by Marta Acosta
“Milagro, you need not explain.”
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” I said, and pivoted to face Ian. “Even though I can’t remember, I know my behavior has caused others to be hurt. To die. So I’ll marry Oswald and be happy here, instead of rushing into situations and getting diverted by parties, and by any random fabulous man who comes my way, a man who makes my pulse race and my temperature rise, a man like you …”
“Milagro,” Ian began, and I knew that if I stayed with him one more second, I would do something unforgivable. Then I heard Oswald’s voice calling across the field, “Milagro!”
I quickly stood. “I have to go.”
Ian put his hand on my arm and said, “Wait,” and I stopped to face him.
“We’re staying at the hotel in town and we’ll be leaving tomorrow morning,” he said. “I wanted to say good-bye. Good-bye and I wish with all my heart that you’ll have the happiness you deserve.”
“Do you have a heart, Ian?”
“Yes, damaged and in anguish, but beating still.”
As I stared into Ian’s brown eyes, I panicked because I felt as if I was losing something essential and precious. Nameless feelings rose in me, like a drowning swimmer fighting toward light and the surface. “Won’t we meet again, Ian?”
“It’s best if we don’t. Good-bye, my own girl.”
My eyes welled and I swiped them away clumsily with my horrible gloves. “Good-bye, Ian,” I said, and then I ran across the field.
Oswald was in the lane and when I saw him, he came to me and said, “Where were you?”
I blinked away my tears. “Visiting Daisy’s grave. It made me sad. I’m going in now.”
“Sure, babe,” he said, and I hurried into the house and the maid’s room, feeling lost and stupid and confused and consumed with nameless grief.
I sat in the worn armchair in the dark, staring at nothing and trying to remember something, anything, even the ugly things that scared me.
Some time later, I heard cars leaving, and after that there was a knock on my door.
“Milagro, it’s Oswald. May I come in?”
I got up and opened the door, keeping the light off. “Sorry, I’m tired.”
He stood in the hallway and smiled a little drunkenly. “Sam’s gone home and goddamn Ian Ducharme’s finally left. Looks like we won’t have any trouble from the Council.”
“That’s good news. Can you come in for a minute?”
“Sure,” he said, and swayed forward.
I took him by the arm and brought him into the room, closing the door, and then I led him to the bed. “Sit with me.”
He sat and immediately pulled me to him. His kiss was like a stranger’s kiss: pleasing and interesting, but unfamiliar. His fingers went to the pulse point on my throat.
I pulled away from him. “Oswald, do you love me?”
He reached for the ring around my neck. “I wouldn’t have given you this if I didn’t. Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But what exactly do you love about me?”
“You’re sexy and pretty. You’re smart. You’re, uh, tasty. My family likes you.”
“When do I meet your parents again? Does your mother adore me?”
“You’ll meet them eventually. There’s no rush.” He removed one of my gloves and lifted my hand to his mouth. “I want to taste you again so bad. I know how to do it so there’s no pain.”
His kinky lust quelled any desires I had. “It’s late.”
“You’re right. We’ve got the rest of our lives.” He kissed me again and then stood. “I think I’ll go for a swim.”
“Be careful. You’ve been drinking.”
“I won’t dive in. I’ll just float on one of the mattresses and kick back. Why don’t you come? You don’t have to get in the water if it’s too weird for you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not ready yet.”
“Sweet dreams, babe.”
“Night, Oswald.”
I washed up and went to bed. When I closed my eyes, I kept imagining Ian Ducharme’s face, his voice, and I kept turning his words in my mind like a puzzle, searching for other meanings.
A long time later, when I hadn’t heard Oswald return, I worried that he might have hit his head diving in the pool, and then we’d both have amnesia. I got up and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
I had stepped into the kitchen when I heard someone moving about in the front hall. Thinking it might be Oswald, I went there and saw AG by the open door with a suitcase.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you leaving?”
