Chapter I

December 14, 2007

Sunlight dappled the waters of the bay far below, gilding the lazy swells as they rolled towards the rocky base of the promontory ahead.  The crisp morning air had warmed considerably under the clear blue sky making for a magnificent, if brisk, morning when a breeze washed by.  Alain Ridley stood next to his bike on the side of Conzelman Road, enjoying the view while taking a long drink from his water bottle. After snapping it back into its clip on the bike, he walked the Cannondale to the empty park bench a few feet away and sat with a deep exhale.  As he’d come to expect, the cliff-side view of San Francisco was beautiful. This was one of his favorite spots to sit and take in the world around him, a far cry from New York.

Manhattan had provided him with its own breathtaking views, but they tended to involve mostly impersonal glass, concrete and steel.  Not to mention a lot of grit. Here, Ridley was only a bike ride away from sunsets over the Pacific, the rolling hills and headlands of Marin or the isolation of remote rocky beaches.  His world had certainly changed. It was as radical a shift from his life on the east coast as he could get.

At least outwardly.  Inwardly he still fought, and usually lost, his daily battles for peace, an attempt to allay the pain that had driven him here more than four years ago after losing what had been most precious to him.  Reseeding himself here at the insistence of his closest friend, his brother in spirit if not blood, he’d succeeded, at least professionally, to build a new life for himself.  

Mentally and emotionally were another matter.  He faced those demons on a day to day basis and quite often lost.  Thankfully, today he was coming out on top. At least so far.

Refusing to dwell on it and risk his victory, he turned his eyes southward. 

The morning fog had lifted, leaving only wispy crowns of mist upon the skyscrapers of downtown San Francisco and the towers of the Golden Gate while boats skipped across the waters of the bay.   As the cool breeze wicked the sweat from his body, he closed his eyes and listened for the faint whisper of surf on the rocks far below. No luck. Too many cars on the bridge. If he weren’t on a clock he would have taken the time to ride up to Battery Spencer and enjoy a more isolated and first class view.  Maybe tomorrow. For now he breathed slowly and deeply, enjoying the moment of relaxation before jumping back on his bike to return to the city for his meeting.

He’d just put his head back to allow the sun to warm his chest when tires crunched on the gravel behind him.  A vehicle pulled in and lurched to a stop. “Yeah, Spencer’s looking real good right about now,” he muttered to himself as he heard its door open to the accompaniment of music.  

It dropped in volume as the woman behind the wheel brusquely ushered a kid out of the vehicle, “Go!  Go look at the boats.”

The door slammed but he could still hear the music faintly.  What the hell was it? Swanky and sixties influenced, he knew it, but couldn’t quite place it.

The little kid solved it for him, yelling, “Mr. Incredible to the rescue!”  Ridley craned his neck back to see the kid charge away from the Escalade with his Mr. Incredible action figure held aloft.  The boy, who couldn’t be more than five, circled him while making a non-stop string of whooshing and explosion sounds that left Ridley questioning the kid’s need to breathe.  

After running around the bench three times in a sort of speedy waddle the boy planted himself next to Ridley with a thud.  “Can I sit here?” he asked, his free hand working its way unabashedly up toward his nose.

Ridley smirked.  It wasn’t like he was going to tell the boy to get lost, but the fact that he asked after already sitting was still amusing.  Besides, with his cherubic cheeks and squint eyed smile, the kid was incredibly likeable. “Sure thing, pal. What’s your name?”

“Jake.”

“Jakey, you leave that man alone!” the woman bawled from behind the wheel of her Escalade.   “You don’t talk to strangers.”  

  Mom, aunt or bitchy babysitter, whoever she was, she was so concerned about Jake talking to this particular stranger that she put her window right back up and was yapping on her cell phone again.

Ah, the young Lucille Bluth, Ridley thought.  He knew it wasn’t fair to make a snap judgment like that.  After all he’d never taken care of a kid and she could just be having a bad day.  But damn if her screech hadn’t rubbed him the wrong way.

