Part 19 (1/2)

”Are there a lot more rules?” I ask.

Parker looks surprised. ”Your driver didn't tell you?”

”My driver?” I ask.

He shakes his head, confused. ”You're pretty far west, Virginia. You had to come in with a Saint Cecilia?”

Everything in me goes still. ”I don't know what that means,” I say, careful to keep my tone even, to not let my expression change.

”The underground railroad?” Parker says, like he's reminding me.

”Underground railroad?” I repeat. ”You mean, what? Like Harriet Tubman?”

”Yeah, like that. Only the Saint Cecilia railroad is for women in very bad situations. Mirabelle is one of 'em.”

”Mirabelle is a Saint Cecilia,” I parrot back, but he doesn't seem to notice I've turned into a shocked echo.

Parker nods. ”I drive for her sometimes. Mirabelle will get a call, and she'll send me to pick a woman up in a public place and drop her fifty miles away at a mall or a library. I never see who brings the woman to the meeting place or who picks her up after me, so there isn't a trail. Mirabelle's houseguests are either local, or they come through Jane at Safe Harbor, or they're moved here by the Saint Cecilias. If you didn't come here with a Cecilia, then how did you end up way out here, Virginia?”

I'm floored enough to speak the simple truth. ”I met Mirabelle in an airport. She told me I was welcome.”

He nods and falls into a small, comfortable silence. I sit beside him, trying to keep my expression plain even though my heart is racing. Back at Cadillac Ranch, I'd dismissed my mother's message as meaningless, even heartless. But she had left me the directions I craved, after all. On the same car, under her past-tense love note and her insulting instructions to pray, I'd noticed silver letters telling me, The Fun's at RODEO! The Fun's at RODEO! I'd a.s.sumed that was the gay men for peace, but now I'm wondering what would have happened if I'd put it together, if I'd thought to call that bar and ask to speak to Cecilia. Would I have been offered the chance to disappear? I'd a.s.sumed that was the gay men for peace, but now I'm wondering what would have happened if I'd put it together, if I'd thought to call that bar and ask to speak to Cecilia. Would I have been offered the chance to disappear?

My chill heart almost warms a speck toward my mother, but in its next beat I realize that if I hadn't run into her at the airport, I never would have known that message was there. Even when I found it, it was so obscure that I hadn't understood it. It wasn't really for me. It was for her. A balm to her conscience, a way to tell herself she'd drawn a path for me and put it in fate's hands.

I'm breathing too hard, and the silence feels strained to me. It doesn't seem to be bothering Parker, though. He is stretched out on the steps with his face to the sun. I try to shake it off. So my mother has made an a.s.shole move; by now, this should not surprise me.

Finally I turn to Parker and say, ”So you have house rules-”

”No, no,” Parker interrupts. ”It's my house, but definitely Mirabelle's rules. I'm not really much of a rules guy.” That's so obvious it makes me smile, even through my anger. He grins back, but when he speaks again he sounds serious. ”I'm sure she'll tell you. I know you spend the first seven days inside. She kicked one girl out for being on the porch.”

I snort, and I have to work to keep my tone mild. ”Mirabelle's kind of a b.i.t.c.h, huh?”

Parker shrugs. ”It's hard-core, but it makes sense. That girl's boyfriend was driving all over Berkeley with a harpoon gun, looking for her.” I catch him stealing a glance at my left hand. I have no tan lines, but the skin at the base of my ring finger has a faint indentation where my rings used to sit. I fist my hand and sneak a glance at his. No sign of a ring there. ”After a week, even the maddest man quits looking. Or at least they are less likely to come in swinging.”

I nod. In seven days, a temper-driven man cools off. If only Thom Grandee were running on temper instead of something so much colder. What Thom is carrying around is practically immortal: a pure desire to put me in the earth. I have a sudden snapshot memory of his dead-eyed face at the gun shop, all his layers stripped away and only the reptile left, cold-blooded and foreign.

I remind myself he's looking for a girl who no longer exists. Even so, my hand jumps to the top of my bag, pressing in to feel the comforting hardness of Pawpy's gun.

”That makes sense. Any other big rules I should know?”

Parker shrugs. ”The usual stuff. No drugs or weapons, like that.”

My hand is pressing Pawpy's gun, and I startle when he says no weapons. He catches it, and his eyebrows rise.

”I have some chunks of an old gun,” I confess.

Parker sits up straight. ”You have a gun?” He says the words with the same vehement disbelief I would use to say, ”You have a rotting snake carca.s.s?”

