The Orange Blossom Express

by Marlena Evangeline

  “So how’s Lisa?” asked Patrick.

  “Lisa’s great. Doesn’t rag on me like Maggie used to.”

  “She was just here.”

  “Maggie? How is she?” he asked thinking about how he missed the way she ragged on him, and the other things about Maggie he missed. But Lisa wasn’t like Maggie. Lisa was like the things he wanted Maggie to be but never was. Maggie would never be Lisa, and Lisa would never be Maggie. Fact. Not Fiction. Admit that you can’t mold a Maggie into a Lisa. But you can miss a Maggie, he thought, you can miss a Maggie a lot. You can even love a Maggie more than you’d ever thought you did. But you couldn’t live with one. No. That was the reality of Maggie, you couldn’t live with one. Hank stopped and wiped his Sunclouds, the ones with the rose lenses, with a lens paper, making sure he could see clearly, putting the glasses back on, liking the rose-colored landscape. Just a shade away from reality.

  Knocking on heaven’s door …

  CHAPTER 34

  Tijuana, Mexico

  WHAT A DRAG, THOUGHT LUCY, exasperated. She looked at Maggie who sat nervously, too, but glad Maggie had come along. Just glad she wasn’t there alone. Let’s get on with it, she thought, hating the thought of waiting in waiting rooms no matter what she was waiting on but really not wanting to be waiting on this. This pregnancy had to go. She couldn’t deal with another baby. Not now. What if Gary found out? Unthinkable. Even with a divorce pending it was unthinkable. Not that she’d slept with Patrick. She could care less if Gary found out about that. But that she’d gotten pregnant. No. She couldn’t deal. This was too much. It was her choice. Pure and simple. Maybe not so pure. Maybe not so simple. Trick or treat. Trick or treat. A trick this time. Not a treat. Not that she didn’t value babies. Lucy did. She valued everything about babies. But this time the context was wrong. Same game. Different circumstance. The impact entirely predictable. She would self destruct, she thought, with another baby. Burn up like a meteor or comet. And she had already brought three children into the world. She loved babies. All babies. Her own babies. Other babies. Passionately. She loved their sweet baby bodies and their fine thin hair and their funny little steps and their laughs and their cries and their pudgy little legs and tiny fingers and wet kisses and the weight of them sinking into her. She loved that! She loved the way she needed them and they needed her. And they did. Babies needed mommies. Babies gave mommies a raison d’etre. Did she need a reason? Couldn’t she just be? Be what? Be productive in another way than the baby way? Couldn’t she have it both ways? All ways in one? She’d thought about it all right. A lot. She wanted the joy of bringing something to life. That incredible creative joy! Yet…. Yet…. she wanted it in another way. She’d already brought three babies along; she’d done it three times. And think. Nine months. It would take another nine months to do it. But that wasn’t the whole of it. Her body would start dictating her life if she were pregnant. How she felt. What she might eat. Doling out the energy she had to give to the children she already had, and the life she was already living. The life full of uncertainty. The life that seemed less safe this year than it had last year. What would happen next? What if one of the children got sick? What if? What if? What if? What if she just couldn’t deal? What about that? What about the babies she already had? How would it impact their life? She had, already, as much as she could handle. More. She had more. The emotional turmoil of the separation with Gary. The distinct knowledge that she had to find a way to make herself productive for not only the children, but herself. The distinct certainty that she had to save herself, that no one else could do this. Not Gary. Not Patrick. Not anyone. This was Lucy’s own rescue mission. She was her own white knight, dressed in the only armor she knew, fighting her own dragons, the decisions, the decisions, the decisions, one after another, each choice, each decided direction. The rules had changed on her somewhere, somewhere within the life she was living, the life she thought she might live, life changed the rules. Not even Gary, she thought, could be blamed entirely, but something bigger was at work. Life itself. Change. Growth. All of it. Gary wouldn’t have chosen to hurt her intentionally. Or set out to. In her heart she knew this. But he had. He had indeed. He was responsible. But she was too. And she was lucky in some ways, she thought, thinking the thought outrageous as she sat waiting to have an abortion, to have then, at that moment, a thought about luck, feeling