20.
“CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING?”
Sol looked up from the Walter Mosley mystery she was reading in bed. “What?”
“When we moved to New Mexico, did you know that Bipa lived here?”
Sol blinked, looked down at her book. “Sure. I knew she’d moved back.”
I fiddled with my Gammie’s ruby engagement ring I wore on my right hand. “Are you pursuing her? Bipa?”
Sol closed her book “What kind of question is that? That’s completely irrational.”
I climbed into bed next to her. “Sorry.”
She rolled over, curled her back to me. “I’ve been completely honest with you about Bipa,” she said to the wall. “Bipa broke my heart a long time ago. I’m over her.”
I SPENT THE balance of the summer and the tip of autumn baking pies in my adobe kitchen, building Lego sets with Maxito and catching flights between Albuquerque and Los Angeles. I’d found work as a ghostwriter. I slept on the leopard-print couch in Maia’s studio apartment in Pasadena. I’d bought that couch when I was her age, a single mom with a toddler. Now the two of us stayed up nights eating ramen and drinking strong tea, Maia doing her graphic design homework and me writing in voices not my own. It reminded me of being in my 20s, when we were an easy family of two.
At home with Sol in New Mexico, things teetered between silent irritation and resigned tolerance. This was my life. A little adobe. It wasn’t so bad. Make the best of it, Ariel.
I was rushing to a departure gate at LAX on my way back to that life when my phone buzzed with a text message from Vivian in Portland: Just broke up with my girlfriend.
I texted her right back: Jealous.
But then I felt like a cad. Maybe I could fix this thing with Sol after all. I was good at fixing things. We’d been together for ten years. Ten years wasn’t nothing. We got along all right when she wasn’t mad at me for being three minutes late or for not properly pre-sorting the recycling. She’d never waved a knife at me in the middle of the night or kicked me as I slept. I’d buy her a cake at the Chocolate Maven when I got home. I’d pick a bouquet of wildflowers. I’d find cheap tickets online for a wintertime week in New Orleans. Right before Mardi Gras – when all the bands are practicing in the streets, but before the drunk boys arrive for the party.
She texted to say she had to make a few house calls that night. She’d be home late. Would I pick up Maxito?
Of course.
The Chocolate Maven and Maxito and wildflowers and New Orleans.
I stopped at home to feed the chickens and grab everyone’s dirty clothes to take to the laundromat. Picking up jeans and T-shirts and sweat pants and Spider-Man underwear, I screamed like a child when I saw the snake coiled on the tile floor at the foot of my bed. Beige and black, fat and archaic, I jumped back as the thing slithered away.
What was it?
“Did it have a pattern?” the guy who answered the phone at animal control wanted to know.
“Yes?”
“More like diamonds, or stripes?”
I didn’t know. “It was fat and archaic,” I whispered.
“It just darted away?”
“Yes.” It had. Where was it now? Under the refrigerator?
“I wouldn’t worry, ma’am,” he said. “A rattler would’ve held its ground. Probably just a garter. It’ll slither out the same way it came in.”
I texted Abra: Snake in the house. What does it mean?
Surely a snake in the house was an omen.
She texted right back: I guess it means we live in rural New Mexico?
Yes. Maybe that’s all it meant. We lived in rural New Mexico. Snakes needed a place to hide, too.
Abra texted again: Probably because no one’s been home for a few days.
I texted right back: Why hasn’t anyone been home?
But she didn’t answer me.
Relax, Ariel. It’ll slither out the same way it came in. I had errands to run. Laundry and the Chocolate Maven and Maxito and wildflowers and New Orleans.
I drove the 20 minutes into Santa Fe, read Dashiell Hammett at the laundromat.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the Chocolate Maven, I was thinking Belgian chocolate torte or coconut cream cake?
I scored a parking place right in front of the place, turned off the ignition.
The Chocolate Maven and Maxito and wildflowers and New Orleans. Yes. I could fix this. Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. All those Mardi Gras bands. It would be so romantic.
But when I pushed open the glass door to the café, I froze at the sight of them: Sitting across from each other at a little rectangular bistro table, Sol and Bipa, faces painted in full mime white and black, gloved hands open and moving together in synchronized pantomime.
Bipa moved one hand in a clockwise circular motion and Sol followed. Bipa moved her other hand counterclockwise and Sol followed.
My body felt like it was shrinking in on itself. I stepped back. They hadn’t seen me yet. I could still just recede into my humiliation.
But just then the hostess chirped, “Joining us for dinner?” and Sol and Bipa looked up, two startled mimes in their grease-white make-up and their black berets.
Bipa held up her gloved hands theatrically, like maybe this was a stick up.
Sol sat up straight. “Ariel!” she tried, as if they’d been waiting for me to join them and where was my makeup? Where was my beret?
I took another step back. Rewind everything and I’d be in my car again and on my way to pick up Maxito from preschool and I’d have changed my mind about cake and wildflowers and New Orleans and everything would go back to the normal silent irritation and resigned tolerance.
