12. TRAVELS
Hot Santa Ana winds blaze around the funkis bunker. The desert is out to get us, but we’re beneath deep red sheets. There’s something disturbing about it howling like a snowstorm while the sun burns as yellow and summer-fiery as always.
I wake up to Ciro upright in bed. From his position against the headboard, I register eyes that aren’t focused on the spectacle outside. Sheets low and arms resting on his knees, he reveals washboard abs and a happy-trail that can’t sway my attention from his mood.
“Morning,” I croak.
“Hey.” Such a simple word. He says it like his voice was made for me, and a stab implodes in my abdomen. I get that feeling again, like we live on borrowed time. Maybe it’s the weather gods messing with my nerves.
“What’s going on, Ciro?”
“Nothing much.” But his Adam’s apple rolls in a swallow. I reach for him, and he accepts, sliding down and entwining us. It’s unsettling when he hides his face in the crook of my neck.
“No, there’s something—I can see it. There’s no use in lying.”
“I thought I’d have next week off from traveling. I figured I’d finally show you a movie of mine. We’d grab, you know, popcorn, and watch it in my screening room.” He lets out a small laugh that doesn’t sound entertained.
“Okay?” I can sense his but is coming.
“I told Sharon I was taking next week off. I wanted to spend it with you so we could—really get to know each other. But she hauled in this offer I couldn’t even have dreamed up. It’s with the most famous star in my genre, and I’ll be sharing the screen with him. The movie’s to be shot in London, and the salary’s so high it pretty much secures my retirement.”
No way.
He said he’d show me his movies ‘in a week.’
Today that week is up.
Is he filming an adult movie there? Is my boyfriend going to—? Fuck, I really want Frieda’s suspicions erased from my mind. I need to see his movies.
“Wow, that’s awesome,” I say. “Don’t feel bad. That’s amazing that you have a chance to earn that much money.” I lick a trail from his jaw to his ear, and he lets out a hmmm. “I mean, what kind of a girlfriend would I be if I weren’t happy for you? How long is the trip?”
“It’s just five days.”
“And you’re leaving when?”
“On Tuesday.”
“Oh yay, we still have time, then, for you to show me a few of your films. I’ll get popcorn—the real butter kind—and we can mix it with rosé wine.” I smile. “Then, when you come back, we’ll watch the rest of them. Every movie you’ve ever made.”
Because by the sound of it, he stars in a lot of movies.
My stomach contracts.
Ciro doesn’t answer. His gaze floats to me, and there’s something else there. He’s pleading with me. About what? The movie-watching? I scrunch my eyes closed for a moment, resetting my nerves.
“Ciro, you’re scaring me right now. What’s going on?”
“No, no. Nothing’s going on, baby girl. Can you clear your calendar for a three-day getaway once I’m back? I’ll buy you from Mintrer’s if you can’t. Meet up here, at the house, and we’ll do whatever you want. I can grab us tickets to the Bahamas.” He sucks in air like he’s afraid I’ll say ‘no.’” What the fuck?
“There’s a catch.”
“No, there’s no catch.”
“Ciro.” The pieces are floating together for me. “Apart from the big-time guy, who’s in this movie?” I narrow my eyes. Those beautiful planes of his face can be so expressionless. Just, he doesn’t control them this morning as his mind roams for actor names and excuses. Excuses!
Oh god.
“In London?” I ask.
“Yeah...”
“Is Silk in it?”
The pause as his hand goes up to stroke my face says it all.
“She is.”
I take one of those calming breaths people talk about.
“It means nothing. It’ll be fine, baby. Only one of the scenes are with her. She’s supposed to be someone’s wife—”
“Not yours?”
“No. Even Sharon wouldn’t have suggested this job if we landed that close to the past. I’ll never be playing Silk’s husband again. Hell, I hope it’s the last time I’m in any film with her.”
