Our Lady of Infidelity

by Jackie Parker

  “I know,” says Luz. “Because Father Bill and Mami are afraid if I go there.”

  “Afraid of the campgrounds?”

  “Yes,” says Luz, “they are still.”

  Still afraid, all right. “Afraid of what?” When Luz does not answer, Zoe does not press her. “Now how am I going to get my pajamas?”

  “Pray, hope, don’t worry,” says Luz.

  “I’ll try that,” Zoe says, wondering as they get close to the car wash what else Luz might have neglected to tell her. Is she not a reliable child? Well, Zoe will soon see. Up ahead is the blue neon sign, Immaculate Autos, an odd name, she had thought when she first saw it, and thinks once again. Before she has even slowed down for the turn, she sees the window and thinks for a moment that something is wrong with her vision. The window she spent hours measuring so it would be plumb is now crooked. Comically crooked, like the window of a witch’s house in a child’s drawing.

  “Oh no,” says Luz.

  “Oh no, you’re not kidding,” Zoe says. She looks in the rearview mirror at Luz’s solemn face. “We better go see what this is.”

  Zoe parks the Dart in the space next to Walt’s blue Civic, takes Luz’s hand, then goes straight down the black asphalt walk past the office door, hoping to avoid Walt.

  “We’re not going inside?” Luz asks.

  “Not yet.”

  When they get to the window, Zoe can’t help but laugh. “Wow, that’s weird.”

  “What happened?” asks Luz, bending her neck far to the right. One braid slides down her shoulder and the window looks straight.

  “I have no idea,” Zoe says

  “Did you make a mistake?”

  Zoe runs her hands along the new stucco at the top edge. It has dried nicely. She will have to remove it in order to look at the header.

  “What are you doing here?” Walt Adair asks as he comes down the walkway.

  “The window is crooked,” says Luz.

  “So it seems,” Walt says. His expression is dour but he looks very nice nonetheless, Zoe thinks, the blue oxford shirt, the well-pressed chinos. He pats Luz on the head. “You doing okay?” Luz nods.

  “The header must have been warped,” says Zoe. “I could knock out the stucco and check.”

  “I can’t afford any more of your work.”

  “Oh, it won’t cost you anything.”

  “Like I said. I can’t afford you. I’ve got someone coming to look at it. The whole thing may have to come out.”

  “The window?” asks Luz.

  “You should have told me you didn’t know what the hell you were doing.”

  “I’ll come back when I have some time,” Zoe offers.

  “You’ve done quite enough already,” says Walt.

  “Usually Walt is more nice,” says Luz when she and Zoe are back in the Dart.

  “It’s the window. He didn’t want it up there in the first place.”

  “Yes, he did. That’s why he bought it. And She told him to do it.”

  “Who told him?” asks Zoe.

  “Our Lady.”

  “Luz,” says Zoe, laughing now.

  But Luz is not laughing. Why would she laugh at the truth?

  * * *

  The diner is crowded and noisy, the warm breakfast smells rising above the too-frigid air. Luz looks down at the floor tiles as a tall forthright woman with a shock of white hair leads them to a table for two, smack in the middle of the busy dining room. Too exposed, Zoe thinks, as they sit down. Luz needs the shelter of walls, a back booth perhaps. But all the booths are filled.

  “How are we doing this morning?” the woman says. “Your mother okay?” She hands Zoe a menu.

  “She’s still having tests in the hospital,” Luz says.

  At the table beside them sit two little girls in bright matching short sets, one with striking red curls, their mothers in pastel dresses, bright lipstick, freshly washed hair. The women stop their conversation to look Zoe over. The girls whisper and giggle.

  “And this must be the talented window gal from New York.”

  But before Zoe has a chance to defend herself—and really, what can she say, it’s not my fault it is crooked, it’s some faulty header or stud?—Bobbie has asked for their orders. “Coffee,” says Zoe. “Two scrambled eggs.”

  “Toast?” says Bobbie.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “Rye.”

  “No rye,” Bobbie says and waits.

  “Any kind is fine.”

  “Any kind,” she writes, amused.

  “Luz?” Zoe says.

  “I know what she wants,” Bobbie says and walks away.

