Holy Guacamole! (19 page)

“Thank goodness for that. Does anyone else know?” the dean interrupted.

“Jason, and Mr. Boris Ignatenko, whose club it is, and the girls, of course. Anyway, my committee is collecting clothes, food, and job offers. I may even be able to get them a car that actually runs.”

“And you will explain to the young ladies that their present circumstances are not to be mentioned. By the way, you should not call them
girls;
it’s politically incorrect. I’d rather not see them myself to explain things. The university cannot entirely divorce itself from this unfortunate situation, but the farther away I stay from it, the better. Which applies to you, as well, Dr. Tigranian. I do not want you yelling at these students about their late sponsor or the jobs he provided for them or anything else.”

“I hope never to see them,” said the music chairman, as dignified as if he hadn’t just shouted at his dean.

“Well, I hope they’ll receive parts in university productions,” I hastened to add. “They have lovely voices.”

“No more productions. We may even have to charge admission to the student degree recitals,” said Tigranian, scowling.

Which should insure that no one shows up but relatives,
I thought.
And maybe not even relatives.

I went back immediately to ask the music secretary where I could find Polya and Irina and was sent to the practice rooms. There I discovered them trilling away, but without direction since their professor had vomited himself to death, probably with some help from an unknown murderer. In the remaining three hours of the afternoon, the excited girls—students—and I carried cans and clothes into their new room, which they thought was wonderful—so clean, such nice furniture, a nice bathroom; what more could they ask? Then we drove to the trailer, after I pushed their car from a student parking lot to a hill.

While they collected their pitiful cache of possessions, I presented myself to the woman who ran the park to give notice that her tenants were leaving. She said whatever Mr. Gubenko wanted, but the November rent was late. I told her to call the professor. She asked if I wanted to leave a forwarding address for girls. I didn’t.

What a strange-looking woman she was—squat, with a light mustache. And what a strange trailer park! I had always imagined them as being places full of children and people sitting outside in lawn chairs drinking beer. This one might have occupants, other than Polya and Irina, but I didn’t see any—just the twitch of a curtain as I passed, but no visible people. After collecting the young women and giving their car another push, we drove back, in separate cars, to the university and recruited some large young men from the lobby to help carry things upstairs. Polya and Irina might have been exotic dancers and lesbians, but they could giggle like any American college girl in the presence of young men.

My last duty was to shoo the football players out of the room and have a serious talk about never discussing Brazen Babes or their housing or association with Vladik and his seamy associates. They assured me that they would be very happy to forget that part of their lives immediately and, instead, look forward to jobs and a viable car and all the good things that might be coming their way. In the meantime they had rooms, meals, classes, different clothes, and cans of soup that they could warm up in the microwave down the hall. They were ecstatic. I warned them to remove the soup from the cans before microwaving it.

I received more hugs and kisses from my new protégés than I deemed necessary. Such gratitude can be embarrassing. After all, my motives were not entirely charitable.

With one last goodbye, I headed for home and the choice of a moderately sexy, but tasteful outfit for my venture into Juarez. God help me! Jason would be very angry if I wrecked my car in a foreign country and ended up in a foreign jail, one that has a very dubious reputation, according to the newspaper.

Parallel Parking and World-Class Margaritas

I
made her
come in so I could take a look at her. Not bad. Long black dress with a high Chinese collar but open enough to hint at a bit of cleavage and a red stone pendant hanging around her throat with earrings to match. Low heeled boots. That was good in case we had to run. “You’ll do. In fact, Barrientos likely never saw anyone like you.” She gave my compliment the evil eye. My outfit was what I had—dark blue silk pants and blouse, silver and turquoise jewelry that came from my grandmother. “Come here, Smack.” I clipped the leash to the dog’s collar.

“We’re taking the dog?” she asked. Now she really looked nervous.

