Arizona Allspice

by Lewin, Renee

  “Yes, captain!” They respond somewhat in unison.

  “Good to hear! You have five minutes to hydrate yourselves! Go!” They each grab a bottle of water from the cooler and promptly collapse onto the ground, still trying to catch their breaths. Before I can reach the cooler for my own bottle of ice-cold elixir of life, the Boss whistles to get my attention. He beckons me over by waving two fingers. The three other bosses stand with their arms crossed. The Boss stands in front of them fingering his mustache with his head tilted to the side. I walk up to them and nod. Each man except for The Boss nods back.

  “You’re looking good on the field, Fuego. Even better than you were before the accident,” says The Boss.

  “That’s because I’m more focused then I’ve ever been.”

  “My partners are concerned that you’re moving too well for someone who had the back of their skull smashed in.”

  What? These guys halted all the soccer matches because of my accident, putting me under an incredible amount of pressure to recover, and then when I recover they question whether I recovered too well? This is some bull…

  “You’ve been taking medication, sí?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think it is fair to say that our bettors want all the players to be clean of any drugs in their system that might enhance their performances.”

  “The medication I take is for the tremors in my hand and the bad spasms I get in my leg muscles.” I hold out my left hand. “As you can see, they aren’t miracle drugs.” The bosses all frown at my trembling hand.

  “What we care about is the integrity of the game. There’s no way to prove that the drugs you are taking aren’t somewhat aiding you in terms of your muscle tone or your pain threshold. The only way to remove all doubt is for you to discontinue using those drugs.”

  At that point I wanted to rip his cheesy mustache off of his face. I’m dealing with the side effects of those pills. I’m still in pain. I’m dealing with vision problems that medication can’t fix. How am I not at a disadvantage?

  “I see,” I finally say once I unclench my jaw.

  “Just tell my partners here that you won’t take any more medication,” The Boss says and then winks.

  I smirk. “You have my word.” The bosses all nod and return to the devil red Durango truck. I saunter back to the field. “On your feet! Let’s go!” I yell to my men after I get a few gulps of water. They lazily stand up from the grass like heavily perspiring zombies. “That was flat out dispassionate and disrespectful! Get back down and give me twenty! And when you’re done, stand up straight and with pride, like you actually have some balls between your legs!”

  I end practice at eleven and return home for lunch. I have the house to myself since Mom is at work. As I sit in front of the television and eat my triple-decker turkey club sandwich, I feel my medication wearing off. I’m supposed to take a dose around lunch time. The Boss doesn’t care if I take them, but his partners might be right. What if the drugs are helping me in some way? Winning the finals will be even sweeter if I know in my heart that it was all me and not drugs making the perfect passes or scoring the incredible goals. Besides, I’m tired of those little white pills controlling my life. Two hours after I’ve taken the pill bottles from my nightstand and tossed them into the trash, I become the most irritable, bitter bag of short circuiting nerves ever known. I’m not even cheerful to see Elaine when she drops by, but I’m not in too much pain to forget what I need to tell her.

  ******

  When Joey opens the door, he doesn’t welcome me inside so much as he grumbles “Hello” and steps aside. I wonder momentarily if he’s upset that I abandoned him at the party last night.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I had a rough practice this morning,” he sighs before plopping down onto the sofa. I find myself fiddling with my hands. I rehearsed my speech last night and this morning, but this is still going to be hard. I walk to the couch and sit close beside him. He just studies my face with his tired eyes. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t try to hug me closer to him. He’s not his usual playful self. I didn’t prepare for this scenario. I look away from him and try to compose myself. Just as I’m about to open my mouth he asks, “Have you gone to the Oaks Cemetery yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “Do you want to go?”

  “I haven’t gone back since the funeral,” I say hesitantly.

  “Let’s go pay her a visit.”

  I frown. Visiting a slab of marble and a square of grass does not replace visiting my mother. Today is the anniversary of a nightmare. I don’t want to revisit the place that reminds me the nightmare is a solid reality instead of a dim memory. There’s nothing more permanent than a name etched in stone.

  “I need to tell you something very important, Laney. Something you might not believe at first. Being at her grave will help you see that I am being truthful to you.” He notices the wave of panic wash across my face. “Don’t worry,” he takes my hand in his and gently squeezes it. “I promise it’s nothing horrible.”

  As we walk further into the cemetery, I grip his hand tighter. The place is too beautiful. The grass is thick and healthy and a few benevolent old trees cast soothing shade from the sun whose warm beams ripple across the surface of a charming duck pond nearby. Resting places dot the landscape for miles, it seems. My legs feel like there are sand bags tied around my ankles. Terrified, my eyes dart around the cemetery. I don’t remember where my mother’s grave is located. I had erased the knowledge from my memory. Joey knows exactly where to go. His walking finally slows and I know we have arrived at the spot.

  Instantly, tears well up in my eyes once I see the headstone. As I stand frozen, biting the inside of my mouth to stop myself from whimpering, Joey releases my hand and sits down in the grass, very close to the pink marble stone which has a female angel carved into it beside the words A Mother, A Wife, An Angel. He places fresh white lilies in the brass vase and uses his fingers to brush away the light film of dirt that had settled onto the smooth surface of the marker.

