“I’d like to buy a piece of art from you—” I start, but Ruth interrupts me, waving her veiny hand out toward the desert. “Plenty of galleries in Palm Springs and Palm Desert have my pieces. I don’t sell directly to buyers these days. Haven’t for years.”
“I’m looking for a very particular piece,” I say. “One that won’t be in any of the galleries.”
Ruth purses her lips, like she’s just sucked on a lemon. “What piece?”
“You gave my grandma an eagle on her wedding day, and there is only one other one like it.”
“You want my eagle?”
Seth clears his throat and steps up next to me. “It’s my fault, ma’am. I … I broke the one you gave Reiko’s grandma.”
Ruth inhales like she’s just stepped on a sharp pin. “You broke my eagle?”
Seth looks down. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was an accident.”
“Well, I’d hope so! What kind of person would purposefully destroy art?”
We’re getting off topic, and Ruth is getting agitated.
“The eagle means a lot to my mom,” I say. “It’s one of the only things she has of my grandma Gloria’s.”
I don’t say that I know how meaningful it is to have something that belongs to someone you love. Someone who’s gone.
Ruth shuts the turquoise door without a word, and I slump as I feel the weight of having to tell my mom about the broken eagle settle around my shoulders.
“Well, at least we tried.” Seth’s voice is quiet.
Then there’s a click and the door swings wide open. Ruth is standing in front of us, still in her cowboy hat, and leaning on a walker. “I just had to undo the lock,” she says. “Why don’t the two of you come in and we can have a chat about my eagle.”
“You live here all on your own?” Seth asks.
We’re sitting in the living room. There are pieces of Ruth’s work everywhere, interspersed with Native American art and Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. The eagle, the one we’ve come for, is perched on a table in the corner. I try to keep from staring at it.
Ruth frowns at Seth’s question. “I might be old, but I can look after myself,” she says indignantly. Then she shrugs. “And a cleaner comes every other day, a nurse comes twice a week, and someone drops off meals for me every day. Better than living in an old folks’ home. Now why don’t you make yourself useful and go get some chips and dip from the kitchen.”
“Me?” asks Seth.
“Yes, you! Now scoot.”
As Seth heads down the hall, Ruth calls out after him: “And don’t break anything either!” She gives me a wicked grin. This is an especially impressive feat since she’s missing several teeth. “Now,” she says, settling into her leather chair. “Let me tell you about your grandma Gloria.”
We stay for hours. I call home to check on Koji, to remind him to eat, and to let him know we’ll be home late. Ruth tells me about how she and my grandma Gloria used to go hiking in the mountains, looking for eagles. I lap it up. I didn’t know that my grandmother loved desert adventures too.
“Gloria loved eagles. That’s why I made her one, to remind her that even if she couldn’t see them, they were always up above in the sky, up in the mountains,” says Ruth.
“Like an angel?” Seth asks. The word “angel” is so incongruous and unexpected coming out of Seth’s mouth, like spotting a polar bear in the desert, that I snort.
Ruth laughs her old-lady laugh and shakes her head. “No, not like an angel! Like an eagle. Eagles are real. Angels, who knows about those? I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve never seen an angel.” She turns to me and takes my hand. Her skin is so soft it feels like it might disintegrate at any moment. “You’ve grown up more than a bit since I last saw you. Your mama should have brought you around more, especially after what happened to your family. I promised Gloria I would look out for your mama, but I don’t think I’ve done a very good job of it.”
I manage a smile, but I don’t like her referencing what happened to Mika, especially in front of Seth. I still don’t know if he knows about Mika and I don’t like to think about it. “I’ll try to visit more. I didn’t think… I didn’t think you liked visitors.”
“Well, I don’t. But you aren’t just any visitor. You’re Gloria’s granddaughter. So you can come see me any time.” She nods at Seth. “And bring your boyfriend too.”
