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by Kristen Tsetsi

  “Denise and me,” I say.

  “Pardon?”

  “Why wouldn’t I understand?”

  “I believe—I believe you have to have been truly in love to recognize it in someone else.”

  “I’ve been in love. I am, I mean.”

  “I might be wrong.” He shrugs. “A few weeks ago—or was it a month? I don’t remember—Denise mentioned that William had emailed her to find out why your boyfriend wasn’t getting mail from you. He’d hoped she would have some information, something to boost his morale. Denise said there wasn’t an explanation she could give him. And I…well, I think there’s something to that.”

  Before I ask him to leave, his answer to, “You mean they have email?” is, “Of course.”

  ________

  Kudzu’s wide leaves canopy bushes and hang from high tree branches like dark Spanish moss. “Don’t be too impressed,” Jake said once. “Most of what’s under it dies. It’s not a gutted zebra on the animal channel, but it’s close. Just on a smaller scale.” I don’t watch the channel, don’t enjoy the bloody throat-tearing, but I am drawn to kudzu’s deceptive strength and determination to consume. It flows alongside the guardrail, rising and falling in smooth waves and mounds and spilling over into a corner parking lot, spreading thin on the concrete, its vine-tips reaching out to nothing.

  Right turn on Riverside.

  The single drink I had while Brian nursed his coffee has made me tired. I need another.

  Bourbon, maybe.

  The light turns green and I follow a Subaru, rear hatch piled high with shapes wrapped in canvas, until I see the sign for the Midtown Motel and pull up in front of room eight, close to the door. The lot is pocked and potholed under my sandals and pavement cracks sprout weeds. At the sound of my knocking on Donny’s door, curtains open in neighboring windows.

  “Mind your own goddamn business!” I scream, and all but one curtain closes. From behind the exposed window a woman stares out, mouth tight, her small eyes dead.

  I knock again.

  “Yeah!” he says. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Mia.”

  “Mia!” Something jostles. “Hold on just a second, girl.”

  I look back at the woman’s window, but she is gone, the curtain closed.

  Donny opens his door wearing jeans and a pressed, short-sleeved shirt. His hair is wavy, and wet at the base of his neck from sweat or a shower. “You got my message,” he says. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. What’s it been?”

  “Not too long,” I say. “You look nice.” But he doesn’t. He looks older, thinner, and more frail, but at the same time, he’s hardened.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You just—you just do. I don’t know.”

  “What the hell’re you—what do I usually look like? What, I look different from any other day?” He touches his buttons.

  “No, I—Jesus, Donny, I was just saying something nice.”

  “Well, c’mon in,” he says.

  I follow him into the living room. “Do you want your door closed?”

  “Naw. Leave it open.”

  The room is bright, clean minus the full ashtray on the table, and hot. I take one of the chairs by the window and vinyl cools the backs of my knees. A temperature control unit sits silent under the window with its panel door propped open, most of the knobs plucked off dull metal pegs too small to turn with fingers. The switch is flipped to ‘on.’

  “Broken?”

  “Naw. I just like the heat.” Donny grabs a half-empty bourbon bottle from the nightstand mounted to the bedside wall. “Course it’s broken.” He sits down and wipes sweat from under his glasses and fills an expensive-looking tumbler.

  “Want some?” he says.

  “Sure. Okay.”

  “Ask, then. Don’t sit there starin’ at it.”

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  “You’re starin’ now.”

  He leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him, and crosses his ankles and watches the lot through the open door. A gust blows in, swirling ashes over the ashtray and cooling my hair and flattening Donny’s shirt against his stomach and chest. It stays there, bonded by sweat. He closes his eyes and holds up his drink. “Thank you.”

  I say, “May I have a glass?”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  “Please.”

  “That ain’t it. Guess again.”

  I look around the room. “Light switch.”

  “What? What the—light switch?”

  “I don’t know, Donny. Maybe you picked some arbitrary—just—may I?”