“Right. When we get to Mexican customs, you tell them I’m blind.” I slipped on dark glasses and grabbed my cane. The rest of my protective gear was in my purse—a roll of duct tape. “Say I never go anywhere without the dog, and Martino’s is expecting the three of us. People coming over for dinner are good for the economy. They’ll let us pass. Then we’ll give the same story to American customs. It should work.”

“Won’t the dog have to go into quarantine after being in a foreign country?”

“It’s just Mexico, for God’s sake. As long as we get in the right lane, the customs agent should be a cousin of mine. So stop worrying.”

“But why are we taking him?”

“Her. Because if we get in a tight spot, Smack will attack the attackers. Otherwise, we leave her in the car, and she keeps car thieves from stealing it.”

Obviously Carolyn liked that part of the deal, but the attack business didn’t go over well. “Are you expecting anyone to attack us?” she asked as she started the car.

“Nope. Just playing it safe.” And from there on I gave her specific, long-term directions so we wouldn’t have to keep turning back to make the turns she’d missed. She did okay, for a woman who was scared to death. But she did think we should park and walk across the bridge. I pointed out that the bridge arched up over the river so much that it was steep walking up and steep walking down, not the kind of exercise that did my knees any good, especially in a cold wind. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t want to drive in Juarez and was still hoping to get out of it. She then remarked that it wasn’t much of a river when its banks were encased in cement. I said the cement kept it from changing course and dumping part of the U.S. in Mexico or part of Mexico in the U.S.

While we were circling San Jacinto Plaza, something we’d have avoided if she’d been listening more carefully to my instructions, she told me that the plaza had once been a manure dump until someone named Satterthwaite in the 1880s put in bushes and trees, built a fountain, and then filled a pool for a couple of alligators. She thought having alligators in the town square was pretty weird and very dangerous.

I told her that the city finally had to get rid of them because the citizens picked on them. “Now we have the plastic alligator sculpture, and the climate is doing that in. A local guy sculpted it.”

When we got to the Santa Fe Bridge, the one-way traffic to Juarez was pretty slow and my driver pretty jittery. While we were inching across, she rambled on about the swinging footbridge they’d had from Smeltertown to Juarez during Pancho Villa’s time, so people could go across and have their pictures taken with him and so the revolutionaries could come across to buy clothes and boots and plot against the Mexican government in the Sheldon Hotel. “Madero stayed there,” she confided, as if I didn’t know. I had family on both sides of the border back then—still do, for that matter.

The footbridge story only got us halfway across, so she told me that people used to shout good wishes and throw food and money across the river to the rebels when they weren’t going across to take revolution pictures for the family photo album. Carolyn had seen a lot of those pictures in books and at a library collection. “The river wasn’t cemented then,” she said. “I imagine it was a good deal more impressive.”

“Right. It was still flooding all over the place,” I replied. Which brought us to Mexican customs, where they didn’t make any fuss about the dog, not when it accompanied a blind woman, who looked like one of their own, and an Anglo woman, who wouldn’t shut her mouth and didn’t speak Spanish. After she got through with poor blind me and my faithful Seeing Eye dog, who was faithfully asleep in the back seat, she just had to mention that the first customs collector on the American side of the river was appointed in 1849, and he formed patrols to stop smuggling. She wanted to know when Mexico first set up customs and patrols. She evidently thought these guys were the perfect people to ask. Of course, they had no idea what she was talking about. Meanwhile, like the blind woman I was supposed to be, I was smiling at them, but not quite in the right direction. One guy, who was about two sizes too big for his uniform, reached behind Carolyn to pat Smack, who woke up and growled.

“Now, now. Be a good doggie.” I cooed. Poor Smack didn’t know what to make of that. She nosed over the back seat to be sure it was really me.

The customs guy jumped back and waved us on, so we got the dog across.

The problem came when we were driving along beside the railroad tracks looking for a place to park. “There, “I said. “There’s one.”

“I don’t know how to parallel park,” Carolyn admitted.

“You’re kidding, right? How did you get a license if you don’t—”

“That was over twenty years ago, and I did everything else right. Can’t we find a slanted parking place that I can pull straight into?”

