Simone
As I make the five-hour drive between Vegas and Venice, I think back to the day after the funeral when I helped Cecilia move out of her apartment. Mom and Dad would’ve disapproved if they’d had any idea what she was doing. I disapproved, and I was the one helping her. I tried to reason her out of it. Traveling to Venice Beach to try and find a job and an apartment, all on a whim, isn’t meant to be something an Ericson does. Which is exactly why she wanted to do it.
Just before she left, she hugged me and kissed me on the top of my head, something she hadn’t done since we were little girls. “I can’t stay here,” she told me. “There’s too much pain. Every time I go outside, I see Shotgun. I know it seems silly to you and Mom and Dad. But he was the love of my life and I need to start over. I can’t . . . I just want to start over, okay? Don’t tell Mom and Dad where I am. Promise me. You know Mom’ll come riding down on her white horse saying she told me so.”
I promised not to tell them, and I’ve kept that promise. Even if it has caused a few arguments between us.
It’s late summer now, almost autumn, but I’m travelling between Nevada and California so the sun still beats down mercilessly. I crank up the AC and crank up the radio and try not to think about Rocco. It’s been months, and yet not thinking about Rocco still requires some effort.
I get to Venice at three o’clock in the afternoon, aching all over from the long drive. Cecilia doesn’t rent her own apartment. She rents a room in a shared house on the outskirts of town. It’s a large, stonework place with an old look about it. The walls are painted all different colors, pink and yellow and orange. A hippie-looking older woman answers the door, her dreadlocked hair hanging down to her knees. If Mom and Dad saw where their daughter was staying, I think World War III would break out right here in Venice.
“Oh, you’re the sister?” The hippie smiles at me. “She’s on her way down right—”
Cecilia walks out onto the porch, making me and the hippie step aside. “Hey,” she says, more muted than I’ve ever seen her. She’s wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt, a hoodie thrown over it all. Her hair is tied in a no-nonsense ponytail and the hair dye has begun to fade, her natural hair color showing. “Shall we get going?”
“Uh, sure.” Together we walk to my car. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a bar around the corner.”
“A bar . . .”
She throws me a look. “I know what you just thought then, Mona. You thought, oh no she’s been drinking nonstop for all these months and now she’s an alcoholic and the reason she seems so zombie-ish right now is because she hasn’t had her alcohol yet.”
I smile tightly. “How wrong am I?”
“I just got off a twelve-hour shift at the restaurant,” she says. “That’s why I’m tired. And I haven’t touched a drink since I came up here. I promised myself I wouldn’t until you came to visit. There, are we done with the questioning?”
“I actually didn’t ask a question,” I mutter, climbing into the car. After Cecilia’s given me directions to the bar, I say, “So a restaurant . . . are you waitressing?”
“Yes, and please don’t give me a speech—”
“I’m not going to give you a speech. Please stop accusing me of accusing you.”
A small smile touches her face, lighting it up. For a moment I see the old Cecilia. “Fine, fair enough.”
The bar is surfer-themed with a mannequin holding a surfboard standing out front and shells and netting and surfboards serving as the decoration. It’s a Monday night so it’s quiet except for us and a couple of curly-headed surfer dudes in the corner and a couple of surfer chicks in the opposite corner. Cecilia and I sit as isolated as possible in a booth and then order a glass of red wine to share.
Cecilia sniffs her glass before taking a small sip. “I don’t want to upset you, Mona, but I think I was looking forward to that first sip more than seeing you.” She smiles to take the sting out of her words. “I’m kidding, obviously.”
“Full kidding or half kidding?”
“Half kidding.” She giggles, and takes another sip. “That’s the first time I’ve laughed in months. You’re a miracle worker, Mona. So tell me everything. How’re Mom and Dad?”
“Worried about you, angry at me. They haven’t got the police or a private investigator involved because I’ve showed them some of your texts, but otherwise they’re livid. I think they’re starting to resent me.”
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
You never do, I think but don’t say. It isn’t fair.
