roof then stood to the side as she ran in to her cottage and slammed the door closed behind her.

I waited for a while to see if she would come back, but after half an hour, I retrieved the bottles from the roof and went home. I grabbed my journal and returned to my porch, pen in hand, and opened it to write:
Dear Dish…

Chapter 9

Dear Dish –

I’m sitting on my front porch. There’s a
freezing cold wind, thick with moisture,
coming from the Northwest. It seems to be
blowing from the ocean, but I’m looking at
the neighbor’s weather vane and that’s what
that stupid-looking rooster is telling me, ha-ha.

I have to tell you about my neighbor,
Lark.

She’s beautiful, Dish. Stunning. I’m keeping a vigil here because, only an hour ago, I
was holding her drunk, crying body in my
arms, and, no shit, it felt like I was home. As
corny as that sounds, it’s true. She’s really
defensive though, and if I had to guess,
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someone broke her heart. All I have to say,
it’s his loss.

Anyway, I’m going to do this right. I’ll get
to “know her”. Hang on, her front door is
opening. I’ll let you know what happens…

N-

“Nico?”

“Yep,” I quickly answered, secured my journal under the seat cushion, and flew down the ten steps to the little path in front of her cottage.

“Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” She was in a different blanket now, a quilt which looked to be handcrafted… probably her own doing.

I grinned. “I would love to come in for a cup of coffee.”

Lark closed the door behind us. In the short time we’d been apart, she’d managed to make a pot of coffee and build a roaring fire, which felt fucking beautiful, and, I assumed, puke her guts up.

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“How do you take it,” she asked.

“With milk or cream, whatever you have.”

“No sugar?”

“I’m almost forty. I have to watch what I eat now.” I smiled.

“Did you just say you’re almost forty?”

“Yeah. How old are you?” I asked.

Her eyes went wide in shock. “I can’t believe you just asked me that!” She was amused more than anything else, and, I think, just enjoyed giving me a hard time.

“You’re not old.” I stated.

“But I’m a woman.” She smiled, “You asked a woman her age.”

“Lark,” I walked over to her very inviting-looking couch and sat down. “Maybe I’m wrong about you, but you seem pretty ap-proachable, and hang-ups like age and all that bullshit don’t really seem your style. Am I wrong about that?”

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“No.” She opened cupboards to reveal mis-matched mugs and plates. “I was being a bitch,” she admitted without turning around.

I got up and went to help her. I could see she wasn’t quite herself yet. “Why don’t you sit down; I can get this. I’m pretty good in a kitchen.”

She nodded and went to curl up on her couch and stare at the fire.

As I opened the cupboards again to make sure what I had seen was true, I noticed that nothing matched: plates, cups, cutlery… not one thing was part of a set.

“Uh, did you hit the thrift stores before you moved in?” I held up a mug that said World’s Best Grandma, and another one that was bright yellow and said
Sharp’s Snail Bait
Fun Run 1988
.

She smiled, trying not to laugh. “My ex.”

“Oh,” was all I said and waited for her to tell me more. I sat across from her and brought two spoons, a small pitcher of 207/510

creamer, and a bowl of sugar, since I forgot to ask how she took it; it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Thanks.” She took the hot, black coffee and ignored the companion ingredients. “My ex. Shane. He was kind of ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ about having everything match. And it had to be top quality stuff. I bought these great wine glasses from Crate and Barrel, and he told me to take them back. I kept them along with some other stuff I knew he wouldn’t approve of, but I loved. It was like my secret dirty stash of substandard awesomeness.” Her brown eyes rose up from those thick lashes and smiled at me. “So, my wine glasses match, but everything else was my own personal ‘Fuck you’ to him until I decide what style I want.” She was funny, too. Another thing I was learning about Lark Andrews.

“Do you like Billy Joel?” she asked.

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“I do,” I said, taking that first sip. “Wow!

That is strong fuckin’ coffee.”

“I don’t sleep much at night. Iit’s when I tend to work. We actually keep similar hours.” The stereo was on low, Allentown just audible.

“What do you do all night?” I knew she sewed those flower things, but I didn’t know if she had another job doing phone sex or something. She had this kind of husky voice I only now noticed. That day in the studio, her voice seemed small and light. It wasn’t. She had that voice you wanted whispering in your ear while your dick was buried in her, and her lips; those full lips wrapped around your…

“What are you thinking about?” she asked curiously with a tiny grin.

“Huh?” I said, as I tried to snap the fuck out of my new fantasy.

“You just had sex face.” She grinned wider.

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“No, I didn’t,” I answered defensively.

What was I, twelve?

“Whatever you say. Anyway, I’m working on the cuffs for your mom, but I also started a website. So now I’m making cuffs and matching headpieces and veils. I have to make them, photograph them, put together sample packs with fabric and ribbon swatches so the customer can match colors…

I’m kind of busy. But the daytime, I like to be outside. Sometimes I go hike in the canyon, sometimes I walk on the beach, poke around the tide pools… just depends. But after what happened a couple of months ago, I try not to go after the sun starts to set.” Everything in me went on edge. After
what
happened?

“What the fuck happened, Lark? Did someone try to hurt you?” My voice came out a lot more aggressively than I had intended.

“What? No, no, nothing like that.” She started to laugh. “You should see your face, 210/510

Nico. You just morphed from sex-face to I’m-gonna-kill-something face in like zero to sixty.” She set her cup down and reached out for my hand. “You okay?” Fuck, if she only knew. Last week I got a new ‘bird’. I had been trying to think of a term for my clients, the women I helped.

