What's Mine and Yours(69)

“Who’s really happy nowadays anyway? There are more important things than happiness.”

“Like what?”

“Inner peace,” Margarita said, but Noelle could tell she wasn’t joking.

Margarita fished in her purse for her pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

“I’m not pregnant anymore,” Noelle said. She rolled down the window.

They were passing the stretch of Valentine that was just a row of fast food. Hot dogs, fried chicken, glazed doughnuts.

“I want a doughnut,” Margarita said, pointing with her cigarette. A sign announced they were hot and fresh.

Noelle smirked at her. “Are you high?”

“Hungover. I can feel my headache already.”

They sat on the curb in the parking lot, eating the fat, frosted doughnuts in front of the green SUV Noelle had rented. Noelle drank a burnt black coffee while Margarita guzzled a lemonade, licked her fingers.

“How do you stay so skinny when you eat like that?”

“It’s all math,” Margarita said. “You just have to keep track. Indulgence and then restriction.”

“As long as it’s not drugs,” Noelle said. “You remember how skinny Papi got? I hope you’re staying away from the hard stuff. Only party drugs.”

“They’re all party drugs,” Margarita laughed, then it hit her, and she lurched off the curb, sent her lemonade cup flying. Ice and liquid spilled across the asphalt.

“I’ve got it,” she said. “I know how to find Papi.”



They parked in front of the TAMALES, CERVEZA Y MáS sign. Margarita led the way directly to the bar. The bartender she’d seen before wasn’t there, so she called over the new barkeep.

“Oye!” she said, using what little Spanish she had before she ran out. Noelle slid up beside her, resisting the urge to tell Margarita to lower her voice. She started describing the bartender she’d seen earlier in the day, explaining that she needed to speak with him. The woman behind the bar understood, and she left to go find him—he was still on his shift.

Margarita was holding the old photograph of Robbie, curled up in her fist. Noelle took it from her and flattened it on the bar.

“This is from after,” Noelle said. “After Papi mucked it all up for good.”

Margarita laughed. “Which time?”

“You know which time.”

“Oh, right. And he tried to make it all better by buying us gifts. As if that would make any difference.”

“He gave Diane that necklace she wears. The emerald charm?” Noelle shook her head. “And he gave me a leather jacket. Could you believe it? It was too big for me. A men’s size.”

Margarita looked at the picture of her father. Usually, she felt neutrally toward him: neither good feeling nor bad. It had taken years.

“What did he give you?” Noelle asked. “To make up for it all?”

“I can’t remember,” Margarita said. She looked away from his face, the photograph bleached of color, as if it had been a hundred years.

“You look like him,” Noelle said, her finger landing on the expanse of their father’s cheekbones.

Margarita pointed at the expression in their father’s eyes, the impression he gave of scowling even as his mouth split into a smile. “So do you,” she said.

The bartender arrived, taking in the two sisters, and he grinned. Before he got the wrong idea, Margarita told him what it was that she wanted. Her specificity startled Noelle—she hadn’t known there were so many varieties, so many preferences you could tease out when you ordered. The bartender seemed as if he hadn’t known either. Noelle resisted the urge to tell Margarita, This isn’t L.A. The bartender said he could handle it and started writing his phone number on a napkin. Margarita caught his pen out of his hand, set it down. She shook her head.

“If I’m paying for it,” she said, “I want to meet your connect. I’ll pay you both—I don’t care. I just want to make sure I’m getting something good.”





12



October 2002


The Piedmont, North Carolina

When Lacey May realized Noelle was missing, she ran out to the yard to tell Hank. He was hosing down the dog, its hide covered in bubbles.

“She’s gone,” Lacey May said. “I can’t find her.”

Hank seemed unalarmed as he turned off the water. “It’s the middle of the day. Maybe she stepped out.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Lacey May said. “I’ve got a feeling. A mother can tell when something is wrong.”

“Let’s go and find her then.”

She had already checked the living room, the kitchen, the front and rear of the house. Margarita and Diane were giggling in the bathroom, putting mayonnaise in their hair. But she hadn’t seen Noelle all morning, and she would have assumed she was sleeping in, but when Lacey May poked her head downstairs, the girl was nowhere.

They returned to the house, and Jenkins padded after them, trailing soapy water. Lacey May paced in the living room, wondering where to check first. She knew it was possible Noelle had simply gone somewhere without telling them, and she’d come back with a new black T-shirt and a frozen Coke, evidence she’d been at the mall, although she’d still refuse to answer any of Lacey May’s questions. But Lacey May couldn’t shake the sick feeling she had. It was like that time she went to collect the girls from Robbie’s motel, and they weren’t there. Diane had needed stitches. Lacey May felt as if she’d swallowed a stone, its weight in her stomach.