Arizona Allspice (21 page)

“
I
cooked them, didn’t I? Besides, you deserve a little pick-me-up.”

“So,” I pause and take a sip of my juice, then clear my throat. “Yesterday was your first day back in Cadence. What did you do?”

“First I walked up to Jeremy’s store, but it took me almost two hours to get there because I was making little stops along the way. I went over to #31, the
Dorseys
.  Did you know their daughter Amanda dropped out of U of A ‘
cause
she got a job as a stripper? Claims she doesn’t need an education when she already makes two thousand a week. Her poor parents! Then I ran into Dina Rae and asked her about the new park manager, Jimenez. She’s been the gossip queen of
Merjoy
since I opened it eleven years ago. I knew she would tell me her flat out opinion. She tells me, “I got a bad feeling about the guy and Frankie, you set the bar and no one else has come close.” She’s been interested in me for years so I’m sure she was just buttering me up.

“I left Dina’s and ran into
Carlito
putting a new screen in one of his windows. I said to him, “Stop what you’re doing! You shouldn’t be doing maintenance, bro! That’s the park manager’s job!” I put the screen in for him myself. It ain’t right for him to do it. He tossed a Corona to me and told me Jimenez doesn’t do
house calls
. Can you believe that? What the heck does the guy do around here?”

“Did you ask
Carlito
why the screen needed to be replaced in the first place?”

He bites into his potatoes and shakes his head ‘no’.

“It costs money to replace a screen. Unless the screen was damaged from natural wear and tear, it wouldn’t be cost efficient for Jimenez to fix it. He makes the hard decisions. If Jimenez didn’t forgo his desire to be liked by all, then he’d find himself paying for people’s irresponsibility and needing to raise everyone’s rent to pay the park bills. Catch my drift?” I watch him stick out his bottom lip and shrug his shoulders. “Mr. Jimenez is doing a good job,” I add.

“Yeah, he’s keeping the park together, but he’s not keeping the
neighborhood
together. He’s not bringing the people together. That’s what a park manager should do.”

“That’s what
you
would do. You are a special type of person that can get along with anyone. You can find the good in people, even the ones who screw you over, and you can forgive them. That’s openness and caring that few people have. You can’t expect Jimenez to be just like you.” I study a bacon slice on my plate and then nudge it with my fork. “It’s hard for a lot of people to be open like that.” I pick up the bacon slice with my hand and bite into it. I glance at him and then quickly away, seeing his green eyes studying me. I look back up to see him soberly scratching at a gray sideburn.

“You’re right, Niece,” he says.

I nod and continue to eat my breakfast. He continues sharing how he spent yesterday afternoon and evening: running into a bunch of folks, reminiscing, and asking them how they and their families were doing.

Why didn’t he ever ask them why they and their families had been so cruel to me? Then maybe I would have gotten at least a hearsay apology instead of nothing at all. I wasn’t getting an apology because they weren’t sorry. Not even a little bit. Only yesterday had I truly pocketed that truth. A sudden warming of their hearts wasn’t the reason they backed off. They stopped torturing us because Joey threatened to screw up the winnings of the
fútbol
bookies, the bookies put some pressure on the bettors, and the bet placers in turn told their children to cut it out.

“What were you up to while I was gone?” He picks up his cleared plate and mine and brings them to the sink.

 “I visited Joey in the hospital. I ran into Miss Kinsley too and she told me some good news.”

“About Joey being let out of the coma?”

“Yeah.”

“I was talking to her about that last night.” He returns to his seat with a gentle look in his eyes. “Amelia is a courageous woman. She’s been taking care of things on her own for many years. She moved down here from Drexel with a broken wrist, a fourteen-year-old, and not much else. Still, she raised him to be the man he is. Even though her pride and joy lies in a hospital bed as we speak, her spirit is unwavering. She’s something else. I tell you, she is something.” He admires the simple blue sky in the kitchen window behind me.

“I never knew her name was Amelia.”

“Amelia Dixon.”

“I’ve been calling her Miss Kinsley all this time.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t mind.”

“Mason Dixon?”

“What?” Uncle Frank’s eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the kitchen window view.

“If Dixon is her married name, then her ex-husband’s full name was Mason Dixon.”

His eyes slide from the window to my amused expression.
“No way.”

“I wish I were kidding. It’s so sad, it’s funny,” I smile.

“I don’t believe the guy’s mother would curse him with a name like Mason Dixon.” He smirks incredulously.

“I have proof if you don’t believe me! I have Joey’s journal. Oh! I talked to Manny yesterday. He says he loves you and thanks for your support.”

He nods. “What’s with you having Joey’s journal? I didn’t know you two were that close.” He takes a drink of his orange juice.

