“I can’t remember either of those people,” Ivy said. “Are you sure you didn’t make them up?”
“Nope. Arnold Richardson and Ricky Gonzalez. They weren’t much to look at, but they were devoted.”
Ivy laughed at this. “Okay, I kind of remember them now.”
“You were too obsessed with Jeremy to notice our boyfriends.”
“That’s not true. I loved Mark. I thought you should have married him.” The minute Ivy said this, she seemed to realize her error and covered it quickly with a smile. “Not really, about marrying him I mean. You were way too young.”
“That’s all right,” Ramona said, taking a bite of cereal. It had gone soggy during their conversation, and she pushed the rest of the bowl away from her. “I know you think I did the wrong thing. I knew it then, too. Maybe you’re right. I should have kept the baby and married Mark.”
“No, that’s not true.” Ivy frowned and looked down at her hands in her lap. “Don’t say that.”
“I’ve been looking for him, you know. This past week.”
Ivy looked up at this. “Mark?”
Ramona shook her head and watched Ivy’s face absorb and then understand her comment. “But I haven’t had much luck.” The boy from the café flashed into her mind. Should she tell Ivy about this possibility or not?
Adam walked into the kitchen then, and Ramona was glad for the distraction. She didn’t want to tell Ivy any more. In fact, she didn’t want to talk about it at all, and she wished she hadn’t told Jane about her search either.
He smiled when he saw Ramona, and she rose to accept his hug and kissed his warm cheek. “Welcome,” she said.
A cry came from the back bedroom and Ivy stood and tightened her robe. “That’s my cue,” she said.
“I remember those days,” Adam said, and sat down in Ivy’s chair across from Ramona. “You’re looking good,” he said and smiled at her. “Sweet tan.”
She laughed and looked at her brown arms. “You should see Jane,” Ramona said. “Her hair is almost white from all this desert sun.”
Adam frowned, then stood and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Where does she hide the mugs?”
“Bad news. No coffee,” Ramona said.
He shrugged. “Tea will work. I prefer it anyway.”
For some reason, this fact irritated Ramona, made her dislike him a little bit. She watched as he located a box of tea bags, then filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil. He was wearing old jeans with a rip in one knee and a faded blue T-shirt. Ramona was almost certain he’d been wearing this exact outfit the last time she’d seen him, three years ago in Wisconsin.
“So, where is my wife, anyway?” he asked.
“At her parents’,” Ramona said, almost too quickly. “She should be here soon.”
“Do you think she’ll be happy to see me?” He smiled as he asked this, but Ramona detected his nervousness.
“What do you think?” She said this as nicely as possible, keeping her voice low and gentle.
“I think I really fucked things up and I’m here to fix them.”
“That’s not the version I heard.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “It’s the truth. I’ve been a crappy husband. Still working on my dissertation. Still tending bar like some sort of loser.”
“I don’t think bartending makes you a loser,” Ramona said, rising and getting the orange juice out of the fridge. She poured two glasses and handed one to Adam. He accepted it without comment.
“Well, I’ve got news for you. It does.”
Frank entered the kitchen looking tired and out of sorts. He said good morning and gave Adam a nod. “Too much wine last night,” he told them, then opened the fridge and leaned down as if to crawl inside its cool interior.
“You mean this morning,” Adam said. “We were up until five thirty at least.”
“Sounds like I missed a party,” Ramona said.
Adam shrugged. “Not really. Just catching up. We didn’t want to wake you.”
The teapot whistled, and they all turned to stare at the plume of steam rising from its silver spout. Adam filled his cup with boiling water. Ramona realized she hadn’t actually eaten much at all, but her hunger was mostly curbed, so she grabbed an apple out of the silver bowl on the table and excused herself, explaining she was going to take a walk before it got too warm outside.
