“You sure?”
“I carry my own weight, bub.”
“Okay, then.” Max offered his hand. “Good to meet you, Darlene.”
I scoffed at his hand and gave him a hug. His arms went around me and I felt his broad chest reverberate with a chuckle.
“Mmmm, you smell like bus.”
“Eau de Greyhound.”
He pulled away, still grinning. “I’ll see you Friday night. At the Y on Buchanan Street. Room 14. Nine o’clock, sharp.”
I pursed my lips. “Friday night? Ugh.”
“Disappointed?” He held his hands out and started walking backwards to the bus stop. “Cry it out in your rent-controlled penthouse.”
I laughed and hefted my army bag with a grunt, and stepped up to the house. The Victorian really was beautiful, and perfectly maintained. My key turned in the lock and I stepped inside a tiny entry.
I was no architect, but I could tell the house had once been a house and was now cut up into separate flats. I peeked around a wall that no sane homeowner would put in the entry, to see a tiny laundry room with one coin-op washer and dryer. On the other side of the hallway was a door with #1 on it. A potted plant and welcome mat with bright colors adorned the threshold. Faintly, I could hear what sounded like Spanish music and the sound of children’s laughter.
I dragged my army duffel up the one flight of stairs to an awkward landing—also a new construction to give the second floor some separation. The door on this floor was marked #2 and had no welcome mat or plant or décor of any kind. Silence on the other side.
I continued up one more flight. The ceiling was lower and angled, and door #3 opened on a tiny studio. Bed, table, chair, kitchen and postage-stamp bathroom. My friend in NYC who had arranged this sublet for me said the owner—a gal named Rachel who worked for Greenpeace—had cleaned the place out of everything but sheets, towels, pots and pans. It could not have been more perfect; I didn’t need much.
A slow smile spread over my lips, and I shut the door behind me. I headed to the window where I had to duck my head a little at the sloped ceiling. The view stole my breath. Rows of Victorians lined up on the hill, and over their roofs, the city spread out before me. It was a different kind of city than New York. A quieter city; with colorful old buildings, hills, a green rectangle of a park, all cradled in the blue of a bay.
I sucked in a breath and blew it out my cheeks.
“I can do this.”
But after a three-day bus ride, I was too tired and overwhelmed to think about conquering a new city just then. I turned to my borrowed bed and collapsed face down.
Sleep reached for me at once, and music drifted into my scattered thoughts.
I danced.
Are you down...?
Are you d-d-d-down...?
I smiled against my borrowed pillow. It smelled like laundry soap and the person who actually lived here. A stranger.
Soon it would smell like me.
Are you down, down, down...?
“Not yet,” I murmured, and slipped into sleep.
Sawyer
Study Room #2 at UC Hastings College of the Law was silent but for the turning of pages and keyboards clacking. Students sat together in stuffed chairs, barricaded behind laptops and headphones.
My study partners, Beth, Andrew and Sanaa were on couches and chairs in our circle, bent over their work, nary a joke or smartass remark among them. I missed Jackson, but the bastard had the nerve to graduate one quarter ahead of me.
The relentless overhead fluorescents seared my tired eyes and made the text on the page in front of me blur. I blinked, focused, and took a mental snapshot of a paragraph of California Family Law Code. With the image firmly in mind, I put pen to a page in my notebook and wrote what I saw in my own words. To lock them down.
When I finished my notes, I leaned back in my chair and let my eyes fall shut.