Chapter 4
The apartment was totally quiet when I let myself in. Robin didn’t often go out at night without me and I wondered where he was. I had been trying to get in touch with him since I heard from the parole officer about Mikey, but he hadn’t answered me.
There were dishes on the table and in the sink, towels on the bathroom floor, the bed was unmade, and clothes were strewn around the room. I picked up and cleaned up, then sat down on the couch with my phone in my hand in case Mikey called. I thought I might close my eyes, just for a little while, even though I still needed to study for my test. It felt like the day had been 40 hours long already. I didn’t think about Iván. I kept my mind away from how he had looked at me under the street lamp. We could have…
I wasn’t going to behave that way. I wasn’t going to treat Robin like that. We had our issues, maybe, but we were together, a couple. I couldn’t act that way, any way, with Iván. We could be friends, maybe. I could be his tutor. That was it.
I was physically exhausted but my mind was racing. I got out Robin’s old laptop and started to read about penalties for parole violations and how to fight them. I wondered how we were going to afford a good lawyer to do it. If Mikey didn’t get in touch soon, we were in real trouble. We might already be. I rubbed my temples.
Then, without really thinking about it, I typed in “Extremadura Spain” and started to read about that. It looked beautiful there, and so, so different. Next I read about swimming freestyle and butterfly, which looked to be Iván’s favorite strokes. I watched videos of him winning and losing. He reminded me of a fish, or a dolphin. He looked like he belonged in the water, and even when he was serious, like when they showed him right before a race, he always looked like he was having fun.
I watched him with another swimmer, Dylan something. They were best friends as well as rivals in the pool and there were a lot of articles and some video interviews with them. Iván laughed through all of them but Dylan, Dylan McKenzie was his name, was a lot quieter and almost withdrawn. It was funny to see the contrast between them. That Dylan was not bad looking, but he had nothing on Iván. And it was Iván’s personality that made him so attractive, really. He just drew you right in. I could understand why so many women—
That was like a bucket of cold water in my face. I typed in “Iván Marrero girlfriend” just to further convince myself of the absolute implausibility of anything I had been imagining. I spent a long time looking at these pictures.
The front door closed and Robin came into the apartment. I heard him rooting around in the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator.
“Hey,” I called. “I’m home. Are you hungry?”
The noises stopped and Robin came into the living room. “Maura. No, I ate.”
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Out with Vincenzo and Todd.”
We had been together long enough for me to know when he was lying, but I let it go. He squatted in front of me on the floor, that familiar face, the familiar cowlick in his hair, the familiar Robin. I patted his shoulder. “Did you get my messages? I was trying to get in touch with you.” Maybe he would have been able to help me look for Mikey. It was a longshot that he would have been of any benefit, but maybe.
“I forgot my phone,” he explained. He didn’t ask why I had needed him.
I smiled. Classic Robin. This was real; it made sense. We had been together practically forever and would continue the same way, until death did us part. My feeling of contentment slipped a little. Until the day we died, this was what my life would be like.
“Let’s go,” Robin said, sliding his hands down over my breasts and pinching my nipples. I winced, but let him take my hands and pull me to my feet.
This was real. Everything else was just moondust and silliness. Robin led me into the bedroom and I took off my clothes, thinking that I would have to pick up his in the morning. I thought about what I was going to study afterwards, and as soon as Robin fell asleep, I went and sat at the kitchen table and opened my books.
Mikey called me in the middle of the night. I heard my phone vibrating on the nightstand and rolled quietly out of bed to answer it in the kitchen, shutting the door behind me.
“Michael? Mikey? Where are you?”
“Maura?” He was yelling. “I can’t hear you very well. I’m in San Diego.”
“What? What are you doing there? You know you’re not supposed to leave—”
“We’re heading down to Tijuana.”
“What?” It came out a lot louder than I meant it to. “Mexico? Are you kidding?”
“I can’t hear you that well.”
“Your parole officer called me today, Mikey! You’re already in a lot of trouble. Come back now, before it gets worse!”
The silence was so long that I thought we had lost the connection. Or he had hung up. “No,” Mikey said finally. “I’m not coming back.”
“Please! Michael, please!”
“I don’t want to live like that anymore, under someone’s thumb.”
