The Wife's Tale (30 page)

He pointed at the horizon. “You know the constellations? That band of light there? That’s the Milky Way. You see the Big Dipper?”

“I know that one.” She watched his thick fingers trace the ladle in the sky.

“Draco, the dragon—that pattern there, between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.”

She did not see the dragon, but nodded. “You should just drive, Hay-Su.”

He laughed, then resumed a more thoughtful tone. “The best place to see the stars is at the ocean.”

“I haven’t seen the ocean.”

“You have to see the ocean.”

“People always say that.”

He turned to flash a brilliant smile, the first she’d seen.

“I must have learned the constellations in science class,” she said. “I must have known that shooting stars aren’t stars.
I think I retain information on a need-to-know basis. And I never need to know. Do you remember all that about the stars from
science class?”

“Library. I spent a lot of time there after… when I was unemployed.”

“Studying the constellations?”

“Walking down the rows. Picking random books.”

“I suppose that’s what young people do now when they go Googling, or whatever that’s called.”

“I’m not much of a computer guy.”

“You’re a random-book guy.”

“It wasn’t just the books. I liked the place. The library. The dust. The quiet.”

Offering proof of his proclivity, the man fell silent once again. Mary watched the night sky, hoping to see another meteor
fragment alight in the atmosphere. “I’m right off the highway. The Pleasant Inn,” she noted.

Emboldened by the shooting star, or maybe it was the buzz from the bottle of beer she’d consumed, she demanded, “Why did you
pretend you couldn’t speak English?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s easier.”

Heather Gooch had said that too.
It’s easier to be someone else.

When they stopped at the intersection, Mary’s eyes fell upon the dusty lot, the scene of the crime, where she’d first seen
Jesús García scanning the road. When he followed her gaze to the utility pole, she felt caught. Managing to sound both pitying
and patronizing, she added, “It must be awful to be a day worker.”

“I work at the plaza down the road,” he said. “My uncle, the old man with the bad hip? He picks me and Ernesto up here on
his way out of the valley, when he can.”

“And when he can’t?”

“We take the bus.”

It was obvious from his apparel that he did not work at the bank. As he did not expand on the nature of his employment, Mary
felt disinclined to ask. She was curious, though. The drugstore. The travel store. She’d seen a sign for a shoe shop. The
chain restaurant.

Helping Mary out of the truck and seeing her into the hotel lobby, Jesús García took her hand. “Thank you, Mary.
Gracias.
”

“You’re welcome, Hay-su.” A smile played under his moustache, and she hoped he might flash that brilliant grin once more.
“Do I say it wrong?
Hay-su?
”

“You say it fine.”

Mary watched him pass through the hotel’s double doors and out to his waiting truck. The receptionist at the counter, whom
Mary recognized as the girl from the previous night, called out, “Mrs. Gooch?”

“Yes?”

The receptionist saw the stains on her outfit. “Is that blood?”

“There was an accident,” she explained. “It’s been a long day.”

The girl smiled. “I have your purse.”

M
ary’s joyous reunion with her brown vinyl purse soured quickly when the receptionist repeated what the police had told her.
The purse had been found by a sniffing dog in the bushes near the corner lot at the intersection. The woman’s raised brow
implicated the Mexican day workers, which Mary thought unfair. There were some personal items left in the purse, but no wallet.
No phone. No passport. The sheriff held little hope that her identification would be returned. “My manager says we’re gonna
need a credit card imprint if you’re staying past tomorrow night.”

Back at her room, Mary noticed that she’d unintentionally left the
Do Not Disturb
sign hanging on the door handle. Inside, she found everything as it had been. The made bed. The health bars on the table.
The water. The sunscreen. She kicked off her tight shoes and settled down upon the bedspread to open her purse, bitter that
it had shown up without her wallet.

She caught her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Unmoored, unidentified, unidentifiable. If only there were twenty
people just like her crammed into the room, from the same world, in the same predicament, equally unsure what to do next.
Not company for her misery but a band of brothers and sisters, like the Mexican immigrants. A tribe. She could see that she
needed a tribe, and saw her folly in making Gooch her whole existence.

