Ghost Sickness

by Amber Foxx

  “He talks like he’s quit.”

  “I know, but when we had one of those little power outages like we get, we were out of matches, and he went out to his car and came back with a lighter.”

  “He could’ve had that left over. It doesn’t mean he keeps cigarettes in his car.”

  “I don’t know. He’s started building you a deck and I went over to see how it’s going and there was a butt in the dirt.”

  “Building me a deck? Are you serious?”

  “He says he’s gonna put in sliding glass doors, too, so you can go from the living room out to the hot spring. But it’s another way to be outside and smoke, too.”

  “Daddy, trash blows over the fence all the time. Every time there’s a storm, I find some weird thing back there. Just ask him if he’s smoking again. That butt could’ve come from the street.”

  Jamie mouthed the words a butt from the street and lifted his buttocks off the bleacher just enough to dance in a squatting wiggle. Mae smacked his bottom lightly. He sat again and began to fidget with his fingers, brushing the surfaces of his nails across each other like some kind of rhythm instrument. “Niall’s filling the hole where the smokes were.”

  Of course. She asked Marty, “Could you hear Jamie? I think he’s right. Niall needs to fill the space. Like Frank and Kenny doing yoga.” Her neighbors, recovering drug users, were devoted to yoga as part of their sobriety. “And it’s like Niall to build something.”

  Jamie mumbled, “Mel needs a new thing. Instead of eating so much. Like building a deck. Can’t see her doing yoga.”

  Marty said, “I hope you’re right. Maybe I’m just having a hard time believing he changed that much.”

  Mae wound up the call, telling Marty to give Niall her thanks for the deck in progress. Jamie gave her a soft nudge. “You worry about me relapsing?”

  Her thoughts spun and stalled before she could answer. The possibility was always in the back of her mind, but she didn’t like to mention it. Now he’d had asked, and he deserved an honest answer. An answer that could hurt him if she didn’t word it exactly right. “I think about it as something that could happen sometime, yeah. If you had too much stress too soon. Something you weren’t ready for.”

  The voice on the loudspeaker announced the next dancers, a group from Zuni Pueblo, and several small, athletic men in white leather kilts jogged into the arena. They formed a line and began a vigorous, high-knee dance, shaking rattles and green branches in time to a drum.

  Jamie watched them, his heels following the beat. “Got a stress plan for my tour. Therapy by Skype. And I’m taking some private yoga classes before I go. Gwen’s designing a practice for me to do on my own. And I’ll have Gasser.” He caressed Mae’s thigh. “We’ll talk, too—Skype every day if we can. Won’t be as good as touching you every day,” he drew a heart on her leg, “but we’ll see each other. You’re part of my stress plan.” A tender little smile. “So you’ll know I’m doing all right.”

  This wasn’t the stress she’d been thinking about, but it was easier to talk about than his premature urge for commitment, and what he’d said was reassuring. “That’s great, sugar.” She kissed him, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad you’ve got a plan.”

  “Yeah. So I won’t gain fifty pounds or have a nervous breakdown.” He jostled her softly. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t worry that you’ll end up with a fat crazy man? That we’ll turn out like Zak and Mel—fit married to fat?”

  Mae sighed. “No, I ...” He wasn’t going to like this answer any better than if she said yes. “Like I told you before, it’s too soon to think about how we ‘end up’ and ‘turn out.’ Let’s just see how we handle this long-distance thing during your tour. And the rest of the weekend camping. That’s enough to deal with for now.”

  “Jeezus. Thought women always wanted to know where a relationship was going.”

  He’d only had one girlfriend before Mae, so the generalization struck her as something he couldn’t know from experience. “Your buddies tell you that?”

  “Nah. Read it in a book. Relationship book.”

  “You’ve been ... studying?”

  “Come on, love. Can’t you tell?” He tickled her, his long fingers dancing under her shirt. “I’m considerate. I fucking communicate. I share my bloody fucked-up neurotic feelings.”

  Mae grabbed his wrists to stop the tickling before she shrieked, something she didn’t think the Zuni dancers would appreciate. “You know why I can’t tell?”

