Sea Cliff

Chapter 2

Chapter 2“Going back again today?” Tina asked, teasing Rachael from behind the counter. “Sometimes I wish I had your schedule.”

“I work full days. I can take my office anywhere.” Rachael lifted her laptop above counter height and drummed it lightly with her fingertips. She carried the expensive computer in a flat brown leather envelope rather than leave it in the car.

“Ha! Every day, to the park? What keeps calling you back?”

“Do I need a reason?” Rachael asked, smiling and rolling her eyes.

Tina glanced quickly out the window. “The weather's warming up, but I'll bet spring's not the reason.”

“Thanks for the hot tea.” Rachael never ordered what she wanted. She was a regular and the counter crew knew her preferences. Tina was also a personal friend.

“Hm-m, Greta?” Tina asked. “Someone's drawing you out of seclusion.” She looked Rachael up and down. “You usually wear your grubbies to the park, with that thick head of hair pulled back in loose braids. Today you're all designer. What's his name?”

Rachael was always amused at the pseudonym Tina tacked onto her, claiming she was reclusive, like Garbo. Tina playfully nicknamed everyone and the names usually fit. “C'mon,” Rachael said, “I love working in the park when the weather's mild.” She rolled her eyes sideways at Tina and familiar neighborhood patrons within ear-shot.

“What's on your agenda today?” Tina asked. She was usually busy at the deli. She understood Rachael worshipped her seclusion. “I'm taking a breather. No catering orders today, just the usual cafe business, so I'm giving myself a day off. Wanna go somewhere? Shopping, stretch your legs?”

“Can't on Mondays. I go to my brother's to do his bookkeeping.”

“Oh, too bad. Guess I'll walk the neighborhood for some exercise.” Her disappointment echoed Rachael's feelings about not having a friend around during the few times she chose to do something other than work.

“Come with me,” Rachael said. “You can explore the fields around my brother's property while I do my work.”

“Go to your brother's house? No, I'd feel out of place.”

“You kidding? We'll be alone. He's never home.”

“I'll pass.”

“C'mon, you're always telling me to break out.”

Tina seemed pleased. “Well, it might be nice to do something different. I seldom get out of The City.”

“Can you go now, ready to leave?”

“Anytime, I guess. I'll change into my shorts.”

“Bring a sweater.”

Traffic on Geary Boulevard was start and stop till they connected to Hwy. 101, and then to Hwy. 80, which was a straight shot toward the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge. She managed to get through the access section of freeway quite quickly. Some Mondays, the mid-morning traffic both in and out of San Francisco was as congested as any of the worst rush hours.

On the elevated freeway and skirting the downtown skyscrapers of the Financial District, Rachael glanced intermittently over the skyline. She smiled and let out a long sigh. This was her city. San Francisco represented transition, personal freedom, peace, and opportunity.

Progressive jazz oozed from the radio. Fresh salt air circulated through the sunroof of her two year old Porsche Carrera. The weather warmed passing through the East Bay. On the open road, and not having to think much about the mechanics of driving, Rachael's mind was free to wander.

“You get paid for doing this work for your brother?”

“That's the deal.”

“I know one reason no one sees you much. You're always working. That's how you can afford that house, your gorgeous clothes, and this dream car.”

“You have a lucrative business.”

“And huge overhead.”

“You live well, too.”

“I always wondered how you did it,” Tina said with a wry smile.

“I don't make that much.”

“But you buy expensive things.”

Tina became a friend from the first time Rachael visited the deli soliciting donations for Lisbeth House, a safe center for abused women and children. Rachael withheld telling anyone about her financial picture and Tina never pried. Yet, they had the kind of rapport that allowed them to confide in each other. “It was an inheritance, Tina, quite a while ago.”

“I didn't know.”

“When people know what I have, they think my father was some sort of swell guy.”

“Oh, the a***e thing, yeah, but to leave you an inheritance? Some little part of him must have been good.”

“I tried to get my brother to believe that. He thinks if Dad could have warmed up to anyone else, he'd have left everything to them.”

“No-o!”

Life changed when Rachael moved away from home. Before high school graduation, she went through a bout of depression. “Dad sent me here to stay with Amanda, a family friend, till I got my senses back.”

Tina leaned forward and lowered the volume of the music. “Your senses? Was your dad living in the dark ages?”

“He was so behind the times, had no idea what was going on with me.”

“I'll bet there was a high school sweetheart in the picture,” Tina said.

“I hid a two year relationship with a guy named Rodney that ended two months before graduation.”

“Oh, bad timing.”

“I went through graduation like a zombie.”

“What about friends, someone to talk to?”

“Never trusted anyone. If you knew the way I grew up…” Rachael shook her head while keeping her attention fixed on driving. “I wasn't allowed to date, lost out on friendships, school activities, everything.” She learned bookkeeping from her dad's business of hauling and drayage in the farmlands of the Sacramento River Delta. “I worked every evening after homework and most weekends.”

“Yuk. No social life. I can't imagine.”

Rachael laughed softly. “What are you saying? With your fourteen hour days at the deli, you're no gadabout.”

“While growing up, that's different. How did you manage a relationship that lasted two years?”

“Once in a while I got to stay at my best friend's house overnight. Her parents understood. Dad never figured it out. Celine and I went to dances and parties.”

It was then that Rachael would sneak away to be with Rodney. Painful memories of him flooded her mind as her sleek little sports car sailed in and out of traffic as if safely guided by an invisible hand.

“Hey, Rach, you're not gonna' go soggy on me, are you?”

“Sorry,” she said, though she kept alert to the highway signs that passed overhead. She dabbed at her eyes and wiped her fingertips on her chic navy blue sweatshirt.

“Who was this Amanda lady?”

“Someone my dad knew for years.”

“His girlfriend?”

“I don't think so, maybe business related in some way.” Until Rachael told her about the a***e, Amanda never suspected anything like that. It hit her like a bomb blast. “She had the same perfect image of dad that others had.” What anyone knew was that her dad was a hard worker and a good provider for his family. “Wise soul that Amanda was, she took it in stride.” Rachael smiled again. “She'd do anything to help me. Even took me for a psychic reading.”

“No kidding. What did you learn?”

“Among other things, I'm supposed to have two, maybe three kids.” She chuckled in disbelief.

“You laugh?' She laughed. “That many kids, it'll take time for that prediction to come true.”

“Tina, I don't want kids, don't know if I have enough knowledge to raise them right. Don't even know if I want to be married. Relationships and me don't work.”

“You don't put much stock in the reading?”

“I'm sure Amanda wanted to lift my hopes.” She shrugged. “I'm not sure about marriage. None of the reading's come true.”

“Too bad. Amanda sounds like my kind of person.”

“Amanda was pretty much out there, you know? She wore this ring with a huge Marquis cut stone, must have been 10 carats. Said people thought it was a CZ because it was too big to be a real diamond.”

“And it was?”

“Yep, about the only thing in life I ever coveted.” Rachael snickered. “It was gorgeous.” She smiled secretly to herself. If she were ever to marry, she wondered if her guy would be able to give her a Marquis diamond, even half that size. “Long before I lived with Amanda, she and her guy got engaged. He owned a brokerage firm. He gave her the ring. Two weeks after that, he had a heart attack and died on the street.”

“Oh, poor Amanda. Poor guy!”

“Remember I showed you the little dangly diamond earrings I have?”

“Yeah?”

“They're from the 1940s. Amanda left them for me in her will when she died.”

“She must have loved diamonds. They're classy without being garish.”

“Such beautiful sparklers, but no chance to wear them.”