This is Not the Story They Told About Me (DRAFT May 2025)

The Lottery

The last of the sun was stretching its way across the sky, one of those sorbet-colored LA sunsets. Lucy stood at the front window, letting the oranges and pinks and purples dissolve in her field of vision, a vivid counterpoint to the stark lack within her.

“Show’s over,” she said, drawing the curtains across the living room window. She would need to replace them. Her grandmother had probably bought them on layaway at Sears sometime in the early 70s. A fiercely frugal woman, and an excellent seamstress, she made over anything that needed it. The fabric stash in her hall closet was massive—castoff clothing; unfixably stained tablecloths with a couple of yards of unstained area left; towels that had seen better days. She could make anything better. She could bend reality to make the world a more beautiful place.

But yeah, those curtains would have to go.

Lucy had always wanted to live in this house. Her grandmother’s second husband, Efraín, a [SOMETHING] magnate from Mexico city, had had it built in the late 1960s. It was pure SoCal indoor-outdoor dream scenario—the suburban LA equivalent to a manse on an English moor. Lucy couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been completely enchanted by it.

[DESCRIPTION OF HOUSE HERE]

The reality was a little more complicated. It seemed that much of the family was suddenly very vocal about why Lucy should not have gotten the house. An unmarried woman with no children and a steady job? What did she need all that space for? (All those trees! You could close your eyes and inhale and pretend you were back on the rancho.)

Her cousin Sandra could have used it, along with those five kids of hers. How many fathers between those kids, no one was really sure, but good for Sandra, she was on a better path now that that Christopher was living with her. He was a good influence on the entire household. But the household was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom affair in Gardena, not quite the same as a big house in a quiet, white neighborhood.

It’s not just white, someone would say, inevitably. I was at the mall up there last month and it was almost pure chinitos.

Ay, why were you at that mall? Damn, girl, you fancy, huh.

You win the lottery?

Yeah, mija, you’re rich now, or what?

But at some point, the focus would return to the injustice at hand: Why Lucy?

One convenience the lockdown has allowed: there were no expectations that she would host family parties. In-person, synchronous scrutiny, judgment, and/or human sacrifice would have to wait.

The Victorian

Beckett Lee lived in Tujunga, which was odd for a DJ of his caliber. He was a sort of enfant terrible with an incredible ego, and a big brain, and the talent, to match. Lucy double-checked the address as she pulled up, but yes, that was the right house, with a haphazard dirt garden for a front yard and a sagging cane-bottom chair on the neglected porch. At eleven she pushed open the squeaky gate and approached the front door. Where, after knocking, she waited.

And waited. She could hear bursts of Beckett’s trademark laughter from somewhere deep in the house. She called his cell number, provided by his assistant who’d set up the shoot, and it went to voicemail. She rapped on the metal security door this time. Once more, with feeling.

“Oh shit,” came a voice from inside, “You guys hear that? I think—oh fuck dude, there’s a photographer coming! I totally forgot.” Fast, heavy steps, and then the door swung open.

“Hi! I’m so sorry,” he said, his smile half Hollywood, half hoodlum. “Time slipped away from me. Um, I’m Beckett.” He held out his right hand and the light blue bathrobe fell open.

“Good to meet you. Lucia Gallo.”

She shook his hand, failing not to notice his pale chest and abs, or the stretched-out boxer briefs.

“Please — come in.”

It was dark inside, not just because the curtains were drawn—against the heat, she assumed at first—but also because the walls in the front room were painted black. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the extensive DJ gear to the right of the door. Black sheets covered the ceiling above the turntables and equipment, and the wall behind all of it. To the left of the door leaned a cheap grey couch, limply, giving the general impression of being covered in a hearty layer of something unpleasant. Next to that was a pole, floor to ceiling.

“Like it?” Beckett’s grin was a little too Arkham Asylum for comfort, but it was such an obvious affectation that she smiled.

“Nice setup,” she said. “Does the whole house look like this?” Like a red-light IKEA, she did not add. She touched, with one finger, some kind of robot thing on treads, its left arm looking like an intense movie-theater seat armrest, with four openings in which to, presumably, set drinks.

“Does he work?”

“She. That’s Molly. Hell yeah, she works. She’s my baby.”

“Molly?” She saw then the mirrored eyes. “As in Millions?”

“Oh shit, check you out, all Miss Neuromancer,” he brayed, but his smile was real. How quickly could she get a few good shots and get out of there? She started snapping and he responded to the sound, struck some pro-level poses, which made her want to laugh. Here was a man rich in metaphors.

A woman in her late twenties wandered into the room. She was carrying two chickens in a way that seemed weirdly defiant, almost passive-aggressive, and Lucy decided not to be surprised.

“Hi, I’m Lucia.”

“Hello, Lucia. I am Priscilla.” A thick Russian accent, and a genuine sweetness.

“Nice to meet you, Priscilla. And who are these ladies?”

Beckett, having grabbed one of the chickens, held it out to her. “You know how to hold a chicken?”

“Yeah.” She held it close to her body and stroked the top of its head while Beckett mouthed “Wow!” to Priscilla. The chicken stared at her with one eye and began to make a low, warning sound, but changed its mind and faced forward again.

“She likes you!” Priscilla said. “Honey! Meatball likes her!”

“So sweet. How old are they?”

“Couple of months,” Priscilla says. “We have hatched them in the backyard. Well, I’m gonna put these girls back now. Sorry about the clothes. I am washing.” And she points to the hallway just beyond where we’re standing. Three limp mountains of dirty clothes, sorted by color, lay in the center, gently wafting something stale.

“Please don’t apologize. It was nice to meet you.”

“You, too. You are welcome anytime,” Priscilla said, and disappeared into a room past the kitchen, where it sounded like fifty teenage boys were having an intense discussion.

“I hope the noise isn’t too bad. You can still concentrate?” Beckett grinned, and for a moment Lucy could see the appeal people talked about; her editor had referred to him recently as

the non-thinking woman’s Pete Davidson.                     

“It’s fine,” she said. “Late night?”

“Late night. Early morning. Some of my boys came down from Oakland yesterday, crashed here. Crazy motherfuckers. Crazy fuckbois, some of ‘em.” He brayed again, drowning out their cacophony. “I love ‘em, though, we’ve known each other since Boy Scouts.”

“Let’s put you on the couch,” Lucy said. “Maybe Molly’s brought you something to drink. Pretend it’s Sunday, you had a gig last night, you’re recovering. Or, you know, don’t pretend.”

Beckett giggled in a way that alerted her gag reflex. “Okay, lemme just get dressed.”

“You’re fine.”

“Like this, though?”

“We’re keeping it real. Have a seat, the chicks will dig it! And some of the guys!”

He giggled again and plopped down. By the time it was over, Lucy had made a handful of potentially great photos, and a lot of okay ones. It was a little after one as she got back on the 101. Traffic wasn’t bad. Waze told her she’d be home in thirty-five minutes. She could theoretically have the photos touched up and to her editor by three, if she was right about how strong a couple of them were.

She didn’t need the job. At any rate, it didn’t pay enough to keep a single adult in L.A. in the manner to which she’d become accustomed (food on the table, roof over her head), especially with the cost of everything still high following the pandemic. It was more of a way to keep herself sharp. A way to hang onto some outward street cred past the age of forty. Plus, it was fun. The parties and premieres were usually good ones, and she got invited to a lot of events where her services weren’t strictly necessary because the staff liked her and she liked them.

Her phone started playing a Sharon Van Etten song just as the sun hit the windshield and turned it white for one blinding moment.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie. What are you up to?”

“Just driving home from a job. How about you?”

“Oh, nice! Was it anyone I would know?”

“Not unless you’re into electronic dance music.”

“Bummer. Well, anyway, I wanted to tell you…”

It was about Alex. Lucy could tell from the pleasant reediness of her mom’s voice, but the trailing off really drove it home.

“Yes?”

“Alex got engaged.”

“Oh. Really? To Mark?”

“Well, yes, who else?”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep up.”

“Well, it’s in July.”

“Okay. That was fast.”

“Don’t, Lucy. It’s at The Victorian.”

The Victorian. Just the very same place where Lucy had planned on getting married all those years ago. Alex had made fun of her about it. Oh, excuse me, The Victorian! Is that where all your yuppie white-girl friends are getting married? Never stop trying to be something you’re not, Lucy, I believe in you!

“That’s interesting. Huh. I guess Mark helped her become something she wasn’t.”

“Mija, I don’t want to go down this path right now. I just wanted to deliver the message, okay?”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“You’re welcome. Gotta go. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Little Alex, with her big, blond Mark. He owned a contracting business in Orange County and from the times they’d shared the same space, it was clear to Lucy that he really enjoyed being El Jefe to all the Mexican men he employed. Never mind that his mom was from Atotonilco. It was a social-status landgrab for him, being light-skinned, coming from money, owning things and punching down in sneaky, socially acceptable ways.

Alex was probably somehow even more unbearable by now. Lucy imagined her nonchalantly waving her left hand for no reason at all, blinding her friends and fans with a diamond the size of her head. She was the absolute worst of both their parents. Still: the Victorian!

