Afterward Rosa curled against me like a girl rather than someone jaded about sex. And so I held her and let the moment go. The sounds of night life heating up drifted in from the windows, and I wondered if she’d take on someone else that night, more than one. A wave of revulsion washed over me, wiping out the tenderness. I sat her up and reached for my clothes.
She snapped out of whatever had her so sensitive, jumping off the sofa and dragging her dress back over her head. I didn’t want to pay her only the few dollars she’d asked for the other times, and so I laid an amount on her table that I thought was hopefully enough.
As I headed down the stairs, my anger at the whole situation threatened to boil over. I’d done this thing, broken away from my past. It was time to stop thinking about Corabelle and the life I’d left behind. I’d figure out a new future and a new path. If I wanted to rut into street walkers, I would. If I wanted to bet on pool, or get in bar fights, or be the asshole my father showed me I could be, then it just didn’t matter.
I wasn’t going to let any of the bullshit matter.
When I first opened the door out into the night, a couple guys looked at me like I might be an easy mark. But I was scrappier than they figured, and after a couple punches and a bit of blood on all sides, I felt initiated. I would come back to Tijuana again and again, and each time I’d piss off somebody different and live to tell about it. I’d see Rosa, maybe another girl, maybe two at once.
Nobody would tell me what the hell I ought to do. I didn’t owe anybody anything.
As I walked back to Bud’s, the anger of that night threatened to take over the control I’d reestablished since Corabelle came back. How many stupid things could I do in one month? Walk out of my kid’s funeral, get sliced by who knows what sort of illegal doc, then screw a hooker without a condom.
I’d checked out fine after, no bonus diseases, and they’d certified me as properly snipped.
But that was weeks later. That one time with Rosa was definitely in the window. Damn it, why hadn’t she protected herself?
But then Corabelle had been on the shot. Maybe I had jiz of steel.
I pulled out my phone and stared at the picture again. Surely it couldn’t be. I’d seen Rosa pretty often for the next few weeks, between rounds of drinking and raising hell in various bars, until I cracked the radiator block on the Camaro. I spent pretty much every dime getting it running again so I could keep going to work, since the night shift meant the buses were shut down.
In fact, everything went south after that. I had to pay tuition, then books. I eventually sold the car and bought a junker to cover the next quarter. Eventually I dropped to fewer credits because I couldn’t afford full-time tuition. Then even the junker had to go, so I walked.
I hooked up with a lady or two stateside on the rare occasions I had any extra dough, but not in Tijuana, since I had no way to get there. I could have gotten normal girls for free, but I saw how clingy they got with Mario and some of the other guys. I didn’t want to feel obligated to them, for them to pin any of their hopes on me.
Actually, I knew when I finally got back to Rosa. Finn’s birthday almost a year later. I hadn’t told anybody I’d gotten to know about my history, hell no. But Rosa I could tell. I couldn’t call her up, as I’d always just showed up at her job or her place. We had no way to contact each other.
I’d just started at Bud’s and Mario loaned me his Yamaha. I didn’t have a license for it, but that sort of obstacle didn’t stop me in those days.
When I got to her farmacia well ahead of closing, she was still there behind the counter.
Seeing her again was like taking a step into my past. I wasn’t the boy I’d been when I first asked her to come up the stairs with me. But looking across those shelves at her, I could experience, for a minute, what it was like to be the old Gavin.
She’d changed. I remembered that now, puzzle pieces falling together. Softer around the middle. Sadder, too. When she looked up at me, she wasn’t joyful the way she’d been before, but shocked. She glanced anxiously behind her at the man, as if worried he would guess who I was. I didn’t say anything but bought a bottle of perfume, letting my hand linger when she handed me the change. Then I hung out at a bar down the street until the hour came for her to lock up.
Rosa was reluctant to see me then and wouldn’t go to her apartment. But when we got to the old hotel room, she forced a smile and put on the face that I would grow used to over the years that followed, a pretend sort of happy.
If she’d had a baby in that time I was gone, I wouldn’t have even known.
If it had been mine, she would have had no way to contact me about it until I showed back up again.
Damn it. Why hadn’t she told me when I came back? We could have sorted this out.
The phone felt cold in my hands. When I got back to Bud’s, I didn’t bother going inside. I knew exactly where I had to go.
I fired up the Harley and headed for Interstate 5 and the border.
10: Corabelle
My father never missed a thing.
“You were expecting him, weren’t you?” he said, stretched out in Gavin’s chair in the corner.
Mom sorted through their bags from the museum purchases. “Never mind that, dear. Look, I got you some things to set around the room.” She unpacked a handblown glass bowl swirled with blue and yellow and set it on the side table with the flowers. “That’s better.”
I gritted my teeth. “Thank you.”
Dad yawned. “Did the doctor say if you were leaving today?”
I glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. “He hasn’t been by. Another staff member came in and seemed to indicate I wouldn’t be here much longer.” I picked at the sheet across my lap. Gavin’s last two texts were cryptic and short, just “At work” and “I’ll get there when I can.”
“Was it a nurse?” Mom asked.
My hackles rose. “No, just somebody from the hospital.”
“Maybe we could page the doctor.” She arranged herself on a chair, tugging her knitting from a bag. Great, she was going to settle in. Maybe I could walk the halls a bit and try to place a call. Except I didn’t have anything but this breezy hospital gown. And Gavin had my keys. I was stuck.
“He’s probably got more pressing patients than me,” I said.
“Then they should give up your bed, send you home,” Dad said.
The gray-mop-headed nurse popped in. “Time for a temperature check.”
Mom stood up. “Do we know when Corabelle gets to go home?”
The woman clicked on her iPad. “The doctor should be by soon. He’ll decide.” She sheathed a thermometer and slid it into my mouth.
We all waited for it to beep, as if it would be anything but normal. I felt fine.
She peered at it. “Hmm. Up again a bit. You been out of bed a lot?”
I shook my head. “I feel fine. I was walking earlier. Maybe I just did too much.” It was a lie. My chest felt like it was being crushed. But I wanted to go home.
She tapped the temperature into her iPad. “Let’s take it a little bit easier, just to be sure.”
“I will.” God, I could not jeopardize going home. I was already going crazy.
Dad locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Sure you don’t want to come back with us? I don’t know why you couldn’t finish up in New Mexico like you planned.”
I had to keep all my stories straight about why I had transferred. “I have a better shot at grad school here.”
“Sure was nice having you closer to home.”