Snake Face Read online

  “Someone saw you going into a therapist’s office. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh, almost done, just cognitive behavioral stuff for weight loss, anyway, nothing big. No worries.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah, I’d tell you if it was more.”

  “You should have told me even that. You’re sure you’re ready for a relationship? I take this seriously.”

  “So do I, love. Very.” So seriously that he’d lied.

  Eventually he’d had to tell the truth. After he’d won her. “Why did you hide this?

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t love me.”

  At the moment of that confession, she had loved him more. Over time, though, he wore her out. No wonder Mae didn’t say anything more than Goodbye and stay safe. No promises.

  With the van running on empty, Jamie felt a rush of relief as he pulled off at an exit in rural Virginia where the gas station sign loomed close to the highway. He’d almost stranded himself, but not getting lost was such a high priority, he’d waited until he saw the easy exit. The first inkling of calm began to bathe him, a sense that the day might yet be salvaged.

  He drew up to the gas pump and cut off the engine. Made it. Then the spider showed itself.

  It crawled on the steering wheel and onto his left hand, shooting a current of alarm through his body. With a shuddering sound he shook it off, and to his horror the creature landed on the door handle. He started to ease into the passenger seat to get out. The spider scurried down the door and across the floor, chilling Jamie all the way to his bones.

  The driver’s side door opened, and a small sharp face peered in, narrow shoulders in a black leather jacket stuck through the limited space allowed by proximity to the pumps.

  “You making room for me, honey?” Sylvie asked. “Want me to drive?”

  Jamie froze in a cold sweat. He shook his head, aware that his breath had stopped, but unable to restart it. If he got out, she was out there. If he stayed in, he’d be with the spider. There was no one else at the pumps or in the parking lot. Stubbled dead cornfields spread on either side. Rock of doom and a hard place, alone with a crazy woman and a spider.

  “What’s the matter, baby? You can’t say you didn’t expect me.”

  Managing a shallow, unsteady breath, he pointed to the floor, where the spider now crept its way up the center console.

  “Sheeyit. You serious?”

  Sylvie reached into her purse and drew out a knife. Jeezus, was she going to stab it? With that?

  The knife’s handle was inlaid with turquoise and butted with a swath of gold at the base. Leaning toward him and smiling, she unsheathed the blade, sharp-edged and pointed, curved and wide, whorled with a dizzying infinity of tiny spirals. It could puncture that spider with a prick as light as the touch of its legs. Jamie didn’t dare look away as he groped for the latch and failed to find it, running into the mass of old maps that filled the side pocket.

  Sylvie scooped up the spider on the curve of the blade like a cook lifting a crepe with a spatula. “Well lookee here. He’s cute. Got yellow knees.” She sounded delighted with this feature and offered it for his inspection.

  Heart thudding as if it could break his sternum, hands shaking, Jamie finally felt the latch and let himself out. His relief lasted one second. He’d left his keys in the ignition. Fuck. No. Don’t steal my van.

  Sucking in a tight gulp of air, he told himself not to have a panic attack. Breathe. Breathe. If he was incapacitated, she could drive off.

  She didn’t try. Instead, she clambered down out of the van and swaggered around the front of it toward him, dangling the spider on a thread of web from the blade of her knife. Every bully of his childhood came with her, tormenting him with things with too many legs. She was like Dylan Roybal with that dog.

  Something snapped. Fight back. In the red blazing winds of his mind, Jamie vaguely knew he was shouting about wanting “to buy fucking gas for fuck’s sake, leave me alone, leave me alone,” yet it was like someone else lost in this rage, at the far end of a vast cave. The distant stranger-self fractured into incoherent, desperate screams, calling her names and shouting fuck, fuck, fuck.

  A clerk in the gas station came to the window, a fat pale man with a gray moustache. Sylvie lowered the knife.

  Jamie stopped yelling. He felt as if he’d been picked up by a tornado and tossed into a tree. The clerk walked back to his counter. Was he going to call the police? Had he seen Sylvie pointing the knife at Jamie, or did he think Jamie was the troublemaker?

