EQMM, Sep-Oct 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I can't believe a guy as sharp as Evan would pay attention to something like that."

  "What matters is, he does,” Jake said.

  Jake headed downgrade. The daylight had died, night closed down, and as if on signal another curtain of rain descended and Jake turned on the headlights. “Maybe we'll have separate rooms,” I said.

  "I doubt it. Evan knows we're living together.” Jake reached over and squeezed my knee. We'd finally decided we wanted to get married and start a family—"Our own tribe,” as Jake said. Pretty foolhardy, given the messes our parents had made of their lives. So we were keeping totally quiet about it, giving ourselves six months beforehand to see how we handled our differences.

  We headed downhill and the road disappeared at the bottom into a boiling chocolate-brown torrent carrying along snags and whole branches. Jake hesitated an instant and then stepped on the gas. I clamped my mouth shut to hold in my scream: It was too late to stop. We hit the water with a splash and the front wheels sent up a wave on both sides.

  It's only hub-deep, I thought, only about ten feet across, but we were still going downhill with the water rising. Jake steered rightward against the current, the water rumbled and gurgled underfoot. Then the motor coughed, and coughed again—we were stalling.

  Jake had the gas pedal all the way down as the truck slowed, but the rear wheels were losing traction and then the rear end began to float free, swinging sideways with the current. The front wheels spun and almost grabbed and spun again as the road leveled; the grade was rising and they caught. The rear end settled and we pulled ahead, out of the water. Jake locked onto the wheel and accelerated.

  My heart was pounding so hard I couldn't breathe, and an artery in Jake's neck throbbed. We went ahead at half speed, bent forward, focused on the road. Images filled my brain of us yanked sideways, the truck rolling over and being swept away.

  "All right,” he said. “No more omens, okay?"

  The road ended at a wide gravel turnaround in front of the Calabresi house. The balcony of Noni's sunroom formed an overhang above the double doors and partly sheltered a broad half-circle stone terrace. As we pulled up, Evan came out carrying a poncho and a black umbrella. I opened the truck door and stepped down into an icy ankle-high stream.

  "Jake! Stay in there.” Evan met me with a quick, fierce one-armed hug and a cheek kiss. Same piercing stare; same wiry, dark good looks; same impact. “Cassie! You look wonderful.” Lean as a greyhound—through his raincoat I felt ribs, and the ropes of muscle along his back. If it weren't for Jake, I could've been seriously attracted to Evan Calabresi.

  He handed me the umbrella. “Go on inside. We've got to do some more sandbagging."

  I squelched across the terrace and into a broad entrance hall with a threadbare Persian carpet covered with several mud rugs. A hall tree hung with raincoats dripped into a nest of towels. Behind the left-hand door a mixer went in short bursts and a woman called out, “Just a minute—be right there."

  Through the door on my right lay a smallish sitting room, and farther along, a wide staircase slanting up sideways. The double doors straight ahead opened on a dining room with the table already set, dimly lit by a massive chandelier.

  The kitchen door popped open and a pretty Latina about my age burst out swathed in a bunchy chef's apron, her single thick braid coiled high and held with a big red clip, and her hand outstretched. “Hi! I'm Evan's sort-of girlfriend, Sochi Alarcon; I'm in here doing his birthday cake. Not that he'll eat any of it."

  "Cass, Cassandra Bailey. Sochi?"

  "Short for Xochitl, from my daddy's activist days. I was his little Aztlan princess.” A strand of blond threaded through the black braid. “Sochi's hot,” Jake had said, and she was—high-cheekboned, vivid, sexy, strong. I can hold my own in a crowd, but Sochi's the one everybody would see first.

  She reached into the closet for a pair of gray slipper socks. “Come and put these on while we dry your shoes."

  The big kitchen took up the end of the house, its restaurant-sized range dominated by a slender brown man in an orange shirt and a white baker's pillbox: Wilson Tang, the Filipino cook. “Call him Tang. Everybody does,” Sochi said. Tang looked maybe fifty, but was over seventy and had been with the family since Evan was born.

  He squeezed my hand gently. “I am responsible for the conducting of the entire household. If you are in need of anything at all, you must contact me at once."

  The kitchen smelled wonderful. Wild mushrooms he'd gathered himself, Tang said, and Petaluma ducks he'd killed and dressed.

