Eighteen
1995
“Noah?”
The man turned, scooping up the ball as he did, and Mercedes let out a whoop that ricocheted throughout the whole complex.
“Noah!” she shrieked. The exhaustion she’d felt only minutes before was replaced with heady euphoria. He was home. He was home! Then she was running, not caring that she might break a heel—or her ankle—flying across the grass between the parking lot and the concrete court where he stood beneath the paltry lights, waiting for her.
“The girl can still move! Slow down, Mer,” Noah said laughing, closing the last few steps and swinging her up into his arms, squeezing her tight as she buried her face in his shoulder and prayed he’d never let go. She wrapped her legs around him so he couldn’t release her, making him laugh harder, and rained kisses on his scruffy cheeks.
“What is this fuzz you’re growing on your face?” she crowed.
“I haven’t shaved since we left Kuwait. I’m not shaving again until I absolutely have to.”
“I like it,” Mercedes declared.
“Me too.” He pulled back but didn’t set her down and gazed into her beaming face.
“I missed you so damn much,” Noah said.
“I missed you too, you big, dumb idiot,” she whispered, trying not to get emotional, calling him names to keep her tears at bay. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be back today? I was expecting you next week. I had big plans for a welcome home fiesta with food, folks, and fireworks.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you.” He laughed again. “I didn’t want a big shindig. I wanted to surprise you. Plus, this right here? This is the best welcome home you could have given me. Although I gotta say,” he bounced her in his arms like she was a fussy child, “you’re a little heavier than I remember. What are you up to now? One oh five, soaking wet?”
“It’s the shoes,” she said, giggling. “They weigh five pounds apiece. But I look amazing in them.”
“Let me see,” he said, and set her on her feet. She stepped back, releasing him, and twirled.
“Yep. Amazing. But can you play ball in them?” Noah leaned down and grabbed the ball, bouncing it expertly between his legs before he tossed it to her. She strutted like Ru Paul on the runway, dribbling as she went, before stopping, posing, and throwing the ball up like she’d practiced the move a thousand times. The ball dropped through the hoop, and Noah crowed, and they were immediately enmeshed in a game of HORSE. It soon became a game of TRUTH. Instead of gaining a letter when you failed to make a shot, you had to admit a truth. They’d been playing the game for as long as they’d known each other, but still managed a few new confessions. Being apart for the last year provided some new fodder.
“‘Fess up, Noah,” Mercedes taunted after Noah missed a shot she’d banked in.“Truth? I got here two hours ago, Abuela made me dinner, and I ate everything. Even the part she told me to save for you.”
Mercedes gasped in mock horror. “But I’m starving!”
“Abuela also told me if I waited out here, I would be able to see you coming. Still driving the Corolla, I see.”
“If it ain’t broke,” Mercedes quipped. “That Corolla and I are going to grow old together. She’s given me her best years, and I’m not going to abandon her just because she’s ugly.”
“Loyal to a fault,” Noah said, taking several steps back so he was in three-point range.
“Always. You’re ugly. And I’ve never turned my back on you.”
“This game is called TRUTH, Mer. Truth. And I am a beautiful man. However, you haven’t ever turned your back on me. That part’s true enough.” He let the ball go, and it flew home, nothing but net.
Mercedes tried to make the same shot and missed. It was her turn to supply a truth.
“Truth,” she said. “I didn’t really have a shindig planned. Food, yes. Fireworks, possibly. But no folks. I didn’t want to share you.”
Noah stopped dribbling and approached her with a soft smile. She smiled back, and tried to steal the ball. He gave it to her instead.
“You never change, Mer,” Noah said quietly. “That’s one of the things I love about you. While I was waiting, I worried that maybe things would be awkward or that things wouldn’t be the same. But they are. You are. And I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
“Truth? I love you more than any Caucasian male on this planet. That won’t ever change. Even though you ate my dinner,” Mercedes said.
“What about Hispanic males? Or Asian males? Or African males? Is there something you aren’t telling me? Have you fallen in love with someone while I was gone?” He waggled his eyebrows expectantly, but there was an odd look on his face.
