A Summer in Sonoma

“You broke the window?” Kevin asked. “Is that how you hurt the hand?”

“Yeah…I don’t think we need to tell Mom about that, huh?”

“He coming after you for that? For breaking the window?”

“Oh, I wish. Nah, he ran for his life. The woman—nice woman, by the way—was out on her first real date with him. She’d met him for coffee, talked on the phone, and she was meeting him at the bar rather than letting him come to her house. You know, trying to be careful, I guess. She was real shook up, so I got her a cup of coffee. I gave her my business card in case she needs me to back up her story. The guy was assaulting her. He was going to rape her, Kevin.”

“You sure about that?”

“Nah, maybe he just wanted to hold her down and kiss her a little while she was screaming her brains out and kicking hard enough to rock a big old Tahoe. You’re right—he probably just wanted to talk about Greek philosophers and she was just so fucking uncooperative—”

“Okay, okay. What’s this got to do with me?”

“I saw her today. She dropped by to say thanks. She’s holding up okay. She hasn’t heard a word from him or anything. She’s getting past it real good.”

“Yeah?”

“But I think we should know who he is.”

“We? Got a puppy in your pocket, brother?”

“You and me, big shot. I got the license plate number, make and model. See, she’s an emergency room nurse and he told her he was a paramedic. It makes sense she should figure him for part of the family, you know? But a friend of hers who really is a paramedic checked and couldn’t locate him. Maybe he’s just some sick jerk who knows what lines to use to get women to feel safe.”

“Oh, I get it. You’d like to have a discussion with him about that?”

“Oh, no, that’s not what this is about. I’d like to know who he is, though. For safety reasons. And you—as a cop—might want to check and see if he has a problem in this area. Maybe you look him up and it isn’t the first time, huh? Maybe you’ll want me to officially report what I saw? Because I saw something real bad. Or maybe you’ll want to talk with the woman I helped out, see if she can corroborate that he’s just a lying slimeball who…” Walt took a breath. “I know you’re not supposed to tell me about his record. But you could check.”

“Why didn’t your girl call the police that night?”

“Well, that night, she was all shook up and just said no, forget it. But today, when we had coffee, she explained. She did call the police and left a message that she’d had a real close call and had information they might like to have, but no one called her back. See, because she tried telling the police and they ignored her, I decided it’s time to get involved, call you.”

“Probably because there’s no crime, except maybe you breaking the guy’s window…”

“We wouldn’t have wanted to wait until there was a crime,” Walt said a little hotly. Then, more calmly, he added, “She’s done a lot of rape exams for police in the emergency room and it turns out that even when the victim is all beat up and hurt real bad, it’s still hard to pin it on the guy. This situation never got there. She had a real bad feeling about what he was going to do, but he never even popped a button. I told her about you. I offered to call you at home, man. Get your opinion.”

“Doesn’t sound like there was that much to it, when you get down to it.”

“It was an assault,” Walt said. “I gotta wonder if it’s ever happened to some woman who wasn’t lucky enough to have a big, ugly guy leaving the bar just when she was screaming and rocking the car. I just gotta wonder.”

Kevin was silent a moment. “I can check that. If so, your girl might come in handy. I can’t tell you that, you know. By the book, you know.”

“But you can tell me a name. Would you get in trouble for telling me a name?”

“I could, yeah.”

“Okay, then it’ll be in the vault. No one will ever know you gave me a name. I could find this stuff out some other way, but—”

“Then why not do that, Walt? Find it out some other way?”

“Because, Kevin—if he’s attacked women before, it’s not me who should know about it. It’s the police. Right?”

Kevin sighed. “Right. Yeah.”

“But if I want to keep my eyes open for this guy, be ready in case he gives her more trouble—ready to call you, of course—a name would help. I give you this story, you give me a name. That’s all.”

“And you swear to me, you never approach this guy? Never touch him?”

“Absolutely, I swear. No approaching, no touching.”

“All right, give me the data.”

Walt smiled into the phone. “So, I’m a confidential informant. A C.I. Cool.”

Walt recited the plate, make and model.

“You get a good look at him, Walt?”

