“You lied to me,” he said. “You were riding my cock and lying to me.”
“Alex, please. It was twenty years ago and I don’t want him.”
He moved away from her, throwing himself down on his pillow again. “Fix it with Deane. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do about this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just…go to sleep.”
A hoarse laugh tumbled out of her chest. She couldn’t help it. Go to sleep. Sure. Flip the “off” switch and pause all this until the morning. No problem.
I can’t stay here.
The bed felt poisoned. Sullied and soiled. Such ugly words had never been exchanged in this space. Only love.
She’d ruined it.
Her teeth chattered. She pulled in breath after breath, trying to find a safe place, a haven, a comfortable position for her thoughts to lay in.
Stay here and own it. It’s a test.
Vamos a sobrepasarlo.
No.
Vamos a superarlo.
I won’t evade or avoid or get around this. I will get through it.
We will…
Her eyes opened and her first thought was, I slept?
Holy shit, she slept.
Before she could congratulate her brain for shutting off, the bedroom door opened briskly and Alex put half his head in. “I’m leaving now. I made coffee.”
You made coffee? That means you like me.
She snatched the gesture and gobbled it down. You made me coffee. You offered me the elixir of life. All is not lost. It’s going to be all right. We’re going to get through this.
“Thank you,” she said, while her heart kowtowed, Yes, thank you. I am most humbled and grateful for this generous gesture.
“You need to talk to Deane before she leaves for school.”
The pure nag in his tone tripped her gratitude and made her eyes roll. Gee, thanks for reminding me. I would’ve surely forgotten. “I will,” she said evenly.
“What are you going to say?”
She sat up and faced his gaze. “I’m certainly not going to tell her that her boyfriend’s uncle used to be an escort. If you would like to tell her, you instigate that conversation.” It was an effort keeping the snark out of her voice before she’d even brushed her teeth.
Alex stared back and his chin raised up and down in the bare minimum of agreement.
“I’m going to explain you’re angry at me for withholding information. I haven’t yet decided how much information I’m going to give her about the information. I’ll need a cup of coffee first. Thank you for making it.”
He closed the door.
Val exhaled, folded back the covers and put her feet on the floor. “Day One of being on the shit list.” She dug her fingers into her hair, scratching vigorously. “And I haven’t a thing to wear.”
Get up. Move. Game on.
It was cloudy and gloomy out. Of course. Even the sun was pissed at her. She washed, dressed and drew three deep, fortifying breaths before heading downstairs.
Deane was one of the few teenagers on earth who ate breakfast every single day. She had a cup of coffee and some homework in front of her, and a scrap of toast held in her teeth.
“Good morning,” Val said.
Deane made a vague noise. Val poured a cup of coffee.
“I apologize for how ugly it was last night,” Val said. “Dad and I have some things to work out and I’ll expl—”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Good, you don’t have to.” Val pulled a chair out and sat. “It’s awkward for everyone so I’ll keep it simple. I used to date Jav. Dad and I weren’t a couple yet, we weren’t even living in the same city. Jav wasn’t a serious romance, but it was a relationship. It ended on difficult terms which is why we lost complete touch for almost twenty years. I didn’t tell Dad about him when he and I started dating, which was a mistake. And I didn’t tell him when Jav randomly showed up in Guelisten and ended up staying. That was a bigger mistake and Dad is incredibly angry with me about it. I don’t blame him. I was wrong.”
Deane’s face was an empty plate. She chewed slowly, tapping the point of the pencil on the notebook.
“I’m sorry,” Val said. “I’ve upset both you and Dad. I’ve upset the house. I feel like shit and I’m going to do whatever I can to put things right.”
Now Deane’s eyes circled the universe as she crammed the last bit of toast in her mouth. “Whatever,” she said around it. She collected books and papers and shoved back from the table hard enough to make coffee slosh in the cups. “I gotta go.”
“Have a good day,” Val called. After the front door slammed, she sat and drank her coffee, staring at nothing, thinking about nothing. Sheba padded over and put her muzzle on Val’s knee.
“What do you think?” Val said to her. “Did I handle that all right? Short and to the point. I told her what she needed to know and I apologized.”
Sheba yawned and blinked at her.
“Yeah, I suck.” She ran her hand along Sheba’s inky head and sighed. “I suck here so I’m going to work and not suck at my job.”
“I don’t have a tissue or anything,” Ari said. He stretched out the hem of his T-shirt sleeve and gently dabbed at Deane’s face.
“Sorry,” she said, blowing the air out of her lungs.
“Don’t be sorry. You’re upset.”
“Everyone’s parents fight. I don’t know why I’m being such a baby about it.”
“I think your parents fight on the same schedule as Halley’s Comet,” he said.
She pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “I can’t deal. The air in the house is changed. It’s gone. All night long I couldn’t catch my breath.”
“I’m sorry,” Ari said, smoothing her hair and kissing her temple. “Come on, let’s get out of the sun.”
He put his arm around her and walked her toward the bleachers. It was cool beneath. And private.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“I don’t even know how to start.”
“Blurt.”
“Did you know my mother and your uncle used to date?”
