Unpaid Dues (18 page)

Angelica rose to greet them. She was stick thin and
dressed in skintight jeans and a scoop-necked sweater. Rico hugged
her and kissed her cheek. She pulled away and studied Munch.

Munch smiled and waited for Rico to make the
introductions. She wanted to hear some glowing recommendation, some
indication of their status, but Rico just said, "You want
coffee?"

"Sure." Munch thrust her gift into
Angelica's hands. "This is for you."

"
Thank you." Angelica smiled politely and
left it unopened in front of her. Asia would have torn the wrapping
paper with her teeth. There was something sneaky about this kid,
Munch felt. She was holding back her true feelings. Give the kid a
break, Munch then thought, she's only fifteen. She probably has
hundreds of true feelings a day and they all slam into each other.
Munch and the girl took chairs on opposite sides of the rectangular
table. Rico hesitated a moment and then sat down beside Munch, facing
his daughter. He slid the paper place mat toward himself and almost
overturned his water. In reaching to catch the glass, he nearly
knocked it down the other way Angelica arched a plucked eyebrow, but
made no other comment.

"So," Munch said, hearing the word echo
inanely in her head. She clenched her hands together under the table.
"What grade are you in?"

Angelica laced her hands loosely on the tabletop,
showed her perfect teeth, and said, "I'm a freshman." Munch
had to think a minute, she could never keep those grades straight.
Freshman came before sophomore, she was pretty sure, but did it mean
the first year of high school or second to last? She would have it
all figured out by the time Asia came of age. Munch put her own arms
on the table, rocking it with a clunk that rattled the flatware. She
grabbed a napkin from one of the other tables, folded it, and leaned
down to jam it between the gap of floor and table leg.

When she resurfaced, Angelica was staring at her.

"
It was driving me crazy," Munch said,
feeling she had failed somehow, wishing someone would compliment her.

The waitress arrived. Munch asked for a quesadilla,
Rico ordered huevos rancheros, Angelica requested a salad with the
dressing on the side, no avocado or cheese.

They made some small talk about the drive there and
the weather. When Angelica spoke, she looked only at her father.

"I like your dad," Munch said, feeling the
need to a lob a grenade, to get the real conversation started.

"
Really?" Angelica leaned over to Munch and
looked her directly in the eye. "Let me ask you something. If
your dad and my dad were both in a burning building, who would you
save first?"

Rico said, "Angie." V

Flower George in a burning building—now, there was
an image. "You might want to pick a different scenario,"
Munch said. "My dad's dead already."

Angelica's eyes brightened and she finally dropped
her fakey little smile. "I'm sorry" she said in a small
voice.

Munch considered telling her the whole truth, that
the death of her father had not been a bad thing. The day Munch saw
Flower George off to hell was her liberation day and literally the
first day of the rest of her life because it marked her first day of
sobriety. For her own serenity; she had released her anger over him,
and now eight years later, only thought of him once a week, usually
following a dream where they still lived together. Sometimes she was
sober in those dreams, sometimes she had gone back to the needle. She
even had dreams that she had never really gotten sober at all. Ruby
said that that was the part of her subconscious mind that couldn't
believe it was true.

The food arrived. Angelica stirred her salad. Rico
took a bite of his eggs and made an umm-good sound. He cut off a
section of tortilla and egg, put it on his fork, and offered it to
his daughter.

"No thanks."

"Just try it," he said, "it's good."
He kept the food at her lips until she relented and accepted it. For
the next few minutes, they all ate-chewing long and silently. Finally
Rico broke the silence.

"
Angie, wasn't there something else?"

The teenager slipped her aren't-I-cute mask in place.
"My dad says you have a limo business?"

Munch took a sip of water. "That's right."

"
A bunch of us are going in together to hire a
limo for the Madonna concert?" It wasn't a question, just a
young girl's inflection. "We want an eight-passenger, brand-new,
nineteen eighty-five or -six, white stretch. But we just need it to
take us to the concert and back again, so we don't want to pay for
all the in-between time."

Munch wondered if this was all Rico had said about
her, that she owned a limo business. "It doesn't work that way.
The driver has to stay in the parking lot during the concert. If he
left and tried to come back when the concert let out, he'd never make
it in past the traffic. Besides, my car only seats six in the back."

"Two could ride up front, couldn't they?"
Rico asked.

"
I'm not sure anyone would like that
arrangement," Munch said, annoyed at Rico for jumping in,
knowing that chances were good that she would be the driver. She sure
as hell didn't want to spend an hour up front with two snotty
complaining kids. She got enough of that at prom time. "Besides,
my car is silver and she wants white."

"
I'll have to check with my friends,"
Angelica said.

"The car's not brand new either," Munch
said.

Rico looked at her sideways, then back at his
daughter. "You ready?"

"I need to use the bathroom. "

Rico half stood when his daughter got up and then
nudged Munch, saying under his breath, "Go with her."

Munch stood, wondering if he thought they would bond
in the 1adies' room.

"Make sure she doesn't throw up."

Munch accompanied Angelica to the bathroom and went
into the stall next to hers. Angelica's shoes pointed the correct
direction the entire time.

When they got back to the table, the waitress brought
the check and a take-out carton. Rico threw down a twenty and said,
"Let's go."

Munch still had coffee left in her cup, but she
didn't argue.

They had to walk single file through the marketplace
crowds. Munch took the lead, with Angelica in the middle, and Rico
bringing up the rear. They reached the Plaza, and Rico caught up to
them. Wrought-iron benches, shaded by large trees, faced the raised
stage of the Plaza's central gazebo.