“Oh, yeah. I saw him in the bar, saw him leave with her. I can identify him. Six feet, brown and brown, chiseled chin…His hair is long enough to comb. You know what I’m saying? Not a butch military cut, and not over the collar. Styled.”

“Okay, good. I think we don’t tell the woman,” Kevin said. “I might ask you for her name and phone number later, all right?”

“I don’t have that offhand. I don’t even know her last name. I know her first name and that she’s an emergency room nurse, so you could probably find her easy. I don’t know that I’ll ever see her again,” Walt said. “But I gave her my card, my office and home numbers in case she needs me for anything, and she’s nice. You can tell in one minute she’s kind. That she only wants to help people. And this asshole was going to hurt her. That’s not something you just let go.”

Kevin laughed into the phone. “Really, who would take you for a Good Samaritan.”

“That’s the thing. People never know who they’re dealing with, do they? This woman? She’d never go out with someone who looks like me, but the guy she thought was safe as a kitten, he turned out to be the bad guy.”

The fourth member of the tight group of girlfriends, and the least often available, was Dr. Beth Halsley. Beth started in premed at USC and stayed there for medical school, becoming a women’s doctor. She had always been one of those students who didn’t have to work for grades and excelled effortlessly on tests—until med school, at least. She had a nerdy brain inside a model’s body.

She had been more beautiful than any of the other high school girls, but not as popular—people thought of her as stuck-up. She wasn’t. She always had a lot on her mind and she was easily bored. True, she was a cheerleader like Julie, Cassie and Marty, but she was also a scholar, debater, gymnast, chess champion and president of the science club. She had almost never gone out on a date; it wasn’t long before boys avoided her like the plague. She was just too intimidating. And she’d never learned those wily, flirty games.

But the girls—Cassie, Julie and Marty—though nothing like her, loved her, understood her, envied her in so many ways. Beth was the one to unequivocally make good and when she graduated from premed and medical school in L.A., they were there, cheering the loudest of all. And now that she was newly transplanted back in the Sacramento Valley in a small women’s clinic, they were bringing their privates to her for their exams and other medical needs.

Beth called Julie in the morning. “Hey, don’t faint, but I can get out of the clinic for a couple of hours today. I got in touch with Cassie and Marty and they’re free for lunch. Noon at Ernesto’s. How about you?”

“Hmm. Lotta mommy stuff going on today, but I’ll see what I can do,” Julie said.

“Well, try,” Beth said. “I miss the heck out of you. I haven’t seen you in a couple of months!”

Julie couldn’t bear the thought of missing lunch with the girls. But she couldn’t afford it. And the morning had been stressful. Right after a bout of morning sickness, Julie spent a couple of hours going over the bills, trying to decide which one to pay, which one to let slide. She’d barely recovered from her early-morning nausea when the dog, Tess, threw up right on her shoes. In her shoes. Armed with paper towels she usually tried to ration, she began mopping. As she was on her hands and knees scooping and wiping, Tess licked her face, knocking her back on her butt, disgusted, with an “Ewwww.” She had to hose out her shoes on the back patio, which made her cry. If she’d had two nickels to rub together, she would have thrown the damn shoes in the trash.

When she had the kids all loaded in the car to take Jeffy to a Parks and Rec summer program, the engine wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even turn over. She got her mom to drive over, give her a jump and, thank God, that did it. On to Jeffy’s program to drop him off, then to the auto supply to buy a new battery. She had to try three credit cards for one to be approved. It was looking like both those bills she was sitting on would have to slide. Then she dropped Clint and Stephie off at their grandma’s for a couple of hours so Julie could join her friends for lunch. She had already decided she would make an excuse, say she had already eaten, but wanted to meet them for at least a glass of iced tea. When she got back to the car, reaching into her purse for her keys, she noticed that her mom had tucked a twenty into her purse.

And she cried. Again.

“It’s just pregnancy,” she muttered to herself, wiping at her eyes. But it was also the anxiety of having no money, worrying about the shame of having the electricity shut off, having her mom always slip a twenty into her purse because she was so pitifully broke.

