The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel

by Jessica Anya Blau

  Finally, after room-temperature mac ’n’ cheese in the cafeteria and two pass-throughs of the nursery where Allie stared at pink and beige puckered babies displayed like giant confections behind glass, Jorge arrived. He had two more of Roger’s employees in tow, Hans and Luis. It was four p.m. They were supposed to have been there at two thirty, but a tractor-trailer jackknifed on the 405, turning the four-lane freeway into a single-lane road.

  Jorge leaned over Allie, who sat in the orange plastic chair, patted her shoulder, and smiled. Luis and Hans slouched against the wall. Luis had feathered-back blond hair and wore a tight T-shirt that showed his pumped-up body. Hans was bulkier than Luis, but also with feathered blond hair. He wore an orange T-shirt under a black suit jacket. Allie thought they looked like they had walked off the set of a James Bond movie, although it was hard to tell if they’d play the good guys or the bad guys. They were almost too well-groomed to be good guys.

  “Sweetheart, what happened to your head?” Jorge asked, and he pointed at his own forehead. Allie reached up and touched the bump. It throbbed like a loose tooth that was being pushed out by a tongue.

  “Oh,” Allie said. “I think this is the least of my problems.”

  Roger aimed his pointer at Allie and bounced his head. After having spent the past couple hours with him, Allie was starting to read his eye-and-pointer language. “You want me to tell them the whole story?” Allie asked, and Roger thumped down on YES.

  “You won’t tell Consuela, will you?” Allie asked Jorge. “I like her so much and I think she’ll hate me if she knows how messed up I am.”

  “No, you don’t look so messed up!” Jorge said. “But this is work, anyway, so I won’t tell Consuela. It’s between us here in this room.” He sat on the edge of the bed with his right foot on the floor, his left knee flopped sideways.

  Before Allie could begin her confession, a nurse walked in. Everyone watched her impatiently.

  “You’re not supposed to have more than two visitors at a time,” she said to Roger. This nurse was small and elfish, with a scribble of brown hair on her head.

  “We’re all family,” Allie said.

  “Oh!” The nurse looked at Allie, surprised. “Are you his daughter?”

  “Yes.” Allie reached out and took Roger’s bound hand. It felt thin, and soft, and boneless. “And these are my cousins.”

  The nurse looked around and assessed the faces: Jorge with his black hair and black eyes, blond Luis, and even blonder Hans. “Very interesting family,” the nurse said.

  “We’re military brats,” Hans said, and he ran his hand through his hair, pushing the feathered locks into a perfect array down the side of his head.

  “Oh yeah?” The nurse crossed her arms and stared at Luis.

  “A different mother in every station,” Hans said, and the nurse laughed a little and finally walked out.

  Allie told the story all over again, including working at Miss Shirley’s, Jonas and his penis, the cocaine in the bread bag (and here she had to confess to her not-dead parents), Jet and his minimal gifts, Billy Idol (leaving out his expansive gifts), the dead bird, and the anxious feeling she had that Vice Versa was currently holding her father hostage while waiting for her.

  “Roger’s right,” Jorge said. “When you call the police on drug dealers, they get even nastier. It’s like starting a holy war. There’s no way they’ll hurt your dad, because they need him to get you, but since your friend Beth is also being held hostage by Rosie—”

  “Sort of,” Allie said. “I think she has Stockholm syndrome now.”

  “Either way, sweetheart, she’ll be the first one dead if the police get involved.”

  “I feel sick,” Allie said, and she slouched down into the chair, her chin dropping toward her chest.

  “This is a no-death situation,” Hans said, waving a hand.

  “Jorge just said Beth would be the first one dead!” Allie said.

  “We will find a peaceful solution.” Jorge peered down at Allie to make sure she was listening. “Trust me on this.”

  “Okay,” Allie said, and when she exhaled she tried to imagine her worries as her breath—a physical thing she could blow out of her body.

  “Do you still have the beeper number for Billy Idol’s manager?” Hans crossed the room and stood by Allie, who reached into her purse and pulled out the eviction notice and the piece of Biltmore stationery with Billy Idol’s scrawl. She looked at them both, then handed the note to Hans. While Hans read the note aloud, Allie crumpled the eviction notice into a flowery ball and tossed it into the trashcan near the door. Another time, she thought.

