Chapter One #2
They didn’t know why she sold her house.
They didn’t know why she lost her job.
They didn’t know Annie.
“Shit,” she breathed, closing her eyes altogether.
Mo needed to go down and grab her valuables out of her Subaru Outback, unpack her things into the dresser, maybe even venture out for food and drinks for the mini fridge.
But her usual exhaustion had set in, so she stayed where she was.
Her brain slowly pulled her to sleep, even as she tried to avoid her mind’s eye’s unyielding focus on Annie’s passionate gaze.
* * *
A loud knock shot Mo forward in her chair, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dim lighting of the hotel room.
She had slept past sunset, the only light illuminating the room the neons from the street outside.
Blinking rapidly, she sat up fully, rubbing her face before letting out a long yawn.
Another even louder knock came from the other side of the door.
“What?” Mo groaned loudly, still trying to pull herself up into a comfortable position.
“Imogen Laurel Reeves,” Bud’s thick Appalachian accent bellowed through the door. “Unlock this door and let us in!”
“How in the—” Mo whined, untangling her lanky limbs from the chair to cross to the door. With a few clicks, she pulled it open and was met by the worried faces of her friends.
“Come in, I guess?”
Mo opened the door wide and Bud trudged through, flipping on the light before his wide frame waddled quickly down the hallway. Another woman followed him in, and Mo smiled down at her with apology, knowing she was probably way more disappointed in Mo than Bud was.
“Hi, Opal.”
“Hello, stranger,” Opal lamented before turning to close the door behind them all. After it locked, she slid into Mo’s arms for a deep hug. “You smell like sleep.”
“That means you smell like shit,” Bud commented from her desk chair.
Mo turned to her old friend. His usually short, well-kept, dark-brown curly hair and matching Gandalf-style beard were disheveled.
It seemed like he had been running his fingers through them nonstop, ruining any style he would normally wear.
Bud was at least two shades paler than his normal pasty white.
And his face, usually rounded and friendly, was pulled taut into almost horizontal lines.
Even his work shirt, a deep-blue Dickie’s style button-up, was buttoned incorrectly, highlighting his mandolin-shaped belt buckle and extremely stained, worn jeans.
“Don’t listen to him,” Opal said, her voice lighter now. “He’s grumpy.”
“I have every right to be grumpy.”
“Yes, you do, babe.”
“Damn right.”
“Such a Taurus.” Opal chuckled lightly, finally pulling away from the hug.
Mo looked down at her friend, seeing nary a change.
Opal always seemed to be in a Zen-like calm.
Her brown skin, warm with red-orange undertones, was accentuated perfectly by her bright brown eyes and sharp features.
Opal’s midnight-black hair was colored with an aqua ombre, styled beautifully into box braids that were pulled up into three separate buns on the crest of her head.
Normally, Mo would be able to see the various tattoos that adorned Opal’s collarbone and arms, but she was wearing one of her long-sleeved logo tees, Hecate Tattoo displayed across her chest. Opal rarely wore pants, so she had matched her top with a pair of butt-enhancing black jean short shorts, the pockets hanging below the jean fabric decorated with constellations.
An interweaving ivy tattoo led down Opal’s right leg, disappearing beneath her white, shin-high Doc Martens.
“I’m sorry he dragged you all the way out here.” Mo sighed, meeting Opal’s eyes. “I’m fine, I promise.”
“I doubt that.” Opal smiled softly.
She glided farther into the room, immediately grabbing the chair Mo had just been sleeping in, turning it to face the side of bed. Bud inch-wormed the desk chair along the ground until his knees met the end of the bed. Once his task was complete, he patted a space between them for Mo.
“Get over here, Beanstalk. We are having us an intervention.”
“Wait, how did y’all find me?” Mo asked before finally kicking off her sneakers. Then she crossed over the spot he requested, choosing to sit against the headboard instead. “I definitely did not tell you where I was staying.”
“I installed parental tracking software on your phone.” Bud grinned deviously.
Mo turned to Opal, who laughed slightly before adding, “You love a good Marriott. Besides…” Opal tilted her head toward the window. “This is where we always stayed when you and Annie played at Whose Boots.”
Mo’s eyes reflexively closed. Whose Boots was the best country-western bar in the Bay Area. Mo and Annie had played together in multiple country and folk cover bands over the past decade, and Whose Boots was Mo’s favorite venue. “I’m far too sentimental, huh?”
“Yeah, you’ve always been a big ol’ sap. Also, I smooth-talked the guy downstairs. That security risk of an employee gave me your room number. You’ve obviously been compromised. Sounds like you should probably just leave.”
