Gristle & Bone

by Duncan Ralston

  David had read the letter aloud in amazement when he'd gotten it, his first ever invite to Morales's famous 4th Party: "You have been chosen to join in an orgiastic celebration of Mankind's greatness, on the birthday of the most prosperous Goddamn nation the world has ever seen."

  "Is that sarcasm?" she'd wondered aloud at the time.

  Morales was a fascinating eccentric, his philanthropic contributions earmarked for research in alternative fuels, green engineering and space exploration, a peculiar combination that seemed to June to suggest interplanetary conquest. When she'd mentioned this, David had looked at her queerly. "You think too much," he'd said.

  She'd met the man when David had given her a tour of the office, a year or so back. Morales, a lean, muscular man in his mid-50s with the kind of hair they talk about in ads for men's hair-coloring, had been running on the treadmill in his office, wearing a shimmering skin-tight outfit that looked like the workout clothes of a comic-book hero. His office was the same size and height as the atrium downstairs, though this vast, virtually empty room was on the penthouse floor. On one matte-black wall a print of Francisco Goya's ghastly Saturn Devouring His Son hung, in which the titan, a giant, jaundiced troll, gnawed at a bloodied human torso. Perpendicular to the painting was a "living wall": water trickled down from somewhere, through lush, dark vegetation dotted with strange and beautifully exotic flowers. Directly across from this urban jungle the city skyline spread out across the Bay: the TransAmerica Pyramid and the Triple Nickel; the piers of Embarcadero, Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge; and Berkeley beyond.

  Morales had slowed the treadmill, briefly toweled himself, and tossed it aside into a black granite bin below racks of fresh white linen. He'd approached with an outstretched hand and a charming smile. "You must be June," he'd said, face glistening with sweat, his eyes as bright as the sky above them. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

  She'd muttered something about the pleasure being hers, but frankly, she'd been overwhelmed. June, who'd grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth (a tarnished antique, to be sure, the Dreese family fortune having traveled with them on the Mayflower, but silver, nonetheless), had never seen anything like this before. And Morales himself, aside from his morning haircut, manicured nails and bonded teeth, had been unexpectedly unpretentious, with none of the stuffy, old-money attitude Althea Dreese's side of the family seemed to have had ingrained in them.

  "It'll be fine," David had assured her, as he read the invite for the second time. "We'll have a few drinks—not too many," he'd added, no doubt remembering the New Year's party when she'd gone overboard and ended up spending most of the night laid out in Darren's bathtub. "We'll schmooze a bit—not too much. You'll see. They're good people, June." And while she'd finished up the dishes in the sink, David, having conveniently forgotten the intended purpose of the damp dish towel slung over his shoulder, had ambled off to the living room to marvel over the invitation once more.

  June, meanwhile, had been worried. The idea of living among them again—the rich, so-called "important people"—it made her generally queasy.

  Good people, she'd thought dismissively. Easy enough for a kid who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood to say. Live with the Other Half awhile, Davey my boy, then tell me what you think of them.

  Now they were in Monte Verde, one of the worst offenders in a state with the highest income gap, and Americo Morales's 4th Party loomed at the end of the weekend, the antithesis of what June felt would be an otherwise wonderful weekend on the Big Sur coast. Already they'd seen dolphins frolicking in the wake of a group of tanned, broad-shouldered surfer boys, as waves beat upon the shore and the sun stirred a colorful cocktail at the knife edge of the ocean. They'd already strolled through sequoias and redwoods stretching beyond sight. They'd seen baby deer grazing among dense wildflowers along a jagged rock face, a hundred feet above a green cove, and dozens, hundreds of elephant seals roasting on small rock islands in the afternoon sun, cooling themselves in the dark, algae-streaked water below. Her Nikon had snapped a hundred pictures, but it could not capture—no matter how hard she tried—the precise feel of these sights. Even as a professional photographer she had her limitations (which, she supposed, was why her books hadn't sold all that many copies).