  “Bobbie knows me since I am three.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Zoe sighs and looks around the busy room, heads swivel away. They are being stared at. The window, she thinks, and feels her face flush. The booths are full of people who showed up at the car wash to watch Walt’s window go in, the heavyset men wearing baseball caps who are right now peppering her with those humorous looks—they were definitely there. Walt took lots of teasing that day, she remembers, and now look what he is stuck with. Is it her fault? How could it be? She looks at Luz, who appears quite miserable. The whole purpose of going to the diner was to cheer Luz up. Another mistake. At the table beside them, the two little girls lift tall glasses of orange juice, clink them, and laugh.

  “Do you know them?” Zoe whispers.

  “From my school,” whispers Luz, beginning to shiver in the cold of the diner.

  “Are you okay?” Zoe asks.

  Luz nods. What to do now? Zoe could try warming Luz up by thinking. She can cool down a car with her mind, but she has never tried warming a person, at least not in that way.

  “Who are your friends?” Zoe asks. “Maybe we can call one.”

  “No,” says Luz.

  Finally, Bobbie returns and slaps down their plates. They are huge. Potatoes and onions and a generous skewer of fruit surround Zoe’s two scrambled eggs. Luz’s strawberry waffles cover the whole oval plate. Luz looks at it, defeated. We shouldn’t have come here, thinks Zoe. She picks up her coffee cup, while Luz reaches for the syrup. Suddenly, the little girls at the table beside them stand up. “One, two, three!” says the red-headed girl as they turn to Luz and begin dancing in place, a foot-shuffling stomp, their feet tapping the floor, faster and faster. “Amanda, sit down!” says one of the mothers, as they start circling the table where Luz and Zoe sit, running and giggling and gasping for breath. One of the little girls’ mothers slaps her hand on the tabletop. “Amanda! Ruth!” The plates and the juice glasses rattle. “Sit down right now!”

  As quickly as they started, the girls stop their running and clamber noisily onto their seats. There are harsh whispers at their table, giggles, and then silence. No one looks up. No one apologizes to Luz.

  The tables around them have grown quiet. Luz is clutching the handle of the syrup bottle, her eyes downcast.

  “Luz?” Zoe says, but she does not respond. “Want to go?” Zoe asks after a moment. Luz lets go of the syrup and stands up. Zoe signals for Bobbie. Several slow minutes later Bobbie is back with the bill and white take-out boxes. Luz stands, clutching the back of the chair, her back to the girls.

  “Sorry about that,” Bobbie says, raising her eyes at the little girls and their mothers. “Take good care of our girl. And you hang in there, Luz. Your mother will be home before you know it.”

  The heat strikes them hard as Zoe and Luz step outside the diner, the sun glaring off the hoods of the cars in the parking lot, the freeway traffic speeding noisily beyond them.

  “Why did they do that?” asks Zoe, taking Luz’s hand as they navigate the broad diner steps and go back to the Dart.

  “To make fun of my feet.”

  “By dancing?”

  “It wasn’t dancing.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But Luz does know. She knows very well. But no
one believes her, and Luz must not say.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Zoe asks Luz when they arrive one hour later at the Casita of 29 Palms, the first place where they will try to find Michael.

  “I’m sure,” Luz says, stepping out of the Dart. “I want to.” The Casita is small, only twelve rooms, a dusky pink adobe with owl chimneys and turquoise blue trim and a sign for a swimming pool. If only Luz had a bathing suit. Maybe they would let her go in.

  Zoe opens a heavy glass door. A lady behind the counter is talking on the phone. She wears a big silver necklace and bright blue dress and looks up as they enter. “I’m sorry,” she says, “we have nothing.”

  “I’m not here for a room,” Zoe says.

  “Just a minute,” the lady says, turning away, continuing her conversation.

