Paraíso

  “Maybe you do. That’d be nice. Is that one of the things you need to talk to me about?” She tilted her head back to drink, and I watched her Adam’s apple bob.

  “Yes.”

  “Well. Go on. Talk.”

  “I want to go see her. Will you tell me where she is?”

  A little measuring smile. “You’ve changed. You know that?”

  “Everybody changes.”

  “No, they don’t. You said I hadn’t changed at all. I don’t think I have changed all that much. But you have, my sweet.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? That’s a change. You’ve decided you want another shot at seeing her in spite of … everything. How come?”

  So I told her more about Kate, how she reminded me of my sister, what had happened in the car in the fog, and how close it seemed to our earlier flight. And I told her about listening to the phones ringing up and down Crosby Street after the buildings fell, ringing and ringing with no one answering. I told her how I’d felt on hearing my sister had called from Mexico to find out if I was okay. After ten years of silence. “Jesus. Look what it took. Haw—not really, but there was a little whisper.”

  “You guys were headed there when you ran away that time, right?”

  “Yes, we were. And I fucked it up. I fucked up a lot of things.”

  “Well, at least you admit it…. That’s another change. And now she’s finally made it. How does that make you feel?”

  I wanted to get this right. “I feel left behind. I should be there too.”

  “Aha. But didn’t you ever try to get there yourself?”

  “Closest I could come was Costa Rica in the Peace Corps. They didn’t have a program in Mexico, but I didn’t know that when I applied.”

  “I knew you went down there, but I never knew what you did.”

  “I was helping to set up a national park on the Osa Peninsula. I spent two years in the jungle.”

  “The jungle!” The nostrils. Now she was humoring me. “And how did you like that?”

  I clapped my hands. “There were more jaguars than humans. I loved every minute of it.”

  “Yet afterward you came back to the Big Apple and got a job with the Paris Review. You’ve been in the city ever since, am I right?”

  “Look. I try to get outdoors as much as I can. Half of me still thinks I should have stayed in the jungle.”

  “Even after your successes in publishing?” She looked absently around the room, finished off her wine. “Mexico’s been uh … not exactly what your sister expected. Don’t ask me the details. I really don’t know them, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  “Just tell me if she’s in trouble, okay?”

  Claire poured her wineglass full again and took a large swallow. “I think she is kind of in trouble. But don’t you dare breathe a word.”

  “You can trust me, mi amor.”

  “I hope so. Now, I’d like you to tell me something.”

  “If it’s within my power, you shall hear it.”

  “Why is Wendy so sure it was you who ratted to her mother while she was in Briarcliffe?”

  “Huh. You never asked me that one before. I guess she figured I was the only one who knew, other than herself and Reiger. Reiger thought it was me, too. He said so when I called him from the hospital just before our mother died. Sure, it was a logical assumption, but …”

  “But what?”

  “Well, shit. There must have been someone else. Didn’t that ever cross anyone’s mind?”

  Claire leaned toward me a bit portentously—the bearer of important news—her dark blue wraparound dress showing a tasteful bit of cleavage and the edges of a black bra. “Did you know your mother told her it was you?”

  “What?”

  “That’s what Wendy said. When your mother came to Briarcliffe just before her car wreck. She told her, ‘Never trust your brother.’”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Claire lifted her chin slightly to confirm what she’d said. Her expression was neutral but not closed off. Eventually she lifted a hand to her hair, absently smoothed it back, and I could see the glint of her wedding ring. Why was she still wearing it?

  “Jesus,” I was saying. “Why would my mother lie about a thing like that? It just doesn’t …”

  She was shaking her head slowly. “Doesn’t sound like her? I think you can only tolerate your version, but maybe you’re learning. Okay. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ask your sister if she’d like to see you. And I’ll tell her I think she should. Three times lucky, right?”

  “Thank you.” I reached over and touched her hand, lying palm down on the table.