Pulling up in front of her building, Lucy killed the engine and sat in the car for a long minute, staring at her own reflection in the rearview mirror. Then she got out and started hauling gear.

Knife-Wound Ideas

There are rooms in her mind that she’s forgotten about. In these rooms, dust motes drift through the summer sunlight, filtering through blurry windows, and the old voices wait, slumping across the worn, flowered, velveteen couches. There’s a half-eaten sandwich covered in dust on the floor and an empty plate next to it. The voices do not eat. They are creatures of singular focus. Heat-seeking missiles. They bide their time, knowing she will remember them.

When her car overheats for the first time after twelve years of ownership, the voices are there, shouting out things to watch for, to guard against, to take super seriously lest they become tragic in a twisted instant. It happens, a couple of them say, when you aren’t looking. When you take your eyes off of every fear. When you expect things to go well, that’s when they get you! What if you hadn’t noticed the toasty smell in the air and checked the temperature gauge? What if you’d been someplace far away, in the dark? What if you didn’t know your way around this town?

She knows what they really mean. They say these things instead of their real thoughts, the knife-wound ideas they’ve carried since their move-in date: Why is everything broken all the time? Can you wish harder? Pray harder? Just try, so that your family might wake up in a nice neighborhood where no one drives cars that leak when it rains. In a world where you can act your age instead of whatever this is that you do.

You’re not doing it right.

If all you have to do is really believe, why doesn’t it happen? Just try. You’re still not doing it right.

Every time she’d had to get out of the car to help push, or had taken on another critical duty, or invented a loud game so Alex wouldn’t hear the fighting, she would believe so hard. Pray. Wish. Once, she’d invented an entire story about being spies, fleeing a secret enemy, ducking between grocery store aisles and speaking only in code. Alex had believed it—had giggled, clutched her hand. They'd crouched behind a cereal display like it was a bunker.

When they couldn’t afford a vacation, but flying to Las Vegas just for dinner was nearly free, she would imagine a world that wasn’t all inside-out and backwards. Pick out all the details. Make it real in her mind. She could see the smooth polished floors of a high-rise in Manhattan, the cool quiet of central air, the small golden lamp by her bedside. Believe like she’d never believed before. It never worked. It was never enough.

By the time the tow truck shows up, night has come. Like so many other services in the aftermath of COVID, the premium roadside assistance is now aggressively mediocre. Not that she’s stopped paying for it.

“There was a weird kind of toasty smell,” she tells the driver. “And then I looked down at the gauge and it was all the way up, so I pulled over as soon as I could.”

“Huh,” he says, hitching the tow to the bumper of her car.

She rides back in the passenger seat of the tow truck and watches the world scroll by in yellow-lit fragments. In the cup holder, a candy wrapper glows like a tiny flame. Her hands feel empty. The driver backs the car into the driveway and undoes all of the belts and hooks and chains. She tips him, and he makes eye contact for the first time. “Thank you so much,” he says, with a surprise that seems genuine.

Two of her neighbors, the old men, are watching from their respective porches, roused by the noise and the lights. One of them lifts a beer bottle toward her in salute. The other says, “Radiator?”

“Something like that,” she answers, and they nod like mechanics who’ve been off duty for years.

Inside, the air smells faintly of dust and citrus. She stands for a moment in the kitchen, keys still in hand, waiting for the adrenaline to recede. The quiet should be a comfort. But something slick and metallic shifts just under her ribs—one of the old ideas, coming up for air. She breathes through it. She’s gotten good at that.

The voices are quiet now. But they haven’t left. They never leave. They’re just waiting in the velvet-limned rooms, on couches no one has sat on in decades, murmuring: Try harder. Do better. Fix it all before it breaks again.

She opens the fridge and takes out a lime seltzer. The can hisses softly in the dark.

Conchita Longstocking

Weird, messed-up shit was always happening in Lucy’s family. Not just her immediate family; to all of her endless cousins and aunts and uncles. They were those people and she was that girl. Always something dramatic and tragic. The cousin who was in an out of jail showed up at her house high as a kite once, claiming it was just painkillers. The bereaved girlfriend of her aunt’s brother-in-law, who at the burial had tried to jump into the grave after the casket, and nearly accomplished it. That time her much-older cousin had picked a fight with her and Alex, punching both girls in the belly, but it was Lucy who got in trouble for saying, afterward, that she hated the cousin.

Her mother was the oldest of six and her father the youngest of ten. Lucy had several cousins who were close in age to her father, who had kids Lucy’s own age. (It was only weird when she had to explain it to other people.) Throw in centuries of genetic homogeny (her father’s side), a culture of honor (both sides), a history of violence and abuse (both sides), assorted mental illnesses (both sides), rampant addiction (both sides), and hello, people of Earth: Here’s Lucy!

That said, life was pretty perfect for a little while. Soon after her arrival, she became a superstar, a delightful mix of Shirley Temple, Pippi Longstocking, and Huck Finn. Most of her earliest memories involve asking her mom for help dressing up as an acrobat, a clown, a cowgirl. Then they would go and visit Tía Lupe in the next apartment building over, and Lucy would ask if they could knock on the doors of other people they knew in the building, so that everyone could enjoy the spectacle. And they did!

Everyone loved her. It was an irrefutable fact, and she knew it. One of her grandfathers called her Conchita, after the female bullfighter Conchita Cintrón, lauded for her particular combination of grace, style, and bravado. Once, at a wedding, Lucy ran off to play with a group of kids and returned sometime later looking tousled and holding back tears. When her parents asked what was wrong, she refused to say. Then a couple of women came over to our table to complain that Lucy had beaten up their boys. They were being mean to me, Lucy said at last. The boys were five. She was not yet three.

Alas, her superstardom did not last. Does it ever? Life comes a cropper. She fell from grace. The adult reality was much different from the story she told herself, but the end result was absolute truth to a child: It all went downhill soon after Alex was born. At first, having a baby sister was magical. She was adorable and cuddly. Lucy loved patting her warm little cheeks, and singing to her, and holding the bottle while Alex drank the breast milk that their mom had dutifully expressed before and after nursing school, three times a week. She couldn’t wait until Alex was old enough to play with. She had a sister now!

Then they moved to a new house in a different city, where they didn’t know anyone and her parents didn’t trust the people they did meet. Moods shifted. Rules changed. Lucy learned to measure the weather of the house by the sounds in the hallway.

One day, assuming their father was still asleep, Lucy led Alex into the garage, where she’d moved enough boxes to create the (mostly imaginary) illusion of Pippi Longstocking’s house, Villa Villekula. She was Pippi and Alex was Annika, having thrown a full-blown tantrum at the suggestion that she be Mr. Nilsson, the monkey, instead. Lucy was jumping from box to box, fighting off pirates while Alex said, “Oh, Pippi,” in a wan voice, and pretended to faint. Then the shouting started.

“¡Hijas! ¡Lucía! ¡Alejandra! Súbanse al carro!” Lucy jumped down from the box and grabbed Alex, who screamed that Lucy was hurting her and was being mean and that Alex just wanted to play. Dragging Alex by the arm, Lucy ran into the house. Their dad was at the front door and he shouted again for them to get into the car. Lucy obeyed, still towing Alex, who kept asking why, and where were they going, and what was wrong, and it wasn’t fair because she had been having fun.

“Callada, mija,” their dad said in a voice at once terrifying and tender. They took off down our street at a speed Lucy recognized from when they took the freeway somewhere. On this narrow street it felt like their car was a knife. Suddenly their dad hit the brakes and yanked the steering wheel all the way to the left. Pulling up the emergency brake, he switched the engine off, opened his door and took off running down a side street. Lucy could see that he was holding his right arm straight ahead of him as he ran, pointing his .38 at whomever he was chasing, and it made her think of the actor who ran down the street in the opening sequence of The Streets of San Francisco. She really liked that show.

She and Alex sat in the backseat, the driver’s door still open and the car parked at an acute angle to the curb. Soon their dad was out of sight, and people had come out of their houses to surround the car.

“Are you okay? What happened?” a lady asked Lucy.

“Yes, thank you. We’re okay, we’re just waiting for our dad,” she explained, in what she hoped was a way that indicated she was smart and responsible. That their family wasn’t weird. That this was just…a weird situation. Maybe all of these people would become their friends.

The lady looked puzzled, and she turned to say something to another adult. Lucy looked around at the other faces looking in at the two of them. Some pity, some surprise, some definite disapproval. It was the pity that was unbearable.

She noticed a girl about her age, whom she’d met a week or so ago while playing in the next-door neighbors’ front yard.

“Hi, Kelly!” she said, mustering all the casual politeness she could.

Kelly just stared.

Even now, Lucy wasn’t sure what was worse: the pity, the staring, or Kelly looking at her like she was something to scoop off the lawn and throw away.

Then her father was back, walking at a brisk pace and shaking his head. “Thank you for watching my children,” he said to the crowd. “That motherfucker was in my backyard! I didn’t catch him, but I don’t think he’ll be back.” He winked to another Mexican man who’d been standing there silently. The man nodded and turned away. Lucy’s dad started up the car and drove home. Lucy kept her eyes on the rearview mirror. The people on the sidewalk were still watching, their faces small and pale in the distance. She understood, in a way words wouldn’t reach for years, that they would never uncross this line.