"Did you know that Native Americans were sold as
slaves here?" Angelica asked as they picked their way across the
time-worn stones, her lips pursed in disgust at the couples taking
advantage of the romantic setting.

"
No, I didn't," Munch said.

"You don't hear about people having picnics at
Auschwitz.'

"
Viva la raza
,"
Munch muttered under her breath.

Rico broke away from them and walked over to where a
homeless man was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, his back
against the brick wall of the old firehouse. He was staring at
traffic, occasionally lifting a dirty index finger as if to address
the cars passing him by.

Munch studied his clothes, dark with street grime and
little more than rags. You could see bits of filthy feet through his
disintegrating tennis shoes. He was the kind of guy emergency room
nurses described as a DPOH: Disgusting Piece of Humanity. She was
sorry he'd ended up this way but didn't want to get anywhere near
him.

"
Hey Mosca," Rico said, "gimme a
dollar."

The homeless man looked shocked and then grinned.
Rico handed him the carton of leftovers. "La Mosca" saluted
a thanks.

When they got back to the car at Parker Center, Rico
told his kid to climb in the backseat. Munch was relieved, having had
an image, and then discarding it, of herself yelling, "Shotgun."

They drove several miles north on the Hollywood
Freeway to Echo Park. The light poles of Dodger Stadium were visible
on the right; the towering skyscrapers of downtown L.A. loomed in the
yellow-gray sky to their left.

Echo Park was a hilly neighborhood of
thirties-vintage wooden homes with covered porches and burglar bars
on the windows. Rico pulled into the driveway of one of the few
houses that was stuccoed. Some kind of tropical plant with leaves
like elephant ears dominated the small front yard. Security
flood-lights were mounted on the roofline. The cement stairs leading
to the front door were painted red and matched the trim.

Rico shut off the engine and they all got out. Rico
leaned into the backseat and pulled out a color television still in
its carton. Angelica looked at the box and said, "Another one?"

"
This one is better," he said, pointing to
the printing on the box. "See? It's cable ready gets fifty-two
channels, and you can plug earphones into the side."

"Daaad," she said, rolling her eyes. "There
aren't that many channels in the known universe."

Can't she see how pleased he is to be doing this for
her? Munch thought. How can she resist his little-boy enthusiasm?
Rico's countenance darkened; Angelica had ruined the moment for him.

"When I was your age, I didn't even have
electricity" he said.

"I know, I know," Angelica said wearily "Or
running water or glass in your windows."

Munch looked at Rico. Even though this story was old
hat to Angelica, it was the first Munch had heard it. It struck her
how little she really knew about this man, how all her images of him
were more visceral than visual.

Rico lifted the television easily

"C'mon," he told Munch, and the three of
them approached the house. Angelica went first with her key Munch
walked behind Rico, enjoying the way the muscles of his broad back
shifted under his shirt. Angelica's room was at the end of the
hallway past a living room full of overstuffed furniture flanked by
amphitheater-sized speakers. The couch faced a large console
television with a VCR.

He brought the television into her room and set it
down on a dresser in front of a wall covered with a collage of
shirtless young men with guitars and pouty looks. Munch looked at the
angst-ridden performers and wondered what it was about them that
adolescents related to and how the kids could so neatly disregard the
fact that most of these boy wonders were making big bucks and had
nothing to cry about. In her heart Munch knew that money wasn't
everything, but it sure seemed to be everything else.

Shelves held an astounding array of stereo equipment.
Angelica already had a television and Atari. Near her closet was a
car stereo still in its box. The car stereo and TV carton were both
stamped with the name PASCOE APPLIANCES. It occurred to Munch that
Rico was overcompensating.

He slit the cellophane tape across the top of the
carton.

Munch sneaked a look through Angelica's open bathroom
door and was overwhelmed at the variety and number of beauty products
amassed on the vanity It was clear that they were well used. Half of
the bottles were empty Munch had yet to use up a bottle of nail
polish or a can of hair spray and only recently had she had to buy a
new tube of lipstick.

"Look at this mess," Rico said, sweeping
his hand to encompass it all. He stared in disgust at the hair in the
sink, the spray of toothpaste on the mirror. "Just like her
mother," he told Munch, not bothering to whisper.

Cheap shot, Munch thought, but she also knew
something else in that instant. Sylvia, Angelica's mother, had been
the one who wanted out of the marriage.

"
You want any help setting this up?" she
asked Angelica.

"No," the girl said. "Thank you."
The smile was back in place.

"
Don't put the box out at the curb," Munch
said.

"
Either fold it up and stuff it in your trash
can or throw it away in a Dumpster. Otherwise you're advertising that
you have something brand new to steal."

Angelica nodded her head
and looked at Munch with something dangerously akin to respect. "I
never thought about that. Thanks."

* * *

As they drove away Rico said, "I hate them
living there."

"Their house seemed nice," she said.

"
It would be nicer in Santa Monica or Palms."

"Would Sylvia move?"

"
Her business is downtown, but I'm working on
her. "

Munch didn't like the sound of that. It took several
minutes for her to get her jealousy under control. She couldn't worry
about everyone he ever slept with. What if the reverse were true?

She turned to him. "You're sweet."

"
What?"

"
Giving the food to that bum guy"

"Actually" he said, checking the rearview
mirror, "it's not as nice as it looks. When I was growing up,
even though we lived in a house my mom built herself, a house with
dirt floors and cardboard for wallpaper, we knew we were superior to
those people who begged at the border. My mom made like a buck a day
making tortillas, but she always had change for the beggars. So you
see? Not so noble."