Barbara Samuel (34 page)

“Of course! Both of you or you by yourself, however it works out.”

“Thanks. Can I talk to Joy?”

Joy shook her head, but it was too late. Luna held the phone to her ear so she wouldn’t mess up her fingernails.
“Hi, Maggie, my nails are wet. Can I call you in a few minutes?” She listened. “Promise. Just a few minutes.”

Clicking the button to hang up, Joy sighed. “She’s really got this weird Tupac thing going, trying to prove he’s still alive. Why do people do that? Pretend dead people are still alive?” Then she raised her head. “Oh! She’s doing it because of her dad, huh?”

“Probably. And really, unless she takes it too far, it’s not a problem. It gives her something to believe in when it’s really hard to believe in anything else.”

Joy nodded. “I can’t help it, though, it drives me a little crazy. I don’t want to talk about it all day every day.” She held out her hands, admiring the copper. “This looks good, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

When it was time for the tint to come out, Joy went inside to shower, taking the phone with her. Luna told her not to use it in the shower itself. “Duh.”

Luna shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”

Her nails were dry, so she pulled on a pair of gloves and found her shears, and started puttering around the patio, deadheading the Jacob’s Coat rose and the bright yellow stands of coreopsis and the wild, thick corner of pink and white cosmos. Some of them were nearly as tall as she was and their cheerful prettiness gave her loads of pleasure. They grew all over town, ferny and simple, adapted perfectly to the bright, hot, high altitude sun and cool nights. Nothing like a stand of cosmos to make her homesick when she was away.

The tasks eased her. Aside from the stressful day at work, she’d had a restless night, filled with bad dreams of leaving Joy in a car and not being able to get back to her before she suffocated in the sun, and of running and running and running to accomplish some unnamed task upon which the fate of the world depended. Twice,
she’d awakened, haunted by tattered memories she would rather have not seen again.

She was sure the dreams had come out of going down to her mother’s garage to start up the little blue Toyota.

Once she heard the water go off in the shower, she turned on the garden hose and started watering by hand. The silvery scented water, the angling of pink light over the old bricks and the plants and the adobe walls, the quiet of birds chirping and crickets singing, all of it eased her. Soaking a pot of lavender, she breathed in the scent of the leaves and called out the demons of memory, dared them to face the light.

Sometimes, she thought it was a miracle that she’d never been hurt more seriously during her drinking days—raped or killed. A lot of that time was mercifully blurry—waking up late to the musty smell of her one-bedroom apartment in Albuquerque, working as a waitress in a diner on the highway, then getting down to the serious business of the day: stopping the pain with as much alcohol as it took.

Sometimes, it took a lot.

There were plenty of companions. Men and women, young and old, all seeking the same thing she did: to drown their pain or hide from some awful thing or simply falling in love with the spell of the bottle, with the softer colors there, the easier way of being.

Because it
was
easier in ways to be a drunk. She clipped a rose and thought of the ocean-green that tinged the world when she started drinking. In that cool, soft world, she found she could take a breath without agony, forget all the things she wasn’t and be happy with the things she was, happy with other drunks, happy letting go of all that couldn’t be fixed.

Of course, there was that nasty little problem of side effects. Hangovers, blackouts, the pesky problem of
needing to be together enough for part of the day so that she could earn enough money to drink.

Hitting bottom took a while. And it was a pretty dark place. She woke up in a service station restroom, with absolutely no memory of how she had arrived there— woke up all at once, banging her head on the stall door. The floor was dirty, and the first thing she noticed was the torn bit of paper towel under her foot. There was a little smear of blood on it. Luna got to her feet slowly, body and head a single dully aching pain, with brighter spots of sharpness here and there—her palms, dotted with ground-in gravel, the nails broken and bloody; skinned knees and elbows. The left elbow was swollen badly enough she thought there might be something really wrong with it, and in seconds, she discovered she couldn’t move it without tremendous agony. In fact, the discovery of this particular pain sent her to the sink to throw up. Mental note:
don’t move left arm.

