Paraíso

  She couldn’t stop a yawn. “What’s wrong now?”

  “Goddamn valves. The shop in La Paz fucked up. I got to have them reground.”

  “I didn’t know the valves were involved. I thought it was just the crankshaft.”

  “Anytime you take the head off, the valves should be reground. Your Hell’s Angel buddy could tell you that.”

  “How long will it take to regrind them?”

  “About a week. Why, is there someplace you have to be?”

  “You know there is, Marco. I should have been back weeks ago.”

  “What? Don’t you like it here?” He spat on the floor and licked his lips. “I bet you miss me. That’s probably it. You’re horny as hell.” Eyes on her breasts.

  “Far from it.”

  “I think Isabel is feeding you too many tortillas de harina. Every time I see you, you look bigger.” He cupped his chest with both hands and grinned.

  “Marco, it’s been a long day. I don’t want to be rude, but I really have to get some—”

  He reached out, grabbed the neck of her tee shirt, and yanked back as hard as he could. There was a ripping sound and the piece of cloth came away in his hand. The red bra she was wearing was actually Isabel’s, a no-nonsense number from one of Mexico City’s top corsetiers. She’d borrowed it because hers barely fit anymore. Lucky, she thought. Very lucky. Something forced its way into her throat. Was she about to burst into laughter?

  Marco’s voice stopped her. Soft, husky, and urgent. “Ay Mamacita.” His green eyes glittered behind half-mast lids. She had heard another story recently. He’d killed a man after a bar fight by dragging his unconscious body under the wheels of a parked truck. Leaving him to be crushed but not actually doing the deed himself. “Las dos leches. No podría probarlos? For old times sake? I’ll be gentle, don’t worry. I mean, after all …”

  She had picked up the wine bottle from the floor where he’d left it and was preparing to defend herself as well as possible when Isabel showed up with a clack of heels.

  For minutes or hours, nobody said a word. Then Marco sniffled and laughed. The sound gave Wendy goose bumps.

  “Three’s a crowd,” he said softly and huskily. If he’d been a panther, his tail would be twitching and his ears would be flat. If called by a panther, don’t anther. “Or maybe three’s company.”

  The two women stood frozen as he took the wine bottle from Wendy’s hand, had another long pull, and set it on the floor. “Oye, chicas!” Pulling a film canister and a Bic pen top from his pocket, removing the canister’s lid. “Cien por ciento. Directo de Colombia.” Offering it to Isabel. “Mi amor, un regalito del fondo de mi corazon.”

  Isabel kept her face averted. Never look them in the eyes. She dropped her gaze to the floor and bent her neck slightly in submission. She was a different woman. Watching her, Wendy was terrified.

  Marco dug the concave spike of the pen top into the canister, held the little white pile to his own nostril, and sniffed sharply. Once more on the other side. He growled softly and ran the black plastic spike down Isabel’s averted cheek, under her chin and across her throat. “Bueno, mi amor. Hasta pronto.”

  He returned the equipment to his pocket and turned to Wendy. “And you, mamacita. Do you still dance?”

  She couldn’t help looking at him. Just for an instant. His panther eyes. His wet mouth. Then he bowed. “Entonces, may I have this one? It’s a waltz. I think you know it.”

  He put his right hand on her waist and took her own right hand in his left. Purring, raspily, a snatch of tune. Stepping forward with his left foot—front, side, together—and she found herself following him through the opening stanza of “Volver,” around and around the room.

  Finally, he let her go with a twirl and stood there facing them. Breathing a little hard. Watching them with merciless eyes. Wendy saw that Isabel’s lips were quivering.

  She stepped forward, curtsied, and held out her hand for Marco to kiss.

  “The way he was looking at us,” Isabel said after they heard the front door close, “I was sure we were gone. What did he say when he left?”

  “I could see you were sure. That’s what scared me more than anything. I couldn’t hear what he said.” Wendy chose a black tee shirt from the closet and quickly pulled it on. She had heard.

  “You did exactly the right thing, querida. But how did you—?”