unlucky for being there, feeling unlucky because Gary had left, feeling unlucky and lucky too. Gary would still be there to be a father to his children. She would have that part of him. He hadn’t died in an accident or anything. She was lucky about that. Some people were less lucky. She knew this. Wasn’t it relative? She thought so, she had to think so, because her life was in a state of transition and she had no way else to think it. The one happening today would take some of the pressure out of her life. Would it create another? What she was frightened of right now was the everyday burden it would create in her daily life. Behind that was the terror of failure and the consequence of that reality. She was in the midst of one failure. The failure of the marriage. And it was something she had trusted in. What can be more devastating? If Gary hadn’t left. If she were still married. Would she have another child? She didn’t know. She couldn’t know that because it had not happened to her. It was not a part of her reality. She wouldn’t know what kind of choice she would make until she had to make it. Lucy didn’t assume. Not anymore. Assumptions were dangerous. She had to think it again Sam. And that thinking was playing its own tune. Not just the same familiar melody. She had, if nothing else, learned to trust herself, in spite of her mistakes, perhaps because of them, and even if no one else found reason to trust her judgment, Lucy’s reality depended on that kind of decided trust that spoke to her own individual history as a woman, as a mother, as a person. And that person wanted to act in her own best interest. What kind of interest? The interest that would bring her to a respectful sense of herself. Lucy had thought in terms of Gary and children, and now she was thinking differently. She had to, without doubt, trust herself and her own capacity to make the right decisions. She was intent on trusting herself in the world; she didn’t want to feel uncapable again. This was not a mere choice; it was necessity. It was a phenomenon of her newer reality, and that reality was the one that spoke as she sat waiting now. The reality that if there was another Gary in her life, that someday that Gary might leave too, or something else unexpected could happen, some life thing, and Lucy had to be capable and able to sustain herself and her children through any stuff that might beset her. That reality informed the reality she was making at that moment. And the pregnancy itself concerned her. Pregnancy demanded a lot of energy. It was hard work. It was a matter of proportion. She had been pregnant before the actual pregnancy. She had just began to feel that new life inside her, the life she had had to start without Gary. This had not been her choice but the reality of it was just beginning to impact her existence. The feel of it squirming. Kicking her inside out. The real pregnancy was a complication. It was too complex. Another baby, on top of the three she had, would break the camel’s back. Poor camel. The camel should get a clue, she thought, chastising herself for not being careful. A two-dollar condom beats a five-hundred-dollar abortion beats the cost of a college education. She had begun to look ahead. Way ahead to the other choices she had to make for her children. It was expensive to raise babies that you can be sure of, she thought, thinking of her conversation with her mother on her wedding day. The one she thought so foolish. And if you have them, she thought, you best educate them. Have them to love? You bet! If you love them you teach them. It’s part of the deal. The unspoken package. Baby talk! You find the best ways to help them be in the world. That’s the long and short of it. Isn’t it? Yes. It is. It definitely is. Loving babies is time and sharing and attention and responsibility and teaching, Lucy thought, having enough babies to love and teach and feed and buy clothes for and do the right things for and make the right patterns for because Lucy was good at sewing and her babies all nee
ded good patterns and she was damn well going to make them, each one. If one didn’t work she’d make another and another and another and another and another till her fingers were raw and bloody from sewing and stitching and mending and threading and untangling knots and cutting and snipping and trimming and hemming and tucking and darting and seaming.

  They went into the funky little office and she sat down on a saggy gold chair full of dust, in front of a blonde coffee table scattered with tattered old magazines and a dirty ash tray, hearing Maggie ask, what if something goes wrong? The man behind the scratched metal desk looked at Lucy’s face without emotion. She dies, he said, she dies.