Terms and Conditions

Her editor is thrilled with the photos of Beckett Lee. They accompanied an interview conducted by the handsome and industry-famous host of the morning show, and although Lucy had mostly shot by instinct, the images matched the tone of the interview perfectly. She got a few texts and emails about how well she’d done, and even the chilly and slightly terrifying general manager congratulated her via voicemail.

A couple of days later, she got a text from Beckett himself. What’s up Lucia! Just got back from the dessert. Daaaaamn, those fotos you took of me are SICK! youre awesome, thank so much.

He was…whatever he was. But it was nice of him; she rarely got feedback after the fact from the performers she photographed.

Thanks, Beckett! I appreciate that. Hope you enjoyed the desert. She put her phone down to load the dishwasher and it buzzed again.

Not tryna be weird, hope this is okay to say, but one of my boys has been following your work for a lil bit. He was at the house that day you came by and I think he wants to meet you.

What was this now? Oh God. She gave herself a minute to come up with something to say, and then remembered that she could very well have turned the phone off, for all he knew. What if she had just stepped into a movie theater? What if she’d been hit by a bus? She put the phone down and loaded the dishwasher.

She was flattered. But she knew that no one in Beckett’s immediate circle was anyone she wanted to spend time with. She was curious, though. And…some part of her had been feeling invisible lately.

Oh wow. Really? Brilliant response, Lucy. Brilliant.

Almost immediately, a new text came in.

Yeah, he’s my older brother’s best friend. Came down for a show, haven’t seen him in awhile. Good guy. Not like me! Lol he’s looking to stay in LA.

Sure, dude.

I’m flattered that he likes my work, she responded. Please thank him for me!

Ten seconds went by.

For sure. Would it be okay to give him your number?

No, it would not be okay. Man, the perils of working with people like this. She couldn’t risk offending Beckett, obviously. But this was some assumptive shit he was pulling. And yet she felt like she had to make an effort to meet him in the middle. It was ridiculous and she would have counseled any other woman to get it together and remember that no is a complete sentence.

Sorry, I have a strict friends-and-clients-only policy when it comes to my phone number. But I’d be happy to meet up for coffee some morning. Two Guns in El Segundo is great and I don’t get to go there very often.

No one in the Valley would want to meet up that far south, especially not in the morning. And this way she wasn’t giving a complete unknown any clues about her daily life.

She threw the phone onto the couch and grabbed a blanket and the remote. A muffled buzz announced more from Beckett.

Hello. Did Mom tell u my news? So, not Beckett. Ugh.

Hi. Yes, she did. Congratulations, happy for you.

As the photo Alex was sending her loaded, there was another buzz. Beckett.

He says yeah, his mornings are free the rest of this week. Naturally.

Buzz. Alex.

What do u think? I think you should just type the extra two letters so you don’t look like a moron, Alex. In the photo she was wearing a low-cut top, tiny jean shorts, and black-and-white checkered Vans. Her left hand was up in the air, and with her right hand she pointed at the enormous diamond. Maybe she thought she was smiling, but it was straight-up a smirk. Mark was standing behind her, not quite prom-photo style, with his pale eyes and piggish little nose, looking like he’d just won the white-man lottery.

Nice! You must be so excited.

Buzz. Beckett.

Does Thursday work for you? Like 10 am?

Her temples were throbbing gently.

That works. I’ll see him then. What’s his name?

Buzz. Alex.

Soooooo exciteeeed!!! Hope it’s okay I took ur old wedding spot. It’s been so long u don’t care right?

Right.

Right! It will be great.

She needed to ask her mom for the date Alex had set (it was a given that Alex alone had driven most of this particular bus) and then find an assignment that would take her out of town on that day.

Buzz. Beckett.

Joe Corbin. 310-555-6433

Thanks. Have a great night!

And then Lucia turned her phone off. And felt, for five whole seconds, like some kind of genius.

People Like You

The hoarder house was decorated for the Fourth of July. Maybe it always was, as evidenced by the series of small American flags of various ages. They lay draped over the tops of the five or six bird cages that leaned against the outside of the garage. To Lucy’s surprise, there were birds living in the cages. She’d assumed the cages were, as everything else that occupies the front yard is, unusable castoffs.

The driveway was still useable, as evidenced by the three SUVs that were always there, but here and there lay small concessions to the issue that surely monopolized the lives of everyone residing in the house. She’d never seen any of them, except the old woman. She’d yelled at Lucy once from across the street as Lucy’s dog had done its business on the patchy strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb.

“Oh, you’d better clean that up! You’d better clean up that mess!”

Simultaneously Lucy had realized she’d left the plastic bags, purchased specially for this situation, at home. She sighed and headed back toward home as the woman continued.

“You’d better clean up that mess! So irresponsible! You’re disgusting! Clean it up!”

Anxiety and old stories won out. Knowing it was a low blow to land on an obviously infirm old woman, doing it anyway, she turned and shouted back, her voice far louder than the woman’s, “Why don’t you clean your yard up!”

The woman went silent. She looked around her yard, blinking.

Seven minutes later, having bagged up the dog shit, Lucy glanced across the street at the hoarder yard, now empty of humans. She had an overwhelming urge to go through every item stacked, tossed, leaned up against the side of the garage. What dormant magic lay in them that only the old woman recognized? What spell had she woven with them to staving off calamity? To keep the world at bay? Why did no one get her help? Did the others keep their rooms under lock and key? She pictured them, two grown children, possibly, each with a small refrigerator and microwave in their bedroom. Surely they were now just waiting for her to die. Who could stand it? Who could live that way?

That was the only real thought she allowed herself until the sun went down.

She had taken to refusing herself feelings during the day, and at night was too full of feelings to allow any of them to touch her. Unless it was a weekend or Joe was there, she drank until sleep was her only option.

She woke up to receipts crowding her inbox.

Strawberry Fluff.

Expensive lace underpants.

Tunnock’s Tea Cakes.

Pink hair extensions.

She was horrified and amuse in equal measures. But each of the purchases were exactly right. They nourished her. This other self, this inebriated and therefore honest self, was taking care of her. It was actually lovely. Like self-parenting via a fun, slightly irresponsible aunt, the kind who lets you stay up too late and have pie for breakfast.

Turning off the TV—she’d been an avowed TV snob for her entire adult life until the pandemic—she breathed in slowly, being as mindful as possible of being here, of being alive, of feeling her spine elongate and her shoulders relax, the latter of which always feels like a fool’s errand. She tried anyhow. She tried so fucking hard, all the time, to focus on the right things. It felt like putting a band-aid on a broken leg, but she continued. In this moment, I have everything I need. And The only way out is through. And of course, If you’re going through hell, by all means, keep on going. And so on. And so on.

You ever just feel like a pack mule? Joe had asked once in the middle of the kind of late-night conversations that, deep in the heart of some Gen-Xers, beg for a diner and a rainy night. (But: LA, so there was no rain.) She had laughed until she’d cried, because yes. Yes. She’d been tired for as long as she could remember, and—that having being pre-pandemic, before Americans admitted anything was wrong across the board—she’d never been able to articulate it to anyone in a way that didn’t put people off or alarm them. Joe understood. She saw it in the way that he looked into her eyes and nodded calmly. It wasn’t that turn-of-the-century bullshit, where every guy wanted to fuck a Suicide Girl. It was something older, and deeper. He was her people, and she was his.

Even their first date had seemed absurdly tailored to their specifications. After agreeing via text to meet in Hermosa Beach, they hadn’t talked at all on the phone.

She’d gotten there early and was sketching in a notebook as a way to keep herself from fidgeting when a shadow fell across her table. She looked up.

A man stood there, very still. He wore jeans, a black blazer, and a faded band t-shirt — greyscale, something blurred and angular across the chest. Familiar, maybe. In her nerve-wracked state she couldn't quite place it.

“People like you,” he said.

She blinked.

Was that… a line? A threat?

“Uh. Pardon?”

He didn’t repeat himself. Just looked at her, eyes steady, the corners of his mouth tugging upward like he was in on a joke she hadn’t heard yet.

“People like me?” she asked, drawing the words out like a challenge.

“People like you…”

He tilted his head slightly, raised one eyebrow — waiting.

And then she got it. Her eyes dropped to his shirt. Joy Division. Ian Curtis, all tortured and pixelated mid-scream.

Was he serious?

She looked back at his face. That smirk again. Oh my God, they were doing this.

“…find it easy,” she said.

He laughed.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“I’m Joe,” he said.

“Lucia.”

“I know. It’s lovely to meet you. I’m sorry for the Joy Division gambit, but damn, it’s reliable.”

“Oh. Use it often?”

“Not often. But when I do, it’s a very useful sorting mechanism.”

A laugh burst out of her. “Snob!”

He shrugged.

“Can’t argue with results.”

It was the strangest first conversation she’d ever had with anyone.

They ordered coffee. They talked, and walked around the shops near the pier, and talked, and went to the end of the pier and pretended to be able to see Hawaii, and talked. And talked.

