Fragile Beasts (31 page)

I won’t admit to having a phobia. I prefer to believe my feelings stem from a combination of being a mature woman with good taste (I rarely feel the need to demolish or swap) and having outgrown the desire to share intimate emotions with a milling pack of strangers. Love, grief, faith, triumph, a yen to purchase linens at a reduced price are all sensations I prefer to celebrate on my own.

Kyle’s suggestion last month that I attend one of Klint’s baseball games in the spring has left me feeling uneasy. I know spring is a long way off. His first game isn’t for five months and one week. (I had Bert call the high school’s athletic office and ask for me.) Kyle might not have been serious about the invitation. He could forget about the offer or change his mind, but ever since he made it that night of uneaten partridge and Baby’s disappearance, I can’t stop thinking about it.

I suppose I would be obligated to go. I have no idea what I’d wear. I have no idea what I could possibly say to someone sitting next to me if he were to start talking about curving balls or popping flies. Would it be expected of me to eat a hot dog, and if so, would it be in bad taste for me to ask the vendor if it was all-beef? Would it be expected of me to cheer?

I once stumbled upon a few minutes of a professional baseball game on TV and the audience performed a maneuver called “The Wave.” It was interesting to watch but frankly, the thought of having to take part in one is somewhat unsettling. What if I remained seated?

I know I’m worrying too much, but the fact is I’d like to go to a game and not just because I feel I should but because I’m curious.

The other day as I was coming back from my walk I came upon Jerry, who had joined Marjorie for one of her countless cigarette breaks outside the back door to the kitchen, and I overheard them discussing Klint’s upcoming season with great zeal and intensity.

I don’t know anything about baseball or any team sport for that matter and I’m always baffled by the amount of passion and devotion these mindless games inspire in grown men and women, so I was surprised to find myself suddenly intrigued by the topic. Here were two levelheaded adults well past their high school years avidly talking about a teenage boy’s ability to hit a ball across a field and how this will impact the morale of an entire county.

They seemed to know everything about how he played last year, and that was before any of us knew him personally. They spoke with profound respect not only for his skills but for his strength and composure. I couldn’t believe they were talking about the same uncommunicative, somewhat dull, young man I dine with every evening who inspires very little in me aside from frustration and concern.

My relationship with Klint has improved, but it’s still far from friendly. He’s polite and has cleaned up his vocabulary. He responds when I talk to him, and he appears in my study each Saturday morning to give me fifty dollars to put toward the cost of his truck (I know this is the bulk of his part-time, minimum-wage paycheck and the rest he uses for gas money), but it’s clear that he has no intention of letting me into his heart or his confidence.

Ironically, these moments when he’s paying me for the gift I gave him are when he seems happiest to see me. He’s at his most relaxed then and we have our best chats. He can only be comfortable with me when he’s proving that he doesn’t need me.

I put aside my thoughts of Klint for the moment and turn to Rafael’s latest letter. He’s also cursed with a terrible pride—all toreros are—but unlike his great-uncle, he doesn’t have the fully developed ego to support it. His is plagued by self-reflection and second guessing, two modes of thinking Manuel never entertained. Neither did my brother. I can’t tell yet what goes on inside Klint.

I’m sitting in my yellow sunroom filled with fresh flowers and old books where I have my breakfast once it becomes too cold for me to eat outside. We
had our first serious frost last night. This morning the valley behind the house was filled with a heavy mist as thick and white as milk. When it cleared, the grass on the back lawn was covered with an opalescent gleam.

Ventisco will be full of fire on a brisk day like today. His breath will come in frosty snorts and he will charge for no reason. I haven’t seen him for two months, not since the day Shelby first asked me if Kyle and Klint could come here to live with me. I remember the absurdity of the idea at the time. Sometimes I still question what I’ve done. I wonder if I’m helping them at all.

Rafael’s enclosed several clippings. True to his fair-minded nature and typical of his career, one is complimentary and one is not.

