Free Blue Twilight by Jessica Speart Page B

point across.”
    Terri yawned. “As if you ever have a problem doing that.”
    He was right. I now realized I was an absolute dolt.
    “So, are you still coming with me to Mendocino, or should I let you go back to your dreams?” I gruffly asked, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.
    “Oh, please. The Hulk is about the only one that ever shows up in them anymore. No, if I don’t get up now, I probably never will. Give me half an hour and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
    I was sitting in my Ford, ready and waiting to go, whenTerri walked outside. To my surprise, he looked unusually subdued, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a charcoal gray shirt.
    “Well, you certainly blend in with the weather today,” I noted as he sat down and strapped on his seat belt.
    “Yeah, in more ways than one.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Rather than answer, Terri simply shrugged.
    Great. That made two for two. Apparently, I was annoying everyone that I came into contact with this morning. I threw the Ford into drive and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.
    The fog grew thicker with each passing mile, as if we were being sucked into a conspiracy of clouds. The haze could have enveloped the Ford and swallowed us whole, leaving no trace that we’d ever existed. No one would have known any different. Certainly not early on a Sunday morning, when it seemed as though the whole town was deserted.
    Not a soul was around. That is, except for the troops of homeless wandering the streets like ghosts, their numbers having surged with the burst of the dot-com bubble. Materializing out of the fog, they tapped on car windows and begged for spare change at every red light. Then they floated back into the murk like flotsam, having been discarded by the world with no more thought than that given to garbage.
    So far San Francisco had seen two gold rushes come and go, the latest being the Internet boom. But the good times were now gone, having taken a heavy human toll.
    We sped up Van Ness, crossed onto Lombard, and the Golden Gate Bridge soon came into view. Shrouded in mist, it mystically floated between land and water as if held there by thin air. Its orange-gold towers rose forty stories high, beckoning in a siren song of suicide to all who’ve lost hope.
    California has long been the last stop for many who fearthey’ll never make good; the Golden Gate Bridge their swan song.
    Come all ye who have lost houses, wives, and jobs, experienced bankruptcy, or are flat-out broke and depressed. When everything else fails, there’s still one place left to go: the most popular suicide spot in the world.
    The bridge offers the ride of a lifetime, providing a four-second dive to the bottom with speeds reaching up to eighty miles per hour on impact. It’s said that San Francisco is a city of dreamers and drunks. If that’s true, then the Golden Gate has come to symbolize the end of the trail for broken dreams. So seductive is its call that even the founder of Victoria’s Secret chose to make his final leap off this bridge.
    Perhaps it was such thoughts that made me realize Terri had been exceptionally quiet so far this morning.
    “How did things go last night?” I inquired, wondering if I’d done something wrong.
    “Hmm, let’s see. How should I put this? I wouldn’t slow down while driving across the Golden Gate if I were you. It might prove way too tempting for me to jump.”
    “What happened?” I asked in alarm.
    “It’s what didn’t happen. None of those clubs would hire me,” Terri wailed.
    That didn’t make sense. Not when Terri had been billed as the top female impersonator back at the Boy Toy Club in New Orleans. He’d nailed Cher, Madonna, and Liza better than they usually performed themselves.
    “There must be some reason. Did any of them tell you why?”
    “Oh, there’s a reason all right,” he bitterly replied. “Do you really want to hear it?”
    “Of course,” I answered, though I suddenly wasn’t so sure.
    “It’s because I’m a