Lettie wrapped her arms around Andres, absorbing the elbow jabs of children in costume passing by. Not one apologizing. As if she and her son were ghosts. There were plenty of parents dressed up. Pretty blond mommies dressed like fairies and witches, sexy bunnies and cats. Melissa said adults in New York City didn’t dress up as much and made a joke about people in Santa Monica refusing to grow up, and she and Lettie had laughed together. This was what Lettie liked about Melissa—unlike her other employers, skinny Regina and Caroline the music agent who had promised to ask Selena Gomez to perform at Lettie’s niece Emma’s quinceañera and then never mentioned it again—Melissa made sure to include Lettie in her jokes, repeating them until Lettie understood. Melissa, Lettie knew, needed to be understood even more than Lettie needed to understand.
She and Andres had stopped at Melissa’s earlier that night. After Melissa had made Lettie promise to do so, telling Lettie again and again how she would be especially surprised by the decorations, so Lettie had felt nervous as she and Andres made their way up the long walkway to Melissa’s big house. Surprised Lettie had been, when Melissa, dressed as the most famous Mexican woman, artist Frida Kahlo, had thrown open the tall oak doors. Two strips of fake fur stuck over her eyebrows. Like hairy black caterpillars.
Melissa had stretched her arms out and hugged Lettie tightly, crying, You were my inspiration!
It was a Día de los Muertos celebration more beautiful than Lettie could ever have imagined. Flower sculptures made of red, yellow, and white carnations formed a giant skull in the center of the front lawn. Andres plucked tangerine-sized sugar skulls from a pyramid and dropped them two at a time into his pillowcase. There were mugs of spicy hot chocolate, plates of tamales and pan de muerto. All the delicacies of her childhood—details Lettie had shared with Melissa only a few weeks earlier during one of their cleaning day chats.
The gates surrounding the house were strung with what seemed like thousands of marigolds. Rows of white candles burned along the high cement walls leading to the front door, where a long line of costumed children waited for a paper cup of champurrado. Even Lettie’s abuela would have been impressed, she thought.
It was as if she had walked into one of the schoolbooks she and her sisters had shared back in Oaxaca, the covers so faded they had used duct tape to mend the spine. Beautiful. Then why, Lettie wondered now, searching the crowds of trick-or-treaters for Zacarias, had she wanted to run far away from Melissa’s house and the candlelight and the scent of cinnamon and cocoa and flowers wilting in the October heat?
She squatted to peek under the brim of the battered black cowboy hat swallowing Andres’s head. “Don’t touch your face. You mess up your mustache. What kind of cowboy has no mustache?”
“I itchy, Mommy.” Andres swatted her hand away. “Where is Tío? I want candy.”
She held his cheeks with one hand and used her black eyeliner to fix the curls at the tips of his mustache.
“Be still. If your stupid uncle isn’t here in ten minutes, we go.”
“Mommy, you’re squeezing too hard,” Andres said. “And it’s not nice to call Tío stupid.”
She leaned back to get a good look, making sure both ends curled at the same angle.
“You are right, my angel. You remind Mommy to be a gooder person.”
“Better, Mommy. You’re supposed to say better.”
“Bet-ter,” she said slowly. “Senor smartpants! Now, no more touching your face, yes?”
“Do I look like Papa?” Andres asked, tilting his hat forward and grinning.
Instantly, Lettie’s heart ached with the mistake she’d made of telling Andres about his father’s family ranch in the Sonoran uplands. Who knew, she thought, if it still existed—if it ever existed? If what Andres’s father, Manuel, said was true. Still, in a moment of weakness, she had shared with their son everything Manuel had told her years ago when they were newly in love, and called each other mi amor, and spent sticky summer nights on a mattress thrown on the floor in Auntie Corinna’s cool basement. In a weak moment, she’d told her son about the magical place his father came from, and Andres believed. In the birds with chests the color of emeralds and rubies. The burbling creek and spicy scent of mesquite; the wind in the green cottonwood. And the birdsong. Cheedle-cheedle-cheedle-chee? Manuel had sung, looking silly and sweet, the hardness vanished, and she’d been sure she was in love. Safe. That her life would, at last, be good.
