Below is the opening segment of a chapter which takes place towards the beginning of the novel Face Control which I will be editing this summer. It is the third in the Chesolle Trilogy and the story relies heavily on the long fabled story in book one, The Tiger and the Sparrow.
That being said, this excerpt has entirely new characters and it takes place in California rather than England. Enjoy.
Then
she said, “I’d scratch your balls off but you’d like it.”
Carolina kept her eyes on the
counter, running a clean cloth over the clean surface. Ten minutes ago tears of
boredom would have at least have given her something to clean. Now.
He said,” Com‘ere and let’s find
out.”
The man had spit despite where he
must have come from, thought Carolina. She smiled to herself as the door
slammed. Exit diva stage left. The doorbell clattered to the floor.
Giving
up the cloth, Carolina checked the clock while she looked for something else to
do with her back to the man, privacy. If such a man could be embarrassed she
would pretend not to notice.
When
she turned back, the bell was on the counter, his hands cupped its sides. Cuffs
of a designer sweatshirt framing papa bear paws. She would use this description
in the next story she told her niece.
Rare was a visit from a resident of
Ocean View Drive to her brother’s bar. Though the distance was less than a mile
from the gravel turn off, usual patrons were neighbors and friends and spoke the
same language. This papa bear was white with a thick neck and watermelon skull.
And the woman had been beautiful in the decorated glamorous way of people from
the beach villas, not a wealthy housewife, someone important.
“Tequila,” he said. “You old enough
to pour?”
The smirk came readily. “Depends who
you ask,” she said, withdrawing to leave him with his drink, polite save. Soon
she would need to check on the baby.
“Don’t shuffle down that way. I’m
talking to you.”
Carolina refilled his glass and
fingered it. “Got any diseases?”
“The usual.”
She tossed the shot, cleaned her
lips with her tongue and found his sweat.
“More?”
“Double.” His eyes followed her
breasts as she poured. “You want a real job?”
“I’ve got one.”
“I pay better than the shmuck that
owns this joint.” He was serious in the way men were when they were used to
making irreproachable decisions, the kind nice girls might notice but have the
sense to walk away from. Two more shots, maybe less, and such a man would come
at her across the counter, hungry.
“That your girl that just walked out
on you?” she asked.
“She wouldn’t be as good as a hot
Mexi chick like you.”
Carolina set the bottle on the
counter. “No thanks.”
Ten
minutes earlier, when she had been a background extra in a lover’s quarrel, she
might have answered differently, for the hell of it, just to see. But now her
brother was at the door with his arms full, and his wife was pulling it open
against the wind.
As
wives went, Carolina could have hoped Hector would have used more imagination.
As a couple they lived always on the verge of collapse, straining from one
perceived hardship to the other, survivalists who destroyed success in order to
live as their parents had lived—forever foreigners in a disappointing land of
promise.
The
wife clutched Carolina’s arm and with her back to the bar hissed in Spanish,
“He’s the serial killer!”
Papa
bear the serial killer would not make such a plausible bedtime story, thought
Carolina. He looked too desperate, more likely a victim than a killer. She
observed this remembering that less than a minute before her impression had
been almost the opposite. “That was a movie,” she said.” He’s just a bad actor
having a bad day.”
He
watched her out of the corner of his eye, as though sensing that they were
discussing him.
With
a shrug, she dismissed the tequila color rising on her cheeks and leaned into
the stairwell. “Hector Miguel, I’m going to be late!”
He
shouted back impatience with her neglected duties. The baby was more important
than the bar, but the bar paid for the baby. Her job paid for neither. The
actor’s eyes followed her over the lip of the tequila bottle. She felt him
without meeting his gaze. How long it had been since she had been noticed in
that way, Carolina could not remember. Remembering would have revealed too much
and given those eyes too much significance. She was late.
“Hector,
I’m leaving now!” She shrugged off the
wife’s arm, winked at the actor as she walked past. His stool creaked when his
weight shifted to watch her.