  He uses the back of his hand to wipe the tears from his face. My knees buckle and I lower myself onto the ground to sit next to him. I’ve never seen Joey cry before. I lean closer to him and entwine my fingers with his again. Tentatively, I reach my right hand out and run my fingertips over my own name in my mother’s name. Her middle name was Elaine. After a few quiet minutes, Joey clears his throat.

  “Elaine, I…I’ve never told anyone about this. Not Manny. Not even my mom. A few months ago I had a very vivid dream. You were in it. Miss Marna was there, too.”

  Joey reveals to me the dream in which he was at my funeral. He said he saw my name on the headstone. My entire name; first, middle and last, even though he hadn’t known my middle name at the time. My mother came to him in the dream and told him to take care of me.

  “I hope you believe me,” Joey says softly.

  “I do.” I meet his gaze. I believe every word. It saddens me that I have never experienced any communication with my mom. Maybe Dad really has spoken to Mom. Mostly, I feel at peace with the decision I have made about my relationship with Joey. At least I know that Mama approves of him being in my life. “You did a very good job of taking care of me,” my smile wobbles with emotion. He looks away from me with a small smile and bows his head humbly. I wrap my hand around his arm, my fingers hug around his bicep, and I rest my head onto his shoulder. He lovingly kisses me on the forehead. I sigh and marvel at how that little kiss from him makes me completely content, even here in Oaks Cemetery. “I thought about what you said last night at the party. I thought about…

  everything.”

  I glance up at him and he has an eager but serious look on his face. It’s not easy for me to talk right or think straight with those blue eyes of his studying me. My throat feels dry and my tongue is suddenly uncoordinated. I release my hold on his arm and sit up straight. Mama, help me say the right thing.

  ******

 
; I wait patiently for Elaine to speak. She takes a deep breath, exhales, and tries to keep her nervous hands flat on the grass. Whatever she says next is going to end us or give us a chance. I am a little anxious to hear what she has to say, but not too anxious. I’ve learned my lesson about being too optimistic.

  “Joey, first off, I want you to know that I’m not ungrateful. I appreciate every thought and every action you’ve made to keep me safe, secure and happy.” Her voice breaks. “You are an amazing person. I can’t even wrap my head around how selfless you are. Whether you believe it or not, I think you would be the best father any kid could ask for,” she smiles. I swallow. “You’re a great guy,” she says more quietly, “Always have been.” Her eyes leave mine to gaze at the grass. She shakes her head. Her eyes return to my face. “But…” she trails off.

  I immediately roll my eyes. She’s going to give me some excuse, some misconception, some flaky reasoning for why her being with me just isn’t going to happen. I stand up and step back from her before I have to hear anymore. Elaine watches my reaction and her mouth falls open while her brows crumple.

  Skipping my medication has somehow demolished both my mental and emotional floodgates, so the questions that I’d held inside me start to fly out of my mouth. I don’t raise my voice, but her wide eyes register that she gets my message. “But? What exactly is it that just isn’t good enough because I’m so done trashing myself because of you. Why didn’t you give me the time of day in high school? Why couldn’t you once just give me a chance? Tell me the truth. You think I’m ugly? Stupid? Is it because I’m white?” Elaine stands up from the grass, shaking her head furiously. “Say it, Elaine. Put me out of my misery and just say it. Allow me some dignity, for once. Give me permission to stop kidding myself. Just say it.”

  “Because I thought you were perfect!” she cries.

  What? She thought I was perfect? What? And if that wasn’t confusing enough, I was even more perplexed that she didn’t just flip me off and walk away. I cross my arms. “I’m so perfect that you couldn’t stand to make my life even more perfect by being with me? Is that supposed to make me feel better? You’re crazy.”

  Elaine’s eyes flicker with resentment. I knew she didn’t like that word, ‘crazy’. I didn’t care. It dawned on me that this was the last tactic I hadn’t tried; Manny’s tactic: Arguing. A tactic I’d thought was too aggressive a manner for someone as short-tempered as me to handle an issue as sensitive as this one. This is working though and, underneath my withdrawal-induced bad attitude, the tornado of anxiety within me is so tranquil and strangely settled that I know it’s what needed to happen all along.

  “I’m not saying that just to brush you off.” Then her eyes lower in shame. “For the longest time, Joey, I told myself you were a woman-beater.”

  A flushed feeling comes over me, like the one I experienced before my panic attack. However, I maintain a poker face and keep on. “You never did forgive me for hitting you. I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “No, this was before that, back in high school. And still I thought you were perfect. For God’s sakes, I thought you smacked your girlfriends around and it didn’t matter. I was still drawn to you. You walked into a room and I felt you there. I would get goosebumps. I’d lose my train of thought. Believe me,” she urges at seeing my brows furrow in shock and slight disbelief. “I hated that I couldn’t control my reaction to you. Deep inside, I knew who you really were and what you might mean to me. It scared me. So I told myself horrible things about you. In actuality, everything you do is so honorable. Everyone’s your friend, and I just seem to screw up every relationship I have. My best friend left town without saying goodbye. I didn’t know my dad was sick. I didn’t see that my own mother was being beaten. That’s saying something, Joey. I’m cold and self-absorbed.”

