by Pat Henshaw
Now he looked fierce, like Native American chiefs in historic photos. His face could have been the one carved into a mountain or stamped on coins. He was proud and determined and promising himself to me.
His pledge was enough to make me tear up. Where had he come from in my life? Was he the gift my dad and granddad said I should look for to make my life easier?
While I was staring and thinking, he put down the paper-clipped stack, kissed me, and picked up the house phone. Still looking me in the eye, he said to the person on the other end of the line, “We’re going to lunch. Can you watch the desk?”
Jax all but ran behind the check-in desk.
“I just heard from the clinic. Greg’s going to be okay. Just stress. He should get more rest. The girls and I are splitting his shifts. He’ll be back tonight.” He beamed at Vic and me. “So go away. Get some lunch. Have fun, you two. Where you going?” At my shrug, Jax didn’t miss a beat. “Ah, go to Monique’s. Perfect. Tell Eugene I still think his mom was a better baker.” He giggled, and Vic dragged me out of there.
Monique’s Bakery, unlike the Bottom, which is in the foothills, sits at the end of a strip shopping center outside Old Town. I don’t like Monique’s as much as the Bottom because, for me, it’s not relaxing. I see too many people who know me and want to chat when I try to eat there.
Still, it was fun to watch Vic’s eyes light up like most people’s did when we entered. First the smell of flour and sugar attacked, followed by the gentler aroma of the cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and other spices. Finally, the aroma of coffee and tea underscored the goodness that was Monique’s.
“Damn.” He took a huge breath and held it for a couple of seconds, letting it out slowly as if savoring the layers of smells. “Why weren’t we eating here before?”
“Why don’t you check out the desserts and I’ll get us a table?” I put a hand on his arm. “Just don’t stand in the to-go line.”
“Hey, Red! How’re you doing?” A couple of guys walked by, one patting me on the back.
Town secretary Polly Litchen walked in, nodding to me and eyeing Vic like he was an aged steak and she a hungry wolf. She stopped behind us.
“I heard you played for the—”
“Good to see you, Polly. Can’t talk. I need to grab us a table.” I scooted around her, leaving Vic to fend for himself. If he was going to blame me for keeping him away from Monique’s, then he could find out for himself why I had.
I scored us a table in the corner, away from the other diners and the foot traffic.
“Hey, Mr. Bandy. Can I get you an iced tea?”
The pert waitress was a high school girl who’d spent the night with a teenage guy at the hotel a couple of times last year.
“Yeah, tea for me, and another one for my—” I quickly debated: friend or… “—my boyfriend, who’ll be joining me.”
She giggled and nodded.
The things I knew about the people in this town. Maybe I should start writing my own journal for some Bandy a hundred years down the road to read and be surprised about.
When he got to the table, Vic looked a little harried, and his hair stood up as if he’d been running a hand through it repeatedly.
“Not nice, paleface. You left me for the dogs in the desert.” He sat with a sigh. “Fuck if that woman can talk.”
A glass of iced tea appeared before him, and he smiled across the table at me.
“Okay, you got me tea, so I guess I’m not mad. Damn, I thought I was never going to get away from her and her questions about my people and my tribe.”
He ran his hand through his hair again, and I almost lost it. I could feel the laughter bubbling up inside me. He frowned at me.
“What’s so funny? I’m sick and tired of hearing ‘Hey, Chief!’ all day long. I just want to shout ‘I’m not the chief of jack shit, so just can it!’ It’s not funny.”
“And I’m tired of being called ‘Red.’” I leaned in and stared at his high cheekbones, long nose, and sensuous lips. Then I looked down and ran my finger along the back of his hand, his beautiful dark skin in sharp contrast to my faintly rosy paleness. “If you want to know about your people so badly, why not get in touch with tribe members, go to meetings, get involved with them?”
He snorted in derision.
“It hasn’t worked like that for me. When I got in touch, they acted like I was trying to rob them, like I was making a claim—a claim I can’t prove except for my skin color and facial features—to steal part of their tribal money.” His smile mocked the idea of being welcomed with open arms. “It’s like I’m a Trojan horse come to ransack the tribe in the middle of the night.”
His hand gripped mine.
“Even worse, around them I feel like a white man. I don’t feel Navajo, or even Native American, at all.” He shook his head, looking out the window to somewhere I would never see. “I don’t even know what a Navajo should feel like. Not even a little bit.”
His gaze was lost, wandering around a world that would always be alien to him. I let him roam a few moments, then squeezed his hand.
“So what we have to do is make our own land, form our own family, and become our own world.”
His eyes cleared and sharpened. He looked at me as if examining an entirely new idea.
“Yeah. You and me. The Red World. Made from your pinkness and my brickness.” He opened our clasped hands so that they lay side by side.
“You can still study the Navajo people and what the tribe stands for,” I assured him.
He shrugged. “I guess. But I’d rather figure out what our Red World is and what it stands for.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress bouncing a little and looking frustrated.
“Let’s eat first, then we can figure out our new world,” I agreed and turned to order.
