Suede to Rest (19 page)

I looked at the box in his arms, noting small holes had been punched through the thin cardboard lid. I suspected what was inside—either one or both of the kittens—but Carlos was so proud of his discovery that I remained silent and let him have his moment.

I backed up and held the door open wide as the crowd filed in. My mom's face was flushed pink, a striking contrast to her light gray pixie haircut. Her blue eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “John? You're not going to believe it.” She held her arm out to him and he took her hand and stepped to her side. She nodded to Maria.

“What is it?” Dad asked.

“We found pirate gold!” shouted Antonio, who seemed to have kept quiet long enough. His mother shushed him then took the shoe box from Carlos and held it out to me.

“I think this belongs to you.”

My hands shook as I took the box from her. I didn't know what to expect when I opened it, but with so many people looking at me, I couldn't ask to look at it later. I raised one leg and balanced the box on my thigh, then removed the lid.

It wasn't a kitten.

“Do you see it?” asked Antonio a second time. He reached up and pulled on my sleeve, knocking the box off balance. It tipped, dumping a charm bracelet that glistened as if it had recently been redipped in gold. I leaned closer. Small charms in the shapes of spools, scissors, thimbles, and one tiny sewing machine were attached to the chain links, next to round coins.

“It's Millie's bracelet,” my dad said.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“It means maybe the robbers were telling the truth.”

Before I could
act, the boys dropped to their knees and reached for the bracelet. My mom had tears in her eyes. Clearly, she wasn't going to be the person to tell me how they'd come to find this.

“Maria?” I asked.

“Joe, make sure those boys get every last one of those charms.” She put her arm around me and led me to the door. “Let's go outside for a second.”

I followed her to the sidewalk. “First, I'm sorry about what my boys did. Ever since they saw
Pirates of the Caribbean
, they think anything gold is pirate treasure.”

“They're boys. They're supposed to think that,” I said. “How did they find the box? Should I get my dad to hear this?”

“Your mother was there. I'm sure she'll tell him. We had finished cleaning the gate and opened it up so we could go to work on the door. Carlos heard meowing inside the store and when we weren't looking, he went up the stairs and opened the apartment door. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.”

“He found two kittens sitting on the other side of the door, and he convinced Antonio that they had to be rescued, so they carried them down to the store without telling us. When you have boys and you don't hear them for five minutes, you know it means they're up to no good, so I went looking for them. They were behind the partition in the store. Carlos tried to put the gray kitten into a box on the shelf to hide it because he didn't want to get in trouble, but the kitten jumped out and knocked the box over. Buttons and ribbon and coins spilled all over the place. The kitten ran to the back, but by that point Carlos thought he'd uncovered hidden treasure.”

“He very well might have.”

“When I found out what happened, I got your mother. She saw the coins on the floor and almost passed out!” Maria, who had started out as a calm mother of two boys who has seen and had to clean up after everything, had grown excited. Her brown eyes widened to match her boys' and I immediately saw where their sense of adventure came from. “When she told us what they were we knew we had to bring them to you right away. What does it mean?” she finished in a hushed voice.

“I don't know yet.”

“I don't think that's true, Poly. I think you know exactly what this means,” said my dad from the doorway. I pushed a lock of hair out of my eyes and looked at him. “I think it means you got that sign you were looking for.”

Big Joe eased himself behind the counter and poured coffee and hot chocolate for everyone, then disappeared into the back. Within minutes the sweet sugary scent of freshly baked donuts filled the interior of the small shop. The Lopez family mingled with my parents, filling my dad in on the events at the fabric store that morning. Carlos and Antonio were the heroes of the morning, their actions celebrated with crème-filled éclairs. I excused myself and went out front again, needing a moment to process the information.

Adelaide Brooks had told me to focus on the bracelet. She'd said,
Find the bracelet and you'll find the answers
. Only, that wasn't the case. The bracelet had been in the store all the time. What if she wasn't the sweet lady I had taken her for, but was really after the bracelet herself? What if every piece of information she'd fed me, along with that serving of tea, had been carefully chosen to put me on the trail of something I didn't even know still existed and keep me from looking too closely at her family?

And how had she really gotten the charm she'd given me the day we spoke? She'd claimed it had come from her ex-husband, and I'd believed her. But how had that charm gotten separated from the others in the store?

