Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,69

food she’d like? The sheriff had commented to Antonia that Lulu hadn’t touched any of the jail meals. Not that he was surprised. Someone whose tasty food had been all the rage.

Tell her I’m real sorry about all this.

They were talking in his office, after Antonia’s interview with Lulu in the visiting room. His intercom crackled constantly with static voices, deputy officers reporting in. At one point, the sheriff had to take a call, shielding the mouthpiece to whisper, The Feds. Antonia used the time to look around the room: guns, stacks of forms, photos of Sheriff Boyer with all the muckety-mucks in town. Her eyes suddenly caught on a small bottle of red nail polish on his blotter. The intriguing detail that opens a door to another’s soul. Was Sheriff Boyer into cross-dressing? She checked his nails for residue chips or traces of his secret. None. But then, he was a cop. He had to know how to get rid of evidence.

Before she left the jail, she couldn’t resist asking, What’s the nail polish for? She lifted her chin to point to the bottle. Someone—was it Izzy?—had said that was a Dominican way of pointing.

Oh that, Sheriff Boyer chuckled. That’s how I paint my dummy bullets for target practice. Wouldn’t want one of my officers to pick up the wrong kind for their ammunition.

The same protective attention to detail had driven him to call Antonia, to ask Lulu what she might want.

What she wants is the laws changed, Sheriff. She wants to keep cooking her enchiladas and selling them so she can build a house that will not tumble when the next hurricane hits Mexico.

They wait for the state trooper to come back. The minutes tick by. Some glitch has come up, Antonia is sure of it. Sure, enough, she sees lights flashing, as another squad car races past the first cruiser and pulls onto the shoulder ahead of her own car. Oh boy, they are in deep trouble if the first officer has decided to call in reinforcements. Now she, too, feels like joining the wailers in the back seat.

?Oigan, mi gente! Antonia calls their tense trinity to order. We have to stay calm, okay? She levels a look at Mario, who has reached for the door handle. No running away! Or the next thing they know the police will be firing warning shots in the air, and then, it’s anyone’s guess. It happens all the time in cities and every once in a while in sleepy rural towns. Unarmed men with dark skin holding cell phones or car keys that look suspiciously like weapons have been shot to death.

Nothing we can do but pray. As if she has spoken literally, Estela and Mario bow their heads, intoning the prayer they learned by heart at their mothers’ knees, entranced by the cadence even before they could understand the meaning of the words, no less the mystery they hoped to summon forth. Santa María, madre de Dios . . .

Looking out her windshield, Antonia has to laugh at her own cynicism. Feet first, followed by his hefty torso, Sheriff Boyer emerges from the second cruiser. He knocks off his hat on the rim of the door, stoops to pick it up, slowly straightens, red-faced, and heads toward them. The expression on his face is unsurprised; he already knows Sam’s widow has been caught speeding out of town with two aliens in her car.

He stops at her window, glances inside, craning his neck to include them all. Hola, he greets the occupants, who reply in a hushed chorus, Hola. Doing a little speeding? he levels his gaze at Antonia, a pretend reprimand.

Sorry, I guess I wasn’t keeping track, Antonia apologizes again. She explains the rush. I need to get these two folks to the consulate and then the airport in Boston, or they’ll miss their flight back to Mexico.

There, she’s made it perfectly clear: she can get this troubling pair out of his hands, pronto, as well as add to the coffers of the DMV. Just give her her ticket and Antonia’ll be on her way. Win-win situation. No?

Let me see what I can do. Sheriff Boyer nods at each one in turn, although only one of his listeners understands his words. But like all who live in the shadows, Mario and Estela are fully fluent in tones of voice, facial expressions. They sigh with relief at the sheriff.

Cute little bambina, the sheriff adds. Got some good lungs on her.