Ghost Sickness

by Amber Foxx

  Melody let out a whoop of amusement. “Good for Jamie. And good luck. There’s this bumper sticker Orville has on his truck. ‘A normal person is just someone you don’t know real well.’ I think a healthy relationship is just one you don’t know real well, too.”

  The music blaring from the bounce house made it hard to talk, so while Melody watched Dean and Deanna jumping and hollering inside it, Mae went over to Orville Geronimo’s booth next door. Niall had asked her to tell Reno about Florencia’s rapid decline, and Lonnie and Orville had wanted to visit her. The two men were sitting in the folding chairs behind the counter, eating dinners someone must have brought them from the feast and conversing in Apache.

  Somewhat uncomfortably, Mae shared the news. The men thanked her, spoke to each other in their language, and took a silent moment, eyes downcast. Mae felt for Orville. Somehow a former spouse was always part of you, even after you chose to go separate ways.

  She noticed a little card that read “Sold” on one of the small handprint paintings. Happy to find something more cheerful to talk about, she congratulated him on the sale. He nodded, finished the bite he was chewing and said, “Yep. Just sold it an hour ago. Not a big sale, but it made that lady happy. She’s an artist herself. Photographer. Has a little business in Santa Fe doing calendars. I enjoyed talking with her. She knows a lot about Indian art.”

  A photographer. Could it have been Letitia? Zak’s urgent need for his car looked different now, if this woman was still around. “Did she look like the other kind of Indian?” Orville nodded, and Mae continued. “I met her with Zak Fatty. She was taking pictures at the rodeo today.”

  “She didn’t take pictures of that accident, did she?”

  “No, I don’t think she did.”

  “Good. That was respectful. She struck me as a nice lady.”

  Nice? To men, maybe. “I was trying to figure out how she knew Zak.”

  Lonnie said something in Apache at which both men cackled. Orville put his plate down and rose to greet a customer. Mae moved to Lonnie’s end of the booth. “What did y’all say? What’s so funny about Zak knowing that lady?”

  “I was being naughty. I didn’t want you to hear an old man acting up. Her business is called Notable Men of New Mexico. I said she could be taking Zak’s picture for one of her calendars.” He paused, sipped coffee. “Of course, I said a little more than that.”

  Mae smiled, guessing at the rest of the joke and thinking of the way Zak kept posing when he sat, as if he were a model. Letitia’s whispers and hints at the rodeo might have been about her wanting him on a calendar. The other possibilities weren’t funny, though. “I got the feeling they were interested in each other.”

  Lonnie grew serious. “No. I know Zak. He talks to pretty ladies all the time. The way some people like to look at art, he looks at women. I’m sure he looks at you. But that’s all he does. He talks, and he looks.”

  Zak had said, I’m better than you think. Ask that old man you were talking to. Mae wanted to trust Lonnie’s judgment—and Jamie’s—but they hadn’t seen Zak walk out on his family just now, or the expression on Melody’s face while Zak flirted with Letitia. True, he had good character of a sort, or at least he did good deeds, but that didn’t erase his flaws. It just made them seem irrational. Like he should know better.

  Mae imagined Jamie confronting him in his tactless but disarming way, demanding answers, telling Zak to be a better husband and father. In spite of Jamie’s lack of experience in those roles, he would know what to say. Stan was his role model, and a good one. Mae had seen and heard nothing of Zak’s father, and wondered if his mother, Elaine, was like Melody’s mother, never married, or if Zak’s father was dead, or absent though divorce. Jamie would know the story and understand, and get through to his friend.

  Mae rejoined Melody. Rain had started, thunder was growing closer, and she was calling to the children to come out of the bounce house. By the time she brought them home, maybe there would be a little peace in her family.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jamie detoured to his tent to brush his teeth and to grab his copy of Golden Love: How to Get to Your Fiftieth Anniversary, thinking he could give it to Zak if talking didn’t get through to him. But when he got to the blue house, Zak’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Jamie gave himself a mental smack for the detour. It had made him miss his chance.

  The vendors along the roadside were packing up, as they had to when it got dark. The sun was low behind the clouds and the ceremonies would be starting any minute. It was strange that Zak had gone off somewhere. His traditions meant a lot to him.

