The View From Who I Was (13 page)

Twenty

From Oona's journal:

Ice floats because it expands as it solidifies. If ice sank, all ponds, lakes, and oceans would freeze, and life on Earth, as we know it, could not survive.

—Biology: Life's Course

Chateau Antunes smelled of Corpse's favorite enchiladas. Sugeidi stood at the kitchen sink, water rushing from the tap into a sudsy bowl, and her hands disappeared into white bubbles. Her skin was the same hue as Angel's skin, and this made Corpse smile. She tried to picture the distance between Fort Defiance, Arizona, and Monterrey, Mexico.

“Smells good,” she said.

Sugeidi's hand flew to her heart.

“Oona! No sneak!” Then she grinned. Across the chest of her maid dress was a handprint outlined in bubbles, and Corpse laughed. Sugeidi dried her hands in her apron, and Corpse saw that dress in the way Sugeidi did, so she didn't hug her like she'd planned. Instead she walked to her, put one hand on her shoulder, and kissed her cheek. In the corner of her eye, Mom appeared in the doorway but stepped back.

“I missed you, Sugeidi. It's good to be home,” Corpse said.

Sugeidi assessed her, and Corpse straightened under her scrutiny. “You mend,” she said.

“I'm getting there.”

“
Bueno
, Oona.
Bueno
.”

“
Bueno
,” Corpse said.

Mom came in. “You're back.” Her words sounded rehearsed. She stopped at the breakfast bar.

“I'm back.”

I noticed Mom had caverns in her cheeks and around her eyes, even rivulets between the bones of her wrists. Though taller than Corpse by three inches, she seemed breakable. Corpse walked to her and hugged her. Cautiously, I blanketed them. It felt okay. Nice.

Mom sighed and her arms circled the low part of Corpse's back. She laid her hollow cheek against Corpse's hair.

“You can stop worrying now,” Corpse said.

Mom pulled back. Her right eye quivered, and she wiped her cheek. “I see that.” She looked over Corpse's shoulder at Sugeidi. “Tell us about your trip.”

“Where's Dad?”

“He'll be back from Chicago late tonight,” Mom said.

Corpse touched Mom's arm, and Mom looked down. Part of Corpse wanted to flee back to Angel, to anywhere. This seriousness, this much suffering, was a disease. She climbed onto a stool and Mom took the one next to her.

“I'm starving,” Corpse said. “Are those enchiladas ready?”

“
Sí
,” Sugeidi said. She pulled the pan from the oven and turned the knob from
warm
to
off
. With a spatula she dug out the red-sauced enchiladas and filled two plates that she carried to them. She drew two glasses of water, set a bowl of corn salad between their plates, and stood at the counter.

“None for you?” Mom said.

Their eyes had a conversation Corpse couldn't decipher. I realized it was Saturday, a day Sugeidi was usually with her family in the trailer park. What had gone on with just them here?

“I eat already,” Sugeidi said. “Tell, Oona.”

Corpse told them about greeting the sun, and the rock in Dr. Yazzie's pocket, and the dead guys in the fire, and the feather Angel gave her. Neither of them spoke or even blinked with doubt. Instead they leaned close, hanging on her every word.

“Thing is, I'd held them on some sort of pedestal. An ideal,” Corpse said. “But William and Roberta and Dr. Yazzie and Angel, they're just people. Regular people. Like us.” Her eyes met Mom's and Sugeidi's, all their struggles suspended there, and they burst into laughter.

Day faded to night, and in the dimming kitchen, the triangle of their heads seemed lit.

Gabe's arms felt so good. They were made to fit together, I decided.

“You look better,” he said. “I'm not sure what it is.”

“I am better.”

He kissed her and she kissed him back, like on the dance floor. She weaved her fingers into his hair.

“Wow!” he said. “Much better.”

“I thought a lot about you. About us,” she said.

“It must have been good.”

They kissed again. Corpse pressed closer, and he pulled her tighter. Her kisses moved along his cheek to the stubble at his jaw. Seemed to crackle across his dimple. She kissed his ear, and they looked at each other in a way that had never existed before. One of his hands ran up her back into her hair. He peered over her shoulder through the living room and into the kitchen.

“Where is everybody?”

“Sugeidi just left to visit her son. Mom's watching a movie downstairs. Dad's flying back from Chicago.”

“That sucks. That he left. Your mom's great.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She's really trying.”

“I've never said thank you, Gabe. For loving me through it all.”

“If this is how you're going to express it, thank me all you want.”

They kissed again, whole bodies kissing. I drew back, kept seeing Roberta. Gabe's hardness shouted beneath his jeans, and Corpse molded herself against it. How did she know to do this?

“What happened at that school?” He fingered the heart on her necklace.

“I figured some things out.” She snuggled closer.

“I don't have anything with me. Like rubbers,” he whispered.

“Why would you? I've been like a corpse.” She stumbled on “corpse” and her eyes darted around, then over her shoulder.

“What is it?” Gabe said.

She shoved my judging aside. “I'm going to go on the pill. I'll see the doctor next week.”

“Wow!” he said. “Things are really looking up.”

“I'll say.”

