“I’m planning a corporate push through the Chamber of Commerce, and I’ll revisit some of the groups that volunteered with us last year and see if they want to keep their streak going.”
One by one, the various departments checked in with their updates and the meeting was adjourned. None too soon, since I had a phone message from the mechanic.
“This is Daphne Maddox, the woman with the black Mustang. Did you find the problem?”
“Abbadabba…abbadabba…fuel pump.”
“Do you have the part?”
“No, but I get today.”
“But it will be under two hundred dollars, right?”
“Si…yes.”
“Okay, go ahead and replace it.”
Good thing, because that’s about all I had to last till next payday. Thirty-one years old, living on my own and working in a professional position. And still eating ramen noodles three times a week.
Gisela came into my small office and closed the door, a move that got my attention, since it was standard protocol for personnel issues. Surely she wasn’t going to ream me out for being late for the first time in four years.
“Tough morning, Daphne?”
“The worst. My car gave out on the other side of Bird Road and I had to have it towed. They should have it fixed this afternoon.” I knocked on the veneer desk, since it was the closest thing to wood in the room.
“I can give you a lift after work if you need one.”
“That’d be great.” So if she wasn’t mad at me, why was the door closed?
“Something very strange happened after our board meeting last night, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t…how should I put this…feeling any undue pressure.” She leaned against the door and folded her arms, staring down at the floor pensively. “Marco Padilla wants my support with the board to manage our foundation’s investments, which are in the millions. I found his request…frankly, alarming, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the chairman asks for his resignation should he formally propose such a thing. It’s a blatant conflict of interest. Then he told me you were in a relationship with his niece, who is a partner at his firm, as if that might influence my decision.”
Surely she didn’t think my seeing Mari posed a conflict for the foundation, not when her own husband worked for the chairman of our board.
“Gisela, with all due respect, I can’t imagine why anyone would have a problem with me seeing Mari Tirado. I didn’t even meet her through Marco Padilla. She’s the woman we looked up last spring who was doing community service for felony littering.”
If her burst of laughter was any indication, she didn’t have a problem at all. “You sure can pick ’em.”
“I’ll have you know she picked me.”
Her jovial smile faded. “Which is all the more reason for us to talk about this.”
“You don’t think Mari’s using me to influence you?” As much as I hated the thought, it sure cast Pepe’s insistence I come along on the yacht in a whole new light. At least Mari’s words and actions had settled any questions about her feelings for me.
“Surely not, but I want you to be aware in case it ever comes up that such an arrangement is out of the question. If she asks to speak to you about the foundation’s investments, just tell her it’s off limits.”
That night on the yacht, I’d been so impressed with Pepe’s business ethics because of the way he’d shunned Michael’s millions over a difference in values. Not only had he flip-flopped on that, he’d clearly stepped over a line by approaching Gisela for the foundation’s investments. I didn’t want to think he was acting sleazy, but when it quacks like a pato…
***
Over the past few weeks, I’d enjoyed so many wonderful things about this Magic City with Mari that I’d totally forgotten just how much I hate it!
My rude reminder came courtesy of Bird Road Auto Center.
From the privacy of my bathroom, I glared at my angry reflection in the mirror, amazed that Carlos the Mechanic hadn’t been the least bit intimidated by this look. “Did I not specifically ask him if a new fuel pump was covered under the two hundred dollars?”
Carlos had called his ten-year-old son over to explain in English how the pump itself was what he said was under two hundred dollars, and I’d agreed for him to go ahead and get the part. The labor, he said, was another one-eighty and the towing an extra fifty. Obviously, it was my fault I couldn’t understand his atrocious English, and also that I now had the equivalent of two months’ of groceries floating on my credit card at eighteen percent interest.
It was easily the worst day I’d had in months. Years, actually, since Emily’s leaving had been a blessing in disguise. I was even a little glad Mari was seeing a client in Ft. Lauderdale tonight because she didn’t deserve to be subjected to my bad mood. Besides the issue with my car, I had stewed all afternoon over Gisela’s news about Pepe’s business proposition, wondering if I should say something to Mari to get Pepe to back off. I wouldn’t want to see either of them embarrassed, and a request from the chairman for Pepe’s resignation could have that effect. But then just before I left for the day, Gisela came back into my office to say she’d called him and explained the difficulties, and he’d assured her he understood.
“At least one thing went right today.”
What I needed now was a long soak in a hot tub with a trashy book. In absence of such a book, I settled for a copy of Edith’s AARP magazine, which she’d given me because of a story on senior volunteering. From there, I was drawn to a depressing article about how much a single woman needed to save for retirement. At the rate I was saving, I’d have to work till I was ninety.
A booming voice from the intercom speaker in the hallway startled me so much I dropped the magazine in the tepid water. Whatever Javier said was entirely in Spanish—abbadabba…abbadabba—probably another scolding for someone to move their car out of the circle before it was towed. Edith was right about needing a rule to limit intercom use to emergencies, especially at night.
