Trouble in Taco Town

by Jordan Castillo Price

  A few moments later, the curtain at the end of the chute parted, and another snow globe rolled off the line. Wendall plucked it from the conveyor belt and held it up to scrutiny. His breath caught. The rest of us all move closer and squinted. On first glance, it looked the same as the one Genevieve was holding. But, looking closer, it became clear that what we were seeing inside was definitely a taco.

  “Perfect!” Wendall cried. “Just perfect. Even better than before, in fact. What a relief.”

  “Maybe you can recycle all the misfired globes,” Dixon suggested.

  Wendall shook his head. “Not with my fully automated system. I’ll need to figure out another way to get rid of them. Maybe we can raffle them off.”

  “Misfires?” Genevieve held up the malformed globe. “You mean these?”

  “Those are the ones,” Wendall said with a rueful sigh.

  “If you’re unloading these, I definitely know someone who’d be interested. My sister would love them.”

  “Is your sister a lesbian?” Dixon asked.

  “My sister is a gynecologist!” Genevieve turned her attention back to the misfire and gave it another hearty shake. Dixon wagged his eyebrows at me as if to say, Oops. Once the glitter settled, Genevieve added, “I don’t see what her being a lesbian has to do with it.”

  “What a relief,” Wendall said. “We’ll negotiate a nice price, and be back in production by tomorrow morning. My son will be thrilled to hear it.” He pulled out his phone. “Funny, he’s still not answering.”

  “Try the greenhouse,” Dixon suggested. “That’s the last place we saw him.”

  Wendall tried another call. “Vanessa isn’t answering, either.”

  Goosebumps rippled up the backs of my arms as I imagined the tainted Spellcraft taken hold, exploding the two of them in a garish echo of the overripe tomatoes. Casually, so as not to panic the rest of the group, I said, “We should go check on them.”

  “Field trip!” Dixon said happily. “Let’s go!”

  12

  DIXON

  Squeezing Genevieve into the cab was a challenge—not that I’m complaining, since it was a great excuse to mash myself against Yuri while he drove. But cramming Wendall in, too? Wasn’t gonna happen.

  I could tell by the look on Yuri’s face that he was tempted to invite the guy to walk, since it was so healthy and all. But Wendall was happy enough to ride in the truck bed with the muffler, so we hit the road without comment.

  “That was really cool what you did back there,” I called to Genevieve over the roar of unmuffled exhaust. “How do you know so much about manufacturing? Are you an engineer?”

  “Not at all, that would be my baby brother. I just helped him study when he was getting his degree. My real interest lies in—”

  Whatever those proclivities might’ve been, they were lost in the dramatic gasp Genevieve made when we rounded the bend and saw the greenhouse. The tomato explosion from that morning had gone leathery in the day’s sun. It had darkened into a particularly bloody shade of scarlet. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “That’s just tomato.”

  “Obviously. What did you think I thought?”

  “Never mind,” Yuri said. “Let’s go see what’s become of the photographer and the gardener.”

  “A little help?” Wendall called from the back. He acted like it was just some lingering numbness in his arms, even though it was clear he didn’t trust his stumpy little legs to hit the ground safely if he leapt the few inches to the pavement. I gave him a hand down without comment, and the four of us approached the “bloody” greenhouse.

  It was even warmer inside than before, and just as humid, but the scent had changed. Whereas it was green before all the tomatoes exploded, now it was vibrantly red. I was just about to ask Yuri if he thought it was possible to smell a color when a sultry, feminine giggle reached our ears from the far end of the greenhouse.

  It didn’t sound like anyone was in trouble. But before I could announce that we were there, I caught a flash of movement. If the plants hadn’t all been destroyed, it’s possible someone’s modesty might’ve been spared. But between the few remaining battered tomato stalks, we couldn’t help but notice that Vanessa and Harvey weren’t just hale and hearty…they were naked.

  Butt naked.

  Vanessa was on her back—but she wasn’t doing quite what that you’d guess. She was posing. And Harvey was down on his elbows and knees between her legs—again, not what it sounded like. He had his camera in hand, and was coaching her through a vampy, naked, tomato-covered photo shoot. The two of them lolled around without a care in the world, murmuring soft encouragement to each other as they shared a bizarre and secret diversion. They were so focused on the camera it was a real shame to interrupt.

