Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  “Isolation for what?”

  “Some kind of infection.”

  Goldie swung to face Rachel. “Hank is in an isolation unit and you didn’t tell me?”

  Two cars went by, their headlights making holes in the dark.

  “I guess I don’t want to face whatever that might mean,” Rachel said.

  “Tell me it isn’t flesh-eating bacteria or anything like that.”

  “They just said infection. I don’t know what to think.”

  “Wound like that, smack dab in the middle of all those inner parts. Can’t be good.” Goldie’s gaze shifted to the sky. A few stars were barely visible above the omnipresent glow of city lights. “So you gotta make this earthshaking decision about this kid right away?”

  “Not immediately. Like I told you, I thought I could keep her with me for a week or so and then the two of us could decide whether to make it permanent.”

  “Like taking a dog back to the pound if it pees on the carpet?”

  “Jesus,” Rachel said. “There’s no way to win with you.”

  “It’s just that I’ve seen some pretty awful stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you don’t even want to know.”

  “What about the kids who work for you? You’re crazy about them.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but it is. For one thing, I’m not responsible for them. If they do something bad, it isn’t my fault.”

  “You helped raise your brothers and sisters. Weren’t you responsible for them?”

  “I sure was.”

  “Your brother was a police officer.”

  “Yep. Shot dead in uniform.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “What about the others?”

  “I got two brothers sitting in prison, even as we speak.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I got two sisters who are doing fine. One’s a teacher.”

  “Three brothers, two sisters, including you, that’s seven. You said there were eight of you.”

  “My sister Flo. She had a kid when she was only fourteen. Hannah. When Hannah was fifteen Flo caught her shootin’ up. My sister tried everything. She even moved to Bakersfield. But that kid never saw sixteen. She got hold of some angel dust and stepped off the roof of a twelve-story building.”

  “Christ.” Rachel pulled her sweater around her as a gust of wind come around the corner of the InterUrban headquarters building. “You’re sure doing a good job of trying to talk me out of this.”

  Goldie turned up the collar of her sweater. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. But I don’t expect it’ll work. And you know perfectly well that if you are hell bent to do it, I’ll help you every way I can.”

  The next morning Rachel called the hospital and had Emma paged. When the doctor came to the phone, Rachel told her, “I want to spend the afternoon with Soledad away from the hospital.”

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Soledad’s eyes were huge and glowing when Rachel arrived to pick her up. The child’s pointed little chin and broad high cheekbones spoke of an elegant sort of beauty in the making. She giggled and shrugged when Rachel asked her where she would like to go.

  “I guess you don’t know about many places around here, do you?” Rachel asked.

  “No, señorita.”

  “Rachel. My name is Rachel.”

  “Su nombre? Ra-shel?”

  “Yes.” Rachel nodded appreciatively, then pointed at the girl’s pants, which were too short by at least a couple inches above her bony ankles. “First we’ll get you a few more clothes.”

  By the time they were on the freeway headed for Santa Monica, Rachel realized that the language barrier was far less a problem than she had anticipated. Soledad knew quite a bit of English but was afraid she would “say it bad.”

  “No matter what, sweetie, your English is a lot better than my Spanish. Maybe you can teach me a little Spanish and vice versa.” It took a while to explain the last two words of that sentence.

  She turned off the freeway and headed for her favorite thrift shop. Rachel bought most of her own clothes there and had seen kids’ clothes on the racks.

  Soledad’s mouth made an astonished O when she realized she could choose some clothes for herself. She headed straight for the girls’ jeans and selected a pair of Calvin Klein.

  When she tried them on, Soledad posed, thumbs in pockets, in front of the dressing room mirror, then rolled her hips.

  “Hey,” Rachel laughed. “You’re only eleven.”

  Soledad grinned. “Almos’ too-elve.”

  Rachel suggested she find two more pair of jeans, and this time Soledad had to settle for L.L. Bean. For shoes she picked a pair of Reebok high-tops identical to Rachel’s. They added a denim shirt and four tees. The whole bill was forty-one dollars.