  David was looking at her with frustrated tears rimming his eyes. He's just like your father, Althea Dreese would have said. Go on, give the baby his bottle. She ignored her late mother's scorn, and held out her arms with the anticipated pout. Her man sidled up to her, dragging his feet on the carpeting like a child, and she hugged him. "It's okay," she cooed. "I'm sure it just got mistaken for trash when the maid came through. It shouldn't be too hard to find the house."

  "But the invitation..."

  "They'll have your name on a list," she assured him.

  He looked up at her with moist gray eyes. "They will?"

  "You haven't been to many rich-people parties, have you?"

  He sniffled. She let him free, and he stepped back and swiped at his nose with the back of his hand. June hated when he did that. Use a tissue, for the love of Pete, her mother nagged inside her head; trying to avoid parroting those nitpicking disapprovals was a constant battle. She allowed him it this once, since he was so clearly distraught. Then David wiped the hand on his pants, and she sighed inwardly, noting the shiny streak he'd made on the right front pocket, and wondering how this nasty little habit had passed unnoticed by his own mother.

  "This will be my first," he admitted.

  She smiled. "Much as I'm loathe to admit it, I'm a seasoned pro. And I look damn good in a cocktail dress."

  David reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "You look damn good in anything." He raised a suggestive eyebrow. "And nothing. I'm sorry if I'm being a baby."

  "I know how you can make it up to me," she said, and moved toward the bed. David's almost-waterworks display hadn't particularly been a turn-on, but with the two mimosas she'd had at breakfast, it hadn't entirely turned her off. He came willingly enough. So did June. She left in the earrings.

  "I DON'T MEAN to be a pest," David said for the second time.

  Then why, my dear, are you being one? June wondered. She'd asked him to drop it, assuring him he'd probably misplaced it. But when David Addison set his mind on something, he would see it through. Even their quick romp hadn't shaken the idea of tattling on the maid from his mind, as she'd hoped it would.

  They stood at the front desk, David leaning over it casually, resting on his elbows, and June off to the side, looking through the rack of colorful brochures for restaurants and touristy destinations, only half-listening to the conversation. David had an after-sex glow, and was feeling confident.

  When they'd first met, Althea Dreese had never much cared for David, son of a small-town car salesman and a teacher—though her opinion of him had brightened considerably when she discovered he'd been taken under the wing of Americo Morales. Morales was, in her mother's words, "a Spaniard," and "new money," both insults in her world, but he was also very prominent in the architectural community. Althea's predatory hooks had latched onto David then, seeing him as an unlikely heir, though certainly not the worst choice for a daughter who'd abandoned her mother as readily as she'd abandoned the family fortune. Althea Dreese had expected grandchildren. When she'd passed the year before, it had been her dying wish: a grandson, to carry on the name. June's father, Herbert Winter, had taken the Dreese family name at his wife's insistence, since his own meant nothing, and it hadn't mattered to him either way.

  June had taken particular pleasure in telling her mother that if she married David she'd be taking David's name, and if they had children, she'd name their first son Herbert. Althea Dreese's last breath had been a gasp of horror.

  "Oh, it's no trouble at all, Mr. Addison," the clerk said. "We'll have a word with her. In the meantime, how can we make it up to you?"

  "We're dying to find a restaurant," June jumped in, and the clerk, an older woman with ash-blonde
hair twisted into a horse tail, turned from David to her. Dark, plum-red lipstick made her lips look as if she'd just been gorging on sweet wine in the back room. The lips peeled back in a smile, revealing teeth stained the same color.

  "Something special," June went on, avoiding another look at those teeth. "Off the beaten path, but not too out of the way."

  "We're foodies," David said with a self-conscious little nod.

  The woman's lips peeled back in another smile—redder still, those teeth—and she dropped down into a crouch behind the desk. She came up a moment later holding a business card, which she proffered to June.

  June took it and looked it over. It was plain white—Bone white, she thought—with raised gray lettering. There appeared to be a watermark, a shapeless sort of thing, but in the sunlight streaming in from the cottage windows, June couldn't make out its pattern, however much she tried.

