The Orange Blossom Express

by Marlena Evangeline

  But sometimes she thought she just might die. She didn’t tell the clerk why she bought it, she just slammed down her credit card and smiled tersely wondering how long the clerk was going to take to ring this purchase. Mary needed to get on with things. She had places to go. Jails to see. And miles to go with no sweet sleep. Miles! Come on clerk, she tapped her nails, impatiently. Just get on with it. She had a daughter to save. Move it! She went from baby wear to maternity and bought soft tops and a dress and three bras even though Lucy hadn’t worn a bra in years. She picked some panties for pregnant stomachs. Then she went to lingerie and bought small panties and camisoles with lace for later, when Lucy wanted to feel pretty, like Lucy again. This was not a small boo-boo. This was big. All blame was forgone.

  Lucy was living the blame. Her consequence was each minute. Mary knew this. Mary Pointer wanted to kiss it and make it better.

  She flew to Costa Rica. This wasn’t quiche and white wine. This was beans and tortillas. This was chile passillas and menudo. This was hole mole. Bananas and papayas. Limes and cilantro. There was no Mercedes here to tell the people that this was Mary Pointer. Who was that? Why would they care? Just who was she now? She was the mother of the gringa in prison. Everything now was beyond her control: The control she sought in the product and direction of the business; the control she’d sought raising her children; the control she scratched for in relationships, within the family and without; the control she felt when she sold a bikini or a dozen, knowing her product was perfect, sellable, of the highest quality. No one cared here. She had no control. She was just a fish out of salty water. This was not bikini-land. This was dirty, basic, simple land. No little ass-swingers here. No way Jose. You swing your ass here, and that ass has made a signal, flashed a light, said a thing or two. Ass swinging here meant something. Not like in bikini-land. Not like Balboa Island, Newport Beach, California land. This was not the same.

  She sensed it the minute she deplaned and walked across the hot asphalt to the terminal. She felt it in the airport, in the dusty air, in the murmur of voices; she felt all these things the minute her feet stepped onto foreign soil. She didn’t pay any more attention to Ibarrio Vasquez than Lucy had. She impatiently asked directions to Rosendo de la Rosa, and Ibarrio arranged for a taxi and put her luggage in the trunk. Mary handed him three dollars and scooted into the hot back seat. The driver took her the twenty miles with little conversation and dropped her off at a small hotel painted in bright yellow. The lobby was as dark as the outside bright, the absence of light making Mary temporarily blind; she paused and let her eyes adjust before arranging for the small room which was, as she found later, not much bigger than Lucy’s.

  As anxious as Mary was to see her daughter, Mary slept first; the weight of the new country had depleted her, she found the strangeness exhausting. So she unpacked her clothes and hung them on the wire hangers. She left the suitcase of toys and game packed, shook out the clothes she had bought for Lucy, and hung them, too. The other unpacked suitcase was full of baby clothes. She left that next to her bed, hoping she wouldn’t have to unpack it. Of course, she hadn’t needed to bring those things. They had diapers in Costa Rica and baby powder and baby lotion and little baby things. They had baby things all over the place. She had even noticed that at the air terminal; and, in the village, as they drove through, Mary had seen little shops that opened onto the street with bassinets and baby things pushed out onto the dirt sidewalks so people could see how many nice baby things there were for pretty new babies.

  She arrived at the jail late, during dinner, and Manuel Vasquez excitedly showed her through the courtyard, proudly pointing to the macaw, and asking if she liked Costa Rica. Mary didn’t like anything yet; the foreign country was not exotic to her. It was uncomfortable and unsettling and dirty. The blouse she wore was already smudged with dust, and she assessed the prison as they walked through the courtyard, wondering if the jail was a joke or what. Manuel led her by Lucy’s small room, pointing to it, satisfied, then down the tiled hallway to the large dining room doors, and opened them. The clank of dishes and the animated clatter of laughter filled the room. Her heart pounded quickly as she looked over the room, a sea of dark heads with faces below, but not Lucy’s.

