"The Flamenco Academy" (17 page)

“How do you get him?” Didi repeated as she
drew her finger along the lines she had charted, the lines of his
destiny that, I prayed, I would entangle with my own.

“Okay, here it is.” Didi pointed to the
mandala tangle in the inner circle. “His moon is in the tenth
house, which means the guy has this constant struggle between
security and doing the high-wire act that his talent demands.” She
looked up. “That’s it. That is how you get him.”

“What! What!? Quit being so vague! Tell me,
tell me how I get him!”

“Chill, okay? Okay, you have to be both this
total, total hot vamp and the big, plushy mama cooking up pots of
posole or whatever. You know someone who will be sexy
and
totally take care of him.”

I absorbed this information, soaking it
right into my DNA, willing, anxious, no, ecstatic to change
everything about myself to make it fit whatever template would be
most likely to ensnare him

“Oh God, look at his south node.”

“What the fuck is a fucking south node?”

Didi’s eyebrows jerked up at my language, at
my forgetting our roles: she was the bad girl, I was the
goody-goody sidekick. But already, in that very moment, I had begun
turning myself inside out, reversing all my polarities, waiting to
become whatever, whoever, would make him mine. I tried again. “The
south node?”

“Essentially that’s whatever tendencies he
developed in past lives. The north node is what he’s gotta work on
in this life. Since they’re one hundred and eighty degrees apart,
they totally control his relationships. His work houses and his
love houses are inseparable. Can’t have one without the other. His
work is who he is and who he’s gonna fall in love with.”

“What does that mean? Should I learn to play
guitar?”

“God, no. Guitar guys do not like guitar
chicks. And don’t say Courtney Love cuz she plays for shit.”

“What then?”

Before Didi could answer, the phone rang. My
first thought was
It’s him. How did he find me?
But it was
only Alejandro wondering when we were coming in to work.

Outside, I was surprised both by how bright
the world was, sizzling in the sunshine of an early summer morning,
and by how new it was. Every cottonwood tree we passed flaunted the
green hearts that told the world my secret. His presence was so
strong that it felt as if he were in the car with us. As we cruised
down Central Avenue, I could barely glance at the Aztec, the De
Anza, and just the barest peek at the Ace High as we pulled into
the parking lot of the Puppy made me feel as if I were going to
throw up. I felt his eyes on me as I got out of the car and walked
across the lot.

Ever since my mother left, Alejandro had let
us eat before we started work. Since I’d moved in with Didi, I was
always starving because there was never any food at her house. He
had my favorite, blue corn enchiladas with green chile, all ready
and waiting for me. But I couldn’t look at them. The jangly
excitement that had seized hold of me the instant I set eyes on
Tomás clamped around my throat so tightly that I couldn’t even
think about food.

“Not hungry?” Didi asked, teasing as she
picked sesame seeds off the bun of her Mexi-burger and popped them
one by one into her mouth. “You are so going to waste away.” Didi,
mistress of the weirdo diet, was jealous that I wouldn’t have to
resort to any of her old standbys—laxatives, a finger down the
throat. “You are so lucky. Puking rips hell out of the old tooth
enamel.” She tapped her front teeth, which she’d had to bleach
after they’d turned slightly gray from years of frolics with
reverse peristalsis.

“It’s gonna be all right,
mija
,”
Alejandro said softly when he caught me pushing the enchiladas
away. He had been even nicer than usual to me since my mother left.
But that day, hearing him talking to me as if I were his daughter
made me miss Daddy so much that tears I pushed back stung my eyes.
I knew I wouldn’t have told Daddy about Tomás if he were still
alive, but it would have been nice to think that I could have.

Didi, who usually got mad at me when I was
sad, surprised me that day by putting her arm around my shoulders
and whispering in my ear, “He knows.”

I didn’t have time to ask her who she meant,
Daddy or Tomás, because the dinger started chiming madly and my
breath caught. Against all logic, I was certain it was him. Of
course, it was one of Didi’s disgruntled fan/customers running back
and forth over the hose that made the clinger ring.

“Take it away, ladies,” Alejandro said as he
shoved open the back door to leave.

