The bagel pops out of the toaster, and I push the button down again. Sage thinks I’m some kind of freak because I like all my toasted bread just one shade shy of burnt, but honestly, she uses the toaster more like a warmer than anything else, grabbing the bread after it’s been heating for all of five seconds. She may as well popherbagel in the microwave and she thinksI’mthe freak? “What kind of leads?”
“Well, we’ve found a marriage certificate dated from 1993. The marriage was annulled only two months later, and the former groom passed away a decade ago.”
“What was his name?” I ask as my heart picks up.
“Richard Sanchez.”
It doesn’t ring any bells, but why would it? It’s not like we were ever introduced to any of Mama’s boyfriends, not even our fathers. Given the timeline, though, this was probably the man Mama left us for. The impatient jackass in his big truck, revving the engine to hurry up a woman saying goodbye to her daughterfor the last time ever. Maybe it makes me a bad person to say it, but I don’t feel a single bit sad at learning he’s dead.
Gerald lists me other things they’ve found—a broken deed on a house from years ago, an apartment rented for all of two weeks. I’m halfway done with my bagel when he asks, “Look, this might sound weird, but has your mom ever gone by the name Vivienne?”
I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “Uh, no, not to my knowledge.”
“It’s not a family name or anything?”
I try to remember if Nadia has ever mentioned the name in her long stories about our lineage, but nothing comes up. “Nope.”
“We just found a woman who has kind of a stage name or something, Vivienne Cora. Some of her performances and art shows seemed to coincide with your mom’s whereabouts over the years. But we can’t find Viv’s real name—all the galleries she’s worked with no longer exist.” He grunts out another sigh. “We’ll keep going, Teal. Lots of cases start slow, and then one big lead makes things get real hot, real fast.”
Inexplicably, I think of the woman at the beach. The one in the distance during the lightning storm. She was on one side of the cackling electricity between us, and I was on the other. A scene drew itself in actual lightning between us—me, a baby, running after Mama, begging her to stay.
What if that woman on the beach was Mama?
Even as the thought comes, I push it away. I have no evidence whatsoever that it could be her. Probably she was just someone who got caught in a bad storm and looked up and witnessed another woman get struck by the most bizarre lightning anyone had ever seen. I don’t know anyone who would’ve been able to tear their eyes away from such a spectacle.
I thank him before hanging up, and then I take some pain pillsbefore limping to wash up and change and sit on my bed, looking out the window in a daze.
The sky is as blue as crushed blueberries swirled into yogurt, with streams of clouds bobbing by, light as meringue topping. The sea is gray like some of Sage’s Montana sapphire jewelry, slate blue set into silver. Lots of families have packed themselves on the shoreline, their bathing suits looking like tropical flowers against the more subdued sky, sea, and sand.
It was like the lightning storm never even happened. And what if…what if the part where I saw people-shaped lightningreallydidn’t happen? Can people hallucinate when they’re being electrocuted? I didn’t even think to ask Carter if he’d seen it. I was too caught up in the way he slid his tongue inside me, I guess.
My entire body heats at the memory, with my chest and stomach and some…lower…places tingling as though a hundred Fourth-of-July sparklers were lit too close to my skin. Jesus, Carter is good at oral. I’ve never been with a guy who was like that before. Johnny obviously was never into it, with him having to cover me in melon-flavored lube just to withstand fifteen seconds of it. And Nate…Natesaidhe liked it just fine, but he held his tongue so far away from me that it got cold. And then it felt like he was rubbing a refrigerated sea creature along my clit. Maybe some women are into ice play, but I’m not one of them.
Carter did things to me I didn’t even know I wanted. I didn’t know it could feel like that. I didn’t know any part of a man could feel better than a vibrator.
But what good is knowing that doing me? Carter made it clear that he didn’t want me the way I want him. Now all I have is the knowledge of how amazing he is with at least one part of sex, and also the humiliation that he only did it out of pity, not ’cause he really wanted to.I don’t think I want you the same way you want me.
I bury my face in my hands. I need to get over my husband. Which means I need even more of a distraction than the throb of my ankle.
I limp toward my dresser and pull out my familiar, wrinkled little piece of paper.
New Year’s Resolutions for Teal Flores
Stop being selfish.
Make it up to Sage.
Make it up to Sky.