What a foolish girl she’d been to trust Manuel. He never stayed more than a few days here and there. His love like a broken faucet, drip drop. Last she’d heard, he’d gone to live with another woman (may she roast in hell) he’d had a baby with, a lazy witch with a house in Palmdale she’d inherited from her grandmother.
Lettie hadn’t seen or spoken to Manuel in six months, since he’d beaten her for what she’d sworn to Zacarias was the last time—her promise the only way to stop her brother from reporting Manuel to the police, or finding her son’s father and beating him bloody.
“Oh, you look like a real charro,” Lettie said, pulling Andres into a hug. “No one will recognize you. Your tío Zacarias will think, ‘Who is this tough Mexican cowboy?’”
“But do I look like Papa?”
“Yes, just like Papa,” she said, careful to keep the ice from her voice. “Hold on to your pillowcase. You are going to get so much candy tonight. Your tummy will be mad at you all week.”
Where is Zacarias?
She knew her brother never meant his bad behavior. He would turn up with an apology and that pretty white smile, explaining how he hadn’t meant to make them wait. Just like he hadn’t meant for Andres to get hurt. And Lettie would have to swallow her anger, remind herself that as selfish as Zacarias could be, she still needed his help.
He was, after all, the only person, besides Lettie’s lawyer, who knew of her problems with the law. When Lettie had received the first paper telling her she had to go to court, she’d hidden it deep in a drawer. The day of the court date came and she’d hidden inside her apartment all day, texting her employers she had a bad throw-up bug as she waited for the ICE men to pound fists on her door. Nothing. This had made her hopeful. Maybe a mistake had been made, her file lost, her stealing forgotten—didn’t those things happen?—but when she’d confessed to Zacarias about her crime, one night after too many beers and big laughs about the silly rich people, her brother had gone crazy. His good mood had disappeared and he’d spent an hour looking up things on his phone, spitting words at her she couldn’t understand then, but now knew too clearly. Arraignment. Misdemeanor. Crimes of moral turpitude. Zacarias had tried to comfort her, explaining how shoplifting was a little crime. If only she wasn’t an illegal . . . He had stopped there because if only if only, and with Senor Donald in the White House, even a little crime could end in deportation.
Lettie had been ready to go to court and beg for forgiveness. She’d bring Andres, whose limp would surely soften the judge’s heart, she explained to Zacarias. But her brother had just shaken his head, as if Lettie were a child.
You have to get a lawyer, he’d said. Either you find one, or I will. I can help with the fees.
I will, I will, Lettie had said, too proud to rely on a man she hardly knew (just a few months, at the time) to take care of what seemed a simple task. The next day, on her way to a cleaning job downtown, she’d seen Ms. Ochoa’s kind-looking face on a billboard over the I-10 with the comforting message, There’s Enough Room for All of Us. Lettie had called 1-800-797-SAFE immediately.
Ms. Ochoa said the last thing Lettie should do was plead guilty. She had a plan, which began with contacting the owner of Cosmic Cove Comics, a short man with a full head of silver hair. Lettie had heard from her bosses that Santa Monica was liberal, a city of open minds, and Ms. Ochoa too had been hopeful that Mr. Silver Hair would drop the charges. But it turned out the man was one of the few red-cap-wearing Santa Monica Republicans in love with the Wall. Once he discovered Lettie-the-Pokémon-card-thief was without p
apers, he was happy to help make America great again by kicking her out. He’d refused to drop the charges.
We will keep fighting, Ms. Ochoa had said. I will charge you on a sliding scale.
Lettie hadn’t known what that meant. She’d said yes without bothering to ask; what choice did she have? Now, she was afraid to tell Zacarias just how much she owed her lawyer. On top of Andres’s hospital bills—now with a collection agency whose fast-talking people called her every day. Her debt was a hungry monster that kept her awake at night. The money Zacarias had been giving her each month, sometimes five hundred dollars, sometimes as much as a thousand, was never enough.
