Phil had thought it was a possibility until he saw the smaller of the two workmen give $20 to some Chicano kids for tacos at Mama G’s. When the boys gave her the twenty-dollar bill, Angel’s mother glanced at the workers. Phil noticed that the look on her face wasn’t his own mother’s usual “I’m expecting to be disappointed” wariness. It was as if Señora Garcia were fighting back her elation at seeing someone she loved, so as not to give it away.
He had a hunch that the short Mexican worker in the ratty clothes was Angel Garcia, and that the tall Mexican worker was Natalia, the First Lady of the United States. There was one way to prove it. It would happen momentarily, when lunch ended and the food trucks left.
He reached into his camera bag and stroked his new 600-mm Nikon telephoto lens. Some paparazzi had little dogs that they carried around with them for security, friendship, and good luck. Phil’s new state-of-the-art lens did it for him. He was grateful that his mother had given him the money for it and proud of himself for talking the guys at Samy’s Camera into selling it to him for $6,500, nearly $4,000 off retail. Soon this lens will make me a fortune and my mother will finally be proud of me, he thought.
By 2:15 p.m., the lunch customers were drifting away and the food-truck owners were closing up. He watched as Angel’s father stepped out of the back of the Mama G’s truck and walked around to the side window. He removed the dishes of salsa and hot sauce on the portable serving counter and handed them up through the service window to his wife inside the truck. Then he secured the service counter against the side of the truck. Inside it, Mrs. Garcia closed the serving window and pulled down a window shade with the Mrs. G’s Tacos logo on it.
Phil wiped the sweat from his brow, took out his camera and slung the strap around his neck. He turned his attention to the Mexican workers on the park bench. As Angel’s father walked up the ramp at the back of the truck, the short worker picked up the grubby Walmart bag, and the two workers got up and started toward the truck. He clicked a few photos of them. From so far away, he was astounded at how much detail his new telephoto lens captured. It even caught something red poking out of the Walmart bag.
He had planned to compare these new photos to the photos he had taken of Angel and the trans woman leaving the White House. He realized that he didn’t need to. As he watched the two workers cross the street and climb into the food truck, he felt certain that the difference between their heights was the same as that between Angel and the trans woman in the earlier photo. The tall Mexican workman was the First Lady in disguise; he would swear it on his mother’s life.
He got a few more shots off before the food-truck doors closed behind the workers. He heard an excited cry from inside: A mother greeting a son she hadn’t seen in a long time? Señor Garcia climbed behind the wheel, turned on the engine, and pulled out from the curb.
Phil hustled across the street, over to his rented Chevy. He jumped into the car and raced to catch up with the food truck. The truck was so colorfully decorated, it was easy to tail, even in heavy traffic.
As he expected, soon the food truck merged onto Interstate Highway 5, heading south in the direction of the U.S.–Mexico Border Crossing. According to his GPS, it would take twenty-five minutes. Today would be the first time Phil traveled outside the borders of the United States. He was excited, yet nervous. He shoved the Nikon camera and mega-lens back into his camera bag, pulled out his passport, and laid it on the passenger seat. He put his hand into his backpack to reassure himself that he had brought along a manila file folder.
He had done his research about crossing the border too. He discovered that sometimes border guards ask a lot of questions, such as “What is the purpose of your visit to Mexico?” They did it to see if they can psych you out and get you to reveal some secret, illegal motive. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he had decided to do the Boy Scout thing and come prepared. The file folder held eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white photos of Pasadena’s historical buildings and landmarks that he took when he was in high school. If questioned about why he was going to Mexico, he planned to show them to the border guards and say that he was going to take photos of Tijuana’s historical buildings and landmarks. He would flatter them about how marvelous they were: the Avenida Revolucion, with its dramatic peace arch; the beautiful Catedral de Nuestra Seńora de Guadalupe; and Caesar’s, the 1924 art-deco restaurant where the famous Caesar salad was invented.
