Rolling in the Deep (11 page)

Tony’s left flowers for Mom recently—on her birthday, I’m guessing, which was about a month ago. She would have been sixty years old.

We’d been planning a party for her, Tony and me. All the family from Mexico was going to come. Her favorite customers from the diner, her friends. We ended up spending all the money we’d saved for the party on her funeral.

I set my new bouquet on her headstone.

“Hi, Mom.”

The flowers are her favorite kind—irises. She said she liked how stately they were. “A proud flower. Not ashamed of nothing.” I bought two dozen.

“And you’re not even here to see them,” I tell her. “How do you like that?”

I pull a rosary from my pocket—a silver one with turquoise stones. Mom gave it to me for my first communion and I wear it sometimes, under my shirt, to feel her close to me. She’d probably want me to actually pray with it, and I do try. It’s just that lately it’s hard to see the logic in God’s plan. If there even is one.

Mom believed that everything happens for a reason. If that’s true, though, why did she have to die a few months before I won the lottery? What possible purpose could that have served?

I kneel down beside her grave. “I won a lot of money, you know. Like, a real lot. I could take you on that cruise to Alaska you were always talking about.”

There’s a warm breeze rustling the leaves overhead, and the sky is a deep, crystal blue. I lie down on the ground and look up at the clouds.

“You wouldn’t even need to pack anything. I could buy you everything you needed on the way, and a suitcase, too. I’d surprise you, I think. Maybe give you a call one day, say I’m coming by to take you to dinner.”

I pause, so I can imagine her listening.

“And then I’d show up in a limo, a really decked-out one with a bar inside. I’d fix you a little glass of wine, and we’d go straight to the airport and then to the ship and right on up into the glaciers. Have dinner with a polar bear. Buffet breakfast every morning. Swim in the pool.”

I turn my face toward her grave. “Just like you used to talk about, Mama. That’s what I’d do if you were still alive. But you’re not, are you?”

I cluck my tongue at her, which springs a tear loose from my eyes. “Just like you to be so fucking selfless. Can’t even let me buy you some diamonds before you die. You had to work right up until the end and leave just before you could have been a millionaire.”

I picture her folding her arms over her dress, shaking her head at me, and that makes me cry for real. She could have fucking retired. She could have seen the world a little bit. She could have met Holly.

“Why aren’t you here to share this with me, Mom? I mean, seriously. It’s just stupid without you here.”

I close my eyes against the sunlight and hear a click behind my head. I sit abruptly, and see a familiar man with a camera about a dozen feet off.

“What the—”

Chad the reporter is behind him, fiddling with his minirecorder and a briefcase that he can’t seem to snap shut.

“Mr. Lopez—”

He comes toward me and I stand and charge him, pushing him hard in the chest and knocking him down.

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

He sits splayed on the grass, adjusting his sunglasses. The photographer continues clicking away.

Assaulting a reporter. That’s going to look good in the papers.

I cover my face with one hand, briefly, and then offer to help Chad up. He eyes me warily, but takes my hand.

“What was that for?” He stands with my help and starts brushing himself off. “I tried clearing my throat to tell you I was there but you didn’t hear me.”

“What are you doing here? This is my mother’s grave, for God’s sake. You don’t have any decency, man, or what?”

He sets back to work trying to buckle his briefcase in order to avoid meeting my eye. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” he says, sheepishly. “Your boss at Delmonico’s said you’d bounced, so I put two and two together and came down to Queens. Figured as long as I was here, might as well snap a photo of Mom’s grave, and you know, here you are. That’s just weird luck, man.”

“Luck?” I wipe my hands over my eyes one last time and grab his minirecorder. “Listen, Chad. You want a story? Let me give you a story. People work hard all their lives and they end up with nothing. And then other people play the goddamn lottery and win eighty million dollars for no particular reason. It’s random as shit, and it isn’t the slightest bit fair. Print that, okay?” I throw his device at him and head back to my truck.

I’m elbow-deep in the kitchen sink when a text comes through from Ray.

You home?

I hesitate for only a moment before replying.
Yes.

