The Orange Blossom Express

by Marlena Evangeline

  There was something in the decision that gave Maggie a sense of power, and she liked having it. That the choice was hers alone gave her a sense of molding her own life and not having someone mold it for her. Each day she gained strength from this decision. She consulted her own heart and how it was she wanted to live her life and in this careful kind of thinking she came to terms with herself. That she indeed would like to pursue this plan of living, and in doing this she needed, as well, to plan a way to support herself. The two decisions came together like a seam to a new pattern, something she’d wanted to sew all along. And this thing she kept thinking seemed to suit her, so she let the thoughts grow into reality, bit by bit, day by day.

  She loaded up the old pick-up with the walnut table and three of the oriental rugs and sold them for three times what she had paid. With the money from that, she bought several dressers, stripped and refinished them, and sold them at a profit. Within four months she opened her own shop. She had little time for anything except business. She had learned to make money.

  But Maggie found the everyday life of shop life boring, uninteresting, it was not the fun of buying, and moving from place to place, collecting. So she hired Ibarrio to run the shop three days a week, and moved into the large warehouses in Los Angeles where containers of furniture from England or Holland or France were unloaded every month or so, and bought, parlaying the capital into merchandise, parlaying the merchandise into capital. But the grind of daily business seemed slow, too slow, and her imagination always ran ahead to her to a bigger load of antiques, to artifacts that might bring more profit.

  Maggie commissioned a large warehouse in Pomona and brought together an importer and an auctioneer, arranging monthly auctions that kept her attention moving from one item to the next, moving merchandise from one spot to another. The first auction went well, but the second was a financial disaster; she had to recoup her losses. The shipments, she decided, would be a good place to conceal a little grass to extend the line of profit. The profit from grass tripled the profit from the legal business. She acknowledged the risk on a level that served her, leaving her own thinking about the inherent danger in the past, and moving into a different way of thinking about the grass since it was her grass, not his grass, not their grass, her grass, her money, not their money, his money or anybody else’s money. The only kind of money she liked: the kind that belonged to her. Made by her. That kind of good boo money honey. She’d like it now, better than before, now that she had ownership of moving it, selling it, collecting, the green grass money of it. Ownership is like that. Big. Better. Her own.

  She moved a dresser over, scrunching her butt against it, bracing herself on the inside of the van, pushing, until it moved flush against the commode. Maggie slid a few thirty pound costales of pot wrapped in black Hefty bags and sealed with duct tape next to the dresser. Then she threw two rugs on top, and moved a small commode in front of that. It’ll do, she thought, carelessly, closing the van. She lit a cigarette and sat on the bumper, smoking, running a small finger down the side of her Converse All Stars to unlodge a rock. Five hours to Santa Maria, unload, collect money, turn around, that’ll do it. Yes. It will. That will do it. Time to move this stuff across the state. Then she’d be done. Finished. Promising herself, tired of moving furniture, tired, just then of being hot and dusty, tired, just then of money, tired, because she owed more, somehow, than she had, tired that things had ballooned, suddenly, beyond her control, tired, of knowing that it could all fold in a minute, tired of the whole damn thing. And what for, she thought, looking back at the open warehouse full of furniture, beautiful stuff, good oak, deep walnut, nice burled wood, tiger-eye dressers, four poster beds, highboys, lowboys, no boys, rugs, carpets, mirrors, bedstands, old stands, Cola signs, business signs, newspapers, collectibles, somebody’s rejectables, depression glass, depressing glass, carnival glass, perfumed bottles, blues, and purples, and straight-edge razors, and that unicycle that she’d had to have but no one wanted to buy, oh well, she thought, live and never learn, ever, never, never. Stomping out the cigarette she picked up the phone and called Rosemary. Rosemary, she said, I want to go now. Yes. Yes. As soon as I can make reservations. I’ll be back tomorrow. Yes. I have to go out of town for a night, then I’ll be back, and we’ll talk. I’m ready now. I am. She said, being very ready, and sick of business and ready to go to Mexico.