The sight of her car parked at the curb made her realize her exhaustion, so she fished the spare keys from her pocket and got inside, then drove away. The warm air moving through her hair helped Ramona begin to uncoil, and she understood that being around so many people was beginning to agitate her. She had lived alone for so many years now. The party was today, then she might stay most of tomorrow and head home in the evening, unless she found out that the boy at the coffee shop was her son, in which case she might have to extend her visit.
The ridiculousness of her quest struck her, not for the first time. What was she planning to do if she did, indeed, find her long-lost child? Would she uproot her life and move here to be close to him? Would she ask him to join her in LA? Or would he simply become a person she visited, talked to on the phone, emailed, met for coffee? A part of her just wanted to see him, once, then be done with it all. She wanted to hear the sound of his voice and smell his skin, touch his hair. The desire was more of an animal need than a rational human thought, and Ramona couldn’t explain it to anyone, not even herself.
This notion of finding her child, then looking at him, touching his skin, smelling his hair, and saying good-bye was absurd, but she had not thought beyond this point in any concrete way. Any conversation or time spent together after the initial moment of discovery was murky and distant in her mind. That part did not seem likely or even, perhaps, desirable.
It was almost ten o’clock and she was beginning to sweat. It was only eighty-five degrees at the most, she knew, but Ramona had grown used to living close to the ocean and feeling the constant cool breeze that rose from the Pacific like a gift. She would never come here again during the summer, not for anyone. In her memory, the heat of summer meant miserable nights sweating in her apartment, the hum of the ineffectual swamp cooler taunting her from the next room. One night she had gone outside in her T-shirt and underwear and sat in the warm water of the fountain, looking up at the stars and wishing she lived somewhere far away.
Her drive had no specific purpose, but she was close to a Mexican restaurant named Ricardo’s that her mother used to love. She was surprised to find the place still open, but there it was, sitting on the corner of Flamingo and Decatur where it had always been, and on impulse she pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine.
It had just opened for lunch, and Ramona got a seat in the Spanish-style courtyard beside a burbling fountain and ordered two beef tacos and an iced tea. Other than three waiters fussing with a long buffet table against the back wall, she was alone, and she ate the entire bowl of chips and salsa before her iced tea even arrived. “Sorry,” she told the waitress when she set down Ramona’s drink. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, okay,” the teenage girl said with a shrug. “You can have as much as you want. It’s unlimited.”
Unlimited. Ramona liked the sound of the word. It suggested freedom or abandon, an openness she rarely experienced in her hometown. It was peaceful out here, beside the fountain, and Ramona allowed herself to remember her mother sitting across from her in this very courtyard, eating a burrito in silence, but enjoying herself. Ramona had been a year away from getting pregnant, unaware that the fragile peace between them would soon be corrupted, made irreparable by Ramona’s decision to let another woman, an unknown person, raise her son.
Her food arrived, and the tacos were drenched in too much cheese, but otherwise decent with a nice spicy kick. As she ate, she watched the waiters setting up the buffet and thought about Nash. He would be on his lunch break now, possibly at home if he were repairing a cooler in the neighborhood. He lived in a small, one-s
tory house in an undesirable, slightly seedy part of town called Rose Park. Ramona was never afraid on his street, and the house was pretty with its low, curving archways and scuffed wood floors, but she didn’t think she could be coaxed into moving any further inland.
She hoped Nash would want to move in with her, and eventually, maybe before the baby came, they could find a larger apartment with room for three. Ramona had never lived in a house, not growing up and not now. She wondered if having a baby meant she would eventually want a house as well. Maybe Nash could rent out his place in case the need arose for four isolated walls. This was all based on the assumption that he would want to live with her and have a child together. A phone call with the news seemed unfair, even risky, so she would wait and tell him in person. She had decided that it didn’t matter whether he wanted to be with her or not. She would have the baby and keep it this time. That was certain.
It felt good to be sure about something, and she ran a hand across her shirt over her stomach and wondered if she would have a boy or a girl. Of course, it was early enough that something could go wrong—she guessed she was only six or eight weeks pregnant—but she wouldn’t worry about that. There was nothing she could do but eat well and avoid her bad habits.
