He felt himself blush. For a moment he couldn’t hug her back because there was something, some little thing on the edge of his memory, something about Carmen Zapata that worried him, though what it was, he didn’t know. More subconscious hooey, he decided, and forced himself to return the hug.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” he told her as he began to relax. He’d forgotten that being hugged by Carmen was one of the better things in life. He’d forgotten how comfortable she was, how warm and safe she felt. Even now that he was taller than she, he still felt engulfed by her. Suddenly he felt good about being here because she was exactly what Cody needed.
“You’re a good boy, Ricky, to say I haven’t changed. But I’m an old lady, fifty-five.”
“That’s not so old.”
“You can see the gray hairs and the crow’s-feet and you still say that.” She beamed at him. “Thank you.”
Carmen in a blue flannel nightgown, the rotting green odor of the koi pond clinging to her. It’s our secret, Ricky.
He pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Daddy’s funny,” Cody said.
A throat was cleared. Dogs whined, and a grown man winced at the noise, which sounded like sandpaper on dry snot.
“Aunt Jade,” he said smoothly, “I hope you’re well.”
“Doggy rats,” she intoned. “Explain doggy rats.”
She stood by the sofa, her dogs’ red leashes wrapped around her. All he could see of them were their snarling, cowardly muzzles poking out from behind her legs. Jade herself had changed little, except that the tall, heavy-boned woman was thinner and slightly stooped now.
As always, she wore too much makeup. Her foundation had sweated into the loose wrinkles on her face, emphasizing the clownish circles of rouge ornamenting her prominent cheekbones. Worse, mold blue eyeshadow covered her eyelids from the clumps of mascara on her eyelashes all the way up to her plucked-out and painted-on eyebrows. A single wart with two wiry black hairs grew on the side of her nose.
The woman, Rick thought, was a witch, and her expensive but out-of-date—and season—clothing only emphasized the effect. She wore a long black batwing jacket and matching straight skirt that ended, regrettably, above her bony knees, and her red scoop-necked blouse showed off her crepey cleavage to great disadvantage.
The only change was her hair. Formerly mouse brown, it was now jet black and swept up in some sort of beehive throwback. More than anything, Jade Ewebean looked like Cruella DeVille with a hangover.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Richard,” Jade said.
Do you have any idea how much I despise you? The woman had made his life hell, though he had to admit that she’d had one positive influence on his childhood. If she hadn’t made him quite so miserable, he might not have graduated high school early and had an extra year away from her.
If you hadn’t been such a wimp, Piper, you might have gotten away even sooner. His feelings ranged from disgust to amusement when he thought of how he’d removed himself from his impossible home life. He got straight A’s, then ran away to college. It never occurred to him to do what kids did in books and movies. He could have run away and joined the army or even gone hog-wild and run off with the circus.
The circus. The carnival.
Delia.
The name brought a physical jolt. Delia. Oh, God. Delia. She’d been with the traveling carnival that arrived in Santo Verde each July. He’d met her on the Fourth of July only a few days before his parents died. How could he forget about Delia? She was the first girl he’d ever kissed, the first he had loved.
“Ricky? Ricky?” Carmen shook his elbow. “Is something wrong?”
“No. It’s just strange to be back here.”
“Yeah,” Carmen said, pointedly glaring at Jade. “Some things never change.”
Jade stared down her nose at Rick. “I’m waiting for your explanation.”
I don’t have to answer her, Rick thought. I can tell her to go to hell. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. I’m an adult. I should be civil.
Luckily, Carmen spoke for him. “You leave him alone. This is his house and he’s the boss now.”
Jade harrumphed, but something in her posture changed. Obviously she was aware of the truth in Carmen’s words.
“Richard,” Jade sniffed, doing a turnaround reminiscent of Shelly’s teenage manipulations, “this woman doesn’t know her place. I worked my fingers to the bone taking care of you, and what do I get in return? A rude maid that I can’t fire.”
