She didn’t want to work for someone else. She wanted to open her own place. Her clientele was huge, but many would not follow her to a new salon, simply because humans are creatures of habit. Many of her ladies would continue their patronage of Maven simply because it was what they’d always done. And if Mercedes didn’t have a place to bring them, one that was comfortable and accommodating, she would lose even more. She couldn’t take months to resettle. It had to be immediate. Seamless. And she had no prospects.
She’d been looking at retail spaces, crunching numbers, and making calls, but even amid her fears for her future, her thoughts had been filled with Noah. She missed him terribly, and for the first time in her life, she couldn’t confide in him. She didn’t know how. The story involved too many moving parts, too many secret pieces, and too much pain. Her story would cause him pain, and she couldn’t tell it, not even to save herself.
Noah had said they were good, but they weren’t good. She’d done what she’d promised herself she’d never do, she’d done what she’d intuitively known not to do. She’d slept with him, and she’d lost him. Maybe not forever. Maybe not completely. But their relationship was battered and bent, and at the moment, she didn’t have the focus or the fortitude to smooth it out.
Her life was a mess, and opening the salon on Friday morning and seeing Cuddy hovering at the back entrance, waiting for her, just added another layer of chaos. She cried out, startled to see him, and immediately raised her hand in warning.
“I don’t think you should come here anymore, Cuddy,” she said, knowing she should run inside and lock the door behind her. But even as she considered it, her eyes traveled over his gangly form and his battered clothing, lingering on his grey head and his sorrowful blue eyes, and she couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid.
“W-why not?” he stammered. “Aren’t we friends anymore, Miss Lopez?”
“I’m not going to be working here much longer, Cuddy. Next Wednesday is my last day at Maven.”
“Oh, no!” Cuddy cried. “Why? Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Can you still give me a haircut?” he pleaded.
“Not today, Cuddy. It’s only been a month since your last cut, and you and I need to talk.” She pointed at the low wall that edged the rear parking lot, and motioned for him to sit. She perched beside him and took a deep breath, ready to begin her interrogation, but Cuddy spoke first.
“I’m worried about you, Miss Lopez.”
“W-Why?” she stammered, surprised.
“Because . . . because Miss Cora is worried about you. That’s why I . . .” his voice faltered.
“That’s why you took my car?” she asked softly. He scrubbed at his cheeks and blinked rapidly several times before nodding, his shoulders drooping with his confession.
“But I didn’t really take it. I was just . . . moving it.”
“Cora’s little girl was inside. You drove away and scared me to death. I was so scared, Cuddy. What you did was very wrong.”
“It didn’t feel wrong,” he whispered. “It felt scary. But not wrong.”
Mercedes shook her head. “Why did you do that, Cuddy?”
“I keep seeing her. I keep seeing Miss Cora. She’s afraid for her daughter. She’s afraid for you and Noah. I thought she wanted me to.”
“Why did you leave the rocks? You had to know I would think of you.”
“I wanted to tell you I was sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you or the little girl. Sometimes I don’t know what to do. I try . . . but I make the wrong choice.”
“It was definitely the wrong choice.”
“It didn’t feel wrong,” he whispered again. “And I left you my best rocks. One for you, one for Gia, and one for Noah. I’m sorry for Noah, most of all.”
“Have you been following me, Cuddy?”
“No . . . not really. You’ve got a car. I’ve only got my two feet.” He held up one of his boots, the soles held on with duct tape, and Mercedes sighed.
“We need to get you a new pair of shoes, Cuddy. Those ones are dead.”
“Yep. They done give up the ghost,” Cuddy agreed. “Noah gave me his shoes once. Did you know that, Miss Lopez?”
“He told me,” Mercedes said. “Noah doesn’t like to see people suffer.”
“Noah is a good boy. A good man,” Cuddy corrected himself. “He gave me his sweatshirt and his socks and shoes. He gave me his coat. He even gave me my first rock. After that . . . I started collecting them because they made me feel safe. Kept me from floating . . . you know.”
