Barbara Samuel (9 page)

“Thank you,” she said aloud, smiling a little in spite of herself and the heat and the scritching annoyance on her nerves. Funny how the tapes all played the same way. Addicted to nicotine, addicted to alcohol, addicted to overeating … the voices calling you back all said the same things:
You aren’t like everybody else. You’re special. You’re different, you need this.

Barbie licked an ice-cream cone and dangled her feet in a small green stream. The only sensible action for such a hot morning.
You’re gonna make it, Lu.

Yeah. A breeze washed down from the mountains, cool as dawn. It rattled cottonwood leaves, swept over her hot neck. She thought of Jean again, of her skein of boyfriends—one loser after another, all of them tortured
artistes
without a penny, and nothing to offer but egocentric pain. But what did Luna know, really? It wasn’t like she’d made great choices in men, either. Maybe Jean’s focus on lots of great sex was better than trying
to do everything by the rules. Either way, there were bound to be broken hearts.

And wasn’t Luna just a little bit … well,
jealous?
Sex had not exactly been in plentiful supply the past couple of years. She didn’t get out a lot. And even when she did, there was that problem of the man situation in Taos. There weren’t that many worth sleeping with. It got to be too much trouble—pretending to be interested in his novel or his sculptures or his rambling tale of finding himself—to come to Taos just to get laid.

As if her thoughts of sex were written in a bubble over her head, a low whistle rang into the bright yellow day. Luna raised her head, sure the whistle was for someone else, but there wasn’t anyone else but her on the road.

Except the whistlers—an adobe crew sitting in the shadows before an ancient, rambling farmhouse that had probably cost well into six figures with the water rights. There were four or five men in the shade of a giant cottonwood, the younger ones shirtless and tanned the color of rawhide, their jeans smeared with mud. She smiled distractedly to show her appreciation and kept walking.

The whistle rang out again. As a young woman, she’d found attention of this nature alarming or infuriating. It had seemed an enormous intrusion, an irritation. These days, she recognized the game and liked it. It was animalistic, probably, but what the heck. Still, she didn’t look their way the second time, just kept walking. She
was
alone on the road, after all.

“Luna!”

Thomas.

She paused, thinking of his truck, loaded so heavily with tools and frames, and saw that it was parked to one side. A figure detached itself from the deepest shadows, and she stood where she was, anticipation and
worry winding themselves around her lungs as Thomas stepped out into the light.

Even at fifty yards, he was something to see. A stillness all around him, a kind of envelope that separated him from everything else. Now that she knew a little of his history, she figured it was probably a protective bubble.

She wouldn’t have minded having a bubble of her own just then. He was as dusty as the others, though he wore his shirt—thank God!—and it didn’t matter. She felt like her feet were at the wrong angles, that she should do something with her hands, and she tucked them in her jeans’ pockets. Even with the dust dulling his hair and adobe on his jeans, what she’d thought of was the split second he’d reached out to put his big hand over hers on the counter.

He halted about three feet away, standing at the end of the drive. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” Not content with her hands in her pockets, she crossed her arms, aware of the sweat on her neck, the sun burning into the part of her hair.

He looked away. “I just … uh … wanted to tell you that … um … I’m sorry for being so forward with you the other day.” With an effort that cost him, he raised his chin. “Hope I didn’t offend you.”

Luna’s mouth opened and said for her, “I did kiss you back, you know.”

He quit looking everywhere but at her face, and met her eyes. Neither of them said anything. The sun beat down from the hot blue sky, melting the pavement beneath their feet. Luna kept thinking that she ought to just give him a little smile and walk away, but she wanted to stand there. Looking at him. Feeling it—her heart thudding and skittery, her throat dry with anticipation,
her skin rippling because he was close. It had been so long since she’d felt this.

And he looked back, those deep eyes so compelling— bravado and appreciation and a big helping of wariness. It was the appreciation she liked.

He said finally, “You want to go get a drink with me later or something?” He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Back up a step, maybe?”

