“Well, when we got to his place, he invited me inside. I realized I hadn’t been in there for a long time. It’s really beautiful, like an art museum. They have sculptures and paintings and photographs. His dad just remodeled the kitchen, and there’s all new appliances.”
And then I know what she’s doing.
“It’s okay, Cass. You can tell me,” I smile.
“I am. I’m getting there. Let’s see… So he asked me if I wanted something warm to drink, and he started to boil water. I leaned against the kitchen counter to wait. I can’t remember what I was talking about because he swept me up in his arms and…” She pauses, her eyes gleaming with the memory.
“And?”
“Here’s the weird part. I felt like I knew what to do.”
“Yeah, that is weird.”
“Shut up,” she says shoving my arm.
I smile back at her. And there’s a long pause.
“Do you smell it?” she says.
“Bacon.”
“And waffles,” she says sniffing the air.
Minutes later we’re at the table with Grandpa Norm who is sipping his morning coffee.
“Mornin,’ Ahzi,” Norm says.
“Well, it’s always a pleasure to see my other granddaughter at the table,” Grandma A says, kissing my cheek. She whisks back to the stove to get the rest of breakfast prepared.
“Well,” Norm says, sighing, “I don’t know about you, but I think we need some holiday cheer around here. Your grandma isn’t much of a Christmas reveler since your mom passed, Cass, but I think it’s high time to put those demons to rest. What d’ya say to going and cutting us a fresh pine tree? That could be quite an adventure today.”
“Ooh, let’s go, Cass—up in the high country.”
“You better be prepared if you go. There’s a snowstorm predicted for this afternoon,” he adds.
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” Cass says.
“What’s not a good idea?” Grandma Alice says, setting a plate stacked high with Belgian waffles in the middle of the table.
“Nothing,” Cassie says. Alice shrugs, straightens her apron, and goes back to the stove to get the bacon. She returns with it and a bowl of thawed berries.
“We were so blessed this year with the berry harvest.”
Norm looks up at us and gives a nod.
“It’s like living at I-HOP,” I say before I realize I’m saying it out loud.
Alice laughs and settles in to breakfast.
“Happy Holidays,” she says, considering both of us.
Then I wonder if she can see the remains of last night imprinted on our jeans, in Cassie’s radiant expression, and in the disappointment tainted with I-don’t-care in my eyes.
“Ahzi,” Alice says, taking a suddenly serious tone followed by words that won’t come out. She raises her coffee mug, her fingers warmed by its sides, and settles on, “I want you to know… that I’m here.”
“Thanks, Grandma A. I know,” I say. But the way she says it this time makes me know it in a way I never really understood before.
Cassie gets up after wolfing down her food and pushes back from the table with her plate and silverware in hand. It’s my cue to hurry.
“The commander has given us a mission. Am I right, Ahzi?” she says.
I nod. My mouth is too full of waffles, whipped cream, and golden raspberries from Alice’s plot by the river to answer properly.
“Well, I’d say it’s pretty serious with the way you girls are handling your breakfasts,” Alice laughs as cream escapes my lips. “But if duty calls, a girl’s got to answer,” she says with movie trailer authority rising in her voice.
After doing the dishes, Cass and I grab a bunch of cold weather gear and head out to the stalls.
“So you never said what happened to you last night,” Cassie says.
“Yes, I did,” I say, opening the gate.
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t say anything.”
“Uhunh, ’cause that’s exactly what happened.”
“Ahzi… I don’t believe you.”
“Okay. You’re right. It was actually less than nothing,” I say, pushing the gate behind us. Isn’t it less than nothing when your crush is visited by his past, someone he can’t apparently run from?
“Now you have to explain,” Cassie says, turning back to look at me. The pools of her light blue eyes take me in, cooling, refreshing, and the way she looks at me with a deep sister love opens up the horizon.
I laugh. “You know,” I say. “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it until it really is.”
“Okay,” she says, smiling, “I understand.”
She puts her arm around me and gives me a knowing side-glance, a grin, and a hug. “Let’s ride.”
Beau and Cinnamon’s ears perk forward in total agreement. Cassie stuffs Cinnamon’s saddlebags to the gills with gear. I can’t stand to disappoint Beau, so I ready him and swing a leg up. Cassie and I trot up to my house to get Yas. On the crest of the rise in the driveway, I see Maverick on the wooden bench outside my screen door with his back pressed up against the warming adobe wall.
“Looks like you have a visitor,” Cassie says.
“An unwelcome one.”
Maverick’s hat is tilted down, shielding his eyes from the late morning sun. The sleeves of his waffle knit, oatmeal colored Henley are pulled up over his forearms showing off his tanned, taut muscles. The remainder of his shirt rides the waves of his toned chest and arms. The top two buttons of his shirt are open, teasing at the defined pectoral muscles inside. But I don’t notice—at least not to his face.
“What brings you here?” I say coolly.
“Nothing in particular,” he says, looking at Beau’s hooves and then straightening himself some. “I’m just doing my time.”
“Sounds like jail,” I say.
“Well, yeah, that’s what probation is. Jail without walls.”
