The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (11 page)

"Chico good boy," he says. In terms of
self-esteem, Chico's got it to spare, which is probably why he can be so
obnoxious. I eat linguine with clam sauce with Mom and Bex and Severin, and Bex
gives us the statistics of how many were killed in the tsunami, how many
homeless, how many children unidentified and separated from families.

She rolls her pasta on her fork. "One hundred
sixty-four dollars so far," she says.

"Honey, I think maybe we should see a
counselor," Mom says.

"Hey, In. Do you want to make some money
waitressing at a MuchMoore party tomorrow? They really need people." Severin
says from over by the blender on the counter. For the last few months, Severin
has been into protein shakes--these thick, brown slurpy drinks that smell like
grass and the medicinal twinge of vitamins.

"Sure," I say.

"Trevor, too?"

"Trevor with hors d'oeuvres on a tray? That's
hilarious, but if

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he gets paid, I'm sure he'd say to count him
in."

"I think maybe talking out your feelings with a
professional might be helpful," Mom says. She cuts her pasta, which she never
does. A careful, overly thought-out action that reeks of concern bordering on
panic.

"I don't need a
counselor,"
Bex says. "I
just need more hours in the day. I hate wasting time playing
dodge
ball."

"Sadistic game," I agree.

"I'm not sure if my insurance would cover it,
but I could check," Mom says. "This obsession ..."

"What about your Barbies, Bex?" Severin plops
some ice into the glass canister too, fits on the lid.

"She hasn't been into Barbies for two years,"
Mom says.

"I haven't been into Barbies for two years,"
Bex says. "Do you think I care about Barbies now, anyway? Do you think Barbies
matter?"

"Honey," Mom says. But she doesn't seem to know
where to go from here. The word just hangs, until Severin starts the blender and
there's only the sound of crunching and grinding vitamins, the silvery core of
nourishment, containing every essential thing but the nourishment
itself.

Trevor's got his fingers in my hair, and I love
when he's got his fingers in my hair. We're lying on the grass by Pine Lake,
because Pine Lake is our place. It's not a big lake like Lake Washington or Lake
Sammamish, but a summer-camp type lake, with houses tucked around it--now, in
the dark, cozy and glowing from the lights inside. We have our house that we
like. It's not the biggest house, but has the lawn that rolls right to the
water's edge. The couple that lives there has a dog, and we see him
sometimes

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paddling in the water or walking on the grass
with a tennis ball in his mouth. The house has a dock with two chairs on it,
sometimes an inflatable inner tube on a hot day. Someone is watching television
upstairs--there's the shadow-light blink of nervous, dancing images. My head is
lying in Trevor's lap, and he's combing my hair with his fingers and it's
baby-sleepy-soothing. We've been here awhile already; we sat quiet, just
watching twilight, taking in that sweet magic that happens when the light turns
golden.
Why do you feel like your heart could break when the hills turn pink
and the trees turn yellow? Trevor
asked.
Why do you feel every joy and
sorrow and goodness and beauty and past and present and every perfect thing?
And I kissed him then, just because he was right.

The magic light passed, and dark crept in;
heartbreak time changes to the hours when you tell deep and secret things. I
tell Trevor about the envelope.

"So, what do you put in an envelope?" he says.
Trevor's chin is tilted up. From where I lie, even in the moonlight, I can see
the narrow white place of his neck that isn't tan like the rest. He's got a
shirt on over his T-shirt because it's cool at the lake. It's white cotton with
pearly white snaps like cowboys wear. They make me want to pop them open with my
thumb and forefinger.
He
makes me want to pop them open.

"A letter," I say up into the night. "A
thank-you letter."

"That's a card. A big envelope says ..." He
thinks. "Legal."

"Business merger. I see. Wants me as his
partner for my cool head and brilliant mind."

"Or he's suing you," Trevor says.

"For giving him bad advice. Like those people
who sue McDonald's because their hot coffee is hot coffee."

"Maybe he's giving you his Vespa."

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"Ha," I say. "Wouldn't I love that."

"You could sell it," Trevor says. "What, five,
six thousand? You'd be rich."

"We could run away to Mexico and buy some big
sombreros and a velvet painting," I say.

"You'd promise me that you wouldn't change,
even if you had all that money," he says.

"I'd promise you," I say, and he leans down and
kisses me then and his mouth is cold, but then, it's not cold for long, and I
like the feel of those snaps under my fingers.

The next morning Mom's in the kitchen in her
bathrobe, her old blue terry cloth that looks slouchy and depressed. She
doesn't, though. Maybe she's already had too much coffee, but she's rummaging
through the junk drawer with the energy and focus of someone in those Army
recruitment ads. "You're up early," I say.

"Couldn't sleep," she says. "Do you have any
batteries?"

"On me?" I pat my pockets humorously (/think),
but she just scowls. "Nope. None here."

"Wait," she says. "Aha." Victory--she holds up
the thin cylinder of a double A. By the time I've got the milk carton out of the
fridge, she's pulling a kitchen chair over to the counter and is climbing up.
She shoves aside all of Severin's cans of liquid protein and mystery powders
that are lined up there.

"Good God," I say, and I set down my cereal
bowl and move to spot her. This is what you do as a daughter to Naomi Skye-- you
steady wobbly ladders as she puts up Christmas lights, you grip chairs when she
screws in lightbulbs. You stand close to her jean-clad legs, or robe-clad ones,
you hold on. It's not that she's ever actually had an accident, or fallen or
broken anything, ever.

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Just that Mom seems perpetually at the edge of
the precarious-almost. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"I am just so sick of it being ten twenty, I
cannot tell you," she says. She reaches up, plucks the kitchen clock off the
wall. She flicks the battery out with her fingernail, puts the new one in, spins
the hands, and sets the clock on the nail again. It's true that it's been ten
twenty for a long time. Weeks, maybe even months. After a while, I guess, you
just stop noticing.

The clock is ticking away with a newfound sense
of purpose. Mom climbs down from the chair. "When you get that envelope today,
just make sure Jane or someone's there when you open it. You don't know this
guy. Maybe he's some kind of sicko."

"Sicko," Chico agrees.

"He's not a sicko," I say. I told Mom about the
envelope last night at dinner, but I didn't think she even really heard. She was
so wrapped up in Bex's tsunami obsession that she brushed it off with an
Oh
really?
that was an
I didn't actually hear that
in disguise. I look
for a clean spoon for my cereal, but no one's turned on the dishwasher, so there
are only those spiky-tipped ones for eating grapefruit and Bex's short baby
spoon with Ariel the mermaid on it. I go for Ariel.

"You don't know that," she says. "He might seem
normal, but look at Ted Bundy."

"So, what, there's going to be a bloody knife
in the envelope?"

"Don't even joke," she says.

"No, that white powder terrorists use. I'll
give you a call before I go meet him alone in a dark alley," I say. "Sicko,
sicko," Chico says.

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I decide to walk to work. First of all, Mom's
get-it-done has been ignited--she's cleaned the junk drawer of old keys and
dried-up pens and a manual for a VCR that died a choking death long ago after a
video got stuck inside, and she's moved on to the pantry, stacking up
nearly-empty-but-never-thrown-
out cracker boxes, stale cereal we all hated,
a plastic bear of honey that's crystallized, and a Fruit Roll-Up that survived
World War II.