  He looks at me. “‘May I—?’ Girl, who d’you think—ask me for a goddamn glass.”

  “I did.”

  “Naw. What, we ain’t friends? Don’t talk to me like I’m a—what, I’m a stranger, now?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘never mind’?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Just ask me for a goddamn glass, goddamn it. What the—I’ll give it to you, but you got to—”

  “Okay. All right? Can I have a glass? Goddamn it?”

  “There! Magic word! Now, yes, you may. See? What’re you bein’ all polite, for? It’s Donny! Here. Go get one of the ones by the sink, there.” He points to the back of the room where a shrink-wrapped plastic cup sits on the counter. “This one,” he swirls his glass, “I brought from the house. She can’t have my glass. Got almost everything else, but she ain’t getting’ this. This is mine. Mine. Bought it m’self.”

  When I sit back down with the unwrapped cup, he fills it. “No ice,” he says. “And no Coke, either.” He smiles. “No Coke. Straight up.”

  We sit quiet, then, and stare out at the empty lot and sip our drinks. Sweat builds behind my knees, runs down my calves. “Thanks,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For letting me come over. For the drink.”

  “Naw, Mia. Don’t thank me! You can always come over, you know. My angel! ‘Sides, what the hell else have I got to do? Can’t work, ‘cause I need to be here for when Archie comes by. Says he’s comin’ at night, but—Archie, he says one thing, but never sticks to it. He comes by, I got to be here. Has my stuff in his car, in the trunk. Hell, I’m glad you’re here. No one else comes. No one visits Donny.”

  I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and slide it toward him on the table. “I owe you.”

  He lights two and hands me one and we smoke.

  Tenants pass by and nod. Donny nods back and says some of their names once they’re gone. “Don’t you call ‘em by those names, though,” he says. “They won’t answer. I made ‘em up. Clark is for Crackhead Clark, see. Dick for Dope Fiend Dick. Lost. Lost causes, most of ‘em.” He flips his hand at the door. “Half ain’t worth it. But the others…one or two, maybe, they’ll do it. They live here. Get that? Not just stayin’, like me.”

  He makes less sense than usual and I wonder what time this morning he started drinking. “For how long?”

  “A week, maybe,” he slurs. “I’m goin’ to give it another day, maybe two, to get ‘em used to me, know my name. A couple already know. And then, the Doctor is in. They don’t do it right. Moderation. See? A cookie a day—just one, one cookie—won’t get you fat.” He spreads his arms out in front of him, as if circling them around an inordinately large belly, and laughs. “And you even get the good from the chocolate. Chocolate’s got antioxidants. Know that?” As abruptly as it started, his laughter stops and he watches the door. “It’s got to be the dark, though.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “So, you eat a bit, just a little, every day, or every week, and it’s okay. It’s all right. Understan’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Naw, you don’t. One cookie, that’s—some people eat a bag, but you eat one, and that’s moderation. Get it?”

  “I’m not stupid, Donny. I know what moderation means.”

  He wipes again at t
he sweat under his glasses. “Oh, yeah? You know? Do you know what it means to someone who’s self-medicatin’?”

  “Well, isn’t moderation modera—”

  “Don’t know shit.” He glares at me and shakes his head, turns again to look outside. “They need me. Need the doctor. Doctor Donaldson.”

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “What? Hell, no, girl. Why would you say that? You just can’t talk about what you don’t know nothin’ ‘bout, is all. That’s all. Naw, I don’t want you to leave. You stay as long as you want.” He puts out his cigarette in the dense flower of packed, crumpled butts and gray smoke rises from somewhere underneath. Burning filter. “Aw, hell,” he says and covers his nose. He uses a butt to mash it out, then empties the ashtray in a trash can by the dresser. “More?” he says and looks at my glass.

  “Okay.”

  “So. How’s that hus—boyfriend of yours?”

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “Fine, you guess. You don’t know?”

  “We don’t get to talk much.”

  “Alive, though.”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Good. That’s good. That’s what matters. What’s his name? Jack?”