  He brought his forehead up against hers, bugged his eyes out at her, and spoke in a deep, solemn voice. “Because you’re not listening to me?”

  “No—because you’re always that nice. Pass the book on to Zak. Or Reno. Someone who needs it.”

  “Right.” Jamie drew a circle in the air around her nose, tapped the tip of it, and then kissed it. “I’m passing the book on to you.”

  After the powwow, looking for a place to sit at the feast, Mae approached Bernadette’s family at a table in the arbor. Melody made more room by moving Dean onto Zak’s lap and Deanna onto her own and then scooted sideways toward Zak. Deanna promptly crawled onto her father’s leg to poke at her brother.

  Mae thanked them and squeezed in. She hoped to see Zak act like a father, but he managed instead to act as if he didn’t have squirming children sitting on him, reaching around them to eat while talking with Michael Pena.

  “Where’s Jamie?” Melody asked, then shook her head. “Never mind. I can guess. He’s walking up and down all the serving tables asking who made their frybread without lard. Who made their beans without bacon.”

  “He is.” Mae had been too hungry to endure the process with him. “I can’t believe he gets answers. Do people even know who made what?”

  Melody shrugged. Though still a trifle sulky, she was friendlier tonight, perhaps because she now saw Mae as Jamie’s girlfriend. “It takes him forever. But he finds out. Acts like he wants recipes.”

  In the pause that followed, Mae felt she should ask about Will but wasn’t sure how. No one at the table was acting serious or unhappy, but they weren’t talking about him, either. Did that mean no one cared, or that he was unmentionable? Mae decided to keep the Apache name taboo just in case. “What happened with that cowboy that got hurt?”

  Zak answered, “He’s better off than you’d think from how that looked. Bull riders wear vests that protect their chests. But his arm got stomped to pieces. Multiple fractures.”

  “Did you go to the hospital with him?”

  “No. He needed more work than the docs could do on him here. They took him to Las Cruces. I just helped get him ready for the ride and went back. Someone had to be on call for the rest of the rodeo.”

  “Misty went with Montana,” Melody said, watching her children, “but I had to stay here for the kids. I may go see him later.”

  Dean turned abruptly to look at something and whipped a hunk of fry bread across his father’s face. Zak recoiled and wiped the grease off with a napkin. “You? I don’t think so.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “You know damned well why not. Anyway, I need the car.”

  “For what?”

  Zak unloaded the startled children onto the bench and walked around to the end of the table. He gazed down at Melody, tossing his car keys in his hand. “I don’t have to tell you everything.” Jamming the keys into his pocket, he stalked away.

  “Where’s Daddy going?” Deanna whined. “Is he mad at us?”

  Mae wanted to run after him and tell him to come back and act civil to his family, but that might only make things worse.

  “He’s not going anywhere.” Melody sprinkled salt on an ear of corn on the cob and took a bite. “Probably just driving around. And he’s not mad at you. He just wants to have the car.” The children squirmed their way over to her. She set her food down, wiped her hands on a napkin, and put her ar
m around the two of them together. Looking into their upturned faces, she smoothed each one’s hair in turn. “Eat your supper and we’ll go to the bouncy house.”

  Jumping in the inflatable play palace after eating struck Mae as a dubious plan, but she knew what it was like to try to distract children from their parents’ fights.

  The twins chanted, “Bouncy house!” several times and bumped elbows. They began to squeal and bounce on the bench while eating. Their voices were deafening, but Melody was obviously used to it. She wiped Deanna’s arm, which had grazed through her entire plate while stealing something from Dean’s, and spoke quietly to Mae, barely audible over her children.

  “Will used to be my other boyfriend when me and Zak would break up. My spare tire.”

  The expression made Mae laugh. Spare tire. “So that’s why Zak needs the car? To keep you from seeing Will?”

  “Something like that. Pretty stupid when you think about it. It’s not like I’m exactly tempting anymore. Will’s ridden bulls that are smaller than me.”

