Slipstream

by Leslie Larson

  “Hi. We don’t need anything today,” Jewell called out as cordially as she could manage. She was desperate to have Celeste to herself.

  The Avon Lady dismounted. How anyone who just rode a bike from who knew where could look so perfectly manicured, Jewell had no idea. The woman’s black, intricately styled, and heavily sprayed hair was perfectly in place; her cream-colored slacks had crisp creases and not a spot of road dirt or chain oil anywhere. A gold brooch was fastened to the lapel of her plaid blazer, and she wore shiny pumps with chunky black heels.

  “How about your friend?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The woman wheeled her bike alongside Jewell, bumping it over the unkempt lawn. “There’s still time to buy for Christmas.”

  “She doesn’t celebrate Christmas. She’s Jewish.”

  “Nieces and nephews. She likes to buy for everyone.”

  Jewell stopped short and turned. The woman flinched. A flash of fear passed over her face. Jewell glanced down and noticed her engagement ring: a big gold setting with a tiny little diamond. The ring and the wedding band looked like it had been bought in a boxed set with the gold cross she wore around her neck. “I don’t mean to be rude, but Celeste is moving,” Jewell said. “We both are.”

  “Is she home?”

  The Avon Lady might be scared, but she was also stubborn. Very stubborn. There was no getting rid of her. Celeste appeared at the door with the laundry basket under one arm and her purse draped over the other. Jewell’s breath caught. It felt so good just to see her. It was like in the very beginning, when the sight of Celeste used to knock her into a kind of stupor.

  The Avon Lady clicked down her kickstand and bustled up to Celeste before Jewell could move. They chatted on the porch while Jewell stood on the walkway near the bike. When had the two of them gotten to be such good friends? Celeste kept glancing at Jewell while she nodded and smiled at the Avon Lady, who took out her brochure and thumbed through the pages. Jewell shifted her feet restlessly. My god, Celeste was gorgeous. She’d pulled her hair straight back so that she looked like a flamenco dancer: elegant and fiery.

  “All right Inez, thanks for everything,” Celeste said. “I’ll miss you.”

  Finally. The Avon Lady turned and came back down the walk. She shot Jewell a not-very-friendly look as she passed.

  Jewell had to tell each muscle and tendon what to do in order to walk the short distance to the porch. Even then she felt spastic: her legs kicked out at odd angles, her arms jerked in irregular motion. Her face was out of control, too. It hung like a rubbery mask from her skull, contorting from a shit-eating grin to a grotesque grimace. “Hi,” she managed to say as she struggled up.

  All the hairs stood up on Jewell’s arm when Celeste laid her hand on it. Celeste looked into her eyes and gave her a warm smile. What was up?

  “Hi, Jewell. I’m just leaving. I’m on my way out.”

  “Uh,” Jewell muttered. “Um.” Her throat had closed up. Her eyes played over and over Celeste’s face. She was hungry for it. God, what a state. The important thing was to keep her there as long as possible so she could keep looking at her. “Isn’t it strange that the Avon Lady rides a bike?” she finally managed.

  Celeste laughed. Laughed! Jewell had forgotten the precious way Celeste’s narrow bottom teeth jumbled against each other. And her throat when she tilted her head back! Jewell was in a bad way, even she knew it. But she laughed, too, a strangled gurgle that made her throat burn. Not too much, though, because that might open her tear ducts again.

  “She’s a strange one, all right,” Celeste said. “I don’t know where she comes from or how far she rides that bike. I don’t think she can drive. I get a weird vibe from her, like something freaky’s going on—even though she looks normal, or pretty conservative.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s just the Christian thing. That cross around her neck.”

  The small talk loosened Jewell up enough to suggest they go inside for a minute. Celeste set the laundry basket down by the dining room table, her purse on top of it. She was wearing a long, loose-knit sweater Jewell had never seen before. Very flattering. It felt good to be in the house together, the place where they’d loved each other with such joy, where they’d had so many laughs.

  “My God, Jewell. How much weight have you lost?” Celeste said when she turned and looked at her.

