The Queen of Cool (25 page)

“
Shug, you’re shaking,” Don
whispered in her ear. “Is something wrong?”

Lo leaned back to look at him. He had no
recollection of the last fifty-six days. She kissed him.

“
Maybe we should go home,”
Don laughed.

“
Let’s stay,” Lo said. “I
want to enjoy as much as I can.”

“
Your wish is my command,”
Don said. “Would you like to dance?”

Don caught her around the waist and the room
began to spin. All Lo could see was Don. She didn’t bother to wipe
the stupid grin off her face. Her Don was here. They were dancing.
The world was exactly as it was supposed to be.

“
You’re so beautiful,” Don
said. “If I didn’t already know you were married, I’d ask you
myself.”

Lo laughed.

“
Let’s sit for a minute,”
Don said. “Enjoy our overpriced dessert.”

“
One more dance,” Lo
said.

“
One more
dance.”

The music changed and they began a Fox Trot.
The dance floor was crowded, so they danced close to each other
with practiced ease. The crowd of people moved in unison to the
music.

“
Don, we’re pregnant,” Lo
said.

Excited, Don lifted her from the ground. He
pulled off his mask and kissed her. The dancing couples had to
maneuver around them while they hugged and kissed. Don’s face was
wet with tears.

“
Get a room,” Jaden Sadler
said.

Don laughed. To spite Jaden, he kissed her
again and held her tight while Jaden and his buxom date danced
around them. Taking Lo’s hand, Don led her from the dance floor to
their table. Her enormous white dress made it nearly impossible to
sit. Laughing, Don arranged the dress so she could sit down. He
shifted his chair so that he could focus on her.

“
Tell me everything,” he
said.

“
We’re just five weeks
pregnant, from the night in the truck,” Lo said. “Do you remember
the night in the truck?”

“
At your momma’s house?”
Don asked. “In the garage? Lo, I’m never going to forget the night
in that garage.”

“
This is a wonderful
dream,” Lo leaned forward to kiss him.

“
Yes it is,” Don said. “Our
whole life is a wonderful dream.”

“
Yes it is,” Lo
said.

“
What do the doctors say?”
Don asked. He held her hands while she rattled off the test
results. When she finished, he beamed from ear to ear. He leaned
forward and kissed her. “It’s got to be a boy.”

“
Mutt says the same thing,”
Lo laughed.

“
Mutt would know,” Don
kissed her again. “Let’s eat this fast and get the hell out of
here. I want to see for myself.”

“
There isn’t much to see,”
Lo said.

“
Up close and personal.”
Don wiggled his eyebrows and she laughed. He turned toward the
table and took a bite of his chocolate cake.

“
Oh that’s good,” Don
said.

“
What do you think of
Alisha and Rick?” Lo asked.

“
I’m excited for her,” Don
said. “Yazmin and Mutt. Alisha and Rick. They’re just starting
their lives together.”

Lo opened her mouth to say something but in
the way of dreams, the scene changed to the beach. Wearing a small
orange bikini, she was walking across white sand toward where Don
was lying. She looked up at the blue sky and the open ocean in
front of them. They were in Baja. A snorkel appeared in her hand
and her ears filled with the sound of the sand crunching under her
feet. In the distance, she saw sun bathers aligned in sets of
colored lounge chairs from the various hotels and resorts. She
leaned down to kiss Don.

“
How was it?” Don
asked.

“
Gorgeous,” Lo leaned down
to kiss him. “How’s the case?”

“
Horrible,” Don said.
“These poor people’s home burned to the ground. The insurance
company is haggling over every dime. You pay a lot of money for
insurance. For years! Then something horrible happens and wham, you
have to deal with the detail Nazi’s.”

Lo dropped down next to him on her
bright-blue beach towel. Because she could, she kissed him again.
He smiled.

“
The insurance company
thinks it’s weird that she took her jewelry box,” Don said. “She
grabbed what was in front of her and ran out the door. Makes good
sense. Right?”

Lo nodded.

“
Not to the insurance
company. They say she should have taken her photo albums or
something more personal. The fact that she grabbed for her
priceless jewels indicates that she set the fire.”

“
I can see that,” Lo
said.

“
Really?” Don asked. “If we
were at home and a fast moving fire broke out, I’d make sure you
and the girls were out of the house. I might grab my grandfather’s
watches if they were right in front of me, otherwise… What would
you take?”

“
Our wedding album,” Lo
said.

“
Our wedding album?” Don
looked amused and surprised. “Why?”

“
It was the beginning of my
life,” Lo said. “Plus, I’ve updated it every year. It has our
Christmas photo, pictures of our vacations, photos of the girls,
lots of photos of you. It’s a visual record of the happiest days of
my life.”

“
Our wedding album? Really.
Who knew?” Don shrugged. “You are very sweet.”

He kissed her. He shifted back. His eyes
traveled over her face. She smiled and he kissed her again.

“
I hate to do this.” He
stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I’d rather spend a year right
here or go back to the ball and dance all night. But Lo, my love,
you need to wake up now.”

“
No.”

“
I love you, Lo. Today and
every day until the end of time, I love you. But you have to wake
up now.”

Lo jerked awake. She sat up in bed and
looked at the clock. 4:15 a.m. She didn’t have to get up for
another hour. She was about to lay back down again when she
remembered the conversation at the beach.

Don wanted her to find their wedding
album.

Where was her wedding album?

She hadn’t seen it since she collapsed in
her old bedroom in her mother’s house.

She got out of bed to look for it. She went
through her room. It wasn’t there. She thought for a moment and
made her way out to the main living area. Yazmin had set prints of
family photographs taken from her Facebook account in the bookcase.
She was about to turn away when the black binding of the photo
album caught her eye. The album was tucked into a corner of the
shelves behind the couch. She had to move the couch to grab the
binding and pull it off the shelf. Plopping down in an armchair,
she opened the book.