“Truth?” she asked.
“Truth,” he replied.
“I’m never going to fall in love. It’s too messy.”
Noah nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed, and Mercedes turned and put up another shot. But somewhere between truth and flat-out lies, the game had suddenly come to an end. She fetched her own rebound and tossed the ball to Noah. He bounced it right back.
“It’s yours. I took it from the top shelf in your closet. Talk about messy.”
Mercedes scoffed. Her closet—her whole room—was pristine.
“You want to come inside?” she asked. “Or maybe we could hit Taco Bell for some sixty-nine cent burritos. You owe me dinner.”
“And the final truth of the night . . . I’ve got to go. Heather knows I’m in town. I called her to get Cora’s schedule. She had a late class, but she should be home now.”
“Okay. I’ll put dinner on your tab,” Mercedes teased.
“Come with me,” he urged.
“No. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or Sunday. I’ve had my turn. Go see Cora.”
“Is everything okay between you two? You both wrote faithfully, but neither of you talked about the other. I started wondering if maybe there was something up.”
“We don’t see each other as much as we used to. Since she and Heather moved out of The Three Amigos, it’s not as easy to just drop by. Cora’s in school. I’m working.” Mercedes shrugged. “But we talk at least once a week.”
He seemed reluctant to leave. “Come with me,” he repeated. “It will be like old times. Just the three of us.”
“It won’t be like old times,” she hedged. “Some things haven’t changed . . . but other things have.”
He searched her eyes, waiting for her to elaborate.
“You and Cora?” she pressed. He had to know she knew. Cora hadn’t kept it a secret.
He nodded slowly, though Mercedes wasn’t sure if he was confirming the new relationship or just letting her know he heard.
“You won’t change your mind?” he asked quietly.
“No. You go,” she insisted.
He nodded again, and something rippled across his features and was gone.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Always,” he answered. He gave her a quick, hard hug, and loped away, leaving her standing alone beneath the streetlamp, holding her ball.
* * *
Mercedes cried when Noah left. Maybe it was the coffee mug he broke, the mug she’d saved from his mother’s collection, the mug with the words that had become a bit of a mantra in the last ten years. In the end, only three things matter. How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
The irony of the quote was not lost on her now.
Mercedes had loved hard, she’d lived the best way she knew how, and she’d never taken something that wasn’t hers. And look where it got her. She picked up the broken pieces of the mug, hoping it could be saved, and cried harder when she realized it could not.
Maybe her tears were not for the old coffee cup. Maybe it was the weeks—the months—of strain, the intense emotions, the loss of everything she’d worked for, and the change in her relationship with Noah. Whatever the reason, she sank to the sofa in her aging duplex, a thousand square feet that housed everything she owned and nothing—besides Mami—that she couldn’t leave behind. This was her life, and she was overwhelmed with the emptiness of it all. Used, re-used, shined up, fixed and refashioned. It was all clean. All bright. She’d done her best with the space, and it reflected her taste and her knack for making something out of nothing. But looking around through tear-filled eyes, through sobs that wracked her chest and left her drained, she felt nothing but despair.
She turned her face into the couch cushions, shutting it all out. She should go to bed. She should sleep. Maybe then she wouldn’t see Noah’s shattered expression and re-hash their argument over and over in her head. But she didn’t think she would be able to sleep. She needed to move, to work, to do something—anything—to take her mind from her troubles. She heard Mami come in from work and tiptoe to the couch where she was huddled.
“Estás durmiendo?” Mami whispered, touching her back.
“No,” Mercedes muttered, turning her face a little so her mother could hear her. “I’m not sleeping.”
“Que pasa?”
“I’m fine, Mami,” Mercedes lied. “Just tired. Just a little emotional. I think I’m going to go to Maven tonight and do the inventory. I don’t have to do it. It’s Keegan’s job now . . . but it’s been my job for so long, my pride won’t let me leave it undone. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep anytime soon.”
