“No. I never heard from her or saw her again until two weeks ago. The Probation Department and someone from the Clinic came snooping around a few times. I told them just what I’m telling you now.”
“I hear what you’re telling me,” Pinata said. “But is it the truth?”
Mrs. Rosario blinked, and the ripe-olive eyes disappeared for a fraction of a second under lids that looked withered from lack of tears. “Four years with no news of her, and suddenly comes a knock on the front door, and there she is, with six children and a husband and a car. She talked a blue streak telling me how happy she was, and didn’t I think the baby was cute and the car beautiful and the husband handsome. But there was a look in her eye I didn’t like, that restless look of hers. When she’s like that, she hardly eats or sleeps, she just keeps on the go, day and night, one place to another, never getting tired.”
One place to another, Pinata thought. Twenty-five taverns, eighty restaurants, sixty thousand people. I’d better start moving.
“This man she’s with,” Mrs. Rosario said, “this Mr. Foster, he is a drunk?”
“Yes.”
“You find them and send Juanita home.”
“I’ll try.”
“Tell her I’m sorry I called her a gypsy. I lost control of my tongue. She’s no gypsy, my Juanita. I lost control — it’s so easy sometimes. Afterwards I’m filled with such shame and sadness. You find her for me, will you? Tell her I’m sorry?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Hurry up before this man gets her into trouble.”
Pinata wasn’t sure who was going to get whom into trouble, but he knew they made a bad combination, Juanita and Fielding. He wrote his name and the phone numbers of his office and residence on a slip of paper and gave it to Mrs. Rosario.
She held it at arm’s length to read it. “Pinata,” she said, nodding. “That’s a good Catholic name.”
“Yes.”
“If my daughter went to church more often, she wouldn’t suffer from this sickness.”
“Perhaps not,” Pinata said, knowing how useless it would be to argue the point. “I’d appreciate your letting me know right away if either Juanita or Fielding shows up here again.”
“Fielding?”
“That’s his real name.”
“Fielding,” she repeated quietly. Then she folded the piece of paper and tucked it into the pocket of her black dress. “I guess it doesn’t matter what people call themselves. Fielding may not be his real name, either, maybe?”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Well, it’s no business of mine.” She crossed the room and opened the front door. “You won’t find Juanita, or Fielding, either. With a car, they could be anywhere by this time.”
“I can try.”
“Don’t try for my sake.”
“You asked me to find her and send her home.”
“I’m tired,” she said bitterly. “I’m tired. Let her stay lost.”
“I have a job to do.”
“Then do it. Good day to you, Mr. Pinata. If that is your name.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“I don’t care anyway.”
When he stepped across the threshold, she closed the door behind him so quickly that he felt he’d been forcibly ejected.
The porch of the Lopez house next door was empty, and Querida’s purple hula hoop lay broken on the steps.
Mrs. Rosario waited until his car had turned the corner. Peering through the lace curtain, she felt faint and very cold, as if an iron hand had squeezed her heart and stopped its flow of blood. She touched the silver cross she wore at her throat, hoping it would warm and comfort her. But the metal was as cold as her skin. Pinata. It sounded false. He hadn’t even claimed that it was real, just that it was the only one he had.
She went out into the kitchen and picked up the telephone directory. The name was listed. Stevens Pinata, and the phone numbers were the same ones he’d written on the slip of paper.
She stood leaning against the sink, paralyzed by indecision. She had orders not to call Mr. Burnett, the lawyer, at his office unless it was absolutely necessary, and never to call him at his home under any circumstances. But what right had he to give the orders? Maybe he’d even been the one who sent Pinata and Fielding to spy on her. Well, they had learned nothing, either of them. The picture had been taken thirty years ago and bore no resemblance to the way he’d looked when he died.
The minutes passed, ticking away like heartbeats. It had been a long, cruel day. So many of the days were long and cruel. Carlos was well out of it. He was with the angels by this time. No more candles would be necessary, the priest said. “He will certainly be in heaven by this time,” the priest said. “You mustn’t become a fanatic; it looks bad for the church. This has been going on long enough.”
He was right, of course. Things had been going on long enough...
She picked up the phone.
15
Your mother kept her vow, Daisy. We are still apart, you and I. She has hidden her shame because she cannot bear it the way we weaker and humbler ones can and must and do...
On Saturday afternoon Ada Fielding had lunch at a downtown restaurant with a group of friends. After lunch she found herself being followed into the powder room by Mrs. Weldon, a member of the group whom she didn’t know very well and didn’t like at all. Mrs. Weldon’s large, inquisitive eyes were always hidden by a veil, like windows by a net curtain, and her thin, sharp mouth moved constantly, even when she wasn’t talking, as if she were chewing on some little regurgitated seeds from the past.
Adjusting her veil in front of the mirror above the washbasin, Mrs. Weldon said, “How’s Daisy?”
“Daisy? Oh, fine, she couldn’t be better, thanks.”
“And Jim?”
She wasn’t even aware that Mrs. Weldon knew the names of her daughter and son-in-law, but she concealed her surprise, as she had concealed a great many other things in her lifetime, under a slow, placid smile. “Jim is very well, too. He’d planned on going north this weekend to look at some land he’s thinking of buying, but he decided to wait until it was cooler. Hasn’t it been a fantastic year? All this heat and no rain to speak of.”
But Mrs. Weldon did not intend to put up with weather-talk when she’d planned on people-talk. “A friend of mine saw Daisy the other day — Corinne, you’ve heard me mention Corinne, the lovely girl that lives next door to us — well, not a girl, really, she’s almost forty, but she’s kept her figure like a girl. Of course she was born skinny; that helps. Corinne saw Daisy just the other day and said she was looking quite peaked.”
“Indeed? I certainly haven’t noticed.”
“Thursday, it was. Thursday afternoon, walking along Piedra Street with a young man. I knew it couldn’t be Jim. Jim’s so blond and fair-skinned, and this man was quite — well, dark.”
“Daisy is acquainted with a great many men,” Mrs. Fielding said casually. “Dark and fair.”
“I meant dark in you-know-what sense.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Of course you’re not a native Californian...” Mrs. Weldon stopped and shook her head helplessly; these nonnative Californians could be very dense. “I meant, this man wasn’t one of us.”
Ada Fielding was well aware of her meaning, but it seemed advisable to feign innocence, to appear imperturbable; there was nothing a gossip enjoyed more than the signs of anxiety, a quickening of the breath, a sudden flush, a clenching of the hands. Mrs. Fielding’s hands and breathing remained steady, and her flush was hidden by a layer of powder. Only she knew it was there, she could feel it in her cheeks and neck, and it annoyed her because there was nothing to get excited about. Daisy had been seen walking along a street with a dark young man. Very well, what of it? Daisy had all kinds of friends. Still, in a town like this, one had to be careful. There was a difference between being tolerant and being foolish, and Daisy, even with the best of intentions, could be quite foolish at times.