Part 11 (2/2)
They sat without speaking. Her father ordered a beer and drank it quickly. ”Let's take a look around,” he said.
The streets were crowded with Mexican families celebrating the holiday. There were women in black dresses made of cotton, girls whose thin, dusty legs teetered over high heels as they trod the mud streets. The air smelled of bitter Mexican beer.
Ellen's father stayed close to her as they wove among the crowds. He would crane his neck to look for her mother, then glance quickly back at Ellen. She began to wander more often from his side, peering with sudden interest into the windows of shops while her father rushed to retrieve her.
Finally he put his arm around her, cupping her shoulder in his palm. His hand was large and warm, and Ellen relaxed in the safety of his grip. She steered him into a sweetshop, where he bought her coffee ice cream on a heat-softened sugar cone. In a silversmith's window a pair of turquoise earrings caught her eye.
”Better wait till we get home before you put these on,” her father said, chuckling as he counted out the bills. ”They're pretty flashy.”
Ellen smiled sweetly and slipped the earrings on.
So much attention from her father was exhausting, and she felt a giddy tremor rising from her stomach. She tossed her head, so that the earrings b.u.mped her cheek. She looked for her mother, hoping not to find her.
Finally they stopped. Her father s.h.i.+elded his eyes and turned in a full circle, staring over the crowds. A group of children scampered past, dragging a blue donkey-shaped pinata through the dust. Young men leaned in doorways and wandered in restless groups. Ellen noticed some of them watching her, and was conscious of her thin, bare arms, the tiny hairs on her thighs.
”I have an idea,” her father said. ”I'll ask the guy in that shop if he's seen her. It's the kind of place she likes.” He pointed to a store that sold clay jugs sprinkled with a thin, clear glaze that looked like sugared water. Beyond it, several men in bare feet and hats lounged against a wall.
”I'll wait out here,” Ellen said.
”Come on, squirrel. It'll take a second.” He took her elbow, but Ellen pulled away.
”I'll wait,” she insisted, flus.h.i.+ng to the neck.
Her father's eyes darted along the street. ”Just don't move,” he said, jogging toward the shop. ”I mean it, squirrel. You stay put.”
The instant he was gone, Ellen moved closer to the men by the wall. A few s.h.i.+elded their eyes to look up at her. They were squatting in the dust, pa.s.sing a bottle around. She stood before them with one leg bent, staring at the exhausted plaster between their shoulders. Her heart was beating fast. She glanced back at the shop to make sure her father hadn't reappeared. His Spanish was poor; the conversation would take a while. Her own mischief struck her as irrepressibly funny, and she gritted her teeth to keep from laughing.
They were young men, smooth-faced and a little shy. They spoke to her in Spanish, but Ellen smiled and shrugged her helplessness. They laughed, shaking their heads, and Ellen glimpsed herself through their eyes: a thin girl of sixteen with long strands of dark hair, resisting the flow of traffic to display herself before these men. It was a senseless, hilarious sight. She felt like weeping.
One of the men rose slowly to his feet and came toward her. ”Hola, chica,” he said.
Ellen smiled at him. She felt as though some force were acting on her, making her breathless and dizzy. ”Hola,” she said, extending her hand as if she and the man had just been introduced.
He took her hand and held it tightly. When Ellen tried to slide from his grip, he clenched harder, so that it hurt. He was grinning. Ellen felt the pulse of blood through his hand, sweat gathering between his skin and hers. She found herself grinning helplessly back at him, transfixed by the danger. The other men called and clapped, stamping their feet on the dirt. The music seemed louder. The man who was holding her hand adjusted his grip and began to pull her down the street.
Ellen resisted him, barely moving despite the man's violent tugs to her arm. Her mind worked frantically: Why had she done this? What was going on? Being pulled down the street by this stranger seemed the culmination of a wildness that had been in her for weeks, and she recoiled from it now. It sickened her.
Ellen heard running behind her, the sound of her father's shouts. He pushed the man away, knocking him into the dust. The man landed in a roll, and when Ellen's father pursued him, he sprang to his feet, poised in a crouch. He was holding a knife, pointing its long blade straight at Ellen's father's heart. Her father froze. A whimper rose in Ellen's throat, and he turned at the sound. The man with the knife slipped into the throng.
Ellen's father grabbed her and pulled her to him so hard that her head knocked the bones of his chest. She found that she was crying. The sweet tastes of vodka and ice cream hung at the back of her throat, and she gulped them down. Her father stroked her hair. Through his ribs Ellen heard the urgent beating of his heart.