I dressed in baggy cargo shorts and a T-shirt so I could sit out on the balcony for a while before turning in, hoping there was a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. When I slid the door open, I was hit by the unmistakable smell of something burning.
“What the—”
Several floors down, directly below Edith and Mordy’s apartment, thick black smoke poured from the balcony. Two enormous fire trucks, horns blasting and lights flashing, converged on the street below from opposite directions, scattering those who had already run from the building.
That’s when it struck me what Javier had said. Abbadabba fuego…fire! The building was burning down around us and it never occurred to him to have someone make the announcement in English so we Americans could get out.
I banged on the Osterhoffs’ door until Mordy appeared. “There’s a fire on one of the floors right under us. We have to get out now!”
“Zayin b’ayin!” His favorite Hebrew phrase, something about a dick in your eye.
With me carrying their indifferent cat Marvin, we headed for the stairwell and found it gray with smoke. I pulled my T-shirt up over my face and tucked Marvin underneath next to my bare stomach so we wouldn’t keel over from smoke inhalation.
One floor below, we ran into Ronaldo García, who apparently had returned to his apartment to retrieve a pouch. “Medicina para Isabel.” Medicine for the baby. He took Edith’s arm and walked with her the rest of the way. The Perfect Man.
Hundreds of people from our building and those nearby had gathered on the street to watch as the fire crews brought the blaze under control. Edith chatted with some of her friends from the pool and came back to report that a woman had left a candle unattended and it was caught by billowing drapes.
“Idiot,” Mordy grumbled. “She could have killed us all.”
I was still fuming about the fact that Javier had warned everyone only in Spanish. If I’d been listening carefully, I might have caught enough of what he said to know th
ere was a problem, especially since I noticed the sign by the elevator every single day—En caso de fuego…in case of fire…no use el ascensor…do not use the elevator. But it was unconscionable we didn’t even have a system for emergencies that all of us could understand, and from the grumbling of the other residents, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Our homeowners association would have to remedy that.
When the fire marshal finally cleared us to go back inside, the elevator on our wing was so packed I offered to take Marvin up by the stairs. He got heavier at every floor but at least he remained true to his nature, calm and compliant. Mordy would have said he was too lazy to squirm.
To my delight, their door was propped open when I reached the hall and I dropped my furry load inside, where he immediately collapsed as though exhausted from being carried up fifteen flights of stairs. My arms and legs were burning with fatigue.
“I’m glad this day’s almost over,” I groaned. “It started out horrible and stayed that way.”
Mordy chortled. “You think you had a bad day, you should ask Edith about hers.”
“Mordecai Osterhoff! We agreed we wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“You agreed. Besides, this is Daphne. We’ve got no secrets from her.”
As much as I wished that weren’t the case, it was essentially true, thanks to our adjoining balconies and their penchant for arguing outside.
“Edith had a little run-in with the boys in blue today.”
“It was a misunderstanding!”
“I’ll say.” Now that he’d opened the can of worms, he took his usual seat on the couch, smirking at Edith’s discomfort.
“I went over to Target this morning. Marvin won’t eat anything but Fancy Feast and they have it cheaper than anybody in town. Mordy said he was going to the pool.”
“Which I did,” he interjected.
“Except on my way home from the store, I saw him leaving in a car with another woman. I got so mad…”
I instantly regretted giving Edith back her gun, even though I’d watched her remove all the bullets. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“I yelled at them but they wouldn’t stop, so I followed them up Biscayne all the way to the stoplight by Walgreen’s. I swear it was just a little tap on the bumper.”
“You rammed their car?” Obviously, I had underestimated her ability to surprise.
“Just a little scratch…but when they got out I saw it wasn’t Mordy after all.”
Mordy hooted hysterically. “That’s what you get, you crazy woman!”
“Edith! What did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I lied. I told the policeman it was just an accident…that a bee flew in the car. I wrote the woman a check for four hundred dollars right there on the spot and he let me off with a warning. Four hundred dollars for a stupid little scratch!”
“With intent to maim,” Mordy added. “You’re lucky you aren’t in jail.”
At Edith’s urging, I followed her out to the balcony where we could talk privately.
“What’s wrong with me, Daphne? It’s like I’m turning into a paranoid lunatic all of a sudden. I could have sworn that was Mordy in the car, but when that man got out, they didn’t look anything alike. He was tall and handsome…how could I possibly have thought that was Mordy?”
Adding today’s events to the fact she had threatened Mordy with a loaded gun over a likely wrong number definitely suggested something was wrong. “Edith, when was the last time you saw your doctor?”
“I’m seventy-six. All my doctors are on speed dial.”
“But I bet you haven’t talked to any of them about this, have you?”
“Do you think I’m crazy? Mordy does.”