Mo let out a guttural groan. There was no way she was going back to Palo Alto tonight. Or ever again, for that matter.
“I want you to come home with us. I set up a spare place near the living room with dividers, and I took some extra time to make it all pretty and shit. I even put a TV in there so you can watch The L Word, Wynonna Earp, and, uh…whatever other lesbian shows they got streaming.” Bud put his hands out in a welcoming motion, and Mo glanced at him to see the first sign of hope in his eyes.
“No.”
“Oh, come on, we’d love to have you stay,” Bud whined, his eyebrows tilting in aggravation. “It’ll be like old times.”
“I definitely don’t mind,” Opal added softly. “As long as you are cool with me coming in and out at odd hours to work with clients downstairs.”
Bud and Opal lived above Hecate Tattoo, Opal’s all-female, Black-owned-and-operated tattoo parlor right in the heart of the college part of Palo Alto.
Their loft-style place was on the small side, but it had tall industrial ceilings and an entirely open concept.
After nights of bar hopping, Mo and Annie had crashed there numerous times.
But no matter how comfortable she felt in their home, it was still located in Palo Alto.
And Mo just couldn’t bear Palo Alto anymore.
“I can’t.”
“The hell you won’t,” Bud half yelled, half begged. “You just got fired from your job, dude.”
“Yeah,” Mo agreed, punctuating it with another sigh. “And I fired my therapist.”
“What?”
“Bud,” Opal cooed softly, reaching out for her husband’s hand. “You’re going to have an aneurysm.”
“Good, then we can hire Mo to take care of me—in Palo Alto—at home.”
“I sold Annie’s Prius too,” Mo added, ignoring Bud’s outburst. “Oh, and, like, all the furniture. All I have left is down in the Outback or in the suitcases over there.”
“What about Like Clockwork?” Opal questioned softly, her well-chosen words actually reaching Mo. “You’ve not been to the boat in a while.”
“I’m gonna sell it too. I called the harbor master, he’s gonna ask around to see if anyone is interested.”
“But you bought that thing for like a hundred dollars and a bottle of twenty-one-year-old scotch,” Bud said. “That’s such a good story.”
“The story won’t go away just because I sell her,” Mo reminded him, her hands coming up to rub at her eyes again.
“But you sailed it down to Big Sur for—”
“It’s okay. Change is good.” Opal cut him off, obviously trying to play mediator.
“We looked inside the Outback before coming up here,” Bud said with a new burst of conviction. “Opal pointed out Annie’s backpacking equipment. You’re too much like me and never wanted to hike. Did you sell all of your things but keep hers?”
This comment hit a nerve. “My steel guitar is out there too.”
“So is Annie’s acoustic,” Bud added, his eyes laser focused on her. “Good thing the parking is validated, I’d hate to see you lose it all.”
“I was gonna bring it in, I just—” Mo stopped midsentence. Her need for her friends to leave so she could be alone again was growing inside her chest.
“We could just leave and go back—”
“No,” Mo yelled, a lot louder than she intended.
Bud jumped a little, his face falling as he studied her. Finally, he let out a big sigh, “Alrighty then, have it your way. We’ll go get it all.”
The room went mostly silent, the only noise the shuffling sounds created by Bud and Opal as they took a few trips to the car and back.
Once finished, Mo watched as Bud opened her suitcases carefully.
He began folding her clothes, putting each piece away in a drawer, pointedly skipping anything Mo packed that was Annie’s.
After a few more moments, Bud found Annie’s jean jacket tucked protectively at the bottom of her main suitcase.
His fingers lightly glided over the patches across the back before he found the one he was looking for.
It was a band patch, Annie and the Strings, from back when Bud was the drummer in their cover band.
Bud studied it a bit longer, finally bringing it to his lips to kiss it lightly.
Mo couldn’t help but smile, even as her chest tightened painfully.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Bud sighed, his eyes still on the patch. “It’s just…”
“Well, that’s ominous.”
“I just—” Bud cleared his throat, putting the jacket lightly on the bed. “I think it’s time.”
Opal, who had just been quietly observing Mo, turned all her attention on her husband. This made Mo sit up in the bed, even as her brain screamed at her to ask them to leave.
“It’s time…for me to move in?” Mo asked, her eyes darting between her friends. “Because I thought I said—”
“Kinda. I think it’s time to move on.”
“From California?” A lump formed in Mo’s throat as she continued to search their faces for answers. “I’m confused…”
“No.” Bud sucked air past his teeth. “Annie.”