Cecelia was starving. She wondered if the pizza was meant as a bribe, so Cecelia wouldn’t tell their boss that Marie wasn’t showing up.
“She didn’t have to buy me a pizza,” Cecelia said.
“She didn’t,” said the guy. “I owed her a favor. I had some other deliveries on campus.”
“How do you know Marie?” Cecelia asked.
“Lots of ways,” said the guy. “She couldn’t make it because she came down with temporary fatigue syndrome.”
“Oh,” Cecelia said.
“People are always trying to be funny, aren’t they?”
Cecelia nodded.
“I won’t accept a tip from you because you didn’t order the pizza. No tipping on gift pizzas. That’s my policy.” The guy turned quickly, swooshing his ponytail, and was gone.
Cecelia slid the pizza box in front of her and opened it. She ate two wide greasy slices and felt like she’d never want to eat again. Now that she was full, the pizza didn’t smell good, so she set it outside the door. The architecture class was winding up. Next there would be a biology class in the east auditorium and a political science class in the north.
The phone rang. Cecelia got up and carried it over near her chair and set it on the counter. It was so loud it was ringing itself hoarse. Cecelia lifted the receiver.
“A/V booth,” she said.
“Amway.”
“Hello?”
“It’s Nate.”
Cecelia hadn’t spoken to Nate since the incident at the diner. “How’d you get this number?” she asked.
Nate breathed sharply. “Isn’t that a boring job?”
Cecelia had noticed that whenever Nate felt guilty he acted meaner than usual.
“What do you make, like nine dollars an hour?”
“Look,” Cecelia said. “Don’t worry about the other day. It’s a weird time. No big deal.”
“Why would I worry about the other day?”
“No reason, that’s what I’m saying.” She wanted to be civil. Nate was probably more messed up than he would ever let on over Reggie. Reggie had been the kind of person who, though he was good at everything, didn’t inspire jealousy. He made people feel satisfied with themselves.
“Thought you’d be happy to know, I’m giving up the name Shirt of Apes,” Nate announced. “I decided I better take the opportunity to shake the old fans — try to get some new ones, normal ones, maybe people with money to spend.”
“Uh-huh,” Cecelia said.
“You probably won’t be as happy to hear I’ve decided I’m going to use our old songs for my new band. I’m having tryouts this weekend and whoever I pick, I’m going to teach them our songs and we’re going to perform them live for pay. As part of a new, currently unnamed band. Just to be clear.”
“You mean Reggie’s songs.”
“Since you’re on sabbatical or whatever, and I don’t suppose Reggie needs them for anything.”
“You mean you’re going to steal Reggie’s songs because you can’t write your own.”
“Call it what you like.”
“I am. I call it stealing.”
“I could justify taking the songs until the cows come home. Anybody can justify anything. It’s what separates us from animals. It’s a waste of time, though, isn’t it — sitting around justifying when there’s so much to be done? It’s not easy starting a band, you know?”
Cecelia felt frozen up inside, but she heard herself talking. “There’s got to be a way I can stop you,” she said. “Legally.”
Nate snorted. “You won’t do that. You won’t get a lawyer. Reggie didn’t have the songs copyrighted or anything.”
“Copyrighted?”
“Yeah, that’s what you do if you’re smart. You copyright intellectual property.”
“You’re an evil person, Nate. I know that’s not news to you. I’m pretty disgusted I was ever in a band with you.”
“You needed my capital and hustle. Power, I call it. You needed my power.”
Cecelia didn’t say anything. If she had said something, she would’ve expressed her wish that Nate had died, not Reggie. She wasn’t going to say something like that. It was true, of course. If someone had to get in a bad car accident, it should have been Nate.
“You didn’t have to quit,” Nate said. “I’m not going to be penalized because you don’t feel like playing anymore. I invested a lot.”
Cecelia’s heart wouldn’t slow down. The only victory she could salvage, at the moment, was not letting Nate know how badly he’d upset her. She was telling herself, almost in a chant, that she wasn’t going to let Nate have the songs without a fight, but right now she wanted to appear calm, merely disappointed. She wasn’t going to get a lawyer, true, but she also wasn’t going to do nothing. Nate would probably get the songs, she could already see that, but she wasn’t going to let him out of this unscathed. She was tired of being above things, of putting up with things. She saw that there were people who attacked and people who got attacked, and that the only way to keep from being a victim, like Cecelia perpetually was, was to do some attacking.
MAYOR CABRERA
Once a month he went to visit a professional lady named Dana. Dana was semi-retired. She had a few steady clients and rarely tried a new one. Dana was the only woman Mayor Cabrera wanted. He certainly didn’t want a young woman. Dana had short, straight hair and prim little feet that Mayor Cabrera liked to hold in his hands. She was always wearing a different pair of glasses and when she laughed she straightened her back and crinkled her nose. She didn’t laugh a lot. She always seemed vaguely pleased but if you wanted her to laugh you had to earn it. Mayor Cabrera dreaded the day Dana would say she was quitting the business and he would have nothing to look forward to, nothing bright to think about while he passed the hours at the motel. He shouldn’t think about her quitting, he knew. These monthly jaunts were meant for relaxation, not fretting. It wasn’t only being with Dana in bed; it was getting out on this empty, pebble-shouldered road and absorbing the slaps of the rushing air, doing something that might be wrong, something strictly for himself. It was skipping dinner and accepting one of Dana’s cigarettes and staying up until the stars faded swapping stories.
Mayor Cabrera was driving in the opposite direction of his worries, away from Lofte, where more and more people seemed to sense the town was going under. People were sniffing it on the wind. Some would move away, get out while the getting was good, and this would accelerate the town’s demise. The lifers, the ones who’d raised children in Lofte, would stay. They’d expect Mayor Cabrera to work a miracle. They’d think that since he had reddish skin and smelled earthy, he’d know how to fix everything. But the only fix was money, and no one had any. The truth was the town had been in decline for twenty-five years. Longer. Denial was the only defense against it, and denial was finally running low. Maybe Mayor Cabrera would work a miracle. Maybe Ran and his followers would move to Lofte.
The old racing grounds loomed up, nothing left but two sets of weathered bleachers staring each other down over a weedy flat. Mayor Cabrera remembered when they’d raced dogs, even horses. Now the place was a ruin. Compared to other ruins it was brand new, but it was a ruin. Mayor Cabrera was still five minutes from Dana’s villa and he felt his worries losing steam already, their urgency flagging. He felt his neck loosening up, his breaths filling his whole chest. When he was with Dana, he felt that being alive was enough. Being alive was an achievement and a reward and an end in itself. Maybe that religious group would come to Lofte and save the town and maybe they wouldn’t. What if they spurned Mayor Cabrera and went elsewhere, to Oklahoma or wherever? Would he have another date with dana? Yes, he would. What if the motel went under? Would he still get to press his mouth against Dana’s ear? Yes, he would. No matter what happened, nothing was going to stop him from sitting up with Dana after the rest of the world was asleep, Mayor Cabrera peacefully spent, a happy cliché, nursing the tart gin drinks Dana mixed and telling and hearing of times before he and Dana had known each other, enjoying the old stories all the more because he was in a story that moment.