Everything (19 page)

Oh, sad and lonely dancing bear. Oh, lonely me, he thought.

But he didn’t feel it. He felt pretty good, actually. Strangely light and airy. Untethered. He had this past, this history, she had dumped him once and broken his heart, he had chosen to stay in the valley instead of testing himself in the wide world, mistakes had been made, entrances and exits blown, but even this was not all dead
dogs and bad road trips. He had emerged from the past with this beautiful daughter, with the October mornings and kingfishers and the heft, the surprise of a big fish on the line. And, yes, she might be dead soon. Death was waiting for all of them. This did not seem like an excuse to not live.

Between past and future he sat, smoking and alive. Real Cubans, RL thought. As good as they say.

Thank you, God of nothing. Nobody that he used to be, nobody that he might become, no million dollars, no mending fences. His mother was still dead and he would never tell her how he loved her and he would never go to the Olympics and the person who wanted these things, he temporarily was not. He did not want to be rich or beautiful. Even Layla, beautiful as she was, he knew she was out there and for once he could rest secure and know that whatever waited for him was out there, waiting.

RL felt that he was touching something. The stream going by and him letting it. Floating in it.

Something.

He thought he would solve something by sleeping with her. He understood that now. He thought he would redress or at least reopen, but the past stayed exactly where it was, unchanged, all the old impulses and regrets, this mistaken words and the wrong silences …. It didn’t matter now. He was here now and it was all right. There would be a future, he understood that, and something would happen in it. But for now.

* * *

Now he sat on the tiled balcony, smoking his big cigar, watching the smoke drift out into the still afternoon air. The ocean below and the sound of the wind in the palms, a restless afternoon breeze. Now it would always be four o’clock. Now an unaccustomed quiet. Now the touch, the sip, the sea breeze on his skin. Now the sailor, home from the sea. A restless rest, here. Now.

OK, Layla said
. Now what?

June just looked at her as every single thought flew out of her head. She felt a muddy mess inside, and then suddenly she was crying, remembering Taylor, the empty womb she carried in her belly still. They tried and tried, Now here …

Layla saw the tears and came to comfort her but she was no comfort, crying herself.

I’m sorry, June said. I’m so sorry.

Sorry for what? Don’t be.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, said June.

* * *

Layla held her at arm’s length and laughed at her, still weeping.

Listen to you.

Fuck, said June.

Then they were both laughing and tears and snot ran down into each other’s sweaters and it was just stupid. But good. June felt like it was good, holding Layla, there in the kitchen. June wanted it to be simple comfort but she was complicated herself, couldn’t stop being herself, the barren … Now this girl, an easy accident, a baby.

What am I going to do? Layla asked. Tell me.

No, June said. Nobody’s going to tell you.

But I don’t know what to do.

And everybody else does, everybody’s got an opinion. I mean, I do, too. Because it’s an easy choice for me to make. It’s harder for you.

I haven’t told anybody else.

Nobody?

Nobody at all. Just you.

Not …?

Nobody but you.

* * *

Oh, June said.

I know.

June got up, put her hand on the counter, looked out the window, touched a coffee cup where it sat dirty next to the sink. She felt like an actress on a stage, looking for some bit of business that would express her confusion and grief. What would such a person do? All fluttery and wan. All Sarah Bernhardt. Save me!

What shall we do? she asked. What shall we do?

Let’s go out for breakfast, Layla said.

June considered this for a long moment. Then she said, I can’t see how that will solve anything.

I didn’t think it would, Layla said. Not for a moment. I could use some flapjacks, though.

True, June said.

Some eggs and taters.

Ruby’s or the truck stop?

Hell, let’s go all the way. Let’s take the pickup, hit the truck stop, drive around for a while after, you want to? Maybe go up to the bison range, look at some buffalo. Go drink and drive.

Monkey time, June said.

* * *

What?

No drinking, June said. Not while you’re …

One won’t hurt anything.

It’s nine thirty in the morning.

I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about later. Maybe we can go up to Hot Springs, up to the Symes. I could stand to warm up for once.

