CHAPTER 4 After cashing some travelers’ checks into colorful denominations of pesos, Caroline led the girls around the block from the hotel, where, according to the moneychanger, there was a KFC. Annie and Karen were starved, but not enough to try the food from the street vendors. Enchiladas, tacos, and corn on the cob served with chili, mayonnaise, and lime, it looked and smelled delicious. But sanitation didn’t appear to be high on many of the owners’ lists, so Caroline yielded to the plea to find some American food.
The scent of fresh pan dulce and roasting coffee beans from the sidewalk espresso café beside them was making her tummy growl in protest, when Karen pointed to a red-and-white sign that seemed to blend into the line of canopies, marquees, and lights.
“There’s the Colonel!”
Inside, the restaurant had the same decor as the one in downtown Edenton. With a minimum of fuss, they purchased their meals and found a table.
The potatoes tasted a little strange, most likely the result of being made with heavily treated water. Caroline advised the girls to skip the spuds and slaw in favor of the biscuits. “The last thing we need is Montezuma’s revenge.”
“My dad does business here all the time, and he’s never had that.” Karen twirled her straw inside her can of soda. “But he carries enough milk of magnesia for an army . . . like a gallon or something.”
“That was one of the suggestions in the pamphlet that Señora Marron handed out before the trip,” Caroline reminded her. She had a travel-size bottle in her own case. “He travels a lot, does he?”
“All over the world, but mostly in the States, Canada, and Mexico.” A cloud settled on the girl’s face. “You’d think he’d want to show it to me . . . Mexico City. After all, I am his daughter.”
“Maybe he’s just busy finishing up the business from this last trip so that he’ll be free tomorrow,” Annie said. She slurped the last of her Coke from the bottom of the can—another precaution. Fountain drinks were not recommended on the tip sheet.
Caroline conveyed her motherly disapproval with a grimace. “You know,” she said to Karen, “we parents don’t always get to do what we want to do either. There’s this little thing called earning money to put food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads that comes first.”
“That’s what Dad and Nana are always saying. I wish Uncle Mark or Aunt Jeanne had come instead. They’re more fun.”
Caroline packed their trash into the large bag their meals had come in. “Maybe so, but I’d cut him some extra slack. After all, your dad didn’t get to plan this trip in advance.”
“Yeah, give him a chance,” Annie chimed in. “At least he came.
My dad didn’t even bother to tell me he was too busy. No call, no nothing.”
The words squeezed Caroline’s heart. As she looked away from the girls, the clock over the soda cooler caught her eye.
“Oh my goodness, it’s six-thirty!” Incredulous, she glanced at her wristwatch to confirm it. “We have to be dressed and in the lobby in one hour.”
Fortunately, Caroline and the girls weren’t the only ones who had lost track of time. An hour and a half later, they squeezed into the backseat of one of the VW taxis. The front passenger seat had been removed to facilitate getting in and out. Outside, Hector worked with the taxi drivers to sort passengers like cattle to squeeze the most bodies into each vehicle.
“Okay, we need one more,” Hector said, after peeking into their cab. He held up his hands to indicate the narrow width of space allowed.
“Thank goodness I made it in before he started measuring,”
Caroline mumbled under her breath, exacting a giggle from Annie.
“You’re not that big, Mom.”
Judging from the jabbing hipbones of the girls on either side of her, Caroline was at least older and rounder.
“Think we can squeeze two more in here?” Hector asked.
Standing outside were Kurt and Wally, looking like lost sheep in their idea of evening attire—clean T-shirts and jeans.
“You know Eddie and Rick are with Amy and Christie,” Karen remarked.
“Sure, there’s always room for more.” Annie moved over as far as she could. “Who wants to be with those snobs anyway?”
“I don’t want to be with all of them . . . just Eddie,” Karen said, unaffected by the look Caroline shot in her direction. “Or maybe Rick.”
“Who needs those guys when you got the best?” Kurt announced.