After his remarkable performance at the autumn feria in Madrid,
6 Toros 6
, the most influential bullfighting magazine in Spain, put him on its cover with the quote:
Lo lleva en la sangre
. Literally translated: He carries it in his blood. The photo captures a perfectly executed
derechazo
pass as he drags the charging bull behind his back with his cape.

The photo accompanying the other article was taken at the important Feria de San Miguel in Sevilla, where he failed to kill even one of his bulls on the first two attempts. This one shows a dejected Rafael, spatters of blood on his face and his suit, holding his great-uncle’s sword in front of him, his dark eyes filled with troubled exhaustion.

One more clipping falls out of the envelope. It’s from
la prensa rosa
—the pink press—the name gossip-mad Spaniards have given to their tabloid magazines and TV shows.

It’s a picture of Rafael walking down a city street holding hands with his American actress, a skinny blonde with enormous sunglasses.

I put Rafael’s letter and clippings back in the envelope. I must remember to write something to him about Manuel’s crazed magic. It was true he had it, but it was all he had.

Rafael has more of a struggle not because he isn’t as talented but because
he is a complex individual. His duende demon has not been allowed to grow overwhelmingly large and powerful within his soul because it must share its home with human emotions and concerns.

Manuel’s demon had the whole place to itself.

Along with Rafael’s letter I also received a postcard from Shelby. She sounds happy and busy and promised to write more soon.

I finish my breakfast and wait for Luis to appear. Ten minutes pass. Then another ten. I decide to seek him out to show him the postcard and letter.

Luis has a suite of spacious rooms next to the kitchen consisting of a living room, bedroom, and bath. They’re tasteful and uncluttered, furnished in dark wood and leather with simple white walls but with a Spaniard’s love of color evident in the red cushions on the couch, the bright green and yellow of a ceramic pitcher, and the rich peacock shades of a rug.

He’s a stickler for privacy and would be livid if he found me in his home without an invitation, but his door is wide open, his computer is on, and a steaming cup of coffee sits next to it along with a half-eaten Napolitana.

I venture inside.

“Luis,” I call out. “Luis, estás aquí?”

He knows I don’t approve of smoking but he has an occasional cigar here. The smell of tobacco mingles with the light lemony scent of a wood polish. I believe what first brought Luis and Marjorie together all those years ago was their shared love of cleaning products. They used to put their heads together in the kitchen and discuss the merits of Comet versus Ajax and Pledge versus En-dust while Luis would eye Marjorie’s long legs and she would giggle each time he’d refer to Mr. Clean as Don Limpio. I didn’t particularly want to see any part of this courtship, but I occasionally stumbled into it quite by accident.

One entire wall is taken up by shelves filled with pictures of his large extended family ranging in age from his mother, who is well into her nineties, to his newest grandniece, who is only four months old.

In the midst of all of it is a framed black-and-white photo of Manuel after a corrida offering the crowd a dazzling smile while holding his hat out to them in his upturned hand in the traditional torero’s salute. Next to the picture is the glass he drank from on the day Luis first met him fifty years ago in his father’s bar.

People knowing my history with Luis would be surprised to know that we
weren’t friends when he originally came to America with me. We were acquaintances in love with the same man whose individual worlds had been destroyed with one unlucky thrust of a bull’s horn. Afterward, we were both lost and searching for a way to go on.

I had done my best not to cause problems between myself and Manuel’s men, and for the most part I succeeded. They respected me because I respected them. I stayed out of their way and tried not to distract Manuel. I traveled on my own, near them but not with them. (I knew that a woman traveling with a cuadrilla was considered extreme
mala suerte
. Bad luck.) I made Manuel happy but not content, because a contented Manuel would have lost his fire.

Still, none of this was enough to win over Luis.

It would greatly simplify the situation to say that he and I were in competition for the same man and that was why we didn’t get along, but there was some truth to this. Luis’s feelings for Manuel were obviously different from mine. Manuel was my lover, and my desire for him was rooted in poetic passion and physical longing. He had changed my life by suddenly becoming my life.