“Nettie is picking me up,” he said, his mouth twisted in a frown. “I can’t be expected to stay here while Edna’s got her gigolo here. She never could be trusted around other men.”
Without thinking, I grabbed AG’s shoulders and gripped hard enough to make him wince. “That is a very disrespectful way to talk about the mother of your children. If you ever say another unkind word about Edna, I’ll …”
“You’ll what? Kill me, like you did Spiggott?”
I dropped my hands and took a step away from him.
He rubbed his shoulders. “You would defend her. You’re two of a kind. Maybe you didn’t kill Spiggott, but I know how you betrayed my grandson.”
“I never betrayed Oswald,” I said, but I had a strange queasy sensation.
“Everyone knows but you,” AG said with an ugly laugh. “Ask Oswald how you broke up his first engagement.”
I knew what the sick feeling was: bitter, indigestible truth. “I thought you liked me.”
“What I think about you personally is irrelevant so long as you are capable of having healthy children.”
A gray Honda came down the drive and AG said, “If you say anything to Oswald about this, I’ll tell him you’re lying. It’s only his sense of responsibility that keeps him from throwing you out in the gutter where you belong.”
AG went to the car, put his suitcase in the backseat, and got in. As the car turned around in the drive, I saw Nettie, who smiled apologetically as she passed.
My curiosity, quiescent for so long, now replayed AG’s comments and I tried to make sense of them. I’d broken up Oswald’s first engagement. I’d betrayed him. He had asked me to marry him because he felt responsible for me.
As I walked out to the pool compound, I broke into a cold sweat. Perhaps I could just peek in somewhere to make sure Oswald was okay. I was circling the redwood structure when I spotted a knot in one of the boards.
I thought I’d have to pry the knot out, but it slid out smoothly. I was relieved to hear Oswald’s voice faintly, and then I put my eye to the opening.
My fiancé, wearing swim trunks, sat at the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in the water. He took a drink from a half-empty bottle of vodka and passed it to Lily, who sat beside him wearing a modest one-piece suit.
My psychiatrist said, “You’re not really going to marry her, are you?” She was sozzled and said “reeely.”
“I have to, don’t I? It’s my fault she got infected in the first place.” He was drunk, too, and he said “firsht plashe.”
“Even if you never love her again?”
He shrugged and took another long drink. “What else has she got? Doesn’t have a job, can’t pay condo fees, her latest boy toy is dead, lost her mind.”
“Her memory, not her mind.” Lily said. “At least she’s hot for you.”
Oswald laughed so hard that he choked and Lily slapped him on the back. Then he said, “Yeah, but she won’t let me cut her like a wife is supposed to. She looks freaked every time I mention it and doesn’t want to taste me, either. That’s okay. It’s my duty to care for her.”
“Oh, poor Oswald, poor, poor Oswald.” She took a drink and handed the bottle back to him.
“It all started because of a stupid, stupid mistake. I met her at a party—that’s the kind of girl she is, always at some party—and she was pretty and fun and how was I to know she’d get infe
cted?”
“You’re so good,” she said as she leaned against him. “So beautiful and good and brilliant. You’re fabulous.”
“You are, too. Why did we meet again like this, Lily? Why weren’t we matched up by the dating service? Because I think you’re the perfect woman.”
“Oswald, let’s have one night together, one night we can remember forever of what should have been.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. I ran from the awful scene.
But I was trapped here, the fence corralling me like an animal, and I ran from the field toward the vineyard, because I needed to get away, and I could climb the side fence and escape without the guards seeing me.
As I crossed a row of grapevines, the horrible specter of my dead boyfriend, Wilcox Spiggott, rose up, arms spread wide, his beyond-the-grave voice rasping, “Milagro!”
seventeen
This Is Your Brain Unplugged
I’d had a very emotionally taxing day, more so than any sensible girl could be expected to handle with grace. So I shouted, “Come on, you evil dead imaginary bastard, just try to eat my brain!”
“Chillax, cutie.”
