Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Nan sat at the end of my bed with a cup of coffee. “D’ya sleep well?”

The sheets were tucked tightly and I was trapped under them, like the first time I’d met her. I was on alert, trying to embrace her generosity, but uneasy. “I did, thank you. How long have you been watching me?”

“What do you mean?”

“While I slept.”

“Oh,” she said, “not long.” She handed me the coffee, rubbed the blanket and my foot beneath it then stood. “I’m sorry about last night. I think I scared you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Really?” She was contrite, eyes hooded, a teenager who’d overstepped. Vulnerable. “Thanks. Maybe sometime you’ll let me wash your hair, but I’ll ask first, I promise. I promise.”

Remorseful. I could relate. I recognized those genes as part of her beauty. And her anger . . . I wasn’t without my own anger. But I didn’t know
why
she was angry, not with her beauty and all her comforts. “That sounds nice. And thank you for the coffee.” I lifted the cup.

“Ya know why I offered you our place?” She paused, eyes wide. “Because I saw something in you . . .” Her voice tripped. She cleared her throat. “You remind me of someone.”

“Me?” I laughed.

She began to cry. Tiny rivulets cascaded slowly down her face.

I sat up in the bed. “Are you okay?”

“It’s-it’s nothing, I’m just easily . . .”

“What?”

“. . . Family stuff, we can talk about it some other time. Sorry.” She pulled the water from her eyes with languorous strokes, like a magician.

I leaned forward. “I’d be happy to talk to you about it. How about now?” A few clues about her might relax me.

“Can’t,” she sighed. “Hospital.” She rubbed her eyes dry with her forearms. “Oh, ya, I almost forgot. I’ve planned something special for you this evening.” She waved. “I’ll be back by then.”

“Nan, I really appreciate everything but—”

“You’ve said that before.” Her jawbone shifted, she ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’m suffocating you, aren’t I? Sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“No, no, it’s very sweet of you.”
Keep her on your side
. “It’s my stuff. I’ve got a lot of
stuff
. What did you have in mind?”

The desert color came back to her cheeks and her eyes bloomed turquoise green. “It’s a surprise, and it begins this evening at seven o’clock.”

I wasn’t ready for any more surprises. But I smiled. With her I’d keep smiling, and vigilant.

***

Notwithstanding her charm, I waited to leave the apartment shortly after Nan, not to cause a fuss, and I managed the early morning commute better than I’d anticipated, occasionally returning people’s stares. They always looked away.

“Mrs. Warring wasn’t expecting you,” said the secretary, “but she’ll see you for five minutes.” She ushered me into Warring’s office.

“Eunis.” Warring, rigid, didn’t get up from her desk. “I see that your bruises are healing.”

“I want to explain.” Maybe it was the coffee, I was jittery, and I really hated that effing desk of hers.
Stay focused
.

“An explanation would be welcomed.” She leaned back in her chair, flexing a pencil up and down.

Swim, one stroke at a time
. “Now you understand about Elizabeth, and maybe that answers some of your questions concerning the lab. I think she does her job very well, but the bruises, well some of them were an accident, with Elizabeth. She didn’t mean to, of course, but she was . . .well, you know, she lost control.”

“Of course. Control.” Warring put the pencil down without a sound.

“Yes.”

“She’s been a good worker.” Warring hinted a smile.

“She wasn’t right. Muddled, disordered. You can imagine. Now that she’s in rehab I guess you can understand why I didn’t want to tell you about the cuts and bruises. She didn’t mean to. She isn’t a violent person. She’s really very responsible. It was an accident.”

“Yes.” Warring went silent, her mouth tighter, less merciful.

My heart thumped. “You
do
know about the rehab?”

Warring smacked her lips. “I was told Elizabeth was taking vacation days.”

My supraorbital ridge started banging. “Oh god.”

“Anything else?” She looked at her watch.

I’d done it again. “Elizabeth is good at her work. She would never jeopardize—”

“Please spare me the testimonials. Our investigation continues.” She stood up and motioned to the door.

“I wasn’t covering for myself, I just thought—”

Her jaw flexed. She pointed again to the door. “Now.”

I walked out. I looked for a desk, anything, to hide behind. Everything was brightly lit. The secretary and a waiting lab tech tracked me, stony eyed, their condemnation implied. I was going to have to fix this. I had no idea how.

