by Tanen Jones
I went back to the stove, dropped the spoon in the pot, and moved toward her. She handed the pitchers to Dave and hugged me with her purse still on her shoulder; it slipped down onto her elbow, dragging her tunic over her shoulder. “Leslie, hi,” she breathed in my ear. “So happy to see you. How long’s it been?”
I nodded. “Dave, can you put those in the fridge? For later?”
Elaine released me and grabbed Brody before he could take Eli’s last remaining noodle, swinging him up over her shoulder. “Honey, you’re in your going-out shirt. Can’t get food on it before we’ve even been here five minutes.” She glanced down at the half-chewed noodle on Eli’s front and smiled, turning toward me. “I think you’ve got a little emergency on your hands.”
“I got him,” Dave said, letting the refrigerator door slam and whisking Eli into the laundry room.
“Sit down,” I said as Elaine got Tanner set up with a pop-up book in one of the kitchen chairs and let Brody sit on her lap, poking at her phone. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Well, one of those margaritas,” Elaine said. “The purple lid is virgin. For the kids. Brody, do you want one?”
Brody shook his head, absorbed in some sort of game involving bubbles with faces.
“Tanner?”
He held out his hand and made a grabby motion. Elaine laughed. “Tanner! Say please to Leslie.”
“Please, Leslie?” Tanner said, baring his baby teeth. Elaine rolled her eyes at me as I put the virgin mix in a plastic cup from the baby cabinet and handed it to him, making sure he didn’t spill.
I didn’t have any margarita salt for Elaine’s glass. She told me not to worry about it. Lowering light from the kitchen windows picked out a few strands of early silver in her left braid. “Dave said your sister is in town. Am I going to get to meet her?”
“Robin,” I said. “She’s just in town to do some paperwork. For my dad’s estate. I couldn’t— She won’t be here, most likely. She’s out tonight.” I made myself smile back at her. “How are you?”
“I’m so grateful not to be cooking tonight. You’re an angel.” She rummaged in her purse, jostling Brody, and took out a camera, a real one, the kind with a vertical viewfinder, for shooting from the waist. “Would you mind if I took a picture of you? I have so many pictures of Eli, I thought maybe people would like to see where he gets his looks.”
“He looks just like Dave,” I said. “Everyone says so.”
“Oh, just one.” She slipped the strap over her head. “This light suits you.”
I watched as she transferred the camera from one hand to the other, twisting off the lens cap and craning her neck to see through the viewfinder. I was still looking at her when she snapped the first photo.
“How’d you get her to pose for a photo?” Dave asked, coming back into the room with Eli tucked under his arm. “I got her to do it for our wedding, but I think that’s just because we’d already paid the photographer.”
“I didn’t say you could take the picture,” I said, half under my breath.
Elaine looked stricken. From her lap, Brody gave a pleased yelp when he saw Eli being placed back into his bouncer. “I’m sorry…” Elaine started.
Dave glanced at me. “Don’t be sorry. You’ve got to catch her unawares. That’s the only way to do it. She’s like Nessie. How’s cooking?”
It had almost burned; I turned down the heat. “Done,” I said. “Just a second. I’ll get plates.”
“They’re so cute together,” Elaine said, watching Eli give his spatula to Brody of his own accord. “And your house is so beautiful. Anytime you need a babysitter, Leslie—”
“When do you have time to babysit?” Dave took his plate from me. “You have a playdate every other day.”
“I’d make time.” Elaine smiled up at me as I set her plate in front of her. “It’s part of the mommy code. The mommy brigade.”
“There’s a code? Is there a code for dads?” Dave asked.
A dimple appeared in her cheek. “How would I know? But the mommy code is real. I didn’t need it so much with Tanner—he was my real quiet boy…” Tanner looked up from his book and Elaine patted the seat next to her. “But with Brody, I relied on other moms so much. The network I found online was incredibly important to me, just to know that it was hard for everybody sometimes, and not to freak out if there was ever a day where I couldn’t get everybody to brush their teeth.”
“I always brush my teeth,” Tanner broke in, climbing onto the chair.
Elaine laughed. “We had to get him cinnamon-flavored toothpaste so he’d stop eating it straight. He likes mint too much. Brody hates all the flavors.”
“Does Brody like noodles?” I hesitated. “I was going to feed Eli some of the noodles with carrots…”
“Oh, Brody eats what we eat,” Elaine said. “We’re not picky in our house. We try everything, right?”
Tanner nodded. “I tried squids.”
“You did not,” Dave said.
“I did,” Tanner rejoined. “Alive ones.”
“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Dave told him. Tanner was chastised.
“You’re one year in now,” Elaine said to me. “How are you doing, Leslie?”
“I’m fine,” I said, bringing Eli to the table and watching his face wrinkle up when I gave him his bowl of noodles and carrots and brought his plastic spoon to his lips. I felt Dave’s eyes on me. “I think next year will be even better,” I said, as Eli took a bite.
* * *
—
I stood in the kitchen washing dishes. Dave and Elaine were black shapes in the glass patio door, outlined against the purplish shrubs. Eli, Brody, and Tanner darted through the grass at their feet. I set a pot in the drying rack and shut off the water.