“Oh, puh-leeze,” Karen groaned as he squeezed into the back seat next to Annie.
“Sorry, princess,” Wally said as he settled on the nonexistent front seat, which was literally a cushion on the floor.
“What about seat belts?” Caroline protested.
“Yeah, isn’t there a law or something?” Kurt chimed in.
Hector simply shrugged. Apparently safety precautions weren’t as important in Mexico as in the States. “No worries, Señora. It’s a short ride.”
But not short enough, Caroline thought when they pulled up in front of the nightclub. There hadn’t been room to breathe with four of them wedged across the back, not even to gasp when the driver threaded through the thick traffic so fast that the street signs blended into a continuous neon blur. Poor Wally would need his hands pried from the armrest, and she needed an oxygen tank.
“Are the others behind us?” the spectacled youngster asked.
“Can’t tell,” Caroline said. “We’re packed too tight to turn our heads.”
They got out of the car under a flashing marquee that read Banditos. The mountain air raised the gooseflesh on Caroline’s clammy skin as they made their way into what appeared from the outside to be a movie theater. The lobby had been converted into a soda-fountain bar, while its display cases were still filled with a variety of sweets. The menu behind the counter boasted all manner of nonalcoholic frozen drinks and concoctions aimed at the teen clientele.
Beyond it, three steps down, tables and chairs lined each side of a huge dance floor. While Hector took care of the cover charge, Caroline picked the clingy silk of her tank top away from her skin. Until that cab ride, she’d never suspected she was claustrophobic.
Ushers and waiters clad in tight black trousers, billowing red-and-gold poet’s shirts, and an occasional patch over one eye met their party and led them into the purple glow of the dance arena. Black lights. It had been years since Caroline had been in a club with black lights.
“Para la Señora linda. For the pretty lady.”
Turning, Caroline accepted a fresh long-stemmed rose from one of the gallant banditos. “What a lovely idea. Thank you.”
Even she felt a hint of the thrill that had obviously infected the girls, who coveted the flowers as if they’d been dipped in 24-carat gold. They returned iridescent white smiles to the dark-eyed charmers. There was something about that accent . . . Not only were the ladies escorted to the tables, but their flowers were arranged for them in the glass vases on each one by the ushers.
“Boy, do these Mexican men know how to treat a woman,” Annie sighed, watching her escort make his way back to the entrance where more young ladies awaited seating.
“They don’t impress me,” Kurt snorted under his breath.
Karen gave the young man a derisive look. “Well, I’d hope not.”
Hector turned back to the students, who by now had settled around a circular table. “There is a karaoke show the first hour.
Then there is dancing.”
Señora Marron finally arrived with the third taxi load. “Ah, Señora Spencer, I must ask you a favor.” She leaned over, dropping her voice for Caroline’s ear only. “I am having the most terrible of headaches. Female problems,” she mouthed, backing away and crossing her arms so that her black silk tasseled shawl overlapped with them. “May I impose upon you to remain as chaperone with Hector and the students, to allow me to return to the hotel and take medicine?”
Me? Alone with crazy Hector and eight sixteen-year-olds in a dance club? Despite her instinctive reservation, Caroline agreed. “By all means, Señora. I—”
The rest of Caroline’s sentence was drowned out by a burst of music so loud, she could have sworn the floor beneath her feet shook. God forbid it was an earthquake, she prayed as she glanced around, looking for a sign that it was more than oversized speakers and a DJ a little heavy on the bass dial. They’d passed several places in the city where buildings had been reduced to rubble and laid waste for years due to lack of money to rebuild.
“Just save me one of those headache pills in case I need it,” she shouted into the Spanish teacher’s ear.
Grinning widely, Señora Marron mouthed, “Muchas gracias. ”
Still a tad warm from the close ride, Caroline ordered a frozen drink at an outrageous price. Now she knew how the place got its name . . . and afforded to serve the younger set. Unlike the host ushers, the bandito assigned to their table was built more like Wally Peterman than like the larger boys. Although the server’s frame hadn’t quite fleshed out yet, when he kissed Annie’s hand, Caroline thought her daughter would swoon straight away.