  Still annoyed with himself for his bad timing, Jamie crossed the yard, taking a short cut to the road to the ceremonial grounds. He was surprised and relieved to catch sight of Zak’s car behind his house, pulled up to the toolshed. Zak was leaning into the back hatch of the station wagon, shifting something into place. The toolshed door hung ajar. He slammed his car shut, took his phone from his pocket, and made a call.

  Glad he hadn’t taken the book back to his tent, Jamie changed direction. Zak was talking on his phone while closing up the shed and didn’t seem to notice him. A roll of thunder sounded and rain began to fall. When Jamie drew close enough to overhear, Zak was saying, “Which hotel? ... Okay. I’ll be there.”

  “What are you taking to a hotel from your toolshed?”

  Zak spun, shoving the phone into his pocket. “Are you some kind of stalker? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Just walked to your house, mate. Wanted to talk to you.”

  “You sneaked up—”

  “Didn’t mean to. I walk quiet.”

  “How long were you watching me?”

  “I wasn’t fucking watching you. Jeezus. You got roos in your paddock?”

  Usually an odd bit of Aussie slang would make Zak laugh, but this time it didn’t. He put a combination lock on the door of the shed, double-checked it, and took his car keys out of his pocket. “I told you last night to mind your own business.”

  Jamie didn’t remember hearing that. “Nah. You said you thought I’d tell Mel, if you let me in on what you were doing. I won’t. But you should tell her.”

  Zak glared at Jamie. “What do you mean, you won’t tell her? How much do you know?”

  “Fuck—nothing.”

  “You were eavesdropping. Watching me.”

  “I wasn’t. Jeezus. You’re paranoid.”

  “Says the mental hospital graduate.”

  “Low blow, mate. What’s got into you?”

  Avoiding eye contact, Zak opened his car door. “I don’t want you and Mae in my house. You can take your showers somewhere else.”

  “What the fuck? What did we do? We cleaned the place for you—we didn’t crap in it.”

  “You cleaned it? You and Mae? I thought my mom— Shit.”

  Zak got in in his car, closed the door, and made a call. When Jamie crossed behind the car to come around to Zak’s window to talk to him, his friend started the engine and shot into reverse. Startled, Jamie jumped out of the way.

  “You stupid bastard, you almost hit me!”

  Zak turned the car when he reached the pavement. Carefully, Jamie noticed. No squealing tires. Without a trace of the urgency or anger that had triggered his abrupt acceleration in his yard, Zak stopped to look for traffic and then headed toward Route 70, no doubt at exactly the posted speed.

  Feeling deflated, Jamie made his way to the porch and sat on the glider. He dimly wondered if he could be struck by lightning on the metal seat, but all his energy had left him. His hip hurt, his insides knotted with a mix of emotions and indigestion, and he was so thirsty he could hardly swallow. What did I do?

  He felt somehow ashamed that he was still holding the book and turned it over in his hands. The faces of the authors, a pair of octogenarian marriage and family therapists, smiled at him in black and white above the blurbs praising their genius. Masters of the art, the science, the mystery, and the plain hard work
of successful relationships. Love took work. Jamie knew that. He’d failed once and didn’t ever want to fail again. But this friendship had been natural and effortless. How had he just fucked it up?

  Fifteen years of friendship. His first summer in America, in that rented house on the edge of the reservation, he’d been happier than he’d been in years. Zak and Melody had liked him. They didn’t seem to understand how rare it had been for an odd kid like Jamie to be so accepted. Over time he’d realized his friends were struggling as much as he was. Melody, with her drug and alcohol problems. Zak, with the loss of his father, a trucker who’d died in a blazing wreck. The three of them had balanced each other, Zak and Melody making Jamie feel normal, Melody and Jamie making Zak lighten up, Zak and Jamie keeping Melody on a halfway sober track when she was with them, insisting there was fun to be had without being high.

  Ever since that summer, Jamie had stayed in touch with his first close teenaged friends. Sometimes Stan had spent winter breaks on the rez for his research, sometimes half the summer, sometimes only a week before going to Australia for the long college break, but Jamie had gotten together with Zak and Melody at least once every year. He’d had them up to Santa Fe for a week while he’d lived with his former fiancée Lisa, and she hadn’t liked them, especially when Melody drank too much at dinner—but Jamie hadn’t battled with his friends over that. He’d fought with Lisa.

