“We know what it means, Edward,” Father Alfonso said peevishly.
“These three are bound for Iowa, with your help,” was the way Brother Pepe put it to the two old priests. “Whereas you — that is, we, in the sense of the Church — have a miracle, or not a miracle, to soft-pedal or suppress.”
“No one has said the suppress word, Pepe,” Father Alfonso rebuked him.
“It’s simply premature to say the milagro word, Pepe — we have to wait and see,” Father Octavio reprimanded him.
“Just help us get to Iowa,” Juan Diego said, “and we’ll wait and see for another two hundred years.”
“That sounds like a good deal for everybody,” the Iowan chimed in. “Actually, Juan Diego,” Señor Eduardo told the dump reader, “Guadalupe waited two hundred and twenty-three years to be officially declared.”
“It doesn’t matter how long we wait for them to tell us that a milagro is a milagro — it doesn’t even matter what the milagro is,” Rivera told them all. The Mary Monster’s tears had stopped; the dump boss was on his way out. “We don’t need to declare what a miracle is or isn’t — we saw it,” el jefe reminded them, as he was leaving. “Of course Father Alfonso and Father Octavio will help you — you don’t need to be a mind reader to know that, do you?” the dump boss asked the dump kid.
“Lupe knew these two were a necessary part of it, didn’t she?” Rivera asked Juan Diego, pointing to the parrot man and Flor. “Don’t you think your sister also knew they would be part of your getting away?” El jefe pointed to the two old priests.
The dump boss paused only long enough at the fountain of holy water to think twice about touching it. He didn’t touch the holy water on his way out — apparently, the Mary Monster’s tears had been enough.
“You better come say goodbye to me before you go to Iowa,” Rivera told the dump reader; it was clear that the dump boss was through talking to anyone else.
“Come see me in a day or two, jefe — I’ll take those stitches out!” Vargas called after Rivera.
Juan Diego didn’t doubt what the dump boss had said; he knew that the two old priests would comply, and he also knew that Lupe had known they would. One look at Father Alfonso and Father Octavio told Juan Diego that the two old priests knew they would comply, too.
“What’s that Latin shit again?” Flor asked Señor Eduardo.
“Quid pro quo,” the Iowan said softly; he didn’t want to rub it in.
Now it was Brother Pepe’s turn to cry — his tears were not a miracle, of course, but crying was a big deal to Pepe, who couldn’t stop himself. His tears just kept coming.
“I’m going to miss you, my dear reader,” Brother Pepe told Juan Diego. “I think I’m already missing you!” Pepe cried.
THE CATS DIDN’T WAKE up Juan Diego — Dorothy did. Dorothy was a jackhammer in the superior position; with her heavy breasts swaying just above his face, and her hips rocking back and forth as she sat on him, the young woman took Juan Diego’s breath away.
“I’m going to miss you, too!” he’d cried out, when he was still asleep and dreaming. The next thing he knew, he was coming — Juan Diego had no memory of her slipping the condom on him — and Dorothy was coming, too. Un terremoto, an earthquake, Juan Diego thought.
If there were any cats on the thatched roof over the outdoor shower, surely Dorothy’s screams dispersed them; her screaming momentarily silenced the crowing gamecocks, too. Those dogs who’d been barking all night recommenced barking.
There were no telephones in the rooms at The Hiding Place, or some asswheel in a nearby room would have called to complain. As for those ghosts of the young Americans who’d died in Vietnam, now and forever on R&R at El Escondrijo, Dorothy’s explosive-sounding cries must have made their unbeating hearts twitch for a beat or two.
It wasn’t until Juan Diego limped to the bathroom that he saw the open container of his Viagra prescription; the pills were beside his plugged-in cell phone on the countertop. Juan Diego didn’t remember taking the Viagra, but he must have taken a whole tablet, not a half — whether he took it himself when he’d been half awake, or whether Dorothy had given him the 100-milligram dose when he’d been sound asleep and dreaming about the sprinkling. (Did it matter how he’d taken it? He definitely took it.)
It’s hard to say what surprised Juan Diego more. Was it the young ghost himself or the lost soldier’s Hawaiian shirt? Most surprising was the way the American casualty of that distant war stared searchingly for a trace of himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink; the young victim was not reflected in the mirror at all. (Some ghosts do appear in mirrors — not this one. It’s not easy to compartmentalize ghosts.) And the sight of Juan Diego in that same mirror, above the bathroom sink, caused this ghost to vanish.
The ghost who wasn’t reflected in the bathroom mirror reminded Juan Diego of the weird dream he’d had about the photograph the young Chinese man took at Kowloon Station. Why weren’t Miriam and Dorothy in that photo? What was it Consuelo had called Miriam? “The lady who just appears”—wasn’t that what the little girl in pigtails said?
But how had Miriam and Dorothy disappeared from a photograph? Juan Diego was wondering. Or had the cell-phone camera failed to capture Miriam and Dorothy in the first place?
That thought, that connection—not the young ghost himself, and not his Hawaiian shirt — was what spooked Juan Diego the most. When Dorothy found him standing stock-still in the bathroom, where he was staring into the little mirror above the sink, she guessed he’d seen one of the ghosts.
“You saw one of them, didn’t you?” Dorothy asked him; she quickly kissed the back of his neck, before gliding behind him, naked, on her way to the outdoor shower.
“One of them — yes,” was all Juan Diego said. He’d never taken his eyes from the bathroom mirror. He felt Dorothy kiss his neck; he felt her brush against his back as she glided behind him. But Dorothy didn’t appear in the bathroom mirror — like the ghost in the Hawaiian shirt, she wasn’t reflected there. Unlike the ghost of that young American captive, Dorothy didn’t bother searching for herself in the mirror; she’d passed so unnoticeably behind Juan Diego that he didn’t see she was naked — not until he saw her standing in the outdoor shower.
For a while, he watched her wash her hair. Juan Diego thought Dorothy was a very attractive young woman, and if she were a specter — or, in some sense, not of this world — it seemed more believable to Juan Diego that she would want to be with him, even if her being with him was of an unreal or illusory nature.
“Who are you?” Juan Diego had asked Dorothy at El Nido, but she’d been asleep, or she was pretending to be asleep — or else Juan Diego only imagined that he’d asked her.
He felt all right about not asking her who she was anymore. It was a great relief to Juan Diego to imagine that Dorothy and Miriam might be spectral. The world he’d imagined had brought him more satisfaction and less pain than the real world ever had.
“You want to take a shower with me?” Dorothy was asking him. “That would be fun. Only the cats and dogs can see us, or the ghosts, and what do they care?” she said.
“Yes, that would be fun,” Juan Diego answered her. He was still staring at the bathroom mirror when the little gecko came out from behind the mirror and stared back at him with its bright, unblinking eyes. There was no question that the gecko saw him, but, just to be sure, Juan Diego shrugged his shoulders and moved his head from side to side. The gecko darted behind the bathroom mirror; the little lizard hid itself in half a second.