The past never ends, p.23
The Past Never Ends, page 23
At the shiny glass counter, Chester waited behind an SUV mother as her two small sons chose pastries, changed their minds, and changed them back again. After the wait, he returned to his table.
"Thanks," Maria said, as he placed the fresh cup in front of her. Her voice was quiet, pensive.
"It costs more at Crazy Snake's than at the Hot'n'Hearty because they give you a clean mug for refills," Chester said as he sat down.
Maria nodded and stared nowhere. The lawyer started to speak, but didn't. He blew at his steaming mug, tasted the smooth, pungent beverage, and let the silence be. A minute passed.
"I bet you think it's pretty damn silly sitting here with a strip dancer who's talking to ya about opening up her own coast-to-coast jewelry boutiques, don't ya?" she said, looking to the black darkness through the windows.
"No, it would be pretty damn silly if you told me the only thing you thought you could do was to marry a rich man and have babies," Morgan said. "In ten years, I plan to walk down Rodeo Drive and into your Beverly Hills store and get a discount because I'm a friend of the owner. Learn the business well, Maria."
She moved forward and closer; Chester smelled her scent of spice and tobacco. "Do you really, really think I could do it? I mean my own line of jewelry, my own stores?"
"I know you could."
Maria looked up, her sapphire eyes wet. "You really do, don't you?"
Morgan nodded. "Why the hell not?"
"Goddamit," she muttered quietly, leaning back against her chair. "I've got something to show ya."
***
A stark yellow bulb glowed onto the wooden porch of Maria's white clapboard house and an autumn breeze off the prairie rustled overgrown cedars in the yard. Maria stuck a key into the stubborn door lock, pulled, turned, pushed, and opened. The stoop's wooden planks squeaked beneath Chester Morgan's shifting weight. A light switch flipped inside.
"Come on in," she said.
"It's quiet out here," Chester said as he walked into the old ranch house and smelled sandalwood, cedar, and tobacco. "It must make for some nice morning sleeping."
"Yeah," Maria said as she grabbed a pile of clothes off a blue corduroy divan and threw them into a laundry basket. "Except for the peacocks."
"The peacocks?"
"'Didn't get the clothes folded before I left," she replied, carrying the basket down the hall. "Have a seat. I'll be right back."
Morgan sunk into the couch. A big screen TV and a music system with large black speakers stood against the opposite wall. "Tell me about the peacocks," he called.
"The guy down the road has some." Maria came back into the living room. "'Can be about the noisiest damn critters I ever heard."
"What does he do with 'em?"
"Well, he doesn't ever tell 'em to shut up."
"I mean, does he raise 'em for the feathers or what?"
"'Guess so. 'Ain't ever seen no peacock filet at the meat counter in the grocery store, have you?" Maria turned a light on in the adjoining dining room. "Hey, this is what I wanted to show you." She opened a gray wooden door and motioned Chester to follow.
The room was painted bright white. Near the door, a worktable held molds, a burner, crucibles, a polishing machine, magnifying glasses, and tiny hand tools. A large wooden cabinet had been built into the side of the room and adjoining it, a stainless steel sink. A rock tumbler murmured on the counter.
"This is my studio," she said. "That sounds kinda highfalutin', doesn't it, but that's what it is. This is where I make my jewelry."
"Tell me how you take an idea and make it into an object?"
"'Ya really want to know?"
Chester nodded.
Maria opened one of the large cabinet doors and took out a three-ringed binder. "First, ya got to see the piece in your own mind." She opened the notebook to pages and pages of pencil-sketched drawings. "I got so many ideas, I don't know if I'll ever get'em all made. There are some days, I just sit out on that back porch and inspiration just seems to pour out of the sky. I cain't hardly scribble fast enough." She thumbed through the pages and stopped. "This here is this cross I'm wearing."
Chester looked at the sketching.
"They don't ever come out exactly like they look here. You imagine 'em, draw 'em, and make 'em. The drawing's the least reliable thing. What I see in my own mind, that's what I end up gettin'. Most of the time anyways."
"I would have recognized it," Chester said. "Do you mind if I look at your drawings?" And he saw light pencil lines of rings, studs, brooches, and bracelets. Some delicate, some bold. Some with stones and gems. Some with silver and gold. Others bold or frilly in design. All unique. "After you get the idea, what do you do?"
