Ghost Sickness

by Amber Foxx

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Wind-driven rain began to patter against the windows, followed by thunder and lightning. Mae thought about her laundry she’d forgotten on the line, but let the concern go as the patrons of Passion Pie Café cheered the rain and shared their hopes that the storm would last a while. Misty turned the sign on the door around, indicating the place was closed, and began sweeping. A man in the kitchen started singing along with the classic jazz ballad that was playing. No one rushed to leave but took their time to finish cookies and coffee and final emails. Mae didn’t feel conspicuous lingering, especially with the downpour. She felt like she’d won. Reno had driven her out of Mescalero, and she’d ended up doing exactly what he’d tried to prevent.

  He’d probably thought he was safe with his art on a café table. In a busy public place, it would be hard for her to concentrate, and a lot of people had eaten on his work since he’d painted it. Mae hoped his energy traces would still be strong, though. She turned off her laptop and phone, then got the crystals from her purse, discreetly cupping several clear quartz points in her hand. To strengthen her receptivity, she also put one on Reno’s signature, which she’d discovered between two long slender toes of the lizard’s left rear foot, “Reno” up the inside of one toe, “Geronimo” down the next.

  Mae turned to face the wall, laid one hand over the crystal on the signature and closed her eyes. What’s Reno hiding?

  Her vision rolled and swirled through a tunnel, coming out in a room that had to be Florencia’s studio at the back of her house, though Mae had only seen it from the outside with its blinds closed. The view through the windows at the far end showed the detached carport, while the rest faced the steep bluff across the narrow street behind the house. The artist stood in front of a large sheet of paper attached to an easel, sketching. Her thick, short hair was dyed fuchsia, matching the frames of her glasses, and her full figure looked firm, healthy, and strong. Several small canvases with what appeared to be drafts of the work she had in mind stood around her, images of a narrow rocky staircase like a crevasse in a mesa.

  Reno sat on a wooden stool watching her, his heels hooked on a rung. They were silent together, yet strangely intense.

  “Don’t put it off,” he said. “It could be just a cyst. You need to find out.”

  “I already know what it is.” She drew carefully, slowly, studying each stroke. “I can feel it.”

  “People survive breast cancer now. More than they die of it. I looked it up. It’s not like pancreatic cancer. My mom never had a chance. You do.”

  “You know what happens to your arm and chest muscles if they cut your boob off?” Florencia paused in her work. “I’m right handed. It’s my right breast.”

  “So what? You can recover from surgery, even if it takes a while. But you won’t paint anything if you’re dead.” Reno kicked the rung and looked down at his feet. “I’ll love you with one breast. I’ll love you while you heal. Or I’ll love you with a scar where they take out a lump. Whatever happens, I’ll love you. Please. See a doctor.”

  She walked over, looked into his sad, serious face, and touched his upper lip with her charcoal stick, drawing a moustache before he could pull away. He looked wounded, but she burst out laughing and said, “I should go ahead and die of this so you can get on with your life. With a nice Apache girl your own age.”

  Reno glared at her, swiped at his mouth, and walked out. Florencia’s mood changed suddenly, like an actor dropping a role backstage. She bit her lip and pressed her fist to her chest, tears brimming in her eyes.

  Mae ended the vision and sat staring at the lizard. Around her, the café had emptied. The only person left in the room was Misty, still sweeping. The vision was going to be hard to share with her. She couldn’t be expecting this to be Reno’s secret.

  What had Florencia been grieving? The potential loss of her breast, the feared effect of her treatment on her painting, or the affection she had turned away? Maybe all of it.

  Reno’s declaration of love had come across as discouraged, spoken from a distance, avoiding eye contact. Florencia might have rejected him more than once. Mae had a hard time picturing the artists as a couple, and not only because of their age difference. Their personalities were a mismatch.

  Had Florencia returned his feelings at all? Had they been lovers and broken off, or had he been a friend she could neither let go of nor love in return? Mae had felt that way about Jamie once. The situation had torn her until she’d had a change of heart. Florencia might have struggled even more if she’d loved Reno but turned him down, believing he should be with that girl his own age. A young artist falling in love with his older mentor sounded romantic—until it actually happened. What Mae had seen looked sad and hopeless.

