Chasing Windmills Read online

  Part of me feels like I shouldn't have to be. After all, it's not like you dream something on purpose. You don't try to have a particular dream. It just sort of has you.

  But then on the other hand, I feel like I couldn't dream anything unless it was there in my head somewhere to begin with. I know that's what Carl would say. If I was ever stupid enough to tell him about this dream I had. Which I never would be. Never in a million years.

  I dreamed that I was living with Sebastian. That guy from the subway. The kids were there, and he was being like a father to them. And it was a family.

  But then I woke up and I was really ashamed, because I already have a family. With Carl.

  In some ways it seemed even worse than if I dreamed about sex with him. Because sex, that's just one thing. That's just one part of what it means to be with somebody. But being a family and having a life together, that's everything. So I betrayed Carl real bad in my sleep last night.

  And, also, besides the betraying part, that's really stupid. I mean, how can the subway guy be a father? He's only around nineteen. Which makes him only twelve years older than C.J. And you can't be a father starting when you're only twelve.

  I guess that sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, because I'm only fifteen years older than C.J. But it still seems like a key difference, because nature says you can have a kid when you're fifteen but not when you're twelve. At least, probably not. Anyway, I never heard of such a thing.

  And it's a terrible way to betray C.J., too, because Carl is his father and he worships and adores Carl and vice versa. And I can't just slip in a little substitution. You only get one father, whether you figure you got a good deal or not. And C.J. has his already.

  I can't believe I have to stay home tonight.

  When did riding the subway with this guy get to be the most important thing I have? It seems wrong that something that big could already be true before you even really give it your full attention. I wonder if other people do stuff like that. Or if it's only me.

  JUST BEFORE CARL WENT OFF TO WORK that afternoon, I said this to him: “I'm going to go see my sister today.” And then I added, just with the same timing I always do, “Unless you want me to wait till your day off and we'll go together.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right,” he said.

  There's a reason it always goes like this. Carl won't ever go see my sister. He can't stand her. He calls her the Vampire, because she's into stuff like numerology and Tarot cards and crystals. Now, what any of that stuff has to do with vampires I will never know. But it doesn't really pay to question Carl about stuff like that. As long as it makes sense in his head, it's not likely he will take the time to explain it to you.

  He also doesn't like to go over there because he can't stand cats. Just hates them with a passion. He thinks they're all evil, and out to get him. Even if they rub up against him and purr, he still thinks that's the first step in some kind of fatal cat conspiracy. Anyway, Stella has cats. Nine.

  Her husband, Victor, is not so thrilled about that, either. Not that he hates cats; he likes them all right. He just figures nine is way too many. Stella tells him it's okay because he doesn't believe like she does that cats have nine lives. So she says that should be pretty much the equivalent of one cat to him.

  I think Victor is just tired of arguing about cats. He owns a TV repair shop uptown. He is very successful, repairing people's TVs. He's not home much anyway, so there are really only a few hours a day he has to put up with nine cats.

  Anyway, back to Carl. He doesn't want to go to my sister's, but I have to make sure he never thinks he's not welcome to go. If he ever wanted to. Even though he never will. And he doesn't really care if I go, but he never wants me to go anywhere unless I get his special seal of approval first.

  “So, I should just go ahead and go by myself while you're at work today?”

  “Go. See the Vampire. Why should I care?”

  It works every time. You'd think he'd figure it out after all this time. That I'm playing him. But maybe he doesn't notice. Or maybe he doesn't even care. Just so long as I keep playing him exactly the way he wants to be played.

  WHEN STELLA OPENED HER FRONT DOOR, just about the first thing she said to me was “You're in trouble.” Actually, technically it was the second thing. Right after she said, “Hurry up, shut the door, you're going to let the cats out.” There's really only one cat who will try to get out. This big half-wild tom named Leo. But she always talks about Leo like there were ten of him.

  “I'm not in trouble. Why would you even say that?” “Because I know you,” she said. “Because it's written all over your face.”

