Hydraulic Level Five

by Sarah Latchaw

  “Hey. This isn’t the end, Kaye. I’m coming back this time, I promise.”

  I nodded. “Rocky Mountain Folks Festival.”

  “Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. Sooner, if you like. I told you, whatever it takes.”

  I gritted my teeth, trying to be strong and not beg him to stay, if for no other reason than to prove to Caroline that she was wrong, that I wasn’t stringing Samuel along. After all, a lesser woman would have jumped his bones by now.

  “Let’s go down to the field, okay?” I said.

  He dumped his laptop bag and spread the stadium blanket across the outfield grass, on the edge of the diamond. We sprawled next to each other, my head resting on his stomach. Samuel took a deep breath, causing my head to loll.

  “So, are you going to tell me what your epiphany was? It sounded foreboding.”

  “It’s not, trust me. You know how you told me a few weeks ago you were never really a true friend to me? Which I disagree with, but that’s beside the point.” The bottom of his lightly-scruffed chin bobbed once.

  “Okay. So…I was listening to Danita and Angel’s wedding vows, thinking about how we really screwed up. Both of us.”

  “Kaye—” he started to protest, but I silenced him by bouncing my skull against his abs.

  “Both of us. Anyway, what we need is a new set of vows.” Samuel jerked, and I thought he was going to bolt for the roadster. I smothered a laugh. “Not marriage vows. Friendship vows.”

  “Friendship vows?” He propped himself up on his elbows, his face dubious.

  “Cripes, Samuel, I’m not proposing we prick our fingers and swap broken-heart necklaces like a couple of little girls. Just go with me.” I sat up, my hands beginning to wave with excitement as I explained. “True friendship is a lifelong commitment too, right? So why shouldn’t we say vows to each other for that? I mean, people used to do that all the time hundreds of years ago—blood oaths and all. Countries vow friendship to each other, too. And don’t forget about the whole ‘no greater love than laying down your life for a friend.’”

  Samuel cracked a smile. “Are you quoting scripture to me, Trilby?”

  I patted his shin. “Just listen. Having friendship vows would give us something concrete to hold on to when our talks with each other get really rough, like they did tonight. When you want to bail on me or I want to claw out your eyes, we’ll remember them.” I shrugged. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a very clever idea, Kaye. Let’s try it.”

  Pride warmed me like a radiator as I absorbed his praise.

  Samuel opened his laptop and typed in “Calvino” (I’d have to tell him to change it, now that his password was pretty much public knowledge). A new desktop picture blurred to life—the two of us decked out in our skydiving gear, flush-faced and exhilarated. He flipped open a case and pulled out a pair of square, rimless reading glasses.

  “What the heck, Cabral?” I balked. “When did you start wearing reading glasses?”

  “Oh, these?” He peered at me over the lenses. “About three years ago. I should use them anytime I’m reading, but sometimes I forget. My eyes are tired, though, so my laptop screen is fuzzy.”

  “They’re kind of sexy. Smart sexy.” He waggled his eyebrows. I flicked the bridge of his glasses and sighed. Yet another little change I was only now discovering.

  For an entire three hours we brainstormed over our vows, laughing, pushing, cobbling out and struggling to define what friendship was. We discussed things we’d learned from our parents. We combed through scripture, Aristotle and Cicero, Lewis and Tolkien. We observed traits of the greatest friendships we could recall. I heatedly debated. He calmly reasoned. We compromised. And then we added “compromise” to our list, too. When all was written and grammatically sufficient for Samuel’s perfectionist urges, we’d carved our list to five vows:

  1. I, [insert name], will make myself available to [insert name] when he/she is down, as well as happy. I recognize that this is a lifelong commitment.

  2. I will provide emotional and physical warmth to my friend. I won’t suck the life out of him/her, but will instead offer encouragement.

  3. I will fight for [insert name] and his/her reputation. I will guard my friend’s back, not stab it.

  4. I will sharpen my friend, helping him/her to grow in character and in mind—I will always want the best for [insert name].

  5. I will be honest and truthful with my friend, even when the truth is difficult. I will not judge until I have spoken with [insert name], and will compromise when necessary.

