The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel

by Jessica Anya Blau

  When Allie put down the cup, Jesus and Maria were staring again.

  “Do they speak English?” Allie asked Consuela while looking at Maria. She had beetle-black eyes and thick hair in two braids that looked like horsetails.

  “We’re Americans,” Jesus said. “Of course we speak English.” He didn’t even have a hint of an accent.

  “Oh! It’s just you were speaking in Spanish to your mom earlier—” Allie could feel her face filling up with a blush. She smiled and both kids smiled back.

  Consuela pulled down another mug and poured chocolate con leche into it just as Jorge, freshly shaved and smelling of spice, walked into the kitchen. Jorge kissed his wife on the lips, then kissed each child on the head. He sat at the table and waited while Consuela gave him a plate with pan de yema and a mug of chocolate.

  “You want more?” Consuela tilted the saucepan toward Allie.

  “Only if there’s enough,” Allie said, but what she wanted to say was yes, yes, yes, yes.

  Consuela took Allie’s mug and filled it over the sink (even though not one drop spilled in the transfer), then returned the mug to her. Allie sipped the chocolate and smiled at the kids, who tried not to smile back. Finally Jesus cracked a grin and Maria started to laugh.

  “Do you swear on your mother’s life that you’re not the nanny?” Maria asked.

  Consuela brushed her hand across Maria’s shoulder. “Hija! Do not talk about her mother, you don’t know anything about her mother! She is not the nanny!”

  Jorge looked from Allie to his kids and burst out laughing. “Sweetheart, do you think we have money for a nanny?!”

  “Maybe Mr. Roger pays for it,” Jesus says.

  “I am your nanny!” Consuela said, and she leaned in and kissed Jesus all over his forehead until he brushed her away.

  “You know,” Allie said, “if you need a nanny, or want a nanny, I would be your nanny.” Allie only thought of this as she said it. But now that the words were out, it seemed like a brilliant idea. She could live with Consuela and Jorge and Jesus and Maria in this little house. Vice Versa and Jonas would never find her here, and she’d learn from Consuela how to be a real mother. Jesus’s bed was comfortable, and if he didn’t mind sleeping with his parents she didn’t mind sharing a room with Maria.

  “No, no, sweetheart, you don’t need to be a nanny,” Jorge said. “Your car will be fixed this morning, we’ll take care of all your business, and then you will go back to college.”

  “You’re in college?” Maria asked.

  “Yeah. I’m off for the summer.” Allie hoped this wasn’t a lie. She hoped she’d be able to pay off her late tuition and, once again, be an official Berkeley student who really was just on summer break.

  Jorge stood and shoved the last bit of bread in his mouth. Allie stood, too. She cleared her dishes, held them over the sink, then leaned to the left and right, looking for a dishwasher.

  “Don’t worry about them!” Consuela laughed. “I do all the dishes once everyone has left the house.”

  Allie paused for a second. She tried to remember dishes growing up. There weren’t any. Glasses in the sink, maybe. Her father would rinse them and stack them on a drainer without really scrubbing them. There had been a dishwasher in most of their apartments but Allie never really knew how to use it. Because neither Frank nor Allie ever cooked, there was only packaging to throw away, white foam boxes, to-go containers. Allie knew that when she had a family, there would be dishes. Lots and lots of dishes. And she would never complain about them.

  “Vamos, Allie,” Jorge said, and he gently took her arm.

  Allie looked down and saw that Jorge had the bread bag in one hand and her purse dangling from the crook of his elbow. Like a perfect gentleman, it seemed, Jorge would carry everything, even Allie’s purse. Even her fear.

  Allie sensed the surfers in her peripheral vision; she knew they were walking behind her and Jorge as they entered the hospital. Normally, she’d turn and check them out, but her post-Mike repulsion to surfers remained. It seemed wrong that one bad guy could ruin a whole category of people for her, but that’s how it was for now.