***

On the street, it rang. Searching frantically through my coat pockets for the cell phone, it rang again. Frisking accelerated. “Shit.” Like I was slapping attacking hornets. A black kid gave me a
whatthehell
look.

I answered the phone, heaving and breathing irregularly. “Yes?” I glared back at the kid. He stutter-stepped away, down the street. I hustled to the corner of the building and checked the alleyway. Almost no one had my number. “Yes? Roddy?” Wishful thinking.

“Who? Eunis, Eunis is that you, girl?”

“This is Eunis, who’s this?”

“Lyle.”

“Lyle?”

“Lyle!”

“Lyle.” I went from anxious to stunned. “Lyle. Wow.”

“Yes, your long lost baby brother.”

“
Baby brother
?”

“Lyle.”

“Yes, don’t start that again.” I finally caught my breath. “Um, okay. I never heard you refer to me as your sister, or you as my baby brother.”

“We’re family, ain’t we?”

I pulled the phone from my ear and studied it at arm’s length. I put it back on my ear. “This is Lyle Kindsvatter of Bemidji, Minnesota?”

“Bemidji. Minnesota. Go Beavers. Home of Gary Puckett.”

I’d never heard him so chirpy.
“Why are you calling?” A loud police siren screamed past. “Lyle, I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I’m comin’ to New York. Just spoke to Carly, and she says you’re doin’ all great up there.”

“Down here.”

“Down there, and she said you might have a place for me to stay?”

A place to stay?

“She said she’d heard you got some money from Harold’s . . . his what-do-ya-call-it—?”

“—Suicide . . . unless you mean his
estate
.”

“Yeah that,” said Lyle. “So you’all have a pretty cool condo or somethin’ up —down there?”

“I did, and it’s small. But you’d be welcome if I was.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s small, and you can stay at my condo
when
I can, but right now I can’t.”

“I don’t understand. Can I live with you or not?”

“Right now . . . well, I’m kind of in the process of moving. Really, if I had a place,” I shut my eyes and saw Lyle drunk in the Kiwanis basement, pressing his beloved Martin D-35 to his chest and singing to rows of empty chairs, “you’d be welcome.”

“Well, it’s okay. I can live wherever you are for a little while until we get to the condo.”

I shook my head, like that would make him see. “Lyle, you don’t understand. Things aren’t going so well right now.”

“But Carly said—”

“She was wrong.”

“I might get a backup gig, so I’m comin’. Ya never know where it could lead. Maybe somebody from a label. Not sure when, got some issues I gotta clear up. But don’t worry, I’ll find you, and now you’ve got my cell number. Hey, and do you know anybody in that scene?”

“What scene?”

“My scene.”

“What’s your scene, Lyle?”

“Same as always, country/western music. It’s just meetin’ the right people, Eunis.”

And then he was gone. “Lyle?” I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. Gone. “Holy shit.” Another lightning rod for trouble. Could I hide from him in this city?

Carol Warring exited the building. I took two steps into the alley shadows to avoid her.

She saw me lurking in the alley and stared at me. “I don’t need this bullshit.”

***

I left a nervous message for Roddy to call me, admittedly relieved that I didn’t reach him. Putting off the inevitable. Scrubbing my hands was no use. The burden followed me back to Nan and Levi’s apartment.

At the apartment, still restless and searching for an excuse to make it
all
go away, I examined the new wardrobe Levi and Nan had provided: lacey and sheer and low cut; more provocative than anything I would have chosen; yet so generous and so flattering. Perhaps I could fill in with a few things more demure the next time I visited The Octagon.

I flipped absently through a People magazine.

X-Men Auction Draws Millionaire Bidders

“Those trinkets you bought when you were young may be worth something. Paraphernalia from the first two X-Men films, as well as early X-Men collector items, are drawing advanced bids of up to $12,000 for an auction in Toronto. The curiosities are garnering attention from collectors around the world including . . .”

I continued paging through it. I fidgeted. I put the magazine down. On the bookshelf I found an old encyclopedia, probably Levi’s. I searched for Freyja but found nothing except a reference to Aphrodite:

“Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty, love, desire, and pleasure. Although married, she had many lovers. She was depicted as a beautiful woman and, of all the goddesses, most likely to appear nude or seminude. (also see: Venus, Atargatis & Ashtarte [Syrian])”

Nan walked in. “Hi.”

