by Amber Foxx
“It helped me on my trip. Leaving my young’uns and all.” She paused. Time to ask. “You’re so good at what you do. Why did you stop recording?”
Gripping his elbows as if he were cold, he didn’t answer.
As she made the left turn off Alameda onto Delgado, away from the bridge, Mae couldn’t help thinking about what had happened under it. What if Jamie had been the one who found the body? It seemed all too likely. She thought of her first accidental vision, of Jamie as a child holding the older boy’s hand while he died. Had the homeless youth been still alive and dying when Jamie found him?
“Did something bad happen to you?” she asked softly. “Is that why you stopped?”
He turned wide, frightened eyes to her and froze, still not speaking. She pulled into the driveway and cut off the engine. “I’m sorry I mentioned it, sugar. That’s none of my business. I just want you to call Wendy, get your music going again.”
He made her think of Pie hiding under the bed, and she wanted to reach to him the way he’d tamed the terrified cat. She offered her hand slowly. He didn’t take it. Maybe Niall was right about leaving Jamie’s troubles private. Urging him to talk seemed to make him feel worse.
Jamie opened the car door, a forced cheerfulness in his voice. “Your chef has work to do.”
As they unloaded and put away groceries in silence, Mae wondered how to undo the damage of her questions. The answer was obviously yes, something bad had happened to him. She wished she knew what it was, to understand whether or not she should still nudge him to get on with his career or not, but there didn’t seem to be a way to get an answer.
He took pots and pans out, set a rice cooker on the counter, and finally spoke as he opened the bag of rice they’d bought. “Thanks for letting me cook for you.” His voice was weighted with emotion. “It means a lot to me.”
Mae felt embarrassed. He sounded like this was such a big deal. He had to be reading too much into it. “It’s just cooking—”
He turned to her, his voice passionate and urgent. “It’s important,” he said, and immediately looked embarrassed. An attempt at The Smile made it halfway. “Give me a hug, love. I need it.”
He reached out, the uncertain smile hovering. To refuse would be unkind, especially after he’d turned down her open hand in the car. She gave him what she meant to be a quick squeeze, but he prolonged it with a powerful hold and a loud exhalation.
When he let go, he reached up like someone waking up in the morning, beamed a true sunshine smile at her, and did a little pulsing, rippling dance. With a burst of energy, he returned to the counter and opened drawers, getting utensils out, including the “bodgy” knives, and began to sing a ballad that might have come from an operetta, his voice sweet and floating as he washed vegetables.
“Need any help?” Mae asked
“Nah, you hate to cook. Keep me company if you like, though.”
“I need to call my young’uns.”
“Oh.” He stopped singing and looked around at her with concern. “Yeah. Your stepdaughters. You miss them. Will you be all right?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.” Truth was, though, it always hurt.
She closed herself in the bedroom and set up her laptop for her Skype date with the girls. She needed to call Roseanne, too. Jamie had kept her so preoccupied she hadn’t yet told Roseanne about Muffie, and it was important news. She could do that after dinner. Hopefully right after she finally drove Jamie and his wrecked bicycle home. Then she needed to talk to Marty, ask him about Jamie. He might tell her more than Niall had.
Hubert answered on Skype, and Mae felt the usual pang at the sight of his long, strong gentle face, and was grateful that he kept the greeting short and hollered for the girls to come talk to Mama. The thunder of their feet carried over the microphone, and then they bounced onto the couch beside Hubert. He rose, with an affectionate mussing of their lank, dark hair, and left them to talk with Mae.
“Y’all look so good right now, I could kiss you right though this camera,” Mae said “I miss you, sweeties.”
“We miss you, Mama,” Stream said
“We got a new toy box,” Brook added.
“Good, you can put all your little cars and trucks in it.”
“That’s why.” Stream giggled. “Daddy says no more fire truck in the foot in the middle of the night.”
