Midnight Brunch

by Marta Acosta

  When I returned to the casita, Skip and Thomas were lounging on the sofa, drinking Paragon’s mineral-and vitamin-enriched water.

  “Why aren’t you writing?” Skip asked.

  Thomas gave me a disappointed look, as if he had just learned that one of my hobbies was drowning puppies. “I thought she should be working,” he said quietly.

  I wanted to slug the snitch right on his enchilada-scarfing mouth. “I needed to stretch my legs. I was going to get back to work right now.”

  “Show me what you’ve got so far,” Skip said.

  I followed him into the study and he closed the door behind me. “Milagro, I really appreciate that you’re taking a personal interest in Thomas.”

  “About that…”

  “And, naturally, if you can assist him, I’ll be very grateful.”

  “What do you mean, assist?”

  Skip had a nervous heh-heh-heh laugh. “Nothing sexual, unless, you know. But keep him working out, eating right, preparing for his role.” He looked me in the eyes and said, “Can I count on you?”

  As if I had a choice. “Sure, Skip. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Good!” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder.

  Red, wet, slick, twisting color came into my head, a kaleidoscope of gore. Skip was already turning to the papers on my desk. Knowing that I was still a monster depressed me so much that I could barely listen to anything he said.

  I would have to enter some monastery, wear drab, rough clothes woven from weeds and bark, and seek spiritual fulfillment outside of society.

  Skip reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white paper bag. “These might help him,” he said as he handed the bag to me. “He didn’t want them, but if there’s no significant improvement in his appearance, maybe you could talk to him.”

  Inside the bag were bubble packs with white pills. “What is this, Skip?”

  “Nutritional supplements. Vitamins,” he said smoothly.

  I examined the packs, but there were no manufacturers’ marks on the pills or the foil backing of the bubble packs.

  Skip took them from me and slipped them in a desk drawer. “You’d be doing Thomas a favor.”

  A treadmill arrived just as Skip was leaving. We watched as two delivery guys finessed it through the doorway and into the middle of the main room.

  “I’m sure the Paragon has a workout room,” I said with dismay.

  Skip dropped his voice and said to me, “The Paragon isn’t really happy having Thomas around, so keep him on the down low.”

  The rest of Thomas’s exercise gear came shortly thereafter. The stark furniture was pushed against the walls to accommodate bulky metal contraptions.

  I threw myself into writing with desperate zeal. So long as I was concentrating on the various plotlines and characters, I didn’t have to think about my own situation.

  “Milagro! Milagro!” Thomas shouted through the door.

  I didn’t bother getting up from my desk. “What is it?”

  “I can’t find my shoes. Did you put them somewhere?”

  His shoes were under the bed, where he had kicked them. Although he didn’t seem to be doing anything but pumping iron, lolling in the pool, and consuming protein shakes, Thomas still liked to interrupt me for menial tasks. He had me kill a wasp that was buzzing against a window. He made me hold a mirror at different angles so he could examine his haircut. He asked for and then corrected my opinions on A-list movie stars. He needed to have his shirts organized from light to dark, solids to patterns.

  “Milagro!” he bellowed from the pool.

  I stuck a dark patterned shirt between a white one and a beige one and went outside. “Sí, Señor Tomás.”

  “Suntan lotion on my back.”

  “I’m not rubbing this on your butt.”

  “Do you know how much people would pay to do that? Just put it on my shoulders.”

  I picked up the bottle of Paragon Organic Sun Elixir with Beneficial Emollients, squeezed the liquid into my palm, braced myself for contact, and then tentatively touched his shoulders.

  “What is your problem?” Thomas asked. “Put a little muscle into it.”

  I touched his shoulders again, but there were no horrific results from the contact. My fingers massaged and caressed his copper-hued skin. I was touching Thomas Cook, and I felt a buzz run through me as I remembered his film roles—and love scenes.

