'Round Midnight

by Laura McBride

  Coral looked down at the menu. Her stomach did a small flip. She wished that Engracia worked somewhere else. This casino meant nothing to her, and yet in a way, maybe she meant something to it. She didn’t like being in here. Didn’t like that photo of Del Dibb.

  The menu told the story of the cafe. It had started as a nightspot, the Midnight Room, and in the heyday of the El Capitan, it had been one of the premier clubs in town. Sammy Davis Junior had played there. And Jimmy Durante. Marlene Dietrich had stopped by to see Eddie Knox, and sung a duet with him. They’d kept it a nightclub even after they had expanded the casino, ran small local shows in it: revues of past hits, things like that. After June Dibb retired, her son Marshall had turned the nightclub into a cafe and decorated it with these enormous vintage photos from a starrier past.

  Coral looked around for Engracia. It was 9:10. She probably had a time clock to punch.

  “More coffee, honey?”

  “Sure.”

  “Want a pastry? Tide you over?”

  “No, thanks. She’ll be here any minute.”

  But she wasn’t there any minute.

  Ten minutes passed, then twenty. It was 9:40. Obviously Engracia wasn’t coming. Coral had upended her whole morning, was going to miss Gus’s game, and then just sat here, drinking cup after cup of pretty good coffee.

  “You sure you don’t want something to eat, honey? It’s on me. I won’t charge you.”

  “Oh, thank you. No. I’m going to go. I was really hoping my friend was still coming.”

  “She doesn’t have a phone?”

  “No. But she works here. She’s a maid. Do you know if there’s anyone I could ask?”

  “Well, you could try Arturo. Over at the cashier desk. This is payday, and a lot of the maids cash their checks when they get off.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Coral paid her bill, left a large tip, and walked over to the cashier. Arturo was an old man, wearing a brocaded vest and a shirt with silver tips on the collar.

  “Hi. I’m looking for someone who works here. A maid?”

  “I might know her. I don’t know.”

  “Her name’s Engracia. Engracia Montoya. She got off at nine today?”

  Arturo gave her a funny look.

  “You know Engracia?”

  “Yes. A little. She called me this morning, about five. She asked me to meet her at nine.”

  “Well, she’s gone.”

  “Oh. Do you know where?”

  “She cashed her check.”

  The man seemed to hesitate.

  “I’d really like to see her. I have a gift.”

  The man looked carefully at Coral. Finally, he spoke.

  “She wasn’t wearing her uniform. Maybe she’s not coming back.”

  Coral thought about this.

  “Because she has to give back her uniform if she quits?”

  “Yes. I work here a long time. And the maids cash their checks with me. But when they’re not wearing their blue dresses, sometimes they’re not coming back.”

  “Did you talk with her?”

  Arturo was quiet. He looked down as if he was not sure whether to say something or not.

  “Please,” Coral said. “I want to help her.”

  “I don’t know anything. She didn’t tell me she was leaving. Maybe she comes back tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Did she say anything?”

  “No. But Engracia and I . . . When I see Engracia, I say a prayer. We say it together. Because of her son.”

  Arturo’s eyes were very sad, and Coral felt her own throat tighten. Poor Engracia.

  “Thank you. Thanks for your help. My name is Coral. If she comes back.”

  “If she comes back,” he said.

  Coral was about to leave the casino and hike back across the abandoned construction lot to her car when she realized she had left her sunglasses on the table at the cafe. She walked in, and immediately, the waitress called to her from across the room.

  “Your sunglasses?”

  “Yes. Did you find them?”

  “I have them. On my way. Let me just drop this plate.”

  Coral turned and looked at the large black-and-white photo nearest to her. It was Del Dibb, of course, Del Dibb as large as life, standing with a big grin on his face, his hand resting on the shoulder of his wife, who was seated in a chair below him. June Dibb was a slight woman. Coral remembered the one time she’d seen her, when Augusta took her to Del’s funeral: more than thirty years ago, the day she first learned who her father was. June had worn a hat and sunglasses, and Coral still remembered her motionless small foot in a high heel.

