by Ella James
It's a weird place. Most of the time I'm here, taking care of children in this poverty-stricken Mexican neighborhood, nothing else exists. That includes memories.
I finish my rice and chicken, topped with the ant eggs that were a gift from Señora Maria, the mother of a little boy with cystic fibrosis. Victor's family has more money than most we see, which is probably the only reason he's alive today, at three. He had a rough winter, with a long hospitalization during which I couldn't give him any of his favorite ‘pequeño Victor’ back rubs.
Those are the worst times, I think as I walk my empty bowl over to a row of garbage cans with tubs for dirty dishes on the top. The times when the kids I love the most stop coming here for one reason or another, and I can't go visit them. Some of the nuns do house calls, but I can't. I can't ever leave St. Catherine's Clinic.
A lot of times, it’s not so bad. The building is short but wide, with several different areas so when I pass from, say, the clinic quadrant into the living quarters, I feel like I’m going somewhere. But I’m not. When I think of how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my skin, since I cranked up the music as I sped down an empty highway… Since I browsed the internet or read a book I chose for myself or got my hair done at a salon… I kind of want to scream. Okay, I do scream. Sometimes at night, I scream into my pillow. Then I remind myself I’m lucky. My story could have had a harsher ending. Actually, it probably should have. This life I have here, with the sisters, with the kids…it’s a fairy tale, compared to what could have been.
I place my metal spork atop the nearest trash can, in a little plastic bin of silverware to-be-done, and put my bowl in a bin for plates and bowls. I glance up at the clock on the wall over the self-serve bar, where cheap grub rests in brassy bowls that are either kept cold on ice or hot on electric plates. It's almost four o'clock, which means I have one more client before the day winds down and I prepare for evening prayers. I glance at one of the big, vertical windows that span one side of the room, wondering how hot it is outside right now. Wishing I could smell the sun-steamed grass.
I don't peer out the windows or even step close to them. Instead I head into the dingy, one-stall bathroom with its meager supply of toilet paper and take the three squares allotted for each use. When I first took refuge at the clinic—which is located in the same building as St. Catherine’s Convent, just inside the city limits of Guadalupe Victoria—I was appalled by the scarcity of supplies, but after more than half a year, I've learned how to make it work. As I do my business, I wonder how many squares I'd allow myself to use for a 'number one' if I were to make it back into the States. Maybe four, I decide. Anything more than that would probably feel wasteful. I wash my hands, and as I dry them on a rough rag, I tell myself to be thankful for what I have. Even if I never make it back to the U.S., I have a good life here.
You can’t be grateful and bitter at the same time. So says Sister Mary Carolina. So what am I grateful for? I stare at myself in the mirror, ticking things off inside my head. I’ve been blessed to learn massage therapy from Sister Mary. I’ve been able to make a difference in the lives of children. And, almost more importantly, I’m accepted here. Cherished, even. Which is so much more than I expected when I arrived.
I'm smiling as I step back into the empty cafeteria, already looking forward to my session with little Alexandria Perez, a one-year-old with a severe case of congenital torticollis. I'm passing by the garbage cans, glancing toward he windows, when I see a mirage from my past: Juan and Emanuel, eleven and twelve year olds the last time I saw them. What the heck are they doing here in Guadalupe Victoria.
I don't get to ask.
Light engulfs the room, and a sonic boom throws me back toward the wall.
CHAPTER THREE
Without Suri’s Land Rover, I'll have to ride one of my motorcycles. No big deal, I tell myself as I unlock the heavy metal door between the showroom and the garage. I've been putting it off, yeah, but once I'm straddling one of my favorite hybrid bikes, it'll feel like old times. Has to. I've been riding since I was fifteen. Haven't owned a car in four years, since I dropped out of Cal at nineteen and sold my Beamer to buy a 1963 BSA Rocket Gold Star Spitfire Scrambler.