Suddenly longing for the sounds of her family around her, Mae pictured Hubert getting up to bring one of the girls a glass of water, muttering some clean expletive suitable for children as he stepped on a sharp little toy, and coming back to bed with her, lying against her the way he always did, back to back. “Right now I even miss stepping on toys, I miss y’all so much.”
They told her about their day, shared their new first-grader type jokes, and Mae laughed at their pleasure if not their wit. She told them about things they would like, such as the hailstorm and the rainbow, until Hubert came back.
“Hey, little wildcats, tell your mama goodnight. I’m gonna talk boring grown-up stuff with her, okay?”
They waved and blew kisses. “’Night, Mama!”
When they’d gone, Hubert settled alone on the living room couch. What did he want? A crazy hope of the impossible crossed her heart, and her mind pushed it down. She could almost feel herself next to him, what it would be like to slip her arm around him. His solid, broad-shouldered body still drew her, even with all their distance and disagreements.
After some hesitation, he asked, “How’s it going in Santa Fe?”
“It’s pretty.” No way she could explain how it was going. She stuck to small talk. “I ran in my pink paws today. I like ’em.”
“Great.” Hubert’s smile was warm, affectionate. “Take your time with ’em, though.” He talked on a while about running, about his work—about everything they didn’t fight about. He was being a Southerner, easing into the hard stuff.
While she listened, the floral-papered walls of their old home behind him began to look gloomy to her, as if she could see the dampness and the cracked plaster behind those flowers, and all the work that would need to be done on that place for the rest of their lives. No—his life, not theirs any more. She felt the small town around the house, like a slow, heavy, choking snake. She might miss him at times, and miss the girls so bad it hurt, but she couldn’t live in a town that thought she was a misfit, a witchy-woman, for being psychic.
He finally got to his point. “I’m going to the Outer Banks with Jen for a few days. Just letting you know to call at the folks’ place Saturday and Sunday to talk to the girls.”
They had only separated in April. Four months felt so fast to her. “You’re spending a weekend with Jen already?”
“Already?” He frowned. “It’s a third of a year. But don’t worry, she never spends the night here. I don’t want the girls seeing her as a mother yet.”
“Yet?” Mae’s heart dropped. “As a mother yet?”
“Take it easy. You raised ’em. She won’t replace you even if it does come to that.”
“I hope not.” She forced herself to add, “Thanks for telling me about the weekend.” But she didn’t feel grateful at all.
They said goodbye. Change was coming. Change she didn’t want. I’m not over him yet. Looking up at the starry ceiling, Mae wanted to sit in the bedroom and take time to think, to listen to her own heart and mind. She craved the time alone she’d hoped for here. Instead, she heard singing and clattering in the kitchen.
Jamie seemed to have no need to be alone, and he took up space out of proportion to his words or actions, even sitting and saying nothing. If he was happy, he lit up the world. When she took care of him, he blanketed her with a warm, fuzzy cloud. When he worried, he sent out little tendrils of neediness. When he flirted, he seemed to pollinate—to send out sexuality into the air like a male tree, recklessly open to the winds. At least he had stopped doing that, but now he was fixing dinner for her as if it was the most important thing he’d done in his life. Doing
his best to keep her from being lonely, when that was exactly what she wanted to be.
Chapter Twelve
Returning to the kitchen, Mae found that Jamie had set the table with candles and poured glasses of wine. No. He’d gone romantic again. The longer she waited to put a stop to it, the worse it would get. She had to wrap this up and send him home. Somehow. Without hurting him.
Jamie carried Pie on his shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her fur, while with his free hand he spooned a spicy-smelling concoction of beans, rice, and vegetables onto plates, laying hot tortillas neatly folded beside each serving. “Sorry about the white rice, but it’s quick. I do brown and wild mix, normally.”
“You don’t have to apologize. It looks wonderful.”