“No, we can’t. You’ll have to try this one.”

“The street’s full of cars, and it’s getting dark. I don’t want to. I’ll hit something.”

Christ!
“Okay, get out,” I muttered. She could have mentioned this
before
we got to Juarez. But then she probably never parked anywhere but in mall and grocery store lots.

“Get out
here?
By myself? On this street? I don’t know how to get to the restaurant, and we can’t leave the car in the middle of the road.”

“Get out, and I’ll move over and park it.”

“You’re supposed to be blind,” she grumbled, but she did get out and stood apprehensively on the sidewalk. I parked, after yelling at a guy who pulled up too close for me to back in. Probably figured on stealing my spot. I pressed the buttons to roll down both windows on my side, yelled at the guy again, and Smack stuck her head out, growling and barking. She’s one dog who knows an enemy when she sees one. The guy backed up, causing the guy behind him to honk wildly.

Carolyn had her hand over her mouth, obviously figuring a terrible accident, involving her car, was about to occur, but it worked out. I backed her Camry right into the spot, and we set off for Juarez Avenue and Martino’s, Carolyn bitching all the way.

A pitcher of their world-class margaritas calmed her down considerably. She even got comfortable enough to tell me, amazed, that children’s funerals in Spanish colonial days had been merry affairs, the dead kid dressed up in white with flowers and ribbons and the mourners dancing and chatting. “Can you imagine?” she asked, taking another slug of her margarita. I suppose she’d been anticipating her own funeral on the way over, and this story came to mind. “Most parents are distraught when they lose a child,” she pointed out. “I was astonished when I read about some of the customs. For instance, a bride changed her clothes and jewelry repeatedly during the wedding reception because—”

“A child is an innocent and goes straight to heaven,” I interrupted before she could list every Spanish colonial wedding custom she’d read about. “The parents probably figured dying and going to heaven was a much better deal than getting kidnapped and tortured by raiding Apaches or dying of smallpox or even living long enough to earn a place in hell.” And if I didn’t get to confession pretty soon and put in for forgiveness for blasphemy, which seems to be a consequence of cop friends and painful arthritis, I’d have my name on Satan’s list of good prospects.

Carolyn nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve always found Catholicism very interesting. Would you pass the margarita pitcher? These are delicious.”

I reminded her that she was driving. Jesus! Drunk and terrified, she’d be a real menace. And what woman her age can’t parallel park?

“Do you think I could get the recipe for these—what are they? Nachos?”

We were eating the little goodies Martino’s serves while you’re trying to work your way through the longest menu I’ve ever seen. “Forget it,” I said. “Just enjoy them.”

She took another sip of her drink and wondered whether margaritas would be even better if you floated some raspberry liqueur on top. “That’s disgusting,” I said. “It’s probably a criminal offense to change Martino’s margarita recipe.”

“I don’t have their recipe,” she retorted. The waiter arrived to take our orders, and Carolyn said, “I can’t decide what to order.”

“We’ll have the mushrooms in sherry and filets stuffed with crab and shrimp,” I told him.

Carolyn wanted lamb and said, “Did you know that the local Spanish settlers used to think they could tell when it was going to rain because the lambs could smell it and started to bleat and shake themselves as if they were already sopping wet?”

“I didn’t, and you can’t order lamb. You only get to choose how you want your steak cooked.” Sulking, she said “medium-rare.” I said “rare.” The waiter asked what soup we wanted. “Gazpacho,” I said.

“I make better gazpacho than anyone,” Carolyn objected. “I want to try something else.”

“Okay, she’ll have the avocado soup.”

“But—”

“It’s great. We’ll both have house salad with Roquefort, and be sure we get some
jicama
slices.”

“What’s jicama?” she asked. The waiter had hustled off before she could raise any more objections.

“Like raw potato, only better. Harder to peel too. Imagine a mango with all that stringy stuff you gotta cut off. Then imagine the mango with a dirty, stringy skin like a potato and no mango inside. You got a jicama.”