“Once around the block until you’re used to the car,” Mrs. Cardenas says, piling into the front seat with us, squashing Julie up against me.
Mrs. Cardenas’s car is like the old blue station wagon. It takes the same gentle hand to keep from bucking. This beautiful model comes complete with jumps and stalls. I know its tricks, so by the time we get down the hill to Woodlawn Drive, I’ve got the feel of the car. Right turn, right turn, up the hill, and right turn again.
“This house with the blue trim—it’s where Dave Lewis and his family live,” Mrs. Cardenas says smugly, adding, “Nice boy, Dave.”
I wonder what time Dave goes to work. He didn’t say when he’d come over.
The car pulls to a smooth stop in front of Mrs. Cardenas’s house, and she beams. “You’re a good driver, Dina. Have fun, and take your time. There’s no hurry.”
She struggles from the car and onto the curb, panting a little. “Dr. Cruz says I gotta lose weight. Sometimes I think he’s right.”
She shuts the door, waves, and I head down to Woodlawn again. Julie scoots over and watches our progress intently. She asks questions about the zoo, so I fill time telling her how kids under twelve can ride on the elephant, and how the little train goes all around the park.
She sits on the edge of her seat, resting her arms on the dashboard and her chin on her arms. As we pull into the large shopping area, she says, “I’ve been here before.”
“Did you live near here?” I drop the keys into my handbag.
“Yes.” She swings toward me and clutches my arm. “Dina, remember I said there was something I wanted to show you? Well, now it’s time.”
“We have some errands to do.”
“After the errands.” She climbs out of the car as though everything had been settled.
Cleaners, first, then shoe repair shop. “How about that ice cream cone now?” I ask her.
“I don’t want an ice cream cone.”
Heat rises from the expanse of cement. “I think ice cream would make us feel a lot cooler.”
“Let’s go to the grocery store.”
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“I’m not in a hurry,” Julie says. “I just know what I want to do.”
“What is it you want to do?”
“I want to go where I used to live.” She’s marching down the pavement, turning into the super-market. The huge glass doors swing wide as we approach and close behind us with a smack.
I drag a cart from its stack and pull out the shopping list. “Julie, you told Detective MacGarvey that you didn’t know where you lived.”
“I don’t remember the address, but I know how to get there.”
“You could have told him that.”
“I didn’t want to. It wasn’t time to go there.”
“And it is now?”
“Yes,” she says. “Now it’s time.”
“Why don’t we call Detective MacGarvey? He could go with us.”
“No!”
“Okay,” I say. “Don’t get so upset.”
The list isn’t long, so soon we are back in the car, the bags tucked on the floor behind the front seat.
“I’ll tell you how to get there,” she says. She sits upright, clutching the dashboard, staring out the windshield. “Turn down this street, next to the freeway, and keep going until I tell you to turn.”
Freeway traffic zooms past, up on a raised level, a purring, swishing, rattling roar. I’m not in that traffic, but it’s invaded my life, and for a moment I wish for the quiet roads of the hill country.
“Here,” she says. “Turn here. Wait! Not so fast! Pull in right here and park.”
I turn off the ignition and stare at the dirty white stucco building in front of us. Curls of paint are peeling from the brown trim at the windows, and the asphalt shingles on the roof are streaked and stained. Occasional outside stairways break the flat monotony, and down at the far end is a sign with an arrow: MANAGER.
Julie is already out of the car, so I join her, carefully locking the doors because of those bags of food inside. I start toward the manager’s office, but Julie says, “No! This way!”
“Don’t we need to talk to the manager?”
She shakes her head. “Come on.”
I follow her around the side and to the back, where sagging carports stretch to the end of the unit. “Just where are we going?” I ask.
“To our apartment.”
“But we’ll have to ask the manager.”
“No. We paid by the week. The time isn’t up yet.”
“You were leaving the city.”
“We always do it that way. Sooner or later the manager finds the keys in our mailboxes. That way there aren’t any questions about where we’re going or forwarding addresses or stuff like that.”
“Why, Julie?”
For a moment she looks puzzled, but she simply shrugs. “It’s this one, downstairs.”
She stoops at the door and fishes through a crack around the sill, coming up with a key. “I always hide my key,” she says, “because sometimes Nancy goes out, and I’m outside and can’t get in.”
“Julie, are you sure we should go inside?”
But the door is open, and she has disappeared into the dimness. I follow her, carefully closing the door, feeling creepy in this dingy apartment with its smell of stale cigarette smoke and bacon grease, with its dusty beige drapes drawn against the sun.
Where is Julie? There’s a small hallway leading off one end of the living room. Two bedrooms, but sounds are coming from the one on the right. I enter in time to see her backing out of the closet.
“It’s here! I knew it would be!” She holds up a square, metal can, the kind cookies sometimes come in. It’s scratched and dented, and the Christmas poinsettias on the cover are faded. She puts it on the one twin bed.
“What’s inside?”
“Something I want to show you.” She pries off the lid, holding it as a shield so that I can’t see into the box. In a moment she has found what she wants. It’s a snapshot. She studies it, then hands it to me.
