Playing Botticelli: A Novel

by Liza Nelson

  I cannot afford to be slowed down this way, not now. I almost blew it once. Just thinking of Spider gives me the creeps, what I did with him. Yikes. I guess I should be deeply depressed and traumatized by my first sexual experience. Actually, that part was okay. It had to happen sometime, right? And Spider was sweet in a way. What really creeps me out, though, is that I almost told him everything. How off the track I got. I don’t believe any of what he told me was true. I don’t believe he is likely to turn me in, either, but still, I was so naive. I risked so much. My only excuse is that when I met him, I didn’t believe completely that this would all happen; you were still a fantasy.

  Now you are very real. I have a real direction. Martha changed everything. Someone who knows you says I have your walk, your eyes. And Velasquez is not just a hunch like Eden was. It is an actual address where you’ve been known to be found.

  But what do I do about this kid beside me—this baby? Whatever made Elise think she could hand over her own child to a stranger? And why me? Do I give off a scent? I think I’m too friendly. People keep attaching themselves. The problem is, I cannot turn in Crescent the way I did the old man.

  The one in St. Louis. He was in front of me as I was getting off the bus. Skinny and frail, but natty, the way I remember Poppo when we stayed with him and Gram before he got so sick that he just stayed in bed. This man was wearing a green-and-orange plaid beret sideways on his head with a matching scarf knotted above his coat collar. All I did was carry his bag inside to the waiting area for him. It was a small square bag in the same orange-and-green plaid as his coat. Natty. He walked from one waiting room into the next and I followed, assuming he knew where he was going.

  “Do you want me to put it anywhere special?” I asked, then asked again slightly louder when he didn’t answer. I figured maybe he was hard of hearing the way he kept shaking his head.

  “Is someone meeting you?” I practically screamed.

  He gave me a toothless smile. I didn’t know what to do. I kept repeating, “Is someone meeting you?” He kept smiling.

  Then a man in a red sports jacket behind the renta-car desk called over to me, “Is there a problem, missy?”

  I could tell he was the kind of man who chews breath mints, like my Algebra teacher, Mr. Curdy. He leaned over the counter and smiled, the same smile that twisted Mr. Curdy’s mouth whenever he was about to pop a quiz on us.

  I wanted to say, “None of your business,” the way Godiva would have. Instead a tinny voice that didn’t seem part of me answered, “Yes, please.”

  He smiled again and nodded as he picked up his phone. The next thing I knew, a guy in a police uniform was walking up to the old man. A policeman was the last person I needed to see or be seen by, but what could I do?

  “You’re not with him, miss?”

  “No, I was just helping him with his bag, sir.” If he asked for identification, I was sunk. There was bound to be some computer check to tell him I’d been reported missing, that is if Godiva knew yet, and by now she was bound to. There could be pictures of me in police stations and on cereal boxes all over the country.

  “Sir, you need to come with me.”

  The old man didn’t move or show any expression that hinted he had heard, but I had a hunch by then that he could hear fine.

  “Where will you take him?”

  The cop shrugged. “He’s senile, sweetheart. Ten to one, he got to be too much work for someone, a daughter-in-law most likely, who shipped him off to the next in-laws on the list. Happens all the time. Maybe someone was supposed to meet him, maybe someone conveniently forgot.”

  I held out the old man’s plaid bag and the cop swung it over his shoulder.

  “Is someone picking you up, sweetheart?”

  “Oh, no, I’m on my way to visit my dad.” I didn’t have to lie. That was good because cops are trained to pick up a lie.

  “Well, you take good care of him when he gets old, you hear?”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Don’t worry, I will.”

  He took the old man’s elbow to prod him forward a step. He looked so jaunty in his hat and scarf, I felt like the worst kind of traitor. What if someone had turned you in like that?

