From Barcelona, with Love (3 page)

The one thing about having short hair—
scalped
hair Jassy called it—was that you didn't have to fuss with it. Under the shower, out again, towel it off, and it simply dried in minutes. “Wash and wear hair,” Jassy had said, laughing at her.

Paloma's aunt Jassy laughed at her a lot, though only in a nice way, of course. Well, maybe sometimes it wasn't so nice, like the Crème de la Mer incident. That had been difficult. But Paloma didn't want to think about that now.

The hot water finally penetrated the chill and Paloma turned it off and dried herself with the big blue striped towel Sunny Alvarez had given her.

She thought about Sunny's last name, wondering if she was Spanish, like her, though of course Paloma was only half Spanish. On her mother's side. Though nobody seemed too sure of that since nobody had ever met Paloma's real father, and nobody seemed to know
exactly
who he was. Which was disturbing, but she'd decided long ago not knowing was a lot better than knowing the
step
father she'd hated.

“Paloma?” Sunny was calling her from outside the door. “Are you okay, there,
chiquita
?”

She'd called her
chiquita
! Sunny
was
Spanish after all!

“Coming.” Paloma wrapped the towel tightly around herself, embarrassed by her nakedness and, careful that no spare inch of flesh should show, only her shoulders and arms, and her legs from the knee down, she opened the door.

Sunny had changed into jeans and a sweater and was leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom, arms folded. “Hey, that's better, kid,” she said, sounding all-American now and making Paloma wonder if she'd got it all wrong about the Spanish thing.

“Come with me.” She took her by the hand but Paloma still clutched the towel fiercely against her chest with her other hand. Of course Sunny understood her childish modesty; she had been the same at that age.

She said, “Here's a T-shirt of mine and a pair of yoga pants. They'll be too big of course, but they'll do to get you home with. You'll have to go without underwear for the moment though.”

Paloma blushed again at the mention of her underwear, but Sunny tactfully turned her back while she struggled to change under the towel, the way she'd seen bathers change out of their swimsuits on the beach without anybody so much as catching a peek of anything important. Not that she had anything really
“important”
yet; not even a hint of anything, but she still didn't want anybody to see. Not even Aunt Jassy.

“Okay,” she said, when she was ready.

Sunny turned and inspected her critically.

The pants were huge. She knelt to roll the legs up, then took a multicolored scarf from a peg behind the door that Paloma—who knew about such expensive designer things because of her aunt Jassy, who was a clotheshorse if there ever was one—realized from the bold zigzaggy colors must be Missoni.

Sunny hauled up the yoga pants and tied the scarf around the child's skinny waist. “That should do it,” she said, smiling up at her.

Paloma was momentarily dazzled. She thought she'd never seen anyone more lovely than Sunny, in quite a different way from Aunt Jassy, who was also a beauty but much more glossy. Sunny Alvarez seemed to Paloma to have a golden glow about her, a simplicity combined with something else—an earthiness. She wondered if that was the right word. Whatever, Paloma thought Sunny was lovely, and impulsively, she told her so.

“Well, thank you, sweetheart.” Sunny hugged her and Paloma could tell she was pleased. And then Sunny took an apple green J. Crew cardigan from a drawer and helped stuff Paloma's arms into the sleeves, and buttoned it up over her chest.

She took a step back and regarded the girl seriously. She said, “Paloma, what happened to your hair?”

She asked the question very gently but even so Paloma was mortified to have to explain that she'd been having a bad day, that her hair was too wild and curly and she had cut it all off on an impulse because she'd simply got fed up with it. “Besides, it's
red,
” she added, unhappily, because the other kids all teased her about her carrottop, and besides she knew it looked terrible and that she would have to live with the results of her action for a long time.

“It'll grow,” Sunny said, encouragingly.

“Are you Spanish too?” Paloma spoke Castilian Spanish, which was different from Sunny's Mexican. The “s” sounds were pronounced “th”—as though with a slight lisp. The reason Spaniards came to speak that way was because in the old days their king at the time had a bad lisp. Out of respect his courtiers, and later all his subjects, copied their king's lisp so he wouldn't feel bad about it. Paloma knew that from history. But then Sunny replied in the Mexican Spanish accent Paloma knew well from living in California.