  Natalie was snoring on my shoulder, and Stella lifted her down and laid her down on the couch. She even wadded up an afghan so Natalie couldn't accidentally roll off.

  Stella had her hair up in those double ponytails. What do they call them? Pigtails, I think. They made her look like she was trying to be ten, but actually Stella is over thirty. She's a lot older than me. We were both accidents, me and Stella, and it just so happened that our parents made their two big mistakes a long way apart.

  She was still in her pink baby-doll pajamas and blue terry-cloth robe. She tends to wear them all day because she has gained about seventy pounds and refuses to buy bigger clothes. She says she will never lose the weight again if she gives in like that. I think she still has one big caftan she can wear to the market, but I'm not sure.

  “I'm fine.”

  “There's something going on.”

  “I'm fine.”

  “Sit down. I'll do your cards and we'll see what's what. You want coffee? I'll just put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “I'M SURPRISED YOU'RE STILL ALIVE,” she said. Shuffling the Tarot cards. “I kept thinking Carl was going to kill you when he found out you got fired and didn't tell him for a week.”

  “He's not that bad.”

  “He's plenty bad enough.”

  “He wouldn't kill me.”

  “Just because he hasn't yet … So what did you say to him? Did you cover up the part about the timing on when it happened? Did he hit the ceiling?”

  I pulled the stack of cards over to me and started spreading them out on the table, facedown, the way I know from experience I'm supposed to do. So I can choose ten by feel. Which I began doing.

  “Oh, my God,” Stella said. She sounded genuinely shocked. And Stella and I, we have both seen and heard quite a lot. “You still haven't told him.”

  “I'm going to,” I said. With my stomach burning like I'd swallowed a bunch of acid or lye or something. But I just kept picking cards.

  “Oh, my God,” she said again. “Oh, my God. Girl, what are you thinking?”

  “I'm not sure. I think I'm trying not to think. There's just been a lot going on.”

  It struck me—I swear, for the first time ever—that I had an extra reason now for not telling Carl about getting fired. The minute he found out I lost my job, I'd have to stay home at night. And then I would never see that subway guy again. Sebastian. I knew his name but I couldn't think of him like that. He didn't feel like a Sebastian to me. He needed a different name. Friendlier. Simpler. Like Tony in West Side Story, whose name is really Anton, but Tony is better.

  I know it sounds almost unbelievably lame that I wouldn't think about that until this exact moment sitting in front of the cards at Stella's place. But my mind is funny like that. It plays all sorts of tricks on me.

  Stella turned over a card. It was the Ace of Cups. A big hand coming out of nowhere, like out of a little puff of cloud, with a cup on the upturned palm of it. Like a Holy Grail sort of cup. Overflowing with these four fountains of water. I guess water.

  “Well,” Stella said. “That fills in a lot about what you're not telling me. Who is he?”

  I'm more or less on the fence about this Tarot stuff. I've lived with Carl so long that part of me almost believes like him. Like it's all a bunch of hooey. But then again, Stella is right on the money near
ly all the time. And sometimes, even when she's not, I find out later that she really was. I'm thinking maybe that's more about Stella than it is about the cards. It makes more sense that a human being could know so much. I mean, more than a card could know. Maybe she thinks she sees it in the card but really she just knows me so well. After all, she has known me nearly twenty-three years. Or maybe there's something to this, something I can't find it in myself to understand.

  “Nobody, really,” I said. Even though I was beginning to think he might be a somebody.

  “That's not what this card says.”

  “Okay, what does the card say?” I said it kind of belligerent. Like as soon as she told me I would argue with it. But really I wanted to know.

  “It's a card of emotional beginnings.”

  “Maybe it means that Carl and I are going to fall in love all over again.”

  “Oh, my God, girl, don't even put a horrible thought like that in my head. I'll have nightmares all night tonight. No. The Ace of Cups is always talking about somebody new.”

