Chihuahua Karma

by Rice, Debby

“She is. But she still gives me advice and sends me messages.”

  Edmund paused, waiting for Lucille to explain. He rubbed his eyes as if the conversation was becoming too far-fetched, even for someone who spent hours immersed in outrageous fantasies. But she was silent.

  “That sounds crazy. Is she a ghost? My mom believes in ghosts. What does she think about going to Bulgaria?”

  “I haven’t told her about that yet. So, will you help me?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. I could get in lots of trouble. They could think I kidnapped you.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I was wrong about you. Magnus is just pretend—something you play at, like dolls, huh?”

  “Magnus is not a game,” said Edmund indignantly.

  “Well, it seems like he’s afraid to have a real adventure.”

  “I just met you. How do I know you’re even telling the truth?”

  “We’ve been talking online for over three months,” Lucille said. “I swear on Sugar that everything I just told you is true.”

  “Okay, let me think about it.” There was a loud slurp as Edmund polished off the last bit of his drink.

  “You don’t have time to think about it. We have to start planning. You need to decide right now. I have to get back home, or they’ll start wondering where I am.”

  “Okay, I’m in,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “You can stay in the basement of my parents’ dry cleaning shop. Nobody goes down there but me. It’s dark and cold, so you better bring some warm clothes, and there might be bugs and lots of other kinds of creepy stuff that girls are afraid of. There might even be rats. You better bring a can of Raid.”

  “Everyone thinks that because I’m small and I don’t talk much that I’m afraid of things. But I’m not. I’m probably braver than you are. That’s why I’m good at gymnastics.”

  “I’ve never seen gymnastics live before. Could I come and watch you?”

  “Sure in a couple of years, when I’m famous, I’ll pay for any tattoo you want. By that time I’ll be hot, and you really will want to be my friend.”

  “So if I help you, what do I get out of it now?”

  Some of Mrs. Lin’s bargaining skills seemed to have rubbed off.

  “Right now, I’ve got $50. I’m going to give it to you to buy food for me and Sugar while we’re hiding out. I want to leave while they’re having the party on Christmas Eve. They won’t notice I’m gone until the next day. And Zoya won’t be there.”

  “Who’s Zoya?”

  “Zoya is the housekeeper. She found the Pattersons. She’s a Jehovah’s Witness, and I think she made some kind of deal for them to get me because they’re her same religion. She never stops talking about Jehovah and tries to make me pray with her.”

  “Wow, Firefly, your life sounds like a movie,” said Edmund. He was fidgeting in his chair, obviously weighing the excitement of a real adventure against the danger of conflicts he was entirely unprepared to deal with. “We can email each other to make the rest of the arrangements.”

  “Okay,” said Lucille. She lifted me off Edmund’s lap and put me in her backpack.

  “Can’t I pet her for just a little while longer? I really like her.”

  “She’s tired right now. But maybe you can take her for a walk with me, and we can firm up our plans.”

  “Okay, I’d like to take Sugar for a walk,” said Edmund. “And, listen, don’t worry if you change your mind about running away. We can cancel anytime. I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” said Lucille.

  “Bye, Sugar.” Edmund fed me a last cookie crumb. He wrapped the scarf back around his head and walked slowly to the door. Then he turned and waved goodbye.

  Lucille and I watched him go. Her eyes were hopeful, but her mouth was turned down. It was the expression of a nonbeliever who desperately wants to pray. She sat at the little cocktail table staring at the crumbs, empty paper cups, crumpled napkins and dirty plates. The room was cold because it was almost empty, and the fake fire gave off no heat. Its garish orange glow shadowed her face, making her look older.

  “Hey, kid, why so sad? You lost or something?” A smiling barista with skin the color of one of her coffee concoctions and pretty dimpled cheeks approached the table.

  “No, I’m okay,” said Lucille. “Thanks for asking.”

  “That guy wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

  “No, that was my big brother. He looks out for me,” said Lucille. She got up, and we left the restaurant.

  Chapter 18

  “The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others.”

