2. Los Angeles, 2019-3
387 Words
“Who the hell is he?” Clara spoke into her cell, standing on her balcony overlooking Malibu Bay.
Donna spoke calmly. “I don’t know, Clara, but I’ll find out.”
“I want his job.”
“Let me find out who he is first. There may be a way around him.”
Clara drew the smoke from her Turkish cigarette into her lungs.
“All right. I’ll wait.”
“I’ll handle it, Clara. I’ll call you tonight.”
Clara smiled at the confidence in her manager’s voice. Donna was one of the few people she respected.
“Tonight, then.”
Clara laid her phone down and stared out over the Pacific. The water was a dull gray, reflecting the gray of the smog trapped over the bay. Her cigarette was lightly laced with hashish, and Clara could feel tendrils of warmth relaxing her muscles despite her fury. Her mind started to unclench as she drew in another breath of the sweet-smelling smoke. Donna would handle the little prick, whoever he was.
She slid into the Jacuzzi on her deck as Margherita brought her a glass of fruit juice.
“Thank you, Maggie.”
Her little maid smiled, flashing the gold tooth that Clara had paid for. “You are welcome, miss. Would you like some lunch?”
Clara leaned back against the pool’s padded edge and sighed. “No, thanks.”
The older woman walked away on silent feet. Clara saw Margherita’s son, Paolo, emerge from the bushes along the side of the house with clippers in his hands. His chest was slick with sweat. Paolo looked like some Toltec god emerging from the underbrush.
She smiled and spoke to him in Spanish. “Your flowers are beautiful, Paolo.”
The young man said nothing but laid his gardening shears down carefully on a cedar bench. He moved with the grace of a panther as he knelt beside the pool and took her hair in his hand. Clara offered him a draw from her cigarette. He took it and cast it over the balcony rail.
“I wasn’t finished with that.”
Paolo said nothing. He drew her up onto the deck to lie beside him. His hands were hard on her body as he peeled away her bathing suit and started to make love to her on the sun- drenched deck. She marveled at the wonders of her life, that this beautiful man could make love to her on hard cedar planks that were so well-lacquered, she never got a splinter in her back.
- Writer