  “No, you’re not,” I state plainly, trying hard to hide my commiseration as tears trickle from her beautiful eyes.

  “It’s true, Joey. Let me admit it. I valued my comfort more than I valued your heart. All this time I’ve just been deflecting, putting the focus on you instead of my own flaws and fears. You scare me, because I know once I let you in, I won’t be able to control what loving you could do to me. I’m stubborn and controlling, even when I don’t know what I’m doing. I think about Mama and how she didn’t look out for her own health ‘cause she was so busy keeping Manny and me happy. She loved everything about my Daddy, even the sickness that made him want to harm her. So, isn’t it unhealthy that I love everything about you?”

  “What?” I breathe. An intoxicating sensation washes over me.

  “I love everything about you, Joey. Even the parts of you that I think could change for the better.”

  “You love me?”

  “Yes,” her voice shakes with emotion and rises in frustration, “but how can I say I love you when I want you to change? That’s selfish and wrong! And how is it possible that I trust you with my life and yet I’m still afraid of being with you? It doesn’t make sense and you don’t deserve that from me. I love you, but it’s all just too complicated”

  I didn’t let her finish.

  ******

  He kisses me and my inner quarrels fall divinely silent. I kiss him back fervently, until I’m breathless and my lips are swollen and tingling. I can’t deny it anymore. I feel the kiss through my entire body. All along I’ve been trying to know if loving Joey was right. I’ve been combing through my brain trying to understand my feelings, but with my eyes closed, his body and lips pressed against mine, I can feel that this is right. My heart, mind, and soul have come to an agreement: Joey is the one. Tears of bliss burst from my eyes and our kiss becomes more tender, slow and savoring. Too soon, Joey breaks it. He cradles my face in his hands and says, “It’s not complicated now. I love you and you love me. I can be better for you. I want to. Could you tell me again? That you...”

  “I love you.” I laugh through my tears. His lips crash into mine for another ardent kiss. “I love you,” I utter once more.

  “I want to make you proud of me,” he whispers, his eyes glistening.

  My heartbeat gallops with happiness. “I want you to be proud of me, too. I want Mama to be proud as well.” I smile and glance at her grave marker.

  “Yeah, Miss Marna, too.” He softly wipes the tears from my face with his thumbs and we make our way out of the Oaks Cemetery. I keep myself molded into his side and he keeps me close to him in the security of his arms. The kisses he plants on my temple and at my ear causes a slow walk back to the truck since each teasing kiss leads us to one deep kiss after another. We hold hands on the way back to Cadence. Linked, we walk into Joey’s empty house. He leads me down the hall by the hand. I know where we are going, but I ignore my nervousness. I trust him more than I trust myself. Inside his bedroom, we become more exploratory with our hands. I assist Joey in removing his shirt. We pause, searching each other’s eyes. Then I reach up and bury my hands in his hair. He bows his head and I pass my lips across where there are freckles; below his eyes, across the bridge of his nose and under the other eye.

  Standing at the foot of the bed, I take my hands from his hair and ghost them over his sculpted torso. Joey’s blue eyes become intense and hungry. My fingertips graze over his freckled shoulders, his broad chest, down his abdomen, and stop just above the waist of his jeans before traveling back up to his chest. He shudders and groans lightly. Like stage fright, I suddenly doubt my abilities and my hands start to tremble. “Joey, I’m not sure I know how to do this right,” I whisper timidly.

  “I don’t want this to be about me,” he shakes his head. He plants a row of kisses along my jaw and up to my ear. He nuzzles the sensitive space behind it and then his soft hot lips caress my earlobe. He whispers. “This is about pleasing you, Laney.” My legs go unstable with quivers just as he grabs me tight against him, locks his lips with mine and pushes us towards the bed. Carefully we lower ourselves onto his full sized mattress. His hand slides under my shirt as he devours my mout
h. I bite playfully at his lower lip and he responds by claiming my mouth with a possessive suction that melts me further into the sheets beneath me. Once I recover enough to think straight, I start to trace his spine with soft strokes of my fingers. He shivers at the sensation of my fingertips. His hot hand finally makes its way up to the taut, tingling contents of my bra when a familiar voice calls out from the front of the house.

  “Anybody home? Joeeey? Elaaaine?”

  We freeze immediately. Both wide-eyed, we stare at each other silently until Joey clears his throat and responds. “Be there in a minute!” he yells. “You stay here,” he tells me. He slides off the bed and heads for the door.

  “Hey! Put your shirt back on!” I whisper loudly, dismayed. He stops, shrugs and retrieves his shirt from the floor. He gives me a wink before slipping out the door. Horrified, I sit up against the head board and listen to the low rumbling of Joey’s voice and the lilt of Miss Amelia’s voice as they speak to one another too quiet for me to hear. Until, I hear her excitedly yelp “Really?!” and Joey shushing her while chuckling. After five minutes Joey returns to the room with a big smile on his face. He falls onto the bed.