The tacos were gone quickly, and she accepted a refill on her glass of tea, then paid the bill and left. She felt fortified now, winding her way back to Ivy’s, ready to smile and make small talk. Maybe she’d even offer to play a song at the party.
Turning off of Eastern back into Ivy’s complex, an Eagles song came on the radio that her mother used to listen to as she washed the dishes, and the image of her mother was suddenly so clear and bright, wearing white shorts and a flowered apron over her T-shirt as she stood at the sink, a dark braid trailing down her back, that Ramona pulled to the side of the road, beneath the shade of a palm tree, and listened. She had forgotten that her mother wore a long braid on her days off, a solo version of the two braids she herself almost always wore, and she had forgotten about the song, too, until right now.
Ramona tapped her hands on the steering wheel, the name of the tune eluding her, and tried to remember past that moment at the sink: had her mother taken a walk after the dishes as she sometimes did, leaving Ramona alone for half an hour in the apartment? Or maybe she had scooped out strawberry ice cream for the two of them and then sat beside her on the couch and watched the news. Those had been the good nights, the ones with the TV and ice cream, despite the fact that there was no conversation, no physical contact.
Sometimes a man named Jonah came over and the three of them watched television together, then he led her mother to the bedroom and Ramona tried not to listen to the sound of their fucking, muted as it was, out of respect, she guessed, for her.
Ramona vowed to herself to be different with her own child. There would be books every night and cuddling and lying together on the sand watching the clouds move overhead. There would be singing and playing guitar and making cookies and visits to the library down the street. She could already picture the spot in that library where they would sit together by the window.
Of course, it was easy to imagine how wonderful you were going to be before you actually lived it. It was another matter entirely to be patient and kind on little sleep with little money or even with lots of sleep and lots of money. Sometimes it was simply difficult to behave as you should. Ramona knew this very well. And what would happen to her band once she had a baby? Would she leave just like her bass player?
Up ahead she could see Ivy’s door, gleaming red halfway down the block, and Ramona realized her utter exhaustion again. It was the baby, she guessed—she could remember this exhaustion of the early months, like she’d just climbed a mountain. It was also the worry, the tenuous feeling of everything in her life right now.
JEREMY
Jeremy awoke in Gretchen’s bed and was immediately seized by anxiety—he’d slept too late; he’d screwed up again—but then he saw it was only 7:00 a.m. and eased back onto his pillow with a sigh. Gretchen’s side of the bed was empty, which is what had thrown him off in the first place because she was usually a late sleeper, but he could hear her now, very faintly, in the kitchen, walking on the tiles in slippered feet.
The sound reminded him of Ivy, quietly making cinnamon rolls while her father slept in on Saturdays, then bringing in a plateful to Jeremy, which they scarfed down before his escape. His own parents were told he was at a friend’s house overnight. His brother knew the truth but upheld the brother code of keeping the information secret. These details shifted into a dream as he lay there, so that when Gretchen appeared in the bedroom doorway carrying a banana and a container of lemon yogurt, he was shocked to see her instead of someone from his past.
“Hey, lazy bones,” she said, perching on the edge of the bed beside him and peeling her banana. She was already dressed for school in one of her long skirts and a skimpy tank top, hair coiled in a bun on top of her head. “Let’s go for a walk before you go to the kitchen.”
“Why would we do that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Fun? Exercise? Health?”
“Oh, those things.” He closed his eyes again. “All right.”
Outside, it was cool and breezy, the light still soft. He hadn’t been out this early in a long time, and it felt good to stroll the streets with Gretchen, half listening as she told him about how well she’d done on her test yesterday. He slowed as they neared Ivy’s old building, and decided to point it out. “That’s where Ivy used to live. I practically lived there too in high school.”
Gretchen glanced at the decaying structure and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Poor baby,” she said, taking his arm.
