Free House of Smoke by JF Freedman

Another moment of impatient listening. “I thought somebody ought to know, that’s all.”
    He punches End.
    “They’ll call Falstaff—maybe.” It’s like no one’s supposed to work during Fiesta, he thinks sourly.
    “You’ve done your good deed for the day,” the second man says, hoisting the transit. “If we’re going to finish, let’s do it, otherwise I’m out of here. There’s a cold margarita with my name on it sitting on the bar at the Tee-Off.”
    He starts marching across the top of the ridge. Ron Ortega glances down at the dock once more, then with a final spit into the dry dust follows him across the crest of the hill.
    Cecil Shugrue stands on the deck at the edge of the dark swimming pool, looking down at the city lights far below them.
    “This is very beautiful,” he remarks. “Peaceful.”
    Kate nods, coming up behind him with an opened beer in each hand from the stash she keeps in an Igloo behind the old pump house.
    “How’d you ever find this old place?” he marvels. He’s the first person, man or woman, she’s ever brought to her secret place.
    “Finding things other people can’t is what I do,” she tells him. “All the way back to Girl Scouts, I always won the most badges.”
    “You must be damn good at what you do,” he praises her. “I’ll take you back-country with me anytime.”
    She flushes. “It gives me privacy when I need it,” she says, feeling sheepish for no reason except her pride. “I live down there,” she adds, pointing vaguely towards the east side of the city, an area which is eighty percent Hispanic. “In an apartment.”
    He smiles at her. He’s a good six inches taller than her in his cowboy boots.
    “Nice to have a private place to run away to,” he comments.
    She ducks her head so he won’t notice that her face is flushing, even though it’s dark out here, the only light the stars over their heads. She’s attracted to him, that’s undeniable, and he’s a nice guy, too, at least on first impression. She thinks she would like to get to know him.
    When they’d had their fill of dance lessons (he wasn’t lying, he was a clumsy dancer; but willing), an internal debate started inside of her—to bring him up here or not, or to go to his place if he asked her, which he didn’t, she could tell in the first ten seconds he wasn’t going to, for whatever reason. They’d stood outside, a breeze coming up from the ocean cooling them, it was welcome after the sweat-producing dancing (sweaty because new, and his proximity to her), they just stood there for a minute or so, neither saying a word. He seemed comfortable with the silence; she wasn’t—something wanted to happen.
    “I’m Fiestaed out,” she said by way of a start. She had to say something.
    “I know what you mean,” he replied. They watched the procession moving up and down the street, kids six wide, drinking beer in defiance of the law and passing cigarettes around. It depressed her when she saw kids smoking, even though she had at their age, younger even. “When I was a kid I was down every night,” he adds, “all day and night. Now part of one night fills the bill.”
    So he’s local. She’s lived here long enough to know that’s a big deal. People talk about being third generation, sixth generation. If you’ve got old Santa Barbara blood you have a special place in the hierarchy.
    “I don’t live in town,” he said then, taking the initiative, “otherwise I’d ask you over for a drink, ’cause I’ve seen all I need to.”
    That was enough of a break in the ice to let her make a move.
    “I know this place up Mission Canyon,” she told him, “my secret garden. It’s up near the top, across from the Botanical Gardens. It’s not that far,” she added with more haste than she would have liked; she didn’t want to appear anxious.
    “I’ll follow you.”
    He walked her to her car, then she drove him to where he had parked his, an old Cadillac from the ’60’s,