Apotheosis

by Joshua Edward Smith

  Cynthia laughed. “To be fair, I think that half-plus-seven is a rule for dating. I don’t know if it applies to funeral after-party hookups,” Cynthia offered.

  Paula nodded. “Yeah. Funeral after-party hookups probably have their own Wikipedia page.”

  “Probably. So how are you doing?” Cynthia asked again.

  Paula shrugged. “This is fucking weird, right?”

  “The party?”

  “Yeah.” Paula pointed with her chin toward the back yard. “That. It’s bizarre. Did those people even know Momma?”

  “Well the Baptists did, for sure. The Catholics? Probably not.”

  “You mean the Mexicans,” Paula said.

  “Mexican-Americans, I guess?” Cynthia replied. “Yeah. The girls called your mother Buelita. It’s like grandma. I think they felt like she was family, and well, family is like a virus, right? Your family’s family is your family.”

  “I guess. What would she have thought of all this?” Paula asked.

  “She would have loved it. She would be out there dancing. I guarantee it. Let’s get you a little drunk, and we can dance. It’ll take your mind off all this.”

  Paula looked at Cynthia and raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” Cynthia asked. “I’m not the enemy, you know. Emma was a lot like a mother to me, in the short time I knew her. So that makes you and me kind of like sisters.”

  Paula’s expression remained unchanged.

  “Look, I’m not going to take your brother. He’s clearly moved on to younger, hotter, pastures.”

  Paula laughed. “Yeah, okay. I guess you’re right. Let’s go get drunk.”

  Cynthia put her arm around Paula and led her out to the back deck and over to the Knight’s table. “Set her up!” Cynthia commanded. One of the old men poured a shot of tequila and handed it to Paula. Paula slammed it back. And then she had a second. Then Cynthia guided her up to the bandstand. She caught the attention of the rhythm guitar player, who leaned down to hear. “La Bamba!” Cynthia demanded.

  “Again?” he asked.

  She nodded vigorously and then dragged Paula out to the area where people were dancing on the grass. The band wrapped the Los Lonely Boys song they were playing and fell into “La Bamba.” Several people cheered, and Cynthia and Paula started dancing. Cynthia spotted Phillip standing on the edge of the yard, observing. She gesticulated wildly until she caught his attention and then beckoned him over. He rolled his eyes and slowly came to join them. He grudgingly danced with them, as the circle expanded and Celita and Maria joined them. Cynthia thought there was something to be said for the Mexican style of celebrating a life and rebirth, rather than mourning a death.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Cynthia sat on the back porch sipping the coffee Charlie had made for her. She could get used to fresh ground, French-pressed Ethiopian coffee. Every sip gave her a warm chill down her back. The back yard was almost back to its pre-fiesta condition. The grass looked trampled, and she could see some slight ruts left by the smoker being towed in and out of place. A couple weeks and it would be back to normal, she figured.

  Charlie placed a plate in front of her, with crêpes, bacon, and sliced melon. Then he sat next to her. “You’re too good to me,” she said.

  “Nah. I’m just exactly good enough, I think.”

  Cynthia smiled. “You want to be my boyfriend?”

  “Dunno. What are the terms and conditions?”

  “Hmm. Well let’s see. Exclusivity I guess is the big one,” Cynthia said.

  “Does that mean we get to have sex?” Charlie asked.

  “Definitely. But I need to warn you that I might not remember how. You know how if you don’t wear an earring for long enough the hole will close over?”

  “Yeah?

  “It might be like that,” she said.

  Charlie laughed. “Regained your virginity, have you?”

  Cynthia took a bite of bacon and raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

  “Guests coming today?” he asked.

  “Yes! First in what? A week? No. Two weeks? Anyway, it’s been a long time. It’ll be good to get back to some kind of normalcy around here.”

  “When is everyone leaving?” he asked.

  Cynthia looked at him a moment, puzzled. “Oh! You mean Emma’s family. Yeah, I think tomorrow. They are going through her things today. Figure out what they want to keep, what they want to donate. Her church is going to take whatever they don’t want.”