  Lucy uncontrollably released a sound, some deep cry, thinking of the risk she was taking to preserve the future, how this back-alley abortion could wipe the whole thing out, the future, the thought of it, the sweet years she had yet to live with her babies, and she tried to think her way out of the moment. She tried to think her way around the overwhelming commitment of time and money and time and eons of time that a child on the planet needed and deserved and wanted to have because she knew that children want all the things even if they don’t know they really want them. The things she didn’t really have to offer in the midst of the life she already had and the life she was making and the life she might live if life let her. A condom, she thought, shaking her head, all it would have taken was a simple condom but a condom was too late now because the accident had already happened the accidental pregnancy, so she made the choice she needed to make to take care of the accident but what if she had had another accident like a miscarriage? Then the choice wouldn’t have been hers. She could lay it on God or something but now she couldn’t because she had only had one accident, not two, so her own willingness to responsible parenthood made this choice, yes, she sighed, wishing to get on with it and then her life get on with her life as she wanted to live it now even though she couldn’t anticipate everything she could anticipate this part of it, this part that wanted to honor her own decision to be capable in another way than the mommy way but along with the mommy way so she was doing it choosing the direction by natural selection selecting how she wanted to survive. Now she wanted to add rather than divide and multiply. She’d already divided and she’d multiplied making lots of little fractions and factions that needed to be scooted together, scooped into a pile to make another formula by adding x or y or z or something like that and solving it. Sometimes making a wrong solution just to get to the right one, not that that always worked or that she would want it to or had planned it but sometimes that was one way to get to that right place, wasn’t it? But even the right place turned wrong, Lucy thought, thinking about how sometimes the wrong place turned right like when she was in jail because that had been definitely wrong but ended up somehow being right and wanting to know why the right place sometimes turned wrong but that was beyond knowing other than to know it happened. It was accidental. Wasn’t it? If it was planned that meant that this too was the plan if it was happening. Isn’t that what that meant? Whatever she was correcting or over correcting to make things more selectively hers. The last error erasing the other errors making it the most distinctive error. That might surprise even Lucy, but she didn’t like surprises; she had had enough quite frankly. If she had had a choice in surprises she wouldn’t take any more thank you thank you very much but that wasn’t entirely true because she liked nice surprises, and she’d take those things especially if they were wrapped in pretty paper like a present and had ribbons and bows but you can bet there wasn’t anything pretty at that moment. Nothing was wrapped prettily at all; it wasn’t even wrapped; it was just an unwrapped moment making a raw wild feeling rise up to threaten and then sink again so she felt badly about making this bad moment; but this was one of those bad moments that would turn good even though the emotions were welling right up inside her but the well-being would come wouldn’t it? Sooner or later? She really was ready for sooner the better and she thought that that sooner was worth doing by jiggity jig. She had thought so before, she had, and if she could only arrange it all, every bit of it, she would but she couldn’t because no one can no one at all and she couldn’t see how it would go with or without this surprise or that.

  I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine …

  CHAPTER 35

  Huntington Beach, California

  VICTORIA LOPEZ PUT ANOTHER PIN in the manikin, tightening the fabric, liking the way it looked. She took three pins out of her mouth and stuck them back in the wrist pin-cushion. The phone rang, and she answered, saying yes, the order would be ready, not to worry, they were packing it this morning and the suits would be ready. She promised, nodding her head into the phone, yes, yes, the line was lovely, and thank you, taking the glory for her own designs, but thinking she needed to pack the order, and get on with the day, and if they hadn’t called she could do it, but listening none-the-less. She could see the line of production machines from her office, and noticed as she talked that Alma seemed to be having a problem, so after she hung up, she went out and they fussed for a minute with the old machine, while she thought they might invest, soon, in some machines, since, they were losing time in production, but that would come, that would come. At the other end of the warehouse was the day-care center, apart from the factory, and it serviced three other companies in this same building.

  She packed the order herself, enclosing the invoice, logging in the transaction to UPS, taping the box, slapping on a label, and scooting the box right outside the office door. A pile of suits on the cutting table needed to be checked and sized so she started, admiring the suits as she worked, looking carefully for flaws, and finding none in this bunch, please. Victoria had pulled most of the weight here since she and Mary had become associates. After Jack’s injury, Mary had offered Victoria a percentage of the business. Victoria herself had enlisted three more large accounts, hired five more employees, and initiated a health plan. The phone rang again, and it was her daughter, who had had a flat tire, and would she please come and get her. I’m working, she said, I haven’t the time, but, yes, yes, I’ll come, you wait and I’ll come, so she rushed to the car, thinking of what still needed to done, and how much time it would take to do it. This would be another long night. Yes, she sighed, it would be, pulling out of the dusty parking lot heading for the freeway.

