"Jesus."
"Yes, that's it. Jesus. He said he needed to finish doing something out front, but that as soon as he's done, he'll come collect the bags of dead flowers and put them on his compost heap."
Of course, Ali realized.
Jesus had come back to reclaim his job, just as she had asked. Crime scene tape aside, he must have been the one who had repaired and reassembled the broken gate.
"He said I should tell you that the lawyer you sent him to was very good."
Right then, with Marcella Johnson's big touchdown on the scoreboard, Ali was glad to hear that another of her many attorneys had turned out to be a positive for someone.
"Good," Ali said. "As much as I'm paying in legal fees at the moment, it's only fair that we end up with decent representation and a few wins on our side."
"Jesus and I were having a bit of a communication problem," Edie continued. "As you know, my Spanish isn't all that good and I had my hearing aids turned off because the hair dryer was so loud, but I think he said a friend of his is coming over a little later. He mentioned her name, but I didn't quite catch it. Olivia maybe?"
"Elvira?" Ali asked. "My old cook?"
"That could be it. I just didn't hear him properly."
They had finished their breakfast of cheese baked eggs and coffee cake when the doorbell rang. When Ali went to answer it, she found that the bags filled with dead flowers had magically and quietly disappeared. She opened the door to find Elvira Jimenez standing nervously on the front porch.
"Why, Elvira," Ali exclaimed with pleasure. "How good to see you again. Come in."
Elvira hung back. Ali went out and gave her a welcoming hug.
"I should not have come," Elvira said.
"Of course you should have," Ali said. "Our other cook just left. If you're not working somewhere else, maybe you'd like your old job back."
Chris appeared in the doorway. When Elvira saw him, her face broke into a broad smile, and she allowed him to lead her into the house.
"You're too skinny," she told him, patting his belly affectionately. "Someone needs to give you more cookies. And tortillas."
Chris took her into the kitchen, where Elvira sniffed the air. Nodding appreciatively in the direction of the coffee cake, she held out her hand to Edie Larson.
"I believe I have met you other times when you were here," Elvira said.
"Yes," Edie agreed. "It's nice to see you again. Won't you sit down?"
Elvira looked uncomfortable. Her eyes slipped from one face to another, finally coming to rest on Ali. Elvira shook her head and remained standing.
"Jesus said I should come," she said at last. "And his niece. She said the same thing."
"I've spoken to Andrea," Ali said, hoping to find some common ground that would ease Elvira's obvious discomfort. "She's a nice girl."
Elvira's dark eyes bored into Ali's. "A nice girl?" she asked.
"Of course," Ali said.
"Some people would not call her thatnice," Elvira ventured. "She got pregnant once when she wasn't married. She had to have an abortion."
Ali shrugged. "Those things happen," she said. "It's important to the girl it happens to and to her family, but it's not important to the rest of the world."
"But it is important," Elvira said urgently. "It's a sina mortal sin."
Ali saw at once that she had stepped into something. So did Edie.
"It's considered a mortal sin by some people," Edie said kindly. "And I, for one, happen to agree with you."
Elvira smiled wanly. Then she reached into her threadbare cloth bag and pulled out a worn leather wallet. From it she removed a photoa wallet-sized photoof a newborn baby with a knitted pink cap perched on top of her head. Elvira handed the photo to Ali, who studied it for a moment. The baby had dark hair and fair skin, but there was something striking about the eyes.
"My great-granddaughter," Elvira explained. "My granddaughter's daughter."
Of course, the baby wasn't pretty at all. She was in fact wrinkly and more than a little ugly, but there are times when white lies are not only acceptable, they're downright necessary.
"Congratulations," Ali said, handing the photo on to Chris. "She's very pretty."
Chris glanced briefly at the photo and then, in turn, handed it along to his grandmother. Edie took one look at it then settled heavily onto one of the kitchen chairs.
"Oh, forevermore," she breathed. "Not another one!"
"Another one?" Ali asked. "What you do you mean?"
"Don't tell me you can't see it!" Edie exclaimed. "This child has her father's eyes. She looks exactly like Paul Grayson."
CHAPTER 22
The story came out gradually over the course of the next few days while Ali went about the job of handling Paul's funeral. It had to be done and since there was no one else to do it, Ali did. Fortunately, April's father came forward and insisted on handling April's final arrangements. Ali was relieved to learn that he wanted nothing at all to do with a joint service. That meant Ali didn't have to worry about giving Fred Macon of the Three Palms Mortuary any more business, either.
But Ali did have to worry about Jesus Sanchez, who finally came forward and told her what he knewand far more than Ali wanted to hear. He told her about how his niece, without his knowledge, had come to a party at the pool house. Paul had served drinks to Andrea and several of her young friends and then had taken advantage of the situation when Andrea was too drunk to see straight. When Andrea had turned up pregnant, Paul had paid for her abortion and given her money over and above that as well. He had also promised her father, Jesus, that it would never happen again. But it hadas everyone now knewwith Elvira's young visiting granddaughter, Consuela.
Paul had tried the same program with Consuela that he had used successfully with Andrea. He had offered to pay for an abortion plus a five-thousand-dollar premium. Except Consuela wouldn't go for it because it turned out she was a good Catholic girl. The trait had skipped Consuela's own mother and had jumped a generation, going straight from Elvira to her granddaughter. The baby, Angelina, was now a month and a half old.
A few months earlier, Ali Reynolds would have taken some satisfaction in learning that Paul Grayson had been screwing around on April at the same time April had been maintaining her long-term cozy friendship with Tracy McLaughlin. But Ali's paradigms had inalterably shifted that night out there in the desertthe night when she and her son had almost died. What had been important to her before no longer seemed to matter.
Ali's concern now, knowing that Consuela's child existedthat Angelina Rojas existedwas seeing to it that Angelina was properly provided for. Once again she found herself huddling with attorneys, trying to sort out reasonable support arrangements for this baby who could by no means be called a "love" child but who nonetheless deserved to have a very real claim on her father's assets. And the fact that Ali was prepared to be more than fairthat she was determined, in fact, to be downright generous with her former husband's assetsmade a complicated situation far easier to handle than it would have been otherwise.
The negotiations went forward in utmost secrecy. That was the one thing Ali insisted uponfor Angelina's sake, until she was old enough to choose for herself. Until she was old enough to ask her own questions and hear the answers.
Edie and Chris stayed until Friday, after the funeral on Thursday. Knowing Ali would most likely be listing and selling the house, they helped her sort and pack. Paul's clothingthe expensive suits that he had reveled inwent to Goodwill, with the exception of the blue pinstripe Hugo Boss, which Paul would wear in his casket. April's things were packed into boxes and taken to her father to do with as he saw fit.