  This was clearly Tang's lair. In the back corner a roll-top desk overflowed with bills, catalogs, and sporting papers, a television tuned to basketball and a radio droning weather and traffic conditions.

  Sochi asked about our trip up, and I told her about the drowned road. She was worried about getting back to town tomorrow to start the inventory at her business, which specialized in mineral and crystal specimens and carvings.

  I heard Evan and Jake pass by in the hall, talking and laughing.

  "Maybe he'll sleep tonight.” Tang nodded toward the ceiling. “All night long I hear him up there, bum—bum—bum, running on his machine."

  Sochi volunteered to show me our room, stopping by the hall closet on our way. “I hope they still keep the heaters in here. I haven't been up here for two months.” Uh-oh. She dug out two space heaters and handed me one. “This place is impossible to heat."

  "Who all are you expecting?” I asked as we started up the broad staircase.

  She looked surprised. “Just us.” Evan's mother, long remarried and living in Virginia, was cruising in the South Pacific. “Oh. Uncle Farley. He's down in the library watching TV. No way would he pass up the chance for a good meal."

  "I didn't know Evan had an uncle. Is he well?"

  Sochi nodded; she seemed to understand exactly what I was asking. “Oh, quite."

  I seized the opportunity. “I never did hear exactly how Evan's father died. Or his grandfather, either.” The staircase ended in the center of the upstairs hall, with a railing all around the opening; an odd arrangement. Music from two acoustic guitars came from the room at the end, above the kitchen, and Jake started singing. "In the shuffling madness ... locomotive breath..."

  Sochi lowered her voice. “Evan's father killed himself,” she said. “My own father was vineyard manager here then. I used to love it up here. I was nine when Tom Calabresi walked up into the woods and blew out his brains.

  "Not even a note. Horrible for the family. Forty-three years old. He'd been having headaches." She scowled. Did she not believe it? “Of course he'd watched his own father, Tomase, go crazy. Turned violent, had to be tied down in his bed.” Sochi nodded toward the far end of the hall. “In a coma the last six months. He was forty-seven."

  "And they never found any cause?"

  "You just know they tried everything. Clinics, experimental programs—now they're talking stem cells. Evan's been under the microscope his whole life, and he's let himself be taken over by the dark side. Fatalistic; wicked. Helping it happen. So the less said about it, the better. Okay?” I could see that she really did love him, and she was totally frustrated.

  Our room was at center back, opposite the stairwell. Sochi opened the door and a wall of cold, dank air flowed out. The room was mega-country, all maple and rag rugs. And—ugh!—twin beds with white chenille spreads, like a ‘40s movie. I knew the sheets would be clammy.

  "I'd start the heaters going now,” Sochi said. “You'll have to share the bathroom.” She opened the bathroom door and set her heater down. “I'm on the other side."

  I started the other heater in the center of the room. As she left Sochi pointed out Farley's door opposite, next to the glassed-in sunroom, and dropped her voice. “They say old Tomase never believed Farley was really his son. Anyway, Farley's over sixty now and still charging, sharp tongue, big gut, and all."

  Sochi yipped as a smiling head appeared in the stairwell, the dark V of ha
ir close-clipped, with a little Machiavelli goatee to match. “Well, hidy. And here you have me in the flesh! I wondered where you'd got to, Sochi.” Tweeded and groomed to a razor's edge, Uncle Farley carried his years of good living quite well. Portly, that's the word.

  Sochi introduced us and Farley said, “Come on, Miss Sharp-Eyes,” with a knowing smile. “I need you to look at something for me.” Farley led the way through the glass-walled sunroom, dark now, and onto the balcony above the front entrance. The balcony was roofed, and the rain was slanting away.

  "I'm worried about Noni's Parcel,” Farley said. One of the fields was being undermined by the rising creek, and Farley went into a rant about ignorant county officials and the stupid and corrupt Corps of Engineers. “Sochi, look down toward the creek. Can you see anything like the shine of water?” He bent over the thigh-high iron railing, shading his eyes.

  Obliging, Sochi leaned out. “Nope.” Nothing was visible but a steady curtain of rain against black. “Ask me again later, when the lanterns are turned off."

