Nico Page 9

  I never even asked his name.

  ***

  Exactly three-and-a-half months later, a woman came to see me as I was opening the door to the shop. “Are you Nico?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “This is from my Martin.” She handed me an envelope with an unsteady hand. and I led her into the studio first, flipped on the lights, and leaned against the counter while she sat on the green couch.

  Dear Nico (Nicolas),

  Did I make it to four months?

  Remember what I said, don’t argue with my wife. She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Something I didn’t tell you, we lost our boy when he was nineteen, drunk driver. We started late, only had the one. The more I learned about you, I would come home each night and tell Melissa (I call her Missy, but only I can call her that), how much you reminded me of our son. We wanted that little place in the mountains to be for our family. I taught him to fish not far from the cabin. I built a little birdhouse and Missy would bring seed up each time we went, watch them all flock around her. I personally don’t find birds appealing as pets. I think they should be allowed to fly.

  I’m rambling now. I wish I had been able to spend some more time with you. I think you must be a hell of a son to your own folks. And since you’re an only child, it just seemed appropriate. For whatever reason, call it fate or divine intervention, our paths crossed, and I am grateful they did.

  Write in your journal. Tell “Dish” everything you need to until you find your real Dish. When you do, take her to the cabin. Only take your forever-girl there. That’s my only request. It was a place filled with love and I’d like to carry on that tradition.

  It was a pleasure and an absolute honor to meet you, son.

  Your friend,

  In faith, compassion for others and true love,

  Martin Louis Babbage

  P.S. Don’t argue with Missy.

  I let my hands fall, clutching the letter in one and the envelope in the other, and looked at the woman I knew was Missy.

  “Have you read this?” I choked out, my throat, closed with threatening emotion.

  “I don’t need to read it. I know what it says.” She looked down to the floor and hiccupped when she said, “The cancer took him quick.” When I didn’t speak, because I would have started to weep like a little girl, she continued. “A man will stop by with everything you need, all the legal mumbo-jumbo. I have a sister that lives in Vermont. I’ve always wanted to see those fall colors. It won’t be the same without him,” she said, her voice wavering, “But I know he’s with our son now. And one day—”

  I flipped the lock and pulled her into me. It was just too much. I didn’t even know this guy, but fuck if I didn’t feel every single one of those words right in the bottom of my soul.

  Three and a half months before, I had told my mom and pop everything he had said to me on the porch. It seemed important to tell them about the journal, the $500 pens, and, of course, the most important piece of information, the newspaper clipping. My pop went all quiet, running his hands down his face, a trait I’d picked up from him, and walked away. Then my mom came over and gave my hands a squeeze before she joined him.

  This time, when I told them about the cabin and gave them the letter, Pop came undone. I had never seen him like that. Even with Mom being sick, he never broke like he had when he handed me back the letter and said, “I raised a good man.”

  That night, on the porch of my house, I began my first entry:

  Dear Dish…

  Chapter 8

  Last year

  January

  I contemplated my singledom while I listened to Zack complain. He screwed up, big time, by way of letting a threesome get a little out of control. Teensy was open-minded, but her man was her man, and she wasn’t happy about sharing if she wasn’t involved. For someone who had been adamantly against relationships—yeah, I was calling the kettle black—he was devastated when Teensy ended it. She asked him to make a choice: a life with her and only her, or a life without her. When he hesitated, she asked him to leave, and told him to never come back.

  I think his groveling increased when living with Becca started to become awkward. Becca was running our sister shop, Puncture, in San Clemente and had a two bedroom apartment only a few doors down. It wasn’t that Becca didn’t have the room; she had a boyfriend, and apparently, the two of them were loud, as was being described to me this afternoon.

  “Dude, you have no fuckin’ idea what it’s like to hear your sister moaning like that, ‘Flapjack… Flapjack…’ and what kind of punk is named fuckin’ Flapjack?!”

  He paced in front of me as I sketched out a Japanese garden scene. I would transfer it to the torso of a client who was planning on having his entire body covered. I’d already done the Cherry Blossom tree over his shoulders and back, which looked awesome. He was due in any minute.

  I looked up from the sketch briefly and said, “Dude, stop pacing. You’re gonna make me throw up.”

  “Just let me stay in your parents’ place.” It was the third time he had asked to stay in their cottage.

  “No,” I said, not looking up.

  “Please.” He dropped to his knees and begged with his hands folded for extra drama.

  “No.” I continued drawing, picked up the sketch, and looked at it from all angles then laid it back down again.

  “Why the fuck not?” He was getting kind of pissed off with me but I didn’t care. Asshole needed some truth.

