Free The Mercy Journals by Claudia Casper Page A

her posture. She found her position and committed to it. Lizard still. Or she was moving. When I cooked I’d glance at her and she’d have a leg up on the counter, leaning forward in a stretch, or she’d have her leg back and be pulling her foot toward her head, or she’d throw one arm over her shoulder and clasp it with the other hand.
    I had push-up grips on the floor, which protected my wrists, and she’d drop to them almost carelessly and float a quick thirty or forty push-ups and then float to something else.
    As a soldier who had gone through boot camp and several reboot camps, whose body was trained to take punishment and stay effective in extreme situations, watching the way Ruby inhabited her body was like watching a slightlydifferent species. I felt like a robot or some sort of automaton next to her, except when we were making love, and then my body seemed miraculously to know the same language.
    I wanted to know more about her. How did you become a dancer? I asked. She had a way of answering that was precise but deflecting, keeping me at a distance. Her parents had been people with jobs, she said. First-generation immigrants: mother Portuguese, father Argentinian. They wanted a career for her, an education, a step up the ladder—doctor, lawyer, pharmacist. She remembered, even when she was a toddler, making up dances to the music they played—Fado, tango, gypsy, hip hop, classical—and then practicing the moves over and over. She’d asked for dance lessons, but they kept putting her off. Finally, when she was eight years old, they agreed to pay for one lesson a week, but she knew she wanted to become a great dancer and to do that she’d have to train every day. She arranged to work as a receptionist for her ballet teacher after school and on weekends in exchange for classes five days a week. She did this from age eight to thirteen, when she tore her hamstring.
    I prodded more. So how is it you became a customs officer?
    I left home at seventeen, she said. I was restless and wanted to be independent and free of rules. I got a job at a mall and couldn’t afford lessons anymore. I fell in love. Etcetera. My boyfriend’s mother had a connection at the border and the pay was much better.
    In the morning when we went our separate ways, I asked where she was going. She was never one to volunteerinformation. My day to lead dance class, she answered and turned down a different street, bundled up in layers of sweaters and tights.
    Why did you pick me? I asked one evening after dinner, feeling playful.
    Didn’t you pick me?
    No. I only offered myself.
    Are you fishing for compliments?
    Of course.
    A smile took over her face, starting in her eyes, which softened from the focus of eating, a focus that was singular and intense with her, and slowly spread to a grin.
    Your eyes, she said. The way they’re set in your face. You could meet me in the middle of a riot or an earthquake, and you’d still be looking at me.
    She ran her finger over her plate to get the last bit of juice from the sausages. Your muscles. Then licked her finger. And the fact that you’re not desperately trying to survive, but you’re not defeated either. It’s true you seem a bit dead, but a girl’s not worth her salt if she doesn’t like a bit of a challenge.
    I laughed.
    The only truly sexy thing in this world, Allen Quincy, is consciousness and you, despite the partly dead bit, have that in spades.
    Any thoughts of keeping my life small and controlled went out the window. I parked my brain, double-parked my past, jacked up disbelief, and towed skepticism to thewrecking yard. Whether she had been created by a benevolent universe or by luck to save me, I didn’t care; she was in my bed and she was resurrecting me toe by toe, follicle by follicle, scar by scar.
    If I had only accepted what she offered without seeking more, we might have been all right.

March 27 |
    Earlier this evening, I used my penknife to break the seal on the whiskey