  When she and Jorge got on the elevator with a crowd of eight or so people, the surfers squeezed on as well. There were too many bodies in the elevator for her to really see them, but she couldn’t help but check out their broad backs and the fringe of blond hair that released below a baseball cap the taller one wore. After stopping at three different floors, the only people left were Allie, Jorge, and the surfers, whose faces she had yet to see. They wore baggy shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts—everything sun-faded into a neutral stone color. They smelled of surfboard wax and sand, as if they had just come from the beach.

  And then one of the surfers flipped a switch on the button panel and a buzzing erupted in the elevator. The cage bounced a moment before settling between floors. Allie put her hand on Jorge’s forearm and the surfers turned and faced them. The taller of the two wore black Ray-Ban sunglasses that he pulled off and shoved into his pocket. It was Mike. Allie’s flesh retracted and her stomach plummeted. It felt like the stalled elevator was actually dropping.

  “You are so, so not black,” Mike said to Allie. “And you’ve got, like, a tumor growing out of your forehead!” Mike and his pal both laughed.

  Jorge took a step so that his body was blocking Allie from Mike. “Do you know these people?” he asked Allie.

  “She sold me pure snow, bean-head, for, like, fifty cents a gram!” Mike said, and his friend lifted his hand so they could high-five.

  “What do you want?” Allie asked. She recalled the thump of Mike’s body when he hurled himself onto the roof of the car. That seemed like a different conflict, a different Allie—so long ago it might as well have been a story she had read in the newspaper.

  “The coke, dumbass!” Mike said.

  “The coke is gone,” Jorge said.

  “Give me the coke, you fucking beaner,” Mike said, and he pulled a small pistol from his front shorts pocket. It looked like a black water gun and Allie wasn’t sure it was real. Mike’s friend pulled out a gun from his shorts pocket, too. It also looked like a water gun, although slightly bigger.

  “Listen to me very carefully.” Jorge’s voice sounded stronger and more forceful than Allie had ever heard it. It was like he was playing a part in a movie. “We don’t have any cocaine. The stuff she had earlier has been sold.”

  “I no understanda you, señor!” Mike said in an overblown fake accent that made him sound more Swedish than Mexican. He pushed the gun into Jorge’s neck and grabbed the Wonder Bread bag with his free hand. “Here’s the plan. Topher’s going to stay behind with you two while I take this stuff to stately Wayne Manor. If you try to come after me, Topher will shoot. What room will you be in, in case I want to come back early for Topher?”

  “Four-twelve,” Allie said quickly.

  “If you’re lying—” Mike removed the gun from Jorge’s neck and twisted it into the center of Allie’s lump—“Topher will kill you both.” The lump throbbed so powerfully it seemed to have replaced Allie’s heart.

  “I will,” Topher grunted. His voice was phlegmy, a man with mashed potatoes stuck in his throat.

  “It’s room eight-twelve,” Jorge said. That was the truth.

  “Eight-twelve,” Mike repeated. Then he lifted his free hand and flipped the switch. The elevator moved toward the next floor. Mike pulled his weapon from Allie’s forehead and shoved it down the front pocket of his shorts. Topher tucked away his gun, too.Allie reached up and touched the half-moon indentation in her still-pulsing lump; she imagined it looked like a giant fingernail had poked her there. When the doors opened, Mike stepped out, leaving Topher with Allie and Jorge. They rode in silence to the eighth floor.

  As they left the elevator, Jorge put his arm around Allie and leaned in toward her ear. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m totally fine.” And Allie was. She was tired of being polite, tired of being scared, tired of be
ing too obedient to insist that Jonas zip up his pants. Wai Po had been right when she said, HAVE MOUTH AS SHARP AS DAGGER, BUT HEART AS SOFT AS TOFU. The only way to get out of this mess now was to use her dagger-mouth and pray that her tofu heart stayed strong.

  Allie and Jorge walked down the hallway with Topher on their heels. Jorge seemed to be ignoring Topher, so Allie did the same. Surely he wouldn’t pull out the gun here. There were people everywhere.

  When they got to Roger’s room, Jorge turned to Topher. “We’re not going to chase your friend,” he said. “You can go, it’s cool now.” Jorge held up his hands as if he expected Topher to pat him down.

  “Nah, I told Mike I’d stay with you for an hour,” Topher said.