Each page held a wonderful memory. Her
wedding photos showed her beaming face, her perfect beaded,
strapless wedding dress, Don’s tux, the girls, and even a photo of
her mother. Unaware of her falling tears, Lo touched the smiling
faces. Wedding photos gave way to years of joy and happiness. Of
course there was pain. Alisha’s anger came through loud and clear.
One photo was of Amanda standing on the kitchen counter while her
father captured a spider below.

The last photo was of her and Don. They were
standing under the big tree in the backyard and smiling at the
camera. Amanda had wanted one last photo before she left for
another year of misery called law school. Lo had asked her to take
a photo with her camera too. Just before they took the photo
someone had farted as they walked by on the other side their
six-foot fence. They’d burst out laughing and the photo was taken.
Lo kissed her finger and touched Don’s laughing face.

She was closing the book when she saw the
corner of something pink. Lo held the pink corner and opened the
book. Unsure of what she was looking at, Lo turned on the lamp next
to her chair.

The pink paper was a packing slip of some
kind. She slid it out of the plastic. There was a Post-it on the
back of the form. Turning the form over, Lo read a list of actions
in Don’s tight handwriting.

1/28—Found at L’s mother’s house, Henderson
St.

1/31—Made digital copy. Clarified order.

2/1—Research history of NSA, VX, etc.

4/3—asked M to ask JS about this.

4/4—No response from JS; M says he kept her
copy

4/5—JS not taking my calls

4/8—Ask Lo

The last notation was the day before he
died. He must have planned to tell her about the slip the day he’d
died. A spasm of loss and pain flushed through her. Lo closed her
eyes and touched her heart.

She turned over the packing slip. The Henry
Downs Air Conditioning Company logo was on the top right corner.
The page was so tattered and old that she had to raise it to her
eyes to make out what it said.

It was a record of a shipment from Jaden’s
father at the NAS to someone in Iran. HDAC was the shipping
partner. She couldn’t tell what was being shipped or by whom. She
was about to put the form back in the plastic when she saw a
familiar slash mark and a date. Her mother had a system for paper.
When her mother looked at a piece of paper, she put a slash in the
bottom-right corner and a date. The form was dated on the day Lo’s
mother died.

A memory filtered up from that day. Lo and
Don had been out until two the morning her mother died. They’d come
home, made love with the passion of newlyweds, and fell asleep in
each other’s arms. Lo was an exhausted mess that morning. She’d
called her mother on the way to school.

“
Lorraine Ames Downs, love
is hard work. You still love this man?” her mother had
asked.

“
Don? With my every
breath.”

“
Then you’re going to have
to suffer a bit for him. This morning is part of your
suffering.”

“
But Mom!”

“
I’d give any amount of
suffering to have your father back,” her mother had said. “Someday
you will too. Focus on the fun you had last night. Now get out of
your fancy car and get your rear into class.”

Lo smiled at the memory of her mother’s
stern voice. Lo had done as she was told. After she’d slammed the
door and was almost to the school, her mother had sighed.

“
Good girl,” her mother had
said. “Call me when you’re done with that awful English class. I’ll
make cookies and we can talk. Larry’s here…”

Lo heard her mother move to the end of the
long cord on the phone.

“
Larry! Get out of
bed!”

“
Can you tell Lisa?” her
mother asked Lo before yelling, “Larry!”

“
All right. All right,” Lo
heard Larry’s voice in the background. “You’re worse than
reveille.”

“
Now he’s complaining to,”
her mother had said. “Listen, I have to go. I have to call someone
on base. He’s only on duty for another twenty minutes. Are you
going to be okay, Lorraine?”

“
I’ll be okay,” Lo said.
“But can I call you after class?”

“
I’ll be waiting to hear
from you,” her mother had said. “I just opened the paper. You and
Don are in it again. It’s going to be a rough day. But you can do
it. I believe in you. And we both know you and I are the lucky
ones. A little misery is truly worth being loved completely. I love
you, Lo.”

“
Love you Mom.”

At least she thought she’d told her mother
she loved her. If she was anything like Alisha or Mandy at that
age, she’d probably have just hung up.

Her mother had always worked off a list. If
she said she was going to call the base, she called the base. She
died the same day. Lo heard a key in the lock.

“
Yazmin?” Lo
asked.

“
Just me,” Amanda said. “I
couldn’t sleep, so I brought a load of stuff.”

Lo stuck the form into the book and flipped
to the wedding photos.

“
Would you like some
breakfast?”

“
Do you mind?”

“
Not at all,” Lo got up to
hug Amanda.

“
What’s that?” Amanda
asked.

“
Wedding photos,” Lo sat
down in the chair. “I miss your dad.”

“
You’ve been working like a
dog,” Amanda said. “I don’t know how you can do anything but pass
out at night.”

“
When you sleep with
someone every night for most of your life, you miss them,” Lo
said.

“
Guess that’s true,” Amanda
sat down on the arm of the chair. Lo flipped through a few pages.
Amanda stood. “I have to stop. I’m getting too sad and I have at
least two more loads.”

“
We were really happy,” Lo
said.

“
We were,” Amanda said.
“What are you doing this morning?”

“
I’m taking two of the
finest air conditioners in the world to Sansom Park,” Lo said. “The
guys loaded the truck last night.”

“
Are you going to stop by
and see Dad on the way?” Amanda asked.

“
Probably,” Lo said. “I
have some money. I was going to finish paying for his
stone.”

“
I didn’t even think of
that,” Amanda said.

“
Lots of details,” Lo
said.

“
Do you want company?”
Amanda asked.

“
I’ll be all right,” Lo
said. “Do you want help moving the rest of your stuff?”