“He gave you your first rock?” Mercedes couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes Cuddy was so child-like, and something about him pulled at her. It always had.
“Yeah. It was in his coat pocket. I’ve kept it ever since.” Cuddy dug into the pocket of his worn jeans and pulled out half of a broken geode, it’s purple crystals peeking out like a tiny fairy castle encased in a globe of stone.
“I was there when he found that,” Mercedes said, oddly moved. “It looked like a regular grey rock. Then he hit it with the pick, and it cracked open. Noah was thrilled.”
“Should I give it back to him?” Cuddy held out his hand, the geode sitting on his palm. “Maybe he didn’t mean to give it to me.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself? He knows who you are,” Mercedes said. “He knows your real name.”
“He does?” Cuddy stammered. “I always s-stayed away from him because I thought it would scare him if he recognized me. People said I did some bad things.”
“Taking my car was a bad thing. The police told me to call them if you came back here.”
Cuddy nodded slowly, but he stood and began to inch away, as if preparing to run. “I understand.”
“I’m not going to do that, Cuddy. I’m not going to call the police.”
He stopped short. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m not. But I need you to promise me you won’t do something like that again. It might not feel wrong, but it is wrong. Do you understand why?”
“I scared you.”
“It was the worst moment of my life.”
“Worse than when Miss Cora died?”
“Worse than that, Cuddy.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Lopez. See . . . I’ve been staying close to the salon because Miss Cora wants me to. I saw you pull into the gas station across the street.” His mouth twisted with emotion, and he rubbed his face again, clearly anxious. “He was watching you too. He was sitting in his car in front of the salon, watching you. I was afraid he was going to take the baby.”
“Who?” Mercedes asked, flummoxed.
“Keegan.”
“Keegan was watching me?”
“Yeah. He was watching you . . . and I was watching him. He’s weak, Miss Lopez. He’s weak like I am.”
“What do you mean, Cuddy?” Mercedes was reeling, trying to keep up with Cuddy’s train of thought while processing his revelations.
“People like Keegan . . . people like me . . . we don’t know how to handle our shit.” He grimaced. “Sorry, Miss Lopez. We take pills to forget and pills to hide and pills to feel better. I don’t take them anymore. But he does,” Cuddy accused. “Keegan does. And he sells them too.”
***
Seventeen
1993
They didn’t cry for Shelly Andelin. They didn’t know her well enough. They cried for Noah, standing beside her grave in his dress blues, his cap in his hands, as he did his best to eulogize her. He gave a brief life history—born, lived, worked, died—while trying to humanize and personalize a woman who had withheld herself from almost everyone and everything.
Carole Stokes had praised Shelly’s steadiness and her work ethic, her reliability, and her loyalty. Carole became emotional when recounting how she met young Shelly Andelin, heavily pregnant, without a friend in the world and nowhere to go, and how her son now stood, fully-grown, a credit to her and a blessing to everyone who knew hi
m. If our children are the gauge of a successful life, Carole said, Shelly had done just fine.
When Carole was finished, Noah looked to Mercedes, his throat working, and Mercedes stepped forward like she’d promised she would, the box of coffee mugs in her arms. It was silly, but it was something. She’d had the idea when she was packing up Shelly Andelin’s things, and Noah had embraced it, even smiling when she made the suggestion.
“Shelly Andelin never had much to say, and for a woman of few words, I found her penchant for motivational coffee mugs . . . endearing,” Mercedes said, struggling to say the right thing. “You are all the people who cared about her. Noah and I think she would want you to have something that was hers . . . a small part of her life . . . something to remember her by. She wasn’t good at conversation, and maybe you never had the opportunity to have a cup of coffee with Shelly. But now . . . we’ll all have a cup together . . . and remember her fondly.”
Mercedes began passing Shelly’s mugs, one at a time, to the group huddled around the open grave. Alma and Abuela followed behind, filling each cup with coffee from two large thermoses. There were mugs of every color, but it wasn’t the varied shades that made them remarkable. Each mug was stamped with a different quote. They weren’t cute and pithy or even funny, nor were they the rag-tag assortment everyone tends to accumulate over time. It was a very specific collection, as though Shelly had chosen each message carefully.