To Caroline’s left, Wally expressed his disdain to no one in particular. “I think I’m gonna puke.”
“Would it be different if it was one of the banditas rolling those limpid dark eyes at you, Wally?” Caroline teased, shoving her shoulder bag under the table.
“Mom!”
Thinking Annie’s indignation a bit overdone, Caroline protested. “I think I see a few girls over there at the bar. See, their hair is either short or pulled back.”
Annie pulled Caroline closer. “Not that. It’s your glowing bra.”
“My wha—?” The question died in Caroline’s throat. She’d been so distracted by all that was going on that she hadn’t noticed the way the black light picked up the dainty white scallop of her new eighteen-hour wonder of support, making it glow fluorescent through the white silk of her blouse.
Annie performed a discreet but dastardly imitation of a grade-B horror actor. “It’s alive!”
And, unbeknownst to Caroline, she’d paraded it from the entrance to the table. “Oh, my.” Reaching under the table, she retrieved her purse for cover. No wonder the usher and waiter had grinned so widely at her. She felt like the old “living bra” commercial on the nostalgia television network. Annie used to howl every time the Jane Russell–sized undergarment popped out of the washer with a mind and invisible body of its own to demand special detergent from the startled sixties housewife.
But tonight Caroline wanted to hide, not howl. “Does it show too much?” she whispered as the waiter returned with a tray of drinks for their table.
“Just don’t let it dance, and you’ll be fine.”
Caroline gave her smart-alecky daughter a dirty look. With no prospect of help from her offspring, she assessed her present company for a possible solution. No one had a jacket, but the boys who’d come with Señora Marron wore unbuttoned cotton shirts over their tees. While Caroline would pay them good money for either shirt at that moment, she was too embarrassed to ask.
Handing her wallet to Annie to pay for the drinks the waiter brought, Caroline kept her handbag pressed against her chest and slumped against the back of her chair. Okay, so she’d just slink down and pray for a quick end to what promised to be a long evening. It couldn’t get any worse.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Or maybe it could.
Looking as if he’d just stepped off of a page of an L. L. Bean catalog, Blaine Madison stood at the vacant sixth seat of the table, across from Caroline. He’d changed into a pair of jeans and a white polo shirt that flaunted the muscled evidence that he was no stranger to a gym. Eye-catching as he was, Caroline’s attention honed in on the jacket he held slung over his shoulder.
“Dad, you came!” Karen practically took Kurt’s foot off with her chair as she slid away from the table to greet her father. “What happened?”
“I started thinking about all the fun you would be having without me,” he told her, grinning. “Besides, how could I pass up spending the evening with the most beautiful girl in Mexico City . . . especially when she’s my girl?”
Karen looked as though happiness would lift her off the floor. “By all means, sit down.” Caroline pointed to the chair and raised her voice above the Spanish lyrics of the young man who had taken over the karaoke microphone. “Although I’ll warn you, it’s chilly in here. Maybe once the dancing starts, it won’t seem so cold.” She shivered, more from humiliation than temperature. Had he missed the glow-light special, or was he being polite and pretending to ignore it like everyone else?
Regardless, he took the bait—hook, line, and sinker. “I have a jacket, if you’d like.”
Thank You, Lord.
“That would be a godsend.” A real one. It never ceased to amaze Caroline, the minor details that God saw to.
“Mexico City nights do tend to get chilly.” He handed her the jacket and sat down. “We’re in a high, dry lake bed surrounded by mountains. Never go out in these parts without a wrap of some kind.”
“You are so bad,” Annie chided under her breath as Caroline cloaked herself in the jacket.
She kicked her daughter beneath the table. She hadn’t lied. It was chilly in the club—even though she was a smoldering hot pot of embarrassment. Besides, surely God would rather she allowed Blaine to draw the wrong conclusion than have her eighteen-hour wonder exposed in all its fluorescent glory.