by Naima Coster
Margarita stood and aimed her phone at Celeste. She took in her face, the dog, the circle of vomit, her sickly pink nipple. She placed a cartoon golden crown atop Celeste’s head, used every hashtag she could think of for models in L.A., actresses in L.A., working in L.A., and California style. She tagged @Celestial_LA, set the location to Venice Beach, shared the video, and left.
The street was quiet, the houses dark behind hedges of palms, the sky black and clear. Margarita sat on the curb and told herself she’d only be gone for a little while. Her commercial money would clear and she’d come back, rent a better place, out of Cerritos. Find a better agent, a better friend. It was a delicious vision. She gathered it close and dialed her father.
It was loud wherever he was. Rancheras played in the background. A bar.
“Hi, Papi.”
“Hija?” He didn’t know which one she was.
“It’s me, Margarita. I’m in L.A.?”
“Qué hubo, pepita? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Pa. It’s Mama—”
Her father groaned. “Oh, don’t talk to me about that, hija. It’s the worst news of my life.”
“They’ve been calling you, too?”
He didn’t answer, as if he didn’t hear. There was roaring and clapping in the background, someone calling his name, Robbie, Robbie, in Spanish.
“Papi, I want to go home, but I don’t have any money.”
“It’s not going well for you over there, pepita?”
“It’s good, Pa. My career is really good. I just did a commercial for a tech company. Like Apple? One day, they could be as big as Apple. I’m just waiting for the check, but I know the family needs me now. I don’t want to be away anymore.”
Margarita knew he wouldn’t deny her. Robbie was good at covering up his guilt by giving her whatever she asked. Margarita knew she should have been relieved but she felt small and faraway, her body a shell left behind by an ocean wave receding.
“Give me a few days, pepita. I’ll get you the money.”
“Thank you, Pa. I’ll see you at the hospital.”
“Oh no,” Robbie said. “I’m not going. I can’t see her that way. But you should go. She needs her daughters. She’s always loved you all more than me.”
It was a strange thing for him to say, as if he would have preferred if Lacey May had loved them less. She didn’t want to deal with Robbie’s self-pity tonight. She had to sober up and drive to Cerritos, put her things in storage. She had to figure out how many nights she could charge at a hotel before she’d have to sleep in her car.
“Just hurry up and get me the money, Pa. I’ll go and be with Mama for you.”
“And your sisters.”
“As long as they need me, I’ll be there.”
The music in the bar switched from rancheras to cumbia, and Margarita heard strangers chanting her father’s name again, calling him back to the dance floor. Robbie shouted at them to leave him alone, and he seemed to maneuver himself to a quieter corner of the club.
“I am so happy,” he said, although it sounded as if he was crying. “I may have lost you all, but you didn’t lose each other. No matter what happened, the family survived. It’s a blessing. Amen.”
9
September 2018
The Piedmont, North Carolina
The day camp became an even greater refuge for Diane after her sister arrived. She would leave before dawn while Noelle was still asleep, a pot of coffee brewed for her, a plate of biscuits left steaming on the counter. She’d drive west to the camp, where she and Alma unlocked the gate, knocked cobwebs and dew off the banner strung up by wire. It read PAWS & FRIENDS, pictured colored balloons and cartoon dogs galloping across a field. The camp was nearly two acres, divided into a play area for the big, boisterous dogs, and another for small dogs or timid ones who would rather sniff grass and lick their paws than romp around. Each side had a kiddie pool for splashing, a plastic slide, tubes for crawling, and ropes for tug-of-war.
It was calm in the early morning while Alma and Diane cleaned up the office, a wooden shed they had converted with shelves and a phone line. One of the dogs, a docile basset hound with drooping ears and amber eyes, had been sick overnight, and Alma went to the kennels to check on him. Diane stayed behind to talk to Cora, one of her favorite workers, who gave her the report on how the hound had fared.