  Only when Farley discovered that the road in was submerged did he turn to me. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “Now I'm going to be stuck here overnight."

  When I finished unpacking I knocked on Evan's door. Downstairs Sochi and Tang were discussing serving dishes and when to start the rice.

  "Step into my playpen,” said Evan. The long room was jammed with a pool table, king-sized waterbed, giant television, several drums, his computer corner, and a grove of fierce-looking chromed workout machines. I felt as if I'd lost my hearing, and realized that the room was thickly carpeted and the walls hung with heavy draperies.

  Evan handed me a bongo. “Make yourself useful."

  When Tang buzzed Evan for dinner I went downstairs first, aware that I should've volunteered to help.

  "No food till everybody is sitting down!” Tang stood in the dining room with a majestic scowl and his arms folded. “Right now! It's ready."

  Evan and Jake came along the upstairs hall talking and laughing. Sochi took off her apron, revealing a dark green knit dress patterned with roses. With a big smile she arranged herself in the dining-room doorway, leaning against the doorframe with one arm up, her knee cocked, and the other arm cupped around the distinct bulge of her belly. What? Sochi was pregnant? Impossible. Yes: true.

  Jake stopped at the bottom of the stairs, dazzled. “Sochi, baby! Hey there—looks like you've got something in the oven.” He rushed across to give her a brotherly hug.

  Evan froze on the bottom stair. “What have you done!” he shouted. His look of horror turned the room to ice. Tang stood in the doorway, expressionless. Nobody spoke.

  Sochi straightened up. “Don't worry. This is nobody's concern but mine."

  "How could you do this?” Evan stood rigid. “You promised—” He and Sochi were nose-to-nose in a quietly furious argument, all hisses and snarls.

  Jake murmured in my ear, “So what is he? Just the sperm donor?"

  "Come to dinner now.” Tang clapped once. “The ducks will be ruined! They dry out! You can talk at the table."

  Tang directed us to our places, and the ritual took over. Waiting to be seated, I noticed odd little crackling sounds in the big chandelier close overhead. The crystals were veiled in dust and cobwebs starred with tiny clots of shrouded insects. A few surviving spiders ran frantically through the maze until they frizzled in the heat.

  Evan sat at the head of the table with Sochi and me on either side, Jake beside me, and Farley opposite him. Sochi appeared calm and inward-looking, radiating content. No need to envy her: My turn would come. What a way to tell Evan, though. Why? Because she'd been afraid of his reaction? “You promised!” Evan had said.

  Tang served everybody from a rolling cart, starting with Sochi. The duck was truly wonderful, though I caught myself shielding my plate from possible fried spiders. Jake asked Farley about the effect of this rain on the vines, and he launched into a lecture.

  "Larousse lists fourteen steps in the making of wine.” We were up to “noble rot” when Jake interrupted, raising his glass. “This is certainly wonderful.” He turned to Evan. “Home-grown?"

  "The Calabresi label is defunct,” Farley said. “The wonderful grapes are now simply raw material for other vintners. Time to replant Noni's Parcel with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.” Clearly, Farley lusted to get back into wine-making and be a player again.

  A gust of rain splattered the windows beyond the heavy draperies. “It's beginning to break up,” Evan said to me. “Should be an excellent snow pack in the hills. Ever done any cross-country skiing?"

  We were discussing his favorite trails when Evan went blank. Literally: silent and unseeing—I thought he was about to topple over, and put out my hand. He blinked, looked vague, and gave me a questioning look.

  "It's okay,” I said, and saw that he knew I'd keep his secret. My heart sank, and kept on descending. Evan's little episode looked like an epileptic seizure, a petit mal: I had a cousin who was epileptic, we'd all been prepared to react as needed. Did Jake know? Had Evan told him?

  Epilepsy is usually manageable, and I could've been entirely wrong. Still I felt a sense of dread—that the curse was starting. “Let's don't feed this thing,” Sochi had said. Because it was nothing, nothing unless you believed in it, and then it was everything.

  The rumble of a deep-throated engine came from beyond the front door. The others heard it, too; we were all watching when the door crashed open. A sixtyish woman burst in, blond and decisive in a shiny black cape, calling, “Tang? Evan? Quickly, I need you!"

  "My God, it's your mother,” Sochi said. Tang groaned out loud.