“Probation?” I say, a little confused now.
“Uhunh. That’s what I do here,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. And then I feel stupid. I thought all this time he was coming over to… well… you know.
Cassie laughs, “Sicheii never said anything?”
“Nope,” I say.
“Oh,” Cassie says, and then she says, “Oh,” like I’m sure the way Albert Einstein did when he discovered the theory of relativity.
I don’t know what to say, so I slide down off Beau and bring him into Yas’ corral.
Yas nickers, greeting us both. “Hello, baby. My one true love.” Yas comes closer, nudging his huge cheek and head into my whole being. That’s right. It’s simple between us. Beau follows me into Yas’ barn and watches me ready him for today’s ride. I hear a pair of ropers shuffle near the door.
“I’m almost ready, Cass,” I say. I have my back turned to the entrance while I place Yas’ blanket and then saddle on him. It doesn’t feel like Cass at the door. She would come in and coo at Beau. The set of boots shuffles up from behind me, slowing long enough to pat Beau. As I finish cinching the last buckle on Yas’ saddle, I rise, and I feel him tall, strong, standing so close that his warmth radiates along the base of my spine. I whirl around and find myself in the circle of Maverick’s arms. He grins, warms me with the sparkle in his eye, and melts me with the strength of his arms and firm expanse of his chest. It is impossible to resist.
He leans down, asking permission with his gaze, and I surrender. He presses his lips, full and firm, against mine and I want more. I reach up cupping his cheeks in my palms and pull back some as he exhales in pleasure. I draw in again to kiss his upper lip, enjoying its contours and take a final nibble on the lower. He grins.
“I think you’ve done this before.”
“A few times,” I say coyly.
“I like a girl who takes charge.”
“Good,” I say grinning.
“Ready?” Cass says from the entrance. I jump and pull back.
Cassie’s call
pulls me back to reality, dragging the silhouette of whoever was standing on Maverick’s porch last night.
“She’s my aunt,” he says, reading my mind. “And a nasty one at that.”
In one sentence my doubts vanish.
Maverick pulls himself together with a satisfied grin on his face. He re-settles his hat on his wild hair and says, “I’ve learned to take hasty exits from you as a compliment.” Then he slips out through the back of the barn.
“Come on, Ahzi,” Cassie says. “We better get going before the snow storm hits.”
“I’m on it,” I call back. “Beau, my darling, wait here for us. We’ll be back for you,” I say, nuzzling him.
I walk Yas out into the wide-open blue sky, my heart full and racing. I mount up and meet Cass.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah,” I say.
“It’s just a pine tree, Ahzi.”
“Uhunh,” I say. “I know.”
I let my mind wander for a split second from the sweet curve of his lips to the jagged edge of his jawline, and the raw intensity of his body pressed against mine. Then…
I raise my eyebrows at Cass to challenge her to a race.
“You’re on!” she says.
We gallop out of the driveway and down to the steel bridge. Cinnamon makes it first but starts to pussyfoot at the prospect of crossing the planks with any kind of speed.
“Okay. Restart on the other side,” Cass says.
Yas crosses undisturbed, but Cinnamon needs Cassie’s gentle guidance. Once across, we race up the dirt road that leads to the forest road rising higher and higher into the pines.
The barbed fences on either side of us speed by in wire waves rising and falling to connect with the fence posts. White patches of snow shining in the sunlight merge and gather as we climb in elevation. The ditches churn with mud and run with tiny streams carrying moisture to the low places.
The most important part of the race is running. I don’t care who wins. It’s about the cold, crisp air running fine fingers through our hair. It’s about ruddy cheeks, and Yas and Cinnamon sprinting full tilt. By the time we hit the last crossroads, Yas and Cinnamon are neck and neck.
“You’re tough to beat,” I say, slowing up Yas.
She pulls up on Cinnamon’s reins—breathless. Cassie grins and turns to me in her saddle. She bites her upper lip and considers me. Then she says tentatively, “Hey, Ahzi. Promise me something?”
“Sure. Anything.”
“Promise that this will never change… we will never change.”
Memories of my Ama flood the space between us, and I can’t help the tears rising to the surface. Swept up in the gap between the living and the dead, I hear her. I hear us:
“Will you ever leave me, like Dad?”
“Is that what you’re worried about?”
“Just say you’ll never leave.”
“I’ll never leave.”
“Okay.”
“Cass, I don’t know if that’s possible,” I say. So much of what happens is out of our control. You can’t stop Time.
Then I realize she might take that wrong, like breaking a sacred trust between friends. I shake the gnawing uncertainty from my head and say, “I promise.”
When the roof caved in
And the walls collapsed,
My memories scattered
Across the red clay.
There were no kaleidoscopic rafters
Holding collected laughter,
Adobe plaster to mute sorrow.
There were ashes
And dust,
Black char
That glowed red,
And sizzled in fresh falling snow.
(found in the woodpile at Cassie’s)
Chapter 13
“I found it!” I say, “The perfect tree.”
“Where?” Cassie calls from down on the road.
“Up here,” I say.
