Left Behind Ch. 02

She squeezed out a couple solitary orgasms, and puffed again, and slept.

SUNDAY

Sunlight poured in the studio's celestory windows and fists pounded on the front door as Rosa dragged herself back into consciousness. ¡Hijole! What the fuck was this? She threw a thin cotton robe over herself and limped to the door.

Serena stood grinning in the portal, dressed in creamy hiking shorts and outdoor blouse and a thin turquoise necklace matching her ear studs. Damn, Rosa blearily thought, how could the girl smile at an hour like this!?

"Rise and shine, cousin. You're coming with me. No arguments. C'mon, it's Sunday, your chance to start meeting people. Wake up now, get dressed, put on some good walking shoes, get ready, I'll drive us, c'mon, andale, get moving! The day's waiting for you."

Rosa shakily performed her morning ablutions and dressed in a long light harlequin madras skirt and blouse and her thickest-soled sneakers. Walking, huh? Well, she managed to walk to the bathroom and back, just barely.

In the kitchenette, Serena had brewed a pot of coffee. It was only Costa Rican, the best the local Safeway carried. She would take Rosa to a better roaster soon to stock up on good Chiapas beans. But right now, just pour in the caffeine, with a splash of good vanilla and a dash of raw sugar.

Rosa gingerly plopped at her little table and gratefully inhaled the black brew. She managed to force down a breakfast burrito. That was the best she could do on short notice.

"Don't forget a hat. Yeah, that one should do. We'll get water later."

Rosa was almost awake when she plopped into her cousin's Celica. She had a few questions.

"So, where are we going?"

"Just wait. You'll find out soon enough."

"Yeah, thanks," Rosa scowled. "Okay then, if that's a secret, how did things go with Nguyen last night?"

A dreamy expression washed across Serena's smiling face. "Mother of God, that man is HUNG! And he knows what to do with it! Knows how to use his tongue, too. Guy's not that wonderful as a person, but he's a hot sex toy!"

Rosa wondered, where is she going with him? She hesitated while she framed her question. She really didn't know her cousin that well. Should she seem critical, or supportive, or just curious? She chose her words carefully. "Do you have any plans for him?"

Serena sighed, and laughed, and sighed again. She had wondered this herself.

"My only plan right now is just to get the best screaming orgasms possible while I have him around. No, we're certainly not long-term. We're, we're..."

"Fuckbuddies is the word you're looking for, right?"

Serena sighed yet again. I sound like a leaky valve, she thought. "Yeah, that's about right. Look, I'm trying to maintain some dignity, some self-respect. It's hard, HE'S hard, he makes me feel so good when I'm with him. It's the rest of the time that..." She trailed off.

"...that you worry about," Rosa said. "You're not clavado, nailed-down in love, right? You're using him. He's using you. Who gets the most out of it? Who stands to lose the most?"

"I know, I know -- I've thought about all that. Yeah, I know basic finance and economics too, with cost-benefit analysis and that sort of shit. My price is my dignity. My benefit is, oh fuck, just pure pleasure, while it lasts. I know better than to think there's any love involved. At least, my head knows that. My heart, it's not so sure. I'm kinda fucked, aren't I?"

Rosa reached to touch her cousin's hand on the gearshift lever. "You're okay, girl? You're keeping it together?"

Yet another sigh. "Yeah, and I'm best when I don't worry myself into a frenzy. That's what I like about... what we'll be doing today. You'll see."

Serena's destination was a tree-shaded old wooden Catholic church near downtown. Serena groaned (not sexually). "Oh no, I don't do mass," she complained. "No confession, none of that. Why are we here?"

Serena giggled. "Don't worry, you don't have to go inside. This is where my hiking group meets."

"Hiking group?"

"That's right. It's a Sierra Club group, the Sonoma Sierra Singles, a bunch of people who like to walk and talk and stuff. We pick a local destination every Sunday, and we carpool. There's all sorts of parks and forests and nature preserves around, all levels of exertion."

Rosa groaned. "I'm not ready for lots of exertion right now. Easy, okay?"

"Relax, "Serena laughed, "we're not climbing Mt St Helena or Sugarloaf today, don't worry. There's a nature preserve in the hills above Frisbee U; we should see the start of fall color, and there's nothing really steep there. You'll like it. And the people. A mixed crowd, lots of interesting folks, and they can all walk and talk and chew gum at the same time."

Serena parked in a lot adjacent to the church. The cousins joined a small gathering under the old oaks. Rosa saw maybe a couple dozen people of all ages from late teens to early old-fart-ness. Dress ranged from torn jeans to LL Bean, but everyone wore good walking shoes or boots and wide-brim hats.

