Babycakes (25 page)

“Shit. With an assignment, I’ll bet.”

Hal grinned at her. “No rest for the perky.”

She weighed her options. If she walked out without checking with Kenan, she had no guarantee that Hal wouldn’t rat on her. He was famous for that, in fact. So she gritted her teeth and stormed off to the news director’s office, already stockpiling an arsenal of excuses.

As always, Kenan’s inner sanctum was a hodgepodge of promotional media kitsch: miniature footballs imprinted with the station logo, four or five different Mylar wall calendars, a Rubik’s Cube bearing the name and address of a videotape manufacturer. The only recent change was that Bo Derek had vanished from the spot on the ceiling above Kenan’s desk, and Christie Brinkley had taken her place.

Arms locked behind his head, the news director eased his chair into an upright position, and fixed his tiny little eyes on Mary Ann. “Good. You’re here.”

“Hal said you wanted to see me.”

His smile was a form of aggression, nothing more. “Do you remember … oh, way back when, when you first came to work for us … remember I told you a good reporter is the only person who is always required to respond to an Act of God? Do you remember that?”

“Sure,” she said, nodding. For all she knew, even the janitors at the station were subjected to that asinine speech. “What about it?”

“Well, lady …” He was drawing out the suspense as long as possible. “I’ve got something for you that just might qualify.”

When she broke the news to Brian, he was just as angry as he deserved to be. “Fuck that, Mary Ann! We’ve been planning this trip all week. You told them that, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, why do they have to pick on you?”

“Because … I’m the lowest on the totem pole, and they know I’ll do …”

“What’s so goddamn important that they can’t wait until Monday, at least?”

“Well … it’s kind of an Easter story … Holy Week, rather … so they need it now, if …”

“The Pope is coming? What?”

“You’ll just get mad, Brian.”

“I’m mad already. What the hell is it?”

“A woman in Daly City. She thinks she’s seen Jesus.”

“Terrific.”

“Brian …”

“Where did she see Him? On her dashboard?”

“No. On a tortilla.”

He hung up on her.

She left the station minutes later and drove to Daly City. The site of the miracle was a tiny Mexican restaurant called Una Paloma Bianca. A white dove. Not a bad tie-in for the Holy Week angle. The cameraman was already there, fretting over technical problems with the tortilla.

“I’m telling you,” he snapped, “it just won’t read. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

“Look,” she countered. “I can see it. Sec … there’s the beard. That’s part of the cheekbone. That wrinkle going left to right is the top of His head.”

“Swell, Mary Ann. Tell that to the camera. There’s not enough contrast, I’m telling you. It’s as simple as that.”

Mary sighed and muttered “Shit” to no one in particular. This provoked a disapproving cluck from Mrs. Hernandez, the tortilla’s discoverer. In anticipation of her television debut, the portly matron was decked out in her grandmother’s lace shawl and mantilla.

“Excuse me,” said Mary Ann, bowing slightly to underscore her sincerity.

“We could highlight it,” the cameraman suggested.

“What?”

“The tortilla. We could touch it up.”

“No!” She was feeling sleazier by the minute. Her perennial wisecrack about working for the
“National Enquirer
of the Air” contained more truth than she cared to admit, even to herself.

“But if we explained …”

“Matthew,
don’t touch up the tortilla,
all right?”

He called for truce with his hands. “O.K., O.K.” He looked around at the blackened pots and pans of the cramped kitchen. “Should we shoot it here?”

“She found it here, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but there’s not enough room for the others.”

“What
others?”

He smiled at her lazily. “All those pilgrims in the front room. They came to be on TV.”

“Well, they can’t be!”

“Swell.
You
tell them that.”

She groaned at him, then stomped to the pay phone in the front room. She called Larry Kenan and suggested that the story be scrapped. His response was clipped and vitriolic: “If it’s too much for you, lady, I’ll put Father Paddy on it. Wait there and don’t touch that friggin’ tortilla!”

Forty-five minutes later, the television host of
Honest to God
alighted cassock-clad from his red 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. “Darling!” he beamed, catching sight of Mary Ann. “You poor thing! This is your first miracle, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure it qualifies,” she muttered.

“Tut-tut. Miracles are like beauty, I always say. They’re in the eye of the beholder. Where
is
the beholder, by the way?”

“In the back,” she answered, pointing past the mob in the front room. “In the kitchen.”

“Grand.” Father Paddy glided through the throng like a stately pleasure craft, eliciting devout murmurs of recognition from the television viewers present. “The thing is,” he told Mary Ann, “miracles are very, very good for people. We can’t let a little faulty technology stand in our way. Some miracles are easier than others, of course, but I’m sure we can manage. Have you noticed, by the way, how it’s always Jesus or the Blessed Virgin?
Good evening, my child, God bless you.
They
should
be seeing the Holy Ghost, since he’s the ambassador-at-large, if you know what I mean, but no one ever spots the Holy Ghost on a tortilla—
God bless you, God bless you
—since no one has the faintest idea what the poor devil looks like. He gets no press at all. Christ, it’s hot in here. Where’s the tortilla?”

When they reached the kitchen, an elderly friend of Mrs. Hernandez was using the tortilla as a sort of compress against an arthritic elbow. “Oh, dear,” said Father Paddy. “We may have lost Him.”

