Girl in Pieces (43 page)

Temple is emceeing another open mic, this time with fewer rockers and more poets, when Linus hands me the counter phone. I have to bend down to the floor to hear the voice on the other end. I notice the dust motes and coffee grounds lingering beneath the lip of the counter and make a mental note to clean more carefully later.

“Oh, my dear Charlotte.” An old man's voice, soft and crackly. “How would you like to come and work for me for a while?”

Felix Arneson says, “I'm in New York and Devvie—you remember my assistant, Devvie—has finished her dissertation. She's leaving me. I'm bereft, but I'll survive.”

“I don't…what?” I lean closer to the phone, unsure if I heard correctly. “You want me to work for you? Me?”

Felix chuckles. “I need someone who doesn't mind the desert, the isolation. It's fairly boring out there, you know. I mean, there's a wonderful city nearby, but out where I am, well, you know. You were there! You'd sort my slides, put my files in order. Lots of things, really. Answering the phone, email. Ordering my supplies. It's room and board and just a little money. What do you say? I think you rather liked it out there.”

I don't think about it all that long. It hurts here, I'm okay, but it hurts here, and I want to be somewhere quiet, where the ghost of Riley isn't everywhere.

There was such a stillness in the land around Felix's house.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do want to work for you.”

He'll arrange a ticket for me to New York, where I'll meet him at his hotel. He promises to take me around when he's not in the gallery, to museums, to bookstores. Then we'll fly back together. “I'm afraid to fly,” he whispers. “Isn't that funny, at my age? I am going to die, after all, but I'm afraid of a little hop across the sky. I'm willing to fly you all the way out here just so I don't have to fly back by myself.”

I admit that I have never flown in an airplane.

“My goodness, then,” he says. “What a pair we'll make. And you'll have that little room, too, to do your own work. Linus tells me you're working on a kind of book. I can't wait to hear about it.”

Julie and Linus stand before me, resolute. I tell them no again. “I leave in four days,” I insist. “I don't want to go with you.”

Linus says, “I know it seems horrible, Charlie, but he's worked really hard for this moment and I think it's important to support him in his recovery. Even assholes need help sometimes.”

Julie takes my hands. “He's making his amends, Charlie. This is one of his steps. Honestly, I've never seen him like this.”

They're letting Riley out for Luis Alvarez's benefit concert. He'll be accompanied by an aide; he'll wear an ankle monitor. Performing is the only way Luis's wife won't press charges against Riley for stealing Luis's car. He'll still have to do the yearlong work-rehab program. He wants me to go to the concert.

Blue sets her cup of coffee on the counter at True Grit; she's been listening to the conversation quietly. She makes the tiniest of motions with her chin, a shadowy
Don't let anyone make you do anything.
I've come to know all of Blue's new looks, the chin dips, the eye wideners, the disapproving scowl. In Creeley, she had only two looks: anger and misery. It's as though being here has opened Blue up in ways that haven't happened for me.

I squeegee the mop out, the handle wavering in my hand. Is it the grease on my fingers or something else?

“Okay,” I say finally. “Okay.”

Blue looks at my backpack, the new pink suitcase she bought me at Goodwill. Everything is packed. Her mouth turns down a little.

“I can't believe you're going,” she says quietly.

“I know.”

“I mean, I think it's good. It'll be good. But I'll miss you.”

“I'll miss you.” I take her hand.

“Felix has a computer?”

“Yes.”

“You'll Skype me? Once a week?” Her eyes are intent, pleading.

“Yes, definitely.”

“What about a phone? Will you get a cell?”

“I can't afford that. He has a phone, I can use that.”

“You'll call me all the time, you'll call me and give me his number, right? And I'll come visit. That'll be fun. Like once a month, okay?” She's breathless.

Her fingers tighten around mine. “Yes, Blue.”

“You'll find meetings? I'm going to start going with Linus.”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Okay,” she says at last. Her eyes start to brim.

“Okay,” I say.

“We have to hold on to each other, Charlie. We can't let go.” Tears splash down her face.

“No,” I answer, my throat tight.

“We aren't like other people.”

“No.”

“You're my family now. I'm yours. Do you understand?”

This last part she says into my hair, because now she's hugging me, tightly, and I don't want her to stop, ever.

Yes,
I tell her.
Yes.

The Luis Alvarez Family Benefit is packed. People are strewn all over Congress Street outside Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson. Separate stages have been set up for preshow bands and the road is blocked to cars. A mariachi band strolls through the crowd. Luis's photograph is on placards placed outside the hotel doors. He died shortly after Riley stole his car. Tiger Dean chats with a television crew, his hair pomped and his sunglasses perched on his head.

I catch sight of Mikey with Bunny, holding hands; he's no longer in dreadlocks; his hair is a short golden cap around his head. I haven't seen him since I got back.

Mikey turns and sees me. My stomach lurches as he smiles and walks over, Bunny staying behind to chat with someone. I can't help but notice the glint of plain gold on his finger. Blue stays by my side, quiet.

“Hi,” he says shyly.

“Hi.”

“Charlie,” he says. “I'm really happy you're here. I'm really happy to see you.”

I motion to his finger. “So, things are pretty different for you now.”

Mikey nods. “You could say that.” He laughs.

I take a deep breath. “I'm sorry for the way I acted, Mikey.
Michael.
I'm sorry. I should have answered your emails.”

He sighs. “I figured you probably deleted them. I was going to come see you soon, anyway, at Grit. Our tour got extended for a couple of months and we did end up making that record. Things are going to happen, it looks like.”

He takes a deep breath. “I have something for you. Charlie. I was going to bring it by Grit if I didn't see you here.”

He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a folded piece of paper.

“This is really difficult for me, Charlie, so let me just say it.” He closes his eyes and when he opens them, he looks right at me, hard, but smiling.

My heart flips a little, nervous about what it could be. “What? What is it?” I start to unfold the paper.

“I saw her, Charlie. We had a stop in Sandpoint. Where she is, in Idaho. And I saw her.”

Beside me, Blue grips my elbow tightly, takes the paper from my shaking hand. I can barely see for all the water in my eyes. I can barely breathe.
Her.
Her.

Ellis.
My hands shake; the paper rattles.

“Oh my God, Charlie. She's okay. I mean, she's not
okay-okay,
but she isn't totally gone. She's
there.
You have to sit with her for a while and ask her really, really, specific things, but she's
there,
and when I said your name, I swear to
God,
her whole face lit up.”

Mikey is crying a little, breathing heavily. I look down at the address on the paper, her name. My body is on fire, but in a good way, an excited way.

Like, bursting-with-love fire.

Ellis, my Ellis.

“Fucking outstanding,” Blue murmurs. “Outstanding.”

“Thank you, Mikey,” I whisper. “Thank you so, so much.”