  “Can I keep this?” Hans asked.

  “No,” Allie said, nervously laughing. “I love that note.”

  “I can see why,” Hans said, and he held it up to the light as if there were some secret code embedded in the paper.

  “If you love Billy Idol so much, why don’t you marry him?” Luis said. It was the first thing he had said since walking in the room. Allie was surprised by how soft and sugary his voice was, like Michael Jackson in the body of Michael Hutchence.

  “I don’t love him!” Hans said. “I admire him. There’s a difference, you know.” Luis rolled his eyes. Allie watched, transfixed. She wasn’t sure if they were lovers or not.

  “Sweethearts, we need to take care of Allie and her father now,” Jorge said. “No more yakkity-yak about Billy Idol!”

  “He gets grouchy when he’s hungry,” Luis said, nodding toward Hans with his chin.

  “I don’t get grouchy when I’m hungry, I get grouchy when I have to pay for bad food, and I had the worst lunch at Mama Mia’s today,” Hans said.

  “I thought it was great,” Luis said.

  “I wonder if Spago will deliver food to the hospital?” Hans asked.

  “We have other problems than what we should eat,” Jorge said.

  Luis scratched his calf and Allie could see there was a gun strapped there. “Do you all have guns?” she asked.

  Hans turned his back to her and lifted up his T-shirt. There was a gun wedged down the back of his pants. Luis opened his jacket and showed her another gun strapped in a holster across his chest.

  Jorge held up his empty palms. “I’m a driver,” Jorge said, “and I have a family. My weapon is my heart. I bring love.”

  Hans and Luis laughed, but Allie liked what he said.

  “Do you have a gun?” Allie asked Roger. Roger trumpeted with a loose-hanging smile.

  “He has no way to discharge a weapon,” Jorge said. “But he likes having one strapped to the back of his wheelchair so that whoever is pushing him has quick access to a gun.”

  “They took down Larry Flynt,” Hans said. “They could be after Roger, too.”

  “Who are they?” Allie asked, and Hans and Luis both shrugged.

  “Allie,” Jorge said. “We have much to do. We must replace the glass on the car, check on your father, return the cocaine to Jonas, free Beth from Rosie, and get you back in school unharmed.”

  “Okay.” Allie smiled. No one had offered to do so much for her since Wai Po had sewn the patches on Allie’s Blue Bird vest, then chaperoned the troupe’s camping trip and set up the tent that Allie and three friends would sleep in (Wai Po had her own pup tent). She also taught the troupe a Chinese folk song so they each could earn a culture patch.

  It was agreed that if someone were holding Frank hostage, they’d be expecting Allie to arrive immediately. So instead of going now, they would go tomorrow, after the (possible) gunman had stayed up all night guarding Allie’s father and waiting for Allie. He’d be tired and edgy, paranoid even, and that would make him an easy target. In the meantime, Allie would be taken to Jorge’s house to eat and sleep. Hans and Luis would take the Prelude to the shop where all of Roger’s vans were serviced.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a limo instead of a van,” Allie said to Roger.

  “Roger prefers vans,” Jorge said.

  Roger trumpeted a
nd beat his pointer down on P, then O, then R.

  “You like the vans because they remind you of porno?” Allie asked.

  Roger thumped on the YES several times.

  Chapter 12

  Jorge picked up limp, dewy, sleeping Jesus and put him in the bed he and Consuela shared. Then Consuela quickly changed the sheets from the Fox and the Hound to Snow White. The kids had only gone to bed thirty minutes ago, after homemade flan for dessert, but were conked out as if in a coma.

  “These are girl sheets,” Consuela whispered as Allie helped her tuck in the corners. Maria was sleeping in the other bed. A pink night-light lit up the room like the inside of a seashell.

  “You could have left on the Fox and the Hound,” Allie said. “I don’t really care.”

  “A girl needs girl sheets,” Consuela said, and she smiled in that big, warm way.

  Allie and Consuela finished making the bed, then Consuela led Allie out of the room and into the single bathroom in the house. There was a Garfield coffee cup on the vanity, which held four toothbrushes and a tube of Crest.