  I leaned back in the chair and told him straight. “Because you’re in love with Teensy, and you need to go and beg her ass to take you back. Then, you won’t have to live with your sister and her man. It’s right, the two of you, and you fuckin’ know it. So stop being a little bitch and go talk to her.”

  I caught my reflection in the mirror for a split second, not even knowing myself; I had shaved my head. You could just see the scar above my ear.

  “You’re an asshole, Nico,” he stated bitterly as he got up off the floor.

  “That may be true, but you also know I’m right. Go. Go buy some flowers, get on your knees, lick the bottom of her boots, and fucking grow a pair.” Then, since no one else was in the shop, I decided to say what I’d been holding back. “Dude, just because she’s the dominant in your relationship sexually, doesn’t make you less of a man. You’re a man in the ways she needs one. You give her what she’s never going to get from her job. You don’t want her to be all Mistress whatever with you, then tell her that, but get the fuck out of here, because your constant complaining and this funk you’ve been in for two months is getting old. Fuck. Off.”

  “Fuck you, man,” he said, grabbing his jacket and keys.

  “You can thank me later, cocksucker,” I yelled at his back.

  “Suck this.” He grabbed his junk as he walked away, the door closing behind him.

  My “women” had slowed down. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe whoever it was that had spread the word about me in the first place had become more selective with whom they shared their information. Since I was attacked, everything stopped for a while. Moira had heard from a friend of a friend that the guy who gives tattoos free to abused women had been beaten by a client’s husband. It was true, but how they found out, I didn’t know. No one that I knew would have talked.

  In the meantime, I had made some changes in my life. The first one being that I took up running again. Swimming in the ocean was no longer on my list of options. I ran cross-country in high school and had forgotten how it was just me, my thoughts, and the ground beneath my feet. The second thing I did was slow down on pussy and drinking. It had lost some of its appeal. I still drank, and I still got laid, but not like before.

  The catalyst for my big life change was a walk downtown about six months before. A woman with shoulder length, jet black hair was walking hand-in-hand with her partner. He was wearing one of those baby carrier things on his chest, and all I could see were little arms and legs sticking out and a frilly pink hat.
It was Gina and her husband, and she looked genuinely happy. She had found that thing again she didn’t think was possible. I had to tell myself to stop staring and keep walking. She acknowledged me with a small smile as I walked past, and I responded the same way. We had our moment, Gina and me, a kind of turning point for us both. But I didn’t know what I wanted then. Not from life, and definitely not from a woman.

  Seeing Gina, however, caused me to make one of the dumbest decisions of my life.

  I had gone to see Mom at work. The bridal shop gig was going well for her. The clients loved her, and she did suits and make-up really well. It was great to see her happy. I had to admit, every time she went for her scans and blood work, I went a bit crazy. But so far, the cancer was gone, and her docs called her a miracle.

  This particular day, she asked if I was trying to kill her when I decided to ask out a temporary employee she had by the name of Tawnea. She was the daughter of the owner’s best friend and was keen to learn as much as possible about bridal fashion. A position in New York with a top fashion magazine had become available for a new quarterly wedding issue. Tawn had gone to fashion school, graduated only two years before, and was just waiting for an opportunity like this to come along. I didn’t even think about the “relationship” being temporary. I just thought she seemed like a nice woman, a little misunderstood, and decided now was the time for me to take a chance.

  I could not have been more wrong.

  The first six weeks were great. She was beautiful, a great lay, sucked dick like a fuckin’ pro, but then her nasty side started to show. In a scene I would rather forget that took place in my studio, she humiliated me in front of Cole Carlyle, Anika’s husband, and his best friend, Olaf Evist. To make matters worse, during our very public fight in which I called her a bitch, broke up with her, and told her to get the fuck out, Lark Andrews came into the studio.

  My brilliant mother had given Lark work at the bridal shop. Lark had her own business making these things that wrapped around the stems of the bridal bouquet and matched the dress perfectly. She called them “Cluster Corsets”. She was incredibly skilled, and I knew this when she came in, middle of the fight with Tawn, and said my mom had asked me to bring this flower thing to the wedding for Anika. This was my mom’s way of putting another woman in front of me that wasn’t Tawnea.

  Well, it worked.