As I stood on the sidewalk, staring across the street at the newsstand, I realized someone was staring back at me. Vaughn. I wondered how long he'd been standing there watching me, and if he knew about the vandalism—that is, if he hadn't been involved in it in the first place. Only, this didn't feel like something he'd do. Whether or not he wanted me around, whether or not he was working for his father, trying to get me to sell the store so they could resell and make a bundle, I couldn't imagine that he'd stoop to ketchup vandalism to make his point. It didn't fit.

Before I could figure out whether or not to acknowledge his presence or turn around and ignore him, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to face my mother. “Your father said you had a good talk.”

“It was a start.”

“Considering what happened today, we're going to stick around for a bit. Would it be cramping your style if we went back to the apartment?”

“Mom, how exactly would that be cramping my style?” I asked. “Carson left. He's back in Los Angeles. It's me and two kittens, and I'll go out on a limb and say we'd all welcome the company.”

“I wasn't talking about Carson,” she said. She looked across the street at Vaughn, still sitting alone. His head was half-hidden behind the newspaper. “That's the McMichael boy, isn't it? Go ask him to join us.”

“No, Mom, I'm not going to ask him to join us. This isn't about him, it's about us. It's about family.”

“Not all of it,” she said. “And this isn't about holding a grudge. I raised you better than that.”

“You raised me to have family loyalty. And I do.”

“I raised you to be responsible, too.” She held my cell phone out. “You left this on the counter charging. You missed several calls from Giovanni—he's your boss, right?”

I took the phone from her and grinded my teeth. How did mothers know how to make a point so well? Did they teach a class on that somewhere?

“I need to return a few phone calls. In private.” I spun away from her and stepped off the sidewalk onto a strip of grass that ran between the donut shop and the dentist next door. It was well past morning, now moving somewhere into the lunch hour. I knew she was right and I owed Giovanni a call, but he could wait.

I gently tapped out the numbers 411. After being connected to the local utility office, I bypassed a series of automated cues designed to direct me to the right office, then ended up on the phone with someone named Shirley. I explained the power situation and gave her my address, then sat silent on my end while she presumably either accessed my account or ignored everything I'd said and left me hanging.

“The fabric store? You live up there?”

“Yes, that's me.”

“That was tempo for the weekend. We haven't had an account there for years.”

“What do you mean ‘tempo'?” I asked.

“Temporary service. Turned on by a Realtor, Ken Watts, on Friday morning. He said he was showing the property, asked us to turn on the power for two days.”

“Is that normal?” I asked.

“Pretty routine. When you have properties that've been vacant for awhile, nobody's itching to pay the bills, but the Realtors know you can't show a property in the dark. We have agreements with most of the agencies.”

“So can I get the power turned back on? Can you transfer the account to me?”

“Did you buy the place?”

“I inherited it.”

“Says here it's under the control of Watts Realtor. Until I get word from them, the power's going to have to stay off.”

“What if I convince him to turn it back on?”

“That's between you and him. You probably want to try that first, because once I cut his account off, it'll take a couple of days to get it back up and running.”

“What about the water?” I asked.

“I can't help you with that. You'll have to talk to the water company.”

“Thanks for the information, Shirley.” I hung up the phone and thumbed through recent calls until I found Ken's phone number. Big Joe watched me from the window with his arms crossed over his chest. I was being antisocial.

“Ken Watts,” he said as an answer.

“Ken, this is Poly. I need a favor. I need you to have the power turned back on at the fabric store until I can have the bills transferred to my name. And the water. Can you get the water turned back on, too?”

“Don't you need to be getting back to Los Angeles yet?”

“Not now.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “I was going to call you this morning, but I got distracted. You know my aunt's bracelet? The one that's been missing all these years?”

“The one you insist the robbers melted into a lump of gold?”

“Yes, that one. We found it this morning. It's been inside all along.”

He whistled. “All this time. I gotta say, I was with you. But that's good news, right? Now you can get some closure and sell the store with no regrets.”

“This doesn't mean I'm selling the store.” I kicked the toe of my boot against the damp ground. “Can we forget your potential commission and talk like friends? I need the power and the water back on.”

“This goes beyond my normal duties,” he said.