“We can figure it out. Mikey, think rationally. I’ll help you. I’m going to help you!”
“Sorry, Maura.”
“No, listen—”
“I’ll get in touch with you when I can. Someday.”
“Wait, where are you going exactly? Do you have any money? Your cell phone won’t work in Mexico. How will I call you? Mikey? Hello?”
This time there was no answer. I sat at the kitchen table, typing quickly, sending him messages about going to the embassy or consulate if he had a problem, what the value of a peso was compared to a dollar, tips about drinking the water. Anything I could think of that would help him. There was no response. Finally, I just wrote, “I love you.” Then I spent the next few hours staring at the phone and again trying to study for the test I had the next day. Now it was just later that morning. The test that I had been planning to study for that afternoon, instead of running all around the East Bay hunting for my brother, who had left me and gone. He was gone. The words seemed to get blurry on the page of my textbook.
“Maura.”
“Yes.”
“Maura. What are you doing?” Robin asked me.
I picked up my head slightly from the table and my hand shot to the back of my neck as a shaft of pain went through it. Daylight poured in through the kitchen window. “I fell asleep,” I commented unnecessarily, my head down as I rubbed my neck. With my other hand I felt along a giant crease on my face from where I had laid my head on the edge of my textbook. Mikey. Oh, glory. What was I going to do about Mikey? “Robin,” I started to say, to explain to him that my brother was gone.
“You remember my mom.”
My head jerked up. “Oh. Cynthia.”
Robin’s mom stood next to him, looking down at me. How long they had watched me sleep, I had no idea. That she’d been planning to visit us from Orange County, I also hadn’t known. I stood up, realizing that I was wearing one of Robin’s t-shirts, and it was very short. “I didn’t realize you were coming to visit. Robin, I wish you had said something. Can I get you some coffee?” I needed some. Immediately.
Cynthia turned and looked up at her son. “She doesn’t know?”
“Know what?” I asked.
“You didn’t know that she was coming. My dad is here too. They’re staying in San Francisco,” Robin explained. He put his arm around his mother and she adjusted her cardigan.
I looked at him curiously. “Is that where you were yesterday? With your parents?”
“Are you keeping tabs?” Cynthia asked. “He’s an adult.”
He was, kind of. “Robin can do what he wants, of course,” I said, trying to smile at her. I started to back out of the room, pulling my shirt down in the front.
“Oh, Maura.” Robin’s dad, Brandon, joined his wife and son. Now there were three people fully dressed, yet I was still in my undies. Brandon narrowed his eyes, his gaze running up and down my legs.
“I’m going to go change,” I announced. “I’ll just be a moment.”
“My parents are taking us out to breakfast.” His mom shot him a look. “Me. They’re taking me out.”
I knew they hated me. Robin had always tried to pretend that it was my imagination, but Cynthia may as well have hired a skywriter. Robin followed me now as I continued to back out, with me smiling and nodding like an idiot at his parents while they frowned at me.
“Robin!” I hissed, when I shut the bedroom door. “Why didn’t you tell me that they were coming? That they were here? Why the secrecy?”
He looked uncomfortable. “They wanted to see just me.”
“Then why would they come to our apartment, where I also live?”
Robin put his hand down the back of my underwear and squeezed my butt. “You’re so hot. Do you think they would hear us if we—”
“Robin!”
“I didn’t think you’d be home. I didn’t see you in the kitchen when I left. You’re always gone so early.”
I froze. “What time is it?”
I ran through the living room, pulling on clothes, yelling goodbye to Robin’s parents. Then I ran out to the sidewalk, buttoning my shirt, trying to call a cab or order a car, something to get me to campus so I could take my test. By the time I got there, heart pounding, mouth dry, chest heaving, they were already 45 minutes in. I had to beg and plead with the teacher to please, please let me at least try to take it. She finally relented but I had less than half the time left. I sat and wrote furiously, trying to think, trying to focus. When she called time, I still had at least a third of the test left undone.
I had failed.
I walked out of the building into an unnaturally bright sun. The professor had been mildly sympathetic but mostly unbelieving when I explained after the test that I’d had a family emergency the night before and had slept in by mistake. I guessed I could get a note from the parole officer to convince her. Maybe when they caught Mikey, I could bring her his arrest report. But she did relent, and said she would allow me to do some make-up work, depending on how poorly I’d done.
