Snake Face Page 32

  The membership list had pictures of members with their cars beside their names and e-mail addresses. She scrolled down, looking for Wainwright, and paused at Tsitouris. Stamos’s picture needed updating. He posed in the back seat of the Coronet, his arm around a stunning Latina woman with long thick hair and a bosom that stood out and introduced itself. Her slim brown legs lay across his lap and she gave the camera a naughty smile. So this was Commander Diana. No wonder both Stamos and Joe Wayne had wanted her.

  JB Wainwright III had posted only a picture of his white convertible, and the e-mail address was sixtythreeemgee@swccc.com. Mae hoped a message to that address didn’t get filtered by Sylvie. It probably wouldn’t. He hid his famous name there, and the other members were mostly men who probably did what Stamos had done—recognized the star, pretended not to, and talked cars.

  What would get Joe Wayne’s attention without seeming like a fan had found him? “Cat’s owner wants it back. Urgent.” That should do it. Joe Wayne wanted to get rid of Gasser. “Please ask your pet sitter to ship the fat cat to the address below right away. It’s Jangarrai’s cat. Sylvie also has his drums and didgeridoo, and his bicycle wheels. Could you have those shipped also?”

  Mae was glad she had kept Jamie’s parents’ address when he’d written it for her to enter into the GPS. She started typing it, and then stopped. The risk was low, but if Sylvie should see it she’d know where Jamie lived. Mae changed the message, gave Joe Wayne her phone number and told him to ask her for the address, and hit send. This message might interrupt and even end the harassment.

  In case it didn’t work, though, she checked on her other means of reaching him. No Diana Tsitouris was listed in Las Cruces. She could have moved or taken back her maiden name. Stamos would know, but asking him would be a last resort. Joe Wayne loved his car, after all. He might check its e-mail.

  Mae ran a few miles on the track at her old high school, wondering if she would get a reply. Her phone was silent through the run, and when she got home, there was no e-mail for her.

  It was time to shower and meet Arnie. He had survived depression himself and would understand her concerns about Jamie. When she thought of sharing her worry, she realized just how heavy the load had become.

  Mae and Arnie met at the Chik’n Buffet next to the dollar store on Cauwetska’s main drag, across from the Ford dealership and a few blocks from the hospital where Mae’s mother had worked as a nurse. The popular restaurant smelled greasy, and resonated with lunchtime jabbering and clattering.

  After small talk while getting their salad bar meals, Mae and Arnie settled at a corner table. As usual, he dumped little packets of herbal medicines into his hot water instead of a regular tea bag and measured dressing out on his bread plate. “You know I’ve lost thirty pounds now?” he said as he dipped a forkful of vegetables into the dressing.

  “That’s great. I’m proud of you.” She’d accompanied him on a brisk three-mile walk the day before and been impressed with his improved fitness. “I hadn’t wanted to ask how much. Thought I might sound like I was nagging you like Mama used to.”

  “No, I wouldn’t take it that way. Though she sure did nag. I gained sixty pounds when I was depressed. I don’t think she ever got it through her head what was wrong with me.”

  Mae had a troubling image of Jamie gaining sixty pounds, followed by memories of how appallingly unsupportive her mother had been during Arnie’s struggles. He had been a quiet, lifeless kind of depressed, not dramatic like Jamie, but that was a personality difference, not a matter of the seriousness of the illness.

  “I went to see a friend this morning,” she said. “He’s a musician on tour in this area. And he’s—God, he’s so depressed. It scares me.” She poured out everything but her psychic visions. The stalking. Jamie’s troubled history, both emotional and financial. “He really needs this tour to be a success, and I think losing his voice just crushed him. He can’t afford to cancel his shows and he has to.”

  Arnie sipped his tea and nodded thoughtfully. “Being poor takes a toll on you. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think you don’t feel like a man if you don’t have money. Getting laid off was what triggered me. And then being depressed—you feel like you’re even less of a man. It made it hard to get well when I didn’t have work.”

  “Mama being awful didn’t help, either.”

  “Honey, she would have been just as awful if I’d gotten cancer. She didn’t want to come home to a sick person after work. That’s all there was to it. I feel for your friend. Wish I could help you help him. I don’t know what to do. But if he takes up your offer to come here, I’m on board.”

