As Sara spoke, I studied her face but detected no scars, other than a faint track left by a couple of stitches between her nose and her upper lip.
"A friend of a friend told me about this agency that will send you to a private hospital and spa they call the Body Shop. They do plastic surgery, cosmetic dentistry, body sculpting, anything you want. Then you work it off afterwards, the way indentured servants used to work off their passage."
I recalled an older client of mine who'd traveled to Guadalajara for a face-lift and tummy tuck. A plastic surgeon there catered to Americans who couldn't afford cosmetic surgery back home.
Sara continued, “They're the ones who got me my job. Last week they ordered me to start gathering information for them about Surplex: its bank routing and account numbers, the names of its creditors..."
"Identity theft."
"I don't want to do it, but I don't know how to get out of it. Someone told me that one girl who threatened to report what was going on was found dead afterwards in a house fire."
I topped off Sara's wineglass and mine. “Let me think about it."
I was still thinking two hours later when I tightened the last screw on the entertainment center. Sara had already changed into a pair of paisley print pajamas and was curled up on the couch watching Letterman.
"Finished.” I tossed the screwdriver into my toolbox.
Sara rose and wrote me a check. “How about a nightcap?"
"Sure.” I took a seat on the couch, while she poured brandy into two snifters. She handed me one, then sat down beside me. The brandy went down smooth as a freshly iced skating rink. “Remy Martin?"
Sara smiled. “I like a man who knows his brandy."
"What else do you like?"
She drew circles on my shoulder with the tip of her index finger. “Lots of things."
I gestured towards the entertainment center. “I'm good with my hands."
"With your tools, too, I bet."
I took another swallow of brandy and followed her to the bedroom.
* * * *
Close to midnight, Sara climbed out of bed, pulled on a Bourbon Street T-shirt, and crossed the room to her armoire. By the muted light of a bedside lamp she had draped with a burgundy scarf, I watched her stand on tiptoe, reach up towards a piece of equipment, and press a button. I expected the blues, filtering through the speakers, to go off, but the saxophone continued its throaty lament. Turning away from the armoire, Sara lit a cigarette. Smoke curled out of her mouth as she looked out at the night sky.
A few minutes later, she stubbed out the cigarette and turned to me. “You still don't recognize me, do you?"
Had we met before? Over a drunken weekend in a drunken town? I shook my head.
"I'm Jessica."
Vance's Jessica?
"The new and improved Jessica, as my father sees it. He was always embarrassed by the way I looked. He never said so, but I knew. When I finished college he sent me to a makeover specialist. He said a front-office appearance would help me land the right job. I kept telling him I wanted to start my own business, that I didn't want to work for someone else, but he wouldn't listen."
I sat up, my back supported by the wrought-iron headboard, and studied her face. Her eyes and mouth could be Jessica's, but I would never have recognized them beneath the silken blond hair, punctuated by a now-perfect nose. The doughy cheeks and the second chin were gone, replaced by clearly defined cheekbones and a tapered neck.
"So there was no Body Shop? No agency turning girls into indentured servants?"
"There was a body shop, all right, a spa in the middle of the Arizona desert with plastic surgeons on staff. You could say I'm indentured to my father."
"Why didn't you tell me you were Jessica?"
"All through high school, I had this wild crush on you. If you'd known I was Vance Sancetti's daughter, you'd never have slept with me. I remember, once there was this father-daughter dance at my school. Dad was in Mexico on business and Mom said I should ask you to escort me. You said you had a prior commitment, but I knew the real reason you wouldn't go was that I wasn't pretty enough. It's funny how differently you acted when you saw me at Surplex."
What had I done? Vance had hired me to protect his daughter from the big bad corporate wolf. Instead I'd huffed and I'd puffed and I'd...
"What about this supervisor who's been harassing you?"
"An innocent flirtation. I was hoping that if I told my dad I was being mistreated at Surplex, he'd loan me the money I need to start my own business. I want to open an ice-cream parlor in the French Quarter. La Dolce Vita. I'll serve parfaits layered with syrups made from Kahlua, amaretto, and peach schnapps. But Dad says he's already invested enough in me, that the time has come for me to pay him back."
