April & Oliver (8 page)

For an instant, April sees herself lifting Buddy from his crib, him giving her his shy, drowsy, through-his-fingers smile,
his body warm and soft, conforming to hers, resting his head in the nook beneath her chin. She smells the milkiness of his
skin, the down of his hair against her cheek.

“Just who do you think raised him?” Nana says.

“I’m sorry,” April says. “You did a great job with both of them. Everyone knows that.”

Nana glances at the photograph. She wipes the dampness from her face with a dishtowel. “It was easy with Hal,” she says, switching
back to English. “You praised him, and he was a sponge. Your father was made of something else. He craved attention, but it
wouldn’t soak in.”

April collects the curlers and parts her grandmother’s hair. She moves the comb gently. Nana’s face is flushed. What an idiot
April was for upsetting her.

“Your father turned out all right, didn’t he?” Nana says.

“He was a good father.”

“He must have been, the way Buddy adored him.”

April feels woozy. “And me? Didn’t I adore him?”

Nana looks up, her eyes more focused than they had been earlier. “Abrilita?” she says, using her childhood nickname. “What’s
wrong?”

April holds the table for balance and knocks over the rollers. “You want the usual?” she says, twirling a lock of hair. “Or
something new?”

Nana turns in her seat to see April’s face. “You’re pale as a stone,” she says.

“We could change the part,” April says, guiding the comb. “Take advantage of your cowlick.”

“You look like the devil,” Nana says.

April smiles and puts a bobby pin between her teeth. “It’s the only face I’ve got.”

Nana stands, holding on to the back of the chair, and faces April. “Where’s Oliver?” she demands.

“How do I know?”

“Have you seen him since he moved back?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” April feels light-headed. A few bites of Oliver’s sandwich last night; has she
eaten since then? She remembers pangs of hunger during the night, but they passed. When she awoke, her body was calm, craving
nothing. Now her vision is dark at the edges, the room wavering. No, she will not pass out. Not in front of Nana. She grabs
hold of a chair and lowers herself into it. “Sit down,” she says to Nana. “You haven’t told me yet how you want your hair.”

“What’s his number?” Nana says, moving to the phone. “I think I have it on speed call in the bedroom. I put the new number
in last week. I knew he’d come back eventually, didn’t you, April?”

“It’s temporary, Nana. Don’t walk without your brace.”

April lets her go, praying that she will make it to the bedroom without falling. She hears the creak of bedsprings as Nana
sits down.
Thank God,
April thinks. She lowers her head between her knees, hair whisking the floor. She counts backward, waiting for the dark spots
to recede. She hears Nana’s voice calling into Oliver’s answering machine.

April straightens up, dizzy but steadier, her vision clearing. She stands, holding the table, and opens the refrigerator.
She takes out the orange juice and forces herself to take a few sips, drinking straight from the carton.
Okay,
she decides, replacing it.
I’m all right.

She finds Nana sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the telephone with two hands. April takes it from her, listening to
the dead air on the other end. “Nana,” she says, hanging up. “You’re using up his tape.”

When Nana looks up at her, April sees her fear. “I’m just tired,” April says. “I’m sorry I scared you. Come; let’s get you
into some dry clothes.” Nana’s hair has dampened her shoulders. She allows April to help her.

“Where is he?” Nana says, taking a photograph from her nightstand. April shivers, thinking she means Buddy, then sees she
is holding a picture of Oliver. For as long as April can remember, Nana has kept his picture closest to her, under the halo
of light at her bedside. There are no priests in the family. Oliver, good-hearted and attentive, is the next best thing. For
all these years, he has continued to call her every Sunday, and every Monday April has been subjected to a detailed installment
of his life, often more than April cares to know. She wonders if Oliver ever asked about her, and if so, what Nana might have
said.
Still working at that bar! Still dating hoodlums!

“She’s got no Spanish blood, that girl,” Nana says with a sigh.

“Neither did Spencer, and look how he turned out,” April says. “Bernadette’s a good person, Nana. Don’t worry about them.”

Nana replaces the photograph, Oliver’s college graduation picture, not one of April’s favorites. His hair is overly coiffed,
his smile stiff; perhaps the tie was constraining him.