  Honore Balzac

  If seeing Richard was my breath of life, Lucille’s meeting with Edmund was a kiss of death. My overblown fantasies were cut down to size. Sugar was my diminished reality.

  Children, however, are natural optimists. As the path narrowed and the crows beat their wings in the gathering darkness, Lucille imagined that a kindly Bulgarian gymnastics coach would come to her rescue. Perhaps this wise teacher would send her to a dacha on the Black Sea, where she would perfect her backflips along with an elite international cadre of sister athletes. If wishes had the power to shape the future, this dream would be more substantial.

  When we arrived home, the condo was dark and silent. The marble floors and rococo furnishings suggested a vacant public space, a bank or a law office in the early hours of the morning. Although Larry and Charmaine were still hibernating under a pile of down and 600-thread-count cotton, we felt their presence. Like Goldilocks, Lucille tiptoed down the long hallway to her room, careful not to make an unexpected noise that would disturb the ursine sleepers, whose claws were certainly as sharp as any fairy-tale monsters.

  Chilled from the walk, I was looking forward to a cozy snooze. But when Lucille opened the door to her room, the drapes were pulled back and the bed was made. The overhead light and all the lamps were on, making the room as bright as a movie set. A large black trunk stood beside Lucille’s bed. Several cardboard moving boxes were arranged around it. The bed itself had become a collage of skirts, jackets and pants. Dolls and other toys had been removed from their shelves, categorized and stacked on the floor. These displaced objects—a tower of books, six or seven board games and a whole menagerie of stuffed animals in varying degrees of repair—made the room feel transient and unstable. The message was clear: These quarters would soon be vacant.

  Zoya stood in the middle of the fabric-and-plastic hillocks. Fat yellow braids were coiled around her head like a crown. She was approaching this task with unusual vigor. Her face was flushed and tendrils of damp hair stuck to her cheeks. Her eyebrows were knitted in concentration. She was obviously juggling several mental checklists and so immersed in the effort of multitasking that she did not notice us and kept chucking items into the various containers.

  Lucille dropped her backpack on the floor, giving me a sharp jolt on the head. “What are you doing?”

  Zoya looked up. A shadow of guilt briefly darkened her face, then vanished.

  “Luci, milashka. You scare me. Where you been?”

  “I took Sugar for a walk.”

  “You know Miss Charmaine not like you to take the dog out. You better get her back to their room, or she’ll be angry. I told you not to go in there while they sleeping.”

  “If I can’t go in there, then how am I supposed to take Sugar back?”

  Zoya didn’t bother to answer.

  “What are you doing with my stuff?” said Lucille, refusing to allow Zoya to escape the elephant in the room.

  “You know, I going to have so much to do in next couple of days to get ready for the party. I want to get you packed up for the Pattersons to make sure you ready to go.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Milashka, you have to go. Mr. Larry and Ms. Charmaine, they leaving for Jamaica right after Christmas. You be all alone here.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t care. I’ll be fine. I’m alone here most of the time anyway.” Lucille lifted me out of the backpack.

  “You see. You going to love the Pattersons just like they were your own mommy and daddy.” Zoya’s voice was like a day-old sugar donut, just sweet around the edges.

  “I don’t think so. The Pattersons are really strange. I’ve never seen anybody who looks like them.”

  “Luci, what I always tell you? Jehovah say be nice to others and not call anyone bad names. Mrs. Patterson make cookies for all the little children at church for Christmas. She one of the best ladies in our congregation.”

  “I think the Pattersons are evil.”

  “Evil? You want to talk about evil? You listen to me.” Zoya abruptly stopped sorting. The mask dropped. There was fire in her eyes. She put both hands on Lucille’s cheeks. Lucille’s eyes bulged, and her face turned pink from the force of Zoya’s grip. “Evil is what going on every single day in this house! They doing sin here. You stop whining. On Judgment Day, you gonna get down on your knees and thank me and our Lord Jehovah for rescuing you from Satan’s den. I saving your soul, and I no want to hear another word about it!”