“You’re a figment of my sick, damaged mind! You’re not real.”
“Ouch. Maybe someone needs a spanking, but give me a kiss first.”
I would face my own hallucination and prove to myself that it was only air. But the phantasm wrapped his coldish arms around me and kissed me on the mouth with his cool, greenish lips and his breath that smelled of … of flowers and tropical rain.
It was the magic kiss from a zombie.
The protective shell of amnesia cracked open like an egg on the edge of a cast-iron skillet, memory spilling out and sizzling on the scorching surface.
My knees buckled and Wil grabbed hold of me and said, “You okay?”
I started laughing and clutched him to me. “You’re alive! You’re really alive!” I kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes, but I was remembering the man I had killed, Average Joe. Thoughts and images rushed at me, but nothing was as important as Wil. “I’m so happy that you’re alive!”
“I’m not sure I’m technically alive. I was stabbed.”
“Who did it?”
“My houseman. That old bastard followed me to California to keep me from his daughter. I had an awesome day riding the waves, was on my way to meet you when he caught up with me at a rest stop. The next thing I knew I woke up bloody dead in the back of your pickup.”
“Matthews claimed that you had asked him to join you.”
“Pure bollocks. I told you how I felt about him.”
“Yes, but you neglected to tell me that Nettie was his daughter. Besides, recalling things has been a problem. I fell and hit my head and got amnesia. Your kiss brought back my memory.”
“A shock to the system.”
“Here’s another one. Nettie’s in town and Matthews is, too.”
“What’s she doing here, and where are we?”
“She’s my fiance’s grandfather’s thrall and we’re at my fiancé’s ranch. My ex-fiancé, Oswald Grant. We were engaged again until about ten minutes ago,” I said, and tried to integrate Oswald’s recent behavior with our past together. “He’s busy having sex with my psychiatrist by the swimming pool right now.”
“You don’t seem upset.”
I grinned. “It’s just sex, Wilcox.”
He laughed hoarsely. “I’m starving. Do you have anything to offer besides brains? I’ve been living off old walnuts and greens. Most of the time I’ve been sleeping. Sometimes the dogs come and kip by my side.”
“Wil-cox,” I said, and took his thin hand. I kissed it. “You smell like spring.”
“I think I’m a vegetarian now. Odd.”
We walked to the house and he said, “I’ve had to learn to move again, but I’m improving every day.”
I took him to the kitchen and he slowly bent to sit in a chair. I laid my hand on his chest and felt a faint, slow beat. “You’re alive.”
“I feel alive. But different.”
I thought of Average Joe and asked, “What was it like being dead?”
He considered and said, “It’s as if I was a cup of water poured into the ocean and gathered up in a different vessel—not quite the same and yet essentially myself.”
I had hated Average Joe, but I felt relieved of my guilt for having permanently ended his existence.
I quickly assembled a plate of food for Wil: olives, arugula dressed with lemon and oil, a slice of fresh asiago, smoked almonds, and raspberries. I took a bottle of zin out and he said, “White wine would be nice,” so I found a bottle of crisp French white.
I had a glass and watched him while he ate. When he leaned back from the table, I said, “We’ve both been in limbo. I’m so sorry, Wil, for what happened to you.”
He looked more serious than I had ever seen him. “Milagro, I can go out in the sun now without any protection. It’s fucking amazing. I think I don’t mind being dead.”
I remembered Don Pedro’s words and said, “You’re in the realm of the middle place, ‘life after life and before deathly death.’ I wrapped you in that cloth, which was woven with herbal remedies, and you came back.”
“I’m a zombie, then?”
“It’s more positive to think of you as life-impaired. Or pre-dead.”
He laughed. “Whatever turns your engine, Mil. I’ll tell you what happened with me, and then you tell me what happened with you.”
“Deal. Let’s start with Matthews.”
“He just said ‘Useless bastard,’ and he stabbed me. If I knew he felt that way, I would have fired him earlier.”
