Hydraulic Level Five

by Sarah Latchaw

  “But I want to spend it with you,” he retorts. “This is your first Homecoming, Firecracker. We don’t have to talk to anybody. We can sit at a table and watch everyone try to dance.”

  She rolls her eyes at him and whips her hair into a ponytail, the down of her neck taunting his itchy fingers with its softness.

  “I’ll go to the football game, but please don’t make me go to the dance…”

  So now Caulfield sits next to hula-girl Aspen on her front steps, agonizing over the best approach when moving in for a kiss. Should he just lean in? Lift her chin? And does he tilt his head to the left or to the right? She pops another chocolate in her warm mouth and catches him staring.

  “Do you want a piece?” Aspen asks innocently.

  He groans and drops his head into his boxing gloves.

  “Caulfield, did I do something wrong? You’ve glared at me half the afternoon. If you didn’t want to do the whole Halloween thing with me this year, you could have just told me no. I had a nice flower-power dress and go-go boots I snagged from my mom.”

  He peers at her feet, watching as she tugs slippers around her bony ankles. His own feet bounce with nerves.

  “Firecracker, can I ask you a left-field question?” Caulfield props his chin on his gloved hand, eyes searching hers. Rich hazel, with fleck of brown at the center…like the chocolate melting between her fingers. Funny, he always thought they were the color of pond algae—not so rich. He licks his lips.

  She frowns. “You can ask, but I’m not sure I’ll answer.”

  Caulfield sucks in his breath and blurts it out. “If I kissed you, would you kiss me back?”

  Hazel eyes blink once, twice. Her mouth falls open, and Caulfield is fairly certain she is going to slap him. She reaches up and grabs his shirt collar. He grinds his gloved fists into the porch slats, bracing for the sting. But she tugs him closer. So close, her nose touches his.

  “Yes,” she breathes, her eyes bright with excitement. Her lips curl, so soft…

  He rests a boxing glove on either side of her face, and leans…

  It is Halloween night, on the farmer’s front porch, when Caulfield kisses Aspen for the first time.

  And the second time.

  And the third.

  Jaime—who is Caro’s ex, Togsy? See what you can find. Check CU creative writing alums.

  I finished texting Jaime Guzman and stuffed my phone in my purse.

  Christ the King was an old brick church with stained-glass windows and a creaky balcony. The interior had lately been painted bright white, but the rosy, glass-filtered light and Lyons’ gray day still made the interior seem dingy. Danita had covered the place in tulle and vivid red roses. A stack of programs was placed next to a guest book in the musty church narthex. I picked up one, scanning for my name.

  Maid of Honor: Aspen Kaye Trilby, Friend of the Bride.

  No question mark.

  A sad little smile played on my mouth. I caught Samuel’s eyes on me and he smiled back, putting me at ease.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need a Xanax to get me through the wedding rehearsal (though Molly’s stepmother was more than willing to oblige). Our friends kept it light, helping us to forget another wedding which took place in this tiny community church eight years ago. Santiago crossed his eyes at me across the sanctuary. We hummed “The Bridal March” because the organist had another engagement this evening. Molly gifted Danita and Angel with matching bride and groom T-shirts that said, “Game Over.” Angel thought they were hilarious, and immediately stripped off his button-up dress shirt to pull on his tee. Danita shrugged it over her red strapless dress after vowing to burn it later in the fire pit.

  I looked over Sam’s shoulder at the small gathering of family and dates (and Caroline) in the audience, tuning out the minister’s droning as he explained the ceremony to Angel and Danita. I had my duties down: hold the bouquet, fluff Danita’s train, give a wedding toast. No stress here, thank you very much.

  Once the rehearsal was over, though, my nerves did the conga back into my stomach. I was jittery the minute I slid into Hector’s truck, my knees bobbing against the dash until my friend placed a calming hand on them.

  “Ay, Kaye. The last thing this poor truck needs is another dent.”

  I pushed his hand from my knees. “Quit trying to grope me, Hector.”

  “Mamacita, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘grope.’”

  I choked on the Tic Tac I’d been sucking. Hector smirked and I relaxed.