We’ll see, June said.

One won’t hurt anything.

We’ll see, June said.

Her name was April
, he was almost sure, and he met her at that party in Madrona—he remembered the house, the Richie Rich club, a bunch of California boys with a hot tub and a view of Lake Washington … and they had made it back here somehow, and now she was sleeping the sleep of the undead but not quite snoring with her eye makeup, much eye makeup, smeared across Daniel’s pretty pillowcase. Sunday morning, a low slant of light. It was time to change his life.

The thing is, Layla said
, I know this is supposed to be bad news and all. I know this is trouble. But part of me, down in my body, part of me is happy. My body is fucking thrilled about this. You know?

I don’t know, June said.

I’m sorry.

No, June said, I didn’t mean it like that.

They drove in RL’s big pickup, Layla behind the wheel, across the reservation on patched and rutted two-lane. A mixed winter sky of black and brilliant blue raced by overhead, promising sunshine, promising snow. A black-and-white cow in a field, a rusting Farmall,
a solitary pine tree with its shadow outlined in ice. Not another car in sight, and the only house on the far corner of the hayfield, nestled in among windbreak cedars at the base of the hill. They were the lucky ones, the only ones to see it, all this ordinary beauty.

It’s strange, June said, how much you just sort of get what you get.

Layla burst out laughing. She said, What the hell was that?

June surfaced out of her thoughts, surprised a little at herself.

Sorry, she said. Just the tail end of a long conversation with my brain.

And what did you have to say to yourself? Well, I was thinking.

What?

Oh, I don’t mean to put you on the spot or anything. But I was thinking about you, what you ought to do, whether I should try to tell you to do something. I don’t mean anything by that, it’s just, is there anything I could do to help?

No, I get it.

Good, June said. And then it was like, how much of my life is going after something and then getting it and then how much is just like something happens and there you are.

* * *

So you think I should keep the baby.

I didn’t say that.

So you don’t think I should keep the baby.

I didn’t say that either. You think it’s a baby?

What?

You think of it as a baby, and not some thing down inside of you. Some lump.

No, it’s definitely a baby. The other night I had a dream where I could see her face. I’ve been having crazy complicated dreams lately.

Well, June said. That’s something.

What kind of something?

I don’t know.

No, tell me.

June waited as they came down a long curving hill to meet the other highway where it came up out of the river valley, gray fields and black crows under a sky that was suddenly covered in black cloud. Crows circling over the highway. It seemed like a day when all bets were off, all regular life suspended. June reached into the cooler behind the seat and brought out a cold dripping can of beer and opened it. Layla had packed the cooler but not for herself.

* * *

I think you’re going to have a baby, June said, that’s what I think.

Oh, me, too, said Layla. A girl baby.

You don’t have to.

Oh, yes, I do, Layla said. That other stuff, that’s fine for other people, you know? I’m not making any judgment about it or anything. But I’ve been thinking and I just don’t think it’s for me.

Abortion, you mean, June said. She was suddenly tired of this fog of romance, this inspecificity. You’re going to keep the baby.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with the baby, Layla said.

But you’re going to carry it to term.

Yes, I am, Layla said. She swiped the beer out of June’s hand and took a short sip and it started to snow, a brief furious assault. Layla turned the wipers on and strained through the windshield to see the road, a momentary whiteout, the big truck floating in space. June watched terrified.

They drove through it, somehow still on the road. The highway white and all the fields around them.

Layla handed the beer can back. June had forgotten it. Layla drove on, more slowly than before.

* * *

I don’t know what you think of me, Layla said, both eyes on the road, careful. I mean, I know you’re a friend and all. But this is just something that I need to do, you know? I know it doesn’t make any sense. I know what the practical thing to do is.

You’re right, June said. I mean, I know you’re right.

I’m just not a practical person, I don’t think.

Neither am I, June said. Neither is anybody. We all just pretend to be.

Good luck with that, Layla said.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, June said. You treat this like it’s an idea, like it’s some feeling you’re having. Do you even know what’s happening to you? I feel like I’m watching a baby walking down the side of a highway, like any minute you’re just going to walk out in front of a truck.

