Page 83 of Dead Beat

“Oh, Galaxy, this again?”

Instantly Alex’s guilt alchemized to irritation. “Yes, this again. I’ve tried to respect whatever trauma or shit happened in your past. But I have a big gap in…” She reached for words that might sway Mira. “My understanding of myself. There’s a void there, and before I can … uh, attain my full potential, I need some insight into who he was.”

Mira squirmed in her seat. “I don’t have answers for you. He was beautiful. He was fun. He was a great surfer.” She threw her hands in the air and her bracelets crashed together like wind chimes caught in a hurricane. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“How about a name?”

Mira shrugged.

“Mom, you knew this man well enough to have sex with him—”

“Alex!”

“Believe me, I don’t want to think about it any more than you do. But come on.”

Mira looked like she wanted to run screaming into the street. At last she said, “We called him Chushi.”

“We?”

“The whole Venice crew. Skaters, surfers.”

“So that was his nickname. What was his real name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I guess I don’t remember. It was … It was all very simple. We weren’t thinking about a future together.”

Alex was pretty sure this was the first time she’d seen her mother blush. “Where did you meet him?”

“On the beach. After my shift at C&O. We were having a bonfire. I looked up and he was just there, sitting across from me.”

“Where was he from?”

“I…” Mira frowned. “It was so long ago, Alex.”

“Did he have a job?”

“He must have.”

Alex tried to keep her frustration in check. “What happened when he met Grandma?”

“She scared him away.”

“Estrea was barely five feet tall. What did she do? Threaten to bite his elbow?”

Again Mira frowned. “I brought him over for dinner. I warned him she was a lot, that she’d probably say something rude or mean. She made burekas. The apartment smelled amazing. He seemed fine, happy. He was always easy, good with everything. He never got mad or raised his voice. He was … just a beautiful soul.”

“But something happened?”

Mira touched her forehead, adjusted one of her dangling earrings. “As soon as we walked in, I could tell something was wrong. Estrea looked different that night. Eyes big and dark, serious.” Mira gave a little laugh. “She looked like you. He said, Your mother is … I can’t remember what he called her, but I thought it was funny.”

Alex had asked her grandmother about her father plenty of times and she always dismissed the event with a single Ladino phrase: Mal tormento ke soplo. A bad wind that blew through. “Then what?”

Mira’s shoulders jerked in a shrug. “He asked to use the bathroom, and then he just … didn’t come back. Estrea didn’t even wait for him. She started putting food on her plate and mine. Then she went to the window. I asked her what she was looking at, and she didn’t answer, but when I joined her, I saw his car was gone. Mom had to drive me home.” She huffed a laugh. “You know, I still don’t like the taste of burekas.” Then she smiled at Alex, her eyes sad and happy at the same time. “I didn’t know I was pregnant yet. I didn’t know how lucky I was.”

She didn’t mean it. Or maybe she did. Mira embraced the good in everything. “That was the last time you saw him?”