It had been years since Ridley had even considered being a dad and he was never sure if he was an ideal candidate.  In short term situations he’d always been pretty good with kids, but that was a far cry from making him a capable parent.  He couldn’t help but feel Ms. Escalade probably wasn’t cut from that cloth either. “Is that your mom, kid?”  

The chubby boy nodded while again digging for treasure in his left nostril.

“Gotcha.  Hey, look, my name’s Ridley.  See? Now we’re not strangers anymore.”  Ridley raised his hand for a high-five, but the chubby kid left him hanging.  “C’mon, Mr. Incredible, lay one in there.”

At that the kid of course obliged, winding up like Roger Clemens and slapping Ridley’s hand with his booger befouled mitt.  

Such was Ridley’s luck.

“What’s that called?”  Jake pointed at an island in the bay, never looking up from his toy.

Wiping his hand on his shorts Ridley replied, “What, that?  That’s Alcatraz.”

The name didn’t seem to click with Jake.

“I guess SpongeBob never visited The Rock, huh?”  

“JACOB!  I told you to leave that man alone!”  Ridley nearly jumped out of his skin. Ms. Escalade was pissed now and looming over them both, about to grab her son’s meaty arm with a freshly manicured hand.  Her other hand still pressed her cell-phone to her ear. “Erin, I said hold on!” she hissed into it.

“It’s okay, he’s not bothering me.  My name’s Alain Ridley.” Hoping there was still a crust of Jake’s snot on it, he offered her his hand.  She shook it reluctantly with a disapproving glare and a sneer for a smile before stomping back to her truck.

“So Mom’s a real charmer, huh champ?”  It went right over Jake’s head so Ridley just answered the boy’s earlier question, “Anyway, Alcatraz used to be a prison.”  Ridley put his head back again and closed his eyes, mentally prepping himself to get back on his bike and head home. “Your mom, dude, is she always that cranky?”

Jake was too busy posing his Mr. Incredible figure to look up.  But the answer still came with the unswerving truthfulness of a child, “Yeah.  She yells a lot. Yesterday she yelled at Connie.”

With mock surprise, Ridley turned to the kid, “You don’t say?  And who is Connie?”

“She cleans up at home.”  Mr. Incredible was going to need to see a chiropractor when Jake was done with him.  Ridley grabbed his bottle for a final swig when Jake asked, with the innocence only a kid can muster, “What’s a spic?”

Water sprayed out of Ridley’s mouth.  “Jesus, kid!” He tried to hide that he was laughing, not at the slur, but at how smoothly it rolled off the guileless boy’s tongue.  “Where’d you hear that?”

Jake looked up at Ridley, “That’s what Mommy called Connie.  She said, ‘You stupid sp...’”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I get it.  I get it.” Ridley held up his hand to stop the kid.  What the hell is wrong with people? “Look, that’s not a nice word at all.  Do yourself a favor and don’t repeat it, okay? And tell your mom that the next time she whips it out.”  The boy nodded as Ridley threw a leg over his bike and popped in his earbuds. Finally remembering a good line from The Incredibles, he beckoned Jake to come closer and whispered, “Dude, you’re running with Mr. Incredible?  You need your super suit. Like Frozone. I bet Mom knows where it is.”

The kid laughed and charged over to the SUV, banging on the door and doing his best Frozone impression, “Where is my super suit?”  It sounded nothing like Samuel L. Jackson. But hearing the boy bellow, “You tell me where my suit is, woman!” at the prickly woman gave Ridley a smile of satisfaction.

Ms. Escalade scolded the kid with a shriek, and to his credit, Jake ignored her and kept playing.  Ridley, his work there done, turned on his iPod and cruised away.

The ride over the Golden Gate was exhilarating, with the path vibrating beneath his tires and the wind whipping across his face.  He breathed deeply, tasting the salty tang of the sea air as he kept his eyes focused on the road ahead and never looked down. Heights weren’t his strong suit.  Changing gears, he picked up speed, hoping to be home by eleven-thirty. That should give him time to check his designs and catch a quick shower before the meeting.  He wasn’t looking forward to that particular part of his day.