  Samuel flipped his laptop to sleep mode and reclined on the dew-damp stadium blanket, the late hour and late nights catching up with him. I returned my head to his stomach, content as a cat. I’d been spoiled, having him so close, and would feel it keenly when I could no longer pluck him from his parents’ home on a whim. We hadn’t wasted these two months, either. The fights, the pranks, the heartache, the talks, even the kiss. I could see now, we’d regrown our roots. Broken through dirt clumps to keep our roots healthy. And the sturdier the roots—

  “The stronger the Nixius.”

  “Huh?” I was sure he’d fallen asleep.

  “You mumbled, ‘the sturdier the roots,’ and I was just completing the thought. Molly’s care card, remember?” He patted the blanket for his wallet, opened it, and handed me the creased care card: Emotivus Drownicus Nixius. I skimmed Molly’s loopy handwriting, wondering.

  “Is it really this simple, Samuel—the key to a strong relationship? The vows, the nourishment?”

  He grew thoughtful, the coiling light of his laptop screensaver bouncing off his forgotten glasses. With his hair sticking every which-way and his glasses askew on his nose, he resembled a bumbling professor. And when he spoke, he sounded like one.

  “In theory, yes—it is that simple. In practice, no. It will be very difficult at times, Kaye.” He didn’t ask me if I was ready for this, and I was glad. But the way he rubbed my back, so comforting, told me he had faith in us.

  Hector had essentially said the same thing to me years ago, and it stuck with me. It was the day after Christmas, and my father and I trekked through pelting sleet to the Hispanic neighborhood for leftovers with the Valdez family. I was seventeen, smoldering and hissing like green wood. Samuel wouldn’t play Christmas songs on his guitar because he was exhausted after college finals. I argued that he’d been granted ample amounts of rest and was acting like a hermit holed up in his room. When he refused to humor me, I turned to Hector, hoping for a sympathetic ear. Hector didn’t humor me, either. “Look, mamacita, I don’t know what’s up with your moody boyfriend, but ragging to me about your relationship isn’t going to help. You need to talk to him, ’specially when it gets all rough and shitty…”

  I restlessly shifted against Samuel, and decided I was ready to deal with New York, once and for all.

  “Did you bring the letter?”

  “Yes.” Easing me off his torso, Samuel sat up and pulled it from his pocket. “May I ask you some things?”

  “I’d planned on it.”

  Samuel fidgeted with the piece of paper as he rattled off question after question. What did I mean by “greedy and demanding?” How frightened had I truly been of him, of his wildness? What was the last straw—the thing that pushed me to file for divorce?

  “The note,” I answered simply.

  “Were the people in the brownstone kind to you?” His distressed eyes were shadowed by his hand.

  “Togsy was a jerk. The rest weren’t unkind—just indifferent. Except for the woman who helped me off the floor.”

  “Caroline.”

  I blinked. “Wait. It was Caroline who got me off of the floor? Caroline put me in her room and helped me call Alonso?”

  “Yes. Caro and Togsy.” His brow furrowed. “I thought you knew that. That’s why I was so confused last night, at the cookout…”

  “Wasn’t she high with the rest of you?”

  “Oh no. Caro steer
ed clear of the drugs, called us a bunch of crackheads who would never meet our creative potential. She put up with a lot of garbage for Lyle’s sake. Anyway, she’d been shut up in her room, using my laptop to edit my work when she heard a commotion in my room. She found you in the doorway and got Togsy to help carry you to her bedroom.”

  I racked my brain to place Caroline. “Are you sure the brunette wasn’t her?”

  “Positive. The woman you saw me with? I only met her once more, just to ask her what happened between us. She ‘recalled’ a lot more than what actually happened, apparently.” Samuel shifted uncomfortably. “But Caroline had very short hair, if that helps. Togsy had a thing for pixie hair.”

  Hmm. Togsy seemed a bit of a control freak, as well as a jerk.

  “Kaye, do you still have the note I wrote to you?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “I want to read it.”