"Well, it all depends on what it is. Ya gotta figure out how you're goin' do it. Make it, I mean. That's kinda the hard part. Let's take a simple ring." She moved to the worktable. "I'll shape it outa wax and then pour this stuff like plaster of paris around it in a can. Then you fire the plaster in the kiln and you have a mold. Heat up whatever metal you're goin' to use and pour it in. Ya let it set, ya take it out, get off the rough edges, and hand tool it until it looks like what you want. Then, polish it up. If I like it, I keep the mold, make more maybe. If I don't, I put it back in the pot, melt it, and start all over again." She smiled. "I do a lot of pourin' and remeltin'." Maria put her hand on the small of Chester's back. "God, I didn't even offer you a drink. 'Want somethin'?"
"Sure," he said.
"Now, if you're usin' stones or gems, ya gotta figure out how the piece is going to hold 'em," she said, showing him a rose quartz ring. "Right now, I'm pretty much stickin' to stones if I use anything at all. I got some turquoise shinin' up in the tumbler. Let's get those drinks."
Morgan followed the woman in the plaid western shirt and tight blue jeans through the dining area into the kitchen, stacked with dirty dishes and glasses. "What do you do with the jewelry you make?"
"Right now, not a whole lot. I'm savin' up, learnin'," Maria said, as she opened cabinet doors and pulled out a two-liter bottle of tequila. "I sometimes sell stuff to the girls at work. Until Exotica poisoned Bruce's mind, I used bring some of it there and sell it at Christmas time and Valentine's to the guys. Talk about a good mark up, jees! You could sell gravel at a hundred dollars an ounce to some of those guys if ya flash 'em your boobs and talk sweet, but I ain't sure it's such a good idea to sell my darlin's in a tittie bar. I mean I want people to buy my stuff and know it's high class." She shook the bottle of Jose Cuervo and poured two or three drops into the sink. "Oh, hell! Caffeine and tequila make ya so fun crazy. Oh, well."
"Do you have some bourbon?" Morgan asked.
"Not bourbon," she said, frowning. "It just makes ya sad and sentimental. With all that coffee, you'd just be awake all night bawlin'."
Maria opened the refrigerator door and funky, fruity cool air escaped. "How about some -- " She shifted some plastic containers and bowls around, then paused. "'Wonder what the hell that is?" She peeked inside a faded plastic butter container and shrugged. "Still don't know." Maria fumbled around some more and pulled out a large-bottomed green bottle. "Some sangria wine?"
"I haven't had sangria wine since -- " Morgan stopped.
"Makes you silly and crazy," she said. She took a couple of mismatched wine glasses from a cabinet shelf and jutted her hip. "I promise."
"Pour it, sweetheart."
The piquant citrus burn reminded him of high school nights and summers of parked cars on deserted country roads. He smiled and lifted his glass to a toast. He leaned against the counter and heard the clatter of dishes falling, jarring and settling into the sink. They laughed and Maria touched her glass to his.
"Hey mister, go sit on the couch," she said. "I've got more to show you."
As Chester sipped the sangria in the living room, he heard from the workshop the click-click-clicking of a safe's tumbler, the opening of a heavy door, and it closing. Maria returned carrying a small, velvet lined tray, and a long, narrow box. She fell into him as she sat on the couch.
"I left my wine out there," she said, getting back up. Silver stars glittered on the black velvet of the tray. Chester picked up the smallest one, held it in the light, and admired its tiny detail.
"That's to wear if ya got anything pierced." She settled back onto the couch. "Surprise me," she said.
Chester shook his head. "'Don't care for needles much."
"Me neither," she admitted, "'just about had to morphine me to get my ears pierced."
Morgan's hands touched the small silver pieces and he remembered how he was here. A gruesome murder, a cover-up if there was any investigation, and the people of Kiowa Heights always insisting they asked no questions.
"You figured it the first night we met," Maria said. "You said I wore these earrings for Tanya, and I do, and I'm goin' to keep wearing 'em for her, too. For as long as it takes. This whole line is because of Star." She took the tray and set it on the coffee table. "Here, open the box. It's for you."