Cora was ten years younger than Diane, fresh out of high school, a girl with creamy lean legs she seemed to bare no matter the weather. She wore athletic shorts in summer, wool skirts in winter. She scarcely wore a bra, which Diane liked to take as some sign that teenage girls today were more liberated than she had ever been.
Cora started loading the van to get ready for pickups, and her varsity volleyball T-shirt rode up, exposing the curve of her waist, the green rivers of her veins. Diane didn’t mean to ogle her—it was just that Cora had blossomed into a woman somehow, and she was no longer the plucky intern who wasn’t afraid to fish a rogue stone out of a Labrador’s mouth, to pinch together the legs of a Havanese resisting being lowered into a bath. She’d stopped needing to dash out early to study for tests, to miss weekends for away games. And her bralessness had become more noticeable, the shape of her nipples visible through the thin cotton of her T-shirts. It made Diane feel old and full of a lust she knew would never drive her to do anything but lurch for Alma in the night, or circle her own nipples with her thumbs in the shower, Cora’s face flashing in her mind before she pushed it away and replaced it with someone more suitable—an actress, older, a woman Diane would never meet, whom she’d never have the nerve to talk to, even if she did. She liked that actress who did the boxing movie once, a Latina with big arms, brown eyes. She liked, too, that actress from the vampire show, although she was too skinny, too blond. But Diane had read somewhere that she was queer, and that had changed everything. They were all beginning to be younger than she was. She was at that tipping age, when the girls singing on the radio and acting in her favorite sitcoms were all younger than she was. She was twenty-seven.
When Cora hauled out, Diane turned to Alma and told her what she’d been thinking. They were drinking their coffees in the last minutes of calm before they opened. At seven thirty, they would let the boarded dogs into the yard, lift the shades, and any customers already waiting in the parking lot would come pouring in.
“It’s normal to think the way you’re thinking,” Alma said. “Death makes everybody horny.”
“It’s probably my mother. I think I’m fine, but then my mind keeps turning to fucking.”
“Too bad I can’t help you with that.”
“We talked about this,” Diane said. “My sister.”
Alma’s face betrayed nothing, and she went on drinking her coffee. In the fluorescent light of the office, Diane could count her freckles. A well-meaning customer had once told Alma she was a lovely girl, but that she looked strange, like a beautiful alien. It was her features with her auburn hair, how she was light skinned but clearly not white. Down here, people didn’t know to read her as Puerto Rican; she simply seemed mixed in a way they weren’t used to. But she had been familiar to Diane from the first day she’d seen her at the orientation for the veterinary school they’d both dropped out of to open Paws & Friends. Diane wasn’t sure whether she believed in other lives, beyond this one, but if they were real, she wouldn’t be surprised if she and Alma had known each other in them all.
She smoothed Alma’s hair off her forehead and kissed her forcefully, to make her know how much she was loved.
“If you’re going to kiss me like that, you ought to check the blinds first,” Alma said, her voice cool and unforgiving. She left her coffee behind the desk, unlocked the door, and headed out to the yard. Diane didn’t have a chance to call her back before Mrs. Wilkins burst in, carrying her corgi-collie mix, Camille. She was too large a dog to be carried, nearly forty pounds, but Mrs. Wilkins cradled the dog all the same.
“She’s having a terrible morning,” th
e woman said. “I had to wrestle that leash onto her. And that was after I told her, Miss Camille, we’re going to play. We’re going to your favorite place.”
Alma appeared in the office to clip a leash onto the dog. She led her out without looking at Diane. Diane was rattled as she typed the drop-off time for Camille into the computer.
“You know I’ve been thinking of swinging by to see your mother,” Mrs. Wilkins said.
“That’s kind of you.”
“I’ve been praying for her. And for you, too. I know it’s got to be affecting everybody in the family. That’s how these things go.”
“These things?”
“Cancer.”
“Right.” Another customer swung in with a wide-eyed Pomeranian, and Diane waited for Mrs. Wilkins to slide off to the side.
“I know your mother never has been one for church. I’d have never gotten to know her except for that campaign at the high school all those years ago. Do you remember that? A bunch of us ladies from that time are in the same home group from church now.”