“Let me put it to you another way: I've been wearing the same clothes for most of the weekend and I'm desperately in need of a shower. If you don't work with me, I'll be forced to come to your office. Without the benefit of regular grooming habits. That's going to cost you a
lot
more than the commission you'll lose by not selling my store to Mr. McMichael. Is that what you want?”

“Your boyfriend said you were stubborn, but I didn't believe him.”

“Whatever,” I said, careful not to actually agree with him. “I'm good for the money. Can you call them? Now?”

“Fine.”

“Thank you, Ken,” I said.

He grumbled something I chose not to interpret and hung up. My next call was to Giovanni, who, no doubt, had noticed that I wasn't coming in. I listened to several messages that grew from annoyed to angry, then deleted the whole batch of them and called him back.

“Giovanni, it's Poly.”

“Where are you?”

“I'm out of town.” I paused for a second, not sure if he was going to ask questions. “Family emergency,” I added, to make it sound more dramatic.

“Is this the fabric store your boyfriend wants me to buy? That family emergency?”

“He came to you?”

“Asked me to put up a pretty penny, too. I sure hope the other investor stepped up like I did.”

I turned my back on the donut shop and stared out at the cars driving past. “Did he tell you who the other investor was? Did he give you a name?”

“He sure didn't want to. Said the third guy was local and wanted to remain anonymous. I told him I wouldn't even look at his proposal until I knew who I was getting into bed with.”

“And?” I held my breath.

“Yeah, he gave me the name. Ken Watts.”

“Ken is the
third investor?” I repeated. “He's the agent representing the sale. How can he be an investor, too?”

“That's probably why he wanted to stay anonymous. Not lose his real estate license. If your boyfriend is right about what we stand to make when we sell, I'd probably take the same risk.”

“Yes, but I already know you're unethical.” My mind spun with possibilities of what this meant. Ken had been the one to tell me about the second offer. Had he come up with the plan when he realized I was willing to play hardball with Mr. McMichael, or had it been Carson's idea and Ken was in the right place at the right time?

“Are you coming back this afternoon?” Giovanni asked. “The seamstresses are waiting for the sketches for our next collection.”

I shook off my questions and focused. “That concept wasn't due until Friday.”

“I advanced the timetable.”

“Why? Even if I hadn't come to San Ladrón I wouldn't have been ready. Not this early. I haven't had a chance to assemble colors or swatches, or to put together an inspiration packet.”

“I'm not going to pay these women to sit around all day. Fax me ten sketches and I'll do the rest.”

I pictured Giovanni bastardizing my sketches with the cheapest fabrics he could get at the fabric mart. When it didn't work, he'd hand me a hot glue gun and a tray of plastic jewels and instruct me to fix them. I thought of the beautiful bolts of fabric in the store and knew I didn't want to work his way anymore. I could use the store inventory this time. I could write up an invoice and sell him the fabric that I wanted to use.

“Gold,” I said.

“What?”

“Gold. Platinum. Copper. Bugle beads and feathers and sequins and fringe. Flapper dresses. That's my concept.”

“That crap doesn't sell. I want color. I want blue. Bright blue. And turquoise, teal, peacock. There's your theme: peacock. I'll get you your feathers and you can glue them wherever you want. Just get me sketches.”

“We did peacock last year.”

“So do it again. People won't remember. Just make sure you put a lot of bright blue in there. I put a bid in on a thousand yards of blue poly satin. We have to move that pronto.”

I didn't have the guts to tell Giovanni the only way he'd move a thousand yards of bright blue poly satin was to start selling Superman suits in Santee Alley. “I'll work on sketches soon.”

“I want them tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow. What day is it, anyway?”

“It's Monday.”

“Best-case scenario I can have something to you by Wednesday.”

“If you want to come back to a job, make it a priority,” Giovanni said before hanging up.

I kicked the toe of my boot against the side of the donut shop, then placed the sole squarely on one of the panels of aluminum siding and leaned forward, stretching out my hamstrings. It felt good to stretch. I changed feet, putting the left on the building and repeating the stretch. When I finished, I tipped my head to one side then the other, relieving tension in my neck as the joint cracked, then rolled it around and looked straight up at the blue sky. I rolled my shoulders backward twice. I felt like a boxer, limbering up, getting ready for a fight, and in a way I guess I was. My next call was to Carson.

