“Let him ride his bike down the hill while we drive. We’ll wait for him at the bottom. I never used a helmet in my life,” my father had said.
Ettore had put us all in danger the minute we set foot in California. He knew we needed some armor if we were to start a life here. A shell, like my rubber suit or the coarse skin that had hardened on my mother’s face. She had exposed herself to so much sun that it had burned through the layers on her forehead. Her Mediterranean skin had peeled away, letting the rays charge across pores and cells. In her third eye were the flames of an imaginary star. That was her scar. We all had our own. They were indelible.
—
Everything ached. My limbs were stretched out as if they’d run away from my body. I was struck by a feeling of overwhelming sadness for them, as if my own body had morphed into something else while I wasn’t looking, and now it was too late and I had to deal with the consequences of my recklessness. Deva closed the flimsy white curtains of her cabin to filter out the morning light and got in bed next to me. The smell of her skin came and went. I squeezed her closer to trap her inside my nostrils.
“I missed you,” I told her with my eyes closed.
She rested one hand on my belly and put the other one between my thighs. “Squeeze,” she said. “I’m cold.”
I pushed my legs together and exhaled on her head to warm her up. The cabin was musty. Humidity seeped into our skin. I wrapped myself around her and opened my eyes, observing her face up close.
“How was Montana? I thought you’d never come back.”
She avoided the question and nuzzled herself closer toward me. “You make me feel like I can lose a backpack with all my most precious things inside and you’ll know exactly how to find it,” she said.
I liked that, and I liked that her eyes didn’t scramble around my face now. It was the first time she had looked at me that way. But I was annoyed at the compliment. I propped myself up on the bed and told her about how I’d spent my last weeks chasing her and how difficult it had been. When she was in Montana she was always busy. She never called me back. Still, I made up a big excuse with my parents just to get her where she wanted to be for her birthday. I pretended to like a guy I wanted nothing to do with. I dragged him out to the desert and left him in the middle of nowhere. I’d been heartless and took drugs that I couldn’t handle, all so I could see her again. It was hard to understand how to be with someone who didn’t want to be seen, who never told you how she felt and always ran off to the next hiding place. Deva looked down and said something about how going to Montana had drained her. Her brother and father and her had built a recording studio almost from scratch. It took longer than they expected.
“But why does he need a recording studio in Montana? You guys live here,” I answered.
She shrugged her shoulders.
I tried to be severe and hold my ground, but I realized as I spoke to her that I was completely enamored. She could have done anything she wanted with me. She could have abandoned me, not returned any of my calls, and I would have still been there on that bed that morning, happy just to be in her presence. I would have ditched a thousand sad Alos with holes in their throats, just to spend a night with her.
She moved across the wooden bed. Specks of light filtered through the trees outside the window and fell in streaks over her messy hair, settling on her clavicles. She hopped off and stood at the end of the bed, observing me. She removed my knee-highs. My feet were black with desert dirt. She kissed them. Her small, round head was silhouetted by light. It burst out of her margins like an electric halo.
“I was afraid you were in love with me and I didn’t want to be responsible for that,” she said, looking straight up at me.
I pulled her in and brushed my fingers over her chest. “I’m in love with you, yes,” I replied. “So what?”
She pressed her body against the wooden footboard and kissed me. I pushed her away defensively, but she kissed me again and let out a gentle moan, something that said she was sorry. She took her clothes off and got back in bed, leading the way. She licked my lips and cheeks. I licked her back, eyes, and hair and anything in the way.
“It’s okay,” she said as she pulled me to her. “I want to be with you too.”
My hands pressed onto her hot, bony frame. I finished undressing her. I took her in my arms and we made love. It wasn’t like on the merry-go-round when we had spun around like nocturnal wind-up toys, coming fast and unexpectedly, never talking about it again. This was a declaration without words.
