Woman in Black (42 page)

“What about him?” he asked.

Something in his tone must have told her that he wasn't referring to her dad, for he could see the muscles in her jaw tighten even as she replied in a bored voice, “Who cares what he thinks?”

Neal knew it'd be best to let it drop, but some perverse impulse wouldn't let him. They'd never talked about it in any depth. When she'd finally told him the whole story of her so-called affair with the married guy, she'd glossed it over, making it sound as if it were just one of those things, something you do that you later regret but that's no real skin off you—like having too much to drink at a party … or getting into a minor car accident.

“You don't care that he'll never have to pay for what he did?”

“He didn't do anything,” she said, sounding irritated. “I was into it, too. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? I'm sorry I even told you. Anyway, it was just a stupid mistake.”

“A grown man with a wife and kids? That's no mistake. In this country, they call it statutory rape.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is that guys like him belong in jail.”

“Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.” She tried to shrug it off, but he could see that he'd hit a nerve. She was picking at a thumbnail, the way she always did when she was tweaked about something.

“All you'd have to do is go to the police,” he said.

“Yeah, Mr. Know-It-All, and what then? He's not the only one people would be pointing the finger at. They'd all be saying it was my fault, that I led him on. You don't know him. He's the most popular teacher in our school. I'm just the school weirdo. They'd crucify me before they'd ever lay a finger on him. Besides,” a note of uncertainty crept in, “it's not like he forced me or anything.”

Neal found himself growing angry. It pissed him off to think of a lowlife like that getting off scot-free after ruining a girl's life, while his dad had been socked with ten years just for making some bad decisions. “You don't have to rape a girl at knifepoint for it to be against the law,” he said. “You were only fifteen. He's, what, in his forties? Also, you probably weren't his first.”

Phoebe shook her head, but her voice when it emerged was small and ragged. “He said he loved me.”

“If he'd really loved you, he wouldn't have wanted to see you get hurt.”

“It's not like he broke up with me or anything. I'm the one who ended it,” Phoebe informed him loftily.

“Yeah, but not before he did a number on you. Look at you. You don't eat. Your grades are in the toilet.” A recent fact that her parents were unaware of. “Sometimes I get the feeling you don't even like sex that much. And now you're planning to—” He stopped before he could utter the words.

Phoebe twisted around suddenly, leaning toward him. “Go on, say it,” she hissed.

“I don't have to say it. Isn't it enough that you're doing it?”
We're doing it
, he silently amended.

“But not because of him. I just want that made clear.”

“Still …”

“Still what?” She glared at him.

“Nothing.” He slumped back against his seat.

“I'm not some head case, if that's what you're thinking. I don't need to be psychoanalyzed. Certainly not by you. I'm perfectly capable of making a rational decision. And I'm assuming you are, too. So are you in, or not? If you're not, don't waste any more of my time.”

Phoebe would be horrified to know, he thought, how much she'd sounded like her mother just then.

Neal waited a second, taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it before he said, “All right, then. Let's go over the plan one more time.”

15

Concepción stepped off the plane at JFK into a world filled with brown faces. Not just those of
paisanos
but blacks, Asians, tea-skinned
indios
from the East, and Latinos chattering away in unfamiliar accents. There were
gringos
, too, lots of them, rushing past her, pulling their wheeled suitcases, and talking into their cell phones, but what she was most struck by was the sheer number of foreigners like herself. In LA, when you saw someone with a brown face, chances were that it was a
compadre
. In some ways, Echo Park had been like Las Cruces writ large and mysteriously transported to the North, the only difference being that the majority of its people spoke English as well as Spanish. Here she was just one of many in a vast, polymorphous sea. Unless she found someone Spanish-speaking who looked as if they knew their way around, she wouldn't even be able to ask for directions if she were to get lost—her English had improved considerably, but not enough for her to comprehend the stream of words that invariably rushed at her in response to an inquiry.

She thought of Jesús and felt a sudden, sharp tug of longing. He would have known what to do, where to go. He would have understood what the
gringos
jabbering in their incomprehensible English were saying. His presence alone would have been a comfort.