Rosa recognized two teens: Sammy and Lily! They both wore knee-length black denim cutoffs. Sammy's bright red long-sleeved tee contrasted with Lily's turquoise button-down blouse. Silver bangles dangled from her ears. The young couple saw the older cousins and vectored toward them for an exchange of hugs and cheek-pecks.

"Hey guys," Lily sang, "glad you could make it!"

"Hell yeah, it'll be a good day," Sammy said. He waved at a young man with long surfer-blonde hair. "Dave brought his van so we'll ride with him to the trailhead. Hey Dave, ya got room, right?" Sammy turned to Rosa. "Dave's in some of our PT classes. He's a good dude."

Dave's tight black training shorts and thin tee showed off his toned musculature. Rosa gazed as his well-defined abs and drooled just a little.

"Yo! Good to see you all." More hugs and pecks. Rosa stood back. "And hello to you. I'm with these goofs too much of the time. Name's Dave Dillon." He extended a long-fingered hand to Rosa.

"This is my cousin Rosa," Serena said. "She's just moved here. You'll probably see her around a lot."

"I certainly hope so." His handshake was gentle, not suggestive, not creepy, but not shy. Rosa felt a little flutter. Pretty good looking -- for a kid, she thought, slightly guilty.

People wandered into their little cluster. Names were tossed around. Too many names. At least Rosa caught the identies of their other riders.

"Here's Ernie Siciliani, and the Callaghan girls, Catríona (we call her Katie) and Deirdre." Serena introduced Rosa to a lean swarthy man in his mid-40s and two tough-looking stocky redheads about her own age. All wore LL Bean-type outdoor clothes, stylishly bland.

A tall young black woman in a denim jumpsuit and combat boots strode to the van. "Mornin', folks. Hey Dave, got room for one more?"

"Sure thing, Ayesha. For you, always." They hugged briefly. "You know the others. Our new friend here is Rosa." The women exchanged nods.

Riders settled into Dave's passenger Econoline. Serena seated herself next to Rosa and briefed her on the day's target. Other riders threw in comments.

"Wow, I didn't know you were so into natural history," Rosa told her cousin after hearing an informed synopsis of the geology, hydrology, ecology and human history of the Fairfield Osborne Preserve and surrounding area.

"It's all about awareness, situational awareness," Serena said. "We live in actual places, not just abstract fantasylands. We're part of the patterns on the Earth. We need to know our footprints and impacts, know the consequences of what we do, if we want a livable environment."

"That's right," Ernie growled. "There's vital stuff we need to know. Where does our power and food come from? Where does our water come from, and where does it go? Where do our cast-offs go? That's the 'patterns' part of it. And we should know what was here before us, and what's around us. Volcanoes and tsunamis shaped this landscape. The valley floor here," he gestured, "used to be tidal flats and tule marsh. Native Americans manicured the foothill oak groves long before European contact. This ecosystem is complex and fragile. Break it, and we're fucked, pardon my language."

Ayesha interjected, "People live locally but depend on remote networks, nets that are tenuous, thin, brittle, stretched. A power cut, or a pipeline or dam break, and people suffer. Should we depend on electricity from thousands of miles away? There's a major geothermal power station at The Geysers, just a few miles north. The state power grid could go down and we'd still have juice here." She ran fingers through her short Afro. "Hopefully."

Serena added, "But that power only flows if the geyser system has water. Too much groundwater pumping, or not enough rain, and they run dry -- no juice. There's a project to try to get cities and the county to pump treated wastewater back into the geyser basin. Do that, and we get more power, cheap, and we don't just dump wastes into the Russian River or the Bay. It's a win-win solution."

The conversation continued till they reached the Preserve's parking area. Another half-dozen cars and vans filled with hikers pulled into the lot. Their grand clusterfuck broke into small groups of three or four, groups that constantly shifted as they walked the shrubby foothill parkland.

As Serena said, they were a mixed lot. Professors and students, programmers and a plumber, merchants and mechanics, all sharing common interests: the outdoors, yacking, and checking each other out. This was a Sierra Singles group, remember?

Rosa found herself especially drawn to surfer-blond Dave and tall black Ayesha. Dave was about twenty; Ayesha was maybe a couple years older. They coalesced into a comfortable walking-and-talking team. Serena or others sometimes joined them for a time before buzzing off to the next cluster.

"So what's your story, Rosa?" Ayesha had rolled up her jumpsuit's legs to her knees. Long, stately strides showed her toned calf muscles.

