by Jill Zeller
So after a half-an-hour of shared membership in the We-Despise-Carlisle-Cleveland club, Hank brought up his plan, blurted it out, in fact as Mary, having now a little too much to drink for her small size, sat beside him and petted his hair.
Flopping onto the couch on the other side, Connie’s mouth fell open in astonishment, followed by a grin.
“That girl that Mom threw out of the house? That pretty Mexican girl? You want to get in touch again?”
The room got very hot, all of a sudden. Hank tried to keep himself loose, as Connie fussed with his sideburns. Mom threw her out of the house? Why had he forgotten about that? Desperate to hear more, the last thing he wanted was for Connie to know that this part of his memory had been erased.
Connie proceeded to tell Mary all about it. Hank listened, needing to hear it all. He didn’t care about Mary hearing the story he starred in and didn’t know it. She was very drunk and would never remember any of this anyway.
“She is a beautiful girl,” Connie blathered on, while Mary leaned back her head and tried to keep her eyes open. “Brilliant, too. She was at that fancy school on a scholarship—I guess her father was educated, and they were pretty well off, living, where was it—I don’t think you ever told me, Hank.”
Connie ran her hand down the side of his face. “Poor Hank. You really did love that girl. It ended so suddenly, huh? I remember seeing her around, and then PFFT! She was gone.”
Mary nodded, her eyes closed. “PFFFT!”
Hank smiled at his sister, hoping he looked interested, not flummoxed.
“She looked so cute in that school uniform, with her hair in a ponytail. Must have been hard, the only Mexican girl in that snotty school. I ran into her in the living room once, looking at that trash of Mom’s, and as I walked in she whipped out a little tablet and started drawing those stupid little statues on the mantle.”
Connie offered her drink to Hank, who shook his head, fascinated about this bit of intelligence. “She said she wanted to be an architect or a designer for the pictures. I actually didn’t laugh at her, Hank, you will be glad to know. I could see she was dead serious.”
Nodding, Hank pretended to recall this fact about Luz. Memories of the drawing, little doodles on her school folders, nipped at him.
Turning to him, Connie shifted her knee onto the couch. “What were you two up to, young Hank, that got Mother so pissed off. I could only guess, but now it’s time to fess up. Then, maybe I will do what you ask.”
Someone had turned the heat up, or maybe it was the sun burning through the windows and doors. Connie narrowed her eyes, watching Hank as his face warmed. He didn’t remember. Maybe nothing happened. Why didn’t he remember?
“Oh, so my guess was correct. The witness is clearly holding back the truth, your honor.” She leaned close, to his ear. “So Miss Chagall is not the first.”
Shivers ran through Hank’s thighs. He felt as if he had cycled two centuries. But he kept the smile on his face and shrugged. He could act too, when the situation demanded.
Connie slapped her knee and snapped her fingers. “I’ll do it, my lad. I will call this girl’s Dad, and say I am a high school friend, and I really want to get in touch with her. OK?”
They left Mary snoozing on the couch. Connie crawled into the front seat, leaned her head back as Hank drove them home. The wind curled her hair, licked his forehead, and he could remember cool hands on his forehead and chest and the icy release from fever. Only he was feverish again, he thought, but in a completely new way.
Nineteen
Silence made Hank uneasy, as he was unable to hear the chorus of voices in the continual background of his life. Mom was at Cedric’s pleading for her children, Dad had gone off somewhere. Absent more and more, Dad especially seemed not to like to spend time in the living room under the quietly surprised gaze of his father’s urn. Carl was in his room, door closed.
Connie unsteadily and softly went upstairs, after whispering to Hank that she needed a nap and a long soak in the tub, but she would perform his deed first thing in the morning. He felt a little nervous about that, determining that he would make sure she remembered.
Then there was the problem of Susan. Hank sat on the couch, his legs out before him, and gazed at his grandfather. Afternoon air, carrying floral scents, curled in from the patio. Picking up the phone, Hank dialed Susan’s number.
