Reflection
“You look like a stud.” Kahlil assessed Kestrin's reflection.
“I left the scruff on tonight.” Kestrin finished buttoning his shirt. A night out with Kahlil required formal attire, and Kestrin felt like looking his age, so he'd solicited aid from his facial hair.
Kahlil nodded with approval. “Very nice.”
“Great, let's go.” Kestrin slid into his borrowed suit jacket and they plunged down the elevators to the parking garage and Kahlil's silver Z3.
Kahlil's plan was to snag rush tickets at the Seattle Opera. Kestrin would have rather gone to the shooting range, but Kahlil's eyes had widened at the thought of Kestrin and guns, alarmed by the thought of his friend's emotional state combined with weapons. The way Kahlil said “I hear La Bohéme is playing right now,” implied that his suggestion wasn't meant to be challenged.
“Can we stop by the store and get something?” Kestrin asked as they pulled onto the street.
“What do you need?”
“Orange juice.”
“Are you serious? Didn't you just buy a whole carton?”
“I drank it.”
As Kestrin stood in front of the Safeway drink cooler, choosing between pulp and pulp-free, barraged by thoughts of kissing Lorona and trying to not lose complete composure, he felt a manicured nail tap his shoulder and slide down his back. Only one woman was that comfortable and brazenly affectionate with him in public.
“Mom?” he turned. “What are you doing here?”
Gold-flecked lip gloss spread wide around bright white teeth. “Tracking you down, baby boy.”
This was probably half true.
“Come have dinner with me and Craig,” she invited.
“Craig? Have I heard about this one?”
“Tonight is our first date. I don't mind if you crash.”
“Kahlil wants to go to the opera.”
“The opera? Not the first place I'd imagine my son going for fun.” The green around her eyes shimmered like snakeskin in the florescent light of the grocery store. Amanda wore a sea green dress that hugged her hips. She stroked the back of Kestrin's hand gently with the tip of her nail. “Can't you give your tickets to someone else?” she asked, then exclaimed “Kahlil!”
His friend left the bulk foods display and walked over.
“Our treat. Come on, love! We're going to Palisade.”
“Well, we actually haven't bought the opera tickets yet,” Kestrin admitted. “Kahlil, what do you say?”
Kahlil graciously accepted the invitation.
Amanda whooped and threw her arms around him. It was comforting to Kestrin to know there was still at least one woman who he could make happy.
They drove separately to the restaurant, walked together across the bridge that spanned the indoor fish pond with its small waterfall and fresh ferns, and were seated in an elegant four-person booth with Amanda and Kestrin on one side and Kahlil and Craig on the other. Kahlil shook hands with Craig, and launched into polite conversation about Craig's job as a stock broker.
The linen tablecloth was strewn with fresh pink, yellow, and red flower petals. Kestrin took a yellow petal and crushed it between two fingers as he listened to the quiet gurgle of the waterfall. If the opulence of the opera didn't suit his personal preferences, the restaurant's finery was even more stifling. He felt Craig's eyes watching him while he tried to appear engrossed in Kahlil's conversation.
Amanda took Kestrin's face in her hands. “Unshaven? That's unlike you.”
“I'm going for the rugged look.”
“You should shave. It makes you look like a baby angel with your smooth cheeks and curls.”
Kestrin didn't bother saying this was why he was avoiding the look. Instead he said, “I'm thinking of shaving those, too, actually.”
Amanda scraped her butter knife across her bread dish with a painful screech. “You wouldn't dare! They're your best feature!” She took a fistful of hair and released it with a satisfied sigh.
A bare head made Kestrin think of monks in a monastery out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but forests and sky and solitude. It also reminded him of chemotherapy and death and mourning.
How many people shaved their head after a failed relationship? Correction: Failed marriage. And furthermore, a failed faith in destiny.
He thought of Lorona sitting with him on his hammock and again he couldn't think coherently at all. He stared at the delicate crystal stemware waiting to be filled with wine and considered how easily the stem could snap.
I need a drink.
His mother was staring, observing his face, but unable to read it. “What's wrong?” she said.
As if she couldn't guess. He'd already given her a brief summary over the phone, but she kept asking for more. Why do women always want a novel instead of two sentences? He crushed several more petals and didn't answer.
“What I don't understand is why this girl is affecting you so much more than the others.”
Kestrin spoke slowly, as if the words were tough to chew on. “I married this one.” He felt like he'd slipped into the fishpond and the water was slowly rising around his neck.