Thank God. “If you’ll recall,” Rick replied calmly, “my parents stipulated in their will that the Zapatas would stay on as caretakers as long as they wanted.” If it hadn’t been for Carmen, he never would have survived long enough to leave Santo Verde. The Zapatas were free to leave, of course, but the Ewebeans had been forbidden to fire them.
Jade strode toward Rick, bringing the poodles and an almost visible cloud of perfume with her, Rick tried not to recoil as she laid a spotted hand on his wrist. As tall as he, she looked him straight in the eye. “You can fire her, Richard. I did everything for you; I think you should do this one thing for me. Fire her. Get me a nice maid, one who shows me some respect.” Her grip tightened.
“No.” He’d never directly crossed Jade and her horrible temper before, and he found it felt very good.
Her nails dug painfully into his flesh. “You must.”
“I won’t fire her, Aunt Jade.”
“I insist.”
“No,” he repeated. “But maybe . . .”
“What?” The claws loosened slightly.
“Maybe you would prefer to live in a nice retirement home?”
The hand flew from his wrist and slapped his face, hard. “How dare you, you—” She drew her hand back to strike again. Rick caught it and held on, which wasn’t easy. The woman was surprisingly strong. Somewhere in the background he heard Carmen first call on the Mother of God, then cut loose with a stream of Spanish invective centered around the word puta.
“Don’t do that again, Jade,” he said with deadly calm.
“Boy, is Daddy p.o.’d,” Cody told Carmen. “He only talks real quiet like that when he’s p.o.’d.”
One of the poodles yipped, then attacked his leg, not biting, he realized, but wrapping its paws around him and rubbing. Just like his mama, he thought as he kicked it away without taking his eyes off Jade. “Listen carefully, Aunt Jade. If you ever do that again, I will send you and your dogs away. Behave yourself, and you may stay in your apartment. Do you understand?”
Immediately she switched back to simper mode. “Oh, Richard, I’m just an old lady. Sometimes I just blither on, you know. You’ll forgive me, won’t you, dear? My, my, you’re so handsome. You look so like your brother, but you have a kinder face. A younger face, more boyish.”
Carmen had warned him that Jade was losing her mind. God, she gave him the creeps talking as if Robin were still alive. He let go of her hand. She didn’t move away, but stood her ground, keeping that brown-nosed smile painted on her face. The old bat, he believed, was possessed more of cunning than senility. He cleared his throat. “Abide by my rules, you can stay. Upset my family and you go. Another thing. Keep your dogs in your apartment. I don’t want my cat upset either.”
“A cat?” Her lip curled. “You have a cat?”
“Yes.”
“She knows that already, Ricky,” Carmen hissed.
“I hate cats.”
“I hate poodles.”
“Cats live outside.”
“This one’s a house cat. He never goes outside.”
“Where are you going to keep him, then? In your boy’s room?”
“The cat gets the run of the house, except for your apartment.”
“But I was here first,” she said in a victimized voice.
“No, I was,” Rick said firmly. “I just left for a while. I own the house, not you.”
“My poor little puppies are used to their freedom.�
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“Don’t let her fool you, Ricky,” Carmen said. “I never let those dogs loose in the house. They pee everywhere.”
Rick took sudden perverse pleasure in knowing the poodles would be blamed for Quint’s misbehavior.
Cody squirmed out of Carmen’s arms and squatted to peer at the animals. “What’re their names?”
Jade said nothing, so Carmen leaned down and whispered something in the boy’s ear. He giggled with delight.
“She told him something dirty,” Jade sniffed. “Do you want a dirty woman like that around your boy?”
“Yes.” Rick found Carmen’s occasional earthy language delightfully creative, and she saved any true obscenities she deemed necessary for her native tongue. The Spanish epithets for the Ewebeans had helped get him through his childhood. They thought the words and phrases were respectful; they were anything but. Tia Puta, as far as Jade knew, meant “Aunt Beautiful.”
“Carmen says the dogs’ names are Mister Poo and Stinkums,” Cody announced. His giggling reached hysterical proportions.