  “Thanks. I knew you would be.”

  “It’s not good for him to be alone. Funny how that’s what you do when you’re depressed, chase everybody off and hunker down like a hurt dog. When it’s the worst thing for you.”

  They ate in silence. Mae felt guilty for leaving Jamie alone.

  A couple of Arnie’s friends from his church, a helmet-haired blonde with pink-powdered wrinkled cheeks, and a red-faced, heavy man in a too-tight shirt, came over to talk. The woman gushed about how good it was to see Mae and how well she looked. The man asked about college out west. They hardly knew her and had never liked her, but she played along and answered graciously. She was back in the South. She knew the rules.

  “So have you met anybody interesting out there?” the woman asked, her made-up eyes widening.

  Neither Jamie nor Stamos was exactly boring, but that wasn’t the meaning of the question. “I haven’t got a boyfriend, no.”

  “I’m sure you will soon. Pretty girl like you. Well, good to see you both. We should skedaddle. Bye-bye.”

  The couple left. Arnie asked, “You don’t think you might have feelings for your friend Jamie, do you?”

  “Romantic feelings? I don’t think so. Sometimes I love him so much I can’t stand it, but—this sounds so awful, it makes me sound like Mama—he’s so messed up. He just takes it out of me.”

  “Honey. You’re not like Rhoda-Rae. You were so good to me when I was down. You made a big difference to me. Gave me a little bit of hope.”

  “I did?”

  “I could always tell you looked at me like I was still in there somewhere. Like you were talking to the old Arnie and expected him to come back. It meant the world to me.”

  His words made her feel both warm and sad. She hadn’t ever thought about this, but it was true. She’d never pitied him or talked down to him. He’d always been her stepfather in her eyes. Someone she’d trusted and turned to as the adult in her life. Jamie was different. He’d always been fractured and needy. She hadn’t met his healthy self. Only his happier but still unstable self.

  Mae poked at her salad, no longer hungry. “I’m glad I was there for you, Arnie. I don’t think I know how to be there for Jamie. He’s furious with me for seeing him as a wreck, for seeing only his pain. I think he wants me to see him the way I could see you, but I can’t. I have no reference point. He thinks I should see who he could be. If he got well.”

  “Not a good place to start a relationship. Better to love him as a friend.” Arnie frowned over his tea. “I’m glad I didn’t meet Alyssa until I was better. She got to see the real me.” He set the mug down and smiled. “Who knows? Maybe he’ll get well and you’ll find out he’s pretty special.”

  Jamie was already special. He took up far too much space in her mind and heart.

  “On the other hand,” Arnie continued, “he might get well and get over needing you that much.”

  How would Mae feel about that? She had a bad habit of needing to be needed, and it wasn’t just Stamos that minded. “He already has. It’s me. I’m the one that needs to help him.”

  Jamie didn’t text her until the end of her visit with the children, while they were walking near a field in Tylerton where pet llamas grazed. Brook and Stream climbed on the rough zigzag wooden fence to get face to face with them. Mae leaned on the top rail and read Jamie’s
message, wishing she had something reassuring to tell him. She didn’t. Joe Wayne had not gotten in touch.

  Sorry Iw as mad. Thnaks for conmgin and gsp.

  Gasp? No. He was thanking her for the GPS. Glad I could help. Hope you’re feeling better.

  Y. N. M.

  Yes. No. Maybe. No Sylvie?

  N. 3dyas. Miss gasser.

  I’m still trying to get him and your stuff shipped so you can skip her and go straight home after your last show.

  That would be if Mae talked with Joe Wayne. He might not read her message, and if he did, he might ignore it. Jamie could still end up meeting Sylvie. It might be safe—but would she have gone through this elaborate game just to hand everything back and say he’d been fun to play with? That wasn’t what a cat did with a mouse.

  Thnaks.

  Where are you?

  Vna.

  The van. If he was texting it meant he’d pulled over for gas or a nap. She’d meant how far from Austin. What state or town?

  Tn

  Tennessee. Get a hotel early. With a pool if you can. Swimming makes you feel better.

