South by Southeast (33 page)

“What will you do now?” Mother said. “For money?”

“Maybe go to college. I'm not sure.”

“Only go to a college with rich men,” Mother said.

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Everyone can fall in love,” Mother said dismissively. “A beautiful woman should never go poor.” Mother didn't ask questions about Bernard, and Chela didn't offer more. Bernard wasn't the kind of man Mother had in mind for her.

“I do not know everything,” Mother said. “But I know these things.” She sounded tired suddenly. For a moment, she sat in silence. “What about him?” Mother said. “Tennyson. Will you stay?”

“A while, I guess,” Chela said. “Until I figure out what's next.”

“He . . . has been a father to you?” The look in her eye made Chela wonder if Mother thought she was sleeping with Ten.

With good reason, probably. When Ten first brought her to his house, Chela had thought she could marry him one day—or at least get him in bed—but it was best to forget that.

“Yeah, he acts like a dad.”

Chela didn't say,
Too bad for me,
as she would have once, but Mother seemed to know her thought. Mother clicked her teeth. “A nice face, that's all,” she said. “He is too old for you, an old schoolgirl crush. If you must get a man, get a young man. But stand on your own.”

Chela smiled. Mother's advice wasn't always perfect, but sometimes it was. And Chela could say anything to her. She'd missed that.

“I don't need anyone to adopt me,” Chela said.

“Let him sign papers, if he wants,” Mother said, shrugging. “What does it hurt?”

Chela had never expected to hear those words from Mother.

Patrice Sheryl McLawhorn, wherever she was, could go straight to whatever pit of hell was reserved for losers like her. Chela wished she hadn't agreed to let Ten ask her anything. Chela didn't need that woman to get permission; she had it from Mother now.

“It has been wonderful to see you,” Mother said. “But stay away now. All right?” She used a voice like she might have used with a small puppy, artificially cheery, an octave higher.

Mother was sending her away. Chela felt a sting, but she could add it to her things to cry about later. The depression phase would be a monster.

Chela grabbed Mother's cool, nearly weightless hands the way she had Nana Bessie's.

“Thank you, Mother,” Chela said. For four years, she had sifted through her memories, wondering if she'd ever spoken the simple words. “I would have died out there without you. Thank you for saving my life.”

The rest was a different conversation. The rest didn't seem as important.

For the first time in Chela's memory, tears welled at the corners of Mother's eyes.

I WOKE UP
in April's bed, although I had yet to invite her to spend the night in mine. I'd floated the idea at dinner the night before, and Chela and Marcela had both given me looks. Two weeks after my father was shot to death, they still wanted the house to themselves.

So I opened my eyes to mismatched furniture, a mound of clothes balanced on an exercise bicycle, and a collection of reporter's notebooks in need of either a file cabinet or a trash can. Her room looked like a college dorm. April's futon mattress felt lumpy, and she didn't know anything about bed sheets with a high thread count. What was I doing there?

Then I rolled over and found April sleeping nude beside me, and it all made sense.

My fingertip traced the lines across her back, following her shoulder blade to her spine. April's brown skin transfixed me, an ocean worthy of contemplation. I nestled my body behind hers and followed my fingertip's path with soft brushes from my lips. How did she always taste so sweet? Was it her skin itself?

April stirred with a quiet, throaty chuckle, pressing closer to me. Her curves were a perfect fit against my bare pelvis, firm and soft. I
kissed the back of her neck and gently flicked my tongue against her earlobe. April made the humming sound I'd missed so much, the one that meant
Yes.
She reached behind her to pull my head closer, until our cheeks pressed together.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too, baby.”

Her whisper swept through me like an electrical current, warming my body with a gently rising flame. Only April's words could stroke me like hands, igniting the parts of me no one else could touch. How had I lived apart from her so long?

Grief bubbled inside the pleasure; either bad memories or a premonition or both. Sadness cinched my arm around her more tightly as I cradled her warm, petite waist. I touched every part of her I could claim, vowing I would never let her go.

When April turned to face me, my body rejoiced so much that my toes curled. We held each other's scalps so tightly while we kissed that our faces had no beginning and no end. Our tongues spoke a secret language. Her hand roamed between my legs, sure and practiced, cradling me like treasure.

We both wanted to taste each other at once, our bodies sliding into place. April felt nearly weightless on top of me. We licked each other in concert. When her mouth swallowed me, I fell away from myself, my lips apart, my eyes closed. The pleasure was acute, as sharp as pain. When my mind returned to my body, I flipped over until April was beneath me, and my mouth was eager to return the sensation.

April's fingers clawed for her sheet, and she stiffened, trying to muffle her first orgasm.

We were both drenched in perspiration and each other's fluids when I nudged myself between her taut thighs and found her wet, welcoming embrace. April was as snug as a virgin. Our bodies joined slowly, her natural tightness parting for my size bit by bit with my careful probes. Every quarter of an inch filled us both,
until our bodies were pressed tight. We rocked together, hissing and moaning our improvised song. When we couldn't keep our song's rhythm syrup-slow, we thrashed and bucked until I forgot my own name.

Making love was still a novelty to me. Afterward, gasping, I could only stare at the ceiling with wonder. I must have dozed off, because April's touch woke me.

“Baby?” April said, fingertips propping my chin. “Let me see your face.”

“Hmmm?” I said, still fumbling for thoughts and speech.

“Your eyes look red all the time. Do you think that's from the tear gas?”

