“I don’t know if this is a weird question, but, um ... are you in charge around here? I notice the other girls coming to ask you about stuff, and you telling them what you need.” Cooper had said something to that effect as well. But Lyra seemed young to be in charge. She couldn’t be out of her early twenties.
She stopped her scrubbing and looked down at Siena. “I guess? By default. Before you, I was the only woman in the family, really, and I guess MCs are like everywhere else: women are in charge of the home. The girls are what the guys call ‘sweetbutts.’ I hate that word, but ... I don’t know how to explain that.”
“You don’t need to. I got it. They’re not family?”
“They are, just ... like third cousins or whatever. If that makes sense. They also haven’t been around very long, so it’s not like we’re close. But they belong here, and it’s a safe place for them, too.”
“How long have you known the Bulls? They haven’t been around very long, either, right?”
“Right. They’re just getting started, really. But in Tulsa, where the club originates, they’ve been around since the Seventies. As for me, Ben is my dad and Reed’s my brother, and Lonnie’s my dad’s old friend, so I’ve known about half the Bulls all my life. But I met Zach last July. We’ve pretty much been together since.”
“Are you married? I heard him call you his old lady. That’s wife, right?”
“No. Just ‘significant other.’ I don’t know if we’ll get married. His parents aren’t, and I don’t have a need for a big, fancy wedding. When we’re ready to have kids, maybe. I don’t know. But I have this, which to these guys—and to me—is more important.” She pulled her long, dark ponytail to one shoulder, pulled her t-shirt off the other, and showed Siena the space on her back in the meat between that shoulder and her neck. It was a tattoo, full color, watercolor style, showing a tiny bit of desert landscape, just enough to give the focus of the tattoo context. That focus was the sun, heart-shaped and blazing with fire. Under it, the lines like shadows across the desert, was Zach’s name. “They call this ‘keeping their flame.’”
“That’s pretty sweet. And the ink is beautiful.”
Lyra grinned brightly. “Zach designed it. He’s a really good artist. Michelle and I have a couple of his pieces up in our gallery.”
“You have a gallery? Are you an artist?”
“Yeah, a little. I dabble. More seriously since we opened Mira Gallery.”
“That’s that quirky new place by the Riverwalk, isn’t it?”
“Yeah! Have you been there?”
“Not yet,” Siena was embarrassed to admit. Who had time to look at art? “But I’ve walked by a couple times, and thought it looked really cool.”
“Thanks. We’re still getting our feet under us, but we’ve got some good artists in our group, and we’re getting ready for our first show.”
This woman was close to a decade younger than Siena and already vastly more accomplished. “That’s really impressive. I don’t have a creative bone in my body. All I’m good at is serving drinks and fending off drunks.”
“I don’t know you yet, but I don’t believe that’s true. You’re raising a really great kid, for one thing I know.”
“Yeah, but I’m not doing a very good job. Geneva halfway raises herself.”
“Maybe now. But not always.”
Feeling uncomfortable with this turn of the conversation, Siena shrugged. “I wouldn’t know anything I’m really good at or interested in if it walked up and kicked me in the gut.”
“Yikes!” Lyra laughed. “I hope when you find an interest that’s just yours, it’s nicer to you than that!”
Her phrasing pulled Siena up short:an interest that’s just yours. She hadn’t had any such thing in a long time. Even before her mom died. Mom had been sick a long, lingering time, trying to stay around for her daughters. It had been too late for prophylactic surgery when she’d learned about the mutation. Mom’s bilateral mastectomy had been to fight cancer, not prevent it.
Almost as long as she’d been a full-fledged adult, Siena had been living for someone else.
“I’d like to find something like that. An interest that’s just mine.”
Lyra didn’t reply. She simply smiled down at Siena, and they shared a moment in silence.
Then they returned to their work. After a few minutes, Lyra said, “I have a question in my head, but it’s ... I know it’s really inappropriate to ask. But it’s in my head and won’t get out, so I’m just going to tell you it’s there and ask if I can ask it. I know how lame that sounds.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Siena said, pretty sure she knew what was coming.
And she was right, but Lyra asked it in a way that was about as inoffensive as possible.
“Have you had cancer?”