Break the Skin (11 page)

Someone knocked on my front door, and I ran to it, thinking it must be him, but it was only Emma come for our morning chitchat.

“Where was Donnie going?” she asked me. “I just now saw him walking up Scripture.” I couldn’t bear to tell her I didn’t know. I wanted
to brush past her, run up the street barefoot and in my panties and T-shirt if that’s what it took to catch up to Donnie and bring him back. “I called his name, but he didn’t even look my way.” She held out her hands, palms up, and shrugged her shoulders. “It was like he didn’t know me at all.”

That’s when it hit me, how wrong this all was. He wasn’t mine to keep. He belonged somewhere else. Maybe he had a woman who was crazy with worry because she didn’t know where he was, and I was partly to blame. I’d been keeping him from being where he truly needed to be, all for my own selfish ends. I was a woman who thought she’d missed her best chances at love, but what right did that give me to make this man, this Lester Stipp, believe that we were a couple?

But then, we were, weren’t we? Hadn’t everything been so fine between us, and not just because I suggested it had always been so, but also because the two of us clicked, because we were good for each other, because there was something between us that we both needed?

So there I was, torn in two, part of me saying it’s only right that he go—what a fool I was to think my crazy scheme would work—and part of me missing him so much I couldn’t live with the thought that I might never see him again.

“Oh, you know men,” I said, all la-di-da, like this was nothing at all, just a little hen talk between the gals. “They always think they’ve got someplace they need to go.”

“That’s the truth, Miss Baby.” Emma clucked her tongue. “Yes, ma’am, that’s the God’s honest truth.”

IT WAS THE MIDDLE
of the afternoon when Donnie came into the shop. I was in my studio with a customer, a little old man who wanted an olive wreath tattooed on his bald head.

“You know,” he said. “Like Julius Caesar.”

“It’ll hurt like fire,” I told him.

“Honey,” he said, “I can take it.”

I heard the bell on the front door jangle, and when I looked out through the window into the waiting area, there was Donnie.

“Oh, I know you can.” I patted the old man on his slick head. “You just hang on a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Donnie was standing in the middle of the waiting room, his hands stuck into his pants pockets, his head down, as if he didn’t know whether he should stay or go. I was afraid to touch him, afraid he’d spook, so I just went up to him and didn’t say a word. When some time had gone by and he was still there, I said to him, my voice a whisper so the old man in the room behind us wouldn’t hear, “Hey, stranger.”

“Were you worried?” Donnie edged his foot forward and bumped it up against my toe.

“Sick,” I said.

“I had some thinking to do.”

He leaned down until his forehead was resting on mine. Then we talked our quiet talk, words not meant for anyone else to hear.

“Sometimes I get sad,” he said. “I can’t remember meeting you. I can’t remember how it was when we were falling in love. It’s like there’s this whole part of us that I can’t get at.”

“It was like it is now.” I tilted my head and put my lips to his forehead. I kissed him, once, twice. “It was holding hands and keeping each other company and feeling like it was decided a long way back that one day we’d be together. That’s what it was like when we fell in love.”

“Like the way I feel now?”

“Just like it.”

“And you remember?”

“I’ll always remember,” I said. “I’ll remember for both of us.”

He nodded. “Then we’re lucky.”

His hands found mine, and we laced our fingers together. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” I told him.

“I will if you say it’s true.”

“It’s true. Every bit.”

I promised myself I’d never again doubt how right it was for the two of us to be together. I’d stop thinking about the life he had before I found him. I’d grab on to this second chance to trust in what was good and right between us, and I wouldn’t look back. I’d let the story I was spinning sweep me along. I’d keep my eyes on the future.

I went back to my studio, back to the bald man, and he said with a wink, “Boyfriend?”

“He’s my husband,” I said.

“Nah, can’t be.” He waved a hand at me as if to dismiss the very idea. “You must be newlyweds.”

“Sometimes it seems that way,” I told him, and then I went to work on his head.

THEN, ONE DAY
in December when Donnie and I had finally settled in—when it looked like Carolyn would leave us alone, when Slam Dent was just a funny name I laughed about from time to time—Pablo came home.