  Zoe looks down at Luz and smiles. Already Luz’s mood seems to have lifted. She has said that she wants to help Zoe find Michael. She wants to help Zoe however she can. She has even told her not to be sad about the window mistake. Luz wants to tell Zoe it makes no difference if the window is crooked. She wants to say Walt did not tell the truth. No man is coming to take it out. But how she knows this she cannot explain. And now she is eager to hear Zoe ask people about Michael, the questions she’ll ask, and what they will say in response. How do you find people who have gone? On the drive to Twenty-Nine Palms Zoe gave Luz a photo of Michael to hold. Luz had looked at it for a very long time. It made her stop thinking of what the girls did again, Amanda and Ruth, and in public. What they do every time that they see her; they do other things too that are bad. But Luz must not think of the girls. She must think of Michael, whose picture she likes. She likes his crossed arms and his plaid shirt. She likes his smile, which is a little bit like Father Bill’s, kind. Behind him is a tree with colors she has not seen, the leaves yellow-gold.

  Because of the picture of Michael, she has almost missed seeing the campgrounds. But the Joshua trees start coming, then the big brown sign for the campgrounds. Her heart beats with happiness. Our Lady would never let Luz miss the campgrounds, and just when she thought that, Zoe had spoken.

  “I was thinking, maybe on the way back from Twenty-Nine Palms we can just scoot through to my campsite and I’ll grab my duffle. Does that qualify as going to the campgrounds? You won’t even have to set foot out of the car.”

  “Okay,” Luz says, her voice very soft.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take all the blame with Father Bill.”

  When she says this, Luz gets very quiet. The Felangela, thinks Luz, who is doing this help for Our Lady and Luz. She tries very hard not to cry, but the sweet place has opened inside her heart like it does after Mass. Then Zoe says, “Do you want your breakfast? That waffle is doing no-one any good in the box.”

  “No, thank you,” says Luz, though the words come out slow. And then Zoe is quiet too. A little while later Zoe announces it, the first motel where they will stop, the Casita of 29 Palms.

  When the lady behind the counter puts down the phone, Zoe says, “I hope you can help me. I am looking for someone.” She searches in her big bag for some papers and shows them. She takes Michael’s picture from Luz. “I would really appreciate it. I’ve driven all the way from New York.” Then she says something soft to the lady, but Luz does not hear.

  “I don’t do this kind of the thing,” the lady says, looking from Zoe to Luz but not at the papers Zoe has spread on the glass-topped counter, Michael’s picture and a piece of pale purple paper with words. “Maybe you should call the police,” says the lady.

  “It’s nothing for the police. He left me,” Zoe says. Walked away from himself. “We’ve been married three years. I’m only asking you to see if his name is in your computer. Or if you remember his face.” Zoe picks up Michael’s photograph and holds it in front of the lady.

  The woman frowns. “We don’t get many singles. Especially not in the summer. Usually couples and families.” Her skin is very brown, Luz observes, shiny from lotion, and with many deep lines that look like someone has pressed in her skin with the point of a pencil.

  “Please,” says Zoe, “he is my husband. Michael Payne is his name.”

  The lady looks at Luz then goes to her computer. Zoe squeezes Luz’s hand.

  Through a big glass door at the end of a hall Luz sees part of the Casita of 29 Palms swimming pool where a little girl has jumped in with a splash and a faraway yell. People Luz cannot see cheer. “Do it again!” a man’s voice calls out, but the girl stays in the water, splashing around near the edge.

  “I’m sorry,” says the lady after she has looked for a while. “No Michael Payne.”

  Michael has not stayed at the Casita of 29 Palms.

  Three times Luz watches Zoe ask the people in different motels at Twenty-Nine Palms the same things. And three times Zoe takes the photograph of Michael and a piece of light purple paper and shows it. No one has seen Michael Payne. No one knows what the purple paper means.

  In the car on the way to the last place where they will look, not a motel but a bar, Zoe says, Luz makes a suggestion. “Maybe Michael was taken.”

  “Taken?” asks Zoe turning around.

  “Escuaderos,” says Luz.

  “I’m sorry,” Zoe says, turning back to the road. “I don’t understand.”

  Luz pauses. She has never spoken these words, words she has only overheard. “Escuaderos take people away in the night, but sometimes even in the day. They take them from anywhere. Even their houses.”

  “No one took Michael, he left.”

  Luz does not understand. Why would someone with such a kind face leave Zoe unless, like the family that Luz has lost in El Salvador, he too had been disappeared?