  Zoya released Lucille, wiped her hands on her apron and got back on task. Lucille was not cowed by this outburst. “Why are you putting stuff in those boxes?”

  “Ms. Charmaine say I can take things you don’t use no more to the church.”

  “How do you know what I don’t use anymore?” said Lucille, picking up a fluffy yellow sweater and putting it back in her drawer.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure I know which things you too big for now,” said Zoya, opening the drawer, removing the sweater and throwing it into the moving box. Her voice had returned to the saccharine register. She was smiling, but her eyes were hard. The gold cross around her neck flashed as she pulled things down from shelves and packed them away.

  I noticed Lucille’s favorite stuffed animal, a turtle named Greenie, at the bottom of the pile that Zoya was working on. I crept slowly over to Greenie and picked him up in my teeth with the idea of dragging him under the bed.

  “Dog, put that down right now!” Zoya stamped her foot. When it came to confiscated goods, mine or Lucille’s, Zoya had eyes in the back of her head. She tried to wrestle Greenie from my jaws. I held on. Zoya did too. My teeth we making a hole in Greenie’s head.

  “Lucille, make dog behave,” Zoya screamed.

  “Good dog, Sugar. I can’t believe you were going to try to take Greenie. You know he’s my favorite.”

  “That was just mistake,” said Zoya, releasing Greenie. I brought Greenie to Lucille and she put him back in his place on her bed.

  “Where’s my laptop?” said Lucille.

  “Probably where you left it. I not touched computer.”

  Lucille reached under the bed and pulled out the laptop. She sat down on top of a pile of clothes and started typing. Her face was rigid, but her fingers flew over the keyboard. I scratched her knee to get her to pick me up.

  “Here you go, Sugar. Up, doggie,” said Lucille, depositing me into her lap.

  I put my nose to the screen and saw this.

  Dear Mommy,

  Zoya is packing my clothes. She says I have to go with the Pattersons. She is even taking a bunch of my things for her church. She tried to take Greenie. I’m not going to be afraid, because I have a plan, and I know that you are going to help me. Please answer as soon as you can.

  I Love You,

  Lucille

  Lucille stopped typing. We bothstared at the screen—waiting. The air shimmered with the intensity of her concentration. I scanned my consciousness for some trace of Veronica, hoping that this might be the moment I made contact. But my mind was quiet, and the screen remained resolutely blank. I wondered if Trudy had indeed managed to send Veronica to final rest.

  Mommy, where are you?

  The pixels quivered, or perhaps that was my imagination. A message did not appear.

  “Luci, you got your nose all day in that computer. Here, why you not read something?” Zoya reached into her apron pocket. She took out a pamphlet and offered it to Lucille.

  “No thank you, Zoya,” said Lucille. Her eyes remained fixed on the laptop.

  “Maybe you decide to look at this later,” said Zoya as she dropped the pamphlet in Lucille’s lap.

  “I don’t think so.” She stared at the pamphlet for a moment before she flicked The Story of the Godless Child to the floor like a dirty Kleenex, pushing it under the bed with her toe. Zoya stopped sorting to watch, but did not say a word. Lucille continued staring at the computer screen.

  “Okay, Milashka, I just about done here,” said Zoya. She had been ripping lengths of packing tape from a huge roll and creating a lattice across the tops of the moving boxes. Her concern was certainly less about keeping things inside the boxes than keeping Lucille out. She was not ready to have her executive decisions about the clothes and toys headed for Witness Central questioned.

  “Darien going to come to move these boxes later,” she said. “I gonna finish packing your trunk tomorrow. You can help and fold up sweaters left in closet and put them on the chair here. Okay?” Zoya exhaled heavily and wiped the perspiration from her forehead with her hand.

  Lucille did not answer.

  “Nice girls speak when they spoken to,” said Zoya, her face stern. She picked up an unused moving box and started to drag it out of the room. Halfway to the door, something in the carpeting caught her foot, and she stumbled. There was a short, awkward ballet. Zoya’s arms windmilled, then her legs flailed and tangled in the box. Her braids came unraveled and fell over her face. She lost her balance and landed hard on the floor. We heard a sharp crack like a dry branch splitting.