  “Pure instinct. I was so scared I just stopped thinking.” She ran a hand absently over her belly. “God, what a day. Too bad he didn’t leave some blow.”

  Isabel snorted. “And there you are in my bra the whole time.”

  “Actually, it made me feel like Wonder Woman. It’s a power item.”

  “Gringos. You’re amazing. But dios mío, suppose I hadn’t come back early.”

  Yes. Suppose.

  “Listen, you think he, ahm—?” Isabel waved her hand across her own belly.

  “He never brought it up. Why? You can’t see anything, can you? Just that my boobs are a little bigger. Not even that much.”

  “My bra fits you pretty good, querida. And I’m a full D.”

  “He thinks you’re fattening me up. Feeding me wheat tortillas and pork.”

  “Que palomilla!” Isabel squeezed her upper arm, then stroked it worriedly. “Listen, I know him better than you. I tell you we’re very very lucky. Plus he can get away with anything. You know his mother married a big judge?”

  They sat on the porch, sipping beers and letting off pressure. Being lucky felt good, and maybe it was more than luck. Whatever it was, you felt alive and tingly. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight, though,” Isabel said. “I bet you don’t either.”

  It seemed very natural to climb into Isabel’s double bed together, lying like two spoons, both in tee shirts and underpants, Wendy in front. Isabel’s sheets carried her musky smell, and her warmth was cozy as a blanket.

  “Were you really scared?” Isabel asked after she turned out the bedside lamp. “You didn’t look it. I was impressed, very. You looked strong. Well, claro, you are strong. What were you going to do with that bottle?”

  “I had no idea. It was just the only thing around.”

  “You could have broken the bottom off and then jammed him in his face.”

  “Wow! That’s pretty intense.” Wendy tried to imagine the act and couldn’t.

  “Intense, you call it? You gringos don’t know, you have no idea. Blood!” She touched Wendy’s neck lightly with the tips of her fingers. “You don’t feel it.”

  “Ah, but I do. That’s where you’re wrong. My heart’s still beating a mile a minute.” Wendy put her own fingertips over Isabel’s and gently moved them over the big artery. “Feel it now?”

  “Ah,” Isabel breathed. “Aquí está.”

  A pickup rattled up the dirt road. “Do you think it’s a bad little creature inside me? Like its father?”

  “No, querida. I think they all start the same.”

  “Have you ever been … you know, embarazada?”

  “No, never.”

  “Do you think you ever will?”

  Isabel didn’t answer. “I tell you one thing,” she said finally. “You look better now than I ever see you.”

  “Ha! You told me that before.”

  “Sí, claro. But now more than before.” She laughed softly. “Estás muy verde, chica.”

  “Green? You think I’m turning green?” Wendy rolled onto her back and looked over. “What can you be talking about?”

  Isabel smoothed the hair from her face and laughed again. “Dios mío. It’s just a way of talking. Shall we try to go to sleep?”

  “Let me tell you one thing first.” Wendy propped herself up on an elbow. “I feel very close to you right now.”

  “And I to you.”

  “What do you think I should do? Truly.”

  “I can’t tell you that, querida. But whatever you decide, I will be there to help you.”

  Wendy bent down and kissed her forehead. “
What would I do without you? I’d be fucked.”

  She could see Isabel’s face in the headlights through the window as another pickup clattered down in the opposite direction. Her eyes were closed.

  She woke sometime later to the hissing of the night wind in the taco palms behind the house. They were lying like spoons again, Isabel’s arm loosely over her, breathing heavy and regular. Very cozy, like when she’d slept with her brother in the Husky near the big river. And she’d gotten her period. She stretched and shifted slightly, and Isabel’s hand drifted onto her tender breast.

  Drawing a sharp breath and shifting again. Jesus! But the hand (she’s asleep for God’s sake) stayed where it was, and as time passed there was no way to stop her nipple from hardening uncomfortably.