They laughed like they'd robbed a bank, and he hugged her closer.

“Are you really a virgin?” she whispered.

“Yes. I told you, Hernandez men love once. You're the one that's hard to believe is a virgin.”

“Believe it.”

She ran her thumb across his dimple. She thought how Gabe had his people, too, how they anchored him. She took his hand and led him to the velvety couch.

“Oona—”

“It's okay. I promise.”

I squirmed as she lay on the couch and pulled Gabe to her. He settled carefully between her and the couch's back. His hardness pressed her hip and she turned toward it, wanted it in a way that had nothing to do with reasoning or doubting or judging.

He traced the plane of her cheek. Moved down her sweater and slid his hand underneath it. She arched her back as he tried to unclasp her bra, but he couldn't figure it out.

“Gabe Hernandez not good at something?” she whispered, unclasping it for him.

His fingers trembled against the flat of her belly and stayed there, memorizing it. He reached up, noting each of her ribs, till he found her breast. Breathing hard, his finger haloed her nipple and everything disappeared but Gabe and her and their pulse. She lifted her sweater and he looked at her, leaned down. She felt his warm mouth. He moved to her other breast, and she thought she'd explode. She pulled Gabe on top of her.

Humping
, I thought, and the word drifted to the back of her skull.
DEAD GIRL HUMPS.

She paused. Gabe's mouth hovered over hers. They exchanged breaths, and she reached down to his pants. “Just our jeans,” she said. She unbuttoned and unzipped both their pants.

Gabe took on an intensity we'd seen only on the soccer field. This, along with underwear on underwear, put Corpse over the top, and her breathing rose an octave. Gabe's too. Their humping grew furious, and it became her favorite word. Her head bloomed, and she gasped and dropped back on the couch. Gabe lay limp on top of her, and wet spread into her pubic hair.

“Wow!” he said against her ear.

“And we're still virgins.”

He laughed gently.

I sighed on their intimacy.

The door between the kitchen and the garage opened and something heavy clunked against the stone floor. They bolted up. Gabe zipped and buttoned his jeans. Corpse zipped and buttoned hers. Their eyes met, realizing how this would look, and they lay back down.

Dad closed the door, walked through the kitchen, paused at the doorway to the dark living room, and continued down the bedroom hall, suitcase rolling behind him.

Gabe and Corpse burst into muffled laughter.

Twenty-One

From Oona's journal:

Most living cells have an internal pH of 7.
A change in pH, even minor, can be damaging.

—Biology: Life's Course

Corpse walked to the bank of dining room windows, knelt before the peaks, and held out her open palms just as the sun shot rays over the mountains' jagged line. “Good morning,” she said.

I dropped back to study how the sun's rays traced her body. She closed her eyes and considered how Sugeidi had stayed on her day off to welcome her home with her favorite meal. How Mom, Sugeidi, and she had been a trio. She thought of Gabe and flushed.

Today: Dad.

She tried to plan how she'd start their conversation, but her mind ricocheted to Ash. Tomorrow she'd work things out with her. Corpse crinkled her nose, knew they'd never be friends like they were, but she could at least make things, well, nicer.

She took a deep breath and cleared her mind. “Courage,” she whispered.

Though it was Sunday, Dad was already in his office, she was sure. She'd carry in the LIFE game as an excuse. Keep her butt in that chair and chitchat about Chicago and her trip. She'd gently lead their talk toward Portugal.

Nervous as hell, I clung to silence.

In the living room, she took LIFE from the cupboard. She passed through the kitchen on the way to Dad's office. Mom ambled in, still in her fleecy robe and rubbing her eyes.

“You're up early,” she said. “I just woke up. My head hit the pillow and I was out. I didn't even hear your father come in. Did Gabe stay long?”

“An hour.” Corpse turned away to hide the heat rising up her neck, hoped Mom wouldn't notice the LIFE game, but Mom just moved to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. She opened the fridge, poured half-and-half into her coffee, and stirred it. Corpse tried to imagine what it felt like, sleeping with someone who wouldn't talk to you. She pictured Mom and Dad hugging their bed's edges, their backs like armor. Last night Corpse had slept face-down so the wet of her underwear pressed into her. She wore them still. Maybe she'd wear them for a week.

Mom leaned her hip into the counter and sipped her steaming coffee. Her eyes glittered and she looked so pretty. “I haven't slept like that in years.”

Corpse moved down the hall toward Dad's office on watery legs. Each bobbing step rocked the game under her arm. Return of the little marching army. She bent her hips, her knees, her ankles and stayed lower with each stride, trying to eliminate that sound. It didn't help. She straightened. Maybe this was just her new walk.

She came to Dad's office door and paused. She filled her lungs and reeled herself back to that mountaintop with Angel, the sun bursting over that horizon below. She conjured the warm splash of its rays and wondered why it was harder to confront the people you loved than it was to confront strangers.

Dad's phone rang, that annoying regular-phone ringtone, and he answered. He talked more on that phone than he talked to us and Mom put together. She understood a little of the finance jargon.

Dad laughed. A rare thing. “Thursday?” he said. “Thursday would be good.”

