He did a graceful pirouette, shears still held aloft, and gave her a beneficent stoner smile. His eyes were fixed in a permanent squint, but slices of glacial blue peeked out through a brown terrain of wrinkles. “Mellie! What do you know?”
“I know the hedge is looking good.”
“You think so?”
“I do.” She had always wondered how he was able to prune things to perfect symmetry time after time considering his enthusiasm for cannabis, but asking the question would have been unforgivably rude.
“Thanks. I’ve been reading online about this guy who calls himself The Plant Whisperer. He says if you empty your mind and listen closely, the plant tells you what to do. I think there might be something to it. It’s the same with the waves. They tell me what to do, too.”
“That’s a nice philosophy. I have a hard enough time getting animate objects to be honest with me. The wind’s picking up—are you going out?”
“Most definitely. Surf’s supposed to be going off at Zuma.”
“That’s good?”
“It’s great. Hey, if you ever want to try it, they call me the Dalai Lama. I can get a quimby charging in a day or two, no lie.”
Whatever that meant. “Thanks, but I’m a landlubber. I hate sand and the ocean freaks me out. You can’t see what’s underneath you.”
He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “The men in gray suits, they freak a lot of people out. If it makes you feel any better, I only know one dude who got lunched by one. But he lived, just lost an arm, and he still surfs. The sharks were here first, we have to share.”
Melody gave him a pained smile. She had no intention of sharing a body part with a prehistoric fish. “Yeah, I think I’ll stick to dry land.”
“That’s cool, no pressure.”
She stooped to gather a few fragrant rosemary clippings. “Can I take these?”
“Help yourself. Put some in your tea. It’s good for your liver.”
“My liver could probably use the help. Thanks, Teddy.” She waved goodbye and unlocked her apartment. It wasn’t much, but it was hers. There were polished hardwood floors and fresh paint, and in her humble opinion she’d done a decent job pulling it together on the cheap with flea market bargains and one very long day at the colossal IKEA in Burbank, where she’d spent most of her first paycheck and all her tips from Pearl Club. It was a step in the right direction. Progress.
But for all the progress she’d made in her accommodations and her life, Sam had forced her to acknowledge all the confusing white noise clamoring in her brain. He’d done an excellent job reminding her to listen to that finely tuned inner voice that warned of danger and could sometimes save your life. It was why she’d finally run away from Coachella Valley, why she carried pepper spray, why she had a little snub-nose gun stashed beneath her mattress.
But Ryan had muted that voice with his illusive charm, and now she had a black eye and a decision to make. How could you tell when a dream might become a nightmare?
A little dose of selective fear …
But weren’t there mitigating factors to every risk, even dangerous ones like dating a man of means with an inconsistent temper? Why else would people helicopter ski and base jump and free dive if they didn’t ignore that voice in the interest of something that improved their life?
Her phone kept squawking at her—texts from Ryan, none of which she read—so she turned it off, along with the fierce temptation to see what he had to say. He could stew for a while longer. Maybe he could stew forever, she wasn’t sure.
She went to the kitchen, put the rosemary clippings in a vase, and decided to brew a pot of proper coffee. Not that Sam’s offering hadn’t been kind, but it had tasted awful. As she was filling the carafe at the sink, she noticed her curtains fluttering over the kitchen table like gauzy butterfly wings, taking flight on the breeze. Had she left the window open? She didn’t think so.
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise and sting like tiny, gnawing teeth. If somebody had been in her apartment, were they still here? Would she even know since she’d done such a good job of silencing that voice in her head?
“Goddammit,” she hissed, gathering strength and then stalking through the apartment, armed only with pepper spray, refusing to be a prisoner in the only sanctuary she’d ever had.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she made an exhaustive search of each room, looking for anything out of place—the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and finally the bedroom. Her nervous, heavy breath stopped up her throat when she saw the vase of long-stemmed red roses sitting on her dresser, two dozen of them. No note, just the roses, but she knew they were from Ryan, an offering on the altar of absolution.
She felt a brief flush of happiness, then guilt for being such a malleable mark, then all of that was usurped by a creeping anger. Ryan didn’t have a key; her door had been locked, so that meant he’d pried open her kitchen window and climbed in to leave his apology bouquet. There was nothing charming or sweet about that. It was an unforgivable breach of her previously inviolate space. She could never leave her windows unlocked again. He was taking things away one at a time. That was the way it worked.
Abusers are controllers. Abusers are manipulators. Prince Charming gives you a black eye, then breaks into your apartment and leaves you roses. You forgive him, capitulate, and the next time it will be worse.
Her warning system had been reawakened and it growled in the back of her brain, but she decided to keep suppressing it, at least for now. The roses were just too pretty. Live in the moment, appreciate what you have.
And she did, marveling at the twenty-four perfect blooms. She fingered a few of the soft, velvety petals, then shoved her face in the bouquet and sniffed deeply. They didn’t smell like much—she’d read somewhere that you had to sacrifice certain characteristics to hybridize for beauty and durability and get long-stemmed roses like these, and the first to go was fragrance. But she didn’t mind that they were Frankenstein flowers with no scent—she’d never gotten roses from a boyfriend before, not even a single, cheap stem from a kiosk or a convenience store.
A rap on her front door dispelled the thrall of the roses and her grip tightened on the pepper spray. Fear and paranoia were bedfellows. Once they had you in their command, they didn’t relinquish their dominion easily.
“Mellie, it’s Teddy.”
She sighed in relief, let her shoulders unbunch, then went to the door. A split second before opening it, she pushed down her sunglasses from their perch on her head and covered her black eye.
Teddy was holding an enormous handful of rosemary clippings. “Extras, if you want them. I don’t know how much tea you drink, but it’s good for the bath, too.”
“That’s sweet, Teddy, thank you.”
He swept into a dramatic bow. “At your service.”
She hesitated. “Did you see anybody come into my apartment last night or this morning? Or leave?”
He frowned, creating a rugged corrugation of creases on his forehead. “No way, definitely not. You’ve got a problem?”
“No. Not really.”
“If you have a problem, I’ll help you.”
“It’s nothing, somebody just brought me flowers when I wasn’t home. I’m the only one with a key, so I think they came in through the window.”