Fool's Journey (24 page)

She followed the lines of the familiar
rooms with her cleaning, wiping away the anger from the woodwork, sweeping the
crumbs of fear from the floor. She dusted every book, polished every ornament,
sensing that the
diablo
had
touched each one of them.

In the bedroom she pulled the sheets from
the bed and remade it, even turning the mattress and changing the blankets and
bedspread. The man had sullied everything, like a dog marking its territory!
Anger bubbled within her, and she took a deep breath. She knew Deirdre was
right—there would be no coming back to this place. Best to find somewhere with
no memories.

When her work was done, she would burn
sage and say some prayers, and perhaps rearrange the furniture. She didn’t want
the spirit to know the place if he sought out Deirdre again in the plane of the
living.

“Deirdre? You left the door wide open!
Are you nuts?”

Mrs. Ruiz recognized Panda’s voice and
hurried forward to the front of the apartment.

“What’s up, Mrs. R.? This isn’t your day
to clean.”

“Unexpected mess,” Mrs. Ruiz replied
briefly. Had she really left the door open?

“Where’s Deirdre?”

“Out.” She had no duty to say more. She
only distrusted Panda a little, but that was enough.

“Did she say when she’d be
back?” Panda asked as she plopped down on the sofa.

Mrs. Ruiz shrugged. “You back from your
trip so soon?”

“Yeah, look what I brought back!” Panda
opened her duffel and pulled out a sack. “I have four new tarot decks.” She
tossed them one by one on the table. “Environmental, Post-Modern, Folk and
Dickensian.”

Mrs. Ruiz shook her head. “Next thing you
know, they’ll have a deck for Republicans.”

 
“You are such a kick in the pants!” Panda
laughed. “Come on, have a look.”

“Why you spend your money on these
things?” she asked, ruffling through the cards. “You get another grant?”

“Matter of fact, I did. I got the final
go ahead in New Orleans. I’m going to do a study on the ways in which the
beliefs of subcultures are reflected in New Age marketing. Can I get an
interview with you?”

“Too much to do, Panda. I’ll tell Deirdre
you were here.”

“Wait, I’ve got a little present for
her.” She dug in her bag again, pulled out a tissue wrapped bundle and set it
on the table.

Mrs. Ruiz felt the hair rise on the back
of her neck. “What’s that?”

Panda grinned and said, “A new
boyfriend.” She pulled back the tissue and revealed a skull-headed doll wearing
a tux and top hat. “Just a minute – where’s his cigar? Here we go – direct from
the New Orleans Voodoo Museum, Baron Samedi! That should keep the bogeyman
away!”

Sweat broke out on Mrs. Ruiz’ forehead.
“Put that away, Panda. That’s nothing to give to a friend.”

“But he’s supposed to be powerful
protection,” she protested. “They told me at the shop he’s a partying spirit
who likes to drink rum. Where’s the harm in that?”

Mrs. Ruiz set her lips in a grimly. “He’s
the Lord of the Cemeteries, Panda. God of the Dead.”

           
Manny and Deirdre walked along the
downtown waterfront in the crisp fall breeze, hands thrust in their pockets.
Deirdre’s face felt the numb champagne glow fading, and she wished she could
save forever the day she and Manny had shared: intimate and safe.

Ahead a few blocks, she could see the entry
to the Market where this had all begun several days ago. It seemed almost
possible that she might see herself and Panda winding through the crowd with
their pink plastic foo dogs, unaware that life was about to change. The
Dovinger Prize and the prospect of early tenure had made her happy, but they
seemed insignificant compared to this simple day of shopping for the children.
Why?
 

           
“You’re frowning, Deirdre.”

           
She looked up at Manny. His
expression was concerned, but the inquiry she read in his eyes was not
demanding. “Just thinking in circles.”

           
“Do you want to talk it through?”

           
She smiled. "It’s difficult to put
into words. These past few days have given me emotional whiplash."

           
"How do you feel today?"

           
"Happy—very happy. I didn't
think I could come close to the way I felt when I was down here last week.
Before I ran into that trouble, Panda and I were celebrating the Dovinger prize
and my tenure offer."

           
She took a few more steps, off the
sidewalk and across a stretch of grass to the seawall. There she leaned against
the cement and stared up at the sky. “It's a terrible thing to distrust
happiness,” she said.

           
“But you’re afraid not to?”

           
“Every time I've relaxed my guard,
I've been sorry."

           
“If you stay where you are and
ignore Willard’s threats, what’s the worst that could happen?”

           
Deirdre felt the tears prick at her
eyes. “Being found out,” she whispered. "I don’t want to be known for that
one moment in time, for killing my father. No one would ever see me again
without the caption of those damned headlines. Dovinger or not, no one would
read my poetry without looking for that one symbol. I couldn’t teach in peace,
even with tenure. It would change everything. The press would disturb my
mother. Aunt Heinous would be offering tell-all interviews to the highest
bidder."

           
“Do you really think Freemont will
expose you? You seem to be at an impasse.”

           
“I don’t know,” she said wretchedly.
“It depends on how much of a thrill he’d get from ruining my life. He can do
more harm to me than I can to him.”