Every time I tried to come up with something, it never seemed to have the meaning it needed. It was only for me, this word, but it needed to represent them—their struggle, their pain.

I had been researching my heritage and the little I knew about my family from my pop. He mentioned his pop was a “split feather.” There had been a government program to try to integrate Native American kids into society. The problem was, more often than not, they lost their identity and their heritage. They were called “split feathers” or

“lost birds”. Since the day I’d read the term, I began to call my women, “birds’.

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It had been quiet for so long. Then this woman came in, twenty-eight, said she knew about me through a friend of hers, but didn’t say who. She was walking to her car after work, a waitress at this diner in Mission Viejo. It was late though. A man grabbed her, pushed her against her car, held something to her neck, she didn’t even know what, raped her twice before another man showed and had a turn. All of Orange County was on edge since there had been two other incidents involving two men. The other women managed to get away, but this girl, Rosaria…

she wasn’t so lucky.

“Nico?” Lark’s voice thankfully took me from that memory.

“No, but I will be,” I answered honestly.

“So, what happened?” I sounded like a dick, but she seemed to understand it was because I couldn’t just shut that reaction down.

“Well, I walked up that steep, steep hill…

where the new development is? I parked my 212/510

car at the bottom thinking it would be great exercise.” Then she teased me. “Because I’m thirty-eight, I need to exercise…” I cracked a smile.

“Ah, mission accomplished. You have nice teeth. Anyway, I wanted to watch the sunset from there and I was having a pretty bad day.”

“Like today?” I asked.

“Worse than today. So I walked back to the car, and I could hear something behind me.

My entire body was like one big goose bump and I was shit scared, but I knew it wasn’t a person. I thought maybe it was a coyote—you know,

they’re

always

eating

people’s

cats—so, I took out my keys and walked to the car, not running, not wanting to startle or piss off whatever this thing was. I got in, the entire time trying not to make any sound, and locked the doors. My heart was beating so fast, Nico. I looked out the front window and the passenger window and didn’t see 213/510

anything, so I put the keys in the ignition, but saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see the face of a mountain li-on, right at my window. Its tail was whipping back and forth, and it opened its mouth like it was going to hiss. I started to cry.” She laughed. “And then, I’m not afraid to admit to you, I totally peed my pants. I was that scared, I peed my fucking pants.” Her laugh was contagious, and it definitely brought me out of my mood.

“I’m sorry, Lark. I’m not laughing at you, I swear.”

“No, it’s funny. It is, and it’s nice to see you smile. You always seem kind of moody.” Yeah, not the first time I’d heard that.

“I have a lot on my mind. But I’m much better than I used to be.” I sipped my warm coffee.

“What changed?” she asked.

I held the cup, running my thumb over the rim, “I can’t—”

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“Can’t or won’t?” Her face became sad again as she tucked her feet closer to her body.

I noticed the squares on her quilt then, one had a cactus, another had a palm tree, another had a baby, and another had a teddy bear.

“Did you make your quilt?” I attempted to change the subject.

“No way. I’m not telling you anything else, Nico. I don’t work like that. I’ll tell you almost anything, but it’s a sharing kind of deal.

You share, I share. I like you. You have kick-ass taste in music. You sleep around a lot or you did before that awful woman came along, so that doesn’t exactly make me want to jump into bed with you… actually.” She looked straight ahead as if she was mulling it over. “Yeah, it does. I haven’t had a good fuck in a long, long time.” I almost choked on my coffee. “Excuse me?

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“Oh, please, like you’re shocked. I’m serious; it’s your turn to share.” She smirked.

She stared at me, waiting for me to respond, but something happened, and she sat up suddenly. “Coffee was a bad idea.”

“Do you want me to get you some water?” I asked.

She held her hand over her mouth, threw the quilt off, exposing a black tank top, no bra, yoga pants, and ran to the bathroom.

She made it just in time, but not quick enough to avoid the ends of her long hair in the process. I followed her in and opened the cupboard large enough for towels—none of them matched—and rinsed a wash cloth in warm water. I sat on the floor behind her while she heaved into the toilet.

When she took a break, she said, “Oh my God… how embarrassing! You don’t have to stay, Nico. I’ll be fine.” She spat into the bowl and waited for the next wave.

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I took the cup next to the sink, filled it with water, and handed it to her. “Drink this so you have something to throw-up instead of coffee. I speak from experience.” I gathered all her hair and braided it, took a hair band from my wrist—a habit I didn’t think I would ever lose—and wrapped it around the bottom.

She wiped her face with the offered washcloth. I rinsed it and gave it back to her while she leaned against the nearby tub.

“You’re a good guy, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know how to answer that question.” And I didn’t. I was trying to be a better man, but that didn’t mean I was.

“An asshole wouldn’t do what you’re doing. An asshole would wait for me to stop puking
then
have sex with me.”

“I’m trying to find the balance between asshole and good-guy.” That was the truth.

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“Hang on.” She turned around and wretched back into the toilet again. She was starting to dry heave.

“You need to drink some more water.” I held the cup to her mouth and pretty much forced her to drink.

“You have a really strong stomach. Even my cousin couldn’t do this, and she and I have held each other’s hair a lot.”

“My mom had cancer about four years ago.

Chemo is pretty hardcore. You get used to it.”

She lifted her head, rested her cheek on the toilet seat, and looked at me, her eyes full of sympathy. I was pretty sure she was done being sick, for now at least. I flushed and took the three thickest towels I could find, laid one over my lap, one under her hips, and the third I laid over her after I pulled her onto my lap. I knew she was close to passing out.