  Lark lived in Hank and Ramona’s cottage, but I knew nothing about her, just that they were her aunt and uncle. She kept to herself, had excellent taste in music, and always went the opposite direction when I was coming toward her. But that day, I heard her speak, and she knocked the wind right out of me, just how my pop had described when he’d met my mom. Unfortunately, while she stood there in the studio, fucking Tawnea wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

  A few days later, I was single again, and, dressed in a grey suit and black collared shirt, ready to watch Anika get married to the love of her life, Cole. I walked up to Lark’s front door and was ready to tell her to get dressed, she was coming with me to the wedding as my date. I moved my necklace around nervously, lifted my hand to knock… and stopped.

  I fuckin’ chickened out. I knew there was something about her, and I wanted to know what that something was, but thought it would be better to wait. Even though you could barely call what Tawn and I had a relationship, I wanted to approach this woman when I was absolutely sure I knew what I wanted.

  It was just as well I waited. As drama would have the last word on the day of Cole and Anika’s wedding.

  The wedding itself was the best I had ever been to. There was laughter and tears, Anika announced she was pregnant and presented Cole with the test stick. It got passed to every table, which I found very funny. But the man who abused Anika as a girl had come to the wedding. Not for her; he followed another woman there named Serena. She was exotic, like a woman in one of those foreign airline commercials, and she was also his first victim. Cole came to see me after the wedding, wanted to cover all his bases, because that man was executed in the basement of the venue where Anika and Cole were married that day. I was one of the witnesses, not to the actual ending of that man’s life, but I heard what I knew were two muffled gunshots.

  It was the final chapter of Anika’s suffering, and like I told Cole, that man got what he fucking deserved. The conversation moved on. Cole told me all about pregnant Anika and her love of all things ice cream and Thai food. He also asked me what ever happened with the girl who came into the shop that day. He had noticed my reaction, saying I looked how he felt the day he met Anika.

  I told him I was waiting for a sign, and that night, I got one.

  It was the end of January and a bitterly cold night for Southern California. I saw my neighbor sitting on her roof, all bundled up in a thick, wool blanket, a bottle of something by her feet, and a huge scarf wrapped around her head.

  I tried to be casual as I walked by and went into my place. I grabbed my thick coat I bought specifically to take up to the mountains, thick sweat pants, and wool socks, and even though Zack bagged me every single time he saw them, my Uggs.

  I grabbed a bottle of Jack, surprised by how full it was, and stopped below her front awning. “Mind if I join you?” I called up.

  She peered over the edge. “You didn’t knock.”

  “Uh, you’re not inside.” I stated the obvious.

  “No, I mean, the day of the wedding, you stood outside my door, and you were gonna knock. You didn’t knock.” She scooted back out of sight.

  I thought about what to say next. I didn’t think she’d be watching me. Fuck.

  “It wasn’t the right time, Lark.”

  “And now is?”

  I hadn’t heard before, but she was crying. I grabbed the edge of the roof, stood on her railing, and lifted myself up.

  “No, that’s okay. You can come up,” she said sarcastically.

  I sat down next to her with my bottle and waited for her to relax as I took a drink. Shit, it burned. But that quickly faded with the next sip. “Want some?” I offered.

  “No,” she sniffled.

  Then completely out of character for me, I asked, “You wanna talk about it?”

  “Not especially.”

  We sat in silence, and eventually, the tension in her started to subside. She took the cap off her bottle of Vanilla Stoli and had a sip. “Ack.” She screwed up her face. “I thought it would get better the more drunk I got, but it isn’t.”

  “Want some of mine? I’m happy to share,” I said, handing her the opened bottle.

  “A bottle of Jack and your backwash? You’re so generous.”

  I had no idea why she was being bitchy; I hadn’t done anything to her that I was aware of.

  “Uh, babe? What’s with the venom?”

  I tried to ask in the least confrontational way possible. She looked back at me and burst into tears.

  “Jesus.” I moved the bottles out of the way and pulled her into my arms, her body moving with each sob. “Shh.” I said, rocking her. It had been such a long time since I’d held a woman. Her hair was stuck to the side of her face, and I moved it, trying to calm her down and get her to look at me. She smelled like a brewery. “What have you been drinking tonight?”

  She wiped her nose and face with her sleeve-covered hand. “Oh,” her shaky voice began, “I had pretty much a taster of everything on hand.”

  She scooted out of my hold and I reluctantly let her.

  “What does that entail?”

  “Tia Maria, Midori, Peppermint Schnapps, the rest of a bottle of white-something from a risotto I made two months ago that was left in the fridge…” She stopped and looked at me. “I’m not an alcoholic or anything.”

  “No judgment,” I said with a smile. Since the stitches had come out, I could smile. The scar wasn’t really noticeable, but I could no 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.

  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, someone broke her heart. All I have to say, it’s his loss.