  Tyr.

  Did that mean he would try? Brook and Stream climbed to the top of the fence and began to test their balance on it. Mae called, “Get down from there. You could fall in llama poop.”

  They made eew and yuck sounds and obeyed. She let Jamie know she had to get back to her stepdaughters, and that she would be in touch with anything she learned about Gasser or Sylvie. He gave his thnaks again.

  The twins walked sideways along a lower rail, cooing hopefully to the animals. The black llama had soft fur, the spotted one was coarse and messy, and both had huge black eyes with long lashes that reminded Mae of Jamie. The black llama approached her, and to her surprise it brought its bristly gray lips to hers in a strange, dry, grassy-smelling kiss. Brook and Stream whooped with delight, Stream shouting, “The llama’s kissing mama!”

  It blinked at her, breathing in her face. She felt as if Jamie had sent his representative. Jamie, depressed and alone on the road to Sylvie. Mae had three days to save him.

  After dinner and a movie with Arnie and his girlfriend, Mae went to her room and closed the door. She settled on the floor with the diary, the cat-hair shirt, the black hat, and her crystals, not sure what to look for other than Gasser.

  What good could psychic work do? She would see the cat in that garage, no doubt, but she couldn’t see the future, and what she wanted most was to predict what Sylvie would do. Somewhere in Sylvie’s life, there had to be a clue, a warning, a reassurance, or an explanation. Spilling the velvet pouch of crystals onto the rug, Mae chose charoite and amethyst for intuition. It was going to be a desperate, fishing kind of journey, not the sort of thing she normally did. She felt the question more strongly than she was able to think it into words.

  Please. Whatever power guides me. Help me protect Jamie.

  Emerging from the brief darkness of the transition, she found herself looking at a college dormitory room. Sylvie was young, maybe nineteen or twenty, but had accomplished her transformative weight loss already. She scarcely dented the beanbag chair where she sat cross-legged and erect. A youthful, beardless Joe Wayne slumped at a cluttered desk. Posters of country music stars papered the walls.

  Joe Wayne closed a textbook. “I need a break. Mind if I smoke?”

  “In here?” Sylvie’s Texas accent was a work in progress. “Smokers have to go outside.”

  “Too damned hot out.”

  “It’s your room, then, go ahead.” She rose and opened a window while he lit up. “But it’s your voice, too.”

  “That’s a change, my voice instead of my lungs. Mama gets on me for my lungs. Doctor says it’ll ruin my whole body.”

  Sylvie perched in the open window. “I haven’t seen your body yet. But I care what happens to your voice.”

  “Yet?” Joe Wayne grinned. He leaned back, put his feet up on his desk, and dragged on his cigarette. “Sylvie, Sylvie.”

  “I heard you at the coffeehouse Saturday. You’ve got a hell of a voice. You do things right and you could be famous by next year.”

  “Sheeyit, woman. Famous for what? Breaking another window in the Kappas’ house? I’m good at doing things wrong.”

  “Don’t play hard to get. I know you want to be a singer.” Her close-set dark eyes drilled in on him. “I bet you wrote some of those songs you played.”

  “I did.” He looked at her with a new interest. “All the ones you’d never heard of. What’d you think?”

  “You have a way with words, English major. Good little hooks in the melody, too—like if people were going to line dance to your songs there’d have to be a special step because there’s that surprise part. But your ideas are trite. You’re wasting your talent on the same old shit.”

  “Give me an idea that’s not trite.” He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned toward her. “I mean it.”

  “Hot guys need smart girls. For math tutors.” She grinned. “Maybe even for wives. But the smart girls see through you, so you need dumb chicks to screw. Dare you.”

  “To write a song about that?” He let out a whoop of laughter. “You are a trip and a half, Ramirez.”

  “I dare you. It’ll rock. We can write it together.” She watched as he processed this with a thoughtful smile, and continued, “And don’t call me Ramirez.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not a country songwriter. I need a new name to write songs.”

  “So that’s why you’re my math tutor.”

  “You got it.” She strolled over to the desk and put out his cigarette. “You need a new name, too. Joseph Bradford Wainwright the Third sounds like a banker.”