"Pay him back?” Surely Vance would never feature his own daughter in one of his films.
Jessica sat on the edge of the bed and dug her heels into the carpet. “There's this man, Enrique, who lives in Monterrey. His father is a close friend of my dad's. They import olive oil into Mexico and Enrique wants to expand into the states. I went out with him a few times, as a favor to my dad. Now he wants to marry me. I don't believe he's in love with me, but marrying an American citizen would make it a lot easier for him to live and do business in the U.S."
"Your father wouldn't ask you to marry a man you don't love."
"Enrique's father helped my dad get his films distributed in Mexico. Enrique's hinted to my dad that if I don't marry him, he'll report his use of underage, undocumented girls. Dad told me I have a month to accept Enrique's proposal or he'll cut off my allowance."
"Allowance?"
"How else could I afford this place?” She rose and studied herself in the mirror. “Do you know, not a single boy ever asked me out in high school. Now men won't leave me alone. All you guys care about is how a woman looks."
"We're victims of our testosterone."
"No, Nick, we're victims of your testosterone.” She turned to face me. “I need your help."
The urgency in her voice made me uneasy. I fished beneath the sheets for my jockey shorts. “What kind of help?"
"I need you to get some basic information about my father's company: bank account numbers, tax ID, the names and addresses of his creditors. Then I can apply for a loan under his business name and use the money to open my ice-cream parlor."
"Jessica, I can't betray your father."
"You already have. There's a camcorder on top of the armoire. It recorded our little scene here and uploaded it to my server. You have twelve hours to decide whether you're going to help me. If you decide not to, I'll forward the video to my dad."
"Let me think about it.” If Vance saw that scene, he might feature me in his first snuff film. I retrieved my jeans and shirt from the floor. “I'll call you in the morning; we'll work something out."
If I were smart, I would have taken my time leaving, kissed her goodbye, given her some sign that I cared. Instead I dressed and left so quickly, Jessica must have realized by the time I reached the elevator that I wouldn't be calling her.
I sped back to my motel, threw my clothes into my bag, tucked my forty-five into my boot, and hit the road.
An hour west of Houston, the floodlit shopping centers thinned out and disappeared. On either side of the interstate, ranchland melted into the blackened horizon. Not a single light shone in a single farmhouse window.
Shortly after four, I pulled into San Antonio's downtown maze of one-way streets. The city's familiar smell greeted me as I parked outside my second-floor office. San Antonio smelled like the homes of my boyhood friends, the morning after their grandmothers had made tamales. Steamed cornhusks. Charred chili peppers. Lard.
I unlocked the street door and hurried up the termite-riddled stairs to my office. By the light of the bail-bond sign outside my window, I dumped the contents of my desk and my clients’ files into cardboard boxes, emptied my safe, and carted everything down to my truck.
It was s
till dark when I pulled up in front of my apartment. Insects swarmed the outside lamps with all the enthusiasm of college students swarming a keg of beer.
I let myself in without turning on the lights and was halfway across the room before I smelled his aftershave. I turned towards the hulking silhouette of a man and ducked as he raised a baseball bat and swung it at my head. My hair rose as the bat passed over it. The intruder spun full circle and struck my left arm with a loud crack.
As I yanked my pistol from my boot, a second man lunged out of the shadows. My left arm refused to bend at the elbow. My right hand alone clutched my forty-five, my wrist taking the full force of the recoil as I fired the entire round. Bullets traced molten streaks through the air.
I shoved the gun into my pocket and, supporting my left arm with my right, stumbled down the stairs, climbed into my pickup, and tore out of the parking lot.
* * * *
"Nick Gallagher.” An aide takes me down the hall for X-rays, then leads me to an examining room. The blue paper lining the examining table crackles as I sit down. Several minutes later, a nurse appears with a cup of water and an even smaller cup containing a single white pill. “We'll give the Demerol a few minutes to take effect. Then the doctor will give you a local and set your arm."
