by Maria Vale
Letting me just be.
“Well?” she asks irritably. “What’s it going to be?”
I step back from the green door.
• • •
And to make matters worse, Janine comes back on Monday. She makes no mention of our last interaction. She is wearing an icy smile and a new dress (Alberta Ferretti), and she smells of Barneys and Bergdorf’s. My senses in skin are not very good, but they are at least good enough to tell me when I’ve stepped in trouble.
In my drawer behind two pens and a highlighter and a stylus is the little box with the fisher skull. I stare at the box and the address, my thumb brushing against the scrawled Fragile. The pine needles inside scatter across my desk when I dig the fisher skull out of its box. I set it right in the middle, facing me, with its ghoulish, sharp-toothed smile.
Janine comes almost instantly, using one hand to sweep the dried pine needles into the palm of the other. Then she reaches for the box. I strike first, covering it. Her French manicure scratches the top of my hand.
“I was going to throw it away for you,” she says without letting go.
“Just leave it. And close the door behind you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she stalks out.
I turn the skull around and around, admiring its delicacy and ferocity. Then I rub the little thing against my jaw.
“Leave the fishers alone,” Gran Tito had said. “Sharp teeth, fierce tempers, superfast.” Then he grimaced and sucked at his tongue. “The meat’s nasty too. Like mink, and there isn’t near enough of it.”
He told me to stick with rabbit or squirrel or possum or raccoon. But I didn’t want the easy frog or weed or nut eaters. I wanted the fisher, sleek and fierce and wild.
It had the grace of a water snake. I’d tried hunting it before but always ended up with my paws on the tree trunk, barking futilely while the fisher laughed a mile above.
Or maybe not a laugh but a cry like a ghost woman, like a banshee.
I haunted their territory, watching them. My hunts always ended the same way, with me clambering down from some rock or tree, while my prey just swam away through the air. I was earthbound, while they seemed to operate in some extra dimension.
The one I finally caught, I got because I threw myself into space right after him. Grabbing hold, we both tumbled to earth, which hurt me a lot more than it did him. Not as much as the chunk of fur and flesh he would rip from my leg.
But I held on. He really was pretty foul-tasting, but I had been so proud to limp into Nils’s office and watch as he placed that skull among all the timid bunnies.
I sweep the handful of pine needles from my desk and return them to the little box. It doesn’t take me long to find the number for Susannah Marks in Southampton. The woman who answers tells me there is no Villalobos there and hangs up. When I call back and ask to speak to the gardener, she recognizes my voice and hangs up again.
There’s nothing for it but to launch myself into space.
Chapter 23
Hāmweard, ðu londadl hǽðstapa, in 15 days
Homeward, you landsick heath-wanderer, in 15 days
During the summer, Susannah Marks, the ex-wife of hedge fund manager and HST client Tony Marks, lives in a rambling, gray, cedar-shingled house with white trim. The main building is two stories with a gently sloping roof, surrounded by an elaborate wood pergola threaded by neatly trimmed vines that are still wintering.
There is also a pool house, and through the break in the hedge, another small house fronted by cold frames. The whole complex is protected by a solid, six-foot, white wooden fence with sharp points that is supposed to keep the idly curious hoi polloi at bay. It barely comes up to my chin.
“Hello?” I call over the fence to a man who is on his knees in front of the cold frames, but before he can turn around, a huge mastiff comes howling around the corner of the pergola.
“Brutus! Here,” he says.
Brutus stops, alert and silent beside him.
The man struggles to his feet and hobbles a little as he moves through the hedge and approaches the fence. The gate squeaks slightly as he opens it. Evidently, the squeak is new.
“What do you want?” the man asks, swinging the gate again, trying to pinpoint the squeak.
“Mr. Villalobos?”
Now I’ve got his attention. “The name is Colina, Vasco Colina.”
“Are you Thea’s uncle?”
“Depends on why you’re asking.”
The whole way out here, I’d rehearsed one story after another about misunderstandings, mishearings, misinterpretations. Each one more stale and nonsensical and bogus than the last. The only thing that didn’t sound ridiculous was the truth. So what if it made me sound weak? Thea was strong enough to be vulnerable. I need to be at least that strong.
“I messed up. I said something I didn’t mean, and now Thea won’t talk to me. I didn’t know what else to do, so here I am.”
“Was this Friday?”
“Did she say something?”
He shakes his head. “No, but she seemed…” He doesn’t finish, just touches the gate hinge, then looks at his thumb. “Want to tell me exactly how you messed up?”
“I pretended she didn’t matter to me, but she does. She really does.” For some reason, Brutus pulls forward, the muscles at his chest tightening. Colina scratches behind the dog’s ear.
“What happened to your face?”
“Car accident.”
“Drunk?” he asks, his voice cooling.
“Not me. Can’t speak for the deer though.”
He seems to relax at that. “You live in the city?”
I nod.
“But you drove all the way out here to talk about my niece?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, I’ll get my coat, and let’s talk about my niece.”
