The Glass Factory (19 page)

He says, “There’s one spot with this mess of big black metal things, like, ya know, like part of the Bat Cave.”

“Good. I want pictures of that. And anything with labels on it. Make sure you get close enough so the labels are legible.”

“Are what?”

“So you can read them.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he says, like I’ve insulted the U.S. Marine Corps or something, and he’s gone, slipped under the hole in the fence like a dusty ferret after—whatever the hell ferrets eat.

There’s a nasty surprise waiting for us when we get home.

“I think you need a lawyer,” says Colomba, meeting us at the door. Her voice is trembling.

“What are you talking about?” I say, then two big guys in county-issued plainclothes get out of their easy chairs and confront me. One’s kind of yellow-skinned like he’s not getting enough sunlight, the other’s a bit more robust, with a drooping red moustache and a nose you could open a beer bottle with. He speaks first:

“Miss Filomena Buscarsela?”

“Yes?”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

I almost panic: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the heck do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re reading you your rights, like in
Miranda v. Arizona.”

“Yeah? Well, ‘No person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law,’ like in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. You’ve heard of it?”

“You’re under arrest, Miss Buscarsela—”

“On what charge?” It can’t be. I’m almost getting worried.

“We got a report of child abuse. We’re placing you under arrest and putting your child under protective custody. Is this her? Is this Antonia Buscarsela—” he says, bending down like he thinks he’s going to give her a kiss or something.

Now
I get mad: “You got a
report
and you’re here to arrest me on unsubstantiated charges? Get the hell out of here! Address all further communications to my lawyer. I’ll send you his address.
Now get out of my house!”

Droopy moustache straightens up, looks at me smugly like he’s got every cop in the county on his side.

“Look, we know it ain’t your house, lady.”

“Then get out of my
sight.”

“We checked the records. There is no record of you living here.”

“Well I’m living here now.”

“You got any proof of that?”

“Yeah, I’m standing here.”

Colomba says, “She’s staying with us.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I said I-AM-LIVING-HERE-NOW.”

Yellow-face turns to his partner, his features clearly asking the question, What do we do now? Droopy moustache looks right at me and says, “We’ll have a hearing in a couple of weeks. Who knows? Maybe a couple of days, even.”

“Get
out. Now.
Before I get your badge numbers.” They go. “Fuckhead.”

Good thing I didn’t panic, huh?

“Hello, Gina? I’ve got some evidence for you.”

“Fine, come on in.”

“No: You come out here.”

“Fil, you heard about decaf? It’ll take
days
to arrange that. I thought you said you were in a rush.”

“I am, it’s that—Gina, I’m broke. I spent my last twelve dollars on one-hour developing for these pictures.”

Pause.

“You don’t suppose you could lend me a couple of hundred bucks to live on while you’re at it, do you?”

“Christ, you have got it bad, haven’t you? What are you onto out there?”

“You trust me?”

“What kind of question is that? Course I do.”

“How soon can you get out here?”

I hear papers rustling. “Well, I suppose I could tell the Navy to go to hell. God knows they’ve done it to me a few times. The meeting’s in two days, and I’ve got to get through about fifteen hundred pages of turgid bureaucratese before then.”

“So read it on the train.”

“It’s not
English,
Fil—”

“It’ll take ten minutes to look at the pictures. And don’t forget that portable water sampler.”

More rustling. “Okay—How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“Beautiful. And thanks, Gina.”

“Yeah. They should issue me a bugle.”

I hang up and breathe the first easy breath I’ve had today.

Antonia walks in. She’s all dressed up, and I mean purse, hat, shoes, sunglasses, everything. She announces: “I’m going to Ecuador.”

I laugh like I haven’t laughed in weeks and hug my precious daughter to me like this hug has to last forever. Thank God, I’ve got my child. Thank God.

Hell yes.

The phone rings. It’s for me. Kelly Hughes.

She asks: “Want to go to a party?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

El mundo habrá acabado de joderse el día en que los hombres viajen en primera clase y la literatura en el vagón de carga.
(The world will be completely fucked up the day men travel first class and literature goes as freight.)
—García Márquez

I WARN COLOMBA
of her rights. I want her to understand that we are probably in for some major hassling, but that she is not to relinquish custody of Antonia to
anybody.
Somebody has called in a complaint to Child Protection Services, and that’s as easy as picking up the telephone. I explain that there’s supposed to be an investigation, questioning of neighbors and witnesses, an official examination of the kid,
then
a charge and a hearing, not this bullcrap they cooked up ’cause they didn’t know they were dealing with an ex-cop. Somebody’s getting sloppy.

Did I say “bullcrap”? Jesus, that’s Einhorn’s phrase. Something about that guy. I’m going to have to give him another try. He knows something, and he hasn’t seen the last of me.