But if he wasn't at her side, she had only herself to blame. In the days before she'd embarked on this journey, he'd begged her to allow him to accompany her. He'd warned her of the dangers that she would face, a woman alone on the streets of New York City. “People will try to take advantage of you,” he'd said. In New York City, there were
gabachos
even more unscrupulous than those in LA. Men who would as soon kill you as rob you, and many others who weren't above trying to cheat you out of your money.

But she'd remained firm. This was her journey, and hers alone. In some ways, it reminded her of the pilgrimage to the shrine of Guadalupe that her
abuelita
had gone on many years ago, when Concepción had been a child. She recalled her grandmother telling her what it was like, how she, and the other devout pilgrims, had crawled on their knees, clutching their rosaries, until the stones lining the path to the shrine were red with their blood. How she'd kissed the feet of the Virgin and prayed that her husband, who was sick with kidney disease, would be healed.

Concepción wished for an end to suffering, too—her own. She didn't know if this would be the answer. Would she find any respite from her grief by forcing the Señora to admit her guilt? Maybe not. Maybe Jesús was right, and her coming here was as senseless as her daughter's death. But if there was a chance that she would gain some consolation, either in a show of true contrition on the Señora's part or in seeing her punished, then she had to see this through to the end. She would never be able to live with herself otherwise.

Concepción made her way through the confusing maze of signs toward the baggage claim, where she was nearly plowed down by a big, yellow-haired
gringo
pushing a cart piled high with suitcases. “
Perdóname
,” she murmured politely, though it hadn't been her fault. But the man barreled past her without a word of apology, not even glancing her way. She might have been invisible, which in a way she was—just another brown face, another immigrant spilling into the teeming reservoir of humanity that was New York City.

Good. That meant she stood a better chance of blending in. The last thing she needed was to attract the attention of La Migra. That she'd made it this far was a feat in itself. For even after she'd saved up enough money for the airfare, she'd still lacked the proper identification she needed to board the plane. Once again, Jesús had come to her rescue. He'd known someone who had been able to supply her with a fake driver's license (a pardonable offense, in her view, given the fact that she was already in this country illegally). The rest had gone smoothly, though the hardest part, she knew, still lay ahead.

She collected her suitcase and pushed her way through the revolving door onto the curb, where she was met with a blast of bitter cold. Cold such as she had never known before, not even on those nights in the desert after the heat of the day had evaporated like the waters of a flash flood from an
arroyo
, leaving them all huddled around their meager campfire, shivering in their insubstantial clothing. The thin wool overcoat that she'd purchased at a secondhand store in LA, where winters were never this brutal, was scant protection against it, and she found herself wishing that she'd thought to buy a scarf and gloves as well.

She boarded the shuttle bus to which a skycap had directed her, and soon she was on her way into the city. Originally, she had intended to head straight to the Señora's, but she'd quickly discarded that plan. First she would need to get her bearings. Tomorrow morning, after a night's rest, she would take a bus or a train to this place called Stone Harbor, where the Señora lived. (Jesús had gotten the address off the Internet.) She'd rejected Jesús's suggestion that she go instead to the Señora's place of business in the city, arguing that it was too risky. Important people like the Señora were always surrounded by layers of functionaries, any one of whom could alert the authorities before Concepción got anywhere near her. Most likely, she would never make it past the reception desk. Besides, she was far more likely to catch the Señora alone, with her guard down, at home.

Lulled by the rocking motion of the bus, Concepción closed her eyes and let her head fall back against her seat. Her thoughts drifted back to the night before. Jesús's truck had been waiting at the curb when she'd come out of the building after her last day of work. And, as on the previous occasion he'd come to pick her up, he hadn't taken her straight home. With the firmness of a man who would brook no argument, he'd said, “Tonight, you will stay with me.”