  “I can just use my finger to brush my teeth,” Allie said.

  “Towels are here,” Consuela said, and she opened up the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a thin, grayish towel that had flowers embroidered on it. “Soap and shampoo are in the shower.”

  “Do I look like I haven’t showered in a while?” Allie asked, and Consuela laughed.

  “You look clean enough, but maybe hot water will bring down that knot on your head. And your hair’s a little—” Consuela waved her hands around her own head to indicate the craziness of Allie’s windblown curls.

  Allie reflexively poked her fingers into the curls but couldn’t push through the knots.

  “Are your parents with you?” Consuela asked.

  “My parents?”

  “Your parents,” Consuela said, and she lifted one fist and held the open palm of the other hand below it as if she were holding the bread bag with two hands.

  “Oh, my parents! Yes. Jorge has them. He was going to hold on to them so I didn’t, I don’t know, roll onto them in the night and break the bag.”

  “Sì, sì, very good idea,” Consuela said. “Jorge is very good about these things. When his mother, Maria Teresa Iglesias Paz, died, Jorge carried her around for forty days in a cigar box he had nailed shut.”

  “What did he do after forty days?” Allie looked at their reflection in the broad bathroom mirror. She was pale green under her halo of hair, next to Consuela, whose skin was the color of warm caramel and whose loose hair draped over her shoulder like a sleeping black cat.

  “He drove her to Mexico and buried her in the family plot next to her own mother and father.”

  “Wow,” Allie said, and she suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired, empty.

  “You shower,” Consuela said. “Then go to bed and when you wake up I will make you a chocolate con leche y pan de yema.”

  “Chocolate con leche y pan de yema,” Allie repeated, as if in a dream. She had no idea what that was, but she was certain of two things: (1) her own mother would never make her chocolate con leche y pan de yema and (2) Allie would love it.

  At four a.m. Allie woke up. She tiptoed out of the glowing pink bedroom, down the hall past the family photos of Consuela, Jorge, Jesus, and Maria, and into the kitchen where the red wall phone hung near the tin roll-top bread box.

  The code for long distance was taped to the wall above the phone. Allie used the code, then dialed Beth.

  “Hello?” Beth answered on the first ring. She didn’t sound like she was sleeping.

  “Are you up?” Allie whispered.

  “We’ve been doing blow all night,” Beth said. Allie could hear music in the background, Culture Club, maybe, and voices.

  “Who’s we?” Allie asked.

  “Me, Rosie, Jonas, and some girl named La Star?”

  “La Star? Is she black?”

  “No! God! You’re so racist!”

  “But La Star?”

  “She’s, like, a total hippie chick from Santa Cruz. She’s a naked model.”

  “Like a porn model?”

  “No! She, like, models for art classes and shit like that. Right now she’s walking around naked in between practicing poses for this class she’s modeling for tomorrow?”

  “Seriously? There’s a naked hippie chick walking around your apartment doing blow and Jonas hasn’t pulled out his dick yet?”

  “Jonas says you made that up.”

  “I did NOT make that up,” Allie said firmly, and she felt herself flush with rage. How could Beth not believe her?

  There was silence for a moment. Finally, Beth asked, “Have you met Vice Versa yet?”

  “No,” Allie said. “Every time I think of him I start worrying that he’s shot my father, or is torturing him, or something.”

  “Are you serious? Who do you think these people are? Vice Versa’s, like, a mediator. He just wants to talk to you and get the coke back.”

  “Are you still being held hostage?”

  “Not against my will,” Beth said, and she laughed, then whispered into the phone so it sounded grainy and wet, “I think I’m in love.”

  “With Rosie?” Allie couldn’t help but think this seemed improbable.

  “Yeah. I’ve totally never felt this way about anyone before.”

  “But he ate two large pizzas all by himself then took a ten-hour dump in your bathroom! He carries a gun!”

  “Have you ever hung out with a guy with a gun? It’s really sexy.”

  Allie thought of Hans and Luis. They weren’t sexy to her, but she could imagine how it might be sexy knowing that the person you were with could protect you like that. “Are you sure he’s not going to use that gun to kill me?”

  “Oh my god! I just told you these people aren’t killers!”

