Clear to Lift (30 page)

The door swishes. “Mr. Cavanaugh!” Boomer says.

Boomer?

Shake of a jacket, splatter of water on the hardwood floor, a swish as the jacket is hung on a peg.

“I was supposed to meet Jack, but no one—” He stops almost as suddenly as Jack did as he rounds the corner. “Vanilla?”

“Care for some pancakes?” Will asks, rolling his eyes. He has no idea how funny I find that.

“Hell, yeah, I want some pancakes!” Boomer drops into the seat next to me.

“Help yourself,” Will says. “I'll whip up some more.” Will returns to the refrigerator—more milk, more eggs, more blueberries—and starts to mix more batter.

“So is this…?” Boomer asks, jerking a thumb in my direction, but looking at Jack.

“It is indeed,” Jack says.

“God damn it.” Boomer reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his billfold. He opens it, removes a twenty-dollar bill, and hands it to Jack.

Jack receives it, clearly delighted, snapping it taut a few times before sliding it into his wallet.

“What's this?” I ask.

“Just a little side wager,” Jack says. “I knew you two would get together eventually.”

“You made a bet on that?” I ask, turning on Boomer.

“Hey, don't look at me. That was all Jack.”

“But you bet
against
us?” Oddly, I'm not concerned about the wager itself, but on which side Boomer fell.

“Well … yeah. But that was before I met your fiancé at the airport.”

“Oh,” I say. My face goes red. “I haven't had the chance to apologize to you about that. And to Walt and everyone else. He was just—”

“Yeah, I know.
Worried,
” Boomer says. “But, Jesus…”

“This arrangement is infinitely more palatable,” Jack says, moving a finger back and forth between Will and me. “Am I right?”

“Even though I'm twenty dollars poorer, yes, sir, you are correct.”

“You're coming to Thanksgiving, right?” Jack says to Boomer.

“Wouldn't miss it.”

“How many—?” I start.

Jack reads my mind. “Don't worry. It's just Boomer.”

Whew. Because a Thanksgiving with the entire SAR team, while wonderful, would be a bit much for my mom to walk into.

Will returns to the table and refills the empty platter of pancakes. “Care for some coffee?”

“Please,” Boomer says.

“Yeah, me, too,” Jack says.

“Comin' up.”

“So, Boomer, why are you here?” I ask.

“We're meeting a bunch of the guys in Mammoth to play pool. Where, by the way, I fully intend on winning my money back.” He directs a pointed look at Jack.

“In your dreams, man.”

As Jack and Boomer banter, and Will serves coffee, something way deep down starts to niggle. A warning flag. This is too good.

And I realize I've let myself drift too far from Self-Defense 101. I know all too well that the universe exists in balance, the highs equaling the lows. And this moment is very high. Too high. Which would require an equalizing moment, something equivalently low. But then, the event that preceded this was abysmally low. Snoopy …

So maybe the universe has indeed had its say, and the balance is intact.

“… just like you acted in Spain,” Will says. “Your birthday, remember? Your mother—”

“Do not bring my mother into this!” Jack says, pealing with laughter.

“Wait. Speaking of birthdays…” Will stops and turns to Boomer. “Any chance you could tweak the duty schedule tomorrow? It's Alison's birthday. I wanted to see if I could keep her for one more day.”

“Well now, Vanilla, how bad do you want the day off? It's me you'd be trading with.”

“You would take my duty?”

“I could … you know, for the right price.”

“How about twenty?”

“Done.”

“Jack, can I borrow twenty dollars?” I ask.

Boomer snaps his open palm in front of Jack. “Love her.”

“May I remind you, Alison, that he bet
against
you,” Jack says, leaning over and pulling his wallet out of his pocket.

“Don't worry,” I say. “I'll pay you back.”

“So back to
your
birthday, Jack,” Will says.

“Do we really need to revisit this? Like right now?” Jack says, dropping his wallet on the table.

“I think it's a grand time to revisit it,” Boomer says. He turns to me. “I love this story.”

“Rule number one,” Will says, laughing. “Never raise the ire of Magdalena!”