We were together for hours, kissing and spacing out from the drugs then reaching for each other again. Our fingers traced the outlines of each other’s bodies, from inside our legs back up to our breasts and lips until every crevice was memorized. I didn’t know girls could have so much liquid inside them. I had never gotten that way with a guy, but by late morning the bed was so damp, it looked like we’d spent the night peeing in it. Sand granules from the desert cluttered the inner corners of Deva’s eyes, forming a bright yellow mucus like that of a kitten. Radiant dust particles deposited on her ribs and belly button. Her small breasts, illuminated by the suncatchers that hung in the window, were the last things I saw before I closed my eyes.
23
We hadn’t slept long when we heard the bang on the door.
Deva poured water from a bottle and splashed it on her eyes so she wouldn’t look sleepy. Her father barged in and looked at my muddled face, confused.
“Well, happy New Year to you, Italian lady. What did you girls do last night?”
“Eugenia’s mom cooked an Italian dinner for me. Her parents just dropped us off so she could come on our birthday hike with us.”
“What did she cook?” he asked, suspiciously.
“Veal parmesan,” Deva improvised.
I’d never heard of such a dish. My mother would have rather killed herself than make something like that.
“Happy birthday, girl.” He hugged her. “I remember when—”
“When I was just a little ball who rushed to come out into your arms…The opposite of my twin brother who wanted to stay right where he was.”
His eyes relaxed when he heard her say this. She hadn’t forgotten their rituals. Their inside jokes were intact. Things were okay.
“Is brunch ready?” Deva asked, faking enthusiasm.
A wider smile opened up on her father’s pinkish face. He was drunk. I smelled it now. From the night before and starting again in the morning.
“I doubt my food will be as good as your mother’s,” he said, glancing over at me.
“I’m sure it’ll be even better,” I replied.
We went to the main house. The birthday brunch table was set up with banners and balloons on the terrace overlooking the oak tree expanse. There were no folders on the work desk inside, no beeping fax machines or glossy portfolio pictures. The computer monitor was turned off—the house clean. The furniture looked dead, as if it had stopped breathing when the family had left for Montana.
Chris appeared on the terrace with longer hair and a backwards cap that made him look thinner, like he was fizzling out instead of growing into a man. A gaunt, transparent creature.
“Happy New Year,” he greeted me with a soft, sterile hug.
“Happy birthday,” I replied.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Deva and I don’t celebrate on the same day. Dad wants to make sure he gets alone time with each of us. I’m surprised he let you come.” He arched his brow at me.
Bacon and eggs fried inside.
We took our places. Deva’s father poured us orange juice, then leaned into her, hugging her from behind.
“We’re on TV next week. How’s that for a birthday present?” he whispered.
Deva blushed and reached her arms behind to hug him back.
“A great one.”
He perched in Deva’s shade like a fixture to her presence, seeping into the space around her. Deva contorted her pose to seal him of
f, but he overspread. I’d seen him do that before. Devour her with his presence until he made her look like a little thing.
I looked over at Chris. The banners hanging on the terrace all spelled his sister’s name. I wondered whether their father would create the same atmosphere for him the following day. From the look on Chris’s face I knew that wasn’t going to be the case. They’d have leftover cake, melted birthday candles, cold bacon. I wondered how it made him feel to know he was not the chosen one. To be asked to step aside on the day of his birthday so his dad could have alone time with his twin sister.
Deva’s father placed a wrapped gift on the table by Deva’s fingers—a black Montblanc fountain pen.
She avoided eye contact.
“Thanks. It’s a beautiful pen,” she said, smiling wanly.
“Best in the world. Ink flows out like music. So that everything you write turns to gold.” He kissed her hand. “Music contracts too.”
Deva’s father went inside to get the fried eggs. I reached for her knee beneath the table and gave it a squeeze. A shaft of sunlight divided us perfectly from one another at the table. I gripped her knee tighter. She, too, I thought, must have been feeling the urge to stay close to me, to keep bathing in the wide-open waters we’d dipped into that morning, our infinity pool. I saw glimpses of blue lakes and daffodils and fuming chimneys, ivy-covered cottages, and more canyon adventures on the horizon for us. I ignored her hand not looking for mine under the table.