”I have pieces pieces of gun,” I say. ”Pieces can't shoot.” Technically that's true. Pawpy's gun can't work until I load the barrel and slot it into place. But anyone who knows guns, my mother included, could have this revolver ready to fire in thirty seconds. Still, if this fella has ever touched a gun, I'll eat my boots. I open my bag and dig it out to show him. of gun,” I say. ”Pieces can't shoot.” Technically that's true. Pawpy's gun can't work until I load the barrel and slot it into place. But anyone who knows guns, my mother included, could have this revolver ready to fire in thirty seconds. Still, if this fella has ever touched a gun, I'll eat my boots. I open my bag and dig it out to show him.

His eyes are wide, watching me unfold the T-s.h.i.+rt I've bundled around the gun. I hold it over for him to see, resting my hands on the top of the bag.

He says, ”I'm not sure Mirabelle likes people to have pieces of gun. I'm not sure I do.”

”Not a shooter, huh?” I say. ”I kinda guessed that from the shoes.”

He looks at his own feet, then over to Ivy's scuffed cowboy boots, then back.

”What about my shoes?” he asks.

”They're pacifist shoes,” I say. ”You ever see a soldier wearing mandals?”

He laughs at that. ”Okay, Boots, so your feet are saying you're an expert marks-lady-person?” He sounds more interested now.

I meet his eyes, direct and steady, and I say, ”Oh yes. My boots say I'm fantastic.”

His floppy awkwardness is dropping away. He's gone all comfortable inside his wiry body. Sandals or no sandals, now I am sitting with a man, the kind that Alswan might not so easily dismiss.

He leans in toward me. ”Why would you want to be a fantastic gun shooter?” It's not rhetorical; he really wants an answer.

”It's fun,” I say.

He shakes his head, doubtful, and says, ”I've never had to fight off a 'fun' urge to go shoot Bambi in the face.”

I say truthfully, ”Oh! Me neither. Not that I have a problem with it-my daddy hunted to feed us. I went with him dove hunting, but I didn't shoot, and if he was after deer or rabbits, I stayed home. I can't eat an animal once I've met it all up close and fuzzy.”

”So you've never shot at anything alive?” he says.

I picture Thom Grandee rising over the slope on the running trail at Wildcat Bluff, his Roman nose centered in my sights, but I meet Parker's gaze and do not blink or hesitate before I say, ”Of course not.” I have not lost my facility for lying to men, thank G.o.d. ”Anyway, rifles don't do much for me. I'm a pistol girl, and I purely love to target shoot. As for these pieces, this gun used to be my grampa's. All I have left of him.”

”A sentimental gun? That's bizarre.” He reaches over and rolls the loose barrel doubtfully.

”Chunks of sentimental gun,” I say. His fine-boned finger touches the barrel, which touches the s.h.i.+rt, which rests in my hand, and he puts out a spark strong enough to travel through all that and reach me. I feel it like a buzzing in my palm. ”Maybe sometime when I'm out of quarantine, I'll take you to a range to try some shooting.”

”Ha!” he says, like the very idea is absurd. He takes his hand away, but then he rubs his fingers together, as if he's setting the feel of the cool, slick metal into memory. After another ten seconds he says, ”Maybe.”

The door on the far end of the porch swings open. We both jump, as if we have been caught out doing something naughty. I rewrap the gun and stuff it down under a few of my mother's old clothes.

A well-dressed middle-aged woman in pricey shoes comes out. Parker stands up and slouches off sideways so she can use the stairs. Flirting over guns is my oldest and most comfortable territory. While we were there, I forgot to be angry and sick with nerves, and he forgot to be nonthreatening. Now we are back where we began.

The woman nods to Parker and me as she pa.s.ses us. The dogs have been tussling in the side yard, and they come running around the house in a pack to investigate as she steps around my bag and walks down the steps. They're covered in each other's suck and hair and look like they've been rolling each other through dirt and dead leaves. She takes one look and dashes out through the gate before they can leap on her and coat her in a filthy greeting.

”I should just go in?” My voice comes out shaky.

”Take it easy,” Parker says. ”She's expecting you. It's going to all be fine.”

I have good radar for when a man's attracted to me, but now there's nothing but vague, innocuous friendliness. s.h.a.ggy-Doo is back. He stands up and puts a hand down for me. His fingers are cool, and he lets me do all the gripping and pulling as I stand up. He steps back from me at once, the second I am on my feet. This is a man who has spent a good bit of his time around women who are, as Alswan put it, gun-shy. He nods good-bye and shambles to the center door, going into his part of the house.

I pick up my bag and walk to the other door. I hesitate, raising my hand to knock, then putting it down. I square my shoulders. I live here now, after all. This is my mother's house. I will not stand by the fence like Lilah, wringing my hands. I will not knock to beg entry. I put my hand on the k.n.o.b and it turns, unlocked.