  She looked at June now, mostly to look away from Del. She was very pretty, with curly, dark hair and a long, pale neck. She sat with one knee crossed over the other, and Coral recognized the slim foot in the high sandal that she had fixated on so many decades before. June had her hands in her lap. She was wearing a big diamond ring. But it was the oddest thing. Her hand was so familiar. It looked exactly like someone else’s hand. Like a hand she knew.

  And with a sudden, sickening jolt, Coral realized that June’s hand looked exactly like her own. Long narrow fingers with wide shell-like nails and the wrist unnaturally thin, the bones on the top of the hand visible and the thumb with its disproportionately large first joint. With something like horror or exaltation or maybe just shock, Coral followed the line of that hand, of those fingers, of June’s laughing, delighted face, right to where she was looking: to the third figure in the photo, a man, who looked back at June, and there was no mistaking the feeling in his eyes. The man was Eddie Knox, and here they were: her parents.

  37

  Engracia had stayed in Las Vegas because she could not leave Diego there alone. Juan had to go back to Mexico. It was dangerous for him in the States. He could end up in jail for much longer than a month. And her mother, her father, her brothers, they had not been able to come to the funeral. Juan had offered to bring them, but it was harder than one imagined it would be. They didn’t have passports. They didn’t even have identification cards. There was no way to get them there in time. Her mama could not come with a coyote.

  So the padre had been there. And Juan. And Engracia. And Mary from the El Capitan, with a whole group of maids. And the man who cashed her check. One of the nurses from the hospital came too. And the mother who had given Diego breakfast each day, and Mateo, the boy with the gun. Pilar drove up from Pomona with Maria and Javier and Oscar. When Pilar saw Engracia, she started to keen: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should never have told you to go.”

  And through all of that, Engracia had been numb.

  She had said hello and accepted their hugs, and even answered as to whether she had eaten, or whether she was cold in the air conditioning, and as to how beautiful the flowers from the ICU team were. None of it was real.

  It had been real in the hospital.

  It had been real after she and Juan had said the doctors could stop the machine, after the nurse had explained that Engracia could stay with Diego, could get in the bed and hold her son, but that as soon as he died, as soon as his heart stopped beating, they would have to take him away fast. Because of the organs. Because Juan and Engracia had said they could take their son’s organs.

  It was Padre Burns who said that would be okay. Who said he thought it would help. He said that child-sized organs were so rare, they would probably keep another child alive. Juan had said no, he would not allow it, but Engracia had said yes. Somewhere there was another mother, so she had said yes.

  “No, Engracia. No, not this!” Juan had cried.

  “Si, mi amor. Si.”

  And so she was all by herself in a city she barely knew and hated deeply. Now that Diego was not with her, the street in front of her apartment did not frighten her. The sounds of the sirens, the shouts, people running at night—these felt right now. The world should be falling apart. There should be shouts and sirens and wails in the night. How else could the world be?
<
br />   At first, she had not been able to imagine returning to the El Capitan. So the padre had found her some work in people’s homes. And then there had been the strange day at Ms. Navarro’s house, and after that, she had not gone back to those jobs. She wanted to be home with her mama, with Juan—who was fixing her uncle’s abandoned house for them. He wanted her to return to Zacatecas, to her village. Juan no longer wanted to have his own business and make a lot of money in the States; he wanted to stay on the dry hot land, grow beans and eat tortillas, and play in a mariachi band as his father had done.

  Yet Engracia could not leave Diego, the only American in the family. So she had returned to the El Capitan. She rarely spoke to anyone. She went to Mass every day, and sometimes she went twice. Most days, the padre came and offered her some tea, and they talked about the Mass, or the way it was taking so long to get cold this year, and sometimes, but not enough, they talked about Diego.

  But now it was done.

  She would have to leave.