Didi was actually eating her burger, so I
slid back the order window, told the driver, a middle-aged guy in a
Dodge Ram truck, that Didi was busy, and tried to take the order he
barked at me: “Three Mexi-meals, cut the onions, hold the cheese on
one, two diet D.P.s, a chocolate shake, two orders of tater tots,
extra pico.” But his order slid through my mind as if he hadn’t
spoken. All the synapses I’d formerly used to tend to details were
now devoted to Tomás. I was making the truck guy repeat his order
when a maid at the Ace High across the street opened one of the
motel’s glass doors to shake a rag out on the balcony and a gold
curtain flashed in the sunlight. My heart stopped and all I could
do was stare, certain that he was about to step onto the
balcony.

Didi gently pried the pad out of my frozen
hand and took over for me. Which is exactly what she was doing when
a perfectly restored old Jaguar XKE pulled in. Logically, I knew it
couldn’t be Tomás, but that didn’t stop me from peeking over Didi’s
shoulder just to make sure. I saw everything that Didi did: the
driver was in his mid-twenties, okay but far from great-looking,
and obviously rich. He had CDs of Marilyn Manson, Lou Reed, the New
York Dolls, and the Strokes spread across the passenger seat. We
also noticed a travel mug with a Brown University logo and some
suspicious scars on the inside of his left arm that brought a
distant memory to mind of one of Sheriff Zigal’s drug lectures back
in Houdek and the word
tracks
. I’m sure that Didi, who was
always several steps ahead of me, had already put all the symptoms
together and diagnosed a bohemian preppy with motive and means
enough to finance a walk on the wild side.

Didi leaned out the window until she was
nearly close enough to lick his ear and asked, “You like the
Strokes?”

The driver picked up the CD, shrugged, and
tossed it aside. “They’re okay.” He was one of those guys who acts
like he’s handsome even though he isn’t. Everything about him was
too long: his face, his nose, his teeth, his long neck with its
long Adam’s apple. He looked as if he’d been held over a flame and
melted. That didn’t stop him from staring at Didi and licking his
lips in a cheesy way like some jerk watching a stripper circling a
pole. None of that seemed to bother Didi. “Depends who you’re
talking about. Julie can be kind of a prick. Al’s not bad.
Fabrizio. Well, what can I say about Fabs?”

“You know Julie and Fabs?”

He shrugged. “I went to boarding school with
them in Switzerland.” He kept staring at Didi like he was about to
ask for a lap dance, running his tongue around his lips. He held a
cell phone up. He asked Didi, “You want to talk to him?”

“No! You can get Julie Casablancas on the
phone?”

“Come with me and find out.”

As Didi looked at me, considering, he yelled
out, “And bring a couple orders of taquitos to go!”

“I thought you were through with—”

Didi cut me off. “This isn’t a mission. He’s
not famous.” She smiled. “He just knows famous people.” She handed
me the order pad. “You’ve got Mystery Man now. Maybe it’s time for
me to see what’s out there.”

By the time Didi was out the door, the guy
had cleared away the CDs so she could occupy the passenger
seat.

“Didi!” I yelled and she stopped for a
moment as she was getting in the Jag. Then I didn’t know what to
say.
Be careful?
Of what? Didi had negotiated much worse
situations. She jumped into the car and was gone before I knew what
I wanted to tell her.

She came home that night very late, giddy as
a game-show contestant who’s just picked the right curtain. She
threw her arms around me. “I love you. God, I love you. I know you
love Mystery Man best now, but I still love you best.”

She was high. Extremely high. “What did that
guy give you?”

“ ‘That guy’? His name is Paco.”

That sounded affected to me since he was
such a WASP.

“Oh, Rae-rae, you will love Paco and he will
love you.” Didi dragged out her big duffel with wheels, opened
drawers, and stuffed whatever she scooped out into the bag.

“What are you doing? Are you going
somewhere?”

“God, I sure the hell hope so.” She laughed
the way really stoned people laugh when they think they’re in on a
joke that the straight world will never get. She yanked open a
drawer and shoveled bras and panties into the bag.

“Didi,” I said sternly, “where are you going
right now?”

“To camp!” she declared brightly as if that
were the punch line to her special stoned-people joke. “A special
camp in New York where I’ll get merit badges in schmoozing, seeing,
and being seen, and”—Didi had to pause for a full laugh
attack—“using people on my way up!”

“Didi, really, where are you going?”

“New York. Can you believe it? Paco went to
that same ritzy school in Switzerland as Julian Casablancas did!
They smoked hash together! Or, well, actually, Paco’s cousin did.”
Didi always had a fine disregard for degrees of separation. “But
the important thing is Paco is way connected in the whole New York
glam-revival scene and—best part!—he loveloveloves my music.”

