Will's pretty easygoing, he just needs to be shown if it's something that he'd never assume. Leona knows this about him, and on some level, Aurora does too.
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Will went upstairs to the kitchen without knowing what plan Aurora was talking about. He found Leona there, and asked her if she knew how Aurora liked her coffee.
She prepared three cups of coffee, and Will's eyebrows rose. "This one's for Aurora, this one is yours and this one is mine," she smiled, as she added the milk, "Go take this to her and come back. You and I need to have a talk."
Will came back and sat with a confused expression. She looked at him, "Paco is on the phone in our bedroom to back Aurora with her folks. It's probably going to get loud, and you ought to have your shoulder ready for her when it's all over."
Will nodded, "I already thought about that. What's on your mind, Leona?"
Leona looked down the hall to the stairs that led down to Will's part of the house. "Aurora has been living in a cage like a bird. The cage is unlocked, and she's just noticed it. She's about to push the door open and fly, Will. You showed her exactly where the door was. That's what you do when you care about someone. I know you. You always try to help in the most perfect way that people need at that moment, and the beauty of it is, you don't even know that you're doing it. One way or the other, Aurora will probably never be the same, and I'm happy for her."
Will sat looking at her lovely face in profile, remembering when they couldn't be parted and expect to live. That had been so long ago, he remembered. She'd grown up and turned into exactly the woman that he'd always known that she'd become one day. He considered himself to be so fortunate that they were still so close. Leona had miscarried once and between doing his damndest to hold Paco up and comfort Leona, it had almost torn him apart that two of the closest people to him were so hurt. It had been physical pain to him. Only Leona had known and later she'd thanked him as they'd both cried. He couldn't imagine living his life and not knowing the two of them.
She turned to look at Will, "Now I want to be happy for you too. I just want to be sure that you understand things."
Will shook his head, "Well, you can be sure that right now, I don't really have a clue what you're talking about, pretty much."
She smiled and reached with her hand to push some of his longish dirty blonde hair behind one ear. "You know? I think that if this were California or someplace like that, you'd probably be a surfer on top of everything else that you are. You've got that look to you, that slightly long blonde hair, 'I don't give a shit as long as it's a good time' kind of look."
Leona nodded, "Plus you've got that killer soft smile of yours. It's too bad you don't know how to use all of that the way that some of them do. I mean too bad for you because you're not that kind of man. Guys like that just love to smile their way into a room full of women and tally up the number of phone numbers they can get in only one pass through. You're gorgeous, Will. Not in a classic lady killer sort of way, though. You're just a little off of that because you're real. That makes you the real prize in the heap of shit that passes for men these days. I hear all about it at work and it makes me so thankful that I've got real men around me, you three honest to God real men."
She shrugged, "Too bad it's a just a shield to you, this disguise that you wear."
"You walk around like you're fat, dumb, and happy, Will. You carry on like you don't give a damn about anything. But there are people who don't believe any it for a second. We know that you're none of those things; not fat, not dumb, and especially not happy. The ones who see it are the people who know and love you." She put her hand on his.
When he looked up, he found her dark eyes boring into his own. He couldn't look away. When he tried, she closed her hand on his hard, and he looked into those eyes again. Her words were quiet, but direct.
"And now the one you call Rocket Girl is one of them."
Will's mind stopped along with his breathing.
He heard his pulse.
"I was standing with Paco at the door when Cesar arrived behind Aurora. I was also there when she spoke with her friends after she'd broken it off with him. The married one told her she'd been wasting her time with Cesar. Clara told Aurora very plainly that if she wasn't interested in you to just let her know, and Helen?"
Leona smiled, "She was a lot more direct than that."
"Aurora was trying hard not to show how upset she was, but I think she felt all of those things. She'd heard what you said."
He was mystified, "What I said?"
Leona nodded, "Something that you said yesterday. It was just a little thing and I doubt that you even remember it. But it said something that I know is in your heart."
