Читать книгу A Pinch of Cool - Mary Leo - Страница 9

SO THERE THEY STOOD , arms locked around each other like they were old friends, buddies, soul mates or even lovers. To the world humming around them they were just another kissing couple at the airport, with one of them either going or coming.

However, Mya had a different take on the whole thing. Hers was more of the startled variety. One of those times when out of a crowd of people a stranger calls out your name and you try your best to recognize this person who says he or she knows you.

Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but it should have been for all the contact they’d had over the years. Let’s see, the last real memory Mya had of Eric, they were seven years old and he had just thrown a huge bucket of water over her sand castle, completely destroying it, on a beach in Malibu. Of course, she had retaliated by wrecking his sand castle by simply bulldozing over it with her sweet little feet.

Yes, and over the years she had seen pictures of him at various stages of growth and accomplishments, but who can keep up with all that growing and changing? She was too busy with her own hormones and accolades to worry about Eric’s, the boy who tormented her and she loved to torment back.

Eric had moved to Georgia, now the plates make sense, with his mother after his dad and mom had divorced. Even when it had come time to say goodbye to him, which was actually at this very airport, she had stuck out her tongue in defiance. No hugging. No tears. Not even a handshake. Not that seven-year-olds are known for shaking hands, but they could have done something. He could have done something. They never even touched…of course, there was that time out by the green shed when they were playing double-dare, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She was too busy hugging a childhood memory.

Oh wait, she suddenly remembered that they did hold hands in the airport, for a moment, but that didn’t count. They were merely both playing with his ticket when their hands touched. A natural accident.

She had been silly with joy when he moved away. At least for the first few weeks. Then she had missed their arguments and missed having him around to play with. She’d gotten used to all that bickering, all that toy-throwing. She had even tried to convince her mom to let Eric come and live with them, but Eric’s mom wouldn’t let him even fly out to visit his dad.

Mya didn’t know what to say, something that absolutely, positively never happened to her. Even when she was born, her mother said she came out of the womb mumbling and cooing. Yet there she was in the arms of Eric Baldini, who, for some odd reason, made her pulse quicken, and for a brief moment, seemed enormously sexy.

How odd.

“I…I need my shoes,” she mumbled once he let go of their embrace.

He leaned over and her world spun a little as she watched him. Almost as if she’d just been passionately kissed. She took a step back and tripped over her own feet and fell down again, hard on the cement. Now her butt hurt and the fall caused her to bite her own lip. This falling thing was getting entirely too wacky.

When she looked up at him, the rain had completely stopped and the sun surrounded his body, making him appear almost angelic. She half expected to hear birds chirping and a choir singing, but instead a cop said, “There’s no loitering. You’ll have to move on.”

Eric held out his hand. This time she took it. He held her shoes in his other hand. “We better get out of here before he has us towed away. You’re bleeding.” He touched her lip and a tingle shot through her. She sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth and tasted her own salty blood.

“Is it bad?” she asked looking into his eyes.

“No. It stopped.” He smiled. Definitely less nerdy when he smiled. He’d actually grown up into a really handsome man.

Who knew?

“Where’s your stuff?” he asked looking back toward the doors.

An absolute terror swept over her as she slipped her soaking wet shoes on her soaking wet feet. “You don’t actually expect me to get in that thing with that crazed dog and that obnoxious smell do you? And just what is that smell, anyway?”

He opened his mouth.

She held up her hand. “Wait. I don’t want to know. The dog is bad enough.”

“Voodoo? He’s a puppy dog once you get to know him.”

The sun was beginning to dry her clothes, but she had to admit, she was still cold and getting very tired. All she wanted was to go home to Mom’s.

“My mother actually sent you to pick me up?”

He nodded, grinning.

“My mother, who knows I have an unnatural fear of animals with teeth larger than mine, and hate dirt of any kind…that mother sent you?”

“Technically, my dad asked me, but he was calling on behalf of your mom.”

So, they were both in on this little deal. Already they’re trying to fix us up.

Mya thought about her options.

There weren’t any.

Not really. She had no choice but to take a ride from a cute nerd, to whom she was strangely attracted, and had once thrown an entire box of crayons at, hitting him squarely in the head (she wondered if he remembered that). And who came with a man-eating bear of a dog inside a beat-up van.

It could be worse. It could still be raining.