  I can’t turn anyone else over to the police. The police are the enemy, right? If I found out someone had turned you in, I’d want to kill him. But what am I going to do with this kid tagging along? I have to feed her and buy her a bus ticket, not to mention diapers. I have never changed a diaper. On the other hand, with her along I don’t fit the description of a single teenage girl anymore. Sisters traveling together make a more convincing cover, don’t they? I can’t help thinking Spider would approve. The biggest problem is that I’m not sure I have enough money for the two of us. I think there’s enough to make Velasquez, but what if you’ve already moved on from there? Please, please be there.

  YES, IF YOU GOT a strange message yesterday, I admit I called the restaurant after all. I couldn’t resist. I asked for Henry, but the lady who answered said no one with that name worked there. Maybe it’s not where you work. Maybe it’s where you hang out to drink coffee and talk politics. I’ve always wondered if those cafes really existed. I called five times altogether, asked for Hank the next time, Harry after that, then Henny, and Mr. Fierstein. No luck. I always got the same lady. When she said, “Los Combientes” with that husky voice, I could picture her in one of those fake Mexican peasant dresses with a flower in her hair.

  Martha did not give me that address without a reason. She wouldn’t send me on a wild-goose chase. That would be too cruel. Unless she’s jealous. She did strike me as the type who could get jealous. But even then, why would she come up with this particular address? She could have had this address from a long time ago, I suppose, and didn’t want to admit she’d lost touch since then.

  If so, I’m screwed. No, I have to believe you are there. I’m going to bring Crescent along as an act of good faith. It’s only two more days, anyway. We’ll figure out together, you and I, what to do with her. I’ve got to write Cass about Crescent. She won’t believe what I’ve got myself into. Here I am on a quest of mythic proportions for my long-lost father, and I am turning into some kind of long-term babysitter instead. Yikes.

  CAN YOU BELIEVE the bus broke down? On top of everything else. And according to the schedule, we’re only two and a half hours from Velasquez. I’m beginning to appreciate Isaac’s book. The closer I get to Velasquez, the more the distance stretches out. Time lengthens and subdivides. The fractions keep getting smaller, but there are more of them. The bus goes slower. Now this. I keep having to remind myself, Velasquez is not infinity. I could drive myself crazy thinking this way. If Isaac was trying to tell me something, it doesn’t matter. I left the book behind on a seat days ago.

  With Crescent I don’t have time to read. In a way, I’m glad to have her with me because she does keep me occupied. She has only about three changes of clothes, more than me but little kids seem to get dirtier. I wash her outfits off in rest rooms along the way, then dry them over the arm of an empty seat. The bus is so warm most of the time, they dry fast. Then she needs her diaper changed and she needs help eating. Not that she eats much, mostly just shares what I have. She doesn’t cry or get cranky like other kids I see on the bus, but I try to keep her entertained. It’s not hard. I tell her all those stories I remember Godiva telling me, teach her the little games we used to play.

  It turns out she can talk very clearly when she wants to. She’s quiet most of the time, but I can tell she’s smart. She’s very good at our favorite game, which is naming whatever we see as we pass it: house, tree, car.

  Crescent is pretty good company, actually. She has a personality distinctly her own. She calls me “Dylly” and she won’t let me out of her sight. She must miss her mother, although she never asks about her. She doesn’t ask for much. When she’s tired, she tells me. I hold her on my lap until she falls asleep, which is nice, how she melts into me, her head hard against my shoulder blade
, the rest of her soft as a rag doll.

  We happened to be looking out the window together, counting telephone poles, when all of a sudden, chrunk, the bus pulled up in short braking, jerk stops. Luggage went sliding. People gasped. One or two shrieked. I grabbed on to Crescent; she barely missed banging her forehead into the glass window. The driver stood up to calm people down, said he’d already radioed for help, but we would have to wait for another bus. Meanwhile, we were stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  New Mexico is a lot colder than I expected. Actually, with all this traveling, I’ve lost track of weather the same way I have time. The landscape outside changes, but the inside of the bus stays the same. Once we hit New Mexico, the sky got emptier, but the air in the bus remained slightly overheated, too warm for me and Crescent to wear our heavy jackets.

