“Truth?” she asked.
“Truth,” he replied.
“I’m never going to fall in love. It’s too messy.”
Noah nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed, and Mercedes turned and put up another shot. But somewhere between truth and flat-out lies, the game had suddenly come to an end. She fetched her own rebound and tossed the ball to Noah. He bounced it right back.
“It’s yours. I took it from the top shelf in your closet. Talk about messy.”
Mercedes scoffed. Her closet—her whole room—was pristine.
“You want to come inside?” she asked. “Or maybe we could hit Taco Bell for some sixty-nine cent burritos. You owe me dinner.”
“And the final truth of the night . . . I’ve got to go. Heather knows I’m in town. I called her to get Cora’s schedule. She had a late class, but she should be home now.”
“Okay. I’ll put dinner on your tab,” Mercedes teased.
“Come with me,” he urged.
“No. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or Sunday. I’ve had my turn. Go see Cora.”
“Is everything okay between you two? You both wrote faithfully, but neither of you talked about the other. I started wondering if maybe there was something up.”
“We don’t see each other as much as we used to. Since she and Heather moved out of The Three Amigos, it’s not as easy to just drop by. Cora’s in school. I’m working.” Mercedes shrugged. “But we talk at least once a week.”
He seemed reluctant to leave. “Come with me,” he repeated. “It will be like old times. Just the three of us.”
“It won’t be like old times,” she hedged. “Some things haven’t changed . . . but other things have.”
He searched her eyes, waiting for her to elaborate.
“You and Cora?” she pressed. He had to know she knew. Cora hadn’t kept it a secret.
He nodded slowly, though Mercedes wasn’t sure if he was confirming the new relationship or just letting her know he heard.
“You won’t change your mind?” he asked quietly.
“No. You go,” she insisted.
He nodded again, and something rippled across his features and was gone.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Always,” he answered. He gave her a quick, hard hug, and loped away, leaving her standing alone beneath the streetlamp, holding her ball.
* * *
Mercedes cried when Noah left. Maybe it was the coffee mug he broke, the mug she’d saved from his mother’s collection, the mug with the words that had become a bit of a mantra in the last ten years. In the end, only three things matter. How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
The irony of the quote was not lost on her now.
Mercedes had loved hard, she’d lived the best way she knew how, and she’d never taken something that wasn’t hers. And look where it got her. She picked up the broken pieces of the mug, hoping it could be saved, and cried harder when she realized it could not.
Maybe her tears were not for the old coffee cup. Maybe it was the weeks—the months—of strain, the intense emotions, the loss of everything she’d worked for, and the change in her relationship with Noah. Whatever the reason, she sank to the sofa in her aging duplex, a thousand square feet that housed everything she owned and nothing—besides Mami—that she couldn’t leave behind. This was her life, and she was overwhelmed with the emptiness of it all. Used, re-used, shined up, fixed and refashioned. It was all clean. All bright. She’d done her best with the space, and it reflected her taste and her knack for making something out of nothing. But looking around through tear-filled eyes, through sobs that wracked her chest and left her drained, she felt nothing but despair.
She turned her face into the couch cushions, shutting it all out. She should go to bed. She should sleep. Maybe then she wouldn’t see Noah’s shattered expression and re-hash their argument over and over in her head. But she didn’t think she would be able to sleep. She needed to move, to work, to do something—anything—to take her mind from her troubles. She heard Mami come in from work and tiptoe to the couch where she was huddled.
“Estás durmiendo?” Mami whispered, touching her back.
“No,” Mercedes muttered, turning her face a little so her mother could hear her. “I’m not sleeping.”
“Que pasa?”
“I’m fine, Mami,” Mercedes lied. “Just tired. Just a little emotional. I think I’m going to go to Maven tonight and do the inventory. I don’t have to do it. It’s Keegan’s job now . . . but it’s been my job for so long, my pride won’t let me leave it undone. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep anytime soon.”
“Were Noah and the bebé here?” Gia’s boots were sitting in the middle of the floor where she’d pulled them off. Seeing them made Mercedes’s heart ache and her eyes shimmer. She turned her face back into the couch cushions so her mother wouldn’t see.
“Yes. They were. But they left.”
“Without shoes?”
“It’s July, Mami. Gia will survive without her snow boots.”
Alma patted her back and said nothing more, climbing the stairs to her room with a tired, “Te amo, Mercedes.”
“Te amo, Mami,” Mercedes whispered, and even saying the words she’d said a million times hurt. Everything hurt. Enough of that. She pulled herself from the couch, stepped over Gia’s little boots, and headed for the kitchen. She needed coffee, and then she would head to Maven and work until she was too tired to feel hopeless.
