Chapter 13
Chapter 13
The Ghost Inn is packed this evening, but Katie has saved us a table at the back of the bar. It’s Sadie, Ginger, the woman I have since learned is Amanda, and me. Tonight, at least until seven o’clock, Ghost Ghouls are half price, and it’s five bucks for anything on the happy hour menu, including their famous smoked chicken wings.
We get a round of drinks for the table and order enough five-buck bites to count as dinner. Ginger is still talking about the boy who saved the dog, calling it “the height of stupidity.”
And I tell everyone about my scary encounter with the kids at Bear Creek Beach.
“People think small towns are these safe little islands,” Sadie says. “Well, let me tell you, we’ve got bigger drug problems here than they do in the big cities. OxyContin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, we’ve got ’em all.”
“I think these kids were just smoking pot,” I say.
“I doubt it.” Ginger passes the basket of chips around the table. “Sounds to me like they were a bunch of juvenile delinquents, high on God knows what. Probably homeless.”
“One of them had a fairly expensive SUV. They didn’t appear homeless to me, just bored, and out for a good time, even if it was at my expense.”
“Probably stole that SUV,” Ginger says. “Did you check the police blotter today?”
I hadn’t. I didn’t even know there was one.
“Give it a rest, Ginger.” This from Amanda, who looks from Ginger to Sadie. “You two make it sound like we’re living in a hellhole, which we’re not. Not once have I ever been afraid to walk around here at night, except for maybe the bears. Or a wolf. They’re back, you know? There’s a whole pack roaming the Sierra. Anyway, I wouldn’t trade this place for anywhere in the world, not even a beach in Mexico, which would be my dream vacation if I ever got one.”
Sadie is no longer paying attention; something across the bar has her distracted. We follow her line of sight and see it. Her . Sienna. She’s sitting up on a stool, talking across the bar with Katie.
“I heard she moved to Truckee,” Ginger says. “And yet, she’s always here. I think that stool has a permanent imprint of her ass.”
“I wouldn’t mind having her ass.” Amanda tilts her head to the side, literally eyeing Sienna’s ass, or at least what she can see of it. “I mean . . . since we’re talking about asses.”
“It doesn’t say a lot for her marriage that she’s always here.” Sadie takes a big gulp of her Ghost Ghoul and shudders. “Katie doesn’t go light on the alcohol, does she?”
“That’s why I keep coming back.” Amanda holds up her drink and smiles. “What do you think is going on with her?” She points her chin in Sienna’s direction.
“What I think is she backed the wrong horse. If she’d chosen Knox, she wouldn’t be spending so much time in bars. Alone.”
“Sadie’s right,” Ginger says. “Anyone who knows Brody could’ve seen this a mile coming. The man just isn’t husband material. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had himself a little side dish.”
“Who has a side dish when they can have Sienna Bates?” Amanda goes in for a smoked wing. “If I had her body, I’d never worry about my husband looking at other women.”
“Have you seen Christie Brinkley?” Ginger looks at Amanda pointedly. “All her husbands cheated. Every single one.”
“Men don’t cheat because their wives aren’t beautiful enough,” I say, and find three pairs of eyes focused on me. “Just saying.”
“Why do they cheat, then?” Amanda is working her way to the stuffed mushrooms.
“There’s a multitude of reasons. Insecurity, boredom, sex, love, selfishness, just to name a few. Rarely is it flaming locks of auburn hair and eyes of emerald green .” The “Jolene” reference is not lost on this crowd.
“Is that what your patients say?” Sadie is keenly interested, and there’s a sadness in her expression that wasn’t there before.
“Some. Look, every case is different. But what I’ve found is that it’s usually more about the cheater than the cheated. A seismic shift in his or her world, something that makes them want to compensate for whatever they’ve lost. A job, youth, their hair”—I try for a weak smile—”you get the idea.”
Sadie nods, but it’s still there, that sadness. She’d already alluded that her marriage was bad, but now I know why.
We circle back around to Sienna, and when the opportunity presents itself, I whisper in Sadie’s ear, “We can talk about it later if you want, in private.”
She pretends she doesn’t hear me, but I know she does.
“All I’m saying is that if she’d stuck with Knox, she wouldn’t be here tonight, looking lonelier than anyone should.”
“Why did she choose Brody?” Until now, I’ve stayed out of it, but in this moment feel emboldened. Or nosy, depending on how you look at it.