“Were Noah and the bebé here?” Gia’s boots were sitting in the middle of the floor where she’d pulled them off. Seeing them made Mercedes’s heart ache and her eyes shimmer. She turned her face back into the couch cushions so her mother wouldn’t see.
“Yes. They were. But they left.”
“Without shoes?”
“It’s July, Mami. Gia will survive without her snow boots.”
Alma patted her back and said nothing more, climbing the stairs to her room with a tired, “Te amo, Mercedes.”
“Te amo, Mami,” Mercedes whispered, and even saying the words she’d said a million times hurt. Everything hurt. Enough of that. She pulled herself from the couch, stepped over Gia’s little boots, and headed for the kitchen. She needed coffee, and then she would head to Maven and work until she was too tired to feel hopeless.
The pictures Moses had drawn were scattered across the table. Had she done that or had Noah? They’d both been so upset. The picture of Keegan, Cora, and Gia was crumpled in the corner where Noah had clutched it in his fist. Mercedes reached for it, smoothing out the angry wrinkles. She considered destroying it, ripping it into tiny pieces, and then she sighed, knowing she wouldn’t. It would be like burning a Picasso because she didn’t care for his paintings. It was art, drawn by a remarkable artist, and she couldn’t find it in herself to destroy it, even if she hated what it represented.
She tucked the drawing into the folder, thumbing through the other pictures as she stacked them. She wished she could frame the picture Moses had drawn of the three amigos. She would hang it along with the picture of Noah, Mercedes, and Gia, in full view, so no one had to hide. So no one had to wonder where they fit. Maybe then they could all be a family without questioning if it was okay, if it was all right.
Her eyes filled again. She picked up the picture of the flag draped coffin, so detailed and so tragic, the dog tags framing the scene. That picture, more than any other, symbolized the event Cora could never get beyond. Maybe showing Moses those images was Cora’s way of explaining a lifetime of struggle.
“We knew, Cora. We always knew. You don’t have to explain,” Mercedes murmured, talking to her friend the way she found herself doing from time to time. She moved on to the next picture—simplistic by comparison—of the five stones. At the time, Mercedes had interpreted them as river rocks, smooth and unassuming, piled innocently atop one another. She’d seen the rocks and imagined the river where Cora’s car had landed in Emigration Canyon.
Looking at them now, she thought of Cuddy and his pockets full of gravel. She thought of the five smooth stones he’d given her as payment the day she’d told him Cora was gone, the rocks she’d then placed on Cora’s grave. One rock for each of them—Cora, Noah, Gia, Mercedes . . . and Cuddy. As if they were all connected.
But they weren’t connected.
And maybe that was the reason she cried. If anything they were all as shattered, disconnected, and broken as Shelly Andelin’s old coffee mug.
Mercedes shoved the drawings back in the drawer, unwilling to dwell on them a minute longer. She grabbed her purse, shoved her feet into a pair of cheetah print wedges, and stopped in front of the mirror to fix what was left of her makeup. Five minutes later she was pulling out of her driveway. She had work to do.
* * *
Mercedes didn’t want to park in the employee lot. It felt too vulnerable, like she was broadcasting to everyone that she was inside. She’d been jittery and uptight since Keegan had returned, afraid in a way that wasn’t normal for her, afraid in a way that made her do things like park one block over so he wouldn’t see her car and walk to the salon, letting herself in through the front door and locking it behind her while she disabled the alarm.
These days she was consumed by “last-time-itis.” This is the last time I’ll close shop. This is the last time I’ll open. This is the last time I’ll cut so and so’s hair or go to lunch with my coworkers. Tonight would be the last time she logged in the inventory and made an order for the upcoming month. There was no part of running a salon/spa that she wasn’t familiar with. That was something she could be proud of. From payroll to pedicures, she’d done it all, and the thought suddenly infused her with calm. She had a skill set. She would be okay. Even after Maven.