Can I bring over some coffee?

He’s been at his brother’s house in Queens for two days, while Drew and I spent the weekend hiking and working at the garden. And baking, which is why I’m on my second round of dishes. A tray of oatmeal cookies waits on the table for Drew’s return home. I dropped him at school an hour ago and I’m still cleaning up from the mess we made.

Apartment’s a disaster,
I text Ray.

Don’t mind if you don’t.

I text him my address before I can think better of it.

Drew will be with me until Friday, and after-school hours belong to him. But since I’ve quit my job at Cogmans and I’ve already put in eight hours at the garden this weekend, there’s nothing to do today. And I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking about Ray.

Maybe too much.

He’s bringing over coffee. I don’t even know what that means. Is it just a polite visit? Should I put on sexy underwear? I have no idea where we stand. There was no time to talk to him this weekend with Drew by my side, and I wouldn’t have known what to say even if there had been.

I look around the apartment and try to figure out what needs tidying up, but there’s only so much you can do with a place this size. Clutter overflows everywhere. Drew’s toys and projects are all over every room.

I suppose I won’t have that problem when I buy a house. I’ll have plenty of space, and enough money to hire someone to keep it all clean. That’ll be a switch—a maid’s daughter hiring a maid. I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with it.

I wonder what my mother would think of this, of having her family’s social position turned upside down.

It’s not the first time I’ve wondered what she would think of me now. What it would be like, having her here to celebrate all these changes with me.

I could have bought her a mansion. She could have seen Drew enter the world. It’s cruel, what she missed out on.

Ray texted me over the weekend on his way to the cemetery. I can’t imagine what that visit was like for him. As much as I miss my mom, at least I’ve had time to adjust to her being gone. For Ray, the wound is still wide open.

I tried to keep that in mind this weekend when I let myself read too much into what happened with us. It has to be the reason why it felt so raw, so intense.

It can’t have been real.

He’s still in mourning, that’s why. He’s hurting, and he’s overwhelmed, like I am, with all that’s happening to us.

I keep reminding myself of that, but it hasn’t stopped me from remembering what it felt like to make love to him. To be naked with him, to feel the sweat of his body on mine.

It hasn’t stopped me from having to sit down and shut my eyes when I remember.

The bell rings and for a moment I stand by the door without answering. I hold my hand against the wood, and wait. I can almost feel him on the other side, the force of him. Like standing at the top of Niagara Falls and feeling the ghostly urge to jump in. I want to open the door. I want to dive right into him.

I turn the knob, and he’s there. Smiling at me with the sun behind him, his brown eyes warm and crinkled at the corners. It takes only a second after the door is closed before he’s moving into me. Until his hand is in my hair and his mouth is on mine.

He sets the coffee down on the nearest table. I catch the scent of it on his thumbs as they sweep over my jaw, as his lips brush over the sensitive space behind my ear.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

I feel his smile against my cheek. “Do you want to drink some?”

“No.”

He laughs, and hugs me. “Me neither.”

“Do you want a tour?” I pull back. “It’s small, but—”

“Sure.”

I show him Drew’s bedroom first. He pauses there to admire a Lego Starfighter and a photo of Drew asleep in my arms when he was a baby. He studies the picture for a long time, and when he looks up at me, there’s a tenderness in his face that makes me take a step back.

“Do you want some cookies?”

Ray pauses, confused. “What?”

I clear my throat. “Cookies. Um…Drew and I made them. They’re oatmeal raisin. Do you want some?”

“Sure, but—”

“Great!”

I turn back toward the kitchen before he can catch me. “My room’s back there,” I say, gesturing vaguely. “And there’s a bathroom down the hall. Go on and check it out. I’ll get us some—”

“Cookies,” he finishes.

“Right.”

What the hell is the matter with you, Holly?

I grab a plate from the cabinet and set it down with a clatter.

You just won the lottery.

The plastic wrap over the cookies is sticking together. I rip it off and almost sling the entire tray off the counter.

You’re a healthy, consenting adult.

I try to arrange the cookies in a pleasing pattern on the plate. What do they call this on the cooking shows—presentation?

