Novel Race: Instant City, 3

“How are you feeling?”

“Awful.”

“Yeah. Me too.” She laughed. “This isn’t really the sort of reunion I had planned.”

“Did you have one planned?” This came out meaner than I meant it to, but I was too sick and dizzy to apologize.

She said, “Well, not planned. But, imagined.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Was it like this?”

“No way.”

“See? Me either.”

I lay down gently, faceup on the couch. I closed my eyes, but that was worse, somehow, so I opened them again and kept them straight up at the ceiling. Mom sighed and leaned forward in her chair. “Cassie, you have no idea how much I missed you. And Delia. Both of you.”

I swallowed. “Can we not do this now? I sort of feel like I’m dying, and I don’t think I can really deal with any kind of big talk right now.”

She gave a little laugh, not like she actually thought it was funny, but just that she understood, and leaned back in her chair again. I only half-listened as she talked. “The way I pictured it, I would come back to town. Unannounced, of course. In a really nice car, like a Ferrari or something. I don’t even have a car, but in the daydream, I’ve got a cool one. Nick and I both get out of the car, dressed really nice, like me in this blue skirt that I saw on a lady on the subway a few years ago, and him in his suit, which he does have, actually, a nice suit that he wears to interviews and funerals. And my hair would just be done. And we’d walk up to the house–do you still live in the same house?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course. Why would he ever move.” It wasn’t said as a question. “We’d walk up to the house, and you and Delia would come running out from the backyard, and we’d hug, and you’d hug Nick too, and you’d go crazy for the car, and we’d take you out for a ride, and we’d tell stories and catch up. You guys were always doing well. Good in school, lots of friends, nice boyfriends, no trouble. Is–” She hesitated here. “Is that pretty accurate?”

“Pretty much,” I said. I felt like saying any more would be starting into a conversation I couldn’t have right now.

We were both quiet for a minute. “Good,” she finally said. Then we went back to silence. I broke it: “I never imagined you coming back.”

“What?”

“I always figured that someday I’d come to the city and find you. I didn’t think you’d ever come back on your own.”

“Honey, you know I wanted to–”

“I don’t know anything,” I said, mean again, but on purpose this time. I felt like my eyeballs wanted to pop out of my head, and that pain was defeating my mental censor. “I just figured I’d have to go and look for you. I never thought about how I’d do it, you know, actually find you, but I would go to your apartment–you live in an apartment for real, right? When you’re not here?”

“Yeah, we live in an apartment. It’s a lot like this, actually.”

“Yeah. I’d knock on your door, and you’d answer, and I would just know it was you, somehow. You do look the same. Not exactly the same, but same enough that I knew it was you right away when I saw you. But anyway. When I imagined it, I knew it was you but you wouldn’t know it was me. And I’d say, ‘Are you Margaret Fullen?’ And you’d say yes, and I’d say, ‘Do you have a daughter, Cassie?’ And you’d say, ‘Is she all right? What happened to her?’ And then–” But it felt too stupid to say the rest, that that was how I’d know that she still cared about me, even though she’d abandoned me and ignored me for a decade, and left my sister to be raised by idiot me and my idiot father, that she’d run away to this amazing life out in the world and left us all to fend for ourselves. And because she still cared about me, and loved me, and had missed me so much, she would invite me to come in and talk and then to stay and live with her, and we’d have a great life together in the city, all of the adventures I couldn’t even picture in any detail because they were so far beyond anything I’d ever seen, and we’d be so happy together. I couldn’t say any of this, of course, so I didn’t say anything at all. And neither did she. We both just groaned and sank into the individual misery of our hangovers.

Novel Race: Bad Luck, 3

I didn’t notice the woman right away. The man walked in first, and although he wasn’t any taller than me, he still blocked my view of the woman, who stood so close behind him that it almost looked like she was trying to hide under his shirttails, like a little child, although by the lines on her face she was twenty years older than him, at least–his mother, at a guess.

“Can I help you?” I asked, as Dan was asleep in back and the receptionist was off on about her fourth errand of the day.