The picture is that of a man who is smiling, and I see Julie’s face. His nose is long and narrow, eyes wide and blue. He’s standing on a bridge, and a strand of pale, thin hair is blowing across his forehead.
“Is this your father?” I ask.
“We look alike,” she tells me.
“You certainly do. Is there a picture of your mother in the box, too?”
Solemnly she takes the snapshot from me and carefully puts it back. She snaps the lid of the can shut and hugs it to her chest.
“Now we can go,” she says.
“Julie, are there other things in the apartment that belong to your family?”
“No,” she says.
“I think I’d better look around.” I open a drawer of the nearby chest, but it’s empty.
“I told you. They took everything except my treasure box.”
“Why didn’t they take that, too?”
“They decided to leave while I was at the playground. There’s a little playground two blocks down that street out in front. And they just picked me up and said we were moving. Nancy had packed everything. I told them they had left my box, but they wouldn’t go back.” Her voice is rising, and there is such anger in her face that it frightens me.
“Why would they leave this—this treasure box?”
“Because I hid it. Everywhere we go I hide it, so no one will find it except me. There’s always someplace. This closet has some boards loose on the floor. I hid it under the boards.”
She is so intent she must be telling the truth, but she has lied to me before. I can’t be sure. I walk into the other bedroom. The bed is unmade. A pair of man’s shoes are on the floor, a shirt draped over the small chair, cigarettes and matches on the chest. I open the top drawer. It’s stuffed with men’s underwear, some papers, rolled socks in a heap of disorder.
“Julie! Look at all this! Your parents didn’t pack everyt
hing. There may be something here that will help Detective MacGarvey.”
I flip through the papers. A credit card. A photograph. I pull them out. “George Washburn?” The photo is of a smiling family. They’re black. “Julie, what is all this?”
She shrugs. “Maybe we just paid for one week. I forget. Someone else must live here now.”
CHAPTER
11
I shove things back into the drawer as though they are crawly, alive, and biting. “Let’s get out of here! We could be arrested for breaking into someone’s apartment!”
“We didn’t break in. I’ve got the key.”
“Give it to me!”
I grab it from her fingers and run into the living room. I can hear footsteps across the walkway in front of the apartments. I hope whoever is out there is not coming in this apartment!
The footsteps stop. Julie comes up beside me. “Shhh,” I whisper, and clutch her arm.
“Ouch!” she says.
I am frozen into the minute, which goes on and on. The footsteps move down the walk. I think I’m breathing. I think I’m moving across the room. The key. Where am I going to put the key? If Mr. Washburn finds it, he’ll know someone was in the apartment.
There’s a small table with a drawer in it. It rattles as I open it. The table isn’t shaking. I am. There’s nothing in the drawer except a phone book, so I drop the key in beside it and close the drawer.
No! The footsteps are returning!
I tug Julie out the back door, not even looking to see if anyone is outside. We’re the only ones in this parking area.
“You’re pulling my arm!”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to make you hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because we have to get away from this place. We have no business here.”
“You sound like Nancy.”
Here is the car. I can’t find the keys. They’re in my handbag somewhere. What happened to the person on the walk? No one is around now. Is someone watching us from one of the windows? The keys!
“Get in, Julie. Lock your door.”
I’m still trembling as we drive away. It occurs to me, as we double back to the shopping center, that I haven’t noted the name of the apartments, the name of the street, or the address.
“Now let’s go home,” she says calmly.
“That’s where we’re going.”
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad. I was just scared.” Suddenly I remember something she said. “Why did you tell me that I sounded like your mother?”
“Because she’d rush around and get excited when we had to leave.”
“Did you always leave places in such a hurry?”
“Not all the time, but sometimes.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
“But you’re a smart little girl, Julie. You must have figured something out. Was someone chasing your family?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was it Sikes?”
“I hate Sikes. I wish he’d go away. He’s mad because I didn’t die, too.”
Back to the beginning. “Why, why, why?”
“Don’t yell at me.”
This is no time to try to talk to her. I’ve got to watch the traffic. I must calm down. Take a long slow deep breath. Calmly, calmly, nothing matters now. Watch the traffic. Home again, home again, jiggity jog. What am I doing in this car with this child, playing this crazy game?
“I’ve got some other things in my treasure box to show you, but it’s not time now.”
“No, it’s not. Not while I’m driving.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
“Good.” I remember there’s a radio in the car, and I turn it on. Country western. Familiar stuff. It eases me back to Mrs. Cardenas’s house. I leave the car in the driveway.
“Don’t tell Mrs. Cardenas about my treasure box,” Julie says.
Mrs. Cardenas? I suppose it doesn’t matter if she knows or not. It’s Dr. Lynn I need to talk to.
“It has to be my secret for a while,” Julie adds.
“Okay. I won’t tell her.”
I carry in one sack of groceries, and Mrs. Cardenas goes out for the other. Julie slips into the house like a small ghost. Mrs. Cardenas doesn’t see her.
“Where’s Julie?”
“She came in while you were going out.” I hand her the sales slip and the change and put a head of lettuce in the refrigerator.
“Here I am,” Julie says. Sweet smile. No sign of her treasure box. How did she do that so fast?