  “That’s more like it,” Thomas said with a satisfied sigh. “I can tell you’re into me.”

  I was glad he couldn’t see my face. “I am absolutely not into you, Thomas.”

  He laughed. “Sure. Keep rubbing.”

  “I already told you I live with my boyfriend. His name is Oswald.”

  “Nobody’s named Oswald. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met. Look, Milagro, you’re here, I’m here, and if you want to, you know, whatever, I’m cool with that. Don’t expect anything long term, though, because you’ve got it going on, but you’re not my type.”

  I stopped massaging his shoulders and calmed myself. I stepped in front of him, thinking, don’t look down, don’t look down, whatever happens, don’t look down. “Thomas, while your offer is more than generous, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline because, one, I love Oswald, and two, you are a monumental jackass.”

  He stared at me and shook his head. “You know, you’re kind of judgmental for someone into blood games. Can you move? You’re blocking my rays.”

  Something occurred to me and I asked, “Do you have a health condition?”

  He looked puzzled. “I told you, I’m not here to dry out.”

  “No, I meant something else, something that makes you different. An illness maybe?”

  He shrugged slightly and said, “I’ve got mild anemia.”

  “Do you need to take medication?”

  “No, but I probably shouldn’t have starved down for that last role.”

  “Skip gave me some pills and was trying to tell me they’re nutritional supplements. He wanted me to get you to take them.”

  “Yeah, he was trying to push those ’roids on me earlier. I’m not gonna have my huevos shrivel up like olives.”

  Later, when Thomas was in the shower, I had a blood spritzer. I washed and washed the glass and then I pushed it to the back of the cabinet.

  Thomas got bored and decided that we needed to go to La Basura for drinks.

  “No. We don’t even have a way of getting there.”

  “Call your friend Bernie for a ride.”

  “I barely know him,” I said. “I don’t have his number.”

  “He gave me his card.”

  A few minutes later I was feeling really foolish as I called Bernie and asked for a ride into town. He was more than happy to pick us up, but said he couldn’t make it for at least an hour. That gave me time to shower and put on a dress and makeup. I didn’t know if it was the Paragon shampoo and conditioner, but my hair fell smooth and glossy over my shoulders.

  Because Thomas was the celebrity, he rode in the front seat of Bernie’s junker. Thomas had pulled a few designer clothes out of his suitcases and had put together a fashionably disheveled outfit.

  I’d worn a casual deep lavender dress for the occasion, and I hoped I wasn’t sitting on something gross in the backseat. Yellowed copies of the Weekly Exposition and other newspapers were piled on the floor and seat.

  “Flying Bloodsucking Monster!” screamed a huge headline. The byline said, “Bernard Vines, Field Correspondent.” The adjective-laden article was a thrilling account of a missing young female teacher from La Basura who’d gone for a walk in the desert, never to be seen again. Two witnesses who’d been out drinking beer and shooting bottles nearby had heard screams and seen a terrible creature coming from the sky and carrying her off.

  “Nice story about the chupacabra, Bernard,” I said. “You have a compelling style, except for the hyperbole.”

  “A tabloid without exaggeration is like a cat without fur: curious, but no
t appealing,” Bernie said. “You have good eyesight to be reading in the dark.”

  “Abnormal pupils,” I said, hoping I’d named the correct body part. Should I have said retinas or corneas? I felt pretty stupid now for making fun of my F.U. friends who struggled with human bio courses while I was going to loony poetry seminars. “Is any part of this story true?”

  “It’s all true. Maybe the woman just ran off with her best friend’s husband, but maybe not. Some strange stuff happens here, especially near the Paragon.”

  Lefty’s Happy Looky-Dat! Club was jumping by the time we got there. Bernie carried a brown paper bag and led us to two tables in the corner. A young couple was already sitting at one and Bernie said, “Get lost. I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “Yes, Mr. Vines. Is this your girlfriend?”