A hasty examination of the tortilla reassured them that the holy features were still discernible.

“It won’t show up on tape,” said the cameraman.

Father Paddy gave him a knowing smile. “Backlight it,” he said, “then tell me that.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, Matthew. Father knows best.” He gave Mary Ann’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Never fear, darling. We’re home free now.”

He was right, it turned out. Backlighting the tortilla not only emphasized the color variations in the dough, thereby revealing the Christus, but also imbued the pastry with an inspirational halo-like effect. When the image finally appeared on the monitor, all twenty-three members of the Hernandez entourage uttered a collective murmur of appreciation.

“Perfect,” purred Father Paddy. “Nice work, Matthew. I knew you could do it.”

The cameraman smiled modestly, giving Mary Ann a thumbs-up sign. She was still uncertain, though. “They won’t see the clothespins, will they, Matthew?”

“Nah.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll shoot just below them. Don’t worry.” He reached out and touched the length of twine from which the tortilla was suspended. “We wouldn’t want Him to look like He’s hanging out to dry.”

She laughed feebly, hoping Mrs. Hernandez hadn’t heard the remark. She was actually beginning to warm to this story. The face on the tortilla did look an awful lot like Jesus, if you discounted the lopsided nose and a dark spot that might be construed as an extra ear. She could already imagine the music she would use to score it. Something soaring and ethereal, yet basically humanistic. Possibly something from a Spielberg movie.

On the other hand, maybe the story was no longer hers. She turned to Father Paddy. “Will you be doing this for
Honest to God?”

The cleric made a face. “What?”

“Well, Kenan sounded so pissed I thought maybe he had given you …”

“No, no, no. I’m just a consultant tonight. The story’s all yours.”

“Oh … well, in that case, maybe I should interview you about it. Just to get an official position from the church.”

“Darling.” Father Paddy lowered his voice and cast his eyes from left to right. “The church
has
no official position on this tortilla.”

“What would we have to do to get one?”

The cleric chuckled. “Call the archbishop at home. Would
you
want to do it?”

“You don’t have to declare it an official miracle or anything. Couldn’t you just say something like …” She paused, trying to imagine what it would be.

“Like
what?”
said the priest. “ ‘My, what a pretty tortilla. Such a good likeness, too!’ Come now. The archbishop has a tough enough time with the Shroud of Turin. The very least we can do is spare him the Tortilla of Daly City.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You called him for that statue story last December. I remember.”

“What statue story?”

“You know … the bleeding one. In Ukiah or somewhere.”

The cleric nodded slowly. “Yes … that’s true.”

“So what’s the difference?”

Father Paddy sighed patiently. “The difference, darling girl, is that the statue was actually doing something. It was
bleeding.
That tortilla, for all its parochial charm, is simply lying there … or hanging there, as the case may be.”

She gave up. “All right. Forget it. I’ll wing it.”

He ducked his eyes. “You’re cross with me now, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“Well … you were the one who called it a miracle.”

“And for all I know, it
is,
darling.” He chucked her under the chin. “I just don’t think it’s
news.”

She had come to the same conclusion when she dragged home at 10
P.M
. and found Brian sulking in the little house on the roof. “I couldn’t help it,” she said ineffectually. “I know you’re pissed, but these things come up.”

“Tell me,” he mumbled.

“We can still drive up there tomorrow.”

“No, we can’t. I canceled our reservations. We were damn lucky to even get a room. I had no way of knowing if you’d pull this again.”

“So you thought you’d punish me. That’s just great.”

He turned and looked at her.
“I’m
punishing
you,
huh?”

Determined to salvage something, she sat down next to him on the sofa. “I’ve got an alternative plan, if you’re really interested in hearing it.”

“What?”

“Well, we could check into one of those tawdry little motor courts at the end of Lombard Street … we’ve talked about that before. And we could be there in fifteen minutes.” She ran her forefinger lightly down his spine. “Wouldn’t that work just as well?”

He made a grunting noise.

“And don’t say it’s a dumb idea, because you were the one who came up with it. Right after we saw
Body Heat.
Remember?”

He shook his head slowly, hands dangling between his knees.

“Besides,” she added, “it strikes me that some sleazy neon would do wonders for both of us. Not to mention the Magic Fingers … and one of those Korean oil paintings of Paris in the rain. We can mess up both beds if we want to. and …”

“Jesus!”

The explosion really frightened her. “What on earth …?”
“Is that the way you want it to be?”

“Well, it was only a …”

“Maybe I got it all wrong,” he said. “I thought we were talking about bringing another life into the world! I thought we were talking about our kid!”

“We were,” she replied numbly, “in part.”

“So why the hell are you trying to make something cheap out of it?”

Her reserve flew out the window. “Oh my yes! Heaven forbid that Mommy should gel a little fun out of the procedure. We’re talking holy, holy, holy here. Tell you what, Brian … why don’t you run out and gather some rose petals … and we can sprinkle them on our goddamn bed of connubial bliss, just so the little bugger knows we’re good and ready for him … or her … or whatever the hell we’re manufacturing tonight.”

He stared at her as if she were a corpse in a morgue and he were the next of kin. Then he rose and went to the window-facing the bay. After a long silence, he said: “I’m pretty thick, I guess. I’ve been misreading this all along.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice was calmer now.