  Jewell lifted her shirt and pulled out the waistband of her sagging jeans. “Guess I dropped a few,” she said. Celeste’s eyes fixed on her bare stomach. She still wanted her, Jewell could tell. That frumpy Dana couldn’t hold a candle to her, at least in the looks department. Jewell took a step closer. She softly touched Celeste’s neck, then her face. She saw the fear in Celeste’s eyes, the heat. Still, she was surprised when Celeste leaned toward her, met her halfway.

  For the first few moments they kissed, Jewell felt like her ears were plugged, like she was underwater. There was pure silence, then there were only muffled sounds, vague rustlings and distant murmurs. After what seemed like a long time she began to surface. She heard the refrigerator kick on in the kitchen, a car door slam out in the street. She couldn’t tell her own breathing from Celeste’s. Still they kissed. Jewell felt like she could go on forever. She sensed their concentration, Celeste’s and her own, like they were traveling a treacherous road together and had to pay strict attention. Celeste’s kisses became more frantic. In just a moment, Jewell was sure, she would feel the click in Celeste’s desire that meant there was no turning back. The increased urgency that meant Celeste had taken the first step on a trajectory that wouldn’t end until she lay sweaty and exhausted beside Jewell, a smirk on her face.

  Anticipation of that moment so excited Jewell that she slid her hands up the front of Celeste’s sweater, under her bra, to the warmth of her breasts. Celeste’s nipples hardened immediately. She gasped, moaned, and fell against Jewell, pressing her pelvis against her thigh. Now it was Jewell who was frantic. She pulled her hands from under Celeste’s sweater and grabbed her ass instead, pulling her against her. Her sadness, the raw grief of the past few weeks, boiled up into a voracious craving. She felt like she had to hold tight to the seat of Celeste’s jeans to keep her hands from shredding the denim to tatters.

  Then Celeste pushed her away.

  They stared at each other like two wrestlers about to close in the ring, panting.

  “I can’t do this, Jewell. I just can’t.”

  Jewell’s ears popped. Her eyes slowly focused. Her mouth filled with spit like she was going to be sick.

  “Don’t do this to me, Jules,” Celeste rasped. “I can’t take it. Please don’t do it.”

  Jewell felt like her stomach was being hauled out through her mouth. She moved her jaw as if she were trying to clear her ears, adjust to a different altitude. She couldn’t talk, she didn’t even try. All she could do was kick the laundry basket. The clothes went flying, then lay strewn across the floor like bodies washed up on a beach.

  “Just leave,” Jewell said.

  She listened to the door close, Celeste’s car starting, the motor accelerating as she drove away. Then there was just the house again. Water gurgling in the leaky toilet tank, a creak as the wall settled.

  She went into the bedroom and lay at the foot of the bed. Like a dog, like Lassie. For a while she kept her mind a blank and stared out the window over the bed. Then she turned her face toward the bed, pressed it into the bedspread, and sobbed, alternately kneading the blankets and pounding her open palm against the mattress. She let herself go, wailing as she rubbed her wet, hot face against the blankets. She cursed herself, Celeste, and Dana. But then, just as she was really getting into her tears, they dried up. It always happened that way: the mood passed before she was ready to stop crying. Despite her. She sat up, wiped her face. She felt lucid, strangely calm. Not optimistic, but resigned. Some kind of Zen state, she supposed. Beyond suffering. She wrinkled up her face, contracted her chest, tried to force another sob. More, she wanted more. No goo
d. Nothing came. She was finished.

  She spied her backpack on the floor next to the bed. She pulled out her wallet and searched through four crumpled one-dollar bills, a receipt for the balsa wood she’d bought for her project, and a coupon for a free cup of coffee from a shop on the north side of campus, until she found the corner of notebook paper where she’d written the number her Uncle Tommy had given her.

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. No wonder she was fucked up, she thought bitterly as she listened to the phone ring. She’d learned from the master. With her parents as role models, it was a wonder she would even try to be in a relationship. She pressed her face into the bedspread and imagined she could smell the commingling of her own and Celeste’s bodies—the hours they’d spent dreaming side by side, the warmth of their entangled limbs. She loved to wake when the faintest light was just starting to come through the window over the bed, when the folds and peaks of the blankets shimmered with a glacial blueness and Celeste was sunk in her deepest sleep, her hair spilling over the pillow. There was still time to go back to sleep, time for just the two of them before they’d have to get up and start their days, go their separate ways.