I step from the glossy urban expanse of the showroom into the dingier garage, inhaling the familiar scent of gasoline and metal, then turn around to lock the door between the garage and the showroom. I set the alarm for the whole place, giving myself a generous eight minutes to be out the garage doors on the back of the building, and I jiggle my key ring until I find the electronic key to the security system I keep for my favorite Cross Hybrid, the first prototype of my custom Anomaly job, with an engine that runs on part gasoline, part water.
She's a beauty. Started out as a 1974 Kawasaki H2 B 750 Mach IV MK4, but I’ve changed her a lot. Gave her steel frame a sea blue and black paint job, emblazing my “CH” symbol on the tank. Added a slightly roomier, gel-filled seat, so both Lizzy and I could fit on it in a bind. Put on some Sunrim 6000 series aluminum rims with Dunlop Arrowmax tires. And of course, I re-worked her insides so she’s hybrid.
I bought her two years ago off a seventy-something-year-old collector in Laguna Beach. My plan was to sell her at one of the shows I do each quarter—in either New York or L.A.—but once I rode my renovated, gas-and-water powered Mach, I knew I couldn't part with her.
These old Kawasaki Triples make for a comfy ride. Lots of leg room. Easy turns. It'll be like getting on a nine-year-old roan after being thrown from a stallion, I tell myself as I wrap my hands around the handles. I try to wrap my hands around the handles, but I'm going on muscle memory, and the muscles of my left hand don't do shit. I look down at my half-curled fingers.
“Fuck.”
Chill out, dude.
I grit my teeth, then pull a small steel bar up from the spot where it’s locked against the left side of the Mach’s neck. On the end of the bar is a black leather band, sized just right to slide about halfway up my left forearm. My fingers don’t work, but if I’m right about this, I can jam my forearm into the band, and since the steel bar holding it is welded in two spots between the left handlebar and the dash board, I can effectively hold the handle by using the weight of my left shoulder to press against it. My right hand will be doing most of the work, so it’s risky business, but it’s the best that I can do.
I lock the steel bar into place, curl the fingers of my left hand, and push my wrist into the thick leather band, sliding it halfway up my forearm as I lean down over the bike's handles. Usually I'd push a bike out of the garage before mounting, but I need to be on the bike to be sure I’ve got my arm in place.
With a deep breath, I throw my right leg over. It feels awkward as shit, because I'm a leftie and I used to get on with my left leg first.
Now it's wobble time. I get up on the tips of my toes, scuffing up my old John Lobbs, and hit a button on my key chain that makes one of the garage doors open. I barely make it down the slight incline leading onto the cement slab behind the building. I scoot, on my toes, over the oil-stained cement, over the spot where I've worked on so many bikes along with Wil and Napo, the other two members of Team Cross Hybrids.
Guilt nags me. I've heard from both of them and I know they'd like their old jobs back, but I haven't offered. Shop's closed—for now, at least.
I'm scowling as I balance on my left arm, using the fingers of my right hand to poke at the garage remote attached to my key chain. I can hear the warning beeps of the alarm, telling me I've almost taken too long. Nearly eight minutes to get a bike out of the garage. This is why the shop's still closed.
I stare out at the field that stretches behind my building, then turn to my right to look at the backside of the row of shops next door to my freestanding building. Downtown Napa, California, is quiet and peaceful, which makes me want to fucking scream. My neck is tight and my hand feels weird and the panic is just below the surface. I remember when Napa used to seem to tame to me. I could do anything. The roads and the shops a
ll seemed so small. Even the vast vineyards in Napa Valley seemed small. I wonder how long it would take me to get down to the valley now, driving the Mach one-handed. Probably forever.
The garage door closes behind me, and there's nothing else between me and the road. I look down at the band around my left forearm and suck back a few deep breaths. Like this is the fucking Sturgis Rally. Like I'm green as grass.
I don't have a watch, but I can tell I'm late already, and I'm annoyed that it bugs me.
I hear my phone ring. “Satisfaction” by the Stones. Lizzy. Great. I look down at myself, and I feel like such a helpless freak. There's no way I can answer the phone in my pocket. Not if I want to keep this bike upright.
