Fire and Rain (15 page)

He shook his head, a resigned look on his face as he stepped back to let her into the cottage. She set the litter box on the living room floor and began tearing open the bag of litter.

“I was just about to have a glass of wine,” he said. “Want one?”

She emptied the litter into the box. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”

“Well,” he said, pouring wine into a glass on the dining room table. “I’ve gotten into the probably dangerous habit of having a glass before bed. Helps me sleep. I don’t sleep too well these days.”

“Neither do I.” She took the glass he offered and sat down in one of the old upholstered chairs in the living room. The room was clean, Spartan; the blue walls looked freshly painted.

Jeff put the kitten on the floor and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, he was wadding up a length of tin foil into a small ball. He winked at Mia as he sat down on the floor, his back against the sofa.

“Let’s see what you’re made of,” he said to the kitten. He threw the ball of foil across the room, and the cat scampered after it, batting the foil around on the carpet for a moment before picking it up in its mouth and carrying it back to Jeff.

Mia stared, open-mouthed, and Jeff smiled his almost-smile. “Good cat, Mia,” he said, throwing the foil ball across the room again.

“I’ve never seen a cat fetch before,” she said.

“Animals are like people. They live up to your expectations of them.”

She thought of Rick, of Jeff telling him he was extremely bright.

“You have to name her,” she said.

Jeff scooped up the cat up and lifted its lanky tail to peer underneath. “Him,” he said. “And I’m not going to name him. You name something and suddenly you’re responsible for it. I’ll just call him ‘the cat.’”

“Well, he’ll have to be an indoor cat or the coyotes will get him.”

He looked up at her sharply, then shook his head. “This is a bad idea,” he said. “I don’t want to have to worry about him. And I’ll be leaving here as soon as I get things rolling.”

She suddenly felt guilty. “Maybe it was a bad idea,” she said. “Do you want me to take him back?”

He lifted the cat and pressed the silky black fur against his cheek. The kitten purred audibly in response. “Nah,” he said. “I’ll hang onto him for a while. When I leave, though, I’ll probably need to give him to you.”

“All right.” She would worry about that when the time came.

“So.” He stretched out his legs in front of him and rested the kitten in his lap. “How did the pictures come out?”

“Very well.” She took a big swallow of wine. “I’m trying to settle on an angle that catches the true emotions in your face.”

He looked amused, swirling the wine in his glass. “Exactly what do you think my true emotions are? I don’t think I let much of anything show.”

“I know that,” she said. “And you probably would be a mystery to someone who’s not accustomed to reading faces, but that’s something you learn to do when you’re an artist.”

“Uh huh,” he said skeptically. “So, go ahead, I’m waiting. What do you think you see in my face?”

“Well.” She rested her glass on the end table and sat forward, using her hands to help in her description. “The angles are rigid. You’re scared. I don’t know of what, but it’s your primary emotion. Fear.”

He set his own glass on the floor next to him and frowned at her. “How can you possibly say you see fear? The only place you’ve seen me is in the warehouse, where I’ve been concentrating on my work.”

“It underlies whatever else you’re feeling. It’s like throwing a slipcover over a raggedy old chair. You can hide it, but it’s still there, just below the surface.”

He took in a long breath. “Uh huh. And what else do you think you see?”

“Anger. I get the feeling there’s a deep, festering rage in you.”

He laughed.

“I do. I wouldn’t want to cross you. Also, there’s hurt. Grief. Sadness.”

He attempted a smile, but didn’t quite succeed.

“And when you smile, it doesn’t work as a smile because the rest of your face—your forehead, your jaw—is saying, ‘I’m not happy.’ It doesn’t matter what your mouth is doing. Or maybe it’s pain. Physical pain. Are you in pain anywhere?”

“Mia.” He slumped lower against the couch and looked at her from under heavy-lidded eyes. “Do you know what projection is?”

She frowned, not certain what he was getting at.

“I think you’re projecting your own feelings onto other people. Maybe what you see in any given person at any given time is just a mirror of what’s inside yourself.”

The tables were turning on her, and she stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
You’re
the one who’s scared,” he said. “What are
you
afraid of? What are
you
angry about?”