  Manuel guided her down the aisle; several women looked up, noticing, and knowing that she was Lucy’s mother. But not because Mary and Lucy looked alike. They did not. And not even because Lucy was the only gringa in jail. They just knew. Mary moved down the aisle in her crisp blue skirt and smudged white blouse. She felt the strong presence of the women as she followed Manuel and even before she found Lucy she relaxed because of this thing she had felt from the women. Manuel pushed open the swinging door and called to Lucy. She had just put a bean pot in the sink, and had turned on the water, but she forgot the running water when she saw her mother. Ruby and Angel saw Mary too, and they were all happy, and Mary found herself crying, but Lucy laughed and Ruby and Angel laughed too, because there seemed to be so little to cry about. Ruby turned off the water Lucy had let run, and washed out the pan. Lucy introduced both Angel and Ruby, and Mary smiled, wanting, however, only to look at her daughter, deciding that she did seem healthy, but maybe a bit tired, but that that was natural because she was very pregnant. It all seemed better to her, and the weight of worry she had hefted around for three months dissolved now in the aroma of soaked beans. She could see Lucy and touch her and know without imagining that she was well. Lucy poured Mary a cup of coffee and they sat at the pine table on the stools while Ruby and Angel finished the chores. The puff of flame flared behind Mary as Angel lit the burner and put the pot of beans on the stove to simmer. Mary wanted to know how Lucy felt, if she’d seen the doctor, what he said, if she got any exercise, had she seen a lawyer? No? Well, that will change. Immediately. Things will be different now, Mary promised.

  “Mom,” said Lucy, “don’t get your hopes up too soon. Things work slowly here. It takes a long time to get things done.”

  “Two weeks,” replied Mary, “I have two weeks. I can do anything in two weeks.” She leaned over and patted her daughter’s hand and then they walked back to Lucy’s room and Mary frowned at the bed. Not that it was so different than the one she had to sleep on, but that it was so different from the one Lucy had at home. She smoothed her child’s cheeks and ran her hand down the tangled braid she wore and worriedly looked into Lucy’s warm eyes again, but then left assured that her daughter was as well as could be under the circumstances, the circumstances that would change quickly now, because Mary would make sure of it. Had she been a cat or a dog, the hair on the nape of her neck would have risen as her mind stalked an invisible foe, some singular enemy she had not yet met. Her foe was not a person, or an idea, or even a crime, but an entire culture, a culture whose sole intent did not focus on Mary’s interest in her daughter’s release. The woman now had the job of bringing this source of her anguish into a troublesome position for someone else. Her first choice was Firma Louise.

  Mary’s success at getting appointments was not much more than Lucy’s, but once she gained an audience she learned a great deal about due process in Costa Rica. Firma Louise had not once mentioned money, but she said, in an unspoken language, what Mary had heard Stateside. Money talks.

  Mary had brought enough to shout about, but she had to be careful. The wrong money at the wrong time could keep Lucy in jail for a long time. This language was universal; it was the dialect one had to interpret carefully. Very carefully. This money had to whisper before it could shout. She liked this raw honesty. She liked this up-frontal lobotomy way of dealing. Business. All business. Not games. Money and pain. Money and pain and time. It all went together. You rolled it up in a wad and stuck it in your hip pocket. You waited. You waited and waited and passed the time. You waited for something to happen. Something important. Some kind of money thing. Or the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card that never came. Only when the dice went the right way. But was this way wrong? This was the way it was, so it had to be right.
Not right on, and not right now, but mañana, and mañana, and mañana was not good enough. The trip to the Embassy was less fruitful. After three days of uneventful meetings she went back to the village. A lawyer had promised to call her there. He was a friend of the mayor’s and the mayor was a friend of Firma Louise. Mary decided to wait and the invisible hair on the nape of her neck settled.