  Normally she would have hung up after so many rings, but somehow she expected this from her father, so she stayed on the line. No telling where he was: if he was still in town, still out of jail, dead or alive. Señor Love ’em and Leave ’em. While she listened to the rings, she stared blankly at the wooden crate that served as Celeste’s nightstand, at the cigar box where Celeste kept all the polishes and potions for her feet and hands. Celeste was the ultimate multitasker, reading a magazine, drinking tea, talking on the phone, and giving herself a pedicure all at once while she leaned against the headboard of the bed and winked at Jewell, pointing to the place beside her, telling her to come and sit down.

  Jewell didn’t bother wondering why she was calling her father now, of all times. She knew it was messed up. What difference did it make? It wasn’t like she had a whole lot to lose. The phone seemed to ring forever. Then there was a click, and it stopped ringing.

  Jewell sat up on the bed.

  “Yeah?” Logan said.

  His voice was familiar, like she’d heard it a day or two ago.

  “Hello?” he said.

  Jewell just listened. To the static on the line, to his breathing, to the low buzz of the current that connected them. It’s him, she thought. Logan, her father.

  “Hello?” he repeated, pissed that no one was answering.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He laughed, a liquid, bubbling sound. “I don’t believe it!” he cried gleefully. “You read my mind!”

  25

  Logan was a little funny on the rent, so he carried his things down to his truck on the sly, a little at a time. With any luck, no one would break a window and rip off his gear before he left; with a little more luck he’d say adios to the Morningstar without Salem, the manager, noticing he was gone. He’d told Damon next door that he could use the Toyota while he was away; all he had to do was drive Logan to the airport. So things were pretty much set. If everything went off without a hitch, this time tomorrow he’d be feasting his eyes on that blue, blue water.

  He took it as a sign that Jewell had called him today of all days, right before he left. Though he didn’t like to play favorites, he had to admit that of all his children, she felt the most his. His first. The day he’d brought her home from the hospital he’d felt like he’d pulled one over on everyone, like he’d really gotten away with something. Like he should get her home as fast as possible and hide her away, his precious thing, before someone realized what he had and tried to take it away from him. Best of all, he’d get to see her before he left, since she’d agreed to meet him that night at the airport. With her and Tommy there, it would be a real send-off party.

  He looked under the bed and in the drawer of the table to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. The room look scuffed and desolate without his things spread around. He’d had some good times here; he’d miss the place. Some damn lonely times, too, but on the whole a lot of good. He never did get around to Sylvia Salvetti, he thought with a chuckle. That surprised him. Didn’t matter though, because where he was going they’d be lining up at his door. Not only the señoritas, but gringas there on vacation, wanting to cut loose a little before they headed back home. A lot of them had money. After a while maybe he’d come back with one of them, live the high life.

  He jumped when his phone rang. Beethoven’s Fifth. Fate knocking at his door. What an idiot to choose that ring when he could have had La Cucaracha, Louie Louie, or the Blue fucking Danube. Jesus Christ, if they caught him now, wouldn’t that be the shit to end all shits? He’d already talked to the Salvettis, Tommy, and Jewell, so it had to be his caseworker, the prick, telling him that his number had come up, to come in and get tested. It was all over. Logan started sweating bullets. Don’t answer, he told himself. It’d stop ringing and by the time they came to get him he’d be gone, out of the country. He was way too small potatoes for them to check the airports. If he didn’t answer, everything would be cool.