“¿Estas loco?”
When I opened my door and saw him on my step, I asked him if he was crazy. I shoved him out into the yard, out by the mimosa tree where he hit his head on one of the dangling glass bottles, out by the gaslight, and then beyond it into the dark of night because I was afraid someone might see him, either the police or worse, Slam Dent. “Don’t you know he’s still looking for you? Do you want to get killed?”

It was the Christmas season, and all along the street the neighbors had strung lights around their tree trunks, hung them from their roofs, draped them over their nandina bushes. The wind came up stronger—a blue norther moving in, the first of the season—and the temperature dropped. An empty can went clanging down the sidewalk. Somewhere up the street, a car door slammed, and my heart jumped up into my throat. With Pablo back, nothing seemed safe, and though it was true I feared for his well-being, I was also worried about what would happen if
he came into my house and I had to explain who Donnie was and how he came to be there.

“Quit shoving me.” Pablo held his hands out in front of him to stop me from pushing into his chest. “I mean it, Betts. Don’t make me ugly up on you.”

This was always our story, this threat. Ever since we were kids, Pablo knew he could get me to do whatever he wanted if he mashed me hard enough. He had deep-set brown eyes, and a little half-moon scar between them where he’d fallen when he was a boy and smacked the corner of a countertop. He was a former Texas State High School wrestling champion in the 130-pound weight class, and he could still muscle up to someone if he took a notion. Sometimes all it took was a look to put me on my heels, but other times it was something he said, something to make it clear that he was disappointed in me, something he said in a wounded voice—“Ah, Betts”—and I remembered we were blood.

“I’m worn out with running,” he said that night in my yard.

He told me about the close calls he’d had with Slam Dent—times he’d been in restaurants and had to sneak out men’s room windows, times he’d hidden in trash Dumpsters, all the times he’d had to drive like a crazy man just to get away from Slam, who always seemed to be close to snagging him. That’s all it took, those stories. I knew I’d let him into my house, invite him to hide his car in my garage. I’d do whatever he asked because he was my brother, and all our lives, we’d counted on each other.

“All right,” I said. “You can come in, but first I’ve got to tell you something.”

“Will I like it?”

“You don’t have to like it. You just have to listen.”

So I told him about this man, Lester Stipp, and how I found him on the street, not knowing who he was.

“You told him what?” Pablo said.

He made me repeat it, the part of how I fell in love, how I told Lester his name was Donnie, and he was my husband.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I said. “Pablo, I mean it. If you do, I’ll call the police on you.”

“You’d do that?”

“I love him,” I said. “We’re good together.”

Pablo laughed. “So you’re just like me, Betts. That’s rich. You rustled yourself a bull.”

It was more than that. I still believe it. I wanted to explain it to Pablo again that night. I wanted to tell him that no one should question the witchy heart or how it comes to find what it needs.

“So when did you and him get ‘married’?”

“August seventh.”

“Ha! Oh, Betts, that’s rich. Wouldn’t Mami be proud?” He used that exaggerated laugh again. “Ha-ha!” Then he fell quiet. Finally, he said, “All right. If that’s your story, let’s go meet the mister.”

Inside the house, Donnie was finishing the dishes. For fun, I’d tied an apron around his waist, an old-timey thing my
abuelita
used to wear: a red organdy with a felt pocket in the shape of a heart.

Pablo took one look at him and said, “My, my. Do you do the cooking, too? Make the bed? Wash the clothes?”

Donnie glanced down at his apron, then over at me, his eyes narrowed with confusion. “I’m washing the dishes,” he said.

“Oh, I can see that,” said Pablo, “and looking so pretty, too.”

I smacked him across his arm.
“Cabron,”
I said under my breath, letting him know he was a bastard for teasing Donnie.

“Huerga bribona,”
said Pablo, calling me a tricky bitch.

Donnie untied the apron, folded it very carefully, and handed it to me. “I’m finished,” he said, and for a moment I felt a blaze of panic in my chest because I feared he was saying he was done with me. Then he picked up a dish towel and laid it over the dishes in the drainer, and I understood I was being foolish; he was just letting me know he’d finished with the dishes.

