Snapshot (7 page)

“What time are you going out tonight?” Friday nights, I don't bother asking if she's going out. Hell or high water, hair-dye emergency or acrylic inspiration, Roz makes the weekend scene.

“Ten, eleven maybe.”

The hours she keeps, you'd think she partied in New Orleans instead of Boston. “Want to earn a few extra?”

“Sure.”

“Stop at a store and buy cleaning stuff. Basics. Meet me at Paolina's.”

“You didn't say cleaning.”

“You didn't ask.”

“I'll have to change clothes.”

“You can do it. See you soon.” I vocally underlined the last word.

The oldest boy was disappointed that I didn't bring goodies, but I assured him help was on the way. Then I sighed deeply, and plunged in.

I hate routine cleaning with a passion, but this was so far from ordinary that there was a certain satisfaction involved, reminiscent of an archeological dig. I could make discoveries, like the true color of a dish, or the actual pattern on the linoleum. I should have asked Roz to bring a friend. Several.

“How long has your mom been sick?” I asked the boys.

“I dunno. Long time.”

“You eat lunch today?”

The little one held out an empty cracker box.

I was afraid to open the refrigerator.

I folded bed linens, wondered where the closest Laundromat was located. Where was Roz?

Where was Paolina?

Marta wasn't speaking and the boys just stared at each other solemnly when I inquired. So I scrubbed the countertop near the sink with a pitiful remnant of sponge, and awaited fresh supplies.

When the bell rang, I thought it might be her. It wasn't. I tipped the nervous pizza-delivery boy well. Neither cabbies nor delivery folk adore the prospect of a project destination.

The kids, the freshly awakened four-year-old included, fell on the pizza like starving animals. I found a can of chicken soup without a dent in it, scrubbed a battered pot. No trays, so I balanced the bowl on a plate when I carried it into the bedroom.

“You still here?”

“Can you sit up?”

“Why you do this for me?”

“Because I want to see Paolina again.”

She grunted while I shifted the pillows. It hurt her to move, to sit. I made the mistake of waiting for her to grasp the spoon. When she didn't, I glanced down and saw what the arthritis had done to her hands.

I held the spoon while she sipped.

She hesitated, her jaw clenched, then said, “Is okay with me. You and Paolina, I mean.”

“Does she want to see me? She never answered my letters.”

“I talk to a new social worker. She don' think is right, you an Anglo. She thinks is maybe better I find Paolina a Spanish sister.”

“Does Paolina feel like that?”

“She don' answer you because I throw the letters away. Now you get me a glass of water, no?”

I bit back an angry response. “So who's this new social worker? What's her name?”

“Cynthia, the old one, she quit. She say she make more money clerking a grocery store. Why go to college for that? I tell her marry some man. Is better.”

Ah, Malta's magic cure-all for women. Marry some man. Is better. She, still wedded to a guy who took off while she was pregnant, was living proof.

I sighed.

“You bring the water?”

“What you need is a doctor.”

She seized my wrist and held on with surprising strength. “No doctor,” she said. “No social worker. Nobody. Or you never get back with my Paolina.”

She turned her face to the wall again and I walked out.

Roz had arrived and was staring at the apartment in horror and amazement. I hadn't heard her knock, but one of the boys must have let her in. I wondered what creation she'd been modeling before she changed. Could she own something more bizarre, less appropriate, than the fringed thigh-high outfit she now wore?

Roz is a karate expert. Dress like that, certain skills come in handy.

The pièce de resistance was her hair.

“Roz?”

“Yeah?”

“You shaved your head.” Sometimes I'm compelled to break my vow never to comment on Roz's appearance.

“Less than half. You like it?”

It was more like a quarter of her head, to be honest. A strip extending from just above her right ear to about an inch below where the part might be on anyone so hopelessly conventional as to part her hair on the right. The bald strip had scalloped edging, sculpted and precise as topiary.

She must have reached total hair-dye saturation, I thought, experimented with every available shade. And now, imagine the possibilities—new horizons in hair art.