Baldly, she said, “I’m an alcoholic.” That should do it, push him away. “I don’t drink.”

But Thomas Coyote only nodded, and she saw him put a little piece of her life in place—the daughter had lived with her father. Ah. “How about a sundae, then?” he said in that smooth, rich voice. “I’m kind of an ice cream-aholic, but they let me have a little now and then, see if I can handle it.”

Only the barest of smiles touched his mouth, but the glow of it was in his eyes. Luna fell in love with him that very second. It swooped through her, burning, and sailed away so fast that she didn’t recognize it. “Hot fudge?”

“Absolutely.” He narrowed his eyes, looked at the sky. “Say, seven-thirty, at the DQ?”

“Okay,” she said, and suddenly wanted to cry. Hastily, she backed away, touching her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

“See ya,” he said, and for one beat, looked at her with something like promise, then turned and walked back down the drive, big as a bear, with shoulders she wanted to touch.

Her hands were shaking as she turned back the way she’d come, and she reached for her cigarettes and lighter before she remembered they weren’t there. “God, Lu, this is such a bad idea,” she said aloud. “He’s
horny and on the rebound and you do not need any complications in your life.” But she didn’t even consider not showing up.

At lunch, Joy sat alone in the courtyard of the school, watching everybody. They all knew one another. Three of the girls were talking in a knot over a table, looking around in that way that said they were gossiping about everybody else. One girl sat by herself in the shade, her back against the wall, and nobody talked to her. Joy thought the girl might live close by, that she’d seen her at the little park at the end of the street that nobody went to except the neighborhood kids. It wasn’t much of a park. Worn-out grass, a few benches, a really old slide, some trees for shade. The teenagers smoked dope there, and though Joy didn’t do that, the way she dressed made everybody think she did, so they didn’t worry about her. She left them alone and they left her alone. Cool.

Joy was used to being alone when she came to Taos. She’d made a couple of friends in her mom’s old neighborhood, a white guy named Derek who was pretty nice, but always wanted to put the moves on her, and a girl a little younger than she was who showed Joy how to put on eyeliner. But neither of those kids was around here today.

She watched the other girl out of the corner of her eye, wondering if she was new or something, too, like Joy, or if she might have done something the other kids knew about and they left her alone for it.

But it was too bright and boring outside and the worst that could happen was the girl would be a bitch. Kitty would tell her to be friendly and everything would be all right, and though Joy had learned that wasn’t always true, it wasn’t exactly untrue, either.

She stopped at the soda machine and bought a pop and carried it over to the girl, who looked up warily from a notebook she was scribbling in. “Hi,” Joy said, and opened her Coke. She leaned on the wall, looking out at the other kids.

“Hi,” the girl said without much interest. But she closed her notebook. After a minute she said, “You’re new here.”

Joy nodded. “I came here from Atlanta to live with my mom.”

“You miss him, your dad?”

“No.” Joy lifted a shoulder.

“My dad died in the spring,” she said. “That’s why nobody talks to me here. They think I’ll be crazy again, like I was then.”

Intrigued, Joy slid down the wall. “What’d you do?”

The girl shook her head slowly, her dark eyes distant, like she was looking backward. “A lot of stuff. I’m not proud of it, you know.” She shook her long hair out of her face. “What’s your name?”

“Joy. You?”

“Magdalena, but you can call me Maggie.” She looked right at her. “Do you smoke? I have cigarettes.”

“Yes! My mother quit and I haven’t had any since I got here. Where do you go?”

Maggie stood up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

The only thing Luna thought about the rest of the work day was Thomas. It wasn’t conscious thought, exactly, more like wisps of him that floated around her little space—his tilted dark eyes occupying the space over the sink, his wide mouth smiling there by the phone, his long, dark, beautiful hands in the general area of the cooler. She wanted to kiss him again almost as much as she didn’t. The promise of him followed her home, a tickle on her spine, and she wondered what they’d say to each other.