WHEN ERIC’S DAD HAD PHONED HIM to pick up Mya, he pictured a completely different woman standing outside of baggage claim. He honestly believed she would be rather large. She’d been a chubby little girl who stuffed food in her mouth all day long, had short curly hair—Rita always seemed to cut Mya’s hair in strange ultra-short styles—and weird glasses. Mya had worn glasses back then and whenever they’d fight, he would call her Four Eyes, of course.

But the girl in the floral dress with the strawberry hair down to her tiny waist, and a face that could bring the dead to life, wasn’t exactly what he was prepared for. Nor was he prepared for her fear of dogs. Not that most grown men hadn’t walked the other way when Voodoo was around, but her fear was borderline hysteria.

He opened the back of his van and tried to secure Voodoo in his cage, while Mya waited with her luggage on the sidewalk.

“This won’t take but a minute,” Eric told her, but the dog was ornery and wanted to give Mya a friendly welcome nudge. Mya stood as far away as she could. “He wants to say hello,” Eric told her.

“Hi,” she said, waving from her safe vantage point.

“I think he wants to smell you before you get in the van.”

Mya’s left eyebrow went up. He suddenly remembered how she could move each eyebrow independently. When they were about five or six, he thought she was an interplanetary alien because of it, but then he was a big fan of Star Wars.

“You can still do that.”

“Do what?”

“That thing you do with your eyebrows.” He tried to move his eyebrows independently, but couldn’t.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. It’s not like it’s a common thing.”

“What else do you remember?”

“That you liked peas and spinach. What kind of kid likes peas and spinach?”

“You used to snitch butter out of the fridge and chew on your dad’s vitamin E caps and make yummy sounds.”

“I had a thing for oil.”

It started to rain again, and she still wasn’t in the van.

“You have to let him smell your hand or he’s going to be restless the whole way.”

“Aren’t there enough smells in that van already? Why does he need mine?”

“Dogs like to know who’s around them.”

Mya slowly made her way up to the open door with her hand held out, but he could tell that she was ready to pull it back at any moment. He took hold of it, and she moved up closer. He liked the feel of her skin next to his.

Calm down. There’s no hope here. She’s way out of your league.

Voodoo stuck his nose up to their hands and took a couple long sniffs, but to Eric’s surprise, Mya didn’t pull back like he had expected. Instead, they stood there for an awkward moment holding hands…just like they did the day that he left when they were seven.

AFTER THE SMELL INTRODUCTION with Voodoo, a black pit-bull–bulldog mix with a head the size of a beach ball and teeth way too big to think about, and he was safely inside his black metal cage, Mya sprayed almost her entire bottle of Nanette Lepore around the foul-smelling van. Peach and cranberry permeated the air. Then, while Eric loaded her luggage right behind the front seats so Mya could keep track of it, she gingerly hoisted herself up into the passenger’s seat. When everything and everyone was safely tucked inside, the trio was on their way home.

This ought to be good.

“You look so different,” Eric said while he merged into the swarming traffic.

“Growing up will do that to you,” Mya answered, not wanting to actually sit back in the faded gold cloth seat. She had no idea what kind of muck might be attached to it and didn’t want whatever it was stuck to her bare back. She leaned slightly forward and held her obviously chewed seat belt out so it wouldn’t touch her dress.

“No. I mean your hair’s a different color, no glasses and you’re, well, thin.”

Mya turned to face him. “Are you saying I was fat? ’Cause I was never actually fat. I was simply big-boned.”

“And you changed that?”

“I grew out of it.”

“Oh.” He stared at her for a moment, then back at the street, then back at her. “And your nose. I can remember you had a real—”

Okay, so Mya had had a nose alteration when she was nineteen. Nothing major. Just some tapering of the width and a little off the tip. It’s not like she had her whole nose reconstructed or anything drastic. And so what if she did have a nose job. Was that some kind of crime or something?

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on your driving?” She forgot what she was doing and sat back in the chair, instantly feeling something sticky on her back. She leaned forward again.

Too late.

“Aw, what’s on this seat?” she whined.

“Voodoo drools a little. It’s the bulldog in him.”

“He drools on your seats?”

“Only that one. It’s where he usually sits.”

Okay, I think I’m going to be sick.

She sneezed.

“Sorry, but the heater doesn’t work. I’ve got a sweater in the back somewhere,” Eric offered.

She could only imagine what a stinking, wet, hairy mess his sweater would be. The thought made her shiver out loud. “I don’t really think I need it. Thanks.”

They drove out of the airport in silence, while Voodoo literally snored like a mad bull in his cage. The mere sound of his raspy throat reminded her of those vicious teeth of his.

