When I’ve finished with the toilet, I manage to get the lid down, sit on it, and wait for Phoenix to come back in the room. I longingly eye up the expensive, modern, white bath tub.
“Would you like to take a bath?” Phoenix says softly, walking back into the bathroom, trying not to startle me.
I haven’t been clean in too many days. “Yes, but how?”
“I’m sure we can work it out, chickie,” she smiles encouragingly at me.
I stay seated on the toilet while she helps me to get naked. I feel self-conscious of the scars and word that has been sliced into my lower back, but she doesn’t comment or act like she noticed.
“We need to get you in the dry tub first and then I’ll put your hair in a messy bun on top of your head.”
With her help I gingerly get into the dry tub and then Phoenix turns the faucet on and warm water starts pouring out.
“Let me see what else is in these bags.” She rummages around, mumbling to herself. “Win!” She holds up a pretty bottle and takes the lid off and smells the contents. “Bubbles… every girl needs bubbles.” Then she’s squirting nice smelling bubble mixture in zigzag lines where the water is pouring in.
Once the water level gets to my chest and the bubbles are big and frothy, covering my girl bits, I feel more relaxed.
We worked out a system. Two thick towels were rolled behind my back, to push me forward enough so I could let my feet poke out the end. Phoenix used a towel folded under my feet, for cushioned comfort. My arms rested on the outside of the tub. I can’t wash myself, but it still feels wonderful to simply soak in the water.
Phoenix gives me my space, sitting on the toilet seat and playing with her phone, while I let the scented water pamper my body. I desperately want to wash myself properly, especially in my girl bits, but I ignore the urge to dip my hands under the water.
Normally a quite bath would be welcomed, but I’m finding the silence, too deafening.
“Did the tattoo on your arm hurt when it was put there?” I’m trying to make casual conversation, fill the void. The beautifully inked dream catcher caught my attention earlier. It starts up near her shoulder and the design falls past her bicep. The feathers are so realistic.
She looks up at me and shrugs a slim shoulder. “A little, but it was worth it.” She looks at the tattoo and smiles. “You like it?”
“I do. Do you get nightmares?” I wonder why she chose it.
“No, I just love dream catchers.” She watches me thoughtfully for a beat or two. “Would you like a tattoo?”
“My back—” It’s very hard to talk to a virtual stranger about wanting to cover my scars and that horrible word. So I stop.
“I understand, honey, you want to cover up what was done to you. I know a really cool tattoo artist in Ocean Beach where I live. He could design something detailed and amazing for you.
“I haven’t had a young female friend before,” I tell her and then feel foolish for admitting to such a basic thing in life.
“I know, but there’s always a first time for everything.” She makes it sound so simple. “One day you might want to visit me, and we could make a day or two of it, depending on what you want and how big. I have a group of girlfriends who I would love to introduce you to, maybe we could have drinks with them, in the future.” She tries sounding casual, but knows it’s a very big deal to me to meet strangers and have drinks—normal to anybody else—but it would be a first for me.
She offers me her friendship and that of her friends, even though they’ve never met me.
“I have a lot of firsts to catch up on,” I say a little too wistfully.
“While you soak, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about my friends and family and maybe one day you can conquer visiting me in Ocean Beach.”
“I’d like that.” And I mean it.
“My twin brother, Retro, and his lady, Birdie, are expecting twins in about six months or so. I’m going to be an aunt to two babes, and I can’t wait,” she says with great pride.
She gets up off the toilet and holds her phone in front of my face and starts flicking a variety of images across the screen for me to look at, and she tells me a little bit about each one.
I can’t help commenting on each image as they appear on screen. “He’s got dreadlocks too. She’s so pretty. They look very much in love. He owns a Café? You live with a gay man? He’s very attractive.”
“Yeah, Holland is super nice and his boyfriend, Juan, compliments Holland. They’re great together. I used to live with Retro, but then he got his memory of Birdie back after six years and there was no stopping that train, so I hopped off at Holland’s house and we’re now roomies. He’s become a very good friend to me.
“I love Birdie, and there’s nobody else for my brother. They’re on the same page, and things are working out well for them. My brother is irrevocably in love with his Birdie Evans.” She says all of that in a way that shows me how much she loves her brother and his lady. She has a real family she was born into.
“I have a bunch of friends, both male and female and I know you would really like them. Keanu: he’s the walking funny bone of the crew. He’s just got together with a really beautiful soul named, Hope. She was homeless for a great deal of her life, living from Dumpster to Dumpster and camping in alleyways. She’s done it tough for a very long time and she’s a survivor, never letting those dark times swallow her up, and now she’s changing her life around. She’s a really good singer and Slade… the behemoth outside who is probably listening in”—she says this a little louder than necessary, but gets no reply this time—“has kinda adopted Hope as his sister. They get along real well, and I like seeing him go all big brother on her… but don’t let him know that.” She winks at me, like we have a secret. “Slade manages a bar in OB called Joe’s Bar and we all meet there for drinks sometimes on a Friday.”
“Levi, the sometimes model, is Keanu’s brother-from-another-mother, and he’s just met Joy.” Then she stops talking and looks a little unsure whether to continue.
