"So, Ms. Hernandez-"
"Kikki."
"So, Kikki, what brings you all the way from Houston to Laredo? Do you want to see the colonia? "
"Actually, Doctor, I wanted to see you. I was in Brownsville for a story last month, and a local newspaper reporter-Alexa Hinojosa, do you remember her?"
"Yes, I remember Alexa."
"She certainly remembers you." Kikki's eyes twinkled like the stars on a clear night. "She said I should tell your story to Houston. She said she met you when you built a medical clinic in Boca Chica."
"Then I shall tell you my story. Come, let me show you Colonia Angeles."
He took his guests for a tour and watched their expressions change as the colonia confronted them fully. Kikki Hernandez seemed to age before his eyes. Larry the cameraman took many photographs of the colonia and the children, photos that would shock the wealthy people of Houston next Sunday morning when they opened their newspaper, photos that might bring money for medicine and supplies. When they returned to the clinic an hour later, Kikki Hernandez drenched her manicured hands with the gel sanitizer sitting on Inez's desk and rubbed her hands forcefully, as if trying to rub off a tattoo she now regretted. He knew she was thinking, Get me back to civilization! Jesse gave them cold bottled water. After she had gathered herself, Kikki Hernandez sat before his desk and fanned her face.
"It's only April, but it feels like summer."
"It is always summer on the border."
"Doctor, why do you do this?"
"Someone must."
"Surely there's more to it."
Perhaps his melancholy mood and his thoughts of lost love made him vulnerable to her soft eyes, but Jesse now told Kikki Hernandez what he had never told anyone.
"My mother lived in Nuevo Laredo. She was very beautiful. When she was twenty-one, she had a brief romance with a handsome American and became pregnant. He did not stay around, perhaps he did not even know she was pregnant. But she wanted her child to be an American citizen, as the father was. So when she was ready to deliver, she came across the river, to the midwife in this colonia."
He felt his emotions rising.
"And?"
"There were complications."
Kikki stared into his eyes.
"She died."
"Yes. In childbirth."
She stared again.
"Yours."
"Yes. She died giving me life." He fought his emotions. "No woman has died in childbirth in the colonias on my watch."
"So this is your mission in life?"
"I suppose it is."
"Does that make you happy?"
"It makes me useful."
"Is that the same as happy?"
"One must be useful to be happy, I think."
"Do your patients pay you?"
"Not in money."
"How do you make a living?"
"A few heart surgeries at the Laredo hospital each month. My specialty."
"Heart surgeons in Houston make millions and live in mansions. They seem happy… and useful."
She had very nice legs. He spread his arms to the clinic.
"You think I should give up all this for such a life?"
"Do you think you will get married and live happily ever after here?"
Jesse caught Larry the cameraman rolling his eyes.
"Happily ever after? No, no, no, Kikki-we do not do happily ever after on the border."
She smiled. She had a very nice smile as well.
"So you will live out your life in obscurity?"
"No. In this colonia."
"Alone?"
"Apparently."
"You don't want children?"
Jesse Rincon leaned back in his chair and studied Kikki Hernandez. He and she, they would make handsome babies.
"That would require a wife."
She offered a coy smile. She did not wear a wedding ring.
"Certainly you have prospects?"
"I am afraid not."
"A handsome doctor with no romantic prospects?"
"A poor doctor with no romantic prospects." Jesse again spread his arms to the clinic. "What woman would want to share this life with me? How about you, Ms. Kikki Hernandez-would you like to marry me and have my babies and share this life with me?"
The smile left her pretty face. But Larry now smiled, as if Jesse had made a fine joke.
ELEVEN
"You've got to stop using that 'Texas was once a nation and we might be again' line in your stump speech," the Professor said.
"Why? The people love it."
The Professor sat across the aisle from Bode with his face in the New York Times, not recommended reading before breakfast, even for a Ph. D.
"I told you-it's a myth. It's not true."
"Sure, it is. Texas can secede from the Union anytime we want."
"No, we can't."
"Why not?"
"The Civil War."
"Other than that?"
It was the next morning, and the governor of Texas was flying out to West Texas. Of all the perks of office, Bode enjoyed the Gulfstream the most. Jetting around the two hundred sixty-eight thousand square miles that was the State of Texas at three hundred miles per hour beat the hell out of being tailgated by eighteen-wheelers running eighty-five on the interstate. They were now over the High Plains, but his thoughts were still in Austin, where he had left his wife.
Was their marriage over?
Lindsay Byrne had been part of his life for almost thirty years. Could he live without her? Did he want to? He still loved her, but did she still love him? He had stepped out on her with Mandy, sure, but their troubles had begun long before Mandy. Because of politics. Like most voters, she took politics seriously, more so than politicians, just as football fans took the games more seriously than the players. Players and politicians understand that it's just a game. You win some, you lose some, but the goal is to survive to play the next game or compete in the next election. But voters seemed to think that politicians could do good.
More particularly, his wife seemed to think that this politician could do good.
She had been so excited when he had first been elected governor. He-they-were going to do good. He had actually believed it, too. But reality crashed the party like a SWAT team: politics is all about money. Who pays it to the government; who gets it from the government. Politicians are money-brokers, and money rules everything and everyone in politics. Even Bode Bonner. Consequently, he had disappointed his wife. Which was a hard thing for a man, disappointing the only woman he had ever loved.
"What's wrong, honey?"
Mandy Morgan sat next to him, but her fingers were tiptoeing up and down his thigh. He took her hand and put it in her lap. She pushed her lips out.
"I'm not in the mood," Bode said.
"Really? There's something about flying that puts me in the mood."
"Girl, breathing puts you in the mood."
That familiar twinkle came into her eyes, as if he had laid down a challenge. She unbuckled her seat belt and hiked her black leather miniskirt high enough to climb onto his lap and reveal her red lacy thong. She was wearing a low-cut top that exposed a good portion of her impressive breasts, which she pressed against him as her lips went to his ear. She moved her bottom against his lap.
"I'm not sure, Bode, but I think you might be getting in the mood."
He was.
His mind might be elsewhere, but his body was present and at full attention. Funny how men could separate the mind and body when it came to sex. Women always talk about sex being more of a mental exercise than a physical one; for men, it was just the opposite. It was strictly a physical act. A man could have sex while wondering how the Longhorns were playing; in fact, a man could have sex while watching the Longhorns play and figuring out how to bet the over-under. Jim Bob noticed the commotion in seat 3B.