She sneezed again. Perhaps she was allergic to something inside the van. Oh, hell, she didn’t even want to think about what it could be.

Once they were on the crowded freeway and headed to her mom’s house, she decided the least she could do was make some polite conversation. After all, the man was giving her a ride home. “So, what about this weather?”

He chuckled. “We haven’t seen each other since we were kids and that’s the best you can do? You want to talk about the weather?”

All right, now he made her smile. “Okay. What are you into these days?” She thought she’d use some of her interviewing techniques.

“That’s a start. I’m into a documentary. What about you?”

“I do trend analysis. In more familiar terms, I’m a trend spotter.”

“Oh yeah? I heard about that. Seems like it would be a cool job.”

So, he isn’t so nerdy, after all.

“I like it. Matter of fact that’s why—” And just as she was about to give him the skinny on her very important reason for being there, he suddenly got off the freeway miles from her mother’s house.

“Tell me you know a shortcut, ’cause this isn’t the best of neighborhoods to have something go wrong with this van of yours.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to do some taping.”

“Here? What could you possibly be taping here? A drug bust? A murder? What?”

“I’m working on my MFA in film.”

“You’re still in school?”

“Yeah. I graduate in June. I’m on spring break.”

“This June. Like in three months?”

“Yeah. Cool, huh?”

“Yeah.”

But Mya wasn’t so sure it was cool. When he first told her he was working on a documentary she assumed it was for some big studio and it would be for something serious, like world peace and he might be up for an Oscar, and she could go to the awards in a Prada gown and get interviewed by Joan Rivers. Then she’d get discovered and land the starring role in the next Tom Cruise movie and they’d fall in love and…

But he’s a film student!

He drove his van down side streets and straight into one of the more sketchy and bleak-looking areas of L.A. So maybe this was serious and she had misjudged him. Maybe he was doing something important about the downtrodden, the desperately poor and the hopeless in our society.

She looked at him with newfound respect. “What’s your documentary about?”

“Bars.”

Huh?

“Like in taverns?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not serious.”

Okay, don’t judge. Maybe it’s the decadence of the bars. Now that might be an angle.

“Why not? The saloons, taverns and bars of America made this country what we are today. They helped shape us. More historic events took place in saloons than any legal building in the whole of the U.S.”

She stared at him, not quite sure she had heard him correctly. “You’re not serious.”

“You said that already.”

“I’m assimilating the information.” She turned to face him. “Let me get this straight, your premise is that saloons helped shape our country?”

“Damn straight. I’m heading up to Gold Country next. And a couple days ago I was in Tombstone. ‘The town too tough to die.’ I went to the Birdcage Theater where the prostitutes had their own rooms around the poker tables. Did you know that Wyatt Earp married a prostitute? He met her in that very saloon. How’s that for tavern trivia?”

She was coming around. “Actually, that’s kind of interesting. I didn’t know that.”

This could be good.

She thought she might get to the Oscars after all.

He stopped the van in front of a run-down tavern. Two bad-ass older guys, with lots of tattoos and gold chains, sat on the front stoop, giving them the look. You know, that look that said, “What the hell are you two doing here?”

Mya locked her door.

“Aren’t you going to come in with me?”

“Where?”

“This is one of the oldest saloons in L.A. Just look at that architecture.” He bent over to check out the view from the front window.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“But Voodoo is going to need a walk, and I need to film this. Maybe you can walk him for me. Believe me, nobody will bother you with Voodoo.”

“Voodoo will bother me.” She wasn’t stepping one foot out of the van. She had grown accustomed to the smell and wanted to stay right where she was, thank you very much.

“He gets upset when he has to go.”

“Go where?”

“Piss. He needs to take a piss.”

“And you expect me to walk him?”

“Yeah. If you would. Please.”

He smiled over at her, but it was a fake smile. One of those pasted on things that used to drive her crazy when they were kids and he’d want to play soldier and she wanted to play anything but.

Voodoo started barking. Nothing too loud, only it had a guttural sound that made her nervous just being in the van with him. She didn’t know what she was scared of most, Voodoo or the two guys on the stoop.

Eric continued to lure her as he jumped out with his handheld professional-looking camcorder. “I don’t know if you should stay in there.”

“Why?”

“Well, sometimes Voodoo—”

Suddenly the odor that she had gotten somewhat used to intensified.

“Ohmigod!”

She opened the door and leaped out of the van so fast the two guys sitting in front of the store stood up to watch. Eric filmed the whole thing.

