Part 29 (1/2)
I've really enjoyed chatting with you. I think
you're cute and funny. Would you like to go out
with me Sat.u.r.day night?
He was no Shakespeare, but the note was sweet in its simplicity.
”So what do you think?” he asked.
”I think it's just fine.”
”Really?”
”Really.”
”Thanks so much, ”he grinned, his dimple at last making an appearance. ”Wish me luck.”
I wished him luck, and as I watched him walk away, I secretly hoped his pet.i.te blonde showed up for their date with a zit on her nose.
Ca.s.sie lived in a dollhouse of a bungalow several blocks from the ocean in Venice.
I made my way past her white picket fence, choked with roses and geranium vines, up the short path to her bright red front door. Forest-green shutters bracketed the two windows on either side of the entrance, and a squat chimney jutted out from a deeply slanted roof.
It was like a kid's drawing of a house come to life.
How funny to think of goth Ca.s.sie with her tattoos and nose ring living in this storybook cottage.
She came to the door in black sweats and oversized T-s.h.i.+rt, her purple hair gelled into fearsome spikes. A tattoo of the words Ultio Dulcis Est was visible on her shoulder. What the heck was that? A new rock group? A family motto? A Kama Sutra position?
”C'mon in,” she said, leading me into a tiny living room furnished in a wild combo of white wicker and black velvet. Her walls had been painted a deep purple (to match her hair?) and on her scrubbed pine coffee table, next to a vase of peonies, was a human skull filled with Tootsie Rolls.
It was all very Laura Ashley meets Sid Vicious.
”What a charming place,” I said. ”It's so ... eclectic.”
”Schizophrenic is more like it, but it works for me.”
At which point a piercing scream filled the air. For a frightening instant I thought it was the skull on her coffee table come to life. But it was only her teakettle.
”I was just making myself a cup of tea,” Ca.s.sie said. ”Want some?”
”No, thanks,” I replied, surprised she wasn't brewing eye of newt. ”I'm fine.”
As she headed off to her kitchen, I wandered over to look at some photos on her tiny fireplace mantel.
I blinked in disbelief at a picture of a wide-eyed little girl in a pink pinafore with matching pink shoes, a bow in her blond ringlets. In spite of all the changes the years had brought, I recognized that little face. It was pre-tattoo Ca.s.sie. Who would've thought the goth G.o.ddess had once worn pink Mary Janes?
”Can you believe what a dorky kid I was?” she said, joining me at the mantel, a mug of tea in her hands.
”You were adorable. You still are.”
”My mom was the pretty one in my family.”
She handed me a framed photo of a stunning young woman, pale and blond, smiling into the camera with a far-off look in her eyes.
Something about her looked familiar.
”What a beautiful woman,” I said, gazing down at the picture. ”Was she in the movies?”
”No,” she laughed, ”not at all. She worked in the perfume department at Saks.”
”I bet she's still a beauty.”
”Not really.” Her eyes clouded over. ”She's dead.”
”I'm so sorry.”
”Me, too.”
She curled up in an armchair, cradling her mug of tea in her hands.
”Grab a seat,” she said, forcing a smile.
I plunked myself down on the wicker sofa.
”Tootsie Roll?” she offered, gesturing to the skull on the coffee table.
For one of the few times in my life, I said no to chocolate.
”It's lucky you called today,” Ca.s.sie said. ”You caught me on my day off.”
”You got another job?”
”I'm cutting hair at Benjamin's, a beauty salon in Brentwood.”
”That's terrific.”
”It's what I trained to do. I've got my cosmetology degree and everything.”
”Then why were you working for Joy?”