by Marta Acosta
She shook her head. “I don’t think he’d do that, but … I’m not sure.”
“Ian does anything he feels like doing,” I said. “That’s why I could never consider him even though …” I stopped that thought.
Mercedes said, “Are you sure Oswald will let you stay?”
“Oswald will want to help me. That’s who he is,” I said with more certainty than I felt. “He’s always been there for me.”
“That was different. He was in love with you then.” She sighed heavily. “If your truck is still near Ian’s, we’ve got to get rid of it, get rid of your laptop and electronic trail, and get you a new ride. Pepper can help.”
Ernest “Pepper” Culpepper, biker and former meth chemist, had helped us before.
“He’s two hours away.”
“No, he’s not,” Mercedes said.
It took me a second to figure things out. “You and Pepper?” It felt wonderful to laugh again. “You and Pepper! I’m amazed and intrigued. You and Pepper!” She had rejected countless musicians as not worth her time and now she was dating a biker!
“It’s none of your business and, besides, did you know he plays the bagpipes brilliantly?”
“‘Bagpipes’ and ‘brilliant’ should never be uttered in the same sentence.” When I finally stopped laughing, I said, “I trust Pepper.”
“He can help get you to the ranch and I’ll drive up later.”
“No way, Mercedes Ochoa-McPherson. I’m not going to have them come after you like they came for Wil,” I said. “Promise me you’ll stay away. And promise me you won’t tell Ian where I’ve gone, if he bothers to ask. Promise you won’t tell him any of this.”
“Milagro—” she began.
“Cricket and Ford would be alive if they hadn’t met Ian,” I said. “Promise me.”
She pressed her lips together and finally said, “Okay, I promise. Now get some rest and I’ll arrange things.”
I dropped back on the bed and pulled the leopard-print bedspread over me. I was dimly aware of Mercedes making phone calls and then Pepper arriving.
He shook me awake. He was a wall of a man with several tattoos (daggers, naked broads, Foghorn Leghorn) and a rusty-brown beard that sported tiny silver skull beads.
“Time to get up, babe.”
“Pepper!” I threw my arms around him and he gave me a smacking kiss on my cheek. He had a comforting aroma of bourbon with faint notes of exhaust and marijuana.
“You look like you been rode hard and put away wet, Milagro.”
“Now would be the time for you to lie about how I look,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. You’re risking your life.”
He laughed a big, booming laugh. “Hon, I was born risking my life. You and Mercedes are the prettiest accomplices I’ve had, though.”
“Who knew when we met that we’d still be friends?” I said. Oswald sure hadn’t; he’d never liked me going to the raucous bar where Pepper held court.
“Not me,” he said. “Ain’t fortune a queer bitch?”
“That she is, Pepper.”
A little after four in the morning, Pepper and I said good-bye to Mercedes.
My friend said, “If you need to call me, use Oswald’s office phone. The last time I talked to Gabriel, he told me he’d done a big security update on the family communications. I’ll be waiting to help any way you need me to.”
“Thanks. You know I love you, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Back atcha, Mil.”
She gave me a powerful hug and I held on tight, but not so tight that I would hurt her. “This is left over from the room charge,” she said as she tucked folded bills into my pocket.
I picked up the trash bin liner with my old clothes. “This needs to be burned.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Pepper and I went to his Harley in the lot. The big man handed me a helmet and said, “Hoped we’d do this on a blazing day with you topless, your jugs smashed against me, and your hair flying in the wind.”
“There’s always the future.”
Pepper looked somber for a moment. “Mil, I been to jail here and in some not-so-nice places. The first time is the hardest and you think you’re never going to be okay again, but you will be. Maybe not the same as you were, but that’s what life is. Change. You’re going to be okay.”
“Thanks, Pepper. We better go.”
He took me to a spot about a mile from Ian’s house and parked beneath a stand of firs.
I told him, “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, hightail it out of here and tell Mercedes.” I took off the pointy half boots and tucked them inside the pink pleather jacket. I’d doubled up my socks so I could move quietly.
“Is that enough time?”
“People always said I’m a fast girl,” I told him, and winked.
It was almost pitch-black on the heavily wooded hill as I set off running. Rocks and sticks poked through my socks as I cut through yards and climbed over fences, surprising wildlife.
I felt a surge of power; no one could follow me when I moved like this. Almost no one.
I approached the service lot from the hillside below. It was a steep incline, and I used my toes and fingers to grip rocks and brush. I reached the plateau of the lot and crouched as I crept toward my truck, still hidden from view behind the Dumpster, which now overflowed with construction debris.
I walked to the pickup slowly, afraid of what I’d find. But Wil’s body was where I’d left it, wrapped in the cloth, under my gardening equipment. I didn’t know what the weather had been like, but I hoped that it had been cool enough so that when his body was sent to his parents … I couldn’t think about it.
My keys and phone were inside the cab, as was the big sports bag that I’d packed. I got inside and sat for a few minutes while I listened out the open window. I hoped I hadn’t walked into a trap. I heard and sensed no one.