“So, I’m going to say something here,” he said, sometime after five.

“Okay. I mean, we’ve been saying things for a while now.”

“That’s true!” He laughed. “Okay, here’s the thing: I can’t remember the last time I so thoroughly enjoyed being in someone’s company. I feel like I could talk to you forever. I’m not a creep or anything, I’m just surprised by all of this, a little. And I want it to continue. Does any of this make any kind of sense to you? Am I a total creep?”

“Yes,” she said. “And if you’re a creep, I think you’re the right kind of creep.”

He looked down for a moment, and when he looked back up, the snaggle tooth she’d noticed at points throughout the afternoon was on full display, and her heart squeezed completely of its own volition.

“You up for grabbing dinner?”

“People like me,” she said, “Find it easy.”

And so: dinner. Fish tacos, beer with lime slices they poked into the bottles. They talked about growing up surrounded by surfers and skaters and being neither. About how they’d both wanted to live in New York City—he actually had; she had decided not to apply for colleges out there after Sassy Magazine disappeared and then had decided she loved LA after all. They’d loved all the same bands as kids, had gone to some of the same shows. He’d bought his first pair of Docs at the same store where she had, the tiny punk store where she’d worked right after high school. They had to have spoken at least once at some point.

How had she lived this long not knowing that this other part of herself was out there the entire time, just walking around, unaware of her? All of her questions felt answered. All of the noise in her life, which she struggled against every day, faded to a distant hum. After dinner he walked her to her car.

“People like us,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

The Ones Who Didn’t Get Old

It was time for a great reckoning. It had been years since the last one. She couldn’t even recall it. Since whenever that had been, much had changed and she found space in many of the places that had been jam-packed for years. The shorthand she’d relied on now seemed facile, half-thought out. She yearned suddenly to dig deeply into what she believed, what she knew, what she was now. It was freeing and terrifying: what if she required a whole new life? Would she have to step out of and away from the people and situations that she’d grown to rely on? (Even if some of them had come to represent a sad repetition of broken expectations and disillusion?)

Piecing together what she knew about her family history, based on the stories she’d heard as a kid, bolstered by the occasional verification from older friends and family members, through a lens of modern medicine and psychology, she was saddened by what she saw.

Stifled voices. Stifled lives. Keep your head down. Keep your voice down. Don’t tell what happened to you while you were out today. Don’t talk about what happened when you were young. Anguish. Fear. Violence of every kind. All of it, everything the women did, was in service of appeasing the violence. And everything the men did was in service of controlling the violence.

She thinks, as she grows older, about the ones who didn’t make it to her age. The ones who overdosed (there were so many of those), the ones who were purportedly ill beforehand but whose death certificates said otherwise.

The aunt who died after forty years of bitterness and despair, old before her time, her appearance, behavior, and hygiene long since having devolved to reflect all of that.

The great-uncle, a priest with a predilection for art thievery, jailed and tortured by federales.

Inheritance

The old man had moved back home with his newer, younger family. He’d let his eldest know that she and hers had thirty days to either move out of the house he’d gifted them years earlier, or pay him for it. It had sent her into a tailspin, even through the dense fog of depression that normally surrounded her.

What could she do? She was a victim of circumstance, of her gender, of the times, and of an economy that meant her husband spent most of his time building railroads in Kansas and Missouri and Iowa. He visited roughly once a year. Their oldest children were married or dead. The ones remaining were a sharp-tongued beauty queen, a foppish young man who was the laughingstock of the town, a twelve-year-old boy, an eight-year-old boy, and a two-year-old, the baby she’d had at forty-eight.

It was the twelve-year-old—quiet, reserved, with eyes that belonged to a man who’d already been through several wars—who took action. He borrowed a gun from someone and headed out along the cobblestoned streets to the bar, asking whether anyone had seen the old man. The men there didn’t laugh. The boy had a quiet dignity that matched the cold fury in his voice and belied the occasional shiver that overtook him. Besides, twelve was practically a man, there and then.

One of them, pointing, said they’d seen the old man heading toward the potrero just a short time earlier. The boy nodded, his gracias curt but polite.

Of course, someone put a bug in the old man’s ear. He hadn’t been seen walking toward the potrero at all; he’d been seen walking into the bar. The old man’s brother-in-law was dispatched to let him know about the boy.

- Don Sebastián, one of your grandsons is looking for you. He’s got a gun.

The old man nodded, patting his brother-in-law on the shoulder, and walked out at an unhurried pace. He approached the potrero from the opposite direction and there he was — his sad little progeny. Skinny, like an old horse. Elbows pointy, eyes too big for his face.

The boy raised the gun, his hand shaking.

- Hola, nieto, the old man said.

- Don’t call me that, I’m not your grandson. You’re not my grandfather.

- ¿Ah, no? Well, you tell me, then: who am I? Where did your name come from, Sebastián?

- Cállese, hijo de la chingada, the boy spat, his eyes beginning to fill with tears.

- You’re not going to kill me, the old man said, and a sense of peace came over him. Tears spilled over onto the boy’s face and the old man knew he had a few seconds in his favor.

- Mira. Escúchame, he said gently.

Slowly, he moved closer to the boy, who was sobbing now.

- Shhh. Don’t cry, son. Listen.

Words softer than any he’d ever spoken to his daughter’s other brats.

And it was so easy. He smacked the gun out of the boy’s hands, picked it up — knowing the move would hurt his arthritic bones for  — and trained it on the younger Sebastián.

- A la chingada, mocoso. Go. Now.

The boy stared up at him, face a mask of horror and snot. And then he turned and lurched back toward town, shoulders shaking. The old man stood, pointing the gun at his grandson’s back until he was just a blur on the horizon. When the boy disappeared, Don Sebastián spat into the dust and turned for home. Some lessons had to be taught early.

The House in PV

Efrain’s father Don Francisco had left him the house in PV. They were from Tampico and his father made a ton of money in the early days of oil, thanks to his association with that Doheny man. He’d had the place build as a gift for his fiancée, who drowned in a boating accident a few days before their wedding was set to occur. Rather than live there without her, Don Francisco rented it out and bought a house in Signal Hill, surrounded by others whose ships had come in on waves of black gold. A year or two later, he married, and then in 1930 Efrain was born.

Although they never wanted for money, Efrain didn’t grow up the way his peers did. He had chores, was expected to work and contribute to the household, was expected to make good grades, mind his manners, and generally display accountability for himself. He didn’t have to struggle the way his father had, but he understood who he was and where he was from, and moved elegantly through the worlds he inhabited.

            When Efrain met Grandma she had been recently widowed and had three girls and two boys, all under the age of twelve.

The House Dream

In the dream she always knows without having been told that the house was the home of her maternal grandmother, whom she’d never met, and her parents’ before her, going back a generation or two further than that. Now abandoned, the dream implies, the place belongs to Lucy.

It has evolved over time. It used to be the actual home she lived in, before she and her mom moved out, and she would find a secret entrance to a subterranean section long since closed off. Sprawling rooms, a massive rabbits’ warren of potential. Filled with furniture, bedding, clothing—all the things a house accumulates over time—the underground wings were time capsules. They looked as though they’d been closed off sometime in the late 1960s. “Bad lighting,” she invariably thought, “But so much space!” She always woke up before she could start cleaning.

Sometime over the last ten years the house had taken a turn for the ostentatious. Now perched near a cliff overlooking the Pacific, it had the look of a mid-century mansion turned costly yet generic wedding venue, with dowdy hedges lining its walkways. This house didn’t welcome her, but it drew her in: if she went to the third floor, there was a long, poorly-lit passage she could follow, with various twists and turns. Beginning at its doorway, nearly everything was leached of color. It was like being in a black and white movie. The passageway emptied into a room that was deserted, save a built-in ticket booth on the far left, in front of which a set of double doors marked the beginning of a strange little museum-cum-carnival ride. She never bought a ticket, the way she’d seen other people sometimes do. She just waited until everyone was busy and made her way through the double doors. Sometime riding in a cart, sometimes walking, she would witness scenes from the lives of her grandmother and her grandmother’s people. Each one was portrayed by some kind of robot, though in some exhibits one or two of the players seemed to be alive. They were stuck there, it seemed to Lucy, to retell the family’s stories as a sort of penance. From the banal to the horrific, it was all there, laid out for examination by anyone who’d gone to the trouble of finding it.

And then it shifted again, melding its upper-crust leanings with a posh sort of suburban thing, turning itself into an old-fashioned place, grand but modest. Old money. Now there was a set of steps that led onto a narrow porch, which led through the front door and into a narrow hallway, which exploded into other hallways, other steps, staircases, great rooms, stacked three and four stories high. It was filled with lovely old gracious antiques: trunks, framed portraits, photographs, family games, bar carts and tools, cards and letters, all potentially useful, even if just for the information it might provide. The family names were written on the backs of some things. Everything was clean; the house was move-in ready, its gleaming wood balustrades and finials winking at Lucy, and its various sofas and fireplaces signaling their welcome. This was the first step in claiming what was rightfully hers, she thought. And then she would wake.