“Your music?”

“The stuff I’ve been working on. I haven’t
written much down. It’s mostly in my head. I told Paco my
influences and he totally gets it. What? Did you think I was going
to be a groupie my whole life?”

A horn honked outside. “Oops, Pock said if I
wasn’t back in five minutes, I would have to travel naked.” Didi
dragged the bag toward the door like a giant black dog on a
leash.

I jumped up and grabbed her. “Didi, you’re
not going anywhere. You’re stoned.”

She let the leash drop. The bag fell to the
floor and with it any hint that she might be high. She suddenly
seemed more sober than I’d ever seen her. “I’m not leaving because
I’m high. Rae, I got high so I could leave. I couldn’t do this
straight and I have to. I have to leave. School is out, baby. What
could possibly, in a million years, happen to me that would be
worse than spending the next three months sweating like a piece of
old cheese in that grease trap?”

“But Didi, you don’t know anything about
this guy.”

“Quit calling him ‘this guy.’ I didn’t call
Tomás ‘this guy.’ And I know everything I need to know about him. I
know he’s rich, I know he’s connected, and I know”—she held up her
pinkie and leaned in close to me—“I can wrap him around this. And
that is a hell of a lot more than you know about Mystery Man, and
tell me you wouldn’t leave me for him in a heartbeat.”

“Didi, I’m not leaving you. I’d never leave
you.”

She laughed as if the whole conversation had
been a joke and I was stupid to have fallen for it. “Jeez, Rae,
don’t lez out on me. Here.” She tossed me the keys to the Mustang.
“Keep the battery charged.”

“Didi, no. You haven’t even told your mom.
Didi, you can’t just leave like this!”

But she was already out the door.

A few hours later, while I was debating
whether to tell Mrs. Steinberg or just call highway patrol myself,
Didi called on Paco’s cell phone. She was singing, “ ‘Would you get
hip to this kindly tip?’ ”

I knew right off that I was supposed to sing
back, “ ‘Get your kicks on Route 66!’ Deeds, you’re taking Route
66!”

“As far as we can!”

“Are you okay?”

“Okay? This is how I want to live the rest
of my life.”

“I miss you.”

“Can you hear me, because I can’t hear
you!”

“I said I miss you. I really miss you!” But
the call had already ended in a crackle of static.

The next call came around two that morning.
I was on Didi’s computer, reading everything I could find on
flamenco. She was singing, “ ‘Cadillac, Cadillac. Long and dark,
shiny and black,’ ” when I answered.

I sang back, “ ‘Don’t let ’em take me to the
Cadillac Ranch!’ ”

“Ooo, girl knows her Boss.”

“You’re at the Cadillac Ranch?”

“At this very moment, Paco is spray-painting
a giant white circle on top of all the graffiti so we can put the
title of my first CD up there: DIDI’S CD. Isn’t that perfect? A
really good friend of Paco’s does the cover art for the Strokes.
Paco already called him and the guy is pumped to do my cover. Oh,
he finished. I want to put the title up there while it’s still wet
so it’ll run. Bye!”

I knew they’d detoured when she called a few
days later and sang a question, “I’m going to—?”

“ ‘Graceland! Graceland! Memphis,
Tennessee!’ ” I sang back. “You got off of Route 66.”

“Had to come and pay our respects to the
King, right? But, God, Graceland is so small, you wouldn’t believe
it. And tacky? What’s the point of being an icon if this is all
you’re going to do with it? Oh, Paco is waving for me. He’s doing a
series of me in front of Japanese tourists.”

Didi forgot to turn the phone off and I
heard Paco pretending that Didi was famous and they were on an
important photo shoot. By the time the battery went dead the
Japanese tourists were asking Didi for her autograph.

The next day, I visited every record store
listed in the Yellow Pages: Borders, Music Mart, Hastings,
Wherehouse. None of them carried Tomás’s CD,
Santuario
.
There was only one shop left on my list, Onomatopoeia Records, an
indie on Central. I didn’t usually have the nerve to enter
Onomatopoeia alone since the guys who worked there had a withering
sense of superiority they used to shrivel anyone caught buying
uncool music. With Didi, I was fine since she was cool enough for
two people, but on my own it took an act of courage.