I wonder why the hell she's calling and I tell myself I don't care. I can worry about Suri and Lizzy later—and I know I will, when I get back to the shop tonight. I wait another second for another burst of the tingling pain that starts in my neck and shoots down my arm. Neuralgia, they call it. Otherwise known as a ‘suicide headache’. But at the moment, I feel okay.
I bite down on my lip and jam my forearm as tightly as I can into the little leather band, straightening out my elbow so I can lean into the band with the full weight of my left shoulder. Without anymore stalling, I white-knuckle the handle with my right hand and ease my thumb onto the accelerator.
The ride to my parents’ house is short and heart-pumping enough to make me worry that in addition to all the other shit, maybe I lost my balls in the accident as well. By the time I glide through the massive, black iron gates and slow the Mach in their tree-lined, semi-circle drive, I'm drenched with sweat and gritting my teeth.
I wobble a little as I try to balance the bike using my toes. I hiss another curse as I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I was the kind of guy who could just let things lie. But I refuse to let them off so easy. I refuse to let my father get away with what he did. I refuse to be complicit any longer.
I glance at the massive gray stone, built to look like an English manor house. My gaze tugs in the direction of the regal double doors, and at that moment, one of them swings open.
My muscles freeze as I wait for the familiar combed-over black hair, laughing blue eyes, hook nose, thin lips. Renault is the man who raised me, a Frenchman who introduced me to classic rock, bought me my first box of condoms, taught me how to puff on a cigar. He drove me to junior high school dances and showed me how to loop a tie. I feel breathless as I wait to see his face—and then the shadows flicker and instead there is a stern-looking woman with tightly up-swept gray hair and sharp blue eyes. It takes me a long, baffling second to realize it's my mother.
Well of course it is. Dark blue dress—Dior, her favorite—paired with silver heels and diamond-pearl earrings that sparkle in the porch light. But her face looks tired and her posture sucks, like she's forgotten how to play the part of Derinda Carlson, governor's wife.
I get off the bike as smoothly as I can, parking it in the flawlessly manicured lawn, and don't allow myself to look away from her as I step slowly up the porch stairs. I wonder briefly where Renault is, but once I’m close enough to take in the full context of my mother, the only thing I can think is why. I wasn't a model kid, never did great in school, but I don't think I was unusually difficult. For most of my childhood, I did whatever they asked, went wherever they went, usually decked out in a mini tux or a little suit, my hair clean cut, my mouth stretched into a big fake smile.
Even after I dropped out of school and opened my shop, I played the dutiful son, waving at campaign stops. Smiling at every camera. Giving perfect quotes to newspaper reporters.
My mother reaches out to…I don't know what—pat my shoulder or something?—and all I can think is: WHY? I know the answer: I found out about Missy King, the Vegas mistress my father had sold into sex slavery in Mexico, so my father gave the order to sever ties. But how could Mother follow it?
She tries to embrace me but I step aside. There's something on her face, and I think it's contrition but I just can't care.
When I fail to meet her eyes and accept her hug, she drops her arms down by her sides and wears her campaign face—phony, through and through. She smiles a little, tilts her head so those stupid earrings sparkle, and she sweeps her hand back toward the foyer.
“Cross. You're looking well.”
It's so ridiculous, so utterly crazy, I'm not sure what to say. But when has that stopped a Carlson? I nod. “Likewise.”
I walk through the door she holds and the foyer seems smaller than it did a year ago. The chandelier doesn't sparkle, just reflects the glow of gaslight; the floors don't gleam; the imported rugs look faded. As I follow my mother down the hallway, past the parlors and the library, I'm surprised to find it doesn't look like she's redecorated anything. When I lived here—even when I lived in the guest house, before I fled to Lizzy’s mother’s house—my mother changed the décor weekly. A new pillow here, a new rug there. Even when she and Dad were spending most of their time in the city house in Beverly Hills, there was always an event to host or a party to throw. The lack of change now gives me the impression that no one’s been here this last year.
I hear the clearing of a throat, and I notice the stiff set of my mother's shoulders just before she turns to look at me. She regards me like a stranger. “Delphina Fieldman told me your shop is still closed. How are you getting buy?”
