There was suddenly a little person crawling into my lap. Violet had returned, alone. She snuggled around my belly and began playing with the silver charm bracelet I rarely took off. Her fingers were soft and sticky and she smelled wonderful, like a human cinnamon bun.
I heard an exchange of voices in the kitchen and the sound of an ice tray being cracked. I took in a deep breath of little girl.
“Violet.” Rosie stood over us with my glass of water, served in a plastic Winnie-the-Pooh glass. “Get down. Stop playing with her jewelry.”
“Pooh,” Violet said.
“No, it’s OK,” I interposed. “Leave her. This was my mother’s. I used to play with it when I was little. It reminds me.” I gulped the water gratefully.
“My mother says Maria will not be back soon.” Rosie planted herself on the edge of the couch. She wanted this to be a short conversation. “Maria works very hard. The woman she works for is not… very nice. Maybe Maria will take your job. Please write down your name and number.” She handed me a pencil and a piece of notebook paper stuck in her SAT book. I wrote my name and number carefully, thanked her, and gently lifted Violet from my lap to her arms.
As I walked back to the station wagon, I hovered inside the shade of a giant live oak, where it was at least ten degrees cooler. I was glad I’d come, even if I found out nothing. I wanted to carry the peace of this lovely road for a long time.
I wriggled my awkward body into the Volvo, thinking about showing Mike our new quilt. As I switched on the ignition, a rusted pickup rumbled past. That’s when I saw the cigar box on my passenger seat.
A box that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.
My belly knocked sharply against the wheel, my breath seizing, my gut telling me to get the hell out of the car, but I sat paralyzed, unable to move or take my eyes off of it. Even in panic mode, my artist self appreciated the aesthetics of the cedar box and the evocative label glued to the top.
On it, a large-boned blond woman was set against pitch-black, draped in a swirling blue dress and a snaking purple scarf. She had a rakish patch over one eye, a bundle of tobacco leaves dripping from one hand and in the other a cigar raised jauntily over her head. Empowering, right down to the bare feet with red toenail polish. She was left-handed, I thought distractedly, like me.
Black Patch Cigar Co.
I’d never heard of it-but then, I’d never puffed on a cigar.
I didn’t move. I held my breath and listened for ticking sounds, although Mike had taught me that bombs don’t always tick. His voice in my head screamed for me to get out even as I reached over and lifted the lid with a fingertip, touching nothing else. A single cigar was tucked inside, wrapped tightly in cellophane, dressed up with a bow made out of cheap pink curling ribbon. No note. A congratulations for the baby? Or a threat?
I didn’t think Rafael had done this. The pink was wrong, wrong, wrong. Color would be important to an artist like Rafael. He wouldn’t break in to my car, even though I left it unlocked.
I thrust open the door and ran to the wayback. I locked the doors with my remote before peering through the rear window. I saw nothing but the six-pack of water that Mike insisted I carry for emergencies.
I shot a 360-glance around me. Not a soul. Everyone was hiding out from the heat. The air was perfectly still, waiting.
My fingers fumbled to hit speed-dial 1. Mike’s voice said he wasn’t available at the moment, but would return my call as soon as possible.
“Your concerns are important to me,” he said politely. “If this is an emergency, please dial 911.”
I got back in the car, yanked it into gear, and spun out, kicking up gravel and a choking cloud of dust. I reminded myself to tell Mike that no one wanted to be instructed to dial 911. People weren’t idiots.
Ten miles down the road, it belatedly occurred to me to glance into the backseat.
My lucky quilt was still there, folded in a neat square.
12
The three of them waited for me at a white-clothed table in the corner, set with half-drunk glasses of Chablis and littered with crumbs from a basket of hard French rolls. It was a full house at Ruggieri’s. The lights were low. Votive candles flickered on tables, illuminating tiny bud vases of sturdy white carnations.
Christmas greenery pretending not to be Christmas greenery wound around a metal arbor behind the hostess stand. Nice try, with the fake orchids and daisies stuck here and there. In harsh daylight, this place probably didn’t look much better than a diner, but it supposedly dished out the best Eye-talian in town.
A man rose up out of the crowd to wave me over. I was confused for a second, but, yes, this stranger was waving at me. Harry Dunn, I presumed. The mayor’s eyes traced like a snake up and down my body, settling in the middle, surprised, as if he hadn’t known I was pregnant. But that was nothing compared to how radically off my own assumptions had been about him.
Whenever Mike mentioned his new boss, I had pictured Harry Dunn as a potbellied, balding, boisterous politician, with hopeless zeal for the Texas governorship. Instead, Harry Dunn was a stunner. An 11. Or a 12. An instant vote-getter. Dark wavy hair, an aristocratic nose, a sexy, slender frame, broad shoulders, a gorgeous black suit, a loosened tie around a stiff white collar, a very, very nice watch, and no ring on his left hand.
Leticia stood up, too, her chubby fingers curling possessively on her husband’s arm as I wove my way along narrow paths to the table. Next to Harry, even sitting down, Mike stood out like a bruiser, his rolled-up sleeves baring thick, dangerous forearms. I felt sorry for Letty. Despite her size and a bright yellow sundress, beside her husband she appeared shrunken and outclassed. Mike had mentioned that Harry had risen up from less than gracious beginnings. Maybe behind closed doors, where Letty wrote the checks, the score evened out.
Harry shook off Letty’s grip to lean over and kiss me, saying everything about their relationship I ever needed to know. The spot where his lips touched my cheek felt damp and clammy, like a tiny frog had landed there. I pushed down the urge to wipe off any residue. My heart started a steady pound.
I smiled coolly. This was the archetype of the guy I didn’t do well around. The grown-up Pierces. Harry Dunn would have sex with me, pregnant and married, tonight, in the back of a car, hell, in the one-holer bathroom in the back of this restaurant. He’d said it with his eyes and with the hand he casually drifted up and down my back while his lips brushed my cheek. I hated myself for the primal physical response he elicited. Attraction and abhorrence at the same time.
Right now, Letty’s plump face reminded me of a pot of water about to boil. I tried to picture Harry and Letty in bed. Letty on bottom. Letty on top. My mind couldn’t wrap around it.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I rambled nervously. “I decided to put on makeup. Then I couldn’t fit into those capris that I wore last week… I really need to unpack… I left my cell phone and had to go back…”
Mike didn’t know yet about the cigar box, which was sitting on our kitchen table. When I called Mike’s secretary, he’d been stuck in meetings. I’d been careful. I removed the box from the car using latex gloves Mike kept under the kitchen sink. I checked the car out thoroughly before getting back in to drive over here. Under the hood, in the trunk, beneath the seats. Nothing.
Harry, lazily stretched back in his chair, smiled as if my flustered appearance utterly charmed him. Not Letty. Not Mike. His lips were stretched tight, an angry white line around them. Because he was jealous of the visual undressing I just got from his boss? That was no doubt Letty’s grievance with me tonight. As for Mike-well, I thought we doused those jealous flames in a therapist’s office a long time ago.