  “I’ll have the breakfast buffet ready tomorrow. How many should I plan on?”

  Cynthia pulled out her phone. “Let me check.” She checked the mobile app that was tied to the web site she used to manage reservations. “Eight. Plus you and me and the three of them.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what I should do long-term about this. It seems crazy to hire a chef, but I don’t want to subject living humans to my cooking. That would just be cruel.”

  Charlie laughed. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. Breakfast is pretty easy. I could probably teach you.”

  “You’re very sweet, but no. I’ll ask Billy and the girls. Maybe one of them will want to take it on.”

  “Sounds good. I don’t mind doing it. At least for a while,” Charlie said.

  “I know. And I appreciate it. But you aren’t a long-term solution to my problem. These crêpes are fantastic, by the way. Oh, and the coffee! It was the coffee that did it.”

  Charlie smiled. “Did what?”

  “Took me over the hump in deciding you should be my boyfriend.”

  “That’s how I usually get the girls,” he said.

  “Ethiopian beans,” she replied.

  “Yup. How long you going to leave that there?” he asked, pointing at the shrine.

  “Nine days? It’s a Catholic thing. Or a Mexican thing. I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to leave it for nine days, and then I don’t know what happens to it. But then it’s supposed to come back out around Halloween.”

  “Día de los Muertos,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah. I don’t know. It seems important to the girls, so whatever. I do like seeing her picture like that. I’ll probably keep that on my desk.”

  “You keeping the concierge desk? Aren’t you the owner now?” Charlie asked.

  Cynthia looked at him. “Well fuck. Holy shit. How did I not register that? You’re right. Well, kind of. I’m not technically the owner yet, because I need to buy out controlling interest from the trust.”

  “You can do that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s in the trust bylaws or whatever they call it. It’s a little complicated, though. We have to have an independent appraisal done. Figure out what the place is worth. So I’m giving the trust a fair price for the shares,” she explained.

  “Do you have the money?”

  “That depends on the appraisal, now doesn’t it?”

  Charlie laughed. “Yeah. I suppose it does. Well if you need a loan or a silent partner or whatever, I’d invest. You have a good operation here.”

  “That sounds like a terrible idea. We’d probably have to renegotiate the whole boyfriend thing,” Cynthia said.

  “Good point. Well, I’m curious what the appraisal comes back with anyway. The building looks to be in pretty good condition.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “Yeah? Well you’d know. I suppose it’s in your interest to point out all those flaws to the appraiser.”

  “You catch on fast, Chuck,” she said with a wink.

  ¤

  Cynthia finished with the check-in of the last guest and headed back into the residence to see how things were going with dividing up Emma’s things. As she entered the room, Paula threw something that hit Phillip in the chest. He crouched down and picked it up.

  “Why don’t you want any of her jewelry?” Phillip asked. “What about for Madison?”

  “I don’t want any of her stuff,” Paula insist
ed.

  “What is your problem? Why are you so angry at Momma?” Phillip pressed.

  “Seriously? You’re seriously asking me that question?” Paula said.

  “Yes. I am seriously asking you that question.”

  “You know perfectly well why,” Paula said in a low, vicious tone. “Poppa was a coward and she was with him one hundred percent. And you were no better. All of you just abandoned me.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked.

  Paula stared. The scene mesmerized Cynthia. There was perfect stillness suffused with violence and anger. She glanced at Patrick who shrugged slightly, almost imperceptibly. Phillip and Paula continued to stare at each other until Paula suddenly yelled. “Junior fucking Woods!” She sneered at the sound of the name she had uttered.

  Phillip rolled his eyes. “Still? It’s been twenty years!”

  “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, big brother.”

  “He was the son of a sheriff’s deputy. The white son of a deputy. What do you think was going to happen if Poppa told?”

  “Hold up! Hold up! Hold up!” Patrick interjected. “Who the fuck is Junior Woods?” Cynthia was relieved he asked, because she was completely lost by the conversation up to this point. It felt good to not be the only one.