"Starting a new life, I guess." The trio stopped at a turn in the trail and gazed over the shallow valley below and the low coastal hills beyond. "This'll be my third life..."

"So you've got six more to go, right?" Dave joked, easing past a boulder.

"Huh! So I'm a pussycat?!" She snorted. "At that rate, I'd live, what, 160 years? I could patent this as longevity serum. Yeah, there was my first life as a kid in Arizona, and the second life as a wife in Jalisco, and my third life... I don't know, don't know what, don't know where, but it won't be what's gone before. Got some major changes here."

Rosa thought about the transition between those first and second lives, her time at university in Guadalajara, where she met Roberto, her Bobo. She did not tell her companions about her days as La Reina de las Chupadas, the BlowJob Queen. How would she transition between her second and third lives?

She diverted the topic. "What about your guys? Most people around here come from elsewhere, right? Have you been here long? Doing anything interesting?"

Ayesha nodded northward. "I was born just up the road in Santa Rosa. I've been around here all my life; it's pretty okay. You'll probably see a lot of me -- I live about a mile from you two, and I work in the data center with Serena. You're getting a job there, she said."

"I sure hope so. I'll file my application tomorrow; that's part of starting over. Lots of paperwork tomorrow, ay yi yi. Everything hasn't gone digital yet." Rosa pulled out her Android phone. "Too bad I can't just tap my way into the future."

Ayesha laughed. "You've got that right! We just sort of crawl towards the future while it sneaks up and bites our butts. Anyway, I took a couple years of computer classes at SRJC, the junior college by my home, and then came down to Frisbee U for database engineering. I've only worked here a few months and I'm getting job offers from all over. I like it here, though; I'll stay if I can. Got the family and friends nearby, y'know?"

"What would it take to lure you away?" Dave asked, sniffing at dried leaves plucked from a low shrub.

"Hmmm, let's see. A good man, or ten million bucks, or... maybe some magic. Or a really bad smog day." She laughed. "That won't happen, not with the winds we get here." She inhaled deeply. "Damn, I love this air!"

"If you haven't lived in the San Joaquin Valley, you don't know bad smog days," Dave said. "I grew up in L.A.; we moved to Fresno when I was twelve. It wasn't terrible then -- but now? You need a gas mask or oxygen tank. I jumped when they offered me a scholarship to Frisbee State. This is heaven for me."

"You're going for Physical Therapy, right? Like Sammy and Lily?" Rosa stepped carefully over a washed-out gravel trail section.

"They're on the Sports Therapy track. I haven't decided yet. I want to do something medical, as long as it doesn't involve too much blood. I'm not nuts enough for psych, or dull enough for radiology, or steady enough for dentistry. I'll think of something." He winked. "But massage classes sure are fun."

Rosa envisaged his strong young hands working on her body. She shivered, just a little. I am still a married woman, she reminded herself; don't start anything yet. Soon, soon...

Their conversation drifted along in past, present and future modes. Serena joined them occasionally.

Rosa was curious. "Hey cousin, how come you're out here today and not with Nguyen?"

Serena sighed. "He said this is one of his days to watch a family store. It's every Sunday. I can almost believe him; I've had to do that too."

Rosa probed. "But you have doubts, huh?"

"You'd better have more than doubts," Ayesha broke in. "Guy's a real horndog and general butt-pain. I wouldn't trust him to walk me across the street."

Dave teased her. "Would you trust ME to walk you across the street? A wide street, anyway?"

"I'd trust you to drive me to the market for a case of beer," the black girl laughed. "And to not make smart-ass comments behind my back. Anything else, well, who knows?" She swatted his shoulder.

"Well, don't turn around. You look damn good from behind," Dave smiled.

Ayesha swatted him again. "Honkie perv!"

Serena wandered off to another walking group. The trio's chat drifted along like the dust beside their ankles, light and insubstantial.

The groups reached the trail's high point and stopped for views, rest, water, granola bars, and high-fives -- someone had monitored a game the noble 49'ers won, and another game the vile Raiders lost. Joy in Mudville, yes.

The hikers regrouped for the loop down to the parking area. Sammy and Lily attached themselves to Rosa. Both looked happy and only a little sweaty. Lily gave Rosa a hug. "Great place, yeah?" She looked around. "Good people, too." Sammy squeezed in. "Group hug!" They mashed together and laughed.

The sun dropped toward the horizon; everyone lowered hat brims to save their eyeballs. Nature guidebooks were stuffed back into pockets and daypacks. Conversations wound-down into lazy chatter. Hours of easy walking slowed even the youngest and sturdiest.

