Luckily, she nodded off when the Fiat started rolling. All the months I’d been at Desert Homes Realty and the many happy hours Kassandra and I had spent together, I had never, ever seen her so wasted. Something must have happened, besides finding out Miss Fortune’s real name. Kassandra’s address on her driver’s license said Scottsdale. Scottsdale? She told me she lived around Seventh Avenue and Northern. Then I understood. She never changed the address at the DMV. What now?
“Kassandra, what’s the name of the complex where you live?”
She twitched the left side of her mouth, licked off some drool. “Live? Who? We all die, don’t you know?”
“Kassandra, don’t go back to sleep. It’s me, Monica.” I shook her shoulder while she tried to wiggle away. Thank god it was dark enough so even a passerby couldn’t see what was going on in the car. “Your condo, where is it? What is the place called?”
“The happiest place on earth.” She hummed the Disney jingle. My patience was running short. I wasn’t good when it came to reasoning with stubborn adults.
“Pay attention. When you go home, what does the sign on the entrance of the complex say?”
“Monica, you’re sooo funny. Signs don’t talk.”
“True, true, but people do. So talk to me and tell me where your condo is. Okay?”
“Okay. It’s easy to find, on the corner of seventh and Northern. That’s why it’s called Northern Star. See? On Northern, the star.”
She kept on babbling and pointing to the dark sky while I quickly entered the name on my phone. Sure enough, the map showed we were close. Finally, something positive. I put the Fiat in gear and headed West on Lincoln that quickly became Glendale Avenue once we entered Phoenix.
The complex was well lit and looked rather nice but deserted. I had no idea where to go. The leasing office was obviously closed. How was I going to figure out which of the two three-story buildings was Kassandra’s?
“He even remembered the building,” she said, out of the blue. “He said it makes sense. It’s Building A because I’m definitely an A. And he wasn’t talking about my cup size.”
She laughed out loud. I veered right to Building A. Progress. Now I needed a floor and then an apartment number. I headed to a parking spot marked Guest when Kassandra said, “It’s better if you park on that other guest parking; it’s closer to my condo.” Bingo.
Maybe the alcohol was wearing off because five minutes later she handed me her car keys with her condo key attached. Building A, second floor, apartment number 19. I offered to help her get into bed. She answered by rolling her eyes at me. Good. That was the real Kassandra. She wasn’t going to bed. She said her head felt funny, and she was allergic to hard liquor.
When I left she was brewing herself tea in her spotless, white kitchen. I would be back in the morning around eight so we could get her Kia and she could still make it to the office by eighth-thirty.
It was barely eight p.m. by the time I hit Shea Boulevard but it felt more like midnight. And to say that the evening had been fun would be like saying that the bulls volunteer their time in the arena. On the way home, my stomach kept rumbling and I kept remembering all that mumble-jumble Kassandra kept spewing about living and dying and the man saying Building A, but none of it made any sense. Better clear my mind and hope I could steal some food from Brenda. What if Officer Clarke was there? Well, better practice calling him Bob because I wasn’t about to keep on missing meals due to his frequent visits. How long was she going to drag out the ‘we are just friends’ charade?
All the lights were on at Brenda’s place, and I mean all of them, porch lights, front lawn lights. You get the idea. What was going on? I knew what wasn’t going on... hanky panky or cooking. My stomach had been grumbling loudly for the last thirty minutes. I drove up the driveway. Brenda and I parked our cars in the same building, but a center wall divided the two parking stalls. We each had our own garage door with electric opener. From her side she could get to her house though her laundry room. On my side I had access to my smaller place through my kitchen. In general, it was a convenient solution, except for tonight. Her garage door was up and her Honda Pilot was parked half in the garage and half sticking out on the driveway. So it would be a little tight for me to get to my garage, but okay. Not the first time. And here in the back all the lights were also on.
Dior must have heard my car. He was barking and pushing against the screen door. Where was Brenda? Would this night ever get back to normal? I squeezed my Fiat into my space, my eyes pausing on the spare tire as I got out. I hoped it would hold up until I got Kassandra back to El Chorro to get her Kia. How did I get myself into such idiotic situations? I clicked my garage closed and marched over to Brenda’s back door.
“Okay, okay Dior, I love you too. Where is your mama?”
“In here.” Brenda’s voice