  “Ah, my leg. What happen? Oh, my leg it hurt so much!” Zoya was sprawled on the floor. Her leg was at a right angle to her body. A pointy piece of inner anatomy appeared to be about to puncture her skin just below the knee. Her leg was already swelling and had turned bright red.

  Lucille jumped up. “Zoya, what happened? How did you fall? Here, let me help you.” She extended her hand. Her sour expression was replaced with concern.

  Zoya took Lucille’s hand, tried to hoist herself up, winced and fell backward. Her face was white, brows creased and constricted in pain, and her eyes were spinning.

  “Oh, oh. It hurt so bad. I think I broke it. Luci, go get Ms. Charmaine.”

  “Sugar, you stay with Zoya,” said Lucille. Then she ran down the hall. Zoya lay on the floor, her arms wrapped around her body, and slowly rocked back and forth, moaning. The air in the room turned bitter cold.

  Beside Zoya’s twitching foot was the plastic DVD case that must have caused her fall. Its title was Jungle Mayhem, Veronica’s first picture.

  Veronica was present. But she was silent and unreachable. Communicating with her seemed to be as impossible as making Don Paco keep his hands to himself. It was ironic that, as our mutual desire to protect Lucille had grown, our ability to keep her safe had been so greatly diminished. A dwarf-sized dog and a bewildered spirit didn’t seem to have much to offer in the way of parental support.

  Chapter 19

  “Knowledge easily acquired is that which the enduring self had in an earlier life.”

  Plato

  I was in a cage. There were aluminum bars and a lock on the door. Anyone who has spent time in this metal box will realize that “puppy crate” is a euphemism for gulag. I admit there were certain amenities that your average beagle probably does not enjoy. I had a cashmere dog bed with its own faux mink pillow, an assortment of designer squeaky toys and a filtered water dispenser. Actually, the cage was meant to be protective, keeping me from being squashed or stolen while the condo was transformed into Santa’s Las Vegas Village. My crate was in the middle of the salon, padlocked to a marble pillar with a super Kryptonite lock. There was a doggie cam installed in the top right corner. Video was transmitted to Charmaine’s iPhone so that she could monitor me from any location in th
e condo. From time to time, I protested with halfhearted yelps, but no one was paying much attention except CJ. The room was rapidly being emptied of furniture.

  CJ, looking uncharacteristically well-groomed, was directing a quartet of sumo-shaped movers. He was dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt with a collar. He had a clipboard in his hand and was wearing a green plastic dealer’s visor and sunglasses. Since the Weather Channel was issuing blizzard warnings, I guessed the visor and glasses were meant to enhance his credibility as a pit boss. Every once in a while, he walked over to the cage, glared at me and gave the bars a surreptitious kick. On his last visit, he leaned down and hissed into my ear.

  “I don’t know how you got here, you little fucker. But I know you’re my mother-in-law’s dog. That asshole Finkelstein is gonna be sorry he messed with my property. Thinks he’s a player.” Then he went back to business.

  “Okay, I want the three poker tables along the windows. The blackjack, roulette and craps tables go down the middle of the room. The two slots can go over there by the door. The buffet goes in the dining room, and scatter the highboys and cocktail tables around. Let’s get the rest of the furniture out and on the truck. Then you can bring in the gaming equipment.”

  CJ paced the room with the self-important flair of a Hollywood director. All that was missing was a megaphone and a monogrammed folding chair.

  The movers, who appeared to be from an obscure Eastern European country, were methodically wrapping the furniture in blue bunting and carrying it out to storage. They were mumbling among themselves in some guttural language, and it was unclear whether they spoke English. Although they seemed to be following CJ’s directions, their deliberate pace was clearly driving him crazy. He flailed his arms like a spastic conductor in a hopeless effort to get them to step up the tempo.