  The past summer, with his own emotional, spiritual, and financial crises, Jamie hadn’t seen Zak and Melody. And they’d fallen into a hard place in their marriage. Jamie knew it wasn’t his fault and yet he felt guilty. Zak didn’t get close to many people, not even his family. Who could he turn to? He was too proud to tell anyone if he wasn’t happy, or if he’d screwed up.

  Lightning cracked close to the house. Struck by lightning. Had Zak failed to warn Will after all? If Zak could think Jamie was stalking and spying on him, he could think anything of Will. What if Zak was going off the deep end? What if he had some sort of delusional disorder, and he didn’t really have anything to hide? He’d made that crack about Jamie’s history of hospitalizations. Was he secretly afraid of it himself?

  No. Zak was too functional. He was paranoid for a reason, a real secret. Something he was taking from his toolshed and bringing to a hotel. Jamie wanted to call him, ask him to come back and talk, but Zak was the one who had persuaded Jamie never to talk on his phone while driving. He wouldn’t answer.

  The ceremonies should have started by now, rain and all. Mae would be waiting. This was the experience they had come to share. Jamie told himself to go but he couldn’t move. His stomach hurt, his eyes burned, and his legs felt like lead. Finally his thirst grew so strong he stood and out of habit opened the front door, seeking water. Fuck. I’m not supposed to go in. And Zak had trusted him not to. He hadn’t locked up.

  *****

  Deanna lay in the dirt having a tantrum, minutes after vomiting on her shoes as soon as she exited the bounce house. In the pouring rain, people without umbrellas were ducking under vendors’ awnings. Dean announced to the world that he had to pee. While Melody crouched over her squalling daughter, Mae offered to take Dean to the bathroom. A huge clap of thunder sounded, he jumped, and a stream ran down his leg.

  Without looking up, Melody asked, “Can you put him in the stroller while I get her?” She bent closer to Deanna. “Come on sweetheart, you have to stop. I know you don’t feel good. Mom will get you home and clean you up. You’ll feel better.”

  Deanna howled and shook off her mother’s touch. Mae placed Dean in the twin stroller. His small size for his age struck her as she fastened his seatbelt. Melody and Zak were both big-boned and a little taller than average. The children were more delicately made, like Bernadette and her brother. Or like one of their grandfathers, perhaps—Zak or Melody’s absent fathers.

  “I peed my pants,” Dean confided.

  “Looked like the thunder scared you.”

  He nodded, with an apprehensive glance at the sky.

  Melody, lifting a still-fussing Deanna, froze with a cry of pain. “My back! Take her, quick, before I drop her.”

  Mae took the child and put her in the stroller. To Mae’s surprise, Dean clasped his sister’s hand like a solemn little gentleman, and Deanna turned her volume down to sniveling. Melody was curling into an odd sideways position, as if one side of her back was in a spasm. The children were too light to cause much strain—at least Mae thought so, but then she was used to lifting. “You have a bad back?”

  “Yeah. Ever since I was pregnant. Carrying my gut around doesn’t help, either.”

  It was probably true, but Mae didn’t want to agree aloud. “Does it hurt to walk? You want me to bring my car up to the gate?”

  “I’ll make it. It’s downhill all the way. You can roll me if you have to.”

  Melody’s phone rang while they walked through the parking lot. The children cowered with every thunderclap and lightning bolt, and Mae tried to comfort them while their mother talked. When the Apache woman ended the call, she said, “Zak has lost his mind.”

  “What?”

  “He told me not to let you and Jamie in the house. And to make sure you hadn’t taken anything when you cleaned for us. Can you believe that?”

  Mae had no idea how to react. Taken something? It was such an alien idea she couldn’t even be insulted at first. “I reckon Jamie didn’t have much luck talking sense into him.”

  “I don’t know if he talked to him at all.”

  “Is Zak at the house?”

  “No. He said he’s on his way out of town. No explanation.”