She walked through the darkened space, not bothering to illuminate anything other than the back hall that led to the storage room. The warehouse just right of the employee parking lot was now being rented out as a Cross-fit gym. Mercedes had brokered the deal for Gloria Maven, convincing her that gyms and spas go hand in hand. The space had been mostly unused for years—Mercedes’s Quinceañera at fifteen had been the most action the warehouse had seen in decades—and the rental had been a boon to Maven’s business and to her bottom line. Mercedes clicked on the light in the stock room and got to work. About an hour into her duties, she thought she heard voices. She frowned, cocking an ear.
Keegan was the only male stylist. Maven employed two male massage therapists and the Cross-fit gym was riddled with testosterone. But no one had a reason to be inside the salon this late on a Saturday night. She listened, straining to make out the voices, wondering if she needed to investigate, or at least make her presence known, when the voices got louder, and Mercedes identified Keegan as one of them.
Gloria had apparently given him back his keys. Bitterness welled in Mer’s chest, but she shook her head and released it. She couldn’t blame Gloria for the things she didn’t know. But it might not be a bad idea, now that she was leaving and now that Noah knew the truth about Keegan, to have a very frank conversation with Gloria about her favorite stylist. Or maybe not. The thought of telling anyone that Noah wasn’t Gia’s biological father stuck in her throat. She wasn’t sure they were words she would ever willingly say, even as a courtesy to her longtime boss.
The voices approached, and Mercedes scrambled for the light, instinct making her hide, though she wasn’t the one in a place she shouldn’t be.
“Anybody here?” Keegan called, and her heart tripped and slipped to her stomach. She didn’t answer.
“The alarm wasn’t on. It should have been on,” he said, and there was a nervous quiver in his voice that made her wonder who he was with. She raced for the door and locked it seconds before the handle turned.
“You don’t have a key?” the unknown voice inquired.
“I’ve never needed one. It’s usually open.”
“Well usually isn’t gonna cut it, is it?”
“Hold on . . . let me see what I’ve got here,” Keegan grumbled. The soft jangle of keys accompanied the slide of a key in the lock. “That’s not it,” Keegan muttered.
Mercedes scrambled for a place to hide. Snagging her purse, she crawled beneath the nearest row of shelves as the lock released and the door swung open. She could hear Keegan feeling around for the switch, and suddenly light bloomed.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, Mercedes chanted silently. She could feel her purse vibrating against her chest. Someone was calling her. The setting was almost inaudible but not quite. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her phone to cease. The two sets of feet stopped in front of her face.
“It’s in the towel bins.”
What was in the towel bins?
Keegan had waltzed in earlier in the week, carting bins overflowing with white towels, like he was delivering food to poor, starving children.
“We won’t need to buy new towels this year, Gloria,” he had bragged. “A local hotel chain was having a close-out. I got these for next to nothing. Solid white, just like we use here. They look brand new. There are close to one hundred towels in these bins.”
Gloria had clapped and congratulated him on his resourcefulness, even offering to pay him what the towels cost, plus a finder’s fee. He’d declined, magnanimous.
“This is my contribution to Maven and my thanks for hiring me back on.” Keegan had opened one of the bins to show everyone the quality. But he hadn’t opened all of them. He’d stacked them in the storage room, one on top of the other, in the space next to the door where they would be out of the way until they were needed.
“So all these bins, huh?” the stranger asked.
“Just the bottom two. The top two are just towels.”
“You got ten kilos hidden beneath towels?”
“Twenty. And it’s hidden inside the towels. All cut, mixed, and bagged. All we have to do is deliver it, and you’ll get the money I owe you, plus interest, just like I promised. Let’s get ‘em and go. That alarm should have been on,” Keegan worried.
Mercedes didn’t dare reach into her purse or pull out her phone, but it continued to vibrate against her chest, threatening to expose her. She needed proof. Something that she could take to the police. Something that would ensure that Keegan Tate wouldn’t be in any position to threaten Noah for custody. She had the suspicions of a homeless man and a conversation about kilos and towels. It would be nice if she had more. She listened, hardly breathing, as the two men moved the two top bins, brimming with towels, to the side and positioned the two bottom bins on a dolly.