Craig had apparently discarded any attempt to hide his eavesdropping. He turned with a sardonic grin and cupped his chin in the heel of his hand. “Welcome to the world of the divorced. You'd be surprised how many of us there are.” He winked at Amanda. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Kahlil was crumbling his sourdough roll, doing a superb job of not looking bored.
A waitress arrived with a kerosene wand to light the oil lamp in the center of their table.
“I never said I divorced her,” Kestrin corrected, ignoring the interested stare of the waitress. The invisible water touched his chin, threatening to suffocate him.
“But you're planning to, right?” Amanda pressed. She tickled the hairs on the back of his neck with her fingernail.
“I didn't say that, either.”
Amanda leaned toward Craig, hand still on Kestrin's neck. “Darling, I don't believe I told you, but my son was quite the Don Juan in his circles.”
Craig looked as though he were preparing for a juicy, scandalous story that he was prepared to enjoy.
Kestrin bolted to his feet, knocking against the lip of the table, clearing the sensation of death by emersion. In his peripheral vision he could see the heads of people at the surrounding tables swivel toward him. The rush of the indoor fountain grew loud in his ears. He leaned forward and hissed, his eyes moving from Craig to Amanda. “This is not up for discussion. Especially—nothing personal, Craig—not in front of strangers.”
Amanda tugged him back into his seat and ordered a bottle of expensive wine after making eyes at Craig, who was paying. She completely evaded the subject of women and Lorona for the rest of the dinner and talked instead about a luxury spa and resort she wanted visit in Costa Rica.
They left the restaurant with a good amount of wine still buzzing in their veins and Amanda insisted on strolling along the marina for another half an hour until it wore off. When at last she and Craig had left, Kestrin and Kahlil stood alone in the parking lot.
“That was incredible food,” Kestrin belched.
“I'm going on a fast tomorrow.” Kahlil rubbed his swollen stomach. “I'm sure I have plenty of calories to get me through the next twenty-four…days.”
Kestrin watched Craig's tail lights flashed on the street beyond. “My Mom's good for me.” He caught a dark shadow between Kahlil's eyebrows, so he added, “She helps me lighten up. She takes me out to dinner when I'm feeling bad. Did your mom ever do that? Heck, did you ever have a girlfriend who did that?”
Kahlil frowned. “I thought it was the guy's job to foot the bill.”
“Not like that. I just like how my mom takes care of me.”
“Your mother worships you, Kestrin. If it wouldn't be incest, I think she'd happily discard any boyfriend for you.”
Kestrin felt his face flood with heat. “Take it back.” He clenched his jaw. “Right now.”
Kahlil took a step backward, his eyes widening in gentle alarm. “Okay, I take it back. I'm probably coming across too strong, but seriously…” He looked at the sky as if it could finish his sentence.
There were a few vaporous clouds, powder blue floating over a cobalt pond and lily pad moon. The chilled scent of pine trees washed over them and Kahlil shuddered.
Kestrin found a round stone in the parking lot planter. He rubbed it between his fingers before hurling it into the trees and said, “If you spent your life moving from one relationship to the next, from crappy job to crappy job, weaseling alliances and favors from men, living in cheap rentals that you sweet-talked the landlords into discounting for you—enough said there—and the only constant person in your life was your son who adored you, maybe you'd get why my mom is obsessed with me. It's nothing inappropriate.”
Kahlil raised his hands in surrender. “I'm not here to attack you. I'm saying this because I'm concerned.”
“Fine. What has you so concerned?”
“Your mom couldn't stay happily married and I don't think she'd want you to either. I think she really believes that ‘happily’ can't be part of the equation.”
“Maybe she's right.”
“You need more than one juror to make a decision like that. Besides,” Kahlil stopped, his expression growing pained, then said, “I think your mom's planning something, something to do with you or Lorona.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I've attended lots of body language classes. In business you need to know if the deal is about to dissolve or if you're pushing too hard or whatever. Your mom is sure that Lorona is bad news, and I just have this nasty feeling that she's going to do something to support her convictions.”
“Relax. She's not going to kill her.”
“I don't think she'll kill her. But she's going to do something and I doubt it'll be nice.” Kestrin stared at the moon and silently begged for its help. If it could make his heart brave in love, perhaps it could help solve the mess he'd already made of everything. But it revealed nothing, and its smooth white face only seemed to imply that it might be able to solve everything, but only if it decided that it felt like it.
“Kest,” Kahlil whispered. “You're staring at the moon all dreamy-eyed again. It makes me feel lonely.”
Kestrin laughed, but now couldn't shake the image of Lorona's hair, silver and gold in the moonlight. He closed his eyes against it and asked Kahlil to drive them home.
