China Lake (16 page)

Brian shook his head. ‘‘In the car. Now.’’ He red-lined the Mustang pulling out of the parking lot.

‘‘Well,’’ he said. ‘‘That was certainly fun.’’

He turned and smiled, and my heart sank. I knew that smile. It was ghastly, all teeth and vinegary eyes, the smile that told you how truly pissed off and resentful he felt. He really was running ragged, with all the sharp bits grinding just under the surface.

Driving back to the airfield to pick up my Explorer, we passed an elementary school on base. Fire trucks were parked on the playground, cordoned off behind yellow police tape. Near them stood two dozen people swathed head to toe in green protective gear with air tanks on their backs.

Startled, I said, ‘‘What’s that—the hot zone?’’

‘‘Hazmat training.’’

‘‘At a school? What in God’s name does the cafeteria serve for lunch?’’

‘‘This is a weapons testing facility. How many hazardous materials do you think I carry every time I lift off the runway?’’ He snorted. ‘‘I mean, air warfare is purposely lethal.’’

I was remembering what Isaiah Paxton said to me about testing plutonium and anthrax, his assertion that the navy threw Christians to the isotopes and microbes.

‘‘Have you been vaccinated against anthrax?’’

‘‘Six shots over eighteen months. You shouldn’t look so shocked. The world is a nasty place. Grow up and smell the coffee, sis.’’

I gave him a slow, cold look. We cruised along the schoolyard fence. One of the people in protective gear watched us pass, face hidden behind a plastic faceplate.

I said, ‘‘Why don’t we back up and unkink whichever string is tangled so tight?’’

‘‘After experiencing the past twenty-four hours, you think I’m the one who’s tangled up?’’

‘‘Brian—’’

‘‘It’s simple, Evan.’’ He chopped his hand against the dashboard. ‘‘Here, good guys. There, bad guys. It’s my job to see that it’s them, not me, who ends up in a smoking hole."

Famous last words.

I don’t hate guns. Like most military brats, I grew up around firearms. My father kept his .45 at home, and his friends occasionally returned from overseas with souvenir weapons dubiously acquired in foreign alley-ways or from opposing forces. They’d let us shoot them at the firing range. I know how to sight a target down the barrel of a rifle, and how to steady my hands against the recoil of a semiautomatic pistol. The kick you get when you pull the trigger is literal. But it’s a rush I didn’t want lying dormant in my house. I didn’t own a gun and didn’t care to.

The argument flared up after dinner that night, starting with a quarrel about Jesse. Brian and I were doing the dishes, getting ready to take Luke to see the new Disney movie, when he phoned. I told him about all that had happened, and talked to him about seeking a restraining order, and mainly tethered myself to the sound of his voice. He said he’d gotten a line on something interesting, a family who had quit the Remnant and might talk about the church. After a while I put Luke on the line and went to help Brian load the dishwasher. We could hear Luke’s end of the conversation,
yeps
and
uh-huhs
, Jesse doing most of the talking. Brian had his back to me, scrubbing a skillet.

He said, ‘‘I don’t want Jesse applying for any restraining order.’’

‘‘Please don’t dismiss the idea. It protects you and gives you leverage in court.’’

‘‘I mean I don’t want him doing the work. I don’t need a lawyer in Santa Barbara. I’ll get someone here.’’

‘‘I just thought—’’

‘‘It’s my responsibility. I’ll handle it.’’

‘‘Jesse’s a good lawyer.’’

‘‘Jesse isn’t Luke’s father. I am.’’

I stood there with soapy water dripping from my hands. ‘‘Brian, I have never for a moment forgotten that.’’

In the living room, Luke giggled over the phone. ‘‘That’s
so
gross!’’

Brian made a wry face. I felt a gnawing sensation in my stomach.

Brian and Jesse rubbed each other wrong, had from the start. Wires had crossed the minute they shook hands. Brian and Tabitha were visiting, and we met Jesse for dinner at the Palace Grill, where you shouldn’t possibly have a bad time. There’s Cajun food, a voluble crowd, and Louis Armstrong on the stereo. Tabitha was in a winning mood, feeding Brian bites of her crawfish étouffée, saying, ‘‘Baby, you’ll love this.’’ The sign on the wall said, LAISSEZ LES BON TEMPS ROULER.

But the good times hadn’t rolled. Jesse had, and that was the problem. As soon as he said hello, Brian’s self-assurance withered into awkward diffidence, with typical symptoms—staring, fumbling for words, patronizing Jesse with praise.
So, you’re a lawyer? Quite an accomplishment. You have a house, your own place? That’s great.
And Jesse responded, shall we say, sharply. He wielded the sarcasm like a cannon.

