The Year Everything Changed (23 page)

Denise might have forgiven me for not being around all those months if I’d made it to the hospital when Elizabeth was born. I knew she was ready. I’d cut my days down to a couple of hours in the fields in the morning and a quick trip to the office in the afternoon. But that day we had a gusher come in that we couldn’t get a cap on, and I didn’t get home until almost midnight. Elizabeth had arrived at four o’clock.

I left Frank at a neighbor’s and rushed to the hospital. I used to wonder if it might have helped her feelings for me if I’d taken time to wash up a little or pick some flowers from the yard instead of coming as I was, my clothes covered in crude, smelling like I’d been living in a barn, bare-handed. But lookin’ back, I can see our troubles ran deeper even then.

“It’s a girl.” This time there was no smile. “She’s mine, and she’s the last. I’m not going through this again.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here. There was—”

“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. I know all I need to know.”

I nodded. “The baby’s okay?”

“Her name’s Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth . . .” I let it roll around my mind. “I like it. Did you pick a middle name?”

I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. The light was low, and Denise had looked down at her hands folded across her belly. But then I heard a quick intake of breath and knew I was right. She was crying. I came closer. I put my hand out to touch her and pulled back at the stark contrast between the black coating my nails and knuckles and the white of her skin. “It seems I’m always telling you I’m sorry about something,” I said. “I know you’re tired of hearing it, but I don’t know what else to say.”

“Her middle name is Mary.”

My mother’s name. I thought for a minute that I was through breathing. My chest felt so heavy, I simply couldn’t make it move. That was when Denise looked up and saw that there were tears in my eyes. She frowned when I said, “Thank you.” I didn’t understand why until I remembered that she’d never heard me call my mother by name. It was an accident, one I’m sure Denise would have rectified had I told her. I let it be. She’d find out one day when I told my baby girl about the woman whose name she carried.

Chapter Thirty-seven
Christina

Christina shuffled her feet on the concrete floor, rolling her chair closer to the editing monitors at the studio. “I’d go with the second shot,” she said. “The lighting is better on the mustard.”

Greg ran the tape backward to get another look. “Yeah, but I think the catsup looks better in three.”

“It’s a dancing hot dog, for Christ’s sake,” Dexter Landry said from the doorway. “And it’s already over budget.”

“And it’s never going to make it off cable,” Greg said in a singsong voice without looking up.

“And we’re not being paid to be artists,” Christina added, mimicking Greg’s voice. “The client just wants to get the job done as cheaply as possible.”

“Okay, you’ve heard it before. That—”

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Christina finished for him.

“All right, so I need to get some new lines.” Dexter waved a piece of paper at Christina. “I have something I think you might be interested in.”

She rolled her chair toward him and held out her hand. He pulled back and made a motion for her to follow him into the other room. “I’ll be right back,” she told Greg.

“No rush.”

“Yeah, there is a rush,” Dexter said. “I want that hot dog dancing out of here by this afternoon.”

As owner of River City Studio, Dexter was caught between the business and artistic ends of film production. Coming from two years of supporting and working on
Illegal Alien
, Christina understood the financial and creative pulls Dexter operated under. He wasn’t a hack. She’d seen the work he produced when given a reasonable budget, and it had blown her away. He just couldn’t afford to give in to his artistic side as an editor when it involved raw footage brought in by a part-time videographer that would be shown strictly on cable.

Christina followed Dexter into his office. He surprised her when he closed the door behind them. Dexter’s office door was always open. “What’s up?” she asked.

He handed her the paper. “I think we found your movie.”

Her heart did a tap dance against her ribs. She’d been looking for
Illegal Alien
for months, reading the synopsis of every film in every festival she could find in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Randy could change the title but not the content. She’d considered contacting friends in Tucson to help but decided it was too risky. Everyone she knew had been friends to them both and would have divided loyalties. Dexter and her sisters were the only ones she’d told about looking for her movie, and Dexter only after he’d found her doing a search on the Internet. What she had in mind had to be done clean and fast. Randy couldn’t know she was looking for him.