Another customer clanked in, this one a ruddy-faced man with a leaping terrier.
“And how are your sisters? Have they been coming around?”
“Noelle’s here, and Margarita arrives tomorrow.” Diane avoided looking at Mrs. Wilkins and hoped she’d get the message. The customers were starting to line up, and she didn’t want to talk about her sisters at work when they were already swallowing up her life everywhere else.
“You know I follow Margarita online!” Mrs. Wilkins said. “I love her posts. So glamorous. But Noelle I haven’t heard a thing about in years. She’s married, isn’t she? Living off in Atlanta? I’ll tell you, there’s nothing worse than having family all spread out. Your mama is blessed to have you close. I bet she tells you so all the time.”
“My mother isn’t the kind to thank her children for things she thinks they ought to be doing anyway.”
A man in reflective sunglasses and a fishing vest strode in with a tremendous mastiff. A new customer would take much longer to check in.
“You’ll excuse me, Mrs. Wilkins,” Diane said. “I’ve got to help these other customers.”
“Look at me,” she went on. “Holding up the line. Well, if you ever want to come to the home group, you let me know. If there’s any one of you all I can see coming, your mother included, it’s you. You’ve always been such a sweet girl, even when you were little, I could tell—”
Alma marched back into the office and tugged Diane by the arm. “Go on outside,” she whispered. “I’ll handle it.” Diane obeyed and stumbled toward the yard.
A half-dozen dogs were already circling in each pen. It was a hazy, wet morning, the white sunlight just beginning to bear through the clouds. The day was cool and smelled of packed dirt, the still water in the blow-up pools. Diane spread her legs apart in the sod, let the wind sift through her. A few of the dogs ran up to her, and she patted their trunks, sent them off to play. They’d be worn out by noon, crawling into the kennels to rest while the staff refilled the water bowls and handed out their lunch. Dogs were simple, even when they weren’t. The things they wanted were predictable, good: food, fresh air, attention, touch. It was easy to be with them.
Diane had gotten used to no longer being seen as one of the Ventura girls, a small figure in the tableau of her sisters. She had a life in town outside of them, even outside of Lacey May, Robbie and all his trouble. Part of it was Alma, the little existence they’d made together. They had the camp and the dogs, their brick house. At night, Diane worked in the garden while Alma made dinner. Sometimes, they went for drives, to get milkshakes or pick up Q-tips at the supermarket. They used any excuse to zoom around at dusk, under a pink sky with flecks of gold, endless, marred by nothing but the spires of the pines. On their off days, they hiked and drank beers and had sex, and she never tired of Alma’s body, she never tired of Alma, her convictions and her crankiness before her morning coffee, the accent from her Bronx girlhood that surfaced whenever she said water or quarter, the way she’d taught Diane the word jíbara to explain her insistence on composting and herbal deodorant, the way she loved the trees. She talked to Diane in Spanish, even if she only half understood. They had their fights, but nothing ever left a mark, not even Diane’s requirement that she go to her weekly dinners with Lacey May and Hank alone. Alma would stay behind, and when Diane came home again, she could forget about her family, their small disruption in the usual course of her life. But it was different now, with her sisters. Noelle was staying in her house, and Margarita would be soon.
Dusty, one of Diane’s favorite dogs, trotted over to her, her tail wagging. She was a blue nose pit bull, her pelt velvety gray. A meek girl. She had recently been moved to the large pen and was still disquieted by the big dogs’ mouthing and wrestling. Diane squatted down to nuzzle her.
“Hey, good girl,” she said. “You’re fine.” She kissed her nose to give her courage, then sent her off to play.
Dusty wasn’t three yards away when a galloping Lab knocked her to the ground. Dusty snapped in fear, and the red Lab pinned her, its jaws at her neck. Dusty yelped and went still. A camp staffer reached them first, lifted the Lab’s hind legs to pull her off, then leashed her and drew her away. Diane crouched over Dusty. She whimpered, but there was no blood. If the Lab had wanted to hurt Dusty, she could have, but she hadn’t wanted to bite her, only to prove her dominance.