The pictures Moses had drawn were scattered across the table. Had she done that or had Noah? They’d both been so upset. The picture of Keegan, Cora, and Gia was crumpled in the corner where Noah had clutched it in his fist. Mercedes reached for it, smoothing out the angry wrinkles. She considered destroying it, ripping it into tiny pieces, and then she sighed, knowing she wouldn’t. It would be like burning a Picasso because she didn’t care for his paintings. It was art, drawn by a remarkable artist, and she couldn’t find it in herself to destroy it, even if she hated what it represented.
She tucked the drawing into the folder, thumbing through the other pictures as she stacked them. She wished she could frame the picture Moses had drawn of the three amigos. She would hang it along with the picture of Noah, Mercedes, and Gia, in full view, so no one had to hide. So no one had to wonder where they fit. Maybe then they could all be a family without questioning if it was okay, if it was all right.
Her eyes filled again. She picked up the picture of the flag draped coffin, so detailed and so tragic, the dog tags framing the scene. That picture, more than any other, symbolized the event Cora could never get beyond. Maybe showing Moses those images was Cora’s way of explaining a lifetime of struggle.
“We knew, Cora. We always knew. You don’t have to explain,” Mercedes murmured, talking to her friend the way she found herself doing from time to time. She moved on to the next picture—simplistic by comparison—of the five stones. At the time, Mercedes had interpreted them as river rocks, smooth and unassuming, piled innocently atop one another. She’d seen the rocks and imagined the river where Cora’s car had landed in Emigration Canyon.
Looking at them now, she thought of Cuddy and his pockets full of gravel. She thought of the five smooth stones he’d given her as payment the day she’d told him Cora was gone, the rocks she’d then placed on Cora’s grave. One rock for each of them—Cora, Noah, Gia, Mercedes . . . and Cuddy. As if they were all connected.
But they weren’t connected.
And maybe that was the reason she cried. If anything they were all as shattered, disconnected, and broken as Shelly Andelin’s old coffee mug.
Mercedes shoved the drawings back in the drawer, unwilling to dwell on them a minute longer. She grabbed her purse, shoved her feet into a pair of cheetah print wedges, and stopped in front of the mirror to fix what was left of her makeup. Five minutes later she was pulling out of her driveway. She had work to do.
* * *
Mercedes didn’t want to park in the employee lot. It felt too vulnerable, like she was broadcasting to everyone that she was inside. She’d been jittery and uptight since Keegan had returned, afraid in a way that wasn’t normal for her, afraid in a way that made her do things like park one block over so he wouldn’t see her car and walk to the salon, letting herself in through the front door and locking it behind her while she disabled the alarm.
These days she was consumed by “last-time-itis.” This is the last time I’ll close shop. This is the last time I’ll open. This is the last time I’ll cut so and so’s hair or go to lunch with my coworkers. Tonight would be the last time she logged in the inventory and made an order for the upcoming month. There was no part of running a salon/spa that she wasn’t familiar with. That was something she could be proud of. From payroll to pedicures, she’d done it all, and the thought suddenly infused her with calm. She had a skill set. She would be okay. Even after Maven.
She walked through the darkened space, not bothering to illuminate anything other than the back hall that led to the storage room. The warehouse just right of the employee parking lot was now being rented out as a Cross-fit gym. Mercedes had brokered the deal for Gloria Maven, convincing her that gyms and spas go hand in hand. The space had been mostly unused for years—Mercedes’s Quinceañera at fifteen had been the most action the warehouse had seen in decades—and the rental had been a boon to Maven’s business and to her bottom line. Mercedes clicked on the light in the stock room and got to work. About an hour into her duties, she thought she heard voices. She frowned, cocking an ear.
Keegan was the only male stylist. Maven employed two male massage therapists and the Cross-fit gym was riddled with testosterone. But no one had a reason to be inside the salon this late on a Saturday night. She listened, straining to make out the voices, wondering if she needed to investigate, or at least make her presence known, when the voices got louder, and Mercedes identified Keegan as one of them.
Gloria had apparently given him back his keys. Bitterness welled in Mer’s chest, but she shook her head and released it. She couldn’t blame Gloria for the things she didn’t know. But it might not be a bad idea, now that she was leaving and now that Noah knew the truth about Keegan, to have a very frank conversation with Gloria about her favorite stylist. Or maybe not. The thought of telling anyone that Noah wasn’t Gia’s biological father stuck in her throat. She wasn’t sure they were words she would ever willingly say, even as a courtesy to her longtime boss.
The voices approached, and Mercedes scrambled for the light, instinct making her hide, though she wasn’t the one in a place she shouldn’t be.
“Anybody here?” Keegan called, and her heart tripped and slipped to her stomach. She didn’t answer.