Barbara Samuel (23 page)

When Luna went east as a young woman, the rivers had astonished her. They were mighty things, wild and deep and sometimes so far across you could barely see the other side. Unpacking the basket on the banks of the Rio Grande, she said as much to Joy. “This was the biggest river I saw until I was twenty-three.”

Joy grinned. “And you walked uphill in the snow to school, right?”

“Both ways,” Luna answered. “I’m not kidding, though. This was the mightiest river around.”

“Pretty sad, Mom.”

They both looked at it, a copper-colored flow that was moving fairly quickly, thanks to the rains of the
past few days, but a very mild-looking creature indeed in comparison to the Savannah. Still, the power of it was evident in the gorge it had carved. “Don’t forget, though, it’s a mountain river and it has dangerous undercurrents.”

“I wasn’t planning on swimming.” She pulled a T-shirt off to show her bikini top. “It’s way too cold.”

“True enough.” That had been another surprise, to discover that water outdoors was not always just above freezing.

Joy took out a bottle of oil and buttered her skin. Her pale, thin, white skin. “How much sunscreen does that have?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know.” She handed over the bottle. “Not much. The whole point is to get a tan. Do you have any idea how white I look in that school? They’re calling me fish girl.”

Luna chuckled. “Fish girl? Who calls you that?”

“Oh, this girl named Yvonne. She’s just a pain in the neck.”

“Well, fish girl or not,” she said, looking for the SPF number on the bottle, and groaning when she saw it was only eight, “you can’t lie out in this sun without better protection than that. It’s high altitude sun and there’s no humidity to block any of it. You’ll be burned to a crisp tonight.”

“I only
brought
that one,” she said, wiggling to get more comfortable.

“That’s when it comes in handy to have a mom.” Luna pulled out some hefty sunblock, and handed it to her. “Use this.”

“Mom! It’s SPF
30.
I won’t even get a tint!”

“Trust me, you will.” Luna used some on her face— mainly to prevent more wrinkles than she already would get from living in the high altitude sun her whole
life—but her arms and legs were pretty tan from walking everywhere and she didn’t use anything on them.

Joy huffed, but she did as she was told. “I wish I had your skin tone instead of Dad’s.”

“Well, but you also got his straight hair, so count your blessings.”

“I guess.” She laid back down. “Now I’m going to be totally lazy.”

“Fine with me.” Luna put on her sunglasses and rested her arms on her knees, admiring the quiet view of cottonwoods with their shiny leaves and rugged, deeply grooved trunks. Scrub oak grew in tufts. The sky arched overhead in an exuberant deep shade of blue. It was a color that didn’t exist anywhere else she’d ever seen, which made up somewhat for the wrinkles.

The fact of Thomas coming by prearrangement hung in the air, and Luna wondered how to best handle it. Should she just wing it, be surprised?

Never lie. If nothing else, it kept things a lot simpler. “Joy, that guy I went out with last night?”

“Mmm-hmm?”

Luna paused, feeling heat crawl up her cheeks in sudden realization. She’d made these plans to be with Joy, then had invited someone else along without even talking to Joy about it. And it was a guy she’d only dated twice, for heaven’s sake. But she was stuck now. “He’s coming by this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

That was it? Just okay? “I won’t make a habit of it—”

“Mom.” Joy opened her arms and lifted her long slim arms to shade her face. “You’ve gotta relax. It’s not 1972 anymore. You don’t have to wait until you’re going to get married to introduce me to someone. I know they don’t all work out. That’s life.”

“Maybe not,” she said, feeling foolish. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Joy gave her a bewildered frown. “What idea?”

“That … well, that I—”

“Mom, you’ve been single for eight years, and I’ve been living with my dad and the woman he left you for.” She spread her hands. “Okay? This isn’t
The Brady Bunch.
Sex is all out in the open these days.”

Luna flushed. Which made Joy laugh.

“I guess I don’t want you to think your mother is hot to trot,” she said.

“ ‘Hot to trot’?” Joy hooted. “Is that like
cut a rug, daddy-o?”

“Oh, hush.”

Her grin glinted in her aquamarine eyes. “You’re really old-fashioned in some ways. Worse, even, than some southern belle.”

“No way!”

“Way. The south ain’t what it used to be. You’d be surprised.”