  “Out!” Bernie barked. Once they were gone he said, “Former students.” Then he pulled a stack of papers out of the bag and put them on the table in front of me, along with two red ballpoint pens. “Here, grade these.”

  I flipped through the papers and saw they were two-page essays on race relations in To Kill a Mockingbird. “Bernie, I know nada about grading high school papers.”

  “I mark down for useless filler and repetition. Otherwise grade however you want.”

  Thomas was recognized by a few customers, and pretty soon he was holding forth, telling stories about his career. He was an amusing raconteur, making significant eye contact with the prettier women present, pausing for effect, dishing some intriguing dirt on celebrities.

  If you listened under the surface of his anecdotes, you heard what I thought was the real story. His mother was an indigenous Indian from Central America who only spoke her tribal language when she found herself in Los Angeles and one of her employers took advantage of her. Thomas had no idea what his father’s real name was or where he was.

  I went through the essays, correcting typos and spelling errors, and writing comments in the margins. I tried to keep an annoyed expression on my face, but I really enjoyed reading the students’ opinions, especially the eccentric ones.

  Bernie came to check on me on his way back from buying another round. “How’s it going?”

  “I worked all day on a screenplay, you know.”

  “Writing is not work. We already established that.”

  “Right, how could I forget?” I held up a few essays that I liked. “These are rather perceptive. Why is La Basura so diverse for such an isolated community?”

  “There was a train station here once. It brought in different groups. When it closed, they stayed.”

  I looked around at the mix of people in the bar. “It’s nice. I like it.”

  “Hurry and finish up. The show’s about to start.”

  As we listened to an Edith Piaf impersonator performing on a tiny stage, I thought that I was having altogether too much fun, as if I really didn’t believe there was anything wrong with me. Mercedes was right: how could anyone take my condition seriously when I myself didn’t? I sunk so deeply into self-recrimination that I could barely join in the sing-along for the encore of “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.”

  Bernie sat back and listened. Occasionally he would direct a comment about literature to me. He liked books set in the desert, from Westerns to ghost stories.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The landscape is so alien, it’s like we’re on another planet,” he said. “What’s going on between you and Thomas?”

  “Nothing. I have a boyfriend.”

  “Right, I forgot…maybe because you’re hooked up with this knucklehead.” He tilted his head toward Thomas, who was drinking a shot of Pernod out of a woman’s cleavage.

  “Why did you take pictures of Thomas leaving my place?”

  “Old habits die hard,” he muttered. “You never know when you’ll get something good.”

  “I am not hooked up with Thomas. In fact, even if I was interested in him, which is laughable, I am not his type.”

  Bernie gave me a long up-and-down look. “Hon, you’re everybody’s type.”

  Socializing over a few drinks made me think of the ranch, and I found myself missing Edna’s snipes and the espíritu de los cocteles, that relaxed camaraderie that came over us as we watched the sunset. Although I’d had several glasses of Lefty’s high-octane vin de table, I felt only the faintest buzz. I recalled that Ian never showed the effects of alcohol no matter how much he drank.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I’d like to go back.”

  We dragged Thomas out of Lefty’s and headed back toward the Paragon. I was in the backseat feeling melancholy when Bernie slowed down and said, “Did you hear that?”

  He pulled the car over to the side of the road and rolled down his window. I did the same. Somewhere in the distance came an eerie animal screech. Bernie must have fantastic hearing to have noticed it before I, with all my enhancements, did.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Coyote,” Thomas muttered. “Let’s go.”

  The animal cried farther in the distance, as if it was traveling away from us.

  Bernie said, “That isn’t any kind of desert animal.”

  “No,” I said, “you’re not going to tell us that was a chupacabra.”

  “I’m only saying what it isn’t,” Bernie replied.

  I pondered the identity of things, not only for what they are but for what they aren’t. For much of my life, I’d defined myself by what I wasn’t: the blond, tall, slim girl who always said the right thing, always wore the right clothes, and knew the rules for every social situation.