I closed the book. “Can we talk? I’ve done something terrible. I don’t know what to do.”

Nan put down her things and motioned for me to sit on the sofa. She was immediately supportive and listened patiently as I retold how I’d outed Elizabeth.

“They’ll fire her because of me.”

“Sounds like a mistake, but you’ve called her husband.” Her face had the color and consistency of soft, tan clay, almost edible and absolutely perfect. “What else can you do?” She put her hand on mine. “What did your boss say? Is she going to reinstate you?”

“Never got that far. I’m so ashamed. I may have destroyed her career.”

“I think you’ve done the right thing. Until he calls why don’t you relax? A drink maybe? I’ve got some pot.”

“Maybe a drink, a glass of wine.”
Think things out.

After we’d both sipped a couple of glasses of pinot, and Freyja had transformed the room into a lagoon, and Nan had reminded me that I was safe there with nothing to struggle against, I acquiesced to her deep green pools. A realization broke the surface of those pools and rippled outward.

“Your surprise. I forgot to tell you about your surprise.” She checked her watch. “Geez, it’s almost seven.” Nan got up. “I’ll be going out.”

“That’s my surprise?” I wanted to keep swimming with her, wanted her to see my disappointment and that I’d forgiven her, or that at least I was working on it, that I appreciated her friendship, like a beautiful sister I almost had. We could talk about her family. Maybe I’d tell her about the upcoming genetics conference at The New York Academy of Sciences.

“No.” Nan was amused. “I just want you to have the space all to yourself, to use in any way you see fit. And no hair-washing necessary.”

“Huh, okay. But I’d
like
you to stay.”

“We’ll have plenty of time, you’re sweet.”

Within minutes, she gave me a big hug and a peck on the lips, and was out the door. “You may want to slip into something more comfortable.”

Instead of relaxing me, my antennae went up. I just wanted a cocoon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

A little past seven o’clock the blissful doorbell chimed and I answered it. Perhaps Nan had forgotten her keys. It was Roberto, Mr. Pectoralis of the Biceps Brachi, still as stubby and well built as on New Year’s morning in the kitchen. I pictured my “Faces” scrapbook spread out for ridicule.
Let it go
.

“This should be fun.” He brushed past me into the living room. “How about some candles?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Roberto. You remember me?”

“I do, but Nan’s not here.”

“What did Nan tell you?”

“She said there was a surprise.”

“That’s me. Where would you like to do it?”

“What?!”

“Your massage. Which room would you like? No, never mind.” He went to a dark blue and orange vase, lifted it at an angle, and slipped a key from under it. I’d never considered
under
the vase. “The table’s already in there. C’mon.” He took my hand and directed me to the room marked “Cinema.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You do like massage?”

“I’ve never really—”

“But it seems like something you’d enjoy. I’m a masseur.” He unlocked the door with his right hand and wiggled his left. “Angels in my fingers, you’ll see.” He flipped on a light that rimmed the entire room in a soft glow where the ceiling curves met the wall.

The room had none of the theatrics or nautical themes of the rest of the kingdom, but had, as its centerpiece, a large massage table surrounded by calming sand-colored walls and large same-colored pillows propped against them. Even the floor was a light tan. Very soothing.

“You can hang your clothes there.” He pointed to a row of hooks. “I’ll get you some water. You can slip under the sheet, on your stomach, forehead in that head rest.” He departed.

A massage.
I had my questions.
Could be
worth exploring.
I called to him, “I don’t know you very well.” Apparently he hadn’t heard me. I stood there foolish for a minute, then
what the hell
, stripped, hung my clothes, and crawled under the cool sheet. It felt good. When he entered I asked, “This is just a massage, right?”

“My massage is not
just
a massage. And you can ask me to stop whenever, okay?”

“Okay.”
Okay.

“Do you mind if I take a hit of something?”

“I guess not. I already had two glasses of wine.”

He lit a small pipe from his pocket, inhaled, and ducking under my headrest, put his lips close to mine and blew the smoke into my mouth and nose.

“Hey!” I coughed. “You should’ve asked. Maybe you got the wrong idea the other night.”

“Sorry. Do you want me to leave?”

“No, it’s okay.” I lay my forehead on the headrest. “But please ask me the next time. I’m not sure pot even does anything for me.”

