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An older married couple rented the other half. Nigel was a British man in his forties; his wife, Shiori, was Japanese and half his age. They made music with homemade instruments and dressed in matching pajamas. They’d moved to Taos from Indonesia where they’d spent twelve years meditating and gazing into each other’s eyes, and had maintained a willful and near-total ignorance of popular culture. They had no idea who Philip Seymour Hoffman was and didn’t care, and had never read a book published after 1950. In some ways, they reminded her of John and Yoko, but, as they were both terrible
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“It was more of a personality thing,” Mona explained. “He wasn’t dark as in dreary, though. His darkness had a spark. It had a charge you could feel on your skin.” “A dark spark,” the woman said. “I know the type.”
“Do you smoke?” Lena asked. “Occasionally,” Mona lied. “Feel like taking a break?” They smoked on the patio. Lena smoked unfiltered Camels; Mona, Marlboro Ultra Light 100s. I bought these by mistake, she wanted to tell Lena. I’m not a candy-ass.
“Mr. Disgusting made me feel like a little-known fjord in Greenland,” Mona said. “Or the aurora borealis. Unmoored or unknown, a hidden and remote spot not on the tourist map. He said a photograph would never do me justice.”
While her parents were busy ruining their marriage, she’d spent three or four days a week with her paternal grandfather, Woody Boyle, a mild-mannered man, an avid reader and functional alcoholic. But he’d taught her all of life’s essentials: how to spit like a man, take a good photograph, drive stick, make a stiff drink, swim butterfly, French-braid, and, perhaps most importantly, how to play dumb.
“We miss you,” Shiori said, and reached for Mona’s hand. “We never see you anymore.” “What do you think of when you look at the stars, Mona?” Nigel asked. “Scattered pocket change,” Mona said. “Dimes and nickels. Slot machines. Gambling.” “You are bigger than the stars? Or do they make you feel smaller?” Shiori asked. “I don’t have health insurance,” Mona said. “My ass isn’t covered. Do you know that vultures eat their meals butt-first? They start eating the ass while waiting for the animal to die.” It was a game she liked to play with them sometimes. Not very imaginatively, she called the
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“I’ve been thinking about you lately,” Mona said, closing the lid of her laptop. “Sort of.” “How do you sort of think about someone?” asked Clare. “I didn’t recognize your voice at first,” Mona said. “You sound . . . different.” “I found the Lord,” said Clare calmly. Fuck, Mona thought, another goner. It was a goddamn epidemic.
“For a culture obsessed with being thin, there’s a startling number of donut shops in Los Angeles,” Terry pointed out suddenly. “Tell me about it, Terry,” Mona said. “I’ve counted eleven since El Segundo. It’s like, who the fuck’s eating all these donuts?”
His inner chief had always wanted a son. Mona faked an interest in cars, memorized parts of a V8 engine, did pull-ups, challenged him to arm-wrestle, accompanied him to the shooting range, and accepted his dare to eat a habanero chili without drinking water. She ate two, just to show him who was boss, and then stifled her fear when he said she’d need a seat belt for the toilet the next day. In the end, her efforts were futile. She was too emotional to pass for Frank’s son, and too attached to wearing burned-on eyeliner and fishnet, and to masturbating to pictures of Prince from the seventies.
“Did he have phantom limb syndrome, by any chance?” Mona asked. “Is that when you feel the arm that isn’t there?” “Yeah, but it’s usually really painful. The phantom limb feels shorter than the real one and like it’s in a painful position—bent backward, or something. The pain can go on for years and years, long after the limb is gone.” “Well, if your father had it, he probably didn’t even know,” Clare said. “He snorted a lot of cocaine.” “You know, I felt like I had a phantom limb in high school,” Mona mused. Clare tilted her head slightly. “But you never lost a limb, honey.” You, Mona
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“It was worse than being raped . . . Mommy,” Mona said. “Anyway, my point is, I don’t feel any animosity toward Chaz. What I resent, actually, is being born.”
“You all right, Mom? Want me to get the nurse?” “You were born with teeth, you know,” Clare said. “Nursing you was extremely painful. My nipples bled.” Mona yawned. “You also secreted breast milk when you were an infant,” Clare said. This was new. “What?” “The doctor called it neonatal milk,” Clare said. “But the nurses called it Witches’ Milk.” “I had milk coming out of my baby nipples?” Mona asked. Clare smiled wistfully. “Yes.” “Did I breastfeed anyone?” Mona asked. “Only the dog,” Clare said. Mona laughed. “We didn’t have a dog yet.” “The neighbor’s dog,” Clare said.
Clare and Frank were kissing. Mona approached them after they were done. “Panic attack,” Frank announced to Mona. “Not heart attack.” He flashed an embarrassed smile. Panic at El Pollo Loco, Mona thought. A new song by Frank Torres.
“It’ll take you two days to get home. You should stop in Flagstaff and spend the night, but. Be careful—I have a friend whose sister was picked up hitchhiking in New Mexico and when they found her body, she’d been raped, so.” “So . . . don’t rape any hitchhikers?” Mona said. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “It’s cute when you try and act tough.” “It’s not an act,” Mona said. “I’m actually made of Teflon.” Except, as soon as she said “Teflon,” she felt the corners of her mouth pulling down. Her eyes filled up quickly and then the tears started rolling, two big fat ones. She turned away and
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“Have you learned any Spanish?” he asked. “Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos,” she said. “ ‘Faces we see, hearts we do not know.’ ”