Joseph answered. “Ah, the boy wonder.” Joseph’s voice was slow and drawly, but he sounded lucid. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“It’s OK. You already apologized.”
Joseph continued, “Well, anyway. I’m sorry for being such an asshole yesterday. I would offer up an excuse, but I don’t have one.”
“It’s OK. Really,” was all Hank could think to say.
“Good then. I’m walking more. I’m trying to get off the dope. I want to get back to work like any other good American boy. I miss the ghosts and they miss me.”
“You going back to work at the cemetery?” Hank thought this was an ambitious goal, but if it got Joseph out of the house, all the better.
Joseph’s voice softened, barely heard above the hiss of the wire. “I’ll stay out of your way. She really missed you, while you were gone—Oh hey, this one’s for you!”
A clatter, swift talking in the background, then Susan’s voice, uncertain, “Hello?”
“I miss you,” was all Hank could say.
She was silent for a while. “When will you be back by?”
She had never asked him that before. He always left her bungalow without an invitation to return, as if there was no need for it. Now things were changing course, and he really didn’t know.
“Tomorrow?”
She agreed to this. “Tomorrow.”
Putting the phone down, Hank looked at his hands, which were shaking. Climbing the stairs to his room, he tried fiercely to remember what had happened. But it was as if he was pushing at a door that refused to open. Lying on his bed, he stared at his desk, trying to see Luz sitting there, laughing at something he said. Connie implied that he and Luz—if that were true, it would definitely be memorable. But had it really happened?
He too must have slept. When he went down stairs, the afternoon had worn away while Connie slept off her brandy. At some point, Carl must have slipped out, gone down to town to hang out with friends. When Mom came home, she found Hank in the living room, stretched out on the sofa again, trying to read the comics, but finding his mind wandering between two women. Dad was not home yet.
“He won’t budge,” Mom said, walking straight to the cocktail wagon. “He doesn’t want Carl on the set, and so, he says he can’t let Connie in there either. He knows he has a three film contract, but we are arguing whether this picture is number one. I think he was impressed by the way I came at him.”
Hank pretended to pay attention, but he was really listening for the hitch in her voice, a subtle hesitation, a garbled word. He could hear them mixed in her speech. Sitting down at the other end of the couch near his feet, she patted his bare ankle. “I have to say I was glad you showed up, Hank. Good show of family support. Cedric noticed you.”
Great, Hank thought. Would he have to display himself at awards ceremonies and charity events, as well?
“What if the act split up? Wouldn’t that be better for everyone?”
Turning her head, Mom stared at him over her reading glasses. Shoving them up on her head, she said, “No, Hank, that would be far worse for everyone. The Cleveland Twins are unique. Brother and sister, and talented at everything: singing, dancing, acting.”
She leaned back again, gazed in the direction of the mantle and its bizarre collection of mismatched pieces. “Neither of them have a chance going solo. The competition is tremendous. Pretty blond actors are a dime a dozen.”
“But Connie, she has something special, don’t you think?”
Mom gave him a look again, curious, wondering. “Maybe. She’s good at making connections, getting to know the right
people, keeping her M.O. Straight. But splitting up is out of the question.”
Having said more than he wanted, Hank remained silent. He knew Mom was protecting Carl. It was hard to imagine what might happen to Carl if the act broke up. He was far more dependent on the whole set-up than Connie.
They sat in silence as the room darkened, and odors of chicken and thyme circulated through the house as Joaquin did his magic in the kitchen. Hank worried not so much what would happen to Carl if the act broke up. He would be fine—he would land on his feet. But the bigger question was, what would Mom do?
That night Hank slept the sleep of the dead, followed around by dreams. In one of them someone sat on his bed with soft breath in his ear, faint smell of lilacs.
“I made the call, you lazy bones,” the breath said.
When he opened his eyes, sun brightened the day outside his windows. Getting up, he went down the hall to Connie’s room, tapped at the door. Silence. No one was home. Everyone had left him behind.