She looked in the mirror and saw herself—really saw herself—for the first time in a year. She was haggardly thin, and there was a good reason. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten. Her hair was tangled and dirty, her cheekbones sharp as blades, her collarbone sticking up out of her dress like a hanger. There was a mark on her forehead that had some blood on it, and judging by the red around her left eye, it would be a mess in a few hours.

And Best Friend Barbie, omnipresent companion, put her hand on Luna’s back, leaning in close to look at the reflection with her and said simply,
What if Joy saw you like this?

Luna bent over the sink and wept. Turned on the water, kept her left elbow close to her to avoid jolting it, and just let it all go, sobbing giant, gulping tears of shame into a grimy little sink. She cried until there was
nothing left, then washed up as well as she could and used the hand dryer to dry her hair and face.

When she stepped outside into the bright light of day, she saw that she wasn’t that far from home, but there was no sign of the car she’d been driving. Or rather the car she’d borrowed. She didn’t even have the energy to wonder where it was. Instead, she walked around the corner to a pay phone, put in the three dollars she found in her pocket, and called her mother, who simply said, “Go home. I’ll come get you.”

It took twenty minutes to walk four blocks, but Luna made it, showered the worst of it off and sat in the living room without any music or the television, waiting.

Kitty showed up in three hours flat, and insisted on taking Luna to a doctor. Who found a broken finger, a cracked toe, the various bruises, and a shattered left elbow. She was in the hospital for two days, during which time they found the car she’d totaled, then Kitty took her home to Taos and put her to bed. Luna slept for two more days, then woke up to cry for three more. Wept and wept and wept and wept, like there was no bottom to the depth of her sorrow. Wept out losses, wept out shame, wept over Joy—not that Joy didn’t have her mother, but that Luna was so lost without her as an anchor. She missed her every single minute of every single day, but it was a pain she was going to have to learn to live with.

She hadn’t had a drink since. Most of her memories were fairly blurry and ignorable, but every so often, she thought about that last blackout and wondered what had happened. The one disconnected, strange thing she remembered was a giant, exaggerated pink rose, as overblown and sensual as an O’Keeffe. It filled the air with its scent and the petals arched over her protectively so that she could sleep.

In the sanity and calm of a Taos evening years later, Luna could smile over that. Funny how the mind worked. Something had certainly protected her. She supposed she would never know what.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a figure and whirled. “Oh!” she said, finding Thomas standing at the edge of the garden. “You startled me!”

He stood there for a moment, backlit by that pinkish sunlight, so big and protective and fierce, and she wanted to pull him to her, rest her head on his shoulder. But there was something burning in his eyes tonight that she hadn’t seen before—something she didn’t quite understand until he came forward and put his hands on either side of her face and bent in to kiss her. “You are so peaceful, Luna. You’re like music.”

Luna rested her head in the spot she wanted, and let the day and the memories flow out of her. “You’re the peaceful one.”

“Maybe we’re both just worn out.” His hands moved on her back lightly.

“Maybe so.” Mindful of Joy, Luna lifted her head and moved away. She peeled off her gloves. “How’s everything at your house?”

He settled on the bench, folding his hands loosely between his knees. “Okay, I guess. Tiny’s sleeping. He promised to see a psychologist tomorrow. I give them good health insurance. It’ll pay.”

“You want to talk about all this?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “No. I want to take you someplace and eat with you. Someplace quiet. Can you go?”

“I already ate. Sorry.”

“Will you come with me? Just sit with me?”

Luna thought of Joy, of breaking her date with Allie.

“I wouldn’t mind, usually, but it’s … complicated tonight.”

He lowered his eyes. “I see.”

Joy popped out of the back door just then. “Ta da!”

Her hair, long and silky, restored to its normal color, flowed down around her neck and shoulders. “It looks fabulous, Joy.”

“Hi, Thomas,” she said easily. “What do you think?”