I wash down the pill. As the pain in my arm recedes, I drowsily recall drinking iced tea in my sister Paula's kitchen. Outside the window, two of my nephews picked up sticks and started beating the shirts on the clothesline.
Paula frowned. “Boys are worse than girls, but I'd take a bad boy over a bad girl any day."
"Why's that?"
"A boy will be bad right in front of you: kicking his brother, hanging from the ceiling fan, tossing your cell phone in the toilet to see if it will float. But bad girls are devious. Sneaky. They do things when you aren't looking and they cover their tracks. There's this girl down the street I won't even let in the house anymore."
"Is her name Jessica?” I mumble as the nurse and the doctor file into the room.
The doctor studies my X-rays, then examines my arm. “How'd you break it?"
"I tripped over a Tonka truck someone left on the stairs."
"Anything else hurt?"
"No."
The clear fluid the doctor injects into the crook of my elbow burns a path through my veins before my arm goes numb.
An hour later, I leave the emergency room wearing a fresh cast. Ignoring the doctor's instructions not to drive for four hours, I climb into my car and head south to the International Bridge.
As soon as I've crossed the Rio Grande, I buy a map and mark the best route to Guadalajara. Once I get there, I'll have a barber cut my hair short and tint it a salt-and-pepper gray. Then I'll find one of those plastic surgeons who caters to Americans and check into his clinic, or body shop, as Jessica would call it. I'll order wider eyes, a cleft chin, a Roman nose.
Afterwards, recuperating in some hidden courtyard, I'll have plenty of time to come up with a new name, a new birthday, a new life. The Outer Banks. Key West. Baja.
After all, I have nothing left to lose.
Copyright © 2006 Terry Barbieri
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THERE'S A GIRL FOR ME by Tom Tetzlaff
Tom Tetzlaff, a doctor from Reno, Nevada, is the author of many nonfiction works in the medical field, including textbook chapters and journal articles. His fiction debut in our Department of First Stories comes on the heels of his completion of a mystery novel, which we hope will soon see print.
I saw her stroll from the ladies’ underwear store, and I said to myself, now there's a girl for me.
Tall, lanky-thin, hair black and shiny like a mink coat. The flip of her curls bounced off her shoulders; the shopping bags swung in cadence with her certain stride.
She is coming my way. I know I shouldn't stare, but I can't help it—that's who I am.
I'll call her Barbara. I like to name the women I watch after old girlfriends. She reminds me of Barbara.
She wasn't my first love, but I loved her deep and true.
It was in college—wild days of Jim Beam, sloe gin, hot jazz, and easy virtue. I was a straggler. I actually studied my freshman year—a country bumpkin trying for the American Dream.
My new Barbara stops where I am seated and looks right at me. There is no recognition of shame in her large brown eyes.
She speaks: “Excuse me—is this seat taken?"
I can't respond. I am frozen and mute. I can only blink “no". She drops her Macy's and Victoria's Secret bags next to me, pirouettes, and plops down with a big sigh.
I wonder if I can look in her bag without her noticing, but I am afraid to look. Is she staring at me, at my deformity? This is a brave girl to sit by a bizarre stranger in a deserted mall.
Barbara was brave, too. Or at least I thought so then. She had a red Ford convertible and drove like an enchanted witch, hair flopping like a horse's tail, big brown eyes wide with excited fear, her lips red, hair wind-stuck to her teeth as she concentrated on the curves in the road ahead.
She taught me a lot: how to drive, how to drink whiskey, and how to suck pot deep into my soul. How to lose yourself in another's pleasure.
My new Barbara is talking to me, so I listen. I struggle and must appear interested. But I never know if I am doing it right.
Oh God, she's asking me about what she bought. She shows me the lace nightie. Yes, yes, I think it is very nice, but I don't think Victoria should be selling her secrets in public. I say this, but she doesn't hear me. I am mute.
