by Mary Morris
* * *
Patterns, paths, destinies, song lines. Elena once believed that dance was her destiny. As a girl she danced in sneakers during the powwows at Taos Pueblo, leaping up from the sidelines, her feet beating the earth, her body hunched into the form of a rabbit, rising into that of an antelope. She found the place inside of herself that could not be separated from her. She is the dance. The dance is she. It is her spirit path.
But she hadn’t needed to find her destiny. It was already in her feet, her arms. As a girl at the powwows she couldn’t sit still, as a scholarship student at Miss Marilyn’s Dance Studio, and later in New York, she danced because it was the only thing she was meant to do. The only thing she really could do. At times from the hilltops near her family’s trailer she watched eagles circle, and she’d spread her arms and twirl and dip. It was as if she could fly. And why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she soar?
When she was a child, Elena had dreams that she could fly. She could see herself gazing down at the deserts and oceans, rain forests and grasslands. Sometimes the dreams were very specific. She was flying over the Gobi or the Amazon. But she couldn’t get lost because in her belly button she had navigational redial. She just had to press a finger to her stomach, and it would take her home.
Now nothing brings her home. Not even Miguel. Nothing except perhaps lamb tagine. It’s all changed. Her life had one direction and now it has another. She’s surrounded by ghosts. In Morocco her grandmother caught up with her. This was the first time her grandmother came to her, though Elena often sees her mother. Once in a dream (or was it a dream?) she woke to find her mother sitting at the edge of her bed, stroking her hand. Her mother came to tell her something, but what could it be?
* * *
After class she heads along Broadway. She is vaguely hungry. But for Elena, hunger is always vague. She has to remember to eat. It is like someone who has to remember to breathe. She stops at a restaurant near Lincoln Center where she orders a Caesar salad without looking at the menu. “And water. Tap water.” The waiter nods and the salad seems to come too quickly as if it has already been made. For a few moments she pushes the lettuce around on her plate. She takes a few bites, then shoves it away.
The busboy comes by. “Are you finished?” he asks. He has a slight accent. He is Hispanic, tall and lanky. He looks at her with pleading eyes. Somehow he is hoping she isn’t finished. He is hoping that she will eat more. She is bone-thin, fragile, as breakable as a young bird. The boy looks at her with concern. “Yes,” she says, “I’m done.”
When she gets home there is one message on her machine. Her brother’s voice speaks to her. “Hey sis, I still haven’t heard from you about that bicycle helmet. I really want to make you one. Just tell me your secret wish and I’ll put it right on your helmet. Free of charge. Just a little regalo from your hermano.”
Roberto is wooing her. Trying to win her back. It has never worked before and it won’t work now. Roberto is an airbrush artist who paints anything anybody wants on the hoods and doors and trunks of their cars, and he makes a killing every spring. He’s done well with cars but now has the idea of making a fortune with airbrushed bike helmets. He believes that soon everyone will be wearing bike helmets. America is so safety conscious. That is his theory. Look at what happened with seat belts. It’s against the law not to wear one now. Soon it will be that way with bike helmets.
Elena laughs at the notion of seat belts. Given everything that has happened in her life, the protection of a seat belt is an afterthought. Helmets for bicycles and motorcycles. Roberto thinks he’ll get rich by customizing them. That will be his big thing. He knows that Elena likes to ride her bicycle around Central Park so he sent her pictures of his samples. She has yet to order one. He wants to put her hopes and dreams on her helmet. But what would they be? Ballet slippers, toe shoes? A butterfly. A migrating monarch. Or some darker images. A shattered ankle. Broken dreams. A girl with blood between her thighs. Secrets never shared.
Roberto taunts her in the phone messages he leaves and the notes he writes. She fears that he’ll find a way to worm back into her heart and make her miss the place she’s spent so many years trying to get away from. She never answers the notes he writes and she never returns his calls. Nothing he does will ever change anything. Nothing will ever make things right. All Elena knows is that the farther she gets from Entrada de la Luna, the better off she is.