She looked at the paper, reading the description of the film Dexter had circled halfway down the page—
Fast Food at the Border
: a poignant portrait of a twenty-four-hour period in the life of an illegal alien. She glanced at the header—Willow Creek Film Festival in Grants Pass, Oregon. And then the dates—the winners would be announced and their films screened October 15. That gave her time, but not much.

“Is that it?” Dexter prompted.

“It sure looks like it.”

“What now?”

“I make an appointment with my father’s attorney. I want everything tied up in a nice legal bundle before I go after him.”

“Can you do that in a month?”

“I don’t know. But I can sure as hell try.”

Christina followed Lucy’s assistant, passing the office where she’d last seen her father. An unanticipated lump filled her throat as she was hit with the memory and the growing awareness of the missed opportunity to know him again. She vacillated between sorrow and anger, blaming him, blaming herself, looking for answers in the tapes, and heritage in her sisters—although she would never tell them that. Let them believe she saw nothing she had in common with them. That way, in four months when they turned their backs on her and went on with their own lives, they would think it was what she wanted, too.

The assistant tapped lightly on Lucy’s door. “Ms. Alvarado is here.”

Lucy stood and came around her desk. As always, she was dressed in a suit and heels and she made Christina feel unkempt and out of place, not as blatantly or completely as Ginger, but enough to make her check to see if her shirt was still tucked into her jeans and her hair was still secured in the clip she’d used that morning.

“How nice to see you again,” Lucy said, extending her hand.

Christina figured it was a standard greeting, but Lucy managed to make it sound sincere. “I appreciate you fitting me into your schedule.”

Lucy led her to a chair. “You said it was important.”

“I need help with a legal problem, and I didn’t know who else to ask.”

Lucy sat down and smiled. “Well, it’s not the best reference I’ve received, but it will do.”

“My dad trusted you.”

“What’s going on, Christina?”

She told Lucy about Randy and the film and how she was determined to get back what was hers. “I found him today—at least I found the film. He’s entered it in one of the smaller festivals in Oregon. Unless he’s done something stupid with it since he stole it, it’s going to win. I want to be there when he shows up to get the prize.”

“Does he have to be there?”

“No, but he will. Randy lives for the attention. He belongs in front of the camera, not behind it.”

“And you say you have documentation that you financed the film as well as worked on it?”

Christina reached inside her bag and handed Lucy the sheaf of papers she’d rescued from the apartment. “I was the original narrator, but I’m sure he replaced me.”

Lucy spent several minutes going through the papers. “These handwritten notes on the script—did you make them?”

“Yes.”

She held up a receipt for a camera rental. “Whose credit card was used to pay for this?”

“Mine.”

“Was he a signee on the card?”

“No.”

“And all these other charges? Were they made with your card, too?”

“Randy didn’t own a credit card. He quit his job a couple of months after we got together to work on the film full-time. I was our only source of income.”

“Did you have a contract outlining ownership of the film?”

“Nothing written.”

“But you discussed it?”

“From the beginning we agreed we were equal partners.”

Lucy gathered the papers and set them aside. “All right—why have you come to me?”

“I want my film back.”

“You want your half,” Lucy corrected.

“I can’t stand the thought of that son of a bitch getting away with stealing my movie, too.”

“Too? I think you’d better tell me what else is going on here.”

Christina hated telling her. In a sentence she would go from someone seemingly in charge to a victim. “It isn’t important.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Still she hesitated. How could she admit to being someone she’d once looked at with contempt—a woman who would knowingly let herself become involved with a user. Only she hadn’t known. She’d let her passion for a project she believed in blind her to the reality of the man she’d been convinced loved her. “My jaw wasn’t broken in an accident.”

