AFTER MY MOTHER LEFT I pulled out the stack of magazines Timber and Papi had dropped off for me. There was Rio DeCarlo, front row at a fashion show, her legs spread open a little too wide, a little pink x across her crotch. Another magazine, a four-page spread of her house in Malibu. The next week there was a movie opening, and she was on the arm of a man, younger, a kid, I thought. He could not have been but a few years older than my sister. That picture was in the Fashion Don’ts section. She was the pick of the week. Her eyes were wide and messy and her dress was cut out in too many areas and there were her arms, headed to the sky. I thought of my dusty clumps of hair, my eyebrows unplucked and busy. I had not changed clothes in a few days. I was certain I smelled sour. I looked through another magazine. No Rio. She was missing from the next one, too, and the one after that. Three weeks without Rio. Something was wrong, I knew it. Sure enough, the next week, there was a one-on-one interview with Rio about her time in rehab. Her heart had been broken. She had an addiction to painkillers. And liquor. And she had been afraid to ask for help.
Oh Rio, I cried. I get it. I raised my hands up to the sky. I understand.
I could not be alone any longer. I went to the diner and sat at my booth. I had no more magazines left. I thought I would just sit and be. At the other booths and at the counter people sat and chatted with each other, or quietly ate their food. They were in motion and I sat perfectly still. I wondered what that was like. Motion. Outside people walked in pairs. There was a hand on the door, and then a familiar face. Thomas. My breath caught, and then my heart went nuts, pounding me from the inside out. A hot liquid feeling curled up in my chest.
I had a moment to look at him before he noticed me. His hair was longer and curled around his ears. I used to trim it for him, and blow the leftover hair off his neck when I was done. Also he had grown a mustache. It made him look older and I liked it. I loved it. I still loved him.
Then he saw me sitting there. He pressed his lips together first, and then his cheeks puffed up on his face, and when I looked in his eyes, they were two thin slits filled with something like pity, or something like disgust. Nothing like love. It was hard to tell from where I was sitting, but it was definitely not love. I raised my hand anyway, and waved. I could not help myself. A woman walked through the door and Thomas pulled her back and whispered in her ear. They turned and left.
“WHAT DID SHE LOOK LIKE?” said Valka.
“Like a slut,” I snapped.
“Really?” she said.
“No,” I said guiltily. “She looked fine. She did not look any different from me.”
THAT HOT LIQUID inside me was freezing up, starting at the pit of my stomach and making its way up to my chest. In one moment, I had gone from deep love to something close to death. A sharp line of pain dragged itself behind my eyes, a great divide left behind in its wake. Dry earth cracked in my head. Thomas with his hand on the door. That look in his eyes, no love left. And if he did not love me, who was I?
If the insides of me were frozen, the outside of me did not know it. I was crying, right there in the back booth of the diner. It was quiet at first and then I was suddenly gasping and sobbing. I was soaked in my tears. I did not wipe them away. One part of me froze, another part of me melted. I could not stop it if I had wanted to.
I do not know how long I sat there like that before Timber came out from behind the counter.
“Mercy,” I said.
“What?” said Timber.
“Mercy.” That was all that would come out of me.
He helped me get up. I had to lean on him. My legs were so weak he practically had to carry me. We stood outside. There was an icy wind, and it was starting to snow. The snow blew around in little tornadoes all over the town square. My coat was open and I had no gloves and no scarf and no hat. The air was so cold I was choking. My hair was everywhere, up in the air and in my eyes and mouth. I embraced the whirlwinds.
“You might be thinking you won’t get past this,” said Timber. “But you will.”
That was when I went to the bank and withdrew $178,000 from our joint bank account. It seemed like a lot, and it seemed like nothing at the same time. Early the next morning I got in my car and headed to the highway. The snow was writhing all around me. I went west. The roads were not fit for driving, but I kept moving. I knew I could not go back.
“I DO NOT EVER want to go back,” I told Valka.
“Oh, you’re going back,” she said.
“Don’t you see? I cannot ever go back there ever ever ever. I have shamed myself. I am a criminal.”
“You are not a criminal,” said Valka. “That money’s as much yours as it is his.” She sat up in the bed. “And you have to go back.”
“There is nothing left for me there,” I said. “It is all ground up into shit.”