I heard Roberto flip a couple of switches. I heard rustling. Music began, low, sparse, calming. Then his hands were on my shoulders and neck, stretching, tugging, manipulating, and sliding down my rib cage and spine. His fingers were strong and deep but not painful. He explored each bone, each muscle, deliberately. No rush. He flowed over me, freeing one tension after another, unknown knots and nubs, sea spray lifting off from the ocean surface but not returning.

“I’m not hurting you am I?”

I could barely respond. “No,” I whispered.

“Breathe,” he said. “Breathe deeply. Release through my fingers.” He folded the sheet painstakingly from the left side of my body. The air cooled ever-so-slightly. He ran his hand over my hips and down both sides of my left thigh, so that he lightly grazed the hair flanking my vulva.

“I’m going to use my elbow.” He ran his fingers the length of my hair and drew it back from my ear and came close to it. “Let me know if it’s too much.” Then he leaned his elbow into the space just below my waist and above my left butt and applied pressure. His command, the exact right amount of pressure, surprised me again.

Space opening between atoms.

He re-covered the left side and applied the same release on my right.

I breathed
with him
.

“Yes,” he said, as if he’d heard me. “Exhale, breathe through the muscles.”

I drifted in transcendent foam, just above the water’s surface, a cleansing mist that left no trace.
The pot. Was that pot? Ooh.
I skimmed through the waves, the Chippewa Forest all around me, the vegetation delicate, fluorescent, and alive. Hallucinogenic.

It breathed, slowly, extravagantly. Hypnotically. The forest’s greens pulsed off the earth in patient hoops, meeting my floating body and passing it. I, the willing porpoise suspended, arching through the hoop waves without fear, without consequence. Timeless.

A zephyr passed over me, cooling me, toes to waist. His right hand, like an extension of me, lay on my buttock. I wanted his left hand too.

“You’re uncovered,” he said, “and I can’t wait much longer, Aphrodite. May I enter you?”

I couldn’t imagine anything else. I heard myself answer “Yes.”

He was on me, from behind, finding his way into me. I gasped. He went deeper.

“Are you okay,” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.
Yes.

He kissed the nape of my neck and went deeper still, until I was sure we couldn’t be any closer. Though I’d welcome it. We rode the skies above the oceans and forests together. “I can feel you all around me, Aphrodite. You’re perfect. Perfect. Perfect.”

And with that he unleashed his stream into me, the cool then warm fluid reaching my deepest pool, triggering my flood of cries and orgasms and tears. Blissful tears.

He knelt between me and lay delicately on my back, still inside me. “Perfection,” he whispered.

“Yes.” I pulled him closer.

***

When we lay against the pillows I was still traveling through the spring Minnesota forests and over and beneath its wetlands. “A magic kingdom,” I heard myself telling Roberto. “Colors everywhere.”

He stroked my hair, all the way to my shoulders and back up. “Iridescent,” he said.

I cuddled to his chest. His sweat smelled of soap.
Disappointing
. I’d rather have had the smell of dark loam and edaphon, or the clarity of a muddy mossy lake. But no matter.

“In here,” Roberto called out, a deep godly voice because my ear was still to his chest. Others entered the room.
How long had we been lying there?
The others disrobed and discovered each other. It was luxurious to watch.

When Roberto let go of me someone else took his place. An older man, I think. He knelt above me. He had wolf gray eyes. They were afraid.

“Shush, shush,” I said to the man. His eyes widened; his face loosened. Like me, he simply wanted safety.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said. “The drugs, I mean. So it’s not you. You have the most beautiful body I have ever seen. Are you the woman they promised? Your hair is magic. Your lips . . .”

“Jonah.” An elegant gray-haired black woman squatted to our level. “Stop talking. You don’t need to talk. Just
be
.” She kissed the top of his head and raised her round naked body up. Her ample hips dissolved into the rolling silhouettes.
She must be the queen.

“Are you the king?” I asked.

“Yes.”

In that instant I could read his mind. We could serve each other. We could both be in the cocoon. “Then you may taste me.” I spread my legs. And he went down on me while I slowly stroked his hair.

