by Annie Dean
* * *
Atlantic Bridge
www.atlanticbridge.net
Copyright ©2007 by Annie Dean
* * *
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
* * *
Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2007, Annie Dean. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the authors.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Dedication
For Andres, who never gave up on me
Prologue
Monday morning the toilet exploded. Again.
"Addie!” a man's voice bellowed.
With a faint sigh, she turned from the window, away from the brown grass and unending sky, and went immediately to the supply closet. The mop and bucket needed a good rinsing, so she did that in the industrial washtub, and then refilled it with fresh water and a little Mr. Clean. She shoved the wheeled contraption ahead of her like a baby carriage and tried not to wince when she surveyed the damage.
"Almost got it this time,” her father said by way of apology. “I need to adjust the pressure gauge, and then I'm almost sure this won't happen again. I'll patent the Flow-Meister, and it'll get bought up by one of those big hotel chains. Maybe the Hilton. You think Paris Hilton would be interested in a Flow-Meister?"
Only if it were made of gold and encrusted with diamonds.
Plus, she felt reasonably sure a similar device had already been perfected and patented. But instead of answering, she got down to mopping up the flooded bathroom, noting the burst pipe at the back of the commode. Lemuel Buckley peered at her from behind his horn-rimmed glasses, and his pause might have given a less wary listener the impression he valued Addie's opinion. If that were so, however, he would've given up on the Flow-Meister years ago and taken a home course in medical transcription.
"I could save her forty percent on water usage,” he added.
She made answer in the tired swish of the string mop, the action of the wringer, and the efficient, practiced way she cleaned up his mess. If they had any paying customers, this setback would be catastrophic, as every first floor guest shared this bathroom. But as it was, only Manu stood to be inconvenienced, and it wouldn't kill him to trudge up to the second floor, pants or no pants.
"Please don't make any improvements without checking with me first.” Okay, so maybe she gave the word ‘improvements’ a certain ironic stress, but she was entitled.
"Oh. Right.” He disappeared then, heading for his workshop down in the cellar as he'd done for years. Her father lived only marginally in the real world as other people knew it, and since her mom's passing, it fell to her to MacGyver things together. With a faint sigh, she remembered how things used to be: parties with all the Martinez cousins, running wild with her best friend Lorene, long weekends in San Diego ... but they needed her to be solid and responsible now. There was simply nobody else left.
Everyone has to grow up sooner or later.
So to fix this most recent thing, she'd call the plumber in Doghouse Junction, assuming Martin Gruber hadn't retired. If she had to get someone from Dulzura, they'd charge mileage, and as for the idea of hiring out of San Diego, forget it. Addie dropped the mop into the bucket and ran her fingers through her dark brown hair.
Her temples throbbed, thinking about another bill. She'd been keeping the electricity on with promises and the phone was due to be disconnected soon. How the hell am I supposed to run this place? Nobody in his right mind wants to stay out here. The mocking voice that always preceded a migraine answered, Oh you're running it fine, right into the ground.
Needing some fresh air, she stepped out onto the corredor and sat down at the top of the stairs. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to be reminded of the ramshackle quality the place exuded. It had been charming once, a rambling house that borrowed from hacienda architecture, but at this point, it just showed its age, the apricot adobe finish crumbling away at a touch.
The courtyard should be landscaped in a way that made up for the desolate land all around them, but there was no money for that, any more than there was cash for other repairs. The small, discreet wooden sign pegged into the dry dirt was barely legible now, weathered by too many years of sun. Addie remembered her mother clapping as they first opened for business, the reverence of her long fingers tracing the gold lettering.
Things had been better back then. Her mother had a way with people, always on the phone, talking up the romance of the mountains. She booked family reunions, wedding parties, and casual backpackers who wanted to explore the odd, lonely land and then come home to a nice meal and a comfortable bed. They'd added a couple horses for people who liked to ride, and pretty soon, despite the odds, they built up repeat clientele. Maria Martinez Buckley made miracles, and nobody recognized it until she'd worked herself into an aneurysm at the age of fifty-two.
Addie remembered her parents arguing softly over what the name of the place should be. The Grail sounded vaguely blasphemous to her father, but he'd given in, as he always did. During those ‘discussions', she'd first learnt the soulful, ‘through the lashes’ look from her mother that served so well over the years. In fact, only her abuela had been immune to it.
The horses were the first things to go after her mother died. Now the barn out back stood empty, nothing but dust motes swimming in rivers of sunlight. The people stopped coming soon after. It's a hard thing, Addie reflected, clinging with both hands to a dying dream. Her mother's dream.
Sweat rolled off her cheeks in rivulets like an iced glass set down on a summer day, but nothing like as refreshing. She often thought of packing a bag and moving to a place where the sun didn't hit like a hammer, where the weather turned by the season. But like the cacti lining distant hills, she belonged here. And maybe that's a better tonic than success. Knowing where you belong.