  She couldn’t face the teacher. She didn’t want to know anything about Ms. Navarro or her daughter or the man with the gun. She didn’t care about a gift. She had called the woman named Coral because the priest had asked her to, and she had agreed to meet with her because she didn’t know what else to say. But as soon as she had done it, she knew that she would leave. She would finish her shift, cash her check, and go to Padre Burns. Then she would say good-bye to her son, lie down on his grave and eat some of the dirt, and she would go home. To her mother. To Juan.

  A few days later, she stood talking with the padre while a sedan idled nearby.

  “I’ve paid them already,” he explained. “They’ll take you all the way.”

  “Si.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “Si.”

  “Engracia, I will pray for you every day of my life. Wherever you are, know this. I am praying for you.”

  “Gracias, padre.”

  The young woman’s eyes filled, and she turned to give him a last hug. Father Burns reached his arms around her, and as he did, he slipped a roll of tightly wound bills covered in a pink casino receipt into the pocket of her coat.

  “Vaya con Dios, amiga. Vaya con Dios.”

  The woman opened the door of the sedan and stepped in. She didn’t roll down the window, and she didn’t wave good-bye. She was heading south. To her familia, to the life she had abandoned, to the row of stucco houses on a dirt road where she would wear a huipil and wrap a reboza over her shoulders, and where she would stay even if her younger brothers decided to go north. Perhaps there would be a day when nobody who met her would suspect that she had ever left, that she had run away and become a mother and had a son, and left him all alone in los Estados Unidos. Padre Burns said that she had not left him: that Diego came with her and would go with her wherever she was, as his blessings for her would, as the grace of Dios would. These things were not geographic.

  What she did not yet know was that she and Juan would have another child, and then another. She didn’t yet know that her youngest brother would go north and go to college, and then would come home and be the doctor who cared for those children. She didn’t know that her papa would die shortly after she arrived in the village, and that she would be with him, and that before he died, he would tell her of his own years in the United States, when she was a little girl, and when all she knew of him was that he sent the money that her mama collected when she made the long walk to Jerez.

  He would tell her that if he had been able to write, and that if her mother had been able to read, he could have stayed in the North. That’s why he had insisted Engracia go to school, even when it was such a long walk, even when her mother needed her help at home. It had been too hard to be away from his esposa and his daughter all those years, to rely on the news that came from other Zacatecans—news passed from one to another, shared carefully with everyone who might someday meet someone who wanted to know. He had not been able to do it. He had been ashamed to come home, to not have enough money, but he was glad he had done so.

  He had said that Engracia belonged to this land as well. He wished that he could stay longer and help her to know this. But now he was going to meet his grandson, and he would hold Diego for her. He would make sure her son knew how much he was loved. He and Diego would have some fun.

  38

  Today I had a brain scan. An MRI.

  It was Marshall’s idea, of course. I have seen lots of doctors, and they suggest different diagnoses. Alzheimer’s. Senility. A form of Parkinson’s. I don’t quite fit any of these. Aphasia. For sure, I have aphasia, though I am not sure Marshall or the doctors understand this as clearly as I do.

  Anyway, there is a new clinic in town. A brain center. And Marshall has given them money in my name, and now I have to do more tests. With the brain doctors. Though I’ve been seeing doctors all along. I don’t mind, if it makes Marshall feel better, though I don’t think these tests are going to help. Maybe there is a medicine for me, but it seems more likely that I’ll be one of the ones that help the doctors figure things out for the next generation. That’s okay. That pleases me.

  I had a good life. A long life. And we all have to die.

  I don’t want to die, though. I wish I could have been like my Aunt Ruth, who died last year at ninety-nine and lived on her own, without help, until just before. But Ruth was extraordinary. Most of us aren’t like Ruth. I’m not. It’s a funny thing. To know there is nothing left but to die. To know that one has already gotten the good life, already missed all the things that might lead to an early death, and still, for life to seem so short. Still to want more. Even with an existence like mine. When I can’t do anything I mean to do. When I spend my days with people who are paid to take care of me. Yet I still like it. Living, I mean.