I put the pickup in reverse and released the brake. It rolled back to the middle of the lot as I turned the wheel. Then I got out and pushed the truck to the street while trying to steer.
Gravity pulls a heavy object stronger and faster than one expects. The truck picked up speed while I was running beside it. I hopped inside, pulled the door closed quietly, and steered down the hill.
I had to turn the engine on at a sharp curve that went uphill. When I reached the meeting place, I flashed my headlights to signal Pepper and pulled over. I took my laptop and cell phone out of the truck, placed them on the asphalt, and smashed them with a large rock.
Pepper got off his bike, pulled a can of lighter fluid out of his leather jacket, and doused the electronic gear that contained all my files, those unpublished stories and novels. He scratched a wooden match across the sole of his boot and then tossed it on the debris.
The plastic melted into a toxic hot mess, just like my life.
When the flames died down, Pepper kicked away the remains and mounted his bike. I got in my truck and followed his fast but circuitous route to a lonely part of the county whose obstreperous residents had quashed attempts at gentrification.
Pepper paused at a building with metal garage doors. When they rolled up, we drove into the Dantesque scene of men with welding helmets, torches, saws, mallets, and spray paint equipment.
The noise drowned out the sound of our engines, and Pepper pulled over and waved for me to do the same. A man with a shaved head and a blue jumpsuit went to him and they talked for a minute.
I got out of my truck, the sports bag slung over my shoulder. Pepper came over and shouted in my ear, “Your ride’ll be ready in a bit. Let’s chow down.”
“I’ve got something, um, incriminating there,” I said, looking at the bed of the truck.
“You mean the dead dude in back?” Pepper shrugged and walked away.
I only got a few glances as Pepper led me through the garage into a walled-off kitchenette with a table and a battered leather sofa. He closed the door and shut out much of the noise.
&n
bsp; “You knew?” I asked.
“If you killed someone, baby girl, I imagine he had it coming.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said, referring to Wil. “Someone left his body at my place to set me up.”
“Hate when that happens,” Pepper said as he opened a refrigerator decorated with a collage of female genitalia. “You want some eggs?”
The fried eggs doused in ketchup and slices of thick pink Canadian bacon, accompanied by cherry soda, was the best meal of my life.
Pepper smoked a joint as he watched me scrape the last bit of food off my plate. He suddenly chuckled. “I remember the first time you walked in the bar with Ian and his sister and Oswald’s cousin Sam. I thought me and the boys would scare you shitless. Ironic, huh?”
“I was scared,” I said. “Well, nervous.”
“You were different then.”
“I know.” I wasn’t a girl who drank blood and killed.
Pepper’s friend came in and said, “Your ride’s ready.”
We went to the shop and Pepper’s friend led me to a huge white truck. “Steal American,” he said. “All the paperwork is in the glove compartment. Enough power to outrun someone and more than enough to roll over them. We’ll piece out your pickup and get rid of anything identifying.”
I looked balefully at the gas-guzzler. However, girls on the run from multiple enemies couldn’t be picky. “Thank you. How do I pay you?”
“We’ll handle that through Pepper. He says you’re good for it.”
“Thanks. I’ve got to move a few things.”
The men politely averted their eyes as I went to my truck and unloaded the gardening gear. I carefully reached for Wil’s body, not knowing what to expect after all this time.
I hefted it as gently as I could and the soft floral smell of the cloth rose to my nose. Wil’s body felt as pliant as it had when I’d first hidden it. I carried him to the bed of the new truck and placed the gardening tools over him.
I got in the truck and the metal garage door rolled up. Morning had come. I drove into the light and toward Oswald’s ranch, with Pepper following.
Traffic was sparse this early, and after we got past the suburban sprawl, the landscape gave way to beautiful green fields and then vineyards stretching out to the hills.
Golden poppies, banks of blue lupine, and brilliant yellow wild mustard bloomed. I wished I could have shown Wil this. His death was my fault. All the deaths were my fault.
We soon reached the town where Oswald had his office. Wine-country tourism stopped at the base of the mountain, but we drove on. And along the drive, I kept remembering my first time coming here; perhaps it was exhaustion, but I had the surreal sense of moving backward in time.
A logging truck slowed traffic and it was agonizing minutes before the road straightened enough for me to fly past it. Pepper rode in my draft. I would see Oswald soon. I’d tell him everything and he’d take me in his arms and say that he was sorry for ever breaking up with me and that he still loved me.
Pepper and I made it over the mountain, through a stretch of pines, manzanitas, and red earth, then out to open country. I turned down the road that led to Oswald’s ranch. I stopped at the gate and waved good-bye to Pepper. He waved back and roared away.
I was here. I was home.
I punched in the code on the post and the big electronic gate slowly swung open. I drove down the lane shaded by English walnuts, verdant with new foliage. The two-story sandstone house was in front of me now.
Oswald’s four dogs bounded down the road, barking their welcome, making me miss Daisy, my first dog. I was too anxious to drive anymore and I stopped the truck by the small vineyard of cabernet grapes. I hopped out and the dogs leapt around me.
