“There’s no jumbotron, Noah,” Mercedes protested, standing on her toes so she could speak into his ear, clearly wanting him to hear her amid the noise and the merriment, but he didn’t pull away. He knew Mer had no expectations of a kiss at midnight. In fact, she probably expected a hug and a high five. The knowledge freed him, and he turned his face and brushed his lips across her cheek.
“Happy New Year, Mer.” Then his lips captured hers, a gentle acknowledgement, a nod to the new year, and her hands rose to his chest in surprise. For a moment it was simply the quiet kiss of true affection, the soft exchange of warm thoughts and well wishes. But someone shoved past them, and Mercedes teetered, losing her balance. Noah’s arms tightened to steady her, bringing her body more fully against his, and suddenly their mouths weren’t pressed together in cautious greeting but in growing wonder. Their lips lingered, tasting and teasing, shifting and re-shaping, a kaleidoscope kiss that formed only to fall away and reconfigure.
It wasn’t until the lights flickered and the eighties tunes resumed—“Auld Lang Syne” becoming UB40’s “Red Red Wine”—that Noah lifted his head and Mer lowered her eyes, catching her breath and letting him go.
“I hate this song,” he said.
“I know you do.”
“It’s going to be stuck in my head for a week.”
“We better go before you start singing along then.”
“Good idea.”
It was so easy to slide back into the old banter, into the comfortable give and take of camaraderie, but when Noah turned off the car in Mer’s driveway and sat staring at the steering wheel for a heartbeat too long, Mer reached out and pinched his arm, hard.
“Don’t overthink it, Boozer,” she warned.
“Huh?”
“Step away from the ledge,” she demanded, monotone.
“Mer . . .”
“Turn off the fart factory,” she droned.
“The fart factory?”
“I can hear your brain farting all the way over here, and it stinks.”
“Oh. Gotcha,” he said, a smile making the word lift at the end. “I adore you,” he confessed.
“And I adore you, Boozer.”
“Red, red wine, I love you right from the start,” Noah clipped in reggae rhythm.
“Right from the start, with all of my heart.” Mercedes answered, mimicking the cadence.
“Goodnight, Mer.”
“Goodnight, Noah.” She climbed out and shut the door, and he could hear her singing all the way up the walk, waving as she went.
“I really hate that song,” Noah sighed to himself, but he was smiling as he pulled away, the fart factory extinguished.
Seven
1989
“In the end, only three things matter,” Abuela said. “Who He is.” She pointed at the sky. “Who you are, and who your friends are.”
“Why does it matter who your friends are?” What Mercedes really wanted to ask was why any of it mattered, but she didn’t want to hurt her abuela’s feelings.
“Our friends shape the course of our lives. You have to choose them very carefully. But if you know who He is, then He will help you know who you are. And if you know who you are, you will know who your true friends are. One thing leads to another, you see.”
Mercedes didn’t see, but she nodded. “Noah is my true friend.”
“Yes. He is. He’s a good boy.”
“Cora is my true friend.”
Abuela nodded, but a little more slowly this time. “You are her true friend. And that is important too. But Cora doesn’t know who she is.”
“Does she know who He is?” Mercedes pointed at the sky. Abuela loved to talk in mystic riddles, and Mercedes liked to tease.
Abuela narrowed her eyes, suspecting Mercedes was trying to talk circles around her.
“Only three things matter, niña,” Abuela said, shaking her finger.
“Who He is, who I am, and who my friends are,” Mercedes supplied, trying not to smile.
“If you don’t know who you are, you won’t see the world clearly, you understand?” Abuela was getting frustrated.
“Who am I, Abuela?”
“You are a child of God.”
“And who is Cora? Maybe I can tell her who she is, so she will know.”
“Mercedes—you are laughing at me.” Abuela sighed.
Mercedes was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, Abuela. I do know who I am. I am your granddaughter, and I love you very much. I am also a tease, and sometimes I laugh when I should listen.”
“Sí. You should listen. But it is okay to laugh too.”
“So tell me . . . who is Cora?” Mercedes asked, contrite.
“She is a child of God too. We all are. But she doesn’t know it. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she sees you. And she sees Noah. And she sees her mother and her father, and everyone who has loved her and everyone who has let her down. But she doesn’t see Cora because she doesn’t know who Cora is.”
“I’ll tell her, Abuela.” Mercedes patted her grandmother’s hand. She didn’t feel like laughing anymore. She felt melancholy. Sad. Like she’d just learned her friend was suffering from an illness she knew nothing about.
“I know you will, Mercedes. You are a true friend. I will tell her too. Maybe we can save her.”