  The only thing that made her wonder if they had been lovers was the hair. Florencia hadn’t chopped her chemo-thinned hair off and dyed it fuchsia. That had been her look before treatment, and yet there had been long black hairs on some of her clothes Mae had packed. Either Florencia hadn’t had her sweaters cleaned since before she did her crazy hair color, or she’d been very close to someone with hair like Reno’s.

  Mae put the quartz points in the pouch for stones that needed rebalancing and used snow quartz to clear her aura of Reno’s energy. Misty emptied her dust pan into the trash and gave Mae a curious look. “Well?”

  “I didn’t find out how he’s getting money. I saw something else.”

  Loud rapping on the door interrupted them. Jamie stood in the rain, holding his hat from blowing off his head, his floral-print Aloha shirt flapping in the wind. On the street outside sat his dented van. Misty made a face and walked over to point at the closed sign. He made the same face back at her, and she unlocked the door.

  “Sorry.” He stepped in, took off his hat and shook the rain from his hair, then said to Mae, “Couldn’t get hold of you, love.”

  “I turned my phone off so I could concentrate on something.”

  “But—” He frowned, sounding utterly bewildered. “You knew I’d call.”

  “I thought you were going grocery shopping while I talked with Misty.”

  “Yeah, but then I didn’t have a key—where d’you keep your spare?—to go in and see what we needed. And then it started pouring and I thought about you getting wet and I remembered you were meeting Misty and must be here, so—” He took a breath after his nonstop recitation. “I’m here to give you a ride. And we can shop.”

  “Thanks for thinking of it, but I need to talk with Misty. Can you wait in your van for a few minutes?”

  “No, it’s okay,” Misty said, “Call me later. Jamie’s being so thoughtful. So not-Reno.”

  “We need to talk about Reno. Stop by my house before you leave for Mescalero.” Mae wasn’t letting anything get in the way of sharing her vision. Misty would be on her Harley as soon as the rain stopped, and the last time Mae had seen the girl ride while angry with Reno, she’d been reckless. How she’d react to the news that he’d been at least interested in his father’s ex-wife, his mentor, Mae couldn’t imagine—break the sound barrier?—but surely she’d give his ring back without needing to know where he got the money to buy it. “It’s the green converted trailer on Marr, next to that old warehouse. Come over as soon as you finish closing up here.”

  While Jamie drove to Bullock’s grocery, rambling about possible recipes, Mae watched the storm and half-listened, letting him become like the sound of the rain. The puddles were filling up nicely at the intersections, the sign of a good storm. He slowed the van and plowed through the water. “Italian, y’think? You like pesto? It’s good on whole wheat noodles. Or how about zucchini lasagna? I’m in sort of a pasta mood.”

  I’m not in a Jamie mood. She felt guilty about that. The Chino sisters’ relationships made her feel she was being ungrateful. Jamie was considerate, communicative, sensitive—everything Zak, Will, and Reno were not. And she loved him. How could she not be in the mood for him? Niall, fond as he was of Jamie, had
encouraged her to stand her ground for going slowly in the relationship. She’d tried a few times over the weekend, but Jamie didn’t seem to grasp the idea. He doesn’t need to be alone like a normal person. He wouldn’t understand unless she said it outright. Anyone who thought a couple could spend four nights in a tiny tent didn’t need his own space.

  The thought of the tent made her put off the uncomfortable discussion. “Did you talk to David?”

  “Yeah.” Jamie steered into the parking lot behind the store. “It’s weird. It was like I thought—they had only their expensive stuff out. Said it was some marketing experiment. Attracting serious buyers. At a fucking powwow?”

  They dashed through the rain to the back door of the store and into a hallway with bulletin boards and a stand full of flyers. Mae asked, “How did he react about the tent?”

