Have You Seen Luis Velez?(94)

“So we’re just going there to have supper?” Isabel asked after a time.

“I think so,” Raymond said. “They wanted to meet you. And the kids. But Sofia was very . . . I don’t quite know how to say it. She sounded excited, and she kept insisting that it had to be all of us and it had to be this Sunday, not last Sunday and not next Sunday, so . . . I don’t know. Sounded almost like there could be more, but she wouldn’t say more about it. So I’m not sure what to tell you. But there might be more.”

He heard Mrs. G sigh and knew the older woman hoped there would not be much more. She clearly didn’t feel up to much more.

“Hope they have a big dinner table,” Isabel said. “That’s going to be an awful lot of people eating supper. Okay, I have something to tell you, and I think this feels like the right time, so here goes. It’s really good news.”

“I can always use some good news,” Mrs. G said.

“I met with that attorney this morning, Raymond. That friend of yours. He met me at his office even though it’s Sunday. And he’s going to take the case. He thinks we have a really, really good case. He gives us a ninety-five percent chance of winning it. And he’s taking it on contingency, so I don’t have to pay him until we win. Which he’s confident we will. So I’ve just been really excited about that all day.”

“Wait,” Mrs. G said. “Am I supposed to know something about this? Because I know nothing about it.”

“Oh,” Isabel said. “I thought Raymond would’ve told you.”

Raymond swallowed hard against a sense of shame—almost as though trying to swallow the shame back down. “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew if it would work out or not,” he said, his voice small. “I thought maybe it was too soon.”

“You have a friend who’s an attorney?”

“Yeah. Sort of. He’s one of the men named Luis Velez who I went to see, but who turned out not to be the right one.”

They walked in silence for a handful of steps. Their heels on the pavement and the roar of traffic provided the only sound.

“But her trial is already over,” Mrs. G said.

“But this will be a civil trial,” Isabel said.

“Oh. A civil trial. I see.”

“We don’t know how much money she has,” Isabel said. “But in the course of filing the case we’ll have a right to find out. He says the court will let her keep enough to live on, but not much more. Rent and food and utilities and such, but no luxuries for her ever again. Everything over what she needs to live will go to me and the kids toward what the jury awards. If we win. Which he’s confident we will.”

“So she will have to pay something for what she did,” Mrs. G said, her voice hushed with emotion.

“Looks that way.”

“That is good news!”

They walked in silence another half a block, each seemingly thinking their own thoughts. Even the children seemed lost in their own heads.

Then Mrs. G said, “There’s a band somewhere playing the steel drums. Do you hear that?”

But Raymond didn’t. He looked over at Isabel but saw no sign that she heard.

“I hear it!” Esteban shouted.

And then, half a block later, so did Raymond.



They turned the corner onto Luis and Sofia’s street. There were a good thirty people out in the street. Maybe more. Not on the sidewalk, either. In the street. At both ends of the block someone had placed the wooden barricades police use to cordon off a street from traffic.

The steel drum band was playing in the middle of the block. Smoke rose from a commercial-size barbecue just behind them. People milled about with red paper cups, sipping. Two little girls in fancy dresses danced to the band.

Sofia spotted Raymond and his friends, and hurried to where they stood taking in the unexpected scene.

“Welcome to our block party,” she said.

“You put on a block party?” Raymond asked. “For who?”

“Well, for all of you,” she said. “Who do you think?”



Sofia came by their table and hovered. Someone had set up a folding table for them on the sidewalk in the middle of the block. It even had a bright blue paper tablecloth, taped down so the breeze couldn’t take it away, and helium balloons tied to all four corners.

“Right now it’s a little lightly attended,” Sofia said. “But we have free hot dogs and hamburgers, and when they start cooking, I think the smell will bring more people down.” She was clearly stressed by the light turnout, and Raymond couldn’t help picking up that stress. “And one of our neighbors contributed two kegs of beer from his work. So that’ll bring ’em out, I think. Right now people are looking down from their windows and trying to decide. Everybody wants a crowd to blend into. But I think the more people come, the more people will come.”

“You mustn’t worry,” Mrs. G told her gently. “It’s a lovely thing to do no matter how many do or don’t attend.”

“We’re taking up a collection,” Sofia said. “All day. For the children. And a lot of people gave when we first invited them, too. A lot of people said they couldn’t come, but they kicked in for the collection. So even if we don’t get a big crowd, we have a good start on that.”