I found myself wandering through the campus, feeling like absolute crap. My neck was still killing me and I had a pit the size of a cannonball in my stomach. I looked down and realized my shirt was buttoned wrong and I had on two different flipflops. And there was no word from my brother. Nothing.
My head was aching, too. Maybe I was coming down with something. I couldn’t remember feeling so bad, not for a long, long time.
∞
I smoothed down my new-to-me skirt nervously. I had left Benji’s early in order to have dinner with Robin and his parents before they went back down to Orange County. Robin had been gone all day with them and I had bagged on going to the dance studio and come home to try to take a nap. It had been unsuccessful and if possible, I felt worse than I had earlier. I was definitely coming down with something, and now Anouk was pissed at me, too.
I was meeting them at a restaurant, La Raillerie, a really fancy, famous place I had often read about, but I had never been. They liked to go there with Robin whenever they came into town; this was the first time I had been included in the invitation and I was looking forward to the food, if not the company. Cynthia and Brandon generally tried to spend as little time with me as possible, which I understood. There were obvious reasons why they wouldn’t like me. If I were Robin’s mom, I probably would have felt the same way.
The bus let me off a few blocks from the restaurant and I hurried down the street. Robin, Cynthia, and Brandon were already seated when I came in.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “The bus was late. They never keep to the schedules.”
“We’ve already ordered,” Cynthia greeted me.
“Did you get something for me?” I asked Robin, who looked confused.
“Oh, no. I didn’t think about you,” he told me. I signaled to a passing waitress and asked if she could add to the order, just to bring whatever Robin was having. I hoped he had picked something good.
“Robin tells us you hope to finally graduate, Maura,” Brandon said.
“Yes, I’ll finish in the spring. I know it’s taken a while, with me going only part-time. And then I’m planning to work in San Francisco, or somewhere close by.”
“That would be ideal for you to stay in the Bay Area,” Cynthia said, and nodded. I looked at her strangely. She wanted me to stay with Robin? This was news.
Brandon started talking to Robin about some sports thing and I watched Cynthia to see the proper way to handle the bread basket. The last time we had been out, she told Robin afterwards that my manners had been inexcusable. I had studied etiquette online but I didn’t want to mess anything up. She took out a roll, made with a sourdough starter from the Gold Rush times, and tore it in two. Then she took a bit of freshly churned, organic butter. I watched her delicately apply it to the bread. Our eyes met.
“Robin also tells us he is very close to completing his thesis,” she remarked. This was also news to me. “I know he spends a lot of his time dealing with your…issues, so we’re glad that he was able to focus on his own work. On his own life.”
I flushed. Just that one time, and she would never let me forget it. “I’ll be very glad when he finishes. I’ll be very proud.”
“And you definitely plan to get a job after you graduate, and to stay here.”
I carefully tore my roll in two, just as she had. “Cynthia, I work currently, now. I’m a nanny and I also do bookkeeping at a dance studio. And I tutor.”
She waved a hand. “Yes, but I mean, soon you’ll be able to support yourself, rather than Robin taking care of you.”
“I’ll have a full-time job in the spring,” I answered, controlling my temper.
“That’s good. Robin has been worrying about what you’ll do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her. I looked up to see Brandon watching me. Robin was playing with his bread.
“Maura, Robin will be coming back with us to southern California tomorrow,” Brandon told me. “He’ll complete his thesis there.”
“What?”
“He’s coming home with us,” Cynthia explained loudly, also enunciating each word, as if I didn’t understand the language. “He’s giving up that terrible apartment and moving back home.”
“Robin?” I asked. “Is that what you’re doing? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to be upset,” he explained.
“The movers will come tomorrow, and we’ve sublet the apartment. You’ll need to remove any belongings you have there,” Cynthia said. She smiled. “It’s better to have a clean break.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” I asked her, then shook my head in confusion and turned to Robin. “I mean, you’re breaking up with me?” He shrugged, and kind of winced.
“It’s time to move on,” Brandon said. “Robin has wasted enough of his life. He’ll get his PhD, and we’ll get him working with me and his brothers.”