The Singer

Frankie Morrison inhales, sweat seeping through his shirt.  Everything merges—confusion, skin, heat, the voices from childhood, the smells of his whole life, the images, all the math—arranging itself in a glorious double-stranded helix. He storms through time and space, wind and ice and burning sun raking through his still-thick hair. Here there are no demands; only him and the universe. This is why he is still alive. He would inject this if he could. Drink it. Snort it. After the flush of those first few years wore off, he tried to. He knows better now. He also needs it more now. 

He's kept himself in fighting shape and his uncertainty has taken on all of the flab and disappointment instead, like a painting kept in an attic. When it descends, obscuring his vision, holding what he needs gleefully just beyond his reach, he sidesteps it lightly, beats back the urge to run, to start over and over and over. This is part of the reason why he could never hold a regular job. Inevitably he’d reach a point where he would be overcome with the sensation of being swallowed up into a foreign world. He’d leave and find something else, triumphant that this, at last, was the one. It had been the same with women. Always, until Maggie.

Maggie was the antidote to everything. But now, seven years later, the panic creeps in here and there. He’d forgotten what that felt like. At minor disagreements he finds himself silently daring her to give up, to leave. He fights every muscle in his body not to bolt, not to fling her off from around his neck where she hangs, a gorgeous stopwatch he doesn’t deserve.

Nothing has ever lasted this long. It’s unnatural, even if it is what he’s always wanted.  Even though she is the only home he knows. He wonders what ten years of anything feels like.

It’s been longer than that, this life. But that’s different; that’s like breathing.

He finishes the set with no incident, save the couple that will be fighting tonight on his account due to his having blown a kiss at the girl, solely because she was begging him with her eyes and because her boyfriend was the kind of weak-chinned poser he hated. Now he feels like an asshole for allowing himself that kind of bullshit, amateur luxury.  Back in his room there’s a red light blinking on the phone. It’s a wrong number. Somebody’s kid calling to say Good night, Daddy, I miss you. He never would have called his father Daddy. The old man probably wouldn’t have let him if he’d tried. 

Maggie had been upset before he left. It had been over the kid again, the kid they didn’t have.  Frank had come to resent this vague notion of a child as though it were another man. But he held fast: Having a child was the best way he could think of to kill himself. He was self-destructive, but not crazy. His father lived inside of him. The old man’s temper, his eagerness to cut everything down to its foundation and piss in the gutted remains, the cocksure way he lived his life—it was one thing to conduct things in this manner for himself. To do it to a kid would be unconscionable.  

“You knew,” he had said to her. “You knew this from the beginning.”

“I did. I knew. I just…”

“You just what? Thought I would change my mind? Maybe after a few years I’d what— soften up, get a clue? Wake up one day and realize I was born to be a father?” 

She had said nothing, just sat and stared blankly out the window, a couple of tears slipping slowly down her face. 

“I’m sorry, baby…” he had stepped across the room to her, but she’d held a hand up.

“No,” she’d said quietly.  “No. You’re right. Travel safe. I love you.” And she’d walked past him and up the stairs.

He opens the book he’s kept with him since the early days. It’s almost full now, pages pasted up with the highlights of his life: a flyer from his very first gig, a bunch of reviews, different photos, and a handful of interviews. 

I never wanted someone I worshiped. I mean, I always wanted someone to worship; there’s always someone around in that capacity. But to be with someone like that. In a decent, everyday sort of relationship – no. That’s dangerous. It seems like it’s only the ones who can’t or won’t make me center stage – the ones who can’t be my center stage because I won’t let them…  I don’t know, man. If you only ever go see the sideshow, it is still only just a sideshow, isn’t it?  Or does it become the main attraction?

The things he used to say. The intrigue he’d thought his words carried. When you’re young you believe that you’ll always think you’re right. He steps out into the English-style garden. It’s a cool night and there’s someone sitting at the edge of the hot tub, feet dangling in the water, steam rising as though in response. He lights a cigarette and stares out at the sky. 

He hears footsteps and sees two girls on the pathway headed for him.  He nods, returns to his skygazing.  Footsteps stop. 

“Excuse me,” one of them says. “Hi. Frankie?”

“Hey.” He smiles. 

“I’m sorry to trouble you. I know you’re probably just trying to relax after the show. But my friend and I wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed it. I’d been waiting to see you for years and you were amazing!” 

She and her friend look about twenty; twenty-one, maybe.

“Hey, thanks so much,” he says, grinning, switching on the floodlights. “I appreciate that. Glad you girls enjoyed it.”

The friend just stares at him, smiling nervously. The other girl tries to play it cool.

“Are you in town for very long?”

“I’m gone tomorrow,” he says, exhaling a vapor trail straight up to the moon.

“That’s too bad,” the girl says. “Well, we’ll leave you alone, but can I ask you for a light? My lighter’s not…behaving.” 

And then he does something he used to do long ago. Just a stupid thing. Nothing, really. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and holds it out to her.

“I actually had to borrow a light from someone else, but I was about to put this out and go back inside. Do you want it?” He senses her pulse quicken as she considers the offer. 

“Uh… are you sure?” she says finally. She looks at her friend and both girls giggle.

He smiles, takes another drag, says nothing. 

“Go on,” he says. “I’ve got to turn in now. Get my beauty sleep, you know.” He winks and reaches for her hand, transfers the cigarette over to her.  

“Good night,” he says, smiling with all of his teeth. He heads back inside.

Dropping into the chaise lounge, he stops arguing with his father’s voice. Desgraciado. Pendejo. Huevon. Wadda fokkin clown, it had been saying, the accent always front and center, no matter how many years had passed since Francisco Morales the elder had crossed the border at age 15. Disgraceful, idiot, lazy, fucking clown. Oh, and the occasional Why don’t you get a man’s job, faggot? Maybe he would throw in pervert now, too. 

“It’s never going to love you back, Francisco,” he says aloud. A girl had said that to him once after he’d chosen band rehearsal over her too many times. But she had been wrong. It did love him back. It had, anyway, for a long time. How long was it supposed to last?  He doesn’t feel any different now than when it all first began, but every time he passes a mirror, it gets tougher to ignore the harsh reality.

He thinks of the girl he was with that morning. He can see her, see the mental reluctance written on her face. The way she’d looked calmly into his eyes, an utter lack of expression on her face, even as her breath became short. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she’d broken down and given herself over to it completely. He had told her afterward, before he could stop himself, that he would call. She had laughed and waved as he left her room.

He wonders, not for the first time, just what the fuck his problem is. It’s been a long time since one of these incidents. Years, even. Maggie stopped traveling with him, for the most part, and it had been okay for awhile. But the restlessness, the need, it’s been building. There isn’t anywhere left to squash it down, no more empty corners to fill with that voice, insisting that he’s trapped.

“Fuck me,” he says, and before he can think he’s reaching for his phone, which begins to ring just as he touches it.

It’s Maggie.

“Hey,” he says, in the swaggery tone he knows infuriates her and turns her on.

“Hi.” She sounds strained.

“What’s going on, amorcito mío?”

“Well,” she says. “I’m leaving.”

“Oh yeah? Where are you off to?” He feels disoriented and thinks again about quitting smoking.

“I’m leaving, Francisco. Leaving you. Not coming back.”

“What?” He frowned, and his heart began to race.

“My brother borrowed a truck. All my things are in it. I’m leaving.”

Frank blinks. Once, twice.

“Jesus. What? What the fuck is going on, Maggie?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. These problems aren’t going away, and since you’re not willing to address them, I can’t ignore them anymore. I can’t…can’t be with you anymore.” Her voice ragged.

“These problems? What problems? What, the no kids? Are you joking? Come on, sweetheart, you can’t—“

“I can. And I am. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry? ¡Chinga’o! You wait until I’m gone—which by the way is only because you didn’t want to travel with me anymore—and then you pack up your things and call me on the phone to tell me you’re leaving? Who is he? Whatever hijo de la chingada has you brainwashed, I’ll fucking kill him.”

“There’s no he! Just you! And oh, do you remember why didn’t I want to travel with you anymore? Let’s see. There was Gloria, who was amazed to find out that you weren’t single. Christina, who threw her drink in my face when I asked her what she was doing hanging out in front of the dressing room half naked. How about that one girl with that thrifted coat that looked like it had fleas? She left the dressing room right as I was coming in, and she laughed when she saw me,” she says, furious now.

“Come on, you’ve got to be kidding me with this bullshit. Jesus Christ! Seriously?”

“Seriously. I loved you. But now we’re done.” And she’s gone.

He puts the phone down and leans back too quickly, hitting his head on the wall behind the couch. For twenty minutes he ugly-cries like a baby. Great, big, gulping sobs, dripping snot, gasps that sound like laughter, except for pauses when he’s assassinating Maggie’s character at top volume.

And then he gets up and blows his nose, rinses his face. He combs his hair and is relieved to see his pale face isn’t all that blotchy. While Francisco Morales stays on the couch, undone by his humiliation, Frank Morrison heads down to the hotel bar.

An Index of Vanishing

She kept a list.