I feel heat climb up my chest and neck, into my cheeks. “Oh, Seth’s just my friend. Not my boyfriend.”
“He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you all evening!” Ruth says. “Don’t think that just because I’m old, I don’t see these things. There is nothing wrong with my eyesight.”
Seth makes a choking sound and stares at his feet. “I wasn’t … I wasn’t staring at Reiko. I was staring at … the eagle.”
Ruth cackles, tilting her head back so much that her cowboy hat falls off. “Of course. The reason you are here, after all. Tell me why I should give it to you.” Her eyes are bright and narrow.
“Because … it reminds me of my grandmother?” I say.
“Lies!” Ruth shouts so loudly I jump. “I can abide many things but not a liar. Try again!”
“What is this, some kind of game show?” Seth mutters.
Ruth laughs again. “It sure is. And the prize is one bona fide Ruth Setmire Eagle. Now the only one in existence. Thanks to you.” She nods in Seth’s direction and then turns back to me. “Try again. Let me know why you want this eagle.”
“Because … I don’t want to get in trouble?” I say.
“Warmer! Getting warmer!” Ruth yells. “You get one more chance!”
“Or else what? We don’t get the eagle?” says Seth.
“Let the girl think.” Ruth leans toward me. “I want honesty. I can always tell an honest answer. I can always read an honest heart.”
“Because … I don’t want to hurt my mom?” I say, waiting for Ruth to shout at me again, but instead she nods.
“Go on,” she says, her frantic energy of moments ago simmering into something new, something different.
“Because I want her to be happy?”
“And…” Ruth prompts. She’s staring at me so intently I feel like she’s looking into my soul. Seth’s watching me too, and the combined intensity of their stares is too much, so I close my eyes.
“I don’t want to disappoint her,” I say. “I’ve disappointed her enough, and … and I can’t add to it.”
“Your grandmother was a people-pleaser too, you know,” says Ruth. “Sometimes you can get confused who you’re doing the pleasing for. Don’t worry so much what people think of you.” She gives me a knowing look. “All takes too much energy, if you ask me. Focus some of that on you, you hear me?”
“I’ve got plenty of energy,” I say. Because it’s true. I’ve got everything. I realize that more now, after spending so much time with Seth.
“Everything but this eagle, right?” And then she makes this sound that is sort of a laugh and sort of a sigh. “All right. I’m convinced. And after all, I’ve got memories of your grandma Gloria and it sounds like you’ve got nothing of hers. Nothing of hers that you can see, I mean. Because it is clear to me that you’ve got her spirit and her heart. And her urge to please all the time. She was very kind, your grandma. Yep, you’re Gloria’s granddaughter all right, even if you don’t look a thing like her.”
I’m used to that. Used to being told I don’t look like my mother or even my father. Usually, people have to see me with both of them to put it together, like an equation. When people see my family, their glances go from Mom to Dad to me and back again, and then they look pretty pleased with themselves, like they’ve just figured something out when it is only simple genetics.
“So we can have it?” says Seth.
Ruth raises her eyebrows. “She can have it. On loan, that is. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll lend you this eagle, if you promise to come back in a year and tell me what you’ve learned about yourself. I’ve lived a lo
ng time − too long some people might say − and I know how important it is to see yourself the way you really are. I don’t think you’ve learned to do that yet, young lady.”
I shake my head. “I … I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Take the eagle, and come back next year. If I think you’ve grown enough to earn the eagle, I’ll let you keep it. For ever.”
“Oh, it isn’t for me,” I stammer. “It’s for my mom.”
“Well, then this part will be for you. Now, do we have an agreement?”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. We seal the deal with a glass of apple juice for me and brandy for Ruth.
On the way home, Seth sits in the middle seat in the back of the car, holding the eagle in his lap. Its wings spread out on either side of him. It just barely fit. We don’t speak, partly because of how strange our interaction with Ruth was, and partly because we’re both exhausted.
