Barbara Samuel (43 page)

Tiny closed his eyes, swaying. In that moment, Thomas saw the exhaustion, soul-deep, that had stolen his sense. Saw the grief and the loneliness and the very real love.

He dropped the knife. Bent and kissed Angelica’s head, and stumbled toward Thomas. Angelica collapsed on the floor, sobbing. “I love you, Tiny, I do. I’m sorry.”

Damn. Thomas put his hand on Tiny’s back. “Keep walking, man.”

And maybe it was the prayers. Maybe it was just time. Maybe it was just being exhausted beyond measure, but Tiny didn’t turn. He didn’t look back. He put one heavy foot in front of the other, his hands loose and defeated at his side, waited while Thomas opened the truck, and didn’t even turn around when Angelica came to the door and cried out in a heartbroken voice, “Tiny! Don’t go! I love you. I’m sorry!”

Thomas said, “Call the police, Angelica, or I’ll do it when I get home.”

Tiny, all wrists and cheekbones starved into exaggeration, slumped in the seat and did not look back. “Did you rape her?” Thomas asked in a hard voice.

Tiny shook his head, plucked a rose petal from his jeans. “She wouldn’t have sex with me.”

It was something, anyway. No rape and no murder. Everybody still alive. Amazing how valuable that could seem at times. “You gotta get help, Tiny.”

“Yeah,” he said, exhausted. “Yeah, I do.”

After lunch, Elaine asked to have a few minutes to herself. She walked to a small park. Luna and the girls wandered into a department store downtown and like moths to the flame, were drawn as a group to the makeup counters. Joy, with her vanity about her nails, drifted over to the nail polishes, while Luna admired lipsticks—which she never wore and always thought she should try—and Maggie stood beside her, dazzled. “What do you like?” Luna asked.

“Eye makeup. Eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, all of it.”

“Me, too. I bet your eyes are amazing when you do them all up, huh?”

Maggie shrugged, shyly. “My dad didn’t let me do it too often.”

“Well, it’s better held for special occasions, the big stuff, anyway. My mom always says makeup is to enhance your natural beauty and hide your flaws, so it should look fairly natural.” Luna grinned. “Not that she exactly follows that advice.”

Joy laughed.

They drifted to the perfume counters. Joy said, “In Atlanta? There’s this store called Sephora?” She shook
her head in quiet awe. “You go in there, and there’s all these colors and lotions and it smells right and everybody knows what’s good for you.” She closed her eyes in reverence. “It’s a makeup store like no makeup store in the universe.”

“We’ll have to go there sometime, Joy.” She lifted a bottle of musk and sniffed the top. “Nice.” She sprayed a little on her wrist, held it out to Maggie. “What do you think?”

She nodded, eyebrows raised. A fake cheerfulness. She was probably getting tired now. “I like this,” she said, and held out a small bottle. Essence of Roses—and Luna was surprised at how good it was.

“That’s very good. Usually rose scents are too sweet for me.” She narrowed her eyes and inhaled it again. It made her think of a summer afternoon, grass and sunlight and a tangle of roses coaxed to full breath by the heat. “Let’s buy this, huh? I’ll buy it for you, but you have to let me put some on.”

“No, that’s okay, I mean I wasn’t hinting or anything.”

Luna smiled. “I know. It suits you, that’s all. You look like a girl who would smell of roses.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” said Joy. “Totally. Mom, you’re so smart about this. What would I smell like?”

Luna cocked her head, narrowed her eyes—then laughed. She looked around the counter for the perfume and saw it, deep in the locked bowels of the glass case. “I know exactly the thing.” Spying a girl at another counter, she said, “Miss? Can we have some help here?”

The girl, excited by the possibility of a sale, scurried over. She took out the bottle of perfume Luna pointed out and offered it to Joy, whose mouth fell open. “Oh, that’s beautiful! What is it?”

Luna laughed. “It’s Joy, one of the oldest and most revered perfumes in the world.”

Joy tilted the bottle and widened her eyes. “And really expensive.”

“Yeah, well, I have gambling winnings to blow—and we’re celebrating. We’ll take this, and this bottle of Essence of Roses, please.”

“What about you, Mom? You deserve some good perfume for quitting smoking.”

“I can never decide,” she admitted, handing over her credit card. “I’ll think about it, though, okay? Maybe I’ll come up with a signature scent of my own.”