As he rehearsed the names in his head, an idea occurred to Phil: After taking the big-bucks photos of the First Lady, why not stop at Caesar’s Restaurant to celebrate before he returned to the United States? If he got the goods on her, and whomever she was with, he would be able to afford a lot more than a Caesar salad.
Chapter 43
Mexico–U.S. Border Crossing, CA
December 19, 3:30 p.m.
The twenty-five-lane southbound highway from the United States into Mexico was packed with cars and trucks, but at least they were moving. It could be worse, thought Oralia Garcia. The thirty-four-lane highway northbound from Tijuana into the United States was in gridlock. She surveyed the bleak sight through the windshield of the Mama G’s Tacos food truck, where she sat in her wheelchair in the passenger space that had been retrofitted to hold it safely. Her husband Armando was at the wheel beside her.
Oralia was always happy to be driving home on Friday afternoon after a good day at the food-truck gathering in San Diego. Today she was even happier. She didn’t understand exactly why—Angel hadn’t had time to explain—but hidden under the false floor in the back of the truck with her son was a disguised, but very important, passenger. She hoped that they weren’t freezing in the refrigerated compartment. She also hoped that the truck wouldn’t be stopped at the border. In the year that she and Armando had been driving their food truck to San Diego and back on Fridays, the U.S. border patrols going either way had never searched their vehicle. She was somewhat of a local legend thanks to her son’s renown as the hairdresser to the First Lady of the United States and the media coverage of her food truck. She always prepared half-a-dozen fish tacos to give the border-patrol officers when they went through passport control into the United States in the morning, and another batch for when they returned to Mexico in the afternoon. The guards on both sides of the border appreciated them. It worried her that today they had sold all their tacos in San Diego. Maybe it was the unseasonably warm weather for December, but there had been as many customers as on a summer day.
There were only two vehicles in front of them. Soon it would be Armando’s turn to drive up to the booth and show their passports and the special U.S. visa that they had been issued to sell tacos at the Friday food-truck gathering in San Diego. She hoped the U.S. border patrol officer on duty today was Raul Vallejo, the young bilingual Chicano who was usually stationed at Booth 24 on Friday afternoons. In fact, it was because they liked Raul so much that they always tried to drive through border control in the twenty-fourth lane.
But as the truck crept closer, Oralia could see that the duty officer at Booth 24 was not Raul. It was an older man who was definitely not Chicano. His neck was bigger than her waistline; it was red and sweaty from the heat. His face was red and sweaty too, and it was contorted in a scowl. Oralia and Armando had heard rumors that President Funck had begun sending stricter, and meaner, border-patrol officers to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, one of the busiest border crossings on the entire U.S.–Mexico border. Their instructions were to harass anyone Hispanic, whether or not they were U.S. citizens and whether they were heading north from Mexico into the United States, or south from the United States into Mexico.
The officer was shouting at the driver of a pickup truck driven by an elderly Mexican man in a green gardener’s uniform, a tattered straw hat on his head. Oralia couldn’t hear their conversation, but the officer was stabbing his finger at a nearby inspection station, no doubt commanding the gardener to drive his truck over to it for a search. The truck started toward it, smoke trailing from its crooked exhaust
pipe. What if the gringo sent them to the inspection station too? She looked over at her husband. His eyes were wide and sweat was dripping down his forehead. Armando is as terrified as I am, she thought.
The officer glared at the food truck as they pulled up to his booth, shaking his head and snickering, as if disgusted with the bright colors and fanciful Frida paintings. Just as he stepped toward Armando’s window, a phone rang in his booth. He walked into the booth and answered it. They watched as he rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth, seemingly resenting whatever instructions he was getting from his boss. He slammed down the phone and sauntered back out to the food truck. Grumbling to himself, he grabbed their passports and visas from Armando. Oralia held her breath as he studied the documents.
