“What about that place on Hazzard you wanted to go before? You wanna go there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Are you going to help me?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t go back to the store because of Leon. That’s where he’d go for sure.”
“We could go to your place,” she suggested.
“I live at my store,” I said.
“Oh.”
“But there’s a motel down at Venice Beach take us. It’s cheap and there’s the ocean outside. The waves help me think.”
“Let’s go there.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over mine. And damn if my fingers didn’t curl around hers.
4
THE MUSSEL BEACH INN was half a block up from the water, perched on a small hill. You couldn’t see the ocean in the darkness, but you heard and smelled it just fine. I left the sliding doors open because of a false sense of security I had. I mean, Leon wouldn’t find us at the beach if he searched for seven years.
The lights were down and the linen curtains were waving in and out from our little cement patio. Every now and then the moon appeared in a curve of the flowing fabric.
Elana told me that she was from Georgia, that her mother had brought her to live in L.A. when she was only twelve. But then, just three years later, her mother moved to Jackson, Mississippi, with a merchant marine who later abandoned her.
“She left you on your own when you was just fifteen?” I said, sounding more concerned than I actually felt.
“We didn’t see eye to eye, my mama and me,” Elana said rather callously. “And anyway, I had a boyfriend I was livin’ wit’ when she left.”
I said that that was sad and tried for a kiss, but she turned away before I got there.