Fine!

“What did you feed him? That’s awful!” Mya hissed.

“Are you okay, lady?” one of the guys yelled from the stoop.

Mya turned and said, “Fine. I’m fine. Thanks.” She pasted one of her own fake smiles on her face.

“Like I said, when he’s gotta go, my boy’s gotta go.”

Mya followed Eric to the back of the van while he opened the doors. “Just get the dog out here, and don’t take too long taping in there, ’cause I’m not going to last too long out here. This whole thing is insane.”

“Great. I’ll only be a couple minutes.”

Eric freed Voodoo from his cage. The dog already wore a body harness with a thick black strap to hold him. He completely ignored Mya and jumped on the ground and headed for the nearest tree. The two scary guys slowly stood up and made their way into the tavern. A woman crossed the street as soon as she spotted the dog and a teenage boy hightailed it up the sidewalk.

Voodoo was like walking with a visible grenade. Everybody wanted to get out of your way.

So much for tattoos and mean looks.

“Here,” Eric said, handing her the leash. “You better hold on with both hands. He’s very strong.”

Mya grabbed hold, wrapping the strap around one of her hands for extra strength. She figured as long as the creature didn’t really look at her, she would be all right.

Eric went off happily taping the tavern, and even went inside, to apparently talk with the guys, while Mya held on to Voodoo.

Okay, she could do this. There was no reason to be scared of this animal. Eric had said he was a puppy dog, and he had done his smelling thing, so he was used to her scent.

Walking Voodoo didn’t have quite the same feel as walking a schnauzer, or even a golden lab. Having Voodoo on the end of your leash was like walking a tiger. You went where he led you, and at the moment that meant a tiny patch of dirt in front of a scrawny stick of a tree a few yards away from the van.

As soon as he found his spot and marked it with his pee, he proceeded to take a dump. Mya looked away, wondering if there was a law in this neighborhood about cleaning up the mess. Of course, there was no way that she would even consider picking up whatever rot that dog emitted from his foul body.

Suddenly there was a tug on the leash. Mya turned to check him out and watched as Voodoo tried to cover his dump with his hind legs. He sent leaves, grass and his rotten whatever all over the place, with some of it landing on the parked pick-up truck next to him. And as if that wasn’t enough, he lifted a leg and peed on the back tire.

“Oh, my God!” was all Mya could say as Voodoo ran from the crime scene with Mya in tow. He headed right back to the van. But there was somebody yelling at her and obviously chasing them from behind. Mya was not about to look back; besides, she could barely keep up with Voodoo’s pace. But whoever was chasing them sounded very male, very big and enormously angry.

Eric suddenly appeared in front of the tavern, took one look at the situation and hurried to the back of his van. He opened one of the doors just as Voodoo leaped inside. Mya followed, tumbling in on top of him, then hitting the floor with a thud. There was something wet and yellow under Mya’s hands. She desperately tried not to notice, but it was almost too much for her to assimilate. She told herself to relax, as long as it wasn’t acid, she would be fine.

Eric closed the door, ran around to the front, jumped in and took off squealing as if they had just robbed that tavern and they were on the lam in some crazy movie.

Bonnie and Clyde and Voodoo.

When Mya looked up, Voodoo was staring right at her, obviously excited and waiting for a pat on the head for being such a good dog. She couldn’t even think of touching him.

Then, as if he could hear her thoughts, he shook his head and saliva slapped her right in the face.

She sat up, wiped the spittle from her cheek and calmly proceeded to remove one of Eric’s obviously expensive video cameras from its case. A very nice Panasonic DVCPRO Camcorder, to be precise.

This should get me home.

ERIC DROVE THE VAN while Mya scooted herself to the front. She knelt down behind him and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “If you don’t take me home right this minute, I’ll throw your frickin’ camera right out the frickin’ window.”

Eric glanced at her through his mirror. Sure enough she was holding his best camera up for ransom. It reminded him of when she threatened him with his boom box.

The girl still had spunk, he had to give her that.

“I know you’re a little upset, but—”

“A little upset! I’m a whole lot upset and if I don’t get out of this stink-mobile pretty soon, there’s no telling what I might do.”

Eric remembered the time she had thrown his favorite Transformer down the toilet, then flushed and grinned at him as the water washed over their feet from the overflowing bowl. They were both grounded for an entire month, but Mya never seemed to care about the punishment once she was on a track of getting even.