She felt the color creep into her cheeks. “Nothing.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. “It’s actually more intriguing to think that you’re expressing your own feelings through the faces of others. Or maybe it’s only that you’re drawn to models who suit your current mood.”

She thought of how she had gravitated toward Henry and his smile at a time when she had felt carefree and loved.

Jeff threw the foil ball across the floor, and the cat leaped after it.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve made you quiet if nothing else.”

“Mmm.” She shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “The wine’s slowing me down.”

He suddenly leaned toward her. “It’s only when you’re working that you feel completely at peace, isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s the one thing that’s wholly yours—your work. It’s the one thing no one can ever take from you.”

His gaze seemed to burn into her as he waited for her reply. “Yes,” she said, and for another moment, she couldn’t turn away from his eyes.

He stood up then, and the spell was broken. She knew he was telling her it was time to go. She stood too, and immediately felt the effect of the wine. She hadn’t had anything to drink in so long.

“You all right?” he asked, opening the door, keeping the kitten inside with his foot.

“Yes, but it’s definitely bedtime.” She stepped onto his porch. “Let me know if the cat becomes a problem.”

“All right. And Mia?”

She turned to look at him.

“I understand how it feels to have only your work,” he said. “I understand that completely.”

She nodded slowly, wondering if there were any limits at all to how easily he could see through her. “Good night,” she said.

She walked across the ridge of the canyon to her cottage, knowing he was watching her from his doorway, but when she turned to wave, he did not lift his hand.

CHRIS TURNED OFF HIS
cottage lights before carrying his guitar onto the porch. He liked the darkness, liked being able to feel the canyon more than see it. The air was thick with the smell of soot and eucalyptus. He turned his chair so that the lights from Mia’s cottage and the adobe were blocked from his view. Stretching out in front of him, the black canyon hummed softly with the sound of crickets, and as he began to sing, his voice seemed to travel for miles before losing itself in the abyss.

He sang ballads, too tired for anything more energetic. He’d spent the evening in the adobe, removing the wallpaper from the room they had used as the nursery. Years ago, he had emptied that room of its furniture, but he doubted Carmen had set foot in there since the day Dustin left the house. Chris had worked quickly tonight, blocking from his mind the memory of the few joyous days they’d had with their seemingly healthy son, as well as the memory of that long, frightening night, when it was apparent that Dusty was desperately ill. Chris pulled and scraped and tore at the wallpaper, as if trying to destroy all the pain embedded in its yellow-and-blue flowered print.

He’d had another reason to be angry as he worked on the room. A new fire had cropped up today. It had been small and fairly easily controlled, but he considered it particularly abhorrent. This one had been set intentionally by someone who wanted to drive the undocumented workers from the canyon. The fire had started early that morning, and by noon all that was left of that particular camp on the north side were the charred sheets of corrugated metal that had served as roofs for their plywood and cardboard shelters. No one had been hurt; no one had even been seen. The workers had simply disappeared, no doubt slipping deeper into the canyon to start over. If anyone running for mayor came up with a plan to provide the undocumented workers with decent housing, they would get his vote. He stopped singing “The Water Is Wide” in the middle of a verse and began singing “De Colores,” on the whimsical chance that the workers had moved to a section of the canyon from which they could hear him.

Sam Braga had run a piece on the mayoral election in yesterday’s Gazette. It seemed that the two contenders, Joyce DeLuis and John Burrows, were in agreement on absolutely nothing, except that Chris Garrett’s hiring of the “alleged rainmaker” had been irresponsible at best. “On that,” Braga wrote, “the two candidates are in complete accord.”

Chris heard a sound from behind him and stilled his hands on the guitar as the beam of a flashlight played over the porch.

“Don’t stop.” Jeff turned off his light and sat down on the step.

Chris started to play again, but he was thinking that it was nearly eleven, and Jeff was only now getting home. Jeff had worked similar hours every day since arriving in Valle Rosa. He had to be exhausted.

“Bravo,” Jeff said quietly when Chris had finished the song.