Chester lifted the lid and saw a silver-clasped bolo tie, a star to match the design of Maria's earrings in its center. "How kind," he said, lifting it from the box. "It's beautiful."
Maria smiled and blushed.
Chester admired the western tie. "You shouldn't give such fine gifts. It's worth a lot of money, I'm sure."
"You're the only one who's steppin' over the line to do right by my little blondie, my best friend. I made it for ya, but I didn't know if I'd ever be able to give it to ya."
Chester saw Maria's reflection in the shiny medallion, distorted by the outline of the star.
"If it was me who was gone," she said, "and Tanya who stayed, she'd sing a song for ya."
Chester leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
"You can do better than that," she said.
Chester kissed her wet, full lips and lost himself for a moment in their softness. Maria put her hands on his shoulders, pulled away, and shook her head. "Knew you could do better," she said, smiled. Her hand reached for her glass of sangria and before she took a big swig, she mumbled, "Goddamit!"
Chester fingered his bolo tie and said: "This really is a great gift, especially the reason you gave it."
"I've got something else to show you," she said, taking him by the hand, and helping him off the sofa. She giggled and stopped. "'Cain't forget our crazy wine."
They walked arm in arm to the sliding glass doors. "This is why I rent this little old house and drive twenty-five miles to work every day." Maria opened the door and they walked out onto a concrete patio. Silver-dusted stars lit the rolling hills of the Oklahoma prairie. "Fuck the peacocks. Look at that sky!"
Chester let her arm drop and crossed the grass to a barbed wire fence. Maria rushed to catch up with him. A night wind rattled the dying prairie bluestem.
"Look out into the universe," he said. "We're seeing things that have already happened. That little twinkling light might be a star, burned out, and gone twenty-five million years ago, but its image reaches us just now, tonight. The light from this planet earth is reflecting into space as we stand here. As that light travels, it becomes the measurable past -- not just seconds or minutes -- but days, weeks, months, and years. You know what that means? It means the past is still happening out there somewhere, maybe not in a way that can be discerned, but as real as our light and images."
"And somewhere Tanya's still singing," Maria said, her voice still. "Maybe the past is still happenin', but not out there. Here." She shivered. "Chester, I'm cold."
He put his arm around her, felt her flesh, felt her youth, and sighed.
In the prairie darkness, a coyote howled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
An empty large-bottomed wine bottle sat on the dresser of Maria's cramped bedroom. Chester Morgan and the young woman perched against the edge of the mattress of an old, high four-poster bed. His hands were on the flesh of the upper rise of her hips; hers, on his bare swimmer's shoulders. Their lips touched, kissed, pulled, played. Her jeans, unbuttoned; his pants, entwined around his feet.
"Hey," Maria said, drawing back, "I almost forgot I's supposed to tip ya." She slipped off her jeans, dropped off the bed, and wobbled, rolling to the door where her purse hung on the knob. Morgan focused, watching as she bent to get money out of her billfold.
"I know I've got one," she said. "They must think I own a bill changer when I go to the bank."
Chester sensed the air against his flesh and looked at his pants and feet. He drawled, "This is ridiculous." He lifted one foot to put over his knee and the other foot pulled up behind it. "Guess that won't work," he said, unfolding his legs and struggling to unknot and slip off his pants. "There's gotta be more dignified ways to get undressed."
"What kind of stripper would I be if I cain't even dig up a single dollar bill?" Maria said, rooting around in her purse with this and that falling out unnoticed to the floor. "Ah, found one." She swayed back over to the bed and pushed herself up onto the mattress. She stuffed the cash in the shiny fabric of her bra.
"Now stand up here and look at me," she said. "Ya don't have to dance or nuthin'. Just imagine there's loud 'lectronic music playin', it's smoky, and there's black lights 'n' mirrors in here."
Chester stood without shoes, pants, shirt. He laughed and Maria took the one dollar bill from her décolletage, slipped it into his plaid boxers, and lingered.
"Either you're happy to see me," she said and touched, "or we've just found Elvis." She kissed him with sloppy, wet lips.
Chester reached to embrace her, but instead let his arms drop. He sighed, silent for a moment. "I'm old enough to be --"
Maria grabbed his hips and eased him to her. "Besides you, who the fuck cares?" He felt her cool, moist skin and he held her against his chest and beating heart. She sighed, turned her head away, and muttered quietly, "Goddamit!"
