by F J messina
Sonia sat up taller as well. “Yes. Her father told us that. Did something unusual happen while she was here?”
Gabriela continued to look around the room as she spoke, softly, darkly. She began clicking her ballpoint pen, in and out, in and out. “No. Nothing happened. But I know Mariana. I’ve known her since she was a little girl. We’re muy unidas. I could tell that she was nervous, nervous about something. I asked her if she was okay, and she said she was. But I knew that wasn’t the truth. Something was bothering her.”
Jet pressed. “Do you know what it was?”
“No. Like I said, I asked her if she was okay, but she said everything was fine.”
Sonia pressed. “Can you think of anything or anybody that she might be worried about. Was she dating anyone?”
Gabriela stopped clicking her pen then answered. “No, not really.”
Sonia and Jet exchanged a look. Then Sonia spoke. “What does that mean?”
Gabriela touched her fingertip to her lips. “Well, sometimes she would go out with this boy named Santiago. He’s from our barrio, our neighborhood; they go to the same church. But I don’t think it was anything special for her.”
Sonia let out a sigh. “Anyone else that she just spent time with?”
“I don’t think so. She worked so many hours at that farm. Actually, now that I think about it,” Gabriela pursed her red lips, “sometimes she would go after work for a drink with another man. I think he was older than her. I don’t know his name, but she told me once that he was from England and he was some kind of royal man.”
Sonia almost popped out of her seat. “Limey? Was his name Limey?”
Gabriela shrugged her shoulders quickly. “I don’t know. Maybe. If she told me his name, I don’t remember. She said he was different but nice.”
Jet’s eyes told Sonia that they were thinking the same thing. Sonia had told Jet about Limey, the big strong man from England, the one who could toss bales of hay around. Now, it seemed, there might be more to the relationship between Limey and Mariana than Sonia had learned about on her trip to Downstream Farm. Sonia brushed a wisp of hair out of her face. Her toe started tapping. “Did she ever say anything else about him? Anything at all?”
“No. It was no big deal to her.” Gabriela’s voice got even darker. “Listen, though, before you leave. I want you to know that I want to help you find my cousin; I want to find the person who did something to her. If anyone has hurt her, I will . . . well, I will make them sorry.”
Jet stood up. “We’ll take all the help we can get, but why this sudden interest? Why haven’t you come to us before?”
“No,” Gabriela almost shouted in a whisper. Her eyes bore into Jet’s. “This is no sudden interest. This is my cousin, who I love. I have not been thinking of other things. It’s you.”
Sonia stood as well, her chair scraping noisily on the tile floor. “What do you mean, it’s us?”
Gabriela leaned hard toward Sonia. “It’s you that I didn’t know if I could trust. I had no idea that my uncle would go to you for help, and I didn’t know if I could trust you to find her.”
Jet inserted herself between the two women. “And?”
“And now,” Gabriela reined her energy in just a bit, “now that I’ve met you, I think maybe you care. I think maybe you might be able to find her, to save her.”
Sonia smiled at Gabriela, trying to dissipate the growing tension. “We need everyone’s help.”
“No, you don’t get it.” Gabriela’s dark voice was brimming with emotion. “You think that something happened to her, you think that maybe someone has hurt her. I can tell. I can see it in your eyes. But if that’s true, it could be someone from our barrio. It could be one of us who has hurt her. And you don’t know our world, the insides of the Hispanic community, the culture, the rules, the way things are done. If she’s been taken by someone like that, you’ll never find her, not without help from me.”
Sonia looked at Jet. They were both silent.
“Now. You go.” Gabriela pointed at Sonia, her voice soft but deeply intense. “You look where you think to look, where you think she might be. But me, I’ll be looking for her right here, right in the world that she comes from.” She turned and walked away without the slightest goodbye, leaving Sonia and Jet speechless for the moment.
Sonia and Jet remained silent as they walked back to Jet’s car in the rain, Sonia stopping suddenly as a sporty black convertible turned the corner hard, splashing rainwater on her already damp jeans. “Nice!” she shouted at the car and driver. “Real nice!” She was tempted to flip him the bird. Eventually slipping into the car, Sonia finally spoke. “Wow. That’s some woman.”
