Barbara Samuel (12 page)

“Sixty-two.”

“Mine’s older. Seventy.”

“Oh, well.” Luna rubbed her fingers over the pattern on the Formica table, tracing the gold veins through the black. “When did you come to Taos, then?”

“Used to spend all my summers here when I was a kid. When my grandma had a heart attack, there wasn’t
anybody taking care of her the way I thought they should, and I was divorced”—he made a rueful expression with his mouth—“the first time, licking my wounds, so I came here. It suits me.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said. “When I was a kid, I could not wait to get out of here, see the real world.” She shook her head, smiling without humor. “I graduated from high school when I was sixteen, and was out of CU with a master’s degree before I was twenty-two.”

He whistled. “Overachiever, huh?”

“A bit.” She relaxed a little, sipping coffee, her spine finally touching the back of the booth. “Can’t think now why I was in such a hurry.”

“We all think we know everything at that age.”

“What did you know?”

“How to be a real Indian.” His expression didn’t shift, and she wondered how she knew he was poking fun at himself. “Not like all those fake Indians at the Pueblos and on the reservations, no sirree.” His eyes glittered. “Went off to Los Angeles, enrolled in community college, got myself a card in AIM—you know what AIM is? American Indian Movement?”

“Sure.”

Thomas let go of a breath, shaking his head in memory. “Nothing like a young fool to carry on, especially a young half blood.”

“I’ve noticed.”

He, too, relaxed, kicking out his legs beneath the table. “So,” he said, “how long you been sober?”

“Well, that gets right to the heart of it.” She blinked, thinking of all kinds of things related to being sober, getting sober, finding her way back. There was no reason not to tell the truth. “Four years last March.”

“And still not driving, eh?”

The only way through most of this stuff was just
through it, and a sense of humor could be a big help. “Something about that third DWI—under suspension, I might add—just pissed that judge off.”

He laughed appreciatively. Gaining big points from Luna.

“I’m not proud of it, you know,” she said. “But sometimes you have to learn to live with things.”

“Hurt anybody?”

“Nobody but me, by some miracle.” She pulled up her sleeve and showed him the surgery scars. There were pins in three places in her elbow.

“Was that the last one?”

“Yeah.” She looked at the scars, marveling as she always did that it looked just like the outline of a rose. An echo of something moved in her heart, little pings of regret that led nowhere. “Hit bottom.” She pulled her sleeve down. “Now you,” she said. “Tell me about the first wife. Was that in California?”

He nodded, his mouth turning down at the corners. “It was … volatile.” As if making a decision, he pushed back the hair covering his neck and showed her a scar of his own. “She tried to cut my throat and I decided maybe it wasn’t going to work out.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Good call.”

The waitress came by and poured more coffee. “Thanks, Debra,” Thomas said. “How’s your mom doing?”

“Good days and bad days. We’re trying to get her back to work here, but she keeps saying it’s just not the same without my dad.”

“You keep trying. Tell her I asked about her.”

“I will.” Debra swung around to the other tables, pouring coffee from the right hand, iced tea in a clear plastic pitcher from the left.

“Her mom’s a new widow,” Thomas explained. He
added a dollop of her milk to his coffee. “What do you do for a living, Luna McGraw? Art?”

Startled, she said, “No! Not at all. Why did you think that?”

“Your house, all those bright colors, the weird Barbie dolls. The chairs. It looks like an artist’s house.”

“Oh,” she said, waving her hand, pleased in spite of herself that he’d noticed the Barbies. “Those are just my hobbies. What I do to keep busy.”

He narrowed his eyes faintly for a minute. “You don’t do
any
art professionally?”

“Nope. I work the florist department at the Pay and Pack.”

“You took a master’s in horticulture?”

“Psychology. I was a therapist for ten years.”

“Complicated.”

“Not so much, really. This is the real thing.” She spread her hands to indicate now. This minute.

Rain splashed against the windows suddenly, as if a child had thrown a handful of pebbles. “Here it comes,” she said, inhaling in hopes of catching the scent through the plate glass.

And it came indeed, the rain that had been inexorably moving toward town for an hour. It closed them, her and Thomas, safely behind the plate glass window, enfolded by the warmth of the well-lit café. It lent a sense of coziness she wasn’t entirely sure she liked.

Again, she wanted to photograph Thomas, or rather the scene itself—the quality of yellow against the wall behind his head, the smeary look of the water on the window, his strong brown hands clasped around that plain cup. The sight of his knuckles felt both too comfortable and too enclosing, and with a sense of rising panic, she looked at the rain and wondered how long it
would last. How long could two strangers just make small talk?

“Penny,” he said.

She bowed her head with a wry smile. “Small talk is painful.”

There was a gruffness to his voice as he leaned over the table. “Maybe we should just skip it, then.”

“How?”

Their feet bumped together. From speakers on the ceiling came a plaintive Spanish love song, and rain slapped at the window. “Maybe,” he said, “we just talk about the real stuff, instead of all the filler.”

“That’s kind of scary.”

He nodded.

She took a breath. Looked at him. “All right. You come into the store all the time. You buy canned ravioli and frozen corn on the cob and you eat Total for breakfast. Probably with bananas.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Had your eye on me, did you?”

“ ‘Fraid so. Scare you?”

“Nope. Wish I’d been paying attention.” He moved suddenly, made a tent of his big hands, and put it over hers. “I really like looking at your face.”