  But then Claire was looking over my shoulder and smiling. She took her hand back. Turning, I could see the owner of the restaurant approaching with another man in tow. “Want to make an introduction,” the owner said to Claire. “This here’s Tim Collins. Best writer in the great state of Montana.”

  The writer looked disconcertingly young and vigorous for a man pushing sixty. Maybe he mixed human blood into his George Dickel. Sculpted nose riding above a long, humorous upper lip. Swirl of thick, Appaloosa-gray hair, noble chin, and large, crazy blue eyes.

  He pulled out a chair and sat on it backward. “You look like a horsewoman. Am I right?”

  Sweeping her hair back. “What gave me away?”

  He cocked his head and opened his mouth.

  “Don’t answer that. Please?” She gestured my way. “Like you to meet Peter, from New York City.”

  “Uh-oh,” the writer said and looked at me for the first time. “Poor old New Yawk. Wow! So Dubya’s really going to get his war?”

  “Possibly.” But the possibility hadn’t actually occurred to me until now.

  “What a fuckin’ nightmare. But if I know the Big Apple the tiniest bit, there’s at least one thing there that’s doin’ okay.”

  I took a swallow of wine. “I’ll bite.”

  “Chinese takeout.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Feeling my face redden.

  “We’ll all be part Chinese in a hundred years,” the writer went on. “So don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Will there be Chinese cowboys?” Claire asked. The writer was dressed in jeans and a striped snap-button Western shirt.

  “There are Chinese cowboys as we speak,” he said. “Mostly from Sacramento. They’re good too. Good hands. So tell me: what are you ridin’?”

  “Nothing at the moment. But yeah, I used to ride a little. Back East.”

  “English saddle, huh? Betcha have a good seat.”

  “One of the best.”

  “Just bought a new cuttin’ horse. A mare, from Oklahoma. You should come out sometime and meet her.”

  “I’d love to. Could I ride her?”

  “Well, she’s crazy as a bedbug. All she thinks about is cow.”

  “I’ve always been good with mares.”

  “This one’s more like a freakin’ mountain lion. She’ll get down and hunt.”

  “I’d love to pick up on some of that. You a header or a heeler?”

  “Aw shucks.” The writer grinned. “Can’t really call myself a heeler, but that’s where I try to put it.”

  “You rodeo?”

  “Just little chickenshit deals. Got one coming up next week in Gardiner, if you’re interested.”

  “Great! Maybe I’ll come flesh out the peanut gallery.”

  “Flesh out th—? Sheeit, don’t waste it there. Come back in the pens and give us a hand! We need all the help we can get.”

  “Be right back.” I pushed back my chair and headed for the men’s room.

  Alone in front of the urinal, I tried to figure out why I was so pissed off. Chinese takeout! The writer had just been trying to keep it light. He was light. He had just been doing his thing. Claire had been playing up to it, for sure, but why shouldn’t she? As far as I knew the writer was between wives or gir
ls, and she was unattached and loved his work. And she loved horses.

  Made in heaven.

  But I felt I’d been watching bad soap opera, and Claire was better than that. Now she was free of one asshole, I didn’t want to see her glommed by another.

  It wasn’t my business. But still, I didn’t feel like going back to the table. The men’s room was located close to the main entrance, and before I knew it I was out on the sidewalk, pushing my way through a chilly wind. Maybe I had changed. A while back, I probably would have returned to the table and gotten into a fight…. They always seemed to happen in restaurants.

  My idea was to walk back to her place, but after a few wrong turns I realized that would be impossible. Wasn’t this town famous for its bars? The Liberty Bar actually had swinging doors, and when I pushed through them several heads turned to check me out.

  “Where you from, stranger?” a Jeff Bridges knockoff asked in an echoing voice after I’d sat on a stool. Was it vaudeville?

  When I answered truthfully, it was as if someone had dropped a glass. New York! The big room went silent, dim faces peered. Then the Jeff Bridges guy put his arm around me. “You need a drink, friend.” He waved to the bartender. “What’ll it be?”

