Luke had a ferocity to his face that she hadn’t seen before.
“I doubt I can heal myself,” she laughed. “Maybe I should try, though, huh?” When she did try to sit up, she tasted blood and knew it was streaming from her lips.
“I can do it,” he said. And he touched her and she felt she could breathe again. “We can have more time.” He pulled her tighter. “I’m so sorry, Sandra. I was such a jealous fool.”
She met his eyes. It was so tempting to stay with him a little longer and to make things right between them, but she shook her head. “Don’t.”
The very last sight of him was one of a man crumbling. She recalled the same sight when Nora died, but this one looked even worse. He shifted to his knees and still cradled her head with his hands. “Please, Sandra. Don’t leave me. Let me try.”
“Don’t,” she repeated. “Luke,” she said so softly, as she struggled to breathe, that he leaned down to hear her. “Maybe next time,
huh?”
“Don’t say that,” said Luke, shaking his head.
“Next one…” Sandra was nodding.
She felt him kiss her forehead. “I’ll see you in the next one.”
Then there was a sudden heaviness, like someone tugging on her from below the floor. It felt as if she were being sucked through the floorboards, but the hands were so warm and Sandra was so cold.
28
Helen Lambert
Washington, DC, June 17–18, 2012
I was dizzy—Sandra’s story had put so many of the pieces together for me. It was, in some ways, the story I’d been waiting to hear. Sandra had also known the curse had to end. She just died before she could figure out how to do it.
Sandra had been shot. I reached down to touch my ribs, almost expecting a scar, but it didn’t work that way and I knew it. But it was also the realization that Luke had known everything that Sandra had done with Aurora Garcia—every intimate detail—that sent a shiver down my spine.
He’d said it was part of the job, but that meant he had to know what I was planning—the trip to France, the knife… And yet here he was sleeping beside me pretending that he didn’t know. I also remembered Sandra’s question to him about whether the curse could be broken and his refusal to answer her. Did he know the curse could be broken? Was he letting me map a path to breaking it?
I took a shower quickly and pulled on a Missoni dress that had always been my favorite. As I held it up, it reminded me of the house in Taos. It was a knit dress with a chevron pattern in pinks, browns, and beiges. I’d worn this dress a dozen times and never noticed it fully and never even wondered why I had been so drawn to it. I looked in my closet to find I had six versions of it.
There were two missed calls from my mother and one from an Austin phone number, which I thought must have been a return call from Hugh Markwell. I felt guilty for ignoring my mother. Five days to go until my birthday and my mother had started asking me for present ideas. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the likelihood that I was going to need a cake this year was slim. And then that made me sad. What else was I going to miss in this world?
Pushing through In Frame’s doors, I saw that the July issue was fresh from the printer and sitting in boxes in the lobby. Cracking open a box, I pulled out the shiny issue with the horse cover. It would probably be my last. What would happen to the magazine after I was gone? Everything I owned went to my mother, but I couldn’t see her running a magazine.
I thought about my mother a lot. I didn’t share Sandra’s feelings that my mother was a stand-in. This mother felt like my mother. I sat on the sofa, rather than the desk chair, and curled up, kicking off my heels. Perusing the issue, I was hit by the sweet smell of ink. It was one of my favorite smells, ink on paper. I looked around the office and considered my life. I liked my life here. It wasn’t perfect, but if I failed at breaking the curse, this life had not been a bad one. It had its ups and downs, but that was normal. I considered Juliet, Nora, and Sandra—my life had been mundane compared with theirs. Roger and I had not had the drama of Billy and Nora or even Rick and Sandra. We’d been normal people.
My phone buzzed to remind me that I had an unanswered message. I listened to it.
Hi. This is Hugh Markwell returning your call. Wow. I’d love to talk with you about the band. I don’t know how you found me, but I haven’t spoken about that stuff for years. My number is…
Sandra’s story had left me feeling strangely whole. So many things about who I was were clear to me now. The fact that it all might be erased again in five days just felt so senseless to me after the gathering of all the memories of my lives. I had such a nostalgia for Hugh and the band. I could almost smell the eucalyptus trees outside Rick and Kim’s house. I dialed his number, and he answered on the first ring.
“This is Hugh Markwell.”
“Mr. Markwell. It’s Helen Lambert from In Frame magazine.”
“It’s so good to hear from you, Ms. Lambert. I did a bunch of research on you before I called you back. You have a really nice publication.” He chuckled. It was Hugh’s wonderful, pure laugh that I’d missed so much. “Tell me something. How did you hear about No Exit?”
I hadn’t anticipated this question. Why hadn’t I anticipated this? I tugged at my hair, searching for an answer. “I was out in LA recently. A friend of mine was saying he’d seen this great band play once and he didn’t know what became of them.”
Hugh sighed. “To think that someone remembered us… well that’s pretty special.” He had a slight lilt to his voice—one he’d likely acquired from living in Texas. “We had no idea what we were doing. It was my sixth band and nothing had stuck. Lily and I were young and in love—Lily was my first wife.”
Hearing those names again. I’d just lived this life over the past few days. It was so fresh to me and Hugh was giving life to it. It was real.
“Lily Leotta?”
“Yes. She became Lily Markwell, but…” His voice fell. “Lily drowned off Stinson Bay in 1978. So many people were lost in those times. We used to practice at my sister’s house up in Laurel Canyon. We were up on Lookout Mountain where all the really cool bands were. Hell, Mama Cass was our neighbor. My brother-in-law died over in Vietnam. My sister moved back with my dad. The whole thing just kind of came to a dead stop. We’d been down in Taos. This guy offered us a chance to cut a record so we all piled in the car—Lil, Ezra Gunn, Sandra Keane, and myself.”
I could tell from the silences that these memories were something he hadn’t wanted to think about for many years.
“Those eight weeks we spent in Taos were some of the best in my life. There was this sound engineer—Australian fellow—I forget his name.”
Lenny Brandt, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“We cut about eight songs, and that man really put together a hell of an album. I think it could have gone somewhere. We went back to LA for a quick break and that’s when I found out that my brother-in-law had been killed. My sister needed me too much—their marriage had not been good toward the end. And then Ezra Gunn overdosed right after Christmas. At that point, I think the house just started falling down. Lil and I got married. We just wanted something solid. I got accepted to Berkeley and we lived there for a few years.”