As her brother rambles on, Elena stares at the only picture she brought with her to New York. It is a portrait of her father when he was stationed in Korea, years before she was born, before the booze and bad luck got to him. He’s a man she barely recognizes, smiling from ear to ear, with Rita Moreno on his arm. The picture is signed, “To Rafael, with love, from Rita.” Her father used to hint that there had been something between him and Rita Moreno, but with her father one never knew.
At last her brother finishes his message. Elena shakes her head. That’s the thing about her brother. He’s a dreamer too. Then she pushes the button and a recording says, “To delete all old messages, please press delete.” She hits delete and pours her first glass of wine.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE GOLDILOCKS ZONE—1992
Miguel is in the Goldilocks Zone. In astronomy the Goldilocks Zone is the area within a star’s orbit in which it might be possible for life to be sustained. It can be neither too hot nor too cold. It has to have just the right mix of life-sustaining gases. Like Goldilocks sampling porridge and slipping in and out of beds, it has to be just right. And that is how things are for Miguel right now. He has a good job. It pays him well. He likes Mrs. Rothstein and even enjoys the boys. School is good. He has found the place where he wants to be.
He has gotten into his routine, and it is an easy one for him. After school he drives his lowrider to pick up Jeremy and Davie at Magical Years. He’s got an old booster seat for Davie, and he makes Jeremy put on his seat belt. He drives slowly and carefully because if the cops stop him, he’s finished. They may as well put him away for life. Their mother is usually out back when he gets there, in her studio, doing whatever she does, but she leaves a plate of Pillsbury cookies that she sticks in the oven herself.
As he pulls up in front of Magical Years, the boys are in the yard. They rush to him. Jeremy attacks Miguel’s leg and Davie tries to leap on his back. “Okay, okay,” Miguel calls out, laughing as he peels the boys off his body. “What’re we going to be today? Ninjas or Spacewalkers?”
They thrust their fists into the air. “Ninjas,” Davie shouts. “No Star Trek,” Jeremy proclaims, his dark eyes darting, that angry look in his face. He gives Davie a punch in the arm like an exclamation point. Miguel sees the tears well up in Davie’s eyes, tears he holds back as Miguel often has. Miguel holds up his finger. “Do not do that, Jeremy, or we won’t do anything today except your multiplication tables.” He stares the boy down. His eyes are X-rays. Once he has them in his power, he shakes the car keys in his hand. “Okay, let’s go.”
And they race to the car, punching and kicking each other, but playfully this time, as Miguel gets into the driver’s seat. Even with the boys’ quarreling in the backseat, he likes the drive to Colibri Canyon. The roads are winding as they head up toward the mountains. The sky is blue—that big New Mexico sky—and everything seems right in the world. As he pulls up in front of the house, he turns to the boys and tells them to go play in the yard. He’ll get them some drinks and be outside soon.
* * *
When he walks into the kitchen, he finds Mrs. Rothstein at the sink in an orange bikini. She is squeezing lemons into a large pitcher filled with ice. He stops dead in his tracks. For a moment he thinks she is naked, she is so scantily clad and the color of the bikini seems to blend into her bronzed skin. He braces himself as she turns to greet him. “Ah, here you are,” she says. Miguel steps away. The bikini barely covers her ample breasts. The bottom is just a thin triangle of cloth. His eyes trace the scar across her belly. Her skin is smooth and sla
thered in cream. He is so close he can smell her. She smells as tart as a lemon. Yet oily too. He’s about to swoon. “Snack time,” she says, smiling. “I’m making lemonade.”
She’s been sunbathing, perhaps all afternoon. She has raccoon circles around her eyes, from wearing glasses he assumes. She is at least twice his age but he finds himself staring at the crease between her buoyant breasts. She is fit and muscular as if she once trained for a weight-lifting contest. Her athletic build, the whiff of almond soap, and her sweat surprise him. And the scent of lemons is everywhere.
He takes the iced glass that she offers. It is cold to the touch, and his fingers tremble. “So what’s the plan?” Mrs. Rothstein asks.