  But maybe, she thought, maybe she should call the East coast and see if those guys wanted some of this good weed for twice the price. Hmmm.

  She could send some furniture back where it came from, yes she could she thought approvingly. Those East coast boys should pay big prices for this good boo, these big buds of Oaxacan, bigger than any Colombian ragweed those guys smoked. Yeah, she thought, those guys would be so blown away by good grass they’d pay, yes, they would. Oh, sure, they got some good Jamaican from time to time but those big pressed bales of moldy Colombian could kill your lungs and thinking they wouldn’t want to pay the price but they might, sure they would, she agreed, they’d pay good money for good Oaxacan.

  So she went inside the warehouse and called him, you know, the man, Kingfish.

  “Sure send it,” he said. “How you gonna send it? In the furniture? Well, I don’t know. I’ve got a friend that might drive it up. You wanta do that? Yeah, I’ll let you know. He needs work, needs the cake, he might do. I’ll see. You sure it’s that good? You wouldn’t put me on now would you, Maggie?

  “No way, no way. See what you can get,” she said. “We’ll work it out. You’ve never seen this kind of shit, really.”

  “You ragging on my Colombian again?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I am, I’m doing that.” And hung up pleased to think this pile of pot would be out of her hair next week and then she could pay the guys that fronted her the load and then she could blow this scene for a while a long while she would just arrange her own little life in her own little way with a little kid and maybe move, maybe move to Santa Cruz near Lucy and Gary and out of the desert or maybe she’d move someplace else some better place but she’d think on it because she needed to. And she thought it was sorta sad in a way but then what wasn’t? It was sad that things didn’t work out with Hank, and it was sad that Patrick was gone, and there were a lot of sad things but who could dwell on them. Dwelling had a habit of welling into the wrong kind of dwelling. Then you had to think in the wrong thoughts. Maggie wanted to dwell in good thoughts, not bad thoughts, so she decided to do so. When the bad thoughts came she’d shush them hush them crush them. The little trick she learned was to replace them with better thoughts. Thinking how things might be better rather than thoughts that thought about how things had been worse. These thoughts fought like two eyes over the same nose. Winking. Blinking. Watery blonde eyes behind thick glasses. Why is everything so blurry? There’s an outline! Where? Oh, exquisite! Beautiful. I can barely see it, she thought. Which eye can barely see? One eye can see how beautiful it is. Even the impression of it is lovely. Yes. Is the impression all that counts? Why can’t Maggie see the details? Only the impression. Is that the right direction? Yes. She thinks so. If she went the right way things wouldn’t be wrong anymore would they? If she went there she could at least find out she couldn’t find out without trying she’d try and go there in that direction, she thought. Then she could do something else besides business, but what? What could she do? She didn’t know what else. Not a clue. So she dragged out a bale of the pot and opened it just to be sure it was as good as the rest, as good as she’d promised, because she’d promised the best and meant it, and it was, the long buds were perfect, sinsemilllas, an occasional fat lightning-bolt seed, all good sinsemillas one or two, spread thick with resin, glazed, the best, wow, she thought, not wanting to smoke it at all, but wanting to sell it because she didn’t even want the money now it was a need like food to pay the bills that needed to eat money don’t think about the risk Maggie, the risk, was something not to think about, she put the risk away on a dusty little shelf, making it si
t, stay, she said, to the risk of it, sit, stay, don’t move, she said to the risk barking in her brain, this is business, and risk is the watch dog, barking at shadows. The money was the food to feed the business that kept needing more and more like some adolescent child with hollow legs that just kept eating. And so she got ready to fix lunch.

  The mailman walked in the warehouse right after she’d shoved the costales back in the corner, and she thought, God, what if he’d been here a second before but he hadn’t and he handed her about four inches of bills and she groaned and said thanks and flipped through them throwing the obvious ones on the roll top desk until she wanted to deal and there it was a letter from Patrick. Joy.

  January 25, 1970

  Berkeley, California.

