Oscar looked around dazed. “Egyptian Roman, wrapped in plastic,” he murmured. “I always dreamed of it.”
Kevin went back out front to get a beer from his bike basket.
Ramona appeared down on Laurinda, pedaled up to him. He waved and put down the dumpie, feeling strange. They had talked briefly several days before, after the news about Tom came in. Condolences.
“Hi,” she said, “How are you?”
“Fine. We’re just having a little celebration here.”
“All done?”
“Yep.”
“Hopefully Oscar will have a housewarming?”
“I think so, yeah. This is just an informal thing, the inside’s still a mess.”
She nodded. Pursed her lips. The furrow between her eyebrows appeared, reminding Kevin sharply of Pedro. “You okay?” Ramona said.
“Oh yeah, yeah.”
“Can… can I have a talk with you?”
“Sure.”
“Now’s not a bad time?”
“No, no. Here, let’s walk up the street, if you want.”
She nodded gratefully, eyes to the ground. They walked up the bike path, her bike between them. She seemed nervous, awkward, uncomfortable—as she had been, in fact, ever since her birthday. It made Kevin weary. Looking at her, the long stride, the sun bouncing off glossy black hair, he felt an ache of desire for her company—just that, nothing more. That he would lose even her friendship. “Listen, Ramona, it’s all right.”
She shook her head. “It’s not all right.” Voice muffled. “I hate what’s happened, Kevin, I wish it never would have.”
“No!” Kevin said, shocked. “Don’t say that! It’s like saying…”
He didn’t know how to finish, but she nodded, still looking down. All in a rush she said, “I know, I’m glad too, but I didn’t ever want to hurt you and if it means I did and we can’t be friends anymore, then I can’t help but wish it hadn’t happened! I mean, I love you—I love our friendship I mean. I want us to be able to be friends!”
“It’s okay, Ramona. We can be friends.”
She shook her head, unsatisfied. Kevin rolled his eyes, for the sake of himself alone, for his own internal audience (when had it appeared?). Here he was listening to himself say things again, completely surprised by what he heard coming out of his own mouth.
“Even if—even if…” She stopped walking, looked at him straight. “Even if Alfredo and I get married?”
Oh.
So that was it.
Well, Kevin thought, go ahead and say something. Amaze yourself again.
“You’re getting married?”
She nodded, looked down. “Yes. We want to. It’s been our whole lives together, you know, and we want to… do it all. Be a family, and…”
Kevin waited, but she appeared to have finished. His turn. “Well,” he said. He thought to himself, you make a hell of a crowbar. “That’s quite a bit of news,” he said. “I mean, congratulations.”
“Oh, Kevin—”
“No, no,” he said, reaching out toward her, hand stopping; he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, not even on the forearm. “I mean it. I want you to be happy, and I know you two are… a couple. You know. And I want us to go on being friends. I mean I really do. That’s been the worst part of this, almost, I mean you’ve been acting so uncomfortable with me—”
“I have been! I’ve felt terrible!”
He took a deep breath. This was something he had needed to hear, apparently; it lifted some weights in him. Just under the collarbones he felt lighter somehow. “I know, but…” He shrugged. Definitely lighter.
“I was afraid you would hate me!” she said, voice sharp with distress.
“No, no.” He laughed, sort of: three quick exhalations. “I wouldn’t ever do that.”
“I know it’s selfish of me, but I want to be your friend.”
“Alfredo might not like it. He might be jealous.”
“No. He knows what it means to me. Besides, he feels terrible himself. He feels like if he had been different before…”
“I know. I talked to him, a little.”
She nodded. “So he’ll understand. In fact I think he’ll feel a lot better about it if we aren’t… unfriendly.”
“Yeah. Well…” It seemed he could make the two of them feel better than ever. Great. And himself?
Suddenly he realized that what they were saying now wouldn’t really matter. That years would pass and they would drift apart, inevitably. No matter what they said. The futility of talk.
“You’ll come to the wedding?”
He blinked. “You want me to?”
“Of course! I mean, if you want to.”
He took a breath, let it out. A part of his mind under clamps sprang free and he wanted to say Don’t, Ramona, please, what about me? Quick image of the long swing no. He couldn’t afford to think of it. Find it, catch it, clamp it back down, lock it away. Didn’t happen. Never. Never never never never never.
She was saying something he hadn’t heard. His chest hurt, his diaphragm was tight. Suddenly he couldn’t stand the pretense any more, he looked back down the street, said “Listen, Ramona, I think maybe I should get back. We can talk more later?”
She nodded quickly. Reached out for his forearm and stopped, just as he had with her. Perhaps they would never be able to touch again.
He was walking back down the street. He was standing in front of Oscar’s. Numbness. Ah, what a relief. No pleasure like the absence of pain.
Hank was around the side of the house, loading up his bike’s trailer. “Hey, where’d you go?”
“Ramona came by. We were talking.”
“Oh?”
“She and Alfredo are going to get married.”
“Ah ha!” Hank regarded him with his ferocious squint. “Well. You’re having quite a week, aren’t you.” Finally he reached into his trailer. “Here, bro, have another beer.”
Alfredo and Matt’s proposition got onto the monthly ballot, and one night it appeared on everyone’s TV screens, a long and complex thing, all the plans laid out. People interested typed in their codes and voted. Just under six thousand of the town’s ten cared enough to vote, and just over three thousand of them voted in favor of the proposition. Development as described to be built on Rattlesnake Hill.
“Okay,” Alfredo said at the next council meeting, “let’s get back to this matter of rezoning Rattlesnake Hill. Mary?”
Ingratiating as ever, Mary read out the planning commission’s latest draft, fitted exactly to the proposition.
“Discussion?” Alfredo said when she was done.
Silence. Kevin stirred uncomfortably. Why was this falling to him? There were hundreds of people in town opposed to the plan, thousands. If only the indifferent ones had voted!
But Jean Aureliano was not opposed to the plan. Nor her party. So it was up to the people who really cared. The room was hot, people looked tired. Kevin opened his mouth to speak.
But it was Doris who spoke first, in her hardest voice. “This plan is a selfish one thrust on the community by people more interested in their own profit than in the welfare of the town.”
“Are you talking about me?” Alfredo said.
“Of course I’m talking about you,” Doris snapped. “Or did you think I had in mind the parties behind you putting up the capital? But they don’t live here, and they don’t care. It’s only profits to them, more profits, more power. But the people who live here do care, or they should. That land has been kept free of construction through all the years of rampant development, to destroy it now would be disgusting. It would be a wanton act of destruction.”
“I don’t agree,” Alfredo said, voice smooth. But he had been stung to speech, and his eyes glittered angrily. “And obviously the majority of the town’s voters don’t agree.”