“I like it a lot.”

She had makeup on, and a nicer T-shirt than she usually wore, one that showed the ring in her navel. “I’m going to go, then, okay? Ricardo is picking me up in five minutes.”

“Home by ten, right?”

“Right.” She floated over to give Luna a kiss. “Thanks, Mom. Why don’t you go do something, too?”

She smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

“Bye, then!” She dashed back into the house and Luna could hear the front door slam as she waited out on the porch.

Thomas looked at Luna. “Any other complications?”

“I broke a date with a friend of mine. I don’t want her to think I broke it to be with a guy.”

His face cleared. “Ah! Okay, I get that. Just come out for a while and if we see her, I’ll do the explaining. Okay?”

And really, he looked so good, and Luna had such a crush on him, and in truth, she wanted the escape into the bubble he seemed to cast. “Okay. Am I dressed right or shall I put on something else?”

“You’re fine, just as you are.” He held out a hand and she took it, feeling grateful all of a sudden to have this chance. His touch lightened something in her. As they walked toward his truck, parked on the street, she smiled to herself.

“What?”

Luna shook her head with a rueful grin. “You just have no idea how long I had a crush on you. Every time you came into the store, my heart raced and my hands got sweaty. It’s so strange that now—” She stopped, embarrassed by the sudden outpouring.

He rubbed his thumb over the center of her palm. “How did I miss seeing you?”

“You were in love with someone else.”

A flicker of something crossed his face, something strong. “Yeah, I guess.”

Best Friend Barbie said,
uh-oh, girlfriend, trouble there.

No question. “Is there something bothering you, Thomas, something other than Tiny and all that mess?” She stopped, looking up at him. “Something to do with your ex?”

He nodded soberly. “She called me tonight. I’ll tell you about it at dinner.”

Shit. She should never have started this, a relationship with a man who was still damaged from the last one. She didn’t want to be his transition person. But he rounded the truck as evening colored the air, looking toward the south and maybe the woman who had hurt him, and Luna looked at his big, gentle hands, and all she wanted to do was smooth the gravity from his cheeks, touch his hair, make him smile. “You can buy me something decadent to make up for never seeing me drool over you.”

One side of his mouth lifted.

Victory.

Thomas took Luna to a hidden little restaurant off the plaza. It was agreeably busy, mainly local types with a few tourists mixed in. A man with a guitar and a gravelly voice sang acoustic rock ‘n’ roll—a little Jackson Browne, Dan Fogelberg, even Cat Stevens. Perfect, Thomas thought, feeling the tension ease in his neck.

They settled at a table beneath a skylight hung heavily with plants, and when the bartender came around with menus, Thomas ordered a Negro Modelo instead of a touristy Corona. For years, stories about the pissy quality of the beer had circulated around the area, but Thomas just didn’t like it. Too thin. Luna ordered iced tea.

“You know,” he said, “I almost never drink anymore, and now twice, I’m drinking in front of you.”

“It honestly doesn’t bother me.”

“Just don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I drink maybe three times a year.”

“Okay.” She smiled at him.

“It was a lousy damned day,” he said, rubbing his chin, a tumble of images flashing through his memory—
the fight, the emergency room, the worry over Tiny, then Nadine’s call.

The bartender was back in sixty seconds, carrying a beer so cold it had made her fingers red to fish it out from wherever it was kept. Luna’s tea was served in a giant glass, with a very long spoon and three lemon wedges. Thomas ordered a cheeseburger, insisted Luna order some dessert. She chose a hot brownie with ice cream.

“Good girl,” Thomas said with a grin.

“Yeah, that’s what you say now. Wait until I weigh three hundred pounds. You’ll tell all your friends, ‘See that woman over there? I used to date her and look at her now. Amazing.’ ”

Thomas chuckled.

“My ex called today, too,” Luna said, stirring sugar into her tea. “He wants my daughter to come back to Atlanta and he threatened to put his big dog lawyers on me.”

“Are you worried?”