Into the Beautiful North(86)
Nayeli hurried along the side of the motel with her sodas.
Tacho was snoring.
Nayeli ate her crackers, drank her soda. She brewed some motel coffee in the little electric pot on the bathroom counter. She took out her father’s postcard. Through it all, she had carried it, folded in half, in her back pocket. She opened it carefully, because it wanted to tear apart. The crease through the picture was white, and the paranoid old turkey now seemed to have a lightning bolt coming down beside it. Nayeli saw this as a prophecy. She wanted to ask Tacho: Is there not lightning striking right now? But she didn’t wake him.
She took a shower. The shampoo came in a small foil envelope. She washed her underpants with the tiny soap bar under the steaming cascade of American water. It was different, she had noticed. Mexican water was weaker and had a distinct primordial scent. American water didn’t feel, well, it didn’t feel as watery to her as Mexican water.
Nayeli hung her panties on the towel rack and pulled on her other pair and the big sweatshirt and wrapped her head in a thread-bare towel. Tacho had kicked off his blanket. She tucked him back in and kissed his forehead. He was awake enough to mutter, “I don’t care what you do, you wench—I’m not having sex with you.”
She hopped into her own bed and watched the flashes of lightning through the window. She pulled the phone toward her and hesitated. She had Irma’s hotel number written on a piece of paper she had smoothed out beside her father’s postcard.
“?Bueno?” Irma said.
“?Tía?”
“?Sí?”
“Tía, it’s Nayeli.”
“Oh! My beautiful girl! How goes the quest?”
“Ay, Tía.”
“No crying!”
“I’m not crying.”
“That’s my girl.” A pause. “And how is my other little girl?”
“What other—you mean Tacho? That’s mean.”
“I’m just being funny.”
“He is my hero.”
Chastised, Irma sucked her teeth.
“How are things?” Nayeli asked.
“Oh, well. I have my problems, dear girl. Don’t think it’s all just fun and games.”
“What’s wrong?
“Well! It’s Yolo. I swear. She says she’s not going home with the rest of us.”
“What!”
“The fool says she is going to stay in Los Yunaites with Matt.”
Small rings of shock ran down Nayeli’s entire spine.
“What does Matt say?” she gasped.
“Matt! Ha! He came creeping around here, and he confessed he doesn’t want Yolo to stay!”
Nayeli jerked with the news.
“What—what did you tell him?”
“I told him to grow some balls and deal with it himself. It’s hard enough being everybody else’s aunt Irma. I’m not about to start being his!”
“I can’t believe it, Tía.”
“Your turn,” Irma said. “Talk.”
She waited to hear what Nayeli had to report.
“We are in KANKAKEE, ILLINOIS. Tacho is sick, so I’m going out alone to find my father.”
“It’s a great thing you have done, Nayeli.”
“Is it?”
Irma was uncharacteristically pensive.
“Did you get the men?” Nayeli asked.
“Of course!”
“Good, Tía. I’m glad.”
Tacho rolled over and mumbled, “Vieja fea.” Nayeli didn’t know if he was asleep or not. She smiled.
“There were many men,” La Osa said.
“How many?”
“Seventy.”
“What!”
“That was before we closed the doors.” Irma chuckled. “Who knows how many we turned away.”
“So you found all seven?”
“Well…” Irma turned away from the phone and said something. Nayeli heard the deeper tones of a man’s voice but not the words. She stifled a scandalized laugh. Chava Chavarín was in Irma’s room! “Well, anyway. We did not accept seventy men. We were, if you will recall, only looking for four more.”
“Yes.”
“So, after long consideration, we took twenty-seven.”
Nayeli shouted, “What!”
“I have standards, you know!” Irma snapped. “By God, I wasn’t going to take all seventy traitors back home!”
“Tía. Tía. We were only looking for seven. Total.”
“Yes, well. Easy for you to say! I had all those men here, begging for mercy.” Nayeli heard Irma light a cigarette and take a long pull. She coughed. “And all the while this fool Chavarín was falling for every hard-luck story! Chingado, you think every Mexican doesn’t have a hard-luck story? If we had Yul Brynner, well all right, perhaps seven men could rid the town of bandidos. But with these weaklings? Twenty-seven of these cowards will barely do the job.”
“But… how are we going to get twenty-seven men home?”
“I don’t know, dear. That’s your problem. I’m flying home with good old Ronald Colman here.” Rustling. Giggles. Irma’s love play. It made Nayeli a little queasy. “That Brujo devil worshipper has a truck. Matt will let us use the minivan.”