Cici isn’t at the airport to pick me up. I go back inside and call her mobile phone from the payphone, and she doesn’t answer. The phone rings and rings until the answering machine picks up. I listen through the message and say, “Cici, you were supposed to pick me up. Where are you?” The edge in my voice cuts through the line, and I try to soften it. “Show up, please.” I call the condo, but there is no answer. I think about calling Trey, but remember he isn’t coming home until Friday.
I go back outside and wait. I am tired. I am grumpy.
I finally decide to catch a cab to Poway. The driver hops out to open the door for me and then sets off out of the airport at breakneck speed.
“My friend was supposed to pick me up,” I say, after giving him the address on Annabelle Drive.
“Hope she is okay.”
“I’m sure she is. She probably just forgot.”
He nods, but I like that his first thought was for her safety, and I am embarrassed that mine was not. She might have had an accident on the way to get me, which is not unlikely considering the way she drives. That would explain why she didn’t answer her phone. I am a horrible friend. She could be seriously injured, and I’m just thinking about me and how inconvenient and expensive it is to take a cab to Poway.
By the time we turn onto Pomerado Parkway, I am feeling nervous and sick with worry for her. Cici wouldn’t have left me stranded. Something happened to her. The nerves give way to a low simmering rage when we pull up in front of the condo and I see Cici’s shiny, black car sitting there. I let my anger flare as I explode out of the cab and toward the condo. I am more irritated that I was worried about her than the fact that the driver is sitting in his cab, holding my belongings hostage until I come back with $83.25 to pay his fare. I storm through the living room and up the stairs. In our room, Cici is sitting on her bed. She looks up when I come in, startled.
I give her a glare. “What the hell, Cici? You were supposed to pick me up.”
I go to the closet and take my mother’s box off the top shelf, ignoring her questions, her startled apologies. I open the box and take out the envelope where I stash all my money and count out a hundred dollars to give to the driver, adding in a tip. I leave the box on the floor and dash back to the cabbie. We trade cash for my suitcase and purse.
“I hope your friend is all right,” he says.
“Oh she is. Just unreliable and selfish. That’s her car.” I nod to the Thunderbird, and he purses his lips, a frown creasing his brow.
“We all have friends like that,” he says, then drives away.
I stand for a long minute, trying to get my anger in check. Being angry isn’t going to do anything good. Being angry isn’t going to help. It’s done. She wasn’t there when she promised she would be, and I’ve learned an important lesson: I cannot count on Cici to do what she says she will do. I don’t make excuses for her, but I am familiar enough with people who don’t follow through that I don’t want to waste my energy being annoyed.
I tilt my head up, stepping out into the parking lot, letting the Santa Ana winds blow around me. They lift my hair and dry the sweat on my brow, and when I open my eyes, all of my anger is gone, washed away with the small tornado that rattled all the dry leaves and needles across the parking lot and whispered past me like a spirit.
When I make my way back up the stairs and into our room, Cici is sitting on her bed, her feet on the ground, looking strange and uncomfortable. “Are you mad at me?” she asks when I walk past her to close up my mother’s box and restore it to its shelf. She sounds like a little kid, expecting a rampage, bracing for it.
“No, not mad. I’m disappointed.” I’m surprised, but it’s true. “I’m glad you aren’t dead by the road.”
She draws her brows together, looking dumbfounded. “What do you mean?”
“Seriously, Cici,” I say, rolling my eyes and letting my voice drip with annoyance. Okay, so I’m still a little angry at her. “I figured the only way you would not do what you promised to do was if you had an accident on the way to do what you promised.”
She draws her feet up. “I was just out late last night,” she says, as if that should make everything okay.
“You are always out late.”
“I just forgot,” she says, looking small and pathetic.
“Obviously.” I stare down at her. “Didn’t you hear the phone ringing? I called several times.”
“Oh. The ringer must be off.”
I blow out a breath, looking at her for a long, cold second. I grab my purse and turn toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she asks, trying to get some of her normal bravado back.
I turn to look at her with a cold, judgmental eye. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll come with you,” she offers and moves to get up. I put out my hand.
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to be away from you right now.” I turn out of the door, leaving her with her mouth open, staring after me. I have never told her no before. I am down the stairs and out to my car only minutes after getting back from Illinois, driving toward Del Mar. I need the sea. I take the now familiar roads and park on the street. The beach isn’t empty, but there is plenty of space for my solitude.
I take my shoes off and let the sand press against my feet. The salt air tangles in my hair, and the wind, that circular and dancing wind, twines my hair up over my head until I stop in my walk and pull it into a messy braid down over my shoulder. Pieces still fly, but the whole mess of it doesn’t whip across my face to cut through my vision. I walk, letting the roar of the ocean soothe me. I replay my visit to Illinois, lingering a long time in the barn with Dylan, remembering him in such vivid detail. My heart wants him. My heart has always wanted him.
He was so angry at me. I shouldn’t have gone out there, thinking that everything would be fine, that we would just pick up where we left off. I was too late in coming back to him. Narcissist. I say the word aloud, still unsure of its exact meaning, but understanding well enough. He thinks I’m self-absorbed. How can he think that, when nothing ever went right for me?
When the sun begins to drop into the ocean, I sit on the sand and watch the sky flashing orange and purple against the clouds. Dylan isn’t mine. He has never been nor will ever be mine. He never waits for me; he always has somebody else. Or I have somebody else. We never wait for each other.