Brian, looking at the wine list, quietly asked me, ‘‘Does Jesse drink?’’

Jesse said, ‘‘Not tonight, he’s driving. But he talks.’’ He picked up his fork. ‘‘He even feeds himself.’’

And later, caught staring at the wheelchair, Brian said, ‘‘That looks real, uh, sporty. You must play a lot of basketball.’’

‘‘Not a day in my life.’’

I jumped in. ‘‘Jesse’s a swimmer. He was NCAA champion in the two hundred butterfly his senior year.’’

Tabitha said, ‘‘Wow, awesome.’’ Brian looked at him, perplexed, and Jesse knew he was trying to work out the timing, wondering,
Before or after the accident?

Jesse said, ‘‘Yeah, you have to watch it or the chair drags you to the bottom.’’ He waited a beat, ensuring that Brian was disconcerted. ‘‘And you would not believe how rough things get in the wheelchair diving competition.’’

There was a stuffed alligator on the wall. I wanted to stick my head inside its jaws and tell the waiter to snap them shut.

Afterward, Brian was riled with me for being riled with him. ‘‘It was a legitimate assumption.’’

‘‘It was stereotyping. Jesus, wheelchair basketball? Get a clue.’’

‘‘The guy has a chip on his shoulder the size of Nebraska.’’

‘‘Maybe you just bring out the worst in him.’’

‘‘Right. Leaving the restaurant he says, ‘Stick with me; you’ll get the best parking spots.’ ’’ I stifled a laugh. He said, ‘‘He’s a riot. Human napalm. Just watch that he doesn’t start turning his grudges on you.’’

Now Brian stood at the sink, scrubbing a pan that was already clean, hot water turning his hands pink.

I said, ‘‘Brian, nobody is trying to take your place in Luke’s life. Nobody ever could.’’

The skin on his face was tight. ‘‘I know you mean it. But you have no idea how hard it is, no idea at all, what it’s been like to spend this year ten time zones away from my little boy.’’ He dried his hands, threw the towel on the counter. ‘‘No idea.’’

Luke hung up the phone and bounced into the kitchen. ‘‘You know the dead whale? Jesse told me they pulled it off the beach with a boat, only these two guys on Jet Skis wanted to see it up close, and crashed into it.’’ His eyes were popping. ‘‘Blubber all over them.’’

Clearly it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Brian said, ‘‘That’s great.’’ He shooed Luke out, telling him to go get ready for the movie.

He said, ‘‘Ev, I can never repay you for taking care of him this year. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been totally lost. But I’m here now, and I have to deal with this situation. So we’re going to do things my way.’’

He checked that Luke was out of sight, and went out to the Mustang. He came back with a brown paper package in his hand. ‘‘This is for you.’’

He unwrapped it. It was a pistol.

‘‘Where’d you get that?’’

‘‘Go on, take it.’’

‘‘Forget it. That thing’s not legal.’’

He pushed it toward me. ‘‘You want protection? This is it.’’

I raised my hands to ward it off, shook my head, and turned on my heel. He said, ‘‘Evan, don’t be stupid, ’’ and that did it. I headed for the door.

‘‘Forget the movie. I’m not going.’’ I went out, slamming the door behind me. He yanked it open and followed me outside.

‘‘No, Brian. I’m not taking it.’’

‘‘Evan!’’

That was when I felt my car keys in my pocket. Without another word to him I hopped in the Explorer and gunned backward out of the driveway.

I can only wonder what would have happened if I had stayed.

I headed for the boulevard, radio blaring, head pounding.
Don’t be stupid.
I accelerated. Above me arched the night sky, gravid with stars. They were numberless, shockingly bright, with that diamond clarity you can see only in the desert. How dared he? How dared Brian try to bend my life to suit his views? His own life was swirling around the rim of the toilet.

Before I knew it I found myself outside the Lobo, the bar Abbie Hankins had told me about. The gravel parking lot was filled with pickup trucks. The marquee promised, GOOD STEAKS LIVE MUSIC. Sharply amplified rock ’n’ roll boomed through the door. I had twenty bucks in my back pocket. I parked and headed in.

The place was packed, the dance floor hopping. The room smelled like eau de Budweiser. The color scheme was neon beer sign and cigarette smoke, the dress code Harley-Davidson T-shirts or Western wear, with silver belt buckles the size of land mines. In the back, cue balls cracked at the pool tables. The band was hammering through ‘‘Brown Sugar’’ with rough, seductive energy.