“Like Grandma and her Jean Naté.”

“Right.”

Maggie said, “I think you smell good the way you are. You smell like sunshine, kinda.”

Touched, Luna said, “Thank you, sweetie.”

By the time the perfumes were bagged and paid for, Luna started feeling that a lot of time had passed, but on the way out, she thought of Elaine. “Wait,” she said. “I want to get Elaine some perfume, too. What would a blues singer wear, Joy? What do you think?”

“Something really sexy and female.”

“Musk. That musk we smelled,” said Maggie.

“Perfect.” They hurried back and bought the third bottle. It was an important day. They all needed something to remember it, mark it. She had her Barbie doll. The others would have perfume.

Elaine was waiting by the car, impatience in her crossed arms and scowl. “We brought you a present,” Joy said and made a ceremony of handing over the wrapped box.

The impatience was erased completely. “Really? What is it?”

“Open it and see, silly.”

Elaine shot a look at Luna, perplexed and pleased, and Luna’s heart ached. Why had she never been able to see that all Elaine needed was a little nurturing? When she’d torn off the paper, she looked confused. “Perfume?”

“It’s perfume,” Joy said, “for a blues singer. Smell it. It’s so sexy.”

Elaine sucked in her bottom lip. “I’m not very sexy.”

“You will be in that perfume,” Luna said. “Put some on.”

Laughing, Elaine did. “Oh, it’s really nice. Thank you.” She hugged Joy.

“It was Mom’s idea, not mine.”

“Thank you, Lu,” she said, and there was a suspicious shine behind her glasses. “For the whole day.”

Luna hugged her. “Thank you, Sissie. Thank you so much.”

Maggie took out her perfume. “You wanted to put some of mine on, right?”

“Yes!” She anointed pulse points, smelling a hint of musk from her left wrist, and it mingled perfectly with the summer roses, and suddenly, quite urgently, she needed to see Thomas. She’d been an idiot last night. An idiot. “Come on, guys. Let’s get back.”

Elaine dropped them off at Luna’s house, and took off for home. Luna couldn’t even stand to walk the three blocks—she grabbed her keys and told the girls she’d be back in a little while. Joy grinned. “Have a good time,” she said, leaning into Maggie, who laughed.

It was a brilliant day, clear and cool after the winds last night. She didn’t see Thomas’s truck anywhere, and her heart sunk. Maybe he’d just run an errand or something and would be right back. She’d at least go check. Even if it meant facing Placida for the first time since the
night she’d dragged her out of her house. It seemed like a long time ago. As she climbed the railroad ties to the porch, she spied the old woman in a rocking chair on the porch, her shoulders wrapped in a brightly knit sweater, a rosary in her hands as always. Her feet didn’t quite touch the floor. Luna’s stomach flipped.

Barbie spoke up for the first time all day, laughing.
You’re scared of her!

Luna pasted a smile on her face. Yes. Yes, she was. Pausing at the foot of the porch steps, she said,
“Buenos días, Señora.”
That should be respectful enough. She couldn’t think how to ask in Spanish if Thomas was there, so she asked it in English. “Is Thomas here?”

Placida crooked her finger, gesturing for Luna to come to her. Feeling a little nervous, Luna went, and sat down in a chair next to the old woman. She didn’t look well. Her face was pale. The eyes, beneath their spectacles, were strained in some way. “Are you all right?” Impulsively, Luna took her hand, and found her skin quite clammy.

Placida turned her hand and gripped Luna’s. Hard. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, and a soft smile came over her mouth.
“Gracias, Madre,”
she said, then turned to Luna. “Listen,” she whispered in English, and gripped Luna’s hand. “He is a good man.”

“Oh, he is. He is.”

Placida nodded. Then she took a breath, put a hand to her chest, let go of the sigh, and closed her eyes.

Luna didn’t get it for a minute. Not until the rosary in Placida’s right hand dropped to her lap and her grip eased on Luna’s hand.
“Abuela?”

She fell over forward, and Luna barely managed to catch her, a tiny weight of birdlike bones. Luna cradled her, lifting her, feeling the lack of breath in the old woman. For a moment, Luna wasn’t quite sure what to
do. In the end, she carried her through the open door to the house, and put her down on the couch in a room that was more beautiful than Luna could have guessed, filled with things made of wood she somehow knew Thomas had carved. A phone was on the table by the couch, and even though she knew it was going to be too late, she called 911 for the second time in two days.

