Running down the trail, Rebecca slowed and let Megan pass her and reach the garden gate first.
“Beat you, Mommy. Beat you.”
“You sure did, kiddo. When’d you get so fast?”
“I’ve always been fast. You know that.”
Rebecca laughed, undid the latch on the door and swung it open, Megan scurrying in and running off down the center path. Putting her hands on her hips, Rebecca surveyed the damage from the spate of frosts they’d had. Lettuce brown and wilted. Broccoli and cabbage starts she’d lugged all the way up here from San Diego lying dead, flat on the ground.
At least the kale looked good. And the fava beans had all germinated, their thick green sprouts rising robustly from the earth. Four twenty-foot rows, a lot of fava beans. She should have an excellent crop in the spring, if they were still here then. She could make all kinds of soups and stews, and if you dried them out, favas kept real good. She should end up with jars and jars of them. If she stayed.
She pulled up all the wilted broccoli and cabbage and carried it over to the compost. Two ravens sat atop the fence, squawking at her in their weird, frog-like croaks.
“Go on, get!” she motioned at them with her arms, but they stayed their ground, staring sullenly down at her. God, how she’d learned to hate these fucking birds.
She draped the vegetable matter over the top of the compost, covered it in a thin layer of straw, and mixed it all up with a pitchfork. The ravens shifted their weight from one foot to the other, never taking their black eyes from her.
She leaned the pitchfork against the fence and turned to see Megan at the far side of the garden, leaning against the fence, staring down the embankment at the river.
Rebecca came up from behind. “Whatcha’ doing, kiddo?”
“Mommy, who’s Spider?”
“Spider? Like the bug?”
“No. A man named Spider. Did a man named Spider live here?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Where’d you hear about this Spider?”
“Dunno. I think I dreamed about him.”
Rebecca was struck silent, the hairs on the back of her neck tingling. She had heard talk of a Spider who once lived here. Not much. None of it good. Coyote refused to talk about him, except to say he was the biker who owned the place before him. Where could Megan be getting this stuff?
“Come on, honey. Let’s pick some mint for tea. Wouldn’t you like some hot mint tea?”
Megan nodded and silently turned from the river.
—
Pushing open the front door of the cookhouse, Rebecca looked down the hall to see Calendula in the little living room, staring down into the top loader at the crackling fire. He didn’t even notice her walking up behind him.
“Hello? Ground control to Major Tom?”
He started and looked up with a weird, spooky glare in his eye, like he didn’t know who she was for a second. “Oh, hey, baby. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yeah, I noticed. What were you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Thinking about what, pussy cat? The mouse that got away?” She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head at him playfully, until that warm, confident grin she loved so much finally spread across his face.
“How much I love that pouty face of yours, is what.” He strode up to her and cupped her chin in his hands. “Oh, look at those stubborn, stubborn lips.” He leaned in for a kiss.
“Uh-uh, mister.” She gently pushed him away, then finally relented and let him give her a peck on the lips. “Observe the earth’s sweet bounty,” she said, proudly displaying her harvest basket full of greens and mushrooms.
“Impressive, but nothing compared to your sweet kisses.” He pushed himself up against her, nuzzling her neck and looping his arms around her back.
“Oh, gross. Are you guys making out?”
“We’re not making out, Megan. Just expressing our love. And where’d you get that word from, anyway? Making out?”
“It’s two words, Mommy. Making and out.”
“Okay, smarty pants, take the basket and put it on the counter in the kitchen with the mint.”
Megan picked up the harvest basket and lugged it into the kitchen.
“She is something,” Calendula said, nuzzling Rebecca’s ear, his hands dropping down to cradle her ass.
“And so are you, mister. Stop that.”
He gave her rump a gentle squeeze. “Earth’s sweet bounty indeed.”
She pushed him away and tossed her dreadlocks back with the flick of her head, gazed at him over her glasses which had slipped down her nose. “Hey, did you tell Megan about Spider?”
“Spider? Who’s Spider?”
“The guy who lived here before Coyote.”
“Nope. Never even heard of him.”
“She was talking about him. In a really creepy way. Says she dreamed about him.”
“Huh. Well, you know kids. Imaginations always working overtime. She must have just picked up the name somewhere.”
“She also almost fell off a stump into the river.”
“She did what?”
—
Megan sat at the kitchen table, working on her puzzle. First finding all the flat pieces that made up the edge, then the ones that fit in-between. She could hear Calendula and her mother talking in the other room.
She knew the little boy was in the cupboard under the sink. She didn’t know how she knew this.
She just knew.
Just like she knew he’d been in that locked room the night she’d peed herself.
She got up and went to the cupboard, bent down, and slowly pulled open the door.
It was dark in there. But she could see him, crammed into the far back corner, behind a few scattered mouse traps: a tuft of black hair over large, sad eyes. He wore only a tattered pair of cut-off jeans, cinched with a frayed piece of rope.
“I can see you hiding in there.”
“I know,” he said.
“Why are you in there?”
“I like it here. I come here to hide.”