Not on paper, not typed. The list lived behind her left eye. She called it The Index, half-jokingly, like it had a spine and a table of contents. Like it hadn’t been etched into her the way a scar gets etched: slow, repetitive. One after another. They were catalogued by season, by scent, by songs.

It began:

The key left in the mailbox, wrapped in wax paper.

The KCRW mug someone took on accident and never returned.

The voicemail from 2013 she still couldn’t bring herself to delete.

The way Ian said her name that final time — not with anger, but with something worse: understanding.

Most of the contents of The Index were small in this way. A small black hair clip. A book never returned. A look.

Some were less small.

The year she turned twenty-nine and stopped answering the phone.

The friend who said “always” and then didn’t, ever again.

The version of herself who had thought mystery was a virtue.

You couldn’t explain these kinds of vanishings to people who still thought loss arrived with an official proclamation, wearing a black veil. Who consulted rule books to govern their hearts and their lives. From normies, the big griefs got sympathy and the little ones got side eye.

So she kept the tally herself.

She remembered everything.

There was a parquet floor in Brooklyn where she once cried so hard it left a salt stain.

There was a pocket-sized park in the T-shaped intersection of two major streets near the beach, where her neighbor had died when he’d crashed into the guard rail on his motorcycle.

There was a miniature sticky note with writing on one side that she kept in her jewelry box sticky side up because looking at it made her feel like she was stealing oxygen from another life.

The list was going to outlive her, she knew. Because vanishing didn’t mean gone.

It meant unfound.

Bananas

“Joe. You would not believe the shit that’s happened since you left,” she said out loud. “This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.” She laughed, thinking of the face he made anytime she’d gone into the Gwen Stefani imitation that the word demanded. He had a general allergy to anything even vaguely related to the spoiled-rich-girl sound, which was both understandable and unfortunate, as Lucy tended to skew that way when she was upset and caught off guard. Super? Like, Annoyed? Valley Girl Voice?, he called it.

And then she was crying, with no warning.

“I miss you. I miss you so much I can’t stand it,” she sobbed. “Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for not thinking I was enough to stick around for. Fuck you for abandoning me in a world that stopped existing.”

It’s okay. It really is. You can stop with the mourning, he says.

Joe says.

What? she responds, in her head, as she considers the absurdity of responding to anyone in her own head, but especially him. And apparently even in her head she can’t shake the Super, Like, Annoyed Valley Girl voice.

“I’m so fucked.” She rubs her eyes and realizes she spoke aloud.

Nah, you’re good. But seriously, lay off the grief. It’s not good for you, kid. I’m fine. It’s all fine. So much finer, in fact, than I could have known, he says.

She gets up and goes inside, slamming the sliding glass door shut behind her. It hits the frame and bounces back, reversing on its track.

The words are his. The inflection. She knows in some basic way, beyond reason, that this is legit. Also, she feels absolutely batshit. The odds of even Sachiko being open to hearing this latest development seem slim at best. The pity would be too much to bear: Have you thought about talking to someone? And then who would Sachiko tell, not out of a lack of loyalty, but simply because of a need to talk to someone about her newly dissociative friend? No one in their circle would know what to do with themselves. Poor Lucy, have you heard? She lost it after Joe...you know. Uh-huh. Apparently, he’s talking to her from the afterlife. God, I hope she’s seeing someone. It hit all of us hard, but this is...

“I miss you,” she says, staring at the ceiling. “You motherfucker.”

Then she sees him, sort of. It’s as though a window has opened in her mind, a dream-bubble thing, and she’s wide awake, eyes open, and she can see this window even though she knows it’s not there. But Joe is there, and he’s beautiful and his eyes are shining, and she will swear to God if need be that he’s looking into her soul somehow, from the dream-bubble window. A quick, pure joy floods the room.

Hey, he says. This is when the tears come. Hey, he says again, and now he’s taking her face in his hands and he’s pressing her cheek against his. So soft -- how is she feeling this? -- but she is, truly. He’s warm, and he just holds her there. It’s so real as to be almost unremarkable. Except it isn’t. There’s so much love in him. It beams from him, surrounds them, and it’s a thing she had never known about life, and something she never again wants to be without.

I love you, she says to him, in her mind, and he pulls back and smiles and says, I love you, girl. Then the bubble-window thing pops shut.

He’s gone. 

She’s alone, the apartment silent. She should probably be scared. But she’s not. The sigil that has marked her for months is gone. Without its weight on her forehead, she feels like she might bump up against the ceiling.

“It’s okay,” she says, to the empty room.

She lays her head on a throw pillow and stretches her legs across the sunny spot on the couch.

It’s okay, she says, in her mind.

She closes her eyes and sleeps.

Blue Bottles

Joe always wakes her up by kissing her. Then he asks a question that requires more focus and wherewithal than she tends to have first thing in the morning. His little ritual. He claims the answers are more pure and therefore more meaningful before she’s fully awake.

“Lucy. Lucia. Tell me something from when you were a kid. First thing that comes to mind.” He reaches for his watch and wallet.

“Mmm,” she says, blinking. “Nothing comes to mind. Why talking? Why not more kissing?”

“You can have all the kissing in the world after I get home.”

“Oh. You’re working today?”

“Yeah, I thought I told you.”

“Must have. I probably forgot.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be done about three. Maybe we can grab dinner out tonight. Does that sound good?”

“Definitely. I love you,” she says, lying back against the pillow again and pulling the comforter up to her chin.

The memory comes then, and now she wanders through it in her mind, drowsing, the memory soft and bittersweet. She had asked her mom to buy her these three tiny blue bottles one time, in seventh grade, from Cost Plus. They looked all mysterious and grown up, somehow, and she looked forward to being both, and felt keenly that by putting the bottles on the sill of her bedroom window she would be ready for it. The small blue treasures seemed to nod at her encouragingly from time to time, as though they saw her and knew the kind of cool, confident, successful adult she would become.

She’d had a very specific future in mind, then. She hears him now, gathering his things in the living room.

“Babe,” she says, just as the front door closes, “I really thought this would all be different.”

Our Man Joyce

We’d hit a couple of record stores and a taquería, and then a used book store. Watching Ian navigate San Francisco was a pure pleasure.

He pushed all of my buttons at once.

It still took my breath away, then, just to look at him. I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of it.

“Ulysses?” he said.

“Huh?”

“What you’re holding. James Joyce? I didn’t figure you for a fan.”

I looked down and realized I was, indeed, holding a copy of Ulysses.

“I keep meaning to read this.”

“So today’s the day?”

“No,” I said, and put it back on the shelf.

He laughed. “God, I love you.” He leaned over to kiss me, pulling her in, and I felt him, hard against me.

“Oh!” I said. “Do we need to go home?”

“Yeah.” His voice was curt, but he was struggling not to smile. He looked at me through his eyelashes, long and inky and perfect. “But first I’m going to flip through this copy of Ulysses for a while so we can leave the store without causing a ruckus.”

“I’ll time you,” I said, wondering if my heart could actually, literally, burst through my chest. Nothing had ever been this easy, this fluid. I watched him open the book. When he re-shelved it, I said, “One hundred and twenty-four seconds.”

“Time I’ll never get back,” he said. “Very efficient, our man Joyce.”

“Clever fella.”

“Yeah, but he’s dead, and he’s not me right now. Sucker.” More loudly, he said, “Beg pardon, miss: I believe we’re late to a meeting.” He offered me his arm, which I took, and we left the store laughing, disturbing the smug proto-hipster employee nearest the exit. He glared at us. Ian raised his eyebrows and thrust his chest forward at the guy, who blanched and looked down. I snorted as quietly as possible.

The first time I’d witnessed Ian’s street cred was back in Brooklyn. Some drunken idiot had grabbed my ass on the street, and before I’d had a chance to say anything, Ian had unloaded a barrage of growling fricatives, and some spit, into the guy’s face. And the guy had rushed back inside the bar he’d crawled out of.

“I used to work with this dude from Lennox who always said, You gotta keep a thug in your pocket, homie, ‘cause you never know when it’ll come in handy,” Ian had said. “Come on, baby. Let’s go get a hot dog.”

It wasn’t just that we were happier together. It was that life seemed to bend in our favor. Café employees gave us coffee and pastries on the house for no apparent reason; old, cranky-looking neighbors left plastic shopping bags full of surplus lemons from their trees on our doorknob; expired parking meters never earned us tickets. Ian’s design work had been getting more and more attention, and he’d gotten a couple of offers from competitors looking to steal him away—What a dick move that would be, he’d said, But I’m going to go ahead and ask for more money at this gig. And he’d gotten it, too.

I had left New York without a job lined up in California, despite my best efforts, but I had a little money saved up. For the first time in my life since age 15, I wasn’t working, and it was a little embarrassing how much pleasure I took in staying home and playing the adoring housewife. It was nigh on all-consuming, this desire to nest, to dote on Ian. Still, I sent out resumes; I considered work-from-home gigs. No place that wanted me seemed ideal, or even worthwhile. The few bites I got, those first few months, either involved a pathetic hourly rate or required that I wear a suit and work in finance. “You’re worth more than that,” Ian said. “Hold out.” And I did.