  The heady scent of roasting pork and chiles hit my nose before I even left Hector’s truck. Long pine tree shadows stretched across the driveway as we made our way around the Valdez family home to the extensive backyard. Green and yellow Chinese lanterns were strung between canopies and tiki torches. The giant zacahuil tamale had just been removed from the clay pit, and six feet of papatla steamed and sizzled on a table. Two of Angel’s cousins rolled in kegs from a local brewery while Mr. Valdez rigged up a stereo system to pump out mariachi.

  Other guests were just arriving, many I recognized from the Hispanic neighborhood. Angel helped his abuela down the hill and settled her into a lawn chair. There were Sofia’s sister Lucia and her husband, Carlos—two quiet people overshadowed by the roisterous Valdez family. A few out-of-town Cabrals milled about, too. Samuel’s great aunt, who’d retired to Baja, California, once Alonso’s mother passed away, and another great aunt and uncle from Ciudad Victoria were there. But the vast majority of guests were Angel’s large extended family. The Valdez clan had established roots long before white settlers came in their wagons, and had farmed west of Lyons well over a hundred years. If locals weren’t related to the Valdez family, they at least went to school with a Valdez. They were a rowdy pack of mainly agricultural workers who told crude jokes and tried to toss each other into St. Vrain Creek. I thought they were fantastic.

  “Hungry, Hector?” I shouted over the thumping stereo speakers as my date tugged me toward stacks of fried plantains and pickled things.

  “If I’m going to show you a good time tonight, Kaye, I need some fuel.” He winked at me and popped a cheese cube in his mouth. Just beyond him, a brown-haired man stiffened. Ah, Samuel and Caroline beat us to the party.

  Caroline was slumming it, couture-wise. She’d finally ditched the heels for more sensible sandals, capris, and a pale green top that showed off her coffee-cream skin. I grimaced as I glanced at my own white forearm, tinged a blotchy pink by the sun.

  Hector’s roaming hands were little better at the fiesta than they’d been in the car, and it began to tick me off. At first it was funny, but now I wondered if he was using his status as my “date” to get in a lifetime’s worth of digs at Samuel. Kissing my cheek whenever Samuel watched. Snaking an arm around my shoulders. He even grabbed my tush, which earned him a death glare from both Samuel and me. Enough was enough.

  “I thought I told you to quit groping me,” I demanded as we set up our lawn chairs near the gurgling creek. I chucked my sandals at him.

  He placed a hand over his heart in mock hurt. “I thought this was what you wanted, Kaye. To piss off Cabral?”

  “No! You are supposed to show me a good time, not play the revenge game.”

  “Isn’t that what he’s doing with the yuppie chick? Playing the revenge game?”

  I stared over at Caroline and Samuel, where Samuel dug a soda out of an ice-filled cooler for her. “I don’t think so. Samuel doesn’t play head games like that.”

  “Why else would he bring her? Come on, Kaye, it’s obvious the guy’s not into her. The way he looks at you…” Hector bit his tongue, his eyes growing angry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He looks at you like he wants to nail you seven ways till Sunday, and I don’t like it.” I had to laugh at his dirty twist on that old expression. His ire only grew. “I just don’t want you to break your heart over this guy, mamacita.”

  I stopped laughing. Hector was truly worried about me. Sighing, I pr
essed my face into his shoulder. “It was broken a long time ago, Hector. If anything, I’m trying to mend it. Thanks for your help with that all these years—the kayaking, the ski trips, the jokes. I’m not sure I ever told you how much it means. You’re a great friend to me.”

  “Friend,” Hector grumbled, messing my hair with his big hand. “You are gonna kill me, Trilby. But I can be a friend…” A sly smirk spread across his face as he stood and stretched. “If you let me try to pick up Samuel’s hot date.”

  I snickered, imagining the horror on Caroline’s face when my bald and goateed, tattoo-sleeved, pickup-driving friend hit on her. I smacked his butt in payback.

  “Go get ’er, tiger.”

  “Sam, did you put baby powder in the air vents?” I caught Molly’s words as I joined my friends crouching like thugs behind Angel’s hatch-back that evening. The sky had fully darkened, and it was prank time.

  “Remind me why I’m the only person who can pull that one off?”

