Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Olivia got her pouty face. “I didn’t know I’d be putting you out.”

“You mean because I probably wouldn’t be doing anything important anyway, except throwing something together for Papa and me to eat? We’re having Stouffer’s lasagna, if it’s any of your business — which it isn’t.”

“You’re too young to be going through the change. I wish you would tell me what this is about.”

Jocelyn sat down on the sofa. “The problem, Olivia, is that you don’t know what the problem is — not you or Luis or Marco or Vic. Or Papa.”

Olivia sat down on the sofa next to her younger sister. “I miss Mama too. But we all have to get on with our lives, baby sister.”

Jocelyn didn’t speak at first. She stared at Olivia with disbelief and contempt. Then she said, “I hated our mother. I wanted her dead so my family indentureship would end. She died too late.”

“I don’t think you mean that.”

“I do.”

“And Ernesto wasn’t good for you. I was happy when the two of you broke up.”

“We didn’t break up. He left me. He got tired of waiting. How long did you make Mark wait?”

“Our situations are very different. Are you going to give me the recipe or not?”

“Not. And get out of my house. It’s the only thing I’ve ever gotten from this family, and I’m looking forward to the day that Papa drops dead so I can truly have it all to myself.”

“I don’t believe that you’ve become this person. I won’t believe it.”

“Please leave, Olivia. Go.”

Olivia left, taking her indignation and Reddi-wipped victim complex with her.

Ruben Lucero came home twenty minutes later. Jocelyn served him Stouffer’s meat sauce lasagna. They had a beer. Jocelyn and her father didn’t usually talk much during the quiet evenings following Francine Lucero’s death. They spoke to each other at the store — about shop business — and that seemed enough for one day.

Tonight was different. There was something Ruben very much wanted to discuss with his daughter. And he had something to give her.

It was a brochure for a Caribbean cruise line. “It’s for one of those singles cruises. Your mother and I decided after Ernesto — well, we decided that you needed to get away, that you needed to meet some men who weren’t anything like that sly little weasel.”

“This was Mama’s idea too?”

“Yes. In the end. I did have to do a little persuading, but she came around. Then she had all that trouble in the spring, and the woman we were going to get to come in to help her out in the summer — well, it didn’t work out. And then, of course, she died, God rest her soul. So go on the cruise. Have a wonderful time. Start your life, Corazon .”

“You haven’t called me that in years.”

“It’s time I picked it up again.”

Jocelyn got up from the table. She reached down and gave him a hug. She picked up the travel brochure. “This is the name of the ship? It’s a odd name for a ship.”

Ruben agreed.

Deus ex Machina . It was indeed a very odd name for a ship.

“All right. Comments? Impressions? Yes, Derrick?”

“I understand that we’re supposed to make these comments as positive and constructive as possible, but to be honest, I thought the ending sucked.”

“That isn’t helpful.”

“No, that’s okay. Tell me, Derrick. Tell me why my ending sucked.”

“It was too clever by half. It felt author-intrusive.”

“What do you mean by ‘author-intrusive’? Your hand is up, Sheila. What do you think Derrick means by ‘author-intrusive’?”

“The author calling attention to herself through a transparent manipulation of the story elements. It also sounds like she wrote herself into a corner and had to call upon the proverbial gods for deliverance.”

“Derrick’s right. I did write myself into a corner. Because I knew that in reality, Jocelyn was destined to spend the rest of her life working for her father — both in the Old Town shop and at home — and then after he died, living alone. Pretty dreary stuff.”

“Cynthia, you’re being very quiet back there. Perhaps you might like to contribute something here?”

“Not really. It sounds like Campbell knows what’s wrong with her story. It doesn’t have a realistic ending.”

“But taking the story overall, do you think that she did a good job of fleshing out her characters — creating a plausible narrative up to a point?”

“Yes.”

Cynthia didn’t elaborate. She didn’t know Campbell. She knew that Campbell had no window into her own life, yet it was uncanny how closely her own life story resembled that of Jocelyn Lucero’s. Cynthia even lived in the Albuquerque’s North Valley not that far from Candelaria .

It gave her pause. It gave her chills, actually. She was the youngest. She was left behind to take care of her mother — a mother who was constantly ill but never too ill not to keep plodding on, with the help of Cynthia’s filial love and attendance. It was a wonder that Cynthia was able to get away for the creative writing class she took two nights a week at UNM .

Cynthia liked the idea of a cruise. It served her escape fantasy .

Five days later that fantasy became a reality when Cynthia Baca bought a ticket for a Caribbean singles cruise and disappeared for a month. Her two brothers and two sisters were horrified, her mother devastated to be abandoned by her baby — someone who up until that point had been so dependable, so lovingly self-sacrificing .

Cynthia sent Campbell a postcard from the Bahamas in care of the school, thanking her for providing the impetus for her liberation, thanking Campbell for the chance to meet Paul in Freeport and then Kent in Nassau and then Danny in the midnight buffet line aboard ship. Because Cynthia had been transformed by this act of self-empowerment. At the age of thirty-eight she’d finally come into her own .

In Cynthia’s enthusiastic opinion, continuing education classes had the potential to be life-altering experiences .

“That ending is simply horrible, Anita. You can’t be serious about entering that story into the writing competition.”

“Dead serious, Sis. And I intend to win that all-expenses-paid trip to New York City, and Mama will just have to fend for herself. On second thought, you can drive down from Santa Fe and stay with her yourself. For once.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s a long story.”

“And this is where it ends?”

“Yes.”

Just as she said she would, Mrs. Richman (“Oh, please, call me Natalia!”) arrived at 5:30.

“Is there anybody in America besides bakers and dairy farmers who gets up before 5:30?” Jeremy had groggily inquired as he pulled the coffee pot from the coffee maker.

“Mrs. Richman can hear you,” Erin said from the dining room.

“Oh, please, call me Natalia!”

Natalia looked around the room. It was everything Erin and her brother Jeremy had said it would be: a hoarder’s trove of Roy Rogers memorabilia. “Your grandfather had quite an extensive collection. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve been doing estate sales for over twenty years.”

Natalia’s hand fell upon a framed, autographed portrait of all the members of the singing group, Sons of the Pioneers, which Roy had formed in the early thirties, back when he was still Leonard Slye of Cincinnati, Ohio. “How long did it take your grandfather to assemble this collection?”