Ariel Gore - Santa Fe Noir

“Hello, Mr. Whitman,” the girl said, offering a tentative smile. Her red lips seemed to be lacquered porcelain.

Gordo, having been responsible for uniting the pair and keeping the plan to himself, clapped his hands lightly. Then he and the girl gave each other a quick, almost bashful hug. They had only met before by text.

“Hawk will do,” the other said. He was her father but the reality was seeping in very slowly. It hardly seemed appropriate for the strange girl to call him Dad .

“Fine,” she said, “Hawk it is.” She pulled out a chair to sit down and he quickly put up a hand to stop her: “Don’t, please.” Hawk could hardly look at the girl, afraid his eyes would give away what else was present. The four million souls behind her were very still; they seemed to be waiting to see what would transpire between the two.

Gordo, who was unaware of the reason for Hawk’s hesitation, was confused by his friend’s reaction to meeting his long-lost daughter. His morose companion was about to foul up what should have been by anyone’s estimation a gladsome meeting.

“ Don’t?” Divina repeated in a melodic voice befitting her beauty. With a deep sigh and with a simple hand gesture, Hawk gave in and invited the girl to join them. Almost instantly, the souls faded. He dared to look at the girl directly for the first time. There she was — María — a near clone of her mother, the love of his life. More unsettling, however, there he was in her too.

Divina turned to Gordo and smiled.

“Ah! Miss Divina!” He kissed her caramel-hued hand. “Goddess of death — pshaw, Hawk,” he said to his friend. “That was just mean to refer to this gorgeous creature so morbidly.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Divina said, nonplussed. She leaned over and gave Hawk a peck on the cheek. “So lovely to meet you, Papá.”

Somewhat shyly, Hawk kissed her cheek too.

The waiter rushed over to set another place and fill a water glass. He handed the girl a menu and stood by until she gave her order.

“I totally get your ambivalence,” the girl said to Hawk. “You know? In meeting up with me. It must’ve been a shock when you heard about me.”

Hawk didn’t respond. It wasn’t ambivalence, he thought, but bewilderment. Beyond her near-mystic presence, the girl was astonishing to look at, to be sure. Divina removed her neo-Victorian, double-breasted satin jacket. A golden sash of sorts emphasized a long torso and a small waist. Her corset showed off overflowing breasts, which both men pretended not to notice. They were relieved when the waiter returned with the soup and they could focus on something else.

Meanwhile, Hawk gathered up his courage to inquire about her mother. Haltingly, he asked, “Where is María Villafuerte?”

Divina arched an eyebrow. The mention of María seemed to change her mood. Her brow furrowed as she looked at one man and then the other. “She left this earth only days after giving birth to me.”

Gordo snuck a quick glance over at Hawk for his reaction. Divina had already told him how she’d been raised by her mother’s family.

Hawk lowered his gaze. How had he not felt María’s departure from this life and always hoped she’d return? When he looked up at Divina, their daughter, they were back — the four million strong.

This time, one stepped forward. His headdress, mostly of quetzal feathers, was spectacular. “We have sent you our daughter,” he said to Hawk. “She has traveled many miles from what was our kingdom to your land, which was once also our place of origin. But she has also traveled across time upon our wishes. Rejoice, Hawk, in this reunion. She has much to share with you and will do so. Open your heart.”

Hawk understood that for the prince or king warrior who had just spoken to him, heart meant his mind too. He gave Divina a sideways look as he took a spoonful of posole. Now he began to recognize her. She was not the goddess of death as he had initially proclaimed. (He might instead have picked up that at the moment that she was a messenger of death — relaying to him María’s passing.)

And while she may well have been his biological offspring, she might have had other reasons to come up to New Mexico — Nuevo México, at one time part of Nueva España — from Mexico City, formerly the Great Empire of Tenochtitlán. Perhaps, as the warrior apparition told him, she had come to relay something very important. It was 2021, exactly five hundred long years since the Conquest of Mexico. Maybe the gods had decided to return. Or at least one of them had, in the form of a steampunk rocker.

Good Lord, he was in for a wild ride.

St. Catherine Indian School

Life was just fine for Trevor until it took a bad turn on Tuesday. It was now Wednesday, and he still didn’t know what to do. His older brother had given him a lot of advice about girls, but not about this.

“Avoid crazy girls,” his bro had told him. “All girls are somewhat crazy, but, for example... don’t let stoned girls sit in your car. It’s hard to get them out.” Trevor did not have a car, but he nodded. “Never never fuck a girl who is drunk. Always have...” his brother demonstrated with the foil packet, “a condom. Two or three. Personally, I wouldn’t even fuck a girl who is crying hard. Be careful. A crazy girl may not be your fault, but she IS your problem.”

Trevor nodded like a person who had options about when and who to fuck. It wasn’t a complete disgrace being a virgin at fourteen, the time of his brother’s lecture. But by the time he was fifteen and three months he definitely felt behind the curve. Then, enter Ava. She was small and bosomy, shy but chatty, and unremittingly sarcastic and bossy. As a second brother, Trevor was primed for sarcasm and direct orders. She was also really cute. She’d been kind of mousy in elementary school, and then she went to private school for middle, and something happened. When they met up again at a charter high school they were still vaguely friends, and she was armed with copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves and lube and Trevor realized why life was worth living in a way that had nothing to do with magic mushrooms. Everything was fine until yesterday.

“I’m your type,” Ava had told him.

“What’s my type?”

“Short brunette,” she said.

The truth came to him — his type was a pretty girl who liked him. But he didn’t share that. And she wasn’t crazy. She had hypoglycemia and had to be fed regularly — but he’d had guinea pigs. Her mother was a bit spacey and was obsessed with her job at the opera. At first, Trevor, raised by his pioneer stock — type mom, was shocked there were no regular meals at Ava’s. But there also was no parental supervision — and they could just lock the bedroom door.

Ava’s friends were a bit annoying — they cut themselves with X-Acto blades and threw up from eating hash brownies — but they were no worse than anyone else. Until yesterday when one of them lent Ava Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma , which Ava devoured in a double period of Japanese. And she decided to stop eating. For good.

“I’m not going to eat anymore,” Ava told Trevor.

“You’ve got anorexia?”

“Of course not. It’s just that... food is really disgusting... sausage...”

“So don’t eat sausage. Aren’t you Jewish? Don’t eat pork.”

“Meat is disgusting.”

“So be vegan,” Trevor said.

“You think cabbages don’t have feelings? Trees do! Maybe potatoes...” She looked stricken.

That was yesterday. Today she said she’d skipped dinner last night, and breakfast. Her mom didn’t notice. He saw she ate no lunch.