Leona took his hand in both of hers, "Remember who we were once Will, you and I. I know you inside out, and I always have. It was a thing you said that you thought would settle down that brute Cesar a little. He wasn't listening, but every woman there heard it like a clear bell, especially Aurora. You said that as long as she wore his ring,..."
Leona allowed a second for him to absorb it.
"Well the ring is off, Will. I'm trying to tell you that you'll have your chance, if that's what you want - but I'm also here to tell you that now it's you who needs to smarten up, because it's really what you both want. I'd even say that it's what you both need."
She stopped for a moment to let it sink in, and then smiled, "I'm just saying, I won't guess here, but if it were me in her place, and I'd never known Paco," she looked into his eyes.
"When that call is over, you ought to be prepared for a few things. There's a good chance that in the next few days or so, you and Paco will be moving a few of her things here from her home in that truck of yours. You already probably had that in mind if she asked. But that's not the way that I see it happening. You'll move her stuff here for a slightly different reason and she won't really ask because she won't need to."
She looked down, "Our people come from Andalusia, and I'm part gypsy. You know how my feelings turn into little realities sometimes, so listen carefully now. There's a chance that my daydream for you and Aurora will come to pass, and you'll be having a talk with her parents one day. That might not happen, but I can tell you one sure bet if I were her, and I know we're alike in a lot of ways."
He looked at her in some surprise, but he knew she was right far more often than her daydreams, as she called them, were off the mark.
She held both of his hands and shrugged, "You tell me if I'm wrong later, but that bird is free now, or about to be. This is it for you Will, unless you reject her. This is your own great love, right there for you. I know because I've seen it in her face. She'll be upset and will probably be crying hard, but she'll have made up her mind. To her, it finishes what she's leaving behind at the same time that it hopefully begins a love with you in no uncertain terms." Will sat transfixed as Leona went on.
"Unlike you, that girl doesn't need to be hit on the head. Our families come from the same place, and even know each other back in Spain. I've known her for a long time and she's exactly the same as me."
Leona leaned forward to be sure that her eyes locked onto his. For his own good, she wasn't about to let his wonderful mind wander very far from what she was telling him.
"In her family's history and in that place, in our culture and most of all in her beautiful heart - she's exactly the same as me, so I know what's behind all of what she's feeling."
"For damn sure Will, when you go downstairs after this call, you sure wouldn't find me on your couch. I'd bet a week's pay that she won't be there, either. She knows her great love when she has it in front of her. Forgive her the speed of this, but she knows what she wants now, and it's you and her together. She really has no choice in it if she wants the chance at that love, and she knows that too. You need to see that you don't have a choice either, unless you want to go on alone from here."
"That's the way love works sometimes. You're standing at the same crossroads, both of you. Make the right choice here, Will. Everything I ever learned from my grandmother says this is happiness for you both. Here, I'll show you."
Leona stood up and returned with her worn cards, "I know you don't doubt me, since we've known each other most of our lives. You once asked me to do this for you. I brushed it off at the time, and said that it wasn't a parlor game for bored people."
She smiled apologetically, "You know how I love you, my old friend. I've always been doing this for you, though you've never known it, because I want so much for you to be happy. I just told you that when you asked because aside from a few little blips, there's never really been anything on your horizon - until now."
Leona shuffled and laid out the cards, and then took a piece of paper from a shelf, "I'll do this once more with you here. I've already done this twenty times at least over the past week and a half. The cards will come up very close to what I've written down here. I've done this in other ways besides my cards, and the answers lately have always been consistent."
She didn't say anything when she was done. Will compared the cards to the paper. When he looked up, Leona nodded, "When this is all over, I'll explain everything here to you both and what it means, but for now I can say that in my life, I've only ever been so sure of the cards for one other man."
"And I married him." She laughed softly, "Is that good enough?"
She indicated one card with her finger. "This is the only one that has changed today from what I've written. It concerns the timing." She looked up at him and he waited but she said nothing.
He sighed, "Ok, what about the timing?"
Leona pointed to the card again.
"Tonight." It was all that she said.
Will sat back with a feeling something like having been hit in the chest with the broad side of a shovel. He looked up from the table, "Does Aurora know this?"