The drive back is dark, the roads are only lit by the stars, and as we roll along, every exit off the main road, every small side street, is calling my name, begging to be discovered and explored.
CHAPTER 17
Tonight I keep the windows rolled down as Seth and I drive into the dark, letting the wind taste my hair. The deeper into the desert we go, the darker it gets. We drive until there is nothing but stars and sand and mountains and us.
And still. We drive on.
Seth’s made a playlist and the songs wash over me and fill the car, like we’re swimming in music.
I listen to every lyric a little closer than I usually would. Wondering if he is trying to tell me something. Wondering if it is all in my head. Wondering if I want him to be telling me secret messages.
Seth and I have been venturing out into the desert almost every night, looking for adventure. It makes me feel like I’ve found a part of me that I didn’t know I was looking for.
Since school let out a few weeks ago, I’ve barely seen my friends. I’ve even been ignoring Dre. I don’t want her, or anyone, to ask me questions. I don’t want to think about the two parts of my life and how weird it is that I am spending so much time with Seth.
Last week we went back to the bottle-tree forest we saw on the drive to Ruth’s. We spent hours wandering up and down the rusted rows of clanking, clinking junk. Because that is what it is, junk on display – but with a little bit of love and a little bit of light, it’s been turned into art. More than art. Turned into magic.
“Are we there yet?” he asks now. Tonight is one of those nights we don’t know where we’re going, but we’ll know when we get there.
“Not yet,” I say. Then I lean my head out of the window and howl into the night like a coyote.
“We could go to the coast,” Seth says when I’ve stopped howling, but I ignore him and turn the music up louder.
I don’t like the coast. It’s too close to the ocean.
So we always drive inland.
“One day,” Seth says, “we should drive all the way to Yosemite or something. Climb El Capitan. See the redwoods. See something else, anything else, other than desert. We could at least go up the tram one day.”
Something about the idea that one day we’d drive so far together, combined with this idea of future plans, makes me skittish. I like being in the moment with Seth. No future, and most of all, no past. Just now.
“We see mountains,” I say.
“Desert mountains,” he grumbles. “Desert everything.”
We drive on in silence for a few minutes and then he takes a deep breath. Like he’s preparing himself for something.
“Think we’ll still do stuff like this together when school starts?” he asks.
I pretend I don’t hear him. I don’t like thinking about Seth at school. About what my friends, my real friends, would say, if they saw me cavorting with Seth Rogers. “Let’s get out here,” I say, suddenly wanting to be beneath the wide sky. I pull over and clamber out of my side of the car.
Seth shines his flashlight toward me. “You look like Wendy Darling meets Indiana Jones,” he says.
I’m wearing hiking boots and a pale blue nightgown.
“I’ll take it,” I say.
We wander in the dark, careful not to step on rocks or bump into a cactus, until we get to the base of a low mountain and spy a trail grinning at us in the moonlight.
“Ta-da,” I say, pointing up at it. “Told you we see mountains. Let’s go to the top.”
“It’s pretty dark,” Seth says. He’s moved closer to me and if I wanted to I could reach out and grab his hand.
But I don’t.
“We’ll be fine. Just use your flashlight.”
We climb up up up. And then we sit and wait for the sun to rise. It feels like it is rising below us, not above, like we’re summoning the sun from the earth.
I let my head drop onto Seth’s shoulder, just for a minute.
Only because I’m tired.
When we get back in my Jeep, we’re both covered in a fine film of dust and sweat. As I pull my hair out of its ponytail, I catch Seth still watching me intently. Usually, I’d ignore it or pretend I hadn’t seen, but this time I meet his gaze.
“What?”
“What what?” he says, a slow smile spreading over his face.
“What are you looking at me for?”
“I was looking at the sky.”
Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Sometimes, especially when I’m tired, especially when night blurs into day and when dream blurs into reality, I can’t tell what I’m imagining and what is real.