She'd remembered to bring rubber gloves. They lent a science-fiction touch to the ensemble.

“Whoa. Gross,” she marveled, wrinkling her nose. “Is this a crime scene or what?”

The kids had eaten more pizza than I would have believed possible. The middle boy wiped a tomato-stained hand across his mouth and calmly inquired about dessert. Without a pause, Roz whipped a box of Girl Scout cookies from her canvas tote. God knows what else is in there.

“You want milk?” I asked the boys.

“Coke,” they demanded. “Root beer.”

Maybe Roz had something yummy in her purse. I fetched Malta's water, first washing the glass. The counter on the far side of the sink was so littered with pill bottles it looked like a pharmacy. I read the labels: Naprosyn, Medrol, Nalfon. All empty. Zorprin, full. Feldene, empty. A warning label said to take this medicine only with or following food.

The warning label was in English.

I opened a window and inhaled a noseful of early spring before going back into the stale bedroom.

“Did you stop taking your pills because you ran out?” I asked while she sipped.

“I have more.”

“Are you taking them?”

“Cuando el dolor es muy fuerte.”
Only when the pain is real bad. “They make my stomach hurt.”

“You have to take them with food.”

“A veces no puedo comer.”
Sometimes I cannot eat. “Then I can no take the pills?”

“You need to eat,” I said.

“The boys, they eat?”

“They ate. What about Paolina?”

“You only care for her. The boys are good boys. They help me.”

“Where is she? Please.”

“Is Friday? She has maybe a date.”

“C'mon, Marta. She's a kid.”

“You want to ask where is this kid, no? Maybe after you hear, you no want her for your sister.”

“Don't worry about that.”

“The little girl, the kid, has got herself a man. Twenty-five, maybe thirty years he's a day. I see him walkin' with her. I see them in his car. Lots a times. She says no. She says I'm crazy. Her own mother.”

“Paolina? With a guy?”

“You don' believe me, maybe?”

“In his twenties? Has to be a teacher or something.”

“Oh, you a stupid lady. Guy like that don't teach no school.”

“Guy like what? You know his name?”

“She don' bring no man like that to her house. I throw her out, I see her with a man like that.”

I wanted to ask what kind of men she'd expect Paolina to fall for, with such a sterling example of how not to pick 'em for a mother.

Instead I made her another bowl of soup.

“When will Paolina be home?”

“Soon, I think.”

Roz beat it to the Laundromat with two giant bags of reeking clothes, leaving me the moldy bathroom to scour.

“Soon,” Marta constantly assured me.

When the last light had faded from the sky, I wanted to call the cops. That's when Marta told me not to worry, she'd suddenly remembered: Paolina was staying the night with her aunt Lilia. And no, I couldn't phone the aunt to make sure all was well. Lilia left her receiver off the hook after nine o'clock. Too many wrong numbers. Too many salesmen. Too many perverts.

I drove by the aunt's place. All seemed quiet and dark.

Back home, I played my National steel guitar late into the morning hours, fooling around with an old tune, trying out different bass runs and slides till my callused fingertips ached.

Baby, please don't go.

Baby, please don't go.

Baby, please don't go down to New Orleans,

You know I love you so.

I played all the standard verses, borrowed a few from other songs, even made up a couple of my own. I settled on a down-and-dirty bass and a bottleneck slide.

And I worried.

8

By Saturday morning I'd decided to see for myself. Which might be difficult. Marta's hardly my greatest fan, but her sister Lilia—Paolina's only aunt—really despises me. She'd take great delight in spitting in my eye.

The way she sees it, I cost her a job, almost single-handedly shutting down her place of employment. Of course, if she'd taken my advice and applied for immigration amnesty, she could have gotten other work easily. But her distrust of the government is almost as strong as her dislike of me.

Instead, she relies on badly forged papers, and she's been fired twice in the past year.

Paolina's life was endangered during the same case that cost Lilia her job. That's the root cause of our estrangement. It wasn't all my fault. A lot of the blame rests with Marta, which is probably why she's so keen to shift the entire burden to me.

