“Nice to see you finally remembered you had a child,” Milton said.
In her mind, Skye was saying, ThankyouGod, but a different story came out of her mouth. “You shut up. Rocky was supposed to pick her up.”
Milton sighed. “You’re a terrible liar and a worse parent.”
“Yeah, maybe, but at least I’m not a judgmental asshole.”
She’d never forget the look on Milton’s face, sorry for her, sorrier still for Gracie. He grabbed her keys out of her hand so fast that they left a burn. “You sit down and drink some coffee.”
“I’m fine to drive,” she said.
“No, you’re not.” He poured her a cup and watched her drink it down black.
Gracie’s head lolled to the side. What with all the yelling and partying that took place at Skye and Rocky’s, Gracie could sleep through anything.
“There,” Skye said. “Coffee all gone. Now give me my keys, please.”
Milton marched her to the curb and shut the metal gate behind him. He was hard-core on drunks, because Guadalupe had once been fined a whole weekend without liquor sales when another server—not her—served a minor. The BBQ had lost thousands in earnings. Milton fired that waiter, then turned around and sued him for damages.
At the car, he said, “Here’s the deal, Skye. Without me here to wait for you to show up, you could’ve lost her. People are crazy. Pedophiles are everywhere. Bad shit happens all the time. I’m the only thing standing between you and felony child endangerment, capice?”
Milton was a professional at making people cry.
The coffee was hard on Skye’s stomach after vomiting and all the booze, and her nerves weren’t helping matters. She stroked Gracie’s pink cheeks, trying and failing not to sob. “I’m okay, Milton,” she said. “I swear I can drive home. Straight home.”
He didn’t say anything. She figured he would be over it by tomorrow. She placed a sleepy Gracie into the car seat she’d nearly outgrown, there in the right rear backseat, the safest place for a child to be. She was sure she’d locked the straps, too, but apparently she’d imagined that part. She got into the front seat. Milton leaned down and she stuck her head out that window. “Now what?”
“You’re fired.”
“Milton, no. This will never happen again, I promise. Please let me finish out the week. I need the money.”
“Two days,” he said. “That’s all. I’ll have your last paycheck ready by then.”
Just one more horrible memory to add to all the others.
The speed limit in the Railyard was like twenty-five or even twenty in places. But she was drunk and angry and pressed her foot down on the gas pedal a little too fast, fishtailing up the street toward Alameda. She made a right, intending to double back toward Canyon, when out of nowhere a shadow of a dog seemed to stop right in front of her. She swerved into a retaining wall, hitting it hard enough that the radiator buckled, and she could smell the coolant. When she looked up, she saw it was a coyote, disappearing into the rabbit brush.
Dwell not in the past, but in the moment. The present is what matters, Duncan’s voice whispered in her ear. Duncan listened calmly to even the most heinous acts people had committed thanks to alcohol and drugs. He never once changed his expression, because at Cottonwoods we don’t judge, we’re all equal. Skye smoothed her skirt and let out a flinty laugh—this was the same stupid denim skirt she’d worn that horrible night. There hadn’t been a drop of blood on it. The blood had been in the backseat—Gracie’s.
“Here you go,” the waiter said, breaking her reverie. The man set down Skye’s eggs and coffee and Peter’s Coke.
Where in the hell was Peter? Maybe he’d gotten sick in the bathroom. Passed out, even. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and called the waiter back. “Did you see my friend come out of the bathroom?”
“Nope. You want me to check?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. He wasn’t feeling well.”
The waiter smiled and left. Skye sipped her coffee. It was better than the AA coffee, but ditch water pretty much was, too.
The waiter came back. “I knocked, opened the door. Nobody’s in there,” he said.
“He must have walked out the back door,” she said. “I’m sorry. He was supposed to pay the check. I have a dollar. Can I mail the rest to you?”
He sighed. “Just go. It’s okay this one time.”