“I think you should have some tests done. There could be a simple explanation.” I sure hoped it was simple. It had never even dawned on me that Edith might have something seriously wrong with her that was causing her outrageous behavior.
As I let myself into my apartment, I was overcome with sadness at the thought of Edith being ill. I’d be devastated if anything happened to either her or Mordy. Hell, I’d even been distraught when Marvin had taken his header off the rail.
My relaxing bath seemed like a lifetime ago. Sweaty from climbing fifteen floors and covered with cat fur, I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower for my third cleansing on this grubby day.
I’d been glad earlier Mari was busy with a client tonight, but now I found myself wishing she were here. The fire episode had me too wound up to sleep, and all I could think about was my awful day. I just wanted Mari to hold me…or I could hold her. Either one worked. I didn’t even need sex.
Not that I have anything against sex.
I now had something I’d been missing. I had Somebody. Mari and I were in that great space where we were finding out all the special things about each other and doing things we both enjoyed. She might not be ready for being around me on a day like this.
Then again, if she were here it wouldn’t have been such an awful day.
And even if it was an awful day, I didn’t have to be such a jerk about it. That reminded me again of Emily’s parting shot about me being miserable to live with because I complained all the time, the one I’d told Mari about over a romantic dinner on her terrace.
Miami’s not so bad when you have Somebody. I wasn’t miserable when we first arrived, not when Emily and I were making an adventure out of finding our way around. There were plenty of fun things to do, but the grind of everyday life wore us down—the traffic, the relentless heat and humidity, the economic divide, to say nothing of the language and cultural differences. I came home every night feeling like I’d been away at war, and soon we stopped doing those fun things that made living here bearable. Now that I was seeing Mari and getting out on the town again, I needed to let all our great times offset days like this one.
I wondered if she was home yet and how her meeting had gone. Quarter to eleven…hard to imagine she was still with her client, which meant she probably could have called by now but for whatever reason had decided not to. I wasn’t going to get all insecure and possessive, but it was deflating. How do you ignore somebody you’re supposedly falling in love with?
Like I needed something else to worry about tonight. Why couldn’t I just text her? Say I hoped her meeting well and I was going to bed. Nothing clingy about that.
Except I spent the next hour looking all over my apartment, my car and the lawn outside for my phone.
Chapter Sixteen
There were few things I hated as much as admitting my mother was right about something. Always treat everyone with kindness, she’d said, because someday you may need their kindness in return.
Carlos, the Spanish-speaking mechanic, wanted nothing to do with me today. He hadn’t seen my phone and he didn’t have time to look for it.
The last time I remembered using it was talking to Mari yesterday right here at my desk as I ate lunch. I’d turned my office upside down, and couldn’t shake the unwelcome thought that someone from the night cleaning crew had found it on the floor and taken it. What other explanation could there be?
After wasting almost an hour of my morning, I came to grips with knowing I should call my provider to suspend my service. There would probably be a fee for that, to say nothing of how much I’d have to lay out for a new phone if this one never turned up, but I couldn’t just sit by idly while someone racked up thousands of dollars in calls to Costa Rica.
The phone on my desk buzzed. “A call from Banco Primero.”
Odd, it had been ages since I reached out to them for volunteers. But Pepe’s client Juan was the CEO, so maybe he was having his people reach out to me. Something told me he didn’t share Michael’s values, and perhaps this was his way of letting me know.
“This is Daphne Maddox.”
With a marked Hispanic accent, the woman on the other end of the phone introduced herself as a loan officer. Something about a package…asset relief…and a request to
verify my social security number.
“Excuse me, but what’s this about?”
“You applied to refinance your condominium mortgage, yes?”
I had, but not with Banco Primero. “Do you have my loan application?”
“Yes, it has been transferred to me, but I need to confirm the information.”
No way was I going to argue with that. Banks trade paper all the time and I don’t care if it ends up at the First Bank of Cuba as long as it gets processed and approved. I rattled off all my personal information, including the cell phone number I hoped I could keep after the temporary suspension of my service.
A lost cell phone seemed trivial compared to something as big as getting my refinance application through.
“Daphne?” It was Rosa Moran, our part-time information technology specialist. She had the widest eyes and brightest smile I’d ever seen on anyone, which always amazed me, since about ninety percent of her job was fixing technical problems for grouchy people like me. “Guess what I found in the breakroom last night after everyone had gone?”
My beloved phone!
“Oh, my God! I think I love you.” I hugged her with the same joy Edith had shown Mari and me when we brought Marvin back alive from his skydiving adventure. “I didn’t even miss it until late last night and I’ve been going crazy ever since.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I couldn’t call you because…well, I had your phone. I meant to leave it in your desk drawer before I left but then I got home and found it in my pocket. I charged it for you, so it’s all set to go.”
Six missed calls, all from Mari. And two voice mails.
“I noticed something weird though. Is there any reason somebody might be tapping your phone?”
Playing With Fuego Page 15