  Isabel’s window showed one impossibly bright star. Or maybe a planet, since it didn’t twinkle. Glowing with a quiet intensity. Star light, star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

  Her nipple was aching, and the ache was spreading through her entire body. Should she roll away? Or remove the hand? But all she could do was lie there paralyzed like the girl who trod on a loaf in Anderson’s Fairy Tales. Unable to move while wingless flies crawled over her with an unbearable tickling.

  She wanted the hand to move. Anything to relieve the slowly spreading ache. The nipple felt huge and dark. She heard herself sigh, but Isabel’s breathing continued just the same.

  As if by her own will, she felt the hand move slightly, and sighed again. It felt like her own hand.

  A little freaky at first, but slowly she got the hang of it. The real trick was not to be too eager. The hand was tantalizingly slow, but in the end it did mostly what she wanted it to. It knew what was right, actually better than she did.

  The star out the window glowed more brightly. She was floating, then flying. Up off the bed, out the window, through the dark air past the hissing palms. The lights of the village below fading away as the star grew closer. Second star on the right, then straight on till morning.

  Claire in Montana

  The Bozeman airport looked like a ranch lodge, with soaring raftered Douglas fir ceilings, and granite abutments. A tall female figure was waving as I limped out of the boarding tunnel, and I waved back hopefully, even joyfully.

  When I kissed Claire’s cheek, I could smell expensive perfume. Jeans, green and black tooled cowboy boots, and a white dress shirt. Thick oak-blond hair pulled back and tied with a black velvet ribbon à la équestrienne. “You look like a debutante that’s gone native,” I told her.

  “Well, that’s what I am.” Her grin was less confident than I remembered, but her nostril wings flared bravely. “God, it’s good to see you, big bro. How long has it been, anyway?”

  I’d forgotten how downy her cheeks were; I hadn’t seen her since she’d come to New York maybe five years earlier with her then-husband on a climbing equipment junket paid for by Patagonia. “A coon’s age. At least. But you look exactly the same. The life out here must agree with you.”

  “I’ve only been here for a few months. I let Tom have the place in Jackson. Don’t care if I never see it again. How long does a coon live?” Narrowing her light gray eyes. Skier’s eyes, someone had called them.

  “That would depend on the coon.” I tossed my head and tried a grin myself. “So it was bad, hunh?”

  She pushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead: blunt strong fingers, trimmed clear nails, wedding ring the only jewelry. “Well, it was a Svengali deal right from the start. He wanted to turn me into the world’s top female climber. He wasn’t my husband, he was my fucking trainer. Plus he was never that smart, you know?”

  “He was a hell of a climber. Remember that time the three of us went up the Grand? A couple of years after the, uh …”

  “After those rat-fuck sessions? And I had you dangling over a two-thousand-foot drop? Yeah, I remember. I remember thinking what if I let you go.”

  “After you had me sleep alone in that cave with the rats? The worst night of my life. I was praying to be let go.”

  Claire laughed and patted my shoulder. “Poor you.”

  “The night before that you made me sleep in my car. You said, don’t leave the door open; the bears might get you. You gave me this little sleeping bag that only reached my waist. You called it an elephant’s foot.”

  “Payback time,” Claire said, nostril wings fluttering.

  “Payback for what?”

  “Let’s not go there. You know Wendy called me three times after the attack, trying to find out how you were?”

  “Yeah, you told me on the phone. Don’t you remember? You said only a couple of times, though.”

  Claire’s old Toyota Land Cruiser smelled of hay, and in fact there was a bale of it in the back. For the horse, she explained as we chugged over the high pass between Bozeman and Livingston. Mountains loomed all around us, separated by vast perspectives.

  “Do you keep a horse these days?”

  “Not yet. But I’m looking. Meanwhile, I like the smell of hay. Sometimes I’ll take a little nibble.”

  I was charmed. How long had it been since I’d smelled hay? I reached back, pulled a few stalks from the bale, and held them to my nose. “All I’ve been smelling for the last few days is yellow smoke. The city says it’s okay, but everyone knows it’s fucking up their lungs big time.”

  “Poor Kate. Poor everyone. What do you think happened to her?”

  “I think she was standing there and some woman hit the ground right in front of her. They call them jumpers. Nobody seems to know how many there were.”