It had been late, and she'd been on her feet for the better part of the past eight hours, nor had she slept well the night before, due to anxiety over her forthcoming trip, but all her weariness had been swept away by her pleasure at seeing him and by the stirrings of something she hadn't experienced in so long she'd almost forgotten what it was like—a feeling like butterfly wings brushing against the insides of her belly … and below.

Once they arrived back at his place, though, he grew less sure of himself. As if to give her the opportunity to back out, he offered more timidly, “We could sit and talk, if you'd prefer.” He gestured toward the sofa, with its painting of the Virgin on the wall above it. “Would you like some coffee?”

Her response was unequivocal. “Thank you, no—I never drink coffee this late. And we can talk just as easily lying down as sitting up.” She spoke the last part with a hint of seduction in her voice.

Jesús's whole face lit up. He needed no further encouragement. And if he'd expected any shyness from her in the bedroom, he was in for another surprise. For although Concepción hadn't lain with a man in years—not since the widowed pharmacist whose company she had briefly enjoyed back in the days when Milagros was still in school—she hadn't forgotten the feel and taste of it, the urges that took hold of you like some
bruja
's spell. She took her clothes off with no coaxing from Jesús. And when at last she stood naked before him, it was without shame. She didn't apologize with her stance for her belly that was marked with creases from all the babies she'd borne, creases like the dried-up tributaries of a once mighty river, or for her full breasts that were no longer taut.
Take me as I am, or not at all
, was the message she delivered with her eyes.

“I'm not as young as I once was,” she said in a tone that was almost defiant.

“Nor am I.” Jesús cast a rueful glance down at his thickening belly.

“I only wish …”

“What do you wish,
mi corazón?
” he asked, drawing her into his arms.

“That you could have seen me before I cut off all my hair.” She smiled, self-consciously fingering the neatly trimmed ends. Her hair had grown out to below her ears, but she missed the long braid that used to swing at her waist—the last vestige of her youth.

Slowly he shook his head. “You're beautiful to me just as you are,” he whispered.

At first his kisses were almost reverent, as if Jesús half feared that she would vanish into thin air with but the gentlest of touches, like some figment of his imagination, but as she coaxed him along, with murmured words and caresses, he became bolder. Even then, he acted as if she were bestowing a great favor on him. She could see herself mirrored in his eyes, like some precious gift of which he wasn't entirely sure he was worthy.

But if anyone was unworthy, it was she.
Who am I to be placed on a pedestal?
she thought. She, whose hands were as rough as a man's, whose face was marked by life's passages. It was she who ought to be thanking Jesús, on whose broad shoulders rested her burdens as well as his.

As they lay together on the bed, wrapped in each other's arms, she marveled at the sturdiness of his body—his arms and legs roped with muscle and all the places that were hard where she was soft. No, he wasn't handsome, but that somehow made him all the more desirable. Her husband, in his youth, had been the handsomest man in their village (and hadn't he known it, too, with all his preening?) but he'd only disappointed her in the end. Jesús, she knew, would never abandon her as Gustavo had. Instead, it was
she
who was leaving him.

But not on that night. That night, she was his fully and completely. As they moved together, joined in body and in spirit, there was no thought in her head of what the future would hold. No thought of the suitcase packed in readiness back at her place. There was only Jesús's warm breath against her neck … his hands touching her in places that would have made a virgin blush … his body moving against hers like a slow-swelling tide. And then that tide was carrying her out to sea, only to toss her ashore moments later, limp and sweating and gasping for breath.

Afterward, lying blissfully spent in his arms, she was struck by a profound realization: All this time, until now, she'd been dead and simply hadn't known it. Content to exist in that state only because she hadn't known what she was missing out on. And the terrible irony was that it had taken Milagros's death to free her from that self-imposed prison. It was difficult for Concepción to admit that some good had come of that tragedy, but it was no use denying it. From the ashes of the fire that had killed her daughter, she, Concepción, had emerged as a woman capable of feats that she never would have imagined before this. A woman who wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. She felt a moment of sadness then, knowing there would be no returning to the shallow level of contentment she'd known and that, having tasted life, she'd be doomed to forever thirst for it.