She got Caitriona’s number from Adam’s phone, beeped the digits into her own, and typed:
I know you’re in love with Adam. I know it. And trust me, I get it.
Minnie stared at those words, those letters, those symbols representing whatever they represented, in the language they both knew. She sent the text, then deleted it from her phone. She went to the bathroom, washed her face, flossed, brushed her teeth. She went into her purse and put that rose quartz on her nightstand. She didn’t believe in crystals, but she liked knowing it was there. She took off her clothes and got into bed with Adam. She’d tell him about Connor soon. And maybe he’d tell her the truth about Caitriona too. Soon enough. Maybe Adam knew about Connor already, the same way she already knew about Caitriona. Minnie fell asleep quickly, only to gasp awake with anxiety fifteen minutes later. Her heart, tap dancing. She arched her back and cooed like a dove, relieved when her husband reached over and moved her hair—his fingers, her nape, the lown dark.
Unknown Legend
She wanted to work in a diner because Neil Young sang about it in “Unknown Legend.” That romance. That wistful, dusty harmonica. Her hair wasn’t blond, it was black. She changed the words whenever she sang the song. Turned blond to black with her voice, like a witch casting a spell. But no, she wouldn’t like to ride a Harley-Davidson because motorcycles scared her. Her ex had a motorcycle and she used to ride on the back of his, but that was different because he made her feel safe. He’d turn around a lot at stop signs and red lights and say, you’re okay. And she liked how he said it without the question mark. He told her she was okay and she believed him. She believed him as much as she believed in the very air she breathed.
She’d moved to the desert towns seeking magic—Joshua Tree, the Mojave, Taos. She loved all of them. Deserts sparked her heart. She didn’t like to stay in one place too long. How could she be an unknown legend if she were known? She got a tiny cactus tattoo on the inside of her wrist, a small crescent moon above it. She’d told the tattoo artist it was her fortieth birthday and that she had promised herself she’d get a tattoo on her fortieth birthday. She never broke her own promises. When she walked out of the tattoo parlor—her smarting, tender wrist in the sun—she went to the drugstore to buy an expensive matte nude lipstick, a cheap glossy one too, so she could compare. She also bought two bottles of white wine. She was forty and it felt like a very forty thing to do. So did going back to her apartment with her new tattoo and putting on her pajamas and watching Law & Order: SVU with Thai takeout and her wine.
The diner wasn’t far from her apartment. She could walk there in the morning, but she didn’t like walking home alone at night. She drove herself to the night shifts, drove herself back home with the tall yellow-white lamps strobe-lighting up the inside of her truck. Flashing, flashing. Sometimes she’d think of her motorcycle ex and wonder if he was still married. Where did they go wrong? How could love silently fall away like a petal, without them noticing?
There was one new cook at the diner she liked enough. He was quiet and gentle, so unlike the other men she’d known and been with. She didn’t want a boyfriend for the same reasons she didn’t want a pet, but the idea of a husband was nice. Someone who smelled good, someone who would cut their grass once she saved up enough to move out of the apartment, once she decided to stay put for long enough to buy a house. She would be a known legend then. Known by her husband, a man. A man who would lie underneath her truck with only his legs sticking out and push himself up with black grease-dirty hands and wink when he told her he’d taken care of things. He’d fixed it. Whatever it was. Fixed. A man with a spirit as kind and calm as Neil Young’s ghostly, barely-there voice. A man whose spirit made her feel the same way Neil Young’s songs made her feel. Autumnal. Dreamy.
There were two diner customers she liked well enough. One was a trucker, always passing through. And he’d say it as she put his coffee on the counter, his eggs and toast. Passing through. He’d told her he liked to sit at the counter for company. He’d told her the road was lonesome. He was divorced and bearded. His kids were in college. One morning after her shift, they’d gotten a booth and had some coffee together, but she didn’t tell him anything deep about herself. Unknown. She remained a mystery. She promised herself if he came back three more times that month, she’d tell him something that third time. So far it’d been only two.