“This is what you want?” I asked, still staring at Robin. “You want to leave me, and go be a trash collector?”
“Brandon owns a waste management company, Maura!” Cynthia said angrily. “You’ve been nothing but a weight around my son’s neck, and it stops now! You’ll leave him alone and let him get on with his life.”
“Robin?” My voice was shaking.
“Sorry,” he told me. “I’m really sorry, Maura. This is for the best.”
The waitress started placing salads on our table, delicate portions of brightly-colored, sustainably-harvested vegetables artfully arranged on the plates.
Cynthia smiled at her. “This looks delicious! Robin, I’ll never forget this restaurant.”
I stood up and walked out, and walked all the way home. Which was ironic, because it wasn’t my home anymore. Robin wasn’t mine anymore.
But there was no point in dwelling on that. Dwelling never helped. All you could do was fix the problems that you could. Focus on the small things, like getting the rock out of your shoe. Like tightening the faucet so that it stopped dripping, when you were getting washed away in a flood. I stumbled on the sidewalk but pulled myself back together.
Robin didn’t come home that night. I tried to get in touch with him, but he didn’t respond. I was sure that Cynthia was keeping him close and away from me. Our landlord lived in one of the units in the main house and I confirmed with her that we were out. New tenants were set to move in on Friday. Cynthia and Brandon had called her about subletting at least a month ago. It was funny to think that just the night before I had been planning a long life together with Robin. Funny how quickly things could change. Funny.
So I took my old suitcase out from under the bed and started folding my clothes. I tried to think about where I could go. As much money as I made, I knew I didn’t have enough for a security deposit and first and last months’ rent. A large portion of my paychecks had always gone to Mikey and his bills, his apartment. Wait—that was it. He was paid up through the end of the month, which I knew because I had written the check. I would go to Mikey’s place. I needed to clean it up, anyway, before his landlord realized he was gone and stole his stuff. Mikey would need his things when he came back from Mexico.
I looked around. Besides my clothes, I had some kitchen items I didn’t want to leave. Or rather, let Cynthia throw away. I had a lamp I had bought at the flea market in Alameda, a lot of books from my classes. I wasn’t going to be able to take it away all by myself. I needed a big car, and I needed someone to help me carry it all up the steps at Mikey’s.
“Can you help me move some boxes before class tomorrow?” I texted Iván at about one in the morning. “I’ll trade you a tutoring session to even it out.”
He was awake, too, and he answered that he’d be there at nine. I tried to make myself go to sleep and not do something terrible like clean the toilet with Robin’s toothbrush. Or cry, and cry, and cry.
“Thank you so much for helping me,” I told Iván when he pulled up carefully to the curb the next morning. Despite everything going on, I still appreciated that he took the time not to hit the garbage cans.
He looked very tired. I felt sorry for making him get up and help me, and I handed him a cup of coffee. I had made it as strong as I possibly could.
He sipped appreciatively then studied me. “Are you feeling all right?”
I knew I wasn’t looking my best. I hadn’t really slept well the night before.
“I’m fine. I only have a few boxes and some suitcases.” I had decided that Robin would be happy to give me his bags. It didn’t take us too long to load up Iván’s car. I sat on the steps after I did one last walk-through of our apartment. This was it. I was saying goodbye to our home. And to Robin.
Iván sat down next to me. “What are you doing with that stuff?”
“I’m moving,” I explained. “I’m moving into my brother’s apartment.”
“Wait, what’s happening? Maura, you didn’t explain this. Is your brother back? What about your boyfriend?”
“Mikey left. I don’t know when he’ll be back.” I blinked rapidly. “Robin and I are done. He’s moving back home to Orange County with his parents.”
“I’m sorry.” Iván put his arm around me, and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned against him and closed my eyes. How long had I known him? But he was the one who had shown up when I needed him. I kept my face turned to his chest, just for a moment more.
“Maura? Oh, I thought you would be gone already.”
Robin. I yanked myself away from Iván to see Robin with his parents. Behind them were some guys pushing hand trucks. They were all staring at us.
Cynthia looked at me like she smelled something bad. “That didn’t take her too long,” she commented. “She’s probably been carrying on behind your back the whole time,” she told her son.
