L.A. Weather

by María Amparo Escandón

  “A mother knows everything.”

  “Bullshit. Someone at the clinic told you and I don’t care. I’m not hiding anything. I did want to sell them and so what? Why let something of value go to waste?”

  “I could have bought them from you if you’d asked me to make an offer,” said Olivia with enough sarcasm in her tone for him to understand what she was really thinking.

  “You don’t get it, Olivia. Having more kids together would mean that I’d have to put up with you more than I already have to by co-parenting the twins!”

  Olivia got up from the table, leaving half a slice of toast on her plate, and without saying a word continued putting stuff in the cardboard boxes that the moving company had provided earlier in the week. She had to turn around so Felix couldn’t see her smiling. The thought of no longer having to deal with Felix soothed her. She’d have to seriously ask herself how she could have ever loved him, but this was a question she’d analyze later, months later, perhaps at a therapist’s office. Right now, she needed to focus on packing the few things she liked that wouldn’t remind her of him. Luckily, he wasn’t interested in the pieces of modernist furniture they’d collected over the years, so she selected the Eames lounge chair, the Noguchi coffee table, the Børge Mogensen dining set, and the Hans Olsen teak table. She hesitated when she labeled this last piece with blue tape, indicating to the movers that it was to go to her storage unit, not Felix’s. She knew it would bring terrible memories, but why not claim it now and overcome the negativity in the future? Everything must heal, she thought, even the furniture.

  How ironic, Lola thought as she drove from Mulholland on the 101 South to East Los Angeles—a world apart only twenty miles away—that she was heading from an imploding marriage to one taking its first baby steps. Her friend Lucy’s daughter, Jessica, best hairdresser east of the 5, was getting married this very afternoon to Yobany, the son of one of Lola’s ex-boyfriends, who would surely be there with wife number three. Lucy had invited Lola as the Godmother of Cushion, one of the most coveted honors in a Mexican wedding ceremony. She’d bought a red, heart-shaped cushion with extra frills at a shop on Broadway that sold quinceañera gowns and wedding paraphernalia and had it personalized with the bride and groom’s initials. The gold bands would be fastened with ribbons on the velvet fabric. Her job was to bring it to the priest at the right moment for the ring exchange.

  Irritation welled up in her as she drove south on the 710. Why hadn’t Olivia yelled back at Felix? Why had she ignored his insult? She cringed and tried to focus on the fact that Olivia’s marriage was over, and she had a whole future before her where she could use the lessons learned. At least she hoped so.

  She parked a block away from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church and walked along the sidewalk, cracked by so many earthquakes, stepping carefully. High heels didn’t go well with the terrain, but she had brought them along because they were a must at Mexican weddings. She straightened her dark purple dress with a sequined flower pinned at her cleavage and discreetly pulled up her pantyhose.

  She had a few minutes to stop at the altar in the courtyard to admire a tiled fresco depicting the famous moment when Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin rolled out dozens of roses from his cloak, revealing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe miraculously impressed forever in its fibers. She bowed respectfully, even though she wasn’t much of a practicing Catholic, and hurried inside to get a good seat, right behind the bride’s family’s pews. That was the ideal vantage point from which to get an unobstructed view of the mariachi band.

  As people trickled in, memories from her childhood, vivid ones, sprang up in her mind. Her parents had moved to East L.A. after being violently evicted in the early fifties from Chavez Ravine, a tight-knit Mexican neighborhood on the hills overlooking downtown Los Angeles where Dodger Stadium now sat. They had raised Lola and her older brother, Sebastian, there until they were killed in the bus accident, leaving the young man to take care of his sister, without making much of an effort, truth be told.

  Lola had met Lucy on the first day of school, and the two had been friends since. They had grown up far from the sea breeze, miles above fault lines, where her neighbors favored tortillas over silverware and named their pets Chabelo and Tío Gamboín. They’d roam the barrio’s streets lined with gardens behind wrought-iron fences and oleander hedges and hibiscus bushes, sometimes to run an errand for their mothers, other times to babysit for one or another aunt, or to get out of the house so their parents could fight at leisure, yelling and hurling dinner plates and pots and pans at each other across the room. Most of the time, they’d go just because.