  Those girls didn’t find themselves out in the desert with tabloid writers and emotional vampires, scanning the skies for mythical critters.

  “Aren’t you curious?” Bernie asked.

  We got out of the car and Thomas said, “Gotta go,” as he ran off toward a clump of bushes.

  “You think we know everything already?” Bernie asked as he took a camera out of the trunk. He was fiddling with flashes and other equipment.

  “If there were chupacabras, legitimate scientists would have discovered them by now.”

  “Scientists are always discovering new species.”

  “Not flying monkey-goat killer species.”

  “So much is unknown in this life, and yet you are so skeptical,” Bernie lamented.

  “What the hell!” Thomas shouted. He came running back, zipping up his slacks.

  I heard it then, the angry craw, the whooshing of large wings. Looking up, I saw shadows against the darker night. Large shadows. “Did you see that?” I asked.

  “What is that thing?” Thomas replied.

  Bernie began snapping photos and the flash of the camera blinded me when he shot toward my face. I blinked and then searched the sky. I saw only stars and the solid black shape of mountains in the distance.

  The animal’s cry was fainter now, followed by a yet fainter one. The creature had flown away.

  “I’ve got a flashlight somewhere.” Bernie went to his trunk again and rooted around. He came back with a massive aluminum flashlight and clicked it on. We followed behind him as he scanned the ground.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Like pornography, I’ll know it when I see it.”

  I pretended to keep my eyes on the beam of light, but my night vision allowed me to see far beyond the one bright circle to the beetles scampering away, spiders, a translucent old snake-skin. With my super-vision, I should have been able to catch a better look at the flying animal.

  A breeze blew and I shivered at a familiar scent.

  Bernie stopped walking and said, “I see it.”

  Blood had clotted the sandy soil around the fresh carcass. When I forced my stare away from the purple, shining entrails that spilled out of the gaping wound, I saw that the animal was a sheep. Thomas and I crouched down for a closer look and Bernie took more pictures.

  “Stop that,” I said. “It’s a dead sheep. What’s it doing out here
anyway?”

  “Something brought it here,” Bernie said.

  “Maybe it got away and wandered here,” I said. “Coyotes got it. That’s happened at the ranch.”

  “Can coyotes do that?” Thomas pointed to the jagged rip on the sheep’s belly.

  The blood was so thick and rich. It glistened alluringly. The air was perfumed with the sweet scent of blood and the rancid lanolin of the wool. I jumped up and rushed off.

  “Are you okay?” Bernie called.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  I overheard Thomas tell Bernie, “I think she’s going to be sick.”

  I wasn’t going to be sick, but I needed to get away before I dipped my hand into the wet flesh and put it to my mouth. They were looking in the wrong direction for a monster; I was right in front of them. I walked in circles and tried to collect myself.

  Thomas wondered if they should bury the sheep, but Bernie said he’d like to come back after school and take it so it could be examined.

  “Good idea,” I said as we returned to the car. “That way you’ll find out that it was killed by a feral dog or some other predator. I bet there are mountain lions nearby.”

  When we were in the casita and I was gathering a pillow and my nightclothes, Thomas said, “You got excited, didn’t you, by that blood. You don’t need to explain to me. I’m open about things.”

  “A chupacabra didn’t kill that sheep.”

  “Bernie’s crazy,” he said, and was done with the subject. He flicked on the television, then patted the bed and said, “There’s enough room here for both of us. Come sleep with me.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  He gave me an annoyed look and said, “What about ‘not my type’ don’t you understand? If I wanted you, I could have you.”

  “You are beyond delusional,” I said. The sofa had been very uncomfortable and the luxurious bed was about the size of a football field. “Okay, but you have to at least wear boxers, and if you try anything I will pummel you to within an inch of your life.”

  “I am not going to ‘try anything.’ You are so conceited, you think every man wants you,” he said. “See a therapist.”