“No, I haven’t.” I wiped my cheeks. “Robin, I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. Iván and I are friends.”
Iván turned to stare at me. “This is your boyfriend?” He pointed at Robin. “Him?” he asked incredulously.
I ignored him and held out my hand to Robin. I had to try, just one more time. “Can you just think this over? You don’t have to do what your parents want. You can decide for yourself! We’ve been together for ten years, Robin. Please.”
He looked very uncomfortable. “Maura, they’re not going to give me any more money unless I come home,” he said in a stage whisper. “How am I supposed to live? I’m really sorry. You know how I feel about you. You’re so hot.”
Iván snorted and said something in Spanish that sounded like “hilly poyas.” He stood, pulling me with him. “Maura, vamos. We’re leaving.” He took my arm and we marched past Robin and his parents. Iván kind of cleared Robin off the path with his shoulder and Robin hopped back into the avocado tree. Somehow, I had never noticed before how small he was. I turned and looked over my shoulder as we got to the sidewalk, but the three of them, and the movers, were already inside.
Iván opened the car door for me and closed it, hard, then got in himself behind the wheel. “I need to ask…Maura, really? You, and that guy?”
My breath was getting stuck in my throat or something. “He’s not that bad,” I gasped, and Iván turned to look at me.
“Hey, ok. I’m sorry. Maura, I’m sorry.” He started to wipe at my cheeks with his thumbs and I realized I was crying. I leaned away and forced myself back under control. No use in dwelling. Time to move on.
“Do you remember where my brother’s apartment was? Can you drive me there, please?”
Iván started the car and pulled away, jaw clenched. I could tell that he was angry, and also that he was putting forth a genuine effort to drive carefully. He stopped for a red light at least four car lengths before the intersection and never went above 40, not even on the freeway.
“How old is he?” Iván broke the silence. “How much older than you?”
I knew what he was asking. “Robin is thirty-five,” I hedged.
“And you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“And you met ten years ago, you said. You were fifteen.”
He could do the math and see the legality of that situation. “I was almost sixteen.” Iván turned to stare at me. “It wasn’t like that,” I defended myself. Defended Robin. “He saved me, Iván.”
“Explain this to me, please. I want to understand. Or I want to go back to that terrible house and beat him.” From the look on his face, I thought that he might.
I drew in a ragged breath. “I was in high school, and Robin was a student teacher. He was going to be a teacher, then. He was getting his master’s degree and he was really nice to me. He helped me in school when I was having trouble. Then I was going to get kicked out of the house I was fostering in. It doesn’t matter why.” I closed my eyes for a second, remembering how I’d shoved a chair under the handle of the door to the bedroom that three of us girls had shared in that house. “They were going to send me to a group home. Iván, it was…awful. I was so scared. So, so scared. Robin let me come live with him. He got it all okayed, legally. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he gave me a home. Like, the first real bedroom that was mine. He took me to restaurants, he bought me clothes. I got to stay there for three years. I owe him a lot. I see how it looks, but it wasn’t like that. You don’t understand.”
Iván was muttering under his breath in Spanish. I tapped his shoulder gently. “Iván?”
“I understand very well,” he told me. His voice sounded hoarse. “Can you tell me now, where this brother was at the time?”
“Mikey was eighteen and already out of the system. They didn’t keep us together after the first few years. I think he was in MCJ when I moved in with Robin. Anyway, I couldn’t find him.”
“MCJ? What is that?”
“Men’s Central Jail.” I swallowed. “In LA. He moved up here a few years later, and Robin was wanting to get his doctorate. I kind of pushed for Robin to come here so I could be near my brother. See, I was using him—”
“Maura, please!” he interrupted sharply.
I sat back in my seat and looked out the window.
“Where is your brother now?” Iván asked, his voice softer.
“I think he’s in Mexico,” I said. “I think. That’s where he said he was going.” I stared hard at the concrete wall of the freeway. “He’s on parole, so it’s a big deal. He wasn’t allowed to leave. I would have helped him.” I wiped away more tears. “He just left.”
Iván didn’t answer. We drove the rest of the way to Mikey’s apartment without saying a word.
He didn’t understand.