Hittin’ the studios has been a blast. I’m still not doin’ anything more than hangin’ out in other people’s sessions, but it’s cool. Mickie has hooked me up all over the damn place, and everyone seems real cool with that, too. Like, they’re waitin’ for me and they don’t mind me there, and they’ll answer any questions I got. There’s so much goin’ on, but you wouldn’t know it some times. I mean, I listen to the radio and shit, but sometimes it gets to be the same old thing all the time. But you get out and into the studios and you hear what’s comin’ before it gets there.
So that’s exciting. And I think I’m gettin’ some ideas and stuff, too. I mean, maybe it’s time. Or almost time. I know that one of these days I’ll go into my own studio and not just play other people’s shit through my system. I know that. Just, not yet. Soon.
Then there’s this thing about sleepin’ all mornin’. ‘Cause when I drag in at four, I’m not about to get up at seven or eight or nine. I’m gonna get up after noon. By then Shi’s done. I mean, yeah, she’s there and she’ll make me lunch, or somethin’ like that, and we talk a little, but she’s usually goin’ out the door to do stuff.
That sucks.
It’s sucks cause I like her and I don’t get to see her as much as I want to.
I roll over onto my stomach. I’m still in bed. I don’t have any smokes here, I’m gonna haveta get up and get them and I don’t want to. I want to lay here and think about Shi. It’s kinda become a fucked up hobby of mine. I do this for about fifteen minutes every day. Just lay here, wakin’ up, and think about Shi. Sometimes I can hear her in the house, if she’s in one of the rooms close to mine, or if I leave my windows open and she’s outside, or in the kitchen. And I think about her. Nothin’ in particular. Sometimes I think about how she looks when she’s cookin’. Or when she’s pickin’ up shit I leave layin’ around. I think about how she goes into the yard and cuts flowers from the bushes and makes bunches outta them to put on the tables. Every day stuff. But when my thoughts start to tip into things that aren’t every day, I know that’s time to drag my ass outta bed.
There’s no point to thinkin’ like that, to thinkin’ about things that aren’t gonna happen. That’s a bad, bad habit I got. I think about the way I think things should be. I think about them like that for so long that I start to expect them to be that way, and when they’re not, I get disappointed. No, not disappointed. Pissed. Angry. And I get angry with people that I have no reason to be angry with.
Not now, though. Now I just close my eyes. The bedroom window is open and a warm breeze is blowin’ in on me and I just see Shi walkin’ through the garden out back. I can hear her footsteps on the grass and realize that I’m fallin’ asleep again. That’s fine. I like to do that, to doze off when I’m not really sleepin’, to just drift around in my head, to be half-asleep but hearin’ everything around me. I can even see things when I’m like this. Drowsy things. Shadows. Like right now. Right now I’m followin’ Shi out in the garden. Down the stone steps. She’s walkin’ around the pool, goin’ to the way back of the yard where the bushes are still a tangled ass mess. She says it’s a natural garden. I say it needs to be mowed down.
She reaches in and starts clipping flowers. There’s all these viney things back there, with big, big blooms on them in all kinds of oranges and corals and pinks. She’s pretty careful about what she does, and there seems to be a never ending supply of flowers. She cuts and drops them to the ground until there’s a huge pile. A pile so big she could never pick it up. Hell, of course she couldn’t, I’m fuckin’ dreamin’.
And ‘cause it’s a dream, she CAN pick them all up. She takes the armload and turns and flings them all into the pool.
That’s fucked up.
The flowers scatter everywhere, cover the pool surface so thick I can’t see the water. Then she jumps into the pool. And disappears.
That’s fucked up, too.
I’m about to dive in and find her when she surfaces and climbs out of the water, drippin’ from head to toe, flowers stickin’ all over her. Naked.
“Come in,” she says, and she pulls me to her, pulls me, and leans back and we both fall into the water and I wake the fuck up.
Man.
Sarah used to be into all that New Age shit, all that ‘alternative’ beliefs stuff, and for a while she got me into it, too. Did this TV show about it, about talkin’ to dead people. I stopped all that in its tracks after that, ‘cause we were doin’ the show so Sarah could, like, contact her sister who had died a coupla years ago and instead the guy kept goin’ on and on about my grandma. It freaked me out.
But she was all into that kinda stuff, and astrology and dreams. I wonder what one of those dream reader people would make of that one?
Fucked up.
I gotta get up. Get a shower. It’s almost one. I don’t know what I’m doin’ today, I kinda left it open. I guess I’m kinda hopin’ that Shi is havin’ Mickie over or something like that. Something.