  “My God.” Claire turned to face me. “Everything’s different now, isn’t it? You feel so stupid out here under the good old spacious skies.”

  “The amber waves of grain. Whoa!”

  She swerved back onto the highway. “The fucking purple mountain majesty.”

  “The goddamn fruited plain.”

  Oh God, it felt good to laugh. We built it up together, reinforcing each other, tears running, faces bursting. Whenever one would slow down, the other would start up again. A heart attack was right around the corner, and it wouldn’t be a bad way to go. We covered miles and miles that way.

  Claire finally wiped away her tears and sniffled. “I ought to feel more patriotic now, but I don’t. I just feel sad and kind of old hat. I guess it’s the end of the twentieth century. Like World War I ended the nineteenth. We’re all just supernumerary now, one foot in the grave.”

  “Kate says that the twenty-first is going to be all about religion. I think I agree with her. You can see it happening everywhere you look.”

  She slapped my knee. “You and I better get some, old hoss. Before it’s too late. Actually I did go to church on the eleventh. Right after your sister called for the third time. Isn’t that pathetic?”

  “What did you pray for?”

  “Oh, nothing. That never works. I guess I just wanted to be near people. I was thinking of you, flat on your back in your loft. Which I’ve never seen. When do you have to go back?”

  “Well.” I sniffed the stalk of hay and put it in my mouth. “That’s one of the things I need to talk to you about.”

  “It’s not much.” She stopped the Land Cruiser in front of a little clapboard Cape Cod on a quiet side street lined with cottonwoods just beginning to yellow. “But maybe it’s home.”

  “It looks homey,” was all I could think of to say.

  “Just renting by the month for now.” She hoisted my bag and helped me out of the Land Cruiser. My back had frozen in a sit-down position. “How long is this going to last, anyway?”

  “What? The back?”

  She raised her dark eyebrows and nodded.

  “Actually, if I move around, it’s a lot better. Sitting is the worst.”

  “Good. I’ve got some country I want to show you.”

  There was one bedroom, a living room–kitchen with light oak flooring, and a tiny bathroom. I’d b
e sleeping on the pull-out sofa.

  “You know what I’d like more than anything right now?”

  “If it’s within my power, you shall have it.” With an ever-so-slight blush?

  “A nap. I’m wiped out.”

  “Ah. I was just going to say. I’ve got some errands to run, and I’ll pick up some lunch stuff. What do you like?”

  I grinned. “Tofu and bean sprouts would be just great.”

  Lying on the pull-out sofa, looking out the window at cottonwood leaves trembling in a light breeze. A slant of light projecting itself in a thick band on the floor. A housefly buzzing in the bedroom, sounding like a voice. Mind a white blank with shapes moving somewhere behind the whiteness.

  The tofu and bean sprout sandwich was on a plate on the floor beside the pull-out sofa, along with a note: “Didn’t want to wake you. Cold wine in the fridge. Back around 5. XXOO P.S. Since when did you go vegan?”

  My watch read four. Christ! I’d slept forever. I swung my legs to the floor and prepared to lever myself to standing but lay back down instead. The leaves on the cottonwoods had turned dark gold, and a car swished slowly by in the street. I picked up the sandwich and took a bite. It tasted better than I expected.

  As I lay there chewing, I began to realize that I felt very comfortable. My back seemed better, and I was refreshed and alert after the nap, but that was just part of it. I was in the right place at the right time—a feeling I’d only had a few times before, and it had never lasted very long. Oddly enough, one of the times had been in the Briarcliffe parlor, sitting in the blue velvet armchair, watching my sister walk through the door.

  I took out the knowledge that she’d called and turned it over and over in my mind, like a crow will fondle a shiny bead.

  The cadaverous wine steward looked like Hank Williams. After he’d filled our glasses, Claire raised hers. “Well. Better days, as my father used to say.”

  “Better days. To absent friends and family. To anyone who’s absent.”

  “To you know who. Who cares about you more than you know.”

  “Hey.” I clinked my glass on hers. “Maybe I care about her more than she knows.”