waved at them from the kitchen. Harry Pitts gave them menus and escorted them to a quiet booth.
“I recommend the mushroom burgers,” he said, and left them to peruse their menus. In the end, they took his advice, and ordered mushroom burgers.
DiConti looked at Notta. The emotion blazing from his eyes momentarily startled her, until she realized her eyes were answering in kind. He took her hand. “I should have a ring to offer you,” he said. She shook her head gently. “That will have to come later, the next time you’re in Las Tumbas,” he went on. “Formal words now,” he grinned, “Notta, will you marry me?”
“Why, Mr. Sharif, you do take a girl by surprise! Of course, I’ll marry you. Rings and things can come later.” DiConti was about to stand and lean across the table between them to kiss her but Harry brought their mushroom burgers just then.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Harry said. Notta and DiConti blushed. Harry chuckled, a sound like a rasp scraping rust from old iron.
When Harry had turned his back and shuffled toward his station, DiConti leaned over the table to kiss Notta. She met him halfway.
The burgers required attention. Rosa had smothered savory beef patties in shiitake mushroom slices flavored with a delicate touch of thyme. Over this she had spread a gravy of thickened beef broth and gently grilled bits of red onion. All this she served on a whole-wheat bun. Sliced tomatoes and a quarter dill pickle lay jauntily on a lettuce leaf beside the top bun. Succulent zucchini, battered with a coating tasting of garlic and ginger and deep-fried, took the place most restaurants left to French Fries.
When they had finished their burgers, Harry brought them dishes of green tea ice cream. “On the house,” he said. He left them tiny spoons to eat it.
“Notta,” DiConti said, staring at his ice cream spoon with its wee dollop of pale green ice cream, “when should I talk to your father?”
“Talk to my father? Why? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“He is your father. I should ask him for your hand, or his blessing, or something like that.” He glanced at her puzzled frown. “That’s the way my folks taught me these things should be done. If my father were alive, I could send him to your father. Since he isn’t, I’ll have to go myself.” He pled with his eyes for her understanding.
“What old-fashioned nonsense!” Notta sputtered. “He didn’t even know I existed until a few days ago. I don’t need his permission, or anyone else’s, to marry whomever I please.”
“Please, Notta,” DiConti said, “I’m only trying to do the right thing here.”
“I’ve never had a father who mattered,” Notta went on angrily. “I don’t want one now, clogging up the works.” She stood up. “I’m going, now. Are you coming?”
DiConti hastily swallowed the last of his ice cream. He ate it so fast he got a small headache. Dismally he wondered where the euphoria had gone as he stood up. “I’m coming,” he said. He stopped to pay for their meal, and followed her out.
Outside he found Notta dabbing tears from her eyes with a large handkerchief. “DiConti,” she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up at you.” He put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
“It’s just that I don’t know what to do with a father that suddenly pops up out of nowhere. I’d presumed he’d been dead all these years, or married to another family. I never expected to meet him.”
DiConti gave her a little squeeze of comfort. She took a deep breath, and straightened up. She dabbed away the last of her tears. “I guess I’d better go face the music,” she said. “Mother wants me to know this sperm donor, so I suppose I must make a try.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, better I think to do this on my own.”
“Consider,” DiConti said, “this Haakon Spitz may not be ready to have a daughter, any more than you want a father. Be gentle with him.” Notta stepped back from DiConti.
“Gentle with him? How could I hurt him?”
“You never know. My mother used to say, ‘Don’t burn any bridges before you’ve built them.’” DiConti put his hands on Notta’s shoulders, kissed her gently, and said, “I’ll drop by this evening, if it’s all right with you, and check in on you.”
“Okay,” Notta said, and left him at the café door as she turned toward her encounter with the ancient truth. He watched her walk past the motel and turn onto the path to the Village. Then he went to his car and drove to Las Tumbas in a daze.