“My father is Mexican,” Sunny said. “He's a rancher out near Santa Fe. And my mom's a blond hippie flower-child he met on vacation, so I'm kind of half-and-half.”

“I wonder if I am too,” Paloma said, looking thoughtful and puzzling Sunny. Still, Sunny could see the girl had been traumatized and knew better than to pry right now.

No questions asked, she took Paloma by the hand and led her back into the living room and out through the sliding glass doors and onto the deck, where Mac was sitting with Pirate right next to him. Tesoro had taken up a cocky stance at the top of the steps to the beach. The bottle of champagne listed in an ice bucket on the old white wicker table; the ice had half melted by now, leaving a puddle around it. The two flutes Sunny had dumped there before she ran to help were next to the now wilted grilled-cheese sandwich. Still, the sandwich made Paloma's mouth water, in spite of the fact it looked well after its sell-by.

“Come and sit here.” Sunny pulled up a chair for Paloma, then catching the girl's hungry glance, she handed her the plate with the sandwich and a fancy blue linen napkin she'd intended for her own little private champagne party. Then she went back to the kitchen and got a Diet Coke for Paloma, came back, opened up the champagne and poured a glass for herself and one for Mac. She flung herself onto a floor cushion, lifted Tesoro onto her lap, and gave Mac a look he knew meant, “Okay, Detective, she's all yours now. Make of her what you will.”

 

Chapter 3

Paloma took a
grateful slug of the Coke. It felt good going down her ravaged throat, though she did think all that seawater had given her voice a thrillingly deep edge. She sounded almost grown-up, like her friend Cherrypop who lived on the Ravel vineyard in Spain. But that was scary; she didn't want to be grown-up yet. Not until her mom came back.

Mac Reilly was giving her that same keen, narrowed-eyed look she'd seen him give on TV when he was sorting out criminals and con artists and abusers. Of course, her aunt didn't know Paloma watched such an adult program; she thought she still watched
Mary Poppins,
for God's sake. She did, but not that often anymore, and she would never admit to it anyway, in case the other kids at school thought she was a wimp. That is, when she
went
to school, because more often than not she was off with Jassy and her friends, roaming the world with the latest governess or tutor in tow. She said “the latest” because the tutors never stayed long in Jassy's employ, complaining about the hotel rooms and never knowing where they'd be from one week to the next.

Mac said, “So, Señorita Paloma, now that we've saved you, don't you think you owe us an explanation?”

Paloma took a deep breath. She guessed she did but the way it often happened with her, like now, she couldn't get the truth out. She was worried Mac and Sunny would be shocked, that they would laugh at her, tell her to go on home and forget all about it. “What happened in the past, happened,” Aunt Jassy had told her so often. “You just have to let it go and get on with living.” Paloma knew she was right, but it was tough. In fact it was impossible.

“I know you from TV,” she told Mac, blushing shyly again, squeezing the Coke can so tight it crunched and Coke squirted all over the yoga pants Sunny had lent her.

“Ooops, sorry,” she muttered, embarrassed, mopping it up with the Missoni scarf. “Jassy always says I'm clumsy.”

“My mom always said that about me too,” Sunny said, kindly, because the child was so obviously embarrassed. “And I'm glad you caught Mac's show. Tell me, what do you think of him?”

Paloma stared gratefully at her. “I think he's just wonderful.” She turned to gaze at Mac, all worshipful brown eyes.

Sunny sipped her champagne trying to hide her smile. Of course, the child was a fan; she'd known all she'd wanted when she'd haunted their house that week was an autograph. “Some of us feel that way about him,” she said, giving Mac a wicked little smirk. “Wait here, sweetheart, and I'll get you an eight-by-ten glossy of the master detective. I'm sure Mac will sign it specially to you.”

Sunny departed in search of the photo, and Mac looked keenly at Paloma and said, “So, what else is up?”