• • •
The town isn’t empty, exactly, but it’s like all the color has been sucked out. It’s so geared toward summer—bright sun and sand and wealthy children in colorful swimsuits and coconut-scented sunscreen and teenage flirtation and ocean water and sandy shoes and ice cream—that in the winter when all that is gone, it becomes oddly sepia.
I follow Vasco Colina’s truck past the shops that are closed until May and those that have limited hours. There’s no trouble finding parking and then a seat in the Sip ’n’ Soda.
“Afternoon, Vasco.” A guy wiping down the beige-and-chrome counter seating nods at Colina.
Vasco nods back and says something that sounds like “Tone” before heading to a booth across from the counter. He drops to the bench and, with the help of his hands and one shoe, pushes his body farther in. Then he pivots around.
The waitress is a slim, pretty woman, if a little life-worn. She’s older, but the smudged dark swoop of liner above one eye makes her seem strangely innocent. She puts her hand on Vasco’s shoulder, and he brightens immediately.
“Hey, Krissie,” he says and orders a triple-decker with bacon and grilled chicken, extra mayo, and an egg cream. I get a veggie burger and a coffee.
There is some family resemblance, though Colina’s face is narrower, craggier than his niece’s, but they both have the same ironwood eyes. They also share the same bluntness, though Vasco Colina has none of Thea’s reserve.
Maybe it’s because he’s spent the winter in an empty beach house and an empty beach town, but he seems happy to talk to someone. Anyone.
“So how’d a rich guy from the City end up meeting my niece?” he asks, moving his thin paper napkin to the side and arranging the knife and fork on top of it.
“You, actually. You got in touch with Tony, and he contacted—”
“Ah! So you’re the lawyer? The one who warned the police about that pervert? Well, good for you. All those disgusting messages on her phone.”
> First I’d heard of any messages. Leaning back, I drape my arm over the back of the chair and signal the waitress. She moves in close, pot of coffee steaming in her hand and a smile warm on her lips. “Could I bother you for some milk? Just a glass. For the coffee?”
She glances at the huge bowl of aseptic plastic creamers.
“Please,” I say, holding her eyes for an extra fraction of a second. “I really don’t like those.”
She smiles and shrugs one shoulder before sauntering toward the back. She returns with a small carafe.
“I brought a pitcher,” Krissie says. “Thought that might be better.”
I thank her with a big smile before I turn back. She raises her eyebrows at Vasco, and when she leaves, she has a strut to her walk.
“Did she call the police?”
“No. She figured she could take care of it.”
“Because she has a gun.”
“Because she knows how to shoot. Thanks, Krissie,” he says when she sets his egg cream in front of him. “Do you know where Thea’s father and I met?”
Pouring in milk, I shake my head.
“Fort Benning. Hector and I were at sniper school together. Hector was very…a man’s man. Macho, I guess, but he really had no idea how to act around women. Not Lenna, my sister… I know for a fact he was a virgin when he met her. And not Thea either.”
He peels the paper from his straw and stirs up the chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass.
“When Thea’s big brother, Paul, went to college, my sister went back to work. She had to work weekends, and Hector was left with Thea. She was twelve at the time and kept herself to herself. Lenna told him to just leave her alone, but Hector, he thinks she should be getting out. Doing whatever girls that age were supposed to be doing. He called her la chica taciturna.” Vasco chuckles to himself. “He took her to the mall once, and Thea sat on one of those husband chairs reading until Hector yelled at her to go fucking buy something already. That’s what he told me he said, anyway. So she goes off, and three minutes later, she hands him a pack of tissues and sits back in her chair. Not a word.”
Taking a long draft of chocolate and soda, he settles back with a contented sigh.
“Do you know what the most important thing is to being a sniper, Mr. Sorensson?”
“Elijah, please. Just call me Elijah. Good aim?”
He snorts. “There are thousands of marksmen in this country. So no. The best snipers have self-control, but they also have something else. They have to be like a rock inside. Kind of hard to explain. But there’s a kind of stillness to them.
“Anyway, Hector was good. He had self-control, but he had too much extraneous crap. You know: being better than anyone else. Making sure no one disrespected him. That he was living up to his expectations of what it meant to be a man. Like I said, the basic alpha-male stuff.”
If these people had any idea of what it takes to be an Alpha, they would know that a Y chromosome was the least of it.
“But I got to give him credit; he saw that something in his daughter. Started taking her to the shooting range. And he was right. That girl.” Vasco jabs the air with two stiff fingers, emphasizing each word. “She could empty herself out until she just was. She wasn’t bored or nervous or proud or competitive or anything. She just was. You had to see it. But it was like she pared down so far, she was part of the landscape.”
“Chicken bacon,” Krissie says, laying down Vasco’s plate. “And a veggie burger.” She gives me another smile.
“Krissie?” Vasco calls to her retreating back. “Extra mayo?”
Krissie raises her hand without turning around.
“Where was I?”
“That Thea just was?”
