Saturday, December 1, 2012

11. She had lost her map.

Richard had spent the entire two hours sitting in his car. Dolores knew this, but did not confess when she accepted his $20, agreed to come again in two nights, and left through the front door. She walked her bike, did not ride. It wasn't far, never had been, which was part of the rub.

In four blocks, the houses turned to brick and grew into four and five bedroom homes with fenced in yards and wrought iron gates. The trees grew wise with years and touched limbs over quiet streets. Quirky foreign cars sat clean inside well organized garages. Garrison's was the second from the end of the block on the north side of the street. The lights were on and a golden retriever gnawed on a stick under the porch swing.

A pretty blonde teenage girl slammed through the front door, startling the dog who jumped to his feet and barked. The girl stretched one arm above her head and raised her middle finger, holding it high as she charged down the driveway and stuck a key into the driver's side door of a blue Rav4.

Dolores stopped ten feet short of the girl and bent to feign tying her shoe.

"Lilith!" Garrison's wife stormed down the porch steps and half way down the drive in the girl's wake. Karen was barefoot; it was dark; she was not as pretty as Dolores remembered. Too empty to be pretty. "Lilith!" she hissed again. But it was too late. The girl named Lilith--her baby sister who did not know--started the engine, hit the gas, and left.

Dolores made adjustments to her bicycle seat, felt trapped.

Karen stood with her hands on her hips and was silent. The dog barked again and sniffed at the ground, retrieved the stick. The television was on in the house next door, and Will & Grace bickered through an open window followed by a studio laugh track.

"I see you," Karen said.

The houses, the trees, the sidewalks and waiting cars, all held their breaths as each syllable ripped through a still canvas. "I see you," Karen repeated, calmly.

Dolores re-tightened the bolt under the seat she had loosened and stood, making great effort to appear casual. She opened her mouth to say, "Hey," or "How's it going?" or "Cool. Nice night for a ride," but the words were superglued and all she could do was swallow and stare back. Her mother had been wrong: The woman was not empty. Karen was tired, had been wrung out and then filled with something Dolores could not slow her brain enough to name.

Karen did not move, did not adjust her stance, shift weight from one leg to another, blink, or lick her lips. It was Changing-of-the-Guard, and Dolores was the tourist. She had lost her map.

"Sorry." Dolores pushed the word through dry, barely open lips. She scrambled onto her bike and pedaled to the end of the block and turned left. She did not stop until Todd's wet nose greeted her inside her own front door. Her mother had been wrong about other things, too. Karen knew, and this changed everything. Dolores would have to go.

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10. That Patrick

Patrick. Christ. I'd forgotten about him. You know, dear, he did that to himself. They all do. I am who I am, my girl, and they are who they are. That's all any of us ever are; sometimes we just explode when we're mixed.

It had been much too hot to wear shorts in a car with vinyl seats for eight hours. When they arrived in the Black Hills, the backs of her mother's thighs were graffitied with red welts. This Patrick, this new boyfriend, pressed against her mother and moved them slowly, clumsily, through the Avenue of Flags at a zigzag. Dolores traced one welt with her finger. Her mother's skin felt slick and slimy. "Stop it," her mother said, and batted away her hand.

Concrete pillars held flags that made sounds like bed sheets from a clothes line when the wind kicked through. Blues and reds, whites and golds, stripes and stars and squiggles and circles: They waved to her. She stopped to stare, her head tipped back, her mouth open. The universe said Hello. "Hi," she said back and smiled.

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www.angelslanding.com
She returned her attention to the walkway; her mother and This Patrick were replaced with the legs and waistbands of strangers. She rotated in a circle, careful not to inch forward or backward. "Mom?" she called. This had happened before with That Leland in Kansas City on The Plaza. What had her mother said to there then? If you're lost, stay put. Stay put. She sat, her legs, criss-cross, in the middle of the cement.

The flags above her continued to wave, no longer hello. They summoned one another, rallied. Child down! she heard them cry as the wind kicked through. Has anyone seen the mother? they yelled. Maybe one from Israel scanned the horizon. She'd heard of that--Israel--on the news.

"Sweetheart, are you okay?" a man said. His knees were locked and hairy; he bent over with his hands still in his pockets. His breath smelled like maple syrup. A woman in a plaid skirt clutched her purse behind him. She was impatient.

"I'm okay," she told him.

ETA on the mother? Anyone? Maybe it was Brazil. She'd seen a postcard from That Samuel. The people lounged by a beach and were beautiful.

"My mom is coming."

And she arrived, breathless, and with her hair out of place. "Jesus, Dolores. You've got to keep up," she said, and scooped her up by the elbow.

Patrick scowled. "I told you it wasn't a good idea to bring her."

Her mother brushed dirt from the seat of Dolores's shorts. "You know what's a good idea, Pat? You go sit in the goddamn car if you don't like it." She held Dolores's hand and pulled them forward, no zigzag, always ahead, straight line, don't dawdle. "Sorry, Dolo. He won't last. You and me the rest of the day, okay?"

The wind kicked through, and the flags cheered for you, my girl. Remember that?


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