  Lucy had endured years of her husband Julian’s philandering and maxing out credit cards; how many times had she said to Lola, “You’re lucky you didn’t get married”? But was it luck or a deliberate choice? Lola asked herself that question less often now that she was in her sixties, but sometimes, mostly during weddings, she thought about the numerous suitors she’d rejected, one of them Julian himself—years before he even considered approaching Lucy. Then there was Aurelio, a pasta chef at an Italian restaurant in Brentwood who cursed all day and smelled of garlic and basil; Hermenegildo, a mechanic who was mistakenly killed in a drive-by years after she dated him; Fernando, a plumber, who had failed to disclose the minor detail that he was married to another woman in Mexico, something she’d found out a month into the relationship. There had been others. Many. But she never needed any of them. Her life was full and it was all hers. She had no regrets.

  The ceremony lasted almost three hours, with the mariachi band breaking into songs even where music wasn’t called for: “El Milagro de tus Ojos” for the Entrance Rite, “Por Tu Amor” during the Gloria, “Si Nos Dejan” after the Opening Prayer, “Hermoso Cariño” right before the Liturgy of the Word, “Contigo Aprendí” after the Gospel, “Amanecí en tus Brazos” after the Homily, “Te Amo” for the Celebration of Matrimony and Exchange of Consent and Presentation of Gifts, where Lola had a starring role bringing the cushion with the rings to the priest. For the Communion Rite, the mariachi played “Mi Eterno Amor Secreto,” and finally, “La Vikina” for the Recessional, the bride and groom marching out of the church followed by their bridesmaids in lilac gowns and groomsmen in pale blue tuxedos. Behind them, their families and godparents. Lola was one of the last to walk out. She looked spectacular.

  During the Hidalgo-style banquet featuring caldo de oso, barbacoa de borrego, salsa borracha, nopalitos, and mole, one hundred and twenty guests sat around tables for ten according to the name cards on each seat. Lola’s card was next to Leticia’s, her oldest friend and next-door neighbor when she still lived with her parents in the rental duplex on Arizona Avenue. She’d come with Pedro, her new husband after her divorce from that god-awful womanizer Raúl Valverde. Other people wanted to spend time with Lola, so right after she finished her slice of wedding cake, she went from table to table to mingle and catch up with everyone.

  During the dance in which Jessica, the bride, proved her chops as a hairdresser—she’d done her own updo, and after many swirls and extreme dance moves it remained intact—Lola sat down to catch her breath. Dancing reggaeton, salsa, merengue, mambo, rumba, quebradita, and norteña required stamina, and she had it after years of running after children, but there were just too many friends to dance with and she needed a break.

  Lucy was making the rounds greeting guests when she stopped to chat with Lola.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get married,” she whispered, casting a glance at her daughter and her new husband.

  “I think you’re right,” said Lola, with Olivia on her mind.

  Sunday, July 24th

  The twins didn’t seem upset at all. Staying at Bubbe’s meant enjoying breakfast favorites like scrambled eggs with strawberry jam and matzo (left over from Seder and well preserved in the freezer to last the whole year), portable cribs to play in, and hugs and kisses from their grandparents. The only difference was that this time Mom was staying,
too. Unconcerned about this unusual fact, they spent part of the morning in Oscar’s closet, opening every other drawer and taking down his ties from the tie rack to make a nest to sit on. Dani (as all family members had been instructed to call Daniel going forward) had offered to babysit, so he sat on the floor and watched them pull out all the socks, belts, and wait a minute, what’s that? He grabbed a half-filled pillbox from Andrea’s hand and checked the label: Viagra. As with most everything else he didn’t know, he looked it up on his cellphone’s web browser and chuckled at the vision of his grandfather using erection enhancers. He quietly put it in the back of the boxers’ drawer again, not without noticing that the medication had expired months ago.