“Don’t you think it’s weird,” I say, looking up at the pale sliver of a moon, “that the moon goes to sleep when we wake up? Do you think the moon misses what happens in the day?”
“For someone who is so good at Science, you sure have a lot of weird ideas about the moon,” he says. “It’s just a chunk of rock in space.”
I bristle, offended on behalf of the moon.
It’s more than that, and I know it.
* * *
As we’re heading back into town, we pass a dusty liquor store on the side of the road and Seth asks me to slow down.
“Need a coffee or soda or something?” I ask, even though I know he wants me to buy him cigarettes. I don’t approve of his smoking, but once we started spending time together, he somehow wrangled me into helping him buy cigarettes. It’s probably because he told me that he only does it to feel close to his dad. He’s never met him, but he was a smoker. And that is pretty much all Seth knows about him, so Seth smokes too, because it is the one thing he can have in common with him.
The thing is, Seth has no way of knowing what brand his dad smoked. His mom can’t remember. So every week he smokes a different brand of cigarettes. He figures, eventually, he’ll hit on the brand his dad smoked, and then, at least for a week, they would have smoked the same one.
We never try to buy them from anywhere in Palm Springs − we don’t want to risk getting spotted by someone we know − so instead we stock up at random gas stations and run-down grocery stores when we go driving at night.
“Will you buy me cigarettes?” he asks, just as I expected.
I pretend I don’t hear him.
“Come on, please. The guy won’t say no to you,” he wheedles. He always uses this argument. “Nobody says no to you.”
It’s true, but hearing it makes me uncomfortable. It’s a power I want, but one I’m also a little afraid of, if I’m honest. I know I’m not supposed to notice people watching me at all, not the individual looks and not the culmination, and I’m definitely not supposed to like it. But, somehow, worrying about getting too much attention and trying to get more attention is all mixed up in my brain.
Like one time we had this substitute teacher last year − a young guy, in his twenties, and he wasn’t even that cute − but I saw how he looked at me, just a half second longer than he looked at anyone else, and I kind of loved it. It made me feel strangely powerful. But it scared the hell out
of me too.
Like what? This guy, this teacher, this man, likes to look at me? What am I supposed to do with this kind of information? Am I supposed to ignore it? Pretend I haven’t noticed? Sit in the back with my head down? Nobody tells you what to do. All they say is: be careful. Be careful. Like I’m fine china and I should be bubble-wrapped all the time.
After what happened to Mika, I don’t want to be careful. I want to live. I need to live. Enough for the both of us. I owe it to her. But, then, sometimes, I just want to stay home and be with her and never leave. Sometimes I feel like I’m two people, like I’m split between my fear of living and my fear of not living.
“If my mom ever catches me buying cigarettes…” I say.
“Your dad is from Japan! Isn’t smoking, like, the number-one pastime in Japan?”
“Funny.” I’m not amused.
“I’m right, though, aren’t I? Smoking and sushi? Key parts of your culture.”
“Seth…” If he hears the warning in my voice, he ignores it.
“Just try to buy a pack from the guy behind the counter. Give him one of your Reiko smiles. He won’t even check your ID. Come on.”
“I think this is the reason you became my friend,” I grumble. “Because you knew I would enable your ridiculous cigarette addiction.”
“It isn’t a cigarette addiction. It’s an experiment.”
“If it isn’t an addiction, why don’t you stop?”
“Reiko, do I hassle you? Do I lecture you about any of your bad habits?”
“I don’t have bad habits.” At least, none that he knows about. I wonder if hanging out with him counts as one of my bad habits.
“You do realize that you don’t look cool smoking, right?” I say later, when I’ve bought him the cigarettes, because of course I bought them. Just like nobody can say no to me, recently I haven’t been able to say no to Seth.
“I don’t know, Reiko, maybe this is who I’m meant to be,” he says. His feet are on my dashboard, one arm is out the window, and he’s blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Debonair. Mysterious. Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 7