  I still hear the birds sing. I still notice the sunlight dappled on the table, the way the light moves when the leaves tremble. I still love music. I still have memories. I dream. In my dreams, I sometimes see them all. Del and my father and my mother. Marshall and a tiny, pink-swathed girl. Even if I am not dreaming, even when I am just remembering, it’s all so vivid. My life comes back strongly. So many sounds: music and laughter and tears and Marshall’s toddler voice: “This way, Mommy! Let’s go this way.” The feelings come back. All of them. Excitement and rage and contentment and fear. I’m not ready to give it up. I don’t suppose I ever will be. And even now, it still seems like there must be something I could do, there must be some way to slow it down. But of course there’s not. There never was.

  Helen took me to the appointment. We had to be there early, before seven. And Helen couldn’t figure out how to get into the place, though we could see it from a long way off. A bizarre, curving building, with a metal roof folded in on itself, and the walls appearing to tip, as if it were all about to slide, or implode, or collapse upon itself. No wonder Helen couldn’t figure out how to get to it. It was disorienting to look at. Which is kind of funny, for a brain center. Like when some of the newer casinos piped in oxygen to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke, they said, but really, because it made people feel good, and so it was just one more way to keep them inside the place. Maybe this crazy-looking building makes its patients feel a bit crazy, like they belong there more than they had thought they did. I laughed, and Helen said, “It’s not funny. Marshall told me not to be late.” Which, of course, was funny to me.

  The technician took me into a little room with Helen, and explained that I would have to wear nothing but the robe, and that the most important thing was for me not to move during the testing. Was I claustrophobic? Had the doctor given me something to take? What time had I taken it? Helen explained that I had taken something to relax me at six—I didn’t know that—and also that it was best for him not to tell me what to do. It would be better not to give me instructions. Maybe it had something to do with whatever Helen had given me at six, but this made me laugh too. It was true, of course. Giving me instructions was a disaster.
But then, my mother would have said the same thing. I laughed and laughed. Helen looked a bit exasperated; she was still upset about not being able to find her way into the parking lot, and the technician started reading the notes on his clipboard. Maybe it was notes about me; he stopped telling me what to do.

  His name was Ahmad, and he helped me lie down on a narrow table in a room that was glaringly white, and he placed my head on a pillow, and fit some earphones over my ears, and put something in my hand to hold. It was all very easy. My body didn’t jerk or cramp. I just lay there and he silently positioned me, and pulled a sort of metal frame over my head. Then I heard a small motor, and the bed on which I was lying slid slowly backward until I was encased in a white tube.

  “Mrs. Dibb, are you feeling all right?”

  The voice came through the earphones, but I did not reply. I felt sort of woozy, like I was about to fall asleep.

  “This first test will last about thirty seconds, and you’ll hear some funny noises. Okay?”

  It sounded like a lawnmower, swooshing toward me and back, not quite touching my toes.

  “Good, Mrs. Dibb. Thank you. This next test is longer. It’s the longest one. It will take nine minutes and thirty seconds.”

  He gave such oddly specific times. As if I had a watch or could see a clock. All I saw was white. A white metal frame twelve inches above my head, and, beyond that, a white metal tube, like being inside a fluorescent bulb.

  The nine-minute test was a spring being sprung—twang thump—at regular intervals, and I imagined a circus tent lifting slowly into the air, each twang thump the sound of another tether breaking loose. Twang thump, and a red-striped corner lifts. Twang thump, I can see sky beneath the flapping section. Twang thump, the fabric dances in the wind. Twang thump, round and round the tent, until finally, nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds later, the tent lifts: a soaring, spinning candy cane sphere, bright against the blue sky. And just before Ahmad asks how I am doing, I see a little girl, dark-haired as I was, looking up and pointing at the sight.