To her relief, the officer wiped his brow on his sleeve and slapped them back into Armando’s hand. “Move it,” he yelled. “It’s like a goddamn cattle drive today! Gotta keep moving!”
Hidden under the plywood false floor of the food truck, Natalia and Angel heard the officer shouting, though they couldn’t make out his words. They held their breaths. Then they heard two stomps of Armando’s foot on the floor of the driver’s compartment. It was the signal that they had been waiting for: They were safely through U.S. passport control. The gears groaned as the truck lurched forward.
“Welcome to Mexico, mi amor,” whispered Angel. They were lying on their sides like spoons, Angel in front of Natalia, his head pressed against her breasts, his butt nestled against her crotch. It was the only way the two of them had been able to fit into the cramped space. Oralia had turned off the refrigerator, but it was still cold. Natalia held Angel tightly in her arms, as if she were protecting a child from the chill.
“No fish in here, but it sure smells like fish,” she said.
“It’s me,” he said. “I farted.”
She kneed him in the butt.
“Yo, chica, you trying to, like, hump me?”
“Want me to?”
“I’m saving it for Raphael.”
“Yeah, well, I’m saving it for Vaclav!”
Natalia sensed that the truck was moving faster, as if it were roaring down a highway. Or maybe the illusion of speed was because now that they were in Mexico, she was free. “I love you, my angel,” she said.
“I love you too, chica.”
Chapter 44
Mexico–U.S. Border Crossing, Mexico
December 19, 3:32 p.m.
Conner was proud of himself for resisting the urge to lean on his horn. Why bother? he thought. His Ford Fiesta was trapped in thirty-four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, among the thousands of cars and trucks that had been waiting for over an hour to cross the border from Tijuana into the United States. If he honked, in fact, it might have the opposite effect of soothing his rage. He could see that most of the drivers around him were poor Mexicans, seedy dudes who must be as pissed off as he was about being stuck here. If he blasted his horn, they might jump out of their banged-up vehicles and beat the shit out of him.
He felt a massive burp coming on and opened his mouth. It escaped with a loud “blllarrrgh” that burned his throat and reeked of hot sauce. How many tacos had he scarfed down while he drove around Tijuana today, moving from one street to the next in search of the Mama G’s Tacos truck? Follow the pink, my ass, he thought.
Conner had felt like a doofus when he stumbled across what they called the Tijuana Gastropark because it had over two-dozen food trucks jammed into one big parking lot. The place was full of hipsters with tattoos, man buns, and nose rings, many of them American. They acted like they’d died and gone to foodie heaven because the trucks sold everything from Baja fish tacos to sushi tacos, Korean BBQ tacos, and even vegan-gluten-free tacos. Plus stuff like hamburgers, pizza, and beer. Thank God they sold beer, he thought. He’d downed a couple of Coronas.
Conner hated hipsters. He hated anyone who was cooler than he was. And he really, really hated the hipster at the gastropark he asked about Mama G’s Tacos. “Sure, dude, I know Mama G’s,” the guy had said to him. “Mama G’s is here every day but Fridays. That’s when she sells tacos in San Diego’s Old Town.” He flashed him a thumbs-down—“Too bad, dude”—followed by a thumbs-up: “Mama G’s is the best.”
From the gastropark, Conner had driven to the border, eager to make it to San Diego and find Mama G and her son. It wasn’t until he had been stuck in this gridlock for an hour that he checked his phone, googled around, and learned that Mama G’s only sold tacos in San Diego on Fridays until 2:30 p.m. Now it was 3:32 p.m., but there was no way he could pull out of the northbound lane. He would have to cross the border into the United States before he could turn around and return to Tijuana. Another two hours down the crapper.
He killed the bottle of water that he had bought at the gastropark. He was about to crumple the cheap plastic bottle in his fist but came up with a better idea. He didn’t give a shit if the drivers around him could see what he was doing. They probably did it themselves when they were stuck here. He unzipped his fly, stuck his pecker into the bottle, and peed. What a relief. That’s the smartest thing I’ve done all day, he thought.
