I stopped, walked over to her. "Where have you been?"
"I don't know, babe"
"Tell me."
Sidewinders slithered all around us.
Another cluster of panicked customers ran by, as we stood in the kitchen.
"I don't know what to tell you," she said, shaking a few taquitos onto a plate, placing them in the microwave.
The fire alarm wailed.
A man's voice came over a loud speaker, "Please go directly to an exit and leave the store in a calm and orderly manner."
She started to slowly sink in the sand underneath her. But she didn't even notice. The world, her life, her everything was changing all around and she wasn't even noticing. There were a thousand things I wanted her to tell me, a thousand things I had to ask, a thousand explanations I needed to get so I could save my fraying sense.
"We don't have much time," I said. "Tell me."
She fiddled with the buttons on the microwave, inching lower. "How long do I cook these for again? I can't remember, baby"
"Mom, answer me."
"I think it's a minute and a half." She pushed more buttons on the microwave. Inching. Inching. "But I can't say for sure."
"Mom!"
Inching.
"You don't remember, baby?" She'd sunk far enough that the microwave was out of her reach. "I'm sorry," she said. Her body getting lower and lower. Buried fast. Up to her waist. I grabbed her hands and tried to keep her from leaving, but I couldn't do anything to stop her. "I can't reach. You'll have to finish yourself."
Me, Rhonda, I couldn't do anything to make her stay.
Up to her chest.
"You can finish them yourself, I know you can," she said.
The man's voice came over the loud speaker, "Please leave the store immediately. This is an emergency situation"
"Don't go," I said to her. "Please don't."
She sank farther into the sand.
Up to her neck now.
She looked up at me. Just a face. A sinking sad face. A sinking sad face I'd never see again. "I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you," she said.
"Why couldn't you?"
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"I'm so sorry."
I heard a voice behind me, an orange-vested employee saying, "Hey, man, come on. We have to get you out of here."
"I'll be there in a minute."
"Now"
"Just a second."
He came over and grabbed me by the shoulders.
"Let go!" I said.
"You have to get out of here."
With only one good hand, there was nothing I could do, no way to fight him off. He dragged me away. I called to her, "Why didn't you try and find me after I got out?" but she didn't answer, her face vanishing in the sand, her hair lying on top of it like a dead animal.
Then the last strands of her, the idea of her, were swallowed up.
"What's wrong with you?" the orange-vested employee said. "You have to get out of here!" and he dragged me, away from her, away from Letch, dragged me through the exit and left me on the sidewalk with all the other scared people.
Home-Cooked Meal #3
We were all together. Me, my mom, and Letch. She'd thawed another dinner, this time chicken burritos. She put the burritos on plates. Nothing else was on the plates, just those dry white rectangles. Letch frowned at it, looked at me, pretended to throw up. I laughed. She asked what the hell was so funny, you guys, but she knew we were joking about her crappy cooking and sometimes she'd joke about it, too.
Pretty soon we were all pointing at our burritos and laughing.
Letch said, "Doesn't this look scrumptious, Rhonda?"
I said, "Fit for a king."
She said, "This recipe has been passed down in my family for centuries."
I took a bite. Letch took a bite. She took a bite.
Letch, still chewing, said, "It's even more delicious than it appears.
I said, "This is the best thing I've ever tasted."
She said, "The trick is to microwave them for sixty seconds. A lot of people don't know that."
We were all laughing, but kept shoveling more burrito into our mouths.
Letch said, "Do you have some moral objection to salsa?"
I said, "It is a little dry."
My mom said, "Salsa?" and shrugged her shoulders. "I say the drier, the better."
We were still laughing.
"I hear what you're saying," Letch said to her, "but if I really, really wanted salsa, do you think it would ruin the dish?"
I said, "If the drier, the better, should I go outside and get some sand to throw on top?"
Letch leaned over and fuzzed my head.
My mom said, "Yes, please, sand sounds lovely"
Letch said, "I could go for some sand myself."
I said, faking a British accent, "I shall return," and went out back and hopped the fence: nothing but desert for as far as I could see. It was a warm night, not too hot. There was a quail sitting in a hole near the top of a cactus. I filled my pockets with sand and jumped the fence again. I walked back to the table.
Letch said, "Waiter, may I have some sand added to my entree?"
My mom said, "Me, too, please. I'm dying for some sand."
Still using the British accent, I said, "Ladies first," and walked over to my mom and asked, "Would you like the sand on the side or on top of your burrito?"
"I'd like it right on top."
I dumped a handful on her food.
We were really cracking up. My mom laughed so hard she was crying.
"Waiter, I'm waiting," Letch said.
"Sorry, sir," and strutted over to Letch. "Fancy some sand?"
"Does the queen fancy cock?" he said, right when my mom drank more tcha-bliss, and she laughed so hard that she spit and choked.
I shook sand all over his burrito and he said, "Thank you, kind sir," and I said, "No, thank you," and my mom said, "No, we insist! Thank you," and I bowed and said, "The pleasure was mine," and strutted back to my burrito and spread the rest of the sand all over it.
We picked up our sandy burritos and pretended to eat them.
"Just when I didn't think it could get any better!" I said.
"You were right, Rhonda," Letch said. "The sand really did the trick."
My mom said, "Sand is this year's pepper."
We howled, holding our sandy burritos.
Letch smacked the table and snorted, setting his burrito down. He said, "Anyone feel like making nachos?" and my mom and I told him, yes, we'd love some nachos and we all went into the kitchen. Letch spread chips on an oven pan. I grated cheese. My mom pulled out the salsa, shook it into a bowl, and Letch said, "Oh, sure, now there's salsa," and we kept on laughing.
Her Saliva Tasted Like Blood
Me, Rhonda, with little-Rhonda, speeding up 1–5 past all those dead seals. Doing ninety: Had been roaring up the freeway since leaving Phoenix, waiting to be pulled over, but it hadn't happened yet. And it didn't happen. We made it all the way to San Francisco without a squawk from the proper authorities.
We returned the rental car and walked back to my apartment. First thing I noticed when I walked in was a present, giftwrapped in a newspaper page of stock quotes. Sitting on the burned couch. Written on its top, in a black marker, was this:
There was a small card propped against the package.
I looked at little-Rhonda and said, "You shouldn't have," and he said, "I didn't," so I opened the card:
I hadn't expected anything from old lady Rhonda.
I looked at the little guy and said, "Thanks for nothing."