Seven
Eugenio found himself a bush he could sit behind at the back of the parking lot and have his lunch in private. The day was going okay. All he had to do was hang in there another four and a half hours and he could skate. He'd been breathing all right. He'd been keeping his eyes half-closed so he wouldn't have to be looking around the office at all the other people working, so he wouldn't have to be noticing, which would only lead to thinking, which couldn't possibly do him any good whatsoever. This job was not the place for thinking, just for talking, taking names and numbers and pushing them up and down the line.
He was keeping pace. Gabby had nothing to say but “all right” and “okay” and she even had a good word for him at the five-minute stand-up at three. “One day at a time”, he kept telling himself, and “don't get carried away”. The day could turn to shit at any moment, like so many days had done so many times before. He carried on until there was only half an hour left and then he had a solid idea. After that, he couldn't wait to get out of there and his breathing went a little shallow and he almost cut a customer short but recovered in time to not lose the pull. Trees were practically planting themselves that afternoon, hopefully down in the tropics where they belonged.
On the way home he stopped at the corner grocery to pick up the supplies for the project he had in mind. Matilda was going to love it, and maybe he'd get lucky with his plan. When he got home, out she came like she always did, scolding him a little for being ten minutes late but chirping with joy at the prospect of doing one of her favorite things. They were going to make their famous corn muffins after a little quesadilla and salad supper.
“I thought we'd go around and surprise some of our friends,” he told her, and he listed the pals he had in mind, Angelica, Barbara and Miguel, the other kids he used to watch as toddlers. Two of them lived on the same street a couple of blocks down, and the other only a few streets away.
“We'll have fifteen muffins” Matilda calculated as she brought out the mixing bowls and her favorite wooden spoon while her dad started melting the butter and measuring out the cornmeal, flower and sugar.
“That means they each get four,” she concluded after figuring it out on her fingers.
“And three for us!” she added moments later while mixing away with delight.
Janelle had taken her laptop to the bedroom to keep out of the way of the mess in the kitchen, and she was glad Eugenio had the girl occupied while she got more work done. She had become addicted to the job. Seriously addicted, to the point where she took no days off, not even in the summer, and hardly ever on the weekends either. Eugenio was a bit worried about it. He wondered if she was depressed, if she was unhappy and using her job as a tool to stay away from him and Matilda, but it wasn't that. She was ambitious and had her mind set on becoming a school principal someday. Half the time when she said she was grading papers she was secretly studying administration. She thought that if she kept it to herself, then none of her colleagues or bosses would feel threatened, and no one would have to know if she failed, which was the fear that drove her so hard.
It was twilight by the time the muffins were baked and cooled enough to package up in make-believe gift bags, really just brown butcher paper folded and tied up with string and adorned with impromptu crayon decorations by hers truly.
“I got the flashlight,” Matilda called, pulling on her jacket and heading for the door. Eugenio cradled the packages in the crook of his arms as he told Matilda to stay close since it was getting dark and he couldn't hold her hand until they'd made at least two deliveries.
Angelica's house was first, being closest, a small house very much like their own in the neighboring complex known as Sunny Farms. Her mother answered the door, a small old-fashioned woman who wore formal clothes and heavy make-up all the time, although she rarely left the house aside from shopping. Angelica stood behind her and beamed as Matilda snuck inside to give her a squeeze and a giggle. The girls ran off to Angelica's room while Eugenio politely presented the muffins. Angelica's mother accepted them with an actual curtsy.
“Freshly made,” Eugenio smiled, peeking behind her to see if her husband might appear, but he was solidly situated in front of the TV in the back room and there was no way he was going to budge. The muffin would have to come to him.
“I don't suppose,” Eugenio said, “well, I was going to ask Virgilio.”
“He's busy,” said Virgilio's wife.
“I was just wondering if he knew a man named Alejandro Martinez.”
“I don't think so,” she apologized, not offering to let Eugenio in to go and ask Virgilio for himself, and Eugenio was not going to insist. He still had two chances left.
“Matilda,” he called out, and moments later she came running before he had to repeat himself.
“Bye Angie,” she yelled back to her friend who shouted good-bye from her bedroom.
“She was showing me her new doll,” Matilda said by way of explanation.
“Did you like it?” Eugenio asked her as they proceeded to their next stop.
“Not really,” Matilda said thoughtfully. “It's too yellow. I don't know why they make them so yellow sometimes. I mean, I guess a girl can be yellow but I never seen one.”