“Hope so. Kind of winging it.” As if they were on a date in a five-star restaurant, he pulled her chair out for her, and she sat. “Never got the next part, like, is the man supposed to shove the woman in at the table then or what? But manners aren’t my strong point. Not that you’d ever notice.” With a quick, self-deprecating grin, he sat down across from her. “Yell at me if I need civilizing.”
He set Pie down one paw at a time, so no impact affected her small, old bones, and stroked her a few times as if to ease her transition to the floor. “Did you heal her yet?”
“I don’t think she needs it. She’s good now.”
“Nah. I’m not a healer. After dinner, give her a treatment. She’ll like it.” He raised his glass. “To another beautiful day in Santa Fe. And to two more.”
“To two more.”
As soon as she said it, Mae regretted it. Today had hardly been a beautiful day. Jamie’d had two or three episodes of strange and troubled behavior, and he didn’t seem to realize it. Maybe all he saw was the rainbow, not his own storm clouds. Worse, her toast might have sounded like she’d committed to spending two days with him. Yes, she needed to go to Ruth Smyth’s opening, and it looked like she’d be going with him, but a day without him in between would be good. Except she might have talked him into getting his van fixed while she got her oil changed tomorrow.
She needed to have at least half days free of him. Telling him felt awkward, but he would never think of it on his own. “We said two days, but I hope you’ll understand that I need part of those days to myself.”
“Jesus.” Jamie’s eyes darkened. “I just fixed you dinner and you’re shoving me off already. Can’t that wait? At least eat the fucking meal before you push me out.”
His anger startled her. They weren’t in some sort of close relationship where he could expect to spend every hour with her, and they had enough plans for the next two days that she thought it should be clear that she wasn’t rejecting him. She started to defend herself, but he looked so nakedly hurt that she stopped. “I’m not pushing you out.”
He stabbed a forkful of food. “Yeah, you are.”
Mae sighed and ate, at a loss what to do with him. He’d worked hard to please her. The food was as good as Dada Café’s, with extraordinarily complex and unexpected tastes. “This is great, sugar.”
He brightened, and asked with his mouth full, “Really? You like it?”
“Yes, I do.” She smiled. “Manners.”
He swallowed, sipped wine. “Sorry. Fucking pig. Don’t eat ’em, but I am one.” He took another taste of wine. “So tell me more about what you do as a healer. If you fix up Pie, will she be all new and shiny inside, or what?”
“Only ever tried to heal one cat, and he couldn’t talk.”
Jamie’s soft smile at her little joke was too tender, as if she were utterly wonderful and brilliant. Uncomfortable, Mae continued, “People say they feel like they can make better decisions, have more insight into why they do what they do. I don’t think they’re all new inside.”
“Do you see what’s in people’s heads? Kitties’ heads?”
“Not really. Sometimes I pick up emotions or energy, but I don’t read minds. I can see the past, though, if I need to get to the root for healing something. Why’d you ask?”
“Nosy, that’s all. Are you ... well, y’know, like a shrink? You can’t, like—have relationships with your clients?”
Was he asking if she would heal him? Or get involved with him? Both? “Of course not. It’d be all wrong.”
“I thought that. Like ... yeah ... I get it. Like with teachers.” He shoveled beans and rice into a tortilla and took a bite, seeming to make a conscious effort to avoid spilling, and to chew and swallow before he spoke. She could sense words bubbling around under the surface, see him almost talking and then stopping himself. “I fell in love with my voice teacher when I was eighteen. Of course she had the sense to turn me down. Or the taste.” He glanced at her with a flicker of attempted humor. “I was funny looking. Anyway, she fired me as a student once I bared my sorry little soul.”
“I reckon she had to. Y’all would have been so awkward after that.” The story touched her, but Mae wanted to get off the subject of romance. “So ... you studied opera.”
“Mind if we don’t talk about that?”
“No, you don’t have to, of course.” She’d thought it was safe small talk. What was safe, with him? “I’m curious about your music, though. You’re so ... diverse. And so good.”
“You really like that music? The albums?”