“Well . . . he’s Brody.” Amanda laughs, and the other two join in.
I am, of course, lost, having never met Brody.
Amanda reaches for her purse and fishes out her phone, scrolling until there’s a picture of a man filling her screen. He is, by all universal standards, a knockout. Dazzling in all his manly glory. And judging by the gear he’s got on in the photo, a firefighter.
I’m still slightly starstruck when I ask the obvious question: “Why do you have a picture of him in your phone?”
“He’s my first cousin.”
“I can certainly see his appeal.” It’s an understatement. “But you know what they say, beauty is only skin deep.”
“Clearly not to Sienna,” Ginger says. “They’re like freaking Ken and Barbie.”
“It’s not as if Knox isn’t equally appealing.” He may not be as beautiful as Brody, but in my opinion, he’s a head-turner. “But that’s beside the point. It all comes back to the fact that physical attributes actually have very little to do with chemistry.”
“I beg to differ.” Amanda’s lips slide up. “I sure as hell wouldn’t kick Bradley Cooper out of my bed, regardless of chemistry.”
Our glasses are empty, and Katie is the only one working tonight, which is crazy with this crowd. I volunteer to get us a second round at the bar and manage to wedge myself between a plaid shirt—the half-price drinks and five-dollar bites bring in the locals—and Sienna, before getting Katie’s attention. I hold up four fingers.
There’s a football game on the television, but no one seems that interested. Maybe because it’s not the 49ers. There’s country-western music playing on the sound system, a definite switch from Miles Davis. I don’t recognize the song, but unless it’s a classic, I wouldn’t.
“Have we met before?” Sienna says over the din. “I recognize you from somewhere.”
My go-to would be the TED Talks or the books, but I know exactly where she knows me from. “We met, though not formally, at Knox’s house the day you came to borrow Katie’s ski pants.” For some strange reason, I fixate on the fact that Katie’s ski pants would be much too short for Sienna, but for all I know, she was borrowing them for someone else.
“Oh, that’s right.” She takes a good look at me. “You look different, though. The same but different.”
I stare down at my jeans and sweater. “I wasn’t dressed at the time. I mean, I was dressed but not dressed.” I’m usually not so inarticulate. “I’d just gotten out of bed and was in a robe.”
“Right.” She nods, but I can see she’s already thinking about something else. “Are you Knox’s girlfriend?”
“No. We’re friends.”
“That makes sense. You don’t at all seem like his type.”
I wonder if I’m supposed to be offended. “What’s his type?” I ask.
“Me.”
This is where if I wanted to be a mean girl, a competitive girl, I would grin and say, “Not anymore.” Instead, I successfully clutch all four drinks in my arms and walk away.
On my drive home, I get pulled over by a Ghost police officer. It’s only the second time a cop has ever pulled me over. The first time was in college, when one of my taillights was out. He didn’t even give me a fix-it ticket, just made me promise to have it repaired.
This is all to say that despite being a mature, professional, competent woman, I’m so flummoxed by the flashing lights that it takes me ten minutes to find a place to pull over. The crazy part is that I head in the direction of Misty’s bungalow before I finally settle on a well-lit gas station. Because I am, or was, the daughter of a cop, I keep my hands on the steering wheel, even though my first impulse is to rifle through the glove box for my proof of insurance, then through my wallet for my license, so we can move this along. For the life of me, I don’t know what I did wrong to get pulled over.
Then I remember the two drinks. While I’m nowhere near impaired, I’m petrified he’ll give me a Breathalyzer test.
He’s out of his car and motioning with his finger for me to unroll my window.
I crack it enough to have a conversation, letting in a rush of cold air. “Good evening, officer.”
“Ma’am.” He tips an imaginary hat. “License and registration, please.”
I flip down my visor and hand him the registration, then slip my driver’s license out of its plastic holder, debating with myself whether I should ask him why he stopped me. I opt to wait, preferring not to draw any more attention to my possible Ghost Ghoul breath than I have to.
He takes my information back to his patrol car, leaving me there to watch him in my rearview mirror and explore all the bad places this can go. At least I know a good lawyer. Unfortunately, Austin is the wrong kind of lawyer, and I’m not even sure we’re still talking to each other anymore.
The police officer seems to be taking an inordinately long time. It’s not as if I have any outstanding warrants or am on an FBI W ANTED poster. My license, registration, and insurance are all up to date. I am a law-abiding citizen.