Nana picks up the other photograph on the nightstand, taken on Oliver’s eighth birthday, the summer solstice, an evening warm
and bright. April remembers the party, the endless game of keep-away, the neighbors’ children one by one called home to dinner
until only she and Oliver were left. When he thought the game was over, she stole his Boy Scout canteen, a birthday gift from
his father. Deep in the yard he caught up with her, grabbed the canvas strap. They whirled in a circle, both holding on with
two hands, spinning faster and faster, centrifugal force pulling them apart, their grip holding them together. The speed was
terrifying, dizzying, like a tornado. They reeled until they could not stop, their momentum defying gravity. If either one
released his hold, the other would go flying, but neither let go.

In the photograph, their image is blurred. It is hard to see where one begins and the other ends. “I don’t know why you hold
on to that,” April says. “Whoever took it used the wrong shutter speed. And it’s overexposed.”

Nana moistens her sleeve with her tongue and rubs a fingerprint from the glass. “I took it,” she says. “And it’s perfect.”

When April leaves, the boys are gone, the basketball silent in the driveway. An Eldorado has boxed her in, and she leans on
the horn until someone comes out to move it. She is impatient, afraid that Oliver will show up, concerned by Nana’s message.
He would want to talk, and April has nothing to say.

Once the Eldorado has moved, she backs up, tapping the car behind her, which she recognizes in her rearview as an Audi. Not
Oliver’s. She pulls out abruptly, then slams on the brakes, nearly hitting an oncoming car. She didn’t look. The nose of her
car juts into the street unscathed. She catches her breath and blushes as if Oliver were watching.

A
PRIL TIES HER APRON,
glancing at the handful of customers sitting beneath stuffed mallards and mounted buffleheads, glass-eyed and dusty. The Duck
Inn is quiet.

The daytime bartender looks at his watch; she is an hour early.

“Consider it a peace offering,” she says, “for all the times I’m late.”

He shrugs and takes off his apron. No one offers condolences because no one knows. This is one place Buddy rarely came, and
where April isn’t expecting to see him every time she lifts her head. She leaves a note for the boss that she’s available
for overtime. She wishes she could sleep here at night.

Nevertheless, things remind her. A conversation develops about car accidents, vehicle safety records, the pros and cons of
anti-lock brakes. There’s a man with a Giants shirt just like Buddy’s. And laughter from across the room that could almost
be his.

While mixing a screwdriver, she spots herself in the mirror, April the bartender. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore how she
got here. She’s been doing this job so long, it feels like who she is. The heavy sky makes the room darker than usual, the
varnished wood without its usual gloss. She tells herself, for sanity’s sake, not to think anymore about Buddy. Sleep deprivation
gives her a queer buzz. Her mind keeps slipping into odd, disjointed memories.

She sees herself as a child walking to the bar with her father, hand in hand, April taking giant steps in an effort to match
his stride. When they reached the tavern, her father would prop her on top of the bar.

“Check out that smile,” he said once to a chinless man on a bar stool. “Is she going to be a knockout, or what?”

“Drop-dead gorgeous,” the man answered.

From that height, April could see a tank of tropical fish behind the bar. There were angels, guppies, mollies, and swordtails,
all bobbing to the vibration of the filter. A picture was taped to the back of the tank. At first April thought it was a landscape.
Then she recognized the hills as hips, the river a seam between a woman’s thighs. Her nipples were pink as pieces of coral,
her hair lemon blond. The walls of the tank were stained with algae. An angel drifted, fins folded, kissing the surface for
air. April wondered if fish could drown.

Her father fixed her a Shirley Temple with an extra-plump cherry and left her sitting in a booth with her multiplication tables
and gumdrops while he checked inventory. The chinless man came over and slid in beside her. His face was flushed and leathery,
breath sweet as licorice. His eyes were glassy and sentimental, like her dad’s at the end of the day, and his sweat smelled
familiar. He was taller than her father, older, with greasy hair combed back to keep it in place.

“Promise me you’ll never cut your hair,” he said, handling her ponytail. His fingers were swollen and creased with dirt.