  * * *

  “Why did you let Felix list the house? He’s an awful agent! And never mind the conflict of interest!” said Keila as she helped Olivia unpack the girls’ clothes and organize them in the closet.

  “I don’t see the conflict, Mom. Aside from me, he’s the only other person who wants to get the most money from the sale. And he agreed to split his commission with me. Hand me those pajamas, please.”

  “But he’s quite the mediocre broker. He hasn’t sold a house in over a year. In L.A.? Come on, give me a break!”

  “Mom, we have more important things to think about, like how long I’m going to stay here. I need to find an apartment nearby with an extra bedroom for Lola.”

  “There’s no rush. Take your time.”

  “It’s temporary. Just while I find a place.”

  Keila wished Olivia and the girls would stay with her forever, but it was clear that this was not a viable option, even though she had enough bedrooms to accommodate everyone. She’d been in the United States long enough to understand that in this culture adult children living with their parents was unacceptable, unthinkable even. She already had Patricia at home. Even with the excuse of helping her raise Dani, people found it odd, especially her friends from book club, who hinted every so often that Patricia should be able to live on her own with her son, or even better, with her husband. Everyone involved knew this was true. Patricia could very well afford to live independently, have her own place. But it was also a fact that everyone involved was happy with the current arrangement. Dani loved seeing his grandparents every day. Patricia could go on business trips or visit Eric up north without a worry, knowing trusted adults picked up Dani at school, checked homework, and supervised him when he had friends over. And Keila and Oscar had their youngest daughter around. Really, how bad was multigenerational living?

  Monday, July 25th

  “Dad, you might want to hear this,” said Olivia, sitting at the breakfast table with Oscar, the Los Angeles Times in hand. “You know the Sable Ranch?”

  “Are you going to tell me it burned down?”

  “Oh, so you heard the news.”

  “It’s a tragedy. The Sand Fire is destroying everything in its path.”

  “So many TV series and movies were shot there. All those film sets are gone. I liked Invisible Man with Chevy Chase and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

  “I remember The A-Team. Great show.”

  “You’re dating yourself.”

  Was that a profound feeling of daughterly love bursting inside of Olivia’s chest? She suddenly understood, behind this otherwise banal Hollywood chitchat, the weight of her father’s worries. Everything hinged on the weather. The way in which Earth spread heat and water all over its skin could save you or kill you, determine where you lived, whether your neighbor’s house was spared from fire but not yours, if it blew away in a hurricane with you in it, or if you got electrocuted by lightning. She remembered the history lesson in high school about the mysterious Teotihuacan empire’s demise most likely due to drought, followed by starvation. How many civilizations must have collapsed as a result of the weather? How many human migrations had been caused by famines? How many cultures annihilated by floods? And now this, in twenty-first-century Los Angeles. Her father’s glorified barometer, his persistent weather-log entries came into focus with new meaning. Relentlessly watching the Weather Channel was not the behavior of a lunatic. What she’d understood up until then as an inexplicable eccentricity, an obsession that was jeopardizing her parents’ marriage, was really a justified, fine-tuned alarm. Once the reservoirs that kept the city alive were depleted, would water become a precious commodity that only the wealthy were able to purchase at exorbitant prices to keep in their swimming pools converted into storage tanks? Or would there be a massive exodus? To where?

  She reached for her father’s hand across the breakfast table and held it tight. “I get you, Papi.”

  Tuesday, July 26th

  Oscar was certain Keila wouldn’t pass up his invitation to dinner at their favorite neighborhood taquería, Guerrilla Tacos, but she did.

  “Sorry, I’m on the keto diet. No tortillas for me,” she said, as she put on her makeup in front of the mirror in the bathroom.

  Oscar knew this was a dumb excuse to avoid spending time with him, as there were numerous protein-based options, like fajitas (without the tortillas, of course), carnitas, chicharrón en salsa verde, guacamole. And why did she need to go on a diet if she was already slim? So he persisted.

  “Let’s give it a try, could we?”

  “You never wanted to go to therapy. You think tacos are going to do the job?”

  “We can go somewhere else. Italian? Japanese?”