  Jamie took off his hat and shook his hair again, tapped the hat against his leg a few times, and put it back on. “It was weird. He was holding Star and rocking her while I told him what happened, and then he looks up at me and says, ‘I’m sure it looks bad to you now, but everything’s going to be all right.’ Real gentle, like he cares—and like he knows something.”

  “Did you ask what he meant?”

  “Couldn’t. He was like this oracle. And then some people came up and started looking at pots and David gave Shelli the baby and he says it again, ‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ and starts his sales pitch for the high-end pots.”

  Everything’s going to be all right. Could David know that? Jamie had told the tent story to check his friend’s reaction, but had no doubt been genuine in his dismay. David might have wanted to make Jamie feel better, or he might have found a clever way to cut off the topic. Maybe both. Mae squeezed Jamie’s hand, not sure what to say.

  They started shopping, Jamie swinging a green plastic basket and musing over the merits of various fruits—in season or out of season, local or imported—and how he craved apples even though “they’re out of season and probably came from New Zealand and—that almost rhymed.”

  “Just get what you want.” Mae tried to hurry him so she could get home to meet Misty. “I like everything.”

  “You know blueberries are good for your brain? Read that somewhere.” He put a package in the basket and then examined several varieties of apples, reading the little sticky tags on them.

  Mae’s phone rang. Misty.

  “Where are you? I’m at your place.”

  “You’re done already?”

  “Yep. Wash the tables, close the cash register. It doesn’t take long.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Mae’s house was only three blocks away. She ended the call. “I’m gonna run and see Misty.”

  “You’ll get wet. Let me drive you.”

  “I won’t melt. Finish the shopping.” She opened her wallet and offered him some money, but he drew his head back as if the cash smelled bad. “I’m paying for dinner,” she said. “I don’t want you buying everything. You already paid for that workshop.”

  “Doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “It will if we don’t pay attention. I don’t want to get unequal.”

  “Bloody hell, we’re already fucking unequal.”

  “Lower your voice, sugar.” Further up the produce aisle, Chuck Brady was examining tomatillos. He glanced at Mae, raised an eyebrow, and went back to choosing vegetables. “People can hear you cussing.”

  “Right.” Jamie whispered. “There you go. See? Bloody fucking unequal.”

  “I am not having a fight with you in this grocery store.” But she felt like it. He’d started one over nothing—the practical, common-sense sharing of expenses. What would have happened if she’d asked for a night alone? Niall had been right about Typhoon Jamie. It didn’t take much to stir up a storm. “I’ll see you at the house.”

  Mae pushed the money into his front pocket and strode toward the front door. Chuck gave her another eyebrow lift as she passed. She wanted to stop like some seeker at the feet of the guru and beg him to tell her the secret of healthy relationships. Chuck and Daphne had been together through good times and hard times, illness and aging, and they adored each other. Surely he knew the key to making things work. But Mae had to go talk to a Chino sister, one of the all-star experts in unhealthy relationships. She gave Chuck what she felt might be a desperate look, her hands palms-up in the universal signal of frustration, and hurried past.

  As she approached the front door, she heard his resonant voice. “You must be Mae’s boyfriend. Chuck Brady, retired.”

  And Jamie’s lighter but equally resonant voice, a tad shaky. “Um—yeah. Jamie Ellerbee.” A pause. “Retired what?”

  The automatic door slid open and Mae darted out into the storm. Thank you, Chuck. Maybe Jamie could sit at the feet of the master.

  Mae and Misty sat in the old metal chairs on the front porch, and Mae shared her vision. When she finished, the young Apache woman curled over with her forearms on her thighs, fists pressed together, head down, and stayed there. Not crying, just silent.

  “Misty? Are you okay?”

  “Shit! What do you think?” she exploded, standing and kicking the chair into the railing. “What was the matter with that woman?”

  “With—” Mae almost said her name. “With her? What do you mean? She turned him down. She told him to be with—with you, I assume.”

  “And flirted with him while she did it. And kept him hanging on and hanging on. For what? Her ego. How could he not worship her? A great artist. His teacher. She should have drawn a line in the sand. But she used him. Middle-aged woman gets young man to love her.”