  It was my turn to shift uncomfortably. There was no way I wanted to see that thing again. “If I still have it, it’s over in Boulder. Why do you need to read it?”

  “I want to see the actual writing.”

  “Samuel, I’m not making up the note.”

  “No! I know you aren’t. I just…I don’t understand how I could have written something so straightforward given the shape I was in. And from what others have told me, after you left the room, I was outside, jogging.” Samuel picked at the strap of his flip-flop, unable to meet my eyes.

  “Oh…I thought you were in your room…” Bile crept up my throat. Jogging? I suddenly felt like such a naïve idiot when it came to drug highs. I’d been so upset by the note, not once had I considered its origins when I’d found it stuffed in my backpack.

  “Maybe you dictated it to someone.”

  “Maybe.”

  “When I find it, I’ll mail it to you.” At the moment I wouldn’t, couldn’t entertain the possibility that I’d lived under the shadow of a deception for so long. But if it wasn’t from him, who wrote it? Alonso, thinking it would keep me in Colorado? No. Not possible. I shook the thought away.

  “Do you have any other questions?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “No, I think I’m finished. You?”

  “When did you start remembering again? Was it before or after I left the city?”

  “After.”

  I chewed my lip. “Okay, so you don’t recall telling Alonso to put me on a plane. But why didn’t you ask me to come back, once you found out what had happened?”

  Samuel dropped his hand. “Would you have come back?”

  “I…I don’t know. Maybe.”

  He sighed. “I wasn’t in my right mind, Kaye. For weeks following, I couldn’t think straight. Withdrawals, confusion…I was really messed up. When I came down from my high, I was ashamed. Guilty. Terrified to let you see me like that, but terrified to lose you. So I made up my mind to pull myself out of my black mood before I saw you again. It was wrong not to have you there, and if I could change the past, if I could just have Mom or Dad call you and ask you to come back, regardless of what you found…God, I wish I could go back. But I was so hell-bent on being the perfect man for you, I forgot I just needed to be your man.”

  Ire began to stir…not at Samuel this time, but his parents. “Why didn’t Alonso or Sofia tell me what was going on?”

  “Because I wanted to handle it.”

  “No, not good enough.” Alonso had to have known Samuel wasn’t able to make wise decisions at the time. Yet he’d kept me away—Samuel’s own wife. And Sofia…she usually deferred to Alonso’s opinion, but why hadn’t she seen what they were doing was wrong? It was jarringly off, the damage my former in-laws had done. This was not the loving Cabrals I knew.

  Samuel saw the anger building in my face and he lowered his eyes, the familiar clouds signaling a dither behind that flawless hairline.

  “Kaye…”

  I forced my anger to dissipate and cupped his beloved face. “No more regrets, Samuel. Years of guilt and grief and rage is enough. So…” I fished for the Bic lighter between the folds of the blanket and flicked it on. “What do you say we burn this piece of paper?”

  He blew out the little flame. “Are you sure you’re ready to forgive me?”

  “Yes. If you forgive me for bailing and not standing firm as your wife. For not questioning your parents.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Kaye.”

  I flicked the Bic again, leveling stern eyes at him over the tiny flame. “Yes, there is.”

  He relented. “Very well. I forgive you.”

  Samuel twisted the letter containing my New York memories into kindling and held the corner to the flame. When it caught fire, he rose from the blanket and carried it to the diamond dirt, dropping it there. I joined him over the orange glow, lacing my fingers with his as we watched the letter curl and crumble to ashes.

  When I was eleven, I was quite the stargazer. We’d constructed constellation wheels in my science class that, at any given time of year, would display which stars were up and which were below the horizon. The first clear, spring night, after begging my mother and Sofia to let us out after dark, I dragged Samuel to the baseball diamond. Flashlights, hot chocolate, and graham crackers in tow, we wrapped ourselves in blankets and waited for the moon to push away all traces of dusk. When the stars gathered enough strength to form constellations, we picked them out, wheel-to-heavens. Perseus. Cassiopeia. Canes Venatici. Samuel forever poured knowledge into his reservoir head, particularly stories. So for each constellation we pinpointed, he shared the myth behind it. Perseus, severing the head of Medusa. Cassiopeia, perched on her throne. Canes Venatici, two hunting dogs leashed by the herdsman. This constellation was rich with galaxies, Samuel told me, many of them real showpieces. As he spoke, I imagined billions of planets spinning in solar systems, spinning in galaxies, all contained within those two hunting dogs. It blew my mind.