The tent was full of silence; pink, velvet, ominous silence.
Madame Ovary said, “I assume your friend dragged you here against your will?” She spoke in a surprisingly ordinary voice. Instead of ethereal and wispy, it had a dry, sarcastic rasp like Lorona's never-married Aunt Dolores. The psychic smacked the seat of a puffy chair with her bejeweled hand and folded her knuckles under a double chin.
“What do you want from me, missy?” She seemed bored and also pleased with herself for throwing the order of waiting clients into disarray.
Lorona answered, “Nothing,” and blushed immediately. Her curiosity was clanging with question after question inside her head as if she held spinning lottery balls between her ears.
Madame Ovary closed her eyes slowly, one millimeter at a time, letting her forest of lashes crawl downward. Her palms flipped up. She entirely ignored the crystal ball, and Lorona felt a weird intangible tug on her arms, telling her to place her hands inside the woman's. As Lorona's fingertips touched the fortune-teller's palms, Madame Ovary sucked in sharply through her teeth. The surprise felt genuine, but Lorona couldn't tell. She flinched and tried to pull away, but wrinkled thumbs curled over her hands and held them in place.
“Your heart is troubled.” Madame Ovary opened her purple-rimmed eyes and didn't blink as she spoke. “You have betrayed him, and yet,” she paused, probing Lorona's face, “you do not fully understand what you have done.”
Madame Ovary smiled, still not blinking, and an invisible ice cube slid down Lorona's spine.
“You have yet to find the answers he seeks. There is a missing part of something that he needs and he will not tell you what it is. You must find this and bring it to him.”
“Find what?”
Madame Ovary shook her head. She still hadn't blinked. Lorona flipped her hands so that her own palms faced up, expecting the woman to examine their creases. Madame Ovary folded Lorona's hands in on themselves and shook her head. “I don't need to see your lines to know this. It's written all over your face. If you love him, and I can see that you do, you'll need to pass the tests that were written before you were born.”
“I'm totally confused.” The skepticism returned. It felt good to tell this woman she was crazy. It meant Lorona didn't have to take her seriously.
“Listen,” Madame Ovary snapped. Her unblinking eyes watered, as if she still couldn't close them. “You are the only girl tonight who's invoked anything real. This,” she spread her arms across the tent and then pointed one crooked finger at Lorona's chest, “is real and I can feel it.” She shuddered, and then in the same dry rasp she said, “You will find your first answer on the wall, the second in the scent of deception, the third in the life within, and the fourth emblazoned on your own flesh. If he is brought to see these four signs, he will have his answers to his dream.”
“I don't understand.”
Madame Ovary gasped and fell forward. Her hands rushed to her eyes and she blinked furiously, in obvious pain. She sat there for a moment, rubbing them, and then reached for a small vial of eye drops which she administered carefully, four drops in each eye.
“Get out of here, little vixen,” she said affectionately. “You're done for tonight.”
“Where do I pay?”
“Zilch, kiddo. I never charge for the real ones.” She cleared her throat and made a swatting motion at her.
As Lorona ducked out of the tent, she hoped her cider would still be warm enough to melt the ice in her throat. Yuki asked no questions. They left the dark barn in silence, and the sounds of the carnival behind them seemed to have morphed to a frantic crescendo, as if the whole place had fallen into black chaos and they'd escaped in the nick of time. They didn't touch the radio on the car ride back, preferring the hum of the engine as Yuki drove home in the slow lane.
Yuki unlocked the apartment door and they both stood in front of it, neither entering. “Was it real?” Yuki asked in a soft voice, as if she were whispering in a church.
Finally Lorona whispered back, “I'm scared enough to believe it might have been.”
“If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?” Kahlil sat cross-legged on his bed with his laptop and fixed Kestrin with a firm gaze. It was a sunny Saturday morning and just seeing Kahlil in a loose shirt without buttons made Kestrin feel more relaxed and optimistic about life.
Kestrin dropped the book he was pretending to read. “Anywhere?”
“Absolutely anywhere.”
“Yosemite.”
“To visit your aunt?”
“Yep.”
“Carlotta?”
“Close. Carlina.”
“That's right. She's got a vineyard or something?”
“Yeah. Very interesting woman. She wants her ashes blown into glass paperweights, sold, and the proceeds sent to an AIDS orphanage that she sponsors in Africa.” Kestrin flipped onto his stomach. “On top of all that, she understands women and men better than anyone I know, and in a much healthier way than my mother. She married her college sweetheart.”
