Red Glass (6 page)

Picnic with a Cop

The next afternoon, on the fourth day, a huge afternoon storm left the sky streaked with orange and yellow, the clouds glowing like gates to heaven. Ángel was driving, speeding along, winding around hills, past a huge lake and cornfields. It was probably hard to resist speeding, since there were no cars or houses or people on this stretch, and we had only one day of driving left. Suddenly red and blue flashing lights appeared behind us.

Cops. My stomach jumped. Juan had said cops here were corrupt; they would threaten to arrest you, take your license, demand hundreds of dollars to get it back.
Never get into a car with a cop
, he’d said.
You don’t know where they might take you, what they might do.
Mom had told us a dozen times,
Don’t speed, promise me you won’t speed.

I remembered Ángel’s box. Chances were whatever he had inside was either valuable or illegal. Either way, we’d be in trouble if the cop found it. I leaned over between the front seats to check if it was hidden. But Ángel was already moving his feet against the bottom edge of his seat, making sure the box was safely stashed. He looked terrified.

I imagined us rotting in a dungeon cell with only amoeba-infested water to drink and no limes to squeeze over unsanitarily prepared morsels of food. My head felt hot and prickly.

This is it. I’m going to die. This time, I’m really going to die. Either I’ll die in prison or I’ll just pass out right now and never regain consciousness and we’re probably hours from a hospital and even if we made it to a hospital it would probably be unhygienic. Oh, God, this is it.

Dika patted Ángel’s knee. “Don’t worry, Ángel, it is okay.”

In the side mirrors we watched the cop swagger toward us, one slow step at a time. He looked around, over the fields, as he walked, and saw what we saw: that this place was deserted except for a few falling-down shacks in the distance. Finally his head appeared at the driver’s side window. He was a young cop with baby-smooth skin, not much older than me and Ángel. Before he could say anything, Dika leaned across Ángel, smushing her giant bosom in his lap, and began talking loudly in Spanish.

“Oh,
m’hijo
, you’re just in time for our picnic. We’re having roasted chicken and tortillas and fruitcake. Come join us! Watch the beautiful sky with us and share our food.”

Before he could answer, she flung open the side door, climbed down clutching a bag of food, and spread a blanket in a dusty clearing next to the road. “Son, go turn off those lights and come have a picnic. You must be hungry.”

He obeyed. Maybe he had a bossy mother who’d trained him well. Or maybe he was bored. “You are too kind,
señora
,” he said when he returned. He stood by the blanket, grinning.

Meanwhile, the rest of us climbed out of the van, keeping our mouths shut. Mr. Lorenzo was dripping with sweat. Ángel left the box under the seat. Outside, he positioned himself so that he could keep a close eye on the van. I clutched Pablo’s hand and whispered, “It’ll be okay,
principito
,” more to calm myself than Pablo, who was just watching everything curiously.

“Sit down,” Dika commanded. “Sophie, Ángel, sit down and eat. Pablito, you like the drumsticks best, don’t you? Now what about you, son, what’s your name?”

“Jorge.”

“Jorge, what would you like? A thigh?” She slapped her thigh. “A breast?” She gave a bawdy laugh.

I flushed.

Embarrassed, he said, “Anything is fine,
señora.
”

Dika dug her fingers into the chicken and tore out a chunk of breast meat. She arranged it in a tortilla, sliced open an avocado, scooped out green flesh with her slimy chicken hands. Then she cut up a tomato, threw a few slices in, and handed the taco to the cop. “And here’s salsa,
mi amor.
Use as much as you like.”

She made tacos for the rest of us and handed them out. My panic subsided, and my hands stopped shaking enough to drench my chicken with lime.

“Would you squeeze some of that on mine, please,
señorita
?” the cop asked me.

I leaned over and squeezed some on his chicken.

“You like lime, eh?”

I nodded and smiled, embarrassed. I waited for Ángel to make a lime-girl comment.

But he kept his eyes cast down, on his food. Once in a while, he glanced at the van, where his box sat hidden in the shadows under the seat.