She jaywalked across Guadalupe Street and straight into Guadalupe BBQ, bypassing the outdoor tables and heading straight to the bar. That’s where Peter would go, the nearest bar, to get a little hair of the dog to ease his headache. The restroom was directly across from it. She knocked, opened the door, and found it empty, too. Dammit! He was messing up her plans. And she basically had dined and ditched, which was a terrible thing for a former waitress to do.
She turned back and the bartender was right there.
“You need a drink?” he said, smiling.
What a question. “I have a dollar in my pocket. Could I have half a Coke?”
He grinned, eyeing her up and down. “I’ll even add a couple of cherries.”
“Thanks. I’m thirsty.” Peter was probably halfway home by now. What was the old saying? “No good deed goes unpunished”? She watched the guy handle the soda hose and wondered how old he was. Freshly twenty-one, she bet. Give him a Santa Fe summer in the food industry and he’d go back to college willingly.
He plucked three cherries from the prep table container. “I’m Brad.”
“Nice to meet you, Brad.”
“You new in town?”
“Nope. Coming back after a time away.”
“Anything else I can get you?” he said, leaving the end of that sentence open, as if the main reason women went into bars in the daytime was to have a freaking love encounter with a stranger.
She started to stand up but changed her mind. Milton and Rocky were friends. “Is Milton around? He knows me.”
The bartender cocked his head sideways the way her daddy’s ancient dog did, only Hope didn’t smile like he wanted into her pants. “Yeah. I’ll go find him.”
While he slipped out the doorway, Skye studied the liquor bottles behind the bar, lined up like crown jewels on the wooden shelves. The liquid glistened, some of it crystal clear and looking as harmless as water inside glass bottles pretty enough to use as vases. Others were deep amber and yellow. They could have been magic potions, and boy, did they ever feel like it to begin with.
She sipped her Coke and waited. When the bartender returned, Milton was behind him. Skinny Milton, in his cigarette leg jeans and a Hawaiian shirt with a dizzying print she had to look away from. He frowned at Skye and said, “Oh, hell, no. You put down that drink and head back to whatever rock you crawled out from under. The last nine months have been nice and quiet, which I determine to be directly related to your absence. Brad, remember her face because this one is eighty-sixed from the establishment permanently. If she isn’t out of here in five minutes, call the cops.” He turned to go, but Skye stood up and took hold of his arm.
“Jeez, Milton. I’m not asking for my job back. I’m trying to find Rocky. I came by to ask if you’d seen him.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “That’s how it always begins. Just this one little favor and pretty soon I got ATF fines and sting operations and feds breathing down my neck.”
Milton watched too much television. “When did I ever ask you for a single favor?” Skye said.
He barked a short laugh. “Do you really want me to answer that? Because we could be here all day.”
Skye ducked her head, embarrassed. “Look, could we start over, please?”
“Why? Is the story going to be any different?”
She made herself look him square in the eyes. “I’ve done some really stupid things. I’m the first to admit it. But I’m going on nine months sober and I just want to find Rocky, that’s all. Answer one question and I’ll be on my way. You seen him or not?”
Milton studied her up a
nd down, but not the way Brad had. He was the kind of boss who’d call you Muffin Top and tell you to lay off the fries if your skirt was tight that week. He wanted all the servers smiling all the time, even when someone dumped a plate of chili on your lap. Every woman who worked here thought he had a BMI calculator where his heart should have been. He tossed a napkin and pen her way. “Leave your number with Brad. If I hear from him, I’ll let you know.” He walked away, just like that.
Skye laid down her dollar.
“On the house,” the bartender said, pushing it back toward her. “Not only are you pretty, but anyone who gets a rise out of Milton has to be hella fun, too,” he whispered. “Everyone who works here thinks he’s made out of Terminator parts. This one gal, Lily, she yells out, ‘Metal!’ every time he comes out of his office.”
“Yeah, I’ve attended that particular rodeo,” Skye said. She took her wallet out of her purse and flipped to the photos inside plastic sleeves. There was one of Rocky holding Gracie, back when staying married to him sounded reasonable. She plucked it out of her wallet and held it up. “This guy look familiar?” she asked.