The strap of Ari’s backpack slid off his shoulder and the bag hit the ground in a puff of dust. “I’m sorry?”
“Jav texted my mom yesterday and it said, ‘Does Alex know about us?’ Now Dad’s pissed at Mom because she neglected to tell him she and Jav dated a bunch of years ago. Which makes things fucking awkward, to say the least.”
Ari’s mouth was slightly parted and he stared off over her shoulder.
“What a bitch thing to do,” Deane said. “Why in hell would she keep something like that a secret? My dad is so fucking upset and I don’t blame him.”
Ari’s eyes slowly blinked. He looked like he was doing mental math problems and not digging the answers.
“What are you thinking?” Deane said, alarm coiling around her stomach.
Ari slowly sat on the ground, put his elbows on his shins and his chin on his hands. Now his lips were moving faintly.
Deane sat as well. “Ari?”
He shook his head a little and came back. “I’m sorry, I was putting together a lot of pieces of…” He stared off again, an index finger raised. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but this sort of makes sense to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jav told me… This stays between us, all right?”
“Of course.”
“After his parents threw him out, he had nothing. Nowhere to go. He was sleeping in a stock room for a while. He said he once won some cash in the lottery but he socked it all away as an emergency fund and lived hand to mouth waiting tables and shit.”
Deane raised her eyebrows, not sure where Ari was going.
“He told me once, ‘I did some stuff I’m not too proud of. But I did it to survive.’” Ari ran his hands back through his hair. “I kind of dismissed it, but then I heard him and your dad talking on the drive up to Vermont. I can
’t go to court with anything I heard. It was all in Spanish and Jav speaks so fucking fast, I can only pick up a few things. I understand your dad better. And I heard something that made me think…”
“What?”
“That Jav might have used to…you know. Turn tricks. Or something.”
Deane’s stomach felt hollow. “You mean have sex with people for money?”
He nodded. “Did you read Client Privilege? His short stories?”
“No, I only read Gloria.”
“All those stories are told from the point of view of a male prostitute,” Ari said, just as Deane recalled how Gloria in the Highest was filled with whores of all persuasions. How gritty and raw the details of their lives had been depicted. Deane would close the cover and unconsciously wipe her hands off, as if they were coated with coal soot and cheap sex.
“Holy shit,” she said softly.
Ari shook his head with a small groan, the lines of his face etched in misery. “Fuck, I feel like shit discussing this. I can’t prove it and it’s not something I’d ever ask him or confront him about. I mean, Jesus.”
“I know.”
“Maybe it was something else. Selling drugs or whatever. I’m reaching here. The point is he went through a really fucked-up time. The bigger point, and this brings it back to your situation, Jav also told me a woman helped him get his act together.” Ari exhaled roughly and looked at Deane. “Maybe that woman was your mom?”
“Huh.”
“I don’t know if it means she literally helped him, or if losing her was the catalyst to him getting his act together.”
Deane’s gaze wandered off in the distance. “She said it ended on difficult terms and they fell out of touch.”
“If she kept it from your dad, it couldn’t have been good. Maybe T broke her heart. Or his behavior broke her heart?”
“Maybe,” Deane said, trying to make the two-dimensional pictures she’d seen that morning flesh out into a story. She was confused now.
“I’m sorry,” Ari said. “I don’t know if I’m any help, but what you were saying kind of clicked with some shit I knew.”
“No, no,” Deane said. “It’s… God, this is fucked-up. And if you’re right about Jav, then it’s fucked up and sad.”
She tried to picture Jav in that time of his life: younger, thinner, hungrier. Alone and desperate. Standing on a corner, a cigarette held tight in his mouth. Sole of his foot against a lamp post, looking up and down the street. Looking for work. For business. For money. For women.
For men, too?
Her mind flinched from the imagery, shivered it off and away. Maybe this was why gorgeous Jav had no one special in his life. Maybe he’d sold himself so many times, sex ceased to mean anything. Maybe it was such a horrific experience, when he finally achieved success in his writing, he decided people could look at him all they wanted, but nobody—nobody would ever touch him again.
“Fuck,” Deane whispered.
“I know. You can’t tell this to anyone. It’s so empty, it has no legs, it’s totally shitty and…”
“Oh, God, no. I won’t.”
They got up, brushed off their butts and picked up bags.
“You done for the day?” he asked.
“I have a free period then I have English. I’ll go home and make a sandwich. See if the air’s any different.”
“Be careful, all right?”
“What do you mean?”
His hand caught hers, fingers twining. “Sometimes you get the answer to a question and it makes everything worse. Sometimes not knowing all the gory details is better. Your parents love each other. And that’s probably why this sucks so bad.”
Deane nodded. “They don’t know how to be mad at each other.”
He pressed his lips above her eyebrows. “Call me later.”
She wasn’t off school grounds when he pinged her phone: Miss u already.
She breathed easy going down Courtenay Avenue, Ari’s story sliding into place and creating a scenario that made more and more sense with every step. Her mother did something foolish that hurt Alex, but Jav was really to blame.
Then the picture of Jav on a street corner jumped into Deane’s head again and she felt bad for blaming him.