Jack throws up his hands, and Boomer shakes in laughter.

“Who was Magdalena, again?” I ask.

“Jack's mother,” Will says. “All Spanish passion and fury!”

“To this day!” Jack adds. “And she's—what now?—eighty years old!”

“Where's she from?” I say. Something spatters about in my ears. I look out the window. The rain makes the same sound. That must be it.

“Spain,” Jack answers. “She—”

“She could probably chase you into that tunnel today!” Wills says, his chair tipping backward as he clutches his hands to his stomach, embracing a belly-aching laugh.

“No, I mean, what city?”

“Bielsa,” Jack says. “It's in the Pyrenees.”

“The Pyrenees…” I whisper.

Spatter, spatter, spatter.

Will, Boomer, and Jack continue with their bantering, their well-timed guffaws, snorts of laughter—a whimsical din that swirls and surrounds the kitchen table—while I recede from the conversation, whisked out as swiftly as an ebbing tide.

I ease myself into the back of my chair, and I look at Jack. Really look.

No …

No, that's ridiculous.

“… never forget her face!” Will says. “Running…” He's laughing so hard, he's having trouble finishing the sentence. “… with a stick!” He pushes his chair away from the table, stands and wags a finger. “
¡Vas a ver cuando lo agarre!
” Will says, in a high-pitched voice and a perfect Spanish accent, before dropping into his chair again, his chest heaving, while he wipes at unruly tears.

Boomer and Jack are doubled over, all three of them now howling. Always the bantering between them …

“Oh, no. The home team is
on
this year!”
Jack said.

“The home team might not be the home team anymore!”
Boomer said.

“No way. The good people of Sacramento would never let it happen,”
Jack said.

The home team … Sacramento …

No … No way.

Jack looks in my direction. Once. Twice. Realization dawning that I'm staring.

“Alison?” he says, attempting to catch his breath. “Looks like you've tasted something you'd rather spit up than swallow.”

Boomer and Will turn their mirthful gazes to me, the snorts and chuckles still escaping.

“You're from Sacramento,” I say, not asking, but stating.

“I lived there for a time, yeah. How'd you know that?”

“Where?”

Jack looks at Boomer and Will, puzzled. “You mean, where exactly in Sacramento?”

“Yes.”

The three observe me curiously, like a zoo animal behind bars. Laughter dying away …

“I lived in a neighborhood called South Land Park. Why?”

My body stills. The rain roars in my ears, drowning all other sounds, while the blood drains from my head.

No way. There's just no way. Think of the odds, Ali. There's just …
and while one side of my brain pounces on all the reasons this chain of thought is preposterous, the other side absorbs Jack's darker olive skin color … the one that matches mine. The teardrop-shaped, upturned brown eyes … brown eyes that peer into my same brown eyes.

And what is it … what is it…?

It's the eyes. The raccoon eyes … the photos in Jack's house … the ski goggles. That's it! That's what it was! In the other photos, the goggles were the same. They were the same brand as the ones I had in my toy box in kindergarten.…
Holy shit.

“You were married,” I say.

What are you doing, Alison?

“What's up with you, Vanilla?” Boomer says. “You're acting like the host on
This Is Your Life.
” He turns to Jack. “You're old enough, Jack! Ha! You remember that show.”

Boomer laughs, but Jack does not.

“I don't know what—” Jack stutters.

“Married?” Will says. “Alison, Jack's never been married.”

“What was her name?” I ask, my eyes not leaving Jack's.

“I…,” Jack starts. Blinks. Leans forward. Looking at me … like I look at him.

A seismic shift in his expression, one probably mirroring my own—a movie moment when the actor has just been shot in the chest—surprise, horror, incredulity, all wrapped into one.

“Alison?” Will says. “Alison, what's going on? Jack was never—”

“Candy,” Jack says.

The world wobbles, the earth kicked off its axis.

“Holy shit,” Jack says, leaning back. “It's your birthday tomorrow.” His eyes flit back and forth, his brain working a million miles an hour. “
Your
birthday … November twenty-fourth…”

“I'm going to be—”

“Twenty-nine,” he finishes.

