Pasadena by Sherri L. Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

night, I dreamt Maggie, not Roy, was in Hell. Thanks to what Mrs. Kim said. That was one for the Hallmark aisle.
    I look out the window. It’s too early for the sun to be up, but my cell phone is buzzing. I check the text. It’sEppie. She and Hank are headed to Malibu in that old beater pickup of theirs, with the Six-Pac camper shell on the back. Their own traveling beach cabana.
Surf’s up
, the text says.
There’s room for one more
.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Malibu, California. It’s a thousand miles away from Pasadena as the car crawls, but only forty-five or so by map. Another Spanish rancho taken from the local natives, Malibu made its living from pottery and movies, not orange groves. Now the potteries are long gone, but the movie stars remain, and so do the wannabes. Traffic jams are epic along the Pacific Coast Highway in warm weather, even on a Monday. No wonder Eppie and Hank practically camp out there all summer long—they could save the planet with the gas they don’t use driving back and forth.
    The truck rattles to a stop. I wake up in the back, nestled in a pile of old blankets and towels.
    This little hut is what makes a Six-Pac a Six-Pac—a gypsy caravan on the back of a pickup truck. During the summer, Hank and Eppie eat, sleep, and screw here. I’d never been inside before today.
    In the dim light from the louvered panels along the door, I can just make out my surroundings—walls hung with bodhi seed beads and plastered with pictures ofeverything from giant, curling waves and fair-haired surf champs to the friendly face of the Indian elephant-headed god, Ganesh.
    A dull ache throbs behind my eyes, in my chest. Time to make it through another day. I press a wrist to my head for support and breathe. Willing the ache to go away.
    Maggie. Maggie. Maggie.
    A gust of wind swirls around the cabin as Hank throws open the door, stirring the heady scent of patchouli oil, Nag Champa incense, and sweat.
    â€œMorning, sunshine!” Hank says perkily. Like he’s a cartoon alley cat on a fence, I throw my shoe at him.
    â€œGrumpy!” he says, dodging it. He pulls two wet suits down from hooks on the wall. “Don’t get up. We’ll change out here. There’s a suit somewhere beneath you when you’re ready.”
    â€œThanks,” I growl, and nestle deeper into the old blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Morning and I aren’t friends, but I’m glad Eppie texted me. Joey has a family thing and couldn’t play chauffeur this morning. Besides which, he’s still miffed at me for the way I acted at dinner last night. But that can’t be helped. I’ll make amends eventually. At least, that’s what I tell myself. But I don’t need to apologize to Hank or Eppie. They’re too laid-backto be offended. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and drag myself into the daylight.
    Eppie and Hank have been together for almost two years now. Maggie used to joke that when they finally got married, they would just tie themselves to each other with surfboard tethers instead of wedding rings.
    Seeing them out on the waves together, it’s not hard to believe.
    It’s an hour after dawn, disgustingly early in my book, but here we are at Point Dume. I sit on the back bumper of the truck, pulling the neoprene spring suit on over my tankini. Behind me, the bluffs rise in wrinkled sheets of stone and scrub. Out on the water, the wonder twins glide in the newly risen sunshine. The little cabin rots around me, salt air slowly eating away at the rusting brown-and-tan exterior. Six-Pacs, as a general rule, should have been shot in the head and put down long ago. But here in sunny SoCal, they live on. Like that farm parents tell their kids all the dead dogs go to. It’s real, and it’s called Malibu.
    I can hear Eppie’s shout of victory as she rides the next wave in. I walk down to the edge of the damp sand to meet her.
    â€œHey,