  “The punk ass white bitch who raped me in tenth grade!” Paula yelled.

  “What? Seriously?” Patrick asked.

  “It was a long time ago,” Phillip said.

  “Shut the fuck up. Poppa did nothing. No-thing. And Momma backed his ass up one hundred percent. I had to go to school for a whole month watching that asshole chest-bump his football buddies.”

  “Hang on,” Patrick said. “Since I seem to be the only one who doesn’t know the score, can you fill me in?”

  “It was at senior prom. I went with this other guy, but Junior and I had been flirting on and off up to then. And so he suggested we go make out, and he found a classroom that wasn’t locked. And we get in there and it’s getting hot and heavy, and then he wants to go all the way. And I’m all ‘Fuck no!’ and he wouldn’t stop.”

  “And this was a white guy?”

  “Yeah. Fucking hillbilly. And his daddy is a sheriff’s deputy, so I come home and tell Poppa and he’s like…” Paula shrugged. “I get raped, and Poppa is like…” She shrugged again.

  “Seriously?” Patrick asked.

  “He did more than just that,” Phillip interjected. “But you gotta understand—we were one of like three black families in town. Poppa didn’t want to make trouble for us. And nothing was going to happen anyway, because it was he said, she said. And he was white.”

  Patrick had his phone out. “What’s this guy’s real name? It can’t be Junior.”

  “Get this,” Paula said. “Forrest Woods Junior. What a stupid fucking name for a stupid fucking hillbilly, right?”

  Patrick tapped on his phone. “He’s still here!” Patrick said. “This may all be old news to you, but this is the first I’m hearing about it, and I need to go beat the shit out of this guy. I have his address. Who’s coming?”

  “I am!” Paula said.

  Cynthia looked at Phillip, who was looking at the floor and shaking his head. “Maybe some adult supervision might be in order,” she said quietly.

  Phillip didn’t respond.

  “I think they’re going regardless,” Cynthia said.

  Phillip rolled his eyes. “Fuck. Okay. Let’s go.”

  Cynthia rushed ahead to put a “Back soon” sign with her cell number on the front desk. Then The Four Amigos headed out to Patrick’s car.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Paula held Patrick’s phone as it doled out the turn-by-turn directions to Junior’s address. They found the mailbox with his number and turned into his driveway. Cynthia immediately smelled a terrible, rancid odor. Like plastic burning. Or maybe treated lumber. She cursed her new superpower, as this was not a smell she wanted to experience.

  At the end of the driveway they found a few trailer homes, some beat up cars, and two men sitting on lawn chairs next to a small fire pit. They got out of the vehicle and approached the men. Cynthia evaluated the fire pit and determined that it was burning leftover wood from construction, rather than any sort of proper campfire wood. She wondered what chemicals they might be inhaling at that moment.

  “Which one of you is Junior?” Paula asked.

  “Who’s askin’?” the one on the left replied.

  “Oh, I remember you. You remember me, asshole? Paula?” she asked.

  The man on the left looked her up and down and paused a moment. Then his face lit up as he realized who she was. “Oh! Yeah! From high school! I remember you. We had some wild times.” He turned to his friend in the other lawn chair, who was poking the fire with a long crooked stick. “She and I did it in a classroom during the prom.”

  The other man looked up at Paula, jutted out his lower lip and nodded.

  “You mean you raped me,” Paula said.

  “Hey now! That’s not true. I mean…” he paused again. Cynthia guessed he was trying to remember the night. “Okay so you weren’t into it, but it’s not like I had a knife to your throat or anything. So it wasn’t rape.”

  “Seriously?” Paula said.

  “Dude,” the other man weighed in. “If she said no and you fucked her anyway, that’s rape.”

  “No it ain’t!” Junior protested.

  “Yeah,” the man now had a look of sheer disgust on his face. “Yeah, it totally is.”

  “Get up,” Patrick demanded. He had stepped right in front of Junior’s chair. Phillip stood back, keeping himself between Cynthia and the two men.

  “I don’t take orders from no niggers,” Junior said.

