Specter (9780307823403) (13 page)

“Maybe they came from her father.”

“I doubt it. She adores her father. She told me she looks just like him.” I watch a bee who is investigating my toes. I pull my foot back, and he shoots off in a straight line. “That’s odd.”

Dave rolls over on one elbow. “It’s odd that she looks like her father?”

“No. I just thought of something Arturo said. At the party he mentioned that Julie was a pretty little girl. Then he said she must look like her mother.”

“It was a compliment.”

“I don’t think so. He’s a policeman. Maybe he saw the driver’s license description of her father. Or maybe it’s the Texas kind that has a picture on it, and he knows what her father looks like.”

“Remind me to show you the picture on my driver’s license. No. Remind me not to. I look like I’m planning to rob the savings and loan company. All I need is a number under my chin.”

“I’ll show you my license. I’ve got a big, silly grin that scrunches up my eyes. If a policeman ever stopped me and looked at my license, he’d never recognize me unless I made the same face.”

It’s a lazy afternoon. The scene at La Villita seems out of place. Wrong movie. Wrong actors. I’ve forgotten something.

“Dave, I didn’t remember to thank you for going after Julie.”

“She’s a fast one,” Dave says. “Scared me to death when she ran out in the traffic before I could reach her. She just missed being hit by a car. It’s surprising she wasn’t.”

Cold, cold, cold. Sitting in the sun with shivers up my back and through my shoulders and into my neck. There is something here I don’t understand. A needle of cold pricks me, frightens me. Dave begins talking about his job, and I’m distracted. Tomorrow I’ll call Dr. Lynn. I need to talk to her. All I have is pieces, and I need her to help put them together.

“So frying fish and french fries gets kind of boring after a while, but the job pays okay, and it’s fine for summer.”

I realize Dave is talking, but it’s hard to pay attention.

What do I tell her? About Julie cutting her arm? But it was an accident. About Julie running into traffic? But she was running away from someone she thought was Sikes.

I try to look interested as Dave says, “And you can sure get sick of that fish smell. We get all we can eat, but you can only eat so much fish, and you start dreaming it’s a pizza.”

What’s happening to Julie doesn’t make sense. It sounds crazy. She’s just a little girl. With problems.

“Obviously the story of my career as a fryer of
fish has you stunned into speechlessness,” Dave says.

I tuck away the problems, pulling myself back to the here and now, back to Dave. “I was just trying to visualize the story of your job as a TV mini-series. Sort of like cooked
Jaws
.”

I feel at ease with Dave, and he likes to be with me. I know he does. But the afternoon turns warm again, and it’s over too soon. Reluctantly I say good-bye to Dave and go into the house. Mrs. Cardenas is chopping cucumbers and tomatoes for a salad, so I set the table.

Mr. Cardenas tosses down the comic section of the
Express-News
.

“There’s nothing funny in here today,” he says.

“You read those comics three times at least,” his wife says. “If they’re not funny, why read them?”

“I keep looking.”

The house is very quiet. “Where’s Julie?” I ask. I’m glad I had a break from her, but now guilt is moving in again.

“Oh, she’s back in the bedroom. Probably still playing with that little glass dog,” Mrs. Cardenas says. “She sure likes that little dog. That was nice of Dave to buy those things for you. Didn’t I tell you he was a nice boy?”

Yes, he’s very nice, and the little duck is nice, and I want to see it and touch it again. “I’ll go back to the bedroom and talk to Julie,” I tell them. “She may want some company.”

As I enter the bedroom, Julie stares up at me.
There is a strong message of fear. She is hunched in a little ball in the middle of her bed, and she holds out a closed fist.

“I want you to have my dog,” she says.

Pink glass shines through her fingers.

“No,” I tell her. “That’s a gift to you from Dave. He wouldn’t want you to give it away.”

“I want to give it to you, because I broke your little duck.”

“Oh, no, Julie! No!” I glance at the top of the chest of drawers, where I had put it, but it isn’t there. “What were you doing with it?”

“I know. It was yours, and I should have left it alone.”

“Where is it? How did you break it?”

She climbs from the bed and carefully picks up a tissue which is wadded around something. I hold out my hand, and she places the tissue in it.