  A tapestry of rich and royal jewels …

  CHAPTER 36

  Redlands, California

  THE FIRST FLOOR OF THE HOUSE was still in disarray, packed boxes still cluttered the spacious rooms making movement precarious, but Maggie had shoved the most of the boxes close to the walls fixing them, temporarily, out of her way. Maggie had just finished painting in the living room, the walls, and ceilings were a bright white, making the high ceilings seem higher, the big room bigger. She liked the roominess, the expansiveness that seemed to open to larger spaces, as if the rooms themselves could not be fixed in time or space but spiraled outward like a small galaxy. Light flooded in from the large bay windows, splashing sunlight across the room, across the splattered canvas tarp covering the solid wood floors, and over a pair of paint-covered Levis. She picked them from the floor, going through to the kitchen, tossing them into the basement along with some towels, thinking they might be Hank’s, but uncertain, only certain that they didn’t belong to her. The kitchen was not yet painted, she hadn’t yet decided on the color. She considered the kitchen almost hazardous from the debris cluttering the boxes, like previous lifetimes spilling into this one, jamming with stuff she’d collected and saved. A cast-iron skillet, a dull knife, a set of hand-sewn pot-holders. A plaque that said: “Of all the rooms I serve my guests it seems they like my kitchen best.” poked out the corner of a box. The counter was piled with more stuff, a hammer, a stack of plates, a pile of nails; she still had plenty of work ahead before she could actually cook something in this kitchen; she needed to scrub and paint and organize first.

  She heard a knock on the door, thinking, yes, she was finally here. The agency had
said the girl would come this morning.

  “Good morning,” Maggie said as she opened the door, letting more sudden light into the hallway. She apologized for the mess as she led the girl inside, explaining that she wasn’t quite settled, but close, and did Esperanza mind? They moved past the telephone on the floor, two empty buckets of paint, a recent magazine flipped open, three bulging boxes of brick-a-brac, a broom, and a box of rags, while Maggie laughed, chattering about the mess, then realizing that the girl didn’t understand, and apologizing, thinking herself foolish, hoping the girl wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, but realizing, certainly, that they were both nervous. That was bound to have an effect on the girl, like it did on Maggie, and too, the comfort a sense of place emits, overwhelming in its nature, surely had a impact on the moment, especially a place that seemed to embrace Maggie’s own personal measure of where she was and how it was she was moving. Aside from the inherent charm of the large solid structure, the house seemed a universe of its own, dynamically expanding, doing so at the precise moment that Maggie invited the girl into the house.

  Esperanza blushed and shifted the child from one hip to the other. She shook her head embarrassed. What she had understood, quite certainly, was that Maggie had extended a welcome. Esperanza smiled shyly. Then Maggie asked, without saying, to hold the child, extending her arms and Esperanza handed the toddler to her, who went without hesitation, putting a chubby arm around Maggie’s neck. She carried the child while she showed Esperanza the house, explaining the projects, the ones completed, and the ones yet to come, unmindful now of the language, knowing the girl would understand somehow, by tone, by showing, by gesture, the more common language that concern and time translate, waving her arm towards the mess in the kitchen, and rolling her eyes, and laughing, the better part of any language, then showing her the upstairs room with the balcony, the one adjoining a small nursery. Something about the woman seemed familiar to Esperanza, but she shook it away like a troublesome breeze, and thought instead about the lovely yellow house with the veranda and the tall palm trees and the lovely garden below the balcony blooming with sweet iris and pungent lantana while Maggie chattered slowly trying to explain about the work she had yet to do, rubbing the peeling paint on the outside of the house, showing Esperanza with her gestures that that would be painted too. But later. And wasn’t she tired now, and didn’t she want to sleep, and settle in? And Esperanza wanted to sleep there, in that spacious, sun-filled upstairs room, and she nodded, yes, understanding somehow, knowing what had been said, knowing that this would be home for both her and the child, and so Maggie ran downstairs to get the tiny suitcase Esperanza had left on the porch, and brought it upstairs.