by Vivian Lux
Ada leaned back and sighed heavily, relentlessly not looking me in the eye. "You and Manuel okay?" I asked softly.
She darted a quick look at Sammy, and shook her head slightly. "Yeah, we're okay," she said. Then she widened her eyes significantly. "We're always… Okay."
I wanted to ask more, but my mother appeared in the doorway. "Time to go wash up," she announced.
My sister and I exchanged glances. Here we were, two grown women, but my mother still felt the need to remind us to wash her hands before dinner. She was never going to change, no matter how much we did.
I helped to get Sammy clean, marveling once again at how sticky toddlers can get just by living. Then I checked myself in the mirror over the tap.
My cheeks were losing the flush from last night, but I could still see the faint marks of Crash's lips on my throat. The sight of them gave me a delicious little shiver down my spine, right straight down to my panties. I did a little hopping dance at the memory.
Cool it. Get your head together.
My mother directed me to my customary seat at the table, across the way from Ada, just like when we were little girls. The table was groaning under the weight of my mother's efforts, and I felt my mouth water at all of the usual Puerto Rican comfort food.
"I was so happy that you called," my mother began. "I wanted to make all of my little Gabriela's favorite foods, maybe that would encourage her to come by and see her mama more often."
I was about to close my lips around a bite of asopaito con tostones but the full force of her passive aggression made me set my fork down. "Mama," I started. "I talk to you all the time. I'm here at least once a week."
"What your mother is saying is...," my father tried to interject.
"Don't you tell her when I'm trying to say," my mother lashed out, "I know what I'm trying to say."
"She's fine, Pilar, she's a good girl."
"I'm not saying she's a bad girl, Dre, I'm saying that I worry."
I ducked my head, as my parents began discussing me like I wasn't there. Ada shot me a sympathetic look, but I knew she wouldn't dare raise her voice in my defense. The last thing she'd want them to do was start their laserlike focus turning onto her.
"All I am saying, is that I don't think that she's happy. Living on your own, that so lonely. Why would you do that to yourself?" My mother asked, her voice veering from angry into cajoling.
I looked up from my food. "Oh, are you actually talking to me, instead of about me?"
Her nostrils flared. "Don't sass me."
"It wasn't sass, just a question." I tried to act innocent.
"And I asked you a question, Gabriela."
"What was it?" I asked, trying to buy myself time.
"She's asking," my father interjected, unable to keep from adding his two cents. "If there are any special young men in your life."
"Oh God." I set my fork back down again. "This was a mistake."
"Not a mistake!" My mother reached over and closed her hand over mine, in a gesture she thought was comforting, but felt more like she was trying to hold me firmly at her side. "We just worry, that's all."
I felt my voice starting to rise in hysteria. "What the heck are you worried about?"
"You seem lonely, Gabriela."
"Why do you say that?"
"It's got a be hard," my mother said, changing tactics." Working at the bridal salon, all those happy brides, settling down, starting their lives..."
"My life is starting just fine."
"Okay then, what do I know? I'm just your mother." She reached over and took a sip of her drink, signaling that the conversation was now closed. She had had the last word, and any more discussion risked incurring her eternal wrath.
I bent down to my food, my cheeks flaming. I could feel Ada's sympathetic stare, but I dared not meet her eyes for fear I might start crying.
My slightly more perceptive father cleared his throat. "These tostones are delicious, Pilar."
My mother beamed. "I think I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, the oil wasn't hot enough."
Ada saw her moment. "Mama, how is Tia Izzy's shoulder doing?"
I shot her a grateful look as my mother launched into a heated spiel about doctors and incompetence and no one having the good sense to listen to her advice. Relieved to have the attention away from me, I ate the rest of my food in silence.
She wasn't right about me. I wasn't lonely. I was young, was having fun, I was in the prime of my life. I would never ever admit that my mother could be right about anything when it came to my life.
But my mind kept harkening back to this morning, and my simple joy at having someone to cook for. Having Crash stay the night had made me pathetically happy.
I didn't have his number. Didn't know where he was now. But I wanted to see him again. I wanted him to do those amazing things to my body, and then I wanted to make him breakfast. But there was one small problem.
I had no idea how to find him.
Chapter Sixteen
Crash
The people at the rest home seemed to have this shit sewn up. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do other than nod at everything the funeral director said. I went through the motions, nodding where it seemed appropriate, and all I could think of was heading back to Gabi's.
Maybe grabbing a drink first, then heading to Gabi's.
"There's one more issue, Mr. Nelson."
God I hated that they kept calling me that. It was bad enough that I didn't share a name with the people who raised me. "She was my mother's mother," I told them over and over. "Or some shit," I didn't add.
"And what's that," I growled. I was utterly done with all of this. The specter of death always hung over on us when we were in the MC, but not death like this. Not a slow decline, a life withering away until there was nothing more than a shell before it all ended. It made me deeply uncomfortable.
"Mrs. Hunt's estate has yet to be finalized," this suit said, looking through a clipboard. "But for what I can see, you are her sole heir."
I blinked. "You're shitting me," I said.
The suit seemed appalled at my use of harsh language, and I resolved to use even more of it.
