Elena felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Her father! It had to be her father. And yet it was difficult to imagine him hiding in a dark storeroom, shaking with fear. Elena felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Her father! It had to be her father. And yet it was difficult to imagine him hiding in a dark storeroom, shaking with fear.
Luisa was staring at her, a knowing smile on her face. Elena stared back. Except for the slight twitch at a corner of Luisa’s mouth, Elena might have thought that Luisa was completely relaxed, maybe even a little bored with the situation. She felt a flare-up of intense irritation. Luisa, she guessed, was probably sixteen. How could she have developed so much hardness in such a few years?
A fruit fly was skittering across the remains of food on Elena’s luncheon plate. Luisa moved suddenly and shoved the plate to the end of the table. “You gonna sit there forever?” she asked harshly. “Didn’t you hear what I told you?”
“I heard. I just don’t understand.”
“Shit! What’s to understand? You know that was your old man.”
“It couldn’t be. Your father said he hadn’t seen him in over four months.”
“So? That’s his problem.”
“Well,” Elena said, sliding across the seat, “I’ll ask him about it. Where is he?”
“He won’t tell you anything.”
“How can you say that? If he talked with my father, he’ll tell me.”
“Try him if you want,” Luisa said. “Go ahead. He’s in the kitchen, and he’s not even busy.”
Elena jumped up and pushed the swinging door into the kitchen. She paused there, looking for Señor Otero. Huge pans and kettles hung above an island counter in the center of the kitchen and beyond it, by a far wall, two young men in white aprons talked and laughed above the clatter of the dishes they were washing. At the side of the room Juan Otero was bent over a griddle, wiping it clean.
“Señor Otero,” she called, “may I talk with you, please?”
“In just a minute,” he said without looking up.
“Of course,” Elena said. “I’ll wait.” And then she added, “I’m María Elena Vargas. Remember? I was here a few days ago.” He raised his head and looked at her, and Elena thought she saw a frown come and go on his face.
“Yes, I remember you,” he said, and walked toward her, his plump hands busy with a towel.
When he was near she said, “When I was here before, señor, you said you didn’t know anything about my father. But now Luisa says you talked to him in your storeroom just a month or so ago. If you did, isn’t there something you can tell me?”
Juan Otero turned away and laid the towel on a counter behind him. He faced her again, his head moving from side to side as he sighed. “That girl and her stories. She tries the patience of the saints.”
She does that, all right, Elena thought. “And there’s more,” she said. “Luisa says that the man with you, my father, spoke about a girl from Playa Blanca, a girl called María Elena.”
“My daughter said that?” Juan Otero’s smooth round face was furrowed into an expression of pain, and for one terrible moment Elena thought that he was going to cry. He reached into his pocket for a large white handkerchief and blew his nose before he said, “Señorita, I told you I could tell you nothing about your father. If I could, I would.”
“But what about the storeroom? And the man there? What is Luisa talking about?”
Juan Otero spread his hands helplessly. “Who can say? My daughter has much imagination. As for me, there is nothing I can tell you except that I believe you will find your father. And until that time, if there is anything I can do for you, please call on me.”
She had a compulsion to reach out to him, to comfort him. But she realized that he was trying to comfort her. The two men at the sink were quiet now, throwing looks in their direction, so she lowered her voice as she said, “Well, then, tell me this. Has there been anyone here asking about him?”
“Ah, yes. Several of my customers. As I told you, he ate here often.”
“No, no, señor,” she said. “I don’t mean that. Strangers, I mean. Two men. Two men in business suits maybe.”
“So many people come and go in this restaurant. It would be hard to recall. I’m sorry.” His shoulders drooped as he walked to the swinging door and held it open. “I’m very sorry.”
Elena was touched by his obvious distress. He would help her if he could; she felt sure of that. The swinging door fell into place behind her as she walked into the restaurant. Across the room at a table by the front window, a man and woman looked up at her and then returned to their eating. In the booth near the kitchen, Luisa, slumped in the seat again, was looking at her through half-closed eyes.
“Satisfied?” she said, and the word spit out like the hissing of an angry cat.
“Yes, I am.” Luisa was waiting to enjoy her disappointment, waiting to hear her plead for information. All right, Luisa, she thought, you’ll have a long wait. She said, “Your father knows nothing.”
“Hah!” Luisa sat up. “You didn’t really buy that, did you?”
“Buy that? What does that mean? I believed him, if that’s what you want to know.”
“You’re dumb, you know?” Luisa said blandly. “Dumber than I thought. I told you he wouldn’t admit anything.”
“I know you did. Goodbye.” She started for the door.
“Elena!”
Elena stopped and said, “No, Luisa, I don’t want to hear more.”
“Yes, you do,” she drawled. “The man I saw with my father was about… oh, about five feet ten. Husky, you know, built like a football player. They only had one candle for light, but I could see enough. He had lots of dark hair that’s getting gray, and thick eyebrows, almost bushy.”
Elena swung around. Her hands were shaking. She’s describing my father! How could she if she hadn’t seen him? “You do know something, don’t you? What is it? Tell me.”
“Sure, I will. But before I do, I want money. Like fifty dollars.”