  “Jake.”

  “To Jake!” He drinks. “Fightin’ the good fight.” He drinks again. “I saw on the news the other day some people—in shape, maybe, in form, or…but not in here,” he touches his chest, “holdin’ signs against the soldiers. What the fuck’s the matter with people?”

  “I don’t know.” I put out my cigarette and smooth my hair away from my face. Too long, for this heat. My face feels swollen.

  “Get a goddamn sniper rifle and shoot ‘em all down, one by one. Get far enough away and no one’d know, you know that? Bam! from behind a tree across the street. Run run run, duck back behind a Dumpster, an’ bam! Right in the neck. Motherfuckers.”

  “Jesus, Donny.”

  “Easy for them to hold their little painted signs. Wonder how long they spent on ‘em? D’you think they made it a family activity, makin’ them signs? ‘What color paint you want, darlin’?’ ‘Oh, I think periwinkle, dear.’ ‘Here you go, pumpkin.’ ‘My that’s purdy.’ Where do they think they’d be if people like me—and that Jake of yours, too—sat home like they do on fat, peace-lovin’ ‘make love not war’ asses? Do away with the military, they say. Okay. All right.” He smiles. “They’ll see some shit, then. See how things run without a military when the rest of the world ain’t gettin’ rid o’ theirs. Goddamn hippies.”

  “Where were you in Vietnam, anyway?”

  He lights another cigarette and exhales the smoke through his nose. “Why? You know the place? You goin’ to know where it is if I tell you?”

  “No.”

  “You goin’ to say, ‘Gee, Donny, I remember that area. I studied up on it. Gosh, Donny, I heard a lot of people got shot and blown to bits there. It sure was kind of you to help those poor people with their legs shot off into the bushes before goin’ to kill those innocent little babies.’ You goin’ to say that?”

  “No.”

  “You goin’ to tell me why not one person could say somethin’ nice to Donny when the tour was over and the plane landed and I was h—back? I almost said ‘home.’ You hear that?” His eyes are dark behind his glasses. “Almost said ‘home.’”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “All right, then. I don’t want to hear you talk about it.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For—I don’t know.”

  “Don’t say it, then.”

  “I mean, I’m sorry you were treated that way.”

  “Didn’t have nothin’ to do with you.”

  “Still.” I touch his hand, just long enough, and pull back. His fingers are rough.

  “Screamin’ at me. Spittin’ on me, too. On my jacket right here.” He touches a spot on his shoulder. “Right there. Found it later, ‘cause there was so much goin’ on that I didn’t notice right off.”

  “People, the ones who know the diff—they’re not all bad, I mean. Most of them loved you, or people like you. They did.”

  “If they did, I never saw a one. But, you’re tryin’.” He folds his hands in a cup over his heart. “Angel,” he says. “Thanks, girl. Thanks for tryin’. It ain’t the welcome home I needed at twenty-one—young, ain’t it? Twenty-one? I, me, Donny Donaldson, was twenty-one, a kid—but it’s sure sweet. Appreciate it.”

  We finish our drinks at the same time and he pours refills. The bottle is almost empty.

  “Got somethin’ for you,” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “It ain’t here right now, but I got it. Archie, a friend of mine—wait, I told you about him? yeah—he’s bringin’ my stuff by tonight. She got the car, you know, the one that works, so—art supplies, some of my things. This is it for now.” An open suitcase, clothes folded neatly inside, lies on the full-sized bed. A thin nylon strap belts each half. “It’s in his trunk. That picture, the one I drew of you. I ain’t got a use for it.”

  I had forgotten about it. I tell him thank you, and I hope his friend doesn’t bring it to him. I’m not sure I want it, don’t think I’d like that…face…around.

  “You’ll have to come back. Tomorrow, to pick it up. I can’t bring it to you. Ain’t got a car.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’ll be back tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try.”

  “I just want to give you the—it’s a present.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You want it, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I loved it.”