Paloma squinched further down in her chair; she wanted so badly to say
All I want, Mac Reilly, is for you to find my mom, I want you to bring her home to me, please oh please, let her come back, let everything be all right again, let things be the way they were
.… But she still couldn't bring herself to say it because Jassy had told her you never could go back and things could never be the same and she was afraid that's what Mac would say too. He would tell her the truth and her hopes would finally be destroyed, and she would be left alone in the world. Abandoned. All over again.

“I think you're wonderful,” was all she managed to say before Sunny returned with a really good photo of Mac, looking casual, leaning against this very deck rail.

Mac threw her that quizzical glance again, before signing it, and Paloma knew she had not fooled him. He was too smart for that.

“Come on then, sweetheart,” he said, taking her hand. “I'll walk you back home.”

Sunny kissed her goodbye and gave her a hug, a true, close-to-the-heart hug, arms wrapped almost twice around her.

“I'll send back the clothes when they've been washed,” Paloma promised but Sunny said not to worry, they were hers to keep, which almost made Paloma cry, she was so pleased, and she got to thank her all over again. She kissed Tesoro on her button nose and stroked her sleek fur.

And then there they were, just the two of them, her and Mac Reilly, walking hand in hand along the beach where she had so nearly drowned. Pirate limped behind them, weaving from side to side as though herding sheep.

Aware of the warm clasp of Mac's hand, Paloma tried to remember what it had felt like, being rescued by him, but she couldn't recall a thing, only a lot of green water in her face.

“Did I really almost drown?” she asked.

“Nah!”

She glanced up. He was laughing.

“Just next time don't get too close to the water. It's a big ocean out there, and unpredictable.”

“I know. Riptides,” she said. She'd heard all about them but this was her first experience. Even though she couldn't quite remember it, she knew she didn't want it to happen again. “I'm actually quite a good swimmer,” she volunteered. “My aunt was a champion swimmer in school and she taught me.”

“Good for her,” Mac said, thinking it was a pity she hadn't also warned her about walking alone on the beach.

“Anyway, I'll bet you are,” he added because he could see she looked downcast.

Paloma stopped at a flight of steps leading up from the beach to a rather grand house, all white with severe modern lines and a bank of massive windows that made Mac flinch, thinking about the eternal sea spray, the blowing sand and the clinging mist, and the price of the endless window cleaning involved. He knew though that people who lived in such grand houses never stopped to consider the cost.

“Well, this is it,” Paloma said, not quite knowing how to say goodbye, and not wanting to, because really, truthfully, she still wanted so badly to ask for Mac's help. It was the whole reason she'd
haunted
him all week. But now she knew he was way out of her reach; a TV star; a famous detective; she couldn't afford to pay him and he wouldn't waste his time on her … but she wanted to tell him, she wanted to, so badly.…

“Mac…”

“Yes?”

He was still holding on to her hand.

“Ohh … Nothing.”

“Sure there isn't something you want to tell me?”

“Just that we're leaving tomorrow. For Barcelona,” she added. “That's basically where we live.”

“Basically Barcelona?”

Paloma shrugged. “We live all over the place, wherever Jassy chooses at that moment.”

Mac handed her the manila envelope with his photo in it. “I've put my card in there, Paloma Ravel,” he said. “If you ever decide there's something you want to talk about, you call me. Okay?”

She stared at him, shy, bug-eyed, speechless. Then Pirate came and shoved against her legs and she bent to pat him but also to hide her tears.

“Okay,” she said, then she turned and ran up those steps. Back to Aunt Jassy. And back to Barcelona.

*   *   *

By the time Mac
got back the sun had disappeared and a mist hung over the horizon. Sunny had abandoned the fetching look of the satin pajamas for the more practical jeans, the Uggs, and an old green cashmere sweater of Mac's, a particular favorite because she loved the way it smelled of him.

“Kiss me, my hero,” she said dramatically, throwing her arms wide. But she meant it. “After all you did just actually save a child's life,” she added.

“What about Pirate? He got to her first.”

Sunny kissed the still-wet dog. “Braveheart,” she said and the dog gazed adoringly up at her, until the Chihuahua, fresh from sleeping on Mac's warm bed, hurled herself at him, bared teeth gleaming. Sunny caught her mid-leap.