The sayings printed on the ceramic mugs were the kind you’d find on sappy greeting cards, the kind most people skimmed over if they read them at all. They were flowery phrases full of hope and poetic wisdom, and Mercedes had read each one as she’d washed and boxed them up, her wonder growing at Shelly Andelin’s selections. The sentiments on the mugs weren’t repeated or reflected anywhere else in Shelly’s life. Not on the walls of her home, or the words that she spoke, or the shows that she watched. She hadn’t kept a journal or read the Bible; the only books in the apartment were in Noah’s room, stacked against his wall. But Shelly’s mugs each gave a small sermon, as if her daily coffee was the closest she got to religion, and Mercedes had been fascinated by them.
Mercedes handed a mug to Noah, to Cora, and finally to Mami and Abuela, who filled their own cups and then filled the cup Mercedes had kept for herself. She wouldn’t be parting with it. It had been the last mug in the cupboard, and Mercedes had gasped, thinking Abuela’s words of wisdom had somehow become commercialized. But the quote on Shelly’s mug wasn’t the same as Abuela’s at all. It said: “In the end, only three things matter: How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”
Mercedes had stared at the powder blue mug with its melancholy quote, and she’d pondered why Shelly had chosen it. How much had Shelly Andelin really loved? She’d lived so gently she’d barely lived at all. And Mercedes didn’t know if it was grace or fear, but Shelly had clearly let go of everything in her life but Noah. In the end, she’d released him too. Maybe she’d believed there was nothing meant for her.
When every cup was filled, Mercedes raised her mug. “To Shelly Andelin. You will be missed.”
“To Shelly,” they all agreed. The mugs were lifted in unison, and the mourners sipped, quietly sharing a cup with the woman who usually drank alone.
* * *
“Dr. Noah, it’s Moses Wright.” His voice was an uncomfortable rumble, and Noah would have known it even if he hadn’t identified himself.
“Moses, how are you?” Noah was thrilled to hear from him. He’d worried about him and wondered how he was faring.
“I’m alive, Doc. Tag’s alive, though he has a tendency to find trouble.”
“Where are you? Can I help you with something?”
“We’re in France. And safe . . . at least for now.”
None of us are safe. The words trembled in Noah’s mind, an odd memory rising from years past. He pushed it away, needing to focus on Moses and the reason he was calling.
“France?”
“France. We’ve been to London, Ireland—Belfast and Tag didn’t mix—and tomorrow we’re heading to Spain. Tag has this desire to run with the bulls.”
Noah groaned.
“Yeah. That’s what I told him,” Moses quipped. He sounded good. Light. And then he got to the purpose of his call, and the heaviness returned to his young voice.
“So, Doc. Cora . . . I’m seeing her again, all of a sudden.”
Noah braced himself. Lately, every sentence that started with Cora’s name brought him grief. He rubbed at his beard.
“What do you mean, Moses?”
“She keeps showing me Lopez.”
“Mercedes?” Noah gasped.
“Yeah. Your little friend.”
Noah almost laughed out loud. He pictured Al Pacino in Scarface saying, “Say hello to my little friend,” as he wielded a grenade launcher. Somehow, the comparison of Mer to a grenade launcher wasn’t too far off the mark. But Moses wasn’t laughing.
“Did Lopez show you the pictures I drew the day she came to see me at Montlake, Doc?”
“Yeah. She did.”
Moses cursed, his relief evident across two continents and an ocean. “Good. I didn’t know how . . . shit.”
“Moses?”
“The paper dolls. You saw those?” Moses pressed.
Noah thought about the drawings, the connected figures. Him, Mer, and Cora. Him, Mer and Gia. Almost like Cora was giving them her blessing. The thought eased something inside of him. He hadn’t allowed himself to interpret the picture that way. But maybe . . . now he could.