The man’s face looked like he hadn’t slept in three days. His shirt and jeans were clean but wrinkled, and one of his workboots was coming untied. The woman, her face just peeking around his shoulder, was in even worse shape, her eyes shadowed and sunken, red and wild. He looked exhausted. She looked desperate.

“Victor Barajas,” he said, shaking my hand with one quick jerk. “We need to talk to the detective.”

Knowing that Dan was in no immediate position to talk to them, I asked them to sit and I would check if he was available. They didn’t sit, just stood dazed in the middle of the room, while I snuck into the back room.

Dan was passed out on the couch in a position that couldn’t have been comfortable, neck cricked on the side, body thrown out prone behind him. I put my hand on his shoulder but didn’t shake it, not after what happened the last time I woke him up too violently. “Dan,” I said in a normal tone of voice. Then, louder, close to his ear, “Dan. Wake up. Clients.”

At the last word he jerked around and sat up, eyes half open. “Who are they?”

“Not sure. A Mexican guy and his mom. Want me to get the basics from them while you pull yourself together?”

“No, I’m fine. Show them in.”

“At least button your shirt first.”

He did, and I went out to get the clients. By the time I brought them in, his shirt was buttoned and tucked in, and his eyes were fully opened, as though he’d just been on a conference call instead of sleeping off some combination of substances from the night before. I was always amazed at the quickness of this transition. When he was fucked up, he was fully, impossibly, irredeemably fucked up. But when he was in professional mode, he was all business, intelligent and incisive and focused. He could flip between the two roles like a superhero making a costume change in a phone booth. Victor introduced himself, and indicated his mother, Lilia, who did not shake hands or speak. “Her English isn’t good,” Victor explained, but there was something in her manner that told me it wasn’t a language barrier that was keeping her locked down. She was on edge, so much so that I was almost afraid of her, as tiny as she was. Dan asked them to sit, and they did, and I did, but he kept standing.

“So. What’s the story?”

“My brother is–was–Antonio Barajas,” Victor began. At the mention of his name, the woman began to cry, quietly, but still, tears running down her face. She pulled out a handkerchief to dab her eyes and cheeks. Victor continued, “Have you heard of him?”

Dan shook his head, but I stepped in. “From the garage break-in down on Montrose a few days ago?”

Victor nodded, and I told Dan, “He was working late. A couple kids broke in to steal tools and parts. There was a fight, and he was killed.”

“No, no,” Victor said. “That’s why we’re here. This wasn’t some burglary gone bad. They went there to kill him.”

My thoughts  immediately went to some gangbanger deal. Dan kept up an even line of inquiry: “Why do you think that?”

“It’s not a gang thing. I know you probably think it’s a gang thing, but Tony had nothing to do with any of that.” The denial only made me think the gang angle was more likely. And that wasn’t anything I wanted us to get wrapped up in. But Dan had settled in behind the desk. He was interested, and there was nothing I could do now but listen to the story.

Novel Race: Instant City, 2

The sun was coming up over the east hill as I headed down the road. Mist stirred down in the river valley, pooling in the low places, burning off slowly as the day started to rise. The sky was a glowing mix of pink and blue and white and yellow, unable to make a more specific decision than “pastel.” It seemed more hopeful than I felt. I was very aware of every step, knowing how slowly I was going, knowing the pack felt heavier on my back than it really was. It was so, so quiet. I think I heard it quieter than it was, too. I walked down the road, and I didn’t look back. I didn’t even really look forward, either. I just walked and kept my eyes down, just on the very next step, on the gravel and bugs right in front of me. I got to the end of the road like this, and then turned to head up the hill. I didn’t think I was going to make it. The day was starting to get hot already, a sticky, thick hot that just made you want to go to sleep, and it was so early still. I paused halfway up, and then, before I could stop myself, I looked back. I stood there on the side of the dusty road, pack hitched up on my shoulders, and stared until I couldn’t see anymore. I was there for a very long time.