“I guess my wife never saw this coming. I feel pretty bad about that.”
“You think you’re making a mistake?” It was strange, but I felt calm. Les stood there all long-armed and still. He could answer any way he wanted.
“What do youthink?”
“Do Ithink you’re making a mistake?”
Les nodded.
“I can’t answer that. Maybe if you have to ask me, you are.”
“Then I’m not asking that.”
“What are you asking me, then?”
He didn’t answer right away, just looked at me. He finally said: “Can you put up with me through all of this?”
“That’s what you’re asking me?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“I think so. Depends on what ‘this’ is, though.”
Lester flicked a paint chip off the railing. “Carol’s on sort of a rampage. She called the lawyer before me and she’s already petitioned for dissolution.”
I made some kind of face.
“Divorce,” he said. “We don’t use that word in California. We dissolvemarriages here; it’s supposed to be a lot nicer for everyone, just slide into the hot tub and disappear.”
“And you don’t want that?”
“I want what’s best.” He peeled up another paint chip and glanced at me. “And I know that’s what has to happen, but she also asked him some nasty questions about custody and property. She can’t do anything against me without mediation, but just hearing it kind of put me over the edge.”
I went over and hugged him. He felt to me like an old friend, though I didn’t have any. It must feel like this though; they’re warm against you and you love and respect them and are on their side no matter what. I asked him if he’d like a nice Italian dinner, and he said yes. We kissed and made our way inside, starting to undress, needing to do it, but it was so hot in there we ended up hurrying back down the trail to the Purisima, our arms around each other, and we took off our clothes on the mossy bank, then made love there, Lester pushing in and out of me so fast it hurt a little. His face was all bunched up with the effort of it, and I suddenly felt far away, closing my eyes just as he let out a short groan, pulled out of me, and came across my stomach in a warm wet line.
MAYBE IT WAS the hot cabin that got to us, to him. Maybe it was the quiet and the stillness. I think it was all three. The dinner came out better than I would’ve guessed and because it was too hot inside the camp, we ate out on the porch off plates in our laps. Halfway through supper the mosquitoes began to hit so we sprayed each other down with repellent, something I wished I’d waited to do because the rest of the meal didn’t taste quite right.
We sat on the porch awhile, the two of us looking out at the small woodpile and trees like old people waiting for someone to visit. The sky was still gray, but darker, and I knew we were close to nightfall. Les was sitting straight in his chair. He’d changed into jeans and that tacky striped golf shirt, and he wore sneakers without socks. But he didn’t look relaxed; he’d been sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, his feet flat on the floor, and sometimes he’d wave a mosquito away from his face, then cross his arms again. I thought of my mother and her two sisters and their plan to fly west, and I wished I’d written a better reason for them not to come. I knew if they thought Nick and I would be gone for the weekend they’d still fly out, and worse, they’d probably want to stay at the empty house. “Shit.”
“What?”
I told Les about my mother’s postcard, and about the rest of my mail, the bills I was supposed to pay to keep the Arab family comfortable in my stolen house.
“You’re right, you know.” He sat back and looked at me. “This guy’s received stolen property and now he’s trying to pawn it off.”
“It’s not really stolen, though, right?”
“Technically.” Lester’s breath was starting to rise. “That’s one thing I hate about law enforcement, Kathy.”
“What?”
“Do you know how many times I see people violate the spirit of the law without actually breaking it? Like the DV law: no matter which spouse does the violence, we have to take them in. That means if a two-hundred-pound artichoke rancher in Pescadero slugs his wife and she hits him back, she gets charged, too.”
“For defending herself?”
“That’s right. We took in this one guy who did a number on his wife, really worked her over. She wouldn’t take out a restraining order, and when he got out on bail he went back to the house and coaxed and taunted her until she started clawing his face. And he stood there and let her do it because he knew the law and he knew now it would be herturn to sit in a cell. And I can’t nottake her in. And this Arab son of a bitch—he knows what he’s doing is wrong, but the law saves him anyway. The day we drove by, you see the kinds of carsparked in front of your house? You see the clothesthose people had on? And you’re out in the cold.”
“I’m out in the heat.” I was smiling. It felt so good hearing this kind of feeling about me and my problem coming out of Lester’s mouth. I lit a cigarette. “I can’t believe we can’t just evict him. That’s what’s so fucked up.”
Les gave me a long look, his dark eyes narrowed like he was thinking of something else. “You said this guy was a colonel?”
“That’s what he said.”
“From what country?”
“I don’t know, but his wife hardly speaks any English at all.”
“Maybe they haven’t been here very long, Kathy. Maybe they don’t know their way around.” Lester went inside. I could hear him undressing.
“I’ll call INS tomorrow, Kathy, see if they have anything we can use.”
“Use?”
He didn’t answer me. I could hear him pull the plastic off his dry cleaning. I was really enjoying this. “Use for what?”
“For the greater good.”
I listened to him dress, then he stepped back outside, zipping up his deputy uniform pants, tucking in his shirt. He reached into his pocket for some uniform emblems and his gold star badge, pinning them on.
“What the hell are you doing, Lester?”
“Officers tend to listen to other officers, Kathy. It’s worth a shot.” Les began to finish buttoning his shirt, but I stepped up and took over, like I used to do for Nicky.
“What if he doesn’t listen, Les?”
“Then we turn up the volume.” He laughed at his own line, at the cowboy toughness of it, it seemed. I told him to stay still, and I straightened up his shirt collars and kissed his throat. I was about to say thank you but he was already stepping off the porch, so I put on my Reeboks, then went out and started the Bonneville while Les unlocked his car. I watched as he straightened to buckle his gun belt on. He looked perfect walking to the passenger’s side of my car, the creases in his uniform sharp and clean, his badge positioned just under his heart. I noticed he hadn’t pinned on his name tag. When he got in and shut the door, I leaned over and kissed him and said, “I love you for doing this, Lester. I really do.”
A HEAVINESS OF HEART POSSESSES ME ON OUR NEW WIDOW’S WALK. ITScause is remembering Jasmeen, but I begin to worry once more of the difficulties I already face in the selling of the home. Even if I were to sell the bungalow at the profit I have projected, I must still be prepared to move my family once again, and this time it will have to be a modest apartment in one of these modest villages along the coast. This will of course be the best way to avoid spending my pool while I search for suitable investment opportunities. But I recall my daughter’s face, the fashion in which she regarded me at her homecoming dinner, the aggressive and rude way in which she all the night long repeatedly apologized for the family’s present living situation by recalling our old life. How will she regard her mother, brother, and me living in a cottage in a place such as San Bruno perhaps? Or Daly City, with all those Filipino people? Will she be too ashamed to visit? To bring her husband and his family? These thoughts begin to anger me, for who does she think she is to judge her own father? To perhaps pity me? And yes, it was pity I saw in her face that evening as she viewed me in the candlelight at the sofreh, that, and a degree of shame as well. But also, she seemed to me confused at the change we are undergoing, and that is where I blame myself, for I have never let her know of our finances. Even when I worked two jobs for so long to uphold our charade, she never knew what sort of work and where, and of course I would leave the home well dressed and return as such. Perhaps I maintained this mask for my children out of pride and vanity. Perhaps I was being soosool.