“You fired him?”
“Yes, he took me to the airport and I said, ‘Now see here, Matthews, I can’t have you about because my new lady says that it perpetuates class divisions, et cetera.”
“I never said you should fire him!”
“Didn’t you? Oh, well.”
“He must have taken my house key when he came by your flat to get your laundry. He left you, your body, at my loft on my bed,” I said. “You’re in love with Nettie, aren’t you? You came to see her, not me.”
Wil shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sorry, Mil, but Nettie knows how to put a lad like me in my place. I hoped to convince her to come back home with me.”
“Wil, the bad news is that you’re a zombie. The good news is that I think Nettie loves you, too.”
My friend Nancy had been quoting a lot of Sun Tzu to me recently, so I followed his advice to appear in places the enemy doesn’t expect, i.e., Nettie’s house at three in the morning.
Wil asked, “Why not let the Council handle it?”
“I’d like to truss up Matthews and deliver him to the Council personally to clear my name.”
“You really are a hot, sexy bitch. If not for Nettie …”
I gave Wil a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that were in the maid’s closet. As he changed clothes, he said, “Look, none of my body parts fell off and all are in perfect working order. Allow me to demonstrate.”
Laughing, I said, “Not now. Go wash your face.” When he went into the bathroom, I took the velvet ropes from the closet and put them in the sports bag.
He came out of the bathroom with my makeup case. “You’ll have to teach me to use this. I can’t go looking like shit to Nettie.”
“Just use the cover stick for under your eyes and a little blush on your cheeks, like this,” I said, and touched him up, lining his eyes, too. I smoothed clear gloss on his lips to counteract the dryness and he bit my finger and sucked it. “You’re incorrigible, Wil.”
“It’s been yonks,” he said. “How do I look?”
Oswald’s old jeans were falling off Wil’s thin hips, but a good meal and cosmetics had done wonders. “You look sizzling for a cold body. Vámonos.”
Wilcox picked up the white woven cloth. “I’ve become attached to it.”
I took the sports bag when we went outside to the big ugly white tru
ck. Once I was sitting high in the cab and revving the engine, I had to admit that it seemed like the right kind of ride for a confrontation. “Strap in and hang on.”
We drove to the gate, which swung open and I waved to the guards in the black cars. I could have talked to them, but that would have slowed me down and I felt a need for speed. One car door opened and a man in a navy suit jumped out, but I was already racing to Nettie’s house.
The sky was still dark, and the road was all ours; it was too early for the meth dealers to head home, or the commuters to go to work. The guards were tailing me and one tried to speed up, but I put the pedal to the metal and lost them at a turnoff onto the highway into town.
When I’d lived at the ranch, I spent many hours going through the small town looking for potential gardening clients. There was one house with a purple gate and exuberant Climbing Peace roses. I stopped a few houses down from the single-story stucco bungalow. A light was on inside, showing through the curtains at the edges.
“I can’t wait to see Nettie again,” Wil said. “What are you going to do?”
“Grab her father and turn him over to Gabriel Grant, Oswald’s cousin who handles security and has a sense of compassion.”
“Perhaps Nettie will try to defend him and you can have a wild catfight, clothes being ripped off, nipples twisted, bottoms spanked, that sort of thing.”
I reached behind me, unzipped the sports bag, and grabbed the black velvet ropes.
Wil opened his mouth, and I said, “Not now, Wil. I don’t anticipate any problems, but I want you to stay outside until I’ve subdued Matthews.”
As we approached the house, I pointed to a purple smoke bush and whispered, “Wait there.”
I went to the front door and was about to bust it down when it occurred to me that I could just try the doorknob.
It turned, and I walked in to see Nettie wincing as she sat on an old tweed couch beside AG Grant. AG was sucking on her arm while one of his hands was groping under her T-shirt.
I shrieked in disgust and Nettie shrieked in surprise.
“You horrible man!” I said to AG. “So this is how you keep from being bit twice.”