Julie had just one older brother—Brad. Brad went to college, met a girl and got engaged, married fourteen months later after he was settled in a nice, cushy CPA job. Then and only then he went to work on an MBA to make his job even cushier. After that he and his wife decided to start their family and, like many of their friends, they seemed to have a choice about that. When they used birth control they didn’t have children and they never had a slip; when they went off birth control, they reproduced. At thirty-two, Brad and his wife, Lisa, had a three-year-old boy, a one-year-old girl and a vasectomy.

Such was not the case with Julie and Billy. She’d been a few months pregnant already when they married at barely nineteen. Billy worked part-time and went to school part-time, earning his degree at twenty-four, when Jeffy was four years old. If they’d had it their way, Jeffy would be at least ten before they had another baby; they were still so young, completely strapped with school loans, credit-card bills and low-paying jobs. They were compulsive about protection, except one night when they didn’t use a condom and spermicide because they were so worked up, in a fever, wild. One time, just one time, and it hadn’t even been during a vulnerable time of the month. Hello, Clint! Clint arrived when Jeffy was barely in kindergarten, the first year Billy was with the fire department. The next year, Stephie—the result of a diaphragm that Beth said probably wasn’t a good fit.

Billy knew the value of an education and had pursued it while waiting for an opening in the fire department. He’d wanted to be a fireman since he was six; it was a childhood dream. It was also a good job with good benefits and a pension, but when you have three kids, lots of bills, a stay-at-home wife, the early years can be tight. If he had any real fascination with any other field, there were probably endless opportunities for a man with a degree, but in his job he had adventure and saved lives, and that meant more to him than anything.

Although Julie’s parents were both generous and patient, Julie felt she’d let them down by marrying so young, having three children before she was thirty. She could sense they were frustrated with Julie and Billy’s chronic trouble of keeping up with expenses. It was taking them a damn long time to get on their feet. Her parents slipped her money they didn’t have to give Brad, picked up the tab for things like Jeffy’s soccer or Parks and Rec programs, and Julie never told Billy about any of it. Any fancy toys the kids had, like the laptop or video games, came from Grandma and Grandpa or maybe Uncle Brad. The thought of telling her mother she was pregnant again chilled her. She would say, What about that vasectomy you’d planned on? What about it, indeed? Billy was supposed to take care of that and had simply put it off, a little nervous about having his testicles sliced into, as if oblivious to the complications of piling child upon child on a modest income. She had the IUD; they should have been safe for the time it took him to come to terms with it. But she was pregnant again, anyway.

Julie complained to Cassie about money, about stretching things so far month after month, but she could tell Cassie didn’t take it all that seriously. After all, they somehow always managed and Cassie would die to have her problems. To Cassie, who was getting by but alone, a tight budget seemed like less of a problem than not having a partner, a family. And Julie just couldn’t tell Marty, who seemed to have it made.

But Julie went to lunch even though she could’ve put that twenty in the gas tank, because sometimes she just needed to be with her friends. She was the last one to arrive and the girls greeted her as though they hadn’t seen her in a year, though she’d seen Cassie and Marty recently.

“Wine?” Cassie asked as Julie sat down.

“No, thanks,” Julie said. “Carpool.” Of course, there was no carpool. “Beth? You’re not having a glass of wine?”

“On call,” she said, smiling. “Again. But I’m covered for lunch.”

“Is that how you keep your figure? Being on call?” Julie asked.

And then all four of them ordered salads, even Julie.

“I weigh the same, but they’re working me to death,” Beth said. “I’m delivering all the middle-of-the-night babies. The joys of being the new guy.”

“Speaking of new guys…any in your life?” Cassie asked, because this was Cassie’s main interest. And one of the only things that perplexed her was how a woman as accomplished and beautiful as Beth remained completely unattached. True, Beth was hard to please, a perfectionist. But still, with that in mind, she figured Beth would have landed the perfect man by now.

“You’re kidding, right?” she said, sipping her tea. “I went out with an anal, boring internist a couple of times, but I’d rather have been reading a good novel. He almost put me to sleep.”

“I guess he’s not getting an encore,” Marty said.

“Absolutely not. Honestly, I work, then I go home and sleep until the phone rings…”

“How are you liking the new clinic?” Cassie asked.

“I’m going to like it a lot better when I’m not the new guy anymore, but it’s a great little shop. Good staff. A lot of fresh-faced young pregnant girls as well as some older pregnant women—one of our docs has a real nice fertility practice.” Then to Cassie she said, “How about you? Any new guys?”