When I landed an interview with a small shoe company that drew a little too heavily on old Fluevog designs for inspiration, but otherwise seemed legit, I was almost disappointed, but naked relief won out. This place needed someone to wear several hats under the guise of PR manager. The pay was decent, the commute was no big deal, and the environment was not noticeably toxic. I started there on the day of our seven-month anniversary—Oh God, we’re one of those couples, I remember saying to Michiko, who laughed and made gagging noises. Returning home that evening, I’d found Ian had grilled steaks and made a salad. He said, “Happy first day of work and happy seven-monthaversary!” and handed me a glass of wine.

“This just keeps getting better,” I said, raising the glass to him. “What happens when we stop trying to impress each other?”

“I’m never going to stop trying to impress you. Giving up is for pussies. I’m going to keep winning you over every day, forever, if I have to,” he said.

I laughed. “I love you. Happy seven-monthaversary.”

It was good. It was all so good.

The Granddaughter

            It wasn’t until afterward that anyone thought about it. After they had waved the young couple off, watching until the bus had driven the two-mile lane up the hill and then turned off onto the highway. After they had returned to the ranch just outside of town and the women had started clearing away the dishes, changing the tablecloths, and dividing up the leftovers.

            Hey, someone said—maybe the sister-in-law Lupe—Something strange just occurred to me. With an uncertain glance toward Doña Adela, Lupe went on. I’m sure it’s just me, but…did any of you see Esmeralda holding the baby when she and Arturo left?

            Doña Adela frowned. Of course she’d seen the child—her first grandchild!—in its mother’s arms as the brand-new family had headed off on the first leg of their long journey to El Norte.

            But…had she? Her memory, always crisply eidetic, showed her frame after frame of her daughter and that bueno-pa’-nada she’d married. They were waving good-bye, laughing, all smiles about the glamorous future they’d dreamt up.

            Her granddaughter featured in none of them.

            Of course she went with them, don’t be ridiculous, Don Manuel said, filling the awkward silence with a strange and still embarrassment. Haltingly, Chuy spoke up.

            To be honest, Don Manuel, I don’t recall having seen the baby with either one of them when they got on the bus, Chuy said, haltingly.

            Of course she was with them, Noemí snapped. Don’t be stupid, Chuy. We were all just sad they were leaving and we weren’t watching everything they did—because why would we? They would never have left without their baby!

            Doña Adela’s mind swirled now, an almost physical sensation competing with the heaviness in her gut. When had she last seen the baby? During the meal they’d all shared she had wrapped her up in a rebozo and worn her the way she’d worn Esmeralda at that age. She had been amazed at the sensation she’d had then of letting down—of breastmilk streaming from her body—and then equally relieved to see it hadn’t actually happened.

            About twenty minutes later, she thought, her niece Marcela had wanted a turn at holding the baby, and Doña Adela had handed her over with a smile that belied her reluctance to let go. And after that? She couldn’t recall. Her blood ran cold now: She knew her daughter better than anyone.

            She rose slowly, with a steadiness she did not feel.

            We’re going to search the rancho. All of us. Look everywhere, she said, briefly locking eyes with each person in the room.

It didn’t take long to confirm that there was no baby in the house. Without another word, everyone wrapped up against the cold and headed outdoors, a single wave of dread in the darkness.

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia, one of the women said softly.

Bendita eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús, everyone

responded.

Minutes passed, or they might have been years. People spread out and continued searching, some noting that the white ring around the moon was certainly delivering the cold it had promised. They cleared the orchard, the fallow garden plots, the outbuilding, the stable. Latches and curious horses aside, the only sound was the synchronized murmurs that rose from every corner of the ranch.

Santa María, madre de Dios.

Ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.

When the cry went up—one of the men, ¡Acá está la niña!—Doña Adela stepped away behind a tree for just a moment and vomited prodigiously. Afterward, spitting quietly and wiping her mouth on the apron she still wore, she was flooded with something like relief. Now she knew for sure. She could stop torturing herself and get on with things.

The baby was cold to the touch. Lifeless. Her delicate, smooth skin, her perfect bow of a mouth, her tiny hands, all held a slightly blue pallor. But that was, perhaps, not the worst of it.

She’d been left in the pig’s trough.

The women had begun weeping, the men silent except for the few that uttered curses in soft voices.

We’ll wake her, then, Doña Adela said. She took the cold little thing in her arms and turned toward the house. As she walked, tears streaked down her face silently. There would be, always, a before and an after.

Someone cleared the last of the dishes from the dining table and laid out a clean sheet. A cousin lit veladóras and set them out around the baby. Doña Adela had dressed her in the little blue dress she’d started on when she’d first learned her daughter was pregnant. She pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead, and then, before they could get started, brought out every little quilt she had sewn, every blanket she had crocheted. She laid a few under her granddaughter, and the rest she wrapped over the small, still body. Then she began.

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia.

Bendita eres entre todas las mujeres y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.

They were halfway through the second mystery when a kid whispered loudly, But if she’s dead why did her foot move?

Shut your mouth! Have some respect, his mother hissed, grabbing his arm and squeezing.

But it’s true, he said, pointing at the small body on the table.

¡Cállese, muchacho! His father’s hand struck the back of the boy’s head.

Ah, caray, one of the men muttered. Doña Adela, who had felt herself go unnaturally still at the boy’s outcry, forced herself to look. Because yes, one tiny foot had shifted, ever so slightly, just barely visible beneath the pile of miniature blankets. A trick of the candlelight, surely. Or someone had bumped the table when she hadn’t been looking. But now it was happening again. And then one of the arms twitched.

Ave María purísima.

Ay, Dios mío, pero ¿cómo puede ser?

Dios te salve María, llena eres de Gracia…

The tiny mouth opened and let out a furious cry. Arms and legs struggled weakly against the pile of warmth.

Groundhog Variations

This fucking pandemic. It isn’t Groundhog’s Day, not really. It’s Groundhog Week, and then Groundhog Month, and soon it will be Groundhog Year. Variations on the same old shit. That’s what’ll kill you. It’s what will drive Lucy stark, raving mad. A proper, old-school madness, the kind requiring A Scene, and silent, furious parents who are furious that their daughter is ruining their lives with her insistence on being abnormal. But there’s no time, and certainly there’s no energy, for that sort of thing. There’s just work, and dishes, and laundry, and shopping, and cleaning, and paying rent, and being too tired to do much else. When she can think beyond the immediate it’s not much better. It’s all waiting just for something to happen, waiting for real life. Much the way it was when she was a child.

Though to be fair, things did occasionally happen, back then. The summer she was ten she was allowed to fly alone to visit Vero for a week. She and Vero were the same age, but Vero was six months older. Vero’s grandma was Lucy’s aunt. Vero’s mom was Lucy’s dad’s niece, and they were the same age, but Lucy’s dad was six months older. It only sounded weird when she tried explaining it to her white friends at school. The girls with small, orderly families. Lucy longed for that order, for the certainty that seemed a birthright.

There was order and certainty at Vero’s house, but they came at a price: Vero’s dad, Ismael. He never smiled and he always looked like he’d just caught a whiff of something horrible. He constantly found fault with Vero: her clothes, her hair, her room, the way she did her chores. Lucy knew her own presence further unsettled Ismael: she was allowed to get her hair cut short, she was allowed to wear shorts and jeans and t-shirts, unlike all of her girl cousins. And worst of all, she was outspoken and had the gall to assume she’d be listened to. She did her best to stay away from him as much as possible, so that she wouldn’t find herself in the position of having to defend herself verbally. The massive family drama it would cause would just ruin everything. Anyway, it was his house, and what he said was absolute law.

Still, when she woke up the day after she’d landed in Daly City, it was because Vero was poking at her shoulder and saying something in a stage whisper.

“Lucy. Lucy. Wake up! Wake up, Lucy! It’s really late and my dad’s mad that we slept in. I have to cook breakfast and start the housework.”

“What? Are you serious?” One look at Vero’s face told Lucy she was not only serious, but mortified. And maybe a little nervous that Lucy would open her mouth to Ismael and all hell would break loose. Lucy got up and got dressed. She wasn’t afraid of Ismael, and she wanted so badly to explain to him the concept of having houseguests and how the first thing you didn’t do was wake them up and put them to work. Her own dad was often cruel, but even he didn’t believe in waking kids up to cook for him and clean his house. Though as she thought about it, she had been giving her dad shit for years anytime he’d tried to impose that small-town mexicanismo on her. So maybe she’d worn him down.

It had started when she was five. Her mom worked days and her dad worked nights. One morning Lucy had fixed bowls of cereal for herself and for Alex and when their dad had gotten up three hours later, he’d said he was hungry and asked if there was anything to eat.

“We had cereal,” Lucy said.

“Cereal?” He’d said it in a sing-songy way that meant it was somehow bad to have cereal. Maybe it was too American. He thought almost everything American was wrong, except public schools.

“Sí, cereal.”

“Está bien rico,” said Alex.

Their dad wrinkled his nose and said he’d rather have something tasty, like huevos en tortilla or chilaquiles.

“Ooh! Will you make chilaquiles?” They were Lucy’s favorite. But her dad made a face like she was being silly, and when he looked at her he was wrinkling his nose again.