"Are you going to be making dinner soon?” Manu stood behind her, tentative as a puppy who'd been kicked more than once, an annoying-endearing quality in a man large enough to shadow half the corredor.
Her sister had brought him home from Las Vegas one weekend, introduced him as her husband. To Addie's mind, Manu seemed more like a stray dog that Mel might've picked up at the pound on impulse. They'd both come back to the bed and breakfast after their mother died, and for a while, Mel tried to be the responsible one, the solid one, though she was made of moonlight and silk, not permanent press and energy saver bulbs.
Nobody understood what it cost Mel even to try, least of all Addie, who was neon and polyester satin all the way.
Before she came back, Mel's chapbook, Desert Heart, had been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. They'd partied together in Vegas and LA, but as the celebrations wound down, empty wine bottles needed to be collected from the cracked marble floor, just detritus and excess. There was a shadow inside Mel nothing else could touch and trying to wear their mother's shoes only made it worse.
In the end, Addie picked up the pieces.
She made all the arrangements and tidied up the scattered copies of The Bell Jar and The Awful Rowing Toward God.
They still sat on the shelf in 107; she didn't know how Manu could sleep there. Perhaps that revealed something about the power of names; call a baby girl Melusine and she grows up gifted, a poet's soul. Christen a child Adelaide in hope of a windfall from a crotchety great-aunt and see what happens.
That was symbolism, she thought, an eidetic encapsulation of their lives. Mel possessed so much charm, so many gifts. Even four years after her death, she still had a husband who loved her too much to leave. And Addie had a janitor bucket full of dirty water and a sock drawer full of credit card bills for things she hadn't bought. But that sounded a lot like self-pity.
"Yes,” she said then, pushing to her feet. “I'll get dinner."
Manu trailed her to the kitchen with a surprising lightness of foot. She no longer questioned anything he did, although it had spooked her at first, when she saw him wandering the halls, wearing nothing but his lavalava. Now he felt like a fixture, as much as her dad clattering in the cellar.
Addie took a look around the kitchen, once the heart of the Grail. Green marble, wicker and dried banana fronds, walnut cupboards, and a custom-made booth built into the corner before the patio doors. They'd eaten so many boisterous meals here; sometimes she wondered whether lost laughter could haunt a place, if happiness could linger in the cracks behind the countertops and the seams between the tiles.
They'd been eating on a cooked ham for a couple of days, and there wasn't a whole lot left in the pantry. “Could do bean soup,” she said, after a moment. She'd had the foresight to soak them, given that was their only option.
"I'll chop the onions."
A stranger could be forgiven for feeling startled. She knew they presented an odd picture—a small woman dropping beans into a cast iron kettle on top of a ham bone while an enormous man with puppy dog eyes diced vegetables in a Polynesian skirt. This was a typical Monday afternoon, but the heat made it impossible for her to enjoy cooking. She added water and set the dish to boil, and then mopped at her forehead with the hem of her shirt. Manu scraped his knife down the wooden cutting board, adding onions and peppers to the soup.
"Going to be a couple hours,” she told him.
He nodded. It wasn't like Manu demanded anything; he was simply here, as he'd been here with Mel. But she was gone, and Addie sometimes felt an irrational guilt that she disappointed him somehow, just by being who she was. Of course she felt that way a lot, not only in regard to him, so that was probably her issue.
"I was thinking of having a look at the sticky door upstairs. In room 205?” The question was more significant than it sounded. He was asking if he was welcome as more than a ghost who slept and ate and haunted the place.
"Yeah,” she answered, pouring herself a glass of lemonade. “It would be nice to have some help."
If only the place had central air, she thought. But they wouldn't be able to afford to run it, so she dismissed the idea. Carrying her drink back out to the covered porch out front, she sensed rather than saw Manu following her like he didn't know what to do with himself. She'd long since given up on offering work to keep him busy. He'd just shake his head and wander off, massive shoulders slumped. But maybe this was the start of a new era. He'd mentioned fixing the door, not her, so maybe he'd follow through, not that Addie had a high regard for any man's potential in that regard.
"We're pretty bad off, I guess.” He lowered himself onto a butaca sling chair, the sole touch of elegance that lingered from the hostel's heyday.
Addie felt vaguely surprised he'd noticed, but then again, they hadn't checked in a guest in almost a month, and he hadn't stayed more than one night, despite a truck with a busted carburetor. The only person at the Grail self-absorbed enough not to discern a problem was currently hammering away downstairs.
"We need some kind of draw. It used to be my mother ... and the horses, but I just don't have her knack for setting people at ease. And we sold the horses."
She didn't mean to sound self-deprecating; Addie threw a hell of a party, made a mean Margarita, and could drink nine out of ten truckers under a table, but that didn't serve for a bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere.
"I know some traditional dances,” he offered.
For a moment, Addie imagined that. But he was serious, and his earnestness reminded her of a conversation she'd had with Mel, five years back, when she first brought Manu home. “What were you thinking?” Addie had asked, prejudicial, yes, taking the man at face value.