Back to reality. My eyes were red because they hurt like hell. I had started wearing my dark glasses indoors because light hurt my eyes. I also wasn't sleeping well, although I was always tired. My eyes could have been red from fatigue. I had my pick of ailments. I had lost ten pounds since Dad died. The smell of food often made me feel sick, and my appetite was zero. All of that was in my eyes, too.

“As long as I can see, they're still working,” I said.

“Ten, you should make two appointments: an eye doctor and a therapist. For you and Chela. Maybe Marcela, too. You need to face this.”

I rolled back to face the opposite wall, a pillow over my face. I was surprised at how angry I felt. I missed our old rules, suddenly. Conversation felt like a betrayal.

April seemed to take my silence as careful thought. “What happened was a big thing,” April said quietly. “This is why police departments have therapists. Your father was murdered practically in front of you. I went to therapy, and there was nothing in my life like that.”

“You?” I said. April's life had been close to idyllic, except for me. “When?”

“When I first got back from Cape Town.” She sighed. “I was depressed.”

We didn't talk about our last breakup often. A year before, I had cut my visit with her at a Stellenbosch bed-and-breakfast short after she told me we had to be friends. I might never have called Sofia Maitlin for the job if my relationship with April had turned a different way.

“You were sad,” I said. “I was, too. That's natural, April.”

“Not sad—something else,” April said. “A feeling that wouldn't let me go, following me everywhere I went, making me doubt everything about myself. I never wanted to get out of bed, but I couldn't sleep. I ate junk food all day. I needed a therapist. I needed to talk it out.”

“I'm sorry you went through that,” I said, “but no therapist is going to relate to this.”

“I already found one who would,” she said, smiling. Her dimple melted my irritation away.
Damn,
April was cute. “He works out of Pasadena. Very well respected. He treats drug addiction, sex addiction, PTSD. He does more than you need. He's been on
Oprah
. My coworker whose brother was injured in Afghanistan told me about him.”

Drug addiction, sex addiction, PTSD. If danger was a drug, he was tailor-made for me.

“How would that help Chela?” I said.

“He does family and individual counseling. You see him separately, sometimes you see him together. Therapy helped me—I know it can help you. It won't change what happened, or bring your dad back, but it helps make sense of things.”

If therapy was how she'd gotten over me, she might need another dose, I thought. But I decided it was best not to say it.

“What did it help you make sense of?” I said.

“Remember that time we went to Little Ethiopia and I got that cane for your dad? You were looking for Sofia Maitlin's kid, just
breezing through, working your case. But I couldn't stop thinking about you.” For a brief moment, April had shadowed me while I interviewed a potential suspect in the Maitlin kidnapping. But I hadn't had room for April then.

“I had a phone.”

“You didn't want to be friends,” April said.

“It was hard for me to be around you, too.”

The air was getting thick. Had we imagined we'd both just said
I love you?

“Who's Marsha?” April said finally.

I closed my eyes. Shit. I didn't want to talk about Marsha.

“Are you in love with her?” April said.

“Hell, no,” I said. I'd once thought Marsha reminded me of April, but that part of her was only an act. Marsha wasn't even her real name. Might as well call her Mata Hari.

“Chela mentioned her,” April said. “Said she came to breakfast at your house that time?”

April's voice was neutral, but breakfast was a special occasion to her. I'd kept her and Chela at such a distance that it had always been a treat for April to eat breakfast at our table. Marsha had crashed my family breakfast only once, but it wasn't worth explaining.

“We were working the Maitlin case,” I said. “I can't tell you much more.”

April looked surprised. “Why not? We're just talking. You know I don't wear my reporter hat in bed. And I'm just a laid-off reporter now, anyway.”

“You're starting that blog.”

April's blog, “L.A. Tymes,” was a mixture of police, political, and entertainment stories and had won hundreds of followers in a few days. April had impeccable inside information, whether or not she worked for the mainstream media.

“I'm not asking for my blog, Ten. And I'm not asking if you were sleeping together. We've both been dating. That's not my question.”

I hadn't asked about men in her life and didn't want to. We were different that way.

“Is she a cop?” April went on.

“Something like that,” Ten said. “April, I hate the way I sound right now, but I can't talk about Marsha. It has nothing to do with dating.” I lowered my voice and spoke into her ear, as paranoid as Mother. The one most likely to keep me under surveillance was Marsha herself. “We worked together on the Maitlin case, and that's all I can say.”

Covert ops?
April mouthed at me. I stared at April, dumbfounded.

“Chela told me,” she said. “And she said Marsha is really bad news in your life.”

I had told Chela too much about what happened in Hong Kong, and she had put together some of the pieces on her own. Chela had unleashed April on Marsha.

“She was,” I said. “But I couldn't have done the Maitlin case without her.”

“And you did others.”

I held up a single finger:
one
. Memories of Hong Kong were probably in my eyes, too.

“It's over?” April said.

“I don't want to talk to her, and she isn't calling. She disappears for a living.”

“And then reappears,” April said. What had Chela told her? April had drawn a line about what she could accept from me, and Marsha was on the other side of it. She wanted me to understand that right away.

“I don't want anything to do with her, and I'm not afraid to tell her. We're done.”

“Will you call the therapist?” April said.

“Give me the number,” I said. “I'll call today.”

I wanted to be the man April wanted me to be. I didn't like the
idea of telling a stranger my troubles, but I needed a therapist for Chela. I'd sent the adoption papers she signed to Melanie's office to examine, but Chela needed more than I could give her. Under the circumstances, the adoption felt anticlimactic.