It took a moment for Luisa’s words to make sense. Luisa wanted to sell her what she knew for fifty dollars. A knot tightened in her stomach as she stared at the slight, wispy-haired girl in the full red skirt and thought, a week ago I did not know her, a week ago I had never heard of her… Angry tears burned her eyes. She clenched her hands, and the fury that had begun with the knot in her stomach spilled out in words, words that she hardly recognized as her own.
“What do you think, huh, Luisa? That I am one of your little girl friends? One you can talk into doing whatever you want? Well, I’m not! I don’t need you. If my father was in that storeroom, I’ll find out. It may be a while, but I’ll find it out!”
Luisa’s face colored and her huge eyes widened. But she recovered her confident look almost immediately. “Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t,” she said. “Just don’t wait too long. When you’ve got the money, come back.”
Elena shook her head. “You don’t hear very well, Luisa. I’m not giving you a single cent.” She rushed down the room to the door. Outside she leaned against the wall of the building, trying to calm herself. But the noisy skirmishes of the cars on the street and the inquisitive stares of people passing by just served to feed her fury. She walked toward the car.
David was standing beside it, looking at her intently. “I was about to suggest that you drive us back to the house,” he said, “but I don’t think I will. You look pretty upset.”
“I am.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No. No, there’s nothing anyone can do!” She got into the car, slammed the door and said, “That Luisa! I’m all mixed up. I don’t know who to believe. And I won’t give her money. Even if she described my father. And how? Where could she have—oh, Elena, use your head. The restaurant. He ate there. So she made it all up. All lies. But wait! The thing about Playa Blanca and…”
“Whoa, there,” David said, raising one hand from the wheel. “If you finish your sentences, maybe I’ll know what you’re talking about.”
“Sorry,” Elena said. “I’m not making sense, am I? More like the babblings of an idiot.”
“You don’t sound like an idiot. You sound as if you’re about to explode.”
“I am, “Elena said, and told him about the talks with Luisa and Juan Otero. “I don’t know what to think,” she finished.
He nodded and drove for a while lost in thought. He’s preoccupied with something far away, she thought. He must be tired of this. After all, he just met me, and all I’ve done is ask favors and talk, talk, talk about myself and my problems! She said, “All I’ve done today is whine. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be,” he said quickly. “I was just thinking about what you told me. Suppose you gave that conniving Luisa the money she wants, what then? Would you believe her? And suppose you did. That would mean that Juan Otero wasn’t telling the truth. And why would he lie to you? What’s the payoff for him?”
“I don’t know,” Elena answered pensively. “He seems like such a good man. I hate to think he’s lying. And yet…” She left the words hanging limply.
“Well,” David said, “this line of thinking is getting us nowhere. Let’s try another direction. Do you remember anything at all, Elena, that might give you a clue as to where your father might be, what he might be doing? A telephone call, a message to your aunt, some kind of communication.”
“The letters he wrote me. But I told you about them. There’s nothing in them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, but I’ll read them again. I’ve read them so many times I almost know them by heart.”
“Something else, then. Could be something simple, something that seems unimportant.”
She thought for a while, frowning. “I have an envelope,” she said, “a sealed envelope that my father asked me to hold for him. But he gave that to me years ago.”
“I’d have a look at what’s inside if I were you.”
“I’m not supposed to open it,” she said. “It’s not even addressed to me.”
“Whose name is on it?”
“It has no name. Only the word ‘Tamaulipas.’”
He threw her a swift sidelong glance.
She explained, “Tamaulipas is a state in Mexico.”
“I know. I’d open that envelope if I were you.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
They rode on in silence. The car soon left the ocean behind, twisting up the hill, taking the curves in a series of zigzags that were more and more abrupt. At every curve the tires squealed in seeming complaint. She had been so involved in her thoughts that she had not noticed the change in the way David was driving, but when she did, she looked at him in surprise.
He was frowning, his eyes narrowed on the sun-splattered asphalt. His light mood was gone. He seemed oblivious of her as he stared in angry concentration at the road ahead. The Cadillac swung to the left, narrowly missing the bumper of the car in front of them. David brought the big car back into the right-hand lane and straightened it without a comment. But in a moment he muttered, “Where do you fit in?”
“What?” Elena gasped. “What do you mean? I already told you how I came to be here.”
There was a long pause. Then he shook his head and exhaled. “I didn’t mean to say that. I thought I was just thinking it.”
“But why were you even thinking it?”
“I’m not sure. It has to do with my stepfather. I don’t like much what he does.”
“Like hiring me?”
“Yes. Like hiring you. There’s something fishy about that.”
“What’s fishy? What?”
“Damn it, Elena, I’m not sure about that either.” They had turned onto Gray Ridge Drive, and the car moved quickly through the meadow toward the gates. “Look,” David said, “if I explain any more, I’ll be disclosing family matters, and I’d better not do that. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, but reluctantly. She wished he would explain. What was wrong with her working for his mother?
He brought the car to a stop by the front door, cut the engine and turned toward her with a smile. “Friends?” he said, extending his hand.
She took it. “Friends,” she said, a little hesitantly. What was all this? She had seen David only three or four times, and on each of those times he had either been exploding with anger or driving dangerously. True, he had been kind to her today, and she appreciated it, but she couldn’t let her appreciation get tangled up with worrying about his words or actions. Her worries had to do with her father, not with a temperamental person like David.
She pushed her thoughts aside and returned to where she was, sitting in the car beside the temperamental person. He was still holding her hand. Quickly, she drew it away.