  “Well, you come by tomorrow, then.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He puts an elbow on the table, rests his chin in his hand. “You’re beautiful,” he says. “You know that? An angel.”

  I smile at him and look away, toward the door. Email. Heat haze grains the air, softens the lines of the bush growing across the lot. I rub my eyes and take a drink and something rises in my throat. I rub my stomach and swallow, hold it down, take another sip and wish I hadn’t, wish there hadn’t been the cup before. Too late to drive home, now. I look over at Donny and he smiles, eyes wrinkling behind his glasses. “Glad you came over, girl,” he says, and his face is warm and I don’t want to go anywhere, anymore. Don’t want to be anywhere but here, where nothing is real and where no one knows me or Jake or the sickness inside my stomach.

  “Donny,” I say.

  “Yep?”

  I look at the cigarettes. “I think I might be—” I take one. Light it. “I think I might be drunk.”

  “Aw,” he says. “You ain’t drunk yet. What, you had two little cups? You ain’t even finished that one, so it’s more like one and a half. Go on, finish up, have another. Get real drunk, for real. It’s Tuesday.”

  “To Tuesday.” I try to drink more, and fast, but can’t. Donny pours anyway to make up for the room I left, then taps the rim of his glass on my cup. Cheers, I think, and what a wonderful word.

  “Cheers,” I say.

  “Good girl.”

  Something tap tap taps, somewhere, and Donny says, “Yeah!” A woman, maybe Donny’s age or maybe younger, with orange-red hair and wearing white shorts that fall to her pink knees, stands in the doorway.

  “Judy!” he says. “Judy, darlin’, come in. Come in! Have somethin’ to drink with us.”

  “Thanks, no,” she says, smiling. She nods at me. “Hi.” Her voice is dusty.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Donny, I just stopped by because…well, actually, I was already out this way. Do you know the flower shop on the corner?”

  “I know it.”

  “Well, it belongs to a friend of mine. Can you believe I didn’t even know? She bought it last month, she says, and she has the most beautiful alstroemerias. They have these long, spe—”

  “Sure, sure,” he says. “I know astr—yeah. How ‘bout
that? You should paint ‘em, sculpt ‘em, or somethin’. Mia, this one—she does it all. Paints. Draws. Sculpts. Ain’t nothin’ she can’t do.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” she says.

  “You goin’ to paint ‘em?”

  “I am. I bought three bunches, and I’m on my way home, now, to set them up. But I stopped by to tell you, and I’m so sorry, that my sister won’t be leaving until a little later than we thought.”

  “A long time?”

  “No, no,” she says. She shifts on her feet and lifts the hair from her neck. “It’s hot, isn’t it?” She smiles again, a nice smile, and laugh lines wrinkle around bright green eyes. “Maybe another week or two.” Donny’s eyes go up and down her body, nice for any age. I cross my legs and sit straighter.

  “That’s all right, Jude. That’s fine.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know we made these plans, and…I feel just awful.”

  “What’re you sorry for? It’s your house, and your sister can stay as long as she wants.”

  “Well, all right,” she says. She looks at me, and Donny says, “Judy, this is my little friend, Mia. My surrogate daughter, my new patient. Mia, Judy. Artist extraordinaire.”

  “Oh, Donny,” she says.

  “You should see,” he says. “I ain’t nothin’ compared to her.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “And you, too,” she says. “I should go, though, Donny, so—I’ll give you a call, or we can meet later, all right?”

  “Sure you don’t want to stay? Have a drink? C’mon, sit a while.”

  “No, really, but thank you. I want to get the alstroemerias home before they wilt and sag. Like me!” She actually giggles, and then tucks her hair behind her ears. “Kelly’s out shopping, too, and it’s the silence of the heavens when she’s gone.”

  Donny laughs and Judy laughs and Donny says, “That sister of yours.” Their laughter trickles and fades and I say from my chair by the window, “What’s funny about your sister?”

  “Oh, you would have to meet her,” she says. “Anyway, so…”