  After the first couple, I lost count. Nor would anyone accept my money. A small army of Jeff Bridges gathered warmly around me, and their faces were the last things I remembered seeing until Claire opened the door of the Land Cruiser to wake me from the hay in back.

  Water drummed against a shower curtain and a tendril of steam issued from beneath the bathroom door. When the door finally opened, Claire, in a white bathrobe, combusted outward through a blinding cloud. I closed my eyes, and shortly felt the pull-out couch sag with her weight.

  “Peter? You awake?” Waggling my foot. “Peter?”

  “Yo. Whoa.”

  “Wake up, slugabed. We’re due out at Tim’s ranch in an hour.”

  “What? You’re kidding.” She was sitting cross-legged, drying her hair with a pink towel. “What time is it?”

  “It’s nine ayem mountain time. And luckily for you I am kidding.”

  “Christ. Thank God. Don’t scare me like that, it’s bad for my back.”

  “He did invite us, though. Thought we’d like to meet Peggy.”

  “The crazy mare? No thanks.”

  “Well, I told him you probably wouldn’t because of your back.”

  “My back is quite a bit better, thanks. But you’re right, I could have a relapse.”

  She giggled. “I thought your job was to woo writers.”

  “Haw. He was too busy wooing you.”

  “Well, I’m still wearing a wedding ring, if you haven’t noticed. Keeps the flies away. And why would you care anyway?”

  “I just didn’t like the way you were playing up to it. You’re better than that.”

  Claire’s eyes frosted over, and she uncoiled from the sofa. “You know, I sent your sister an email before you woke up. I’d take it back if I could. You haven’t changed at all.”

  She disappeared into her bedroom. I myself couldn’t believe I’d said it; I’d sounded like my father. “What the hell did you think you were doing last night?” she called through the doorway. “When are you going to grow up?”

  The door slammed. I pulled on some khakis and stood near it. “Claire, Jesus. I just care, that’s all. You know what? You and my sister are the only people in the world I can really laugh with.”

  No answer.

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “What?” In a muffled voice, probably pulling something over her head.

  “How many people in the world can you really laugh with?”

  “Not that many.”

  “Don’t you think that’s important?”

  The door opened, and she stepped out wearing a dark blue turtleneck sweater and beige corduroy Levis. “Yeah, it’s important. I forgot to get milk yesterday. I’ll just run down to the corner.”

  A few minutes after she’d left, the phone rang. Probably the writer. I could let the machine get it, or I could pick up and let the writer know I was on the premises.

  But it was a woman’s voice, one I knew very well. “Is … Claire there?”

  “Wendy?”

  Silence.

  “Hello? Wendy?”

  The line clicked and went dead. I was still holding the phone when Claire got back.

  She hadn’t told my sister I was on the scene, she explained ruefully. “I thought it would just complicate things.”

  “Jesus Christ. What do we do now?”

  “Wait for her to call back.”

  “She’s not going to. I know it.”

  “We’ll give it an hour. Then I’ve got to go put in some time at the gallery.”

  “So you can’t call her?”

  “Nope. There’s only one public phone where she is.”

  “But you can send email?”

  “She’s gotta go to a restaurant to get it.”

  “Well, can you send her another?”

  “Peter, I think I’ve said all I can via email. Or all I want to. If she doesn’t call back, she doesn’t call back. It was too bad you picked up the phone, but maybe it was meant to happen that way.”

  She fixed a breakfast of fresh-squeezed orange juice, Hawaiian papaya, scrambled eggs and serrano peppers, sourdough toast, and espresso. We watched the big clock over the sink work its way through the minutes.

  When the hour had ticked by, I said: “Claire. I have to go anyway. Please.”

  She just watched me.

  I struggled on. “Look. Last night I had kind of an epiphany. Our mother wanted to drive a wedge between us. She was jealous. That must have been why she told Wendy I’d ratted. She’s kept us apart for so long, Claire. Don’t let it be for the rest of our lives.”