“There's lots of girls,” Eugenio said for something to say.
“I know!” Matilda said, as if that fact surprised her.
“I don't think Barbara likes me anymore,” she added as they approached that girl's house.
“Why do you say that?”
“She doesn't talk to me at school.”
“She never was much of a talker,” Eugenio said. “Does she have other friends there?”
“Maybe not,” Matilda said, relieved at the thought that maybe it wasn't just her.
Barbara wasn't much of a talker, and neither was her mother, Alicia, but her father sure was. Calvin Breakbandt was not one of Eugenio's favorites. He had balked at the idea of Eugenio looking after his little girl, and never admitted the good job he'd done of it, except the one time he told Eugenio that he “sure was reliable if nothing else,” which Eugenio had taken for the insult it was. Recently he'd had the displeasure of working side by side with Calvin at the sea break tunneling project, a job that went under along with the waters. They could have commuted together, saved a little money, but neither one was going to be the one to ask the other first.
Eugenio was pretty sure that Calvin was a drug dealer. Not that he had any evidence of that, or even heard a hint of it from anyone at all, but it was the shaved white skull, the barbed wire tattoos, the goatee and the muscle shirts, all of it together spelled classic meth-head stereotype. And the guy was a talker like a speed freak would be. Eugenio was half-hoping Alicia would answer the door, even though it was Calvin he wanted to talk to, and he got his chance because it was Calvin who answered the door.
“Daycare!” he shouted when he saw who it was. Calvin had nicknames for everyone, few of them flattering.
“Yo, babies, look who's here,” he yelled back into the house. Barbara and her two older sisters appeared from around the corner of the hallway, but remained standing well back of their father as if not daring or willing to approach any closer.
“We brought you some muffins,” Matilda announced, holding out a parcel. Calvin was quick to snatch it from her hands, then wheeled around and chucked it at the girls, who let it fall at their feet. The oldest girl then knelt down to pick it up. She opened up the paper and silently distributed the muffins among the siblings.
“Why thank you kindly,” Calvin said, stepping out of the door and practically onto Eugenio's shoes. “Is there something I can do you for?”
“Well, I did have a question,” Eugenio started to say, and Calvin stepped back and let out a whoop.
“I knew you wouldn't be coming here for nothing, giving away shit and all like that, pardon the expression, hon,” he added, momentarily acknowledging Matilda.
“About a guy named Alejandro Martinez,” Eugenio said. “Wondered if you knew him.”
“Know him? Mundo? Course I know him,” Calvin said. He put an index finger to his lips and squinted at Eugenio.
“What you know about Mundo?” he quizzed Eugenio.
“Nothing,” he said. “I got his job is all. People on the phone keep thinking I'm him. Don't know why.” Eugenio found himself involuntarily mimicking Calvin's diction, and scolded himself for that. Don't forget to breathe, he thought, even in the presence of this asshole.
“I'll bet people are asking about Mundo,” Calvin said. “Kind of people I wouldn't want asking about me, I can tell you that.”
“I don't understand,” Eugenio said.
“Look, buddy,” Calvin put a hand on Eugenio's shoulder. “Hey, aren't you on the phone tree?”
“No phone,” Eugenio said, shaking his head.
“Email tree?” Calvin grinned.
“No email either. The wife's got one but only for school.”
“If I was you,” Calvin said, “I'd keep it that way. Mundo, that was his problem. Or one of them anyway.”
“Why's he called Mundo?”
“Mundo? Out to change the world is why. Getting mixed up in stuff he don't oughta. Nobody seen him since Wednesday last. Nobody that's saying, anyway. You ain't seen him, right? Course not. Here you're asking about him. Don't know him do you? Well, keep it that way. Don't even say his name, bro,” Calvin said, and with that he gave Eugenio a bit of a shove on the shoulder, turned and walked back into the house, closing the door without even a thank you or a good night. Eugenio stood still for a few moments.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, honey,” Eugenio said. He'd almost forgotten she was there, and why she was there, and why they were both there.
“Right,” he said. “Let's go visit Miguel.”
“Who's that man you were asking Barbara's daddy about?”
“I don't know, honey,” he said. “Just somebody who used to work at this job I've got now.”
“Is he important?”
“I don't think so,” Eugenio said, reaching down to take hold of her hand. “I really don't think so.”