           
“Maybe, but he may not know that. I
suspect he has trouble seeing beyond his ego.” His tone wasn’t convincing.
There was something he wasn’t saying.

           
“What does your intuition tell you,
Manny?”

           
He didn’t answer at once, and she
appreciated it. Even at the university—especially at the university—a quick
response seemed to be valued more than a considered one.

At last he said, “Tell me what your
best-case scenario is—within the bounds of reality, what would make this all go
away?”

           
“I don’t suppose a genie and three
wishes is an option?”

           
He grinned. “Not in my experience.”

           
There was so much she wanted, and so
much she feared. Lines from the
Rubaiyat
sprang to mind:

Ah Love! could Thou and I
with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of
Things entire,

Re-mould it nearer to the
Heart’s Desire!

           
If only she could disappear into
Manny’s life, instead of her own. Waking to the purring of the orange cat, the
scents of the safe warm kitchen, falling asleep against his shoulder each
night—but that wasn’t an option. He’d told her to be realistic.

           
“Damn.” She took a deep breath. “The
best I can hope is for Freemont to take me seriously. I told him to resign from
the university and go away.”

           
“That’s all you want?” He looked at
her for a moment, then turned around to face the water. “Do you think that
might happen?”

           
“No. It won’t be that easy. He was
only scared for a moment last night. Then he figured out the truth about me. He
has a much bigger weapon than he thought.”

           
“Did he say anything at all about
what happened in the Market? About cutting your hair?”

           
“No,” she said slowly. “Not even a
hint.”

           
“So we’re not absolutely sure that
he had anything to do with it.”

           
She shook her head. “He has to.
Otherwise it’s too much of a coincidence.”

           
“Not coincidence, but maybe
synchronicity.”

           
Like in a poem, she thought.
Symbols, archetypes brought together to form a web of meaning. Here she stood
at the edge of the water with a man she wanted to love. Above, a chain of crows
flung themselves against the sky, separating and regrouping in black
formations. Darkness and light.

           
As Manny drove them back to his
aunt’s, he felt his mood deflate. What had he expected Deirdre to say back
there anyway? He knew they had a connection that struck sparks, but he was
foolish to think anything more could come of it—at least until the snarls of
her life had been smoothed.

If he had one mission in all of this, it
was to find a way to help Deirdre live her life without fear. She was right
about the Press. If they smelled blood, they’d never let her go. But that issue
was separate from the stalking.

The more he thought about it, the more
convinced he was that Freemont Willard had nothing to do with what had happened
with the hair cutting and the wreath. Willard was essentially a lazy man and a
coward. The planning involved and the risk of being caught in the act were too
great for him to have done something in public.

           
He glanced over at Deirdre. She
stared straight ahead, hands clasped on her lap. His heart hurt to see how
lonely and frightened she looked. There was a Spanish proverb:
God keeps the cold
wind from the shorn lamb
. He prayed it was
true.

           
When
Deirdre and Manny finally returned, the orange cat, Calabaza, was lounging on
the front porch in the last of the day’s sunlight. She stretched, then leapt to
weave herself between Deirdre’s ankles, and issued a purring thrum.

           
Deirdre
knelt and rubbed the cat’s ears.

           
“She
doesn’t welcome many,” Manny said. “A very discriminating creature.”

           
Welcome
. The idea was foreign to her.
The home she grew up in could hardly have been called welcoming. The ones she’d
filtered through later had offered only the safety of cold neutrality. The
homes she had made for herself had been womb-like refuges: there had never been
room for more than one.

           
“I
haven’t known any cats before,” she said. “My father had an aversion to them,
and later, there was never the chance for a pet.” Deirdre traced the cat’s fine
bones as she petted her. “I didn’t know a purr could be so loud.”

           
Calabaza
pranced to the front door and meowed. “She says, ‘Come in,’” Manny said as he
pushed the door open and stood aside for her.

Inside, they
found the children sitting on the sofa, staring at the pile of packages that
had been delivered, as if their mere concentration could snap away the tape and
strings.

           
“I
told them to wait until you got here,” Rosa told them, coming in from the
kitchen. “Looks like the two of you worked hard today.”

           
“¿Podemos abrirlos?”
The children all
but bristled with curiosity.
“¿Por
favor?”

           
Manny
glanced at Deirdre. “Can they open them, or do you want them to wait?”

           
She
laughed. “How can I ask them to wait? Look at their eyes.”

           
Ana
clapped her hands, apparently understanding, and Marco set about opening the packages.
The children's squeals of delight with each discovery lightened her heart and
brought back the mood she’d experienced earlier.

           
“I
went to your place to tidy up, Deirdre,” Mrs. Ruiz said. “I hope you don’t
mind.”

           
“Of
course not. That was so kind of you. Was everything all right?”

           
“It
needed cleaning,” she said briefly, “so I cleaned it. Panda came by.”

           
“I
forgot! She’s back from New Orleans.”

“Yes. She wants
you to call her.”

“What did you
tell her?” Manny asked.

           
“Just
that Deirdre was out.”

           
Deirdre
knelt to help Ana try on the frog rain boots she had purchased earlier. “Good!
They fit! What do you think of those froggies?”