Jesús García had a tribe. He was the king of the tribe in that house splashed with color and guarded by the hundred shoes
at the door. She remembered the photographs of his family on the fridge, the pretty wife with the almond eyes and the handsome,
dark-haired boys. Perhaps he didn’t wish on stars because he already had all he’d ever wanted. She thought of his face as
he pointed out the Milky Way. He said there was nothing magical about the stars, but he seemed under their spell nonetheless.

After retrieving the number for directory assistance and being passed on to a Canadian operator, Mary asked for the number
for Bistro 555. A plan. A dubious plan, but all she had. She would explain her predicament to Heather and ask her to wire
a humble sum, which she would pay back immediately when her situation improved.

Mary waited, breathless, recognizing the voice on the other end of the phone. “Hello,” she said, “I’m calling for He—Mary
Brody. May I speak with Mary Brody?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“It’s her sis—friend. Old friend. I was in earlier this week. You’re the actor, right?”

“Yeah. I remember you.” The fat woman looking for a tall man. “Hold on.”

The phone clacked against the brushed nickel counter three thousand miles away. The background noise was deafening. As she
waited, Mary checked her toiletry bag, which appeared to be unopened. She was pleased to find her hairbrush, since the hotel
had only offered a comb. Who would steal her spare set of navy scrubs? Finally the actor/bartender returned to the line. “Someone
said she went out of town.”

Mary thanked him for his help and gave Eden’s number, which Mary Brody should call immediately upon her return.

Where was that business card on which Emery Carr had written that telephone number? She glanced around the room. The maids
had not come to clean, so the card couldn’t have been thrown out. She rose, scouring the tabletops. Checking the wastebaskets.
She imagined herself standing beside Emery Carr’s sporty Mazda. He’d handed her the card and… and she’d put it in the pocket
of the paisley ensemble! Yes!

Which she’d washed the previous night. Heart sinking, she reached into the pocket of the voluminous skirt and felt the flaccid
rectangle. The black writing was smeared. Impossible to read. And Emery Carr was tasting wine with his boyfriend in Sonoma.

She could call Wendy, she thought, realizing that she was desperate. Or Pete. She could call Pete at work. Ask him to wire
money. Or Joyce. She’d left postdated checks at St. John’s—maybe there was a way to access her money through them.

The time was eight-thirty, but with the three-hour time difference it was past business hours and too late to call the gang
of old friends, whom she’d never really counted as hers but Gooch’s anyway. She leaned against the sturdy table unwrapping
a health bar. Before she could take a bite, she caught sight of the dried blood on her arm, and bent her weary head to take
full account of the splattered, rusty stains already set in the flimsy fabric.

She unbuttoned the blouse and stepped out of the skirt, rolled the lovely clothes into a ball and pitched them into the trash.
Nothing gets out blood.
Once again she had nothing to wear. Then she remembered the other navy scrubs that had been in the plastic bag from the beauty
salon.

As cool water thundered into the shallow sink, Mary checked the deep slash pockets and was gratified to find another card.
Big Avi. Miracle Limousine.
More than ever, she believed in miracles. She reached into the other pocket and her hand met a small, slender book that she
knew was her passport, which she now remembered stuffing into her pocket when the limousine driver pulled up to the curb at
the Los Angeles airport.
Her passport.

That awful mug shot. Mary Gooch. Citizen of Canada. Born March 1, 1964. Staring at her photograph, her proof of identity,
she paused to distill the day, the common and uncommon dramas and the mercies small and large. Joy—she added it to her repertoire
of recent emotions and thought,
I am cured.
She was no longer a victim of abstract malaise. None of her feelings were abstract. She could have named each glorious sensation—hope,
excitement, panic, grief, fear—and drawn a map to its derivatives. This was also what happened when people veered from their
carpeted ruts, she thought. They found themselves on roller coasters and got addicted to the ride.

