Complication
“Heidi?” Kestrin faked the sound of interrupted sleep.
Her voice was thick and sweet, like maple syrup. He knew why he'd picked up. He wanted to hear that voice.
“Hey, did I wake you up?” she crooned.
“Don't worry about it.”
“I'm trying to do something really hard here, so can you let me say what I need to say?” Weepiness dripped into her voice, accompanied by a whine.
He cleared his throat and gripped the phone. “Go ahead.”
“I've been thinking.” She paused and drew a deep breath. “I was really wrong about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean leaving you was one of the dumbest things I've ever done.”
“Heidi…” Kestrin kicked the futon.
“I bet there's a girl in bed with you right now. Who am I kidding? I'm sure there is.” Heidi's emotional fountain sputtered. The sobs grew into punctuation marks. Soon they were entire words. Heidi sobbed, “But I wake up every morning and I (sob) think of you and how you wanted to (sob) marry me, and I realized that (sob) no one else I had been with, before or after, ever thought of that for me. (Sob, sob, sob) Everyone else just wanted to (sob) have my body.”
Everything she said was like a bad script. She'd probably used it on lots of men to get them to take her back. Correction, she'd probably used that on a lot of stupid men. A faint wave of nausea rolled inside him.
Kestrin could clearly see the manipulation, and yet an easy relationship with Heidi still tempted him.
“Look, Heidi, I'm in California right now. Nothing's happening tonight.”
She made a gleeful sound. “You mean you'll consider—”
“I didn't say that either.”
“Well are you seeing someone or not?”
Kestrin bit his tongue. He had no words to define what he was doing right now. The only phrase that accurately described it was “running away,” and that would take way too much time to explain. Heidi had no patience for long stories.
“I'll take your silence as a yes. Otherwise, you'd tell me,” she pouted.
“I could also be single and not letting you know because then you'd jump all over me.”
“I would if I could. Right now.” Kestrin's nausea subsided into a tingling memory. Images of three wild months hit his mind at high velocity. They splintered into a car crash and Kestrin swallowed the recollection, letting everything else turn cold.
“I'm not interested.”
“So you're not seeing someone?”
His palm broke into a sweat and the room felt like it was shrinking. “Don't call me again.”
“Kestrin, I was scared.”
He should just hang up. Kestrin could almost smell the poison floating out of the phone. Why couldn't he hang up?
Heidi's syrupy voice continued, “I was falling in love with you and I didn't know how to handle it.” The fountain turned on at full capacity, and Heidi was practically wailing now. “I made the biggest mistake of my life!”
“Could you—”
“I've made up my mind. You're all I want.”
“And if I say ‘no’?”
“I'll just have to track you down,” she finished with a sexy whisper. The line went dead.
Kahlil entered the library, wearing a gray terry robe and drying his hair with a towel. He stared at Kestrin's dazed expression and pointed to the phone still stuck to Kestrin's ear. “Lorona?”
Kestrin shook his head. He played a slow-motion movie in his mind where he tied weights around his ankles and jumped off a pier into Elliott Bay. He threw the phone onto the floor.
Kahlil dragged him back to reality. “Who was it?”
“Someone who wants me, no strings attached.”
“Lots of girls want you with no strings attached. Why are you smiling weird like that?”
“I think I'm just coming to terms with who I really am. It's nasty, but at least it's not deluded.”
Kahlil eyed Kestrin like a ticking bomb and sat down on the far edge of the futon. “Want to let me in on what you're talking about?”
Kestrin turned. Even with the curtains closed, he could feel the moon's face through the thin curtains.
“I really don't think I'll find this girl I've been dreaming about.”
Kahlil shook his head. “If your dream is real, fate doesn't miss us. That's why it's fate. You were sure about Lorona.”
“Let's be real about this. Lorona's probably glad I'm gone. Besides, she's the stuff of moonlight and answered prayers. She's not who I deserve.”
“So what's the problem, man? Go patch it up with her and forget about the dream. Couldn't you be happy with her?”
“Maybe the reason all this happened was to make me realize what a bad match we are. How much she needs someone who's,” Kestrin swallowed, “better than me.”
“You're no angel, granted, but I don't think that's what she's looking for.”
“Really? Did you see her face after she read my journal?”
“If you're going to trash the dream anyway, then why not stay with Lorona?”
“It would torture me for the rest of my life. She's what the girl should have been. She'll remind me constantly of what I'm not.”
“But what about the dream that told you to marry her?” Kestrin stood and tightened one fist. “Whose damn side are you on?”
“I want you to be happy. Look, you had a dream that had you convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, so you married her, right? Then you thought she wasn't the dream girl so you left her, right?”
Kestrin nodded.
“And now you've decided that even if she is the one for you, you don't deserve her. Am I following your logic, if you can even call it that?”
“You really want me to be happy, Kahlil?” Kestrin took a firm grip on the bottle of wine.
“Yes, yes I do.”