I'm not the one who lied to Paolina about her father.

Anyway, I knew that Lilia would foam at the mouth if my car so much as appeared on her street in daylight, so I decided to use a cab, which makes as good a surveillance vehicle as anything outside a power company van.

Gloria, massive dispatcher and half owner of the Green & White Cab Company, was sitting in her wheelchair behind her battered metal desk, phone to ear, listening, talking, and eating at the same time, a trick perfected only by Gloria and certain politicians on the campaign trail.

I never understand why Green & White's Allston garage hasn't been shut down by some sort of health or public safety bureau. Payoffs probably, arranged by none other than my lover, Sam Gianelli, the coproprietor of the company.

Maybe that's his main contribution to the business: veep in charge of bribery.

Or maybe he supplies Gloria with junk food.

I glanced at the top of her desk in shock. On a typical visit, I expect to find, within arm's reach, a sampling of America's best, say a box of Bugles, a six-pack of Hershey Bars, a one-pound bag of M&M's, an openmouthed jar of marshmallow fluff, and a can of Planter's peanuts.

There was nothing but a single sack of Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn, empty and forlorn.

“Dieting?” I asked, my voice layered with disbelief.

“My dumb-ass brothers,” she said angrily, hanging up the phone and momentarily ignoring the flashing lights on her console. “My brothers are saying I got to diet, watch what I eat and all. I come in here and they cleaned me out. Nothin' but rabbit food, carrots, and shit.”

Gloria's got the three largest brothers imaginable, but you wouldn't call any of them fat. You wouldn't call any of them anything. Former sports stars all, they now earn bucks as bar bouncers, or in less savory trades.

You might call Gloria fat, but not in their hearing.

“You want food?” I asked, hoping she'd say no because who in her right mind wants to oppose the world's biggest brother act?

“Hell, long as they make pizza to go, I ain't gonna starve. And I got stashes they ain't found yet. They let me have this popcorn stuff, but where's the butter?”

“I need a cab,” I said. “You got something barely functional?”

“Let me guess. You want a cut-rate lease.”

“Ask me, all your junkers ought to be cut-rate.”

“You just gonna charm it right outa me.”

“Give me a deal and I'll bring you a package of Hostess Cream-filled Cupcakes.”

“Make it four packages.” She patted one plump dark cheek and let a laugh rumble up from deep inside her. “Chocolate's good for my complexion.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“And you get to drive an old Ford. Keys on the pegboard. How long you gonna keep it out?”

“You'll know when I get back.”

“Six packages. And some Twinkies.”

She was still outlining her grocery list when I slammed the door.

Lilia lives in Cambridgeport, a slightly slummy part of the University City, on the top floor of a triple-decker. The place is no showpiece with its peeling gray paint, but it's better than her sister's project. Lilia's fifteen years older than Marta and she's got problems of her own, like chronic unemployment. But if Marta had asked, she'd take in Paolina. No doubt about it. For her, family is family.

Only rarely did I wish I had one.

Oh, maybe somebody else's family, some idealized make-believe family. But I certainly felt no longing for the barely masked hostility of my parents' marriage, no nostalgia for my own brief attempt.

It was convenient for sex, my marriage, but life isn't lived in bed.

Thoughts of sex led to images of Sam Gianelli, which segued into fantasies of Keith Donovan. I have strict rules about not getting involved with clients. But then he wasn't technically a client. And I break my own rules all the time.

Sam and I have had an on-again-off-again affair steaming for more years than most marriages last. It will never lead to wedded bliss. I'm not in the market and, by his father's standards, I'm off limits, being both divorced and non-Catholic. Was I using Sam for relatively safe sex in this scary AIDS-ridden time? Hell, was he using me? Yeah. Both. But it wasn't the safety that attracted me; I hadn't met a lot of guys who turned me on the way Sam did.

Donovan was a distinct possibility. Too young, of course, but that had its good side. He probably wasn't looking for a long-term commitment. Yet.

I'm monogamous in my fashion. One at a time. No marrieds. Was I ready for a total breakup with Sam?