10
MY MISTRESS, in the form of a phone call from Jax, summoned me while we drove back to the hotel. Vic and I’d talked about taking the day off and driving around the foothills for a while, but I’d gotten itchy, like something was happening and I was needed. Jax’s call proved the accuracy of my premonition.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I don’t know what to do.” Jax sounded miserable, which made me feel unhappy too.
“We’ll be right there. In fact, we’re just pulling up in the back.” I sighed and hung up.
When we got out of the truck, Jax had the back door open and was waiting for us.
As we started down the hallway, he filled me in. “She just showed up. Out of the blue. I didn’t know what to do. She wants to see Calvin.” He stopped talking and took a deep breath.
Vic’s startled “Aunt Faith?” told me who’d come to visit.
“Oh, Victor!” She opened her arms as if he would walk into her hug.
Instead he stood still beside me. I glanced at him and saw his warrior face.
“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded unwelcoming, so I stepped in.
“Hello. I’m Zeke Bandy. What can I do for you?”
She looked from him to me as if confused. Then she must have figured out what was going on between us because her eyes widened. She wasn’t frowning, which I’d expected, but was smiling at us.
“I’m Calvin’s mother, and I want to see my boy,” she told me.
The poor wraith of a woman in front of me looked totally unsuited to be the wife of volatile Tobias. Her eyes were puffed with the memories of hard tears. The graying hair, sad slump of her lips, and dull skin told of long years of suffering. Pushing its way through all of this heartache stood the courage and strength of a newborn fighter.
“I’ll go see if he wants to come downstairs.” While she looked harmless, I had no idea if she’d turn on the boy. I’d let him decide whether to see his mom or not.
As I waited for the lift, I watched Vic walk toward her and give her a tentative hug. I loved the man so much that I worried about the repercussions of her visit on him as much or more than on her son. Vic was feel
ing so lost and vulnerable after our talk, even though he seemed to embrace our Red World idea, that I wanted to shield him from his foster family and all their problems.
Calvin was folding towels, wearing earbuds and dancing next to his bed. I couldn’t hear the song he was enjoying, but his moves told me it was upbeat and he was happy. He was doing a good job on the towels too, zipping through the stack quickly and efficiently.
“Cal!” I called from the doorway after I’d knocked and he hadn’t turned toward me. I waved, hoping to catch his peripheral vision without scaring him. “Yo, Cal!”
He stopped mid-boogie and quickly turned off the music.
“Huh? What? Oh, boss. I’m just about finished with this.” He sounded frightened, like I was going to scold or hit him.
“You’re doing a great job.” He beamed at me, and I smiled back. “Look. Your mom’s down in the lobby and wants to talk to you. I told her I’d see if you wanted to talk to her.”
Emotions flitted across his eyes. Fear. Longing. Puzzlement.
“I don’t have to see her if I don’t want to?” he asked.
Behind me, I could hear Raynetta and Justine hurrying toward the room.
“Is there something wrong? What’s going on?” Raynetta, who I’d once thought was quiet and shy, was acting like a mother hen whose chick was being threatened by a coyote.
“His mom, your sister-in-law, is downstairs and wants to talk to him.”
Raynetta pushed past me and put an arm around Calvin’s shoulders.
“You don’t got to go down there if you don’t want to,” she told him in a no-nonsense tone.
They exchanged a long look, then Calvin shrugged. “I’ll go if you come with me.”
Raynetta nodded briskly, and as they neared the door, I slid to the side.
“You want me too, baby?” Justine murmured.
Raynetta nodded again, and we formed a parade to the front stairway. Wincing with each step, I followed them down two floors to where Calvin’s mother and Vic waited.
As reunions went, theirs was the most subdued I think I’ve ever seen. Mother and son stared at each other while Raynetta kept hold of Calvin’s shoulders. When his mother reached for him, Calvin pushed back farther into Raynetta, as if he were evading his mother’s slap.
Tears fell down Faith’s cheeks as she snatched her hand back.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered, but her son wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was staring at Vic now. Calvin’s eyes radiated uncertainty.
“I’d give her the benefit of the doubt,” Vic advised softly. “We’re all here to help you, so we’ve got your back. I’d give her a chance.”
Slowly Calvin nodded, then walked toward his mother. She raised her arms again, and he walked into them. They hugged as a sigh resonated from the rest of us.
While she carefully pulled Calvin next to her, Faith looked at Victor.
“I was wrong not to fight when the Weller men beat on their sons. It wasn’t right. I should have stood up for all of you and done something.” Without breaking eye contact with Vic, she hugged her son closer. “What’s past is past, but I’m standing up now. I refuse to let my husband do what he and his brother have done to so many other kids in our family. I’m speaking to the sheriff, and I’m taking charge of my family. I can’t stand it any longer.”
Her voice sounded fierce and hard in the nearly silent foyer, and for such a small, wan woman, she looked like she’d found a titanium backbone. I imagined Tobias was going to be surprised when he didn’t get any support from her. She probably wouldn’t even bail him out.
Vic, looking stern, nodded once. He searched her face, and then he nodded again.
“Good,” he breathed.
“I need your help, Victor,” she whispered back. “I can’t do this alone.”
Calvin looked up at her. “I’ll help.”