The other diner customer was the man who owned the hardware store across the street. A cozy little spot that smelled so good, sometimes she’d go over there on her breaks and wander around. He was definitely married and deliciously off-limits, but he was so nice and tender-hearted, she couldn’t help but be drawn to him. When he came in the diner, he didn’t sit at the counter. He sat at a booth by the window. He wasn’t lonely. He didn’t need the company.
One day, she saw him crying in the booth. Not sobbing, but wiping his eyes, looking at his phone. And when it was time for his refill, she approached him carefully. Poured. Asked if he was okay. And he told her he was fine. He’d be fine. It was just that he and his wife had thought their young son was sick, really sick, and his wife had texted him from the hospital and told him the tests finally came back clear. He was crying from relief. He’d been at the hospital with them early that morning and only left to open the hardware store, to keep it open. And he’d given himself ten minutes to take a break, to come over and have a cup of coffee. He hadn’t had a day off in months, he said. He said his wife couldn’t call him yet, but she would soon. He said his wife and son would be going home. He couldn’t stop talking to her in that booth and she loved it. She sat across from him for a little bit, took her break right there with him and listened to him talk about his son, show her pictures. She’d miss him most of all when she left. She had to leave. It was how she’d stay unknown.
But she told herself she wouldn’t leave until the trucker stopped back in for the third time that month. And when he stopped back in for the third time, she’d tell him something she hadn’t ever told anyone else and then she’d leave. On the last day of the month with the clock almost running out, he stopped in. Passing through. She asked if he would mind if she took her break with him. Asked him if he’d like to get a booth with her. He said yes.
He was surprised she knew how to drive a stick shift. He liked that she was from Kentucky. He asked if she’d grown up riding horses. They talked about Neil Young and how she always listened to Harvest Moon when the harvest moon was full. A superstition. He said he’d start doing it too and think of her. For good luck. She asked him to show her his truck and when they went outside to stand next to it, she put her hand on his stomach. Touched him, gently. Told him she loved the desert towns, that she was still waiting for that magic kiss. And she cupped her hand around his ear and like she promised herself, she told him a secret. Something she’d never told anyone else. His beard was brushing against her face—soft soft soft—when he was squeezing and hugging her, so sweet and tight.
Low, Small
We were a dying wasp. The only thing I still liked about him was the shape of his nose when he was looking down. Not enough. He would get his words twisted around when he was upset. He’d say gold bright instead of bright gold. Light the turn on instead of turn the light on. Tiny things, which kept his anger small. Small. In bed I curled into a catlike C, tightened myself to the edge. I was on a boat lost at sea—there was fog, there was rain. I made a C, I was lost at sea, I couldn’t see. He was careful not to touch me, afraid I would scream. There were nights when I would’ve screamed and other nights when I would’ve let out an ocean-water sigh, a beckon, a beacon of sound. Low, small. When he came inside from cutting the grass, my husband wove a thick ribbon of good-stinky animal musk from the back door to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the shower. It was leathery, whiskey and wood. Beard and muscle, it was breath and sweat; it was a swallowing shadow of man and men. A darkening cloud, a cup emptying and filling up. His hulking enormity, made slight. It brought me back to him—a smoky, creepy, long, sharp-nailed cartoon finger. I met him in the hallway and told him our love was decoration. We wore it like jewelry, slipped the thin posts into the holes in our ears, slid slim goldbright bands over our wrinkly knuckles. We were deep-green parsley on a runny-yellow dinner plate. Garnish. I took his rough hand. Led him to the teeming backyard gardens where the bees hung and swung. Hovered low, small. “Our love is sad. We need to grow it,” I said, stretching my arms wide, wider. Widest. Titchy fireflies winked neon light around us, the grass was summer-soft beneath our bare feet. I approached the blinding goldbright throne of a God I’d made low, small; I prayed for efflorescence.