  The phone kept bleating. The trouble was, he was jumpy as hell. Except for a few times he’d lain down in his clothes and dozed, he’d been up for two nights running. Getting high, coming down, getting high again. Thinking about crazy things he hadn’t thought about for years. How his mother had complained for months and months about a backache before they found her cancer. How his son Stephen had sent him handmade cards—Christmas, birthday, Father’s Day—year after year, and Logan hadn’t done squat. Nothing, not jack shit, not even a phone call to say thanks, even though the kid was a regular Hallmark factory—glue, sequins, the whole nine yards. It hurt to think about it. He thought about his uncle Vance, his father’s brother, who took him fishing for catfish in the canals over by El Centro. After Logan had sat the whole day in the blazing sun and not caught a thing, Vance—who’d lost his thumb to a chainsaw and talked with a bad stutter—had told him to go over to the car and bring him a beer. When Logan returned and his uncle handed his pole back, he’d reeled it in to find a good-sized catfish hanging on the line. Didn’t matter that the damn thing was as limp as—well, a dead fish. It had taken Logan a long time, years, to figure out that’s exactly what it was, that his uncle had taken pity on him and tied it on the line. He thought about Mrs. Keezer, the old lady who lived next door to him and his mother when he was in junior high. Her thing was gardening in the middle of the night. She’d drag a pole lamp out on an extension cord, put a little radio beside her, and dig away, down on her hands and knees in a house dress under the moon and stars. All the jaw-grinding, moaning, farting, and snoring he’d listened to while locked up. The sweet spells he’d had, holed up with some woman. He thought about his mother and father, the people he’d known who’d checked out one way or another. Lying awake, clench-jawed and cotton-mouthed, watching his life played out on the ceiling of his room. Old feelings coming back. It tired him out. Made him feel like an old man.

  “I’m not here, you motherfucker!” he yelled at the phone.

  Who in their right mind would let the damn thing ring so many times? Then he realized it wouldn’t matter if he answered. He could tell his caseworker fine, he’d be right in, and by the time they figured out he wasn’t coming, he’d be gone. Even if they showed up at his goddamn door it’d be too late. By the time they got their act together to pick him up, he’d be kicking back down in Mexico.

  “Come get me, you sons of bitches,” he said, flipping open the phone.

  It was Damon, wanting to know what time they were leaving.

  “I told you, man, we leave at five-thirty. I’m counting on you.”

  He hung up and settled down. Just one more hour, then it was sayonara. He thought of praying, but it didn’t feel right. He’d saved one hit to do just before he left. Then he’d have to tough it out because there was no way he was taking anything across the border. That was a whole different kettle of fish, f
ederal offense, and while he might indulge in risky behavior, he wasn’t stupid.

  Someone had left a flat box of good paper in the drawer of the table near the window. Onion skin it said on the cover. Logan sat down and took out a sheet. It was brittle and yellowed around the edges, but that didn’t matter. The aged paper seemed right for what he was going to write: better than the yellow pad of lined paper he’d bought in the prison commissary, or the white Xerox paper he’d filched from the place where he cashed his checks. He got the Sunset Savings & Loan ballpoint off the windowsill, took a deep breath, and started writing.

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, he printed in official-looking capital letters. He scratched it out. What the hell, he tore the paper up and took a whole new piece. It was a legal document, after all. LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF LOGAN PAUL WYLIE, he began, centering the line at the top of the page. He cracked his knuckles. He didn’t have a whole lot to give away. He chewed on the pen. Time ticked by. Damon could keep the truck, if worse came to worse. Good luck to him. He had two rings: a big chunk of turquoise he’d won from an Arizona Navajo he’d served time with, and a Celtic cross given to him by a woman he’d lived with out by San Bernardino. He left one each to his sons, Stephen and Tony. To Heather, his second daughter and Tony’s sister, he left the collection of Indian-head nickels he’d had since he was a boy. It was in his storage locker; he gave instructions on how to retrieve it. And to Jamie, his youngest daughter, he left a clay sculpture of a reclining woman that he’d made when he was a senior in high school. That was in storage, too.

  His wedding rings were gone. The first one, from his marriage to Jewell’s mother, he’d pitched off the Santa Monica Pier late one night about a year after they divorced. He had no idea what had happened to the other two. He left his father’s wristwatch, a big silver clunker, to Tommy. The only thing he had from his mother was a sad little filigree locket with her parents’ pictures inside. It had blackened with age; the chain was knotted and crimped. Worth about twenty bucks, tops. Still, it was precious, because in many ways his mother was the love of his life. No one had ever loved him like that again, come hell or high water. He left the locket to Jewell.