It doesn't seem to bother her. She puts the garment away and tells me about her boyfriend. He has a sissy name like Robert, or Ronald, or Thomas. I just know that no one used their given names in my neighborhood. He would be Bob, or Ron, or Tom, a real man's name.
She says he doesn't want kids. She thinks he will change. What do I think? She says he wants to leave her. Do I think he will stay if she wears these?
How can I answer that? How can anyone know what is in the future? Just look at me.
Barbara didn't want our child. I was from family, and it was good. But she had wounds I could not see, wounds that smoldered in her womb and could not heal.
In her mind, my baby was still her uncle's child.
She smoked more, drank more, and drove off a cliff one dark and rainy night. The police tried to blame it on me. It wasn't my fault. Really it wasn't.
I want to tell my new Barbara that life is danger, that life is joy and no one knows what is around that wet and slippery curve ahead.
But I am mute.
I try hard to talk and a single grunt escapes from deep in my throat, my first sound in months. Elated, I want to tell her more, but a young man with too-pale skin, red and blotchy with excitement, comes to her side and tells her what he bought. He uses big sweeping gestures and singsong words. She tries to kiss him but he turns a beef-patty cheek to her.
I want to tell her that he is as shallow as a river skiff, but I am mute.
I hear them coming to get me, to take me away in my prison chair.
"Grandpa, are you okay? Who's your new friend?” Janny turns to talk to my new Barbara. “I hope he didn't scare you. He drools, and his eyes water like that since his stroke."
My new Barbara looks at me and smiles. She says that I was great company and that we had a nice chat.
They move behind to push my wheelchair away. My new Barbara leans over and kisses me on my salty cheek. I blink a fond goodbye, but she does not know.
She turns and strides away swinging her Macy's bag. Robert or Ronald or Thomas quicksteps after her. And as they turn my chair I see she has left her secret bag next to me. Yes, you are my type, I want to yell.
Copyright © 2006 by Tom Tetzlaff
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THE LAST CALABRESI by Jean Femling
* * * *
Art by Laurie Harden
* * * *
Author of three mystery novels—Backyard, Hush Money, a
nd Getting Mine—Californian Jean Femling is also a talented short story writer who last appeared in EQMM in December 2002. She joins us here with a country-house whodunit whose suspects are part of a house party shut in by a flood.
"Hey, you can see the Calabresi place from up here,” Jake said. Lulled by the rhythmic groan of the wipers, I sat up as Jake wheeled his big red pickup truck onto a deserted road. We splashed ahead between ranks of dormant grapevines marching away like blackened tau crosses over the brilliant green slopes.
He braked at the top of the hill. The rain had thinned to a light drizzle, and I stared.
The Calabresi mansion sat on a knoll about a mile away, a semi-fortress of dark stone against heavily wooded hills. Above it, masses of blue-black cloud bellied up the sky. Leftward, toward the coast, a rim of light edged the distant mountain ridge. A sudden bolt of sunlight slanted below the cloud cover, struck the Calabresi house, and blazed out from the center of the upper floor like a great beacon. Then it was gone.
"Wow.” I sat blinking, blinded by the dazzle. “What was that?"
"Reflection off Noni's sunroom,” Jake said. “Old Tomase built it for his wife when he enlarged the house."
"Maybe it's an omen."
"I thought we'd agreed not to mention any of that up here. Right, Cassandra?” That's me, Cass for short. Cassandra was the Greek seer nobody ever believed. And “that” was the Calabresi Curse.
"Obviously,” I said. I hadn't traveled six hundred miles today to offend our hosts. We were up here in California's wine country to celebrate the fortieth birthday of Jake's old buddy Evan Calabresi and ignore the Calabresi Curse, which Evan had told Jake about years ago. Evan's father and his grandfather had both died violently in their forties due to some mysterious condition the doctors had never been able to diagnose. The Evan I'd met was perfectly healthy, but Jake was convinced that even though Evan had never mentioned the subject since, he expected to die the same way.
EQMM, Sep-Oct 2006 Page 30
