Irises (19 page)

She started walking again and he followed. “You're the one that got sentenced.”

“I'll put in the sweat labor. All I need is a little help.”

They stepped onto the driveway. “Shit,” he said, when he realized he had left his shoe by the chair.

Mary was a hundred percent sure that it was the first time anyone had uttered the word
shit
in their house. “That must be a kid's word,” she told him with a smile. She had never made fun of anyone as much as she was making fun of him. She walked back and grabbed his shoe by the shoelaces, then brought it to him as if she were carrying a dead mouse by th
e tail
.

“Thanks,” he said. He took his shoe and resumed walking to his car.

“Looks like your ankle is getting better already,” she said.

“I need to have good feet to climb the ladder and paint that wall. It's a monster. It's going to take a couple of months.” He gazed into her eyes, a serious look on his face. “I'd like to do a good job on it. It's a nice community center. That wall's going to be up there for a long time and it'd be good if it was nice, you know.”

She nodded. She knew how it felt to want to create a work of beauty that was lasting. He opened the door to his car. “All right,” she said softly, almost hoping he wouldn't hear it.

But he did. He turned to face her. “You'll help me?”

“I'll help,” she said. She felt excited for some strange reason.

“All right! How about tomorrow after school?”

“Do you even go to school? I haven't seen you since that other day.”

“So you've been looking for me, huh? I go to school now and then. Tomorrow after school?”

“I can't after school.” There was no need to tell him why her afternoons were taken.

“Saturday?”

“Maybe. I'll have to check.”

“That's cool. I'll call you. What's your cell?”

“I don't have a cell.”

“That's all right. I'll find you.”

She stood by the gate and watched him settle in the driver's seat. The engine started with a roar. “I'm not getting in that car unless you put in a seat belt for me,” she yelled at him.

He gave her a thumbs-up. Then he waved and drove away slowly.

God, what did I just get myself into?
Mary said to herself.

 

K
ate had to take the bus after school to the Red Sombrero, since neither Simon nor Bonnie could give her a ride. It was just as well. She needed time to think, to relive the conversation she had with Reverend Soto yet again. He had said the truth required that she consider all the options, that she look at all of them squarely. She leaned her head against the window of the bus and tried to do just that. She went to Stanford, and Mary and Mama stayed with someone. That was the top option, the only one she had considered so far. Who would Mary and Mama stay with? Aunt Julia would be best, but her aunt had never given any indication that she would be willing to take on that responsibility. Besides, it would be cruel to saddle Mary with Aunt Julia. Finding someone to live with Mary and Mama and paying that someone with the insurance money was a better solution. But was it realistic to have someone take care of Mama for four years or maybe longer while she went away first to college and then to medical school?

The bus stopped and a lady with a canvas bag full of groceries started to get on. She had trouble making it up the steps of the bus. She ambled slowly to an empty seat, and as she passed by, Kate saw her thin brown legs. Every night, before Kate went to sleep, she poured rubbing alcohol on her palms and massaged Mama's legs so they would not atrophy. When she first started doing it, she kept expecting Mama to open her eyes, to sit up, say thank you, hug her. But as time went on, the nightly hope gave way to a sense that the limbs she was touching were devoid of energy, that life would never come back
to them
.

The bus passed a sign pointing toward Ascarate Park and she remembered suddenly her mother playing volleyball during a picnic game. It was a school outing, and Mother had volunteered to serve as chaperone. The rest of the mothers sat together talking, but not Mama. She saw that players were needed for a volleyball game and she jumped in uninvited. Kate remembered her bare feet and how she ran to get the ball, laughing with all the joy of an eight-year-old lost at play.

“Mama, we need to let you go,” she whispered.

But the thought that she wanted to let Mama go for her own convenience stuck in her head like a painful splinter she could not remove.
She's no longer alive.
Reverend Soto's words kept coming back to her.
Andy's
words. The images of her mother's limp legs as she massaged them and of her chasing a volleyball, full of life, whirled together in her head one after another. And she saw Andy's soft hands, his fiery eyes and thick black hair. She tried to shake the feelings that came with the thought of him, but then she remembered his sermon and the way he gave it, the emphasis he placed on certain words.
This is crazy
, Kate kept telling herself, hoping she could regain her senses. But it was no use. She felt like a rock hit by a sledgehammer and now there were pieces of her scattered all over the place.

When she got to the Red Sombrero, she was distracted f
or the
first time since she began waitressing. She took food to the wrong tables. She spilled water on a customer's lap. She wrote down the wrong orders. The other waitresses, Simon's father, and even José, the cook, asked her if she was okay. She smiled and nodded that she was fine. She tried to regain her focus, but the efforts lasted only a moment. Then the thoughts, the images would come back like angry bees.

