Wanted

by Heidi Ayarbe

  “Did you see Lillian?” I ask. I get my phone out to dial her number.

  “We went to Urgent Care.” Mr. Mendez scowls, deep creases above his nose. “It’s closer, you know. Everybody there had the flu. But this is different. We don’t go to Urgent Care for a flu. He hardly looked at her. She needs more tests.”

  “Tests. Heart tests. Blood tests. Pee tests. So we spend a thousand dollars to see my heart dance? Stupid,” Mrs. Mendez says. “That is money for the restaurant.”

  “We’ll get the money back.” Mr. Mendez shakes his head. “I think it’s more than a flu.”

  “What about heading to the ER? Can’t you just check in there?”

  Mr. Mendez bristles. “We pay for our doctors.”

  I nod. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m just tired. So he worry. Is normal. Work is hard.”

  I picture her bent over greasy Kettle chip carpet stains; my stomach aches.

  “You’re tired all the time,” Mr. Mendez says. “You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. You’re sick.”

  Mrs. Mendez smiles. “Efficient. You don’t have to feed me no more.”

  “No me parece chistoso . . . ni un poquito.”

  Moch peeks out of his bedroom, sees it’s me, then hides away again. I hand Mr. Mendez some papers. “Homework. I picked it up for Moch.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. Mendez goes to knock on Moch’s bedroom door, pauses, drops his fist, and comes back to the living room. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  I nod. “Are you sure I can’t call Lillian? She can do something. Maybe we can get dinner for you?”

  Mrs. Mendez laughs. “Her cooking put me in the tomb. No, gracias.”

  I kneel beside her and kiss her forehead, salty with sweat. “Are you sure?”

  “Go. Come back next week. With Liliana. We eat real food then.”

  I don’t stand up.

  “¡Andale, Mija!”

  “Yee-haw!” I say.

  She laughs. “Silly American girl.” She cups her hands on my chin. “Don’t give up on Mocho. You know why we call him Mocho?”

  I shake my head, embarrassed, again, that I don’t know my Spanish.

  “In Mexico, mocho is for someone who is very, how do you say, a big fan of God.”

  “A fanatic.” My mom.

  “Yes. Fan. Anyway, Mocho give mass to us every Sunday when he is a boy. Every Sunday, he call himself Padre Emilio. So my mama see him and say, ‘Qué muchacho tan mocho.’ Mocho stick to him. He’s no more Emilio.” She sits up and whispers in my ear. “He still wear Santo Pablo, patron santo of writers, on his chain.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’s why I tell you. You’re a good friend.”

  “Mrs. Mendez, please go to the clinic. Maybe Lillian can have a look at you. She can recommend doctors.” I clear my throat. “That have payment plans. So you can just get a good checkup.” I wait for Mr. Mendez to get upset, but he just sits in the recliner, rocking back and forth, hypnotic. Dazed.

  She throws her arm up in the air. “Bah. I prefer my restaurant. ¡Andale!”

  “Okay. Okay.” I leave and work my way around the house and knock on Moch’s window.

  He pulls the curtains to the side and opens the window. “¿Qué?”

  “Is your friend okay?” I ask. “The one from the field.” I can’t get the sound of the bat cracking on his head out of my mind. It’s the only thing I hear.

  Moch shakes his head, the curtain slipping back into place.

  I drive away. The warmth of Mrs. Mendez’s callused hand on my face has been replaced by an icy feeling in my stomach. They have spent so much time working and saving and working and saving. She’s got to get better.

  Where will she get the money for those tests? I hear Lillian ranting enough to know that a few tests translates to thousands of dollars.

  Thousands of dollars.

  Where?

  The Super Bowl. No. No more bets.

  What about Moch?

  No. To ask him to get more money would mean more deals. . . .

  And maybe there’s hope for Mocho. Maybe he’s not lost. Maybe Mrs. Mendez is just tired—pregnant. Whatever. Maybe she doesn’t need those tests.

  Maybe Mrs. Mendez and everybody’s just fine.

  Mrs. Mendez doesn’t look fine.

  Moch is fine. Maybe . . .