  But Harvey’s father apparently didn’t share that sentiment. “Harvey! You’re butt naked!”

  At that, the young photographer scrambled up from the floor and began yanking on his clothes. Vanessa was clearly none too pleased, but she drew her once-white lab coat around her bare body with the grace and aplomb of royalty.

  “Harvey?” Genevieve asked. “From Harvey’s Haven?”

  Harvey was blushing to high heaven and his T-shirt was on backwards, but he rallied and said, “That’s me!”

  “I’m staying in your coach house. I’ve messaged you half a dozen times on YourBNB.”

  His father said, “And I’ve been calling you all day.”

  Harvey glanced over at his tweedy jacket, which lay discarded in a heap with his sweater vest and his underpants. “Sorry—I guess my phone was on vibrate.”

  The tomato-covered gardener eyed the jacket as if she was cooking up some ideas for later.

  “The room,” Genevieve prompted.

  “You found parking okay?” Harvey asked. “The bed was soft enough? The coffee was good?”

  “And the tub…?” I added.

  Genevieve waved it all off. “Yes, yes, those things were fine. But I hardly slept a wink. It was just too quiet.”

  Yuri narrowed his eyes.

  “Here’s an idea,” I told Genevieve. “Maybe we could trade rooms!”

  “You found a room at the Motel after all?”

  “Oh. Uh, no…actually, we slept at the souvenir shop. What time is it, Yuri? Maybe we can make it to Minneapolis before the health food store closes and grab those tortillas.”

  “Minneapolis?” Vanessa said sharply. “That reminds me—there’s an overnight delivery in the truck.”

  The fact that she’d shirked her postal duties to enjoy a roll in the hay—or more accurately, in tomato guts—prompted the sort of chagrin that the exposure of her personal assets hadn’t. While Genevieve eyed a bunch of vigorous-looking tomato seedlings that had sprouted up in a random spill of dirt, Vanessa slipped on her gardening clogs and buttoned her lab coat crookedly. When she dashed out of the greenhouse, the rest of us followed.

  The mail truck was still right where we’d seen it last time. Vanessa swung open the back to reveal a prominent package sitting atop the other mail: A medium-sized box from Healthy Belly in Minneapolis. And it was addressed to the Masa Motel.

  Everything happens for a reason—that’s what Uncle Fonzo always told us. Maybe it was just the fortune cookie way he had of seeing the world…but there was a grain of truth in it, too. Maybe it was Spellcraft that prompted the urgent package to be ignored for the better part of the day. Or maybe Vanessa was just delightfully distracted by the stamina demonstrated by a guy half her age—after all, the Crafting wasn’t so much as a twinkle in my eye when the tomatoes blew up and the clothes came off.

  I turned to Genevieve and said, “I’ll bet that box is full of gluten-free tortillas. And I know for a fact that if you bring it over to the motel, the owner will give you the best room in the house!” Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but I’d wager the owner’s personal quarters were at least passable.

  Genevieve hoisted the package out of the truck and set it right back down. “It’s to
o heavy to carry.”

  “We will drive,” Yuri declared, and hefted the box as easily as if it was empty. We piled into the truck with Genevieve and left the three blushing redheads behind to sort out who was more mortified, father or son.

  13

  I’ve never claimed to possess any great mechanical aptitude, but I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what purpose a muffler served when the smell of burning rubber tickled my senses. “Are we on fire?” I shouted over the engine.

  “It’s not us,” Yuri shouted back.

  “Look!” Genevieve pointed.

  We rounded the souvenir factory and the motel came into view—with a thin column of oily smoke threading up from behind the office. Yuri floored it, and the truck burst forward with a fierce roar. We screeched to a stop right in front and piled out of the truck, then dashed around the corner of the building to see what was going on…only to find Olive sprawled in a covered deck chair beside a fitfully smoldering planter with a half-empty bottle of tequila in her hand. She was wearing the same pantsuit as yesterday, and it looked like she hadn’t slept a wink.