“Um, we’re not. It’s sort of a long story and it’s complicated. I’m not actually supposed to have the journal. I mean, Miss Kinsley or, um, Joey’s mom did tell me to read it for him, to him. I just took it home one day. It’s not like I stole it, because I intend to give it back, you know, when he wakes up and all. I just, it just…Like I said, it’s a long story.”
Balanced on the ball of my foot, my right leg bounces under the table.

Smiling, he places his empty glass down on the table. “Why so flustered?”

“I’m not flustered. You asked me a question and I tried to answer it without going through all the lengthy details. Flustered? Are you, like, implying something about me and Joey?”

“Why so defensive?” he grins.

“Uncle Frank!” I whine.

“You know I can’t resist! I have to tease you at least once for having this secret crush on Manny’s friend!”

My jaw drops. “I do
not
have a secret crush! He’s the one…” A lump in my throat cuts off my sentence. Why am I getting so worked up? A few days ago when the nurse made little remarks about me and Joey I rolled my eyes at her.  What Uncle Frank was saying was no different from what she had said and yet I was upset. What had changed? I definitely haven’t developed feelings for Joey. It’s just that, when I think of him now, the people I’d lost and the things I’d missed out on, all those emotions come to the surface.

During the times in my life I felt like I was alone in this town, Joey had actually been there; a silent ally. I know when Joey wakes up and we get the chance to really talk, he’ll see that a romantic relationship is out of the question, but we could still be important people in each other’s lives. We could be each other’s allies. Uncle Frank saying that I had a crush on Manny’s friend irked me because Joey wasn’t just Manny’s friend. He’s mine, too. And I don’t want any romantic connotations to sully that.

 “I talk to Manny for only twenty minutes a day, I’m not ready to talk to Dad yet, and I spend most of my time either in this empty house or in the presence of an unresponsive coma patient. I haven’t been able to distract myself with writing, so I grew a little attached to Joey’s journal recently. Okay?” I lift my eyes from the table.

“Laney, I know I sort of left you here by yourself yesterday. I promised you I would come to Arizona and be there for you and I haven’t been”

“You don’t have to babysit me. I’m fine.”

“Laney, let’s hang out, just you and me today. What do you want to do?”

I give him a small smile and shrug my shoulders. “I’ve done all the things you can do in this town. What do you do to pass the time down there in Daytona?”

“Go out on the boat. Drink a few fish and catch some beers,” he purposely slurs his words.

I laugh. “I can tell.”

“We could go fishing at
Amo
Lake.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t like fishing. They look so shocked and hurt when you reel them in.”

“You’re such a girl,” he scoffs. “Hmmm,” he crosses his arms across his chest, “I bet I know exactly what you’d like to do on a beautiful day like today.”

“Bet you five bucks you don’t,” I challenge playfully.

“Though I would rather relax by the lake, I will accompany you to the artsy
fartsy
and cerebral…Phoenix Art Museum.”

My eyes widen and I smile excitedly before I remember the bet and try to hide the eagerness written all over my face.

His shoulders shake with his deep laughter. “You owe me five bucks! Hurry up and get dressed. We have a long drive to the Valley.”

******

The Phoenix Art Museum is bigger than I had imagined. Thousands of square feet of immaculate seamless wood floors were the base for endless white walls and pedestals displaying the treasures of creative souls. Room after room we find new and different paintings, sculptures, animated light displays, fashion designs and when we turn the corner there’s more to see. The first exhibit we come to is the works of Caravaggio. I look up at “David Victorious over Goliath” and immediately think of that poem Joey wrote. I remember the verse:
I conquered; brought down. A
Davidian
defeat. It is over, it is done…Yet I haven’t any peace.

 Caravaggio’s painting depicts young David dressed in folds of white cloth having defeated the giant. Assertively, he pins Goliath down with a knee in the back as he tugs on a fistful of his hair. When Joey was young he had defeated his stepfather. The anger inside that spurred Joey to be victorious, to save his mother, had lingered and become a part of him. Now that I understand the architecture of his temper, his anger issues are less scary to me. I comment on the artist’s dramatic use of light and shadow. Uncle Frank nods only half interested. I smile inwardly, appreciating him taking me to the museum even though it isn’t his thing.

Uncle Frank walks towards a painting on another wall while I’m drawn toward
Narcissus
; another Caravaggio. The painting was inspired by the myth of a beautiful and vain young man named Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in a stream. A young man with brown hair leans to stare into the stream at his reflection. He props himself up with his arms on either side of him, one palm on the bank and one hand half in the water. The background of the painting is dark. There is no scenery. It is just washed over with a black oil paint. The white full sleeves of the young man’s shirt and his ivory skin contrast well with the darkness, but the picture is just
too
dark. Even the water was made murky, painted in a muted dark brown. I want to add some color to it. Maybe the man’s hair, instead of being a flat mousy brown, could be a head of red curls like Joey’s. Joey would have been the perfect subject for the painting. Not because he was vain or a narcissist. Just because he was overall handsome and has, or had, striking hair.