"What's up now? Other than food, that is," Rosa griped. "I've gone all day on just snacks."

"We have our traditions," Lisa said. "When we're out this way, we go for fish'n'chips at a place by the university. We have favorite pizza parlors and brew pubs all over the north bay. Of course, some of us aren't supposed to buy beer for another couple years, so we depend on the kindness of friends, right?" She elbowed Rosa in the ribs.

The older woman laughed. "That sounds good. I haven't had good pescados y papas fritas for a while."

Ernie had joined their little group. "Y'know, that's Ranger terminology. FISH and CHIPS -- it means, Fighting In Someone's House and Causing Havoc In Peoples Streets. Remember that when we munch our badass food, hey?"

Sammy rolled his eyes. "Yessir, Captain." He turned to Rosa. "Captain America here is in the Army Reserves when he's not abusing physics students. You should see his college office. He has a motto on the wall, says: I ONLY PROMISE YOU TWO THINGS: DEATH, AND DESTRUCTION. He's tough with grades."

"Damn straight," Ernie said. "Death and destruction are what comes when you fuck up your calculations, pardon my language. Carpenters have a rule: Measure twice, cut once. I have a rule: Check your work, and again, and again. Then have someone else check it. Out in the real world, failure is not an option. Fail in class instead, and learn to do it right." He sipped from a Gatorade bottle.

Death and destruction are what happens if you fuck with the cartels back home, Rosa thought. Then she thought: home? Guadalajara; Jalisco; Mexico -- they are not 'home' any more. And neither is Tucson, nor Petaluma. What was that old Boll Weevil song? "Looking for a home, gotta find a home." I am just another boll weevil, she thought, and giggled silently.

Just a gaggle of giggles -- chatter, laughter, singing, and exchanges of phone numbers -- all the way to the trailhead.

A few hikers took off right away; they had destinations other than the fish'n'chips parlor. The score of remaining sweaty, tired, hungry, and thirsty adventurers piled into vehicles and drove for refreshments. They commandeered most of the eatery's outside tables. Food and drink flowed.

Rosa shared a table with Dave, Ayesha, and the Sierra Club coordinator and nominal group leader, a pale skinny man in his late twenties wearing worn Columbia trail clothes. He tipped his Seattle Sombrero back on his head. His long walnut hair was tied in a ponytail. His nose was sharp and menacing.

"Hi, I'm Steve Parker. Sorry I didn't get to talk to you earlier, Rosa. You thinking of being a regular with us? Glad to have you. Just because we're Sierra Singles, doesn't mean you can't bring real close friends. Some of these guys are married. To each other, even." He waved at the other tables. "There's no dues, but we're always open to contributions. Hey Juanita, mas cervesa, por favor, sí?" he called to a passing waitress. "Beer sure goes fast, don't it? Slides right down."

"Steve's, like, our general manager," Ayesha said, sipping an Anchor Steam even darker than her skin. "When he's not selling electric components, he plays slide trombone with local bands."

"Yeah, just a bit of the old in-out, in-out," Steve leered, with exaggerated air-trombone gestures near his crotch. Groans, whistles, and catcalls rang out from nearby tables. "Sorry I can't hang around, got a gig tonight. Hey, at least the Sunday night crowd doesn't get too drunk. Usually." He quaffed his beer, slapped down green cash, and walked off. "See y'all next week."

"Don't let him fool you," young Sammy said from an adjacent table. "His brass ensemble plays classical chamber music at St Rose's parish hall every Sunday evening." He sipped his illegal amber beer. "And he knows how to drink. That's why he rides the bus home."

Dave waved his legal root beer mug. "You can tell the designated drivers; we get A&W instead of Anchor Steam. Cops around here have no sense of humor."

"You want to know the rules about drinking and driving in Mexico? Pretty simple," Rosa said. "When you speed past los Federales, don't wave a tequila bottle at them. They'll only want some of yours." She took another sip of her Modelo Negro. "And if you get in a wreck, well, God must have wanted it to happen. Just a different way to look at the world, sí?"

"Speaking of looking at the world," Dave asked, "anyone want to go to the coast to watch the sunset? I can get us to Bodega Bay in plenty of time, and we'll be back in Petaluma before too late."

Rosa, Ayesha, Sammy, and Lily all thought this a good idea. Ernie and the Callaghan sisters demurred; their places were taken by three from another carpool. "Call me when you get back to Petaluma," Serena told her cousin. "I'll be near." She waved good-bye and returned to talking with Ernie.