  Thank goodness she has one. The heater stopped working when the engine conked out. We had to bundle up. At first, everybody was pretty good-natured. It was almost like a party, the passengers walking up and down the aisle talking to each other, or at least smiling. There were a couple of boys near my age with a radio playing music I didn’t recognize. The older people kept asking them to turn it down. One of the boys was kind of cute, with high cheekbones and dark serious eyes.

  “Where you from?” he asked eventually.

  “Back east.”

  “Where you heading?”

  “Velasquez.”

  “Oh.” His voice turned wary. “A ski tourist, huh?”

  I nodded. I was a little disappointed when he turned back to his friends, but it was easier to agree than make up some other explanation. Several of the older women came over and offered Crescent cookies and fruit. I let them hold her. They asked how old she was and went on about how well behaved she was and how clearly she talked. I wonder if Crescent has ever had so much attention before. She actually began to smile and giggle a little, flirting for more sweets and compliments.

  After a while, the new wore off. We ended up sitting out there for two freezing-cold hours. Toward the end, it frightened me how cold it got. Crescent started to whimper. I think she was hungry, too, but what could I do? I held her on my lap, wrapped inside my jacket, and rocked her so we could warm each other a little. My feet were like ice cubes when they finally came to take us off the bus.

  They drove us to a mall at the base of a ski resort. Who knew such places existed? We all got a free lunch at a Mexican coffee shop called Bill’s Cantina. I wonder if Los Combientes is like Bill’s, in a mall and all. It would be easy to hide here for quite a while, I think. It’s strange eating beef burritos and looking out at a mountain full of skiers. The snow is fake, the lady sitting next to us confided, because there’s been a warm snap until today.

  After lunch, they told us we had until three o’clock before they could put us back on the bus. So Crescent and I have been wandering around killing time. I took her into a shop called Slope Stuff and bought us matching hats and mittens—bright-red wool with black reindeer. It was crazy to spend the money, but they were marked way down, and it is cold here. Now we really look as if we belong together. We stood in front of a floor-length mirror, posing and making faces until the girl running the shop started to glare. Now we’re sitting in the indoor courtyard, looking through the huge glass window at the ski slope.

  The window is so large, the view so big, I keep thinking skiers are going to glide right through the plate glass. In fact, the lady who told me about fake snow also said that once someone completely lost control and did ski into the glass, but it was reinforced or something so it didn’t crack. The guy broke his nose, though.

  More than once this afternoon, it has occurred to me that near as we are, you could be outside right now skiing on that mountain. If you live here, you probably know how to ski. You could even be a ski instructor. That would be some cover, wouldn’t it? What if I’ve been watching you for the last half hour and neither of us knew it?

  Crescent has fallen asleep. Her cheeks get all puffy and damp when she naps. Her lashes are so long. She is really unusual-looking, but beautiful, I think. I can’t believe Elise left her. Not even looking back. How could a real mother do that? And Crescent is such a good kid. When she falls asleep holding my fingers and doesn’t let go, I feel important. I like being depended upon. I have not felt this close to someone since I was really little.

  Back when I was Crescent’s age, I took being cherished for granted. Godiva would never have left me behind anywhere. She needed me the same as I needed her, maybe more. The one thing I always knew was that she loved me. How long will it take for you to feel that way about me? I wonder. I don’t expect hugs and kisses right off. I’ll have to give you time to adjust to having a teenage daughter and all that. But eventually you’ll know I’m really yours. Even if you’ve had other children since, I’ll always be your first.

  Physics or no physics, the fact is that if the bus comes by three o’clock, or even four, Crescent and I will be in Velasquez by nightfall. You and I could have a late dinner together.

  I am so keyed-up. My brain can’t sit still. It’s jumping all over the place. The closer we get, the harder it is to think about, to think period. All I can do is run a hand over Crescent’s hair, crinkly golden where it’s escaped the rubber band. That and pray. I’m not sure anymore if I believe in God, but how else can I have come so far?