Luna’s memories of Georgia were so wrapped up in Marc and the disasters that had befallen her with him that she sometimes forgot how much she’d loved the place. “I liked it there. Being polite and courteous and everybody taking the high road. Mannerly.”

“Repressed,” Joy countered. “You can have it.”

“You feeling better about the boys and April today?”

“I guess.”

“It’s okay to be honest, Joy.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Luna said, and meant it.

Joy sat up, dusting sand from her palms. “I’ve always tried not to talk about her much.”

“I know,” Luna said, wanting to reach out and tuck a
lock of loose hair behind her ear. “But it was a long time ago. I’m over it. Trust me.”

Joy peered at her mother for a long moment, chewing the inside of her cheek. Luna’s curiosity skyrocketed. “What?”

“All right—I’m worried about her. She sounds funny.”

“Funny how?”

“I don’t know.” She grimaced. “Like her voice is coming out of a tube.”

“Have you asked her what’s wrong?”

“She says there’s nothing the matter.” Joy shook her head. “I’m not even sure why I think she’s lying.”

“It’s usually a good idea to trust your instincts in something like that. Is there anyone you could call about her? Maybe her mother or a sister?”

“No.” The word was quite final. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Joy—”

“Let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s too weird for me.” She twisted her multicolored hair into a knot and stuck a stick through it to hold it. “How’re you feeling about your mom’s big surprise last night?”

Blankly, Luna said, “Big surprise?”

“The land? The fact that your dad is dead?”

“Oh, that. I forgot.”

“Forgot?” Joy echoed. “How could you forget that?”

Luna thought of the cigarette she’d smoked this morning.

Finally
, said Psychotherapist Barbie.

“Lots of practice in denial,” Luna said quietly. The weird, sucking hollowness that had been in her chest this morning came back. She looked at her daughter. “I guess I’m not doing that well, actually.”

“Do you think you want to keep the land?”

“I’d like to at least see it before we make a decision.”

“Better do it fast, because Elaine wants the cash bad.”

Nodding, Luna dug her toes into the hot dirt at the edge of the blanket, feeling sunshine burn down on the tops of her knees. “The one I’m more worried about is your grandmother. She didn’t take it particularly well.”

“No offense, Mom, but I don’t know why it would matter. Wasn’t it like thirty years ago or something?” She said thirty like it was five hundred.

“Closer to thirty-five.” Idly, Luna put her hands in the dirt beside her feet, and watched mica sparkling over her skin. A wavery vision of her father, bent over a shovel in the garden, came to her. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “It might sound crazy to say that he was a good man. A kind man. He was good to us.”

“He left you.”

“Yes.” She patted the dirt into a smooth square, using the side of her palm to make it absolutely flat and smooth, then picked up a twig and started to draw. “That’s only the end part, though. Before that, he was always full of laughter and presents. He and my mom used to dance in the living room, and he was always there for dinner.” She scowled, realizing that she’d drawn a thunderbird on the flat square of dirt. Irritably, she rubbed it out. “At least, that’s how I remember it.”

“You ever talk to Grandma about it?”

“She won’t talk about him.”

“Never? That’s kinda weird.”

Luna lifted a shoulder. “You know how she is—nothing negative, no gossip, all that. Maybe she doesn’t have anything nice to say, so she’s not saying anything at all.”

“Did you ever just
ask
?”

“Sure. She always got really busy and forgot I asked the question.”

Joy closed her eyes. “I wonder why he left.”

“Yeah.”

“There had to be something. Another woman, probably. That’s usually it.”

She wanted to protest:
No, there was nobody else. You didn’t see the way he looked at her.
But of course, it was probably true. “More than likely,” she said sadly, and stood up, brushing off the seat of her shorts. “I’m going to wade for a little while.”

“I’ll be right here in case you drown in the undercurrents.”

Luna chuckled. “Thanks ever so.”

“Anytime.”

The sand was burning hot, and Luna wished for a pair of thongs but instead just raced for the waterline and sank her poor feet into the icy water. Standing there with it rushing over her arches and toes, she peered into the amber-shaded current and thought about smoking with Sally that morning. Amazing to think that her father hadn’t even crossed her mind.