They took Noelle to the new barbecue place not far from the camp for dinner. It was on an otherwise desolate road, all trees and unlit houses. Hidden entrances to the state park were strewn between the trees, a creek snaking through them. This was the part of town where it was most common to find Confederate flags posted in the yards, but the barbecue joint was modern, all glass and neon lights. Nearly half the space was taken up by a wraparound bar in the center, the glittering bottles lined up in rows. It was a gastropub, or so the sign said: FINE BARBECUE AND FINER SPIRITS.
It embarrassed Diane how much she wanted her sister to like the place, to join in her life and approve of it. Noelle played along, oohing and aahing at the bourbon list. She ordered a fourteen-dollar shot and kale salad, while Diane and Alma got their usual: creamy draft beers and a towering plate of pulled-pork nachos. Noelle praised the food, too, but it didn’t make Diane feel any better. It was as if Noelle was indulging them, making do, although nothing was really up to her standards.
“I don’t know why it’s taken so long for a place like this to spring up,” Noelle said. “The university has always been close by. There have always been people here with money to spend. You used to have to drive to another city for a dinner like this.”
“Well, it’s whiter now,” Alma said. “Even in the time I’ve been here, it’s changed. The New Yorkers I used to meet were black women who moved down here in the nineties. Now the New Yorkers I meet are white women who just left Brooklyn.”
“Where are you meeting all these New Yorkers?”
“Book club. Yoga. Around.” Alma shrugged and drank her beer.
“Yoga? Your life is so cute,” Noelle said, and Alma answered her instantly: “I love it here.”
“I bet you do,” Noelle said, and sipped her bourbon. “I couldn’t picture you living in the suburbs. You’d stand out like a sore thumb.”
Alma went red and rose from the table, flustered. Diane watched her go. She hadn’t learned yet that Noelle didn’t mean to antagonize. When she was upset, she grew smug and started telling everyone who they were and who they weren’t.
“You know, for all your disdain for Mama, you can sure be a lot like her. You take out what’s bothering you on everyone else. You offended Alma.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Noelle said and gazed out the window, toward the black road. She looked almost penitent, although she had been icy since she arrived, as if she were bored by the whole ordeal: their mother’s cancer and North Carolina, the fact that they were back together. When they went to the hospital, Lacey May pursued her. Sh
e complimented Noelle’s hair, offered her fruit from her lunch tray, handed her the remote to the flat-screen. Noelle ignored her, reading or taking naps in the corner of the room with her sunglasses on. Occasionally, she chimed in on their conversations about neutral subjects—the weather, the kindness of the nurses—never politics or the president. Eventually, she would announce she was going for a coffee and leave. Ten minutes would pass, then an hour, and Diane would go and find Noelle in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. This was how Noelle transmitted to Diane she was ready to go—she left, and Diane followed.
If she didn’t want to be with them, why had she come at all?
“I noticed Nelson isn’t calling.”
“I’m not calling him either. It’s mutual.”
“I thought things were good,” Diane said and realized she didn’t know if it was true.
When they spoke on the phone, Noelle didn’t share much about her life, as if she couldn’t trust Diane simply because they were blood. They had been close once, or at least, that was what Diane remembered. Sometimes she wondered whether she had made it up: the ease of being together when they were girls.
“You think you two will sort it out?”
“Nelson isn’t really one to talk about things. Usually, I can draw him out when I need him. But he doesn’t seem to want that right now, and I’m not going to beg. I know how to take care of myself.”
“Sounds healthy,” Diane said, and she scanned the restaurant for Alma. She wanted to go home. A nice dinner with Noelle was impossible; she was a fool to have tried.
“It hasn’t been that long,” Noelle said. “I just knew I couldn’t handle trying to reach him on top of everything else. I stopped calling when I got here.”
“That was a week ago.”