“Look at that sky, Jorge!” Dika said. “What a good job you have, driving around all the time. What a beautiful land you live in!”

Jorge relaxed after a warm Corona. He grew talkative and told us about his childhood. He’d grown up in the town where we’d bought the chicken. He felt it was a good omen that we’d stopped at Pollo Crispy because his parents owned the place. Plus, he was hungry since he’d skipped lunch—he was covering the shift of a sick cop. Our picnic invitation was a miracle, he said. He reclined on his elbows, working on his second beer. He stared at me. I felt conscious of the way I was chewing the chicken.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sophie,” I said. He didn’t ask anyone else’s name.

“Look, Sophie, do you see the form of
la Virgen
in the sky? Do you see it?”

“Sort of,” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh, there it is,” I lied. I didn’t want to disappoint him. When you’re used to guys ignoring you, and suddenly someone—an older guy, in a uniform at that—is flirting with you, it’s hard not to go along.

“I see it! I see it!” Dika shouted. “There she is, in that cloud!”

“I should thank her for giving me the opportunity to meet you.” He used the singular, informal form of
you.
To meet me, just me.

“What color are your eyes, Sophie?”

I shrugged. “Gray?”

“They’re blue!” Dika said. “Blue!” She wanted to get in the conversation. “Here, have some fruitcake!”

“I can see the light coming through the sides,” he whispered. “Like glass marbles.”

I blushed. Jasmín might have called him a slimeball, but she was used to guys hitting on her. She had that luxury. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dika smile mischievously. Her plan was working out even better than expected.

I snuck a look at Ángel. His sunglasses hid his eyes, so it was hard to read his face. His fingers, though, were nervous, rubbing the pendants around his neck, bringing them up to his lips. Mr. Lorenzo was sweating like crazy, mopping his forehead with a faded red handkerchief. The thick flannel shirt wasn’t helping.

“Let me see,” Pablo said, coming closer to me, examining my eyes from all angles.

The cop ruffled Pablo’s hair and drained the last few drops of his second beer. “I have to go now. But on your way back, you’re welcome to stay at my house. Do you have a pen, Sophie?”

I went to the van and pulled out a pen and paper from the glove compartment, conscious of his eyes on my back as I walked, as I bent over to reach inside the window. He came over to the van and stood next to me, so close his flowery cologne made my nose itch.

“Here.” I handed him the pen and paper.

He wrote his name and number in curly script, then folded the paper carefully and handed it to me. He stepped even closer and looked pointedly into my eyes. “Call me.”

I gave a smile as if we shared a secret, the kind of smile I’d seen girls give to guys in the hallway, saying goodbye before the bell rang and the next class started. Kind of tilting my head down but my eyes up. The soppy way he looked back at me made it clear that the last thing on his mind was throwing us in jail.

He shook hands with everyone. Ángel and Mr. Lorenzo kept their eyes down and forced polite smiles.

And then the cop drove off in a cloud of dust.

“Well,” said Dika, stuffing a piece of fruitcake into her mouth. “No ticket.”

“Impresionante,”
Mr. Lorenzo said. He smiled and wiped off the last remnants of sweat with his handkerchief.
“Muy impresionante, señoritas.”

I laughed. It
was
impressive. And kind of fun. There was something I could learn from Dika. Just when you’re sure you’ll end up in an unhygienic dungeon, you figure out how to turn the situation on its head. For a moment I caught a glimpse of how life could be if the sharks turned out to be dolphins. If fear went out like the tide and confidence rushed in to fill its place. If I believed that my bony elbows actually
were
nice, that maybe there
was
a shiny stone of greatness buried somewhere inside me.

Back in the van, Ángel picked up his box and ran his hands over it, as if relieved it hadn’t grown legs and run away. He let out a long breath and slouched down in the front seat. “Saved again by a woman. Two women.”