  Maybe I should stop trying to figure out Mocho’s life for him and worry about my own.

  Lost: Hope. Looking to belong, survive.

  Chapter 22

  “IT’S SUPER BOWL SUNDAY,”

  Josh says. It’s just hanging there—like a helium balloon we can bring down and hold on to. We’ve worked out a good bet. Almost a sure thing.

  Ab-stee-nance. Mrs. Overland’s southern drawl creeps into my brain.

  But this is really, truly, almost a sure thing. It’s like betting with a condom.

  I need to keep Planned Parenthood out of my betting vocab.

  The week was nuts. The Cardinals, who began the season as a hundred to one for winning the Super Bowl, have now become the popular underdog, which kind of messes up my spread. Sometimes hopeful bets turn out—but when an entire nation gets hopeful, it messes up the balance of things.

  I don’t have any cash to bet.

  “Super Bowl Sunday.” He lowers his voice. “You’ve gone back to bench warming. You’re a totally different person when you’re in the game, Michal.”

  “Are you really going to do a whole ‘play the game’ analogy?”

  “Totally.” I can hear the grin in his voice. “Ready? You now: ass splinters, bench warming, Pay-per-view spectator, living in the safety zone, perma-time-out. Shall I continue?”

  “Here’s the deal. A friend needs money for some tests. Medical stuff.”

  “Well, that’s even better! We can call it a gamble-thon. Think about it, Michal. This is the essence of Babylonia—like a Robin Hood gambling enterprise. We’ll take the winnings from our last bet and invest.”

  “I already invested those winnings. In my credit-card bills. I buy a lot of—” Why do I have to justify my clothes and my credit-card debts and all the crap I spend my money on?

  “No problem. I’ve got mine—three hundred seventy plus. Okay. Less. Almost three hundred. Um. Two hundred and something.” He clears his throat. “Can, um, we bet more than we have in hand? This Leonard guy—”

  “Yes,” I say. “We can.”

  “Perfect. Babylonia’s a team. So we pool our money—”

  “That we don’t have.”

  “We’ll win.”

  “We have to.”

  “And you give the winnings to your friend.”

  “Don’t you even need to know who it’s for? What it’s for?”

  “Would you? If I asked the same?”

  I think about it. “No. I guess not.”

  “Okay. Super Bowl party. My place. I’ll pick you up soon. Call Leo.”

  The chips taste stale. The Coke’s gone flat. I watch as everybody analyzes the halftime show, all the guys waiting for a boob-reveal repeat. The last ten seconds of the game flash before my eyes in freeze-frame images. The fumble. The freak seventy-yard sprint to the end zone. The touchdown. The ball being spiked. The dance, gyrating hips, back flip, the same-team tackle. The Chiefs winning.

  The Cardinals losing.

  Josh and me. Losing.

  The room feels closed in, suffocating. Sticky-syrupy Coke pools on the coffee table and has dripped onto what looks like an expensive Persian carpet. Confetti papers flit and float in the air, the pink, yellow, orange, and red dots scattered everywhere, drifting to the floor, sinking in the puddles of carbonated sugar, congealed orange cheese dip, and grease.

  Mrs. Mendez’s stooped figure, just a shadow in the shouts, picks up the half-empty plates of greasy food, passing between us almost invisible. But I see her.

  Josh sees her.

  Where am I going to get four hundred dollars betwe
en now and tomorrow?

  She pauses; a cup slips through her hands. She falls to her knees. At first it looks like she’s picking up the cup, but she’s frozen in place, pale, face glistening with sweat. She stumbles to stand up, then sits down, leaning against a chair.

  My legs feel heavy, like Beelzebub’s gargoyles are pulling me to the center of the earth. I put my hand in front of my mouth to make sure I’m still breathing. “Mrs. Mendez,” I whisper. “Mrs. Mendez?”

  Josh pushes past everybody. I make my way to her, lamely putting a damp napkin on her mottled and blotchy face. She smiles at me and puts her hand in mine.

  Josh has already called 911. “Moch. Call Moch,” I say, tossing Josh my phone.

  Josh blanches.

  “Call. Moch. Now.”