  Dear Maggie,

  I miss you. I miss Hank. I miss it all. But the truth is that things are alive here. I went to an anti-war demonstration yesterday, a bunch of protesters were involved in a pretty dramatic confrontation. You know me. I watched. But the intensity here is pretty great. Everyone is alive to what is happening in the world and why it’s wrong. Being here makes me feel a part of it, although, I’m not exactly. Not in the way a lot of people are but I know for a fact I need to be here. I’ve met some good folks. I might do a little business here with Hank but on a different level. I’m out of that smuggling scene for sure. But everyone needs some good boo. How’s the ranch? How’s the business? Remember that you promised to visit. So I’ll expect you soon.

  Love, Patrick

  February 2, l970

  Dear Patrick,

  It’s ground hog day, you know, and they say that winter will last another six weeks. The ground hog saw his shadow or something. Myself, I’m ready for spring. I was so glad to get your letter. Yes. Yes. I will visit but I’m going to Mexico first. I’ve decided to adopt a baby. Long story so I’ll make it short. Should leave in a couple of weeks and I’ll visit when I come back. Baby and all. Don’t ask. I’m doing it. So. Well. I’ll write or maybe even call when I get home. Berkeley sounds intense. Too intense. Well. I’ve got business to attend to so adios mi amigo. Maggie.

  Zihuatanejo

  The VW rumbled over the gravel road and dust flew in the window. She waved it away; it was dry like smoke. Felipe wasn’t talking. They have nothing to say to each other. She still hated him. He was such a jerk. She’d already given him tons of money, and he acted like he was doing her this great favor. This was business. Business.

  The gravel road turned off into the landscape, and they drove by stone fences crumbling into tangled green and wild-red-flowers, fences once declaring some boundary, some obscure line dividing the tall grasses, defining the same things in obscure ways. The road forked and Felipe followed the left, up a steep grade and around to a plateau.

  The house, a mansion, old and tangled with vines of ivy had a large veranda that swung out from the mud-colored house; below the wide dirt colored stairs, stood a crowd of children, staring with wide brown eyes. A nun dressed in white sat on a stair with a sun-baked child in her lap. Felipe and Maggie got out of the car. The children were curious, they giggled in bunches around them and then scattered like fuzzy chicks. The nun smiled. Felipe talked and nodded to her. She shook her wrinkled-face, sadly. Felipe talked. She became animated and pointed away and explained something to him with her hands. The children gathered by Maggie. They had eyes that said, take Me. Take Me. Maggie looked away. She could not take a grown child. She would not be able to take a more grown child back home. There was no way to adopt a more grown child. If she found an infant, she could say the infant was her own. Get a birth certificate. Isabel had arranged it. Do that. I cannot have you, she said with her eyes, but they did not understand. To each it was personal; she felt this, guiltily, standing, reasoning why. They will not remember. Someday they will not remember. But this was now not someday; the brown eyes burned into hers like warm charcoals. Burning. Take Me. Another nun came to the porch and listened. She smiled and nodded as the first nun spoke. A child, maybe three, hugged the legs underneath the long white of her cotton frock. A teenage girl walked up holding a child, maybe five, crying with a scraped knee. The child stopped crying when she saw Maggie, gulping his sobs up like breaths of air. Felipe and the nun quit talking. He shook his head. No babies he said. They went back to the car. The baby was supposed to be there, he said so. Maggie was exasperated. The children gathered around the Volkswagen, and seemed bigger still. They loomed outside her window—eyes widening and growing and still burning as they drove away without looking back. Once, yes, once she did look back. She didn’t even feel like complaining. That was a sign. A bad sign. Maybe she should go home, she thought. Then all this effort would have been for nothing. Nothing at all. She won’t even talk to Felipe, he was driving around, skidding like crazy, trying to make her nervous and afraid. Purposely. She was sure he was just trying to make things more difficult. She was hot and tired. The roads were bad. A truck almost sideswiped the Volkswagen, hair-pin turns, dust flew, almost skidding. Felipe was a terrible driver, but she couldn’t complain about the driving. If she could she would. She can complain about a lot of things there, but not driving. That would be too much. She was so depressed. Don’t get her wrong. Maggie still wanted the baby. But she thought it would be easier. Felipe wasn’t making this easy. Not at all. She thought they’d just go get the baby. Go home. End of story. But they were still in his crummy Volkswagon. Driving around. Driving around. Driving around.