“Dave called. He said there’s something he has to tell you, Dina. He’s going to come over tonight after work, about eight o’clock.”
“Is that too late? Will it bother Mr. Cardenas?”
“Nothing bothers Carlos, not even his own snoring. Dave said it was important.”
It dawns on me that I don’t have the number of the hospital. There must be a phone book around here. Where have I seen one? I remember the phone book in the dresser in George Washburn’s apartment, and I shudder.
Mrs. Cardenas stops, a carton of milk in her hands, and studies me. “Are you cold, Dina? On such a warm day?
“Cold? Oh, no. I’m fine.”
“You’ve been looking a lot better. I said to Carlos, ‘There’s been a big difference since she’s been out in the sun and has more color in her face.’ ”
Julie is studying me, too. Don’t worry. I won’t give away your secret to Mrs. Cardenas. To me a promise is something to keep.
“What can I do to help you?” I ask Mrs. Cardenas.
“Nada más.” She shakes her head. “There are some books in the living room bookcase. Maybe you’ll find something in there that you’d like to read. Carlos and I aren’t much for reading, but we got our boys some books while they were home and in school.”
Bookcase? I wonder if that’s where she keeps the telephone book. It will give me an excuse to look.
She shuts the refrigerator door and says, “I almost forgot to tell you. My sister-in-law, Angie, is taking me shopping with her in a little while. She’s going to buy some material to sew new drapes for their den, and she can’t make up her mind. She can never make up her mind about anything. Always has to have somebody help her. This time it’s me.”
“Would you like me to drive you?”
“No, no. She has a car. She drives like her head is somewhere else, but I pray a lot, and we don’t run into anybody. I just want you girls to know that I’ll be gone for a couple of hours. You’ll be all right, won’t you? The doctors said I don’t have to be with you every minute.”
“We’ll be fine,” I tell her.
“Help yourself to whatever you want for lunch. There are still some of Carmen’s empanadas in the refrigerator.
I sit on the floor in front of the built-in bookcase. On the lower shelf, in a brown vinyl cover to make it look acceptable in the living room, is what I’m searching for—the phone book.
Mrs. Cardenas and Julie are chatting in the kitchen. I quickly look up the number of the hospital. I should have thought. No pencil or paper. I’ll memorize it. I go over and over the number in my mind as I slide the phone book back into its place.
“Why are you just staring at those books?”
I jump. “Julie! I didn’t hear you come up behind me.”
“You’re just staring at those books. Are you going to read one of them?”
I reach up and pull down Tom Sawyer. “Here’s one you’d like. I could read it to you.” The idea surprises me, even as I say the words. But it’s a good idea. Sharing a book might make Julie more open with me. Maybe we can talk more about the things that have happened to her.
“That doesn’t look like a book for children. It looks like those other books.”
There aren’t many books in the case, and most of them have the same inexpensive binding. Part of a set: Alcott, Twain, Dickens—I always hated Dickens, because the children in his stories were so
abused. I only read his novels that were class assignments, and all the time I was reading, I had such a miserable feeling of frustration.
“Does that story have a horse in it or a ghost in it?” Julie asks.
“There are lots of good stories that don’t have horses or ghosts in them.”
“When are we going to read it?”
“How about this afternoon?” Suddenly I am so tired. If there is a sandman, I think he’s more like a cat burglar, creeping up behind me on dark, softly padded feet, smothering me in a blanket of exhaustion so heavy my head can hardly support the weight. My arms and legs feel limp, no help whatsoever. “Maybe I can take a nap first,” I add.
“All right,” she says. “First you sleep.” She looks pleased. I guess she likes the idea of being read to after all.
How am I going to make that phone call? Julie will hear me. Mrs. Cardenas will hear me. There has to be some way. But what is it?
Mrs. Cardenas comes in carrying her handbag. “Angie is always late, too. Drives like that and still is late.”
I climb to my feet. “I’m going to read Tom Sawyer to Julie.
“¡Muy bien! There’s a nice breeze right now. You might like to sit on the porch while you read.”
She’s given me a terrific idea. “Why don’t we go out there now while we wait for your sister-in-law?”
“It’s a little warm out there for me,” she says. Then she chuckles. “But think how Angie will feel when she comes and we’re all out there waiting for her. I hope she’ll feel guilty about being late.”
She and I settle into the webbed chairs. Julie sits on the steps. It’s hard to sit still. The lake is silvery gray in the sun, and heat shimmers up from the street. I lift my face to the breeze that riffles across the porch.
“We’re going to have a hot summer,” Mrs. Cardenas says. She fans herself with her handbag. “Clouds are building up over to the west. Maybe we’ll have rain. We need it.”
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.” I get up slowly, hoping my plan will work, hoping I’ll have enough time. Julie stays where she is. Mrs. Cardenas keeps fanning.
Into the house, quickly, quickly. The phone is in their bedroom. The strange feeling of another person’s room, the fragrance of the two people who have lived here for many years, making this their own domain. I feel like a trespasser. The number is clear in my mind, but the phone dial is so slow. The operator at the hospital answers.
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