  AMBROSIA

  an Epicurean's Delight!

  45 Clarot Blvd.

  "Do they have a menu?" David asked. June had felt his hot, minty breath over her shoulder as she studied the card. Rather than tickle at her ear and the sensitive spot on the nape of her neck, which would normally send shivers down her spine, for some reason her stomach twisted into a knot.

  "Oh, no," the clerk said, with a penciled-in eyebrow raised, "the menu changes daily. Never the same thing twice. And dinner is served precisely at 7. It's part of their charm." She seemed to notice their dubiousness, and flashed a mollifying smile. "Tourists seem to like it. Why, just last week we had a couple, about your age, who came back simply raving about it."

  David was still on the fence. Though he appreciated new things, his acid reflux wasn't a benefit to being adventurous when it came to foods; thankfully for June, he was adventuresome where it counted. "What does it serve?"

  "Essentially it's a Spanish tapas," the clerk said. "But it's a hodgepodge of different ethnicities and influences." June assumed the woman meant cultures rather than ethnicities, yet said nothing. "I've never been there myself. I much prefer a home-cooked meal, though the hubby sometimes gets a hankering for burgers and fries at the greasy spoon off Route 1." She gave June a look that said, You know how men are. June nodded enthusiastically: Amen, sister. "Shall I call ahead and make a reservation?" The clerk was already picking up the phone.

  David turned to June, raising a quizzical eyebrow. She shrugged in return. If he thought his stomach would be okay with it, she had no objections of her own. "What the heck?" she said. "Let's give it a shot."

  "Wonderful!" the clerk said, a little too enthused. "I'm sure they'll just be overjoyed to have you for dinner."

  II—Food of the Gods

  THE YOUNG MAID rolled her housekeeping trolley out of a small cottage room between the parking lot and the pool as June and David approached the rental car. Hispanic, like the rest of the maids, the pool cleaner, and the man who trimmed the hedges. June noticed, with slight disgust, David lowering his gaze to avoid eye contact as they passed. June herself smiled and waved cheerily.

  The people's champion, Althea Dreese mocked from June's subconscious.

  Shut up, Mother.

  Safely inside the car, David asked, "Did it seem like they were going to fire her to you?" He was ashamed, watching the pleasingly plump young woman in her blue uniform with its frilly bib rolling the cart toward the next row of rooms.

  "I think they'll probably just ask her about it," June said, starting the car. It was a cheap little sedan with a surprising amount of what David's dad would call get-up-and-go. "Am I crazy, or did that woman make it sound like this restaurant was gonna put us on the menu?"

  David squinted at the maid, then turned to June with a blank expression. A moment later, he broke into laughter. "You're definitely crazy," he said, and laughed again with a shake of his head.

  "Are you sure your stomach will be okay?"

  "I'll fire a preemptive strike at it with some Pepto." David crossed the seatbelt over his shoulder and locked himself in.

  "Where are we headed again?"

  "Mission San Adeos," she said. "Or Adios. A-day-os?" They'd been driving a while when David asked her. "If it's boring, we don't have to stay long. I just want to snap a few shots. Then we'll try that restaurant."

  "Works for me." He fell silent for a minute or two. June was considering flicking on the radio when he spoke again. "Weird name. Ambrosia, I mean—not the Mission. Isn't ambrosia what the gods ate on Mount Olympus?"

  "It's what they call bee pollen, too, I think. Or is that royal jelly?"

  "Honey?"

  "Not technically."

  "No, I mean honey you. That's it up there, isn't it?" He pointed off to the right, where a series of buildings with clay-shingled arches and gables lay below rolling hills of farmland. In the distance, sheep grazed. The setting was so pastoral, its beauty so ethereal in the heat haze of the day it could have been a painting by Thomas Cole.