"I am not," the suit said. "All of her money and personal effects look like they will be transferred directly to you, once the tax man gets a hold of his share of course." He chuckled uncomfortably and looked back and forth on his clipboard, as if he was trying to make sure he was reading it right. "It looks like that includes a piece of real estate as well."
"Real estate? What the fuck does that mean?" I snarled. Before I went back to Gabi's I definitely needed a goddamned drink.
"Her house, Mr. Nelson."
"Stop fucking calling me that."
"I'm sorry," he practically squeaked. I could see a fine sheen of sweat starting to collect on his upper lip. "Would you like me to call you Benjamin?"
"No," I stalked away. Standing this long on the linoleum floor was making my leg lock up. I tried not to limp as the suit gaped at me.
"Ben..er, sir, well, I can give you the address if you'd like?" He was starting to edge towards the door.
"Sure, whatever." I held out my hand. The suit scribbled hastily on the bottom of one of his many well-organized papers and tore it off, looking back at the ragged place with regret in his eyes.
******
The shutters were still yellow. Peeling, but yellow.
It made me feel strangely proud to see that, because I remembered those yellow shutters. I remembered thinking they were hideously ugly and telling Marion so. And I remembered the woman with the iron-gray hair to match her iron demeanor telling me to knock it off because they were "cheerful."
But those were the extent of my memories. As I stood on the cracked and broken sidewalk, I tried to summon something, anything else to feel some connection to this piece of shit house I now owned.
This part of Lenape huddled along a steep creek bed. I'd say it looked like it had seen better days, but I'm pretty sure it
never actually had.
The key felt heavy in my hand. Part of me wanted to throw it to the ground and walk away. Owning a house, dealing with neighbors, all that white-bread suburban bullshit made me want to puke or fight someone.
But this solved my homelessness problem pretty nicely. As appealing as the idea of parking myself in Gabi's bed was, I wasn't about to make myself her problem.
"I'll figure this shit out tomorrow," I decided. I was all full of restless thoughts, the feeling of my dysfunctional brain going into panicked overload was imminent. The shock of Marion's death, the expectations of the nursing home staff, all those pitying eyes looking at me all confused, like I was supposed to know what the hell to do with this bomb they had just thrown in my lap. I was risking a hardcore seizure if I didn't take it easy, right the fuck now.
The sun was dipping below the trees and without its warmth, the cold was knifing through my leathers. I heard the far off honk of geese migrating. "Yeah, I'd get the fuck out of here too," I muttered to them, remembering my Florida plan with some regret.
I started up the walkway. The house was dark, of course, because no one had paid the utilities, but at least it was shelter.
I unlocked the front door, pressing my shoulder to it, and stepped into the gloom.
A memory like an echo called out in the gloom, hollering at me to take my damn shoes off and stop tracking on the floors. But it slipped away before it could lead me anywhere else, leaving a restless, hollow feeling in its wake.
The house was left exactly as it was the morning Marion's neighbors packed her up and moved her to the nursing home. They had found her in their backyard, dressed in her bathrobe and slippers and nothing else, staring at the ducks in their pool. When the police came, she went willingly, like she was relieved she didn't have to be alone any more.
The nursing home staff had told me this as I signed paper after paper, but it didn't really register with me. Now that I stood in the time capsule of her home, I could see it for myself.
"She must have been waiting for you, Mr. Nelson," the orderly declared, her eyes glimmering with emotion. "You came to see her and she could finally die in peace."
"Uh huh." One thing I had to say for Marion. She had shit sewn up. The funeral shit was paid for, the cemetery plot all waiting for her like a creepy stalker. There was nothing for me to do but accept it.
But I still needed that drink though.
I turned on my heel and stalked back out of the dark house. One drink at the bar to calm my nerves. That's all I needed.
I got back on my bike and headed to Jokers.
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriela
I slid behind the wheel of my beat up old hatchback, and leaned my head against the seat. After the overwhelming heat of my parents' house, that chill of my car's interior felt strangely welcome.
My nerves were jangling harder then they did after a Saturday full of brides. My mother's observations about my life, however unwelcome, shook me to the core. She had gotten me into my head, and what she left there was going to take a long time to shake loose.
The last thing I wanted to do was go back to my empty apartment. It would be like admitting that she had a point. That I was alone, and that I'd didn't want to be.
No, what I wanted to do was find Crash.
I put the car in reverse and backed quickly out of the driveway. I felt rather than saw, my mother's silhouette at the window, and I very consciously did not lift my hand to wave goodbye. Let her stew. Let her think I was angry, maybe that would buy me a few days where I didn't have to call her. She could pretend that I had injured her and that I deserve the silent treatment.
That sounded lovely.
I looked down and realized I was driving to Jokers. It was a wild hunch, but it was the only thing I had to go on. I was embarrassed at how desperate I was. As I drove, the old words they used to hurt me came back into my mind.
Will spread her legs for anything.
Total whore.
Blew every guy in the senior class at least twice.
I smacked the steering wheel in frustration. It still wasn't fair. I should be over it now, six years later, but the rage still simmered under the surface.