“Is that your phone that keeps buzzing?” the man asked Keegan.
Mercedes stopped breathing.
“Nah. It’s not mine. I thought it was yours,” Keegan grunted.
“Check it,” the man insisted, and from her vantage point, she could tell when Keegan released the handle on the dolly, lowering the platform, to search for his phone. She couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t see anything but their feet, but she could imagine how it must have unfolded.
Keegan reached for his phone, looking down as he did. The other man reached inside his jacket, ostensibly to check his phone as well. Instead, he pulled out a gun, and without hesitation or second thought, he pulled the trigger.
The sound in the small space was deafening, and had Mercedes been a different type of girl, one who is prone to squeaks or squeals, she would have given herself away.
Instead, she stared, dumbstruck, into the sightless eyes of Keegan Tate who had fallen to the floor mere feet from where she was wedged, cheek against the linoleum, a paltry, plywood shelf separating her from a stone-cold killer. Keegan had died without pain or protest, a hole in his forehead and blood seeping through his golden locks like he’d suddenly decided to go red. Alive one moment. Gone the next.
The man with the gun leaned down and picked up Keegan’s phone. It had clattered to the ground when he fell, skittering away from his body toward the door. Mer caught a brief glimpse of dark hair and a brown leather jacket before the man straightened again. Then he propped open the stockroom door, pushed the loaded dolly from the stock area, and shut the light off behind him. No snide one-liner or cackling laugh like you see in the movies. He simply shot a man, shut off the light—gotta save electricity—and trundled off with his bins of cocaine.
Mercedes lay in stunned horror, afraid to move. In the darkness, she could smell the blood. It had found her hiding place, and when it touched her face, warm and wet, expanding in an ever-widening pool, she hugged the wall next to her and pressed a hand over her nose and mouth.
Maybe the man was simply quiet as he made his getaway, or maybe her ears were permanently damaged from the gun being fired in close quarters, but Mercedes couldn’t hear anything. Not her pounding heart or her labored breaths. And that scared her most of all. If she couldn’t hear, she wouldn’t know if he was gone. She wouldn’t know if she’d given herself away. She wouldn’t know if she moved silently.
But she did know one thing. If the man found her, if he heard her or saw her, she would die. So she laid in Keegan’s blood and begged Lady Guadalupe, Abuela, and Cora—whoever could hear her—for protection. Then she began inching forward beneath the shelves, trying to put some space between her body and Keegan’s blood, desperate not to make a sound, but knowing if she didn’t move, she would lose her mind.
She’d almost worked her way to the far wall, a good five feet from Keegan’s body when the door swung open again and light filled the room once more. He was back.
She froze again, praying she was still hidden, and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the moment he discovered her.
He began pulling items from the shelves, stepping over Keegan’s body like it didn’t bother him at all. He upended a box of commercial toilet paper over Keegan’s body, the rolls individually wrapped in paper bouncing merrily over the dead man. One rolled beneath the shelf where Mer was huddled, and came to a stop. She prayed he wouldn’t care enough to retrieve it. He didn’t. He ripped open a ream of scratchy paper towels, the kind that stack inside a wall dispenser, and let them flutter over Keegan’s inert form. He emptied several packages, burying the body in paper products. Mercedes heard a snick and the smell of aerosol hairspray filled the air with an accompanying whoosh. Her hearing was coming back, but her eyes stayed glued to his feet, willing him to leave again. If he kept pulling things from the shelves, he would eventually find her.
He liked the hairspray. He doused the towering pile of paper products in a long, steady stream, emptying one can and tossing it aside before opening another. Mer’s throat started to tickle, and her eyes began to burn.
Don’t sneeze. Don’t cough. Don’t even breathe.
She didn’t see him pull out his lighter, but she saw the moment he dropped the burning ream of paper towels, and the whole pile whooshed into flames, a funeral pyre on the stockroom floor. Through the flames she watched him leave, flipping off the light once more, and pulling the door closed behind him.