  “Zak’s a really bad liar, isn’t he? He has no idea how to cover up. He just stonewalls.”

  Melody stopped to rub her back. “I never thought about that. You’re right. He’s a pain in the ass, but he doesn’t normally lie to me.” She dug her fist into her lumbar region and grunted. “There’s so damned much fat I can’t get at the muscle.”

  Mae let the observation fall untouched. It was another uncomfortable truth about what it was like to be Melody, obese and angry with herself for becoming that way. “Do you have any idea what Zak might be hiding from you? Any guesses?”

  They resumed walking. “Probably that photographer lady.”

  “Jamie says Zak’s just a flirt. So does Lonnie Bigmouth. They say Zak’s all talk with women, no action. Has he ever actually cheated on you?”

  “Not as far as I know. But look at me. If I were him, I would.”

  Did she think her size meant she deserved the way Zak treated her? “Sorry, but that is just wrong. That is not what you do if your partner isn’t perfect.”

  “You wouldn’t know.”

  “Yes, I would. It’s love, not how you look, that makes people faithful.”

  “You don’t get it. Your situation is nowhere near the same. Jamie’s gained a little weight, but he still looks good. I look like a hippopotamus.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about me and Jamie.”

  Mae had been in rock-solid good shape and Mack had cheated on her. A good body didn’t guarantee anything. Melody might not understand, though. In the family pictures that covered one wall of her kitchen, she had been a beauty—her body robust and curvy and her face arresting, with large, slightly almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and a huge smile. She’d been the girl with so much power she’d had two young men who wanted her, and confidence that she could keep them both. That confidence must have been based on her appearance, not her self-worth. She seemed to have little sense of that.

  Melody asked, “So what were you thinking about?”

  Mae hesitated before answering. Her first marriage wasn’t a story she liked to tell. “Being married to a cheater.”

  “What? A guy would be crazy to cheat on you.”

  Mae was about to thank her for the compliment when Melody clapped a hand over Mae’s biceps muscle and squeezed. “Look at you. You could beat the shit out of him.”

  Somehow, the joke was better
than any praise. In the drenching rain with two soiled, storm-scared children and Melody wincing with every other step, they’d crossed the line from being Jamie’s girlfriend and Jamie’s friend to being friends with each other.

  When they reached the house, Jamie was slouched on the glider, a book lying unopened in his lap. Mae could feel the misery coming off him, an unmistakable signal like the smell of rain. He talked to Zak. And he thinks he blew it.

  She asked him to help her carry the stroller up the steps, explaining that Melody had hurt her back. Jamie did as she asked, and she unbuckled the children. The rain hadn’t washed them much under the stroller’s canopy, and between Deanna’s upchucking and Dean’s accident, they smelled like kids who needed a bath. She asked Melody, “You want me to help you put ’em in the tub?”

  Before his friend could answer, Jamie said, “We’re not supposed to go in. Zak thinks—dunno what he thinks. But ...” He sighed and dropped onto the glider again. “He said to stay out.”

  “And that’s just plain stupid,” Melody said. “I could call someone in the family to come down from the ceremonies to help me, but you’re right here. And Mae is good with kids.” She opened the door and told the children to go in and get ready for their baths. “As long as I’m here, you’re invited in.”

  Jamie thumbed the book, rubbed his hands over his face, and then dropped them with a mumbled “Fuck.”

  Mae kissed him on the cheek, getting little response, and followed Melody inside. She wanted to talk with him, find out just how badly his talk with Zak had gone, but she would have to leave him to his mood for now. There was a lot of bending over involved in child care, and Melody was in no shape to do it.

  After Dean and Deanna were bathed, Mae watched Melody sit on the twin beds, kiss each child and pull the sheets up around their chins, and remembered tucking her stepdaughters in. On those rare evenings during their marriage that Hubert hadn’t been there to kiss his daughters goodnight—when he was sick, or staying late at his parents’ farm—the girls had missed their daddy and Mae had given them an extra kiss and said it was from him. Melody and her twins acted like they were accustomed to doing without Zak. Maybe he was away a lot on wildfires, but even so, they should have noticed his absence since he was home today. They didn’t ask for him, though, and she didn’t mention him.