I’ve been wearing the same black dance dress every evening out because that’s about all I have left. Well, this crowd hasn’t seen me in it. I hope. I shower with Antonia, who stands right under me, making it hard to move, and I let the shampoo and conditioner flow down from me to her—a fine form of recycling. Then I dry her off, comb her hair and explain that I’m going out but I’ll be back later, and that
tía
Colomba is going to stay with her until I get back. She’s not thrilled but she accepts it. Like her mom. But when I ask for multiple kisses goodbye she pushes me away, saying, “Go.” Sharper than a serpent’s tooth.

I give Colomba the numbers where she can reach me, then I drive up to Kelly’s house so we can go together in her car. I wouldn’t want to pull into a swanky party in the heap. I meet her parents, who are nice enough to me. The place isn’t a mansion, but it’s big enough to hide a grand piano in the living room that I don’t spot until we’re ready to leave. The floor is so clean a good-sized roach would die of starvation, and I don’t know how they maintain a plush, white shag rug in the same antiseptic state. Witchcraft? My kid would have it looking like the siege of Stalingrad in less than a week. Did I say a roach? A
microbe
would die of starvation in there.

Kelly’s not quite ready, so I go with her up to her room to chat while she finishes primping. The place is so spic-and-span every noise reverberating off the pristine tiles spirals around your ears, amplified like in a library whispering gallery. Downstairs—three rooms away—Mrs. Hughes coughs.

“God, how did you ever sneak your boyfriends in here?” I ask.

Kelly smiles at my reflection in the vanity mirror. “I didn’t have to. I always snuck out.”

“Hmm. I’m going to remember that in about twelve years.”

“Oh that’s right! I’m talking to a parent! Oh, no! I’ve betrayed my generation!”

“Easy, woman, we’re not
that
far apart.”

“Far enough. Don’t you have relatives who were already grandmothers by your age?”

“Yeah—my mother.”

“So you see …” She concentrates on putting on her eyeliner, which is just as well.

“Is Phil Gates going to be there?” I ask.

“Who?”

“Vice president of university relations. And a total creep.”

“I shouldn’t imagine so. No. It’s a small affair. Strictly upper crust.” She’s only half-kidding.

“Good.”

“Why? Who’s he to you?”

“Just someone I don’t want to run into.”

She’s already putting on her character, so I don’t bother her with my policewoman’s just-the-facts questions for a while.

“How far is this place?” I ask.

“Little over a mile,” she says, brushing on the shadow. My God, she’s made up. I guess I didn’t notice she wasn’t wearing make-up when we first met because so few of the younger women I’ve been dealing with lately wear any at all.

Oh no, I said it: “Younger women.”

She puts on some blush, powders it, dusts it. It’s a remarkable transformation. “So when are you going to tell me the rest of this big mystery?”

“When I know it myself.”

She ties her hair back with a gold ribbon and pumps a little hair fixer into it. “Just don’t make the mistake of trying to fit everything snugly into a preconceived hypothesis and committing what Nietzsche calls ‘metalepsis,’ when you reverse an effect into a cause, especially when you’re thinking causally.”

Like thinking that cough syrup causes coughing. My God, Antonia’s committed “metalepsis”! Wait ’til I tell her.

“Of course, Sherlock Holmes was a master of the art of deductive reasoning, and Conan Doyle and Nietzsche were contemporaries,” she says. “I’m sure that would be useful to you as a detective.”

“I didn’t study any Nietzsche in college.”

“What
did
you study in college?”

“Well, let’s just say I’ve learned a lot that isn’t on my transcript.”

She eyes me in the mirror like she sees something there she hasn’t seen before.

“Could you snap this on for me?”

She holds a string of pearls behind her neck for me to clasp. Remarkable.

“Thanks.” And she reaches for her watch.

“Wait a minute, can I see that?”

“Sure.”

I give it a look. “Jesus, this is the real thing. Where the hell do you wear a twenty-four-karat gold watch?”

“From your house to the car, to the dance, to your house.”

“During which time you don’t have the
slightest
need to know what time it is.”

“Right.”

“Let me ask you something, since you’re an expert on philosophical reasoning: If beauty is truth, as Keats said, and the truth hurts, as we all know, then does it not follow that beauty hurts?”

Kelly smiles at me. “It sure does.”

And we’re off. Would you believe I’m actually excited? I mean, I realize I’ve lived surrounded, nay,
immersed
in WASP culture for nearly fifteen years—hell, my whole life if you count
yanqui
influence on the Southern Cone—yet I’ve never really penetrated it. I feel like a pioneering anthropologist with my trusty native interpreter who knows the rugged hills, the strange, clipped language and the local customs and who is going to help prevent me from being eaten alive. I even brought some of that funny green paper they worship, just in case.

Kelly’s car is nicer than anything I’ve ever driven, though I’m sure it’s considered modest by her community’s standards. I mean it’s domestic, few features, but it’s new.

“So how would you define WASPness?” I ask.

“Part of being a WASP is not having to define it,” she says, gunning the motor and sending up a spray of gravel behind us.