  Since Mary had arrived, the children now had jacks and balls and buckets and shovels; toys like American children. Even blocks with numbers and letters. She loved bringing the children presents. Appalled first by the poverty, now after weeks and weeks, she was used to it, the simplicities, the basicness of life, the long days, the time, the warm minutes to fill overfull, the minutes that always seemed to need more intensity, more Americana, more something, the minutes she endured but wasn’t quite used to, those minutes, the ones always needing to be used somehow, and Lucy, her dear Lucy, in jail, frozen here in the heat, with nothing to do except fill the time, pour minutes to spilling, fill them to bursting, minute after long minute, adding to hours, days, weeks, months, and months of the foreign jail, minute after minute to fill now. Mary refused to leave. She was afraid if she left something would happen, something she couldn’t control, and she couldn’t control anything, she knew, but this fear nagged her, and she couldn’t leave her child, or her grandchild; she needed to be near, as much as they needed her. The business could wait. It would suffer. She was certain of that, but Jack would just have to do without her. It was a simple choice. Bikinis or babies. The bikinis would be there next year, and the next, with a new crop of pert-assed adolescents ready to slip their little hips into her creations.

  Her beach-blanket-bingo-bikini business whose sales fed her family, her sons, her daughters, the business that had seemed so important five weeks ago, the business she ate, slept, and drank. The business she charged with her own volt. Teeny Weeny Bikinis. Everyone wanted one. They sold like hot dogs. She could care less. The bikinis were as far away as the moon.

  This was not Balboa Island. And she was here. Now.

  The women were playing Parchesi; Mary Pointer had brought the game down with her, along with several decks of cards, a game of Chess and Backgammon. Lucy was a master Backgammon player, but Angel liked Parchesi, and Ruby’s favorite was Monopoly; she liked buying the hotels, getting the Get-Out of-Jail-Free card, taking it to the guard, Manuel Vasquez, laughing, saying it was time for her to go. Manuel would hand her back the card and tell her he knew a way for her to get out of jail free, and laugh.

  Sometimes Ruby met him at night in the kitchen or the hallway, and they would fuck for a minute or two or three, or three, and again if they could, whenever they could, standing up, sitting, she slipping down on his lap, up and down, down, down, never risking getting comfortable, down, down, down, a quick fuck or two was what she wanted. And sometimes just a little head, sometimes Ruby would kneel down and put his cock in her mouth, quickly slick her tongue over its wormy vein, suck, and leave, turning to watch him shove it back inside the zipper, the bald head shiny and slick, wanting more, poking and bobbing, not yet spent, resisting the zipper, leaving the boner poking uncomfortably against the inside of his Khaki pants.

  Ruby liked this guard. He would never think of hitting. Not Manuel. Ruby liked that. She liked that so much. She also liked Monopoly, she liked using the silver top hat to hop-scotch over the Monopoly board. Ruby would like a top hat someday, she decided. She did not know why; sometimes she dreamt about a man, very dark skin, very tall, with a top hat, and nothing else: only the place to hang it, poking at her. Smiling the one-eyed smile.

  Today they played Parchesi for Angel who liked the blue marbles, and complained she had to play Monopoly too much for Ruby, that Ruby always got her way with Monopoly, and jumping two of Ruby’s red marbles. Ruby nudged Angel to attentiveness, and smiled, as Lucy, intent on the game, plotted her move with a yellow marble, her back to the door, and hopped over two green marbles, the color her mother liked.

  The birth had been easier than Mary Pointer had thought; Lucy would have had him at home anyway, Mary knew, Lucy, her strong daughter, immensely stronger than she, Mary thought, rocking the child. He’d come in seven hours. Lucy walking, sitting, lying between contractions, Ruby helping her from bed, walking her, holding Lucy up, making her move so the baby would move, Ruby laughing, chatting, scolding the baby for being difficult, Lucy crying, laughing, breathing, breathing, Lamaze breaths, Ruby laughing at the little breaths, the polite little gringa breaths, not like Ruby’s own earthy howls, her grunts, her big groans, Ruby now making Lucy walk and lean on her, and laying her back down, and getting her up.

  “Ruby, Ruby, this one, hurts, this one hurts.” Lucy held onto the bed, Ruby holding her, putting her strong sinewy arm under Lucy’s.

  “Lie down now, it’s time to lie down.”

  “I can’t. Let me stand, it doesn’t hurt when I stand. Please.” Pleading, pleading with Ruby.

  “You must lie down. The baby wants to come now.” Ruby, gently, so, so gently, urging her back, making her lean back, rubbing her arm, sweetly, rubbing her cheek.

  “Okay, okay, okay, this baby wants to see its mommy. This baby wants to see now.” Ruby laughing, a low, gurgling happy laugh.