  “Spider’s gone.” Sylvie hip-wiggled her contrived walk within a few inches of him. “See?” She showed him the blade. It was both a cutting and a stabbing instrument, sharper than his best chef’s knives, yet its patterns were a work of art. She held it close to his face, pointing it up at him. “See? All gone.”

  Her tiny hand didn’t cover the whole of the handle. There were words engraved in the gold below her little finger. I dare you. Joe Wayne.

  “What in hell does that mean? I dare you?”

  Sylvie slid an admiring gaze over the blade and the engraving. She looked triumphant when she raised her eyes again to Jamie. “I guess you know who gave this to me.”

  “Joe Wayne Brazos.”

  “Yep. I said I’d cut his balls off next time he cheated.” She flipped the knife like a cowgirl twirling a pistol, catching it with the blade pointed at Jamie’s gut. “So he gave me this.”

  Jamie stood speechless. His vision was dark at the edges and he felt unsteady on his feet.

  Pouting playfully, Sylvie sheathed the knife and dropped it into her purse. “You’re still shaking like a leaf, baby. Can I buy you a beer?”

  Jamie shook his head, moved away from her, took his keys from the van, and did the only thing he could think to do—pumped gas.

  Sylvie asked, “You liked my presents, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He wanted to keep his back to her, not look at her, but she had a knife, even if she’d put it away. His voice came out in a raw rasp. “Unless you mean the hat. Or the fucking brownies.”

  “All of it. That belt’s nice on you. You should thank me. Can’t say all that food looks so good on you, though.” She snickered. “You looking forward to our date in Austin? You know I’m only keeping it if you don’t tell the police. If I get any sense there are cops coming, your kitty is toast.”

  “No cops.” He sounded strange, scraped. “But tell me we’ll meet somewhere public.”

  “You want people to see us together?” She sounded delighted.

  “No.” Talking was like gargling a razor. “I’m scared of your fucking knife.”

  “Don’t you like to play with knives?”

  His head jerked a quick negation, almost a shiver. She had to be guessing. She didn’t know. Who could have told her?

  “Looks like you’re scared of everything, then.” She stroked the van’s back gate, and spoke with a sarcastic drawl. “I already planned on meeting you in a goddamned Starbucks, as a matter of fact. You’ll be safe. Jee-zus.” She mocked the way he said that word with a punched up long first syllable. “Mr. Jellybean, you are the worst chickenshit excuse for a man I’ve ever seen.”

  His control snapped again. The shout felt like his throat was bleeding. “Don’t you think I bloody fucking know it?”

  He turned off the pump before the tank was full and jammed the spout back into its holder. Pay. Go in and pay. He wanted to collapse against the gas pump, but if he didn’t move the hole would swallow him. He forced himself to walk past Sylvie, go in and pay for gas, and buy coffee and a bottle of vegetable juice. Some strange urge told him he needed vegetables to be normal, and he craved the juice the way he normally craved sugar under stress.

  As he rang up the sale, the clerk looked at Jamie as if he were the dangerous one. Sylvie had been quiet and creepy-cheerful. If she came in, Jamie could go off the edge again, and the clerk would probably have him committed. The men’s room was the one place she
couldn’t follow. Jamie rushed for it.

  In the filthy, fluorescent-buzzing room, he met himself in the spattered mirror. He looked, he thought, like a lunatic, wild-eyed and sweating. He washed his face, watching his hands shake over the black cracks in the sink, and leaned against the graffiti-scribbled wall until he felt closer to calm. When he came out, he didn’t see Sylvie, but she could be outside, just out of sight. Dread crept back up.

  He picked up his juice and coffee at the counter and glanced down the aisles of the store and out the window.

  The clerk said, “Woman took off without you.”

  Jamie laughed, on the edge of the kind of laugh that wouldn’t stop.

  The man didn’t smile. “She left a message. Said she’d see you in Austin. But not Greenville. If I were her, I wouldn’t see you again at all. You better get a grip on yourself.”

  Jamie sank into the driver’s seat and drank the vegetable juice in three huge gulps. Instead of comforting him, it burned in his throat. The fog of panic fell away into a soul-dropping clarity. Scarcely able to control his fingers, he texted Wendy without fixing his errors, and closed his eyes against the tears. The last cords holding him in one piece let go. Sylvie had won. She didn’t need to steal the van. She’d stolen his voice.