  “But the last thing Jonas said to me was something about Vice Versa being a mean motherfucker who would kill me,” Allie said. “Jonas’s words, not mine.”

  “Ah, Allie?” Beth spoke in a sarcastic monotone. “You were, like, tripping on mushroomy-acidy-coke then. Remember? Just find Vice Versa, like, return the coke and bring back my car.”

  Allie heard coughing from Consuela and Jorge’s bedroom. “I’ve gotta go. But listen, a bird crashed through the windshield of your car and smashed it, but we dropped it off last night and it’s getting fixed today, and this guy, this really nice guy in a wheelchair, or, well, in the hospital now, he’s going to pay for it for me and the car will be like new before I get it back to you.”

  Allie could hear Beth talking to someone in the background. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?” Beth asked Allie, and then, before Allie could answer, she laughed. “Sorry, this naked girl, she’s, like, doing these poses where her right foot is behind her head?”

  “Really? Wow. Sounds kinda gross,” Allie said.

  “Oh my god! I, like, almost forgot to tell you Marc called!”

  “How could you forget to tell me that Marc called? What’d he say?” Allie’s heart flip-flopped at the mention of Marc. She hoped he would end up saving her rather than destroying her.

  “He sold the bar—”

  “That’s great! My problems could be over!”

  “No, wait, he’s buying a fruit stand or something down in Emeryville and he wants you to invest with him.”

  “Seriously? Does he understand how badly I need the money?” It felt like a rush of wind blew through Allie’s body. She needed to get the money before Marc invested it again. At the very least, she could save her college career. And if the missing coke was now more than what Jonas owed her (who knew how much Penny did when Allie wasn’t looking and, of course, there was Billy Idol’s share, too) Allie could throw a little money Jonas’s way to make up the difference.

  “Probably not. But listen, I’ve really gotta go! I don’t want Jonas to know we’re talking.”

  “I thought you said I was safe?”

  “YOU ARE,”
Beth whisper-yelled, “but you know, he’s still kinda pissed at you! I’ll talk to you soon!” Beth hung up before Allie could say good-bye.

  Allie quietly returned to bed. She lay awake thinking about Marc until the sun wiped out the pink glow from the room and made everything yellowish-white. How could she still have feelings for a guy who took all her money, left her penniless, and then broke up with her? It was like her urge for Marc was biological—her body wanted it even though her logical brain knew it was dumb. About as dumb as stealing coke from a drug dealer. Although maybe not nearly as dangerous.

  Nine-year-old Maria and seven-year-old Jesus sat across the breakfast table, their chins hovering only inches above their plates, and stared at Allie. Allie reached up and touched the olive on her forehead—had it grown bigger during the night? Jesus said something in Spanish to his mother while holding his gaze on Allie. Consuela replied in fast Spanish, then gave Jesus a little whack on the shoulder before kissing him on top of the head.

  “They go to rich kids’ camp in Beverly Hills,” Consuela said, switching to English, “and all the white kids have nannies who pick them up and bring them home, and you look like one of those nannies, so Jesus is afraid that I am going to leave you in charge while I—” Consuela laughed—“I don’t know where those women who have nannies go all day!” She turned to her son and, smiling, rattled off a few quick sentences.

  Jesus answered and Consuela laughed.

  “He thinks I’m going to go shopping and to the gym!” Consuela said. “I don’t know anyone who goes to a gym! The boys, they go to the boxing club.”

  “Jesus boxes?” Allie looked down at him. He had thin, noodley arms and shoulders that barely passed his jawline.

  “No, Jorge, the big boys! The men!” Consuela laughed again and went to the stove, where a cookie sheet was covered with fresh, warm pan de yema. She put one on Allie’s plate—it was Allie’s second—and ripped another in half that she divided between Jesus and Maria. The pan de yema tasted like sweet bread and was so melty-soft in Allie’s mouth that it didn’t need butter.

  Consuela had chocolate con leche simmering in a saucepan. She got up to stir it every few seconds, releasing the smell of cinnamon and chocolate into the air like a puff of smoke. Allie picked up her mug and tilted it so the last thick drips of chocolate would slide into her mouth. Allie wanted more chocolate con leche, too, but Jesus and Maria were still on their first cup and Jorge hadn’t even come in for breakfast yet.