Together we ran the rest of the way, past a new parking circle, by the garden that I’d planted, to the back entrance that led into the house, to Oswald, who would have been my husband now if I hadn’t tried to please others instead of following my own wants and needs and instincts and heart.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
ten
Is That a Stake in Your Pocket, or
Are You Just Happy to See Me?
I called, “Oswald! Oswald!” as I went through the mudroom and into the bright, big kitchen.
Then I saw him.
Oswald was sitting at the long trestle table, holding open a copy of the Journal of the American Medical Association, with a coffee mug in front of him. It was Saturday and he was dressed in a T-shirt that said You! Out of the Gene Pool and old jeans.
He had been everything to me and seeing him here in this place broke my heart all over again. How could I have ever given him up?
He looked up at me with his clear eyes, as gray as river stones, and the color drained from his already pale face.
We stared at each other for long seconds. Finally he stood and said, “What are you doing here? You’ve got to leave.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Sorry, but I can’t deal with your histrionics today. Or ever again.”
Oswald took my elbow and began leading me out of the kitchen. His herb-scented sunblock brought back so many memories of us together.
“Let me explain,” I said.
“I see that you’ve finally decided to slim down, but there are healthier ways to do it than starving yourself.”
“But everything’s gone horribly wrong.”
He grabbed a baseball hat as we went through the mudroom. “I can’t do this, Milagro. It’s too hard, and everyone knows you’re with goddamn Ian Ducharme now, so you can go to him for whatever you want—unless you’ve gotten bored with him, too, and moved on to ruin some other man’s life.”
“Yes,” I said, and that surprised Oswald. We stopped where we were, by my garden. “Yes, I destroyed a man’s life in the very worst way and people are after me, including the Council, I think.”
“Not likely. The Council has realized that you are their juggernaut.” He let go of my elbow and then said more quietly, “Do you have any idea how miserable it makes me when I see you watching me from that café?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Why? Because it just rips open the wound again.”
“I miss you, Oswald.” I touched his cheek and felt the old pleasurable zizz from him. “We loved each other. We were happy. How can I pretend that never existed?”
“The same way you pretended when we were engaged and you cheated on me.”
Now I was stunned. “Who told you?”
“You did just now.” He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to look at me, and when he opened them, I saw his grief.
I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, but now I wished that the earth would open up and swallow me.
“Oswald, I needed to find out if I could let someone cut me without reacting and hurting him, and then I would be able to let you do it because I wanted you to be happy.”
“Someone? You mean Ian. Before, during, and after me, it’s always been goddamn Ian Ducharme.”
“Please don’t hate me, Oswald. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me,” I said, tears blurring my vision of him. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I was wrong, so wrong, and if I could do it all over again …”
“But we can’t turn back the clock, Milagro.” He shook his head and said, “My parents told me that rumor about you and Ian and I said they were wrong, that you would never do that because you loved me, and I loved you. I want you to leave now.”
“Oswald, I care for you more than you can know, but I needed to come here because no matter what’s happened, I know that your goodness will always prevail.” I wiped at my tears. “I’ll show you why I had to come. Let me show you what they’ve done.” I ran around the house in my stupid pointy ankle boots, down the lane, to the truck.
He came slowly after me.
I reached over to unlatch the truck’s gate and that’s when I saw the bare space between the gardening tools. Wil’s body was gone.
“He was here. I swear, he was here!”
“What are you playing at, or have you finally found a drug that has an effect on you?”
“I’m not making this up.” I jumped into the bed of the truck and began flinging out the tools even though it was clear that the body was gone. As I turned around in confusion, I saw something off to the left.
There among the grapevines was Wil with the shroud over his head like an Old Testament prophet. He raised his arm and pointed at me and his mouth gaped open. Even though no sound came out of the black hole in his green-tinged face, I knew he was saying, “J’accuse!”
I took two steps backward in shock. The first step was onto the truck’s gate. The second step sent me off the edge.
My reactions were fast and I could have regained my balance if I had tried. But the enormity of all my guilty deeds consumed me: leading Wil to his death, killing Average Joe, cheating on Oswald, not doing anything to save the Poindexters, and cheating on Oswald with goddamn Ian Ducharme …
I hated who I was and what I’d done.
I thought, If I only had another chance, and then my head cracked against something hard, and when the darkness came, I welcomed it.
When I opened my eyes, an interesting man wearing a baseball cap was leaning over me and feeling the back of my head, and very interesting sensations were buzzing through me. The man was extremely cute, but I was feeling strangely woozy. “Excuse me,” I said, and tried to scoot away from him.
“You hit your head and blacked out.” His dark-lashed gray eyes peered into mine. “Your pupils look all right now.”
I felt as if I’d been suddenly awakened, and I couldn’t grasp exactly where I was and what I’d been doing. I looked up and saw trees and then turned my head and saw lush fields of grass and wildflowers, which was perplexing.
“Let’s get you up,” the man said, and took my arm.
The fun buzzy feeling returned at the contact, which made me wonder if I was high.
“Am I supposed to stand if I’ve had a concussion? What if all the blood rushes to my head and I die?”
“You haven’t yet and a bump to the head isn’t going to do it,” he said as he pulled me up.