“I swear incessantly,” she said.

“Even the
F
word?”

She laughed. “Especially that one.”

His thumbs moved on her fingers. “I might still be in love with my ex-wife.”

“I know.” She turned her hands upward, meeting him palm to palm. “I can’t afford to let anything happen that interferes with this chance with my daughter.”

Blue heat built between their hands, and as if it grew too hot for him, Thomas rubbed her wrists, her forearms. His eyes, dark as molasses, rested on her face, unflinching,
as if he wanted to see inside her head. She didn’t look away.

“What if,” he said, “this is a chance and we don’t take it?”

“That’s the other side of it, I guess.”

“Willing to risk it?”

“Risk what?”

He put his hands on the outside of hers and pressed her palms together. Four hands at prayer, his surrounding hers. “Hope.”

The much-washed softness of his collar against his neck made her feel tender. “I might have a little left in the bottom of my bag.”

“I have a little extra, if you need to borrow some.”

Luna laughed. “I might take you up on that.”

“So you’ll go out with me again?”

“I will.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Not until the weekend. I need to spend my evenings with Joy.”

“Fair enough. How about Saturday night?”

“Friday would be better.”

“Okay. A movie, maybe something to eat?”

“I like that idea,” she said. “A lot.”

“Can I pick you up?”

She hesitated. “Maybe I can walk up to your house and meet you. Then we can go from there?” She lifted a shoulder. “I’d rather keep Joy out of things.”

“Understandable.” He leaned back and his hair slid over one arm, extravagant as mink.

It made her greedy again, and she looked away, to the rain outside, waiting for that urgency to fade, but instead of receding, flashes of wet mouths and naked bellies and sweat blinked over her vision. When he brushed one finger over the back of her hand, she jumped.

“Ready to go?” he asked. And she nodded, collected her bag. He drove her home in the rain that wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. They didn’t speak. Or kiss.

She just said, “Thanks, Thomas,” and then hopped out of the truck, dashing through the rain to the front door.

Maggie’s Diary

10 Septiembre 2001,
San Nicolás T

Dear T,
I had to go with my mom to the
bruja’s
house tonight. I hate going with her, and it was totally creepy out. The sky made me think of an orange that was going moldy, half purple and half orange. Thunder banged around over the mountains and I hate storms and I didn’t want to go nowhere, but my mom had that weird look around her eyes, kinda glassy, and it seemed more important to go with her.

My mom’s been dreaming again and needed to see Mrs. Ramirez—that’s the
bruja’s
name—so we walked in the wind to a tall, old house, where she’s staying with her grandson. And like she was from a horror movie, the
bruja
came to the door just as the wind and thunder whirled themselves into rain. Her brown claws curled around her shawl, holding it in place as she gestured for us to come in, and we followed her down a hall to the kitchen without talking.

I have to say the house was cool in a way. The
bruja
‘s old house always smelled kind of funny, but the grandson’s didn’t—it was nice, really, like wood and supper and something kinda salty that makes you know a man lives there. The floors were plain wood with no carpet. My mom’s shoes made a
click-click
noise over them.

A man was in the big kitchen, talking on the phone. He was mad at whoever it was, yelling in a quiet way until he saw us, then he hung up real quick and he took off into another room, talking under his breath. I couldn’t hear what he said, but you could tell he was mad at a woman or maybe his boss.

My mom and Mrs. Ramirez went to sit at the table, and I petted a black cat with long fur and then a big, goofy dog came out, too, and we all sat by the wall while my mom and the
bruja
started talking in low voices. My mom had brought cards, which she wanted to spread for Mrs. Ramirez, but I could see they made the old woman afraid, and she told my mom in Spanish to put them away. She crossed herself, which surprised me. My mom started to cry.

I was shocked to see the cards, to tell you the truth. My dad didn’t like that kind of stuff, at all, and he would have thrown tarot cards in the trash. It made me mad that my mom had them now, like he didn’t even matter.

And I wish she’d stop crying all the time. It’s just sickening.

The dog was silly and
too
cute. I let him put my wrist in his mouth like he was going to chomp on it. He didn’t, of course, just slobbered and panted all over it until the cat got grossed out and took off, shaking his ears. The dog got a big grin on his face like he was proud of himself then, and I laughed.

It made the ache in my chest feel a little better. Sometimes lately I think my mom is just going to keep getting thinner and thinner and thinner until she turns into a ghost. And if that happens, what will happen to me? Where will I go?

The dog jumped up suddenly and raced through the house, barking at someone coming inside, and I heard
a man’s heavy feet on the floor. He stomped and made a noise of cold. “It’s raining like Armageddon out there,” he said.

Then he came in the kitchen and right there, I saw something amazing. My mother, who makes me think of a corn husk most of the time, shone for a second, like the soft husk around a tamale. It was only the smallest time you can think of, but for a second, I remembered her hair all black and rich like it used to be, and how red her mouth was, how it sounded when she laughed.

I looked back to the guy. He was taking a pitcher out, pouring red Kool-Aid into a glass. He was big, with a working man’s hands, not like my dad at all, but that was okay with me. I guess he was okay for an old guy, and I really wouldn’t care if he was as ugly as a troll if he could make my mom look like that. Make her want to live.

I have a plan, but I don’t want to write it down yet in case it would curse it. Maybe that new girl will help me. She seemed pretty cool.

That’s enough now. Thanks for listening.

Maggie