It was hardly nine o’clock in California. Those late-eating people in Toronto were just finishing dinner. Food! Once again
she had forgotten to eat. Or neglected to eat. Or been too nauseated to eat. She glanced around for the health bar but became
distracted by the chore of washing her navy scrubs.
The passport!
She had no one with whom to share the news, so she thanked God, providence, fate and Big Avi.

After scrubbing her clothes vigorously, she wrung them out and pressed them with the hotel iron on high heat before hanging
the damp items on chair backs near the window. Returning to the bathroom, she climbed under the pulsing warm water in the
shower. Up. Down. Lean in to take the curve. She felt alive.

The passport.
Lost and found. Like Heather’s son. A miracle. All that had happened because she had lost it. She wouldn’t have gone back
to the bank. She wouldn’t have asked the cleaning women for a ride. Would the white van have hit Ernesto? Who would have held
his hand? And there were all the things that could happen now she’d found it. She could determine her balance. Access her
funds. She could continue at the hotel and wait for Gooch to return. It could only be a matter of days. A week, maybe. Two
at the most.

Toweled off and hair blown dry, Mary climbed into bed but could not sleep. Her hand shot for the television remote control
but paused. That novel. She had hidden it on the top shelf before the taxi had ferried her off for the day. But she had no
dry clothes to wear down to the lobby. She reached for the telephone and called the front desk. “I’m sorry to trouble you,”
she began, “but I was reading a book in the lobby. I left it, well, I hid it, actually, behind the travel books on the top
shelf. Is there anyone who could bring that book up to me?”

“Right away, Mrs. Gooch,” the woman responded, though Mary had not mentioned her name.

Right away, Mrs. Gooch.
So it was true. Ask and you shall receive. Mary’d never asked for much before, particularly of herself.

In minutes there was a timid knocking, and she accepted the book through the slender crack she made in the door. “Wait just
a sec,” she called, afraid to sound like a big shot. She found the roll of dollars and peeled off an American five for the
squat brown boy at her door. “
Gracias
,” he enthused.

“
De nada
,” she answered, realizing she had overtipped.

Mary tore open the book the way she once had torn open the takeout from Chung’s, salivating for the story. She settled down
to read the family saga, a fictional roller coaster but no less thrilling; the next chapters revealed that the accused main
character was found innocent, and the teenaged son, after nearly dying tragically, found redemption in the assisted suicide
of his terminal aunt, and the cheating father, as the author sought final vindication, was diagnosed with impotence. She slowed
her pace as the pages dwindled. She did not want the book to end.

The stars were framed in the large window beyond the bed. She set the book aside and settled on a height of pillows, staring
into the cosmos, thinking of Jesús García’s expression when he’d first seen her face, a tender reminiscence, and recalling
his comment, which had explained his stare:
You remind me of someone I used to know. Her name was Mary too.
For the first time in memory, her final thoughts before sleep were not of Jimmy Gooch.

I
n the morning Mary could not remember her dreams. She did recall that she’d been awakened in the night by a mournful sound
and had staggered through the dark to the window, thinking of Mr. Barkley the cat. She couldn’t see the blackened hillside
but realized that the sound was coyotes howling in the dense chaparral. Eden had talked about coyotes on the phone in a conversation
long ago, after a neighbor, while soaking in his spa, had his head confused with some furry prey and was surprised by a coyote
clamping its jaws around his skull. But surely that couldn’t be true. It occurred to Mary that she couldn’t really trust anything
Eden said. Especially in regard to Gooch. Any mother would lie to protect her son.

Cramming her blistered feet into Eden’s loafers, she remembered the hundred shoes at Jesús García’s doorway. The plaid shirt.
The accident. The bitten tongue, and the bruises on the old man’s sepia skin. The meat on the platter. The woman’s kind smile
as she urged, “
Buen provecho.
” She touched her right palm absently, thinking of Jesús García’s grip on her hand.

She was anxious to get to the bank, but it wouldn’t open for a while. Mary knew Eden would be up, though, if she ever slept
at all. She glanced around the tidy hotel room, remembering the previous day, when she’d despaired of a long, lonely night
there. Instead she’d been led down a different path, driven by an enigmatic stranger.