Being a graphic artist was a great gig.  He wasn’t exactly making a mint, but it was a decent living.  He was being creative (sort of), and he set his own hours while working mostly from home, which worked out great when he tended to have his strongest creative surges at two a.m. after a Xena re-run.  The major downside, the one he’d face today, was in making the sale to a roomful of relative strangers.  Sometimes you had to oversell with a touch of false bravado, and other times you needed to be just flat out full of shit.  Either way it wasn’t something Ridley had ever become comfortable with.

The end of the bridge was just ahead and in a moment he’d be free-wheeling into the Presidio.  With the meeting time drawing closer, anxiety was starting to build, and he decided he’d better run through his presentation in his head before getting home.  He’d be pitching to a handful of retired, and very wealthy, stockbrokers who’d come west to open their own vineyard and winery. They needed marketing material, logos, label designs, website layouts, signage, the works.  From the few conversations Ridley had had with them already, he could tell they were smart when it came to money. They knew when to spend and when to tighten the purse strings, but they weren’t too savvy when it came to marketing and artistic direction.  That’s where he came in.

He was proud of the work he’d done, and knew it was good, something he would rarely admit to, but with these guys he knew he couldn’t let the work speak for itself.  Today the pitch was everything. Over and over, he considered a different opening tack. The key was trying to make sure he nailed it out of the gate, without it feeling over-rehearsed.  

Just as he was starting to get really nervous, Ridley pulled onto Fulton and saw his apartment, a third floor walk-up across the street from Alamo Square.  He hopped off the bike and grabbing it behind the forks, swung it onto his shoulder and headed up the porch stairs.

The front door opened before he got to it, and an attractive woman in her late forties came out.  “Mr. Ridley, we always seem to run into each other this way.”

She must have a sixth sense, he thought, she always knows when I’m coming.  “Morning, Mrs. Mathis.  How’re you?”

“Just fine.  But you’re a mess, look at you!”  She pulled a silky, frilled cloth from her purse and wiped some of the sweat and grime from his cheek, leaning in a little too close as she did it.  It was just Ridley’s luck that of all the landladies in San Francisco he had to find the missing cast-member from Sex and the City.  She came in closer and lifted his sunglasses as she dabbed under his right eye.  “I swear, sometimes I think I’m your mother.” From the way she purred and was starting to press into him, he highly doubted that, unless they were ready to reenact a scene between Oedipus and Jocasta. 

Choosing a joking diversion, as he usually did with her, he fumbled with his bike, nearly dropping it, and stumbled in the door allowing the screen to swing shut between them. ”Oh, now you’re a hundred times hotter than my mom, you know that.  Gotta hit the shower.” He figured that would have her simmering, so turning quickly, he shambled up the stairs with the bike on his shoulder. 

A blinking answering machine welcomed him as he stepped into his apartment.  Was his meeting cancelled? He couldn’t be that lucky. After hanging the bike on its hook, he took a deep breath and played his message.  “Yo!” With his trademark salutation, it could only be Geoff. “Don’t think you can duck me on this one. I’m getting you out tonight if I have to drag you by the nads.”  

Ridley snorted.  Leave it to Geoff to mention his testicles within the first five seconds of a one way conversation.  Geoff had been his best friend since high school and in the more than ten years since they’d met, was one of the only positive constants he’d known through all the turmoil he’d experienced in recent years.  He loved him like a brother, perhaps more than his real brother, but dammit if he didn’t know when Ridley was trying to weasel out of something. And he was looking for any reason not to go to the holiday party tonight.  It seemed that Geoff wasn’t going to let him escape.