Tonight, at some point, she would tell Zacarias this. For Andres’s sake. No boy should lose his mother, but especially not her boy. How stupid she had been, taking the Pokémon cards. One dumb moment was all it took to ruin a life in this new America of Trump. It did not matter, Lettie understood now, how many nice, rich liberals said they were on her side. She would still be punished for her mistake.
“Boo!” A low voice hit Lettie’s ear and she stumbled forward, nearly toppling Andres. It was Zacarias, finally. He was wearing a black plastic mask—the bad guy from the Star Wars movies.
“Tío! Trick or treat!” Andres reached for his uncle, who scooped him into a bear hug.
“Little man! So dang sorry to keep you guys waiting. I got tied up at work.”
Andres lay one hand on each side of the black plastic mask. “Darth Vader! Where your light saber at, Tío?”
Lettie’s brother lifted the mask so it sat atop his thick curls. He was still dressed in his gym clothes, and, Lettie noticed, on his skin she could smell women’s perfume. On the nights she waited for the last of the clients to leave so she could clean the gym, she watched from the back office as woman after woman, all of them looking like teenagers with no boobs or butts, stood on tiptoes to give Coach Zack a hug after class. Her brother talking and talking, touching and touching, never thinking of Lettie and how badly she needed to start her work so she could finish, go home, lie next to sleeping Andres, the whisper of his snores her only peace.
“Put him down easy,” she said, ignoring her brother’s apology. Andres dangled happily from Zacarias’s strong arms. “His foot, it bothers him a lot today. They had a big costume parade at school. Lots of walking.”
“We’ll go easy,” said Zacarias, lowering Andres gently to the ground. “Which house you wanna hit first, cowboy?”
“That one!” Andres said, pointing to the massive stone house in front of them, set back from the street on a green lake of lawn.
“Let’s do it,” said Zacarias, grabbing Andres’s hand and flashing his perfect smile at Lettie. “You too, Mama. Come on.”
“Just a few houses, cariño,” Lettie said to Andres. “When I say all done, we are all done. No whining talk.”
“Oh hey, I almost forgot,” said Zacarias. ““I brought you a costume, Sis. Catch!”
He tossed her a plastic mask, brown and hairy-looking.
“Mommy is Chewbacca!” Andres cheered.
Although Lettie was not happy to be the furry beast who was always the joke in Star Wars, while Zacarias was the dark hero, she put the mask on, happy to let it hide the frown on her face.
They moved from house to house, Zack and Andres talking and giggling like a pair of brothers, sampling candy as Andres’s pillowcase sagged with the weight of his treats. Zacarias escorted Andres to each door while Lettie waited for them on the sidewalk. She didn’t need to get any closer; she spent enough time inside these big houses. Lettie watched one thin, pretty woman after the next open front doors and hold out the giant bowls of candy they’d never let themselves taste (the evil calories!), too busy flirting with Zacarias, that dog, to notice the handfuls of candy Andres grabbed, enough to last him until next year.
Finally, when they’d covered the whole block, and Andres’s pillowcase was heavy as a brick and Lettie’s face damp with sweat under the plastic mask, she announced. “One more house. Then we go home.”
“That one!” Andres said, charging up the walkway of a house that always made Lettie think of a stack of ice cubes. It was the home of her Least Favorite Boss, Lindsey Leyner. Senora Ratface lived in the ice cubes with her over-tanned husband, who reminded Lettie of a desert lizard, and her spoiled-brat son, Landon, who left notes that read LETTIE, DO NOT TOUCH! beside the piles of expensive junk all over his room. Signs that matched the much larger wooden one staked in the Leyners’ front lawn, that one in Spanish: POR FAVOR NO TOCAR LA FRUTA. It was Lettie’s job to collect the rotten lemons from under the tree and throw them in the outside trash can. What a waste.
Zacarias began to follow Andres up the path to the Leyners’ front door, but Lettie grabbed her brother’s arm, moved by a sudden courage that, she knew, had a lot to do with her hidden face.
“Stay back for a minute. I have something to tell you.”
“Sure,” he said, easy-breezy. “Shoot.”
She lowered her voice. “I get two more bills. One from the hospital and another from Ms. Ochoa. I need more . . . help.”
“Okay. But do we have to talk about it right now?”