* * *
Moses was lean with youth but muscled like a man—eighteen going on thirty—and as tall as Noah, with chocolate milk skin and odd hazel eyes that made Mercedes want to twitch and look away. His hair was cut so close to his scalp that only a suggestion of hair remained, and he ran his hands over his head before dropping them into his lap. He stared at Mercedes quietly for a moment, and she didn’t fill the silence. Noah had excused himself with a soft reminder that he would check back soon. Other visitors sat in similar rooms, all of them lining a long hallway. Moses wore the standard attire of a Montlake inmate. Pale yellow scrubs and tan socks with little rubber circles on the bottoms to prevent slipping on the linoleum floors. He should have looked harmless in the odd clothing. He didn’t. A stack of drawing paper and several grease pencils lay on the table, and he picked one up, rotating it between his fingers like a drummer in a heavy metal band.
“Noah says you’re done. He said you’re getting out of Montlake. Where are you going to go?” Mercedes asked.
“Everywhere. Nowhere,” he clipped.
“Huh. Never been.” Mercedes shrugged.
A smile flickered in his eyes but didn’t touch his lips.
“You Dr. Andelin’s girl?” he asked, his voice a smoky rumble.
“Do I look like a girl to you, Moses?”
He smiled, his beautiful lips revealing straight white teeth. Mercedes got the feeling he didn’t smile often and felt honored to have witnessed it.
“You ain’t very big,” he muttered. “But no, you’re a woman. Still, that doesn’t really answer my question.”
“I’m not Noah’s girl. I’m his friend. I was his wife’s friend too. We grew up together.”
“Cora,” he supplied.
“Yes. Cora.”
He shifted, his eyes straying out the window.
“Dr. Noah didn’t tell me your name. I don’t know what to call you.”
She reached out a hand. “I’m Mercedes Lopez. Nice to meet you.”
He didn’t take it, and she wondered belatedly if there were rules about contact. Noah had left her alone with him, so she wasn’t worried about her safety. She lowered her hands to her lap.
“Moses Wright. What do you want, Miss Lopez?” he said, his eyes coming back to hers.
“I don’t know, Moses,” she confessed. “You helped Noah. I thought maybe you could help me.”
“Did he tell you I helped him?” Moses seemed surprised. Pleased.
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t think I’m crazy?”
“No. He doesn’t.”
“Huh. Dr. Noah . . . he’s all right,” Moses said softly. “I like him. And I don’t like very many people.”
“I like him too. And I don’t like most people either.”
“I kinda got that vibe.” Moses smirked. “You’re tough. Cora—Dr. Noah’s wife—wasn’t . . . tough, was she?”
“In her own way, she was.”
He didn’t seek to fill the silence between them, but waited for her to move the conversation forward.
“You told Noah that Cora was okay. How do you know?” she asked.
“They all are. The dead, I mean. The ones I see, anyway. Maybe the ones who aren’t okay don’t get to visit.”
“They don’t scare you?”
“They scare the shit outta me,” he grunted. “But not for the reasons you think. It’s . . . unsettling . . . to never be alone.” He smirked as though the word was an understatement. “I don’t want to see them. But some things . . . we don’t get to choose. This is one of those things.”
“Most things we don’t get to choose . . . that’s why I love clothes and makeup and hair. A million choices and nobody gets hurt.”
His mouth quirked, but the half-smile faded, and his eyes shifted, growing distant. “You lose someone, Lopez? A grandma or something?”
“Yes.” Mercedes watched as he turned inward, seeing something that was hidden from her.
“She looks like you. Feels like you too. Smart. Pushy. She didn’t wait for me to acknowledge her,” he said.
Mercedes’s mouth grew dry, and her eyes were instantly wet. “You can see Abuela?”
“Abuela?” He sounded surprised. “So that’s Abuela, huh? Dr. Noah mentioned her.”
Mercedes waited, desperate to hear more.
“She’s showing me a picture. One of those creepy Catholic paintings.” He held his hand up, palm out and cupped. “Why the hell do they always have their hands like that?” he muttered.
Mercedes stared at him, perplexed.
“The woman in the picture is standing like that. There are reddish-gold sunbeams all around her, and she has a veil over her hair,” Moses expounded.
Realization struck. “She’s showing you Our Lady Guadalupe. The patron saint of Mexico. Abuela loved her. She had her picture over her bed.”
“I think . . . she wants you to know she’s seen her. Your grandma. She’s seen . . . Guadalupe.”
Mercedes gasped. “Dios mío. Abuela must be in heaven.”
“Well . . . yeah. That’s kinda the idea.”
Mercedes laughed and swiped at her eyes.
“Shit,” he whispered, eyes on her face.
“What?”
“I hoped she was gone.” He rubbed at his head wearily and shot Mercedes an accusing look. “Your grandma is with her.”