  “This is horrible,” she moaned. “I thought I was doing myself a favor when I bought planters made from recycled tires instead of wood. And now look where my lofty ideals got me.”

  Stunned, I said, “I had no idea rubber could just randomly burst into flames.” Yuri nudged my ribs and pointed to an empty tin of lighter fluid beside the planter, then I noticed the green plastic lighter in Olive’s other hand and I realized what I was seeing. “Oh.”

  Genevieve was less worried about sparing anyone’s feelings. “Why on earth would you set your own place on fire?”

  “I’m going to lose it anyway. Might as well collect the insurance.”

  “But you can’t burn this place down,” Genevieve said. “It’s gorgeous. A shining example of midcentury Americana. There’s got to be another way.”

  “The food. The linens. The incidentals. I’ve done the math. It’s no use. Once payday comes around—once I pay everyone for all the overtime they’ve had to work, cleaning up after the freeloaders—that’s it. I’m done.”

  “But we have your tortillas,” I said.

  Olive moaned. “Get them out of my sight.”

  Genevieve casually took the lighter from Olive’s unresisting hand. “What you need is an infusion of cash. One that’ll still leave your motel standing.”

  “Taco eating contest?” I suggested.

  No one else seemed to hear—sometimes that happens when an idea is just too good. But before I could repeat myself, Genevieve glanced around the motor court and said, “How many rooms are in this place? Thirty?”

  Olive sighed dramatically. “Unfortunately, yes. You wouldn’t think there’d be that many unethical birders around—but you’d be wrong. And now that the titmouses are gone, all of them are empty.”

  “But this is perfect! My family reunion is coming up next week, and our venue fell through. I need thirty rooms.”

  Olive fanned the grudgingly smoldering rubber planter. “Then you’ll have to go to Grimford. By this time next week, the Masa Motel will be nothing but a toasty memory.”

  Luckily, at this rate, it would take all week for the place to burn down.

  “I won’t take no for an answer,” Genevieve said, in that stunningly confident way in which she pronounced all the things she was entirely sure of. “In fact, if you stop fanning that flame, I’ll put down a deposit right this minute.”

  At the promise of money, Olive perked up. “Fifty percent?”

  “Done.” Genevieve snatched away the paper Olive had been using to fan the flames and handed it to me…and a tingle shot up my arm so sharply it made me stagger.

  Watercolor. India ink. Hot-pressed cotton rag. The Seen was a bunch of flesh-colored dots that looked like they’d been doodled by a bored kindergartener. Over the Seen, inked in ragged lettering—the word Plethoric.

  I cut my eyes to Yuri. He scowled at the Crafting and gave his head a subtle shake.

  At least I wasn’t the only one who’d never encountered that particular word before. We’d need to get rid of the Crafting before flaming dinosaurs popped out of the planter. But as I turned to stow it in the truck bed with all the others, a bit of dried ink flaked off the paper and fell away. I gave it a shake, and more ink came loose. It crumbled before my eyes and dropped off, leaving me with nothing but a dumb little painting…and a lot of questions.

  Olivia let Genevieve walk her back to the office to make that deposit, leaving Yuri and me beside the planter. Although the fire was pretty much done, I pulled out my water bottle and doused what was left. The smoldering died with a grateful hiss.

  “Now we know what happened to the motel,” Yuri said triumphantly.

  I was as glad to find stray bits of Spellcraft as anyone else. “But I’ve never heard of a Scrivening falling off. Is it even a Crafting anymore without the words?”

  Yuri held up the painting horizontally and scrutinized the surface. “I think it is just a Seen now. Potential Spellcraft—like gasoline without a car. I made many of these in Russia to work off my debt. But I would not risk re-using this particular piece.”

  I shuddered vigorously. “Me neither—especially when I could get a much more appealing one from you. Let’s put it with the rest of the screwy Spellcraft.”

  We headed back to the truck. Once we ditched the ugly painting, Genevieve came out to meet us. “I thought I’d started off this trip on the wrong foot,” she told us, “but it just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining.”

  The echo of the Crafting I’d penned earlier rippled across my shoulder blades. Sure, it was a common enough expression—unlike the word Plethoric—but, still.