“My apologies. The bills, they make me nervous. And you are always so busy.”
“You think they don’t make me nervous?”
“It’s almost fifteen thousand, the total,” she blurted. “You know that?”
“Whoa, whoa,” Zacarias repeated. Lettie imagined that, under the mask, a look of real shock ruined his movie-star face. “Fifteen grand? How’s that possible?”
“Lawyers are expensive, Zacarias. And medical bills. What happened to Andres was not cheap.” She held back from saying, What you did to Andres, knowing it would only make him angry.
“Why don’t you get a lawyer for free? This is America. Read the Constitution.”
“Try the homework, hermanito. They give free lawyers to people who are citizens. Not to people like me. I go to the center for immigration. The lady there, an expert, says I need to pay a special lawyer, or I’ll be back to Mexico like—” Lettie snapped her fingers. “Without Ms. Ochoa . . . I’m done.”
“It’s do your homework.”
“What?”
“The expression is do your homework. Not try the homework.” Lettie heard the sneer in his voice. No respect.
“Focus, fool brother! You need to find the money. I gave Ms. Ochoa your phone number. She is calling you tomorrow to tell you the number herself. She takes credit cards—I ask. You wait and hear it. Fifteen thousand, Zacarias.”
“Dammit, Lettie.” Her brother grabbed at his hair with both fists. “My name is Zack.”
Her brother was extra angry. Her cheeks burned under the plastic mask.
From the front door of the Leyners’ house came a shattering sound; something had broken.
“Andres?” Zacarias called toward the house. “Everything okay, buddy?”
“Excuse me?” a man’s irritated voice cut through the night. “I have a little boy here, sans his grown-up!”
Lettie turned toward the ice cube house; the voice belonged, of course, to Trey Leyner, Senor Lizard.
“I’ll go,” said Zacarias.
“No, I will,” snapped Lettie. She’d had enough of her brother’s bossiness. “I know the people who live here.”
She took big strides toward the front door. Zacarias followed her anyway. She felt a small thrill of power knowing something he didn’t: that Lindsey Leyner, one of his precious gym “clients,” lived in this house. Let him stammer and squirm and figure out how to explain to Senora Ratface exactly who the three of them—Lettie and Andres and Zacarias—were to each other.
Let him be the one who had to “play it cool.”
But when Lettie reached the front door, Lindsey was nowhere in sight, only her too-tan husband with the slicked-back hair, wearing one of those Captain America costumes with the padded muscles. He was tall, her boss’s husband, with wide shoulders and a gut that humped out from
under his tight costume. Thick like a man who once, long ago, lifted weights to impress the girls.
Andres was bent over several large shards of broken blue glass on the stone landing, covering his face with both hands as if he were crying.
Lettie knelt down. “Que paso?”
“I break that,” said Andres.
“Your son got a little, ah, overzealous,” said Mr. Leyner to Lettie, not recognizing her in the mask, although he might have recognized her voice, she thought—Lindsey had introduced them a few times. To him, Lettie was just a body who scrubbed floors and scoured pots; her face did not stick in the mind of an important man like him.
Zacarias, still wearing his mask, reached down and coaxed Andres up from the ground. “Come here, little man.” Lettie watched her boy scramble into his uncle’s arms. Her anger at her brother lifted away.
“What happened, exactly?” said Zacarias to Trey Leyner.
“Your boy thought this vase here was a candy receptacle. He reached right in and it toppled over.”
“An understandable mistake,” said Zacarias. “It’s pretty late—a lot of houses are on a self-serve system now. He was just doing what he’d done at the past few houses.”
Thank you, Zacarias, Lettie thought. Her brother was fixing the problem.
“Our porch lights were on,” said Mr. Leyner. “As were all our lights and decorations.” He made a sweeping motion toward the fancy lights—bulbs in the shape of pumpkins—that hung from the thick branches of the magnolia tree in the center of the lawn.
Lettie imagined leaning forward and biting his hand.
“He’s six,” said Zacarias.
“I know he didn’t break it on purpose. It’s just that this was quite an expensive piece and will be difficult to replace.”
Santa Monica Page 20
