Barbara Samuel (13 page)

Just before she awakened on Thursday morning, Luna dreamed of her father sitting at her dining room table with Joy, playing a board game. He said to Luna, “She’s a great kid, isn’t she?”

Not much of a scene, but packed with enough emotion, it yanked her awake. The sun was only a Maxfield Parrish glow behind the mountains, but she was desperately glad to see even that much light. Something else the not-smoking did—interfered with her naturally good sleep patterns, gave her wild dreams. Weird to have two dreams of her father in so short a time.

With the sun on the horizon, she could get up and take a walk, leaving a note for Joy in case she awakened—fat chance, since she had to be bodily hauled from her bed at seven—and set out with a bottle of water in hand.

The craving for a cigarette was very painful this morning. It lay on her lungs like a weight. Even when she tried to breathe deeply and give herself those big pep talks, it just sat there, aching. It made her want to
scream. Cry. Throw things. She wasn’t sure anyone who hadn’t been there could comprehend the physical difficulty in giving up nicotine.

Instead of smoking or crying, she put one foot in front of the other, over and over, walking due west on a narrow gravel road in the half dark. She passed a small park, and a cow munching quietly in a field, a broken-down car with a tag on the door, and a willow tree standing by itself in a field, the leaves just beginning to be laced with yellow. It seemed to glow in the soft purple morning.

She walked all the way to the edge of the Rio Grande Gorge, the walls steep and carved, furred with greenery. A breeze, brisk with impending autumn, blew over her face, and she settled on a big rock, thinking of all kinds of things as she tried to pretend she wasn’t wanting a cigarette.

Joy’s new friend Maggie came to mind. Luna had had a nodding relationship with the family since moving in six months ago, and Jerry Medina, the neighbor who kept three goats, had told her the terrible story of Maggie’s father’s death. He had died on the bridge over the gorge, one of the senseless things that sometimes happen with no real reason—his tires slid on the icy road and he lost control, slamming into the guard rail. An oncoming truck, unable to stop, ran head-on into it, killing him instantly. The truck driver escaped with only bruises and minor injuries.

And that made Luna think of her own father again and how much she’d missed him as a girl, which somehow made her want a cigarette even more. It did cross her mind to wonder about what she wasn’t saying, but it all boiled down to life sucks sometimes, and she wasn’t in the mood.

A dog came leaping toward her as if he recognized her, a big tan one.

“Hey cutie!” she said, looking around for Thomas as she rubbed the head of his exuberant dog. He was quite a distance across the field, looking vaguely dangerous and exciting in a jean jacket, his hair loose on his shoulders. She waved. While she waited for him, she threw a stick for the dog—what was his name? Oh, yeah, Tonto. How could she forget?—who leapt and twirled and raced back to her, stick in mouth, with the joy only a dog ever really showed. Dogs and four-year-olds.

“We gotta keep meeting like this,” Thomas said, then gave her a puzzled expression. “I mean, quit, not keep.”

Luna chuckled. Tonto dropped the stick at her feet and she bent down to pick it up and throw it hard, away from the edge of the gorge. “Don’t you wish you could be that happy again?”

“It’s the thing you gotta love about dogs.” He stood next to her, leash in hand. “What brings you out so early?”

“Not smoking,” she admitted.

“Ah. Been there.”

“Yeah, me, too. Maybe this time, it’ll stick.”

He only nodded.

“How ‘bout you?” she asked. “What are you doing up so early?”

His mouth tightened. “Domestic dispute, early.”

“Fighting with your grandma?”

“Nah, I got this guy staying with me—on the ankle bracelet for domestic violence, you know? Him and his wife aren’t supposed to have any contact, but she snuck into the house this morning. They woke me up. Fighting. Then having sex.” He wiped a hand over his chin. “Like I couldn’t hear them? They’re right next to my bedroom.”

“Ah.”

“So I left, making a lot of noise, so she can get the hell out of there. I don’t want the legal trouble. Tiny is one of my best crew members, and I’m willing to help him out, but this is just crazy.”

DV—domestic violence—cases had been Luna’s specialty, once upon a time. Surprising to feel the surge of blood over it now. “Is he taking anger management classes?”

“Yeah, second time for him, third for her.”

“Ugh.” She sighed, unscrewed the lid of her water and took a long sip. “Not great odds for them, then.”