  But when we took the paper wheel out again in September, I was disappointed to find Canes Venatici missing.

  “Timing is crucial,” Samuel had explained. “Not only the season, but the hour. Canes Venatici’s window has passed and won’t come again until April…”

  Time. It ticked away so swiftly as, once more, we pointed out stars through drifts of cloud cover. Samuel folded his glasses and tucked them away. We talked. We slept a little. All too soon, the sky was a rose hue and we watched the sun rise.

  “It’s time for me to go.” Samuel’s tone was tinged in sadness. “I have to be in Denver by noon to board my flight, and I told my parents I’d go to church with them.”

  I groaned and shifted against him. “It’s too early. The sun isn’t all the way up.”

  “If we wait for the sun to be all the way up, it’ll be noon.”

  “Are you afraid to miss your flight?”

  “No.” Samuel didn’t put up much of a fight. He turned toward me, propping his head on his hand. “I’d stay here all day with you.”

  “Really?”

  He lowered bright eyes to mine, brushed his lips against my temple. “Yes.”

  I realized, then, all I had to do to keep him in Lyons was ask him to stay. He was serious. And if I were selfish enough to let him quit his book tour, he’d do it for me. Here, then, was my first test of friendship—fight for Samuel’s reputation. If he bailed on his commitments for me, it would cause him immense professional damage. I couldn’t let him do that. Time for a compromise.

  “When do you have free time again?”

  “Um, let me check.” He glanced at the time on his cell phone—six thirty—and dialed a number. “Caroline? Sorry to bother you so early.”

  Oh frick.

  “I know that, but still…At the ball diamond. Look, can you please check my schedule over the next few weeks and tell me when I have a couple of days free?…Okay…Right…No, decline that…I’m positive. Block those days…”

  My heart thudded, fast and hard. Samuel was going to come back before Rocky Mountain Folks. I nervously tucked
a loose curl behind my ear. He pulled the curl out again, playing with it while he talked.

  “Yes, I packed yesterday…Yes…No. I’ll be at Mom and Dad’s in a bit…” Samuel glanced up at me, frowning. “Yes, she is. Caro…Caro…” He tossed his phone on the blanket, falling back.

  “She’s angry?”

  “More hurt than angry.”

  I folded my arms over his chest, resting my chin there so I could look at him. “That doesn’t give her the right to be rude.”

  “I gave her my word on something that I never should have.”

  A current of fear lurched through me. “What did you promise her?”

  “That we’d try the romance thing once the final Water Sirens book was published. But my heart was never in it, and it was over before it even started. It was grossly unfair to her, and I called it off the night of our camping trip. I guess—” He ran an aggravated hand through his hair. “I guess I was at a crossroads in my life and I didn’t know which way to go. Neither direction seemed better than the other, so I just chose. If I’d known a third road was open to me, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.”

  I noticed for the first time he wasn’t wearing the Rolex Caroline gave him for his birthday. I tried not to smile.

  “What’s the third road?”

  “The one that you’re on.”

  His soft mouth curled and man, did I want to kiss him. I smoothed the hair from his face, relaxing the furrows beneath. “There’s nothing you can do about hurting her, now. Don’t let this spoil our last few minutes together, okay?”

  He nodded, his sleep-heavy eyes refusing to leave mine. “I have four days open in the second week of July. Can I see you then?”

  “Mm-hmm.” My eyes flicked to his mouth again. Don’t do it, Kaye. Don’t you force that window open.

  “Yes…oh crap.” Molly and I were spelunking that week with a client—the Great West Caving Club. I explained my dilemma to Samuel, struggling to keep my eyes off his mouth. Don’t kiss him. Where is your resolve, you jellyfish?

  “Is caving something a beginner can pick up easily?”