“I told you, it really helped me feel better. You could sell a lot more of it, but no one can order it. I’m trying to get you in touch with Wendy Huang and you won’t call her.” He gave her the one-two shrug, drank wine. She persisted. “I don’t see how you’re gonna sell your work if you don’t get a manager. Unless Zambethalia is gonna take off.”
“Fuck, no. Mwizenge’s got a business here. Dagmawi’s a nurse. The blokes have families, careers, lives. Just play for fun, music’s a sideline.”
“But they record.”
“Yeah. They did, as Afreaka. Mwizenge’s got all that crap down. I don’t. Don’t get on well with—computers, fuck, the whole making and selling and bloody fine print and—” He stared across the room, a lost and frightened look in his eyes.
“What is it?”
“All that—that stuff. Self-promotion—tech—I don’t fucking know.” He held his hands up as if to prevent the avalanche of stressors he’d listed from falling on his head. “Please. New subject.”
“I can’t talk about opera or about selling your new music? Why?”
Jamie picked up some spilled beans from the table, ate them, and licked his fingers, eyes downcast.
“Unless you’re changing careers, you can’t keep avoiding this. Wendy wants a sound file of some of your solo work, not your healing music, but something live. Like that blues song. I want you to send it to her. You can get Mwizenge to help you do it.” From what she’d seen, Mwizenge acted sort of fatherly toward Jamie. He’d probably help. “Can you tell me you’ll do that?”
“I want to. I really do.” Running a hand over his hair, leaving a little streak of sauce, Jamie took a deep breath. “I’m scared.”
“Of technology? Success? Failure? Something else?”
He pressed his lips together and gripped his fork as if to choke it.
Mae said, “Take your time. I’m sorry if I’m pressuring you.” She had to move carefully if she didn’t want to trigger another of his wobblies. Giving him a moment, she ate, sipped her wine, and let Jamie do the same. He didn’t have a working phone. Was that his fear? Admitting a money problem? “If I call Wendy for you and I sit here while you talk to her, would that be better?”
Jamie rolled his right shoulder, focused on eating.
“You’ll feel better once you’ve talked to her.” Mae had done a lot of self-promotion as a freelance trainer and fitness instructor. It hadn’t bothered her, but she could see that it wouldn’t be easy for someone like Jamie, and the music business had to be more complicated. “Sounds like you’re not good at business, sales, that end of things.”
He nodded. “My girlfriend did all that for me. She was suppos
ed to teach me when we broke up, but ... I wasn’t in good shape for a while ...”
Jamie poked his food around, and then ate as if he’d suddenly realized he was starving, spilling beans and rice onto the table and his clothes.
“Manners, sugar. Slow down. You’re getting messy.”
“Thanks. Jesus, I’m an awful person to have dinner with. I get so fucking nervous. Candlelight and slob.” He belched in spite of an attempt not to, and put his hands over his face. “Fuck. Sorry. Shoot me.”
“You’ll be all right. Relax. Your manners would be better if you just slowed everything down.” Jamie dropped his hands, and Mae met his anxious look with a smile she hoped was reassuring. “It’ll all turn out fine. You can use my phone to talk to Wendy. We have to do it right after dinner, so I can make another call, though.”
“No hurry.” Lifting his wine glass, he brightened. “No worries. Make your call first. Gives me plenty of time to clean up for you.”
“No. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’d be leaving you alone to do all the work twice. You don’t have to clean. I’ll do it later, when you go home.”
He shook his head. “I’m here to help you, remember? Make your call. I’m doing the dishes.”
I’ve really stepped in it. Somehow she’d committed to keeping him in her house even longer. Mae went back to the bedroom to make her call in relative quiet, closing the door to muffle Jamie’s singing. When she got through to Dada Café, the hostess put her on hold to wait for Roseanne, and Mae listened to Jamie. The song was brisk and bright, operetta again.
“Mae.” Roseanne came on after a few minutes, breathless. “You gave us the best idea. We’ve got a good crowd.”