  Claire’s clear gray eyes seemed to be looking into my soul. She might have seen my theory was only the best I could come up with, and I prayed she’d give me the benefit of the doubt.

  PART THREE

  Big Day

  She’d only said one sentence into the phone before hanging up, but when she came out of the little booth everybody in the telephone office seemed to be watching her with unusual interest. She was wearing one of Isabel’s loose white peasant shifts, hair pulled tightly back in a rubber band, feeling tired, bloated, and frumpy, not interesting at all. Blushing as she smiled and nodded her way out, thinking, They must all know … No, impossible, don’t be paranoid. Her jeans still fit, she’d tried them on that morning, but the shift was more comfortable in the unusual muggy heat and she liked its Isabel smell.

  She’d known her brother’s voice as soon as he’d answered, and she should have hung up then. Why hadn’t she? His voice hadn’t changed at all, and apparently hers hadn’t either. But what was he doing at Claire’s? Claire hadn’t mentioned him in her email.

  The World Trade Center attack had happened five days ago. Maybe he’d gone out there because of that. But then why had Claire sent her the email asking her to call?

  Suppose it was sex! Wouldn’t that be just like him, to steal her best friend and confidante? Sex and war, perfect fit. Never trust your brother.

  That was it! They were fucking each other, and Claire had been going to tell her, but her brother had screwed it up by answering the phone.

  On the other hand, maybe she’d told him about the email and he had been waiting for her call. Maybe Claire had been setting her up.

  The midmorning heat was suffocating. She walked slowly to the little plaza in front of the church and sat on a bench under a laurel tree out of the buzzing sun. Cumulus clouds towered explosively over the valley, and her brain felt charged with static. Exquisite irony! Just when she’d started to forgive her brother and actually feel tender toward him, he gloms her best friend and her best friend betrays her. Claire most probably had told Peter she’d called three times to find out how he was. What else had she told him?

  Claire knew about the Merc
edes breakdown, the thing with Marco Blanco, but not about the pregnancy. Right? Or had she confided too much? Today was a Sunday and the Internet café was closed, so she couldn’t check what she’d said in her earlier emails. But she remembered hinting at something after her visit to the bruja, something about a decision she was going to have to make very soon. If only she could remember her exact words.

  Pancho Clamato’s black-and-yellow Toyota station wagon, with his old Velzy longboard up on the roof rack, eased around the corner from Juanita’s market and slid to a stop across the plaza from her bench. Clamato leaned out and waved her over. He’d moved out of the Barrio San Ignacio to his own house near the baseball stadium, and she hadn’t seen him since well before the attack. His wizened face was as excited as a kid’s. “What the hell are you doing sitting around in the park? Don’t you know this is the biggest day since January 15, 1982?”

  Big day! The towering clouds, the distant cannonade of surf, her brother’s voice on the phone. They seemed to fit together: maybe it was all part of the sign she’d been waiting for. “Thanks, Pancho.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You going out? Can I get a ride?”

  Clamato had already gone out once, at dawn, and had come back to get a towrope: the huge waves had forced so much water into the estero that the raised two-track past the break was covered and hard to see. A Mexican kid had borrowed Bo Hansen’s jeep to bring beer and food from town and had gone off the track into the water. The jeep was stuck, and the water was rising, but when the panicked kid came running back for help the surfers told him it would have to wait—the surf was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. The kid’s eyes goggled; he couldn’t believe it. Clamato finally went for the rope as a favor to Bo Hansen’s father, an old friend from Windansea.

  “Fifteen-foot sets, measuring Hawaiian style.” Clamato slowly looked her up and down. “That means twenty-five on the faces. You’re going to get some shots today, baby. Cover material for sure.”

  She walked around the car and got in beside him.

  “I hear Marco’s been giving you a hard time. He’s out there today. Had the privilege of getting cut off by him myself, in fact. But he’s good in the big stuff, I’ll say that for him. Long as you keep out of his way. Curren wants to kill him.”