  An ambulance arrives. Paramedics rush into the house. I hold tight to Mrs. Mendez’s limp hand. The paramedics talk into radios.

  “Nonresponsive.”

  “Cardiac arrest.”

  They move me out of the way. They shove needles into Mrs. Mendez’s arm and an oxygen mask on her face.

  “We’re losing her,” one says, and rips open her uniform, rubs together paddles, and sticks them on her chest. “Clear!”

  Her body hiccups.

  “Clear!”

  We stare at the monitor, waiting for the heart line to peak, listening for thumping instead of a steady beep.

  They throw questions out into the evening: “Is she allergic to anything?” “What kind of prescription medication does she take?” “Has she been sick?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Yes. Yes. She’s sick.”

  “Sick? With what?”

  “A stomachache. The flu. The doctor at Urgent Care said she had a flu. That’s all.” My lip quivers. Hot tears spill down my cheeks. Mrs. Mendez’s body arches in response to the shock and goes limp. Josh’s parents arrive—at least I think it’s them. They stand back. Mr. Ellison’s talking on the phone.

  Making calls.

  Josh’s hands go limp at his sides.

  “Let’s move,” the paramedics holler, lifting her on a gurney and out to the ambulence. They shut the doors, leaving me outside.

  We caravan to the hospital, the ambulance horn screaming, lights flickering, dodging in and out of light traffic. Halfway there, the sirens go silent. The ambulance slows down to speed limit. I choke back sobs, wiping tears off my cheeks.

  Josh takes one hand off the wheel, pulling my head against his shoulder.

  We follow the lights in silence.

  Take me, God. Bring her back.

  Chapter 23

  “COME OUTSIDE,”

  Josh says when I answer the phone.

  “It’s after midnight.”

  “Get dressed. Wear dark colors. Come outside. I need your help.”

  Josh stumbles into the house when I open the door, almost knocking over a flimsy TV tray with one of Lillian’s houseplants on it. A cactus, of all things. “Watch it!” I grasp the tottering tray and prick my finger on a needle. The soft petals flutter. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to get that money to Mr. Mendez. I need help.”

  “To go to the ATM?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Josh says. He chews on his nail. “Listen, Michal. I don’t have access to any accounts. But I know where we can get money. I just need help doing it.”

  I push away the little alarm in my head—like an exclamation point in my frontal cortex saying, “NO! NO! NO!”

  Somebody oughta grab my upper-arm flab and pinch. Hard. I do a mental squeeze. I just want to erase Moch’s and Mr. Mendez’s expressions. They got there just after we did. Mr. Mendez saw me, my face, then rushed to the doctors. “I need to see her. Please.”

  He came back and sat across from me. “They said she had the flu. The flu.”

  I nod.

  Then the bill.

  Sorry about your loss. Yes. We do take credit cards.

  I can’t help but hate Josh’s family now. It’s not like they did anything. But maybe if Mrs. Mendez had had insurance. Maybe if she had gotten those tests. She’d still be here.

  We were supposed to win.

  Josh stands on the porch looking wilted. Ashamed. He holds out his hand. “I need to do this.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Trust me,” he says, “we won’t get caught. It’s a foolproof plan.”

  “And if we do get caught?”

  “It’s all me.”

  “That hardly seems fair,” I say.

  “Who can afford the lawyer?” he says. “My dad’s an asshole. This has been established. I will never, ever spend a single night in prison. Ever.” He says it like a great truth—one of life’s givens: the sun will rise; Cain killed Abel; and Josh Ellison will never spend a night in prison.

  We stand together on the porch. He looks at his watch. “This money belongs to her and her family and then some. I need to do this.” Absolution and penance—right the wrongs.

  I close the door behind me. We walk a block to an old Pontiac. “I borrowed this from a friend,” he explains.

  I don’t ask who. We drive past Dayton, where Ellison Industries’ sprawling presence looks like something from Area 51, parking in the back of the buildings. I half expect to see some guys in white lab coats wheeling out sheet-covered body shapes on gurneys. A chain-link fence surrounds the premises. Guards drive around in golf carts patrolling the area.

  He tosses me a ski mask and gloves. “Are we really gonna do this?” I ask.

