The River (6 page)

8

Downstairs, I found the café empty. It was early afternoon so the lunch crowd had cleared out. Everyone was either on the slopes or upstairs in their suites. The living room was empty save some guy in a leg cast playing “Kum Ba Yah” on an acoustic guitar. He barely looked up when I came down. He wasn’t watching for me, so he couldn’t be my visitor, could he? I decided to go to information central, the kitchen, and see if someone there could reveal the identity and whereabouts of my mystery visitor.

Gloria Inez was doing the prep work for dinner, chopping shallots at the butcher block island.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know who was looking for me?”

She glanced up, and I saw the family resemblance.

She was a lot shorter than Tomás, but she had the same lustrous lashes, same cliff-like cheekbones. Plus she had this long black hair that, even braided, snaked below her butt.

She shook her head. “Are you hungry, m’hija?” She spoke Spanglish with me, ninety-nine percent English, endearments and swear words in Spanish. Tomás spoke the same blend, although he used more swear words.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Are you sure?” She gestured with a huge knife to the warmer where this morning’s baked goods had grown cool. “There are Monster Cookies.” I looked where she was pointing. A few brioche, a square or two of
far pruneau
, and ah, yes… Monster Cookies, big and round as Frisbees. Those were Gretchen’s and my contribution to the Patchworks menu, a brainchild from a late night when we were feeling silly and threw everything in the mixing bowl that a cookie could contain: M&M’s, oatmeal, butterscotch chips, raisins.

And then I remembered that Gretchen and I weren’t the only inventors of Monster Cookies. We had help.

It is Saturday morning. Gretchen and I have been able to grab a few hours’ sleep after a late night acting silly in the kitchen. Those giant cookies are sitting on the warmer. We didn’t sample them last night, and now we’re afraid. We almost don’t want to know what we’ve done.

Go on, she urges. They look like a great big mess. Mom definitely wouldn’t approve because, whether or not they taste all right, they aren’t camera-friendly.

You’re the baker, I say. You go first.

Tomás comes through the kitchen doors. He staggers with sleep blindness and he’s got bedhead so ghastly he looks like a mad scientist. Hey, Gretch says. Feel like guinea pigging for us?

He shrugs and curls his lips. He has a famously bottomless appetite.

I hand him a cookie. He pinches off a corner and chews. This is where we’ll find out if these are good or if we should feed them to the Insinkerator, piece by piece.

Well? I ask. Whaddaya think?

He seems to consider. He swallows. He breaks one open and examines the contents.

Needs shredded zucchini, he says. And he has such a straight face that it takes me a while to understand that he’s made a joke, and that the cookies are edible.

Gretchen harrumphs. I don’t sink so, she says in a fake French accent.

And then a rarity. Tomás smiles. His teeth are blindingly white. If we could just coax him out of the baseball hat, he might be dateable. To someone else, that is. Not us. He has seen us without makeup. We have smelled his atrocious morning breath. He is family.

The swinging doors open with a
what what what
sound.

Morning, slackers, Karen says, taking off her blue whale coat. Where’s my croissant?

Gretchen offers her a fragment of a monster cookie. Here, she says. What do you think?

Karen tastes, considers.

Tomás says they need shredded zucchini, I suggest.

He’s an idiot, she says. She nibbles again, regards the rest of the cookie Frisbee. Chocolate frosting and gummy worms, she finally says.

Gretchen and I look at each other, and Tomás’ smile is blindingly white. Of course. The problem isn’t the taste but the presentation, which is Karen’s specialty. Dirt-colored frosting and gummy worms are exactly what these cookies need.

Genius, Gretchen says, and breaks out the Baker’s chocolate.

I must’ve been staring a little too long at the Monster cookies oozing gummies, because Gloria Inez sealed the deal. “Please. Take some out. Maybe your father would like one?” She practically worshipped my dad for getting her out of trouble with INS.

I took out a platter and transferred three to them, careful to avoid breaking them. Gretchen must’ve cooked them after she heard about Karen’s death. The gummy worms were out far enough that they flopped whenever they moved, like the real thing. A perfect tribute.

I still needed to find out who my visitor was, and since there was no one else, I approached Kum Ba Yah guy. “Monster Cookie?” I offered.

“Thanks. Maybe later,” he said, then went back to strumming. This guy hadn’t been expecting me. So who was?

I looked out on the front porch. Evil Brad was crouched over Karen’s mud pies. Studying them.

Shouldering the tray, I pushed outside. Evil Brad stood up from his crouch.

I don’t know why I thought of him as Evil Brad. He was almost the same as Good Brad—same bandanna around the neck, sunburned nose, spiky hair, joblessness. But where Good Brad didn’t mind spending time with us in the kitchen, watching Gretch and me lob raisins into each other’s mouths—even joining us on occasion and showing us how to play quarters with a glass of pomegranate soda (“Dudes, you’ll thank me when you get to college”), Evil Brad just came home from the slopes and, after feeding, skulked to the Astro Lounge for a microbrew. He treated those of us who didn’t drink with contempt.

He barely looked up when I came out on the porch. “Hey, man,” he said, scratching his chin, looking at the mud pies. I looked over his shoulder. Why was he interested in those things?

“Monster cookie?” I offered.

He took one from me and bit it absentmindedly. Crumbs scattered all over Karen’s volcanoes.

“Dude,” I said. “Would you mind not getting crumbs on the evidence?”

“They’re not evidence,” he said quietly, without a trace of that frat boy accent.

“How would you know?”

His eyes grew wide, then narrowed. It was just an instant, but I thought I could read his expression: he’d betrayed something. I didn’t yet know what, and he wasn’t about to betray anything else.

He scowled silently.
It’s none of your business how I know or why I care
.

I scowled back. “Okay, then, if they’re not evidence, what are they?”

And then he stared at me uncomprehendingly, as though I were some kind of primate—interesting but not quite human. “A gift,” he said.

And that undid me. Of course they were. A
final
gift.

I was going to puke again. I was definitely going to bawl and I didn’t want to do it in front of him. He didn’t seem the comforting type. He wasn’t a plier of baked goods or a shelterer of injured wildlife or even a consolation kisser.

But I had underestimated him, too. “Hold up,” he said, putting a hand on my arm.

“I gotta go,” I said, trying to wrench free.

He wheeled me around. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I was forced to stand there with my eyes watering, thinking:
This is so unfair
.
Leave me in peace
. He bent over Karen’s art. He plucked the blossoms from each. “The mud won’t keep, but here, you should press these in a book somewhere.” He stuck them in my apron pocket. “I know it’s hard right now, Ronnie, but you’ll be glad you did later.”

And it was such a kind gesture from such a patronizing swine, that I started crying again.

He pulled the arm of his ski jacket over his wrist and used it to wipe my face.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll pay for dry cleaning.”

“No need,” he said. He wasn’t comforting but he wasn’t snide, either. It was just something that needed saying so he said it.

I snuffled once. “I’d better get back inside. You weren’t looking for me, were you?”

“Nah, man. He’s in the sun porch.” The frat boy accent came back.

“Who?”

“How should I know?” he said sharply. “Some dude.”

We’d had a moment, but now it was gone, swept down from the mountains and out to sea.