“You can’t touch my babies,” Jade said haughtily.
“We wouldn’t dream of touching them, Aunt Jade.” Rick said demurely. Outside, he saw Shelly pulling into the driveway.
“See that you don’t.” Jade turned, almost tripping on her dogs, inserted a key in the lock on the folding doors, and slipped through, revealing none of the interior. Rick heard the lock click on the inside.
“Good riddance,” Carmen muttered. She opened the front door just before Shelly knocked, and smiled at the girl. “You must be Shelly. I’m Carmen.”
“Hi,” Shelly said as she walked in. At least she’d used a pleasant tone of voice.
“You just missed the doggy rats,” Cody told her. “They smell yucky.” He giggled, then added, “So does Aunt Jade.”
Shelly sniffed the air, her nose curling. “Opium,” she said. “A whole case of it.”
Cody considered this a long moment. “She should just say no.”
“Dad?” Shelly asked, her tone perceptively sweeter. “There’s a mall here. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s news to me, sweetheart.”
“Can I have some money? I could get some clothes for school.”
“I suppose,” Rick said, digging out his wallet. He found two twenties and handed them to her. “Receipts, change. I want to see what you bought.”
“Be back by seven,” Carmen added. “For dinner.”
Shelly nodded at Carmen, then turned back to Rick and batted her eyelashes at him. “That’s not much money. Could I have your MasterCard, Daddy?”
Borrowing his car, being promised a car of her own—something he’d agreed to consider during the endless drive across the desert—and borrowing his plastic, all in one day? She’s going to milk me for all the guilt and presents she can because of this move. He knew he had to stop it now. This wasn’t going to be much fun.
“Can I, Daddy?”
“No, Shelly.”
Her face clouded. “That’s not fair!”
He plucked the twenties from her hand.
“Daddy!” she cried, shocked.
“What’s not fair? That you can’t use my money, my car, and my credit rating anytime you want?” He paused. “Listen, Shel, if you want money from me, then you’re going to have to work for it.”
“Doing what?” Sarcasm edged her voice.
The snotty tone made him want to slap her, but he knew bemusement was the best revenge. “How about gardening? You could help Hector,” he suggested with a smile. He glanced at Carmen, not wanting her to think he was insulting her husband. “This place is too much for just one man during the summer.”
“It’s usually not so bad,” Carmen said quickly. “Hector’s been in bed with a virus all week.”
“Gardening.” Shelly looked like he’d told her to scrub the house down with a toothbrush. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not. Look, hon, I know you don’t want to garden, but I have to pay an extra gardener. Hector needs the help. I’m going to have to hire other people to fix things up around here, and it’s going to take a lot of money. So why don’t you look for a job so that you’ll have all the spending money you need? Maybe check McDonald’s or the A & W or—” he paused, trying to get her interest up “—maybe at one of the clothing stores you like. Then you could afford all the clothes you want, and you wouldn’t have to fight with me about it.”
“In Vegas one of my friends worked at The Gap,” she said thoughtfully. “She had an employee discount.” She gave him one more daddy-dearest look. “Okay, I’ll look for a job at the mall. Can I have the money back, please, Daddy? I need to dress nice to get a job.”
He handed the twenties back. “It may take a little while before you find work,” he cautioned, but she just kissed his cheek and raced out and climbed in his car—without asking. Shaking his head, he watched her drive off.
Carmen was smiling at him “Kids.”
“You said it.”
“Daddy?”
“What, Cody?”
“Can we go exploring?”
Ah, an easy one. “Sure we can.”
Carmen pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket. “I got these made for you. They’ve all got ID tags, so you go look around while I see how Hector’s doing.”
“Thanks, Carmen. I’d like to say hi.”
“In a day or two, okay? I’m afraid he still might be contagious.”
“Sure. Give him my best.”
14
His father’s workshop looked the same as it had the last time Rick had seen it, so many years before.
“Wow!” Cody stared at the huge room, then trotted around, heedless of the fine layer of dirt that coated everything in the room. In the boy’s wake, dust motes danced up into the light.