  “Because Danita can’t kill her own brother when a twelve-foot high cloud of powder whooshes in her face. Besides, you’ll be long gone to New York by the time she’ll have a chance to exact revenge.” Molly tossed me a box of condoms and told me to get to work.

  The bridesmaids and groomsmen were blowing up condoms like balloons and stuffing them in the hatch-back’s interior. If we tried anything after the wedding reception tomorrow, Danita would “string us up by our ta-tas and hoo-hoos,” as Cassady so elegantly groused.

  “And she can’t exact revenge from a distance? You know she will.” He looked at me with an unfathomable expression.

  “Oh, go write about it in your padlocked diary,” Molly mumbled.

  Somewhere below, Hector put the moves on Caroline to keep her out of my hair for a bit, bless him. Not quite what he had in mind for the evening, but having Samuel’s dour-faced, disapproving date hovering would suck the joy right out of our mischief.

  “Did you stick a potato up the exhaust pipe yet?” I buttoned up my sweater. Santiago giggled like a girl, already trashed. I ignored him.

  “Done.” Molly held up an empty Ziploc bag. Flaming stapler, she’d even labeled it.

  “You know, having you for friends is enough to convince me to never tie the knot,” Cassady commented. “Almost feel sorry for Angel and Danita.”

  “Don’t. Hey, Sam, tell Cassady what they did to you at our wedding.”

  Samuel thought, and then a slow smile lit his face. “You see those four little teenagers over there?” He pointed to the fire pit. “Well, they’re Angel’s cousins. They were probably seven or eight when we got married. Anyway, they attended our wedding as Danita’s and Angel’s ‘plus-ones’—counting each cousin as a ‘half.’ Angel paid them to go around to Kaye’s out-of-town relatives, point at me, and say, ‘That’s my daddy…don’t you think he’s pretty?’ I kept getting cold-shouldered by my new in-laws and I couldn’t figure out what I’d done. So this?” Samuel gestured to our latex handiwork. “This is tame.”

  Molly knotted off a condom balloon and tapped it through the window. It floated down and settled next to the brake pedal. “Don’t forget about him.” She pointed an accusing finger at Santiago. “He told Kaye’s college friends Samuel was the biggest prick at Lyons High.”

  Santiago had the class to blush. “Yeah, I was a real jerk back then.”

  She flung a condom at his face. “You were just jealous of Samuel.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be? He could have had half the girls in Lyons in the backseat of his Subaru if he’d wanted, with that pretty face.”

  Molly landed an elbow in Santiago’s ribs. “If he’d wanted to. But he didn’t. You still are a jerk, aren’t you?”

  Samuel became incredibly interested in unrolling a condom and blowing it up. I jumped in to finish the “man-pretty” story, saving him.

  “Anyway, my great aunts and uncles and cousins kept coming up to me, asking if Samuel had been married before. I was so confused, replying, ‘Nooo, he’s only twenty-one.’ Then I caught Angel and Danita busting their guts by the greenhouse and put two and two together.”

  Samuel cracked a smile.

  Later, after a near case of latex poisoning, I munched on a plate of shrimp mole and churros when Samuel made his way over and plopped into Hector’s vacated chair. That odd expression was back—mouth and eyes tight. He wasn’t happy; I could tell as much. I glanced down the beach where Hector replenished his beer.

  “So I hear you’ve been skirting our one-question rule.”

  Crap. Sofia’d talked. “What makes you think that?”

  “Kaye, come on. You could have talked to me about my arrest in North Carolina. You didn’t need to pry it from my mother.”

  “Your mother was more than willing to talk.” I waved a fork in Sofia’s direction. “And for the record, I would have talked to you, but you were busy breaking in your running shoes with your new best friend.”

  A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “If I didn’t know better, Neelie Nixie, I’d think Caroline’s behavior on the camping trip isn’t the only problem you have with her.”

  Ooh, he knew I hated that nickname. “You think? Let’s see…she knows far too much personal info about me and isn’t afraid to throw it in my face, she struts around with this elitist attitude that is, frankly, off-putting. Oh! And don’t forget how she ditched my PR agency for some West Coast media machine who doesn’t know a thing about the Boulder area.” I grabbed a churro and snapped it in two, imagining it was one of Caroline’s spindly arms. A waft of shrimp mole hit my nose, and I grimaced, dropping the food. Dammit, my appetite was gone. I dumped the plate in a trash bin and stalked off toward the rocks stacked along the creek, away from the crowd.