“Why are you hiding?”
“Just am. Listen, we can be friends. But you can’t tell anyone about me.”
“Why not?”
“Just can’t. Promise?”
“Okay.”
“I can teach you a song. My favorite song. Do you want to learn it?”
“Sure.”
“It goes like this, ‘The leaves are all brown…’”
He sang with a sweet melodic rhythm that sounded beautiful to her ears. She repeated the words, trying to get the same sound out of them that the boy had, but then Rebecca was coming down the hall and the boy was suddenly gone.
She quickly shut the door and backed away. She knew her mother wouldn’t want her playing in there. Not with all the mouse traps Calendula was always setting. His “trap lines.” She’d also promised the boy she wouldn’t tell about him, and a promise was a promise. She went back to the table, studying the puzzle.
—
Rebecca began to wash the kale and mushrooms in the big kitchen sink. “Hungry, kiddo?”
“Yeah. Mommy, do you know this song, ‘The leaves are all brown.’”
“Sure. ‘California Dreamin’.’ But you got the lyrics wrong.”
“Oh,” Megan said, going back to her puzzle pieces.
Rebecca put a pot of rice on to steam. Calendula had gon
e back to the grow room to check on CO2 regulators or something, but she could hear him stomping back out through the bedroom now. He came into the kitchen, planted a kiss atop Megan’s head.
“CO2 tank is empty.”
“Hmm,” she said. She didn’t see the need for putting carbon dioxide in the air anyway, there was plenty naturally already, and it wasn’t sustainable. Wasn’t that the beauty of plants to begin with? That they turned carbon dioxide into fresh oxygen? But she wasn’t going to bring it up. She knew it got on his nerves when she complained how unsustainable the grow room was. The size of its carbon footprint. Knew he’d just say, “When we get our own land we’ll do it right.”
Calendula started poking around in the lower cabinets, murmuring to himself, looking at the mouse traps. He made his way to the cabinets below where Rebecca was dicing the mushrooms.
“Excuse me, baby. Just checking my trap lines.”
“Can you please not do that now. It’s totally gross.”
“That is so weird,” he said. “It happened again. Five traps set off and missing bait, three just gone. Gone. And no sign of any mice at all. It must be something big like wood rats or something sneaking in here somehow and taking off with them.”
“Ugh, Calendula, please.”
“Country living, baby.” He gave her a little pinch. “You better toughen up if you want to make it.”
“I warn you, I’m holding a knife.”
“I thought you were a pacifist.”
“Only politically, mister, not personally.” She softly elbowed him in the ribs. “I’ve always stood up for a woman’s right to defend herself.”
“Typical, liberal hypocrisy.” Growling, he playfully snapped at her ear.
“Will you get out of here, you old bear? I’m trying to cook us lunch.”
He gave another growl, kissed her cheek and went.
Rebecca dry-fried the mushrooms and steamed the kale and chard, throwing in a handful of raisins and pine nuts. When the mushrooms stopped secreting water she tossed in a bit of diced garlic and ginger.
She took out three plates, placing a pile of rice on each one. Atop this she placed the mushrooms, draping them with steamed kale and chard. She scattered raisins and pine nuts over it all, sprinkled a little blend of herbs she’d mixed up to boost the immune system, and added a bit of redwood sorrel as a garnish. She still had half a loaf of her homemade rosemary bread left and she cut a thick slice for each of them. She poured boiling water into three mugs filled with mint leaves and plopped a metal straw into each.
“Presto! Look at that,” she said. “Healthy and cheap.” It was cheap, too. She’d bought the organic rice in fifty-pound bags for a bulk price. The most expensive thing was the pine nuts but she allowed for this luxury for she was constantly making some sort of pesto creation out of wild greens. Walnuts were cheaper, but not the same, so she gave herself this indulgence.
Rebecca watched Calendula gulp down his food, staring absently at his drumming his fingers. Was he even tasting it? When he was done, he rinsed his plate, set it in the rack to dry and immediately started back to the grow room. Rebecca called to him as he headed out the doorway of the big kitchen. “Calendula, can we talk?”
“I gotta get to the grow room, baby. The pH has been really fluctuating.”
“I know, I’ve just got to talk to you for a minute. It’s important.”
He rolled his eyes. “Can’t it wait?”
“Okay, but when you’re done in there we have to talk. We haven’t heard from Coyote in weeks and I’m getting worried.”
“Give me a couple hours and we’ll talk. Deal?”
10
As Diesel eased himself down onto the sofa, Amber said, “Wasn’t that nice? I really like that Katie. She seems like such a good, sweet girl. Not like me when I was that age.” She laughed to herself, lifting the lid on an ornate wooden box that sat surrounded by Christmas themed figurines on the end table, and pulled out a slender glass pipe and a small glassine bag. Gingerly, she removed a small shard from the baggie and dropped it into the blackened bowl. She put the stem to her lips and ran a flame in a circular motion under the pipe as she breathed in a hit. Holding the smoke in her lungs, she offered the pipe to Diesel.