I cross my arms. I have to say it even though I sound like a wronged lover. “You should put that in some clause for your agent so she never presents you with anything with Silk in it again. First, you have to work with Donnella, and now Silk. Shouldn’t Sharon be after your best interest?”
He smiles a little. Then he leans in to kiss my temple. “She is. Sharon looks after my retirement account, my ability to keep a good health insurance, pay off my houses and my cars, the charities I support. To be fair, she’s business manager and agent in one.”
“Charities?”
“Rescues, no-kill shelters, wildlife centers. That kind of thing.”
“Aww. Did Princess come from a shelter?”
“She did.” He kisses Princess’ head and pushes her off his lap in the driver’s seat. She tumbles into my lap instead, and he tries to diminish the impact with an arm while he drives. I tug her up until she’s half on my lap, half on the floor between my legs. It’s a compromise I think we can both live with.
“She’s a mess,” he murmurs with an affectionate eye-roll.
At his house, I ask him about his movies again, but there’s an issue with a red cable that goes in the back of the theater screen. He’ll buy a new one in the morning, he explains. Radio Shack should have it in stock. I suggest watching on one of the regular TVs, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea. “You need the full impact when you’re finally watching my films.”
“So YouTube snippets are out of the question, then?”
“I promise I’ll get the cable tomorrow.”
Frieda and her suspicions are going to give me a nightmare tonight.
Text me when you wake up!!!
My mother. Nothing good comes of her texting me at four a.m. It’s been a while, now, since she’s been on her wild sprees. The hippie community in Topanga Canyon has been good for her, but here she is again, texting me when everyone else is dead asleep. The last time she did this was a couple of months ago. She’d decided to join a cult in Las Vegas, and I narrowly talked her off that ledge.
I consider staying in bed until it’s morning. I twist my head to look at my love. He’s on his side with his back toward me, and deep red satin covers a muscular butt. I stroke from the dip at the base of his spine and down. He shifts in his sleep, so I scoot behind and spoon him. He groans contentedly. I’d like to disappear in that groan and stay there.
My phone buzzes again. I turn my head and look at it. Another message shines a blue square on the mattress, and Ciro stirs. I twist to read it.
I finally know what I want to do with my life!
Yeah, that’s not what you want to hear from your mother.
Come over when you’re up! I’ll make breakfast and tell you EVERYTHING!
Cap letters. Great. This is how she ended up divorcing my father and moving to California years ago.
“Is that your phone?” Ciro blinks in the semidarkness.
“Yeah, it’s my mom.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t think so.”
Slowly, he hoists up on his elbows. “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”
“No.” I flop to my back and stare at the ceiling. Ciro turns the night lamp on, and I squint against the sudden glare. “She’s not always in touch with what’s practical.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, reality? She gets ideas, and then she executes them all the way. For instance, the reason why she lives in Topanga, now, is that she thought she would feel like her real self if she became an artist and moved here, all the way from home. Like my father says, good thing she didn’t get that idea until my siblings and I got older.”
“How old were you?”
“I was in my last year of high school, and I’m the youngest, so no big deal.”
“It’s still a big deal to have your mom move away on a whim.”
“I guess. But it’s over and done with.”
“You don’t want to talk about it. That’s cool.” There’s no judgment in his voice. “What’s she up to now?”
“That’s what I don’t know. Most of her ideas require uprooting and leaving. I’ve managed to maintain her status quo and keep her where she’s now for five years, and she’s good there. You know? She has friends in Topanga, she’s got a small group of customers for those clay blobs of hers too, and between my dad’s alimony and her cleaning job at the post office, she manages financially.
“But look at these texts.” I hold my cell up for him to read.
“Hmm. If I didn’t know her history, I’d say, ‘good for her.’”
“Yeah, right? In Mom’s case, though, she could be about to spend her 401k funds on a shrimp boat. I don’t know, Ciro.” I tug my lip in between my teeth and bite down on it. “It’s so hard to change her mind too when she’s like that. She’s so freaking stubborn.”
“But she hasn’t had any crazy ideas since she moved here?”