  "Wow," she said, the sort of understatement her mother might have voiced, though she would never have used what she'd no doubt have called such a vulgar word. "It's gorgeous," she added, if only to differentiate herself from her smothering maternal influence. And it was gorgeous, so much so that she had to force herself to pay attention to the road. They drove along in silence for a time, while David snapped a few photos on his cell phone—to what point? June wondered, but let it go—and her mind again returned to the slightly peculiar conversation with the front-desk clerk.

  "'An epicurean's fantasy,'" she said mockingly. "If this isn't the best tapas I've ever eaten, I'm going to be disappointed."

  "Delight," David said, enlarging the image and twisting his phone to view the no-doubt-blurry photos he'd taken.

  "Hmm?"

  "It was 'an Epicurean's Delight.'" He turned to watch the scenery drift by. "What is tapas, anyway?"

  June looked at him and laughed. Sometimes he was so inexperienced it boggled her mind. She had to remember he was from a different walk of life, and a different part of the country, but she found herself struggling to explain: "It's pretty much just a lot of different dishes and appetizers."

  "Like a smorgasbord," he said, pleased with himself.

  She felt her lips turn up in an involuntary grin, and patted his head. Beyond him the ocean passed by, endless gray, through the passenger window. He smiled back, silhouetted against the overcast sky, and his tantrum earlier today slipped from her memory, like family money through her fingers.

  "COME LOOK AT this," David said.

  June was admiring an altar heaped over with religious relics, preserved behind finger-smudged glass: fans of gold representing rays of sunshine, ornate gold crosses, rosaries of black and white pearls, beseeching Madonnas, bleeding Christs, and an elaborate gold chest filled with silver-gray curls of hair belonging to some Saint or another. Inscribed below the mantel were the words Jakobi Uzh Ep a'Hethqa Est. June knew a bit of French and Spanish, and remembered almost nothing of high-school Latin, but it didn't look like any of those languages—maybe Arabic? She snapped a few photographs. She'd taken some nice ones outside: domes carved in crumbling stone, sand skittering on a hot gust of wind through a ruined archway, gaudy statuary and crucifixes and cacti...

  Following the sound of David's voice, she left the low-ceilinged antechamber, with its desiccated rafters and macabre relics (the bundle of hair particularly unnerved her, for some reason she couldn't quite grasp), and stepped into a large room. Maps had been painted on the walls, with slogans painted in red; beneath them, glass cases held ancient tools, weapons, whips and chains, alongside artifacts of the Natives who'd owned this land before the white settlers had stolen it from them. Beyond the next doorway lay the church's inner sanctum. Warm light radiated outward from within.

  David stood before one of the large maps, a simple drawing, its only colors green, beige and red. At its center was a pretty accurate sketch of the Mission, small and unimposing. Wide-open country, green and empty, surrounded it on all sides. Painted over this wer
e the words THE INDIANS, as red as blood. It was obvious the missionaries had felt alone in this neck of the woods, but for savages and certain death.

  Also painted in red, directly across from the map, was the catchy slogan: DECLINE SECULARIZATION RUINATION. This room summed up exactly how she felt about the church's early efforts in her native land, with its dusty antiques and even dustier xenophobia, while beyond the doors to either side lay the shining artifacts of religious opulence. They had arrived under the pretense of spreading God's word, and had conquered instead, buoyed by dreams of Manifest Destiny and a new Eden. The outcome of their immoral victory was put on exhibit without shame.

  "Pretty messed up, huh?" David said.

  "Just a little bit," she agreed. She snapped a few pictures—again, not quite capturing the feel of it, the menace—then headed into the chapel.

  The clouds had parted when they'd stepped out of the car in the Mission's lot, casting down long fingers of sunshine, as if God Himself were reaching out to bless its perfectly lovely sandstone arches, clay rooftops and bell towers. None of that sunlight penetrated the chapel. Chandeliers, and the altar itself, lighted it, their glow bounding off the vaulted ceiling, the gold gilding, and glass-framed paintings of beatified saints. The surprisingly vast room smelled of burning candles, incense and mustiness.

  David casually splashed a bit of holy water from the font on his forehead and headed off toward the altar. June grinned at this, then weaved her way up and down the aisles, absently taking photos.