  Evan's mother, Leonor, waved to someone outside and swept in with a voluminous hug for Evan, cheek-kisses for Farley and Sochi, and nods to us. “I got a ride up with Leo Bonaducci in his Hum Two, the maddest luck.” A Martha Stewart-type in black turtleneck and sweatpants, just blown in from the South Pacific, Roger somebody sent his plane for her, wasn't that sweet?

  "Why didn't you tell me you were coming when we talked Thursday?” Evan demanded.

  Leonor's look would have pierced an armadillo, but her smile never faltered. “Because you might've tried to talk me out of it, love."

  In a trice the men hustled her three bags inside and she displaced Jake and me, moving us down one so she could sit next to Evan, all the while filling us in on her life. In the highlands of New Guinea four days ago watching the headhunters dance, she'd brought Evan one of their drums.

  Tang, sullen, arrived with a heated plate for Leonor. “You didn't have to do that,” she cooed. “You know I'll eat anything.” She took in the grimy chandelier. “Your cleaning crew is cheating you, Evan. We need to have a talk. This place is an absolute slum! It ought to be gutted from the walls out."

  I kept waiting for someone to tell Leonor about Sochi's condition. How would she receive the little intruder? She had two daughters by her developer husband, both safely married, and a baby grandson. Not till Tang had gone round with seconds and Farley's plate was cleaned did he sit back and turn to Leonor. “You should know that tonight we're having a double celebration. We've just learned that our Sochi is pregnant."

  Leonor smiled back, waiting for him to go on: Clearly she thought he was joking.

  "By all appearances, it's true,” he said. “Ask her."

  Leonor looked at Sochi. “This is amazing.” She half-rose in her seat, staring at Sochi's belly, and Sochi, smiling, pushed back her chair to show Leonor.

  "How terribly exciting. When are you due?"

  "The doctor figures the third week in April.” Sochi gave Evan a quick look. We were now in the first week in February.

  The two women dropped into the duet: Who's your Ob-Gyn, which hospital, ultrasound, boy or girl? Sochi said she wanted to be surprised. Leonor recommended someone brilliant she knew at Stanford Medical. She never once looked at Evan, and projected warmth without revealing either approval or the opposite. But I felt in my bones that Leonor
was shocked and furious, and that she too believed in the Calabresi curse.

  After dinner Jake hung back to talk to me. “Can you believe Sochi?"

  "So maybe it was an accident."

  "You think Sochi ever allows accidents in her life?” Jake said.

  "Anyway, it's a done deal. Everybody's just going to have to adapt."

  "I don't think so,” Jake said.

  Sochi and Farley settled in to watch a hockey match, and Leonor sent Tang running to fetch lamps, bedding, and whatnot to make up the master suite at the far end of the upstairs floor. Evan and Jake were doing battle on the pool table, dealing with disaster in typical masculine fashion, by ignoring it. All the vital confrontations would take place later, behind closed doors. I watched a little hockey and the news, and went upstairs to bed.

  When I opened our bedroom door I smelled something scorching. What? The space heater sat out of sight beyond the far bed, glowing red and not quite touching the white chenille bedspread, which was charred and beginning to smoke. I yanked out the cord and kicked the heater away into the middle of the floor.

  Impossible. I was positive I hadn't left the heater anywhere near the bed, and Jake wouldn't have moved it. But then how—? I pulled the spread off the bed and ran water on the burned spot. The blanket underneath was hot to the touch, and browning, and I spread a wet towel over it to cool it. And then I noticed that the bathroom heater was gone.

  Music, Miles Davis, came from Evan's room. Let them be: Deal with this tomorrow. I read till my eyes fell shut.

  But I slept badly, vaguely aware of the wind buffeting the house and wailing in the eaves like a lost soul, and came full awake at the sound of somebody fumbling at the bedroom door. Incoherent muttering; Jake, and stupid drunk. I could smell him.

  "Oh God,” he whined, “that Sochi is such a bitch. You have no idea. I am seriously ripped. I mean majorly."

  "Shh. You don't have to wake up the world."

  "As if. Oh God. You're not going to believe it. Oh, am I going to regret this tomorrow.” Feeling for the bed in the dark, he missed and went down on one knee. “A real bitch! Aagh—"