  Cynthia saw the muscles in Phillip’s neck tighten, but Patrick didn’t flinch. “Get up so I can kick your ass,” Patrick said.

  The man eased up out of the chair. He was big. Taller than Patrick by at least six inches and a hundred pounds. “I’d like to see you try,” Junior said.

  The fire was flickering and there was a lot of smoke, and Cynthia didn’t actually see Patrick’s arm move. But she heard the unmistakable sound of bone meeting flesh, and Forrest Woods Junior was now face down in the dusty gravel, completely still.

  “Junior never could take a punch,” the other man said. “Glass jaw.”

  Patrick turned his gaze toward the other man, who raised his hands in surrender. “I got no quarrel with you, mister. Sounds to me like Junior had it comin’.”

  Paula stepped forward and examined the body on the ground, and then she went to the fire. She kicked at it a little and then selected a two-by-four that was poking halfway out of it. As she leaned down, she called back to Cynthia, “Check if his car is open.”

  Cynthia did as instructed and opened the driver’s side door. “Yup.”

  Paula carried the board like a torch over to the pickup and tossed it into the cabin. Then she closed the door and started walking back toward Patrick’s car. Patrick turned and walked in that direction as well. Cynthia stood dumbfounded, as Phillip stepped directly in front of the other man.

  “We were never here. Junior got drunk and lit his own truck on fire,” he said. There was an authority and finality to his tone that gave Cynthia a deep chill.

  “Probably not the first time he done that, I reckon,” the man said.

  Phillip smiled and turned to walk back to the car. He put his arm around Cynthia as he passed her and guided her along with him. She glanced back. Junior hadn’t moved. The man was fishing around in the cooler, presumably looking for a fresh beer. And flames were now shooting out the windows of the pickup’s cab.

  When they were all settled back into Patrick’s car, he started backing down the driveway. “I’m thirsty. Let’s head to the saloon.”

  ¤

  Phillip and Patrick had beer, while Cynthia and Paula chose wine. “I can’t stay too long,” Cynthia said. “There’s nobody minding the store right now.”

&
nbsp; “Just one drink is fine,” Patrick said. “I just need to calm my nerves a little.”

  “Where’d you learn to punch like that?” Phillip asked.

  “I’ve studied Krav Maga on and off for years,” Patrick replied.

  “Crave what?” Paula asked.

  “Krav Maga. It’s a style of fighting developed by Israel Special Forces. Kind of a mix of boxing and street fighting and some different martial arts. Very fast and very aggressive. It’s how I keep fit.”

  “I didn’t even see you move,” Cynthia said.

  Patrick smiled. “I don’t think he did either. I was counting on the four empty beer cans I saw to slow his reflexes. He had a little weight advantage on me.”

  “And you with that walk away while it blows up thing,” Cynthia said to Paula. “Just like in the movies.”

  Paula giggled. “I always wanted to do that. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I should do it to him. The cocksucker.”

  “I feel like a veil has been lifted,” Patrick said. “All sorts of shit I never understood is now starting to make sense. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Paula shrugged. “It’s not exactly something I like to remember.” She took a long pull from her wine glass. “It really messed me up on sex and boys for a long time. Big strong assertive men like that still freak me out.”

  “Which is why you married such a pussy. Makes total sense,” Patrick said.

  “Hey!” Paula protested.

  “He’s got a point little sister,” Phillip said. “Matt isn’t exactly a force of nature.”

  Paula laughed. “No. I suppose he isn’t. I’m the only girl who actually likes nice guys, I guess.”

  “I like nice guys,” Cynthia said.

  Paula raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked my brother.”

  “Hey! I’m a nice guy!” Patrick said.

  “Point taken,” Cynthia said. “But that didn’t go anywhere. I have a boyfriend now, and he’s pretty nice.”

  “I don’t like how it’s been established that I’m not a nice guy,” Patrick protested.

  “Nice guys don’t flatten a guy with one punch, little brother. And they don’t run off in the middle of a funeral to fuck some piece of ass half their age,” Paula said.