Mirage(29)

“I love that feeling,” I answer, remembering the exact sensation of combined fear and excitement.

“Right. Well, the thing about you and Dom is, you both like that feeling a little too much. Though”?—?Joe chuckles?—?“you might be even higher on the need-for-adrenaline scale than him. Anyway, your love is a white-hot electric arc. I’m afraid you’ll get burned by it.”

Just as he says this, I see Dom walk out of the hangar. I know what it feels like to walk shoulder to shoulder with him. I remember the taste of his mouth after a long day of jumping, a mixture of sweat and excitement and his spearmint gum. I recall every word he’s ever uttered to me about how remarkable and beautiful he thinks I am. I remember my own words of love and admiration back to him. I remember one night, lying on the grass behind the hangar and staring up into the sea of stars, I told him that I thought we were two halves of the same star. He called me his Lady of Light. Our fire burned the same. Later, he gave me a painting he’d done of a split star, with tendrils of light from the two halves still connected like they were reaching for each other. All of these are beautiful memories but not sensations. I should feel, but I don’t.

I feel dead.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Avery jogs after Dom and follows, puppylike, at his heel. Her hands move excitedly as she talks. While his head is craned toward the sky and the airplane, hers is craned toward him.

“I think I have to let him go,” I say, watching Joe’s face for a reaction. I can’t tell if this pleases him or not. For the first time in hours, though, the spirit reacts. I quaver like someone is grabbing the cage of my ribs and shaking them. My hands dig into the leather seat.

Joe suddenly points skyward. “There they go!”

The plane slows over the drop zone. Little by little, I’m able to make out the forms of bodies dropping. They’re specks, dust motes in the shafts of light between clouds. One by one, parachutes open like falling blossoms against the blue sky. It’s unbearably beautiful.

Joe pulls me in to his side and wipes my cheek. “Don’t worry. You’ll be up there again soon.”

“I don’t know?—”

“Not hearing it. This watered-down Ryan can stay for a while, but sooner or later the real Ryan is going to come back to us, stronger than ever.”

“She might be gone forever.” I sniff, curling closer to his warmth.

“Only if you want her to be.” We sit in silence like that, watching the skydivers float down to earth. Joe shoos me back to my side and starts the car. “I know what you need: some good old-fashioned fun. I need it too. I’ve missed you. You game?” When I stare at him blankly, he whispers, “The right answer is . . .”

I blink the tears away. “Always.”

“That’s my girl. Let’s go.”





Sixteen


WE PULL UP at Joe’s house. The patch of lush green grass in front curls my toes with want. My mother says it’s the Caribbean in us that makes our skin forever thirsty for green.

“Hello, Mrs. Lawrence,” I greet the petite woman who’s bent over a table, gluing colored shards of glass into a bright mosaic. She wipes her hands on her apron and hugs me tightly.

“What’s this Mrs. Lawrence business, honey? Now, you come right in and sit down. Tell me how you’re doing.”

“I’m okay, I guess.” Her shrewd brown eyes scan my face, my hands. She’s watched me grow up, and I can see in her eyes that she knows how I’m doing just by looking at me. I’m getting used to that disenchanted downward flick of the eyes that says I’m less now. “I’m a mess, right?”

A weak smile. She’s good enough not to deny the truth.

Joe grabs my hand and pulls me. “That’s why we’re here. Ma, do you have a robe we can borrow?”

“A robe? I need a robe for good old-fashioned fun?” I ask into his shoulder.

“Honey, no fun is gonna start with you?—?and I say this with complete and utter love?—?looking like you’ve been sleeping with bears on the Pacific Crest Trail for a month.”

Joe scurries around, making lemon water, bringing me a plate of fruit and cheese, and running a bath overflowing with frothy bubbles. He unwraps a travel toothbrush and tosses it on the bed next to me with a look that says, Scrub the ass out of your mouth this instant.

I change into the robe and sit in stupefied silence at how he cares for me, and for the first time in a while I’m embarrassed by how I look, especially as Joe stands in front of me and assesses my hair. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with that gnarly ’fro of yours,” he says, with his hands on his hips. “The fact that you’ve let it go like this worries me more than anything else. Let’s start with the basics like water and shampoo and go from there.”

“Can we cut it?” I ask, surprising myself.

His eyes widen. “You want to hack at that glorious mane of curls you’re so vain about? That doesn’t make me question your sanity at all.”

He takes me by the shoulders and walks me to the bath, slipping the robe off as we go. I smell how rank I am. I clutch the robe to me, and he laughs. “Modesty? You?” I bite my lip and step toward the tub. The scent of ginger wafts around me as I sink into the white blanket of bubbles. “Lean your head back.” He pours a pitcher of water over my head. Having fingers massage soap into my hair feels luxurious and decadent. There is a cat deep inside me, purring with delight.