“Oh she’s had ideas alright. On average, we have three to four incidents a year. On the worst year, we had nine, and I spent days talking her out of every one of them—you just go into full crisis mode and do your thing, you know, and she loathes it. Really, it’s pure luck that we’re still in L.A.”
“Come here.” His hand goes up my back and cups my neck. Then he pulls me down to him. I rest along his body, feeling the safety of his embrace. God, if my mother could only—
“I wish she kept it together.”
“Has she ever seen a specialist for it?”
“Like a psychiatrist?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, after an incident when I was very little. I don’t remember much of it. She’s too much of a naturalist for medication, though, if that’s what you mean.”
The quiet rise and fall of his chest soothes under my cheek. He draws his fingers through my hair, absentmindedly arranging it down my back. “Do you want us to go see her right away?”
The hour is what they’d call ungodly in the old times. We’ve hardly even slept.
“You’d come with me?”
“Of course I’m coming. I can’t have her upset my baby girl.”
When we arrive at my mother’s, she’s already packing. God, I am glad we didn’t wait until sunrise.
“Let me talk to her first,” I whisper to my boyfriend with his coffee and golden just-fucked-do-for-a-reason. He bobs his head and sinks into a crisscrossed position on the doorstep.
“Mom. I’m here. What’s going on?”
She’s on a chair picking down ceramic cups stringed along the top frame of the kitchen window between dried flowers and bundles of sage. An open cardboard box waits on a countertop, and two boxes are already taped shut on the floor.
“Hey, sweetie! You’re early. I thought young people still slept in on the weekends?” She chirps with her new plans, happy and full of energy. “Hold on, let me make us some dragon tea, and I’ll tell you a-a-a-ll about it.”
The tea water is boiling. It looks like it’s been boiling for a while, because it’s low in the kettle. It wouldn’t surprise me if she turned it on right after she messaged me. She puffs dust out of the mugs she just unhooked and rinses them without detergent. Then she pours in lava hot water and soaks bags of Celestial Seasonings’ Tension Tamer in it.
“Here!” It’s an exclamation-point day for Mom, not good. Judging by the packing, she’s upping and leaving. Where’s her friend Paul when we need him?
“Thanks.” I sink into a kitchen chair that’s still here. Thank goodness she hasn’t started on the furniture. “So, what’s up?”
“Well, see, I had this epiphany as I was browsing the internet yesterday.”
“Okay.”
She looks up at me, her eyes almost as aqua as my boyfriend’s. Her hands form around her own mug, squeezing a little too tight. “You know how I’ve always felt strongly about species on the verge of extinction?”
I try to think back. She does love animals. “I guess?”
She leaves her cup on the table, rubbing her hands together excitedly. “The South China tiger, or the Panthera Tigris”—she enunciates the words carefully in what sounds like broken Spanish—“is critically endangered and has been on the... IUCN red list since 1996.”
“What does IUCN stand for?”
She worries her lip. “It’s something international. A really high-ranked international organization about species that are almost extinct if we don’t save them, and the Panthera Tigris is such a beautiful, noble creature. They need to survive!”
I’d rather not ask what the Panthera Tigris has to do with my mother packing up her house in Topanga Canyon. I don’t have to. Mom inhales deeply. By the look of it, she’s inhaling purpose and freedom and a bunch of other things I don’t see coming from this.
“I’m heading to the Chinese province of Guangdong. For now, all known Panthera Tigris individuals are in zoos, but someone just spotted at least one in the province of Guangdong.”
I shake my head, and before I know it, I blurt out, “Are you crazy? Are you telling me that you’re off on a wild goose chase thanks to the rumored existence of a wild tiger? You’ve got a life here, and what about your lease, Mom? You can’t up and go like this.”
“Honey.” She strokes my face like I’m the silly one, a caring smile lifting her lips. “I’ll miss you very much, but you’re okay. You’ve got your jobs. You’re happy here.”
“And you aren’t?” I shout. At the corner of my eye, I see Ciro appearing in the doorway.