“My house wasn’t much better.”
“I know. You showed me before.”
He nodded, trying to remember doing this. His family’s house on Ballard was now dilapidated with a saggy carport and a lawn seared in spots as if fires had been lit then stamped out. It hadn’t been such a bad place when his parents were alive, and he thought to tell Gretchen this now, but he liked the way she was holding his arm, stroking it a little, and being called “poor baby” filled him with surprising comfort.
They circled back toward her apartment, and Jeremy was glad that he hadn’t broken it off with her yesterday. They’d had a nice evening together. He made butternut squash soup, and they ate at the kitchen table then played gin rummy until late, a game he’d somehow never heard of until last night, which was unexpectedly fun.
He spent the remainder of the morning making empanadas for Lucky’s party. He rented the commercial kitchen on an hourly basis; the space, which was small but well equipped, was typically used by a bakery, and Jeremy was always finding chocolate chips underfoot, or dollops of icing on the handles of drawers. Today, there was a fine haze of powdered sugar on the cutting board, but he wouldn’t complain. They rented it to him for cheap, and it was easy enough to spray his water and vinegar solution on the counters and run a rag over them before getting to work.
He’d settled on Peruvian-style empanadas, which he favored, since they were a good size for snacking and baked rather than fried. He made twenty with cheese; twenty with ham and cheese; and twenty traditional ones with ground beef, boiled egg, olives, raisins, and cumin. While these were baking, he put together two different salads: black-eyed peas with red peppers and pineapple, and a simple spinach salad that he would dress later. The sweet potato purses that Ivy wanted were already prepared, but he would boil and cool them at her place, so they turned out right. The fruit and cheese plate was done, as were about a hundred petit fours that had taken him the better part of his downtime over the past two days.
Jeremy had decided not to mention anything about the cost of all this to Ivy. He assumed she would pay him, but it sullied the experience to discuss money with her; he’d been mortified yesterday when she brought up paying extra for the menus.
At Ivy’s house, he was greeted at the door by a man he’d never seen before, a pretty-b
oy type, with wavy brown hair and very bright blue eyes.
“I’m Adam,” the man said, carefully relieving Jeremy of two of his larger trays. “Jane’s husband.”
“Oh, hey, great to meet you,” Jeremy said, surprised. Jane had always gravitated to alternative types or strange-looking guys, like the white-haired man he’d met on Ivy’s doorstep yesterday afternoon.
Ivy was in the kitchen, mixing a pitcher of sangria—she’d wanted to take care of the drinks herself—and Jeremy set down his supplies and, on impulse, kissed her on the cheek, which made her blush and turn away.
“What was that for?” she asked and nudged him with an elbow.
She seemed embarrassed but not angry, and Jeremy took this as a good sign.
“It was a ‘Happy birthday to Lucky’ greeting.”
“He’s asleep.”
“Which is why I kissed you instead.”
She smiled at him, a warm, easy smile, and Jeremy felt everything he’d liked today about Gretchen turning sour in his stomach. Her good traits, as solid as they may be, weren’t enough to hold him. Every time he saw Ivy, he had to learn this as if for the first time.
Adam was arranging Jeremy’s trays on the counter, and he was either ignoring this exchange or not paying attention.
Frank walked in and slapped Jeremy on the back. “The chef has arrived,” he proclaimed. “Where’s the cake? Can I check it out?”
Jeremy’s eyes met Ivy’s, and he felt a shimmer of worry move through him. “Oh, there’s no cake, only petit fours.” He popped open one of the containers and showed Frank the row of tiny cakes, iced with pale blue and decorated with white frosting ribbons. A Tupperware packed with miniature presents. “I have a tiered tray to set them on, so it will sort of look like a wedding cake when they’re all arranged. I made a hundred.”
“A wedding cake?” Frank said. “Sort of strange for a one-year-old’s birthday, isn’t it?”
Vegas Girls Page 25