  Samuel followed. “Kaye, don’t get upset. All I’m saying is that you can come to me if you have questions.”

  “I didn’t know it was taboo to talk to your family now.” I scooped a rock from the water, smudged away wet clay, and saw it was ribboned in pale pink like the Rose of Sharon shrubs that bloomed along my mother’s property line.

  “Talking to my family isn’t taboo. But digging up an old arrest record is rather shady, don’t you think?” He gave me a pointed look.

  My hand froze over the stone. “How did you know about that?”

  “I didn’t. It was a hunch, but I guess I’m right.” He frowned, scratching his neck. “What could you possibly want with my arrest record?” The deductive wheels churned in his mind as he fitted puzzle pieces together.

  My phone buzzed. Saved! I glanced at the screen—it was Jaime. Oh thank you, thank you, bitter divorce attorney. I place the pretty rock in Samuel’s hand with a promise to chat later and walked farther down the creek.

  “This is Kaye.”

  “Well, hello to you too, sugar-booger. How’s your straight date?”

  “He’s competing in another pissing contest with Samuel. You know, the lesbian thing is sounding better and better. I should have invited you as my wedding date.”

  “Hector Valdez is a walking penis, and there you have it. Someone needs to teach him how to take down opponents with his brain instead of caveman grunting.”

  I stepped into the slimy creek bed, letting currents break over my feet. “What did you find out?”

  “Okay, Trilby, brace yourself, here’s what I dug up on this Togsy person. Lyle Togsender, age thirty-one. Originally from Raleigh, but moved to Boulder for his undergrad at CU. Get this—he was also in NYU’s Creative Writing grad program, where he shared an East Village house with several other writers. Namely, one Samuel Caulfield Cabral.”

  Shared a house…“Crap! The guy who answered the door at Samuel’s brownstone—that was Togsy! I knew he looked familiar. So Samuel met Caroline when she was visiting her boyfriend at the East Village house.”

  “Ahhh, no.” Jaime cleared her throat. “Now don’t go all soap opera on me, Trilby, because this really isn’t that big of a deal if you think about it. But Caroline wasn’t
visiting. She lived in the brownstone. Actually, her daddy owned the home. Pretty swanky place.”

  “I don’t remember her living there.” I retraced my steps through a house littered with trash, staggering party-goers, Samuel’s nearly-bare room…

  No way. Tiaras. Stacks of books. Classic wicker furniture. I’d been in Caroline’s room. Who else’s could it have been? And if she’d lived there, she’d witnessed Samuel unceremoniously tell me to “fuck off.” Embarrassed fury flooded my skin. Of all the people I would never want to see the lowest, most heartbreaking moment of my life, Caroline was at the top of that list.

  “There’s more. I found a change of address for Lyle Togsender from six and a half years ago. After that, I couldn’t dig up anything romantically linking Caroline and Togsy. My guess is they split around the same time you and your man-meat divorced.”

  So Samuel and Caroline both became single in January, almost seven years ago. How long had Samuel known Caroline? If he’d been invited to live in her brownstone, he would have met her when we were in Boulder, especially if she’d ever visited Togsy there. Brown hair…black hair. It had been dark, only candlelight. Was it possible the woman I’d seen beneath Samuel had been Caroline? Horrible scenarios played themselves out in my mind, despite Sofia’s assurances that Samuel and Caroline weren’t together then. Black hair could have easily appeared brown in candlelight…What if they’d orchestrated their respective break-ups so they could be free to date each other? The possibility made me sick.

  Caroline’s laughter echoed through the trees, and the cord of jealousy wound tightly in my gut snapped.

  “Gotta go, Jaime.” I hung up on her protests and stormed back to where I’d left Samuel, only to find he had once again settled into Hector’s lawn chair. Seated next to him, in my chair, was none other than the black-haired, brownstone-owning Afghan hound, her sleek legs curled beneath her.

  Heck no. She may have stolen Samuel, the book tour gig, and the Cabrals, but I’d be damned if she was going to take my purple lawn chair.