“Sorry.”
“How about the little girl? Blond, about four?”
Brad shook his head. “I know everybody from the smoked-out meth heads to the Euro trash. Can’t say I’ve ever seen either one of them.”
“Well, thanks anyway. I appreciate your time,” she said. “You headed back to college, Brad?”
“School is pointless. I’m a screenwriter,” he said. “Just paying the bills until my script gets green-lighted.”
“Good luck with that,” Skye said. She hoofed it out the patio and turned right on Guadalupe toward the river. The day had started out nice, but now clouds were moving in to gray up the sky. Duncan would say , meaning “the rain has not yet commenced, but would soon.”
She didn’t know where Peter was. Probably getting daytime drunk. Well, she couldn’t stop him. She hoped it wouldn’t take a wreck for him to see the light. Especially with his mom already stressed out, ill and everything. It was Cottonwoods that made her take the time to deliver Peter to an AA meeting—Step Twelve: Spreading the message—and now she’d lost hours out of her day when she could have been searching for Gracie.
Skye hadn’t planned to revisit the scene of the crime, the retaining wall she’d plowed into, but here it was. It looked as if nothing had ever happened to it. She walked down the street to the wall, put her hands on it, and pushed. It was solid, probably reinforced with rebar, which only made her more ashamed at how fast she’d been driving.
She crossed the street and leaned over the metal railing to see the stream of water that was the Santa Fe River. It smelled kind of rank. You had to feel sorry for the river, which had been shunted this way and that instead of being allowed to go the way it wanted. First it had been diverted for the archbishop’s garden, and then the swamp on Burro Alley was inconvenient, so the marsh had to be routed out as well. On the river’s bank, she saw a few homeless guys, one sleeping or maybe passed out, hard to tell. No Rocky, though. And no Gracie. She racked her brain to think of potential places he could be. The place that kept coming back to her was Truth or Consequences. Sometimes, when he was sober, Rocky spoke of getting a few acres there, growing chiles, and breeding horses. She needed the Mercedes running and reliable so she could drive down there. Maybe her dad would lend her the gas money. Maybe she could host a few of those trail rides for Mr. Vigil and ask the riders for tips. She wouldn’t ask Peter. He probably had enough money to help her out, but although he’d been too impaired to notice the five dollars here and ten dollars there she’d handed out from his wallet last night, he’d put two and two together sooner or later.
She walked back to Sanbusco Market Center on Montezuma Avenue to get her dad’s truck. World Market still had free parking. That overpriced shoe place was still in business. There was the insane towering standing sculpture that held a truck the same year as her dad’s.
Not that it would do any good, but she wanted to shout, Rocky, where are you?
Dolores
The boy, Peter, had a cell phone buzzing with messages inside the pocket of his blue trousers. Like every man I’ve ever seen, he has trouble with snakebite. He lay facedown on the floor of the casita, right where there had once been a garden for growing the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash. As if he were rock and the plants could grow around him. The dog sat beside him. I sat next to her. Soon, she was asleep, too.
As much as I try to shut myself down, I can’t sleep. But I don’t miss it, not really. I see them sleep and try to remember what that felt like. The cell phone began to buzz, like a tiny box of bad news.
I wanted to see the messages, so I caused the window to rattle, which made Peter turn over, which in turn made the phone fall out of his pocket. I studied the messages. Many of them were invitations from someone named Big Fish. He wanted the boy to upload or upgrade or play, play, play. A warning kept appearing: Battery low 10%. Dismiss? There was one message from Bonnie. It had a paper clip, indicating an attachment. The message read: Atty. papers att. We both want the same thing. Sign & return ASAP. Beep! Here came another message from Bonnie. You are a terrible person to make me wait like this. Karma will get you.