The ‘‘good steaks’’ claim was false advertising. What the Lobo offered was that Friday night small-town thrill: ninety-nine-cent pitchers and an insistent back-beat.

Just what I needed.

From the pool tables came a call. ‘‘Hey, woman!’’

Through the smoke I saw Abbie, vivid in a hot-pink T-shirt, waving a pool cue in the air like a battle standard. I worked my way toward her. Bent over the table next to her was a big man with chestnut hair and thick glasses. He fired off a shot, banging a ball into a side pocket.

Over the music Abbie shouted, ‘‘My husband, Wally.’’

He shook my hand. He had a kindly face, with proportions that reminded me of a Saint Bernard, and I could picture him in his dentist’s office, soothing anxious kids, revving his drill.

Abbie said, ‘‘Let me finish this game.’’ Pushing her glasses up her nose, she strode around analyzing the configuration of balls in front of her, chalked her cue, and proceeded to run the table. When she stretched across the green felt to slam home her final shot, Wally said, ‘‘Shit!’’ and walked away.

She threw back her head and laughed. ‘‘He’s always the same, a total two-year-old unless he wins.’’ She waved me toward a table. ‘‘But he’s a maniac in bed, and I get free dental.’’

Back in school she had been wild, willing to try anything, usually when she was slick with chemical lubrication. This was how she had settled down.

Dropping onto a chair, she said, ‘‘So, what’s your story? What did you do after I got you into trouble senior year? You a drag racer, or hairstylist, a nun, what?’’

The music thumped through the bar, the band now into ‘‘Sweet Child o’ Mine.’’ I said, ‘‘I’m a writer.’’

She slapped the table. ‘‘How cool is that! Anything famous?’’

Wally came over holding three beers. ‘‘Good game, killer.’’

‘‘Honeybear, Evan’s a writer.’’

‘‘No kidding,’’ he said. ‘‘Have I heard of you?’’

This question is inevitably a prelude to my embarrassment. Still, when he asked what I’d written I told him
Lithium Sunset
.

‘‘No. Really?’’ I nodded. He leaned back and called to a man at the bar, ‘‘Chet! This is the gal who wrote
Lithium Sunset
.’’

Chet was a chemical engineer in a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and he had friends, rocket scientists. They crowded around the table. They had questions.

‘‘The mutants. When they hunt underground, do they use echolocation?’’

‘‘Why doesn’t the rebel girl use her psychokinesis to blow up the armory?’’

‘‘The girl, Rowan?’’ said Chet. ‘‘She’s hot.’’

Well, what do you know? I had a following in high-desert cowboy bars. I drank my beer and started feeling better.

Wally said, ‘‘Where’d you come up with the title?’’

‘‘It’s a reference to nuclear detonation.’’

‘‘Right,’’ Chet said. ‘‘From the fuel used to ignite the thermonuclear burn.’’

‘‘Ah.’’ ‘‘Of course.’’ The rocket men nodded to one another.

I said, ‘‘It’s a metaphor for endings, and—’’

‘‘But your description’s inaccurate. Modern fusion devices don’t use pure lithium in the secondary.’’

Rocket One pointed at me with the neck of his beer bottle. ‘‘And the explosion isn’t a sunset, more a big puking dawn, spewing thermal radiation and gamma rays.’’

‘‘To be precise,’’ said Chet, ‘‘you should call it
Lithium-deuteride Sunrise
.’’

‘‘Oh, right.’’

‘‘Definitely.’’

‘‘You writing any more stories where Rowan gets it on with a guy?’’

‘‘Boys!’’ Abbie said. ‘‘Scram!’’

They left two beers later. By then I had taken turns dancing with them, and with Wally, and with Abbie, jostling around the dance floor while the band raged through ‘‘Livin’ La Vida Loca.’’ By the time I left the bar Abbie’s cheeks were bright from alcohol and laughter. She gave me a hard hug, telling me good-bye with a wistful look, as though we’d left something unfinished.

Halfway across the parking lot I heard her calling my name. She was trotting toward me, running stiffly on her battered knee. The marquee lights illuminated her blond hair. She screwed up her face.

‘‘Shoot, I didn’t say this earlier because I’m too ornery to admit my mistakes. I want to apologize for getting you arrested that time. I shouldn’t have made light of it.’’

‘‘Accepted. Thanks, Abbie.’’

She hugged me. ‘‘Don’t wait fifteen years to visit China Lake again.’’

So, nostalgia can not only be exhumed, but exorcised. I watched her head back toward the bar, glad that I had come tonight. Two women stumbled out the door, laughing wildly. They waylaid her with effusive greetings. Turning, I walked toward my car, flicking off the alarm with the remote control.