Jet turned toward Sonia and smiled, “My kind of woman. That’s a woman who’ll kick ass, Mexican style, if she needs to.”
“Yeah, and I’m afraid she’s absolutely right.” Sonia looked out the passenger window and into the rain that was now pouring down. “We’re looking into her farm connections. We’re looking into her school connections. We’re looking at all the friends we can find. But the Hispanic community. I mean, sure, they’ve come here and assimilated, become part of our world. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still have their own culture, their own way of doing things, good and bad. If some person from that barrio has hurt her or taken her, we’re really going to need help trying to find her. Don’t you think?”
Jet started the car and pulled out into traffic. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think that Gabriela is one hot jalapeño of a woman, and if Mariana needs that kind of help it ain’t coming from us, it’s coming from her hell-bent-for-revenge cousin.”
Sonia let out a big sigh. “I agree.”
Jet kept her eyes on the road. “C’mon. Let’s be smart. We look where we know how to look. Gabriela looks where she knows how to look. And let’s just hope that one of us finds her before it’s too late.”
The clatter of the pouring rain on the roof of Jet’s Camry and the slapping of the windshield wipers all but drowned out Sonia’s voice as she whispered, “Amen.”
17
Jet pulled up in front of Sonia’s apartment on Central Avenue around eight o’clock that evening. She honked the Camry’s horn several times. As Sonia slid into the car, she could see that they were both dressed appropriately for an evening at The Wildcat. Under her white denim jacket, Sonia had on snug jeans and a dark red and white striped top. Jet wore even tighter jeans and a bright blue top that brought out her sparkling eyes. Though the evening was cool, she had no jacket on at all.
Sonia pulled the car door closed. “Well, are you ready for this?”
The southern belle spoke. “Little Miss Sonia, have you ever known this poor li’l country girl to not be ready for anythin’?”
Sonia let out a sigh. I should never have asked. “So, what’s the plan again?”
Jet pulled the car away from the curb and they headed off to the land of skates, cokes, and pre- and post-pubescent boys and girls. “Here’s the deal. We go into The Wildcat and stand around with all the other parents who are watching.” Jet slowed the Camry to a stop at a traffic light and turned to Sonia. “After a while, we just move around until we think we’ve got a view of Nick-the-Dick and his little sorority honey. I’m sure they’re not doing it out on the skating floor, so when they slip into some back room or something, we just nonchalantly happen to stumble in a few minutes later and catch them in the act. You get a few images on that iPhone of yours and we skedaddle.”
Sonia spoke with her eyes forward. “Question.”
The light changed and Jet hit the gas. “Yeah.”
“How many minutes do we wait before we go in?”
Jet turned and looked at Sonia. “What’s your point?”
“Well, given that Nick is the kind of guy who expects his wife to ‘put out’ every single night, I’m guessing he’s not,” Sonia began singing softly, “a ‘lover with a slow hand.’ ”
Jet gave Sonia a snarky smile. “Agreed.”
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br /> “So,” Sonia turned forward again, “if we slip in too early, they may not be, how should I put it, completely engaged yet. On the other hand, if we wait too long, we may just walk in to find zippers zippin’ and buttons buttonin’ and we may have missed the whole thing.”
Jet checked her rearview mirror. “I guess it just depends.”
“On what?”
“On how hot the young sorority philanthropist is.”
Sonia paused for a moment. “Agreed.”
It only took about twenty minutes for Jet to drive from Sonia’s apartment to the skating rink. As they walked up to the ticket booth at the front of the building, Jet put her hand on Sonia’s arm. “Now just look like you’re here to watch your kid skate.”
“What kid?” Sonia was already feeling that they were both inappropriately dressed to play the part of “roller-skating moms.”
Jet stopped and looked around. “Right. Okay then, let’s just bunch up close to those kids. The girl in the booth will think we’re with them.”
Sonia laughed. “And expect us to pay for them? Guess you don’t have a lot of experience with this mother thing.”