“Oh right. You know, Hector had tried to teach Paul, thought it would man him up, but Paul hated it. Hated the sound, the recoil, the idea. Bored him to tears. Thea got Hector’s old M24 when he died. I doubt she’s looked at it since, but I think she’s probably still got it.”
Colina smears the extra mayonnaise on his sandwich and tilts his head to the side to take a bite.
In the corner of my eye, I catch the swirl of a bright scarf falling to the floor behind me. I pick it up and hand it to the young woman in the booth behind me. She smiles and then lowers her eyes, her fingers brushing my hand.
When I turn around, Colina is studying me, and I feel the reflexive smile I wore for the young woman fade. Wiping his hands on his napkin, he slowly and purposefully moves his leg out from under the table, making sure that I am watching. Then he pulls up the hem of his Carhartts, revealing the metal joint of a prosthetic. “The army gave me this, but not all parts can be replaced. Thea is as close to a child as I’m ever going to get. From where I’m sitting, you could have any woman you want. So why my niece? She’s too independent to be any man’s little woman, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be hurt.”
“I know that. I know I hurt her. And I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I also know that while she may not need me, I need her.” I peel the pickles off my veggie burger. “Have you ever pretended to be something you’re not?”
“Sure, who hasn’t? Look at me, pretending I have two legs.”
I chuckle at that. I can’t help but like Thea’s uncle. “Yeah, but here’s the thing. I’d been doing it so long that I really couldn’t tell anymore when I was real and when I was just pretending. And for years, nobody ever noticed that I was faking it. But Thea did. Immediately. Maybe it’s because, like you said, she just is, so she can tell when someone else isn’t.”
I take a bite of the veggie burger and stare out the window toward the street.
A man blocks the window and cups his hands on either side of his eyes, looking for someone. He waves to a woman sitting at the counter and comes in. As soon as he opens the door, a metal bell rings.
“I realize that I’m not explaining this well, but I just know that when I’m with her, I remember who I really am.”
Vasco drops his napkin on his empty plate.
“I’m going to get some ice cream. It’s good here. You want some?”
I’m not focused on what Vasco says. “Okay, yes.”
“Cone or cup?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“And what flavor do you want?”
“Anything.” I don’t care about the fucking ice cream.
“Hey, Tone,” he says, waving over his shoulder toward the man at the counter. “Two cups of Death by Chocolate?”
The man behind the counter nods and taps his scoop against the warm water bath, just about to dig in when I signal him. “Actually,” I say, “make mine butter pecan.”
Unlike Tarzan, my wolves warned me about chocolate.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask Vasco. “Do you know what happened in Austin?”
“Austin? How do you know about that? She tell you?”
“Google. There’s a little story in the Austin Beacon. Not much, but there’s a picture and one line about her.”
I head to the counter as soon as Tone signals that our ice cream is ready.
“I honestly don’t know what happened in Austin,” Vasco says when I put his bowl in front of him. “Like I said, she was never the most social of girls. I can still hear Hector yelling down the hall, ‘Venga, Thea. Saludastes a todos.’ ‘Come say hello to everyone.’ She’d come down the hall looking like she was heading for the firing squad. ‘Que te pasa?’ Hector would always say. ‘What is wrong with you?’
“But then she gets a scholarship to Austin, and she changes like a lot of kids do. She got this boyfriend Hector really liked—prelaw, as a matter of fact. He got her to join a sorority. Hector was thrilled. When she called me to tell me, she was all bouncy. ‘Can you believe it?’ she says. I remember thinking even the way she talked was different. Like everything was so exciting. Perky. It just did
n’t seem like her. And because I loved her the way she was, it made me sad. I felt like I was losing her.
“And then something happened. A girl died. It wasn’t Thea’s fault. No one ever said it was. But next year, she moves up to Syracuse. Enrolls in environmental studies or some such thing. ‘Earth crap,’ Hector said. She slept with men who weren’t going anywhere and then broke up with them a year later. Hector was furious. She was the smart one. She was supposed to become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. She was supposed to get married and have grandkids and come back to Tucson.
“I didn’t say anything, but I was so happy. I had my chica taciturna back.”
His spoon scrapes along the side of the metal bowl, the metal on metal that sends a shiver along my croup.
“Her parents are dead?”
He wipes his mouth, considering me.
“She told me,” I say. “Didn’t say how though.”
Then he leans back. “It was almost exactly five years ago. DUI. Two years to the day after Paul put his mouth around the barrel of that M24 and his toe to the trigger. He never could be the man his father wanted him to be.
“I think—Thea does too—that Hector just decided that he was done with sadness. But neither of us could forgive him for making that decision for Lenna too. My sister had always made so many compromises and concessions to keep the peace in the family that I think Hector forgot she had a mind of her own.”
Vasco waves to Krissie and wiggles his finger in the air, signaling for the check.
“I can’t imagine ever forgetting that Thea has a mind of her own.”
“Good thing. Because I think she’s done with changing for other people. Anyway, I moved east so I could be here if Thea needed me. Though what with one thing and another, I need her more than the other way around.”