April’s father appeared and leaned on the table. “Yo,” he said. “Sit any closer and you’ll smother the kid.”

“We were just talking,” the man said. “She reminds me of mine when she was that age.”

Her father pointed his thumb over his shoulder and the chinless man left, but April had not been afraid. She was acquainted
with the thickness in his speech, the careful clumsy way he moved; he was like someone she had known a long time.

“Hey, pipsqueak,” her father said, sitting down. “You flirting again?” She smiled. He tapped a cigarette on the tabletop.
“So, who you gonna marry when you grow up?” he asked, lighting up. It was a ritual question.

“You, Daddy.”

“Then you better save yourself.” He smiled. “I’ll be waiting.”

It is one of the few memories she recalls from before Buddy was born.

April in the mirror appears haggard and small, but her father always looked confident behind the bar, in his element. She
can still see the quiet, pleased expression on his face when he could make a girl blush with a simple compliment. If she lingered
until his shift was over, he would invite her to play pool, stand behind her as she shot, brush against her lightly as he
circled the table and took aim. Often her father forgot April was watching.

When their parents fought, Buddy would come to April and huddle against her. April rocked, listening to the rising crescendo
of their voices, bracing herself.

Once when she was nine, she awoke in the night to the sound of her mother screaming. April’s fingers iced over and her pulse
throbbed in her ears.
He’s killing her,
she thought. Halfway down the stairs, April stopped. In the dim, greenish glow of the fluorescent stove light, she saw her
mother on the kitchen floor, nightgown shoved above her breasts, hands clutching her husband’s back. He was moving against
her like a boat docked in a storm, rocking helplessly against the pier. He kissed her, swallowing her sobs with his mouth,
and for one shocking moment, April understood.

By midnight, the commuters are gone and the bar is sparsely filled with the after-dinner crowd, people escaping arguments
or planning them. April eats pretzels to keep her awake and mops the floor behind the bar to give people the message.

The front door opens. She moves the mop and wrings it out, taking her time before acknowledging the customers who have seated
themselves at the bar. She straightens up, wiping her hands on her apron, and sees Oliver’s face, stark in the mirror, with
Bernadette beside him.
Jesus,
April thinks with a jolt. How did they find out where she works? They look sleepy and rumpled, suggesting they were curled
up in bed only moments before. She turns to them. “What’ll it be?”

Oliver hesitates, startled by her tone. He has never done this before, not since they were teenagers and he would stop by
her father’s bar to bring her a sandwich for dinner. That was different. At fifteen, busing tables was nothing to be ashamed
of.

“Last call,” she shouts. Customers glance at their watches. She turns back to Oliver and Bernadette. He is wearing a UC Berkeley
sweatshirt, she, a sizeable denim jacket, probably his. Without makeup, she looks pale and delicate, her thin, silken hair
loose around her face. Oliver is unshaven, smelling faintly of breath mints and cologne. They have just made love, April concludes,
and in the sweetness of the aftermath, decided to make her their mission. She turns her back and straightens up the bar. In
the mirror, she sees Bernadette staring up at the stuffed merganser with cigarette holes in its wings, her forehead tense.
Oliver puts a protective arm around her. “Have you made a decision?” April asks. “I’m trying to get out of here.”

“Seltzer,” Oliver says.

“You don’t have tea, do you?” asks Bernadette.

“I can make some in the kitchen,” April says. “It’s the generic stuff. Nothing fancy.”

“It’s too much of a bother.”

“No bother.” April puts a seltzer on the bar in front of Oliver and twists it open. She makes the tea and closes out the cash
register, draining the taps as the last customers leave. Bernadette takes a few sips of her tea and lets the rest go cold.
Too strong, April supposes. She takes out her keys. “Are you leaving out the front or back?”

“Which way are you going?” Oliver asks.

“I’ve got another hour of cleanup,” she says, turning off the neon lights.

“We can help you,” Bernadette offers.

“Thanks, but it’s a one-person job.”

“April,” Oliver says. “We came to see you home, so we’ll do whatever it takes to get you out of here.”