I ate the eggs, smiled, and helped myself to more even though my stomach turned and the smell of maple syrup over the pancakes was making me sick. Deva’s father drank a Budweiser and ate some strips of bacon. He glanced at his daughter then pushed his index finger over her bleary eyes, picking out crumbs of dry desert mucus.
“You both look like you came out of a washing machine. Are you sure you got enough sleep last night?”
She nodded yes, spreading food on her plate.
“You’re not hungry?”
“Not much.”
“Well, you better eat if you want to hike to Eagle Rock today.”
“Maybe we should go in the afternoon,” Deva suggested casually.
His face turned cross. He got up in a jolt, went inside, and returned with two pairs of boots. He gave her one and dropped the other one by my feet.
“We had a plan. We always celebrate your birthday like this.”
He gave her a pat on the cheek, playful but stern—on the verge of a friendly slap.
“I know,” Deva said cowering, too tired to come up with an excuse. “We are happy to go, okay?” she cut him short.
We set out for the great Eagle Rock. We were in no condition to go hiking, but Deva said if we didn’t go, it would be worse. I’d hoped Chris would be coming with us, but he’d disappeared into his cottage after breakfast. Part of their separate birthday deal, I imagined. Deva asked me to act normal, to think about the way we hopped fences in school and how we always looked up at the sun and never turned back. I said I would, but the canyon’s sunlight was dim that day, as if it had been flung off the sky. No golden rays, just faded blues and wintery metallic grays.
We hiked past the commune and red canyon rocks. Her father lifted his arm to salute Bob, who gave us a nod from the cottage he was hammering into, fixing what the rain had torn apart. I pretended not to know him. Deva waved politely as if their only connection was through her father. No traces of feral daughters or jealous wives.
The riverbanks had retired and the old mudslides from the storm had solidified into lush purple earth. We crossed the stream through the trees, guarding our heads from overgrown branches and tangled shrubs, and trailed along past the cottage with the outdoor tub where we’d bathed through the winter. A couple of Norwegian tourists hung underwear on a clothesline. Their daughter waved at us from the tub as one of the commune’s stray puppies scratched its paws against the faded enamel.
“Look at that! An outdoor bathroom! Bob’s a crazy cat, isn’t he?”
“He sure is,” Deva muttered.
Our eyes lingered on the entrance of the cabin. We’d crossed that threshold many times before, but now that we were with her father, it all seemed separate from us, as if we were walking through another version of our winter, like it wasn’t us who hopped fences and broke in to cabins. We were not those kinds of girls now. We were girls who followed fathers through the woods, obedient.
We hiked back down across the main road and up into more woods through a path bordered by tall thorny bushes, down a slope, and up another hill that opened onto the entrance of the state park. The farther up we moved over rocky stretches, the colder it got.
“It’s a lot of walking, but it’s the best ocean view in LA,” Deva’s father announced. But his daughter’s smile had vanished. She was meek and waxen as if she’d turned into an object during the course of the morning. Her pants were sliding off her waist and her panties bulged out of her crack in a bundled wedgie. Her breathing became fatigued. Her father noticed and walked over to her. He patted her on the shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look like a ghost.” His tone wasn’t fatherly or reassuring. He rubbed the back of her head with a noogie. Her long hair, heavy with desert dust, clumped up.
“What’s this shit in your hair, Deva? Didn’t you wash it yesterday?”
Deva nodded yes, pulling strands behind her ears to get them out of the way.
“It looks like you’ve been out camping or something. It’s full of…” He combed through her mane with his fingers, picking out bits of sand. “Dirt…sand? What is this?” he asked, opening his hand for her to see.
Deva shrugged her shoulders.
He let out an impatient sigh then looked over at me.
“Veal parmesan,” he said with a cackle, then turned around, and kept walking.
“Are you okay?” I whispered to Deva.
She signaled to move on with a nod of the chin, worried her father might hear us. She finally grabbed my arm, but only because she couldn’t hold herself up. I made myself strong like a pole and pushed her up the hill. A little longer and we’d be on Eagle Rock. We could take a break there.