Our gazes remain locked. In the periphery, a shrugging of shoulders and a shaking of heads from Boomer and Will.

“Alison? Jack? What's going on?” Will says, any trace of the conversation's earlier humor gone.

“You named your daughter Magdalena, after your mother,” I say. My lip starts to quiver and Jack's olive-skinned, brown-eyed face goes blurry behind my watering eyes.

“Daughter?” Will says. “Jack? What's she talking about?” He turns to me. “What are you talking about?”

Jack pales, assuming the same still form as the statue that gapes at him.

“No…,” he whispers. “It just can't be.”

“You called her Magpie.”

Jack covers his mouth with a shaking hand.

“Jack…?” Will says. “Please. What the hell is going on?”

I finally pull my eyes from Jack to look at Will. “He called me Magpie. A nickname for my given name, Magdalena. It's the only memory I have of my father.”

 

34

The air is suffocating in its stillness. For seconds? Minutes? Jack, white as a sheet. Boomer, openmouthed. Will, mirroring Boomer. Me, a face wet with tears. Of joy, of sorrow, of pain, something lost, something found, regret, anger, elation. So tangled in opposing emotions, my body remains locked, my breaths coming short and shallow. Outside, the rain beats harder.

Boomer is the first to recover. “Screw the coffee. I'm breaking out the scotch.”

“You know where it is,” Will says, not taking his eyes from me.

Boomer rummages through a cabinet, but my eyes return to … my father. Jack.

“The name listed on my birth certificate for my father is Juan Gonzales Smith,” I say.

Jack brings his shaking hands to his lap, holding his legs to try to quiet them. “Juan is Spanish for John,” he says, his voice rough. “Jack is just a nickname.”

“And Gonzales Smith?”

“My father was American. David Smith. My mother is Spanish. Magdalena Gonzales Alvarez.”

Boomer returns, four short tumblers crimped in the fingers of one hand, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red in the other.

“We didn't…” He speaks in a daze as Boomer pours and pushes glasses to each of us. “We didn't follow convention. Normally,
el nombre de
mi madre
, my mother's name, would go last. But since my father was … he was sick…” He wraps his still-shaking fingers around the tumbler.

“Might as well drink up,” Boomer says. “I think we could all use it.”

I've had my fair share of alcoholic drinks at the highfalutin fancy parties I've attended with Rich, but only in politely sipped doses. I lift my glass, gulping the drink in one go. I wince as it burns hot down my throat, jarring me from the stillness.

I reach for Will's hand, which he readily gives, squeezing it tightly.

“But your name is … Magdalena Alison Gonzales Smith. Not Alison Malone,” Jack says.

“Mom had my legal named changed. Malone was my stepfather's name.”

“But Maggie. We called you Maggie.”

The anger, the hurt, rears its head. “I suppose it was difficult for her to choke out your mother's name after you left us.”

Boomer refills my glass. Jack's, too. He emptied it when I did.

“Why didn't you tell me this?” Will asks, staring at Jack.

Bits of incredulity, horror, flit across his face, and I realize this revelation is probably affecting him almost as much as it is me. Jack has been Will's father for all intents and purposes for over sixteen years. His best friend. His partner. Heck, his business partner. Will even designed and helped build his home for him. I think of all the days, weeks, and months these two have spent together on hikes to base camps, sleeping on portaledges on rock faces thousands of feet in the air, sitting next to each other on long overseas flights, and even visiting each other in their hospital beds. In all that time, amid every intimate, personal conversation, the topic obviously never came up. A skeleton of staggering proportions. I read it on Will's face as clearly as if he had spoken it. Deceived. Duped. Lied to.

Jack's face crumples. “I was so ashamed, Will. I made the biggest mistake of my life, when I left my family. I was only twenty-one when she was born,” he says, eyes briefly drifting to me before returning to Will. “So goddamn young and immature. But I tried. I did. Candy said I needed to settle down. Get a real job. I had a responsibility now. I just … I couldn't do it. Me? In a suit and tie?”