He didn't answer. I waited for his voice mail, figuring I'd take the high road as long as I was alone and nobody could overhear me.

“Carson, it's me. I need to ask you about something—” A repetitive beeping hammered in my ear. I pulled the phone away from my head and looked at the flat screen. The call had been dropped. I moved a few steps to the left and dialed again.

He answered halfway through the third ring. “What do you want, Poly?” he asked. His voice lacked both emotion and warmth and was lower than he usually talked. This was his business side. I'd heard him talk like this before but never to me.

“What happened to hello?” I asked.

“I gave up hello somewhere between you stealing my car and accusing me of vandalism.”

“It's been a rough couple of days.”

“I came up there to help you out so it wouldn't be so rough on you. That's what being in a relationship is about. Having someone to lean on, to help you. If you had responded to my note, we could have driven home together.”

“I couldn't leave last night. Not with everything that's happened.”

“I know you're all nostalgic over the store, but this isn't all about you. Think about the other investors. They put up money because they see it as a good risk. We all do. You can take the money we make and open your own store. Something you want. I've never heard you talk about wanting to open a fabric store.”

“Speaking of the other investors . . .”

He interrupted me. “Confidentiality clause.”

“Don't talk to me like I'm one of your clients.” I looked up at the window next to me and saw Big Joe looking back. His brows pulled together with concern. “I just talked to Giovanni and he told me the third investor is Ken.”

“I should have known I couldn't trust your boss to keep his mouth shut.
Confidentiality clause
means ‘I could lose my job.' Did he tell anybody else? No, don't answer that. I am not going to continue this conversation with you. When you calm down, when you want to have a rational conversation between two adults, then you know where to find me. But as long as you're going to accuse me of something juvenile, we're done.”

“You know something? I'm tired of only talking about the things
you
want to talk about at the times
you
want to talk about them. I'm tired of your life being the only one worth anything. I'm tired of living according to your rules of how to get ahead.”

“Good-bye, Poly.”

“Don't hang up on me!” I yelled into the phone, but it was too late. I threw the phone into a small cluster of landscaping by the corner of the building, regretting the action the second I heard the sound of breaking glass. A small salamander slithered out, startled by the iPhone assault. I kicked at the shrubbery a few times, making sure the salamander didn't leave any friends behind, dropped to my knees, and plunged my hands into the brush to find my broken phone.

“I guess calling you is out of the question,” said Vaughn from behind me.

My hand closed around the small rectangle, and I pulled it out of the tangle of exposed roots and fallen leaves. The screen of my phone had cracked on impact with a clay pot cast into the shape of a frog. I shook the phone a few times to bring the display up, but nothing happened. On top of everything else I was going to have to find an Apple store.

The knees of my leggings were wet from the ground, which must have been watered earlier that day. I pointed the phone at Vaughn, and he threw his hands up in the air in surrender and took a step back.

“I'm fresh out of apologies, so if that's what you crossed the street for, you're out of luck,” I said.

“It looks like there's a celebration going on inside the donut shop. Good news?”

“To some people,” I said. “The Lopez boys found something that belonged to my great-aunt. We all thought it was stolen the night she died.”

“So why are you out here?”

“Loose ends,” I said. “Life outside of San Ladrón continues, even if we're trapped in a bubble of history here.”

“Who's trapped?”

“Everybody I've met since I showed up here is trapped. This whole town is trapped. It's like a time warp, like the circuits of time malfunctioned ten years ago and left a whole bunch of people in the dark.”

“I keep trying to tell you I understand how that feels. I've been looking for answers, too.”

“Why don't you send Charlie out for answers? She's the one who does your dirty work, right?”

“Charlie's and my relationship is nobody's business but ours.”

“Oh, come on, Vaughn. Maybe you two can keep it a secret from the rest of the town, but I figured it out in three days. She might pretend to have something against your father, but she's on the McMichael payroll.”

All of the color drained from his face. Half circles, purplish in tone, stood out against his pale skin. He pushed his hair back from his forehead several times in a nervous gesture, and when he finished it stood up like a pompadour.

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I saw his name on her registration card. Why else would he buy her a car?”

“Because she's family. Charlie is my sister.”