The afternoon light casts long, cool shadows in indigo across brilliant white snow clustered among the pines. The storm Grandpa Norm warned us about is fast approaching. The temperature dips lower with each passing second. Cinnamon and Yas enjoy a moment of freedom, pushing snow aside with their muzzles to search for August green grasses covered long ago.
“I wish I could live up here,” Cass breathes as she approaches me. “It’s Christmas all the time.”
The tree I pick is four feet tall with deep green needles and has the perfect shape as if someone pruned it to be that way. Cassie reaches for her folded pruning saw.
“Wait a second,” I say. I pull a beaded leather pouch from my field coat and draw out a pinch of tobacco. The sacred leaves emit a bitter scent against the sweet pine. I pray the way Sicheii taught me. And for a moment the star people draw near. I offer the tobacco, giving thanks. “Now you can cut it.”
Cass makes quick work of cutting through the trunk.
The wind shifts in the fading light.
“Let’s go,” I say, picking up the tip of the tree and making my way down the hillside with her.
Cassie sets down the trunk, reaches in her saddlebag, and puts on another layer in answer to the chill in the air.
She looks up, “Right on time.”
The clouds converge overhead, wooly skeins of gray, silver, and charcoal. We load up, mount Cinnamon and Yas, and begin the descent. Since we didn’t think this through very well, we ride slowly with the tree balanced between us. I pull the collar up on my field coat and dream again of Maverick’s warmth. The memory of his lips and my urgency to feel them on mine is tainted. I can’t bear the thought of Cassie’s kiss with Chad. And I don’t want to be jealous.
Then I test the waters and say, “He kissed me.”
“I know,” she says.
“Shut up,” I say laughing. “Don’t be such a copycat.”
“No… I know. I watched you and that’s why you have to give me lessons. Girl, you got some moves.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “Flirting lessons and now kissing lessons?”
“Yep,” she says dreamily, hips rolling with Cinnamon’s steady pace. “I mean what you did was straight out of The Notebook.”
“The Notebook? Grandma A better keep a closer watch on you,” I tease.
“What are you talking about? It’s PG-13, and I watched that with you.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, laughing.
The snow starts to fall in little balls at first, followed by fat fluffy flakes falling lazily in the windless fading light. The acrid scent of juniper wood smoke fills the air as we near some of the homes that dot the landscape along the forest boundary.
Then I realize I never let her finish her story. Grandma A’s bacon interrupted us.
“So what was it like?”
“The actual kiss?”
“No, your cup of hot cocoa.” I tease.
“It was peppermint tea, and it was good. It could have used some honey,” she says, licking her lips.
“Cass,” I say.
“Okay. Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… he picked me up and put me on the counter top. So I grabbed him with my legs. It was a joke at first, but he seemed to like it. Then he put his hands in my back pockets and pulled me closer.”
She looks at me now and takes a moment to adjust the weight of the tree against her thigh.
“And then he just got in my bubble…” she says, fumbling for the right words.
“In your ‘bubble’?”
“Yeah, you know right here,” she says, raising a palm within kissing distance to her face. “I couldn’t help myself and I…”
And I realize that Chad didn’t make the final move.
“Cass, you don’t have to wait for him. If you want to, you can make the move.”
“I know. And I wanted to.”
“If his hands are in your back pockets and he’s reeling you in,” I say with my voice rising, “there’s no way he didn’t want that to happen.”
In the a
fternoon light, I can see her blushing through the tumbling snow. I’m grateful that she doesn’t have the words to tell me the rest because she’s right. I can’t handle it.
“So what do you want to know?” I say, pushing away the image of the two of them. If I talk about kissing in general, I can think about no one in particular.
“What do you call it?”
“What do I call what?”
“The kiss you gave Maverick.”
“I don’t call it anything,” I say. “I just do it.”
She falls silent, like I cut her out or something.
So I say, “I don’t have a manual with illustrations, if that’s what you mean.”
“I do,” Cassie says.
“What?”
“In my head.”
“Good,” I laugh, “Because if he moves in for a kiss and you reach for an encyclopedia in your back pocket, you might kill the moment.”
She stops. I pull up on Yas.
Cassie looks up into the flakes, and so do I. Each one falls gently, brushing crystal lips against our cheeks and tossing the occasional cold one down our shirtfronts.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking a picture,” she says, with her eyes closed.
“Of what?”
“You kissing Maverick.”
“And why would you do that?”
“So I can put it in my book next to the mental image I have from The Notebook.”
Then she says, “I’ll call it the Ahzi Two-Step. I think it deserves a five-star rating with the following praise from studio audiences: Hot! Entertaining! And daring.”
“Okay, weirdo,” I laugh—because I’m not really good at these things, at being a real friend the way she is with me. I feel like I should say something to tell her that I… love her. And I can’t. The words slip by me on the road like wind-tossed flakes weaving between Yas’ hooves.
We crest the last hill, glad to see the steel bridge in sight and just in time to see Cassie’s driveway pulsing in Sheriff Madrid’s red, white, and blue lights.
Diamonds at Dawn Page 6