Yeah, so maybe he had shaved Barbie’s head bald, and maybe it had been her favorite doll, but he couldn’t take all that incessant chattering all the time. The girl never shut up. Mya had been a vindictive child, but was she actually capable of throwing his camera out the window just because she wanted to go home? He gazed at her face once again through his mirror. She held the camera up next to the open passenger window.

Damn straight she was.

“All right. You win. I’ll take you home, just put my camera down. Gently.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth and you won’t make another stop at an even worse tavern?”

“You have my word.”

“And what’s that good for these days?”

“Whatever you want. Dinner? A movie? My head on a platter.”

“My mom’s house is all I’m interested in at the moment. I’ll take your head another time, thank you very much.”

“We should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Fine!”

Mya put his camera back in the case. Eric was somewhat relieved, but now he knew she still had that ornery streak. Part of him thought it was cute, but the other part of him thought he needed to watch his step. The girl could blow at any minute.

Eric watched as Mya stepped over the console and sank into the front seat. Her dress slid up her legs all the way to her red-and-white polka-dot panties and Eric flushed.

Don’t get excited. She hates you right now.

“And could you please call off your dog,” Mya said as Voodoo’s head came poking through the center of the two seats.

“Down boy,” Eric commanded. “Sit, you old dog, you.”

Mya threw Eric a wry glance. Eric responded with a shrug.

“You guys are all alike,” Mya said as she adjusted her dress around her fine legs.

“It’s what we live for.” He smiled at her, thinking that she’d see the humor, but she didn’t smile back.

When Eric had volunteered to pick up Mya Strano from LAX, he’d never expected some hot-looking chick in a skimpy dress and legs that never quit. He also didn’t expect her to be so East Coast. So with it. So New York. Oh, sure, he knew she’d been living in the Big Apple, working at some job her mother couldn’t really describe, but he never imagined she would be a complete knockout. This whole trip back to L.A. could turn out to be very interesting.

Voodoo blew air through his closed lips, making a vibrating sound, and sighed. Eric reached back and patted him on the head.

WHEN THEY FINALLY PULLED UP in her mom’s driveway, Mya couldn’t say goodbye fast enough. “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” she told him, sticking out her hand for a not-so-friendly handshake. He took it, but as soon as he did, she slipped her hand out and turned to walk up the driveway.

There will be no hand-holding this time, buddy.

“Let me help you with your bags,” he said as he pulled the handle up on the largest suitcase.

“No thanks,” she insisted, almost ripping it out of his hand. She wanted to do everything herself from now on. She was home now and didn’t need him for anything. Ever! “I’ve got it. It was so nice seeing you again. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime…in the next twenty years.”

She walked up the driveway hoping that he’d start his engine and drive away, but he didn’t. She turned around and waved. Maybe he didn’t get the hint. He always was a little slow at the uptake. “So, bye then. Have a safe trip up to Gold Country.”

She turned around again. This time she headed straight for the side door, opened it with her key and pulled her suitcase inside. She turned one more time as she stood in the doorway and waved. But he just stood there, waving back, all full of smiles.

She closed the door, locked it and gave it a few pats as if that was her final statement on the subject.

“And to think for a moment there, I thought he was cute. Must have been temporary insanity.”

Mya left everything by the kitchen door and walked into her mother’s ridiculously large and totally upscale English Tudor house.

“Anybody here?” she yelled. “I’m home.”

Home. There’s no place like home.

It didn’t matter that her mother wasn’t there, nor Grammy, nor Franko. What Mya really needed was a shower and a bed.

She made her way through the kitchen, decorated with walnut cabinetry and large Mexican tiles on the floor. Nothing had changed in the last ten years and Mya liked it that way. When she walked through the traditional dining room and up the wooden staircase to her old bedroom, she took comfort in knowing that no matter what went on in the outside world, her mother’s house was always the same.

Mya gently knocked on her grandmother’s bedroom door just to make sure she wasn’t there. Grammy’s hearing wasn’t as good as it used to be, so Mya thought she’d give her another holler. But Grammy didn’t answer.

Then she found her old room down at the end of the hall. It looked exactly like the day she’d left it, two years ago. She was absolutely thrilled to be in her own room.

Mya fell across her queen-size bed with its light green silk comforter. Absolute serenity overtook her as she spread out and enjoyed the luxury of not having that monster dog breathing in her ear. Her room smelled of lilacs and roses.

How marvelous.

Mya rolled herself up inside her comforter and fell asleep, or did she?

There was that damn bark again, only this time it came from somewhere inside the house.