Leaving L.a.. Rexanne Becnel

had been our secret, hers and mine, until Mother had followed us one day. She and her man-of-the-moment had laughed with glee when they’d discovered our hideaway. Then they’d climbed up there and christened it—her term for screwing in a new place. Or in an old place with a new man.

      Whatever. The magic had been ruined.

      But I’d got even. I’d broken a dozen glass bottles on the tree house floor, and when that hadn’t stopped her from going back, I’d set it on fire.

      I don’t know why the whole woods didn’t go up in flames that day. Maybe because it had been raining so much that summer. But the floor of the tree house had burned away, and so had the rope ladder. Most important, Mother never went up in our tree house again. I ruined it for her, just like she’d ruined it for Alice and me.

      Is it any wonder I equate sex with power? Every bit of my mother’s power came from sex, but she’d used it indiscriminately. In the end it had ruined her life and probably that of several men. Certainly it had ruined my life and Alice’s.

      But I learned from her mistakes. She who commands men with her sex rules the world—if she can keep her cool about her. Cleopatra. Helen of Troy. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Elizabeth I.

      One thing I certainly didn’t associate sex with was making love. And I don’t much equate it with pleasure either. I’ve had one or two considerate lovers. But the other boyfriends have always been about themselves and their pleasure.

      Not that I really cared. I’ve always thought sex was highly overrated.

      Tripod started barking, drawing me back from my sour thoughts. Sex had given me this baby, and that’s all that mattered anymore. So I changed directions to where Tripod stood barking for all he was worth at a big, curled-up water moccasin.

      I grabbed my idiot dog by the collar. “I suggest you stick to poodles, if you want to stay alive,” I muttered. For once he listened and followed me down another path that took us to the edge of our property.

      Beyond the woods I saw an old white house, plain and ordinary except for the incredible display of flowers that surrounded it. Wow! When I was really young, an old man had lived here. Then he’d done what seemed like the oddest thing. As old as he was, he’d married this really nice, really old woman.

      At that precise moment my eyes picked her out. It was her, sitting under a sweet gum tree on a wide, wooden bench painted cardinal-red. Twenty years ago her hair had been turning gray. Now it was completely white.

      She was the one who’d taught me how to jitterbug and how to waltz. She’d showed me the samba and the rumba. And the tango.

      I started forward with the first genuine smile on my face since I’d arrived in Oracle. She didn’t notice me right away, not until a huge yellow cat spied Tripod and leaped up onto her lap.

      I don’t know much about Tripod’s early years, but I know he’s as terrified of cats as he is of big trucks and SUVs. No doubt he’d come up on the short end of a confrontation with a cat or two. At least he hadn’t lost a leg to a cat. But that didn’t change anything. He saw the cat, stopped dead in his tracks, and started to bark furiously—from a safe distance of at least a hundred feet or so.

      “Will you please shut up?” I muttered to him. To the old woman—Harriet was her name—I waved. “Hello there.”

      “Why, hello.” She smiled and gestured me over.

      I went. Tripod remained behind, howling like I’d abandoned him on the side of the road. As if.

      “You’re Harriet, aren’t you?” I began. “I don’t know if you’ll remember me but—”

      “Zoe.” Her eyes lit with recognition, and the loveliest smile brightened her sweet, old face. “Zoe Vidrine. I’d recognize that flame-red hair anywhere.” She reached out a hand to me and squeezed tightly. “Even prettier than I remembered. But I could swear someone told me you were…” She trailed off, too polite to finish the thought.

      “Dead?” I grimaced. “That seems to be the story Alice spread around. But it’s not true.”

      “But why did she think you were dead?”

      Because she’s a lying thief, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. “We lost touch for a while. But now I’m back.”