There’s a gorgeous man in your apartment who clearly kind of likes you.

Presentation is something Ray will probably notice.

And all you can do is stand in your kitchen stacking cookies.

Poorly, I might add.

And talking to yourself, like a mental case.

Perfect.

I turn away from the plate and lean against the counter.

There’s a word for the look I saw on Ray’s face a few minutes ago. There’s a word for the abject fucking joy that courses through my bloodstream when I see him.

I don’t want to think the word
love.
It’s too soon.

But as fast as I try to run away from it, it’s right there at my heels. Chasing me.

I look up and Ray is standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Watching me, worried.

“I freaked you out, didn’t I?”

I start to shake my head, but he interrupts.

“No, Holly, listen. I did. I know I did.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I’m moving too fast for you, I think. I just…I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to…but I just…”

He trails off, mid-apology, and suddenly I think about conversations I’ve had with Drew about school, about picking friends there who are kind to him. Like Charlotte, who takes turns choosing the games at recess. It’s simple advice I’ve failed to follow myself, many times. Most notably with his father.

But Ray, he watches my reactions, always. He tries to understand me. He’s so natural about it, I almost could miss the effort it must take. But of course it does take effort, to have that kind of empathy.

It’s not just finding the right friends I’ve been trying to teach Drew. It’s also
being
a good friend. It’s a set of skills—knowing how to listen, how to see things from another person’s point of view, how to weigh another’s feelings alongside your own. It’s a skill set a lot of men don’t have, for whatever reason.

Brett certainly doesn’t have them. He thinks of himself exclusively—of his own needs, his own version of how the world works. He can’t understand or tolerate that someone else’s perspective could also be valid or true. It makes him furious, in fact.

I’ve wanted so much to raise Drew to be different from Brett. To teach him how to communicate and how to listen. And here Ray is, already knowing how to do all that. Better than I do, maybe.

Even before the lottery, at Cogmans, Ray listened carefully to everything I said and didn’t say. And he responded, always, with kindness.

As a mother, I know that doesn’t just happen. Some people are born altruistic, but most of us need to be taught how to be decent human beings. Someone taught Ray how to do this. His mom, I’m guessing. And yesterday he had to stand by her gravesite, alone.

Yes, I’m freaking out. But he must be freaked out, too. I’ve let him worry too much about how I’m feeling when all this time I should have been offering him some support, too. Everything that’s happening to me is also happening to him. The difference is that alongside the exhilaration of winning all this money, he’s also grieving.

“Do you want to sit down?” I gesture toward the plate of cookies. “Maybe have that coffee now?”

He hesitates for a moment, but then he comes forward and pulls up the chair that sits against the kitchen wall. I set two small plates on the table, and the tray of haphazardly piled cookies, and go to retrieve the coffees. When I return, Ray has placed two cookies on each of our plates.

“Just to get started,” he says, and smiles.

God, he has a beautiful face. I sit down across the table from him.

“Drew and I made these yesterday.”

Ray takes a large bite of a cookie and grins. “Delicious. He’s lucky that you bake with him.”

“My mom taught me this recipe. It’s a way of remembering her, you know?”

He nods, thoughtful. “My mom did that, too. She was so far away from her family. Cooking the old recipes helped her feel more at home, I think.”

“I can imagine.”

I sip the coffee he brought. It takes a second before I realize it’s prepared the way I like it—milk, no sugar. The night we met at IHOP, after we watched the Powerball drawing, the waitress brought me coffee then. He must have watched what I did with it. My heart beats thickly in my chest, and it scares me. But I need to set that aside right now. I need to think about being a good friend.

I take Ray’s hand. “You must miss her so much.”

He squeezes my fingers. “Yeah. I do.”

“What was she like?”

He breathes in deeply through his nose, and sits back, leaning his head against the wall. “What was she like?” He stares at the ceiling. “She was a huge pain in the ass, actually.”

That makes me laugh. “How so?”

“Always on my case. ‘Ramón, when are you gonna get married? You won’t meet your wife sitting around the diner all day. Ramón, you need to go to cooking school. Have a little ambition already.’ ” He shakes his head, laughing.