“Then never mention the dreams again.”
“Fine.” Kahlil's eye flamed. His nostrils spewed invisible smoke for a second, then he reached up and pushed the curtains aside. The moon flashed them both a radiant smile.
Kahlil faced Kestrin, the white disc seeming to sit on his shoulder. “So if not Lorona, and you're crazy to not choose her, but I can't stop you, then who are you considering? Who was on the phone?”
Kahlil knew the answer to both questions was the same.
Kestrin fixed his eyes on the moon and began a staring contest. He let his eyes blur. He thought he saw a small footprint press, gray against white, on its surface, like there was someone trapped inside the swelling orb. He shook his head, confused. “I was just picking up voicemail. One of my buddies is going into the hospital for lung cancer. He's a smoker.”
“At least that's a better answer than ‘Heidi,’” Kahlil snorted, apparently satisfied. “I'd kill you if you ever got back with her. Talk about selling your soul to the devil.”
Kestrin shuddered. He looked down at his palms, damp with nervous sweat, and wondered what a fortune teller would have said about his love signs. It didn't matter. Fate and dreams weren't any match for the force that drove Kestrin. He could call it hormones, sex drive, desperation or loneliness. Whatever it was, morality and prophetic dreams paled in its presence.
Kestrin couldn't shake the feeling that when it came to Lorona, he was an unworthy idiot.
I'm not about to live with that reminder for the rest of my life, dream or no dream.
“You know that you don't have to keep up the pattern of who you were,” Kahlil said cautiously. “I bet Lorona believes in forgiveness. Couldn't her love for you make you become that man who deserves her? What if the dream really is pointing to her, and you just don't see it yet?”
But Kestrin's decision was already made. To hell with what the rest of the world thought. He'd find a makeshift happiness with Heidi, even if it was temporary. She was the option he could take without the guilt of ruining someone else's life.
Kahlil tapped the hand which was still wrapped around the neck of the bottle as Kestrin stood to leave. “You know,” Kahlil said gently, “that drink is probably not going to help you think clearly about all this.”
Kestrin shrugged and walked out. Back in his room, he dialed Heidi, told her he'd reconsider, then pushed her off and headed to the bathroom. He stared at his shaving razor for a full minute before setting it down, unused. Kahlil's electric shears stood by the side of the sink.
Kestrin studied his curls, the pride and glory that his mother adored. He locked the door as the electric scissors hummed to life. Fives minutes later, a shower of corn-silk crescents lay scattered across the floor. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt naked like this and…ugly. His vanity shuddered.
That night, to add to his horror, Kestrin was visited again by the recurring dream. White dress, stars, the shadows of children in the trees… It was all there and clearer than it had ever been. He could see the starlight glinting on her wet eyelashes.
The final part of the dream, which he'd left out of his journal, blazed so painfully into his mind that he woke up and forced himself to write it down.
It was the first time he'd ever recorded it, mostly from fear that someone would find it, someone like his mother or Heidi who would find a way to twist it to their own purposes. But if he was going to reject the dream entirely, none of that mattered anymore. As soon as the words were made of ink, he fell into a dead sleep, the piece of paper crumpled against his cheek.
Words in sea ink upon a red stone.
The scent of all things lovely.
Silent life, wordless yet screaming.
My heart, the mark of you on my skin.
I am She Who Cries.
“If Kestrin comes back with you, he can have my ticket and I'll take the Greyhound,” Yuki offered. She was doodling something that looked like Madame Ovary's tent on her airplane drink napkin.
Lorona tried for most of the plane ride to work a crossword, but she kept writing Kestrin's name in every seven letter word slot. She was fidgeting with the anklet when Yuki said, “You know, I really believe what that psychic said was real. The problem is I'm lost for the meaning. What do you think she meant?”
“I don't know what I think. I know that I want to talk to Kestrin.”
Once off the plane and outside of the air conditioned airport, the warm weather kissed their skin and Lorona felt herself relaxing under its caress.
An hour and a half later, they were racing down the highway in a rented Toyota Corolla while Yuki squinted at the directions printed off the internet.
Kestrin was headed to his Aunt Carlina's house, and Lorona had found the address through his email. Everwood. Carlina and Daniel Everwood. Carlina was Amanda's sister.
Hopefully they're not two peas in a pod, Lorona half thought, half prayed.
“Take this exit!” Yuki pointed suddenly. “There's a hotel here that's supposed to serve the best Cobb salad in the state. I want one and we skipped breakfast so we have to stop somewhere.”
The hotel's entrance featured a waterfall with a footbridge spanning its base and bunches of white and purple irises emerging from the spray. Yuki asked about parking while Lorona watched a couple walking hand in hand over the footbridge. She kept her eye on the girl who wore a small red sundress and sandaled high-heels, her hair pulled into an elegant ponytail. She gripped her boyfriend's hand tightly, and suddenly she stopped moving. Lorona looked up in time to see the tiny blue box pop open and something inside it sparkle. She looked down at the silver band on her ring finger which was already scuffed in several places. Diamonds never get scratches. She remembered that from her geology class.