  “He’ll never know,” Jorge said.

  “Get in the room,” Topher said, just as a group of white-coated doctors approached. They were fast in conversation, oblivious to Allie, Jorge, and Topher. Allie thought it must be nice to be one of those doctors. Their problems, if they had any, would be so different from hers.

  “After you,” Jorge said, and he held out his hand as if to let Topher pass.

  “After you,” Topher said.

  “No, I insist,” Jorge said.

  “I fucking insist,” Topher said, and he nudged the gun in his front pocket so it poked out into a little pyramid.

  “I’ll go,” Allie said and she entered Roger’s room. Jorge came behind her, then Topher brought up the rear, closing the door behind himself. Allie wasn’t sure what he’d done, but Jorge must have given some sign to Hans and Luis, because they stood in one fluid motion, foot-long shiny silver guns cocked and pointed at Topher before Allie could even take in the scene.

  The door started to open behind them and Jorge pushed it shut. “He’s using the potty!” he called out. “Please come back in a few minutes.”

  “But I’m the nurse! I help him with the potty!” the voice returned. The door rattled alarmingly.

  “He wants privacy,” Jorge said. “Five minutes. Please.”

  Roger trumpeted loud enough for the nurse to hear. She must have taken it as the final word, because the door fell silent.

  “His buddy took the coke,” Jorge said.

  Hans and Luis stepped toward Topher. Luis patted him down and removed the gun. He laughed, high and girly, as he shoved Topher’s gun down the front pocket of his jeans.

  “Is it a water pistol?” Allie asked.

  “Almost,” Luis said. His trilling voice startled Allie every time he spoke. “It’s what you use to shoot a squirrel.”

  “Dude!” Topher said. “I bought that from a fucking Crip. It’s hard-core.”

  “Dude,” Hans said, in an imitation surfer drawl, “the Crips would have nothing to do with a guy like you.” He and Luis took Topher by the shoulders and sat him down into the plastic orange chair. Luis stood so close to the chair that his hip pressed into Topher’s ruddy cheek.

  The bell-shaped nurse entered the room, unimpeded. She looked around from side to side as if she expected someone to jump out at her. “Is everything okay?” she asked as she approached Roger. “You went potty with all these people in the room but you didn’t want me in here?”

  Roger trumpeted.

  “We’re family,” Allie said. She watched Roger point out the letters M-Y-D-A-U- and added, “I’m his daughter!”

  “Where’s the potty?” the nurse asked. “I’ll clean it.”

  “I cleaned it,” Jorge said.

  The nurse stared at Jorge for a minute, then turned back to Roger. “You have a lot of family,” she said, and she administered the errands she had come for, checking the IVs and looking at the openings where each wire entered his body, adding a new bag of something clear into Roger’s left arm, checking his chart. No one spoke. Finally, the nurse patted Roger on his thin hand and left quickly and quietly.

  Allie sat on the edge of the bed. She exhaled, long and slow, until she felt like an empty plastic bag. “How did you find me?” Allie asked Topher.

  “How do you know him?” Luis squeaked.

  “I met the other guy, the one who now has the coke, at a gas station.” Allie turned back toward Topher. “But how did you find me?”

  “Your picture was in the newspaper,” Topher mumbled.

  “I’m in the paper? No way.” Allie had only been in the paper once before, when her Camp Fire Girls troupe was photographed walking in the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. Wai Po was in the picture, too, marching right alongside Allie, wearing a long silk dress she had brought from China to America when she was twenty years old.

  “We saw it, too,” Hans said. “The Metro section.” He went to the counter where the sink was, sorted through the scattered Los Angeles Times, and pulled out the Metro section.

  Jorge took the paper. Allie stood beside him and looked over his arm. There it was, a picture of the bird squawking in front of the broken windshield. Jorge read the headline: “Condor Crashes into Car on the 405.” There was an interview with the guy in the convertible. He mentioned that the driver, “a young woman in a Flashdance-style T-shirt,” had asked for directions to Cedars-Sinai hospital just before the bird hit her car.

  “But how did you know it was me?” Allie asked. “There’s gotta be thousands of Preludes on the road.”