  Another line that struck Mae as funny. She couldn’t let herself laugh at this one, though she suspected Jamie would have snorted. He was visible several tables away, stopping to joke and chat with people, his voice carrying across the crowd.

  Melody finally shushed her children and said to Mae, “You’re lucky you have Jamie.”

  The second Chino sister to think so. “I am. I know.”

  “Did he ever tell you about when me and Zak first met him?”

  “No.”

  “We were out bicycling and we were passing this little house and there was this voice coming from it. We’d never heard anything like it. And it was coming out of this pudgy, baby-faced kid with a shaved head, singing opera on the steps all by himself like he was on a stage. We just stopped and stared. I could tell he saw us. He kept putting on more of a show. When he finished that song, we applauded and he took a bow, and then he invited us in for cookies. Tea and cookies. Zak kept giving me these looks, like, Do you believe this? We went in and we could hear Jamie in the kitchen talking to his mother and sister, like he was trying to be quiet but he had no idea how. ‘Mum, Haley—I’ve got friends.’ Like he’d never had any before in his life.”

  “I hadn’t.” Startled by a loud slurp behind her back, Mae turned to see Jamie. With his silent steps, he had glided up unnoticed, carrying two plates in one hand and a steaming paper cup of coffee in the other. He took another slurp from the cup and put his dinner on the table. Each dish held a plate-sized piece of fry bread, one loaded with beans, lettuce, and tomatoes, the other covered with honey and cinnamon. “I was too fucking peculiar.”

  Melody reached up and tapped the brim of his hat. “You were wonderful. You were smart and funny, and you’d been all over the world, and you didn’t drink or take drugs—Zak thought you were the greatest discovery he’d made in years.”

  She moved into the place Zak had vacated, and Jamie sat between her and Mae. He said, “And I wasn’t competition. No worries if the girlfriend hangs out with an ugly bloke.”

  “You weren’t ugly. Just funny looking.”

  “Same thing. Safe, y’know?”

  “Maybe. But Zak’s always looked up to you.”

  Jamie studied Melody for a while, then began rolling the fry bread with beans and veggies into a massive wrap. “Couldn’t have. I was short back then.”

  He might joke his way out of being admirable, but Jamie did have traits Zak could look up to—his honesty, his generosity, and even his being too fucking peculiar. Jamie—neuroses, eccentricities, and all—was authentic, and Zak was always putting on an act. Jamie wasn’t a threat to Zak’s ego, either. Not another alpha male and not trying to be. Mae suddenly saw their friendship in a new light. It was starting to make sense, what they saw in each other.

  Jamie finished constructing the wrap and took a huge bite, some of its contents dribbling into his beard, and talked through the mouthful. “Saw Zak on my way—he looked sour. What’d you two do to him?”

  “Nothing,” Melody grumbled. “He’s just being an ass.”

  Mae took a spoonful of chicken-and-corn stew, resisting the urge to add a few more words about Zak.

  “Right.” Jamie drank coffee. “I’ll catch him in a bit. Since I’m so bloody fucking brilliant at knocking sense into him.” Another chomp on his dinner spilled juices into his beard.

  “Saving some for later?” Melody asked. Jamie laughed through chewing, making more of a mess of his face, and Melody hooted. She covered her children’s eyes. “Don’t learn your table manners from this man.”

  Good advice. Jamie’s manners were hopeless. Mae had once imagined that various improvements in his life would somehow lead to improved manners, but it hadn’t worked out that way. He talked through his food yet again, asking how Will was doing.

  Melody told him the good news, and Jamie said, “Someone should tell Ezra Yahnaki.”

  Bernadette, at the far end of the family group, thanked him for thinking of the boy and let him know that she’d already done it.

  The general conversation in the Pena-Fatty-Tsilnothos clan finally came around to the accident and speculation on Will Baca’s recovery, with people guessing how soon he could ride again. Mae got the impression that rodeo riders dealt with injuries as a way of life, like a lot of professional athletes, and Will’s fans expected him back on the bulls.

