Supervolcano All Fall Down(129)

Louise thought of the Stones song. It was an oldie to her. To Vanessa, it would be from as deep in the past as “Stardust” or “Camptown Races.” From before she was born. What could be deeper in the past than that?

“Well, what do you want to talk about?” Louise asked.

Her daughter’s features softened a little. “I’ve got a new boyfriend,” Vanessa said. “This may be the real deal.”

“Tell me about him,” Louise urged. Vanessa had been sure Hagop was the real deal, sure enough to go to Colorado to be with him. Before that, she’d been just as sure about Bryce (since Bryce and Colin had stayed friends, Louise was anything but sure about him). And before Bryce, she’d gone on and on about how she was going to have her high school boyfriend’s babies. What was his handle? Peter, that was it. Louise hadn’t thought about him in years. Colin hadn’t been able to stand him, which made Louise recall him more kindly now.

“His name is Bronislav—Bron, if you have trouble with it. He’s been in the States for close to twenty years. He still has an accent, but his English is really good. He’s got amazing eyes. Eyes like a saint’s in a painting, all big and brown,” Vanessa said.

“What does he do?” Louise asked. St. Bronislav? she wondered, but only to herself. Vanessa had never talked about any of the other men in her life in those terms—for sure she hadn’t.

“He’s a long-haul trucker here, but back in Yugoslavia he was a freedom fighter,” her daughter said.

A freedom fighter is a terrorist we like. Louise could hear Colin’s voice inside her head. He’d probably been talking back to some politician or other jerk on the TV when he said that. She didn’t quote him to Vanessa. For one thing, she would rather have passed a kidney stone. For another, even if she had wanted to do any such thing, her daughter wouldn’t have listened. She didn’t need to be Henry Kissinger to understand that much about diplomacy.

“He really was,” Vanessa said, as if Louise had spoken up. “The Croats over there, they were a bunch of filthy Fascist thugs. And the Bosnians were just like the Taliban.”

Louise knew little about the woes of the ex-Yugoslavia, and cared less. She did wonder what the Whozits and the Waddayacallems would have said about Bronislav’s cause—but not enough to antagonize Vanessa by inquiring. Some questions were more trouble than the answers were worth.

“And you know what else?” Vanessa added.

“No. What?” Louise said.

Had Vanessa announced that her new squeeze had a necklace of human ears he’d brought from the old country, she wouldn’t have been surprised. When Vanessa said, “He’s a terrific cook, that’s what,” she was—surprised enough to burst into laughter.

Vanessa looked irate. “I’m sorry,” Louise said. She meant it; good manners mattered to her. “But I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Well, he is,” Vanessa insisted, as if Louise had tried to deny it. “He makes better stuff than the chefs at the Serb places down in San Pedro.”

“If you say so.” Louise hadn’t known there were Serb places down there. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to Speedro. To shop at Ports of Call Village before the eruption, probably. Except for Ports of Call, what reason would she have had to go there? It wasn’t one of L.A.’s better neighborhoods, which was putting things mildly.

“I do.” Vanessa knew what she knew. What she knew wasn’t always so, but she knew it anyway.

“Dear, I hope you’re happy. I hope everything works out just the way you want it to.” Louise did hope so. She’d hoped so every single time. Vanessa threw herself headlong into life, the way she threw herself headlong into all kinds of things. And she threw herself out of love as abruptly as she dove in. She wasn’t made for halfway measures.

When the waitress brought the check, Vanessa grabbed it. Louise squawked. Her heart wasn’t in it, but not even the committee that handed out best-actress Oscar nominations would have realized as much. Vanessa didn’t listen to her. That wasn’t rare, but the effect this time came out nicer than usual.

“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” she said. “I’ve got work lined up for myself, and you’re still looking. When you find something, you can take me out to celebrate.”

“Well, thank you very much,” Louise said. Vanessa’d even let her down without costing her face. What was the world coming to?

“Thank you very much,” James Henry agreed, looking up from his abstract expressionist masterpiece. Louise and Vanessa both laughed. Louise ruffled her little son’s black hair. Even Vanessa’s meeting with him had gone off better than she’d expected. A good day, all the way around.