On the mountain She-Who-Shuns-Males, a young female llama remarkable among her herd for her celibacy, made a low bleating entreaty to He-Who-Drools-in-His-Mash, an elder among the llama studs. One last burst of sexual energy enlivened the old llama, and he mounted She-Who-Shuns-Males, with her consent. He-Who-Drools-in-His-Mash expelled his seed into the waiting womb of She-Who-Shuns-Males, and fell away from her, exhausted. In the morning, Willy Waugh found his corpse, and arranged to have it hauled to the knackers at the charnel house. She-Who-Shuns-Males felt an embryo take root in her, and grow. The unicorn with the unique horn grazed on fog-wet grass with renewed satisfaction.
Father and the Bride
Notta fumed as she walked back to her mother’s cottage. She continued to argue with DiConti in her mind, attributing various chauvinistic attitudes to her mental image of him. When she got to her mother’s front porch, she hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. Was she ready to confront Haakon? What would he want of her?
She looked at her face reflected in the door’s window. The frown on her round face deepened. Her soft brown hair seemed almost bristling. She took a deep breath, shrugged her shoulders, and let her arms relax. She felt some of her tension drain out her fingertips. She wished she could shed more. She turned the knob and opened the door. Ermentrude greeted her with a loud meow of complaint. Notta idly scratched the cat’s ears. She heard her mother and Haakon talking in low voices. When she entered the kitchen, they stopped talking.
“Would you like some lunch, dear?” her mother asked, starting to rise. Her tone was carefully neutral.
Notta noticed her mother was getting a little plumper. She moved more slowly, too. It angered her, unaccountably. “No thanks,” Notta said. “I ate with DiConti, at the Four Rosas.”
“How about some tea, then?”
Notta responded with some asperity. “No, Mama, no tea.” Emma glanced quickly at Haakon as she settled back in her chair. Silence welled up in the room like a great darkness. Ermentrude’s piercing yowl of frustration shattered it.
“Oh, do shut up, you stupid cat!” Emma snapped. Notta stared at her mother. Emma’s patience with cats was legendary.
“Come here, Ermentrude,” Notta coaxed. “Where’s Prime Pussy?”
“Outside,” Haakon said his voice reedy and thin. Notta noticed how very frail Haakon was. His arms and legs were sticklike, and his face was drawn and gray. Notta let go of a little of her anger.
“We should talk,” Haakon said to Notta. “Emma tells me she has told you I am your father.” He stared at her, his blue eyes struggling to say something Notta could not read.
“What’s to talk about?” Notta said. Her anger burst from her. “Knowing you are my mother’s sperm donor doesn’t make a lot of difference.” She deliberately ignored Haakon’s wince, and her mother’s pursed lips. “A father is a man who is part of his daughter’s life, not a quick roll in a rented bed, and then twenty-five years of non-existence, only to show up sick and broken and needing everything.”
“Notta!” Emma shouted. “Keep civil! You are worse than your cat!”
Haakon got to his feet, and leaned on the table. “This sperm donor only wants to apologize for being wrongfully arrested and convicted, and therefore absent from his daughter’s life at all the important occasions. I’m damned if I could say I’d have been any good at fathering you, but I would at least have tried, if I’d known you existed. Emma, I’ll go to La
s Tumbas tomorrow and get a place to stay. Thanks for all the care you’ve lavished on me, Emma, and you, too, Notta. I’d be dead without you two.” He turned and marched out of the room with as much dignity as his wavering gait allowed him.
Emma stared at the floor for a long moment. “What a fury you have in you,” she said in low voice. “I have never known you to be so unkind to anyone.” Her brown eyes blazed with fury. Notta could see a muscle in her mother’s jaw twitching. From childhood this had indicated great anger.
Remorse flooded Notta. She thought to herself, no one breeds guilt faster than a mother does. Emma gathered the flatware and dishes from the table where she and Haakon had eaten lunch. Notta felt a wall rise up between them, colder and stonier than any that their conflicts had ever built. Notta’s voice sounded small and weak as she spoke.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she started, and then cleared her throat, “I just wanted to tell you, DiConti asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”
“That’s nice, dear,” Emma said. “I hope you’ll be happy.” She carried the dishes and cutlery to the sink. She ran water on them, and set them to soak. “I believe I’ll have a nap, now. Enjoy your demons, daughter.” She walked out of the kitchen without looking at Notta. Notta could not remember another time her mother had been so distant. Notta sank into a chair by the table. Tears stung
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