  “It’s not the cuisine, it’s you. I thought you were on the mend after Claudia’s divorce, but you went right back to Zombieland.”

  “I’m trying, Keila, really. Please.”

  But Keila flicked her tablet’s screen on to check the presidential-campaign polls, an obsession she’d developed over the past few months, and left Oscar wondering if his marriage really was doomed. She was wondering the same.

  Saturday, July 30th

  Valle de Guadalupe was Baja’s hottest destination, and Patricia insisted on spending a weekend there with Eric so she could blog about it. The warmer, drier weather, courtesy of climate change, was a blessing for local winemakers and restaurateurs, and the place was teeming with gastro-tourists. As they drove Patricia’s Prius down the highway (Eric’s Tesla wouldn’t make it through the desert without charging stations), she began noticing old car wrecks abandoned by the side of the road. Not five or twenty. Hundreds. All kinds of makes and models scattered about in the fields and ravines, most of them severely cannibalized to the point of being unrecognizable, empty carcasses. She asked Eric to stop so she could take a picture of a VW bus with graffiti on every side and no tires. Then they stopped to take a picture of a Country Squire station wagon, clearly from the seventies. What started out as a two-hour ride turned into a nine-hour photographic exploration of destroyed automobiles.

  Hundreds of pictures later, Eric and Patricia arrived at their hotel in Valle de Guadalupe and went to bed still wondering what might have happened to the people involved in those accidents.

  “It was probably more expensive to send the tow truck down to pick up the totaled car than to abandon it there,” said Eric as he took off his clothes and lay faceup on the bed.

  “It’s definitely not good publicity for Baja,” said Patricia as she undressed. “I’m sure tourists don’t want reminders of how bad the road is.”

  And before she finished her sentence, Patricia mounted Eric, eagerly finding his penis between her legs and wrapping it tight.

  A couple of orgasms later, and as the sun came out, they both agreed there was no point in waiting for a decent hour to start tasting wines. After all, Patricia already had a better story to blog about, with all those rusted metal carcasses still vivid in her mind. So they packed up and headed back home, cheerfully making up stories of how one or another car accident might have happened. There was one wreck that Patricia kept thinking about, but this one she would not share with Eric, not yet, as its story was still unfolding: their marriage.

  August

  Monday, August 1st
r />   It was crucial to keep the almond trees from defoliating prematurely.

  “If we lose the leaves early, the flower buds are not going to grow fully and the nuts won’t dry properly,” his guru Lucas had warned Oscar when he bought the orchard years before.

  On that hot August morning, as soon as Oscar got out of his SUV, Lucas greeted him with another warning: “We need to be very careful with the dust this year. That shit’s our enemy during harvest.”

  As part of his greeting, Lucas offered Oscar a paper plate with two carnitas burritos his wife had prepared.

  “They’re a bit cold by now, but the salsa is really good.”

  They sat down under the shade of one of the trees to eat together, as they often did. This feeling of companionship with Lucas and his cousins only increased the pain of possibly losing the trees, but at the same time, it motivated him to soldier on. There was an orchard to be rescued. Farmworkers to protect. Family history to preserve. A marriage to be saved.

  “We should definitely get a better sweeper this time around. We need to be able to adjust the head height with more precision,” Lucas added, unaware of Oscar’s fears. “Otherwise we’re going to have dust all over the nuts.”

  As they walked among the trees checking for bugs and inspecting the almonds, Oscar noticed a certain anxiety among Los Tres Primos.

  “What’s that apprehension I’m sensing, Lucas?”

  “We didn’t want you to worry about us, but since you’re asking, what do you think the chances are we’re all going to get deported?”

  “Our country can’t afford to lose you,” Oscar said with conviction, or so he thought.

  Later, as he drove back to Los Angeles across Central Valley, he saw dozens of small groups of workers, many of them undocumented, he knew, planting, growing, and harvesting such a spectacular cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, and nuts—a plethora of agricultural products, enough to feed half the country. No, he thought, they’ll be safe, but something in him knew he might be wrong.