“She wanted the best for you.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t take it bad. She’d say that stuff and then hand me a pile of my clothes she’d washed, all folded up nice and crisp, you know what I mean? Hard to get mad at someone who takes care of you like that. I will never in my life be able to fold a shirt like she did.”

I snort. “Or do those, like, hospital corners on the bedsheets? Did they teach that to women back in the day? My bed was so tight I could barely slide my feet down all the way.”

Ray laughs. “How long has your mom been gone?”

“Ten years.”

He frowns. “So she never met Drew?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Holly.” He takes my hand again.

“It’s okay. I see her in him, you know? He’s got this…this stubbornness, but it’s not obnoxious at all. It’s just like, ‘I started this job and goddamnit I’m going to finish it!’ You know what I mean? He always wants to see things through to the end.”

Ray watches me closely. “I like the way you talk about Drew. I’ve been meaning to tell you that. You always sound so proud of him.”

“I am.” I stroke my thumb over his hand. “I’m sure your mom talked about you the same way.”

“You think?” He searches my face.

I don’t know what he’s looking for—reassurance, maybe—but I want to give it to him. I lean forward.

“Look at you, Ray. You are a good man. Any mother would be proud.”

He looks away. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

He shakes his head. “This money. It’s just…First of all, it feels like a cheat, you know what I mean? I didn’t earn it. All this attention, this reporter following me to the cemetery—”

“He followed you to the cemetery? Jesus.”

“Yeah, remind me to tell you about that later. Crazy. But I mean, all this attention, and people so interested in how it feels to win, and I’m just like, man, I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I just bought a ticket, and we got lucky. My brother, Tony, he built a business. He has a family, a nice house. He earned his money. Me, I just get handed eighty million dollars, for nothing? I don’t think my mom would be proud of that.”

“Maybe not proud, exactly, but she’d be happy for you, don’t you think?”

He sighs. “Maybe. If she were here. But she’s not, even. She worked hard all her life and then dropped dead a few months before I won the money. What kind of world is that?”

“A stupid one.”

Rays laughs, a little grimly. “You said it.”

“Don’t you think you count a little, too, though? Wouldn’t she be happy that this happened to you?”

“Maybe. But like I said, I didn’t earn it, and I never would have. I mean, not this ridiculous amount of money, obviously, but not even any decent amount. She was right, I never had any ambition. Not like Tony. I wouldn’t have ever gotten anywhere without this.”

I look around at the worn-out linoleum under our feet, at the cabinets whose hardware is constantly falling off and needing to be repaired. “That’s not true. You worked two jobs up here. You worked your ass off at the diner. You were going to apply to school.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t, did I?” Ray scrubs a hand over his face. “And those kinds of jobs, they don’t mean shit to anybody.”

I can’t disagree with that. Every time I told someone I worked at Cogmans, I had to deal with the barely concealed pity in their eyes. It didn’t matter how hard I worked, or how well I did that job. Working there marked me as a failure in other people’s eyes.

“Maybe they don’t, Ray. But that doesn’t mean they’re not important, or that we don’t contribute something.”

He scoops up some crumbs from the table and drops them onto his plate. “I guess. Anyway, we won’t be doing them anymore, will we?”

“No, we won’t. We’ll be living it up on the Riviera.”

“No doubt.” He smiles. “Lighting our cigars with hundred-dollar bills.”

“Ray.” I take both of his hands, and hold them tightly.

He stops, still, and looks at me.

“We had good lives before this. Know that. We worked hard. We did our part.” It’s easier to believe, somehow, when I say it to him. When I have to try to convince him, and not just myself.

“Me, I had a kid to take care of. And you…Ray, you were happy doing what you were doing. Weren’t you? Working at the diner? Being part of that community? You’ve been totally isolated here. You lost your mom, and then you lost the whole world you belonged to. Of course you feel shitty about your work right now. But I don’t think that’s because you don’t have ambition. I just think maybe you don’t have the same ambitions that your mom had for you.”