“I know.” He stared into the middle distance, maybe at the lone tree growing on the other side of the gorge. Abruptly, he squatted, rubbing his neck. “I can’t give up on him yet.” With a rueful glance at her he added, “This is one of the things that drove my ex crazy, taking in strays. The animals and the people, all of them. Even my house is stray.”

She laughed.

He looked up and a shine came into his dark eyes. “It is,” he said. “A big old house nobody else wanted. I had to take it on, take care of it. Like Tiny, and Tonto and my grandma and Ranger.”

“Ranger is…?”

“A black cat. Showed up on the doorstep one day, skinny as a rail. What could I do?”

“I see your point.” It was a good quality in a man and she liked him for it. “So do you draw the line at a certain number of strays, or just let them multiply as long as you have room?”

“Not sure. Can’t kick out
Abuelita
, eh?” He sighed. “And Tiny … he’s a good man, you know? There’s just a bad thing between him and his wife.”

She settled on the rock she’d been sitting on before he showed up. “I believe you.”

A very soft breeze swirled over them. To the east, the first gold fingers of light edged into the crack between the worlds, and she gazed at it for a moment in anticipation, her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket. “I did that kind of work for a while,” she volunteered, “counseling domestic violence offenders. And victims. I was better with offenders for some reason. I did it for a long time, actually. Ten years.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Why’d you give it up? Burn out?”

“Not exactly.” She’d mainly given it up because her life collapsed, and then—oh, she didn’t know why she’d never gone back to it. She cleared her throat and gave him a look—fill in the blanks, it said.

He nodded.

She thought back to the old house where female victims and their children were housed, thought of the bravado of some of the girls in the groups she counseled in jail.
He deserved it—he cheated on me.
“Sometimes, men behave so very, very badly,” she said. “And sometimes, I’d hear a story and think—she’s right, he deserved it.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know—the guy who used his baby daughter’s dress to jack off?”

He winced.

“Yeah, gross—and she kicked his butt, honey. But”— she bent down and tugged a strand of grass from its sheath, and stuck it in her mouth—“if I agreed that a woman had a right to kick a man’s ass once in a while— then did I have to admit that maybe sometimes women deserved it, too?”

“I see what you mean.” Absently, he touched the scar on his neck.

“Why did she cut your throat?” she asked.

“We were drunk,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “Just stupidly drunk, and fighting, like we always did. It was a toxic relationship.”

Luna frowned. “I thought if you were in AIM you weren’t supposed to drink.”

“Right. For good reason. Alcohol has done more damage to Indian cultures than all the smallpox blankets and buffalo slaughters together.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “But we ignored the alcohol rule. We didn’t go to meetings much—it was a game for both of us, I’m afraid. We liked partying and fighting and making up with sex.” He sighed. “And that’s who I see when I see Tiny and his wife. I don’t know how to help him, help her. They’re both good people. They’re just bad together and they can’t see how to live apart.”

“Not poking my nose into your business, but if they’re violating the terms of their probation, you need to get in touch with their caseworkers.”

He nodded, not happily, and drew on the ground with a stick. “I know. I just hate to be responsible for sending either one of them to jail. They’ve got kids.”

“Yeah, well, kids are hurt worse by one parent murdering the other.”

“Good call.” Abruptly, he bent that big bear head into his waiting palms. Exhaustion.

She wanted, so much, to put her hands on his shoulders, offer that little bit of comfort. But even thinking about it, about him turning to her brought back the agony of cigarette hunger. So she just sat there. Quietly.

After a minute, he stood. “Guess I need to get back. I’ve gotta start work in a little while. You want a ride?”

“Sure.” She stood up, tossing her hair out of her face, then stopped dead. “Oh, Thomas, look!”

The sun had come over the horizon and the whole world was suddenly ablaze, as if a thousand fairies had put a lamp inside every blade of grass, every plant, every leaf. Sage and plumes of long feathery grasses shone like they were painted with fireflies, the air itself a soft rose. Luna held up her hands. Light caught on the little hairs along her arms, gilding her, and across the field, an adobe house glowed like gold. Beyond was the town, tumbling through little hills and valleys, and it was on fire, too, like a fairy tale, as if it would disappear when the sun set.

