Chapter 9

[ Faceoff. ]

Our Scooby Gang. Lin was obviously Velma, without the glasses and not looking nearly as nerdish. Emmy, a blonde Daphne. Heather, a female version of Fred. The only unknown was whether I was Shaggy or Scooby.

I scratched my ear. It was itchy.

Lin bounced in to Heather’s house, skidding to a stop when she saw three of us sitting around the kitchen table. Surprise filled her face.

“Um, what’s up, everyone. Emmy, you didn’t tell me anything, just said to come over.”

“Mom knows,” said Emmy. “Everything. Darrien came over here yesterday after he left Jessamyn’s. It was a very, um, interesting day. I’ll tell you details later. Mom’s joined our group.”

I decided to clarify.

“Heather said ‘I’m now part of the Scooby Gang’, but it’s more like she’s now a Scout. A Love Scout,” I said. “I’m not sure a Scooby Gang would do all of the, shall I say, extra activities we’ve done.”

I wondered about the combinations of an overly horny Scooby Gang. Velma and Daphne? Of course! And a threesome with Fred and the two girls? Definitely! Fred and Shaggy, that seemed feasible. Shaggy seems like he’d go both ways, and Fred might have a bit of pent up gayness inside of him. Shaggy and one or both of the girls? Maybe. Or all of them in one big happy orgy? Seems a bit farfetched, but within the realm of possibility.

Scooby Doo? I didn’t want to think about that.

So we definitely had differences from the original Scooby Gang, but we were sympatico with the overly horny version.

“I may know a lot, but I don’t think you’ve told me what the Love Scouts are. Care to fill me in?” asked Heather.

“Yeah, ok, we promised to tell you everything,” said Emmy. “It’s a group I started with Lin a while back, for webcamming.”

“I’m going to assume it involves a small amount of nudity,” said Heather. “Or a lot.”

“Uh, yeah, that was kinda the main point,” said Emmy.

“Ok, I don’t need all of the details,” said Heather. “It might be fun, but I’d rather have the real deal.”

We all laughed.

“You know, regardless of the origins of the Love Scouts, this is the real Love Scouts, to me. Everyone here,” I said.

“And Addy,” said Emmy, “although she won’t be at our meetings in person. Maybe we’ll add her in on some discussions through video.”

Heather motioned Lin to join us at the table.

“Lin, Darrien is going to try talking to Alvaro on Saturday,” said Heather. “Here’s what we’re thinking...”

“Command Center, Agent X checking in. I am surveilling the surroundings.”

“Cut it out, Darrien. You know it’s me, and I know it’s you, smart ass,” said Heather on her cell phone.

“Acknowledged, sir,” I said.

“You’re going to have a head smack acknowledgement when I next see you.”

I laughed and decided that was enough wiseacre-ing for the day.

“Ok. I’m not too far from the Oribe booth. It’s busy at the moment, but the good thing is that Alvaro is here today, and it appears he’s working it alone.”

I waited until the Oribe Produce booth was empty of customers then walked over.

“Hi, Darrien,” said Alvaro with a smile. I smiled back, but didn’t make small talk.

“I found a letter from Jenn four days ago. She told me about the two of you.”

Alvaro immediately went expressionless. He stared at me for a couple of seconds then turned his head.

“I’m not angry,” I said. “Even six years ago I wouldn’t have been angry. But I am surprised, and curious.”

My words weren’t completely true. There would have been some anger when Jen had told me about Alvaro, not so much about whatever sex activity had happened between them, but about keeping it from me. At the moment, though, I was trying to keep Alvaro from being too much on the defensive.

Alvaro stayed expressionless and didn’t look at me. He was going to shut me out or ignore me.

“Alvaro, I’m not going to tell any authorities. You have my word on that.”

He continued looking away.

“We need to talk. There’s a whole lot more going on. And I don’t know all of the details. I’d like to know more. And I know you have no idea whether I’m telling you the truth or whether to trust me, but at least hear me out, then decide.”

Nothing changed. No movement.

“Ok, last thing I’ll say. I trust Jenn’s judgement of people. She would not have become friends with you if she didn’t trust you to be a good, honorable person. So that means I trust you, too. Transitive relation trust. I know you’re smart, you know what that means. And if you knew Jenn well, you know what she thought about me. Please trust her judgement of me.”

I waited. A customer arrived and Alvaro conducted the transaction, but not quite as cheerfully as usual.

