Never Wake (14 page)

Emma went quiet and the lie hung heavy between them. Troy felt compelled to continue even though she could count on half of one hand the number of people she had shared her story with. “I was left on a pew in a Catholic church when I was about two months old. I don’t know who my parents are. I know I’m mixed heritage, but I don’t know what with.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Sometimes. Not as much as it did when I was a kid. People want kids that look like them.”

“I think that’s changing, isn’t it? People adopt kids from overseas that don’t look like them.”

“Yeah, but why? There are kids in America who need homes.”

Troy thought Emma wasn’t going to answer her. She had to remind herself that talking about things like that sometimes made people uncomfortable. Besides, Emma was probably thinking. “What difference does it make now?”

“I don’t know.” Emma’s answer was slow as if she had been pondering Troy’s question. “I do know that if I ever have children, I won’t care what they look like or where they come from.”

“Me either,” Troy said, and something hung at the back of her throat, and Troy cleared it. “What about you? Do you have any family out there? I could check on them next time I’m out, if they’re in the area.”

“I wish you could. My only close relatives are my parents. They live most of the year on a cruise ship.”

Troy turned around, “You’re kidding me, right? People do that kind of thing? Full time?”

“Yes, they do. I get an e-card from them every so often.” A flicker of worry crossed Emma’s face.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Troy said, but even as she reassured Emma, she wondered how long a boat the size of a cruise ship could avoid running into land without someone awake to navigate it.

Emma continued speaking as if she hadn’t heard Troy’s attempt at reassurance. Or maybe she had heard, and her mind had traveled the same path as Troy’s. “My grandmother died—almost four years ago.” Emma sounded surprised, as if she hadn’t realized how much time had passed.

“Were you two close?”

“She was my hero.” Emma’s voice sounded wistful and sadder than Troy would have expected after four years.

“How did she…?”

“She had a heart defect none of us knew about. She was too busy taking care of other people to worry about herself. She just didn’t come to work one day. I knew something was wrong when she was late. I was told she died, without pain, in her sleep.”

“I’m so sorry, Em,” Troy said. “She must have been a great person.”

“The clinic was her life. That’s why I wanted to keep it open.”

“I don’t know what messengers would do without free clinics. It’s not like any of us can afford health insurance.”

“That’s why she started the clinic in the first place.” Pride and loss were both evident in Emma’s eyes and voice.

“So, you took over the day-to-day of the clinic?”

“Yup. I wasn’t the best person for the job. I’m not a doctor, but I think that’s what Ida would have wanted me to do.”

“Who’s running it now?”

Emma looked uncomfortable. “I make most of the money decisions.” She looked at the desk where her computer sat. “My assistant handles the day-to-day administration, though. I trust her implicitly. She was like the daughter my grandmother wished my mother had been.”

“It sounds like you might have been more like a daughter, too.” Troy turned around so that Emma could continue working on another cornrow.

“Sorry, I’m kind of slow at this. It’s been a long time since I’ve done it.”

“S’okay.” She turned back around and propped her arms on Emma’s thighs. “I got no place to be.” Troy sighed and Emma knew without looking that she had her eyes closed.

“Come on. You mean to tell me a gorgeous girl like you doesn’t have anywhere else she can be on a Friday night?”

“Is it Friday?” Troy asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just sayin’…” Emma said around the comb in her mouth.

Troy chuckled and shook her head. Emma mumbled something, which Troy took to mean “sit still.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, liking the way it felt to sit with her arms propped on Emma’s thighs. “It isn’t like I dated much before the whole world went on siesta.”

“No girlfriend?”

Troy grinned but decided not to tease Emma about assuming she was gay. “No. I haven’t dated anyone for over a year and a half.” Troy was surprised to find that saying this didn’t hurt as much as it had just months before. “I don’t know many women who would be all that interested in dating a dusty little bike messenger.”

“Here, hold this.” Emma handed the comb to Troy and leaned closer. Troy could smell her shower gel. “I would think women would be breaking their legs to get to you. Besides, you’re not dusty. You take more showers than anyone I know.”

“I bet I sweat more than anyone you know, too.”

“This is true.”

“You know, you’re not so good on the ego.”

Emma snorted, but didn’t comment.

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“I just figured you wouldn’t have those magazines over there if you didn’t like the ladies.”

Emma went quiet. She looked as if she couldn’t figure out if she wanted to blush or laugh. She must have settled on the latter. “I haven’t seen anyone in…in a while.”

“You know, The Minge went out of business last year.”

“You’re kidding? I had no idea.”

Troy wondered if the subject of her sexuality was embarrassing to Emma. She herself had never had any hang-ups about being a lesbian. There were always so many other things to worry about. She knew not everyone felt the same way she did, though. She decided light teasing was the best way to put Emma at ease.

“So, would you have looked at me? Asked me out, I mean, if things weren’t like they are?”

“I never asked anyone out. I think I’m too shy for that.”

“Not even a coffee date? A coffee date isn’t a real date, you know?”

“It isn’t?” Emma frowned. “How is it different?”

“It’s almost a date without all the awkwardness of asking. You could just say, ‘Let’s go have coffee.’ Not, ‘Will you go out with me?’”

Emma laughed. “I’ve never asked anyone out for coffee, either.”

“Me either, but I used to think if I ever did ask someone out, that was the way I’d go about it.”

“So your last girlfriend? She was…African-American?”

Troy laughed. “Did you just stumble over that, or were you trying to figure out if ‘black’ was the proper terminology?”

Emma didn’t say anything and Troy hoped she hadn’t gone too far with her teasing.