That evening we all wanted showers, except for Pablo, who didn’t have his bath toys, so what fun would it be? In the next town, we stopped at a motel—a low building with peeling blue paint and bars on the windows. When we opened the door, shiny cockroaches skittered across the tiles and disappeared into holes in the walls. The beds were metal, painted to look like wood grain, and covered in fuzzy mud-colored blankets with beige peacock designs. Across from the beds stood a wardrobe of lacquered plywood that looked as if it could collapse at any moment.

I volunteered to shower first while Dika and Mr. Lorenzo walked to a corner grocery store to stock up on bottled water and salty peanuts. Ángel and Pablo played outside in the parking lot with a tiny, superbouncy rubber ball. The shower was tiled with cracked green porcelain and had only one faucet, for cold water. A foul odor rose from the drain—probably a dead rat or a heap of cockroaches, I guessed. Luckily I had flip-flops to wear in the shower to avoid picking up fungus.

I stepped under the shower spray, my lips pressed together tightly to keep out amoebas. At first, the shock of water was so cold it made me shudder and almost jump right out. But my urge to be clean won. With frigid fingers, I rubbed soap over my pale, purple-tinged skin and shampooed and conditioned as fast as I could. After a few minutes of pain, my body got used to the cold, until it actually felt kind of refreshing, like a snow cone on a hot day.

I brushed my teeth with bottled water, then wondered if I should leave the toothbrush sitting out so that the bristles could dry, which would reduce the germs on one hand, but on the other hand, cockroaches might crawl over it. Then there was always the risk that Dika would pick up my toothbrush and use it on her own tartared teeth. She seemed to feel that sharing toothbrushes was as harmless as sharing hairbrushes, so I always put mine out of sight. I shook it out as best I could and then hid it in my toiletry bag.

Pablo’s laughs and shouts floated in through the window. A few days ago, he barely smiled, but now, he couldn’t contain his joy over a simple game of bouncy ball. I got dressed and called to him. “Time for your shower!” He ran inside, flushed and breathless from chasing the ball. I pulled the blue T-shirt over his head, revealing his bony shoulders, little barrel chest, slight potbelly. He climbed out of his pants and stood naked on his knobby-kneed stick legs. I made him wear my flip-flops, which were two times the size of his feet.

“
Gracias
, Sophie!” he said, still wound up.

“See, you get to wear grown-up flip-flops in a grown-up shower now,” I said.

He stepped under the dribbling water and squeaked, “Coooooooooooooolllllldddd!” He shivered and smiled and chattered his teeth, animated as a zany cartoon character. Goose bumps sprang up, and he looked like a little brownish blue package of skin and bones. What if his grandmother thought he was too skinny? That we hadn’t fed him well enough? What if she wouldn’t let him come back with us?

“Sophie?” Pablo said. His lips were the color of blueberries.

“Yeah,
principito
?”

He spoke in Spanish. “Why’s the water so cold?”

I answered in English. I didn’t want him forgetting all the English he’d learned. “Maybe ’cause we’re in a poorer country,” I said. “It costs money to heat up water.”

“Sophie?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are there peacocks on the blankets?”

“Probably the blanket-maker guy thought they looked nice. Maybe he always wanted a pet peacock.”

“Sophie?”

With the kids I babysat, the question game drove me crazy and I just zoned out and mumbled, “I don’t know.” But with Pablo, it was a rare treat. “Yeah, Pablito?”

“Will my grandma know who I am?”

“What?” I stopped lathering the suds and stared. “Of course.”

“But I’m big now, and I used to be little.”

“Grandmas don’t forget what their grandkids look like. Ever.” I rubbed the shampoo into his hair.

There was a knock at the door. It was Ángel, wanting to come in and wash his hands. “Hey, little man,” he said to Pablo. “You look purple.”

“Ángel?”

“¿Sí, señor?”

“I’m not a
señor
.”

“Sure you are. A little
señor
.”

“Ángel. You think my grandma will know who I am?”

“Of course. But, if I fix your hair like this…” He reached over and smoothed Pablo’s hair straight up into a foamy mohawk. “Now she won’t recognize you. She’ll think you’re a rock star. She’ll be real happy a rock star’s visiting her.”