Rick sneezed.
“Is this a barn?” Cody asked, turning a circle in the center of the room.
“No. It’s a workshop. A big workshop.”
The huge, high-ceilinged room was light and airy, because of its white paint and the high windows and skylights built into it. “Conlin Piper had this built so he’d have a place to build his sloop,” Rick explained.
“What’s a sloop?”
“A big sailing boat. After he built it, he used this to store the boat in the wintertime.”
“Where’d the boat go?”
“It and Conlin were lost in an accident on Lake Arrowhead many years ago.”
“Oh. What’s that?” Cody pointed at a covered vehicle in the far corner of the room.
“I don’t know. Let’s look.” He crossed to the shrouded form and lifted the edge of the tarp. Something scuttled beneath the canvas.
“Christ!” he cried, dropping the cloth and leaping back.
Cody giggled. “You’re funny, Daddy.”
Immediately he felt foolish. “I think we have rats,” he told his son. “Move back a little. We’d better set some traps before we do any more exploring.”
“But what’s under there? I want to see.”
“You can see it later. It’s your aunt Jade’s old car.”
Cody nodded, satisfied. “What’s that?” He pointed at the ceiling this time.
Rick looked at the equipment hanging from the huge center beam. “It’s a winch.” He remembered sitting on the workbench and watching his dad hoist an engine out of an aging Ford. “My dad used it to pull engines out of cars.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“He liked to build new cars out of old ones. I hoped the Monster was under the tarp, but your aunt must have sold it.”
When I get through with this car, Ricky, his father would tell him, I’ll keep it for you until you’re old enough to drive. Rick smiled sadly. Dad was killed before the car could be completed.
“What’s the Monster?”
“He named the car for Frankenstein’s monster because they were both built out of old parts.”
Cody laughed, delighted.
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His dad had worked on the hotrod through most of Rick’s life. Remembering all the hours he’d spent out there with his dad, talking, laughing, working, planning, made him realize that he’d forgotten many of the good things from his childhood, not just the bad.
Tears sprang in his eyes, and he roughly wiped them away. Relieved that Cody hadn’t noticed, he crossed to the workbench. A small hand-lettered sign hanging above the counter read, IF IT WORKS, TAKE IT APART AND SEE WHY. Rick smiled, blinking back more tears. His father always joked that it was the Piper family motto.
God, he missed his father.
“Daddy?”
His own son took his hand and tugged. “What’s wrong, Daddy? Are you crying?”
“No, no. Just got some dust in my eyes. What do you say we see what’s in these drawers?”
They opened drawer after drawer, and Rick was glad to find that evidently only the hotrod had been removed. The metalworking tools were all there: the acetylene torches, the cutting tools and hammers. Two welding masks filled one drawer. They’d called them Martian masks, he and his dad. None of it had been touched since the last time he’d used them, a few months before leaving home.
Three tall cabinets stood at the end of the long workbench. Rick opened the first one and let the good memories stored within flow over him, He’d spent a lot of time out here helping his dad—the workshop had been a place where he didn’t have to contend with his brother, and that made it all the better. As time passed, he’d even found a hobby of his own, one that pleased his father, who wasn’t at all concerned that Rick wasn’t especially interested in building cars. Instead, he built metal models, which were a lot better than the plastic Revels of the Mummy and Dracula, because he built them from scratch, with only his dad, and later, Carmen, lending an occasional hand.
Gently he lifted a foot-tall brass and copper piece out of the cabinet. He’d built it several years after his parents died.
It was a skeleton, begun as an El Día de los Muertos figure meant to be a Halloween gift for Carmen. Originally it held a guitar he’d snipped and torched from distressed metal and wore a sombrero, but those accessories were stored in the back of the cabinet because he’d transformed it into a sculpture of Big Jack, giving it a spray of little copper leaves to hold and filling its rib cage, with more. As proud as he was of it, he couldn’t bear to look at the piece, and hence, he’d never given it to Carmen.
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