  He nods. “We don’t have a choice.”

  I can’t work out the probabilities of getting away with this in my head because I don’t have all the information in front of me. The only source for creating odds is Josh’s assurance versus years of criminal investigation TV series in which the bad guy always gets caught.

  What are our odds?

  Mrs. Mendez had a flu. Now she’s dead.

  What are the odds?

  Josh grabs my hand and squeezes. “Ready?”

  I nod.

  I time the guards. There’s approximately seven to nine minutes between passes. Josh points to a door in one of the big warehouses. He holds the keys up. “We need to climb this fence and get there. It’s about a hundred and fifty yards.”

  “We need to do it in less than six minutes,” I say. “Just to be safe.”

  “Okay.”

  We pull on our ski masks. As soon as the guard in the golf cart turns the corner, Josh gives me a boost so I can scramble up the fence. He follows close behind. I climb over and jump down, knives of pain radiating from my feet up my shins. My knee practically gives out on me. Stupid glass. Stupid knee.

  “C’mon,” he whispers.

  “I can’t see,” I say, trying to pull my fogged up glasses from my mask.

  “C’mon, c’mon. Trust me,” he says, and grabs my hand. We sprint to the door. He manages to open it, and we throw ourselves into the small office, closing the door softly behind us just as the golf cart’s lights hit the door’s window.

  I move to pull off my ski mask and glasses when Josh grabs my arm. “Lie facedown. Now,” he whispers.

  He spray-paints two cameras around the office.

  “I think that’s all of them,” he says in a whisper. He taps his finger to his lips.

  I nod and pull my glasses out, in a lame attempt at cleaning the lenses. My heart feels tight in my rib cage, like the pounding will shatter my bones. I can hear the blood rushing through my body and tap my ears. It’s probably not a good thing to be able to hear your own blood.

  We hear footsteps outside. Heavy boots. I lie on the floor, face pasted to the cool tiles. We wiggle to the door and sit against it. A flashlight sweeps across the room, pausing on the closet. The guard jiggles the doorknob.

  Locked.

  His radio beeps. The crackling sound of a voice coming through, asking about Warehouse Number Four.

  “On my way.” He rests his h
and on the doorknob. We listen to the jingling of keys. The radio beeps again. He walks away, the sound of footsteps echoing in my brain. I can’t tell if he’s still out there or if it’s just my brain on some freak-out repeat track.

  Josh squeezes my elbow and motions toward a desk, opens a wooden panel. Behind the panel is a safe. Josh opens it on the third try. “He’s so obvious,” he mutters.

  Josh takes out the bag of cash.

  Five thousand dollars.

  “Five?” I motion with my fingers.

  He nods.

  “All of it?”

  He swallows. “Funerals are expensive.”

  A sick feeling sweeps over me. My glasses blur and I rest my head between my knees. Josh squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  The paper that was tightly wrapped around the bills is empty. I wipe my eyes and look around the office for paper. My hands feel clumsy in the heavy black gloves, and I have to keep reminding myself to keep them on.

  I find paper and scissors and cut a pile into bill-sized pieces and am about to shove them into the band when I hold up my hand. “Pen?” I ask.

  Josh hands me one.

  I write on the top piece of paper: From her beacon-hand glows worldwide welcome . . .

  Josh nods. He takes the paint and sprays Babylonia on the wall.

  Struggling to find meaning in death.

  Chapter 24

  AFTER JOSH AND I LEAVE

  the money for Mr. Mendez, Josh takes me home. I can’t sleep. I can’t think about anything but Moch and his face at the hospital, so I return to his house and stay outside. He doesn’t come home that night.

  I look for him on Monday and Tuesday, even drive up to American Flats.

  I finally see him outside the place his mom and dad were thinking of renting for their restaurant. I think he’s trying to find a way to keep her close.

  I follow him home Tuesday night and go to him. But he’s become the Moch with dead eyes—no poetry. He forgets about the mango sunsets and coconut moons, the flavor of family that oozed from his trailer house and onto his English paper. He forgets his mom—her memory is a pile of ashes, burned down by his anger.