Woman in Black (35 page)

She thought back to the previous Sunday, when she'd gone over to his place, in the apartment complex where her son-in-law used to live, to cook him dinner. It was the least she could do after the many kindnesses he'd shown her, she'd told him, and Jesús had been only too pleased to take her up on her offer. After a trip to the market, they'd returned with several bags of groceries, which he'd insisted upon paying for, and Concepción had immediately gone to work in the small kitchen of his apartment.

Three hours later a feast emerged:
arroz con pollo;
tamales made with shredded goat's meat; black beans with chiles; and for dessert, a caramel flan. Jesús ate with relish, and when he finally pushed his plate away he declared it the best meal he'd had in years. He cast a meaningful glance her way, saying, “A man could get used to this.”

Perhaps it was the beers they'd drunk with dinner that prompted her to reply, “So why is it you never married?”

Jesús didn't respond at first. He sat there a moment, sunk in his own thoughts, his face heavy with some private sorrow. Finally he seemed to come to a decision, and he rose from the table, disappearing into the next room. He returned carrying a photo, in an ornate pewter frame, of a pretty, plump woman with a young girl seated on her lap. “My wife and daughter,” he said. “They were killed in a car accident shortly after this was taken. That was twelve years ago. Selena would have been a young woman by now.”

His voice carried no trace of bitterness—whoever, or whatever, had killed his wife and daughter, he seemed to have made peace with it—but Concepción could see the pain etched on his face: For that there was no remedy. Her heart went out to him. She was intimately acquainted with that kind of loss and knew the heartache he must have endured.

“I lost my daughter, too,” she confided. Until then, she had been vague about her reasons for coming to this country, preferring to keep the matter private. But after Jesús's revelation she felt comfortable opening up to him. “The man I was looking for? My son-in-law? He was her husband.”

Jesús shook his head in sympathy, sinking heavily into his chair. “Was it recent?”

She nodded, her throat tightening. “She died in a fire.”

“My sympathies,
mi amiga
.” They weren't just words; she could see that he was genuinely sad for her. He took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. His eyes were overbright in the glow of the candles she'd lit to create a more festive mood. “Do you have other children?”

“No, she was my only one. Milagros—my miracle.” Concepción said nothing of the babies who'd died at birth. That was for another day.

He nodded slowly, maintaining his grip on her hand. “It's hard, I know. I grieved for my wife, of course, but there is nothing like the loss of a child … knowing you will never see her grow up … never again hear her calling out your name.” He gazed down at the photo. “I look at this and I wonder, ‘What would she be like now? Would she be married with children of her own?' But whenever I try to picture her, all I can see is her face as it was on the day she was taken from me.”

“My daughter's dream was to come to America.” Concepción closed her eyes for a moment, summoning Milagros's sweet face. “She was waiting only for her husband to save up enough money so he could send for her. They had it all planned. One day they would even buy a house. She always used to say to me, ‘In America, anything is possible.'” Concepción found that she could smile now at the memory, however painful it was.

She opened her eyes to find Jesús gazing at her solemnly. “She was right about that,” he said.

Jesús was living proof. He'd told her the whole story that first day as they'd walked back to his apartment after breakfast. His parents had come to this country without a cent to their names and had worked their whole lives to make a better life for him and his brothers and sisters. Jesús, as the eldest, was the only one of his siblings who hadn't gone to college. He had gone to work right out of high school instead, to help with the family's finances. By the time he was twenty-one, he'd saved up enough money, even with the portion of his paycheck that he faithfully turned over to his parents each week, to buy a used truck and go into business for himself. A business maintaining the grounds of his wealthy Beverly Hills clients, which twenty-five years later was thriving. He now had two trucks and half-a-dozen employees.

“That might be true for some, yes,” she acknowledged, thinking that it was all well and good for those, like Jesús, who aspired to greater things. But she hadn't come to this country to build a better life for herself in the land of the
gringos
. She had more pressing business at hand.

Jesús must have mistaken her meaning, for he replied, “Why shouldn't it be true for you as well? Salazar tells me he's never seen anyone who works as hard. And you wouldn't have to spend the rest of your life cleaning. There are classes you can take to learn the skills you'd need to get a better job, one that will pay more money.”

She shook her head. “I still wouldn't have a green card. And even if I did, I won't be staying long enough to find another job. I have to get to New York.”

His shoulders sagged. “I was hoping you might have changed your plans,” he said, eyeing her forlornly.

“No,” she replied firmly.

“And will you come back after that?”

She shook her head. “It was my daughter's dream to be in America, not mine,” she said gently.

Jesús went on eyeing her unhappily. Seated at the table amid the ruins of their supper, he looked like a large, dejected bear. “I see. So your mind is made up?”

Unable to bear the thought of his taking it as some sort of personal rejection, she told him the whole story then, about the fire and its terrible aftermath, Perez's loathsome offer of money, and her decision to track down the Señora and confront her face-to-face. The plan sounded wild and improbable as she laid it out for Jesús, who appeared dubious even as he sat there listening respectfully.

“And just what is it that you hope to accomplish by confronting this woman?” he asked when she was done talking.

If she'd caught a single note of judgment in his voice, she would have put an end to the discussion then and there, but she could see that he was asking only out of curiosity and perhaps concern for her. “I'll know when the time comes,” she told him.

“What will you know?”

“Whether or not she's truly sorry for what she's done.”

“And if she's not?”

Concepción's expression hardened. “Then she will be.”

Jesús grew pale. “You're not suggesting—?”

“That I'd harm her? No,” she replied impatiently. “But there are other ways to make someone accountable.”

“Such as?”