I press my lips together. Not straying far from the script, of course. She’s always tried to buy my loyalty. “Fine,” I half-growl.
I rotate my left shoulder, digging my hand more deeply into my coat pocket, and I wonder why they invited me tonight. I assumed it was so Dad could get his ducks in a row. Mom’s involvement…it bothers me. Almost as much as her abandonment.
“I’m fine,” I lie more smoothly. “The shop will reopen soon.”
She smiles, and I can't read anything in it before she turns back toward the hallway, leading us past an alcove filled with bookshelves and leather couches, closer to the formal dining room. “I'm designing a restaurant in La Jolla.”
Just a few years ago, I would have asked questions and had an interest in her answers, but that was before my father kicked me out. Before I found out he let a porn star—the infamous Priscilla Heat—talk him into selling his former mistress as a sex slave. When my mother chose to tow his line, she lost me.
We near the end of the hall, so I can see the candlelight flickering in the massive, formal dining room, and suddenly I just want to turn and run. Instead my temper flares, and I stop walking.
My mother turns, wide-eyed, and I relish the startled look on her face.
“What's the point of this, Mother? Why invite me into your house? Was it Drake's idea?”
Her brows narrow, and her face bends into a scolding look. “Don’t call your father by his first name. You’re not sixteen, Cross.”
I twist my face into something between a smirk and a scowl, and she folds her arms over her chest. “It was your father's idea. He'd like to make amends. And we want to...explain what happened while you were unconscious.”
“Explain what happened?” I cross my arms—another habit—and I notice my mother's eyes fly to my left hand. I drop both arms to my sides. My face feels hot. “Well I'm here right now. Why don't you tell me—what happened?”
She squares her shoulders, giving me a prissy, defensive kind of look. Then her eyes flicker to my hand again and I grit my teeth. “You better get on with it, or I'm leaving.”
“Your father has spent us dry, Cross. That's why we had you moved from the nicer facility at NVIR.”
I raise my brows. I'm surprised she even knows the name—Napa Valley Involved Rehab. After all, they never visited.
“Let me guess: too many hookers.”
As soon as I say the words, I want to take them back. My mother recoils as if I've slapped her, and I open my mouth to say something to appease her. But I can see in her eyes that she's still denying it. Pretending he's not a philandering dickhead who cheats from coas
t to coast. And that pisses me off.
“You know he has mistresses. Everybody does. You think because he's the governor that you can't leave him? Damnit, Mom. I don't know what he does to make you drink the Kool-Aid.” I shake my head. “Does he have something on you?” That's how things in this family seem to work.
My mother locks her jaw. She looks furious enough to hit me, and as I stand there with my heart pounding, I almost hope she does.
“I stay with your father because I was raised Catholic, Cross Evangeline Carlson, and despite his flaws, he’s my husband. Don’t you dare disrespect me—”
I bark a laugh. Disrespect her? I cock one of my brows. “If you think I give a damn about respecting you, you're wrong. You don’t deserve it. Either of you.” I clench my jaw so hard it pops. My head feels hot, the way it used to when the Dilaudid would first kick in. “You deserted me. You didn’t even visit me.”
I watch a vein pulse in her forehead and I know I've gotten to her when her face screws up and she tosses her hands into the air. “It was too painful!”
Bullshit. “You were a coward.”
She whirls and then she's gone, stalking through the dining room and in the direction of the stairs. I hear a low murmur, followed by my father's voice at regular volume, followed by my mother's strangled sob.
Fuck her.
I stride into the dining room, my heart pounding despite the cold, detached feeling that's taken over my chest. A second later, I'm staring my father down from across the massive Georgian table. He's wearing a Zenga suit and the same clean, in-control expression that got him elected, and I'm surprised to see that, unlike my mom, he looks better than the last time that I saw him.
As soon as he meets my eyes, his voice rings out. “Did you come here just to upset your mother?”
I grit my molars. I can ruin him. I can turn him in. I really can.