  Soledad took Rachel’s hand as they walked back to the car. When they passed Baskin Robbins, Rachel pointed at the ice cream cone and Soledad nodded vigorously. “Sí. Oop. Yes!”

  The girl’s simple responses to small pleasures were so contagious that Rachel found herself in a better frame of mind than she’d been in since the first hours in the Angeles. She wished she could tell Hank about the girl. He would love Soledad.

  With two double-dip white chocolate cones in hand, they found the Civic and Soledad held both cones while Rachel eased the car into the street.

  “You want to go to the beach?” she asked Soledad.

  “Beesh?”

  “Sea? Water?” Rachel realized Soledad probably hadn’t been more than a few miles from where she was born until she was brought to Los Angeles. And the coyote probably had not taken the scenic route.

  “Agua?”

  “Sí,” Rachel said. And they both laughed. “Maybe more agua than you have ever seen.”

  And apparently it was. “No es lago,” Soledad said after her jaw dropped and her eyes fixed on the horizon beyond Venice Beach. “Is not lake.”

  “You got that right. That’s the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Ah. Océano.”

  “Yes. Say it again.”

  Soledad repeated the word.

  “Oh-say-a-no,” Rachel said.

  “Sí,” Soledad shouted and ran toward the water.

  “Be careful,” Rachel called. But the girl ran straight into the water, making huge splashes almost as tall as she was.

  Suddenly frightened, Rachel dashed after her. “Wait! It may be too deep.”

  As Rachel reached the water’s edge, Soledad giggled and splashed water at her.

  Finally, with Soledad sopping wet from head to toe, and Rachel far from dry, they headed back to the car.

  It was late enough in the year that the beach was all but abandoned. They passed only a couple holding hands. Both men. Rachel decided to leave that subject for another day. The other person on the beach was a very tall man with what appeared to be a huge live snake curled about his shoulders. This made Soledad’s eyes bulge and she raised a finger to point.

  “There’s no end of nutty people in the world,” Rachel said after he had passed. She circled her finger around her temple. “You’ll have to get used to that if you stay in Los Angeles.”

  They drove east next to westbound rush-hour traffic that had completely bogged down.

  “Why alto?” Soledad asked. “Why they stop?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Just more craziness.”

  “Loco,” Soledad said. Rachel repeated it and they laughed most of the way back to Los Angeles.

  When they pulled into the garage, Irene was standing in the doorway of the glass booth talking to two men. Both men turned, stared, and waved. Gabe and Gordon.

  She parked, and with arms filled with their purchases, she and Soledad walked back to the cubicle. “Hi, you guys.” Rachel was still flushed from laughing. They had to wait while a string of cars whizzed by, their drivers anxious to get home for the weekend
.

  “Well, look at you, dear girl, if you aren’t a sight for the sore of heart,” Irene said.

  “Thank you. And I’d like you to meet my…little cousin, Soledad.”

  “Allo.” The girl bobbed her head looking half embarrassed, half gleeful, then raised her chin and declared, “We chop.”

  “Chop?” Gordon gave a perplexed glance at Rachel.

  “Shop,” Gabe said. “She means shop.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said. “We did a bit of shopping.”

  “The pair of you look a bit damp, as well,” Irene said.

  “We went by Venice Beach on the way home.”

  Irene smiled at Soledad. “Ah, and I’ll bet you liked that, young lady. It must be a grand thing to visit your cousin.”

  Soledad nodded uncertainly.

  “She doesn’t speak a lot of English,” Rachel said. “But we’re working on it.”

  “Have you been to LA before?” Gabe asked Soledad, then asked the same question in Spanish.

  “No,” Soledad said solemnly.

  Gabe looked at Rachel. “Actually, I was looking for you to see if you’d like to go to the Day of the Dead celebration tomorrow. Your cousin might like to come, too.”

  “Day of the Dead?” Rachel had heard of it but knew little about it except that it was some kind of event for Mexicans to honor their dead.

  “Las Dias del Muertos.” Irene said the words to Soledad so smoothly that Rachel wondered if the old woman was fluent in Spanish.