  Jamie stared at Wendy’s text. He’d been paralyzed for so long she’d sent it twice. I’ll cancel the radio interview. Should we cancel your show tonight? Or do you think you can sing if you rest your voice all day?

  How could he know? This had never happened before. Thinking without talking was so hard. The fears and worries inside him could only clear if he used his voice, and that door was shut. It was like locking himself off from his own heart and mind, not to talk, let alone not to sing. Communicating by text and e-mail was torment. Not just because of his scrambled typing, but the silence. The feeling of separation.

  Jamie. Answer me. We have to decide. Can you perform tonight? Yes or no?

  He hesitated, then sent the text: Y.

  Decision made, he dried his tears and started the van. Its sound was reassuring. An old friend. He had his flutes. He could play a lot, sing a little. It wasn’t what people came for, but he could still be good. He wouldn’t let them down.

  And he needed the money. The parking ticket had put the fear of finances back into him. Every little expense ate away at his thin line of profit. After the small show in Richmond and the benefit in Virginia Beach, he needed to sell out and sell music every night for the rest of this tour. Find new fans. Could he do that with his voice torn up?

  His confidence faded and fear of disaster rolled in. The whole flat, empty drive, he felt like he was in a washing machine on spin cycle.

  When he got to the Greenville exit, Jamie pulled over and shuffled through his sheaves of directions to find the page that took him to the local natural foods store, where he bought tea, honey, lemon juice, herbal lozenges, and soft, cold foods. He went to his hotel room, drank tea, ate a pint of vanilla soy ice cream, and wished he hadn’t bought two.

  He wanted to talk to someone and he couldn’t. Who would he share this with anyway, this latest failure and fuck-up? Cry to Mum and Dad? Ruin his chances with Mae?

  After diving into the second pint in a comfort-craving wallow, he lay on the bed in a sugar daze. Holding the roo, he rubbed its remaining ear and explored its fat, familiar tail, his fingers tracing the rough threads of the seam that somehow had kept the toy together all these years. He needed to clear his head, move around, but the chlorine in the pool could irritate his throat, his bike was amputated, and his hip hurt from walking too much in Norfolk.

  In a minute he would get up, practice everything he knew on flutes. The hole was not going to swallow him, though it had him by both feet and was sucking him in like a snake eating a whole goat.

  Forcing himself, Jamie sat up and took his flutes from his pack. He warmed up with scales on the classical flute, limbering his fingers, getting the flow of his breath. Thoughts of Sylvie came back with the flute. She had stolen this and then brought it all the way to Raleigh. Made him think she was helping him. It hadn’t been kindness, though. It was some kind of bait.

  He set down the flute, trying to think of her as Sylvia Ramirez, Santa Fe High School student. It made her less frightening, more human and vulnerable than Sylvie Wainwright, sassy Texan.

  No. What was he thinking? Sylvia Ramirez hadn’t been sweet. She’d cried, but it didn’t mean she was a soft girl, only frustrated. When Dylan had harassed Jamie, she hadn’t gotten a crush on the teacher her friend had bested, but on the one who fought back. If Jamie caved, Sylvie would bully him. If he fought back, she would adore him. She was a spider web, and every move he made only got him more stuck. Her games made Dylan look like an amateur.

  Dylan. Fuck. He’d gone to UNM in theater and music. Met people who’d known Jamie. Mr. Ellerbee, you’re a legend here. Jamie imagined Dylan calling Sylvia. Gloating. Jellybean spent so much time in mental hospitals it took him five years to graduate. He even tried to stab himself. Can you believe that? No wonder the poor bastard had to be a teacher.

  Now, when he’d finally got on his feet as a musician, touring was no freer or happier than teaching high school. The bullies were back.