The plan? With the boys? “I’m not sure. They’re fighting about it. I came for tinfoil. We’re making swords.” She points to a drawer. “I think they’ll be Ninjas today.” Mrs. Rothstein nods, but Miguel is fairly certain she has no idea what he is talking about. “And cardboard?”
“In the garage. I’m going to take a shower,” and she disappears down the corridor, her buttocks rocking as she walks away. Miguel has to catch his breath. This is not normal, he tells himself. It isn’t normal that she should be waiting for him almost naked. He has a hard-on, but he can’t bring himself to look down. In fact he wants to go into the bathroom and jerk off. Or just get into his car and drive away. It seems to him that there is something unnatural here and that he needs to be careful from now on.
He wonders if he isn’t here for more than babysitting. Has he walked into some weird trap? Something he’ll have to pay for later? He begins to sweat, then goes outside to make swords. They settle on Ninjas. Jeremy is Leonardo and Davie is Michelangelo. Miguel is the rat sensei, Master Splinter, trained in the art of ninjutsu. As they are fashioning swords out of cardboard and aluminum foil, Miguel can feel her watching him. Or is he just imagining it. Once or twice he looks toward the bedroom curtains and sees them flutter. Just as he and the boys are about to do battle, Rachel appears with a tray of lemonade and gingersnaps and a glass of milk for Jeremy, which she places on the ground. She is dressed now in jeans and a T-shirt. Her nipples spring forward. Miguel gasps, trying to shift his gaze.
As Rachel turns to go, she says, “Would you like to stay for dinner? It’s Friday night and we all eat together. Nathan should be home soon.”
Miguel isn’t sure what to say. Normally he eats dinner on Friday night with his mother, but he really wants to stay, if only to be near Mrs. Rothstein. “I need to call my mother. She’s expecting me.”
“Of course. You can always use the phone. We’ll eat as soon as my husband gets home.”
Miguel picks up the wall phone in the kitchen. At first his mother objects, but then he convinces her. It’s for his job, after all, and he assumes he’ll be paid. “It’s fine,” he tells Mrs. Rothstein, “I can stay.”
For the few weeks he’s been working for the Rothsteins, he has yet to meet Dr. Rothstein. It seems odd because sometimes he stays until seven or even eight o’clock, doing his homework while the boys get ready for bed. He has seen Mrs. Rothstein whisper on the phone to her husband. He has seen her put the boys on the phone to say good night to their father. Then she will get back on and speak more sharply in a high-pitched voice that seems troubled or just tired.
He wonders about Dr. Rothstein. What kind of a doctor is he? A pediatrician? An orthopedist? Is he handsome? Miguel can’t envision Dr. Rothstein at all. He has no idea what kind of man he might be. He has seen no pictures of him in the house. No snapshots of them all fishing somewhere, going camping. Even his mother has kept some pictures of Miguel with his father and there is even one of the three of them together for Miguel’s first communion. He wonders what kind of time, if any, Dr. Rothstein spends with his boys.
An hour goes by and then another. The boys sit glued to the TV. It is getting late and Miguel is hungry. He wants to go home and eat his mother’s Friday-night stew. He wants to leave, but he said he’d stay. It is hard for Miguel to know what to do. The phone rings. Once more he hears Mrs. Rothstein talking. There is an angry lilt to her voice this time.
After a few moments she hangs up and comes into the living room. “Turn off the TV,” Mrs. Rothstein says. “We’ll eat without Daddy.” The boys moan. Jeremy hurls a softball across the room, and then curls up like a roly-poly bug when it’s poked. “Come on. Let’s eat,” she calls. They clomp into the dining room where the table has been set with china, placemats, and flowers. Mrs. Rothstein takes out a match and prepares to light the candles. She closes her eyes, whispering what Miguel assumes must be a prayer.
Miguel is surprised. “Do you light candles every night?” he asks her, though he’d never seen her do so before.
Mrs. Rothstein shakes her head. “No, only on Friday.”