But when she saw Joy curled up in a little ball on the couch, asleep, reality vaporized the fantasy. What kind of mother went out on a date the first day of school? She’d forgotten. What good mother would have let something so momentous slip her mind?

With some regret, she realized she should have
planned a good supper, too, so the two of them could sit down and chat a little without pressure. She’d meant to, and had forgotten.

Guilt chattered upward from her solar plexus as she looked down at her sleeping daughter. The thick hair spilled over the side of the couch, exotically colored but still as glossy as ever, and her skin was so dewy it was almost heartbreaking. At Joy’s age, Luna’s skin had been annoyingly prone to zits. Joy didn’t appear to have had a pimple in her life.

She smelled, distinctly, of cigarettes.

Luna scowled. Surely Joy, Miss Cigarettes Are Disgusting, would not be smoking?

Interestingly, the odor did not make her want to rush out and have a cigarette herself. In fact, it was something of a miracle that she could pick up the scent on someone else, and it made her feel slightly smug, even as she considered the possibilities of why Joy might smell like that. It was possible she’d stopped at a house where the parents smoked, or she had made a friend who smoked. No jumping to conclusions.

Joy opened her eyes suddenly, with that wide-open, surprised startle. Sleep glazed her pale blue eyes and she blinked. “Hi.”

“Hi. Been home long?”

She stretched luxuriously, and Luna noticed again that she had inherited Kitty’s abundant bosom. “About an hour I guess.”

“Hungry?”

“Very. School lunch is disgusting.” She yawned. “I would have made something myself, but I just crashed for a while. Do we have any of that Cajun turkey left?”

“Sure.” Luna dropped her bag on the coffee table and waved Joy into the kitchen, where she started taking things out of the fridge—the thin-sliced deli meat, broccoli
sprouts, half a tomato, and the Dijon mustard they agreed made the sandwich heavenly. “Pita or black rye?” she asked, taking a knife from the drawer and two plates from the cupboard.

“Rye, please.”

In quiet, they fixed enormous sandwiches, piling on veggies and condiments. Luna sliced a couple of apples to go with it, and pulled out some tortilla chips left over from the party. Admiring the colors of black bread and white corn chips and red apple against blue glass plates, she said, “Now that’s pretty.”

“Very patriotic.” Joy snorted. “I think we should cut the apple into stars.”

Luna laughed softly, settling on the stool to dig in. The walk home always seemed to leave her famished, and it appeared that Joy was the same way after school. “You don’t mind eating dinner like this, do you? We can snack later if we’re still hungry.”

“Are you kidding? I love this.”

“I’ll try to remember to do sit-down dinners more often. Maybe a little closer to the real dinner hour, too, if you want.”

Joy rolled her eyes. “Mom. No teenager in the world likes the family dinner hour, trust me.” She shuddered for effect. “And besides, this is a sit-down dinner.”

She nodded, thinking maybe some avocado would go well with this mix next time. “You’ll tell me if you start wanting pot roast and potatoes and things like that, won’t you?”

“I’ll tell Grandma.”

“Low blow,” Luna said, but she grinned. “We will have dinner there on Saturdays, you know, so when you start getting mixed up in the local social whirl, remember to schedule stuff later on Saturday nights.”

“Starting this week?”

“Do you have plans already?”

“Well, no, not exactly. I met this girl at school—she lives, like, right behind us. We talked about doing something maybe. But no way I want to miss Grandma’s Saturday suppers. Maybe she’ll do fondue.”

“Maybe so.” She made a mental note to request fondue. Her mother would be delighted to accommodate Joy’s tastes. Or Luna’s, for that matter.

The tradition had started when Elaine and Luna were small. Kitty worked as a cocktail waitress and didn’t have to be at work until nine on weekend nights. Saturdays were her big tip night, and as a way to make all of them feel better about her absence those hours, she came up with the supper thing. Often in those younger days, the special supper had been something like Belgian waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream, or French toast and link sausages. They loved breakfast for supper. It seemed somehow decadent to be eating pancakes as the sun set.