Sunland: A Novel

25

• • 163 • • cassette tape had melted inside the stereo. A lone cloud floated in the sky, so close I could have taken it out with a rock. I heard distant popping noises—firecrackers, gunshots? I wanted to be with Mona in some far-off place, her feet touching mine, her breath at my neck. Instead Danni listened on the phone as I reviewed the fleabag motel outside of town, the giraffe, the mess we were in, the tanks, El Bebé recording an album, the fork wound, how it hurt. How it hurt! “I’m studying the moon’s chart,” she said over the phone. “According to this, there’s a new moon in three nights. The desert will be dark. We do it then.” She wasn’t listening. I told her about the giraffe again. This was a giraffe. I couldn’t stop thinking about the animal trapped inside the motel. I had a thing for animals, especially animals with adorable young animal faces. “There’s nothing we can do, soldier,” Danni said. “We need to move it, as instructed. Then we get paid. These people scare me.” I knocked my head against the headrest. “Give me some good news,” I said. “Give me anything.” Suddenly the mestizo kid ran out of the compound and bumped into a soldier’s leg. I saw the man smile and pat the kid’s head. Then the kid was off again, running, running down the street. “Your team won,” Danni said. “I heard on the radio. That’s your good news. The Diamondbacks really handed it to Milwaukee.” Four new voice messages: all Juliet. I couldn’t bear to listen. We were once a family with a shared grocery list. We gardened . Stained two bookshelves. Then she did what she did, and now the idea of her long, delicate toes grew more vague by the day. I erased the first three and listened to the last. “I’m waiting to hear from you. Why haven’t you called? If you’ve found someone, okay. I can live with that. I apologize for hurting you. You hurt me plenty of times, too. In any case, I thought you might want to know that the weather is turning, the tree out front is about to go red, and I don’t know how many more times I can tell you I’m sorry.” forty wheelchairs were parked in the main room during the weekly community meeting. The Activity Assistant, a pretty blond with an 25 • • 164 • • orthodontic grin, led the discussion from behind a podium. I watched her travel down a list with a pen as she asked lifestyle-related questions into the microphone. “Who enjoyed yesterday’s yummy cheesecake?” she asked the gathered residents. Several hands went up. She unlatched the mic and thrust it into Ginny Olgermeyer’s unsuspecting face. “More butter in the crust,” Ginny said. Thankfully my grandmother was near the back. I maneuvered through the wheelchairs and touched her warm shoulder. She smiled at me with the working side of her mouth. “Okay, last question. If you could do one thing tomorrow,” the Activity Assistant asked, “if tomorrow were the perfect day, what would you do?” She dipped the microphone in front of Gertrude. “I’d work in my garden at home,” Gertrude responded “How lovely,” the Activity Assistant said. “David, what about you?” The old man clamped his hand around the microphone and pressed it to his lips. “I’d fuck you!” Management rotated the art on the walls every month. August had been southwestern portraits. September was reserved for watercolors painted by residents. I wheeled Nana down the hall, detouring at the nursing station before turning at Agave Trail. Midway down the hall I saw Mona, sitting on her heels in her unattractive tennies. She was helping to adjust an old woman’s robe. “You’re still upset at me,” I said to her. Mona rolled her eyes. She gestured to a quieter spot down the hall. When we were out of Nana’s hearing range, she whispered, “I didn’t sign up for this. What happens when you get caught? What happens to your grandmother ? You’re not thinking.” “We won’t. Danni knows the way.” “What makes you think you’re so special? You think—what?—you’re some white knight sent to help poor, pathetic Mexicans walk across the desert?” I didn’t respond. I didn’t tell her about the giraffe. I watched her cheeks...