He turned off his motor—no reason to use up gas—and opened his window. The air was hot and stank of diesel. He climbed out of the car and glanced over at the southbound traffic entering Mexico. If that line was moving, he knew it would piss him off even more. It was.
But that’s not what made Conner want to scream with road rage. He glimpsed the hot-pink, wildly decorated Mama G’s Tacos truck pulling away from the Border Patrol Booth 24. Mama G was going south, entering Mexico. He was going north, to the United States.
I’m totally screwed, he thought.
Chapter 45
Tijuana, MX
December 19, 4:00 p.m.
Natalia and Angel waved goodbye to Angel’s parents as they pulled away in the food truck, its tires spitting grit on the unpaved road. “They’re so sweet. Just like you!” said Natalia. She saw that they had been left off at the top of a stark hillside that was crammed with tin-roofed shacks made of cardboard boxes and tires. She noticed women in rags cooking over rusty oil cans spewing smoke and barefoot children playing in the dirt. In the distance, the high-rises of downtown Tijuana were barely visible through a wall of smog. Angel had told her in the truck that his parents were dropping them off at the school his sister ran in the slum where they grew up, a school that he and his sister had attended once themselves.
Angel rushed over to an attractive young Latina standing in the open gate of a wrought-iron fence. She was petite and had his bushy eyebrows and radiant smile. They looked so alike that they could be twins, though Angel had told Natalia that his sister was two years older. He warmly embraced the woman and called to her: “Come meet mi hermana, Claudia!”
“Hola, Claudia!” She walked over to them, surprised to see through the fence that the school was striking, a series of white-stucco buildings with sensually curved lines, boldly asymmetrical windows, and colorful mosaic-tile decorations. The design reminded her of the remarkable buildings by the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi that she and Yvonne, her flat-mate in Paris, had seen on their one trip to Barcelona.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Claudia, hugging her warmly, as if she were an old friend. “How can such a beautiful school exist in a place so not beautiful?”
“It’s thanks to a very generous American woman,” said Angel. “Leila believes that even kids in a Mexican slum deserve an education in a place that will, like, inspire them and give them joy. That’s why she named it ‘Escuela de Alegría!’ It means ‘School of Joy!’”
“Amazing,” said Natalia.
“Take your friend to the studio,” said Claudia. “It’s all yours.”
“Thanks, hermana!” Angel led Natalia across a playground where boys around seven or eight years old, in blue pants and white shirts, kicked soccer balls around. A few girls the same age, wearing similar uniforms, rehearsed dance routines. They all wav
ed to Angel. Some came over and hugged him. “I love these kids,” he said. “I come see them every time I visit my family.”
“It’s so late,” she said. “When do they go home?”
“These are kids whose parents work at night. They stay here overnight during the week. Claudia’s got, like, a little dorm next to her bedroom.”
“She lives at the school?”
“She’s really dedicated. She got that from Leila, the founder. Leila was like a second mom to me and Claudia. The government doesn’t give Leila money for the school. She raises it all herself. I’m now one of her biggest donors. That’s another thing in my life that would have been impossible without you, chica. If you didn’t have faith in me, I’d still be broke!”
“Y’know what, Angel?”
“What?”
“I have even more faith in you now. I mean, you got me to Tijuana, just like you promised!”
She took his arm as they walked toward a white-stucco building emblazoned with a bold mural glittering with patches of broken-tile mosaics. The mural depicted students dancing, the boys in traditional Mexican sombreros, the girls in full-skirted, embroidered ranchero dresses.
“I worked on this mural when I was a student here,” he said. “Now, every year, new students add onto it.”
Inside the dance studio, three walls were mirrored floor-to-ceiling. Pouring through the windows on the fourth wall, the sun’s rays made the polished wood floor glisten as if it were wet.
The First Lady Escapes Page 20