“I dropped it. Please don’t be mad at me. I was just looking at it, and I dropped it.”

I stare at the crushed pieces of yellow glass lying on the tissue in my hand. “Tell me the truth, Julie.”

“I am! I dropped it.”

“To smash it like this you must have stepped on it.”

“Oh. Maybe I did when I was trying to pick it up.”

I meet her gaze, so steady, so innocent. She had to do this on purpose. Because Dave gave it to me?

Facing her, I sit on the edge of my bed. She is
so small, so thin, so young for her nine years. “I think if we have an honest talk with each other, it will help,” I tell her. “Something is bothering you, and something is bothering me. Talk to me. Tell me why you did this.”

She looks at me for a long time, and I hope she is weighing what I’ve said.

“Julie, do you think I’m spending too much time with Dave and not enough with you?”

She shakes her head.

“People have many friends. At the home I spent a lot of time with Holley Jo, but I had other friends, too. And I taught swimming lessons in the summer, while Holley Jo took advanced French in summer school. And sometimes she went out on a date, and I stayed home. Sometimes it worked the other way. We didn’t have to be with each other the entire time. Do you understand?”

Her mind has shifted, and I can see the change. “I know what’s bothering you,” she suddenly says. “You don’t like being sick and waiting to find out if you’re going to die.”

I can’t help sighing. “I am trying to talk about you. The way you’ve been behaving is one of the things that is bothering me.”

Does she smile? It was just a flicker. A strange, little smile. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

I can’t get through to her. I don’t know how. Carefully, I wrap the shards of yellow glass in the
tissue and tuck it in the right-hand corner of my top drawer. When I get the chance, I’m going to call Dr. Lynn.

In the morning Mrs. Cardenas leans across the breakfast table and says, “Dina, you told me you could drive and run errands for me. You got a driver’s license?”

“Yes. I’ll show it to you.”

“That’s okay. I believe you.” She plops back in her chair and says, “Carlos is such a bad driver he takes the bus to work. And I don’t like to drive. Too many crazy drivers who want to put their cars in the same spot my car is in.”

“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,” I say. “I’m a good driver.”

“
Muy bien
,” she says. “Today I got some errands for you.”

“I want to go, too,” Julie says.

“Sure,” Mrs. Cardenas says. “This one place you’re going to, a shoe repair shop—Oh, how that man wears down the heels on his shoes!—is right next to a nice little ice cream store. I’ll give you some money to have ice cream cones.”

“Thank you,” I say, and Julie repeats it like a small echo.

“You’d better give me some directions,” I add. “I’m not familiar with San Antonio.”

Julie clears the table while Mrs. Cardenas draws red dots on a gas station map of the city. “Here’s where we are, and here’s the shoe repair shop. It’s in a big shopping mall over near the Loop. I’m
going to give you a grocery list, and you may as well get the things at that store in the mall because they got a good buy on eggs and a half-price on tomato juice.”

She’s busy writing lists, and I’m studying the map. The city isn’t that big, and map reading isn’t hard. In fact, I like it.

Julie is next to me. Her finger points to I-10. “This is the freeway that goes to the hospital,” she says.

“You’re a good map reader,” I tell her.

“I know,” she answers.

Finally we are loaded with a list; a paper bag with a pair of shoes in it; Mr. Cardenas’s suit, which has to go to the dry cleaners; and some money for the grocery store.

“Once around the block until you’re used to the car,” Mrs. Cardenas says, piling into the front seat with us, squashing Julie up against me.

Mrs. Cardenas’s car is like the old blue station wagon. It takes the same gentle hand to keep from bucking. This beautiful model comes complete with jumps and stalls. I know its tricks, so by the time we get down the hill to Woodlawn Drive, I’ve got the feel of the car. Right turn, right turn, up the hill, and right turn again.

“This house with the blue trim—it’s where Dave Lewis and his family live,” Mrs. Cardenas says smugly, adding, “Nice boy, Dave.”

I wonder what time Dave goes to work. He didn’t say when he’d come over.

The car pulls to a smooth stop in front of Mrs. Cardenas’s house, and she beams. “You’re a good driver, Dina. Have fun, and take your time. There’s no hurry.”

She struggles from the car and onto the curb, panting a little. “Dr. Cruz says I gotta lose weight. Sometimes I think he’s right.”