Cassie and Julie exchanged quick glances. Cassie hadn’t mentioned her incident to the others and, really, she just didn’t want to go through all that again, even in the telling. “I’ve sworn off men,” she said. “I draw only jerks and assholes.”

Beth just laughed. “The right one will probably turn up when you least expect him.”

“So everyone says. I don’t think I care that much about the man, but it’s going to be damn hard to have children without one.”

“You don’t need a man to have a baby, Cassie,” Beth said.

“Gee, I know I didn’t get the best grades in school, but according to my biology teacher, that’s one of the things you absolutely do need,” Julie said.

“What you need is sperm,” Beth said. And with a dismissive wave of her hand, she said, “Easy.”

“Holy smokes,” Julie said.

“Good idea,” Marty said. “Marriage is way overrated.”

Julie’s gaze shot from Beth to Marty, but Cassie was focused on Beth. “Would you do something like that? Have a baby without a husband?”

“I’m not in the market for a baby,” Beth said. “I have a feeling I’ll be better at delivering them than having them. But really, half the female doctors I know are married to doctors. They’re both under pressure, working long hours, and they do fine. It kind of looks like a good nanny is more valuable than a good husband.”

“What do you mean, marriage is way overrated?” Julie asked Marty. And then she reached for Cassie’s glass of wine, but before taking a gulp, she slid it back.

With precision timing, the salads arrived, along with a basket of warm, fresh bread.

Julie wasn’t done with Marty. “What do you mean?” she asked. “I thought you and Joe invented marriage! You’re not having trouble or anything, are you?”

Marty tore off a piece of bread and with a shrug said, “We’re fine. I guess. But I ask myself—is this it? Forever? This guy who lives like a slob and doesn’t want to do any of the things he liked to do before we were married? He used to take me out, you know. Movies, dinner, nice things. Now it’s sports or boating or camping. On his days off, he doesn’t bother to shower till he has to go back to work. I come home from work and it looks like some homeless guy broke into the house and tore the place up. And once he slipped the ring on, that was it for romance. Now foreplay at our house is, ‘You awake?’”

Julie actually sprayed a mouthful of iced tea as she burst into laughter. When she came under control, fanning her face, grinning, she said, “I can answer that question. Is this all there is? Yeah—this is it, girlfriend. And I signed up.”

“See, there’s a reason some women decide to just have the family on their own,” Beth said, lifting a forkful of lettuce to her mouth.

But Julie was more fascinated by Marty than Beth. “Marty, I’ve never heard you talk like this. I thought you were crazy about Joe.”

“Sure,” she said, chewing a mouthful of salad. “I am. Joe’s a great guy, a good father, a dependable man in his own way—and God knows the women he’s carried down the ladder out of a burning building are in love with him forever—but around home he’s a bum. He’s got sweats and gym shorts he hides so they won’t get washed until they’re so ripe they could walk to the laundry room. His whole closet stinks.” They have two closets, Julie thought jealously. “He spit shines the boat, but he can’t shave the bristle off his chin before he rolls over onto me. The yard has to be perfect, which by the way is sweaty, smelly work, and that vagrant-esque odor sticks to him—at the dinner table and when we go to bed at night. And believe me, he is limited to the yard, garage and the sporting equipment in his ability to clean things.”

“I’ve never seen Joe looking like a vagrant,” Cassie said.

“You would if you were married to him. He cleans up for company,” Marty said. “Really, what he gives F.D. is perfect. If we’re having people over, he’s all spiffed up. But when it comes to his wife, his marriage—he takes it totally for granted. He doesn’t even try.”

“Marty, you should tell him,” Julie said.

“You think I haven’t told him? I’ve begged him!” Marty insisted. “He doesn’t care. He thinks it’s funny. He tells me to relax. Don’t you get sick of Billy sometimes?” Marty asked Julie.

“Uh, yeah. But not for the same reasons…”

“Well, what reasons?”