Ellen's mother wandered from an alley. She walked slowly, carrying packages wrapped in paper. Wedged in a cone of newsprint was a bouquet of crepe flowers: dry, colored petals fastened together with wire.
”Vivian!” Ellen's father cried. ”Christ, where have you been?”
”You were late,” she said, looking rather pleased. ”I got sick of waiting.”
She kissed the top of Ellen's head, and Ellen relaxed against her mother, relieved that she was back. She felt shaken, full of dread.
”Keeping up with you two is some job,” her father said.
”You're out of practice,” her mother said.
Ellen's father put an arm around each of them and steered them toward the beach. He held tightly, and it seemed to Ellen that he cared for them more now, at this moment, than he had in a long time. He was scared, that was why. It made her sad.
He led them to a restaurant near the beach. A virulent sun lay close to the horizon, and the air felt steamy and dense. Ellen's father leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. Then he flattened them on the table and spread the fingers.
”I've got a confession to make,” he said. ”I've had an affair. One. In eighteen years of marriage.”
They stared at him. He was folding and unfolding his napkin. The cloth shook in his fingers. He looked up suddenly, before Ellen could look away, and their eyes locked. ”Two years ago,” he said, speaking directly at Ellen. ”In Kansas City, Missouri. A salesgirl I met on her lunch break.”
Ellen looked at her woven place mat and listened to her heart. It b.u.mped in a scary, irregular way, and she wondered if she were old enough to have a heart attack.
Her mother sat up straight. ”Why in G.o.d's name are you saying this now?” she asked.
He didn't answer. His eyes were still on Ellen. She thought of that day when he'd moved the hands of his watch, her delight at being part of the conspiracy. She looked at him now: handsome, grave, penitent. Following him would be so easy, she'd done it for years. But where would it lead?
”He's lying,” she said.
Her mother's lips parted. Light shone along the bottoms of her teeth.
Ellen stood up. ”Lying,” she said again, letting the word rise from her mouth like a bubble. ”He never went to Australia. I saw him in a restaurant with a girl.”
Without another word Ellen turned and walked toward the sea, letting the breeze fill her ears and block out every other sound. The water was rough, and its frothy edges bubbled over her feet. Ellen took a few more steps until the churning water scrubbed her s.h.i.+ns, then her thighs. She had an urge to swim in her clothes, to feel the fabrics float around her in the warm tide.
Slowly she moved forward, letting the water cover her by degrees. Then a wave reared in front of her, and Ellen dove into it. There was a hard, salty blow to her head, and she was beyond the breaking surf.
Several minutes later she saw her mother on the beach. Ellen called to her and waved her arms, expecting to be ordered ash.o.r.e immediately. Instead, her mother moved closer to the water, keeping her eyes on Ellen. She stepped into the waves with great care, as if fearful of sharp things hidden in the sand. Soon the rim of her dress floated around her waist. Standing that way, she looked like a girl, and Ellen was struck by the thought that her mother had once been her own age. She saw this now in the fine pale bones of her face, the wet hair sticking to her head.
”Swim,” Ellen called to her.
Her mother hesitated, then pushed off. She swam in the smooth, even crawl she used for laps in a pool. The waves jostled her, upsetting the neat strokes.
When she finally reached Ellen, her eyebrows were raised in a look of prolonged amazement. Her head seemed small in its slick coating of hair. ”We've lost our minds,” she said with a high, nervous laugh.
Ellen was aware of not thinking about her father, and this gave her a tenuous sense of freedom. Her mother treaded water, looking up at the sky. Suddenly she turned to Ellen and grasped her hand underwater. Ellen felt her mother grow perfectly still. After a moment she let go of Ellen's hand and began swimming back. Ellen followed.
A wave washed them in, and Ellen found herself sprawled beside her mother on the sand. Her father was nowhere in sight. Her mother's frail limbs showed through her wet dress. Ellen looked down at her own Mexican s.h.i.+rt and saw that its bright pinks and greens had drained away. A sudden despair overwhelmed her. She buried her feet in the sand and grasped a damp, gritty handful in each fist. She had an urge to put some in her mouth and suck the coa.r.s.e grains.
”What's going to happen?” she asked, ashamed of the tremor in her voice.
Her mother was kneeling, s.h.i.+vering a little. She put an arm around Ellen's shoulders. ”We're going back to the house to dry off,” she said. ”That's what.”
She pulled her daughter to her feet, surprising Ellen with the strength of her arms. Ellen leaned against her mother, allowing herself to be led through the sand. The sun had dropped below the horizon.
”And then we're getting out of this,” her mother said.
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