This was the time of night when normally we would have gone into
the living room, switched on the fairy night-light, and sat close together on the couch, not saying much at all, just letting the day wind down. I liked looking at my figurines, imagining the fairies watching over us, sprinkling us with pixie dust to keep this love alive. But with Pablo here, everything was different. I felt like Donnie and I were on display, and I could tell he felt it, too. He didn’t reach for my hand, like he usually did when the dishes were done and we were ready to relax. He stood there, filling his cheeks with air and then letting it out in little puffs. He gave Pablo a timid smile, and I realized then he had no idea who Pablo was or why he was there.

“Donnie,” I said, “this is my brother, Pablo. I told you about him. Remember?”

Pablo had this knack for making everyone feel like he was their best friend. Even if he liked to stir things up from time to time, he was easy to forgive. He put one arm around Donnie’s shoulders, and with his free hand he patted him on the chest. “Welcome to the family.
Una familia feliz
. We’re one happy family,
sí
?”

Donnie nodded.
“Sí,”
he said.

Pablo chuckled. “That’s the ticket. Now, let’s you and me sit down and get acquainted.” He winked at Donnie. “I’ve got stories to tell you, and I bet you’ve got some of your own.”

I won’t deny I felt jealous watching Pablo usher Donnie into the living room, his arm still draped over his shoulders as if he, Pablo, were claiming him for his own.

“You got beer?” he called back to me.
“Dos cervezas, pronto.”
He petted Donnie’s back. “Oh, my friend,” he said. “We have so much to talk about.”

I could see that Donnie was taking a liking to Pablo, and I imagine it was because Pablo didn’t question him. Pablo just yakked about things that interested him in the here and now, and listening to him, one would easily get the notion that there wasn’t such a thing as history—no past at all, only what was right there before us. I sat on a chair in the corner listening as Pablo rattled on and on. He and Donnie had their
feet propped up on my coffee table, and every once in a while, Pablo’s toe would tap against a fairy snow globe, and I told him to be careful.

“Chill, Betts.” He hoisted his bottle of Corona toward me in a salute. “I won’t break it.”

He had two gold chains around his neck and what looked like a diamond stud in his left ear. His shirt was a sapphire blue Guayabera with French cuffs; the gold links sparkled in the lamplight. It was clear he’d found a way to spend some of the money he’d pocketed from that cattle sale. His ivory slacks were linen, and as he went on telling Donnie about the things that mystified him, he took some of the material and rubbed it between his fingers, appreciating the way it felt.

“How come it is,” he wondered, “that birds could sit on electrical wires and not get shocked?” “And why didn’t people have one big nostril instead of two smaller ones? Ever wonder about that?” he asked Donnie. “Or cereal: How come some of them make a popping noise when you pour milk on them and others don’t?” “But here’s the one that’s been bugging me lately,” he said. “How come the cashew is the only nut you can’t buy in the shell?”

“Urushiols,” Donnie said.

Pablo drew back his head and studied him. “Say what?”

Donnie patiently explained that the cashew shell contained the same oily chemicals that poison ivy did, urushiols. “That’s why they used to call cashews blister nuts. You wouldn’t want to handle those shells.”

“Well, what do you know?” Pablo winked at me. “We’ve got a walking, talking encyclopedia here. A regular Mr. Know-it-all. I’m going to start calling you Britannia.”

“Britannica,” Donnie said. “It’s the
Encyclopedia Britannica
.”

Pablo laughed. “See what I mean? He knows everything.”

When we were finally alone in bed, Pablo settling down in the spare bedroom, I said to Donnie, “How did you know that about the cashews?”

He got a curious look on his face as if he couldn’t explain it himself. “I don’t know. It was just in my head.”

It took me a long time to go to sleep, wondering, as I did, what else was there in his brain just waiting for him to call it up.

PABLO’S PLAN WAS THIS
: He wanted to see Carolyn. He wanted to tell her he was sorry he’d gotten into trouble and ruined their plans to remarry.

“Whose fault is that?” I asked him.

It was the next morning, early, and I was outside tying another bottle to a branch on the mimosa tree. Donnie was still asleep. Even the windows at Emma’s were dark. Pablo and I were the only ones up and about just past dawn, the raw wind still blowing in from Oklahoma. The bottles in the mimosa clinked and clinked, and it was a sound I’d ordinarily have taken comfort from, so merry it was, but on that morning, when Pablo started talking about Carolyn, all the noise got on my nerves. Despite everything I’d felt for her the night she told me about Slam Dent, I couldn’t bear the thought that Pablo was still on her string.