Layla didn’t say anything, just drove. At the next gravel pullout, she took the truck off the road, put on the emergency brake, stared forward through the windshield.

I didn’t know you felt that way, she said.

I’ll be better in a minute, June said.

No, Layla said. It’s good to know how people feel. Maybe we should go back.

* * *

You don’t want to go to the hot springs?

Not today, the girl said. I might hurt my baby. I don’t want to hurt
the baby
.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, June said.

There stands the glass
, RL thought as he awoke. All the country songs came true at once: in Mexico with a hangover and a woman who maybe loved him and maybe didn’t and blinding light through the long windows. All he lacked was maybe a dog.

She wasn’t there, though. Wasn’t next to him.

Why not? He searched his memory for the night before, found only scraps and patches, something about an argument, or maybe it was just RL feeling bad. He wondered if he had driven her out. It certainly seemed possible. He didn’t feel particularly kind or particularly lovable and he made mistakes, especially when he had been drinking. He felt strangely about her. Maybe he had acted strangely as well.

* * *

A kind of epic pointlessness overtook him, alone in a hotel room far from home and no reason for it.

He went to the window and looked out into the blinding sunlight and there she was: Betsy in her Mayan skirt and sun hat, rounding the corner by the pool. Really, it could have been anyone but it was her, he knew it, if only by the woven bag she carried, a girl who always seemed to be running away from home. What was in there? A bottle of water, of sunblock, of bug spray, a red bandanna and a book about spirituality or vegetarianism. A bedroll. A novel manuscript.

But where was she going? It was only eight o’clock, early on a Sunday morning. Early for the Anglos, anyway. The pool boys in their white shirts and dark skin were well under way, scrubbing down the deep silent blue of the pool. The tables were set, the flowers in their vases. Betsy was the only moving tourist, a flutter of color around the corner of the building and gone. RL knew he had to follow her, though he didn’t know why. He scrambled into his tourist clothes, his elaborate sandals and baggy shorts and a fishing hat with a long bill that made him look very stupid. Where was she going? Or: where was she going without him? He hurried down the open staircase, knowing he was already a block or two behind her.

Sleepy Sunday morning, the clanging of the church bells in the village, a mile away. They sounded made of tin. The ocean sat unused and unloved, down past the concrete pool basin, the tile and terraces. He had seen her turn inland and so this was the way he followed, out of the sea breeze, the morning heating up as he walked into the still sunlight. The wind died with the smell of the ocean, and the smell of warm garbage took its place. Across the broad boulevard with its center aisle of palms, he found himself in a
mixed, confused neighborhood of battered trucks and rust and animal bones. It looked like a place where work might take place but it was hard to say what kind, some dirty business or drudgery. He followed a red clay lane between two concrete curbs, with more red clay of the same kind on the other side, waiting for something. It looked half done, abandoned in mid-job, this whole place. Ahead, he thought he saw her disappearing into a lane of bright green hedge, a swirl of colorful skirt and gone.

Up close the hedge was glossy-leaved and lethal, long sharp thorns on every branch. He cut his arm on one and the blood dripped down. RL didn’t mind the bleeding.

Beyond the fence was another in-between place, half Mexican in its masonry houses and tile roofs but American in its Chevy Suburbans and porch decor. An old man in a white T-shirt and cowboy hat was spraying his gravel yard with Roundup.

Which way?
RL started to ask, but the old man just shook his head and pointed with his weed killer bottle to the end of the lane. Went back to his work. This conversation was not to happen. Beyond the next lane of greenery, a community pool of some sort, abandoned. The water sat green and murky a couple of feet below the coping, a permanent stain. Beyond, another gravel walkway, this one lined with brick and spotted with broad, vigorous weeds. The leaves sat low to the ground and matte, dark green, leathery things with spiked white edges. They were alive, they didn’t care. Something about these weeds disgusted him. He understood the old man in his hat and poison, the urge to wipe them from the face of the earth. Their insolent vigor.