Finally, he comes wandering back, looking none too happy. But that might just be his natural demeanor. Who knows?
“I stopped you because you were weaving. Have you been drinking, ma’am?” He slides me back my stuff through the barely open window.
“I did have a drink at the Ghost Inn with some friends, officer. But I can assure you that I’m not the least bit impaired. Not even tipsy.”
He illuminates my face with his flashlight, then sweeps it across the interior of my car. “Your daddy taught you better, girl.”
At first, I don’t think I hear him right. “Excuse me,” I say.
“Drinking and driving. You know how many deaths result from drivers who swear they only had one drink? There were more than a thousand fatalities last year in this state alone.”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
He blinds me with his flashlight again. “And you, of all people, should know better.”
I’m this close to saying, “Why?” Why me, of all people? But I’m not positive I wouldn’t blow close to the legal limit if he were to test me. I’ve heard those Breathalyzers can be wildly inaccurate. So, I keep my mouth shut.
“Step out of the car, please.”
This is when I know I’m in deep trouble. Even on a good day, I can’t walk a straight line or touch my nose with my eyes closed. And the worst part of all, is the gas station where I’ve chosen to park is on top of a hill, a steep hill, where a person can get altitude sickness just from looking down at the twinkling lights of Ghost.
I do my best to make a graceful exit, which is instantly blown by the fact that my wallet, registration, and license are all in my lap. I quickly bend down to pick everything up off the pavement when I nearly topple headfirst over my feet.
“You should know that I’m afraid of heights,” I tell the officer as I regain my balance.
“Right,” he says. “And you should know that I’ve heard it all before.”
“Look, I’m a licensed psychologist. Acrophobia is real. The DSM-5 defines it as an anxiety disorder. At least one in twenty people suffer from fear of heights; I happen to be one of them.”
“We’re not that high, Chelsea.”
The use of my first name catches me off guard. How did we go from ma’am to Chelsea in under five minutes? I want to say, “We’re not that familiar with each other,” but decide it might antagonize him.
“Please take nine heel-to-toe steps, then turn around and come back to your starting point,” he says.
“Like this?” I successfully complete the first few before getting tripped up on my number. I can’t remember if I’m on four or five.
He stands there with his arms folded over his chest, no help at all. When I get back to my starting point, he asks, “Have you had any recent head injuries?”
“Why, yes, I have,” I say almost gleefully. “I was hit by a cable car.”
“Were you now?” He holds up a pen, taps the top, and starts moving it from side to side. “Follow the light, please.”
I do it, though it hurts my eyes and seems like it should be illegal, like it might cause vision problems later on in life. “Don’t I get a phone call or something?”
“For what?” he says, and sticks the pen in his uniform pocket. “Please raise one leg six inches off the ground and count in numerical order.”
I try, but wind up grabbing onto his shoulder for support.
He softens. “This one is hard for everyone. Some people just have crappy balance.”
“Don’t forget, I also have head trauma.”
“Yep, hit by a cable car. Where was that exactly?”
“San Francisco.”
“Right.”
“If you don’t believe me, call San Francisco General. Even better, call the San Francisco Police Department.”
“Leg, please.” He points with his finger for me to raise it.
This time, I switch to my right leg, and am able to hold it up without falling. I manage to count to ten before he tells me to stop.
“How many drinks did you say you had?” He squints his eyes, closing in on me like we’re in an interrogation room instead of a gas station on top of a hill.
“One,” I say.
He gives me a hard look.
“Two, maybe.”
“Is that such a good idea? You know, with your head trauma and all.”
“Maybe not.”
“I’m going to let you go this time. But I’m disappointed in you, Chels. I expected better. Your father expected better.”
I don’t understand why he keeps bringing my father into this. A man he doesn’t even know. Then again, perhaps he’s mistaken me for someone else.
“I appreciate it.” It seems like a good thing to say to the person who stands between me and a jail cell. “I won’t do it again, officer.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” he says. “Now be careful when you pull out of here. I’ll follow you down the hill.” He waits for me to get in the car, then leans into my window with his arm resting on the roof. “Tell your dad hello from me.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If he knows my father, there is only one way he can mean that. There’s only one way I can tell Dad hello.
It’s ridiculous, of course. And by the time I get to the highway, I decide that the officer thinks I’m someone else. Another Chelsea.