His message only piled on more pressure, “I’m telling you right now, Marisol’s going and like I said, she’s always asking about you.  This one’s like a power play, all we have to do is get you over the blue line.” There was a pause before Geoff continued, his voice becoming more serious and gently encouraging as opposed to the ballbusting tone it had had up until now, “I’m serious, Rid.  You’re ready for this. Call me later.” There was a click and the machine beeped.

Great.  First dragging him to a party with a high income crowd he didn’t feel comfortable rubbing elbows with, and now he was adding Marisol into the mix.  That was a Pandora’s Box of issues he didn’t want to open.

Marisol and Geoff worked together, and Ridley had met her at Geoff’s Labor Day barbecue a few months ago.  There were shy smiles at first from across the small backyard, but once they’d found themselves in the same group conversation they’d really hit it off.  She was very sweet, had a robust sense of humor that bordered on blue (which meant her infectious laugh punctuated half the comments that came out of his mouth) and was blessed with a beauty that was clean, natural and luminous.  

To say that their personalities jibed would be an understatement.  There was an instant gravity between them, a special look they’d shared when their eyes would meet and a barely restrained giddiness he felt whenever she’d moved closer to him.  And Ridley, though he’d refused to act on it, wasn’t the only one to notice it. Geoff had told him he was stunned when they didn’t go home together.  

But a relationship wasn’t in the cards as far as Ridley was concerned.  Pangs of intense guilt and a deep fear of loss had seen to that. And he wasn’t a casual sex kind of guy.  Sure there had been a couple of flings, but he’d always felt empty afterwards.

Geoff had pressed the point saying he’d only ever seen Ridley connect like that with someone once before.  But the comment had had the opposite of its intended effect, hitting too close to home for Ridley. He’d done his best to avoid her after that.  It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He would never admit it to anyone, but he was amazed at how close he’d felt to Marisol after just that one day.  Not to mention that he’d found himself thinking of her almost every day in the three months since.

That did nothing to assuage his feelings of guilt over...his eyes automatically darted to a portrait of a young woman on his wall, a woman whose beauty was simple and absolute.  Her smile was demure, her features gentle, her eyes full of love. Ridley remembered painting it, remembered picking out her outfit and posing her. Sense memories flooded over him, he could almost remember the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips… 

He shook his head to clear his mind.  This wasn’t a distraction he needed right now.  There was work to do. That was one of the only things he could focus upon to keep from falling into the spiral of sadness and self-hatred thinking of her always led to.  

Tossing his helmet, iPod and sunglasses onto the bed, he stripped off his shirt, headed into the bathroom, and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.  His chestnut hair was a soggy tangle, he needed a shave and his sweaty face was gritty except for the spot Mrs. Mathis had cleaned. “Jesus, man, you look like an animal.”  With a frown, his eyes dropped from his broad shoulders to his slightly soggy middle. Tightening his chest and abs didn’t make much of an improvement, leading him to make a mental vow to step up his exercise regimen.  “And no more junk food. You’re a Whopper away from man boobs.”   

A glance at the clock reminded him there was no more time to waste, so he showered and shaved quickly, gelled his hair the way he liked it and reached for his toothbrush.

It wasn’t there.  He must’ve thrown it out without remembering.

Not a big deal, he grabbed a fresh one from the medicine cabinet and took care of business before putting on his olive green suit.  After all, this was a dress to impress crowd. The tie was always a problem, so he grabbed three and shoved them in his jacket pocket.  His portfolio was on the coffee table. He opened it, checked that everything was in there (for the fifth time since packing it last night) and took a deep breath.  “All right, man, the designs are good. Stay cool and you can nail this one.”

A horn blew outside alerting him that his cab had pulled up.  After hustling down the stairs, he was grateful to see his cougar landlord was too busy nattering with a neighbor to run over and stop him.  He gave her a pleasant wave as the cab pulled away. It was returned with a salacious smile and a seductive set of bedroom eyes. The look was so suggestive he wondered what would happen if she ever got him alone.  Would it turn into a bad horror/sci-fi movie with her morphing into an alien succubus? He laughed. As if he would ever have the chance to see something that was not of this Earth.