  “Look,” Jorge said, and put his slender brown finger on the photo. There in the corner of the frame, just behind the bird’s left wing, was a slice of Allie’s body, her hand grasping on to the Wonder Bread bag.

  “We’d been waiting by the doors since six this morning,” Topher said. “Mike figured if you went to the hospital yesterday, you’d go again today. No one shows up at a hospital once.”

  Chapter 13

  Jorge drove the van. Allie sat in the front seat and Hans and Luis sat on the bench in the way back. Topher—hands duct-taped behind his back and feet duct-taped together—was in between them. The first backseat could only hold one, as it was mostly open space for Roger’s wheelchair. Allie turned on the radio and sang “Wild and Loose” along with Morris Day and the Time. She often sang when she was nervous. It helped shut down the obsessive thoughts swirling in her head.

  “This is my wife’s favorite song, sweetheart,” Jorge said.

  “Oh yeah?” Allie liked the idea that she and Consuela had something in common.

  “Yeah. I’ll tell her you like it, too,” he said, smiling. “She thinks you’re special.”

  “No way. Like how?” Allie couldn’t recall anyone ever saying she was special. Unless you counted Jonas, who thought she was pretty special when she lifted up her shirt for him.

  “Just special.” Jorge shrugged. “You remind her of herself when she was younger.”

  “Really?” This made Allie feel like she’d better stay out of trouble, stay alive. If there was any chance she’d grow up to be a mother like Consuela with a husband like Jorge and two perfect little Jesus and Mary kids, then she sure as hell didn’t want to die at the hands of Vice Versa (or anyone else!) this year.

  “Yeah, really.” Jorge pulled into the parking lot of the auto shop where the Prelude was being fixed. He put the van in park, cut the engine, and turned toward Allie. “She had a few wild years, but then she calmed down when she realized the wildness was no fun, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Allie could feel herself passing rapidly through this current stage. Wildness was burning out of her like the end of a forest fire.

  Jorge looked out the window and Allie followed his gaze. A Hispanic guy, who looked somewhat like Jorge but bigger, was waving his arms, pointing to a rolled-down garage door.

  “Let’s go get your car,” Jorge said, and he started up the van again and drove toward the garage door that was slowly rising. Once they were inside, the door rolled shut behind them. The only light came from a single bulb hanging on a wire in the middle of the ceiling.

  “The Prelude!” Allie said, and she got out of the van and ran to Beth’s car, which, as far as she could tell in the dim light,
was sparkling clean and had a beautiful glass windshield in one smooth piece. “It looks brand-new!”

  “I told you it would.” Jorge said, getting out of the van. He pulled from his pocket a bundle of bills so big it resembled a giant green rolled sock. “Roger’s cash,” he said, when he noticed Allie watching. Allie wondered how she would ever repay this debt.

  Jorge handed several bills to his bigger twin. “My cousin!” he said to Allie, and he threw an arm up and around the man’s shoulder.

  “Oh!” Allie said. She was relieved to know that she had been right about their looking alike, that she hadn’t just thought all Mexicans looked the same.

  Hans and Luis came out of the van with Topher shuffling like a bowling pin between them.

  “You ready to take us to your friend?” Jorge asked Topher.

  “Dude, I told you, we were supposed to meet at his place and I lost the address,” Topher said. “He probably picked me for this job because I don’t know fuck about him—not even where he surfs.”

  “Of course you know where he surfs,” Allie said. “Even I know that every surfer knows where all the other surfers surf.” Beth had dated a surfer from San Luis Obispo for a while. He didn’t even call his friends by their names but instead used the name of the beach where they surfed.

  Allie turned, walked to the Prelude, and popped open the trunk. Even though she knew the condor was there, it startled her enough when she saw it that she let out a little yelp and jumped back. It smelled oceany and sour, like salted death.

  Everyone, including Jorge’s cousin and shuffling Topher on Hans’s arm, rushed to the trunk and peered in. Jorge removed the empty Tanqueray bottles and tossed them underhand to an open trash can near the office door. The bottles exploded with a crackle as they landed.