  Two Days Later

  Two donkeys twitched their ears as Maggie passed a corral, and moved beyond the old house. Chickens scattered and the smell of dung permeated the ground softened by urine and manure; a dragonfly skimmed the wetness, close to the earth and disappeared into the shadows.

  A monkey moved across a weathered wood rail watching with wide curious eyes. Then he sat uncertainly, his eyes darting back and forth. A small boy leading a donkey appeared on the road.

  “Buenos dias, Señora,” said the child. His clothes held the jungle- dust of his brothers before him. The small donkey sniffed the dirt.

  Maggie and Felipe walked to a small hut, six feet wide and perhaps ten feet long.

  “Señorita, Señorita. We have come to see the baby,” Felipe said.

  Esperanza’s head emerged from beneath a rough piece of fabric covering the doorway, pulling the cloth aside, wondering why these people had come to see her baby. They scrunched their heads and entered. Felipe was Renaldo’s cousin, Esperanza knew, but wondered still why he had come to see her baby. The frame of the hut was made of lean branches, but rot was in the weathered outside wood; the nails were no longer pounded tight, as if the untended planks were pushing man’s presence away, yielding only to rain and the sun and the wind. Small holes underneath the walls suggested creatures from the green world, went, when and how they pleased.

  Esperanza’s baby was sleeping on a wooden cot wrapped in a coarse blanket.

  Maggie looked to Esperanza for permission to sit next to the baby. Esperanza nodded. The baby’s thin-ribbed chest rose and fell. Maggie put her finger on the baby’s soft cheek. Felipe seemed to be arguing with Esperanza, thought Maggie.

  “What is it?” she asked, not understanding the Spanish.

  “She doesn’t want to give up the baby.”

  “How could this happen?”

  “She doesn’t want to give up the baby. I don’t know.” He was annoyed.

  “Why are we here?”

  “I told her the baby would be better with you,” he said angrily.

  “I only want a baby who’s not wanted,” Maggie said. “I would never take her baby. Never. Tell her that. Now,” she demanded.

  “But the baby is healthy,” he insisted. “We could buy it. It will be better with you.”

  “No. Apologize. Quickly.” Maggie ran from the shack, tears stinging her eyes. She felt unbearable shame. Why? Why this? This was wrong. Nothing had gone right. She was horrified by the culmination of events. That she should want to take someone
else’s child was unthinkable. She could be back at the hotel in two hours, she thought, trying to think clearly, without shame, but shame stuck with her, she couldn’t shake it. Then she could catch a plane. She’d never get her money back. Never. Who cared? No one cared about the money now. Maggie didn’t care about the money. Felipe did. But not Maggie. She cared about how wretched the girl must have felt. What must that girl have thought, Maggie wondered, walking quickly over to the hacienda, afraid to quit moving, afraid what stillness might bring. A singular rose bloomed next to the house, but when she picked it, the petals fell, and thorns caught her cotton blouse, the one Lucy had given her, and it tore.

  Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you …

  CHAPTER 30

  Los Angeles, California

  A MAN BUMPED INTO MAGGIE as he turned in the elevator shifting his luggage; she was annoyed. Terribly. He hadn’t even excused himself, she thought, frowning. She moved back against the shiny brass rail, checked her watch, and stepped out into the hotel lobby. The marble floors and tall palms were comforting, she thought: this was definitely California. She saw Gary and ran to meet him, hugging, until she couldn’t breathe, and hugging again.

  “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You too, Maggie. Really.” Gary stepped back and looked approvingly. “You look stunning. Things must be good.”

  “Better,” she said. “Let’s eat.”

  “The dining room here looks fine,” he said. “And I’m on a schedule, naturally, so the less time spent in a car the better.”

  “That’s fine with me.” They moved to the dining room and were seated at a small table. “Did you see him look at us?”