“What? Keep talking, I’m enjoying hearing about your friends.” And I truly was.
“Well, um… Joy was nearly taken in the back lot of Billy Bob’s Bar and Grille in Fort Worth, Texas, a few weeks back. As in, like you were abducted. That’s how Edge got the lead on you and hit up the hangar in Henrys Ferry. But I’ll save all those stories for Edge to tell you. He fought so hard and never gave up on finding you, honey. Joy got lucky or we would have been coming after her too. She fought off her attackers real hard. They discovered she had a prosthetic leg, and that’s what saved her from going through what you’ve been through with Cezar.
“Now Levi has Joy in his life, in more ways than one, and they just have to figure out how to make it work, when she lives in Texas and he lives in San Diego. I’m sure love will find a way.” They sound like a romance movie waiting to happen.
“Now, Jase, a.k.a. Text, as he’s affectionately called by his friends, hasn’t spoken in six years since the death of Faith’s brother. There is a whole lot of complicated there with those two, but they are working their way to the finish line.
“Harley is Text’s brother… he’s more the protector of the crew, he’s into security and hasn’t found his woman yet. Harley’s the type of man who will drop everything for a friend. All the guys are, but Harley’s always watching out for everybody, emotionally too. They’ve all been through a lot.”
Feeling more comfortable around Phoenix, I want to know something about her life. “What do you do when you’re not coming to Alaska with a bunch of bikers?” To rescue and babysit me.
“Well, I’m a Private Investigator with: Mack and Cooper Investigations. I’m the Cooper part. Mack is an ex-detective and we work well together. He’s about Boxer’s age. Been doing the PI gig for about eight years now. I also enjoy a variety of martial arts.”
“Cool.” She sounds like she lives an exciting life. It felt real the life she has in Ocean Beach and not at all a living, breathing nightmare. That must be so nice.
“What do you do in Connard?” she asks me.
“Oh… I’m just a bookkeeper,” I say it like I’m dismissing my job. I don’t mean to, it just comes out like that after hearing she is a PI.
“That’s great. Tell me more about yourself.” She actually sounds interested in me.
“Okay…um… I love riding one of Boxer’s Harleys’ with my friend, Lincoln, and I also landscape. It helped me a lot when I first came to live with Miss Catherine.” I’m not sure how much she knows about my past, so that is all I’m willing to tell her.
“I bet you’re an amazing landscaper,” she makes the statement, like she believes I am.
“Miss Catherine and Boxer seem to think so.” Deep down I think I’m pretty good at it, too. I wonder how her gardens are going now, without me to attend to them.
Then she brings it down a notch and gets a little serious.
“I bet you have a lot of confused feelings swirling inside you at the moment, but you know what, you are going to be a great mother because you know what it’s like to not have one. You are going to love that baby inside you with everything you have. Teach the little person right from wrong as they grow up, and you’ll give him or her everything you didn’t have, or at least do the best you can.”
She sounds so sure of me. I needed to hear that.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in control and have choices; to be my own person—now I have to think for another being and make the correct choices. I am in control of another life and that is all a bit much for me to process. I don’t even know if the baby will be healthy because of what I’ve been put through. I don’t know what Edge will want. What I want from him. Will he want to take the baby away from me? I don’t know the man, yet he calls me ‘babe and darlin’’, like we’re familiar with each other.
My breathing hitches and I have to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling slowly to rein in my anxious thoughts.
“Hey, chickie, where’d you go?” I’m gently being shaken by a hand on my shoulder.
“What?” Inhale… exhale… inhale…
“Your eyes glazed over and you’re breathing changed. I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you.”
“You’re not.” I try to sound like I mean it. “You are trying to take my mind off things, but my reality hasn’t taken a vacation. I appreciate you telling me about your family and friends. Normal conversation is what I need in my life right now. It helps knowing most lives aren’t like mine. You are very kind, thank you for the offer to visit Ocean Beach one day. It’s just I don’t know where I’m going to be after we get back from Alaska.
“I feel like Connard is my home, but it holds so many bad memories and only eight months of good ones, but I love Miss Catherine and Boxer. Lincoln is my best friend and now I’m pregnant and a man I hardly know is the father. My life has big changes headed its way and I have to work it all out. My mind is a little chaotic at the moment and I’ve forgotten to say thank you for coming to help rescue me and thank you for helping me with my bath.”
“What are friends for? I’m glad we got to have a girl talk, and your chaotic mind will settle. You’re a very strong woman.” She stands up from the kneeling position she had gotten into. “I can see you’re having a mighty fine time with your arms and legs sticking out the tub, but we don’t want you to get stuck like that, so how ‘bout we move this bath party along and either get you out, or try for the full beauty treatment and wash your hair too?” Phoenix is all about making me feel like a woman again.
“I would love clean hair, thank you.” My spirits have lifted at the thought of completely washing away that night from head to toe.
“All right then, let’s get to it. I’ll let some water out and add some fresh warm water. I’ve been told I give the best head massages.”
I shut my eyes when it’s time for the head massage, and it does feel so good.
As Sara I can switch off my demons and pretend, for now, I’m on vacation in Alaska staying in a beautiful cabin, with a girlfriend—if only for this short amount of time.