Edie slides another drink toward me. “I think you need this.”
The party dwindles. The three women I talked to earlier wave at me as they leave. Everything softens and slows, and the only conversations happening are the low-voiced ones that are too close to their end to be able to join. A few more people come by for drinks, and so Edie helps them. She glances at me every time she serves a drink, and I keep thinking she’s going to ask me more questions. She doesn’t, though now I’d probably be more likely to answer.
Then Edie places a cup of hot coffee at the spot next to me on the counter.
“You good for now?” she asks.
“I think so,” I tell her.
It’s Lilia who saunters up and grabs the coffee.
“Oh my God,” I say, “so you do caffeinate yourself!”
Lilia looks sideways at me and smiles.
I know I’m drooped over the counter. I know the whiskey has gone to my head. But I can’t leave here just yet.
“There’s a secret painting.” The music is quiet enough that I can whisper over it. “In the red room. There’s like a freaking secret painting on the white wall. Did you know that, Lilia?”
She’s quiet for longer than she should be. “You might not want to go back to that room.”
“But I love that room.” I say this too loudly, but so what? It’s nice to realize that. It’s nice to finally love something I’ve created. “It gave me exactly what you said it would. Why shouldn’t I go back?”
“You’ll find out,” Lilia says. “I know you can do good work here, but you have to trust me when I tell you these things.”
“Oh, you sound like my mom.” That’s my loud laugh over the music, isn’t it? Shit. “Sorry. Sorry, Lilia. Where are your mom and dad?”
She gives me a strange look, and I cringe. Maybe that’s a raw question for her, for some reason. Edie pokes her head in and places a glass of water in front of me. “We’re her family. This whole wonderful motley crew we’ve got going on here. Wouldn’t you say, Lilia?”
Lilia seems to be taking in the scene the same way I was a few minutes ago. The sliver of gulf you can see from the living room window. The other party guests sighing out their last words. The old, scratched-up glasses we’re using as partyware. My water glass has Ronald McDonald on it.
“My parents don’t live around here,” Lilia tells us. “The last time I saw them was back when I lived in Miami.”
Edie shrugs and goes to wipe down the counters. It’s probably a hint to leave, but I’ve got one more thing to tell Lilia.
“Beethoven,” I say. “What’s the famous one—the Moonlight Sonata.”
“It’s a nice piece of music.”
“Angela’s gonna play it. I know she will.”
“She’s not at that level yet.”
“But she will be.” I can see in Lilia’s face that I’m right. “She will be, and maybe then, there’ll be, like you said, a place for her here.”
The music has become kind of disjointed: a line of notes from the saxophone here, a few drumbeats there. I push down the hallway, holding my water glass up, trying not to spill it, trying also not to make eye contact with the few people still here. Don’t ask me about my work, don’t ask me what I’m doing here, don’t ask me who’s on my mind. I stumble into an empty bedroom—the second one on the left, just like in Lilia’s studio—and its walls and carpet are comfortably beige, and I settle onto the carpet, in the corner of the room, where I can have a view of the uncovered window. It’s strange how close together the buildings look when I’m driving by, but from inside, it’s as though the condo tower across from this one is a mile away. Its windows are dark—the old women have gone to sleep.
I finish my water.
Somewhere in San Juan, there’s a hospital room. With monitors beeping their monotonous ballad of green and life. With too much light streaming in from the doorway. With nurses breathing out too hard and whispering in Spanish. With Abuela unmoving in the bed.
But tonight, I think, it is different.
I think my mother was right.
I think Abuela’s fingernails are still painted purple and I think one of her fingers moved earlier and I think another is moving now. And I think her knuckles are wrinkling and I think she still needs her sleep for a while but I think, I think, she will wake up.
It’s insistent.
She will wake up, she will wake up, she will wake, she will.
ten
WHEN I’M OUTSIDE, in the parking lot, I’m absolutely alone yet again. The waves crash on, not bothering to include me in their conversation anymore, and as far as I can see down the beach, the lights in the other buildings are out. Behind me, the Red Mangrove Estate is dark, too, each floor of windows a slice of the night sky. No one else goes in or out. The leftover music from the party can’t be heard. Plus, it’s like I never had the drinks at all. The flavor of the orange mixed with sour mixed with booze is gone. And the dizziness I felt in the beige bedroom is gone. There’s no real urge to sleep—I could probably go to school feeling like this.
Well, maybe physically. Not mentally. Who knows what weird shit I would create at the Orange Table right about now.
My body’s relaxed, but my mind is all over the place. It’s not a good combination.
I need to talk to someone.
And there’s only one person I know who’s usually awake at this time of night.
“Moreno, good God.”
Okay, so this one time, Tall Jon was actually asleep sometime before two a.m. I’ve never seen his apartment completely dark. It looks strange, but no stranger than the place I’ve just been.
“Can I come in?”
“I mean, I guess so. You need a place to stay or something? Did Angela claim the Moreno castle as her own?”
“I won’t stay long. I need to talk to you. And do you have a cigarette?”
We smoke on the balcony. I keep waiting for total silence, but it’s broken by the clatter of college kids coming home and talking about how fucking late it is. Yeah, guys, we know.
Tall Jon stubs out his second cigarette. “Did something happen with you and the Vicster?”
I laugh. “I—wow, no one has ever called her that. I’m going to think of that next time I see her.” A deep breath. “But, no. I have to tell you about my new art studio.”
I’m ready to tell him about everything, from the burned-dust smell of the lobby to the feel of the roller in my hands to the sweet taste of the drink. I’m ready to tell him about how scary it was to walk into that party at first, but how I felt like a queen when Edie served me a drink and when people knew I was Lilia’s friend. And I’m ready to tell him about Lilia herself, the way she comes and goes, the way she creates so effortlessly.
Wait a minute.
The Estate is my secret. If I let out anything about it, will that dim its light for me? Will it even let me back in?
“You know Firing Squad?” I say to Tall Jon.