“Dos cappuccinos. And mi hijo wants something to eat. His old lady kicks him out every morning with no breakfast ‘cause he snores all night.”
His friend bent to scan the baked goods in the glass display case and, rising, asked for a poppyseed cake. When the girl shifted to the espresso machine, the two men pivoted on their heels, mirroring each other, away from the counter to scan the room. Even as they arced their shoulders and swung their hips toward her, Diane wanted them to do it over in slow motion, for she was entranced by the unthinking grace of their bodies. In the dim light, the brightness of their faces disarmed her. She blushed over the look the men gave her and cast her gaze to her hands folded on the tabletop, to the slick on the surface of her coffee.
The men came over to her, the pale blue cups like toys in their hands, and stood patiently just beyond the edge waiting for her to look up, and as soon as she did, they took it as an invitation to sit and join her, though she had said nothing. No new customers had wandered in. The younger man took a big bite of his poppyseed cake and savored the crunch and grit against his teeth. The one with the mustache wrapped his long fingers around his cup, warming his hands. “Good morning,” he said when Diane granted her notice with a wan smile. “I hope you don't mind us joining you. It just seems strange for you to be all alone and for us to be alone when there is no one else here.”
“Not a bit. You're welcome.”
The man eating the cake had poppyseeds stuck between his teeth.
“When you are alone, small company can often change the meaning of the whole day. Of course, there are times when you want to be by yourself, shut off with your thoughts.” He spoke in a laconic tone, reluctant to part with each word. “Sometimes you just want another person to shoot the breeze with, shorten the burden of moving from A to B.”
The poppyseed man blew on his cappuccino and took a hot swallow, leaving a milky brown stain above his upper lip.
“I just came in last night and don't know a soul.” Laughing politely, she set down her cup. “My first time in New Mexico.”
“Welcome, then. What brings you here, business or pleasure?”
With a laugh, Diane set down her cup. “I have no business. I'm here to … see my daughter.” The white lie popped out to her immediate regret. She opened her purse and found the high school photograph. “Erica. She lives in a place called Madrid. Do you know the way?”
“A ghost town,” the younger man said. “They call it MAD-rid, by the way, not muh-DRID. Not like the one in Spain. Used to be a coalmining town, but the mine was shut down thirty years ago when all the Santa Fe trains switched over to diesel. Everybody used to go there for the Christmas lights. They say you could be flying overhead at night and see them from hundreds of miles, like candles in the dark middle of nowhere. But they're all gone, the people. Just a bunch of ancient shacks. Some dude even put an ad in the newspaper: whole town for sale.”
“Where you been, hijo? When's the last time you been up the trail? Fifteen years ago, yourself? There's plenty people in Madrid. Back in the Seventies all these hippies and artists came in and took over. What do you call it? Squatters? Homesteaders.”
“Like trying to find a ghost.” He was pressing his thumb against the plate, picking up black dots.
The other set down his cappuccino with an empty ring. “Don't listen to my friend, se?ora. His brain is fried.”
“Más loco que una cabra. “
“Chiflado. You look like you've been eating bugs.”
“Te falta un tornillo. “He ran his tongue over his teeth.
“Boys,” Diane said, “I guess I'll have to see for myself.”
“Drive east on old 66, and you'll see the signs. We'd show you the way, but we're heading up north to work.”
“Where are you going?”
The man with the poppyseed grin leaned over and spoke in a low voice. “Los Alamos.”
“That's why he is so crazy. Plutonium head.” She thought of her conversation with Norah in the graveyard, the talk of the atom bomb and the destroyer of worlds. He stood and bowed slightly, and his friend repeated the gesture. “Good luck on your trip. I hope you find what you're looking for.”
For a moment, she could not remember why she had come.
“Your daughter.”
“One more thing,” she said. “Tell me why all the icons on the walls?”
“Santos,” the younger man said. “To remind us. The santeros carve or paint them on retablos and sell them where they can. The makers of saints.”
“Thank you for having breakfast with me.”
The man with the mustache buttoned his shearling coat. “ ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.’ Book of Hebrews. You'll find her.”
“Adios,” his friend said, shaking his head.
“He's loco, there's no such thing as ghosts.”
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