Her gaze left Vic’s face and landed on her son’s.
“I’m counting on you, son.” Then she peered up at the rest of us. “All of you, Raynetta and Justine too.”
I heard a yelp from Raynetta and Justine behind me.
“Me?” Raynetta sounded shocked but pleased.
“Yes. You’re one of the strongest people in this family. I definitely need your help.” Faith’s voice left no room for doubt. “I want my son to turn out like you or Victor, not his father.” Then she sighed. “And I don’t want Calvin running away anymore.”
Calvin grinned up at her.
“Things are going to change at our house.” This wasn’t a promise. It was a fact. She hugged her son again. “Are you ready to come home with me? Or do you need to say good-bye to everyone here first?”
She opened her arms and let him go.
Calvin glanced back at me and Jax.
“Uh, I still have some towels to finish,” he told her.
I was about to tell him to get his stuff together and go with her when her biting look chided me.
“Then go finish your chores, and I’ll pick you up after I talk to the sheriff,” she told Calvin.
The smudges still sagged under her eyes, and her hair hung gray and drab. But her posture shouted that a new day had dawned and she was ready to step into it.
Calvin glanced over at me, and I nodded. She was the parent in charge now.
Our little group broke up as three guests returned to the hotel through the front door talking a mile a minute about what they’d seen and done in Tahoe.
So much for another touching scene at Bandy’s Finest Hotel. Life didn’t stop for much reflection in the hotel’s public foyer.
After a quick hug for his mom, Calvin sped upstairs to 305 and his mother left for the sheriff’s office. Holding on to each other, Raynetta and Justine wandered toward the back hallway.
My heart felt heavy, as if I’d been given a glimpse of a life I’d never known and would never know. I wondered if Calvin appreciated how courageous his mother was being, and I concluded since he was a teenage boy, he probably didn’t. It was a shame, really, that moments like these were lost in a teenage haze. I hoped someday he’d be able to remember this, all of us standing around supporting him, and realize how lucky he was.
THAT NIGHT, right before I drifted off, a soft, low, beautiful voice whispered in my ear, “I don’t think I want to be a chief after all. I like being the leader of the chief’s helpers too much.”
Then I felt Vic’s kiss on my neck, and heard his nearly inaudible, “Night, Chief.”
11
THE NEXT morning Vic and I got up slowly and had breakfast, and then he went upstairs, where he still had a room, coming down with his luggage and what I thought of as bad news.
“I’ve got to go back to the city for a while.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “I have to close up my condo and put it on the market. Get my stuff together and move here. Be ready to start my new job.”
He peeked up at me, almost shyly. “Miss me?”
I sighed and nodded. Was he kidding, or was he really so clueless?
“When will you be back?”
He laughed.
“Next week sometime.” He ran his finger down my cheek. “You’ve got a little housekeeping to do, right?”
“I do?”
“You need to close your Grindr account? And any other hookup apps you’ve got out there?”
So much for needing to ask if he was going to miss me. He may look like a model and a playboy, but I was sure neither of those was true.
“And your accounts? I’d hate to be the only one out there on a Saturday night without a date.”
“Baby, your Saturday nights—hell, all the nights of the week—will be taken for as long as you want this guy as your date.”
I could feel the eyes of my staff on us.
“Have a safe trip.” I kissed him. “And you might want to say good-bye to the people in the back room who’ve been staring at us before you go so they don’t think you’re dumping me.”
We kissed again, a
public kiss, and he walked toward all the sightseers, pulling his luggage behind him.
I THOUGHT of the next week as my days at the bottom of a deep, dark well. I woke up sad and stayed that way no matter what anyone said to me or how they tried to cheer me up.
At night Vic and I skyped after texting all day. It wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted him. But I was Zeke Bandy of Bandy’s Finest Hotel, so I sucked it up as much as I could and kept going, making reservations for the fishermen eager to attend Max Greene’s seminar and tallying bills for the men who’d stayed after the wedding and were now leaving. It wasn’t as if I had nothing to do.
Thursday night Stone stopped me after I played my set.
“You gonna be that bad tomorrow night too?”
I was stunned. Stone had never said my playing sucked before.
“I wasn’t all that bad,” I protested.
“That was the longest, saddest set I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know there were that many songs about lost, lonely guys. What was that thing Cher said to Nick Cage in the movie? ‘Snap out of it!’” He sighed. “Shit, you even made me sad, and I’ve got a hot, randy guy waitin’ for me right over there.”
I turned and waved at Jimmy, who was watching us with a frown.
“Yeah, okay. Maybe the selections tonight weren’t the happiest around.”
“Happy? Happy was so far from what you were singing, he was standing in the next county.” Stone glared at me. “You want to cancel tomorrow night? I can’t have the Friday night crowd cryin’ in their beers. It’s the end of the damn week.”
It was tempting. I mean, was I going to feel like singing anything uplifting? It’d been a long few days and even longer nights.
Again, I asked myself how this had all happened. I was the one with his head tight on his shoulders according to my dad and granddad. I was the practical one. I was the least likely person to fall in love instantly. I had responsibilities, and I took them seriously. I wasn’t a romantic. At least, I’d never thought so.