Miguel laughs under his breath. “That’s funny. My mother does too.”
Rachel looks at him oddly. “And why is that?”
Miguel shrugs. “I don’t know. We just do. Why do you light candles on Friday?”
And she keeps staring at Miguel, “Because we are Jews. And you?”
Miguel shakes his head. “It’s just what everyone in my town does.”
Rachel nods as she serves him a plate of roast chicken and rice with steamed vegetables. It is buttery and delicious. He gobbles it down and is pleased when she offers him more. “Here,” she says, “there’s plenty.” When she serves him, she leaves little for her husband to eat when he gets home. Miguel wonders if he is going to be eating out that night. He is a doctor. Doctors have emergencies all the time, don’t they? Things that keep them from coming home.
* * *
It is dark as he heads back to Entrada, but the sky is filled with clouds. He expects that it will rain tonight. That is good. They need the rain. But Miguel doesn’t like a night when he can’t see the stars. He drives up the road with his radio on. Normally he’d gaze at the sky, but now he just keeps his eyes on the road. It is late when he pulls into Entrada and he decides to stop at Roybal’s to pick up some milk and bananas for breakfast, and a can of beer if he can convince the old man that it is for his mother.
As he walks in, the old man is at the cash register, smoking and drinking a beer himself. He is staring at his old and tattered family tree and looks up, startled. He hacks, trying to catch his breath. Then he wags a finger at Miguel. “I’ve got something for you.”
The old man goes into the back and comes out with the mail. Half of Entrada gets their mail at Roybal’s store. Nobody really has addresses so it is easier for the postman to drop most of it off here. A lot of the inhabitants want to avoid the mail anyway. It is usually a bill that won’t get paid or a notice for deadbeat dads to appear in court. Or a bank that’s about to foreclose on your land. He hands Miguel an electric bill marked “Final Notice” and Miguel knows that the electricity will probably be turned off again. There is some junk mail that he riffles through.
Stuck between a flyer for funeral insurance and one for low-cost car insurance is a postcard. It falls out of the small stack and onto the counter. It is addressed to him and Miguel sees the foreign stamp. The image is a fortress, golden in the moonlight. Behind it is the glistening sea. “Greetings from Morocco” with a big letter “E.”
He wonders why she bothers. She never calls and he never sees her, but she sends him these cards. She hardly says a word. She sends monuments, statues, rolling hills. A vineyard. The sea. But never any people. It is as if she goes to places where no one lives. Maybe where somebody has dropped a neutron bomb. She has never sent him a single face.
When he gets home, his mother is asleep on the couch. He goes into his room and puts the postcard into the shoebox he keeps under his bed. It is where he keeps all of her postcards. He flips through them like a dealer with a deck of cards. In the morning he’ll find out where Morocco is.
That night Miguel has his first wet dream about Mrs. Rothstein. She is in her orange bikini and turns, falling into his arms. Her skin, her hair
are filled with the scent of lemons. Even though he thinks that you can’t smell in your dreams, he smells the lemons.
CHAPTER TWENTY
LISBON—1496
It is good to have the streets beneath her feet, the cobblestones, and the winding paths as she walks from the river into the narrow streets of the Alfama. She is glad not to be on the ship with the stench of sailors, reaching for her, touching her. These streets are not familiar the way the streets of Seville once were and she is lost in the maze. She has the address for her uncle’s house and assumes he will take her in. Around her neck she carries the pouch with the gold she’s earned for her trouble. In her arms she carries the child.
Benjamin nestles against her breasts. She knows he will not wake in her arms. He wakes only if she puts him down. It seems to Inez that if she holds him, he will just sleep. As she scurries along, passersby glance her way. A man with a cart lets her pass in front of him. An old woman smiles. They see that she cradles a child. No one doubts that he is hers. And once they hear her story, they will not doubt it at all. Everyone knows that the women who sailed with explorers, unless they were the captain’s wife, did not go as cooks or chambermaids. There is only one reason why a sailor would tolerate bringing bad luck on board.
