When everyone had devoured the picnic, Lizette stood up and dusted her hands off across her dress. “All right,” she said, “I want everyone to get five pine cones. Big ones. The best pine cones God has ever made.”
Alfonso was propped up on his right side, leaning on his elbow, flicking a blade of grass between his fingers. “Five? Why not ten?” He threw the grass into the air, and it floated to the ground. He stood with a jolt, grabbing Lizette around the waist with both arms, laughing. “Everyone, come on, help my girl get her pine cones.”
Avel stood then and reached out to help Luz up. Maria Josie and Ethel followed. Even little Marcus seemed to get in on the hunt. They started out from the blanket, moving in a bouncing racing line, tumbling over one another, taking huge strides over the rocky earth, hollering and laughing together in the sunlight.
Lizette disappeared beyond the tree line and Alfonso cut away by a clearing of aspen trees. Ethel and Maria Josie stayed arms locked as they laughed and searched the ground. Luz and Avel sprinted near an enormous ponderosa with reddish pine needles, dry and brittle at the top. Luz spotted a grouping of fallen pine cones and bent over, handing the fine specimens to Avel, who gathered them in a pile.
Luz stepped away now, searching a few yards off. “There,” she shouted to Avel, and went to walk toward him, but when she turned around, he was there on the ground, one knee pressed into the dirt. “What’re you doing? There aren’t any more over here.”
“Luz Lopez,” he said, inhaling deeply and opening his right hand to reveal a white box with a delicate gold ring. “I want to be with you forever.”
Luz felt dizzy, confused. “What do you mean?” she whispered, ducking to make sure her family wouldn’t see.
“Can’t you tell?” he said. “I love you, Luz. I want us to have a life together.”
“Like get married?”
Avel nodded.
“I just, I don’t think Maria Josie will go for that. We’ve only known each other a short time.”
“This is between us,” said Avel.
In that moment, she heard a cricket’s tune begin to play and the trees shivered at their tops, as if telling secrets to one another, passing along the news about the humans below.
“How are you going to live in Hornet Moon forever? Huh? You can’t live like this. You barely have anything, and it could all be taken away in an instant. That job with David doesn’t seem safe, Luz. You shouldn’t be working such long hours in a dangerous place. He’s only using you, can’t you see?” Avel stood then, placing the ring on Luz’s left hand. “What do you say?”
She held her left hand in the sunlight, examining the way the gold shined across her skin. “All right,” she said. “Okay. Yes.” She kissed him quickly, feeling some level of fluttering in her bones.
Avel yipped and kissed her heartily on the mouth.
“Let’s keep it between us,” said Luz. “Like you said. Just for now?”
Avel agreed, his smile trembling some.
As they made their way through the meadow, Luz spotted Lizette bent through the window of Alfonso’s Chevy. She was shaking her head. Alfonso was inside at the driver’s seat, the radio up loud. He seemed stunned, rubbing the top of his chest with an open palm.
“Come here,” Lizette shouted, frantically waving. “They’ve got ’em. Shot ’em dead.”
“Who?” Luz asked, running now.
They were listening to a news program, the special alert wavering in signal strength.
The death car is riddled with holes, every one made by steel-jacketed bullets from the high-powered rifles in the hands of the officers. Many of these bullets passed entirely through the door on Clyde’s side, through his body, struck Bonnie, passed through her body, and then out through the door on her side of the car. Any one of these bullets would have been fatal to both, but after having killed fourteen people, most of whom were officers of the law, and having come safely through so many gun battles, it didn’t seem advisable to fire just one bullet.
Luz listened intently as she slid her left hand into her dress pocket, concealing her new gold-plated engagement ring.
The death car and its bodies were later towed to a morgue, where a crowd of onlookers pushed through the windows and with white handkerchiefs attempted to soak up some of Bonnie’s blood, a keepsake of sorts.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Where the World Registers
“Cover more of her arms,” Lizette said to Natalya, who examined Luz on a Thursday evening before the shop mirrors. She had walked over first thing after leaving the office. The sun wouldn’t set for several hours, and light poured into the dressmaker’s. “Something draped around her collarbones and chest. And where’s the hat?”
“I don’t think bonnet will look good but you’re the boss,” Natalya said as she held a string to Luz’s wingspan.
The women held different pieces of fabric to Luz’s body, turning their faces from side to side, examining Luz’s hips and bust, her skin tone, wrist size, the way her toes crunched into satin heels. Her body had changed so quickly from several years before. In some ways, Luz still thought of herself as the girl she was before her breasts and hips emerged, as if some eternal self was buried inside her ever-changing flesh. The fitting was exhausting and Luz couldn’t imagine that, soon enough, she would have to do it all over again, but this time for her own wedding. She had told only Lizette about Avel’s proposal, unsure about the idea of such pervasive change.
Natalya told them she’d get to work on modifying a simple lace dress, fitting it with netted sleeves. Of course, Lizette didn’t take into consideration that Luz would nearly die of heatstroke in the middle of summer wearing such a concealing dress. There were certain battles Luz knew not to pick, and which dress she wore to her cousin’s wedding didn’t seem like a place to wage war.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lizette asked. They had left the dressmaker’s and were on their way to the streetcar. The city was ripe with heat, pulsating with the stench of grease and rotten fruit. “Do you hate the dress? I mean, you don’t need to be completely covered, but the church demands it and you know how strict those old priests can be. And don’t get me started on the nuns. I won’t even look their way.”
“No,” Luz said, “I’m just nervous.”
“About what?” said Lizette, yanking gently on Luz’s hair.
In the shadow of a shoemaker’s shop, they walked past a group of children who were hunched together in a circle blasting marbles. One of the boys, a pudgy kid with dark skin and freckles, flicked his ball bearing and howled like a little coyote. At their streetcar stop, Luz positioned herself against a brick wall, facing traffic.
Lizette stood before her, both hands on her hips. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I know I’m supposed to feel happy,” said Luz, “being engaged now, but I don’t feel any way. I haven’t even told anyone else.”
Lizette shook her head. “Luz, you got to tell Maria Josie.”
Luz looked away, ashamed. “How did you know? How could you tell Alfonso was the right one?”