  I kept my eyes down to the table. I was looking at the other nine cards that hadn't been turned over yet. Wondering what all they had to say. Desdemona, one of Stella's two black cats, was sitting on the table staring at the cards with her big gold eyes. She does that a lot. Stella thinks she was a medium in another life.

  I said, “Why would you think I would do something so bad?”

  “Bad? Bad?” Stella's voice was coming up to its famous screech level. Desdemona leaped off the table and booked it to someplace out of screech range. “Honey, finding somebody new would be the smartest thing you ever did. I swear I thought you'd have been done with that man five or six years ago. You were just a kid, so I gave you maybe a year to come to your senses. Now I'm beginning to think you got no sense.”

  My eyes jumped up to meet hers, and I know she could tell I was seriously wounded. “That was mean.”

  “Well, I'm sorry, honey, but I have to speak the truth as I see it. I'm the closest thing to a mother you got left. You have to admit that.”

  “I can't leave Carl for this guy.”

  “Why can't you?”

  “He's too young. He can't be a father to two kids. To a seven-year-old. He's too young.”

  “Well, you can be a mother to a seven-year-old and you're only twenty-two. How old is this guy?”

  “I'm not sure, but I think about twenty.” Anything that ended with “teen” would just have been too completely humiliating.

  “So? Two years. That's no big deal. Did he say he couldn't be a father to two kids?”

  “Um. No. Not exactly.”

  “What did he say?”

  I placed my finger on the next card. Thinking I could turn it over. Even though Stella always turns them over. I thought if I could get that card right side up we could talk about something new.

  She slapped her hand down on top of mine. Dashing all hopes of turning the next card. “Oh, my God. You haven't told him you have kids. Did you at least tell him about Carl?” I said nothing. Just looked at the table. “Oh, my God, girl. Oh, my God. You have to tell him. You have to tell him right now.”

  “He'll never want to see me again.”

  “Then you need to find that out right now. You think those two kids are going to disappear between now and the time you spit it out? You've got to learn to open your mouth, girl. That's the trouble with you. You never say what you need to say. Even though it's true. Even though you know it'll have to come out sooner or later.” I felt Natalie's little hand on my thigh. She was still sleepy from her nap. She put her head down on my knee and just stood there, hugging my leg. “You keep getting yourself in all these impossible situations. Even though you know all the time they're impossible. It's like you're trying to pitch a tent on a river or something. Living in all these temporary lands where you just know you can't ever stay.”

  “I just thought if I got to know him a little better—”

  “That he'd hate you for keeping the truth from him for so long? Tell him. Tell him the truth. Live in the truth, girl. Let the chips fall where they may.”

  First I didn't sleep. Then I slept without meaning to. Right in my clothes. But only for a couple of hours. I woke up and it was a little before five, and the place was quiet. I was pretty sure my father wasn't up yet.

  I lay on my back in bed thinking about Maria, but then I got this little catch in my stomach, like there was something else in there. Ever have that happen? Like there's something on the tip of your tongue, and you can't quite remember what it is, but you already know it's bad. Then my mind jumped back to tea with milk and sugar, and then I knew.

  I wouldn't have done what I did next at any other time in my life. Not one day before I did it. But this was not any other day or any other time in my life. This was right now.

  I booted up my computer and opened the Web browser. And then I did a search for Tehachapi, California. That's the little town in the Mojave Desert where Grandma Annie worked. But she lived in a little town that was actually called Mojave, on the other side of the Tehachapi Pass. Of course, I had no way of knowing if she still did. Either one. And I didn't even know the name of the motel, but I hoped I'd remember it if I saw it. So if I could just act like a tourist and look up lodging in that town, maybe something would strike me.

  I hit the first link to come up, and what I saw moved through me like a rush, like a flash flood. Like the fire hoses they used to use to knock down protesters on the street.