“The man in the one picture? Cora keeps showing me that man.” Moses interrupted Noah’s thoughts.
“The man?” Noah didn’t understand.
“Yeah. Uh, you know. The paper dolls. The picture I drew with Cora, the little girl, and the man. Together. Cora keeps showing me his face. Do you . . . know who he is?” Moses asked, his words so constricted it made Noah’s throat tight.
“Cora’s showing you images of Mer with a man?” Noah asked.
“Yeah, but not . . . together. I think Lopez is in trouble.”
Noah was silent, thoughts whirling. Moses hadn’t ever called him. He wouldn’t have called him unless he was seriously concerned.
“Doc, I gotta go. I’ll try to call tomorrow. But no promises. We’ll be on the train for most of the day. If I don’t see her again, then that’s the best I got. I can’t tell you anything more. But I’ll call when I can . . . just to make sure everything is okay. Tell Lopez hello.”
“Thank you, Moses,” Noah said, but the line was already dead.
It took Noah ten minutes to get out the door. It was bedtime, but he couldn’t wait for morning. Gia’s clothes needed to be changed, she pulled off one sock before he could put on the other, and she squalled when he tried to make her wear shoes.
“We’re going for a ride, Gia Bug. Come on, help Daddy,” he begged.
“No wide,” she grumbled. “No sooz.”
“We’re going to see Mer, and you have to wear shoes if you want to walk.”
“Meh!”
“Meh,” he whispered. He didn’t know whether to be angry or afraid. He settled on both.
* * *
He didn’t tell Mer they were coming, and she was surprised to see them. Happy to see them. Her teeth flashed, and her right cheek dimpled, and the weariness he saw in her face lifted. Her pleasure hurt Noah’s chest and made him even angrier. She was holding a cup of coffee, and she stepped back from the door to let them in and reached for Gia, who reached right back. Noah brushed past her and set Gia down in the middle of her living room instead. He was there for a reason, and he didn’t want either of them getting comfortable, though Gia had plopped down and was already tugging at her shoes.
“Is there a reason you’re being a baby hog, Boozer?” Mer asked, surprise underlining her teasing. Noah moved in on her immediately.
“I need to see the pictures Moses gave you at Montlake. A
ll of them.” If he’d had any doubt she’d kept something from him, he didn’t have any now. Mer’s eyes widened, and her mouth tightened. Her poker face snapped into place a second later, but he’d seen enough. She pivoted obediently, walking to the china cabinet in her dining room. Noah followed on her heels. Setting her coffee cup aside on the dining room table, she opened a drawer in the cabinet and withdrew a thin folder. Noah yanked it from her hands.
“Noah!” she cried. Blood welled up in a long, thin line across her fingers. He’d pulled the folder too hard and sliced her finger. He set the folder down and took her hand in his, pulling her toward the kitchen sink. He ran her fingers under the cold water, still angry, still confused, but disgusted with himself. She was bleeding, and it was his fault.
“It’s a paper cut. I’ll survive,” she clipped, but he could hear the fire beneath the ice.
“You didn’t show me all the drawings, Mercedes.” He turned off the water and tugged a dish towel from the rack. The towel was red and wouldn’t stain. He wrapped it around her hand and moved to her medicine cabinet to the left of the fridge where he knew she kept her Band-Aids.
“So you come in here, stomping and barking and withholding baby hugs?” she snapped.
As if on cue, Gia strolled in, shoeless. “Meh!” she squealed.
“Mercedes,” Noah said, feeling the walls closing in. “I need to see those pictures.”
“Suit yourself.” She pointed to the dining table where he’d set the folder and stooped to pick up Gia.
He walked back to the folder, Mercedes snuggling Gia like none of it mattered. Maybe she held her too tight or maybe it was just the attention span of a toddler, but Mercedes radiated a tension Gia wasn’t used to, and Gia squawked and demanded to be released. Mercedes complied, and Gia scampered off, most likely to unload the basket of toys Mer kept for her visits. Mercedes approached him, her arms folded defensively, waiting for him to find what she’d hidden.