I am busy all though the fall. The Dillard’s Look Book was a money maker and my little stash of cash continues to grow. I should probably open a bank account, but I like having the money real and tangible in my hands. I was featured twelve times in a twenty-four-page spread of the Dillard’s ad. That means that on every single flat, when the pages were opened, I was there. My images were the second most used. I made eight hundred sixty dollars for that gig alone. The jeweler’s fall commercial is running nightly, and I made six hundred from them for an afternoon of filming. It’s insane. Sean has secured me a spot in the Delphi Swim catalog, and I’ll spend four days during the second week of December on the beach in Mexico, expenses paid, for that shoot. I signed up for acting classes, at Dom Devlin’s suggestion. He’s a pretty big deal in San Diego, and is involved in casting several shows filmed here and in LA.
The leaves never change, and the heat from the desert continues to blow down over the mountains. I wait for fall; I wait for some whisper of a cool breeze, or of rain. I’m tired of all the sameness. It was Halloween before we got anything that felt remotely like fall. One morning in early November there is the first hint of winter in the air. Frost coats the bottom half of the windows, and when I look out, there is frost on the windshield of the cars. That is all the seasons I’m going to get, and I know that later today the sun will be hot, and it will feel something like early September back home.
I stand outside in my bare feet, which are freezing against the prickly, dried-out grass, and I do a little dance because something from home has come to visit. When the chill begins to creep up past my ankle bones, I go back into the warmth of the condo and set the coffee brewing. I pick up the phone to call Trey, but six a.m. is too early to call; his classes are later in the day, and he likes to sleep in. He’ll call later, and maybe he’ll come home next weekend. I miss him so much, but we talk on the phone almost every day. He’d bought me a plane ticket right after he went back, so September, to come up to see him. It was a great weekend. I let my mind roll back over it, the nights in his apartment, the long mornings spent lying in bed. He is the one.
I’m doing well in my own classes. Even though I quit the job at the hospital, I’m doing the classes, since I had already paid for my classes. I’m doing the best I can to keep up with them. Psychology is my favorite, but tough. I didn’t know that I would like trying to understand what makes people tick.
I spent yesterday evening down at the house on Torrey Pines with Petra and Jenny. We had dinner, and she read my psych paper while Jenny and I sat outside. She was reading a book called The Agony of Alice, about a girl searching for a role model, and I can relate. I couldn’t help but remember how I’d felt as a kid. Maybe that’s just the nature of life, and not about me at all. When Jenny finished the chapter, we left the swing to join Petra in the kitchen.
“This is very good,” Petra had said. She was sitting at the island with my paper stacked in front of her. A complex mix of emotions made up her facial expression, impressed, maybe even surprised. “Very insightful.”
“Thanks.” I had reddened at her praise. She is an amazing woman with a sharp and intelligent mind, and for her to say something I’ve done is good is praise indeed.
“It almost seems that you’ve had some experience.”
“Really? That’s good, right?”
“Yeah. It’s good. I would look at this . . .” I leaned over and she flipped through the pages. “When you talk about psychological types, I think there’s more to it.”
“Okay. I’ll work on that.”
She had summed it up with, “Other than that, it’s really good. It should be an ‘A’ paper.”
I breathe. Letting the memory fade, thinking about her statement, “It seems that you’ve had some experience.” My mother was a case study of neuroses. I’ve had maybe a little experience.
Nobody knows all the stories of my life, certainly not Trey, but I suspect his mother has figured out the frame. We don’t talk about the past. Trey only cares about now. I filter my life for my audience.
The coffee is finished brewing, and I pour a cup and stand by the sliding door, staring out at the ice crystals on the fence and the grass, and even on the lower section of the palm tree. There is a line where the sunlight is crossing the patio, and as the sunlight moves, the frost recedes. California is so different from Illinois. An Illinois frost would last till noon, but this California sun is hotter, and the frost doesn’t have a chance. I won’t even have to scrape my windows when I go out.
Back upstairs, I tap on Darla’s door, opening it, and leaving her a cup of coffee on her nightstand. She groans, but thanks me, rolling in her bed. “Interview today,” I whisper. “Good luck.” Darla is looking for a promotion and she’s on her second round of interviews. I think it’s a sure thing, but she has been pretty nervous.
“Thanks,” she says but into her pillow, and so her word is muffled. In the room I share with Cici, I unfold fresh jeans from my dresser before I notice that Cici isn’t in her bed. I stop for a second and think back: was she there when I got up? I don’t know. It was full dark then, and I had tried not to wake her. Cici does not rise with the sun. I go into the hall, expecting to pass her coming back from the bathroom. I don’t. I start the shower and let it warm while I step back to Darla’s room and ask if she has seen Cici. I realize I didn’t seen her all day yesterday either. The day before?
“No,” Darla says. “She’s not here?”
I shake my head.
“Probably stayed over somewhere,” she says, unconcerned. “She’s a big girl.”
I go back into the bathroom to take my shower, trying to remember when I last saw her. I could call her mobile phone, but she would be angry if I woke her up. I’ll call later. Darla’s right; Cici is a big girl. Cici is right; I am not her mother. I roll back through my mind, trying to remember if she told me she was going somewhere. A month or so ago, she went to Tahoe with Amber, John, and Sage. She said something about going to Vegas, I think, but can’t really remember. She tells me things when I am half asleep, exhausted from classes and work, in the hours closer to dawn than dusk. I can’t remember if Vegas was a trip she had already done or one she was planning. Probably planning, I think, and I let it ease me as I dress, because she isn’t missing. She’s just not here.