They rolled onto the four-poster bed, frenzied and tearing off the rest of each other's clothes. Lips locked to lips. Hands, fingers roaming, fondling, caressing sinew and flesh, moving into the soft white waves of the sheets.
Urging, aching, pulsing.
Yearning, wild, inviting, melting.
Rolling, moving, shaking.
Naked bodies dancing under thin cotton sheets and a worn quilt.
"Hust m mmmonit," Maria said, almost biting off her tongue, or his. Loosening her lips and catching breath, she said, "Just a minute." She put her hand at the top of the covers spread over Chester's chest. "'Ya mind if I take a good long look? Promise ya won't get mad?"
"Why not?"
Maria threw back the sheets and the hand-stitched quilt and stared at his nude body. "Oooohohooo!" And then laughed, really laughed.
Chester felt himself sinking. "What? What? I know I'm --"
She put her finger to his lip to shush him, but kept laughing. "You men!" she snorted. "Ya got names for 'em; ya give 'em lives of their own; but, just see, it's crazy lookin'. 'Always are, always have been, I guess."
The attorney chuckled and shook his head.
"Hey, it ain't your fault cause God made men look ridiculous naked," she said, propping her head up and looking at him. She giggled and laughed some more. "Cause you look ridiculous, and sweet, and magnificent. Come here." She kissed and mouthed his neck, pressed her heavy breasts against him, and lightning touched the thick flesh at the juncture of his thighs. Chester laughed.
He touched the corner of Maria's eye and brushed her mussed hair away from her face. "Let me admire you," he whispered. He ran his finger over her cheek, neck, and circled a tiny beauty spot on her shoulder. He raised her hand over her head and floated his lips, tongue along the underside of her arm. One, then the other. She shivered, resisted, relaxed, murmuring soothing sound.
He nibbled at her neck and then down, down to rose bud blooms on rises of white satin; ripe strawberries sinking into soft ice cream. He touched, caressed, teased. She quivered and gasped.
"Please," she said, entwining her fingers through his hair and squeezing him tightly to her chest. He nuzzled and kissed -- one, the other, both -- and felt her pleasure. Moments, slow and rich, passed and her fingers pushed down his muscled back. Chester's body loosened and a deep primitive sound uttered from his lips.
His hands slid to her narrow waist, then to widening hips. His lips lingered over her tight stomach. She giggled, muscles rippling, shaking. His fingers danced to black damp forest and to her spreading center.
"Let's ride 'em, cowboy!" she said, twisting to turn off the lamp, and easing him onto his back and straddling. With each opening, she moaned. With each descent, she laughed.
"Oh, my God," he groaned, hands enclosing, kneading, feeling.
Hips rode on hips. Breasts touched at the hair of masculine chest, then spacious nipple rubbed nipple, and at each beat, Maria giggled or moaned. More and more and more. Garbled words, sounds, gasps. Chester smelled her scent, felt heat within him flow and contract, rendering control powerless. Her laughter stopped, turned to deep sighs and dark sound, then hot, rapid breath against Chester's neck, her thick black hair across his face. Her movement jolted to rhythmic jerks; over, over and over until a panther shriek, bursting release, and collapse onto Chester's expanding, contracting chest.
Not yet, he thought, please, pressing her hips solidly to him, and biting his lip. Not yet, not yet. He gasped, held.
Maria let her arms sink around him and they breathed and breathed.
"It's been a long time," she mumbled, kissing him lightly on his cheek and neck.
"You think it's been a long time," he said. His hips bucked, aching, wanting, yearning.
Maria slipped off and straddled his chest. She turned to look behind her and patted. In a breathy voice, she said, "Hold on, buster. The night's just started." Her hands massaged Chester's face and head. Her fingers reached into the tight muscles of his neck, shoulders, touching deep and forgotten places. Then further into his arms, hands, chest, hips.
"Maria...Maria..." A mantra as touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound merged. "Maria...Maria...Maria..." He reached for her, all of her, touching her glowing skin, at once cool and warm, soft and firm. Maria turned abruptly, pressing her hands down the muscle of his thighs and calves. Chester mindlessly played with the globe of her hips and traced the curves down her long silky legs.