Chris couldn’t easily see Jeff’s face in the darkness, but he heard the smile in his voice. “Thanks,” he said.

Jeff sighed, stretching his legs out on the porch. “Once I was at this coffee house in Philadelphia with a group of people,” he said, “and you showed up.”

“The Rising Sun,” Chris said, surprised not so much that Jeff had seen him at a club, but that he was talking about it, offering a morsel of information about himself. He wanted to ask Jeff if he’d lived in Philadelphia, but thought better of it.

“You sang that song,” Jeff said. “Your trademark song.”

“’Center Field.’”

“Right. I remember thinking how strange it was. The crowd was very hot on the Phillies and very down on the Padres, but the second you walked in, they turned non-partisan.”

Chris strummed the guitar, softly. “Well, that type of place was pretty safe to go,” he said. “People were there for the music. The receptions I got were usually good.”

“You still sound good. I could hear you all the way from the driveway. Do you perform anywhere these days?”

“Hell, no.” Chris laughed, but he felt an involuntary shudder at the thdught of climbing onto a stage in front of an audience. “That’d take guts I don’t have anymore. Once you’ve been pulverized by the fans that supposedly loved you, it’s hard to risk going back for more.” He could still remember the agony of being booed at his last game for the Padres. Other players had been regular recipients of the crowd’s disdain, but not Chris. It had stung him badly, and he’d been glad of the isolation of the mound, glad no one was near enough to him to read the pain in his face. “Getting everyone’s wrath as mayor is enough for now. I’m not the most popular guy in town, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“It’s hard to miss.” Jeff stretched his arms above his head, yawning.

“You must be wiped out,” Chris said. “Please take some time off when you need it.”

“The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can leave.” Jeff shifted his position on the porch step to face Chris more directly. “You know, it’s been two weeks and you haven’t asked me a thing about how my work’s going.”

Chris laughed. “Well, I figure when you hire someone to perform a miracle it’s a little banal to ask him how it’s coming along.”

“It’s going all right,” Jeff volunteered, “but it’s difficult, since I don’t have any of my data with me. I’m starting from scratch with everything.”

“Where is the data? Can you send for it?”

“It doesn’t exist any more, except in here.” He touched his fingertips to his temple.

Chris could see only Jeff’s eyes, and they were wide and riveted on his own.

“But it’s coming back to me pretty easily,” Jeff continued. “I’ve crammed what took me five years to figure out into the past two weeks. Two or three more and we’ll be ready for a small- scale experiment. Then I’ll know if I’m headed in the right direction. I need a few more things, though.” He sounded apologetic.

“You name it.”

“First of all, some kind of warning signs. ‘Danger—Keep Out.’ Something like that.”

“To keep people from hounding you?”

“No. We’ll be moving into a phase soon where there really may be some danger. The risk is extremely small, but I don’t want to take the chance of anyone getting hurt.”

For the first time, Chris felt a wave of uncertainty over hiring this stranger to help Valle Rosa. “What are we talking about here?” he asked. “There’s nothing radioactive or—”

Jeff chuckled. “Nothing like that. I’ve discussed it with Rick to be sure he understands the risks, and he’s okay with it.” He hesitated when Chris didn’t respond. “Do you need to know more?”

“No.” Chris made a quick decision to continue operating on trust. “What else do you need?”

“A couple more vats. Very specialized. Little plastic pockets on the inside. Two hundred gallons. Air-tight. I know where I can get them, but I’d like to do some research to find another source. Not too many people need exactly what I’m looking for, and I’d rather they didn’t put two and two together and figure out who’s doing the ordering.”

“Okay.”

“They’re expensive. Sorry.”

Chris shrugged and smiled. “What else?”

“That’s it for now.”

A breeze slipped across the porch, dropping a few powdery ashes on the guitar. Chris blew them off and stood up. “How about a beer?” he asked.

This time he could see Jeff’s smile. “Love one,” he said.

Inside the house, Chris switched on the living room light and went into the kitchen for the beer. When he returned to the living room, Jeff was sitting on the couch, pulling a sooty baseball bat out of one of the boxes Chris had brought from his house.