The mountains looked like distant accumulations of charcoal. Nothing was welcoming. Every leaf on the trees was like a sterile drawing. When we got to a clearing filled with oaks, they were all split in half like divaricated legs. The olive trees in a distant grove appeared remote and bare, like rickety, outstretched skeletons. Hills turned into lurching cliffs that fell off steep ridgelines into empty space. Winter.
When we reached Eagle Rock, Deva’s hand was sweating in mine. The grass around the rock looked like flat patches of wire under the shadows of the clouds. Her father sat on the boulder, overlooking the precipitous bluff below, satisfied with his efforts.
“Look at that.” He sighed at the view, but the ocean behind the hills was black. His face and chest were pouring with acrid sweat, and Topanga did not seem beautiful to me anymore.
Deva took her final steps in a zigzagged line and stumbled toward a lateral bush. She leaned on her knees and threw up. I cleaned her face with dead leaves. Her father saw it and backtracked toward us.
“What’s gotten into you, Deva?”
She propped herself up, resting her hands against her knees, and vomited again. I kept her hair back, but her father thrust me away with his hips.
“You want to tell me what’s up?” he asked. He took her by the wrist and yanked her toward him.
“Nothing. I’m just not feeling well,” she answered, collapsing into him.
He pulled her up in his arms.
“You want me to tell you what’s going on, then? ’Cause I think I know quite well what’s going on.”
She tried to move away, but he held her still.
“You think I’m stupid or something? Italian dinner, right?” He glared at me now, then tied Deva’s long hair in a knot and pulled it against his chest. She did not seem as shocked as I was by what was happening. It was
as if this was a glitch or an annoyance, nothing more and nothing new.
“You went out, that’s what’s going on. You went to one of your all-night parties. Am I right?”
I stood on the cusp of the rock with a body that was unable to move. The chemicals from the previous night rushed back to paralyze me. There was something familiar about that feeling of impotence, a pounding heart inside an immobile body, the mind trying to bend a structure made of lumber. I was far away from Eagle Rock now, standing before Santino’s wild eyes, tuned in to Angelina’s sorrowful snout.
Deva untangled herself from her father’s grasp.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “We just went out because it was my birthday.”
He walked away from her, shaking his head like he was proud of himself for figuring it out. Then he stopped and caught his breath.
“It was my fault,” I intervened. “I talked her into it.”
He wasn’t listening.
The soles of his shoes rotated against the loose gravel. He turned around and leaped back toward his daughter. Deva moved away with a jolt, causing their bodies to collide against each other on the way. The contact with her father’s hips flung her across the air. She hit the rock and bounced off the quartz like a rubber ball, landing on her feet.
Suddenly I was not made of lumber anymore. I was sober and it didn’t matter if Deva had fallen by mistake. My mind screamed that maybe it wasn’t an accident, that this could be the prelude to something worse. I thought about the bruises I’d seen on her body, the days when she’d disappeared, the times when she’d refused to talk about things. I repositioned those memories in my head and gave them new meaning. Rage mounted inside me until it was some formless incandescent liquid. I clenched my teeth. Deva’s father was coming closer to his daughter again, a look of truce and kindness on his face. That was no truce, though. It was the quiet before the storm. I screamed at him to get away from Deva. He didn’t listen and kept moving toward his daughter, his head tilted sideways like he was trying to take her in. I took a step back. A quaking in my legs like an awakening, and my hands moved forward, hard and strong. I aimed for his belly. It was happening and I let it unfold like I wasn’t part of the picture. I shoved myself against Deva’s father with more force than I knew I had. I pushed him off the Eagle Rock into the small ditch below. I heard the sound of his arms against the shrubbery, the crackle of branches and dry leaves underneath. I didn’t wait to catch my breath or listen to the final outcome. I turned toward Deva and hurried to her. She was a bundle of trembling bones. Her forehead was bleeding from the concussion.
Things That Happened Before the Earthquake Page 24