  No. They couldn’t win. Jamie lifted the shakuhachi to his lips, took a breath, and began a tune. Back in Asheville, Naomi had told him her husband got used to touring, and that it was normal for it to be hard at first. It didn’t have to be hell. But it was. He felt like the snake face man, the flute his pitiful little stick. Fighting them off as best he could.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jen’s lime-green Fiesta sat in the driveway beside behind Hubert’s biodiesel Beetle. Close, like the cars were cuddling. Brook and Stream hopped out of Mae’s gray Focus, bubbly and giggly after their dinner with her at Arnie’s trailer. Mae hesitated as the twins started for the house. It would be rude not to go in with them, but would she intrude on a date?

  “Come on, Mama.” Brook bounced on the steps. “You have to see our new cars. We got little race cars.”

  Mae couldn’t disappoint her girls. “Okay, sweetie. But I can’t stay long.”

  She hadn’t seen Hubert and Jen together in this house, this old bungalow that had once been home. When she’d picked the girls up earlier, the house felt the way it had when she’d left it—old, always needing fixing, friendly, and sad. The scene of her years of love with Hubert, and their final fights and failures. Now she was going to see Jen and Hubert as a couple there, and Brook and Stream acting normal and happy about it.

  Maybe it was time she got used to it.

  Stream opened the front door and hollered, “Daddy, we’re here. We’re showing Mama our race cars.”

  Mae followed them in. The house smelled spicy, like Italian food. Hubert and Jen must have had a romantic dinner while Mae had the girls.

  “Hey.” Hubert came into the hallway and gave Mae a warm smile. There was a wet soapy splotch on his shirt from washing dishes. “Don’t run those cars all over the house, girls, just show her in your room. You put everything away so good, I don’t need another mess, all right?”

  “We cleaned up. You should see it.” Brook swung open the door to the room she and Stream shared. “Ta-daaah!”

  The room was so neat, it deserved the trumpeting entrance, and Mae complimented the twins on what a great job they’d done. The girls dug into a large red plastic box, bringing out a set of tiny metal race cars.

  Stream boasted, “They go really fast.”

  Mae sat on the floor with them. She knew the routine. Roll up the rugs so you can get the cars rolling. Being in the twins’ room made her sad, though, reminding her of living with them. After a few spectacular high-speed car races across the floor, she stood to say goodbye. “Thanks for sharing those. I like ’em. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”

  She gave the girls goodnight hugs, lifting them up in turn. As she set the second twin down, she heard Jen behind her.

  �
�Hey, Mae. Just thought I should ... say hey. You know.”

  “Yeah.” Mae turned with a smile. “Thanks. Um ...” It was awkward, and they both knew it. “It’s good to see you. I was on my way out.”

  As they walked to the front door, Hubert called from the kitchen, “Hey, hon?” Mae didn’t know who he meant. He’d tended to call her that even when they were going through the hassles of a painfully amicable divorce. She and Jen both looked toward the sound of his voice, then at each other.

  Mae asked, “You want old hon or new hon?”

  “Sorry.” He joined them, and the three of them filed out the front door. “I meant Mae. Sorry. That was weird.”

  Under the starry skies, with more space and less immersion in memory, Mae found the situation funny and laughed. Hubert, hands in his pockets, looked at her with a half smile, but Jen tensed, hugging herself as if the air were cooler than it was.

  Hubert laid his arm around Jen’s small shoulders and said to Mae, “I wanted to ask you how Jamie’s van is doing. You heard from him?”

  “Not since he left Norfolk. He drove it to Greenville.”

  “While he’s still close by, I wanted to check and make sure I’d got everything. I’ll give him a call after his show. He really ought to get something with better mileage and more safety features, if he’s gonna be touring a lot.”

  “I know, but that’s up to him.” Hubert seemed to think Mae could pressure Jamie into giving up the old Aerostar. “I don’t have any say in that. I probably won’t see him much when I get back.”

  “That’s too bad.” Hubert sounded disappointed. “I thought you two hit it off. Seeing you dancing with him, you looked right together.” He hugged Jen to his side. “Didn’t you think so?”

  “I’ve already told her.” She smiled at Mae. “Jamie is such a sweetheart. He’s your type.”

  “Y’all are like missionaries. I’m glad you’re happy together, but you don’t have to convert me.”

  “You didn’t go back with Stamos did you?” Jen frowned. “He is so not right for you.”