“Only because I know how much Jenn loved you, Mr. Lee. That’s the only reason I’ll talk.”

I let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Not here, obviously,” Alvaro said. “Meet me at the Java Fiend coffee house after the market is closed. At one of the outdoor tables.”

I called Heather and told her the plan. I could hear excited sounds in the background.

A small table for two seemed to make the most sense, so I picked one at the far outside of the outdoor seating. It was almost market closing time.

When Alvaro joined me a half hour later, I could tell he was concerned.

“Mr. Lee, I’m not sure why we’re here,” he said. “How do you know I didn’t do something to Jenn? Why haven’t you talked to the police about me, if you know Jenn and I were somehow involved with each other? And how did you find out about us?”

I slid Jenn’s letter across the table to him. He remained silent after reading it.

“Is there anything in there that’s different than what you know or remember? Not to say there’s much specific in there,” I said.

“No.”

“Alvaro, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from telling the investigators about this. It wouldn’t do you any good, it wouldn’t do me any good. I’m basing that on my belief that you didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance. And I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“You’re not. Mr. Lee, I cared for Jenn, very much. I can’t imagine ever hurting her, no matter what.”

“Please go back to calling me Darrien.”

“Ok.

“Talk to me. Please,” I said.

Alvaro looked away for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath, and composed himself.

“Jenn and I became friends during a difficult time in my life. I was sixteen. I thought I was soooo grown up, although now I realize how far I still had to go. And like most guys, that age is difficult between father and son.”

He stared off to a distant point, recalling memories.

“I had a hard time at school. I was smart. I’m still smart. But most of my friends and peers didn’t care that much about school and grades. There was the nerdist group, of course, but they weren’t my group, and they didn’t seem interested in letting me in. Maybe if I had attended a high school in a bigger city it would have been different.”

“But Jenn got it. She understood what I wanted to do, my hunger for more knowledge, my desire to go to university. My father wanted me to take over the family business, and while I like helping out that’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life. My younger brother or sister can take over when they are a little bit older, and they seem to be more inclined to do so. I’m finally getting my father to see that. It’s taken a long time. And Jenn was the first to give me encouragement to take a stand with my father.”

He sighed.

“Nobody else would. None of my relatives, and most of my friends thought I was crazy for not wanting to run a successful, profitable business. Which as you can guess is rare in agriculture.”

I nodded.

“Well,” he said, “to be completely honest we’re not profitable every year. But overall it’s been very solid.”

We didn’t talk for a few seconds, and I tuned in to the background sounds while Alvaro collected his thoughts.

“Darrien, we didn’t mean to become so involved with each other. I know it’s never completely ‘it just happened’ like people say, but I didn’t work at your house because of the ‘hot lady’ in charge.” Alvaro used air quotes around ‘hot lady’ to make his point. “And I don’t think Jenn started talking to me because I was the ‘hot lawn boy’, like in Desperate Housewives.”

I imagined Alvaro mowing the lawn without his shirt. He was tall, at least an inch above six feet, and he looked fit and toned under his clothes. While not Hollywood handsome he was easy on the eyes, with a full head of dark hair and brown eyes that smoldered like a Jennifer Lopez photo shoot.

Jenn would have enjoyed the sight of him working in her garden, very much. In all meanings of the phrase.

“Jenn was standing at the edge of your property, looking out at the ocean when we had our first real conversation, something other than business or small talk. It was a windy day, I remember that vividly because there were a couple of sea gulls right above us, facing in to the breeze, gliding, seemingly motionless.”

“We started talking about the sand, and the vegetation around the dunes, and somewhere in the conversation I mentioned the rhizomes in the beach grass, how essential those grasses are in preventing beach erosion. And she was the first person outside of school to know what a rhizome is.”

“You were away on a business trip, and she was missing you, and thinking about you. And I was having a miserable week. We talked for a long time, at least a couple of hours. Luckily I didn’t have any other houses to work at that day.”

“I came back the next day for more garden work, although it wasn’t necessary. Jenn knew it immediately. She teased me about it, but lightly and nice.”

A sudden noise came from a table on the opposite end of the outdoor area. Alvaro and I looked at the commotion. The people at the table all looked away, trying to be still so nobody would notice them. It didn’t work. It only succeeded in making them more obvious.

“Hey, I know those people. Or at least some of them,” said Alvaro.

He looked at me.

“That’s Heather and Emmy. You were here with them at the market last weekend. What are they doing here? What’s going on?”

I sighed.