Then she sat down to wait in the sunstruck room. Placida’s face was peaceful, calm, almost … cheerful. For some reason, Luna took her hand and held it, as if it would bring comfort. She heard a truck outside and saw Thomas come up the steep grade to the front door, a scowl on his face. Tiny followed behind him more slowly.

Luna just waited. The two of them came inside. Luna saw that Tiny had been fighting, and all the life was gone from him, so much so that Thomas more or less led him to a chair and pushed him into it. “Stay right there. I’m going to call the police.”

It was only then that he saw Placida, stretched out on the couch, her face arranged in a peaceful smile. He fell to his knees next to her, picked up her hands and kissed them.
“Te quiero, Abuelita,”
he whispered, and took off her glasses. Kissed her brow. “
Te quiero.
God speed.”

Luna blinked back tears and went to stand by Tiny as the ambulance roared up outside and the EMTs scurried in, all noise and importance. One of them recognized Luna from the night before. “Jeez. You’re like a black widow, huh?”

“I guess.”

“What happened?” Thomas asked.

“I came by to see you,” she said, meeting his eyes, trying to telegraph her intent without words. “She was just sitting there and she talked to me for a minute, and then she just … took a breath and keeled over.”

“I think she was having a heart attack when I left—” He made a sound, a growl, a glare at Tiny. Then he shook his head. “What did she say?”

Luna looked away. “I’d rather not say right this minute.”

He inclined his head. “Okay.” He frowned. “Did you understand her?”

“Sure,” Luna said. “She spoke in English. Or whispered, really.”

Tiny said, “She spoke English?” incredulously.

Thomas laughed.

“I don’t get it,” Luna said.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Thomas took Luna’s hand, raised it to his lips. “I want to hear what she said. Don’t go away. It’s gonna get crazy here, but don’t go. Okay?”

“I promise.”

He picked up the phone.

Luna sank down next to Tiny. “Are you okay, guy?”

He shook his head. “He’s calling the police to come arrest me. I went to Angelica’s. We fought.” He folded his hands, refolded them. “I took a knife. I was going to kill her, then me.”

Ice rushed down her spine and she put her hand on his arm. “Oh, Tiny, I’m sorry. Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”

“That’s good, Tiny. That’s really good.”

“I’m gonna be in jail awhile now.”

“Yeah, probably.” She smoothed a hand down his back. “But it won’t be forever. Maybe it’ll help you see things more clearly.”

His throat worked, and she saw that he was folding his hands over and over again because they were trembling so badly. “I got no right to ask it, but would you
come see me there? Just talk?” He lifted his eyes, filled with sorrow and pain and regret.

It was that expression, that one of hopelessness daring to cling to one pinpoint of light, that had drawn her into the work she’d done. She’d never wanted to make a ton of money. Never cared if there was prestige in her counseling work. She just wanted to hold out a hand to people who were absolutely sure there was no hand, not for them. And maybe she was even better prepared to offer that hope, having been so devoid of it herself, having hit bottom and made it up out of the pit herself. If nothing else, it had granted her compassion. As it had her father.

“Of course,” she said. “I’d like that a lot.” She’d have to do it in some official capacity, probably. She’d look into it right away, getting her credentials updated.

It was time, anyway.

Three hours later, Tiny had been arrested, Placida taken to the morgue, then to be delivered to the funeral home. Nadine and James left, promising to come back for the Mass in three days. Luna called the girls to tell them what was happening, to make sure they were okay. They were eating pizza, watching a comedy on the movie channel, and painting their nails. Maggie had talked to her grandmother, who was on her way home and would be back late. Maggie wanted to know if it was okay to spend one more night. “Of course,” she said.

Just as dusk was falling, Thomas came out to the kitchen. Luna had made some coffee. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It smells good.” He sank down at the table and rubbed his face. “Jesus, what a day. Pour me a cup, will you?”

The cat wove around her ankles, purring, as she did it. “What do you want, kitty?”

“It’s Ranger,” Thomas said, a smile in his voice.

Luna laughed, putting a cup before him. She picked up the cat. “Hey, Ranger. What do you want?” He tucked his head under her chin, purring. His fur was thick and soft, and she’d forgotten how great it was to have a cat cuddle up to her. “I miss cats. Maybe that’s what you know, huh?” she said.

“Sit with me, Luna,” Thomas said quietly.