***

I was pacing the top step of Elizabeth’s brownstone when Roddy arrived, his gait steady, his ascent
up
the steps molten. So natural. He placed his arm on my waist and escorted me inside, but not before I noticed two neighbor-women fixing us with disapproving stares. I could be done with this and back in my protective shell in little more than an hour.

Once inside he offered me water, which I accepted. We sat facing each other. The midday light over his shoulder blinded me. He noticed, got up and closed the window shade.

I removed my shadowed glasses and hung my head. “At the lab, I thought Carol Warring knew.”

“Knew what?”

“About Elizabeth’s rehab.”

“Oh shit.” He rubbed his forehead.

“What have I done?”

He reached for me. Took my hand. His mouth, even then kind, prompted a not-unpleasant intoxication
,
perhaps re-stimulating a recent drug.
I pushed his hand aside. After a drink of water, I slid a coaster under it and set it down on the well-worn coffee table.

“It was bound to come out. You couldn’t have known.”

“I was trying to save myself. I should never have assumed. I’m
the
most selfish—!”

“Stop. You couldn’t have known. Will Warring reconsider your job?”

“Not sure. Besides, I don’t even know if I want the damn job anymore. I need it, but I’m so confused. What’re we going to do about Eliz?”

“They can’t fire Elizabeth for going to rehab.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Of course I do. I’m an employment attorney.”

“They can’t fire her?”

“They can fire her for screwing up lab results if she was drunk. They can’t fire her for going to rehab.”

I straightened up. “I never saw her drunk at work. She’s pretty happy there.”

“That’s useful but of course it’s only one point of view. How about the other woman, the East Indian girl? What’s her name?”

“Ruchika.”

“I’ll talk to her. I can’t imagine Eliz going to work drunk or even drinking on the job. So stop worrying.”

“I’m just not meant for . . . anyplace.”

“Where are you from?”

I studied him, wondering why he cared. “Bemidji, Minnesota. Actually, just north of there, between Puposky and Nebish. I’m sure you’re familiar with the area.” I tried to grin.

“I’m not.”

“Because they don’t exist anymore. They’re legend now, nothing more. That’s where
I’m
from: nowhere.”

“And your family?”

“What good is this?” Like Momma was poking at me. I wanted to get back to my safe, dark ship, to Nan and Levi, where I’d be held and stroked and appreciated. He must’ve heard my exasperation.

“Your mother? Your father?”

“My mother is a bitter, superstitious woman who believes in myths and spooky goblins and spirits. I never knew my real father, and my step-father is dead.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“One wants to be a star. The other thinks she is. Maybe she is.”

“You sound bitter.”

“They don’t relate to me.” I ran my hand along my face. “Who can blame them?”

He took a big breath, exhaled. “My mother was black, a sweet woman with a speech impediment from a family of six. She was the oldest and the one who was worked the hardest. She met my father, a dance instructor, Portuguese and Jewish, during the civil rights movement in Alabama. They traveled to Memphis together where they were both involved in advance logistics for Martin Luther King. They got married. They were in dreamland, I’m told —a few days, maybe a week. Shortly after that Martin Luther King was assassinated, and shortly after that it came out that my father had had a passing acquaintance with James Earl Ray. Do you know who that is?”

“The guy who shot King.”

“The guy who
allegedly
shot King. He was a thief, a pornographer and a racist. My father was beaten to death by my mother’s own brother. My mother’s been in a mental facility ever since. She will die there, probably very soon. Even King’s family is pretty sure James Earl Ray wasn’t the assassin.”

I didn’t know what to say. Like I’d been carved out.

“
Saudade
,” he said. “It’s a Portuguese word. Hard to translate. Life’s lingering melancholy.”

“It’s always there, isn’t it?”

A small nod in agreement. “For everyone. Even for Ray. His father was always on the run, a forger, a criminal, dragging the family around, and Ray’s younger sister caught fire and died playing with matches. Tragedy is everywhere, all the time. But you don’t strike me as someone who will give in.”

I managed another sip of water. “I never intended to.”

“Good, then don’t.” He paused. “And if your family doesn’t fit, find family that does.”

“What about you and Elizabeth? Aren’t you giving in?” I put down the glass of water making sure it was centered on the coaster.

“There are many ways to map the arc of a relationship. One of ours was by the way we spoke to each other. At first I called her Eliz. Then Lizzy. Then Lizzy Plum Garden. Then Plumby. Then asshole.”

I laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry.”