The two waves hit Lorona, one after the other. The first was sheer envy, the second anger. She looked away as the new fiancé burst into happy tears of soon-to-be-married bliss.
“Angelo?” Amanda cooed into the receiver as she decreased her weight on her Singles.com dating profile. She clicked the Update button. “How did it go?” She listened for a moment, then laughed. “Well, watching all those old gangster movies must have helped your acting. Did you get your sons to assist? Wonderful! Good boy. You've made my life so much easier. She'll be plenty frightened now. And we really will do dinner soon, yes? Love to all!” She kissed noisily into the receiver and hung up, examining the nail on her thumb to make sure the daisy decal was still affixed.
She dialed a new number.
“Heidi, darling, it's Amanda, Kestrin's mummy? Hi, yes, I was just curious if,” she paused. “And what did he say?” She paused, a smile turning her lips up into a wide grin. “Well that's a lot better than ‘no,’ isn't it?”
Lorona made Yuki go into the restaurant without her. She wasn't hungry.
A text buzzed on Lorona's phone. She glanced at it belligerently.
Kestrin's first love was named Heidi. He even tried to have children with her.
Lorona didn't have to look at the sender to know it was Amanda. Another text came.
He told you, right? He and Heidi tried. That's how serious they were.
“Go to hell, Amanda.”
Ask Kestrin if he took a call from Heidi last night.
The phone trembled once more and Lorona considered throwing it into the back seat, but couldn't stop herself from reading the text.
Or better yet, I should put you in touch with her.
“Or better yet, you can mind your own business! Get out of my life!” Lorona shrieked at the phone. The valet attendants peered at her from under their shiny black visors and Lorona covered her face.
Now her phone was ringing. She glanced at it through a crack in her fingers. It was a 206 number. It was someone in Seattle, but it wasn't Kestrin's phone. Was it Kahlil's phone? It could still be Kestrin trying to call. It might be him. She had to answer.
Lorona took a deep breath. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Lorena?”
“Lorona.” This was clearly someone who didn't know her.
The fiancée on the bridge was jumping up and down.
“We have a mutual friend. I believe you know Kestrin Feather?”
“He's my husband.”
“Oh wow, I would have never thought he'd…wow. So you're actually married?”
“I'm sorry, who did you say you were?”
“Heidi. Heidi Russell. I heard a rumor that Kestrin got married and I wanted to warn the poor girl about everything. He's not going to stick with it.” Heidi dropped to a whisper, “Are you with him right now?”
“I'm on my way to meet him.”
“Did he invite you?”
“No.” Lorona grimaced, her eyes fixed on the couple on the bridge. The guy was rocking the girl back and forth, holding her to his chest. She clamped her jaw. “How about this: Tell me why haven't I hung up on you yet, Heidi?”
“Because you want to know if you were just another formula. Let's test it. The first time you made love, did he—”
“Stop it! I'm not letting you do this!”
“No, you need to stop this. Kestrin talked to me last night because he went to his aunt's to clear his mind and you know what? I'm the one who came up to the surface. He's chosen me.”
“That's a lie!” Lorona snapped the phone shut, cursed a stream of Spanish insults and dug a knuckle into her eye. When she finally looked up, the happy couple had left to chase rainbows. Clouds drifted in front of the perfect shafts of sunlight that had fallen across the footbridge.
Lorona opened the car door and headed for the hotel lobby. As she passed the concierge desk she saw the “Today's Date Is” calendar, slowed, then stopped dead. Counting slowly on her fingers, she entered the bathrooms. When she emerged, she was still counting and re-counting when Yuki waved to her from the restaurant.
“Want some of my Cobb salad?”
“Not really. Is there a 7-Eleven or something like that near here?”
“You want a Slurpee?”
“I just need to pick something up. A drug store would work, too.”
Yuki fished some money out of her wallet to pay for her food. “You okay?”
Lorona squeezed her eyes shut. “Just take me to the drug store.”
“What do you need? I'll just run in and get it. You look sick.”
“I'll get it myself. It'll be okay.”
A few minutes later, they pulled up to the store and Lorona was first through the doors. She ducked past the shelf of Twinkies and stared at the small package she'd sought, feeling her tongue shrivel. She hurried up to the front with it and asked to have it placed in a paper bag. Yuki was still doing a price comparison with a pink package in one hand and a mint green one in the other.
Lorona decided to wait to use the bathroom at a time that wouldn't be so obvious.
Back in the car, Yuki took one look at Lorona's face and carefully consulted the maps. Lorona followed Yuki's directions coolly, but she was squeezing the paper bag so savagely with her free hand that, as soon as they turned a corner, it ripped in half.
Yuki stole a look in Lorona's lap. “A pregnancy test!”
Lorona would have crashed the car into the median if Yuki hadn't grabbed the wheel.