“His back is getting so bad.” Dave’s voice spilled through the crack in the door. “He sleeps in that old La-Z-Boy. He says it’s the only thing that doesn’t hurt him.”
“He should get a million dollars for what they did to him,” Elaine murmured back. They were talking about Dave’s father, I realized.
Eli began to cry in the grass. I watched as Dave made to stand and Elaine waved him back into his seat. She picked Eli up, their shapes merging, and stroked his hair. “Almost bedtime,” she said, or I thought she said, over his screams.
“No, he’s teething.” Dave pushed the patio door farther open with a finger. “Leslie?” he called. “Do you know where Eli’s gummy key ring is?”
“He didn’t want it today,” I said, startled at being included. “In the car. He threw it away.”
“It’s still in the car?” Dave asked. “Can you go get it?”
“He won’t want it,” I said.
“You’re a very important man with a lot of responsibility,” Dave was already saying to Eli in Elaine’s arms. “You have to keep better track of your keys. You can’t keep locking them in the car.” Eli whimpered.
“We should go, anyway,” Elaine said, noticing I hadn’t moved. “You can walk me out and grab the gummy while you’re there. Tanner, time to pack it up,” she called, as Tanner abandoned his attempt to climb the stone fencing.
Elaine induced Tanner to hug me before he left, Brody too shy to join, and Dave showed them to the front door, leaving it open as he went into the driveway still holding Eli. “Thank you, Leslie!” Tanner called into the echoing foyer, and then they were gone. I was still standing in front of the glass patio door when a shape walked up and knocked on it.
Mary grinned at me when I let her in. She was sweaty and her makeup was smeared a little underneath her bottom lashes, but it only made her look intentionally disheveled, her tangled hair backlit by the porch light in the dim hallway. There was something shocking about each new time I saw her. I kept forgetting what she looked like.
“Where the fuck have you been?�
� I whispered as Eli’s wails filled the house and Dave shut the front door behind him.
She gave me a puzzled look. “Sounds like someone’s a little cranky.”
I couldn’t tell whether she meant me or the baby. “I came home and you weren’t here.”
“I got caught up.”
“In what?”
“I just met some people and hung out. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to leave the house.”
“What people?” I could feel my ears getting hot.
Mary’s eyebrows drew together. “Where were you all day?” she countered. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Stop fucking around.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to stay here tomorrow. It’s just one day. Then you can go wherever you want.” I turned and headed for the kitchen. Mary followed me, and I stopped. “Go upstairs,” I said.
“It smells good in here,” she said. “Did you guys eat already? Can I have some?”
“You were right, he hates the gummy key ring,” Dave said, reentering the kitchen with Eli on his hip. “I don’t know what’s up with that. He loved it yesterday. Robin, hi, I hope you didn’t plan on sleeping tonight.”
“I don’t sleep,” Mary said. “I just kind of hang upside down by my feet.” She gave me a wide smile. “You guys look tired. Want me to hold him for a while?”
“How did you know?” Dave said, handing Eli over as I opened my mouth to protest. He quieted immediately. “Did you see that?” Dave asked me, twisting around. Then to Mary: “What the hell are you?”
Mary shrugged. “Babies love me.”
“Don’t put your finger in his mouth,” I said as Mary let Eli chew on her knuckle.
“Leslie, babies need exposure to all kinds of germs and stuff. That’s how they build up their little immune systems,” Mary told me, wiggling her finger.
“Well, let’s not stop there,” Dave said, catching my expression. “Let’s go roll him in the mud right now. We’ll bring his blanket outside and he can sleep out there, snack on some worms if he gets hungry in the middle of the night.”
Eli stared into Mary’s eyes. He had a small confused expression on his face. “Did you torment your daddy all day?” she asked him in a baby voice. “Did you scream right in his ear? I bet you did. You’re the worst.”
Eli laughed.
My throat went dry. I watched as she disappeared around the corner with him, asking him if he wanted to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “Leslie, can you bring me, like, a bowl of whatever that was?” Mary called from the other room. “I can’t move with him on my lap, but I’m starving.”
“I’m glad your sister’s home,” Dave said, coming to put his arms around me.
“I know,” I said, thinking of the body on the bed.
I waited until he went into the other room to bring Mary her dinner, and then I sat down at the kitchen table alone. There was a notification on my phone. I’d been tagged in a photo. Elaine had been right. The light suited me.
28
Mary
That night I waited until Dave and Leslie’s bedroom went dark. Then I lugged the Floreses’ phone book upstairs to the guest room, called a taxi, and slipped out the back door into the sleeping neighborhood.
The real-grass back lawn was summer-warm during the day, but cooled to numbing after midnight. I wanted to take my shoes off again, drag my feet through it, but instead I just squatted to touch it. It was like a dozen buzz cuts against my palms.
I went around the house and sat on the curb under a streetlight, waiting for the cab. The houses all had their lights off except one, farther down the block. A husband and wife drifted across the lighted upstairs window, getting ready for bed. They looked fuzzy, tricolor, like old television.