  Lucy groaned, back on the bed. Angel watched quiet-eyed from the door, Mary smoothing the bed, pulling the sheet straight as her daughter leaned back, moving the pillow under her, two pillows, propping her up, leaning her back, wiping her face, worrying, laughing, Lucy, breathing, quick, quick, quick, it hurts, it won’t quit hurting, breathing little breaths.

  “Open your legs so the baby can see you, gringa,” Ruby smiled and pulled Lucy’s legs apart. “Leave them there. Right there.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Lucy chanting. “Mommy, it hurts. It hurts.”

  “Yes,” Mary said. “Yes, yes, yes, sweetie, it’s okay now, it’s okay.

  “Leave your legs open, gringa.” Ruby pulled the legs apart, gently, looking, looking, looking for the baby. Peek-a-boo. Baby. Peek-a-boo.

  “Here’s your baby, Lucy. Your baby has dark, dark hair. Mary look it’s coming.” Mary’s eyes widened, dark, big. “Push, Lucy, push now. Your baby wants to see you.” Push, Lucy, push, push, push. This was a baby, coming, this baby was coming now, yes, we have a baby now. Push, Lucy, push, push, push, yes, yes, she would always want it to be just like this, like this, like this sweet, warm baby, now born, on this bed, Mary’s coming now with water, to wipe the baby, Mary was wiping the baby, and Ruby, crying, wipes the baby too, and Mary, crying, holds the baby, gives the baby to Lucy, crying, with the baby, the boy child, the little children peeking, next to Angel, wide-eyed, watching, this wonderfulness, the wonder of it, this birth, this splendidness of it, this tiny baby, blessed by so very much.

  The mandolin wind couldn’t change a thing …

  CHAPTER 22

  ANOTHER LOAD. HASHISH. THREE hundred pounds of Morrocan, gold, light struck pollens pressed into halfa pounds patties slid into the undercarriage of a Volkswagon Bus: before, way way before people stopped to check the undercarriage of every hipped-out trippedout VW bus. And another set of long haired strangers arrived with the load, wide eyed and grateful that Hank would off this load: make them rich. And he could. He would. He would make himself richer too. How much? A dime a pound? A quarter? Are you crazy? We put a couple hundred on this. Gotta be that way boys. Ain’t no other way. Otherwise you find someone else. They twitch, wiggle, yeah, of course, yeah man. It’s kool. We dig, man. A hunskie. Two hunskies. Whatever you say. As long as we get this much, dig? You dig? It’s hashish. Beautiful, blonde, like California sunshine. No problem boys. This is a done deal. Three weeks. No problemo.

  Maggie loved the smell of hashish in the house: pungent, good, clean. They grammed out the load on the O’haus, checked the weight against the boy’s figures. There it is. Almost three hundred. Not quite. No problemo.

  The phone started ringing the day before. Is it there? When can I get some? Front me t
wenty pounds? Will you? Ten? Shit, I can do ten in a heartbeat. Gimme twenty. Shit. Fuck. Okay. I’ll do ten. But you hold me fifty. It’s done already. No shit, Hank. It is. They all said it. They all meant it. Shuck fuck jived it.

  After the stash in the closet reduced to personal proportions, Maggie began to think about thought again.

  Do you love me …

  CHAPTER 23

  Santa Cruz, California

  AFTER LUCY’S ARREST, GARY MERCHANT had moved north to the slow town of Santa Cruz, leaving behind his oils, palettes, semi-finished canvases. His creative energies focused on discovering medicinal qualities in foods, herbs, and the benefits of vegetarian living. After landing a job in a health food store, his eye for color and composition transferred to shelves of dry goods and the presentation of organic produce grown by independent farmers in the fertile valleys above Monterey Bay. He arranged the red of tomatoes next to the green of bell peppers, then rimmed the green with soft yellow squash that highlighted the orange and yellow of citrus and the subtle hues of fruits: peach, apricot, plum, mango. They all showed off under Gary’s attentive eye. Soon he managed the store, figured out the profit margins, discovered sources of bulk rices and grains and nuts and the need for a wholesaler in the area. He had plenty of energy to invest; what he didn’t have was capital. Not enough. So that’s how it began.