Her shift at the Red Sombrero ended at eight 
p.m
.
, but sometimes, when the restaurant was crowded, she would stay longer to help out. Tonight it was almost nine when she got in the car with Simon to go home. She was feeling slightly drowsy, but the drowsiness felt good. Work hadn't made the thoughts disappear, but it had slowed them down to a manageable speed. Now she could see them float before her without menace, as options rather than threats.

“Are you all right?” Simon asked as soon as they were out of the restaurant's parking lot.

“Sure.” She reminded herself to be careful. She didn't want Simon to know her thoughts, especially about Andy. And yet a part of her did want him to know she had been thinking of someone else.

“I've never seen you like this.”

“Like how?” She slouched in the car seat.

“You're drunk, aren't you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm carrying a bottle in my purse.”

“What?” Simon's head snapped in her direction.

“I'm kidding.”

He slowed down, maybe so he could focus on the conversation. Kate saw a small bubble of peace in her brain about to be disturbed. “What's happening to you?”

“What
is
happening to me? I'm not sure I know.”

They drove in silence for a couple of blocks. Simon tapped the steering wheel with his fist a few times. She could tell he was trying to decide whether he should hold in what he wanted to say or let it out. Finally, he said, “Ever since we talked that day in your backyard, you've been different. I thought you'd be happy that I talked to you about us getting married, and instead it seems like it's one more thing for you to worry about.”

“All I said was that I needed more time.” She didn't understand why she felt suddenly angry.

“All right. You can have more time, but you don't have to push me away in the meantime.”

“You're the one who's been acting strange, like your manhood was humiliated because I didn't jump at your offer.”

“I've been acting strange because you've been strange,” he said defensively. Then he spoke in a different tone, as if he'd just understood what she said. “My offer? You say it like I made you some kind of business deal.”

For a moment she was surprised at Simon's sensitivity. She hadn't thought he could perceive the nuances hidden in her words. “Wasn't that what it was? You were offering to take care of us. The only thing I wasn't clear about was in return for what.”

She realized the cruelty of her words too late. Simon pushed down on the accelerator and the car sped down the empty street. “Simon, be careful,” she pleaded. He slammed on the brakes and then resumed speed at a crawl. Kate felt her ang
er turning
to deep sadness. She opened the glove compartment and took out a package of tissues. She used one to wip
e her
tears. “Honestly, I didn't have anything to drink,” she said.

“I believe you,” he said.

She looked at the tissues. “Remember these?”

Simon nodded and then his face contorted as if he was about to cry. They were both silent. About a year after they started dating, they had gone to Ascarate Park one Saturday evening after a football game. They kissed and fondled each other for a long time and then Simon insisted on revealing himself to her. She touched him and he immediately exploded in her hand. The package of tissues she held now was the same kind she took out of her purse then.

“You made sure that never happened again, didn't you?” She heard the resentment in his voice. But it was true. They had kissed and touched many times since then, but Kate had never again let them be as intimate as that.

She reached over and touched his hand. He jerked it away. Perhaps he sensed that the sentiment behind her touch was similar to pity.

It was only half a mile to her house. When they arrived, h
e parked
in front of the house and turned off first the headlights and then the motor. There was a look of steely determination on Simon's face. He held the steering wheel and looked ahead as if he were driving on a straight road somewhere in the middle of the desert. Then he turned to face he
r,
his back to the door. “I guess I need to know if you love me or not.”

“That sounds almost like a threat.” She said this with humor in her voice, but the question troubled her.

“It's no threat. I just need to know. I can wait if you love me, but if you don't
.
.
.”

“Can't we talk about this some other day? I'm not feeling all that well.”

“Tell me. Why is it so hard?”

“I've told you many times that I do.”

“But you never meant it. Tell me only if you mean it. If you don't mean it, just say so.”

“Why don't you think I meant it?”

“I don't know.” He let his head fall on his chest for a second. “You were always cold. I thought it was just the way you were. I guess I never really felt you liked me as a man. That you liked being with me.”

“I liked you as a man.”

“Liked?”

“Like. Like you,” she corrected herself.

He shook his head. “Sometimes it felt as if I was someone you needed to get you out of the house.” He looked at her and she could tell he was asking that she deny what he had just said. But she couldn't. He took a deep breath and said with finality, “I need to know if you really love me.”

She rubbed her eyes. All the emotions, the thoughts, the images and memories had made her sick with confusion. She needed to clear the cobwebs so she could figure out how best to respond, calculate the best way to proceed. She needed to buy time before responding to his question, the vital question of love's meaning. “Why now? What set you off like this?”

Simon tilted his head back and stared at the roof of the car. “How can you not tell me that you were thinking of going to college at this place in California? How can you not even tell me when you got accepted?”

“Bonnie,” Kate said.

“She didn't mean to tell me. She just assumed you told me. It's normal for a girlfriend to tell her boyfriend, don't you think?”