Just thinking of sitting on Carlina's front porch, smelling the ponderosa pines, drinking merlot from her vineyard, sounded exactly like the treatment Kestrin thought he needed. She'd have some good thoughts on destiny, too. Kestrin pulled himself out of the reverie.
“And she's been married for twenty years.”
“I see.” Kahlil seemed suddenly preoccupied with typing.
“You know how unhealthy it is to answer work emails from home?” Kestrin tossed a couch pillow at Kahlil, who dodged it without looking up.
Kestrin tried a new topic. “Do you still mean what you said about my mom last night, or was it the expensive wine speaking? Do you really think she's planning something awful?”
Kahlil stopped typing. “I still stand by what I said. But let's put your mother aside for a second. Look at yourself. Here you are, planning to consult more people than just Amanda for wisdom in your life.” Kahlil made a definitive click with his tongue and this time he looked up. “In a little over forty-eight hours,” he checked his watch, “we'll be in California, enjoying some wine in the sunshine.”
Kestrin sat up, his heart alive for the first time that day.
Kahlil beamed. “I've just booked two tickets via train that should drop us, oh, somewhere near your favorite destination in the world.”
“Does she know I'm coming?”
“I just emailed her.”
“How did…?”
“I sent it from your inbox. I even signed it ‘K’ so I wouldn't have to lie.” Kahlil folded his hands behind his head. “You can thank me later.”
The evergreens whizzed by, opening every now and then to reveal a mottled iron sheet that shimmered gray and purple in a stretch of Puget Sound before more dark trunks and branches sprang into view and engulfed it in a dense green wall. The sun glowed above the horizon, warming the freezing world.
Kahlil shut his laptop and sighed with pleasure. By Kestrin's count, his friend had already answered ten emails and scheduled twenty more to be sent throughout the day to make it appear that he was still working.
If Kahlil ever made it big in the business world, Kestrin would make their friendship his claim to fame. Kestrin certainly wasn't going to get on the map with his Chocolate Love Cake recipe, his own fanciful dream of popularity, even if he could ever manage to create it. Some people are the dream-achievers and some are just chasing after their dreams, forgetting that the wise thing would be to forget them.
Comparing himself to Kahlil was always a surefire onset to depression. Kestrin fingered his necklace and stared at the shield charm. You've never been wrong before, so why now? He turned to look out the window again. A grown man running to his aunt to comfort him over the dissolution of an idiotic marriage…Oh yeah, this is what epics are made of.
Kestrin decided to visit the food car and jumped to his feet at the perfect time to collide with an elderly woman and her walking cane. She toppled backward in slow motion. Kestrin swung his right arm behind her stooped shoulders as his left encircled her tiny waist like a roller coaster safety bar. Her hands instinctively grasped his forearm and her eyes widened. The next moment, he had someone's grandmother wrapped in a theatrical dip, as if they had just finished a ballroom performance. He briefly imagined a rose in his teeth.
Kahlil broke into unashamed applause.
The woman in his arms was speaking in a delicate, southern accent. “That was right gallant. Very fine. Yes, very fine.” Her eyes twinkled as she smoothed her clothes and patted her hair. She pointed to his wedding band. “Your wife is a lucky lady.”
Kestrin slid back into his seat, his appetite deflated, as the old woman continued down the aisle, her cane plodding along cheerfully.
“Did you want to get breakfast?” Kahlil asked.
“Nah, you go ahead. Just get me some orange juice.”
As soon as Kahlil had gone, Kestrin made his way toward the view car, hoping to bury the mess in his head inside the folds of beautiful scenery.
The click of the wheels on the tracks hypnotized him, and for a while he felt his chest unclench and his mind drift as he mentally swept up and down the valleys, relishing the turning colors of the leaves outside.
All too soon, his memory of packing for the trip resurfaced and the images returned in flashes. It was like Lorona had filled a time capsule and let it explode across the main room when she left the apartment. Every minute in there had stung like smoke in his eyes.
All the knives in the kitchen had been missing by the time he got there. She had probably hidden them because of the entry in his journal. She'd left a pair of underwear on the dresser, black lace and pale blue silk with embroidered herons in flight. He'd bought these for her the day after their wedding. He'd burned through $300 at Victoria's Secret and piled them all over her when she fell asleep before dinner. She'd woken up in a mountain of silk, sparkles and bows.
On impulse, Kestrin had opened her side of the dresser and saw that she'd taken all the items that she'd brought into the marriage and left every single one of the items he'd purchased for her.
He'd checked the fridge for perishables and found a note taped to the freezer door, written on a torn sheet of notebook paper.