Mel had shrugged. “I don't know, there's something about big men. They just ... try harder. They're sweeter. They don't get by on a chiseled face, tight abs and a bad attitude. You'll like him, you'll see."
She did like him, actually.
The most aggravating thing about Mel was that she never seemed to be wrong, never made disastrous decisions, never fell in love with men named Fast Eddie Alger. Even when she got liquored up in Las Vegas and came home with a husband she'd known precisely forty-eight hours, Mel had good instincts. Except there at the end, although perhaps in a few years when her suicide garnered posthumous fame, when people fought over the right to sift through her unpublished papers, Mel would look on from somewhere, nodding and smiling, saying, See, I told you this was the way to go.
From inside the house, Addie heard the broken refrain from radio in the kitchen, half a notch off station. Soft and low, she sang along. “For the life of me I cannot remember/What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise/For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins...” The radio crackled and cut out, then offered the next line: his girl took a week's worth of Valium and slept. Addie felt unable to look at Manu. But maybe he was inured to such casual reminders.
"I don't think that'll help,” she told him, realizing he still expected an answer. “If someone wanted to see Polynesian dances, they'd go to Hawaii, which has the added bonus of being gorgeous."
"This place is majestic.” He had a gentle voice, soft for his size. “But it's not a kind land, not one to draw tourists who want easy marvels."
Yeah. Easy marvels. Drive-thru miracles.
Addie had never been the kind of person who heard the voice of God in a burning bush. In general she wasn't sure she even believed there was a God, although that would break her mother's heart, a woman who saw divinity in everything from sunrise to a baby's first smile. And on the days she did believe, she saw him as a kid with a magnifying glass on an ant hill.
Mostly, she didn't think about theology, poetry, or philosophy; she didn't see the colors of the sunset. Once she'd partied with the best of them, closed the bars in Tijuana, sang backup in a shitty San Diego club for a woman who went on to sing with Joan Osborn. Back in the day, she even headlined in a girl band, for Christ's sake, although they'd been terrible and their only fans were the drunks who wanted to play grab ass. Nowadays, she paid the bills, cooked the food, and tidied up while the rest of her family tried to pretend the sky wasn't falling.
"You're the oil, Addie,” her mother had been fond of saying. “The grease that keeps things running smoothly.” And yeah, she made people laugh, or at least, she used to. But missing two cogs, the machine was breaking down now, and there didn't seem to be a damn thing she could do about it. With a faint sigh, she got up to stir the beans and then call Marty Gruber to fix the downstairs toilet. Maybe she could get him to take a post-dated check.
Later, while dusting rooms that hadn't been used in over a month, she found the solution in Maxim magazine.
Chapter One
April, nine months later
Sean studied the screen again, wanting to be wrong.
From the kitchen, he heard Camille's heels tapping against the tile, and he switched the monitor off. She'd already packed and he didn't know what to say, other than goodbye. It was an art form, he decided, this refusal to acknowledge facts that lined up outside the boundaries of permissible reality. It caused ripples of consensual delusion.
"This retreat,” he said, as she came into the shadowed arc
h that led into his office. “Is there a number where I can reach you?"
"Of course. Here. And you have my cell.” She leaned down, offering her mouth for a pristine, pursed kiss. He couldn't remember how she tasted anymore. “See you when I get back."
He watched her go, slim and elegant, a wand of a woman topped by a cap of carefully highlighted hair. Over the years, she had become increasingly untouchable; he missed the tousled coed who greeted him at the door with pizza sauce on her face, fingers stained from a design project. Now she did drafts entirely on the computer, efficient, quick and clean.
It would be different if animosity crackled between them, if there were impassioned arguments and airborne objects. That would actually give him some hope that there was something left worth fighting for, but instead there was only silence and distance, the cool spread of Egyptian cotton sheets between them, two separate objects that never tried to occupy the same space.
The click of the door came to him, gentle but final, and then he turned the screen back on, studying the site with renewed focus. According to Google Earth, the bed and breakfast hosting this retreat sat in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the impossibly dry land near the Mexican border. He tried to imagine Camille contenting herself with simple service and the dubious lure of the great outdoors.
"It's a Zen thing,” she'd said dismissively when he questioned it. “One of my clients insists on self-purification, that sort of nonsense, before he'll let me work on his property development. He wants to be sure I'm in touch with nature so as to create a harmonious design. I can afford to humor him."
"I could come with you,” he'd offered.
The flicker of alarm in her eyes gave him pause. “You'd just be bored listening to the guru drone about inner peace. I wouldn't go if it wasn't mandatory."
If it had been the first time, the first junket that struck a strange note, maybe he wouldn't have suspected anything. Maybe he wouldn't have started digging. But this was the fourth such trip in five months, and in his line of work, he'd come to know if there's smoke, there's fire.