And with a shock, she realized she’d gone even further than having a cigarette to avoid her feelings on this one—she’d had sex with Thomas. Dramatically, intensely. Partly because she wanted him, but partly to get around thinking about that land and everything that had dredged up.

A magpie sailed overhead, flashing black and white feathers against the Lalique blue of the sky. Luna watched him, and into the quiet, Best Friend Barbie said,
So—what lie were you telling yourself, sweetie?

Hmm. If it was so shocking to find out he was dead, maybe she had believed him to be dead all along. If he hadn’t been mysteriously murdered—her own secret theory of his disappearance—then she had to deal with the fact that he’d chosen to leave them. Chosen.

Anger stung the edges of her heart, and she waded up-river noisily, thinking of her faithful vigil at the window.
Waiting for him to come home. Believing absolutely that he
would.

Stopping suddenly, she closed her eyes and focused on that little girl on the couch, going back to her.

Blue curtains, dusty with desert air. The couch a nubby brown beneath her elbows. Something sticking her knee—a broken spring, probably—as she stared out the picture window. A forgotten Barbie lay beside the sidewalk to the house and somebody should go get her before she got messed up, even though it was one of the ugly ones with short hair and straight knees. Ancient.

Smell of supper in the air. Onions and meat and something sweet baking in the oven, a little extra.

Concentrate. See him coming up the walk. A tank top showing his big brown arms, tanned so dark, dark, dark. Jeans dusty with concrete. Black boots. A black metal lunch bucket in one hand, his hard hat in the other. Black curls stuck to his head with sweat.

Concentrate. He’d come in the door, whistle for the girls, and they’d rush out of their corners to fling themselves on him, and he’d drop his lunch box with a clatter and catch one girl in each arm, growling like a tiger as he pretended to bite them. He’d smell of sunshine and sweat and cigarettes, maybe a beer if he’d stopped somewhere on the way home.

Daddy.

Luna opened her eyes and let the tears come. That poor little girl! And her poor mother, and her poor sister. All waiting and waiting for the man they loved who didn’t come home for thirty-five years. It made her furious, suddenly. Why did men do that? How could they just walk away from their families? What could be so important that it overrode the faith of a child?

Just down the bank, a woman with long black hair moved into sight, bending to put her hands in the water.
She wore vaguely hippyish clothes—a broomstick skirt and a long-sleeved red cotton blouse, open at the neck. Luna was smitten by the length of that hair, nearly to her knees, and by the graceful line of her back. Very beautiful, she thought, and remembered, barely, being that young herself.

“Mom!” Joy’s voice came from bank.

Luna turned. There stood Thomas, and her heart stopped. An erotic vision of him, braced on his elbows as he moved in her, flashed over her memory, and a primal, deep tingle burned at the base of her spine. For the space of a few seconds, the only thing in the world were his eyes, long and dark and promising.

She realized she wasn’t moving, just standing there staring, and with a little shake, moved toward them. Next to Thomas was a tall rangy man with black hair and an unsmiling mouth. She stuck out her hand. “Hi. Lu McGraw. This is my daughter Joy.”

“Her name is Luna,” Thomas said.

In a very soft voice, the man said, “I’m Tiny Abeyta.” His hand was limp as seaweed.

“Joy,” Luna said, gesturing to include her, “this is Thomas.”

“Hi,” Joy said.

There was a long space of awkwardness while they all measured each other—Joy looking at Thomas with no expression, Tiny eyeing Luna, Thomas and Luna carefully not eyeing each other. “Well,” Luna said. “You want something to drink?”

“We’re gonna unload the supplies,” Thomas said, “then do some fishing.”

“You’re going to fish?” Joy asked, perking up. “What kind of fish live in this river?”

“Brown trout, mainly. Maybe a rainbow or two.” A gentleness on his face. “You like fishing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done it.” She flashed her most impish smile.

“Never?”

Joy shook her head. “I really like eating it, though. That’s the one bad thing about New Mexico. No good fish.”

He nodded, lifting things out of the back of the truck. “I lived in California once,” he said. “I remember the good fish. So fresh.” He handed Joy a cooler. “Maybe we can get some fresh fish today to cook over the fire, huh?”

Joy smiled.

Watching them, Luna felt a ripple of disturbance.
Don’t like him too much
, she wanted to caution her daughter.
He won’t last.