But when I go downstairs Shi is nowhere. She’s not here at all. I know it’s Saturday and everything, but I kinda thought that she was here. I thought that I was hearin’ her and that’s what made me have that dream. What I got is a note on the fridge in a big scribble tellin’ me that there’s some food in the fridge for dinner and that she’ll be around tomorrow morning to clean up. Hopes I had a nice night.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
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A free day.
All mine.
Tish is happy to be with Kim and Mickie is happy that they’re keeping each other occupied today because, as she told me on the phone this morning, ‘that damn A.J. must be mentioning my name in every studio from here to Culver City. I’m swamped and I need some sleep’. So Tish and Kim have a day of sun and surf with Dwayne in charge, and Tish is going to spend the night.
I’m not going to do anything today but what I want to do for me. I know that’s selfish, and I know that I don’t have any reason to feel this way, but I do. I just want to get out and take off on my own and, and just be. Without having to think about anyone else.
Not easy when I keep seeing things I think would compliment the new decor in Alex’s house. Because I’m not looking for anything specific, things pop out at me. I can’t help myself; I purchase. I buy a gorgeous rug for the entrance hall. A lamp. Some linen for one of the guest rooms. I buy candles by the gross. And I have it all delivered to the house, absolving me from having to take it there myself. All before nine in the morning, too.
I don’t want to go back to the house today. Not until the day is over. I’m going to meet Nyle on campus; that’s where the lecture is being held. I have my clothes for the evening on the back seat of the Jeep. I can change in one of the lavatories at the school, heck, I can change at a gas station bathroom if I have to.
I just want to be free from routine today. That’s surprising from me, the mistress of order. Something in the way the morning smelled, all sweet and warm from the ocean breeze blowing the scent of the garden through my window. Something in the quiet from Alex’s house, where he was sleeping the glorious morning away. I needed to be far and away from my little pool house. Even from my wonderful daughter. I don’t want to be a mother today. Or a housekeeper. I don’t want to be responsible for anything or anyone but me. It all spelled ‘freedom’ to me. And it’s a perfect day to grab it.
So I’ve dropped Tish off at an ungodly hour for a Saturday, I’ve made some purchases, and I’ve headed downtown, down to the beach, to have a cup of coffee in the market square. Saturdays are slow in Malibu. Only the diehard locals are up at this hour to get their coffee and croissants or bagels. I opt for a hot, flaky croissant. Sitting alone with my most recent offering of reading from Nyle I feel content and calm.
No drama. Just a warm breeze and a hot cup of coffee.
“Siobhan?”
I look up, already recognizing the voice, the distinctive accent. David. David out and about early in the morning with a sack of something in one hand and a cup of cafe au lait in the other. David, with all that hair undone and blowing with each gust of the sea breeze, with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses like so many of the ‘people who are people’ here in Malibu do.
David.
“Hello,” I manage, and I pick up my coffee cup to take another hit of my triple espresso.
“May I?” he asks, gesturing with his head to the empty chair across from mine.
“Sure.”
“You’re certainly out and about early. Is this typical?” he asks, shoving his sun glasses to the top of his head to keep his hair from blowing in his face. That hair of his, it’s magnificent. A full head of Byronic waves, deep, deep chestnut brown. It’s offset with a wide pair of hazel eyes.
He’s lovely.
Too lovely. Almost effeminately lovely, with those long legs, long hair, and dramatic mannerisms of hands and eyes. It’s the shape of his hands that saves him. They’re square palmed and strong looking. I’ve got no idea if this man has ever done an ounce of manual labor in his life, and my guess would be ‘no’, considering his career in academia, but you never know.
“No, it’s not typical. The morning just seemed too beautiful to pass up.” I turn to the ocean. “The breeze woke me and I just had to get out.”
“Yes, it’s wonderful here, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I take it you live nearby.”
“Right there,” I say, and I turn back to the hills behind us to point out the top of Alex’s roof. A vision flashes in my mind of Alex sound asleep. Sleeping beauty in his castle on the hill.
“My, that’s rather impressive.”
“I live in the pool house. My boss lives in that one.” I turn to face David. “I’m the housekeeper.”
“Really? How extraordinary. Is it interesting?”
“Yes,” I say. It wasn’t the response I was expecting. No look of revulsion. No superior attitude seeping through a facade of false interest. He looks as if he genuinely wants to know if my job is interesting.
“I imagine that you work for one of the more affluent locals.”
“Yes,” I say. I can’t seem to get beyond the monosyllabic for the moment.
“Would it be terribly forward of me to ask who it is you work for?” That would be the least forward thing David’s done since I met him.
And I laugh before going into my tale of coming to California and working for Alex McLean.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