  Dean crawled onto Melody’s lap and picked up a stray bean Jamie had dropped on the table. The little boy held it up and made a fart noise. If Mae had been the mother in charge, she would have swallowed her laughter and told him it wasn’t polite to make those sounds at the dinner table, but Melody cracked up as loudly as Jamie did, jabbing him with her elbow. “Dean’s right. You’d better open your tent flaps tonight. In fact, maybe you’d better sleep on our porch.”

  “Nah.” Jamie scrubbed his beard clean with a napkin onto which he’d poured some of Mae’s water and slugged down more coffee. “Porch might be occupied. Zak could be there if he doesn’t straighten out. Need to go talk to him.” He glanced at Mae. “Catcha behind the drums?”

  “Even if it rains?” The sky had been clouding up rapidly during the feast.

  “How long have you lived in New Mexico? Nothing stops for rain.” Jamie rolled up the second piece of fry bread and leaned over for a kiss, dripping honey onto her shoulder. He licked it off and then danced away to the music that seemed to be playing in his head.

  “He’s a good guy.” Melody helped Deanna cut up a chunk of potato the child had been attacking unsuccessfully with a plastic knife. Thunder rumbled, and the wind picked up, blowing a napkin onto the child’s plate. Melody peeled it off and urged the children to finish up so they could go the bounce house before the storm. Without losing her train of thought, she resumed talking to Mae. “I’m glad you like him. Most women don’t go for good guys.”

  Except for her first husband, Mae had chosen good guys. Some had still turned out to be the wrong guys, but she had no fantasies about bad boys being more fun. “I think they do. At least some women.”

  “Not in my family. Misty and Montana and me have three different fathers, and Mom didn’t marry any of them. She said she knew better. Now Montana’s hanging on for Will, I picked Zak—and Misty’s got Reno.”

  “You don’t approve of Reno?”

  “I used to. When they were in high school. But he’s throwing his life away and she’s throwing hers after him.”

  Unless Melody knew Reno’s secret, which was unlikely, Mae could only think of one thing that would amount to throwing his life away—the same mistake she’d made at Reno and Misty’s age. “Jamie’s mama mentioned something about Reno not going to college.”

  Melody nodded. “He didn’t get into IAIA so now he won’t go anywhere. Orville taught him an awful lot about painting, but still. He needs an education.”

  They had finished their meals, and Mae took the paper plates to the trash can while Melody situated her children in their t
win stroller over their protests, telling them they would get to the bounce house faster if she pushed them. Jamie had said nothing stopped for rain, but Melody clearly didn’t want her little ones out in a storm. As they headed toward the vending area, Mae asked, “Is IAIA an important college around here? I never heard of it.”

  “It’s the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe. Famous people studied there—like Orville’s first wife. Orville went there, too. That’s where they met. It’s the best place for a Native artist, if you can get in. I think Reno’s good, but they told him he wasn’t original. Didn’t have a vision or a voice. Something like that. So he decided to just be an artist all on his own, no further training, straight out of high school. Like, ‘I’ll show them.’ How stupid is that? I mean, I know T or C is a good place for art and it’s cheaper than Santa Fe, but he could have gone to a different school. They still could have taught him something. Misty was going to study to be a dentist. She got into NMSU and UNM. There are scholarships for Indian kids who want to go into health care. But she put it off to move to T or C so he could paint.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. It’s not like they were living together. She could have still gone to college and seen him on weekends. Me and Jamie are doing fine living in two different places. If Reno had been in school in Santa Fe and Misty had been in Albuquerque or Cruces, they’d have had to do the weekend thing anyway.”

  “I told her that. But she didn’t want him to feel left behind.”

  “Like she didn’t want to be more educated than he was?” No wonder Misty never talked about any future dreams. She’d dropped them. “That doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.”

  “I know.” The wind blew Melody’s hair into her face and she pushed it back. “But they’ve been dating since they were born, practically. Like me and Zak. And who has a healthy relationship, anyway? You know anyone?”

  “My daddy and his partner do. Sort of.” It was more like Marty being healthy in a relationship with Niall. “And I’m working on it with Jamie. He’s even reading a book on how to do it.”