“Eh?”
“Have you ever thought about going to Vietnam?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “To do what?” She rolled the neck of her beer bottle in her palms.
“To see it. It’s a tourist destination. The war’s been over a long time,” I said.
“Are you saying you believe me now, about my dreams? You never did before.”
“What I believe doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re interested in Vietnam; you ought to go someday.”
“You mean, like, on vacation?”
“Yeah. Not a big fact-finding mission. Just walk around, see the people, eat the food.”
“Homegirls don’t do that shit,” she said. “I mean, Jesus, it’s on the other side of the planet.”
I rolled over onto my stomach. “For God’s sake, think of the things you do every day. You’re a shot caller in a gang, for crying out loud. You’re telling me you couldn’t make a reservation, get on a plane?”
“And the money’s coming from where?”
I shrugged. “The usual ill-gotten gains. Start a jar, stuff a couple tens and twenties in it every time you have a particularly good week.”
She took a hit off the beer and studied me, her eyes hooded and speculative. “Would you come?”
“You don’t need me,” I said. “I’m not ruling it out, but Vietnam’s not my deal, it’s yours. Whether or not I could go with you, you should go.”
“You always got this crazy shit on your mind, stuff that no one else thinks about,” Serena said.
“’Kay,” she said, burrowing back down under the covers.
I got up and went to the bassinet, sat on my heels and scooped Henry up, blankets and all. I picked up his bottle on the way out of the darkened bedroom.
Serena’s girls were used to sleeping through nearly anything. The two in the living room didn’t stir as I turned on the light over the stove and, one-handed, poured water into a pan, topped off Henry’s bottle with formula, and put it on the stove to heat. All through this, he cried. Pettish little sounds, not loud wails. I bounced him and made clicking noises with my tongue.
When Henry was fed and quiet, I composed a note.
fifty-one
CJ usually chained the corrugated-tin gate at the head of his rough dirt driveway at night, but I remembered the combination for the lock, drove through, and parked. Overhead, a black silhouette passed low: a hunting owl. A nocturnal creature, like me, and like my cousin as well. There was light on the dry grass behind the house, clearly coming from the back windows, and the faint sound of music.
I unstrapped Henry from his car seat and lifted him out, closed the car door, and walked up onto the deck. Then I hesitated. The music was clearer now, and I didn’t think it was on the sound system; it sounded like the piano in the living room. The pianist was running lightly through bits of jazz, just pleasing his own ear.
CJ’s relationship to the piano had followed a fairly typical arc. When he was a child, his mother had made him learn to play it. As a teenager, he’d rejected it in favor of the strap-on sex appeal of the guitar. As an adult, he’d come around to the pleasures of its rich nineteenth-century sound. And, of course, women loved to watch him at the keys.
It was this last part that gave me pause. It was possible that there was someone in there with him, a female someone. I didn’t want to walk, uninvited, into the middle of that. But I’d come too far to simply leave.
I walked around to the sliding glass door. He was at the piano, and as far as I could see, he was alone, and so deep in concentration that I could have watched him indefinitely.
I tapped on the glass with my knuckles. The music stopped. CJ looked over his shoulder and did a double take.
“What the hell?” he said when he’d opened the slider. “I didn’t know you were back in town. You should’ve called me. Come in.”
I did. CJ, eyes on Henry, said, “Who’s your friend?”
“Him? I’m just babysitting for a friend.”
“Babysitting.”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t much of an explanation, but CJ didn’t pursue it. He gestured toward the couch and said, “Can I get you something to drink? The bar’s pretty well stocked up.”
“Just water.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure, just water.”
“What about him? Do you need me to heat a bottle or something?”
“No, thanks. He’s fine.”
CJ went into the kitchen and I heard him opening the refrigerator, then the rattle of ice. I waited on the couch. His living room was cluttered as always. There was a deck of cards on the coffee table and a girl’s sandal half under the couch. A painting, apparently a recent acquisition, leaned up against the wall, waiting to be hung. It depicted the narrow, crowded street of a Chinatown. It could have been the work of someone famous, or the amateur effort of one of CJ’s friends.
He came back with a bottle of Asahi in one hand and a tall glass in the other. It wasn’t tap water. Bubbles crawled up the side of the glass, and it was stacked with ice, then a wedge of lemon.
“Pellegrino,” he said.
I’d almost forgotten how CJ did things for the people he loved, always with a little extra touch of generosity.
He took a seat on the piano bench, sideways, with his long legs casually spread, and said, “How is it that you’re down here again? Don’t you have to work, up in the city?”
“I set my own schedule, remember? I’ve been taking some time off lately.” I paused. “Look, if you’re thinking about the money you lent me-”
“No, that’s not why I asked. Don’t worry about the money.” He waved my concern off. “As long as you’re down here, maybe you and I-”
“I’m going back north tomorrow morning,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Tomorrow?” He was casual about it, but I heard the veiled hurt in his words, that I would come and go so quickly, without making plans to spend any real amount of time with him.
“Sorry,” I said again. This was where I should have said,