“But that doesn’t matter,” I reply. “All that matters is that you’re okay. Are you?”
“I don’t know. I’m keeping my head down. I work as many shifts as they’ll give me. I’ve saved up one thousand five hundred dollars because the rent at the Rainbow House is so cheap.”
“I half expected you to come out with dreadlocks.”
She touches her hair. “No, I don’t do much with my hair anymore. Maybe I will soon. I’m waiting for the dye to fade.”
We make small talk like this for an hour or so, getting through two and a half glasses of wine each. We order another bottle and then Cecilia, a little tipsy now, leans forward. “Can I be a terrible sister and live vicariously through you? I haven’t been on a date because I don’t want to go on a date. It’s too soon, and I think it’ll be too soon for a long time. But I can hear about your dating life. So, how’s it been? Who’ve you been seeing?”
I roll my eyes. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Just give me a number!” she exclaims wildly, pouring wine into her glass until it’s almost overflowing. “How many dates? Five, four, three, two . . . fewer? One? Fewer?”
“Zero,” I say. “Not that it matters. I don’t have to date. I don’t see that it’s an obligation.”
“No, I guess not. It’s just . . . listen to me, Mona. Your big sister is going to give you some advice now.”
She takes my hand, which comes close to breaking my heart. I can’t remember the last time she took my hand. She’s only older than me by minutes, but right now she does feel like my big sister. “Love is the rarest thing there is. It’s so rare that people get it and don’t even realize they have it and then throw it away and then, only years later, they stop and think to themselves, maybe I was in love there. You know?”
“You’re tipsy.” I smile.
“No, yes, maybe I am. That’s not the point. Listen. If you haven’t been on a date, don’t you think there’s a reason for that?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. She’s looked at me like that before, in high school when I had a crush but wouldn’t admit it. She’s seeing right through me. “You know exactly what I’m getting at. Do you really think I don’t remember that night? It’s all I’ve thought about for months. You were in that booth for nearly an hour. And at the funeral, your little talk near the bikes . . .”
“Okay, change of subject now!” I take my hand away and begin pouring myself a glass of wine.
She’s hit far too close to home. While I haven’t seen or spoken to Rocco over these past months, she’s absolutely right when it comes to dating. Mom and Dad are always trying to set me up with their friends’ sons. Rich people from rich families, well-to-do attitudes, good jobs, all that jazz, all the good stuff a lady from a good family should jump at. But when I think about meeting with these men, my mind invariably turns to Rocco. I can’t help it. It’s like there was more passion contained within that locked booth than the rest of my life can offer.
“I told a bit of a lie earlier,” Cecilia says.
“A lie?”
She sips her wine, and then nods. “The only way I was able to save any money is because Rocco sends me some every month, a transfer right into my bank. He’s been doing it ever since I moved up here.”
“What? Why?” For a moment dread creeps over me. Is my sister with Rocco?
She reads my expression. “No, you dirty-minded weirdo! I was Shotgun’s lady. That’s how it works. At least, that’s how it works with Rocco.”
“So you talk to him?” I can’t keep the aggression out of my voice. “You have chats together? Do you Skype—what?”
“No.” She touches my hand again. “Calm down. For a woman who doesn’t care about him you sure are getting angry. No, we don’t talk. Actually, that’s what I wanted to ask you. I need you to contact him when you get back to Vegas and find out what’s going on with Shotgun’s killer. Please.”
“Cecilia . . .”
“Please. Please. Please. I’ve said it four times now. Do you want a fifth, a sixth? Please, please!” She lets go of my hand and looks at me shrewdly. “Unless you’d prefer if I contacted him?”
Her smile is wicked. She knows she has me.
“No,” I say. “I know the two of you wouldn’t do anything, but . . .”
“You just don’t like the idea of it,” Cecilia finishes. “Me speaking to him and you not.”
“Stop reading my mind, you witch.”
We both giggle, and drink, and giggle some more. By the end of the night, crashing on the floor in the Rainbow House, I’ve promised half a dozen times that I’ll make contact with Rocco when I get back to Vegas.