Lucy’s face reflected her thoughts from questioning to understanding as she absorbed the information. “I see. . . .”

“He had witnesses who swore that I was fine when he left the party with them. They swore he was with them the rest of the night. I couldn’t prove them wrong.”

“Sounds as if he’s the type who’s used to winning.” A slow, mercenary smile formed. “Well, not anymore.” She looked at Christina. “But first—are you sure you want to do this? Have you thought what it’s going to mean to see him again?”

Christina knew she’d made the right choice coming there by the personal concern she saw reflected in Lucy’s eyes. “He stole the person I thought I was, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’m not going to let him steal my movie.”

“That’s all I need to hear.”

“What are you going to do?”

“First, we’ll get a temporary restraining order. That will keep him from taking any action that has anything to do with the movie.”

“He won’t be able to enter any more contests?”

“He won’t be able to do
anything
until the hearing. I’m assuming the majority of the filming and the verbal contract took place in Arizona?”

Christina nodded.

“Then we’ll have to file for a preliminary injunction there. I have a friend who’s an attorney in Phoenix. I’ll have him take care of the paperwork.” She picked up a pen and made several notes on the tablet in front of her. “When is the award ceremony?”

“October 15.”

“Do you want me to arrange to have him served before or after the ceremony?”

“I want to do it myself.”

“Bad idea. I understand—to you it’s personal. But moments like that are never what we imagine and certainly not worth the danger you’d be putting yourself in.”

“You can’t talk me out of this.” She wanted to see the look on his face when she confronted him and he understood she hadn’t just survived, she’d won. She wanted revenge, and not just because he’d broken her jaw but because by doing so he’d denied her the chance to see her father again.

“If you’re dead set on doing this, at least take someone with you.”

“I don’t know anyone who—” She could see Lucy wasn’t going to back off. It was easier to go along. “I just thought of someone.”

“Mind if I ask who?”

Christina hadn’t expected that. She’d already said she didn’t trust any of her friends in Tucson. Lucy knew how long she’d worked at the studio and would never believe Christina would ask someone there. “Elizabeth.”

Lucy’s surprise was almost comical. “Your sister?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not? Isn’t that the whole purpose behind the tapes—to throw us together until we either kill each other or become friends?”

“What makes you think Jessie—”

“Come on. Those tapes weren’t meant to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about our disappearing father. If my dad gave a shit what the four of us thought about him he would have done something about it a long time before he was on the way out.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t respond to that. It wasn’t something Jessie and I discussed.”

“But he told you to take care of his girls for him, I’ll bet.”

“That one I’ll give you. Which is why I’m concerned about you taking a fifty-year-old woman to Oregon with you to act as your bodyguard.”

“She’s forty-eight.”

Lucy stared at her, unbending.

“What happened in Tucson was an aberration. It was the first time Randy hit me—or even threatened to hit me. I’m not crazy. If I thought there was any chance he’d try it again I wouldn’t go near him.” She had to give something if she wanted Lucy’s cooperation. “But I can understand why you’d be concerned, and I’m willing to take Elizabeth with me as a witness on the off chance he thinks that since he got away with it once he might as well try again.”

“Having Elizabeth as a witness might put him in jail, but it’s not going to keep you out of the hospital.”

“You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Randy won’t do anything that could fuck up his future in the business the way something like this would.”

“Have you asked Elizabeth?”

“Not yet,” she reluctantly admitted.

“I’d appreciate a call after you do—just to let me know everything is in place.”

“Sure.” Trapped. Now she really was going to have to ask. God, what if she said yes? Christina shuddered at the thought. “Is that it?”

“I think I have all I need to get started. If not, I’ll call.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She stood to walk Christina to the door. “This is going to be fun.”

Christina smiled, feeling better than she had in months. On a whim, one she didn’t understand or stop to analyze, she asked, “Did you love my father?”

Lucy answered without hesitation, “Yes.”

“Me, too,” Christina told her.