  It was a picture of the windmills on Tehachapi Pass. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of windmills. Spilling up and down the sides of these mountains. All exactly alike, but staggered by their placement on each slope. They're not like the old-fashioned windmills you see in books about Holland. They're very modern, streamlined and grayish-white. Three long, clean blades each. And whole sections of them would spin at once while other sections held still.

  Now, of course, the picture on the Internet didn't tell me that some spin while some hold still. I knew that on my own. Because I had seen them with my own eyes.

  It came back in a big rush, like I said.

  I guess I must've been five or six, and I was riding in the back seat of the car, and my mother was up front in the passenger seat, and she said, “Sebastian, see the windmills?”

  I had been looking at her face, but when she said that, I looked out the window. But I couldn't see them. So she took off my seat belt and pulled me up front with her, and sat me down on her lap, and put her seat belt around both of us. And then I looked up, and there they were. Hundreds and hundreds of windmills.

  “They make electricity,” she said.

  “How?” I wanted to know.

  “They make it out of the wind. They take the wind on this mountain pass and turn it into electricity. What do you think of the windmills, Sebastian?”

  “I like them.” Which, as I recall, was a huge understatement. But I was only five or six.

  “When we see Grandma Annie, tell her what you thought of the windmills, okay?”

  And while she said that, she was running a hand through my hair. And then, a minute later, rubbing my back a little bit.

  I started to cry.

  No, not there in the car when I was little. I was happy then. I started to cry right there in front of my computer. I couldn't even see the link that said, “A helpful guide to hotels, motels, inns” until I'd gotten a few tears out of my system, and out of my eyes. I had to get up and get a fresh handkerchief out of my drawer, because I'd given the one in my pocket to Maria.

  After a while I hit the helpful guide link, right through the tears. There were only seven listings. I ran my eye down the list, and when I saw the Tehachapi Mountain View Inn, I knew right away. I didn't have to wonder. I remembered it as surely as I remembered the windmills, and my mother rubbing my back. And then when I thought about my mother rubbing my back, I started to cry all over again.

  I WROTE MY LETTER to her in pen, on stationery. Not on the co
mputer. It's one of those things like carrying a cloth handkerchief. My father taught me that's what gentlemen do.

  Here's what I said, because I was feeling emotional, and there was a lot I just wasn't prepared to go into right then.

  Dear Grandma Annie,

  I know it's been a long time since I've written to you or you've written to me. But I just want you to know that I forgive you for not writing. It's been a long time, and I can understand how you could forget all about me. In case you don't forgive me for not keeping in touch, I have to tell you that my father strictly forbids it. So I'm doing this behind his back. So please don't do anything to get me in trouble. Not to sound wimpy, but I have to live with him. If you want to write to me, please write to me at the same address as always, the one on this envelope, only instead of our apartment number, 5J, please send it care of Ms. Delilah Green in apartment 3B. She's my friend and she'll make sure I get your letter, and then he'll never have to know. I want to ask you some questions, mostly about my mother.

  Very Truly Yours,

  Your Grandson,

  Sebastian Mundt

  Then I sealed it into an envelope and addressed it to her care of the Tehachapi Mountain View Inn, where I hoped she still worked, and then I sat alone in my room until I heard my father get up.

  MY LESSONS THAT DAY were a disaster. Right from the start. I couldn't concentrate. My head felt hollow, and sore inside, like too many things had been banging around in there. Like the jumble of thoughts from the last few days had all been sharp, dangerous objects. Maybe they were.

  My father wanted me to behave just the way I always did. No way to have an off day. That's him in a nutshell, actually. No tolerance for any kind of change.

  He finally broke down and called me stupid. Well, he said I was stupid today. He said, “I can't stand this another minute. You're just stupid today. With all I invest in making you smarter and more educated, all of a sudden you're just falling down a well of stupidity.”

  I was pretty deeply insulted, but I didn't yell at him, because all hell breaks loose when I do. I didn't want to have to live with the fallout. I felt like I couldn't take it. Not today.