A car went by, playing “Get Up 10” at top volume. The sound washed up against the houses and faded again as the driver steered past, his head turning to look at me on the curb. I pictured myself briefly through his eyes, the halo the streetlamp would make on my red hair. No—I’d forgotten I was blond now. With my pale arms I would only register as the white shape of a girl.
I imagined Robin like this, a bright, flaring afterimage, leaving behind a bedroom full of faces and a ghost waiting for a taxi.
The cab pulled up after half an hour or so, and I jumped up to keep the driver from hitting the horn. He was an old man, with the ruddy, broken-capillaried skin that you saw all over Vegas, Irish people who’d been under the desert sun too long.
“You going to the airport, you said?” he asked as I swung open the back door.
“Yeah, the Hertz rental.”
“You got any bags?”
“No.”
He started to turn around in the Floreses’ driveway. “You going to the airport and don’t have any bags?”
“I’m just going to rent a car.”
He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Yeah? Kind of late to be renting. You going on some kind of trip?”
“I just need to get out of my sister’s house for a while,” I said. “I’m in town to visit her and she keeps taking the car and leaving me in the house by myself.”
“She take the car overnight?”
“No, I just…If she knew I was renting a car she’d want to know why, and it’d be a whole argument, and I don’t…” I shrugged. “Can I smoke in here?”
He tapped his thick fingers on the steering wheel. “Tell you what,” he said, after a few seconds, “you can come sit up here with me and open the window if I can play my music.”
“Deal,” I said immediately.
He pulled over on the neighborhood street and put his hazards on. I got out onto the sidewalk and shuffled over to the passenger-side door, sliding in beside him and pressing the button for the window.
“I’m Billy,” he said when I’d lit up, sticking his hand out.
I hesitated, then shook it. “I’m Alice,” I said, making up the name on the spot.
Billy shifted the car into gear. “You like Wanda Jackson, Alice?”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said truthfully.
“She invented rockabilly,” he said, taking out a CD case and prying it open one-handed. The woman on the cover had blue eye shadow up to her eyebrows and helmetlike ratted hair. He slid the CD into the dashboard’s mouth and turned up the volume.
“Please love me forever…”
“I met her once,” he told me over the sound of her voice. “In 1965. I didn’t know who she was then. I didn’t use to listen to popular music. Saw her again at the show she did in Tucumcari a few years back. She’s just as pretty as she ever was.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “How long you been in Albuquerque?”
“A few days.” I sucked on my cigarette. “I’m from Washington State. You?”
“I grew up here,” he said as I stuck my head out the open window. “Lived here all my life.”
The music swelled, and Wanda Jackson went into a final crescendo. The Nashville vibrato was impossible to talk over; it was almost operatic. I stared at the irregular shapes of darkened condos sliding past as Billy sped up on Tramway. A mini-storage building loomed like a boulder, widened as we met it, and shrank again in the side mirror. The movement of my face caught my attention, and I pursed my lips as the song ended. “Billy, what do you think about ghosts?” I said into the brief silence.
“About ghosts?” Billy repeated, keeping his eyes on the road. He had a long, straight wrinkle down his cheek, the only angular element in his otherwise lumpen face.
“Yeah.” I leaned back against the seat, loosening my shoulders to show that I wasn’t serious.
“I try not to think about them.” Billy came to a stop at a red light, jostling us.
“Have you ever met one?”
I watched him peel a sliver of his thumbnail away; it went too easily, with the con
sistency of bar soap. “I don’t know,” he said, putting his hands back on the wheel as the light turned green.
“You don’t know? That sounds like maybe you did.” I exhaled a long, pretty plume of smoke out of the window.
“Well, it was my grandmother,” Billy said. “She died when I was young. But for years after she died, I used to think she’d come sing to me, you know, just as I was falling asleep. Not any song I’d heard on the radio. It was in German. My parents figured I’d made it up—they’d never heard it either. But when I was a teenager we heard a recording of Elvis singing my song. ‘Can’t you see, I love you, please don’t break my heart in two…’ And I knew the words in German, I could sing right along with him. ‘Muß i’ denn, muß i’ denn, zum Städtele hinaus, Städtele hinaus…” That’s the name of the song in German, ‘Muß I Denn.’ I don’t even speak German. My grandmother never spoke it around my mother. She thought it would keep her from learning English, you see.”
I clasped my hands. “But she sang it to you. That’s so sweet.”
“That’s what you think, huh?” Billy said.
“You don’t think so? She sang you to sleep.”
“Well, let me just say: I believe when we die, we go to heaven. Or we go to hell. And my grandmother was a good person. I believe that too. How can I imagine that a loving God would confine her to half an existence here on Earth? I can’t believe that, Miss Alice. I have to believe that she is truly gone. So what was the thing that sang to me? I think it was the devil, or one of his emissaries.”
I rolled up the window and folded my hands in my lap. “Maybe you were just remembering. From when you were a baby. That’s nicer, isn’t it?”
Billy smiled. “If I could choose what to believe, I sure would choose that.”
“You can choose. I do it all the time. You can think exactly what you want to think. The thoughts make the person, you know.” I tapped him on the shoulder. “Ask me what I do.”