He’s too fertile. I’m too fertile with him. He’s too romantic, like we’re still in high school, doing it in the backseat of a car, like two kids who can’t help it, can’t stop it from happening. He’s disgustingly optimistic, like the world we live in doesn’t even exist—the world of too many bills, too little pay. She’d give anything if Billy worked only for F.D. and actually had days off to help around the house, help with the kids. But she said, “Well, some of the same reasons, but…”

“But?”

She shrugged. “That stuff doesn’t get to me so much.” Because I have real problems, she thought, feeling angry and envious. A house that’s too small with a mortgage too big, cars that are too old, out of control bills…“Okay, some of that stuff gets to me. But, Marty, it looks like you and Joe have a pretty good life.”

“Because we have a boat?” she asked. “Jules, I didn’t want a boat. And I’d rather die than spend another week in that RV! I’d give anything for a vacation somewhere cool, just me and Joe. Like Hawaii or the Bahamas or something. I’d like to watch a movie that doesn’t involve fifty-seven people getting shot or out-of-control farts. I’d like to go out to dinner. Or to Las Vegas—to spend the night in a classy hotel, have a day at the spa, then lie by the pool—but Joe says, ‘Why go to Vegas to get a tan when we have a boat?’ Could it be because it’s up to me to shop, prepare food, fix everyone’s meals and then clean up everything when we bring the boat in? That’s not fun—it’s just more work!” Marty lifted some of her salad to her mouth, chewed and said, “You’re lucky. Billy still treats you as if he’d like you to marry him.”

Hmm, Julie thought. Why don’t I feel so lucky? Could it be because you can’t live on just love?

Chapter Three

Julie stopped off in the ladies’ room after lunch before leaving the restaurant. Right before she scrolled off some toilet paper, she prayed, Oh, God, let there be blood! But alas, it was what she knew it would be. She flushed and exited the stall. She met eyes in the mirror with Chelsea.

“Well,” Chelsea said, beaming. “We just keep crossing paths.”

They gave each other little cheek presses. “What are you doing here?” Julie asked.

“Lunch after a sales meeting,” she said. “Our dealership is just a few blocks away.”

“That’s right—you’re selling cars now,” Julie said.

“Well,” Chelsea said, laughing indulgently, “Hummers. And I’m a sales manager. My dealership won a couple of awards recently.”

Julie noticed that Chelsea wore a very attractive suit and her shoes were to die for. Julie no longer knew anything about brands—she’d been picking up her duds at Target when she had money to spare—but she knew they were tres expensive. Julie wore a sundress and sandals, each about three years old, the same thing she might wear for a trip to the grocery store. She felt as if she’d been thrown together out of a thrift shop. “Aren’t they kind of hard to sell these days? Hummers?”

“Nah,” Chelsea said, shaking her head dismissively. “Even in a down economy, we move a lot of them. People just love them. They think of it as a symbol of affluence—the bigger the better.”

“With gas prices so high?” Julie asked, noting all the little extras about Chelsea—manicured nails, shaped and waxed brows, highlighted curls, rich-looking makeup that appeared almost professional.

“I don’t think our sales have even dropped. What are you doing here today?”

“Lunch with the girls,” she said with a shrug. “It isn’t very often we can drag Beth out.”

“Oh. Sure. You’re looking very smart today,” Chelsea said. “Cool and comfortable and pretty.”

Julie immediately felt as if Chelsea was throwing her a bone. She said, “Thanks, that’s nice of you to say. I just grabbed this at Costco.” Then she thought, Why did I have to say that? Chelsea’s purse was worth Julie’s weekly household allowance. “Why did you leave that company you worked for before? Insurance, wasn’t it?”

“Health care,” she said, lifting a brow. “It was quite a while ago, actually. I’m just following the money, Jules. Health care is good, but there are a lot of business degrees in there humping for management. This is better.”

“Wasn’t it a hard transition? They don’t seem to have much in common…”

“On the surface, maybe. In the end, business is business. When I thought I needed a change, I started working weekends at the dealership, and when I’d made enough money to see the potential, I quit Health South and went full-time. Do you have any idea what the commission is on a Hummer? But what I’m really interested in is upper management, eventually a dealership.”

“A Hummer dealership? At twenty-nine?”

“It’s not going to happen next week,” Chelsea said with a laugh. “Listen, one of these times when you girls get together for lunch, give me a call, huh?”