“I felt that today. That’s all. So maybe I do believe in fate. Today was meant to happen. I could feel it in my bones. Do you ever feel that way?”
“All the time, dear. My bones are always speaking to me.” She sighs and tucks a stray corkscrew into her turban, looking past Zoe. Creases appear at her eyes and their focus drifts to another world.
Zoe watches Opal’s distant concentration and wonders what dreamy thought is passing. Is she flipping through all the moments that have pushed away the past? Is the ache in her short, broken leg pushed aside by the life she has created? Are all those cheerful breezy moments her corner of control, the way the room is for Zoe?
But then just as quickly as the dreamy mood came, it goes and Opal’s eyes sparkle again with focus. Control. She claps her hands. “And my bones are speaking to me now! I have to go—the Count and I have a date on the roof! We’re sleeping there tonight. A meteor shower at two, and we won’t miss it! You’re welcome to join us! Bring a blanket. Just take the attic stairs to the lookout.”
“Thanks. But, no. I’m having friends over tonight. We’ll just be looking at these stars.” She glances at the ceiling.
“Oh,” Opal drawls. “Good enough. Come along, Basil,” she says and glides out of the room like a billowy cloud with the Count close behind, his stubby rear end wagging. The door closes out the hallway light once again, and her candlelight circle flickers back into its place on her ceiling.
A dog who likes stargazing, Zoe thinks. Who would have thought?
Thirty-Two
Carly fills the length of the window seat. Monica lies on the bed, bouncing her crossed leg to the beat of “La Bamba” on the jukebox. Reid leans back in the only chair with his feet propped against the bedpost. The room is full in a way Zoe tries to memorize, like a photograph.
It has never been this way. Before the air was always stretched thin, taut, ready to snap. Not from them, but her. Mama might walk in. Would walk in. Talking too loud. Dressed in too little. Hugging too closely. Swaying too much. Too much of everything so Zoe was ready to jump. Explain. Defend. Make sense of Mama. Because she had to. She was still her mama. And she was beautiful. She was gentle. She was more. Once.
But Mama is not coming in. Won’t be coming in. Ever. Their relaxation is hers, too. She catches it as it ripples through the room. Tries it out, even breaths, moments that are free of time, clock-watching, and door-watching. It is new, and doesn’t quite fit her yet.
She throws her legs over the side of the bed and grabs another Dr Pepper from the refrigerator. “Who was Jorge’s hot date?” she asks.
“Melanie Hobson,” Monica answers.
“He ditched us for her?” Reid asks.
Carly sits up. “He’s got a freakin’ date on a Friday night, doesn’t he?” Carly says. “That’s how it’s supposed to work, in case you forgot, and it’s more than you can say for any of us.”
Zoe clears her throat and spreads her royal robe out from her shoulders for another full view. “Excuse me? Are you not out at a friend’s very own apartment? A friend who not only won all her tennis matches and is the official Queen of the Courts, but also talked herself out of a speeding ticket today?”
“You what?”
Zoe savors the pitch of Carly’s voice. The disbelief. She takes in the way Reid’s feet drop to the floor and he leans forward. She loves Monica’s attentive twist of her head. And maybe…maybe she loves the way she can tell them the whole story and no one will interrupt. No sudden appearances and rushed excuses will take her moment away.
“That’s right. Learn from a pro.” She tells the story. No one interrupts. Except when she tells about taking her shirt off. Reid makes her tell that part again.
“No way!” he says. But he believes her. She knows. It is Reid playing to her, center stage. Letting her build and make the most of a moment that could have been lost. She is grateful to him for it. She loves him like a brother, and for an instant she wishes Carlos weren’t coming. Not for her sake, but for Reid’s.
“I bow to the queen,” Carly says, getting up. “If I had known that all it took was to go shirtless for those troopers, I would have saved myself a hundred and fifty bucks.”
“Three hundred,” Reid corrects. “You’ve had two tickets, but I don’t think you’ve got three hundred worth of anything under your shirt.”
Carly throws a small purple pillow across the room at him but misses and hits the bulldog instead.
“Wasn’t the shirt anyway,” Monica says. “They just didn’t want a hundred pounds of mouth in their jail.”
“Thanks, Monica,” Zoe says. “A hundred and eighteen actually.”
Monica shrugs. “There you go.”
“Well, I’m taking my fat mouth out for a smoke. Wanna come?” Zoe grabs her cigarettes and lighter from her purse and goes out to the porch. Opal never said she couldn’t smoke in the house, but it is her choice. She doesn’t want the stale smell of smoke clinging to her walls like it does—What should she call that other place now? It’s not home anymore, but it hasn’t been a home for years. The other place. She won’t have her room smelling like that. No oily, smoke-stained walls. No heavy dreariness to cover her indigo ceiling and stars.
Maybe if Mama had stars…
She shoves down the hope like a threadbare rag to the bottom of the trash where useless things belong. Only Reid joins her on the porch. They share a cigarette.
“Where’s the landlady?”