Jet’s head spun around. She didn’t say anything, but Sonia could see hurt in her eyes. Sonia winced. Damn it. She’d wanted kids with that piece of crap husband who wound up cheating on her, and now I’ve just dredged all of that up for her. Damn it. “Sorry.” The words fell softly out of her mouth.
A moment passed. Jet shook it off. “No. You’re right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just mumble something about our kids already being inside.”
After paying the price of admission, the girls walked into the dark, blaring-music-filled cavern known as The Wildcat. Kids whizzed by on skates, laughing and chasing each other, paying absolutely no heed to the long list of “Rules for Safe and Courteous Behavior at The Wildcat-Roller Skating Emporium” that were posted in huge letters on the wall.
Sonia cupped one hand around her mouth and stood on her tip-toes. “What a zoo.”
“You’re feeling blue?”
“No, I said . . . .” Sonia realized Jet was just pulling her leg.
Looking around, Sonia realized the set-up at The Wildcat was not what she had expected. There was a big sign directing patrons to move forward in one of two directions. To the left was a little bleacher section, like at a high school baseball field, where parents could sit and watch the kids skate. The path to the skate rental room and the actual skating rink was on the right. Over that pathway was a bright yellow iridescent sign. “EVERYONE MUST WEAR SKATES!”
Jet pulled Sonia to the left. “Come on. We sit here and watch.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll watch alright.” Sonia almost had to shout. “But unfortunately, we’ll be watching, hoping some father’s little girl sneaks off to do the wild thing with that bastard. What a great and high-minded life we live.”
“Just the way it is, girl. Just the way it is.” Jet motioned to the concession stand. “You want some popcorn or something?”
Sonia stood on her toes again and spoke into Jet’s ear. “Something, but more like a Maker’s and coke than some cheap popcorn.”
Jet’s southern ancestry popped up. “Hoo-wee, girl. Let’s not start fussin’ now. I’ve taken you out on a school night, haven’t I. No need to be choosy about what kind of snack you get, now is there?”
“No, Mom. I’ll just sit here quietly and watch.” Sonia had spoken at a normal volume. A moment later she realized Jet had never heard her.
It didn’t take long for the girls to figure out that there was a flaw in their plan. Although the view of the skating area from the bleachers was almost complete, there were definitely some places in the hall that were out of their line of sight. Unfortunately, having leaned over a railing and taken a peek, Sonia could tell that the offices in which Nick might soon be holding court were tucked away in a corner, out of sight.
“Well, Ms. Jet.” She said over the blaring music. “Looks like we’re going to have to amend your plan somehow. We’re not going to be able to see if anyone sneaks into Nick’s office while we’re sitting on these bleachers.”
“I can see that.” Even at that volume, Jet’s voice indicated she was just a bit testy. It didn’t take long, however, for her to come up with another plan. She stood up. “Okay then. We’re just going to have to get some skates and get out there on the floor, where we can see what the heck is going on.”
Sonia started shaking her head. “Oh no. No, no, no. I’ve already told you. I don’t know how to roller-skate, and I don’t have any intention of learning now.”
Jet looked down at Sonia then leaned over and spoke directly into her ear. “Listen up Vitale. If we’re going to catch this slimeball cheating on that poor little over-worked, over- . . . whatevered woman, you’re going to have to put on your big girl panties and get out there and skate.” Jet grabbed Sonia’s arm. “Now get your ass off that bench and let’s go get us some skates.” She started walking toward the skate rental area.
Sonia followed reluctantly. Damn. What the hell am I doing? I’ll bet I’m going to wind up with a broken phone . . . and probably a broken bone to boot.
Jet was already quite a few steps ahead. She glanced over her shoulder and gave Sonia a look.
Sonia hustled. “I’m coming. I’m coming.”
