Down 'N' Derby (9 page)

             
Lines of men and some women formed before each car with its own model waiting to take their picture with them.  The models with the future cars matched the style of car they were paired with.  Long, sleek, and covered—barely.  But the models by the vintage cars matched their vehicles as well.  Beautiful lines and curves, class and style all mixed together.  I wouldn’t go so far as to stand in line to get a picture or a lame autographed poster but a guy could look, right?

             
The prices on the cars made me scared to even touch them and after a few hours I was done.  I waited by the exit for Nixon and he wasn’t far behind.  We found one of those infamous all-you-can-eat buffets and Nixon got twelve of everything fried and then blanketed the whole thing in ketchup.  I’d never seen so many people in one place before.  I wasn’t small town by any stretch of the imagination but this was overwhelming.  There were probably a thousand people in my line of sight.  We didn’t talk while we ate, mostly because we couldn’t hear anything over the people, like hives of bees constantly humming.  There was no use in trying.

             
The waitress put the ticket right in front of me and as I turned it over to see how much it was it said ‘On the house’ and it had Lydia and a phone number in chicken scratch.  We had already paid for the buffet before coming in so the ticket was only for our drinks.  But still, I hope she didn’t get in trouble for that act of flirtation.  Especially since she wasn’t getting anything in return.  Nixon rolled his eyes and mumbled something about me always having the best luck.  We got up from the table and made our way out when a hand grabbed my wrist and I struggled to not immediately jerk it away.  I turned to find the owner of the hand, Lydia twisting her hair with the opposite hand and smiling up at me.

             
“Just making sure you enjoyed your meal.  I left you a note on your ticket.” I gently removed my wrist from her clammy hand and answered her as gentlemanly as I could. 

             
“I got the note.  Thank you.  But I’m involved with someone.”

             
She answered after fixing the disappointment on her face, “Oh, I didn’t see a girl with you,” then she looked to Nixon, “Oh, I see.”

             
“What? No, that’s my cousin.  I’ve got a girlfriend.” She removed an invisible piece of lint from my chest and answered, “Well, she’s not here, is she?”

             
“Look, Lydia, I appreciate the offer but I’m not interested.” I took a step back from her to drive the point home and it finally registered with her.

             
“Whatever.  I was just looking for a good time.  You guys look like you’re underage anyway.”

             
Good, let her get bitter.  Whatever made her stop trying to get with someone who wasn’t going for it. 

             
We decided to walk back to the hotel since we had eaten enough for a herd of elephants and needed to walk it off.  The strip was just like the travel channels said it was; busy and weird, full of every different kind of person under the neon lights. 

             
We had to stop at every street performer and let Nixon listen for a while, drop a dollar or two and move on.  We roamed the streets of Vegas until the sun broke through the clouds and alerted us of morning.  We walked back to the hotel and people watched us, assuming we were doing the walk of shame but we were completely innocent—at least I was.  Nixon I wasn’t sure about.

             
After showers to wash off the smoke and city smells, we both fell into bed exhausted.  I teetered on the edge of sleep when I heard Nixon speak to me. 

             
“I don’t think I like Vegas as much as I thought I would.” If I didn’t know him better I would think, by the slur in his voice, that he was drunk.

             
“You don’t wanna stay,” I asked him as I rolled over to my back to hear him better.

             
“No, I wanna see some California girls.” All of the sudden I felt like I was a father consoling his toddler with bigger and better things when he woke up.

             
“Alright, when we wake up, we drive to Cali.”

             
He rolled over while throwing up some awkward wannabe gang signs singing, “I’m going, going, back, back to Cali, Cali.”  He passed out after that, fingers still twisted in calls to invisible homeys.

              We stayed in the hotel room that day, mostly because we slept until two in the afternoon.  We ordered pizza in—I ordered wings since I hated pizza and watched TV and played on our phones until I fell asleep again about eleven that night. 

Chapter 16

Storey

I’d like to think that if I ever saw Simon again I’d take the opportunity to punch his boys so far up that they’d sprout out of his head like two dilapidated dog ears.  But I knew better.  Plus, that’s what I had a badass bestie for—beating my enemies to a pulp and making them look like puppies.

              “Look, Louise, I’m tired and I want to go home.  Take all the money if you want to but I’m not going back.  In fact, I’ve already packed up my car and I’m about to drive home.”

             
She answered some smartass comment back at me and with my contract ending in four weeks I didn’t have to put up with it anymore.

             
“Do whatever you feel like your big girl panties will let you do.  I could give a shit.”

             
She always treated me like a commodity and while I’d always hated it, I had to put up with it—not anymore.  She assumed that in a month I would renew my contract with her like I had every year since I was seventeen but I had saved up enough money to move back to Louisiana and go to Loyola.  I had taken some online classes and was technically entering college as a sophomore.  It also let me prove to the admissions board that I was now serious about school.  Not that I wasn’t when I was a kid, but the drama of being with Simon messed with my head so much that I never had time for schoolwork or studying. I was too busy trying to keep him occupied.

             
I took the route that would lead me through Los Angeles so I could shop on Melrose Avenue.  There was a strip of the street on the Fairfax block that was nothing but vintage clothing and vintage remakes.  It was absolute heaven for me.  And I knew that with the summer closing in on me, it might be my last chance to shop there.  It took me about four and a half hours to get there from Vegas and by two in the afternoon, I’d arrived.  I shopped store after store finding more outfits than I could ever wear calling my name. 

