Baja Zuma

Chapter 9

LISA'S P.O.V.

My father, who makes his living as a construction contractor, had inspected our house and decided there was no critical structural damage from last week's quake, so I was not afraid to sit on the balcony overlooking the paved driveway my brothers used for their sports contests.

I nestled into a corner of the balcony to observe the two-on-two basketball my brothers Michael and Nick were playing against my brother Christian and their friend Roger. We had not been introduced, but I recognized Roger as someone who had hung out with my brothers in the neighborhood a few times before. I kept quiet in hopes they would not notice I was watching them through the balustrade. The Sun had already sunk below the Pacific, but the dwindling light was enough for the guys to continue their basketball game.

From that balcony perch I had once seen the fabled green flash, an optical phenomenon witnessed by few, where the last sliver of the setting Sun's disc over the ocean flashes bright green for a mere two seconds when weather conditions are just right.

Now I was watching the boys try to impress one another with between-the-legs dribbles and behind-the-back passes when movement in my peripheral vision startled me. It was our gray striped cat Lightning, craning his head over the roof eave to stare down at me. If roofs could talk, the stories our roof could tell! Many a night in my bedroom on the top floor I had heard frenzied thumping from up on the roof: Lightning in flagrante delicto with that saucy little Siamese named Moo-Ling from across the street.

"You always be tossin' up a brick," Michael taunted Roger after Roger clanged a twelve-foot shot hard off the rim.

"Yo, you straight outta Compton?" I felt like yelling at Michael, but I kept silent and hidden from them.

They were starting to bend over with hands on thighs in exhaustion, so I figured they were getting dehydrated and would soon be going in the house for something to drink. I went down to the kitchen to wait for them, relieved that Katherine was nowhere in sight. Though she denies it, she habitually tries to out-flirt me when she sees me talking to a new guy I am trying to get to know. Always aims that toothy smile of hers at a guy, and raises the pitch of her voice. And giggles over anything remotely witty a guy happens to say. It was not just my imagination; Mom had noticed it and had spoken once to Katherine about it—not that Mom's talk had changed anything for all I could tell.

As the four basketball players came into the kitchen I poured an iced tea for myself and offered another to Roger, letting my brothers fend for themselves. In the posh voice that I imagined to be the way a high-end real estate agent would talk, I said, "You're Roger, right? May I give you a tour of Castle Cimorelli while you are taking a break from your game?"

He nodded and took one of the tea glasses from my hand. Perfect opportunity to practice realtor technique and flirting skills at the same time! "You noticed the flagstone out by where you were playing basketball? Imported from Torano in northern Italy." Was there really a place called Torano? Not sure, but it sounded like it would be a charming place if it were real, and that was all I cared about in the moment. I glided my fingertips sensually along Mom's tchotchke shelf as we walked through the great room.

I led the way to our living room. I pointed up and said, "The coffered ceilings give this part of the house an elegant character, don't you think? This south window frames our view of Anacapa Island nicely." I sat on the loveseat and patted the seat to invite Roger to sit next to me.

As we sat drinking our teas I pointed to the opposite wall. "Our family's coat of arms is hanging up there," I told Roger. In actuality it was bogus—just some random elements of heraldry Michael had meticulously inked on a sheet of paper one day when he was bored. Dad had found it amusing enough to frame it and hang it on the wall as a conversation piece. I hadn't examined Michael's thrown-together coat of arms in any great detail before now, but my mind is pretty nimble if I do say so myself, and I figured I could improvise an exposition of it on the spot to impress Roger.

"See that crest with the stars on it?" I tapped Roger's arm three times as I counted out the stars, "One - two - three of them." I was pleased to see goosebumps rise on his skin where I had touched him. "They represent a triumvirate of Florentine Renaissance family guilds, the de' Medicis with their banking, the da Vincis with their artwork, and the de' Cimorellis with their musical instrument guild. Our family was on the way to a grand fortune when that Stradivari guy came along and flooded the market with cheap knockoffs of our family's instruments."

"I had no idea. Your brothers never told me about that."

"Ah, they're just modest that way."

"What are the roosters for?" Roger inquired, pointing out another feature of Michael's drawing on the wall.

"Ah yes, the roosters rampant on the royal diadem. Well you see, uh, Guglielmo de' Cimorelli was a monk who was in charge of raising chickens for use by his monastery. The roosters are a reminder of his humble origins. But he was clever and had a natural flair for church politics, and so he rose through the church hierarchy. Late in his life a conclave in Rome elected him pope. He chose the papal name Leo the Eleventh for himself."

"Wow! Hang on a minute though, you couldn't be a descendant of him, could you? Because clergy were not allowed to marry and have families."

"Some of the popes in those days were known to have an active night life, if you catch my drift," I said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Go big or go home—that was Michael's attitude on building up his physique at the gym, and I think he would have been pleased to hear me taking that same approach toward his coat-of-arms drawing for my purpose of impressing his buddy Roger. I was in the middle of my next impromptu story about an aspect of the heraldry when Nick stepped into the room and said, "Hey Roger, let's get back out there and continue the basketball game before it gets too dark."

"Pleasant meeting you, Roger," I said to him as he walked away with Nick.

"You too, uh, Lauren?" he said hesitantly over his shoulder.

"Wrong sister. I am Lisa."

"Sorry about that. I was just going by the descriptions your brothers gave me of what the sisters look like," he apologized. "Well anyway, hope to see you again sometime Lisa."

I sighed, and finished my tea.