  Soledad’s face split in a grin. “Sí.” She looked at Rachel. “Yes?”

  “There’s a big festival right downtown here,” Gabe said.

  “Is it during the day?” Rachel wanted to do something nice for Soledad, but would going somewhere with Gabe upset Hank? She didn’t want to do anything that might. Especially now. Even if he never found out.

  “Noon on, from what I’ve read,” Gordon said.

  “Afternoon is what I had in mind,” Gabe said. “It’s a great family do. Music, dancing, costumes, if it’s like the festivals in New Mexico. And great food, too.”

  “If you like tacos and quesadillas,” Gordon put in.

  “Authentic, not ersatz,” Gabe added. “No teriyaki tacos.”

  Soledad was clapping her hands.

  Irene wagged her head up and down. “You should go, dear girl. Take the day off. We never know how many days we will have. Enjoy this one.”

  Soledad skipped in a little circle. “Yes. Yes. Yes?”

  Rachel was thinking that the last time she took a day off it hadn’t turned out too well. Plus, what would Hank think? She was pretty sure she knew what Goldie’s advice would be.

  But Soledad’s eyes were so excited, so hopeful.

  Those eyes won. “Okay,” Rachel agreed. “But just for the afternoon. I have a lot of things that need doing.”

  When the others had left, Soledad asked, “The woman, she is bruja?”

  “Bruha? What is bruha?”

  “I think…you say witch.”

  “Good heavens. Irene is no witch. Why do you think that?”

  Soledad picked words carefully from her limited lexicon. “La vista doble…see…mañana.”

  “See tomorrow? You mean see the future?” When Soledad nodded, Rachel said, “Well, Irene does consider herself to be a fortune teller, but I don’t know how much there is to that.” Then Rachel yielded to a sudden whim and asked Soledad, “Would you like to spend the night here?”

  The girl glanced about the garage.

  “I don’t mean in the parking lot, silly. In my apartment.” Rachel pointed upward. “Mi casa.” Even she knew those words.

  “Aquí?” Soledad asked. “Su casa? Your house, it is here? This place?”

  “Yes,” Rachel said. “Sí.” And Soledad repeated the same words in reverse.

  “Okay, we’ll go upstairs and call Dr. Johnson.”

  Soledad skipped beside her up the ramp.

  “Glad I caught you, Emma,” Rachel said into the phone as Soledad explored the apartment. “She’s fine. We had a wonderful time. That’s why I’m calling. I want to keep her for a few days…. We bought some clothes. Yes, I think it will work out.”

  The evening for Rachel was like a trip back to her own childhood—a little like a pajama party, before all the storms in her life had broken loose.

  They had bought everything Soledad needed except pajamas, so Rachel loaned her an old tee shirt. It hung down below the girl’s knees and for some reason they both thought that was funny.

  She called the hospital, but Hank was still in isolation and there was no new information.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Rachel and Soledad were on the sidewalk in front of the garage by 1:30. Rachel wasn’t sure exactly why, but she didn’t want Gabe coming up to the apartment.

  The day was balmy and clear. In her new jeans and a purple shirt, Soledad sat primly on the bench where Rachel often sat with Goldie.

  Gabe pulled his car into the garage entrance, parked in his usual place, and ambled back down the ramp. He was wearing a shirt with thin red stripes, open at the collar. Rachel realized she had seen him only once before without his pharmacist’s jacket.

  When he reached the sidewalk he removed the toothpick he was chewing and twirled it in short, thick fingers. “Hello, little lady. And big lady, too.” He nodded to each. “I called a taxi,” he said to Rachel. “With all the festivities, parking is likely to be impossible.”

  He was putting the toothpick back between his teeth when a taxi rounded the corner and stopped, its tires scraping the curb a little. They climbed into the back seat with Soledad between them. Gabe leaned forward and told the driver, “Anywhere near César Chavez and Olvera.”

  Rachel noticed that his pronunciation was more Spanish than English. Soledad was watching him intently.