“I don’t cook,” he said. “I’m a man. You’re the one who cooks.”

“I don’t know how to cook.”

“You’re a woman. You cook.”

Lucy stood and stared. Her dad picked Alex up and tossed her into the air, then caught her as she squealed and giggled.

“¿Verdad, mija? Que tu hermana nos haga algo sabroso.”

Alex clapped her hands and agreed.

“Alex is a woman,” Lucy said.

“Alex is little,” said her dad.

“But I’m only two years older. And I’m only five. You’re an adult. You’re the one who’s supposed to take care of me.”

“There you go talking back again,” her dad said, not looking at her. “You don’t talk back to your parents. One of these days you’ll learn that.” And he asked Alex if she wanted to go visit Tía Cuca. Alex giggled again and said yes, and her dad went to get his keys from the bowl on the coffee table.

“Get in the car,” he said to Lucy. “Your aunt will make me something to eat.” 

Nearly spitting his coffee out, Joe had said, “What the fuck is his problem? Like what’s his deal? I’ve known a lot of assholes in my life but this is...there’s something just fucking insidious about this one.”

The Carnival

They were mildly buzzed, and the air was bursting with the possibility of everything, the way the air always is at a carnival. Lucy remembered feeling, as a child, that anything was possible there, that she only needed to find the right moment and her life would burst into gorgeous, oversaturated color, and all of her dreams would come true. She just had to keep watch, like watching for the perfect entrance into a game of Double-Dutch.

“Let’s go check that out,” Ian said, pointing to the bandstand. There were five skinny high-school boys in jeans and Chucks tuning up, one of whom had a charisma that made Lucy slightly uncomfortable. She hoped his mother was keeping a close eye on her friends and enemies where he was concerned. The set began with a cover of Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” They were pretty good, though Ian’s attention quickly waned.

“And me, I’m in a rock’n’roll band,” Lucy said, as Ian pulled her toward the churro stand.

 “That kid knows what he’s doing,” Ian said.

“I bet that’s what you were like, in your high school band.”

“I don’t know. He was kind of wholesome. I was more of an asshole,” he said. He handed Lucy a churro and they wandered away a bit and found a bench.

“Okay,” he said. “What were you most afraid of as a kid?”

Lucy chewed, looking across the grounds to the bounce house.

“What wasn’t I afraid of, that’s the better question.”

“Really?”

“Really. But here’s a weird one. It was a room in my grandparents’ house in Mexico.”

The curtain had once been dark red, and years of sunlight from the adjacent patio had rendered it a muted pinkish-orange, flattened its velvet nap and filled the spaces between the folds with dust, spiders, and, at the bottom, the occasional mouse corpse. There were no lightbulbs in that room; or if there ever had been, no one had replaced them in years. To even call it a room was ambitious; it was about the size of a walk-in closet, filled floor to ceiling along the walls with books. Old books. Books so old that Lucy had trouble making out the writing on their spines and covers, on the rare occasion she snuck in against her grandmother’s express orders.

“So it scared you, but you snuck in on purpose. You brave little badass.”

“Yeah! It was like the Haunted Mansion. Actually the whole house kind of was. But these books. They were insane.”

They were written by hand, most of them, in a faded ink, and to child Lucy’s eye, everywhere an s should have been, there seemed to be an f, and some words were spelled crazily, as though whoever had taken the words down had no idea what he’d been doing. But that was nothing compared to the covers of a few of them, the most precious among them.

“A lot of those books were so old, the covers were made of actual vellum. Animal skin stretched so thin it practically glowed. I could almost see through it.”

“Whose were they?”

“My grandmother’s younger brother. He was a priest. He died before I was born. All of those books were his.”

“Is that kind of weird? A small-town priest with a ton of ancient texts?”

“As a kid, you don’t question things like that. Plus, everyone who talked about him did it in these kind of hushed tones. Like he was a saint or something. But…tainted, somehow. I could tell there was some kind of mystery about him.”

“Did you ever find out what it was?”

“Yeah, apparently he traveled a bit. He was stationed, or whatever you call it for a priest, in Mexico City. A pretty long bus ride from home. Every time he returned he had some new artifact. Which was pretty unusual for that town. This was the extremely rural 1960s. Well, at some point I guess things started to look suspicious. Long story short, the federales arrested him, tortured him, got him to confess, and took everything. He died about six months later.”

“Holy shit.”

“My people. That’s not even the worst of it. That’s not even the worst of one-half of where I come from. Anyway. What scared you the most?”

“My mother, mostly.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. She was tough. Nothing else really seemed worth getting worked up about.”

“That’s awful.”

“I moved on. Now there’s a new thing that scares me, and I want to know more about it.”

“What?”

“Your family!” he said, laughing.

 “You’re not ready for my family.”

 “I’m sitting down.”

In the aftermath of Lucy’s great-grandfather Octavio’s death, the family had discovered a considerable number of letters, addressed to him, each filled with fervent declarations of love, and each signed “Alicia.”

Who happened to be Octavio’s wife’s goddaughter.

Family lore has it that her great-grandmother Cresencia’s hair turned white on the spot. Lucy doubted that, but not the rest of it.

Cresencia took the bundle of letters and her deceased husband’s old Mauser and walked, unhurried, to Alicia’s home. Alicia’s mother had died in childbirth some fifteen years earlier, and Alicia’s father, Valentín, would be tending to his cows about a mile out of town. Cresencia entered the front hallway and heard a faint sobbing coming from the courtyard in the center of the house.

Alicia?

Who’s there? came her goddaughter’s voice.

Tu chingada madre, Cresencia said, and she cranked the Mauser as fast as she was able. Alicia tried to run, but it was too late.

Valentin came home to find Cresencia sitting on one of the benches in the entryway, holding the gun and two bundles of letters; the second bundle, she’d found in Alicia’s dresser. She made Valentin read both bundles, and then she told him what had become of Alicia.

It took some effort, but eventually, with encouragement from the very visible Mauser, his immediate fury gave way to desperate sobs.

¿Pero ahora qué voy a hacer? he wept.

And so Cresencia told him: He was going to marry her daughter Rebeca the spinster, and come live with the two women in Octavio’s home.

Valentin Díaz Gomez married Rebeca Gonzalez Lopez the following week. The morbid windfall excitement was more than anyone had dared anticipate when word had gotten out about Don Octavio’s death.

Doña Cresencia took to carrying the Mauser as a matter of course, despite the fact that she’d used the last of the cartridges on Alicia.

“Jesus Christ. Come on. This can’t be true,” Ian says.

“It shouldn’t be true.” A wave of something like shame washes over her, but fuck it —these are the people she comes from. They’re not her.

“But what happened to the body?”

“I never asked.”

“Fuck. Oh my God. It can’t be true!”

“I remember thinking that when I first heard it,” she said, already tired of the discussion.

“We can’t tell our kids. At least not until they’re old enough to appreciate how deeply fucked up that is! Oh, my God, Luce! That’s insane!” And he laughed his lunatic laugh, the one that made the world seem simple.

“I know. Let’s never speak of it again.”

“Come here, girl. None of that matters. Kiss me,” Ian said.

And she did.

Too Late for Strummer

“I was thinking the other day, it occurred to me -- I think I got the impression somehow, as a kid that when I grew up, it would still be the 80s. Like I would grow into the 80s,” she said.

Joe laughed, a low, soft sound that bounced off of the windshield and around them.

“I know, right? It came to me the other day. I was listening to the Clash, and—no, wait, there was a photo of Joe Strummer I ran across online, I guess. And I had this flash of, like—wait, did I miss the boat? Why hasn’t that happened yet?”

“Ha! What, you and Strummer?”

“No—well maybe, sure—but no, I mean, experiencing firsthand all the things I saw older people doing when I was a kid. I had a plan. I knew what I was going to be, inside that world.”

“And that was what?”

“Incredibly cool. And important. And…recognized. And stuff.”

 “That’s some plan.”

“Yeah. I thought so.”

 “I’m sorry old Joe can’t be here to approve of you and fawn all over you.”

“I’m not.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Sure about that?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll give you some time to think.”

“Oh. Well—“

“Time’s up.”

“Okay, here it is. I love you and everything about you. I love even the things I can’t stand about you. I adore you with all my heart, body and soul.”

“I like the way that sounds.”

“Which part?”

“The part where you love me with your body. I enjoy that part very much.”

She sighed.

“Oh, like you don’t.”

“All I ever wanted,” she said wearily, “Was to go to punk shows and date some sweet, skinny, sad, long-legged boy who played bass and who would love me.”

“That is such a crock of shit. Even as a tiny child you would have wanted more than that. 

She burst out laughing.

“All I ever wanted was you, Joe. That’s all.”

“I don’t play bass.”

“I know.”

“I’m not skinny.”

“Oh, you’ll do just fine,” she leered.

“Or a boy.”

“I’m pretty well finished with boys.”

“I am pretty sweet, though. My last boss gave me a raise because of it.”

“Isn’t that how you get all your raises?”

“And I do love you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Do I love you?”

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

“Yes. I know.”