It wasn’t long before both Sonia and Jet were out on the skating floor. Sonia was surprised to see that Jet not only had no trouble whatsoever skating, but that she could actually spin and skate backward, all the stuff an athletically gifted kid picks up without much effort. Conversely, to say that Sonia was even skating was quite a stretch. It was more like she was walking with high-topped roller-skates on. Clump, clump, clump. She wobbled forward while Jet circled around her, amazed. When Sonia finally started to roll just a bit, her arms shot out and swung around, as if she were balancing on some tiny tightrope at the very top of a huge circus tent. Just as she got barely enough stability to be able to look at Jet, she saw Jet bent over, grabbing the part of her body that would indicate she was about to pee her pants.
“I’ll get you for this, Jet. I promise. I’ll get you for this.”
“C’mon.” Jet waved her hand. “Let’s get rolling. And keep your eyes open for the Nickster and the young thing he hopes to matriculate this evening.”
Sonia was rolling, marginally, wobbling the whole time. “You watch for him your damn self. I’m just trying to─” With a whooshing sound, Sonia’s feet launched into the air. The event was followed by the solid thumping sound of her butt hitting the ground.
Gulping for breaths, in between huge bouts of laughter, Jet said, “C’mon honey. Let’s get you off the floor and back on your wheels.”
“Oh please.” Sonia rubbed her bottom. “Please do. I can’t wait to do that again.”
Eventually, with Jet pulling her by the arm, Sonia completed her first loop around the floor. It had taken about twelve minutes. Settling into the routine of pushing one leg in front of the other, and still occasionally walking rather than rolling, Sonia started to smile and enjoy herself . . . just a little bit.
Jet had switched her attention from helping Sonia to checking out the manager’s office. “Now there’s something I didn’t expect to see.”
Sonia was bent forward in a strange position that somehow was keeping her from falling again. “What’s that?”
“One of the bouncers, well I guess they call them something else here, is standing right in front of the office. Bright orange shirt, totally buff.” Jet held her hand at the side of her mouth, speaking surreptitiously as if anyone more than two feet away from her could hear what she was saying. “He’s probably supposed to be skating around keeping an eye on things. Instead, he’s standing there surrounded by some admiring young college girls who probably have as much interest in skating as you do.”
Sonia was now standing ram-rod straight, arms out to her sides. “Right.”
“Also, I just watched a redhead with a body that looks
like it came out of a Barbie display being led into the office by none other than Nick-the-Dick himself. No little flower, either. Tall, long hair, strong and athletic looking. I’ll bet she can hold her own for a college girl.” Jet tugged on her ponytail. “With a sign above the door that says, ‘No Admittance,’ and Burly-Bouncer-Boy stationed in front of the door, I’m not thinking that we’re going to be able to go busting into the office to catch the dynamic duo saving the world. Know what I mean?”
Sonia couldn’t answer. She was on the floor with her legs spread, rubbing her butt and laughing.
Jet looked down at Sonia. “Goodness girl, are we going to have to get you training wheels, or what?” Jet reached down and pulled Sonia up. Approximately thirty minutes later, she pulled Sonia over to the side of the rink. “Well, that does it.”
“For skating? Are we done skating?” Sonia’s voice was full of expectation as she hung over the railing.
“Yes, honey.” Jet sighed. “We’re done.”
“Why?”
Jet wiggled her thumb in the direction of the offices. “Because Nick and his protégé have completed her educational activities for the evening.”
Sonia looked in that direction. “Already?”
“Yup. Already. And thanks to Burly-Bouncer-Boy, we have apparently missed our opportunity.” She paused. “Well, at least we’ve learned some things.”
Though standing still at the edge of the rink, Sonia’s feet somehow managed to move, each in a different direction, creating a split that would have made any Russian gymnast proud. Fortunately, Jet reached out and caught Sonia just before her butt and the floor had another meeting of the minds.
Sonia finally got herself stable again, “And what did we learn?”
“Two things. First, we’re going to have to assume that on Tuesday nights, Burly-Bouncer-Boy will continue to block our access to the office unless we come up with a distraction.”
Sonia held on tight to the railing. “And, two?”
“We’ve got ourselves no more than twenty-five or thirty minutes after the red-headed pecker girl enters the office to get in and get our shots.” She grinned. Now let’s go home.