She shuts the door, waves, and I head down to Woodlawn again. Julie scoots over and watches our progress intently. She asks questions about the zoo, so I fill time telling her how kids under twelve can ride on the elephant, and how the little train goes all around the park.

She sits on the edge of her seat, resting her arms on the dashboard and her chin on her arms. As we pull into the large shopping area, she says, “I’ve been here before.”

“Did you live near here?” I drop the keys into my handbag.

“Yes.” She swings toward me and clutches my arm. “Dina, remember I said there was something I wanted to show you? Well, now it’s time.”

“We have some errands to do.”

“After the errands.” She climbs out of the car as though everything had been settled.

Cleaners, first, then shoe repair shop. “How about that ice cream cone now?” I ask her.

“I don’t want an ice cream cone.”

Heat rises from the expanse of cement. “I think ice cream would make us feel a lot cooler.”

“Let’s go to the grocery store.”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I’m not in a hurry,” Julie says. “I just know what I want to do.”

“What is it you want to do?”

“I want to go where I used to live.” She’s marching down the pavement, turning into the super-market. The huge glass doors swing wide as we approach and close behind us with a smack.

I drag a cart from its stack and pull out the shopping list. “Julie, you told Detective MacGarvey that you didn’t know where you lived.”

“I don’t remember the address, but I know how to get there.”

“You could have told him that.”

“I didn’t want to. It wasn’t time to go there.”

“And it is now?”

“Yes,” she says. “Now it’s time.”

“Why don’t we call Detective MacGarvey? He could go with us.”

“No!”

“Okay,” I say. “Don’t get so upset.”

The list isn’t long, so soon we are back in the car, the bags tucked on the floor behind the front seat.

“I’ll tell you how to get there,” she says. She sits upright, clutching the dashboard, staring out the windshield. “Turn down this street, next to the freeway, and keep going until I tell you to turn.”

Freeway traffic zooms past, up on a raised level,
a purring, swishing, rattling roar. I’m not in that traffic, but it’s invaded my life, and for a moment I wish for the quiet roads of the hill country.

“Here,” she says. “Turn here. Wait! Not so fast! Pull in right here and park.”

I turn off the ignition and stare at the dirty white stucco building in front of us. Curls of paint are peeling from the brown trim at the windows, and the asphalt shingles on the roof are streaked and stained. Occasional outside stairways break the flat monotony, and down at the far end is a sign with an arrow:
MANAGER
.

Julie is already out of the car, so I join her, carefully locking the doors because of those bags of food inside. I start toward the manager’s office, but Julie says, “No! This way!”

“Don’t we need to talk to the manager?”

She shakes her head. “Come on.”

I follow her around the side and to the back, where sagging carports stretch to the end of the unit. “Just where are we going?” I ask.

“To our apartment.”

“But we’ll have to ask the manager.”

“No. We paid by the week. The time isn’t up yet.”

“You were leaving the city.”

“We always do it that way. Sooner or later the manager finds the keys in our mailboxes. That way there aren’t any questions about where we’re going or forwarding addresses or stuff like that.”

“Why, Julie?”

For a moment she looks puzzled, but she simply shrugs. “It’s this one, downstairs.”

She stoops at the door and fishes through a crack around the sill, coming up with a key. “I always hide my key,” she says, “because sometimes Nancy goes out, and I’m outside and can’t get in.”

“Julie, are you sure we should go inside?”

But the door is open, and she has disappeared into the dimness. I follow her, carefully closing the door, feeling creepy in this dingy apartment with its smell of stale cigarette smoke and bacon grease, with its dusty beige drapes drawn against the sun.

Where is Julie? There’s a small hallway leading off one end of the living room. Two bedrooms, but sounds are coming from the one on the right. I enter in time to see her backing out of the closet.

“It’s here! I knew it would be!” She holds up a square, metal can, the kind cookies sometimes come in. It’s scratched and dented, and the Christmas poinsettias on the cover are faded. She puts it on the one twin bed.

“What’s inside?”

“Something I want to show you.” She pries off the lid, holding it as a shield so that I can’t see into the box. In a moment she has found what she wants. It’s a snapshot. She studies it, then hands it to me.