  Mae should have seen that aspect of the story, but she’d been too stunned to analyze it right away, and then Jamie had showed up. Misty was at least half-right. Florencia should have nipped that crush in the bud. “I’m sorry that’s what I found out. I was hoping I’d learn where he’s been getting his money. You still need to know. Has he got stuff he keeps at your place?”

  Misty shook her head. “He took it. Not that he ever had much—just a toothbrush.”

  “What about gifts? Did he give you any of his art? I can go back to the Pie and try with the table again tomorrow, but someone could be sitting at it, or it could sell. I’d like something I can use at home.”

  “He gave me my ring. And my skateboard. That’s about it.”

  “Not much use to me unless he uses it a lot.”

  “Reno? Ride a board? He thinks it’s too dangerous.” She leaned on the railing and reached a hand out into the drizzle. “Rain’s slowing down. I should get going.”

  “Drive safely. Don’t speed.” And get a helmet.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Misty started down the steps. “You sound like Zak. Except he always adds, ‘Get a helmet.’ ” She strode down the driveway and into the street and was quickly out of sight.

  Mae sounded like Zak? No—only when he was giving good advice. He’d probably answered some EMT calls for injured or dead bikers. People like Misty who took risks for the fun of it. She hadn’t listened to him. Maybe someone should point out to the wannabe dentist that she could get her teeth knocked out. She was stubborn, though. She saw only poor Reno being used by Florencia, not Reno being disloyal. If Mae found out he was in some illegal scheme, would Misty still make an excuse for him and marry him, or would that carry more weight than a crush on his mentor?

  Jamie’s van rolled into the driveway, passing under the mesquite tree near the street with a scratching of thorny branches along the roof. He pulled up by the steps and got out, bags dangling from his arms. “Sorry about all the plastic. My cloth bags are in the Fiesta.” He climbed the steps, and Mae opened the door and took a couple of bags from him. He continued, “You know they banned the plastic ones in Santa Fe? It’s weird to even see ’em. City’s trying to exterminate the state flower—plastic bag snagged on a cactus. But they’re actually useful, like for cleaning Gasser’s litterbox, so can you remind me to take them with me?”
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  “Sure.”

  They took their shoes off on their way in, and then unpacked the groceries, Jamie singing snatches of various songs. When he started to put the bags under her sink, she took them and stuffed them into one of his sandals by the front door. “So you won’t forget.”

  “Already did.”

  Had he also forgotten they’d been arguing? It lingered in the back of her mind, unresolved, but Jamie seemed unaware of it. He washed an apple after peeling its sticker off and offered it to Mae. She thanked him and bit into it while he rinsed another, working far too long at the adhesive residue. Obsessing. Maybe he did remember. Mae asked, “Did you like Chuck Brady?”

  “Yeah. Nice bloke.” Jamie rolled the last bit of gumminess off. “Jeezus. You’d think a sign that says they’re Fujis would be enough. Every apple doesn’t need a fucking name tag. Let’s go outside. Look for the rainbow.” He put his arm around her waist, leading her in a hip-to-hip stroll down the hall to the back door in her bedroom.

  The rainbow hadn’t arrived yet. Rain was still falling in patches and streaks over Turtleback Mountain as blue sky began to break through the clouds overhead. Apple in his mouth, Jamie swiped at the top step with his hand. “Not bad.” He sat, chomping on the fruit. “Sit on my lap if you don’t like getting your bum wet.”

  “No thanks.” That was something petite women did, not Mae. She sat beside him. “I like to see you when I talk to you. And I feel like we didn’t finish—”

  “Fighting?”

  “Sorting things out.”

  “Same thing. Chuck could tell we were having a fight.” Jamie spun his apple by its stem, first one way and then the other, watching the bitten place twirl by. “Gave me some advice.”

  Good. “What’d he say?”

  Jamie snort-laughed. “The woman is always right.” He spun the apple again. Mae wanted to tell him to stop. Any second, it was going to fall off its stem and roll down the steps into the dirt and then he would be back in the kitchen fussing over little sticky labels again. Jamie said, “I told him that was our whole fucking problem.”