  “Come, Genevieve,” Yuri said. “We will fetch your luggage.”

  “But I never got to take an up-close look at the Big Taco. Can we swing by there first?”

  Yuri wanted to say no, I could tell. Probably tired from running around all day—and eager to take advantage of the jacuzzi tub. But since Genevieve was nice enough to give us her room…. “Please, Yuri? It won’t take long. It’s just a few minutes away.”

  Yuri grumbled something in Russian—but in English, what he eventually said was, “Fine.”

  Conversation over the roar of the engine was difficult, to say the least, but I managed to call out, “Why are you so interested in the Big Taco? Are you a roadside attraction enthusiast?”

  “Not at all—I think they’re eyesores. But I’m interested in what’s inside.”

  Yuri cut his eyes to me. I think he was still a little spooked by that clown. He turned onto Salsa Lane and we began our ascent, and the engine cranked up its volume to extra-loud, discouraging all further attempts at conversation.

  We climbed out of the cab and silence rang in our ears. That, and the distant sound of chirping.

  “Hear that?” Genevieve asked. “Long-tailed field cricket. Common from here to North Dakota.” She whipped out a pair of impressively long tweezers.

  The past day had not been kind to the Taco. Even in the starlight, the holes pecked by the titmice were apparent. The yellow-pigmented adobe was more brownish-gray inside, and the whole Taco looked sad and moldy. Probably like the gluten-free tortillas would soon, unless someone put them in the fridge.

  Genevieve started digging in one of the titmouse holes with great purpose. I got up close and personal to see what she might find, while Yuri fell back a few paces looking vaguely ill.

  “Aha!” Genevieve plucked something from the hole with evident relish. It was fascinating—in the way those YouTube pimple popping videos are fascinating. “Just as I suspected! An articulated mudmucker. Do you know what this means?”

  “Honestly? No idea.”

  “This is the first sighting north of Kansas. What are the odds?”

  Given the crumbling, messed-up Spellcraft in the truck bed, probably pretty good.

  “Is that bug still alive?” Yuri said queasily.


  “This?” Genevieve brandished the insect heartily. “This is just a discarded pupa.” She waved the thing under Yuri’s nose. “See? No more larva.”

  Yuri looked a bit green in the starlight.

  “If that’s just a shell,” I asked, “where’s the bug?”

  “In the belly of a very satisfied crested carrion titmouse, no doubt. Those birds will definitely pick at carrion till the cows come home. But they have a field day when the articulated mudmuckers pupate.”

  One can only absorb so many new words in a day, and my head was feeling alarmingly full. Even so, I had to ask. “These bug things…they wouldn’t happen to be endangered too, would they?”

  “Heck, no! Articulated mudmuckers are an invasive species, like zebra mussels or brown marmorated stinkbugs.” Wait, that wasn’t a real thing, was it? She had to be pulling my leg. I waited for the punchline, but it never came. “The mudmucker eggs spread through clay soil. In this case—the authentic Arizona adobe clay.”

  “But I don’t get it,” I said. “The Big Taco has been around for years, and the mudmuckers are only now a problem?”

  “It’s one of the few species with a proto-periodical life cycle—like the cicada, only invasive, and without the pretty nighttime mating call. Every thirteen years—bam.”

  That didn’t surprise me. Everyone knows the number thirteen is terrible luck.

  Genevieve dropped the bug-shaped casing in a plastic baggie and tucked it into one of her many cargo pockets. “I was worried they’d got a toehold in Minnesota, so I came out to see if we should do a mass fumigation—which can wreak havoc on beneficial pollinators, too. I’m thrilled to find the titmice handled it. They really did this town a favor.”

  I gave the Big Taco a critical once-over. “Too bad it left the town’s main attraction in such a sorry state.”

  “This? No big deal. My brother-in-law teaches natural building techniques for the state extension. He’s crazy good with adobe. I’ll have him take a look at it when he comes in for the reunion. But my guess is that a minor skim-coat will have the Big Taco looking good as new in no time. Especially with all the perforations the titmice left behind.” She gave the adobe an affectionate pat. “It’ll give the new finish something to hold on to.”