I was the only mixed girl in my class. A mutt, not wholly part of any crowd, not Latina, not Black and definitely not pale and blonde. I was a little too much of something for one crowd and not enough of something for the other.
I hovered on the edge of everything until my body started to develop. Then it just kept developing, my breasts spilling out over a too tight bra, my ass getting rounder and rounder. Maybe they were jealous? Maybe they actually did think I was beautiful, the way my mother said?
They sure had a funny way of showing it.
The ghosts of old hurts were still swirling around my brain when I close the door to my car and headed into Jokers. One drink I promised myself again. And don't look for him.
But of course I looked for him. I stopped right in the doorway and scanned the room, my heart growing heavier and heavier with disappointment. Until my eye alighted on a leather-clad figure sprawled out in the corner booth.
Crash was sitting like he owned the place, his leg splayed straight out across the booth, his booted foot stuck straight out into the aisle His arm was slung over the back of the booth like he was waiting for someone to slide in there.
So I went to do just that.
He looked up from messing with the label on his beer bottle. When he caught sight of me walking towards him, his face broke out into such a wide-open grin that my heart did a queer little dance. He slung his leg off of the booth and leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
I slid in across from him. "Hey," I said.
He didn't say anything for a moment; he was too busy looking me up and down in the way that made me absolutely positive he was undressing me with his eyes. In fact I already felt naked.
"Hey," he finally said, still staring at me the way a dog stares at a piece of meat. I felt myself blushing from the inside out.
"How are you?" I asked him. "You had all that...stuff... With your grandmother…?"
He sat back, waving his hand like he was shooing the question away. "I don't want to talk about that depressing shit," he exhaled. "What are you drinking?"
"High Point. Lager." I told him.
He nodded, and lifted his chin towards Sal behind the bar. Some sort of unspoken, manly communication happened, and suddenly Sal was at my elbow. He looked between the two of us, and then he looked at Crash more closely.
"What's up Gabriela?" he asked me, quite pointedly using my full name. "I don't think I've had the pleasure of meeting your, uh, friend here."
I glanced at Crash, who was regarding Sal with something in between irritation and amusement. A twitch of recognition curled his lip. "You're the guy with the cars," he said slowly.
I looked up at Crash sharply, but he was too busy staring at Sal's face.
Sal narrowed his eyes. "I know you from somewhere, where do I know you from?"
"I don't know, where do you know me from?" Crash answered. It sounded belligerent, but I thought I could hear a note of pleading in his voice.
I decided to intervene. "Sal," I said slowly. "This is Ben Nelson."
Sal blinked. "No shit," he said, and then his eyes went wide with recognition. "Goddamn man, it's good to see you. How you feelin'?"
Crash shot me a look. "Doin' good," he said. "Got my eye on this hot chick...."
Sal looked back at me. "Who, her? Gabi's is not a chick."
I laughed out loud, draining a third of my beer in the process. "Then why are you always staring at my tits?" I shot back.
"What can I say? Tits are tits."
"I'll drink to that," Crash laughed raising his glass.
I grinned. "You're both a couple of pigs, you know that?"
"Oink oink, baby," Crash smiled, shooting me such a lascivious look that I swear I must have turned red from head to toe.
"Well Ben
, real glad to see you again. Sorry about your grandma, Marion was a hell of a broad," Sal declared, clapping Crash on the shoulder.
"Damn, word travels fast, huh?" Crash muttered into his beer. I shot him a sympathetic look.
"My wife works at Elder Care," Sal explained. "Marion was one of her favorite patients."
"For real?" Crash said, and I was surprised to see the actual interest in his eyes. So far he seemed to want to treat his grandmother's death as if it were nothing more than a passing irritation. I wondered what had changed.
"Oh yeah," Sal went on, leaning against the table with his beefy forearms. "Man, the stories she'd tell me about Mrs. Hunt when she was first admitted. She had the whole center hopping, ordering people around like they all existed to serve her."
Crash nodded slowly. "That sounds like her," he said softly, sounding very far away.
"She sure didn't let anyone step out of line, did she?" Sal went on.
"Guess not," Crash answered vaguely. He shifted in his seat, looking kind of uncomfortable.
"Sal, you have other customers here," I told him pointedly.
He looked up, "Oh shit, yeah guess I do. Real nice to see you again, Ben," he rapped his knuckle on our table with that heavy gold ring, and shuffled back behind the bar.
Crash looked up at me. "Hey, thanks."
"For what?"
"For getting rid of him," Crash paused. "Some of that stuff did actually sound familiar, you know," he said quietly.
I leaned forward eagerly. "Did it?"
He traced his finger down the line of condensation on his beer glass. "Like, it's right there. I can see it, I just can't hold it. It's this...vague thing. More like a sketch than a photograph.
I sat back in my booth. "That was kind of… beautiful, Crash."
He shot me a grin. "You're kind of beautiful."
I squirmed again. "No, I'm serious. It's like, I don't actually understand how it must be for you, but when you put it like that, I almost do."
The grin faded from Crash's lips and he stared at me. The silence between us grew so heavy that I felt my stomach twisting. Had I said something wrong? Was he angry?