“No,” Diesel said, glancing at her sideways. He shook his head. “Nope. No more for me today. You know you ain’t never going to get to sleep tonight if you keep doing that.”
“Maybe some of us don’t feel like sleeping just yet.” She hit the pipe again and then set it in the ashtray, careful that it sat right and the hot end didn’t burn the cluttered end table.
“What about your beauty sleep?”
She curled up against him, lifting her face to his so that their noses nearly touched.
“Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”
He winked. “Oh, darling, you’re the most beautiful thing ever walked this earth.”
“You always say the right thing.” She pressed her lips against his. “Are you ever going to finish building me my great room?”
“Did I put in a septic and give you a warm place to sit that sweet ass of yours?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Then I will sure as shit finish your great room.”
Her smile grew larger and she pressed her lips to his again. “Now, did DJ give you any of those Xanax’s?”
“He sure did,” Diesel said, patting the front pocket of his shirt.
“Oh goody.” She took one of his big hands in both of hers. “Look at those poor, bloody knuckles.” She gently kissed the ragged wounds. “I’m going to have to fix you all up. Now why don’t you get out of those dirty clothes and let me make you a bath? I know how you love a hot bath.”
Diesel didn’t particularly like hot baths. That was all Amber. She was the one who had insisted he install the big jet whirlpool. She just liked mothering him, mixing in bubbles and lighting candles around the tub. But he ached and right now a hot bath did sound like just the thing.
He took out the bottle of Xanax, unscrewed the lid and took out a bar. Cracking it in two, he handed one half to Amber and popped the other in his mouth, grinding it with his back molars. Settling down into the sofa, he felt the bitter drug sink into his system and almost immediately start relaxing him.
Then the security system started buzzing: Vehicle approaching-vehicle approaching.
He sighed and grumbled, rummaging for his iPad. Amber shifted back to the other side of the sofa, picked up the glass pipe again. He hit the security-app icon on the screen with his beefy finger and a fuzzy image of a Chevy Silverado idling at his gate filled the screen: a thin face with a goofy fishing hat atop it, leaning out the window and waving at the camera.
“It’s Andy.” He tapped an icon and the gate began to swing open.
Amber blew out her hit, set the pipe back in the ashtray, and flicked the remote.
“Will you please do your business in the kitchen,” she said. “That man always has the dirtiest feet.”
“Yes ’um.” He got up from the sofa and lumbered into the back bedroom: king size waterbed, framed pictures of galloping horses, a big peace pipe mounted to the wall with feathers hanging from it. He made his way to the closet. The left side was supposed to be his side, but Amber always had her stuff piled up here: running shoes and sweaters she never wore, expensive, designer sweat suits. He pushed her stuff aside and started spinning the dial on the big six-foot-tall safe bolted to the floor, then swung open the door.
The left side was filled with rifles and shotguns: a Beretta M12 that was worth a small fortune, a camouflaged Mossberg twelve gauge, a 30.06 with a Leupold scope, an M1, and his trusty, black ta
ctical shotgun: a sawed-off Remington with a pistol grip.
The right side of the safe was shelved and crammed with boxes of ammunition, bundles of cash he hadn’t had time to count, a stack of paperwork: deeds and pink slips. There on the bottom was a gallon-sized Ziploc freezer bag half filled with clear shards of meth, a digital scale and a little .22 caliber pistol he liked to keep tucked in his pants when doing business.
He picked up the meth and the scale, eyed the .22. He wasn’t going to need that with Andy. Shit, he remembered when the damn kid was born. Thinking how uncomfortable that hunk of metal would be crammed in his waist band—he had been putting on a few pounds lately, always did when he tried to slow down on the meth—he left it there on the bottom of the safe, shut the door, and gave the dial a spin.
—
Leaping from his beat-up, white Silverado with a brown-paper bag in hand, Andy shouted, too loudly, “Diesel D, how goes it?” He was dressed entirely in camo: coat, pants, hat, even his boots. His eyes, huge red-rimmed soccer balls, beamed from his face, and he worked his lower jaw, which jutted out from his head, back and forth as he stomped across the gravel.
From the front door, Diesel said, “It goes good, Andy. It goes good.” Gesturing to the side entrance, he added, “Wanna meet me over in the kitchen?”
“Sure thing, there, good buddy. Sure thing.”
They sat at the kitchen table and Diesel felt good. The Xanax was flowing through his system, taking that terrible edge off his stiff shoulders, and he decided he really liked Andy. He was one of his best customers and always had something nice he wanted to trade, not the trash most of his desperate, tweaked-out customers brought him: stolen car stereos, ancient power tools that weren’t worth shit. And he liked the kitchen as a little office to do his business in, a nice, homey atmosphere with a sturdy table to weigh his product on. The police monitor, on twenty-four seven, droned and crackled in the background as Diesel told Andy about DJ and him putting in the new transmission.
“I shit you not, my friend, I seriously thought that damn tranny was going to fall down and crush his head.”
Kind Nepenthe Page 5