             
I bought three pairs of shoes and two of the cutest vintage style bikinis I’d ever seen.  Tomorrow I would hit the beach right across the street from my apartment above a tourist t-shirt shop in Venice Beach.  It was the cheapest place I could find so close to the beach.  And really?  Why live in Venice Beach if you couldn’t walk to the beach?  It was perfect for me.  I shared my tiny apartment with another girl who was also a model, so most of the time her space was empty but she still paid half the rent—it worked. 

             
After another forty minute drive home, I turned the key to my apartment and after three trips upstairs I finally got all my luggage and shopping bags in.  I dragged them into the bedroom and unpacked and hung everything up in my closet.  The special show outfits went in a standalone wardrobe.  After finishing unpacking and taking a long, hot bath I ordered Thai food in and vegged in front of the TV.  I had missed some cheesy movies, the ones the claimed it was the worldwide premiere even though the movies had been released years ago. 

             
The phone rang just as I got settled and I nearly came unglued.  After composing myself I answered, out of breath.

             
“Hello?” The caller ID said ‘Unknown’ and that could only mean one of my roommate, Liza’s bill collectors, or Simon.  I would gladly speak to bill collectors anytime over him.

             
“Why so out of breath darlin’? You’re not screwing another guy, are you?  That wouldn’t be very smart.”  I hung up after hearing his demented voice and shuddered.  How he always knew where I was insanely creepy.  But somehow he always did.  I needed to cancel my home phone the next day.  I couldn’t take this crap anymore.  I had a cell phone but the only people who had the number were Renee and my parents.  They didn’t call very often anyway.  I think with all the Simon stuff coming to light they were embarrassed of me.  I’d shamed them.  Hell, I was a shame to the female species in general. 

             
I managed to be invisible all throughout primary school and all the way to middle school.  Then high school happened.  As a freshman I came in hoping to get the same treatment and I did for about five months until Simon Melancon took notice.  He was handsome, charming and relentless, constantly asking me out and showing up everywhere—my locker, my car, my house, my window.  I thought it was so romantic but in hindsight it was borderline stalkery—borderline my ass, it was full on obsessive, carve my name into his wrist, bang his head against a stop sign stalker.  I was blinded by his devotion. 

             
The first time we went out it was all roses and sweetness.  He called the morning after our first date claiming he couldn’t wait to hear my voice again.  And didn’t I just fall for that sappy shit. 

             
By the third date he was strongly advising me on what I
should
be wearing and who I
should
be hanging out with.  On our one year anniversary, I found out he had cheated on me, confronted him and that was when he reached out, twisted my forearm so hard that bruises and broken blood vessels broke out immediately.  He got in my face and all I could do was look at his mouth while I was told in hateful words how he would do what he wanted, when he wanted and I would be fine with it.  Enter dumbass Storey.  She sat there and cried and took it.  She apologized for looking at his phone when he got a text message, the one that revealed his infidelity.  She walked all the way home and didn’t tell anyone what happened.  When what she should’ve done was called the police—and knocked his teeth down his throat.  And the real kicker?  Not only did I not tell anyone what he was doing to me; time after time I let him apologize, believed him—and I let it go on for nearly four years. 

             
After unplugging the phone, I dragged myself to bed, looking forward to enjoying the beach for the rest of the summer and then going back home.  Simon should be gone by then.  He got into Brown University, not because of his shining grades but because his uncle is on the board of directors and an alumni. 

             
As I lay in my bed, I could hear the waves as they ebbed and receded.  It was a lullaby that I would dearly miss.

Maddox

I’m not saying I should be answering phones at the psychic friends
’ hotline or anything.  But I just had this feeling about California.  Like something was waiting for me there.

              California is an odd place when you come from Louisiana.  People don’t talk to each other on the street.  No one says excuse me when they pass each other.  I’ve seen more people flip each other the bird just on the freeway, as they call it, than I have in my entire life.  And let’s not even talk about the looming cloud over the whole county of Los Angeles.  It made me think the alien apocalypse was nearer than the TV would have us believe. 

             
And Louisiana was hot during the summer.  We’re talking about wet, sweaty, heat which could reach the 120 degree mark.  But this?  This desert had a choking dry heat and I swore I’d never complain about a Southern summer ever again.  We kept driving through the Mojave desert until we got to Long Beach and realized we were way too far South.  That’s what I got for relinquishing the map over to Nixon after we got into California.  We found a small hotel and bunked in for the night, exhausted.  And as I looked at the map app on Nixon’s phone I realized why it had taken us so long to get there.  We had taken a four hour detour. 

             
Nixon had been really quiet since we left Vegas even though he professed to being excited.  And it was completely sneaky of me, but I checked his phone log and saw that he lied to me.  He hadn’t been calling his mom.  He was calling Reed.  He didn’t even lie well.  It said Orangutan on the caller ID but her phone number still showed right next to it.  I snickered a little to myself at him calling her Orangutan.  That was one I would have to use when I spoke to her again.  If I spoke to her again.  I went back to the map app and saw that we were actually only about thirty minutes from Venice Beach.  And I hadn’t told anyone, not even Reed but if this lead didn’t pan out, I would quit looking.  There were only two other leads other than this one and one was in Maine and the other in Canada.  If he wasn’t here, I would stop looking.  I thought we would end up just spending the rest of the summer on the beach.  I wasn’t ready to face my family.  The bad-assness of the whole thing had worn off just in the few weeks we had been on the road.