  * * *

  The Red Palm Bar is dark as a cave after the midday glare of High Desert August. “Can you see?” Zoe asks, taking Luz’s hand. The temperature of the bar is downright balmy compared to the frigid air of the Infidelity Diner. Zoe lets out her breath. There is soft country music, sparse conversation, walls lined with booths, the front aisle too narrow for tables.

  Poor Luz, Zoe thinks, when she sees that most of the booths are filled. They are going to be talking to lots of people. Over and over the same questions. Maybe she should not be inflicting this on a child. Though each time she had shown Michael’s photo and told about him, Luz had been fascinated, standing beside her with her big black eyes, hanging on every word. The last place they went was a dive, the Last Palm Motel. The owner wore a beat-up felt hat, a straggly gray beard, and a bemused expression. He kept asking if Zoe had really come all the way from New York for a man. Zoe showed him Michael’s photo. “Good looking,” he said, “but I never remember a face.” He was getting ready to sell his place, he told them. “I’m pretty sure things have peaked. After thirty years, I can finally cash in.” He seemed relieved. “I’m not a people person. I don’t know how I ended up here in the first place.” He had a hand-written ledger and flipped open the reservation book, turning it so she could read the names, but there had been no barely legible Michael Payne signature at the Last Palm Motel registry. Luz was still studying the names when Zoe said it was time to go. “Woodworker,” whispered Luz. Then Zoe told the owner Michael was a woodworker; the man perked up and gave Zoe directions to the Red Palm Bar. “Guys in the wood trade hang there. If your man is looking for work, that’s where he might find it.” And as they were going out the door he had called, “Good luck to you and your girl.”

  “My girl?” Zoe said, smiling at Luz in the appalling heat of midday. “Did you hear what he said?”

  Luz’s stomach is grumbling, but she doesn’t care. The bad feeling is gone from remembering Amanda and Ruth, and when she thought about Mami she remembered only the last things Father Bill had said when he bent down and whispered softly, “Try not to worry. Mami is doing very well.” And now, soon, before she knows it, the most wonderful thing has come to her: Zoe is going to take her to the campgrounds.

  The R
ed Palm Bar has a long high bar with a string of Christmas lights in the shape of red palms dancing across the mirror. It smells like peanuts and the bad smell of beer.

  They stop at every table, men in backwards baseball caps and dark tee shirts, some with beards. A few women who smoke. The tables smell of cold beer, fried food, sweat. Zoe asks over and over about Michael, questions Luz already knows. She says he is a woodworker and that he might have been looking for work. It is nearly too dark to see the photo. And the flyer makes the men laugh, only a few of them curious. No one has seen Michael Payne or his blue and white van. “But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be glad to make room for you girls right here,” some friendly men say.

  “They are nice,” whispers Luz.

  “Uh huh,” Zoe says. “Let’s get something to eat and finish this later.”

  Zoe helps Luz climb up on a stool.

  “That’s quite a lovely yellow dress,” the bartender observes after he has called in their order. He tells them his name, “Mike Lopez,” and shakes their hands, first Luz’s then Zoe’s. “I didn’t know what was going on between you and my customers,” Mike Lopez says to Zoe. “Looking for her husband,” says Luz. Mike Lopez laughs then puts on a serious face. “Couldn’t you just hire someone?” he asks when Zoe explains about Michael all over again. “I feel like I have,” she says. Then Luz is digging into a basket of fried onion rings and Zoe has downed two Sierra Nevadas on tap and Luz has a soda, a Sprite, which she is not allowed. They split a big plate of barbecue chicken, finishing it all and using half the bar’s napkins. Afterwards, Zoe and Luz go from one person to another at the bar with the picture of Michael and the flyer.

  “You forgot to show Mike Lopez the flyer,” Luz whispers when they are back in their places eating dessert, a brownie sundae Mike Lopez has said is worth the price of admission. “Yep,” he says, when Zoe unfolds the flyer once more. “You are definitely in the right place. That black dot is Infidelity for sure. They’ve got a good mechanic up there. I’ve used him myself.”

  “Bryant Platz,” says Luz.

  “What do you know? That’s him. You know him?” Mike Lopez asks.