“Don’t worry. I have a hard time remembering what’s PC and I’m at least half African-American, if not more. But, yes, she was. She had the most beautiful dark skin, and eyes so deep they just swallowed you whole. Her voice was just… I could listen to her speak for hours.”

“She sounds beautiful.” Was that jealousy she heard in Emma’s voice? Troy dismissed the thought immediately.

“She was,” Troy agreed. Patricia’s beauty had taken an almost surreal quality now. She realized too late that she had left herself open for questions about Patricia when she had slipped and said “was.”

“What happened to her?” Even though Troy had expected the question, it startled her when it came.

“She died in a car accident.” It was easier for her to say than she’d expected, and because of that, the words felt like a betrayal.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said.

Troy couldn’t bring herself to say anything more, and Emma continued to braid Troy’s hair in silence. Emma had told her so much about herself that she had every right to ask Troy about her life. Why had she given her that opening? Any other time, she had to remind herself that she no longer had anyone to share her life with.
It’s not like she’s around, is she? Even if those people out there sprang to life, Patricia would still be buried in that cemetery.

“Are you all right? Do we need to finish this later?”

Emma’s question startled her. “I’m sorry. Was I moving around too much? I guess I get antsy sometimes.”

“Maybe you should go out for a ride. I can finish your hair later.” Emma’s hand was resting on her shoulder and Troy started to feel like the room had grown too warm.

“Nah, I guess I just want to do something normal and not worry about what’s going on out there, or if it’s going to happen to us, or if there are other people out there like us. I just want to be normal.”

“I think this is pretty normal, don’t you?” Emma ran her hands through the unbraided side of Troy’s hair.

“Are you serious?” Troy closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of Emma’s fingers running through her damp hair. “I don’t think this is normal at all. I get the impression that you don’t have many bike messengers as friends.”

“No, but that’s because you guys are kind of stuck up.”

“Okay, now who’s being weird?” Troy turned and was surprised by the serious look on Emma’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Never mind.” Emma kept moving her hands through Troy’s hair. “Troy?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to go out with me one night?”

Troy wasn’t sure if she had quite heard Emma right. “Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh. We could go Dutch, of course,” Emma said, but she didn’t smile at her own joke.

“When? Now?”

Emma looked toward the window and back at Troy. Troy could see the erratic throbbing pulse at her throat. She realized her mistake. Emma’s question had been rhetorical; she hadn’t meant right that instant, she had meant one night, which was exactly what she had asked.

Emma saw Troy’s disappointment because her words came out in a rush. “Let’s go now before I get scared.”

Standard, Oregon, August, Years Ago

“You don’t need to know where I’m going.”

Hoyt’s voice couldn’t have been clearer if The Boy had been in the same room with him. If it hadn’t been raining so hard, he would have gone to see if Mr. Mayberry’s nephew was visiting. The rain sounded like someone was dropping shovels full of little pebbles on the top of the house. Mr. Mayberry would never let his nephew out in that kind of weather, so he was sitting in the living room reading a book to his grandmother and trying not to hear Hoyt and Pam as they had another fight in their bedroom.

Today was his birthday.

“Why don’t you worry about getting this house cleaned up for a change?”

The Boy ignored Pam’s answer and turned the page in his Hardy Boys mystery. Grandma liked this one. He could tell, because she would show him her pink gums every time he got animated while reading it to her.

Grandma didn’t talk. She hadn’t for as long as he could remember. Pam said Grandma had hurt her head when she fell down the stairs when no one was home to help her. But their house didn’t have stairs. He had asked Pam about that. He wondered if maybe they had lived somewhere else before he had been born. She just got mad at him and told him to go outside and play even though it was raining. There were pictures on the wall of Hoyt and Pam on their wedding day. There was even one with Grandma in it, too. Mr. Mayberry next door had told him he remembered taking it. Same house as this one and it didn’t have stairs. None of the houses in the neighborhood did.

He liked to look at them in their funny-looking clothes. It was hard for him to believe that those two happy people in the picture were Pam and Hoyt. They had never been happy. Not that he could remember.

But his eyes were always drawn back to Grandma. In the picture, she was taller than Hoyt. He didn’t think people could shrink, but Grandma didn’t look that tall anymore. He wasn’t sure, because the only time she walked was when she had to go to the pot-chair and then she was always hunched over with her skinny fingers digging into his arm for balance. Her hair had been white back then, too, but it was brushed back nice and neat into one of those knot things some of the teachers at school wore. It hung down her shoulders now, a long, limp, dirty curtain that hid her face. She had been the only one in the picture who didn’t smile, so he couldn’t tell if she had teeth back then, but her face didn’t look so skinny, and he could see her lips. Maybe lips shrunk, too, because she didn’t have any of those anymore.

The sound of Pam’s voice interrupted The Boy’s thoughts. He couldn’t make out what she said, but that didn’t matter. He never listened to her anyway. Hoyt was the one who had to be listened to. He was the dangerous one. Pam was just the one that liked to make things hard on all of them. He couldn’t blame Hoyt for getting mad at her. She didn’t know how to cook or clean worth a damn. When Hoyt left, she would just make him do it.

“Goddamn it, I told you it’s none of your—” Hoyt’s voice boomed throughout the house. The whole neighborhood would be able to hear them now. The Boy wondered why they even bothered to go into their bedroom.

He dropped the book face down on his lap and glared at Hoyt and Pam’s bedroom door. “I wish he would hit her already.” He said it loud enough that anyone in the house interested in hearing what he had to say could have heard. He wasn’t worried. The only one who ever listened to him was Grandma. Her gums were showing in one of her soundless grins. Or was she crying? He could never tell with her.