Mary scowled at me and scribbled underneath my name. It was almost illegible; no one would have been able to identify a misspelling in the first place. The only clear letters were the R and the V, inscribed in huge narcissistic loops.
Albert glanced briefly at the paper and put it back inside the manila envelope. “Perfect,” he said. “I’ll take this out to Angela.”
“Oh, we can do that on our way out if you like,” I put in. “Since we’re going past her desk. It wouldn’t be a bother.”
Mary gave me a slack-faced look of exhaustion.
“No, no,” Albert said, his sparse eyebrows drawing together. “I can do it, Leslie. Do you need me to show you out?”
“No,” Mary said, cutting me off. “Don’t worry about getting up. Thank you so much for seeing us, Albert. I’m thrilled we’ll have more time to visit together before I go. You’re so sweet for making time.”
Albert sat up a little straighter in his leather chair. “You’re just as I remember, Robin. Your father would be proud of you.”
They shared a warm moment. My face heated; I was drowning in this greenhouse air. I had to get out.
“I’ll go call the restaurant right now,” I said, standing up too quickly, making the chair wobble on its legs. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too, Leslie,” Albert said absently, turning back to his papers. Mary patted his hand. I jerked the door open and walked dizzily into the hallway, sucking in a lungful of dry air.
Mary passed me, moving with the lazy satisfaction of a big cat, and said, “Bye, Mrs. Guzmán!”
“Goodbye, sugar,” Mrs. Guzmán said as I passed her.
I followed Robin in silence to the elevator. It wasn’t until I got in that I realized my mistake and corrected myself mentally: Mary, not Robin.
She straightened her polo dress and ran a hand through her blond hair. It was still rootless, natural-looking. “What’s wrong with you?” she said pleasantly.
I looked away. “What do you mean?”
“You acted like a crazy person in there. You were pushing too hard.”
My throat burned. I swallowed. “I panicked,” I said, fighting to sound normal. “I thought we were going to get the checks today.”
“What’s a few more days?” Mary said, pulling out a tube of lip balm. “You said it was for your house, right? Are they gonna foreclose this weekend, or what?”
The elevator slid open and I hurried out toward the lobby doors. The light of the late afternoon was nearly blinding through the glass. I blinked hard.
“Leslie?” Mary called from behind me.
I pushed through the doors.
38
Mary
My phone had buzzed in my purse during the meeting with Albert. Now Nancy’s text floated up to meet me as I glanced at the screen. Can you meet me at the Frontier in an hour and a half?
Yes I’ll be there, I texted back as we turned into the Floreses’ driveway. “I’m going for a walk,” I said to Leslie.
She gave me a startled look. “Well, I have to go pick up Eli,” she said, pulling the parking brake and glancing at the car seat in the garage. “There won’t be anyone to let you in.”
“I’ll just wait for you, then.” I smiled sweetly at her.
Her phone started ringing; she wasn’t looking at me. “Fine.” She got out and headed for the car seat. “Just be back for dinner.”
I didn’t have any intention of waiting around for her to get home, but she took the call before I could tell her that I wouldn’t be back in time for dinner. She could wait around for me tonight. I had things to do. As I made my way across the lawn, I heard her say quietly into the phone, “Yeah, of course. Everything went well.”
* * *
—
I did walk for a while, bored and killing time. No one passed me, and I considered taking the too-white sidewalk all the way to the edge of the neighborhood, where a sandstone wall kept the less enterprising bobcats and coyotes out. If I wanted to, I could scale the wall, or follow the main road out and around to the mountains. I could walk from spring desert to snow, still in my shirtdress.
Instead I went back to my car. The air was still smarting from the heat of the day, and a scent of ozone rolled in from the west, where the clouds occasionally flickered like a flashbulb going off. It would rain soon.
The Frontier was a restaurant across from UNM, open almost twenty-four/seven except for a few hours in the early morning, just long enough to clean everything and start again before dawn. Parking consisted of a vaguely L-shaped strip of pavement behind the restaurant, crowded with the protruding backs of pickup trucks and SUVs, that created a meandering path just large enough for one car to pass, going forward or shamefacedly backward when they reached the end without finding a space. Inside, it seemed to go on forever, one roomful of red vinyl booths giving way to another hung with patterned rugs, until you reached the main room, dominated at the far end by a long low counter whose upper wall disappeared under a row of at least ten signs containing the restaurant’s hundreds of menu items.
I got a carne adovada burrito and waited in one of the slatted wooden booths under a chandelier made out of a wagon wheel. It was crowded in the main room, the noise of the busboys and the diners occasionally interrupted by the order-up bell, like the triangle in a kindergarten orchestra. I amused myself by smiling at a boy waiting to order. He looked like a student at UNM, with curly black hair and thick glasses, and he was horrified at being caught staring. He pulled his hoodie up, then looked back at me a dozen times in several minutes. I met his eyes serenely each time. When he got to the front, I heard him stammer, having forgotten his order. Three people passed him in line as he studied the menu boards, cheeks burning.
Nancy walked in just then. Her hair was wet from a shower, pushed back from her forehead, and she was wearing gray sweats and a sleeveless jersey slung over a sports bra. Her arms were thick with muscle, unevenly tanned from her short-sleeved uniform, and her body was tense. She scanned the room for me, and I waved.
“Robin,” she said, throwing herself into the booth across from me. “Hi.”
“Hi, baby,” I said, echoing her from earlier. “You look tired. Are you okay?”
She waved a hand in front of her face. “I’m fine. Just…”
I tilted my head.
Nancy checked her watch, abandoning her train of thought. “Sorry for asking you to meet me again right away, but I looked up the address you gave me.”