“I have an idea.” It had come to her the other night when she'd been cleaning one of the offices. An article in a newspaper she'd found discarded in the trash had caught her eye, about an actress from a popular TV show who'd been charged with accidentally killing another motorist while driving drunk. Concepción's English had improved quite a bit since she'd arrived in this country—she'd been studying the language, using the tapes and tape deck Jesús had loaned her—so she'd been able to make out the gist of it. The article had gone on to say something about the actress having been dropped from her show as a result. Though she'd managed to avoid jail time, her career was in ruins and her future uncertain. “Señora Armstrong is well-known in this country,” she reminded Jesús. “If I told my story to the newspapers …”

His expression remained dubious. “That would be one way. Another would be to simply walk away.”

“Why would I do that?” she demanded.

“For one thing, from what you've told me, it's unclear that this Señora was even aware of the laxness in safety measures until after the fire.”

“She had to know! Nothing got done without her say-so.”

“Nevertheless, you say it was the manager, this Perez fellow, who implemented these measures.”

“What difference does it make?” Concepción seized hold of Jesús's arm, once more the wild-eyed
bruja
of those nightmarish days just after Milagros's death, leaning in to hiss, “
She's the reason my daughter is dead!
”

Jesús made no move to free himself from her grip. He met her gaze with unflinching steadiness, saying calmly, “Yes, but you must ask yourself, is this what your daughter would have wanted?”

In the days since, she'd found herself mulling over his words. Had she, in her mindless grief, been too quick to blame the Señora? she wondered. Was it possible the Señora had been guilty of little more than being ill-informed? But in the end, Concepción had decided she wasn't wrong to pursue this. That was just what people like her had been told all their lives: that they, the poor who toiled to line the pockets of the rich, weren't smart or educated enough to understand how these things worked. They were expected to swallow whole every excuse that was made to cover up wrongdoings, and to smile while doing so.

Well, she wasn't going to stay silent. It was time for someone to speak out in the name of justice. Justice not only for her daughter but for all the voiceless workers. The only thing that nagged at her still, planted there by Jesús like the seed of a pesky weed that had taken root, was the growing suspicion that this might not be what Milagros would have wanted.

It was impossible to stay annoyed at Jesús, though, especially when Christmas Eve rolled around and she emerged from the office building at the end of her shift to find his familiar blue truck parked at the curb. Normally she took the bus home from work, so it was a pleasant surprise to find him waiting for her.

Still, she pretended to be cross with him. “What are you doing here?” she scolded as she climbed into the passenger side. “It's late. You should be home in bed like everyone else.”

But he only sat there, grinning. “It's Christmas,” he said. “No one should be alone on Christmas.”

Christmas? Concepción glanced at the glowing clock on the dashboard and saw that it was indeed after midnight, officially Christmas Day. She'd been delayed by the extra cleanup from an office party on one of her floors that had left the desktops strewn with paper plates and cups and the carpet with glittery confetti, which she'd had a devil of a time vacuuming up.

“In that case, you ought to be with your family,” she told him, thinking of his nieces and nephews.

“There will be plenty of time later in the day for my brothers and sisters and their children.”

He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. A kiss that warmed her even as she frowned at him in disapproval, trying not to smile. It wouldn't do to encourage him, she thought. She wouldn't be around long enough for their friendship to deepen into something more, however tempting that prospect had come to be. In another five or six weeks, she'd have enough money saved for the plane fare to New York, and then it would be time for her to say good-bye. She felt an unexpected pang of regret at the thought.

“Well, I'm afraid you picked the wrong person to keep you company,” she told him somewhat grumpily. “I'm too tired to celebrate, even if it is Christmas.”

His face, pulled into an expression of mock seriousness, looked almost comical in the greenish glow of the dashboard, which emphasized its deep lines. “We'll see about that,” he said mysteriously.

She wondered what he had planned. But Jesús said little on the way home, seeming content to leave her to her thoughts as he drove. Passing a billboard depicting a Santa Claus bizarrely outfitted in red, fur-lined swim trunks, riding the waves on a surfboard with a sack of toys slung over one shoulder—an advertisement for some department store—she found herself reflecting, as she often did, on the strange ways of the
gringos
. Where she was from, a child felt lucky if Christmas morning brought a small trinket and a few sweets, but in this country, children were forever pleading for more, it seemed, and parents lavishing large sums of money on spoiling them. She'd seen long lines at the cash registers in stores and had heard tell of fistfights breaking out over an especially popular item that was in limited supply. This she found to be the most peculiar thing of all. She'd heard of grown men fighting over honor and love, and, yes, money, but never a fuzzy, battery-operated toy.

She was roused from her reverie by the realization that the residential street they were on was an unfamiliar one. She turned to Jesús, asking irritably, “Why are we going this way?” It was late. She wanted to get home to bed.

“There's something I want to show you,” he replied, with a wink.

“What?” she asked.

“If I tell you, it won't be a surprise.” In the wash of headlights from an oncoming car, his face was briefly illuminated—a face as sturdy and economical as the square, work-hardened hands resting on the wheel. Not handsome, no, but comforting in the way that familiar landmarks were. In the short while they'd been acquainted, Concepción had come to know its lines the way she had known every crack and cranny of her house in Las Cruces: the deep grooves on either side of his wide mouth and the smaller ones, like arrows in a quiver, that fanned from the corners of his eyes and curved down to meet his temples when he was smiling, as he was now. “All I will say is that it's a gift, mine to you. If I'd bought you one in a store, you would only have scolded me for spending my hard-earned money, so this was the best I could do.”

He made a turn onto another street lined with modest older homes that were interspersed with newly constructed or remodeled ones built on a much grander scale. This was the part of Echo Park that was changing, a result of
gringos
grabbing cheap real estate where they could, according to Jesús, who bemoaned the fact that soon there wouldn't be anything affordable left for their people.