Living humans are so mean to one another. I wondered if I should wake him up, but then I saw his eyelids flutter. Behind them, his eyeballs were busy, dreaming. The best thing about being who I am, besides talking to Aspen, who was once so close to the realm that she can still hear me, is entering human dreams. This was Peter’s:
He was inside her apartment, waiting. That feeling. Anticipation. Didn’t he message her every night just to tell her how much he loved her? Didn’t he fly to Chicago every weekend?
Including the one weekend she told him not to.
Bonnie was away on a weekend retreat for the crew of Native America Calling. He’d surprise her, fly out, and be there with dinner all made when she arrived home Sunday.
Waiting in her living room. The door opened: Bonnie with an Indian guy who looked like Russell Means, one of Bonnie’s heroes. Their arms linked. Signing. Kissing. Heading to the bedroom. Peter stood up. The Russell Means man stepped back from Bonnie, which made her notice Peter. Her face, shocked, mouth raw from kissing, lips frozen into an O. The man with her signed, Sorry. Peter signed back, She’s all yours, and walked out the door. Then he was in Revolution Brewery, a bar, drunk. His phone vibrating across the bar like a puck in an air hockey game. Bonnie messaging him. Then he was flying back to D.C. He started calling ear surgeons. Found one that would see him that week. The surgeon who ended up doing his implant wrote on a note pad, I don’t understand why you waited so long.
Peter answered him: Never had a good reason to until now.
Chapter 11
Here is the thing about being the mother, Margaret reminded herself bitterly as she scrutinized her refrigerator’s shelves that evening: No matter how heinous a day you’ve lived through, whether you’re feeling up to it or not, you still have to make dinner. You have to get up, get dressed, look in the fridge, and pull something together out of nothing. If it’s just you, you can eat Brussels sprouts sautéed in a slab of butter, with leftover breakfast bacon crumbled on top. Or half a loaf of bread, slice by slice of cinnamon toast. But when you have a child, even a grown one, you have to at least make pancakes, or the world order collapses. However, you can’t make pancakes for dinner twice in one week. You can’t make a soufflé without going next door to borrow eggs from your neighbor, who is likely having a much worse day than you. When you’re this tired, you can’t risk your neighbor asking you to babysit, when you’re not even up to chatting. Margaret stood at the stove while the gluten-free pasta boiled—a whole box, so there would be leftovers. I can’t cook like this every day, she thought. It makes me too tired. Maybe she should make double batches of everything and freeze half for the days when she didn’t feel up to cooking. She had opened a jar of green chile and was grating carrots, zucch
ini, and Dubliner sharp cheddar, all of which would end up in a nice, filling casserole her son would inhale. Skye had borrowed Owen’s truck to drive out to Las Vegas—New Mexico, not Nevada—way out past Pecos and Ilfeld, to look for friends who might possibly know Rocky’s whereabouts. Owen had borrowed Margaret’s Land Cruiser to trailer his horses from Arroyo Seco, north of Taos. He might not be back for dinner, he said, so go ahead and eat if he wasn’t back by seven. Margaret couldn’t wait for the moment he returned, when they could retreat to her bedroom, shut the door, and act out scenes from all the Robyn Carr romance novels she’d read in the last decade.
Margaret melted some Irish butter into a saucepan, sprinkling in oat flour to make a roux. As soon as it began to brown, she added almond milk and watched it thicken. When it was consistent, she’d dump in the cheese and whisk it to perfection. She looked in two drawers for her favorite whisk but couldn’t find it. That’s what happens when you have to share your space with someone. Everything gets put away wonky. She tried a fork. The real effort was making sure the mixture turned glossy and smooth as you beat in the cheese, a sauce instead of lumps. Her arm was already tired. It would have been so much easier with the darn whisk.
She ladled the lumpy cheese sauce over the vegetables and pasta and put it in the oven to brown the crust. She was counting off the minutes when she heard the back door open. There stood Peter, looking as if he’d slept in his clothes, which he probably had. She could smell the alcohol on him before she turned around. “I made dinner,” she said, unable to stop signing just yet but catching herself when she did. “We need to talk, Peter. Not just about Owen, but about your drinking.”
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