Dad never said “good” that way. Who listened on the phone's other end? Why was he, or she, lucky enough to hear him talk this way? Corpse turned furious that Dad refused to laugh with Mom or her. She strode into his office, to that chair, and sat down, erect as a soldier, LIFE across her lap. I hung in the doorway.

Dad studied her as he talked into the phone. He really was handsome, especially with the gray peppering his temples, but his eyes had taken on a slinking look. He was so successful. People trusted him with their money. To them he must be smooth, polished, charming. Who was he to that person on the phone's other end? Did anybody really know him?

“Okay,” Dad said into the phone. “Talk to you Thursday then. Goodbye.” He set his phone near the top of his desk. “Oona. How was your trip?”

“Who was that?”

“A business associate.”

“You laughed. You
laughed
with him. Or her.”

Dad just stared.

“You promised things would be different.”

He didn't flinch. I admired his composure. “That good,” he said.

“That good. What are you doing?”

“Working. I—”

“Where's the ‘new man' who sat on the edge of my bed in the hospital?”

So much for gentleness.

He examined two papers, bright against the dark wood of his desk and framed by his hands.

“How have you tried, Dad? Have we gone to a show? Out to dinner? If anything you've gotten worse. You don't even come into my room to say good night anymore.”

“I stopped working in Chicago.” He stared at those papers. I envied that Angel-Kenny bond. “I'm here. For dinner each night.”

Corpse snorted. “That's going well. Dodging conversation with Mom. Retreating down here. What are you hiding from?”

“Hiding?”

“Why won't you laugh with us?”

“Laugh?”

“What are you afraid of?” Corpse realized the question was actually more to herself, and she lifted her chin to hide it.

“I'm not afraid, Oona. I—”

“Bullshit.”

Dad raised his eyebrows, but his eyes had turned razor black. He nodded in that unknowing way, stopped and scratched the back of his head. “Thanks for that assessment.” Would he lunge at her, slap her?

“Coward.”

“I'm doing the best I can.”

“Coward.”

Dad's phone rang and he reached for it, but Corpse got there first, LIFE hitting the floor with a jingle-bang.

“Hello,” she said.

A voice like Ms. Authority said, “I'm looking for Tony Antunes.”

“He's busy.” Corpse hung up. I wondered if Dad had been faithful to Mom.

“Oona!”

“Dad?” She'd never said anything more bitter. She didn't care how sharp he seemed. She picked up the LIFE box, opened it, dropped his phone in, and forced down the groaning lid. Dad settled back in his chair, his mouth slightly open and cocked left.

“Would it kill you to play this game with me?”

Last night with Gabe. Now this. She was out of control.

“Oona!” His face was pale.

That flute music seemed to swell beneath her feet. She closed her eyes and pictured Angel handing her that feather. Sugeidi sitting on her bed, washing her blistered feet. Mom so pretty this morning.

“I may have been the one to kill myself,” she said, “but you, me, Mom—we've all been dying for a long time. I'm trying to
live
, Dad.” She watched those words ride the edge of her voice and register in his face.

He looked at her like she'd stabbed him. He leaned forward, clunked his elbows on the desk, and rested his head in one hand. He ran his fingertips across his forehead. I slunk to him and hovered near his shoulders, fascinated. From here Corpse looked older, completely in control. Not like the girl I understood.

“Must have been some school.” His words fell to his desk.

She didn't say anything, just kept that truth-stare boring into him. I squirmed.

Dad's hands landed on his desk with a thump, and he shot up. Through me. His eyes lost their focus as a yawning inkiness surged into me. I stifled a scream.

He strode to the window wall, opened a glass door, and left.

Corpse blew out her breath. She turned back around in her chair. With sheer will, I forced back that darkness, yet it hovered at my edges.

Dad's phone rang inside the game, weird, muffled, like from far away. On his shiny desk were those papers. His computer whirred. She stared at those papers and listened to that whir. Numb.

The carved wooden clock on the credenza behind Dad's desk said 7:37. Corpse stared at nothing. She looked at the clock again: 7:57. If she listened carefully, that flute played on. She rose, walked to the middle of room, and set out the LIFE game on the Berber carpet.

She selected a blue car and a red car. She put a little blue man in the blue car and a little pink woman in the red car. I urged her to flee, tried to make her understand, but she tuned me out. She set the cars on the start space. She sorted the money, the cards, and spun the dial, its whir taking over the room, slowing to that
tick, tick, tick
till it stopped.

Icy air from the open door flowed across her, but she wasn't cold. She chose the
Start Career
route over the
Start College
one, realized she needed to select a career, and chose
Mechanic $30,000
. She moved the red car eight spaces and landed on
Snowboarding Accident, Pay $5,000
. She paid the bank.

Dad appeared, and she watched him amble along the windows. His hands were deep in his pockets and he watched his feet, which were hidden behind the window frames. When he stepped through the door, she saw he wore slippers. He closed the door, walked to her, and looked down at everything. He sat at the board's opposite side.

“You're the blue car.” I trembled, but her courage rippled like that pond behind the Oasis House.

He nodded.

“It's your turn,” she said. “You start by spinning the dial.”