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

Sleeping Beauty. Ready to greet the day?” Eppie’s in a spring suit, tie-dyed purple neoprene that cutsoff at her thighs and shoulders. She looks like she’s all muscle. Her short black hair is fanned out behind her like a wet cockatiel. She’s beautiful.
    I smile and shake my head. “Thanks for this, duckling. I kind of wanted to spend some face time with you and Hank. The restaurant wasn’t exactly my finest hour.”
    Eppie shrugs nonjudgmentally and I follow her back to the truck, sidestepping her shouldered board. “Café Chichi wasn’t exactly my scene either,” she admits. “For Christ’s sake, the girl is dead. Do we have to pretend we all like each other now she’s gone?”
    I look sideways at Eppie. “You feel it too?”
    â€œHells yeah,” Eppie says, swinging her board down to rest against the truck. “Maggie girl was the glue that held this little shitbox together. I mean, I love you, babe, and Hank does too, but Dane and Edina? Just looking at them crushes my mellow, you know? Maggie made it work. That’s all there is to it.”
    I lean my back against the side of the truck, the metal warmed by the sun. The marine layer’s not so thick today, the sheets of mist already lifting up and away from the ocean.
    A hundred yards out, beyond Hank and his waiting board, a couple of dolphins wheel by. I point them out and Eppie grins. “My sisters,” she says. “We play sometimes.”
    I think about my sister. Maggie. The only one there ever was.
    Eppie hops up into the back of the truck. “You want a drink?”
    â€œSure.”
    She tosses me a can of orange soda from a cooler. “Sorry, out of caffeine.”
    â€œNo problem,” I say, and wipe the rim with the hem of my suit.
    A moment later, Eppie emerges. “You don’t usually take us up on the surf, girlie. So, what brings you to Mother Ocean this fine day?” She plops down on the back bumper. I join her. Eppie tucks her legs up to her chest, resting her arm on one knee. She drags a clove cigarette out of a pack on the floor of the truck.
    â€œWant one?” she asks. I shake my head. “Yeah, me either. I quit months ago, but what can I say? I love the smell. They’re not as strong if you don’t light ’em, but still. Gives a girl something to do.” She alternates between holding the cigarette between her lips and swigging her soda. We perch there, watching Hank beat the ocean into submission one wave at a time, punctuated by the occasional laugh from Eppie, who keeps an eye on her man.
    â€œWhat brings me here is the same thing that brought me home. Maggie Kim,” I say.
My Maggie.
    Eppie gives me a glance and shakes her head. “Man, I knew you were close, but you weren’t, like, in love with her or anything, were you?”
    I smirk. Me in love with Maggie. The idea. “I loved her, sure,” I admit. “But I wasn’t
in
love. Last I looked, you didn’t have to be a lesbian to want justice for a dead friend. And you don’t need to be screwing someone to want to understand why they died.”
    Eppie holds her hands up in a mea culpa, cigarette and soda dangerously clasped in the same hand. “Hey, hey, no offense. It’s just, you came on kind of strong last night and had old Tallulah’s panties in a bunch in nothing flat. And I see the way you and Edina give each other the stink eye. Maybe
you
didn’t want to bonk Maggie, but I’m not so sure about that one.”
    She takes a fake drag off her cigarette. “She was stealing Maggie’s clothes, you know. One piece at a time. I recognized them. Maybe it wasn’t a sex thing, though. Maybe she just wanted to be a Maggie Kim impersonator.”
    For an instant, I can see it, a stage full of drag queens dressed in Hepburn black and Onassis veils, all smoking filterless cigarettes. Edina Rodriguez is at the end of the