  “It does not. That name belongs to three generations of proud Texas ranchers.”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t sound like a cowboy.”

  “I could go with Bradford but that’s Daddy, and Granddaddy’s already claimed JB.”

  “Joe Wainwright.” Sylvie frowned. “Joe Wayne ...”

  “Joe Wayne Bradford?”

  “Close. A lot of criminals have the middle name Wayne, have you noticed that? Makes you sound bad. Which I think you are.” She kicked him lightly in the shin with her tiny, boot-clad foot. “Brad ... Br ... Joe Wayne Brazos!”

  “I like it. It’s brazen, it’s Texan—” He clapped, flung up his arms, yipped like a true cowboy, and broke into song.

  “I’m the River of the Arms of God,

  Sam Houston at the battle of

  El Rio ... de los Brazos ... de Dios.”

  Joe Wayne clapped again and gave Sylvie a double thumbs-up. “Whew!” Calming down, he leaned back and re-lit his cigarette. “Are your song ideas as good as this name?”

  “Try the smart girls and hot guys. No one sings about the truth, Joe Wayne. It’s always sappy love stuff. I dare you to do something different. Write what you know.”

  “That’s what my poetry teacher says. And I tell her,” he gave Sylvie a warm, mischievous smile, “all I know is that I’m an asshole.”

  “Perfect.” Her eyes alight, Sylvie pointed a little finger-gun at him. “A cowboy asshole. That’s your brand. Write songs about that and all the men in the world but one will feel validated.”

  Joe Wayne laughed his booming, goofy huh-huh. Then he grew serious. “Who’s that one?”

  Sylvie parked her butt on the edge of his desk and studied a poster on the wall. “Nobody. Anymore.”

  The answer made him smile. “Let me hear some of your songs. I bet they’re good.”

  “They are, and I will, but some people think my voice is hard to listen to.” She looked down, frowned, and then lifted a serious gaze to her friend. “So what’s my new name, as your music partner?”

  “Take mine. I’m not using it.”

  “I just might take yours.” She stood, leaned over, and kissed him on the mouth. “I just might.”

  He pulled her into his lap and prolonged the kiss, and then laughed and smacked her on the bottom as he tippe
d her to her feet. “Nice try, math girl. Let’s do some algebra.”

  The tunnel shifted Mae’s vision. This time, she found Joe Wayne in a classroom. Sylvie stood at a computer station near a gray-haired woman who wore a doubtful expression, probably the instructor. Joe Wayne slouched on the professor’s desk with a guitar, watching Sylvie start a Power Point presentation. The first slide read: Health 200. Lifestyle Contributions to Longevity. Sylvia Ramirez and Joseph Wainwright.

  “You’re singing your presentation?” the professor asked.

  “You said you give points for creativity,” Sylvie replied, and walked to the back of the room to whisper to a scruffy, thickly-built young man who stood holding a camera. “Start filming when I change the slide, and keep the camera on Joe. Don’t get me in the picture. This thing is gonna go viral with every partying dude in the country who has to take Personal Health and hates it.”

  She winked and walked back to the computer. The next slide read: Good Life, Bad Habits. By Joe Wayne Brazos and Sylvie Wainwright. Joe Wayne grinned at his classmates, strummed his guitar, and his voice rolled out, rich and smooth and resonant, not yet smoke-roughened.

  “Red wine, black coffee, and plenty of sex,

  Real low stress and a high SES,

  You don’t need your greens if you got enough gold.

  It’s rich men and bad boys that live to be old.”

  It was an early version of his first big hit. Sylvie presented slides documenting the health benefits of alcohol and coffee, and the longevity associated with a better sex life and with higher incomes. Citations and quotations supported each verse of the song. Joe Wayne got off the desk, dancing a little as he sang and played, flirting with a curvy Latina girl in the front row and a tall blonde a few seats back. Each verse ended with the now famous chorus,

  “Forget about that whole bill of goods you been sold,

  It’s rich men and bad boys that live to be old.”

  The class applauded at the end and Sylvie signaled to her videographer. Mae recognized him as a younger Bubba, with a less of a gut and no moustache. He stopped filming and sat down.