It felt, standing there, as if she were lit up, too, as if all the dark things, all the bad things, all the sadness in the world was washed clean. She made a noise, something wordless and full of amazement, and looked at Thomas to see if he was enjoying it, too.

He stood close by. Looking at her. And before he moved, she knew he would kiss her. It was there on his face, a stricken kind of hunger, and she met it with light-struck lips, hoping some of it would flow out of her into him. His hands were tight on the small of her back, pulling her hips close to his, and she put her arms around his neck.

Wordless, they walked to his truck and he drove her home. He touched her fingers as she got out. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Luna took off work an hour early, stopping in the coffee place to pick up fresh beans, along with a tall latte and a grande chai. The latte was hers, of course, the chai for her best friend Allie, because Luna needed to stop and talk to her. Not the phone for stuff like this.

The shop, The Turquoise Goddess, was one of Luna’s favorite places. It smelled of exotic incenses and candles, and there was always some New Age-y kind of music playing. Today it was melancholy Native American flute, Nakai or Gomez, she wasn’t sure which. Appropriate to the soft clouds that were puffing across the sky, dimming summer sunshine for autumn storms.

Allie was busy with a customer, so Luna lifted the cups to show her that she’d brought a treat, then carried them to the back of the shop. A small table and two chairs sat beneath a beaded hanging lamp in colors of red and blue. She read tarot and Angel cards for regulars, and since she didn’t take a fee, they brought her payment in goods and services—everything from oil changes at the local garage to tatted pillowcases. Judging by the small pile of goodies on the table, it had been a busy day. Luna sat down and picked up a pile of Angel cards, plucking one out at random. It was a little girl angel, about seven or eight, naked.
Self-Acceptance.
Luna put it down, rolling her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Hey!” Allie came over in a cloud of softly ringing bells, wrists and ankles, which she said chased away negative energies. Once, that had probably been evil spirits, but Wiccans didn’t believe in absolute evil, and although Luna personally had some trouble with that idea, it wasn’t such a bad thing to lay responsibility for behavior on humans themselves. “What a great surprise!” she said. “And you must be a mind reader, because I’ve been dying for a chai all day!”

“I’m glad.”

“What’s up?”

Allie meant the question casually, but Luna didn’t have a lot of time. “I need help. I’m confused. Scared. The guy—Thomas.”

Her dark eyes quickened. “Oooh, this is good. Tell me about it.”

“I saw him the other day,” she said, realizing only as she said it how weird it was that she hadn’t told Allie before this. “We had a sundae, and then we kissed and then we ended up having coffee when it rained, and then this morning, I ran into him again, up at the gorge and he kissed me. So I’ve kissed him, like, three times and I really am not looking for a guy in my life, that’s just too many complications and—”

Allie was smiling her goddess smile, and touched Luna’s hand. “Slow down, baby.”

“That’s what I want to do!”

“Three times you’ve kissed? I only count two, one over ice cream and one this morning.”

“Yeah. Well, the first one was the day he brought the chile, after the fire. The day Joy got here.”

“First day? And you didn’t tell me?”

“I was embarrassed, I think. I mean, I have this big crush on this guy for a year or better, and there he was in my kitchen, kissing me like we were fourteen, and I figured I must have done something to telegraph my crush, and so I didn’t want to say anything in case he didn’t come back.”

“Oh, Lu. Why are you so hard on yourself all the time?”

Luna thought of the Angel card. She shook her head, took a sip of coffee.

“So, you want the best friend or the tarot lady?”

“Either one.”

Allie inclined her head, as if listening. “Let’s draw some cards, huh?”

“Yeah, okay. I guess.”

“Pick a deck.”

There were three lined up on the side of the table, the
Rider-Waite, the Enchanted Tarot, and the Angel cards, which were beautiful and very positive, always. But Luna was in the mood for getting the warnings out in the open, and the Rider-Waite was the deck for that. “This one.”

Luna didn’t necessarily believe in tarot or any of those other things—divination and astrology and all the rest. She wasn’t sure what she believed in, except her mother and Allie and Joy, who were enough for her. Allie put great store in divination, however, and people said she was gifted, so Luna let her read when she suggested it. If nothing else, it helped focus the questions. Allie made her shuffle the deck, then cut it three times, then held the deck spread out while Luna picked three cards.