“Let’s go join them,” I said.

“Join them? Why?”

“I know this sounds strange, but they know everything. In fact, they helped me figure out how to open the letter from Jenn, which is why we’re here.”

Alvaro stayed seated.

“You’re already trusting me. Please continue a little bit longer. This will work both ways, as you’ll soon find out. It won’t just be a one-way trust.”

Alvaro finally nodded, and we moved over to the table to join Heather, Emmy, and Lin.

“It’s not my fault,” said Emmy. “Lin couldn’t stop staring and so I told her ‘You’re eye-fucking him, girl!’ and she told me to be quiet, and then my mom told me to pipe down, and I twisted around in my seat and then I bumped my water and almost knocked it over, and Lin grabbed it, and we made a lot of noise, and then tried to act like nothing had happened.”

Heather was just shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Much more and she would be permanently googly-eyed.

“Alvaro, this is Lin. You know everyone else,” said Heather.

“Hello, Lin, nice to meet you,” said Alvaro, extending his hand.

Lin stared up at Alvaro, not saying anything. Her eyes were open wide, mouth almost the same, but nothing was coming out.

“Well, shake his hand or say something,” said Emmy.

“Uhhh, hi, meeting you nice,” said Lin, finally returning his handshake.

I’d never seen Lin at such a loss for words, or so flustered. Alvaro smiled, but quickly turned his attention to the rest of the group.

“Now please tell me, what’s going on,” asked Alvaro, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the table.

“ ... and that’s how we figured out the password. And what you just told me about the beach grass chat fits in to these odd events,” I said.

Alvaro sat still for a few seconds, puzzlement on his face.

“What do you think started these strange messages? When did they start?” he asked.

“I said there would be two-way trust, Alvaro. So far you’ve been trusting me to keep this letter and knowledge to ourselves. I’m going to ask you to do the same,” I said.

Alvaro didn’t say anything.

“This all started when I became involved with Emmy and Lin,” I said.

“What do you mean, involved?” Alvaro asked.

“In many ways. First of all friends. But also ... more. Similar to you and Jenn.” I glanced around, careful to keep my words generic and safe.

Alvaro’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” I said.

He looked at Heather.

“She knows,” I said. “Everything. She’s adjusted. Pretty well, I should add.”

“I’m flexible,” Heather said with a coy smile.

I glanced at her but didn’t say anything. She continued smiling.

“Being able to talk, freely, about something personal and meaningful, is, well, liberating. Is Jenn something you’ve kept inside all of these years?” I asked.

“Yes,” Alvaro said. “It’s been hard. I miss her. And I can’t tell anyone.”

Emotions played across his face.

“She...” he started, then stopped and looked around. Nobody was sitting in the table immediately next to us, but there were other tables full of people sipping coffee or reading or chatting.

“Yeah, I know. Not here. Can you come over to my house tonight, or is tomorrow afternoon better?” I asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon. I’m free then. Tonight I need to drive back to the farm and unload. And I need a little more time to let this sink in.”

Emmy teased Lin most of the way back to Heather’s house.

“I love it! ‘meeting you nice’,” said Emmy, smirking and laughing. “Why didn’t you just jump on him and start frenching him?”

“Oh, shut up,” said Lin.

I was doing my best impersonation of an outdoor chef. Chicken wings were grilling to a golden goodness, corn on the cob heating to a steamy delight, zucchini and squash spears charring themselves to perfection, and french bread preparing itself for buttery slathering. Wonderful smells were emanating from the grill, soon to be followed by delectable tastes for all to enjoy. Pitchers of iced tea and lemonade were sitting on the deck table alongside bottles of wine for tasting by the girls and quaffing by the adults. Nirvana. And I don’t mean Kurt Cobain and his band.

Heather and the girls were already on the deck when Alvaro arrived shortly after one. Drinks were served and small talk made while we waited for the food to be ready. Alvaro remained hesitant and guarded, but polite.

Emmy joined me at the grill and whispered in my ear.

“D, I think we need to stir things up, loosen up Alvaro.”

Emmy glanced over to make sure Alvaro was watching, then reached up and pulled my head down for a long, deep kiss, including some tongue play. She slipped a hand down the back of my shorts and gave one of my butt cheeks a playful squeeze.

Heather picked up on the plan and walked over and grabbed my other butt cheek.

“Damn it, Emmy, you know I’d like to get some of that,” she said.

“Nope. Mine. And whoever else we decide to share it with,” said Emmy.