What's Mine and Yours(26)
They reached the town and drove past dollar stores and hot dog stands, a string of new restaurants all with Spanish names. Hank wondered whether, at this rate, he’d even be able to read the signs around here in a few years. He parked on a side street in front of someone’s green-and-white summerhouse. They unloaded the car and headed for the boardwalk, the girls sullen and complaining about the heat, until they saw the beach.
“It’s paradise!” Margarita screamed in her ecstatic, showy way, and it made Diane laugh. They charged down the sand with Jenkins, his leash tangling at their ankles. Noelle lagged behind, headphones on.
“Why don’t you help your mama with all the things she’s carrying?” Hank said, and Noelle raised an eyebrow at him.
“She’s a big girl. She can live with her decisions.”
She loped ahead of them, kicking up the sand.
Robbie didn’t waste any time getting ready. He took a long, hot shower and anointed his body with all the little potions he found in the bathroom that belonged to Lacey May and the girls. Then he drove east toward the Súper Súper on Valentine Road. It was deliciously familiar, the put-put of the engine, the smell of the vinyl seats. There was dog fur, bundles of the girls’ hair on the car floor, and the scent of Lacey—her smoke and perfume. It was as if he’d only just left, as if jail had been one interminable day.
This side of town had the carnicerías and pool halls, the barbershops and one-room churches, the paper ads in Spanish stapled to trees. The highway became a five-lane road, dividing rows of low brick ranches and pine trees, purple coneflowers sprouting from the median. He’d left New York because an uncle had promised life was better, cheaper in the South. His mother brought him to the east side when he was a teenager, and a few years later, she left. She had done what she set out to do—see her only child through high school—and then returned to Bogotá.
Robbie entered the Súper Súper and prayed he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. He wasn’t ashamed to say where he’d been, but he couldn’t bear to admit he had nowhere to call his own anymore, and his wife was living with another man.
The store was bright and big, and Robbie wheeled around his cart, feeling the strangeness of being out. He picked things up and put them down. Nobody watched him. It was awkward and familiar, like resuming an old part he had once known by heart.
At the back of the Súper Súper, there was a butcher, a Western Union, a cell phone vendor, a shaved ice stand, and a small carousel you could operate for a quarter. The Súper Súper was like an open-air market enclosed in concrete, a one-stop shop for the Mexicans and Salvadore?os who came in. There were Caribbean customers, too, but Robbie hadn’t found other Colombians. There were Colombians, he knew, in Raleigh and Charlotte, but they weren’t like him. They arrived already speaking English, enrolled in programs at NC State and Duke. He had learned to see other Latinos as his countrymen. He sang rancheras in bars, bought pupusas for his daughters from the carts in front of the Catholic church downtown. It was better this way, helped him feel less alone.
The cashier was a pretty girl with a big bump in front of her, a sparkly stud pushed into her chin. She made small talk in Spanish while she rang him up. How has it gone for you? He felt a rush of blood to his groin. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman. She was pregnant, but Robbie was only looking. And what was wrong with that? Did he even have a wife anymore? A wife was a woman you kept your promises to, who kept her promises to you. Robbie had kept the most important ones. Even high, he’d been a saint—he’d never fucked another woman, not once that he could remember.
Robbie asked the cashier for her phone number. She told him no, and he left quickly, carrying his bags across the shopping center to the bar.
He sat alone in a booth, ordered tamales, a shot of tequila, beer. The paintings on the wall were new. A red chili pepper in a sombrero rode on horseback, gunning down a gang of green chili peppers, and rescuing the yellow pepper in a white dress they’d been holding captive. Robbie stared at the mural and drank. Maybe everyone was high, more people than ever let on.
Amado must have spotted him first because when Robbie looked up, he was already crossing the bar, headed toward him. Robbie cursed. He’d been out only a few hours, and here was Amado, sliding into his booth.
“Roberto,” he said. “You got lost. We heard what happened to you.”
Robbie shrugged. “I needed wheels. I wasn’t thinking straight. You know how it is.”
Amado wore his shirt unbuttoned, his gold chain on display. A diamond ring glinted on his pinkie. He was older than Robbie, muscular, and slim waisted. Beside him, Robbie looked scrappy, too skinny.
“They put you to work?”
“All the way east. They had us building roads. I learned a lot. If the garage doesn’t need me anymore, I think I could get a job in construction.”
“I’m happy for you, hermano. You got off light.”
“I’m a lucky man,” Robbie said. He gulped his beer.
“It’s not easy out here, you know—at least in jail you know what to expect. But out here, things are always changing. Police are always getting smarter. They know everybody’s face.”
“I’m not coming to work for you, Amado.”
“But I’m thinking about you, man. Before you had the garage. It might not be so easy going back now. You’re a felon. You should thank God you have your citizenship, otherwise, they’d be deporting you.”