  “Ah, el muerto.” The driver eased the cab into traffic.

  “Have you been to a Day of the Dead celebration before?” Gabe asked.

  Rachel shook her head, no, but Soledad said, “I, yes.”

  “I haven’t been to any here,” Gabe said as the driver took a sharp corner, drawing a honk from another car. “I assume they’re something like those in New Mexico, although our Hispanic customs may be a little different.”

  “I barely know what it is,” Rachel said. “I gather it’s something like a cross between Halloween and Memorial Day.”

  “Yes and no,” Gabe said.

  “Los muertos…go to…familias,” Soledad pronounced carefully.

  Rachel pulled a frown. “The dead visit their families?”

  “That’s basically it,” Gabe said.

  “Maybe it’s me, but that doesn’t sound like much fun. The Day of the Living Dead? Like your dead relatives?”

  “Sort of,” Gabe said. “Except it’s a couple days. Technically, the spirits arrive on October thirty-first and leave on November second, although lately it’s the closest weekend to those dates.”

  “This close enough?” the driver asked, pulling the cab to the curb.

  “Fine.” Gabe paid the man, shaking his head at Rachel’s protest that she should pay half.

  The sidewalk was milling with people. Decked out for Day of the Dead, Olvera Street was an assault on the senses—the smells, the sounds, but above all the colors. Wild, untamed oranges and reds. Flowers, from big Hawaiian-lei-like necklaces, to unabashedly gaudy plastic petals, to pot upon pot of brilliant marigolds. The whole area was seething with a proud flamboyant garishness.

  “Wow.” Rachel could barely absorb it all. “Sorta takes your breath away, doesn’t it.”

  Skeletons were everywhere. Some huge, on stilts, some tiny and ornamental. There were dolls in lavish evening dress with skulls for heads, marionettes, puppets, and dozens and dozens of skeleton costumes bouncing along the walk, some above feet shod in black sneakers, others with patent leather shoes. Even some of the food laid out for purchase was brilliantly colored bread crowned with what was made t
o look like bones.

  Soledad ran to a table of bright little skulls in colors of lime, scarlet, gold, and turquoise. She grinned up at Gabe, who chuckled and handed her a five-dollar bill. She handed it to the woman behind the table. “Tres.”

  The woman put three shiny skulls in a bag and gave the girl a fistful of change. Soledad popped a skull into her mouth and held the bag out to Gabe and Rachel.

  Rachel took one tentatively. “What an in-your-face way to deal with death. Eating skeletons, of all things.”

  “That,” Gabe said, “is exactly the point.”

  “It does take a little getting used to.”

  Many people in the crowd sported skull masks, some ghoulish, some silly, with lace doilies, no two alike.

  Gabe, Rachel, and Soledad strolled past shops and stalls. A marionette merchant was working the strings, making a doll—a dark-eyed female in a blue ruffled dress—bow and sway. Soledad fell in love with it. She looked at the price tag, and shook her head sadly.

  “How much is it?” Rachel asked.

  Soledad showed her the tag. Seventy-nine dollars.

  Gabe spoke to the merchant in quick staccato Spanish. The merchant threw up his hands, shook his head, and walked away. But by the time Gabe had turned to walk away, the merchant was back. Soledad watched the two men, her head bobbing each time Gabe spoke.

  Rachel was both fascinated and a little embarrassed.

  Gabe took out his wallet and handed the man some bills. The merchant handed him the marionette.

  Soledad jumped up and down and clapped. Rachel wasn’t sure whether it was praise for his performance or thanks for the doll. “What did you have to pay?” she asked. “I don’t have that much cash with me now, but I’ll pay you back.”

  “No way,” he said, watching Soledad working the doll’s strings. “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

  “Is it fair to ask them to take less?”

  Gabe laughed and dug another toothpick out of a little plastic vial he kept in his pocket. “Don’t ever travel in Mexico or the street merchants will think one of two things: that you’re a dumb, rich American; or that they’ve died and gone to heaven. They’ll probably think both. Bargaining is expected. And respected.”