Twenty
This would be the oddest meeting, the most wrought with potential unpleasantness, that Hank could imagine. The return call had come not from Luz, inquiring after a high school friend she didn’t remember, but from Susan. Hank and Luz would meet at Susan’s house, at a time of day when Susan would take Joseph to the hospital for a check-up.
He mulled, as he prepared for the meeting, fussing with his clothes, knowing he couldn’t be too choosy because he was determined to cycle to Susan’s for the first time since he had been ill, about why she was doing this. Was she tired of him and trying to pawn him off on an old girlfriend? Was she a martyr, seeing how in love with Luz he still was, and giving up on him? Was she forcing him to choose between them?
The chosen day was Friday, Luz’s day off. He hadn’t even spoken to Luz yet. He had chafed all week, snapping at his mother, ignoring calls from friends to go to movies or hang out on Sunset. He rode every day, and his endurance built quickly. Carl was home all day, getting on Hank’s and everyone’s nerves, drinking too much. Connie was gone all day to who knew where, shopping, visiting girlfriends—if she was hustling auditions, she didn’t give a hint. And Hank only gave glancing thoughts to Dad, who was sometimes not even home for dinner.
And Mom. After negotiations with Sigfried, she holed up in her room, and Hank could hear her talking. She had bought a Dictaphone, recording the words she knew she would soon lose. But he had no time for any of it. His only goal was Luz.
Hank set off that day with the certainty that the familiar road, the long coast down to Sepulveda, felt somehow longer. Not because he was still weak—he was stronger than ever—but because it was taking him farther from home than he had ever been. With the house and family out of sight, he melted with the city in an anonymous way, venturing into a wilderness with no roads or even trails, where no human being had ever been; animals understood the landscape, but a blundering man was a blight.
His heart already beating hard from his ride, Hank coasted into Susan’s driveway. Cars were parked neatly on the street, children were in school; on the empty street the only other human in sight was a mailman hauling a bag of mail. Arrowing up the drive, he coasted into the yard on the newly greening grass, and saw Luz.
She stood near the kiln, holding a greenware piece. Her hair was down, curled around her face, lapping her shoulders with blue-black. She wore a man’s t-shirt—one of Joseph’s?—and slacks. Her lips parted as if she were startled, and Hank watched them shift into a smile.
Having already hopped off his bike, Hank stood frozen, heart thundering, his breath trapped in his throat. Putting down the greenware, some animal figurine, Luz brushed her hands on her pants, came toward him, and stuck out her hand.
“Hi, Hank.”
Her voice was soft and girl-like, so like, so familiar, that a wave of dizziness washed over Hank, as if they had travelled back in time and were sixteen, standing in his backyard beside the pool.
The bike was between them. He wanted to shove it out of the way and pick her up, crush her to him, taste her lips again and feel her breasts against his. They were large and prominent. And he remembered the heft of them in his hands when they—
As all this went through his mind, she pulled her hand back, her smile shifted into embarrassment. “You look a lot better.”
Hank found he could breathe again. Her demeanor changed into the professional nurse, talking to a patient.
“Yeah, I’m all over that.” You’re a complete idiot, he told himself. He sounded like a conceited asshole.
She touched the handlebars of the Raleigh. “You still ride. Is this the same bike?”
Nodding, he watched her long-fingered hand, skin already creased around the knuckles, hands that were washed and cleansed dozens of times a day.
He said, “I have a Peugeot now, a cross-country racer. I use that for my long training rides.”
I sound like a ten-year-old, he thought, wondering why the power of speech and his voice had shrunk and shattered.
She nodded, smiling again. “It’s good to ride a bike. Every child needs one.”
Hank felt a little stung. Was she implying his cycling was childish? Uncertain, he pushed the bike toward the back porch, leaned it against the wall between the porch and the cellar steps.
“Would you like some coffee? A coke?” Her voice followed him across the yard like a child, touching his leg.
“That’s OK, just some water.” He started up the steps, into the kitchen, and she was right behind. As he walked to the cupboard to get a glass, he felt his body warm, and wondered what Luz knew about him and Susan.