As I backed out of the place, I thought I heard Sol say, “Don’t be dramatic, Ariel,” but then the glass door was shut and I was in my car, engine on, and I was driving fast, gagging on pride.
I called in a pizza order. Half pepperoni with cheese and half green chile with spinach, no cheese.
I picked Maxito up from preschool.
“I’m great at puzzles,” he announced as I buckled him into his car seat.
I WAS STILL shaking when we got home to our little adobe, didn’t understand why I was shaking. What was I so upset about? Hadn’t I just texted Vivian: Jealous?
“I love pizza with meat,” Maxito beamed as I opened the box.
And the two of us sat on our big red couch, eating pizza and watching Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce and laughing at the shadowy scenes and drinking sparkling water and pretty soon I wasn’t shaking anymore and Maxito fell asleep in the crook of my arm and I carried him to bed and put a Lucinda Williams CD on in the living room and wished I had a beer and it wasn’t too long before I heard the car tires in the driveway and the front door slam and Sol stomped in, still in full mime-face and wearing that black beret. She went right for boom box, pressed eject, put on Steely Dan. She turned to me, gloved hands on her hips. “What?” she demanded. “People aren’t allowed to mime now?”
I sighed.
“You’ve always been jealous and paranoid,” she said. “You embarrassed everyone, backing out of there like some pariah.”
“Go to hell,” I whispered, maybe too quiet.
“You know.” Sol cleared her throat. “You didn’t grow up with either of your parents loving you. Maybe you’re just not capable of receiving love. Hmm?”
That unspeakable thing: If you’ve ever been mistreated, you’re not worthy of care.
Steely Dan sang “Reeling in the Years” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” I’d never thought much either way about Steely Dan but now I felt with my whole body how much I hated Steely Dan, how much I had always hated Steely Dan. I thought, Seriously? I’m Ariel Gore. I have 3,000 friends on Facebook and a closet full of really sexy boots. What am I doing with this miming jerk?
Live with me for a year? Then you may ask questions?
I felt like I had gravel in my throat, but I opened my mouth anyway. I had a question. “Did we move to Santa Fe for that mime?” I wanted to know the answer. “Do Maxito and my dying mother and I all live in Santa Fe because we stalked a mime with you?”
Sol looked scared. Or maybe people in that white-and-black makeup always looked scared. Kind of startled and confused at the same time. “You think I’m stalking Bipa?” The flecks in her eyes weren’t magic. They just looked mean. “Jesus, Ariel, you’re just as crazy as both your parents.”
Maybe I was, but not the kind of crazy she was talking about. I felt free and lonely. I wanted to run barefoot out the door and into the night, up the dirt road to Tex’s place. I wanted to find him in his underground bunker and we’d drink Silver Coyote whiskey from a liter bottle and we’d yell at the moon about everyone who was out to get us. No, I had no problem with crazy right then.
Sol stared at me.
I knew I could still fix this if I wanted to. I could say: Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ve been under so much stress and you’re right I’m crazy and thank you for putting up with me all these years – I’m jealous and paranoid and of course people are allowed to mime – and then I could lean into her warmth and she’d pat me on the back and kiss me on the head and say Don’t worry, it’s all right.
I thought about saying it. But then I remembered missing the 5:34 train and the girl in Albuquerque and those cold bricks on my back and now anything that started with Oh, I’m so sorry sounded like thanking someone for not kicking me in the ribs as I slept.
I’d promised not to do that.
So I just said, “Go to hell,” louder this time, “and take the fucking Steely Dan with you.”
Sol in her black and white face paint. She took her phone out of her pocket, texted somebody something, shook her head. “You’re paranoid, Ariel.”
I said, “And you’re a mime stalker.” Because I’m mature like that.
She said, “You’re completely paranoid.” But she didn’t hold her ground. She stepped up to the boom box and pressed eject. She checked her phone. “Well,” she said, finally taking off that beret. “Can I stay in the trailer for a couple of nights at least? Abra probably won’t mind moving into the living room.”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
Sol kind of bowed her head. “It’s just that I can’t move into Bipa’s earthship until Tuesday.”
And I had to laugh at that.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean your girlfriend’s not stalking a mime.
I WANTED WINGS and tattoos, whiskey and the girl in Albuquerque. I craved so many things right then. But mostly I breathed relief. I needed to focus. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut for ten more minutes and I’d be free. Don’t say you’re sorry. Ariel.
I crawled into bed with my phone, left Sol and Abra to work out the sleeping arrangements. Don’t say you’re sorry. Ariel. By morning not even the Chocolate Maven and wild flowers and New Orleans could fix this. Don’t say you’re sorry. I didn’t bother to change out of my jeans and sweatshirt, just wrapped my quilt around me, stared up at the vigas and the dark skylight. A place to mend.
I hoped the snake really had slithered out the way it came in.
The ruin of everything. But I felt something like happiness.
I texted Maia: Broke up with Sol.
She texted right back: I know. She already updated her Facebook profile. Then she texted again: Can I say congratulations, Mama? I love you this much. (Picture my little kid arms open wide).
And for the first time in a long time, I fell into easy undrunk sleep.