  Four

  Fifteen

  SHIT, THIS IS HARD, but damn it, I have to get started. Telling will help. Sorting it through, fitting the pieces into some kind of place, losing myself back where I was before. Where was I? I was right where I should not have been. On top of the world—my world, anyway. A little crazed, as usual, a little more scattered than usual, a lot more nervous. But flying high. Oh, yes. Flying high. Thanks to loose morals, as Elvira Brasleton would undoubtedly say, and that stupid stupid stupid infatuation with Joe Rainey.

  I could make all kinds of excuses, but why bother? Why not face the damn truth, that for once in my life I fell off my high horse and broke all the rules. Godiva caught with her hair down but without a horse, screwing the horseman; ironic justice, wouldn’t you agree? Not that I was so clever at the time. I had left rational thought way behind. I was flying by instinct. Instinct usually works for me, but even instinct can’t be trusted all the time.

  No, stop evading. The truth is that I was ignoring instinct. I was going by feelings. Feelings are totally different from instinct, much less reliable and much more dangerous. To hell with feelings. Stop the touchy-feely euphemism. It was lust pure and simple. I was acting according to lust and loneliness, a deadly combination in a woman of my age and temperament. As if there were ever a time it hasn’t been a deadly combination for me.

  And if I’m going for honesty here, the truth is I felt an itch all along, niggling in my inner ear. Why didn’t Dylan call, why was I getting that damn machine all the time? I simply chose to ignore any off notes in the chorus that sang me through each day because they were inconvenient. My problem was not only that I’d thrown common sense out the window, but that I was keeping instinct at bay so I could have three days of la-la-land with Joe Rainey. Goddamn, if he didn’t seem worth it at the time.

  That first time Joe and I made love in October, somehow I was able to write it off. God, how long ago that afternoon seems. Another lifetime.

  I’d driven Dylan to her crazy lock-in. She was furious because I was late picking her up. It hurt, the way she squinched down in her seat as far away from me as she could get, stewing, withdrawn to a place I could not begin to touch. Not one word could I get out of that girl, not one. She was like a porcupine about to let fly her quills. I gave up talking and studied the storm in the rearview mirror. It was following us like a stranger in a trenchcoat, bigger and scarier the closer he came. Then the wind swallowed itself and turned the sky into an airless inner lining. Even with the windows rolled down, it was hard to breathe inside Miranda by the time we turned into the church lot.

  Dylan slammed out of the
car, not even a wave of goodbye. I can see her so clearly, running up the walk, the weight of the sleeping bag throwing off her balance. I hated to leave her. I wanted to run after her and clutch her to me. When she was little, she’d get mad and stamp “I hate you” until I squeezed and tickled her into submission. It got to be a joke. By the time she’d reach “I hate you,” we both knew the tantrum was over. Such a loving child she was.

  I cannot cry, damn it. I have to keep on with these rememberings, order them, find the pattern. I cannot fall apart.

  I watched her open the heavy oak door to the church. A short wedge of noisy yellow light pulled her in and the door shut. Then I drove home, planning to close myself up in my studio. Close out every other thought I might be having by concentrating on my work. Body parts. That was the project I’d begun just after the accident. Freud be damned, Jung is my man. I began stringing black beads on wire bent into very large thumbs. Every now and then, I’d look up through the window to see a tail of lightning whip across the sky as thunder crackled somewhere off shore. After a while, my muscles clenched under the damp wool cloak of the early dark and I did some circle rolls with my head to loosen up. I took a drag off my cigarette and began to set a complicated pattern of ground glass into the underside of a hinged box. A chest cavity. When my thumbs got thick and spongy from handling the small sharp pieces too long, I took another cigarette break. A few min­utes later, the rain came gusting in.

  And then Joe.

  “Go home, Joe Rainey,” I said as he stepped inside the open doors, soaked to the skin in the short walk from his car.

  I tried to stare him down, could not quite manage it, ended up gazing past his left ear at a collage portrait of Dylan that had always struck me as slightly off. Now I saw why. Her eyes were inaccurately painted, green like mine instead of her father’s blue. Incredible eyes he had, like hers only deeper blue. I tried to concentrate on those eyes. How could I have made such an obvious mistake?