In Susan’s kitchen—surprisingly neat; washed dishes in the drainer, table cleared and wiped and a vase—Metlox, of course—filled with random flowers and dried stems, Hank filled his glass, turned and looked at Luz. She stood near the door, looking uncertain, fingering the edges of her shirt.
Susan’s place smelled vaguely of alcohol and musk, and the cinnamon-like smell of her. Hank didn’t like being inside, as if he were inside Susan. Luz didn’t belong to this place of Susan’s, although here she was, and she had been while Hank was ill.
“Miss Chagall has been teaching me about ceramics.” Luz lifted her chin, watched him with her coffee eyes. “Do you want to see?” Almost shyly.
Relieved to have a reason to go back outside, Hank nodded. He followed her to the garage studio, watching her walk, briskly but swaying, her butt round and pushing against her flowing shirt.
Coming through the door, the memory of when he had entered and thought he saw Luz at the worktable working on the donkey, came at him with force. It was not Luz, but Susan, and they had fucked right there on the floor. He felt his face grow warm again, hoped Luz did not see.
And she didn’t, because she moved to a shelf and picked from an array of animals: a small cat, a leopard maybe, or a jaguar. She brought it to him.
“This, of course, is my best so far.” She turned it in her hand, gave it to him. “I wouldn’t dare show you my catastrophes. They are all appropriately consigned to the trash can.”
As she spoke, and he felt the glassy skin of the cat, and looked at its piercing, yellow eyes, Hank felt awash in love. Memories flooded back, talks with Luz, intelligent and probing, funny and sarcastic; he remembered talking to her more than anyone, ever. Luz loved to talk about the world, and Hank could listen to her opinions forever. He wondered again, as he had then, if she had inherited her intelligent analytical powers from her father.
Curling his fingers around the cat, feeling its muscled curves, he remembered another side of Luz, magical, dark, scary, probably inherited from her mother. The way she saw things that Hank never saw, said things that puzzled him. The way she looked at the photograph of his grandparents and proclaimed a truth that he had never seen before.
“Papi never approved of my attempts at sculpting. He didn’t like me spending money on clay.” Luz ran her hand along the edge of the workbench, where bottles and cans, paints, brush
es, a zoo of greenware animals crowded. Hank caught fragrances of oils and mixtures, sharp, like incense.
Hank remembered suddenly that Julio Del Mar was dead. Connie had told him, after she made the call to the law office where he used to work as an assistant.
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
Grief came and went on Luz’s face, she swallowed it away. “He took everything so hard.”
Hank thought she wanted to say more, but she sighed, took the cat back from him and laid it on the shelf. Next to it was a smaller figurine, wolf puppy, coyote? But Luz picked up another one, and handed it to Hank.
“For you. That is a gift.”
A raven, the figurine easily filled his palm. The raven wore a sombrero and a bandana around its neck.
“Because you fly like a bird, on your bicycle.” A smile lifted the corner of her mouth. Hank couldn’t stop himself. He reached over, his hand moving without thought—he had nothing to do with it, his body took over, and he touched her hair, ran his finger along the side of her face.
Luz’s eyes widened. She seemed to stiffen. Hank pulled his hand away.
He knew his touch had changed. Susan had changed it. Luz felt it, and he thought maybe he had frightened her. He lifted the raven; he and it exchanged beady glances.
“Thanks. He’s great.”
They made small bits of talk, there in the studio, Hank on the stool for climbing to the high shelves. Luz leaning against the table, told him about school.
“Nursing school is hard. I used to stay at the hospital, in the dorm, most of the time. The other girls are fun. We go out together sometimes, with the interns. It’s quite a party.”
Jealousy nicked at Hank, but he squelched it. What right did he have? He was the one who cast her out—or rather, his family did.
“How is your mom?” he though to ask, grasping at anything to hear her voice.
Smiling, Luz shrugged, picked at a dried glop of red pooled on the table. “She’s good. She misses Papi a lot, but she is busy, taking care of things, the house. She’s very involved in the church, too, of course.”