“Oh, Savannah. You know I’m happy here. It’s not that. I just saw this article, and I knew deep inside my heart that it’s what I need to do. What if, just because I didn’t listen to my gut feeling, the Panthera Tigris ceases to exist? It would be my fault. No, sweetheart. This is a tough decision, but I finally know my purpose in life. I’ll be going.” She straightens, determination hardening to steel in her eyes.
I can’t listen to this. I can’t decide over her either. She’s an adult—heck, she once decided over me. I’m not one to get worked up, but my mother and her inane decisions have special powers. Now, it’s like my intestines are on fire, and they’re swelling and boiling until they reach my chest and I want to hit something.
“Mom! Stop this idiocy right now. Think about someone but yourself for once. Me—and remember how you used to have other kids too?”
“But I am thinking about someone else, dear. Animals are people too.”
“What the hell? That’s just— Do you hear yourself?”
“Mrs. Nichols, hey there.” Ciro’s low murmur sieves in and fills the room. He moves to me and links an arm around my middle.
“Oh hey!” Mom’s eyes brighten. “I didn’t know you were here too, darling. You want a cup of tea?”
“Oh thanks. No, I’m good.” His gaze scans the kitchen and the boxes. “What’s going on in your neck of the woods?”
Right. Like I wouldn’t have told him.
“Oh just packing, you know.” She shrugs. Like we weren’t just in a shouting match.
“Nice. Nice. Got a new place?”
I glare at her. Watch her blink before replying. “No. Well, soon I will.”
“Cool.” He nods. “Changes are awesome sometimes.”
Her smile is back, and she bobs her head with him. “Definitely. Especially if you can save an important piece of nature with it.”
I inhale, opening my mouth to object, but Ciro nudges me gently.
“Yeah? I think I heard tigers on my way up the stairs?”
“Yes!” She beams.
“Cool. China?”
“Yep!” Mom is so happy, and this is getting worse and worse. I want to cry. What, do I have to drop everything and fly after her to Guangdong next? It’s like having a grownup child who’s lost her senses.
“Did you get a job in a zoo there, maybe?”
“No, I’m going to help them find and mark tigers in the wild.”
“Wow, I didn’t even know they were out there. Thought all of them were in the zoos.”
Where is he going with this?
I tense up again, but Ciro squeezes my arm. I suffocate the growl in my throat.
“No, someone saw a tiger, maybe even several out there in Guangong!” Mom’s exclamation points are back. Great.
“That’s amazing. Then of course they need experts out there. Is that what you are? Are you contracted to one of those organizations to help hunt them down?”
“Not yet. I will, though, once I get there. I’m very sensitive. I tend to calm animals just by being around them.” She tips her chin up like she has something to prove. It doesn’t rock Ciro’s calm demeanor.
“That’s great. I bet they need that if they catch one. English-speaking organizations? Or you probably speak Chinese already.” He nods, encouraging her.
“Not yet... I will as soon as I get there, though. Learn Chinese, I mean. Maybe the first couple of weeks while I look for a job.” She crosses her arms at us. “I just really need to get there as soon as possible before they’re all extinct!”
“I understand. As long as you have a buffer savings account and a few friends there to hang out with while you look for work, you should be golden. How exciting for you.”
“Mom. What friends do you have in the Guangong province?” I ask it in my quietest, least defensive voice.
Her gaze flickers. She picks the dragon tea bag out of her cup and drops it into the sink. “Not many yet.”
“Any at all?” I press.
“Baby, I’m sure she has some friends there.” Ciro’s words are low and supposedly meant for me only, but I’m onto his game now. I bite my lip, keeping my relief under control.
“I’ll find some online.”
“Good idea,” Ciro nods, thanking yes to her new offer of tea. “Some Chinese language skills, a few friends, a job, and a financial buffer in a new, poor country and you’ll be fine. I’m excited for you.”
We spend most of Sunday helping Mom unpack.