I'm leaving. Call if you ever want me back. That's not a demand; it's an if / then statement.
Love, L
Always smart, always collected; even in her sadness, she was still nerdy enough to write a definition to clarify her intent. He pulled the paper off the fridge, kissed it, and was about to slide it into his pocket, then changed his mind and wedged it down the garbage disposal.
It was 11pm when he left the apartment. He'd spent two hours packing, and had only meant to take ten minutes. Even so, he'd grabbed things haphazardly, ending up with a bag full of socks, a few T-shirts, swim trunks, shaving cream (but no razor), and a toothbrush. He had no pants with him except the jeans he was wearing, and no hairbrush. Kestrin knew he'd look like a vagabond by the time he got to Carlina's front door, but it was better than enduring the apartment a second time.
I want to start over. I want to be reincarnated as a horse or a bullfrog or a wolf and just chase food and sunsets.
But it wasn't that easy, and Kestrin had the sinking feeling that he had only one chance to get his life right. As he scanned the interior of the view car, his eyes swept over a young woman in her twenties who wore a flower-patterned skirt and a white blouse with a ruffled collar. She appeared to jump, as if startled. He'd accidentally sent out a hook and it had caught.
Damn it.
Kestrin knew from the way she tucked her hair nonchalantly behind one ear and rubbed her lips together that she was already being reeled in. She shut her novel and slid it into her green canvas bag. Her slow lope led her to the seat across from his cluster of cushions. He couldn't help comparing her audacious flirtation to Lorona's shy reserve. He preferred the insecure, pretty, intelligent bookstore clerk. The woman planted herself and started reading again, elbows on knees, leaning over so that her blouse fell open a little.
Unbelievable.
Kestrin had seen this sort of thing happen before; he had this effect on some girls. But the timing was all wrong.
I shouldn't be able to send signals like this right now.
Kestrin wanted to call for Kahlil, who was probably stuffing his face with a bacon and egg sandwich at the moment. Kestrin's legs felt heavy. He closed his eyes. If he could make himself think of the dream, maybe the unattainable dream girl would banish this attainable temptress.
“Words in sea ink upon a red stone,” Kestrin muttered through gritted teeth.
“I'm sorry, did you say something?” The girl was gazing at him over the top of her novel, no longer pretending to read.
Speaking out loud had been accidental. “Sorry, just talking to myself.”
“A sign of intelligence, I've heard.” She smiled a set of dazzling teeth. Her skin looked incredibly soft.
You are not thinking about her skin.
Kestrin cleared his throat. Now was Kahlil's cue to enter.
And, because there was something supernatural about his friend, at that exact moment Kahlil appeared on the scene, a bottle of orange juice in hand, the perfect rescuer in Kestrin's moment of need. Kahlil's face looked bright. He always felt better after he'd eaten, which was because he didn't do it often.
It only took one look at Kestrin and the legs and skirt across from him for Kahlil to understand everything. The next moment he said loudly to Kestrin, “Heidi called.”
Kestrin's eye twitched.
Kahlil looked immensely pleased with his own joke. He continued, “She said you left your Sponge Bob boxers at her house and she's going to show them to her high school reunion this weekend. You should really learn to clean up after yourself, lover boy.” It didn't even sound remotely like something Kahlil would say, but it worked.
The novel-reading eavesdropper shut her book and crunched her pretty eyebrows together.
No, they're not pretty, Kestrin, they're just eyebrows.
She quickly found something interesting by the window on the far side of the car and Kahlil steered Kestrin back toward their seats.
“Thanks, man. I knew I'd talk to her, and then I'd smile at her, just to see if I still had it in me. I'm weak right now.”
Kahlil heaved open the door between cars. “Remind me to not let you out of my sight.”
“Right… By the way, what was that about Heidi?”
“I figured she'd produce hostility all over your face. It worked.”
“Like hell it worked.” Kestrin shoved past Kahlil to get to their seats, but once there, he didn't feel like sitting.
Kestrin's cell phone rang. He made no move to answer it.
“You want me to get that?” Kahlil asked.
Kestrin shrugged.
Kahlil answered, listened, then muffled the phone into his shoulder. “Your landlady says your mom's there about a lock and key or something.”
“Oh, right.” Amanda was returning the spare. “Tell her it's fine.”
When Kahlil had finished, he turned to Kestrin, “I just thought that since you were married, you must have had a heart-to-heart with Lorona about everything. She knows about Heidi, right? Why are you shaking your head?”
“I never told her about Heidi.”
“That would make you a liar.”
“No. That would mean she didn't ask.”