Goddammit.
Sometimes not knowing is better.
She got home more confused than ever. Alex was making a sandwich at the kitchen counter.
“Qué onda, cosita? You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry it got so unpleasant last night.”
“No biggie. I’d be pissed too if I found out my wife used to fuck my best friend.”
She meant it to be flip, but as the words left her unfiltered mouth, she knew it was mistake. A split second when both her father and the entire kitchen whirled around, aghast.
Dude, seriously?
Then Alex hit her.
It wasn’t quite a slap. She sensed he checked it at the last second and only his fingertips cuffed her chin hard. A burning, embarrassed shame swept from her scalp to her chest. Other than a hard swat on the butt when she chased a ball into the street at age five, her father had never hit her. Never.
“You watch your mouth,” he said. “Just because I’m pissed at your mother doesn’t give you carte blanche to be a bitch. Cachai?”
Her stomach turned over. “I’m sorry.”
His finger pointed in her face. “If you hadn’t been snooping around this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Dad, I’m sorry,” Deane whispered, terrified of the rage in his eyes. The same anger he’d flung at Val last night.
He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and threw it on the counter. He left, abandoning his sandwich. The kitchen door slammed. Deane stood, trembling and mortified, her fingers pressed to her mouth. The kid who’d gotten spanked in front of her friends now looking for a victim, someone or something to make hurt as much as she did. Preferably more.
I hate you, she thought. I fucking hate all of you.
“Thanks for seeing me.”
Gloria put her chin on her hand. “You make it sound like I’m your therapist.”
“Aren’t you though?”
She touched his cheek. “I worry about you.”
He sighed.
“And you sigh a lot when no one’s looking. I wish you wouldn’t, it makes me feel old.”
He took the wine out of the ice bucket and topped their glasses with the last of it.
The waiter materialized and cleared their plates. “Can I interest anyone in dessert?”
Jav glanced at Gloria, who mouthed coffee as she opened her compact.
“We’ll have coffee, thanks,” Jav said.
Gloria fixed her lipstick and put her purse away. “Have you apologized to your friends?”
“I tried with Alex but he’s…pretty pissed.”
“Can’t really blame him.”
“And I called Val but didn’t do much apologizing. She was screaming at me and it was hard to get a word in.”
“I can’t blame her, either.”
“Not my finest moment.”
“Think before you speak, Javier. It’s the first thing I taught you.”
“And the first thing I forgot.”
She put her hand on top of his. “At least I know you don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“God, I wish I’d left well enough alone,” he said, staring at the charred beams and smoking struts of his house.
They separated their hands so the waiter could set down coffee cups, cream and sugar.
“Are you in love with him?” Gloria said.
He opened his mouth, closed it, then exhaled. “I wouldn’t know love if it knocked on my door,” he said. “But he’s all I think about. I know that much. Is it love or obsession? Do I love him, or do I love the idea of being able to love him because he’s straight, married and safe?”
“You flew across a continent for his daughter,” Gloria said. “I call that love.”
“I do
love Deane. I love all of them, Glor. It’s such a tangled mess of feeling. He’s like a brother to me. And I want him so goddamn bad at the same time.” He pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead. “It makes me make really stupid decisions.”
“Bad choices make good stories.”
He laughed down at his lap. “Maybe I’ll get a book out of this. It’s some consolation.”
She took both his hands now. “You lost everything once before and survived. You’ll survive this.”
Her love came through her squeezing fingers and soothed the most raw, stinging parts of his conscience. As he drove home from Manhattan, it was less you fucking idiot and more perhaps we’ll treat this as a teachable moment?
“You fucking idiot,” he mumbled. It was easier.
The past five days had been pure torture. Five days of Alex not speaking to him. It was like someone had removed one of Jav’s leg bones and was forcing him to run a marathon. He didn’t realize how invested he was in the daily contact with Alex until it ceased. The texts, calls and stop-bys were like oxygen, and now the supply was abruptly and angrily cut off. Jav suffocated through the hours, smothered by a self-loathing misery that made him ache to his bones. He could kick himself to death for firing off that text to Val.
With a groaning grunt, he slammed the steering wheel with both hands. That stupid, spontaneous, passive-aggressive high school drama club text. No hesitation before hitting the send button. He didn’t even think about thinking it through. He thought about it plenty now, though, and every time it made him cringe.
“Idiot,” he yelled at the windshield.
He turned on the radio. Turned it off again and scrubbed at his hair. Yawned. The drive to and from the city was getting old. But he didn’t get to see Gloria much these days and he missed her. Right now he flat-out needed her. So when Ari went with the shelter staff on an emergency rescue in Ulster County, Jav took advantage of the free night to meet his mentor for a late dinner. It was worth driving back at two in the morning.
He came around a bend of 9D, outside Hudson Bluffs. High beams from the other direction stabbed his eyes before dimming. Then Jav saw the dog, five feet from his front bumper.
“Cabron,” he cried, hitting the brakes. A squeal of locked tires and burning rubber and a flash of buff and white fur as the dog careened off the hood of the oncoming car.
An Exaltation of Larks Page 38