What's Mine and Yours(74)

“We should go get Noelle,” Diane said. “She’s missing it.”

Margarita rolled her eyes. “Noelle doesn’t know what’s good. I don’t know why she’s in that play. She doesn’t even like TV.”

“She’s the stage manager.”

“That’s cause Noelle always has to be the boss.”

“So do you.”

“Shush.”

Margarita snuck another glance at her mother at the kitchen table. Lacey May had her eyes shut, the cigarette pressed between her lips, her head tilted back.

Margarita leaned to whisper in her sister’s ear. “Mama would have been a good actress.”

“How come? Cause she’s pretending she isn’t mad?”

“Because she’s beautiful,” Margarita said. “Even when she’s sad.”



Hank made dinner: steak smothered in onions, with buttered peas and carrots. Noelle didn’t come up when they called, so the four of them sat at the table, shoving food around their plates. Even Hank didn’t try to close the silence, and it worried Diane. Maybe he was going to leave them, too. They were at the table when they heard the high pitch of Robbie’s whistle from the front porch.

“You invited him?” Hank said.

“Of course I didn’t.”

“Well, something you did must have made him feel welcome.”

“Girls, go downstairs,” Lacey May said.

“But Papi—” said Diane.

“Right fucking now.”

The girls left in a flurry. Margarita climbed onto her bunk bed, and Diane nestled next to Noelle, who was on the pullout, flipping through a stack of papers. Margarita could tell Noelle wasn’t really reading. She was doing what they were all doing: straining to listen to what was going on upstairs.

“You skipped dinner,” Margarita said.

“I already ate.”

“With Duke?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t like him anymore?” said Diane. “But he’s so tall.”

“Did you know love changes your brain, chickadee? I don’t want to have a brain like Duke’s. Besides, I like someone else more.”

Margarita cackled from her top bunk. “Your life is like that show.”

“No, their life is like that show.” Noelle pointed up at the ceiling. “It’s a soap opera.”

“That’s not funny,” Margarita said. “Papi has nothing. He’s all alone. And now Mama is going to send him to jail.”

“Papi’s going back to jail?” said Diane.

“Oh, shut up. You watch too many shows,” Noelle said.

“And you’re a big old slut.”

Noelle sprang up as if she might slap her, and Margarita jumped down from the top bunk to show she wasn’t afraid.

“Girls!” Lacey May called from upstairs. “Your father wants to speak to you.”



They found Robbie by the front door, as if he hadn’t moved any farther into the house since he arrived. He was wearing a red shirt, unbuttoned too low. A gold chain swung from his neck. He smiled at them, and he was missing a tooth: his left canine. Margarita and Noelle hung back while Diane fell into him, wrapped her arms around his waist. Lacey May and Hank left the room.

“Mis hijas!” Robbie said. “It’s been so long. Have you missed me?”

The girls murmured their assent.

“I brought you presents. Come sit down.”

They saw then the large paper bags on the couch, Jenkins prostrate between them.

“That old dog doesn’t recognize me,” Robbie said, sitting beside him, ruffling his ears.

“We haven’t seen you in weeks,” Noelle said, but Robbie seemed not to hear her. He picked up one of the bags.

“First, Diane—I got you something, preciosa.”

Robbie placed her palms, faceup, on his knees, and handed her a long, shimmery box. He told her to open it.

A gold medallion hung from a chain so thin Diane worried she’d break it. The medallion looked misshapen, like an oblong coin. A pale green stone glittered at the center.

“It’s an esmeralda,” Robbie said. “They’re from Colombia. I used to have one—a ring, but it was stolen. But that won’t happen to you. Not with the life you’ll have, mi ni?a.”

He took up the necklace, and Diane bowed her head solemnly so he could fasten it. She held the medallion between her fingers, turning the emerald in the light. He called Noelle next, and she stepped forward, her arms crossed in front of her.

Robbie shook a jacket from one of the bags. It had boxy shoulders, a few tortoiseshell buttons, the leather pebbled and black. He held it against Noelle’s body, and it was so long it reached her knees. Noelle started shaking her head. Robbie went on smiling at her.

“For your concerts,” he said. “So you can look like those roqueros you like to go and see.”

“How could you steal from us?”

Robbie held up his hands plaintively. Noelle stomped her foot, repeated herself.

“The house is mine, mi hijita. I paid for it. You all lived there, but I paid for it.”

“That’s not true. Mama’s been finding renters.”

“You don’t know how grown-up things work yet, Noelle. That’s why you’re so angry, because you don’t understand.”