T. Boyle - Talk Talk

“Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

The trip cross-country wasn't exactly what he'd envisioned-they'd stretched it out to two weeks and a day, and they did manage to see the Great Salt Lake, an Amish village and the world's biggest longhorn steer, all for Madison's benefit, but there was no Tahoe and no Vegas. Once he'd got back on I-80 he just kept going, his mind working round the sharp edges of what had happened back there outside of Sacramento, and after he crossed the state line he began to rethink things. For one, there was no real reason to dawdle-a little R & R, sure, please the kid and Natalia too-but the sooner he got settled in New York and started making some real money again, the better. And the car. He'd been in panic mode there for a while, the adrenaline scouring his veins and seriously impairing his judgment. He had ID. He had papers for the car. It was his, no question about it, and once he was out of California he didn't have to worry about the cops either-if that was even a worry to begin with-and plus he had money in the thing. He'd paid ten thousand down, cash, on Natalia's Z4 and had better than a year's payments in it too, and so no, he wasn't going to unload the Mercedes. Dealer plates were nothing-he'd just toss them, make up a phony pink slip and register the thing in New York. And when Bob Almond of Bob Almond Mercedes/BMW wanted to know where his payments were, well, he could go on down to San Roque and try to shake them out of Bridger Martin, the asshole.

And so he'd kept going, Natalia dozing, Madison awake now in back and playing her videos over and over, the maddening rupture of the kiddie soundtrack better than the claws-bared assault of Natalia's nagging, and that wasn't over yet-she was just giving her vocal cords a rest. Scenery-or lack of it-fled by the windows. He kept his foot on the gas and his eyes on the rearview. It must have been four or so before Madison started whining and Natalia lifted her head to give him a stare that burned right through him, Winnemucca bleak, Elko bleaker, and in a withering voice wondered if he intended to drive all day and all night without stopping even to perform their natural functions or consume-that was the word she used-anything of nourishment. “Are you planning to stop,” she said, and he wouldn't look at her, his eyes on the road, “or are you still running?”

“I'm not running.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Driving.”

“Driving, yes. I see that.” She looked out the window on high desert scrub, the world bleached of color, the sun as persistent as a nightmare. “But this is not Tahoe.”

“No,” he said, “no, it's not. Change of plan.”

“This is not Vegas.” He stole a glance at her and her face was set, angry, all the soft opalescent beauty drained out of it. “What is this? This is nothing.”

An exit blew by, trucks drawn up in a steel ridge, a hundred cars and milling stupid people like stick figures in an artist's rendering of the ultimate truck stop, gas, food, lodging, condoms, pigs in a blanket, tequila. A sign for Indian jewelry, ONLY 20 MILES. And then scrub, more scrub, and the long dwindling slash of the road.

“You stop,” she said, and she turned her wrathful face to him. “At the next place you stop and I don't care what it is, you stop.”

“A pool,” Madison chimed in. “I want a place with a pool. Can I go swimming, Mommy, can I?”

He heard himself say, “Sure, no problem. Next place. Next place with a pool.”

For a moment, all three of them fixed their gaze on the road ahead, the gleaming chain-link of cars and trucks vanishing into the horizon, cartoon characters whinnying and chortling in the background, the tires faintly humming. “Something is wrong,” Natalia said then.

“Nothing's wrong.”

“Then why not Tahoe. You promised Tahoe.”

“I told you, I changed my mind.”

“Those people-”

“Fuck those people.”

She drilled him with her eyes. She didn't want him cursing around Madison, and he knew that-that was one of the rules. No cursing around Madison. “Those people-” she repeated.

“Fuck those people.”

And so it went, ad nauseam, for two weeks and one day.

Their first night in the house, after four in the local motel and five full days of shopping, hassling with the utilities, arranging furniture and unpacking the big cardboard boxes sent on ahead from California, he decided to inaugurate the kitchen. A little Thai/Chinese fusion was what he was thinking: three-flavor stir-fry (scallops, monkfish, tiger shrimp), pork spring rolls to start and a nice medium-spicy squid salad that would have enough push to it to satisfy Natalia and yet not overwhelm Madison's tender young palate. Though Madison was learning-he had to give her credit for that. Ever since her mother had moved in with him he'd been weaning her off the bland stuff, slipping her a slice of daikon or Vidalia onion when he was cooking, an extra portion of wasabi and pickled ginger with her sashimi-and then a bowl of green-tea ice cream to cool and compare. Or having her do the taste test with a tiny sliver of the tan chipotle mecos he liked to use in his chicken enchiladas or the dark red coil of a smoked serrano, and always an ice afterward. She was getting to be a little champ, actually, insisting on a dollop of jalapeño jelly instead of cinnamon on her butter-drenched toast in the morning.

The supermarket wasn't what it was in California, of course, but he'd found an Asian market in Fishkill (a little bit of a haul from Garrison, but he tried to restrict his shopping to the north so as to stay away from Peterskill, for obvious reasons) and got pretty much everything he needed, from the cellophane noodles to the sweet chili sauce, spring roll wrappers, fresh cilantro and gingerroot. It had rained earlier, the clouds gathering atop Storm King and fanning out to sink low over West Point, and that was something he'd missed, the suddenness and violence of the thunderstorms; now, standing at the kitchen counter, he caught the indefinable scent of his boyhood drifting across the lawn and through the screens, the smell of the woods, sumac, mold, rot, the superabundant water sitting in its pools in the hidden places, everything in ferment. He was happy suddenly, feeling as if a load had been lifted from him, a load that had worn him down this past month and more, happy to be cleaning squid with one of his sharp new J. A. Henckels ice-hardened knives and having a glass of Champagne at the window, the sky close and gray and the grass spread out beneath him such a dense green it was almost black. Happy about the Champagne too, the price on the Perrier-Jouët so good he'd gone ahead and bought a case, the French wines cheaper here by far than on the west coast, thinking he'd be drinking a lot more French from now on, not to mention Italian and even Spanish. He was feeling all this, alternately plying the knife and setting it down to lift the Champagne flute to his lips, when Natalia slipped up noiselessly behind him and wrapped her arms round his waist.

“Hey,” she murmured. “How is it going? Looks good. Squid, yes?” There was a saucepan on the stove, the heat up high-he was making a fish stock from the scraps of the monkfish, a little white wine, butter, garlic and green onions to flavor the squid-and his hands were full. Normally, he didn't like to be bothered when he was cooking-cooking required your full concentration or things were apt to go wrong-but he was feeling so good he just leaned back into her to enjoy the feel of her long-fingered hands on his abdomen, up under his rib cage and where he was especially sensitive, on his chest and nipples. “Feels nice,” he said, turning his head for a kiss. “You want a glass of Champagne?”

“Fine,” she said, moving away from him now, “yes, I would like that, but I am looking for the hammer I have just bought-have you seen this hammer?”